Three Constitutional Amendments on Wisconsin’s Novembe

Three questions will sit at the bottom of every Price County ballot on November 3, below the races for governor and Congress. They ask voters to rewrite the Wisconsin Constitution, and one of them reaches directly into the school budgets that Phillips, Prentice, Catawba and Chequamegon have been patching together for years.

The three referendums would bar the governor from raising taxes or fees through a partial veto, prohibit the government from closing places of worship during a declared emergency, and forbid state and local government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. Republicans who control the Legislature put all three on the ballot. Gov. Tony Evers wants voters to reject all three.

Quick Answer: Wisconsin voters decide three constitutional amendments on November 3, 2026. One would strip the governor’s power to create or raise a tax or fee by partial veto. One would bar government from closing churches in a declared emergency. One would ban discrimination and preferential treatment by government on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. All three came to the ballot because Republicans could not pass them over Evers’ veto pen. Republican lawmakers have sent 12 constitutional amendments to voters in Evers’ nearly eight years as governor. Voters approved seven.

Why these amendments exist at all

Last updated: September 2026

Wisconsin’s constitution can only be changed by the people, and the path is deliberately slow. Lawmakers must pass identical wording in two consecutive two-year legislative sessions before the question reaches voters. That process takes years, and it cannot be vetoed at the end.

Under Evers, that has made the amendment route the reliable one for a Republican Legislature facing a Democratic governor. Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Hortonville, who carried the discrimination question, told Wisconsin Watch he draws a line between ordinary policy and constitutional questions: “There are lots of things that I would do that Tony Evers would have vetoed. There are very few things that I would bring as a constitutional amendment to try to get around that.”

Murphy is not seeking reelection this year. The most recent referendum, in April 2025, required photo identification to vote and passed with nearly 63% support.

The veto question: does it reach the 400-year veto?

Ballot language: amend section 10 (1) (c) of article V to prohibit the governor, when using the partial veto, from creating or increasing, or authorizing the creation or increase of, any tax or fee.

This question exists because of what Evers did to the 2023-25 state budget. He struck the “20” and the hyphen from the end date of a school funding provision, turning “2024-25” into “2425.” The effect was to raise K-12 school district revenue limits by $325 per student every year until the year 2425.

Wisconsin is the only state where a governor can partially veto a spending bill by striking individual words, numbers and punctuation to create new meaning. Most governors can only cut or reduce spending. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the 400-year veto 4-3 on April 18, 2025, in LeMieux v. Evers, docket 2024AP000729-OA. Writing for the majority, Justice Jill Karofsky acknowledged the strangeness directly: “We are acutely aware that a 400-year modification is both significant and attention-grabbing. However, our constitution does not limit the governor’s partial veto power based on how much or how little the partial vetoes change policy, even when that change is considerable.”

Justice Brian Hagedorn, writing for the three dissenting conservatives, called it a “fantastical state of affairs” and wrote that “this is no laughing matter.”

What the amendment would not do

Here is the part that gets lost. The veto amendment bars the governor from creating or raising a tax or fee by veto. The 400-year veto did neither. It raised a ceiling on how much revenue school districts may raise, leaving the actual taxing decision to local school boards. As Wisconsin Watch reported in March 2026, it is unclear whether the amendment’s language would touch the 400-year veto at all.

Republicans campaigning this year have repeatedly said the veto raises property taxes for 400 years. Wisconsin Watch’s fact brief, produced with Gigafact, rated that claim “No” in July 2025: the veto increased revenue limits by $325 per student per year through 2425, but it does not guarantee a property tax increase in any given year.

The mechanics matter. A revenue limit caps the total a district can take in from general state aid and property taxes combined. The average limit across Wisconsin districts was $13,363. A school board may tax up to that ceiling, or the Legislature and governor may cover the increase with state aid instead. Future Legislatures could fund the increase entirely, forcing property taxes down, or repeal the 400-year provision outright.

What $325 per student does in Price County

Price County has four public school districts serving about 1,640 students in total: Phillips with roughly 750, Chequamegon with about 600, Prentice near 250, and Catawba, a K-8 district, around 40.

Applied to local enrollment, that $325 per student compounds into real money. Using the enrollment figures above and the $325 statutory increase: Phillips’s revenue limit rises by roughly $244,000 a year, Prentice’s by about $81,000 and Catawba’s by about $13,000. Those increases repeat annually, stacking on top of each prior year’s total, which is what makes the 400-year horizon consequential rather than symbolic.

The figures are a calculation from the $325 increase in the 2023-25 budget and district enrollment reported by the Department of Public Instruction, not a figure any state agency has published for Price County.

The Phillips School District is already planning a referendum of its own. Its website hosts an active “Referendum Update Center” built around a building plan that would move all students onto a single campus, upgrade career and technical education classrooms, and give every student access to the pool, auditorium and technical education spaces. The district frames the goal as “district-wide efficiency” and “a community-driven solution,” and it has assembled a named action committee of roughly twenty residents.

