Senate debate on campaign finance could go late into the night

They released amendments to that bill late Friday afternoon as well that would place two retired judges on the ethics commission. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said it’s in the interests of all lawmakers to make sure the new system is successful.

Friday’s maneuvering was only the latest in a series of false starts among GOP senators on the controversial bills. Republican critics say the board is nonpartisan in name only and is a failed experiment. “Always a bigger fish out there, with more money to drown our message”, Shilling said.

Senate Democrats are pushing for an omnibus spending bill rather than passing individual appropriations bills.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday that the Senate “could pass a defense bill and then they could say, ‘Well, we’ll do a [continuing resolution] on the rest of it, ‘ violating the 50-50 deal”.

“Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws are grossly out of date”, Fitzgerald said.

Under current law, doctors can give health centers, pharmacies and clinics general permission to dispense Narcan without specific prescriptions.

While Democrats argued the new format is engineered to give Republicans an advantage, Sen. “The public has been excluded”.

Democrats, however, have voiced skepticism about moving the stand-alone bill, suggesting that Republicans could go back on the two-year budget agreement passed last week. One would split the Government Accountability Board, or GAB, made up of six nonpartisan former judges, into two new commissions staffed by partisan appointees, evenly split between Republican and Democratic appointees.

The campaign finance bill will also undergo changes, although it appears that the legislation would still end a requirement for people to list their employers when donating to candidates. All four areas now are overseen by the GAB.

The other bill simplifies the application process for former police officers who worked in other states. The state Supreme Court ruled in July that kind of coordination is legal, as a matter of free speech.

The board’s defenders call it a national model because of its nonpartisan makeup and its ready access to funds to investigate alleged wrongdoing by elected officials.

Democrats have decried both bills – as well as another measure Walker signed into law that does way with secret John Doe investigations into political misconduct – as opening the door to corruption. The bill as it passed the Assembly would double contribution limits that candidates can accept, make clear in state law that candidates and issue advocacy groups can work closely together, and allow for unlimited corporate and union donations to political parties and legislative campaign committees.

The Assembly plans to return on November 16 to vote on the bills again.