(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, announced Thursday he won’t seek reelection in the fall.
Vos said he had a mild heart attack in mid-November and that doctors said he would be fine but “I do need to reduce my stress.”
Vos has been the assembly speaker since 2013 after first being elected in 2004. He was the Assembly Chair for the Joint Finance Committee before being elected speaker.
Vos made the announcement to begin Thursday’s Assembly floor session, which started nearly three hours after its scheduled time of 11 a.m., after session lasted until nearly midnight on Wednesday.
“The decision wasn’t easy,” Vos said, noting he had been thinking about it for a long time.
He joins Gov. Tony Evers in not seeking reelection in the fall.
“The Speaker’s retirement marks the end of an era in Wisconsin politics, and I’m grateful to have served as governor during Speaker Vos’ tenure,” Evers said in a statement. “Although we’ve disagreed more often than we didn’t, I respect his candor, his ability to navigate complex policies and conversations, and his unrivaled passion for politics.”
Vos said that he believes that the Legislature worked properly under his guidance, which was sometimes slower than others wanted it to work.
“What kept me grounded was the reminder that the gavel belongs to the institution, not an individual person,” Vos said. “Strong institutions matter and I believe I am leaving this institution stronger and ready to endure the road ahead. I have confidence in Wisconsin’s future and in those who will work to carry this work forward.”

(The Center Square) – A bill that would allow sports wagering in Wisconsin through the state’s tribes passed the Assembly on a unanimous voice vote Thursday, the final day the Assembly was scheduled to be in session.
It remains unclear if the Senate will take up the bill and send it to Gov. Tony Evers, who has voiced support for the plan.
The proposal would change the state’s definition of “bet” to allow the state’s tribes to offer mobile sports wagering if the bettor is in Wisconsin and the sportsbook servers are on tribal land, an amendment to current compacts allowing for casino gambling and sports wagering on tribal lands despite the state’s ban on betting.
The law would allow for a similar sports wagering model as Florida, where the state’s sportsbook operators have servers on federally recognized tribal lands while users can be in the state of Wisconsin.
The proposal cites the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision not to hear a challenge to the sports wagering pact between Florida and the Seminole tribe of the hub-and-spoke sports wagering model.
Wisconsin receives payments that are a portion of the net win from tribal casinos but does not separately report sports wagering payments.
In 2024, the state received more than $66 million in shared revenue payments with nearly $66 million in 2023 and nearly $57 million in 2022.
Sports wagering is legal in 39 states with 31 allowing mobile sports wagering.
The bill estimates it will bring hundreds of millions of illegal bets into legal sportsbooks in the state, stating the change “generates new revenue through tribal gaming compacts and reduces consumer risk from offshore operators.”
During committee discussion on the bill, Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia, pointed testimony from Sports Betting Alliance Counsel Damon Stewart, who said that a requirement that 60% of the gross revenue from mobile sports wagering under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act would be too high of a cost for top national brands such as DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Fanatics and Bet365.
“I think our citizens in Wisconsin are better served by keeping this new platform within our current gambling structure,” Wittke said.

(The Center Square) – The Republican running for governor in Wisconsin says he will pull the state out of the World Health Organization if he’s elected.
Gov. Tony Evers said in his State of the State speech earlier this week he is signing Wisconsin up for the WHO’s new global organization.
“Public health isn’t a partisan issue, and it isn’t up for debate. And real lives are at stake if we fail to listen,” Evers said during his speech. “It’s why, in the coming weeks, I’ll sign an executive order to have Wisconsin join the World Health Organization’s Global Response Network. We must do what we can to keep our kids, our families, and our communities healthy and safe.”
The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network is a collection of states and local health departments that share public health information. The governor’s office said joining the group will give Wisconsin “timely and direct access to global early-warning alerts, outbreak intelligence and data sharing.”
“I’m not a rocket scientist, but I did teach biology in Baraboo. Maybe if we want to make Americans and Wisconsinites ‘healthy’ again, making health care affordable and accessible would be a great place to start. We could also start by trusting the science, public health experts, and medical professionals who have eradicated diseases and found cures and kept us healthy and safe for decades,” the governor added.
Republican candidate Tom Tiffany immediately disagreed.
