Voting YES on the Wisconsin referendum questions is good government. That’s because voting YES stops a single partisan Wisconsin politician – of either party – from having the sole power to spend billions of dollars in federal taxpayer money.

This is an opinion piece.

Liberal aligned groups are spending more than $1 million to try to fool Wisconsin voters into voting no on the two Wisconsin referendum questions that are on the Aug. 13 ballot. Actually, voting YES and YES would restore checks and balances and fiscal sanity to Wisconsin government.

According to Wispolitics.com, a shadowy group called Protect Wisconsin’s Constitution has purchased more than $1 million in TV ads to try to convince people to vote no. The ad buy makes a series of misleading statements about the two state referendums.

The massive ad buy is in addition to the $115,000 that a partially union-funded group is spending to try to trick people into voting no. Again, the good government approach would be to vote YES. Three committees telling people to vote no have a total of $1.8 million, according to Ballotpedia.

Wispolitics reports that the new ads claim the Wisconsin referendum questions are designed to “trick voters.” Actually, it’s the liberal propaganda efforts that are trying to trick voters by misleading them about what the referendums do.

For example, the ads say the referendums are a power grab by the Legislature when, really, they simply restore the historic power of the purse to the Legislature and give elected representatives all over the state a say in how billions of dollars in federal money gets spent. Remember the phrase, no taxation without representation.

Voting yes gives all communities in the state a chance to get needed money and reduces the chances the federal money is used as a slush fund by a single partisan politician – the governor – to reward supporters or Democrat-voting areas. It, thus, restores fairness and local control. The same would be true in reverse in the event of a Republican governor.

Voting yes would put Wisconsin in line with most other states which, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, do NOT allow their governors to have this much power over COVID relief funds. Many states give their Legislatures some input over federal funding overall too.

Right now, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has sole power to determine how to spend billions of dollars in federal money, such as for COVID relief. He’s blown it on a lot of things that aren’t emergencies.

The common sense position is that it’s dangerous for a single politician – of any party – to unilaterally have that much spending authority without oversight or transparency.

Voting yes restores that transparency and legislative oversight.

The liberal-aligned groups are also trying to argue that voting yes would eliminate checks and balances when, actually, there are no checks and balances now as the power is concentrated solely in the hands of a single partisan politician – Evers. It’s been that way since the 1930s, when the power was concentrated in the hands of the governor because of the Great Depression. Obviously, times have changed since the 1930s.

Voting yes restores checks and balances by giving the legislature – the elected representatives of the public – a seat at the table and oversight over how the federal taxpayer dollars are spent. Thus, it gives the voters a voice back in the process.

The ad buy also accuses the legislature of not passing bills for months, according to Wispolitics, when the issue is that the governor has vetoed common-sense legislation.

Finally, the ad misleads by making it sound like the money is solely for emergencies. It’s not. The issue isn’t with true emergency funding. If there is, say, a tornado, it’s hard to imagine any group – whether the governor or legislators – balking at getting the necessary funding to communities.

The real issue driving the referendums is that Evers has been spending the money on lots of things that are NOT emergencies, like an arts center in Milwaukee or expanding  a railroad museum.

Voting yes stops him from being able to do so without anyone else having a say.