Maintained by the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB), this page provides an overview of recent and upcoming activities in the Wisconsin Legislature. The LRB revises its content weekly. Links to more detailed information are highlighted in the text.
The 2011-2012 legislative session began when the new legislature was sworn in on January 3, 2011. The schedule of floorperiods for the new session was established by Senate Joint Resolution 1. The January special session is ongoing. The next regular session floorperiod is scheduled for May 10 through May 19.
Governor Walker called the legislature into special session on January 4 to consider legislation on a variety of topics, including tax credits, tort law, medical savings accounts, other legislation relating to taxation, and the budget repair bill. On April 26, Governor Walker expanded the January Special Session to include January Special Session Assembly Bill 14 and January Special Session Senate Bill 13, relating to the state’s telecommunications laws.
Conference Substitute Amendment 1 to January 2011 Special Session Assembly Bill 11 passed both houses and was signed into law by Governor Walker as Wisconsin Act 10 on March 11, 2011. Unless otherwise specified in a law, Acts generally take effect the day after publication by the Secretary of State, who has 10 working days to do so. The Secretary of State indicated to the media that he intended to wait the full 10 days to publish the bill, which would have occurred on March 25.
On March 18, however, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order preventing publication of the act. Subsequently, the Legislative Reference Bureau posted the act on the legislature's Web site on March 25. On March 31, Judge Sumi clarified the restraining order to make it clear that it was intended to block implementation of the plan.
For a more complete history of the Budget Repair Bill, see the March 14 Spotlight.
January 2011 Special Session Senate Bill 12 passed both houses and was signed into law by Governor Walker on April 6, 2011, as Wisconsin Act 13. The bill focuses on the fiscal items which were deleted in January Special Session Assembly Bill 11 (Act 10).
Nine of the 18 recall committees registered with the Government Accountability Board (GAB) have filed petitions, and claimed to have the required number of signatures to force a recall election. The senators subject to these potential recalls include six Republicans (Robert Cowles, Alberta Darling, Sheila Harsdorf, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, and Luther Olsen) and three Democrats (Dave Hansen, Jim Holperin, and Robert Wirch ). The petitions are currently being reviewed for sufficiency by GAB.
Last week, GAB proposed a plan that would allow it to hold the recall elections on July 12, 2011. For more information on recall petitions and elections refer to the GAB.
The Biennial Budget for 2011-13 has been introduced as 2011 Assembly Bill 40 and 2011 Senate Bill 27. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently released several memoranda related to the proposed budget.
The first budget issue papers have also been released.
Governor Scott Walker delivered his 2011-2013 Budget Message to a joint session of the Legislature on Tuesday, March 1. A link to the video is available on the Office of the Governor's Web site.
The Legislative Reference Bureau has compiled documents related to the creation of the executive budget here.
On Thursday, April 21, the co-chairs of the committee announced that a number of policy items will be removed from the bill.
The Joint Committee on Finance held its first executive session on the budget on Thursday, April 26.
Legislative committee activity is available on the Schedule of Committee Activities.
All introduced legislation can be found on the Legislature's Searchable Infobases site, or by using the "Request text and history of legislative proposals" function on the home page. Be sure to select "Jan 2011 Special Session" as the session to be able to view Special Session bills.
The Legislature's new beta site for proposals has RSS feeds for both recently introduced legislation and recent session activity.
60th Assembly District (Formerly represented by Mark Gottlieb)
83rd Assembly District (Formerly represented by Scott Gunderson)
94th Assembly District (Formerly represented by Mike Huebsch)
For more information on the special legislative elections, see the Government Accountability Board.
The Census Bureau has released detailed census data from the 2010 census. Wisconsin’s population on April 1, 2010 was 5,686,986. The ideal population of a senate district in a senate of 33 members will be 172,333. The ideal population of an assembly district in an assembly of 99 members will be 57,444. The largest senate district in terms of the 2010 population is the 27th senate district, with a population of 197,815, an increase of 35,452 since 2000. The smallest is the 6th senate district, with a population of 152,758, a decrease of 9,931 since 2000. The largest assembly district is the 79th assembly district, with a population of 76,116, an increase of 21,554 since 2000. The smallest assembly district is the 18th assembly district, with a population of 48,387, a decrease of 5,749 since 2000.
The Legislative Reference Bureau published an Informational Bulletin on Guidelines for Adjusting Municipal Wards Following the 2010 Census. The bulletin provides information on the ward subdistricting process, the statutory requirements and legal deadlines that must be met, and the relationship among state, county, and local governments in establishing and using municipal wards to form election districts.
January 2011 Special Session bills AB-14 and SB-13, regarding the regulation of telecommunications utilities, were introduced at the end of April. Library staff compiled a list of materials available in the library on telecommunications regulation since the early 1990s and related information.
Noteworthy list: Telecommunications legislation/regulation
For more information about Legislative Service Agency publications, see the left panel of the Spotlight index page.
Send comments to LRB.Reference@legis.wisconsin.gov
Last revised: November 16, 2012