Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu
2021 has been a rather eventful year in Wisconsin’s State Legislature.
During an appearance on WCUB’S Breakfast Club, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu recapped the highlights from this past year.
The Senator from Oostburg explained that the year started on a high note for him, as he was elected to serve as the Senate Majority Leader.
“So this is my first time sort of running the Senate, or trying to run the Senate,” LeMahieu joked. “It’s been going pretty good. It’s been quite a learning experience over the year.”
LeMahieu went into the stats for the year, which was rather productive, and cooperative.
“Over 800 bills have been introduced by legislators, 101 of them were actually passed through both houses and sent to the Governor’s desk, and he actually signed 83 of those,” LeMahieu revealed. “So 83 bi-partisan bills [were passed] this session, and 18 vetoes.”
And, of course, the biggest thing to happen this year was the passing of the State Budget.
LeMahieu explained that the budget originally introduced by Governor Tony Evers back in February contained $1 billion in tax increases, which many legislators were not in favor of.
So, they started over.
“We actually provided almost $3 billion in tax cuts throughout the budget, while also investing in a lot of different things,” LeMahieu explained. “The result of that is we had two Democrats in the Senate vote for it and a couple of Democrats in the Assembly vote for the budget that we passed, and the Governor signed it into law.”
The local Senator also said that passing a $90 billion budget that both parties agreed on, as well as the Governor was an “incredible accomplishment.”
