Wisconsin Supreme Court Upholds Governor’s “400-Year Veto” and Affirms Expansive Partial-Veto Power
Supreme Court of Wisconsin Upholds Gov. Evers’ 400-Year Veto, Affirms Partial-Veto Power
The Wisconsin governor’s partial-veto power is unique. Although some states grant governors the power to veto entire budget line items, Wisconsin’s governor may veto discrete parts of appropriation bills, including words, punctuation marks, and digits. See generally Wis. Const. art. V, § 10(1)(b), (c). On April 18, 2025, the Wisconsin Supreme Court revisited Wisconsin’s anomalous partial veto power in its tenth ever opinion on the topic, LeMieux v. Evers, 2025 WI 12, which addressed the constitutionality of Governor Tony Evers’ “400-year veto” of portions of the 2023-25 budget bill. LeMieux followed on the heels of Bartlett v. Evers, 2020 WI 68, 393 Wis. 2d 172, 945 N.W.2d 685—a per curiam opinion that came close to jettisoning the Court’s longstanding partial-veto precedent but ultimately failed to produce a majority rationale. In LeMieux, the Court declined to take-up Bartlett’s mantle and instead reaffirmed its prior precedent, under which it concluded Governor Evers’ veto was constitutional. The decision cements the Wisconsin governor’s expansive partial-veto power for the foreseeable future.
Background
The Wisconsin Constitution requires that the legislature pass a biennial budget every two years, a process that begins with the governor presenting the legislature with an executive budget bill. 2025 WI 12, ¶4 (Karofsky, J., majority op.). Governor Evers’ 2023-25 executive budget proposed significant increases to per-pupil educational revenue limits that would continue past 2025. Id., ¶5. The legislature rejected Governor Evers’ proposal, passing a smaller increase that would end after two years. Id., ¶6
When presented with the bill, Governor Evers exercised his partial-veto power and selectively deleted numbers, words, and punctuation marks in four sections of the bill to extend the duration of the revenue limit increases from two years to 402 years. See id., ¶7; see also 2023 Wis. Act 19, §§ 402-04, 408. Both houses failed to override Governor Evers’ partial veto and the 402-year revenue limit increases became law. See 2023 Wis. Act 19.
Two Wisconsin taxpayers challenged Governor Evers’ “400-year veto” on the grounds that it exceeded the bounds of both Wis. Const. art. V, § 10(1)(b) and (c), which set forth the governor’s partial-veto power. Section 10(1)(b) provides that “appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor, and the part approved shall become law.” The taxpayers asserted that Governor Evers’ deletions violated § 10(1)(b) because they impermissibly created a duration of time (400 years) that was not “less than” or a “part of” the two-year duration approved by the legislature. 2025 WI 12, ¶2 (Karofsky, J., majority op.). Section 10(1)(c) in turn, provides in relevant part, that “[i]n approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters.” The taxpayers argued that Governor Evers’ deletion of digits to create new digits violated this provision because the terms “word” and “letters” should be interpreted broadly to encompass digits. Id.
The Opinion
In a 4-3 ruling, a majority of the Court rejected the taxpayers’ arguments and concluded that Governor Evers’ veto complied with both Wis. Const. art. V, § 10(1)(b) and (c). Justice Karofsky drafted the majority/lead opinion, which Justice Dallet joined apart from the reasoning of several paragraphs that addressed the taxpayers’ arguments regarding § 10(1)(b). Id., ¶¶20-24. Justice Dallet understood the taxpayers’ arguments differently and, in a separate concurrence, rejected them on slightly different grounds. Id., ¶32 (Dallet, J., concurring). Justice Hagedorn filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Grassl Bradley and Chief Justice Kingsland Ziegler joined. Id., ¶¶41-96 (Hagedorn, J., dissenting).
The majority/lead opinion commenced by reaffirming the Court’s expansive conception of the governor’s partial-veto power, under which the governor’s partial veto may permissibly work a complete change in the policy of the proposed bill. Id., ¶¶11-12 (Karofsky, J., majority op.). It then rejected the taxpayers’ argument that Governor Evers’ partial-deletion veto violated Wis. Const. art. V, § 10(1)(b). Under the Court’s precedent, which the majority/lead opinion concluded did not include Bartlett, a partial-deletion veto complies with § 10(1)(b) even if it creates a longer duration, so long as the “part” of the bill that remains is “a complete, entire, and workable law,” that is not “totally new, unrelated or non-germane to the original bill.” Id., ¶¶11, 12 & n.3, 13, 14 & n.4. Governor Evers’ partial-deletion veto complied with those principles because the resulting 402-year revenue-limit increase was “complete and workable,” and like the original text “addressed educational funding.” Id., ¶¶16, 18; see also id., ¶¶32-40 (Dallet, J., concurring). The majority/lead opinion also rejected the taxpayers’ “novel” contention that Governor Evers’ deletion of digits to create new digits violated § 10(1)(c)’s prohibition on deleting “letters” to create “new words.” The plain meaning of the terms “word” and “letters” did not include “digits,” and Wisconsin case law repeatedly distinguished between letter and digit vetoes. Id., ¶¶25-27 (Karofsky, J., majority op.). Of note, despite joining the majority in reaffirming the Court’s partial-veto jurisprudence, Justice Dallet’s concurrence stated that she would be open to revisiting the topic in a future case if presented with a “clear opportunity” to do so. Id., ¶40 (Dallet, J., concurring).
The dissent proposed overruling nearly all the Court’s partial-veto precedent, which it criticized as violating the separation-of-powers principle that the legislature alone is vested with lawmaking authority. Id., ¶¶41-96 (Hagedorn, J., dissenting). In the dissent’s view, the governor’s partial-veto power should be confined to deleting policies approved by the legislature rather than creating policies anew. Id., ¶¶48-63. However, as the majority/lead opinion noted, the Wisconsin Constitution vests the governor with a “quasi-legislative role” in the omnibus budget bill process, which “defeats” any separation-of-powers argument that the governor cannot affirmatively legislate by use of the partial-veto power. Id., ¶¶14, 28 (Karofsky, J., majority op.) Further, relying on the dichotomy between deleting and creating policies is unsupported by the text of the Wisconsin Constitution, which does not limit the governor’s power based on the extent to which a partial veto changes policy, and hardly a solution—even deletion vetoes create new policy that the legislature did not approve. See generally id., ¶28.
Takeaways
Following LeMieux, the Wisconsin governor’s expansive partial-veto power remains intact. However, it is unclear for how long. As the majority/lead opinion notes, the legislature has several tools at its disposal to constrain the governor’s partial-veto pen, which it will no doubt endeavor to creatively use. Id., ¶¶28-29. Among them is a proposed joint resolution to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to limit the governor’s partial-veto power to the deletion of entire sections of an appropriation bill or to reducing appropriation amounts. See id., ¶29. If approved and adopted by Wisconsin voters, the amendments would supplant the Court’s precedent entirely.
Stafford Rosenbaum LLP is a full-service law firm with two convenient office locations in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over 145 years of dedication to businesses, governments, nonprofits, and individuals has proven that effective client communication continues to be the heart of our practice.
