The People Have Spoken. Legislature Takes Important First Step. What's Next?

Finding Forward worked with county boards across the state in the fall of 2010 to give voters a say on a very specific public policy issue - protecting the state's transportation fund. Fifty-four Wisconsin counties placed an advisory referendum on the ballot asking: "Should the Wisconsin Constitution be amended to prohibit any further transfers or lapses from the segregated transportation fund?"

Wisconsinites could not have been any clearer. The answer was "YES". In fact, the referendum passed in all 54 counties by an average margin in excess of 70 percent.

The Wisconsin Legislature responded to this public mandate by passing "first consideration" of a proposed constitutional amendment in 2011. The landslide vote of 82-11 in the Assembly and 26-6 in the Senate demonstrated that this is truly a bipartisan issue.

The Finding Forward coalition was formed when local governments, private businesses, organized labor, transportation associations, regional planning interests, housing organizations and many other groups decided that action needed to be taken to protect Wisconsin's transportation fund and the integrity of the budget process.

This coalition is not interested in revisiting past battles or assessing blame for how Wisconsin fell into the pattern of structural deficits and onetime budget fixes. Instead, the goal of the coalition is to ensure this destructive practice never happens again. Amending the constitution is the best way to accomplish this goal.

Achieving a constitutional change is a long, complicated process. Thanks to the legislators in the previous session, we are a third of the way there. Finding Forward is committed to work for passage of "second consideration" in this two-year legislative session and then to secure a positive vote from the public.