MADISON, Wis. — Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers used his seventh State of the State address Wednesday to urge the Republican-controlled Legislature to take up a wide range of proposals it has rejected in the past, including a month after a slew of gun control measures. school shooting Not far from the State Capitol.
Here’s what to know about the speech by Evers, a Democrat who may be running for a third term in the battleground state next year:
Evers, without mentioning President Donald Trump by name, said there is “a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen in the days, months and years.”
“I’ve always been willing to work with anyone who is willing to do the right thing for the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said. “And that hasn’t changed. But I will not compromise our Wisconsin values of treating people with kindness, dignity, empathy and respect.”
Evers called for bipartisan efforts to tackle immigration and vowed to fight any attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He also reiterated his commitment to veto any bill that restricts access to abortion, birth control, infertility treatments or any other part of reproductive care.
Wisconsin is one of 22 states He sued the federal government over Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Wisconsin is one of the “blue wall” states that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Trump carried Wisconsin when he returned to the White House in 2024.
Evers called for some gun control measures five weeks later school shooting Less than six miles (9.66 kilometers) from the Capitol, it left a teacher and a 14-year-old student dead. The 15-year-old shooter shot himself.
Evers called for the reinstatement of background checks and the 48-hour waiting period for gun purchases, a law that Republicans repealed in 2015.
He also called for a ban on the purchase of “phantom guns” and for the closing of a loophole that allows domestic abusers to own firearms.
Evers also called for incentives and new requirements to safely secure firearms and a “red flag” law that would allow judges to take away guns from people who may pose a danger to themselves or others.
Republicans have repeatedly rejected the proposals in the past.
“We can’t let common sense get lost in debates about whether basic policies could have prevented the last shooting, or the one before that, or the one before that,” Evers said. “We’re not here to debate the semantics of the latest shooting in Madison; We are here to do everything we can to prevent the next one.”
Last week the governor create A state office for violence prevention that Republicans vowed to defund after running out of federal funding in two years.
Evers, a former teacher and state superintendent of schools, also called for spending $300 million to provide comprehensive mental health services in schools across the state. It would be 10 times more than what the Legislature approved for school mental health services in the last budget.
Designating 2025 as the “Year of the Child,” Evers urged Republicans to approve $500 million to reduce the cost of child care. Child Care Counting programin the next two years. Without additional funding, the program, which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, will end in June.
Evers also called for the creation of new programs designed to impose price caps on prescription drugs and improve oversight of drug companies, eliminating the state sales tax on over-the-counter drugs and capping insulin copays at $35.
He also repeated his own previous call allowing the voters to vote on the legislative proposals themselves through referendums, the Assemblies of the Republic Speaker Robin Vos He was pronounced “dead on arrival”.
In an emotional moment, Evers hosted the widow and parents of former state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, who died by suicide in November. Evers, voice breaking, spoke about Brostoff’s death while introducing a new program that would allow people to temporarily and voluntarily register to be barred from buying a firearm.
