Morning Digest: Wisconsin GOP seeks to curtail veto power that extended school funding 400 years
Morning Digest: Wisconsin GOP seeks to curtail veto power that extended school funding 400 yearsGovernors have wielded the "Vanna White" veto for a century, despite many crackdowns
Leading OffWI BallotWisconsin’s GOP-led legislature approved a proposed state constitutional amendment last week to curb the governor’s extensive and unique partial veto powers—a move that comes three years after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers extended school funding 400 years longer than Republicans had wanted. Evers, who has spent his entire two terms in office parrying a hostile legislature, was able to pull off that feat by wielding his pen on a line in a budget that said increased funding would be in effect “for the 2023–24 school year and the 2024–25 school year.” Evers deleted—vetoed—just enough characters so that the funding would apply “for 2023–2425.” Republicans were furious at Evers’ maneuver, but they lacked the votes to override him. The governor, as WisContext and Wisconsin Public Radio both explained in detailed overviews in 2019 and 2024, owes his unusually granular veto power to an amendment that voters overwhelmingly approved in 1930. Voters took action after the legislature placed numerous new items into omnibus bills and forced the governor to either sign or veto the entire document. Philip La Follette, a progressive Republican who was in the middle of an ultimately successful campaign for governor that same year, initially warned that the amendment “smack[ed] of dictatorship.” La Follette, though, would take advantage of his newfound powers—and so would his many successors over the nearly century to follow. Evers, however, doesn’t enjoy quite as much discretion as La Follette once did. In 1990, voters passed a new amendment to crack down on the so-called “Vanna White” veto, after the state Supreme Court allowed Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson to erase “phrases, digits, letters, and word fragments” to make entirely new sentences and numbers. That amendment, however, only barred “the creation of a new word formed by rejecting individual letters” and didn’t end “Frankenstein vetoes” altogether. In 2005, for instance, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle outright eliminated 752 words from a bill to direct $427 million that was earmarked for transportation funding to education. Voters responded again in 2008, though, by passing yet another amendment that made it tougher for Doyle and future governors to carry out what the New York Times characterized as a “legislative twist on the game of Mad Libs.” This one specifically forbade “creating a new sentence by combining parts of two or more sentences.” But even following the newest amendment’s passage, Wisconsin’s governors still retain surgical veto powers that their counterparts in the rest of the country can only dream of. Republican Scott Walker, who was elected in 2010 to replace Doyle, notably turned what was meant to be a one-year moratorium on certain school district levies into what opponents called the “thousand-year veto.” Evers, who unseated Walker in 2018, deployed his veto similarly in 2020. But while the Wisconsin Supreme Court had upheld partial vetoes six times since the practice first began in the 1930s, the body’s conservative majority this time sided against Evers. Things unfolded differently in 2024, though, after liberals took control of the state’s highest court. “[W]e are acutely aware that a 400-year modification is both significant and attention-grabbing,” Justice Jill Karofsky wrote in her majority opinion upholding Evers’ four-century-long school funding extension. “However, our constitution does not limit the governor’s partial veto power based on how much or how little the partial vetoes change policy, even when that change is considerable.” Republicans are now asking Wisconsinites to once again amend the constitution on Nov. 3, which is also the day that a new governor will be elected to succeed the retiring Evers. The new proposal specifically says that governors “may not create or increase or authorize the creation or increase of any tax or fee” in deploying their veto. Republicans also sent Evers a separate bill that would end his school funding increase after the next school year. The governor, though, is all but certain to veto that legislation—in full. Did you know that The Downballot produces three different weekly shows? In addition to our flagship podcast that comes out every Thursday morning, publisher David Nir is also co-host of the Strength In Numbers podcast created by G. Elliott Morris that goes live every Thursday at 2 PM ET. In addition, along with Aaron Rupar of Public Notice, David co-hosts their eponymous live show, Nir & Rupar, every Friday at 2 PM ET. The best part: Paid subscribers can participate in the Q&A of both of our live shows! Just click below to upgrade today: Election NightSpecial ElectionsBoth Maine and Pennsylvania will hold special elections for their closely divided state houses on Tuesday, though Democrats are likely to hang on in both states. The race for Maine’s 94th District pits Lewiston City Councilor Scott Harriman, the Democratic nominee, against Republican Janet Beaudoin, a member of the Lewiston school committee. The seat, which is based entirely in the city of Lewiston, became vacant last fall when Democrat Kristen Cloutier resigned to take a staff job with the president of the state Senate. Cloutier won her last election in 2024 in a 60-40 romp two years after she turned in an identical victory against Beaudoin, but her constituency appears to have voted for Kamala Harris more narrowly. We say “appears” because, according to calculations from The Downballot, the 94th supported Harris by a 55-42 margin. Those figures, however, come with an unusual degree of uncertainty because Lewiston only offers precinct-by-precinct