A majority of GOP senators want to pull from the state budget bill a proposal to put public money toward a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks, the latest sign of the challenges the deal faces.
This obstacle doesn't mean the Bucks proposal is dead or even out of the state budget proposal. One alternative being talked about by GOP senators, for instance, is adding a new Bucks proposal to the budget as an amendment on the Senate floor, a strategy that they hope could draw some Democratic votes from Milwaukee lawmakers for a stadium deal.
The turmoil among Republicans over the Bucks arena and funding for road building in the state has delayed votes in the budget committee for at least a week on the state's tax and spending plan.
Sen. Tom Tiffany of Hazelhurst, a member of the Joint Finance Committee, was typical of the cautious criticism being voiced by many of his GOP colleagues in interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which has reached out to all Republican senators this week. Tiffany said he "hadn't ruled out supporting" the Bucks arena, but would prefer to see it taken out of the budget.
"In a perfect world, yes, it would be better to see it out of the budget," he said. "But is that the way it plays out?"
Myranda Tanck, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), said Wednesday that he hadn't ruled out the possibility of removing the Bucks proposal from the budget bill. But Tanck emphasized that no deal has been announced publicly and that GOP leaders are still holding out hope of convincing their colleagues once all the details of an agreement are made known.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) had no immediate comment.
On Tuesday, Kit Beyer, a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), said that the "negotiations continue over whether the arena would be taken up as a separate bill."
Republicans control the Senate 19-14. Based on the details of the Bucks plan as reported in the Journal Sentinel, 10 of those GOP senators want to see it removed from the budget, with some flatly demanding it and others saying it's simply the best option.
Those senators are: Senate President Mary Lazich of New Berlin, Rob Cowles of Allouez, Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls, Devin LeMahieu of Oostburg, Steve Nass of Whitewater, Roger Roth of Appleton, Van Wanggaard of Racine, Jerry Petrowski of Marathon, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls, and Tiffany.
"I would see prefer seeing it as separate legislation coming out of the budget," said Harsdorf, another member of the powerful budget committee.
"I'd rather have it out than in," Roth agreed.
An 11th GOP senator, Paul Farrow of Pewaukee, wants to have the full Senate vote on the Bucks proposal, either as separate legislation or as a budget amendment. That second strategy might give Fitzgerald and other GOP leaders a way to escape the tight spot they find themselves in, Republican sources said.
The Joint Finance Committee has not yet taken up the arena financing proposal that Gov. Scott Walker put into his budget bill, but it's been clear for weeks that it doesn't have enough support to pass the Legislature. GOP leaders and the Bucks have been privately negotiating an alternative.
Sources have told the Journal Sentinel that under that new plan the downtown arena would cost the public at least $400 million — including borrowing and interest, taxes, debt collections and other forms of public financing.
If the budget committee puts that alternative into the budget, rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and Assembly would not have to vote on the Bucks plan as an individual item, only on the budget as a whole.
All Democrats are certain to vote against the GOP budget, giving them an easy choice. Republican lawmakers opposed to the Bucks plan would have to decide whether its inclusion was enough to make them vote against their party's budget.
In the Senate, only two Republicans can vote against the budget and still have it pass. Nass is already considered a difficult yes vote for Fitzgerald.
But if the Bucks deal were added as an amendment on the Senate floor, some Milwaukee Democrats might be willing to vote for that proposal. That would potentially give some vulnerable Republican senators the ability to vote against the proposal specifically and then vote for the budget, once it was included.
But at this point, that's merely the speculation of statehouse insiders.
Rep. David Bowen (D-Milwaukee) and Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) gave little encourage to the idea Tuesday, saying that they have been in only one meeting with the Bucks and no meetings with Republicans over the still-private negotiations over the deal. Both men said they're not ready to vote for an agreement without seeing it and that forcing a floor vote on the proposal might well kill it.
Another Milwaukee Democrat, Rep. Evan Goyke, questioned whether Senate Republicans would be willing to pull the Bucks proposal out of the budget, even if a majority wants that.
"I'll believe in the solidity of their spine when I see it," he said.
