Republicans are not operating from the same position of unified strength they held before. If Evers utilizes his leverage, then it is they who will be blamed for passing an unsignable budget. For the first time in the six years, Evers has decided to enter into negotiation with Robin Vos and the other forgettable Republicans in his coalition.

Budget season means it’s time for Governor Evers to propose a bunch of things that sound good, wait for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to laugh and say “nah,” then shrug and dump more public resources into voucher schools and charter schools, rounding it up to a progressive win in Evers’ press release.

In 2018, Governor Evers ran on reducing the prison population by 50%, but the population is now climbing fastest it has since before 2000. Instead of taking concrete and decisive action, he he’s choosing to float a reform plan to a legislature long determined to sink everything he does.