By State Rep. Brent Jacobson
Our democratic system of government relies on the separation of powers and checks and balances to prevent abuse. My colleagues and I in the Legislature write the law, the Governor and the bureaucrats in his state agencies enforce the laws, and our courts settle disputes regarding those laws. On Wednesday, Feb. 4, I gave testimony on two of my bills to restore checks and balances and hold state bureaucrats accountable to the people of our state!
Last summer, the liberal majority on the State Supreme Court stripped the Legislature of its ability to oversee the rules and regulations passed by state agencies. This means that unelected bureaucrats have free rein to pass regulations that increase costs, stifle our local businesses, and enshrine woke policies, regardless of whether your elected representatives approve of them.
In response, I was selected to chair the Speaker’s Task Force on Rulemaking to investigate the rulemaking process and introduce legislation to restore accountability to our state agencies. After months of meetings and three public hearings across our state, I introduced Assembly Joint Resolution 133 and Assembly Bill 955, which received public hearings last week in the Committee on Government Oversight, Accountability, and Transparency.
AJR 133 would amend our state constitution to allow the Assembly and State Senate to temporarily or indefinitely halt an administrative rule. This will give the people’s elected representatives the final say when it comes to the rules and regulations created by state agencies. In order to go into effect, constitutional amendments have to pass in the Assembly and the Senate in two sessions, then be approved by the voters.
During our work in the Task Force on Rulemaking, I was shocked to discover that there is a part of our laws which allow a state agency to promulgate rules without statutory authority. In other words, this law allows agencies to pass rules or regulations based on a law even if the law never says they have the authority to do so! AB 955 removes this part of our laws and replaces it with a requirement that an agency must have explicit and specific permission in a statute in order to create rules or regulations based on that statute. This is a common-sense fix which will make sure our unelected bureaucrats do not overstep their power or reinterpret the law to mean something other than what was passed by the Legislature.
In our three public hearings, the Task Force on Rulemaking heard from farmers, builders, taxpayers, and businesses. Not one of the people who spoke to us was comfortable with their elected representatives having no voice in the rulemaking process. When asked, all of them could identify who their elected representatives are and knew how to contact them if they had a concern or question about a bill or law. However, none of them knew the name of the bureaucrat who writes the regulations affecting them, much less how they might contact them directly. By passing these bills, we will make sure that the people of Wisconsin are never left at the mercy of nameless, faceless bureaucrats! I’m excited to see these proposals gain support, and I look forward to voting for them on the Assembly Floor in the coming weeks.
Helping Wisconsin farmers
In the 87th Assembly District and across our state, farms keep us moving forward. I am proud to stand with our family farms and agricultural industry, and last week, two of my bills to help our farmers made progress in the Assembly!
First, my bill to help farmers move products more efficiently passed unanimously in the Transportation Committee. This bill, AB 679, would create a new permit to allow certain materials like grain, feed, or fertilizer to be shipped at a higher weight limit. This allows farms to move more with fewer trips, reducing costs. Additionally, this new permit has protections in place to prevent degradation of local roads.
Second, I testified on AB 900 in the Agriculture Committee. This bill closes a loophole in the Farmland Preservation Tax Credit, which allows someone to claim it even if they are not preserving farmland.
The Farmland Preservation Tax Credit program was established to help farmers protect soil and water and preserve land for agriculture. However, current law allows a landowner to claim up to 100 percent of this tax credit on land if 50 percent or less is being used to host solar energy facilities. When solar panels are installed on land, they dramatically damage it by removing topsoil and spreading gravel. This damage can be so severe that crops will not be able to grow there for a lifetime! AB 900 closes this loophole, preventing land with solar panels from qualifying for the Farmland Preservation Tax Credit.
If a landowner chooses to use their land to host solar panels, that is their choice. However, they should not be able to claim a tax credit designed to protect land for future farmers on land which is not being preserved for future farmers.