“So @GovEvers will share Wisconsin’s health data with the Communist China-corrupted World Health Organization. But he won’t allow the USDA to audit our food stamp rolls for fraud?” Tiffany wrote on X. “Talk about misplaced priorities.”
Evers wouldn’t be the only Democratic governor to join the WHO group. Illinois’ JB Pritzker recently signed his state up, as did the governors in California and New York.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Senate passed a bill on a voice vote Wednesday afternoon that would fund WisconsinEye with more than $585,000 in taxpayer funds for the next year while collecting requests for proposal for a public affairs network.
The proposals must be submitted by June 30.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, called the compromise between parties on Senate Bill 994 true bipartisan work that worked toward a solution after what he called a “breach of contract” when WisconsinEye took its archives off its website along with stopping production of new meeting coverage Dec. 15.
When asked for the reason WisEye was taking the archives off its site, WisEye President and CEO Jon Henkes told The Center Square that taking the more than 30,000 hours of archives offline is to show donors the value of WisconsinEye’s work and the fiscal situation for the company.
“We don’t know what the Assembly is going to do,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said. “We don’t know what the Assembly is going to do on so many things.”
The bill would have to be approved by the Assembly, which has a separate WisEye bill, and be signed by Gov. Tony Evers to go into effect.
It stipulates that the Joint Committee on Finance would also need to approve the request for 12 payments totaling $585,630 to WisconsinEye to provide ongoing video coverage with the payments set to end if a new public affairs network is selected to provide live broadcasts of state government proceedings and a digital archive.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin sports wagering bill sponsor Rep. Tyler August said Wednesday afternoon that he was “still confident” that he could get a bill passed in the state Assembly this session, with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos saying that Thursday will be the end of the session.
August said that the bill is currently on a delayed calendar in the Assembly and can be brought up any legislative day.
“We’re still having a few more conversations on that legislation,” August said. “We’re still working through some of our colleagues in the caucus just to make sure everybody’s comfortable with where it’s at.”
Bill sponsor Rep. Tyler August with an update on the sports gaming bill in Wisconsin. pic.twitter.com/kdQWLhSc36— Jon Styf (@JonStyf) February 18, 2026
August added that he confidence was related to the bill passing “in our house” and didn’t indicate if he knew that the Senate would also pass the bill, which would be a technical change to remove placing a bet as a criminal act in the state.
The proposal would change the state’s definition of “bet” to allow the state’s tribes to offer mobile sports wagering if the bettor is in Wisconsin and the sportsbook servers are on tribal land, an amendment to current compacts allowing for casino gambling and sports wagering on tribal lands despite the state’s ban on betting.
Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, has voiced his opposition to the bill.
86% of Wisconsin voters oppose GOP’s attempt to legalize online gambling, instead preferring to decide the issue through a constitutional amendment. Makes sense because the Constitution says, “the legislature may not authorize gambling in any form.”— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) February 18, 2026
Since the bill was delayed, large operators such as Fanatics and DraftKings have opened prediction markets in the state with FanDuel saying it will as well.

(The Center Square) – Charlie Berens said he couldn’t be at a Madison committee hearing on non-disclosure agreements for data centers in person because he had to go to the casino with his grandma, but his video testimony began a public hearing on a Senate bill to ban NDAs for data centers.
“I looked at these things online and really what I saw was the sentiment of people feeling like they were cut out of the process of having this huge, huge building with unprecedented building size with power usage and they didn’t know it was happening until it was too late,” Berens said. “The more we can allow communities to decide for communities, I think that’s going to create some communities will want these and some communities won’t. But the answer shouldn’t be cutting them out of the process.”
Comedian Charlie Berens testified to start a Wisconsin public hearing on banning NDAs related to data centers (*except related to trade secrets) pic.twitter.com/eMohuiA9CY— Jon Styf (@JonStyf) February 18, 2026
Senate Bill 969 has an exception that allows trade secrets from being publicly disclosed without defining what a trade secret would entail.
Many data centers have claimed that it is a trade secret to divulge the amount of energy or water used on a project or the name of the company involved in the data center.
The bill says that if a prohibited NDA is used, a local government will not be allowed to approve the project.
Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, did specifically mention energy load, land use, infrastructure costs and water requirements as something that local officials would need to know before making a decision on a project.
