According to WisPolitics, WI State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Wednesday they plan to introduce a single piece of legislation that would provide a state response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The GOP leaders said on a conference call they hope to produce a bill with broad, bipartisan agreement. Still, it is too early to say when they will meet.
“We want to get this done as quickly as we are able to do it. But we also want to be smart,” said Vos, R-Rochester.
Over the weekend, the two GOP leaders said the initial bill Evers released just days ago was too expensive considering the state’s finances. They didn’t commit to a price tag for the bill they will produce, saying they wanted to have a better idea of what the $2.3 billion in federal money coming to Wisconsin — including $1.9 billion to state government — will mean.
Today, they said a broad consensus exists in their caucuses to approve suspension of the one-week delay before someone who’s laid off can begin collecting unemployment checks. The guv earlier had called on lawmakers to convene immediately to repeal the provision.
They also indicated they believed the change would be retroactive, though they weren’t clear whether it would go back to when Evers first issued the stay-at-home order last week or when the federal relief bill was signed into law on Friday.
Read the WI Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo on the federal stimulus bill:
https://bit.ly/2w6N71l
