My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here it is:

On Good Friday, Wisconsin’s Christians paused to reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus and plan for weekend family celebrations of his rising. Gov. Tony Evers used the time to veto 41 bills. This column lacks the space to catalog every bad decision Evers made on Friday, so let us try to narrow it down to the top five.

 

Evers has been very vocal about the need for Wisconsin to support child care providers. Child care is expensive and there are not enough providers to meet the demand. This problem has been exacerbated by inflation, regulations, the inability of providers to pay higher wages without raising prices, and the end of government subsidies from the various federal COVID bailouts.

 

The Republican Legislature passed a bill to help child care providers with a state loan program. Evers vetoed it. He did so claiming that it was not enough. Evers would rather that the state provide no help at all if it is not his plan. He does not really care about helping ease the child care crisis. He cares about it being a political issue for himself.

 

Evers vetoed another bill that would have prohibited John Doe investigations in cases where a district attorney had already declined to press charges because of self-defense or defense of others. Wisconsin’s John Doe laws are an old process intended to allow an independent investigator to investigate if a crime has been committed. Under John Doe, the investigation is done in secret to protect innocent people from being publicly maligned with an unfounded accusation while they are investigated. We saw during the Scott Walker era how the John Doe process was turned into a political weapon by activist leftist district attorneys and judges.

 

By vetoing this bill, those same prosecutorial and judicial activists can use the John Doe process to go after police officers and civilians who were already cleared of a crime for reasons of self-defense or defense of others. In particular, this will empower the anti-police activists to continually ruin the lives of good cops who had to use force to defend themselves or the public. Evers is helping to fuel anti-police activism.

 

Another bill would have prohibited credit card companies from tracking firearm purchases in the state. This has been advocated by anti-civil rights activists as a way to facilitate discrimination against people who legally exercise their rights to keep and bear arms. Evers is on the side of the oppressors and wants to make it easier to suppress our civil rights.

 

It may shock some to learn that government school districts do not have to put contracts out to bid. Some do so as a matter of good policy, but it is not required by law. This means that when school districts pass those massive building referendums, they can award those contracts to whomever they want without seeking competitive bids. This is an obvious avenue for massive corruption at the expense of taxpayers.

 

The Republican Legislature passed a bill that would have required government school districts to conduct a legitimate bidding process for any contracts over $150,000. Evers vetoed it. He wants to make it as easy as possible for government schools to dole out tax dollars to their favorites even if it is not a good deal for taxpayers. For Evers, it is not about the taxpayers. It is about political favoritism at all levels.

 

The last example is the most egregious. We have a mental health crisis in this country. The aftershocks of the government mismanagement of the pandemic coupled with a social media contagion leaves our kids lonely and depressed. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 adults experience a mental illness each year and, “50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24.”

 

The Republican Legislature passed a bill that would have allowed out-of-state mental health care providers to provide care for Wisconsinites via telehealth without requiring a Wisconsin license. The licensure requirements for mental health professionals varies little between states and the imperative of getting Wisconsinites timely care during a mental health crisis outweighs the need for a duplicative and meaningless state stamp of approval.

 

Evers vetoed this bill too. Instead of opening up an entire nation of qualified mental health professionals to treat Wisconsinites, he sided with ensuring that the state collect its $77 license fee over the mental health of Wisconsinites.

 

Governor Evers is on the side of antipolice and anti-2nd Amendment activists, the bureaucracy, and his personal political agenda. He is not on the side of Wisconsinites.