Gov. Scott Walker signed 46 bills into law Monday, including one prohibiting legislators from concurrently holding office as county executives.
Written by Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, Senate Bill 707 passed the Senate with a 19-13 vote. The measure is intended to prevent government officials from taking two salaries from taxpayers’ dollars, Fitzgerald said in a Feb. 2 Wisconsin State Journal article.
Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris is running for a state Senate seat vacated by state Sen. Rick Gudex, R-Fond du Lac, after he received a job in the private sector. This bill makes his campaigning efforts for the Senate seat more complicated.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal article, Fitzgerald said Harris’ candidacy initiated Fitzgerald’s and Vos’s introduction of the bill.
“We’re definitely concerned about the double-dipping and want to address it directly,” Fitzgerald said in the article.
Harris said the bill surprised him, especially considering how Republican Paul Farrow worked as a senator and a Waukesha County executive simultaneously.
He also pointed out that Independent Bob Ziegelbauer worked as a Manitowoc County executive while serving in the state Assembly for seven years until 2013.
Harris is up for re-election as county executive in April 2017.
Bill to collect library fines also signed
Another bill Walker signed included a measure giving more power to libraries to collect unpaid fines.
Senate Bill 466, authored by state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and state Rep. Nancy VanderMeer, R-Tomah, allows administrators to report library users’t delinquent accounts to a collection agency or a law enforcement agency.
The Wisconsin Library Association expressed appreciation for the bill in a press release.
“This isn’t about nickel and dime fines for items that are returned late,” WLA Executive Director Plumer Lovelace said in the statement. “More than three million dollars’ worth of taxpayer-owned library materials are simply not being returned to our public libraries each year.”
This bill permits libraries to share the names of account holders who have unreturned library materials surpassing a value of $50 with local law enforcement agencies.
