“That’s why what just happened is so important,” he said.

Jorgensen maintains that Republicans want the law changed so the trend of foreign companies buying state land, mostly for agriculture, will continue.

Foreign ownership of Wisconsin agricultural land, most of it farms and timberland, more than doubled from 2006 to 2010, and increased an additional 91 percent in 2011, according to the most recent statistics from the federal Farm Service Agency. The percentage of ag land in the state owned by foreigners jumped from 0.5 percent to 0.9 percent in 2011.

“There’s an end-around going on for the sale of farmland to foreign ownership to triple in this state,” Jorgensen said.

Last year, Walker said he put the provision in his budget as a technical fix that would finally determine if state law provided an exception for countries that signed the GATS treaty.

That question has been unanswered since each state was asked to list potential laws on its books that would conflict with the treaty. The states were told those laws would be protected.

Wisconsin did not list its law as conflicting with the treaty, but since its law is similar to laws that were listed, it was unclear whether it should be protected.