Even as the state budget stalls, two other controversial pieces of legislation remain largely immobile since spring. Both the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Bill and Cable Competition Bill have had little procedural movement at the Capitol, even though the budget dispute affects them in starkly different ways.
The budget stalemate may matter less on SB129 and AB 377, versions of a bill that would require all Wisconsin emergency rooms to provide rape victims with emergency contraception. Instead, the lack of action on the bills may be more related to ideological differences between the Republican-controlled state Assembly and Democrat-controlled state Senate.
The budget process has absolutely nothing to do with it,"" said Lisa Boyce, a vice president of public affairs for the abortion-rights and reproductive-health advocacy group Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
State Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin, chairs the Assembly Judiciary and Ethics Committee where the bill was placed and is staunchly opposed to the bill, according to Boyce. The bill was passed in the state Senate last May with bipartisan support, with six Republican senators voting against it.
Republican leaders in the Assembly blocked passage of the bill in past legislative sessions, according to state Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison. Black similarly said the budget negotiations had little to do with the bill not having moved out of committee.
The bill has shown distinctions even within the anti-abortion movement. The lobbyist group Wisconsin Right to Life is neutral on the bill, but the group Pro-Life Wisconsin opposes it.
""[The Wisconsin Senate] ignored the fate of embryonic children by forcing Wisconsin hospitals to dispense a known abortion-causing drug to vulnerable women,"" said Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin in a statement when the bill passed the State Senate.
Pro-Life Wisconsin previously supported Gundrum with a Legislator of the Year Award in 1999.
The cable competition bill, which aims to deregulate the cable industry, has also been in committee since last spring, but the budget process is having a clearer effect on it.
""The budget is just more important,"" said Carrie Lynch, spokesperson for state Sen. Russ Decker, D-Weston, who co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee where the bill was referred.
Lynch said the bill has not yet been scheduled for a hearing in committee.
Mark Anderson, spokesperson for state Sen. Jeffrey Plale, D-South Milwaukee, who co-authored the bill, agreed that the budget process was taking precedence over the bill for now. Anderson said the bills supporters are confident it will be able to pass the State Senate like it did the Assembly.
Black disagreed and said the bill would probably not pass in its current form. He said the lobbying campaign by AT&T in favor of the cable bill is hurting the bill's credibility.
""It is a very misleading campaign,"" Black said, also saying the current version of the bill will likely remain immobile as more public scrutiny is applied to it.