breakdowns for Election Day votes. Early votes, which made up almost half the total in 2024, are reported as a single citywide pool. But because Lewiston is split between four House districts—almost perfectly divided into quarters—we must assign these unassigned early votes using Election Day votes as a guide. (We explain this process in detail in our statement of methodology.) Of course, voting patterns can differ greatly between early voting and Election Day voting. However, in the absence of more granular data, there is no better solution to this problem—a common one in Maine. Following a strong election for Republicans in 2024, Democrats now hold just a 74-72 edge in the House, though three independents usually align with them. (In addition to the 94th, a GOP-held seat is also vacant.) In the hopes of flipping the 94th, some prominent Republicans have stumped for Beaudoin, including former Gov. Paul LePage, while DNC chair Ken Martin came to town for Harriman earlier this month. The spending, though, doesn’t suggest either side thinks the seat is likely to change hands. Fundraising reports through early January showed both campaigns raising in the mid-four figures, and outside spending has been fairly limited and confined entirely to Democrats. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania House, which Democrats control by just a single seat, is once again up for grabs, at least in theory. Republicans, however, face tough odds of picking up either of the two Democratic-held seats on the ballot on Tuesday night. In the Allentown-based 22nd District, the prior occupant, Democrat Josh Siegel, won election as Lehigh County executive last fall. That triggered a special election between Democrat Ana Tiburico, the director of the Allentown School Board, and Republican Robert Smith, a former member of the City Council. Siegel was unopposed for reelection when he sought a second term in 2024, though, and Harris carried the district 58-41, according to our calculations. (The Pennsylvania numbers don’t suffer from the issues affecting the Maine data.) Western Pennsylvania’s 42nd District, just south of Pittsburgh, looks even more difficult for the GOP. Democrat Dan Miller left the seat behind when he won an election in November for the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. In the race to replace him, Democrats nominated Dormont Borough Councilmember Jennifer Mazzocco while the GOP backed Joseph Leckenby, who has been described as a recent law-school graduate in media accounts. Leckenby ran against Miller in 2024 but lost 67-33. That same night, Harris carried the district by a similar 64-35 margin. As in Maine, neither Pennsylvania race has drawn much in the way of spending. Pennsylvania Democrats won a 102-101 edge in the state House in each of the last two elections, though they currently hold a 100-98 margin, with another three vacant seats—all previously held by Republicans—that won’t be completely filled until May. Redistricting RoundupUT RedistrictingA three-judge federal panel rejected a last-ditch effort by Utah Republicans to block the state’s new congressional map in a new decision issued Monday, saying both that it was too late to intervene and that the GOP was unlikely to succeed in its arguments on the merits. On Friday, the state Supreme Court likewise turned back an appeal by Republicans, ruling that they had failed to file a legally valid appeal. As a consequence, this year’s elections are almost certain to proceed under a new map imposed last fall by a state court that would create a safely blue district in the Salt Lake City area. That map was put in place after the Utah courts concluded that GOP lawmakers had improperly sought to repeal an anti-gerrymandering ballot measure voters approved in 2018 and therefore illegally enacted a gerrymandered congressional map following the most recent census. VA RedistrictingA new poll from Roanoke College suggests Virginians may not be keen on replacing their congressional map, though the question the school posed to respondents doesn’t reflect the language that voters are set to see on their ballots. Rather, after asking whether respondents approve of the state’s current approach to redistricting (a 62-30 majority said yes), Roanoke then asked the following:
Forty-four percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment, while 52% said they would “keep the current process as it is now.” The actual ballot summary, however, looks considerably different. It asks, “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?” The only other public poll on the issue, from Christopher Newport University last month, used very different wording from Roanoke’s and yielded the opposite result, finding a 51-43 majority in favor of the proposal. The April 21 election for the amendment is currently on hold following a state court ruling that Democrats are currently appealing to the Virginia Supreme Court. If it does go ahead, though, and voters approve the measure, the state’s primary would be delayed from June 16 until Aug. 4. The candidate filing deadline would also get pushed from April 2 until May 25. SenateIL-SenDemocratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi launched the first negative TV ad of Illinois’ March 17 Senate primary over the weekend by accusing Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton of benefiting from “corporate and MAGA donations, [and] ICE contractor money.” A pro-Stratton super PAC quickly responded with its own commercial leveling similar charges at Krishnamoorthi. The narrator for Illinois Future PAC, which is funded in part by Gov. JB Pritzker, faults Krishnamoorthi for “taking donations from an ICE contractor for 10 years” and having “voted to fund ICE.” Krishnamoorthi has dominated in the polls and massively outspent both Stratton and the third major Democratic candidate, Rep. Robin Kelly. (Kelly goes unmentioned in both ads.) Stratton has criticized her opponents in