Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bill and, when asked about it, couldn't explain why and admitted "You caught me."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

Evers signed more than 60 bills on Tuesday and vetoed two related to games, including one that would have allowed any business with a Class B gambling license to hold raffles using a paddle wheel.

Evers told lawmakers in a veto message Tuesday that the bill could threaten revenue the state receives from casinos owned by the state's tribal nations in exchange for exclusive gaming rights. When a reporter asked him Thursday why he vetoed the legislation, Evers said he would follow up with an answer.

"Could you take us through your thought process on that?" Michael Leischner, a reporter for talk radio station WSAU, asked at a news conference in Wausau following a bill signing ceremony. "We'll get you the information on that," Evers responded. "I signed over 100 bills two days ago and vetoed a handful of other ones — but you caught me."

Why did he have the answer on Tuesday but not on Thursday? I can think of a few reasons: 1. The Tuesday message was a written statement, and on Thursday, he was tasked to find the answer in his own head, 2. The Tuesday message did not represent his "thought process," which is what the reporter on Thursday asked him about, and he didn't remember or didn't want to talk about his actual "thought process," 3. Evers is not truly in charge, not making his own decisions, because why would you say "We'll get you the information on that" — we — when asked about your own thought processes?

We're told that "Evers' staff" have complained about the way the legislature presents him with too many bills at once — Evers is a Democrat and the GOP holds the majority in both houses of the legislature. I guess that makes it harder to veto anything, but Evers vetoed 2 things, and you'd think he'd be able to explain why.

What is a paddle wheel raffle anyway? Surprisingly, it has to do with meat — meat and charities:

In Wisconsin there is a long-standing tradition of using meat raffles to raise money for charity.... “It’s kind of a very Wisconsin sort of a thing,” said state Sen. Andre Jacque (R – De Pere)....

Jacque says paddlewheel raffles, which are often used for meat raffle events, are illegal even under a Class B raffle license which many non-profits use. He says recently the Department of Justice has started enforcing the rule, sending letters to various charities warning they could be prosecuted for up to a Class I felony of fostering illegal gambling -- punishable by up to a $10,000 fine.

“When people find out they’re stunned,” said Jacque. “And I think especially stunned the Department of Justice doesn’t have higher priorities right now than to crack down on our charitable groups that hold meat raffles. So this is something where, you know, Wisconsin is unfortunately discouraging something that we actually advertise through our tourism sites, our community calendars and everything else... So [the veto is] disappointing.”

Jacque criticized Evers for claiming — in his veto message — that the bill "could threaten the exclusive rights of Tribal Nations to conduct Class III gaming in Wisconsin." Jacque said,  "In talking to tribal representatives, tribal leaders, there was no opposition because this doesn’t compete with casino gambling."

So you can see why the reporter wanted to push for Evers to explain his "thought process." Did Evers not understand what he was doing? Maybe he had no "thought process" at all or his thought process would show that he didn't understand the Wisconsin meat raffle tradition.

Anyway, I remember writing about the Wisconsin meat raffle. It was back in 2017, and I only noticed it because I saw a sign in a tavern window.

Isn't it odd that businesses were openly doing something that was a felony under state law? It's easy to imagine their thought process: Because it was done openly and traditionally around the state, people thought that whatever the law was on the books, it wasn't real. Then the state justice department began enforcing, and that motivated the legislature to change the law. But Evers vetoed the bill, perhaps not understanding that it would just preserve the tradition that had gone on even though it was — on the books — a crime.

ADDED: Writing this post, I was thinking of Tony Evers as elderly and perhaps in the kind of mental decline that we're worrying about with Joe Biden. But he's only 68. He was born in 1951, and so was I. I have a difficult time thinking of 68 as a time of mental deficiency. But maybe I have a difficult time because I really am in decline. It's like deciding to go ahead and drive when you've had a few drinks — by the way, that too is a Wisconsin tradition — you're judging whether you're impaired while you're — if you are — impaired.