Doyle veto will slash freeway funding

Gov. Doyle has been vetoing parts of items in the recently passed budget for the next fiscal biennium. This morning's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on his veto reducing funding for preliminary studies for reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange from $38,000,000 to $3,000,000. Which might pique your interest in the Wisconsin Constitution, if recent decisions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court haven't already done so.

Article V, Section 10(1), as all state constitutions probably do, first provides

(a) Every bill which shall have passed the legislature shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the governor.

Some constitutions provide for a line item veto. Wisconsin's is more expansive.

(b) If the governor approves and signs the bill, the bill shall become law. Appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor, and the part approved shall become law.

It is this partial veto that, as used by Gov. Thompson, became known as the "Vanna White Veto," leading to amendment as follows.

(c) In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill.

The veto is related to the larger controversy over ongoing rebuilding and possible widening of area freeways.

Separately, [Milwaukee Mayor Tom] Barrett, Citizens Allied for Sane Highways and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin all have urged Doyle to veto the Zoo Interchange funding. They have all opposed additional lanes on I-94 and I-43 within the Milwaukee city limits - the most controversial part of the planning commission's $6.2 billion plan for rebuilding area freeways - and they're concerned the Zoo Interchange project would set the stage for adding those lanes.

The ACLU?