MADISON, Wis. — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called on Wisconsin lawmakers to pass stricter gun safety laws and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in school meal programs and student mental health initiatives on Wednesday in his seventh annual State of the State Address, declaring 2025 the “Year of the Kid.”
The governor also decried Republican immigration policies and vowed to protect reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act as President Donald Trump takes executive action on those issues early in his second term.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s top Republican, blasted the address as “liberal wishes, empty promises, and a whole lot of things that are not going to happen in Wisconsin.”
“We heard billions of dollars of spending, which results in billions of dollars of taxes,” Vos said.
Spending plans
Evers announced that his budget will propose devoting more than $500 million to making child care more affordable for Wisconsin families. A vast majority of that money would go towards continuing Child Care Counts, which provides funding to child care providers and was created using one-time federal pandemic relief money.
The governor’s budget would also invest more than $300 million in student mental health programs and more than $150 million in school meal programs. Other Evers proposals would address the high costs of health care and prescription drugs.
Evers’ proposals face an uphill battle as the Republican-controlled Legislature looks towards writing a new state budget later this year.
The governor is set to unveil his full budget draft on Feb. 18. His plan then goes to Legislature, where Republicans who control the powerful budget-writing committee typically scrap Evers’ ideas and write their own budget from scratch. Evers can then amend the Legislature’s draft using his partial veto power or veto it outright, sending it back to lawmakers to be rewritten.
Watch: Gov. Tony Evers to deliver seventh State of the State Address on Wednesday
Gun safety
Citing a deadly school shooting in Madison last month, Evers called on Republican lawmakers to pass red flag laws, require universal background checks and restore a 48-hour waiting period when purchasing a firearm.
Democratic lawmakers have criticized the GOP majority for not making gun safety legislation a top priority in the new legislative session.
“We can do better than doing nothing. This Legislature must do better than doing nothing,” Evers said.
Republicans have backed a proposal that would exempt gun safes from the state’s sales tax, but GOP leaders said Wednesday that Evers’ other ideas are not going to happen.
Pushing back on Trump’s priorities
As Trump begins his second term in the White House with a flood of executive orders, Evers sought to reassure Wisconsinites who may be negatively affected by them.
“A lot has happened in Washington in the last 72 hours, and I know there is a lot of angst about what may happen in the days, months and years ahead,” Evers said.
The governor highlighted Wisconsin’s immigrant history and denounced anti-immigrant rhetoric as spreading a “distorted and dishonest history.” He also vowed to fight for the Affordable Care Act and protect reproductive rights, LGBTQ residents and the transition to clean energy.
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