The Legislature finally did its job but more ideological gridlock looms

One state senator called the bill “Frankenstein’s monster.” Another said it is a historic milestone in bipartisan governance. A state representative vowed she would “fight like hell” to get  the bill “off our books.” The governor called the bill “a win for Wisconsin.”

That’s what compromise sounds like. It confirms  that the hallowed ideal of bipartisan legislating almost always has an imperfect result.

The bill in the Wisconsin Legislature is a complex package of state-funding changes aimed at meeting the long ignored need to share more state revenue with cities, villages, towns and villages and to save the city of Milwaukee from bankruptcy. A companion bill addresses the state’s chronic failure to provide adequate shared revenue for K-12 education.

The bills were passed last week with votes by Republicans and Democrats. Gov. Tony Evers said he would sign them into law.

Criticism of the measures was also bipartisan. Legislators from both parties lambasted the legislation for various failures.

The admirers and critics of the bills are both right. Compromise is rarely pretty, but it gets things done.

The legislation represents something that has not been seen in the state Capitol in a long time—effective lawmaking. Unfortunately, it appears to be an anomaly. With the measures taken in response to impossible-to-ignore state problems out of the way, the Legislature’s Republican majority is poised to return to the ideological crusading that hobbles state government in its service to the people of Wisconsin.

The Legislature’s long overdue effort in the local government funding bill gives needed relief to municipalities that have been struggling to provide services with state aid that has not kept pace with inflation and punishing state limits on the amount of revenue that can be raised through local taxation.

Municipalities with populations of less than 110,000 will receive at least 20% more in state aid. Milwaukee will get help, including the ability to impose local sales taxes, to avoid a looming fiscal crisis.

Some spokesmen for municipalities say the boost in local funding is inadequate, noting that the state could do more with its large cash surplus. The aid to Milwaukee comes with various strings attached that amount to unprecedented interference by the state into local government.

The school funding bill increases state per-pupil aid to school districts and eases levy limits, but public school advocates are disappointed by the amount of the shared revenue and some have expressed outrage that private voucher schools are getting a larger percentage increase in state aid than public schools. Voucher schools will get $12,368 for each high school student, a 20% increase.

The criticisms are valid, but the flaws they target are the necessary ingredients of compromise. The voucher increase was inevitable as the price Republicans would demand in return for increasing public school funding. Gov. Evers acknowledges he understands that in signing the bill.

In the final analysis, this will be seen as elected government facing state issues and acting on them in a political process that, in spite of some disappointments, serves the people of Wisconsin.

Certainly, that cannot be said about the threat by majority leaders to cut University of Wisconsin System funding by $32 million or more to force it to shut down its diversity program.

This is not doing the people’s business; this is glomming on to a political fad. Republican legislatures, following a playbook written by the governor of Florida, are hustling to get in line to claim they are slaying the dragon called diversity. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos joined the chorus with a hysterical declaration that the UW Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program is “indoctrinating” students.

The anti-DEI warriors have adopted a four-letter word to demonize diversity. “Woke” was coined years ago to describe sensitivity to social injustice and racial inequality, but now it is being employed as a pejorative term for programs that seek to address barriers to minorities. Gov. Ron De Santis of Florida is envied by conservative politicians for the mileage he’s made with his anti-woke agenda aimed at destroying DEI programs

Businesses, the military and higher education devote significant resources to these programs because racial, ethnic, economic and gender diversity is morally right, but also because it contributes to success. Corporations spend heavily to achieve it because it makes money for them. The armed forces implement policies to seek diversity because, their leaders have told Congress, it makes them stronger. Universities and colleges support DEI programs because a diverse student body and faculty are crucial to a successful learning environment.

Cutting funding to force UW to curtail its diversity efforts would be an intolerable intrusion into university affairs by government officials seeking to burnish their anti-woke credentials.

One thing is certain: If the Legislature carries through on this threat, it will not have bipartisan support.