Legislature completes work on the budget
0:14 AM 6/25/03
Phil Brinkman State government reporter

After two days and nights of furious debate, the Legislature quietly dispensed with the 2003-05 state budget Tuesday with a voice vote in the Senate.

The $49 billion spending plan passed both houses in back-to-back marathon sessions last week. But the Senate needed to concur with the Assembly on one minor amendment to finish its work, which it did Tuesday afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer dispelled rumors the Republican-controlled Legislature would immediately send the budget to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, which would have given him just six days to decide what measures to veto.

"We'll wait for him to call us," said Panzer, R-West Bend. "The governor deserves to have the time to work with it."

Doyle has said he expects to issue his vetoes within two weeks of final passage, or just after the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

"I am pleased that the budget passed today includes no tax increases, consistent with my campaign pledge," Doyle said in a press release. "At a time when Republican and Democratic governors around the country are considering or have passed tax increases, we have held the line here in Wisconsin."

But Democrats continued to criticize the GOP plan, which they said hurts children and senior citizens by reducing what school districts can levy in property taxes and increasing fees and deductibles for state-subsidized health programs.

In all, the budget also passes on more than $400 million in higher costs for such things as college tuition, vehicle registrations and other fees, said Sen. Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, one of two Senate Republicans to vote against the plan.

Doyle said it was "especially troubling" the Legislature didn't remove a multimillion-dollar amendment added early Thursday to secure the support of Sen. Gary George, D-Milwaukee. George, the only Democrat to support the Republican spending plan, provided the crucial 17th vote needed for passage in the Senate.

"This is exactly the kind of behavior that got us into a $3.2 billion deficit," Doyle said of the package, which he and other Democrats dismissed as "pork."

In a brief speech on the floor of the Senate Tuesday, George defended the amendment, which provides money for a series of his pet projects in and around Milwaukee.

"I make no apologies for trying to get resources for my people in the 6th Senate District," George said.

Senators also briefly revisited a bruising floor fight ignited early Thursday when Republicans sought to limit debate on a series of controversial amendments.

In the chaos that followed, Senate President Alan Lasee, R-De Pere, threatened to have Sens. Gwen Moore and Tim Carpenter, Democrats from Milwaukee, hauled from the chamber when they refused to stop debate.

"Even when the evil Chuck Chvala was in the majority leader's role, we let everybody speak," said former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, D-Madison.

But Panzer said the rules limiting debate, while rarely invoked, have been in place for decades and were used regularly in the 1970s.

"The rules are the rules," Panzer said.