Governor’s veto pen too powerful

It makes you wonder why we even have a Legislature. The veto pen given to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker allows him to totally circumvent the intention of those lawmakers we elect and send to Madison. That powerful pen allowed the Governor to enact into law the opposite of what lawmakers actually wanted. For example, in the portion of the budget outlining funding for the UW System, lawmakers wrote, “The Legislative Audit Bureau shall not conduct a financial audit of the UW System…” but Walker deleted the word not. That is the opposite of what the bill said before Walker tweaked it and signed it into law. It is clear voters don’t like such vast power in the hands of one person. Over the years, we have approved laws limiting gubernatorial veto power, like the Vanna White veto, which allowed governors to remove individual letters to create new words. Or the Frankenstein veto, that allowed governors to slice up sentences to create new ones. Why then should we allow Walker to remove entire words to create entirely new meanings? If he can make the budget say whatever he wants, then why did lawmakers spend months crafting the budget in the first place?