debates, but before Monday, her side hadn’t run any negative ads. The congressman’s campaign, though, said in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times that he was taking action after “six months of repeated attacks from Juliana Stratton.” Stratton’s team likewise argued that, by going up with a negative ad first, Krishnamoorthi was acknowledging that the lieutenant governor “has the momentum” in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin. KS-Sen, KS-03Democratic Sen. Sharice Davids set off a new round of chatter on Monday about her plans when she told the Kansas City Star she still wasn’t ruling out challenging Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, but as has long been the case, she only appears to be interested in running if legislators revive their stalled gerrymandering push. “That option has to stay on the table until I know that they’re not continuing to look at that,” Davids told the paper in an interview conducted last week. She added that if the current map remains in place, “Then I will absolutely look forward to continuing to serve the people in the 3rd District.” GOP leaders in the legislature tried to call a special session last year to pass a map that would target Davids’ constituency in the Kansas City area. However, they abandoned those plans in November after failing to obtain signatures from the necessary two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber—the same supermajority they’d need to override a guaranteed veto by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. There hasn’t been any serious talk of trying again this year, with House Speaker Dan Hawkins acknowledging last month, “We don’t have the votes.” Davids, though, doesn’t sound convinced that the idea is completely dead. A few Democrats are already challenging Marshall, but none of them raised much money through the end of 2025. GovernorsFL-GovSeveral unnamed sources close to former TV anchor Casey DeSantis tell Politico’s Kimberly Leonard that they’re skeptical Florida’s first lady will run for governor, but they still aren’t ruling out the possibility that she makes a late entry into the GOP primary. Leonard, however, suggests that the would-be candidate and her husband, termed-out Gov. Ron DeSantis, have every intention to keep the political world guessing about her future until the June 12 filing deadline. “[T]here’s little downside in letting the speculation fly — it helps keep the couple relevant,” Leonard wrote of the DeSanti. HouseCaliforniaThe California Democratic Party endorsed five House candidates campaigning for open seats at its convention over the weekend:
The endorsement, which requires the support of 60% of convention delegates, can be valuable to candidates, especially those who don’t enjoy the advantages of incumbency. In particular, candidates who win the party’s official seal of approval are listed by name in a special section of the voter guide that each county sends to all voters. Delegates also endorsed 39 of the state’s 40 Democratic members of the U.S. House who are seeking reelection in the Golden State. The one exception was Rep. Ami Bera, who was ineligible for an endorsement this weekend after he failed to secure a majority of the vote from local delegates in the redrawn 3rd District during a pre-convention vote in January. Bera, though, remains the favorite to advance past Nevada County Supervisor Heidi Hall, a fellow Democrat, in the June 2 top-two primary for a constituency that would have favored Kamala Harris 55-44. The most notable Republican in the race is Robb Tucker, Hall’s colleague on the Board of Supervisors. CA-01Democratic state Sen. Mike McGuire said Friday he would run in the special election for California’s old 1st Congressional District in addition to seeking a full term under the new lines. McGuire joins agriculture consultant Audrey Denney, a fellow Democrat who is running for both versions of the 1st, in both contests. Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher, who has Donald Trump’s endorsement, has said he’ll run in the special election to replace the late Republican Doug LaMalfa, but he hasn’t announced whether he also intends to appear on the ballot this fall. Both the special election and the top-two primary for a full two-year term will take place on June 2, but they’ll be very different contests. The new Democratic map transformed the 1st District from a constituency Donald Trump carried 61-36 into one that Kamala Harris would have won by a 54-42 spread. When the new map was drawn up—while McGuire was state Senate president pro tem—observers noticed that the 1st was revamped to include his base in Mendocino County and nearby communities. Indeed, KCRA reported in August that he had ensured the constituency was redrawn “specifically for him in exchange for his support of the redistricting plan.” McGuire’s team did not respond to KCRA’s request for comment. McGuire, who stepped down as the leader of the state Senate later that year—legislative leaders in California traditionally give up their posts well before the next election—said he was running in both races to “flip this seat once and for all.” Denney’s team responded to his entry into the special election by faulting him for seeking “a district he doesn’t live in.” Running in the special election offers one advantage to Democrats, even though they’re unlikely to win: They can raise twice as much money because the special and general are considered distinct races, but they can wait to spend any extra funds on the latter. While both June 2 races will see all the candidates running on a single ballot rather than in separate party primaries, there’s a key difference in what could happen next. The top two vote getters, regardless of party, will advance to the Nov. 3 general election for a full term no matter what, but a second round of the special election would only be necessary on Aug. 4 if no one wins a majority of the vote. Republicans hope