Republican legislative leaders in Wisconsin are holding millions of dollars in federal Medicaid and unemployment benefits hostage, as they try to force Governor Tony Evers to cede some of his powers to the Republican-controlled legislature.

Recognizing the high costs of fighting the coronavirus, the Federal government made additional Medicaid funding available to states. In Wisconsin, the 2018 lame duck law blocks Governor Evers from taking steps to accept this aid money without getting approval from the state legislature.

Also, the Federal government is newly offering to pay 100% of the cost of the first week of unemployment benefits for state residents. Currently, Wisconsin does not allow people to get benefits for the first week of unemployment, so both the Governor and the Legislature would have to sign off on the change to get the additional funding.

Governor Evers released an economic package that would gather both the additional Federal Medicaid dollars and the extra unemployment benefits. Republican legislative leaders ignored his proposal and released their own plan.

The alternative proposal included capturing both those sources of extra dollars, but also included a provision that would give the legislature’s budget committee – controlled by Republicans through a decade of gerrymandering election maps – unilateral power to make budget cuts during this crisis, without the approval of other legislators or the Governor.

The bill proposed by the state Republicans does not appropriate money. That means the Governor must accept or reject the Republican bill in its entirety, as he has line-item veto power only for appropriation bills.

In other words, the Republican bill makes accepting the Federal resources contingent on the Governor giving more power to the Republican-controlled legislature.