AJR 114

Explanation of Proposal

This proposed constitutional amendment, to be given second consideration by

the 2011 legislature for submittal to the voters in April 2011, was first considered by

the

2009

legislature in 2009 Senate Joint Resolution

61

, which became

2009

Enrolled Joint Resolution

40

.

The proposed constitutional amendment amends the Wisconsin Constitution

to prohibit the governor, in exercising his or her partial veto power over an

appropriation bill, from partially vetoing parts of bill sections of an enrolled bill

without rejecting the entire bill section. Currently, in exercising the partial veto

power, the governor is limited only insofar as that he or she may not create a new

word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not

create a new sentence by combining parts of two or more sentences of the enrolled

bill. The new restriction on the governor's partial veto power contained in this

resolution subsumes and expands on the current restrictions in the constitution.

Procedure for second ConsideratioN

When a proposed constitutional amendment is before the legislature on second

consideration, any change in the text approved by the preceding legislature causes

the proposed constitutional amendment to revert to first consideration status so that

second consideration approval would have to be given by the next legislature before

the proposal may be submitted to the people for ratification [see joint rule 57 (2)].

If the legislature approves a proposed constitutional amendment on second

consideration, it must also set the date for submitting the proposed constitutional

amendment to the people for ratification and must determine the question or

questions to appear on the ballot.