Although lawmakers are facing a deficit in the upcoming biennium of well over $3 billion, many fiscal conservatives are intent on limiting the options for addressing Wisconsin’s budget challenges. Toward that end, the Governor recommended a Special Session bill that would require a two-thirds majority in each house of the Legislature to raise the rates for the sales, individual income, or corporate income taxes. That “supermajority” bill (Special Session AB 5) has been approved by the Assembly and is slated to come up for a vote Tuesday, Feb. 8, in the Senate.

The bill may be just the first in a series of measures to make Wisconsin follow in the footsteps of California’s constraints on legislative options. The next measure could be a more restrictive constitutional amendment, which was recently introduced as Senate Joint Resolution 8 and Assembly Joint Resolution 9.  A Wisconsin Budget Project Blog post today by Tamarine Cornelius examines both the bill and the constitutional amendment.

Read more in the WBP blog post.

Jon Peacock