“Unfortunately, we have witnessed a troubling pattern in Wisconsin and throughout our country, community leaders are signing secrecy deals with big tech companies and their agents to conceal material facts about the development of billion-dollar data centers from the public,” Jacque said. “They seek to hide vital information about the scope and impacts of their intended developments from the local officials charged with guarding their citizen’s welfare.”
Jacque specifically named projects in Beaver Dam, Menomonie, Kenosha and Janesville where NDAs were used to “hide information from local government.”
Jacque said that, if a data center deal is so good for a community, then an NDA shouldn’t need to be used because “that’s not a development strategy, it’s a gag order to hide the warts.”
Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, called it a “90-10 issue” with both far right and Democratic supporters who are engaged in the data center disclosure issue.
“It’s really brought some odd bedfellows together,” Moses said about the issue of a data center in his community.
Brad Tietz, the director of policy for the Data Center Coalition, said that the NDA bill would put Wisconsin at a “competitive disadvantage” related to attracting data center projects.
“NDAs are not tools to hide misconduct, they are standard business instruments used across virtually every industry to protect proprietary information and critical security details,” Tietz said.

(The Center Square) – There is not much of an appetite from Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers for a summer session to draw a new congressional map for the state.
Gov. Tony Evers used his final State of The State speech on Tuesday to push lawmakers to agree to a new map for the state’s eight congressional districts.
“I’m announcing that I’ll be calling a special session of the Legislature this spring to take up a constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymandering once and for all in Wisconsin,” Evers said during his speech. “And let me be clear: I won’t hesitate to bring the Legislature into special session later this year in August. Or September. Or October. Heck, I’m old enough to remember when the Legislature was willing to meet in December!”
Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, said he doesn’t buy what the governor is selling.
“Purely political and downright hilarious that he’s calling for a special session to ban partisan gerrymandering after he gerrymandered our maps,” Bradley told The Center Square. “In 2023, the legislature passed a bill giving him a redistricting commission, and he vetoed it after nearly every Democrat voted against it.”
The Republican-controlled legislature did agree to redraw the state’s legislative maps in early 2024.
Lawmakers at the time said they feared the liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court may have ordered something worse for them. It’s not clear if they will make the same calculation this year.
The state’s high court has already taken up a redistricting case. The court has asked a three-judge panel to come up with a new map for the state’s members of Congress.
It does not appear that those new maps will be ready in time to be used in November’s midterm elections.

(The Center Square) – A bill that will end the ability of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to raise fees for animal market licenses, animal dealer licenses, animal trucker licenses and animal transport vehicle registrations is now headed to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.
Senate Bill 622 passed the Assembly with a 57-42 vote after the bill was passed 22-11 by the Senate a week earlier, both on partisan votes.
The bill came after DATCP had proposed increasing a livestock market fee from $420 to $7,430, trucker license fees from $60 to $370 and animal dealer fees from $220 to $670 last year before receiving significant pushback and later proposing smaller increases.
Those changes came after a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that blocked legislators from oversight on rulemaking with Evers telling agencies to bypass having rules heard in committee and instead simply enact them.
That leaves in question if Evers will sign or veto the bill.
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau and Americans for Prosperity–Wisconsin collected public feedback, sending it to DATCP after the rules were proposed.
DATCP said in a fiscal estimate that the bill would force the agency to operate with a negative cash balance unless the fees or a funding source are changed.
“This bill would remove DATCP’s ability to propose fee adjustments through the statutorily set administrative rulemaking process,” the fiscal estimate said. “Without revenue adjustments, the appropriation will operate in a negative cash balance until additional funding sources are identified.”
DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski said in testimony that the programs had a negative cash balance of $267,000 at the end of last fiscal year, which is expected to grow to more than $1.1 million by the end of this fiscal year and said that Evers’ last budget proposal asked for seven new full time positions while four were ultimately granted.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wants the public to concentrate on the bills and times that he had reached agreements with the Legislature as he is set to continue an interesting week of negotiations on a tax-cut proposal from legislative Republicans.
Evers announced he would call a special session this spring to ban partisan gerrymandering of legislative maps.
