State Supreme Court upholds governor’s 2023 partial vetoes on school funding

MADISON, Wis. (Civic Media) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that Governor Tony Evers’ 2023 partial vetoes extending per-student funding increases for school districts for 402 years did not violate the state constitution.

The opinion was released Friday, with the court’s four liberal justices ruling in favor of Evers.

Justice Jill Karofsky wrote in the majority opinion that the governor used his partial veto powers to expand educational revenue limit increases from two fiscal years to 402 by striking out words and digits from the original bill.

“We conclude that those 2023 partial vetoes do not violate the constitution,” Karofsky wrote.

The majority opinion noted that the state Assembly did not vote on overriding the vetoes, so the law went into effect.

“The bottom line is that the partial vetoes were within the
bounds of the constitution” Karofsky wrote. “But the legislature is not without recourse. It has multiple options at its disposal.”

Some of the options presented include addressing the funding in a future budget bill, a constitutional amendment, and legislation that avoids the governor’s partial veto powers.

“The court takes no position regarding these measures,” Karofsky wrote. “We merely outline them to illustrate legislative alternatives to the action before us.”

Using the partial vetoes, Evers set an increase of $325 per student per year for the levy cap for public schools for the next 402 years, through 2425.

Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in dissent that the governor has the power to “can propose and enact law all on his own.”

“The decision today cannot be justified under any reasonable reading of the Wisconsin Constitution,” Hagedorn wrote. “This is a mess of this court’s making, and it is long past time for us to fix it.”

Hagedorn wrote that the governor doesn’t have the power to write laws, and that the justices in the majority weren’t interpreting the state constitution correctly in their ruling.

“When presented with a clear opportunity in this case to reboot our mangled jurisprudence, the majority responds by blessing this constitutional monstrosity, all the while pretending its hands are tied,” Hagedorn wrote. “The cases the majority relies on make a mockery of our constitutional order.”

In his dissent, Hagedorn said that the ruling was a “blow to our constitution.”

“The governor can say no and refuse legislative proposals in appropriation bills in whole or in part, but he cannot unilaterally make his own proposals the law,” Hagedorn concluded. “Because the majority holds that the governor can make the law all on his own, inverting our constitutional order, I respectfully dissent.”

Here's my statement on the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision to uphold my 400-year veto.

TL;DR: Hell yes! ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/o2Ag95pGgL

— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) April 18, 2025

Evers said in a statement that the decision doesn’t mean he’ll stop pushing for more school funding.

“I exercised the same line-item veto authority that has been used by decades’ worth of Wisconsin governors, including my predecessor—a line-item veto that the Wisconsin Supreme Court, at a time when it was under Republican control, declined to review,” Evers said. “Importantly, this decision does not mean our work is done—far from it.”