1. Anthony Steven Evers is an American politician and educator serving since 2019 as the 46th governor of Wisconsin.
46 Facts About Tony Evers
1. 2.
Tony Evers first ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1993 and again in 2001, losing both elections.
3.
Tony Evers was instead appointed deputy superintendent, a position he served in from 2001 to 2009.
4.
Tony Evers frequently uses the governor's veto power due to his opposition to much of the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature's agenda.
5.
Tony Evers has used his veto power more frequently than any governor in Wisconsin history, and has used line-item veto power to change Republican-authored bills.
6.
Tony Evers was born on November 5,1951, in Plymouth, Wisconsin, the son of Jean and Raymond Tony Evers, a physician.
7.
Tony Evers began his professional career as a teacher and media coordinator in the Tomah school district.
8.
From 1984 to 1988 Tony Evers was superintendent of the Oakfield school district, and from 1988 to 1992 he was superintendent of the Verona school district.
9.
Tony Evers first ran for state superintendent, a nonpartisan post, in 1993 and was defeated by John Benson.
10.
In 2009, Tony Evers used government email accounts for fundraising purposes.
11.
In 2014, Tony Evers proposed a $1.7 billion hike in state funding for secondary schools.
12.
In 2017, Tony Evers called for a tenfold increase in school mental health funding.
13.
In October 2018, a divided federal appeals court found that, because there was a nearby archdiocesan school, Tony Evers had violated neither the US Constitution's Free Exercise Clause nor its Establishment Clause when he denied busing to an independent Catholic school.
14.
Tony Evers launched his first campaign advertisement against Walker on August 28,2017.
15.
Tony Evers won the eight-candidate Democratic primary on August 14,2018.
16.
On November 6,2018, Tony Evers narrowly defeated Walker in the general election.
17.
Tony Evers's 2018 running mate, Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, instead chose to run for US Senate.
18.
Tony Evers has extensively used his veto power, due to his opposition to the vast majority of the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature's agenda.
19.
Tony Evers has used his veto power more frequently than any governor in Wisconsin history, and has used line-item veto power to rewrite Republican-authored bills.
20.
Tony Evers's vetoes have included laws related to election procedures, government powers during a pandemic, education, federal aid, redistricting, guns, police and crime, abortion, social welfare programs, and regulations and licensing.
21.
Also before Tony Evers took office, the legislature, Governor Walker, and conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court reduced Tony Evers's ability to appoint new administrators.
22.
Tony Evers appointed replacements, but Senate Republicans did not act on the appointments.
23.
Tony Evers challenged the holdovers in state court, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that appointees whose terms had expired could remain in their positions indefinitely so long as the Senate refused to confirm a replacement.
24.
The Senate has so far rejected 21 appointees since Tony Evers took office; in the 40 years before Tony Evers's term, the Senate had only rejected four nominees.
25.
In February 2019, Tony Evers withdrew Wisconsin National Guard forces from the border with Mexico, where President Donald Trump had called for a "national emergency".
26.
In February 2019, Tony Evers's administration prepared a budget proposal that included proposals to legalize the medical use of marijuana for patients with certain conditions, upon the recommendation from a physician or practitioner.
27.
Tony Evers proposed to decriminalize the possession or distribution of 25 grams or less of marijuana in Wisconsin and to repeal the requirement that users of cannabidiol obtain a physician's certification every year.
28.
On March 12,2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tony Evers declared a public health emergency in the state.
29.
Tony Evers responded to the suit by accusing legislative Republicans of a "power grab", and said they cared more about political power than people's lives.
30.
Tony Evers responded by calling state lawmakers into a special session to pass legislation addressing police brutality.
31.
Tony Evers proposed legalizing medical and recreational marijuana, as well as increasing the minimum wage and granting public workers collective bargaining rights.
32.
Tony Evers proposed raising the cost of Wisconsin fishing licenses by $10.
33.
In July 2023, Tony Evers used his partial veto authority to extend certain school funding provisions for over 400 years.
34.
In July 2023, Tony Evers made a line-item veto to the state budget for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 that enshrined per pupil increases in school funding of $325 a year until 2425.
35.
Tony Evers has criticized Wisconsin's legislative maps as "some of the most gerrymandered, extreme maps in the United States," citing as evidence the fact that the state legislature has opposed policies such as legalizing marijuana and expanding Medicaid despite polls showing that a majority of Wisconsinites support both.
36.
Tony Evers was one of six parties to the lawsuit who proposed remedial redistricting plans.
37.
Tony Evers joined a lawsuit in the Wisconsin Supreme Court challenging the 2022 congressional district map.
38.
Tony Evers has supported an extreme risk protection order act, commonly known as a "red flag law", which would permit loved ones or police to petition to have an individual's guns taken away if a judge deems them a risk to themselves or others.
39.
Tony Evers has said that Scott Walker's decisions about health care in Wisconsin led to higher insurance premiums for residents.
40.
Tony Evers supports allowing people to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until age 26.
41.
Tony Evers supports permitting undocumented immigrants living in Wisconsin to obtain driver's licenses, and has called this position "common sense".
42.
In December 2019, in response to Trump's executive order requiring states' consent for refugee resettlement, Tony Evers sent the administration a letter stating that Wisconsin would accept refugees, calling them "part of the fabric of [the] state", and criticizing Trump's refugee policies as "overly cumbersome and inappropriate".
43.
In February 2020, Tony Evers sent US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a letter asking him to halt negotiations with the government of Laos regarding deportations of Wisconsin's Hmong refugee population, who had previously been protected from deportation due to a long record of human rights violations in Laos.
44.
In June 2019, Tony Evers issued an executive order to fly the rainbow flag at Wisconsin's Capitol Building for Pride month, making it the first time the rainbow flag had ever flown above the capitol.
45.
On December 6,2023, Tony Evers vetoed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors.
46.
Tony Evers wrote in his veto message, "This type of legislation, and the rhetoric beget by pursuing it, harms LGBTQ people and kids' mental health, emboldens anti-LGBTQ hate and violence, and threatens the safety and dignity of LGBTQ Wisconsinites".