Earlier in his speech, Evers said that a plan for property tax relief and education spending must balance the two “a heck of a lot better” than the plan Republicans sent to him this week.
“I’m going to ask lawmakers to stick around until our work here is finished,” Evers said.
Tony Evers just said no to the Republican plan that puts this surplus back in your hands and addresses the ridiculous property tax increase he did via his veto plan. So much for bipartisanship.— Senator Julian Bradley (@SenBradley) February 18, 2026
“Tony Evers just said no to the Republican plan that puts this surplus back in your hands and addresses the ridiculous property tax increase he did via his veto plan,” Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, wrote during the speech. “So much for bipartisanship.”
In his rebuttal to the State of the State, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said that the state should not be sitting on $2.5 billion of projected surplus while Wisconsin families struggle to pay bills.
“We want to give that money back to you,” LeMahieu said.
Evers highlighted everything from justice system reform, adding circuit court branches, workers’ compensation for firefighters and law enforcement and paying down state debt.
“I’ve signed over 800 bills as governor, and more than 97% of the bills I’ve signed passed with bipartisan support,” Evers boasted in his State of the State speech.
He then pointed out that he is often criticized for his use of the veto, particularly when he used a partial veto and erased numbers and a hyphen to change “2024-25” to “2425” in the budget bill, locking in a $325 per student per year funding increase for 400 years.
Evers justified the action, saying he was using his veto pen to benefit kids.
He said that average wages went up 26% in the state in his first six years in office and that median income has reached an all-time high.
Evers announced that a new film tax credit and office would start this week.

(The Center Square) – Assembly Speaker Robin Vos believes that having a short timeline to discuss a tax cut bill before the end of the legislative session could be helpful in tax cut negotiations.
Vos said that a tax cut proposal sent to Gov. Tony Evers on Sunday would accomplish those goals with $1.5 billion in tax rebate checks, $200 million in additional special education funding and $500 million in a school tax levy credit.
Vos said that he hopes he can hear from Evers before session ends Friday.
“Deadlines are what make politicians act,” Vos said.
Early excerpts from Evers’ Tuesday night State of the State speech included references to that short timeline.
“I know many lawmakers are antsy to end the legislative session and pack up to get back on the campaign trail,” the excerpt said. “Folks, I know many of you are up for election, but here’s the deal: after years of delivering historic, bipartisan wins for our state, Wisconsinites have high expectations for the work we can do together over the next ten months – and they should. Just look at what we’ve accomplished over the last seven years.”
The tax cut proposal would spend down $2.3 billion of the $2.5 billion in estimated surplus for the state by the end of this budget.
“We’re overtaxed our citizens in Wisconsin,” Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston, said about the surplus. “In doing that, we’re offering a $1,000 rebate to couples and $500 to individuals. In this time, with affordability and things of that nature really wearing on families, this at least is somewhat relief for what we overcharged them as a Legislature.”
Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said that the surplus allows the Legislature to return the majority of the surplus to taxpayers.
“It’s a great compromise,” Born said. “We heard the governor and what his priorities were, we worked on a package and it’s a real opportunity for us to build on what we have accomplished this session. And the governor should take the deal.”
Vos explained that it is better to have the education funding go to special education and school property tax credits rather than the general school fund because then it will be distributed more evenly across the state.
“Now we have two active participants, myself and Sen. LeMahieu, now we just need a third partner, which would be Gov. Evers, to want to come to the table,” Vos said.

(The Center Square) – There is a new tax relief offer at the Wisconsin Capitol.
The state’s two Republican leaders, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, on Monday sent a letter to Gov. Tony Evers with a new offer for both income tax and property tax relief.
“This is a generous, good-faith attempt to achieve our mutual goals of limiting the property tax impact caused by your misguided 400-year veto, helping families address rising costs, and ultimately doing what is best for the people of Wisconsin,” the two wrote.
The plan offers $500 in money for the state’s school tax levy credit. Vos and LeMahieu say that money will offset local property taxes.
The Republican leaders are also proposing $1.5 billion in income tax rebates. Married people in Wisconsin would get a $1,000 check, while single tax filers would get $500.
There is also $200 million included for special education funding, $30 million for people and businesses who saw damage during last summer’s flooding, and a few million dollars more for teachers who buy their own classroom supplies.
