Evers to veto COVID-19 relief bill

Gov. Tony Evers said Friday that he’ll veto a COVID-19 relief bill moments after the Republican-controlled Senate passed it on a party lines vote.

Evers said the bill would impose limits on his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted that Republicans abandoned legislation he supported that passed the Senate last month with bipartisan support.

“Wisconsinites know a compromise when they see one, and this isn’t it,” Evers said in a statement. “It’s taken far too long for the Legislature to take further action on this pandemic. Wisconsinites don’t care about political points or who gets the credit. They just want to know that their family, their business and their neighbors are going to be OK as we continue to fight this virus. Enough politics—just get it done.”

The GOP-backed measure, passed 19-11, needs to be approved by Sunday to meet a requirement for Wisconsinites to continue to receive enhanced federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, per Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg.

He called the bill “vitally important” since it would have give hospitals, local health departments and counties the ability to “nimbly react” to the pandemic and provides liability protections to business, churches and schools.

The measure would also allow the state to continue to receive federal funding that helps low-income Wisconsinites afford food if the Supreme Court strikes down Evers’ public health emergency, he said.

“I could spend quite a while lamenting on how we actually got to this place, but I don’t think it’s beneficial at this point,” LeMahieu said on the Senate floor. “The fact of the matter is we’re here … Is this the perfect bill in front of us? No, it might not be the perfect bill. Is this how I would have drafted this bill? No.”

LeMahieu said he would have liked to see the bill open schools for in-person instruction, stop local health officials from “shutting down” businesses and reopen state agencies to in-person working.

Democrats like Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point, warned on the Senate floor that Evers would strike the bill down.

“We’re left with nothing – a big fat zero,” Erpenbach said. “The pandemic is still going to be here, and we will have nothing to show what we’ve done collectively as a Legislature to try and move things forward.”

He said the amendment allowing Evers to declare a public health emergency over COVID-19 to get federal funding wouldn’t keep Wisconsinites safe and that the state needs a mask mandate. “The science is in, the medical community has spoken,” he said.

Most Republican lawmakers voted this month to scrap Evers’ orders declaring a public health emergency and enacting an indoor mask mandate. The governor signed new orders putting them back in place on Thursday.