Commercials coming to make case for Wisconsin August amendments

(The Center Square) – Voters in Wisconsin are going to hear a lot more about the coming vote on a pair of constitutional amendments.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, along with the Institute for Reforming Government, on Thursday announced an ad campaign aimed at making sure voters know what they’ll be seeing on their Aug. 13 ballot.

“Going to be engaging in an educational program to inform the public about these amendments and what they really do and why they are important so there will be some broadcast communications digital media things of that character,” WILL president Rick Esenberg told News talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber on Thursday.

Republican lawmakers voted to add the two amendments to the August primary ballot as a counter to how Gov. Tony Evers spent more than $4 billion in COVID relief money.

Evers had unlimited power to spend the money, and unlike state dollars, Wisconsin lawmakers could not weigh-in on how it should be spent.

Republican lawmakers passed legislation to give themselves oversight, but the governor repeatedly vetoed those plans.

“There was money spent on soccer stadiums, there was money spent on all sorts of minor things, but then there was a lot of money that was directed to groups like Planned Parenthood or other entities where Gov. Evers could expect to find support,” Esenberg said. “This isn't just a partisan issue. Any governor given this authority is going to act politically. And so, I think that one of the points that we want to make with our partners at The Institute for Reforming Government, is that everybody should support this because nobody should want this much authority to be vested in the governor.”

Esenberg said eventually even Evers’ supporters will embrace the idea of having lawmakers weigh-in on the governor's ability to spend federal dollars because “there will be at some point in the future a federal government that is controlled by the party that you don't like, and the governor whose decisions you will not support.”

WILL and IRG’s ad campaign, Esenberg said, is not going to be politically focused. Instead, Esenberg said they intend to make the constitutional case to place some limits on how Wisconsin’s governor can spend billions of dollars from Washington, D.C. each and every year.

“Opponents of this amendment, and there's a group that calls themselves Protect Our Constitution which largely consists of special interests who want this unilaterally controlled largesse to continue, are getting it exactly wrong,” Esenberg said. “Our constitution, both on the federal and the state level, are designed out of a mistrust of the concentration of power. And so ,we have checks and balances, we have separation of powers to get consensus. And what's happening here is that the governor is being allowed to accept federal money and then spend it however, with no input from the legislature. And that's inconsistent with our constitution.”