“While we know you believe that your 400-year veto was a way to permanently send increases to schools for the next 400 years, the truth is it creates a strong disincentive for school districts to find efficiencies while creating an increased property tax burden on taxpayers,” Vos and LeMahieu added.
The Republican proposal does not include the $450 million in general state aid that Evers has insisted be included in any tax deal. It also doesn’t touch on the governor’s 400-year veto, which is blamed for skyrocketing property taxes across the state.
Instead of sending more money to schools for the next 399-years, Vos and LeMahieu said Wisconsin schools need an overhaul.
“No amount of funding increase can address the root causes of the education funding problem,” they wrote. “Reform, not guaranteed funding to prop up a broken system.”
The Republican offer comes as Evers will deliver his final State of the State tonight at 7 p.m.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is expected to speak on his 2026 legislative priorities including his plans to lower health care costs for families, negotiate state funding for local governments to lower property taxes and funding for local schools when he gives his State of the State speech on Tuesday night.
The largest debate over the past week has been negotiations over Evers’ proposal to send $1 billion in state funds to local governments along with spending $237 million on property tax relief programs for “veterans, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and others struggling to afford the property taxes.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, compared the tax cuts to cake, saying that “all cake is good” and “there are no bad tax cuts” but that different people prefer different varieties of each.
The discussion comes as new projections show the state is expected to have a $2.3 billion surplus at the end of the current budget.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said this week that Senate Republicans have not yet met with Evers on the topic but that the proposed Senate Bill 1 would provide a $1,000 income tax rebate for married-joint filers and $500 for all others.
“Whether you need more room in your budget for groceries, or if Governor Evers’ 400-year veto sent your property tax bill through the roof, the State Senate intends to vote next week to return the surplus to the people who created it in the first place: you, the taxpayers,” LeMahieu said in a statement.
Vos added that rebates can be “less easy to do” and that “It’s not the best kind of cake, in my opinion, but it’s not bad.”
Vos said that it is important for legislative leaders to work with Evers to come up with a tax cut that both bodies of the Legislature and Evers will approve.
“We want to get a real answer, not just a real argument,” Vos said.
Evers reiterated recently that he hopes to also prioritize legislation to lower out-of-pocket health care costs, prevent price gouging on prescriptions and hold insurers accountable to provide promised coverage.
“Healthcare shouldn’t be a privilege afforded only to the healthy and the wealthy, but that’s exactly what is happening as Republicans have gutted Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, while refusing to extend the tax credits under the ACA that make healthcare more affordable for millions of Americans. It’s wrongheaded,” Evers said in a statement.
Evers also noted that addressing drinking water contamination and working to fix issues and infrastructure in the correctional system should be prioritized.

(The Center Square) – An administrative law judge affirmed Friday the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ permits for a 41-mile Line 5 reroute in northern Wisconsin.
Those permits had been challenged by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewas. The group is also appealing permits issued for the project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a separate case.
The Bad River Band committed to continue to fight the project, it said. The group is joined in the case by Clean Wisconsin, Earthjustice, Midwest Environmental Advocates, the Sierra Club, 350 Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently asked a federal court to delay the June 16 shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline as the parties continue court proceedings.
Administrative Law Judge Angela Chaput Foy amended several conditions in the ruling as a part of her Friday ruling.
“While today’s decision is a disappointing setback, it does not diminish our resolve or end our responsibility to protect Wisconsin’s waters from the irreversible harm this project threatens to cause,” Midwest Environmental Advocates Senior Staff Attorney Rob Lee said in a statement. “The record in this case is clear, and our work is far from over. Based on the significant legal issues presented and the strength of the record, we believe there is a strong basis for appellate review, and we are considering all appropriate next steps.”
Permit applications for the project were initially submitted in 2020.
The pipeline transports more than 500,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids each day through the Bad River Band reservation.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin bill promoting free speech on campus and another to limit the fees charged for online courses in the University of Wisconsin system have now passed the Legislature and will head to Gov. Tony Evers.
Senate Bill 532 would prevent University of Wisconsin schools from assessing the online class fees unless the school can show actual additional costs to conduct the classes online.
Bill sponsors say that fees for online-only or hybrid courses can add up and be a hidden way for the university to add cost to college.