Phillips has been here before. In December 2023 its school board authorized borrowing up to $1.7 million in general obligation promissory notes for a community emergency shelter added onto the current elementary school, tied to a FEMA grant then under review, as My Northern Wisconsin reported at the time.

The worship question: churches and the next emergency

Ballot language: amend section 18 of article I, which covers religious liberty, to prohibit the state or any political subdivision from ordering the closure of, or forbidding gatherings in, places of worship in response to a state of emergency, including a public health emergency.

The origin is the COVID-19 pandemic. The Evers administration’s “Safer at Home” order limited religious gatherings to fewer than 10 people, while allowing liquor stores to remain open as essential businesses. The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck the order down in 2020 under a conservative majority.

Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, who led the question, told Wisconsin Watch that people of faith need their faith most in exactly those moments, and that denying it is “a particularly heinous sin that our government shouldn’t commit.”

Who supports it and who does not

Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Family Action, Inc. registered in support during the 2023 and 2025 sessions. The League of Women Voters opposed it, arguing in its filing that closing a building does not prevent worship: “Closing places of worship does not prevent any person from worshipping God, as such worship can and is practiced on an individual basis in one’s own home during an emergency.”

What it would mean for Price County congregations

Price County congregations are concentrated in Phillips, Park Falls, Prentice, Ogema, Catawba, Kennan and Fifield, spanning Catholic parishes, mainline Protestant churches and non-denominational fellowships. None of them would gain new religious freedom under this amendment, because the First Amendment already protects worship. What would change is the state’s authority to order a building closed in a future pandemic, wildfire or other declared emergency.

The discrimination question

Ballot language: create section 27 of article I to prohibit governmental entities from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting or public administration.

Murphy said he developed the question after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which held that considering race in college admissions is unconstitutional. He wanted language broad enough to reach every level of government.

Asked whether the amendment would end programs that help disadvantaged residents, Murphy told Wisconsin Watch that such programs can continue as long as everyone may participate: “If programs help disadvantaged people, then they will still be helped. It can’t exclude anybody.”

The court case behind the question

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty won a state Supreme Court case finding that an undergraduate financial aid program reserved for minority students was unconstitutional. The liberal-controlled court decided the case unanimously, though liberal justices wrote separately that the country’s history of racial discrimination remains entrenched in current outcomes.

WILL’s managing vice president and deputy counsel, Dan Lennington, said the referendum would “end discriminatory DEI programs throughout Wisconsin and ensure our government serves all citizens equally.”

The ACLU of Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters opposed it during the legislative process. The League said the amendment intends “to weaken the individual rights and liberties of Americans who have been guaranteed protection by the Civil Rights laws of our country.”

Where this lands in a county of 14,077 people

Price County’s population is 14,077, with a median household income of $58,720, a median age of 52 and a poverty rate of 12.8%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2023 five-year estimates. The county employs residents in public administration, highway, health and human services, and law enforcement roles, and it awards public contracts for road work, construction and services.

Whether the amendment changes daily operations in Price County depends on whether any county hiring, contracting or program eligibility decision currently considers race, sex, ethnicity or national origin. County officials have not published any inventory of such programs. The practical reach of the amendment is one of the open questions voters will decide without a full accounting of what it covers.

What the two nominees for governor say

Evers told Wisconsin Watch he is urging voters to reject all three: “I think they’re all frankly off base, and I’m encouraging people to say no.”

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor, said he would “absolutely not” vote for the veto amendment and argued the discrimination question threatens efforts to help older adults, veterans, people with disabilities and “individuals of all races, genders and religions.” He described the worship question as “a bad faith argument from far-right extremists.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee, said he supports all three. “No governor, Republican or Democrat, should have unchecked power to raise taxes or fees with the stroke of a pen, especially for the next 400 years,” Tiffany said. He added that “our constitutional rights should never be conditional, and our government should never be allowed to discriminate.”

Crowley told reporters in August that he would be willing to use the partial veto if elected.

How to read the questions on your ballot

All three questions are written as single sentences of constitutional citation and legal phrasing. The practical translation is shorter:

Question 1 takes away the governor’s ability to create or raise a tax or fee with the partial veto.
Question 2 takes away the state’s ability to close churches in a declared emergency.
Question 3 bans government discrimination and preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

A “yes” vote changes the constitution. A “no” vote leaves it as written. The questions are independent of one another, and voters may split their answers.

Key dates

November 3, 2026 — general election, amendments decided by simple majority statewide.
November 3, 2026 — Price County voters also decide county, municipal and school board races.
Before voting — sample ballots and polling locations are posted by the Price County Clerk and at MyVote Wisconsin.

Sources

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