that Gallagher can achieve an outright victory in June and reclaim the seat at a time when the GOP’s tiny edge in the House has led to multiple defeats for priorities advanced by Speaker Mike Johnson. FL-02Former Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham, who briefly considered a comeback bid in Florida’s conservative 2nd District, announced on Monday that she would not run. A large number of Republicans have piled into the race for this North Florida seat following GOP Rep. Neal Dunn’s decision to retire last month. One other prominent Democrat is still considering, though: former Rep. Al Lawson, who lost to Neal 60-40 in 2022. GA-11Rob Adkerson, who has served as chief of staff to Rep. Barry Loudermilk for more than a decade, announced on Monday that he’d join the race to succeed his boss, who is retiring. Loudermilk announced the following day that he was endorsing Adkerson. Adkerson is just the second notable Republican to enter the contest for Georgia’s conservative 11th District, but more are likely to join. That includes one prominent name who’s been the subject of much speculation, United States Treasurer Brandon Beach. While Beach still hasn’t said anything publicly, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports for the first time that he’s been reaching out to supporters, which could presage a bid. MD-05Two new candidates have joined the crowded Democratic primary for Maryland’s open 5th District just ahead of Tuesday’s candidate filing deadline: David Sundberg, a former FBI official who was ousted as part of a Trump administration purge last year, and Del. Nicole Williams, who has served in the state House since getting tapped to fill a vacant seat in 2019. Half a dozen notable Democrats were already running to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer, who endorsed Del. Adrian Boafo last month. NY-12Former public radio anchor Jami Floyd, who had pitched herself as a “no-nonsense moderate and centrist,” announced on Monday that she was dropping out of the Democratic primary for New York’s open 12th Congressional District. Floyd, who raised comparatively little for her bid, said in a statement that the race “has laid bare a system where who you know and how much money you can raise matters more than what you stand for.” DCCCThe Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just rolled out the first installment of its Red to Blue list, which spotlights candidates it thinks have the best shot at flipping Republican-held seats in November—including some in difficult districts that national Democrats haven’t focused on in recent elections. The full list is below:
Notably, Donald Trump carried every district on this list in 2024, though both Virginia targets would flip to Kamala Harris if Virginia voters pass a constitutional amendment this spring that would allow a new, Democratic-drawn map to be used. In addition, neither the DCCC nor its super PAC counterpart, the House Majority PAC, spent anything last cycle in five of these districts: Arizona’s 2nd, Michigan’s 4th, North Carolina’s 11th, Tennessee’s 5th, or Virginia’s 1st. All, however, feature notable recruits, such as the North Carolina race, where farmer Jaime Ager is seeking to claim the seat held by his grandfather, Jamie Clarke, in the 1980s. A handful of contests still await primaries, though in each case, the DCCC has backed the better-funded contender. One such example is the battle in Tennessee, which saw Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder raise almost $1.2 million in 2025, versus around $260,000 for his closest rival, Nashville Metro Councilor Mike Cortese. As has been the case every cycle since the Red to Blue program first came into being in 2006, the list is certain to expand. In 2024, for instance, the final roster reached 33 total names after starting with 17 candidates in January of that year. Attorneys GeneralAZ-AGArizona attorney Greg Roeberg, a far-right election conspiracy theorist who’d been self-funding much of his campaign for state attorney general, dropped his bid over the weekend. That leaves two other notable Republicans vying for the nod to take on Democratic incumbent Kris Mayes: former Tucson City Councilman Rodney Glassman and state Senate President Warren Petersen. Ballot MeasuresMO BallotA Missouri judge said Thursday that he would order state election authorities to remove misleading items from the summary of a proposed amendment that would make it all but impossible for citizens to amend the state constitution in the future. Judge Daniel Green, a Republican, issued a ruling from the bench concerning the GOP-dominated legislature’s plan to require that any voter-backed amendments receive a majority of the vote not only statewide but in every one of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. The proposal, though, would only need a simple majority of the statewide vote to pass. The amendment, known as Amendment 4, is set to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot unless Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe schedules an earlier date. Missourians for Fair Governance, a group founded by the Missouri Association of Realtors, accused legislators of using Missouri what politicos like to call “ballot candy” to confuse voters about what Amendment 4 would actually do. In a lawsuit filed last year, plaintiffs emphasized that the legislature’s summary waited until the fourth of five bullet points to acknowledge that a “yes” vote would “require a majority of voters in each congressional district to approve initiative petitions to amend the constitution.” That point came after readers were to be told that, among other things, an affirmative vote would “punish initiative petition signature fraud as a crime,” something that is already illegal. Green does not yet appear to have issued a written opinion, and there is no word yet about a possible appeal. Poll Pile
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