Representatives from the UW System said in committee that online courses can cost more for technology purposes and due to training of professors but those costs are sometimes difficult to identify clearly.
The bill passed the Assembly 53-45 after passing the Senate, 18-15.
The campus free speech bill would carry a punishment of two academic years of frozen tuition if a school violates any of the requirements of the bill multiple times in a five-year period.
Senate Bill 498 pass the Assembly 53-45. It requires that the colleges not restrict free speech if the speaker is lawful or restict the time, place or manner of free speech on campus. The school cannot create a “free speech zone” and limit speech to that area, require a permit to limit expression or require a security fee be paid.
“When more than one out of every three students at UW–Madison believes violence is an acceptable way to suppress speech, it’s clear we have a serious civility problem on campus,” Nedweski said in a statement, citing a recent survey by the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “AB 501 simply puts the UW’s own free speech policy into law and ensures it is enforced. We cannot allow violence or intimidation to become a normalized substitute for free debate.”

(The Center Square) – One of the Democrats running for governor has a new plan to allow the people of Wisconsin to buy into the state of Wisconsin’s health plan.
Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, is calling her plan “Keldacare.” She said the people of the state should be able to access the same care that state lawmakers and state employees get.
“My plans will enable every Wisconsinite to buy into the very same health insurance plan that I enjoy as a state senator and give people the freedom to build a better life,” Roys said in a statement.
Roys is one of seven Democrats running for governor and is the second this month to propose a new health care overhaul plan.
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez also suggested a public option with a Medicaid expansion.
But Roys is the only one so far to offer a public buy-in into the state system.
“KeldaCare will help small businesses start and grow, and compete for workers, and will help Wisconsin companies and municipalities of all sizes have a public option for health insurance coverage that is high quality, comprehensive, non-profit, and competitively priced,” Roys added. “Covering more people and expanding the pool of insured people will lower costs for taxpayers and help keep rural clinics and hospitals open.”
As of January, the state reported there are more than 171,000 state employees and their family members enrolled in Wisconsin’s employee health system. There were also another 42,000 retirees and their dependents.
Roys is not saying how many members of the public that she expects to buy-in. She also doesn’t have a price tag.
State employees pay anywhere from $46 for individual coverage to as much as $833 for a full coverage family plan. The state also pays for coverage. In general, the state of Wisconsin covers about 88% of the costs for employee health insurance.
Wisconsin’s total Medicaid spending, health coverage for people already on state-subsidized health coverage, is expected to top $36 billion in the current state budget. That’s about a third of Wisconsin’s total two-year state budget.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Legislature has now passed a group of four bills dubbed the Red Tape Reset, and the four bills are next headed to the desk of Gov. Tony Evers.
The bills are aimed at cutting down on the 165,000 restrictions currently in state law. The bills passed the Senate on Wednesday and the Assembly on Thursday.
“People who work hard and try to play by the rules should be able to get ahead,” Sen. Bradley, R–New Berlin, said about the bills. “Because of red tape, that’s simply not the case for many. A young entrepreneur with a great idea shouldn’t be buried under layers of bureaucracy before they even get started.”
The set of bills include regulatory sunsetting, regulatory budgeting, a one rule per scope statement and a proposal challenging the validity of administrative rules.
The laws will require that, when a new rule adds costs for businesses, families or local governments, those costs must be offset.
The single scope bill blocks allowing agencies to use a single scope statement to create multiple regulations over time.
The challenge bill would require courts to award attorney fees and costs to plaintiffs who successfully challenge unlawful administrative rules.
Groups such as Americans for Prosperity – Wisconsin, Badger Institute, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty have lobbied for the bills.
“Wisconsin has been an overregulated state for far too long, constricting our economic growth and saddling our entrepreneurs with unnecessary burdens,” AFP-WI State Director Megan Novak said in a statement. “Between our excessive regulations and the misguided decision by our partisan Supreme Court that removed a necessary legislative check on the governor in the rulemaking process, Wisconsin businesses and families deserve regulatory relief. These bills are a welcome step to get Wisconsin back on the right track and we thank lawmakers for prioritizing the Reset and their continued work to make Wisconsin the best place to build a business in the Midwest.”