Both parties in Wisconsin have been working to use direct democracy as a tool to adopt laws that do what they want to do.
To get around Gov. Tony Evers’ veto power, Republicans have come up with six constitutional amendments that enable voters to cast binding legislation. The latest will be on an upcoming ballot to require voter identification at polling places.
Gov. Evers has responded by putting into his forthcoming budget a proposal to enable citizens to propose new laws or constitutional amendments in a binding initiative process.
By a simple majority vote, Wisconsin voters then could make decisions final on stalemated subjects like stricter gun controls, a return to Roe vs. Wade abortion rights, legalization of marijuana and expansion of BadgerCare to provide wider healthcare coverage for lower income people using federal dollars.
Just as Republicans want to avoid Evers’ vetoes, Democrats want to go around immovable opposition on those issues in a Republican-controlled legislature.
Big lobby money comes into play on those huge issues in the legislature and in the governor’s office. In short, direct democracy in the hands of voters goes around political donations in a heavily partisan blockade between a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature.
While proposing the sixth constitutional amendment in a year, both Republican legislative leaders have inconsistently denounced giving the people the vote on favorite Democratic policies. Voting in referenda would break political logjams.
There are always minorities with strong agendas, such as the conservative anti-spending minorities at the local level in the West Bend School District (WBSD). Right-wingers opposed a $106 million proposal to modernize and downsize facilities in the WBSD. The minority had a point, but a big majority overruled the opponents and the proposal to spend that huge sum passed in a citizen vote in November. Clearly, the majority of voters in the district favor big investments in the education of their children.
On the state level, Democrats have a strong case. In recent polls, majorities of Wisconsin voters have favored stiffer gun laws while supporting concealed carry; a return to legal abortions in the first trimester in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to the contrary; use of federal dollars to expand BadgerCare; and the legalization of marijuana. All four of those macro-policy changes would probably become law if citizens could decide at the ballot box.
A ban on gun toys that can be fatal in mass shootings, such as AR-15s and expanded bullet magazines would certainly be banned by voters – if given a chance to vote on such bans.
One of the reasons current politicians drag their feet on direct democracy is that they would lose the lobby money if citizens were making policy decisions instead of them. Gun and anti-abortion lobbies would use their deep pockets to mount public media campaigns to protect their interests instead of doling it out politicians.
Republicans make some cogent governance points. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (left) says he supports representative democracy. Citizens elect politicians to carry out their wishes. In his view, that is sufficient.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu made the
sound point that non-budgetary matters, like the Evers’ direct democracy proposal, are not budgetary matters and therefore should not be included in the governor’s budget.
Evers could propose separate legislation to put proposed laws and constitutional amendments up for a citizen vote, but a similar proposal by Evers failed when he called a special session on the abortion issue in the legislature in 2022.
Republican lawmakers dramatically ended the special session in matter of seconds. This time around, Vos posted on X that Evers’ new direct democracy proposal was “deader than a doornail on arrival.”
Twenty-six of the 50 states enable citizens to put initiatives for new laws or repeal of old laws on the ballot.
In Wisconsin, the most purple state in the union, the outlook is for continued gridlock between the Republican legislature and the Democratic governor’s office.
There was a shift in the legislature last November when Democrats took advantage of redistricting to pick up 10 seats in the Assembly and four in the state Senate. The new Republican majorities are 54-45 in the Assembly and 18-15 in the Senate.
Will the Evers’ proposal for direct democracy or the Republican opposition to citizen initiative win more votes in the next state-wide election? Doubtful.
Other major political factors, such as how Donald Trump, a RINO Republican, conducts himself in the next two years will have a much bigger sway on how Wisconsin citizens vote in 2026.
