EDITORIAL: The beauty of an ugly compromise

Bipartisanship is a beautiful thing, universally revered as the ideal to which the lawmakers of two political parties must aspire.

That’s the distant view. Close up, it turns out that bipartisanship is usually not pretty, and the compromise that makes it possible can be quite ugly.

This was confirmed in Wisconsin in May when the state’s most powerful Democrat and the two leaders of the equally powerful Republican majority in the Legislature pulled off what has been virtually impossible in recent years: Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu crafted a bipartisan compromise to deal with one of the state’s most important issues.

It was the answer to what critics of Wisconsin’s bitterly polarized state government have been demanding, yet it was met not with applause, but with boos and catcalls. The compromise was not pretty enough to satisfy either Democratic or Republican politicians.

Seven of the eight candidates for governor greeted the bipartisan agreement with criticism ranging to condemnation. Various legislators issued statements decrying the compromise as too favorable to one side or the other. When the agreement got to the Legislature in the form of a bill, the Senate, with votes to reject it by 15 Democrats and three Republicans, promptly killed the bipartisan agreement.

Here’s what died along with the agreement: More than $300 million to address the long ignored imperative to give school districts more help to pay for special education; another $300 million-plus in additional per-pupil school aid to lower property taxes; rebates to state income taxpayers of $300 to individuals and $600 to joint filers.

There was no persuasive economic argument to justify rejecting the spending compromise. The state has the money and it needs to be spent. The school aid and tax relief distributions totalling $1.8 billion would come from the $2.5 billion surplus the state has been sitting on for too long.

Of course, it’s easy to find things wrong with the Evers-Vos-LeMahieu agreement.

For one, it doesn’t do enough for public schools. The state has been negligent in its failure to keep school aid on pace with inflation, leaving districts so bereft many have had to go to referendums to ask taxpayers for permission to exceed state tax levy limits. More of the surplus should be spent to balance that long-term failure, and less to send checks to taxpayers that, in the scheme of things, will just amount to tokens anyway.

Or, as in the eyes of conservative critics, it gives too much money to schools and a not-generous-enough income tax refund to taxpayers. The lone Republican candidate for governor, in fact, condemned the compromise for failing to give the entire surplus back to taxpayers.

It’s hardly a surprise the politicians didn’t get every goody they wanted. That’s what defines a compromise.

It took months to put this one together, and  given the stark contrast between the political positions of the negotiators it can be assumed there was some hard bargaining.

Evers, a former state superintendent of public instruction, has been a warrior fighting for increased state public school funding since his first day in the governor’s state Capitol office. Vos and LeMahieu have successfully wielded their power as leaders of the strong Republican majority in the Legislature to push a conservative agenda and attempt to thwart the governor on almost every issue.

Nonetheless, critics said, someone caved, gave in just to get along, and that’s what happens when the negotiators are all lame ducks.

They’re right. Neither Evers, Vos nor LeMahieu are running for re-election. And, yes, that fact surely made it easier to reach an agreement. But that’s hardly a negative effect.

The lame-duck factor frees elected officials to act on behalf of the public good, rather than slavishly meeting rigid partisan demands.

The same phenomenon is on display in the U.S. Congress, where members who were defeated in primaries or decided not to run for new terms have suddenly found the spine to stand up against controversial Trump administration policies that other Republican senators and representatives are afraid to oppose.

  In Wisconsin, hard-core partisans trumped the lame ducks and managed to kill a desperately needed increase in state funding for K-12 schools and withhold billions of dollars in state surplus money that belongs to the public.

The governor should call the legislators back to Madison for a special session to reconsider the school aid and tax relief spending proposal.

After the first vote, a Marquette Law School Poll found that 80% of Wisconsin voters say it was wrong for legislators to reject the surplus spending bill.

Let’s see if the naysayers in the Legislature want to go on record and, against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Wisconsin voters, vote again to bury the most meaningful bipartisan compromise the state has seen in years.