SHEBOYGAN, WI (WHBL) - State government is typically quiet this time of the year as legislators only have committee hearings before the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Still, some legislators use the time to introduce new bills that could be taken up once the Assembly and Senate reconvene in full session in January.
Area Senator Devin LeMahieu tells WHBL News he plans to introduce two bills soon. One would be a re-write of Wisconsin code regarding business chapters. LeMahieu says these changes have been under review for some time. “Senator (Paul) Farrow was working on this prior to him becoming Waukesha County executive, and then he turned it over to my office, and essentially it’s making those chapters in line with a lot of the federal groups.”
As for what it would do, LeMahieu hopes the bill will make changes at the business level easier. “To make sure that businesses can easily transfer into Wisconsin or set up branches outside from Wisconsin. It also transfers from different business classifications; so from a partnership to a LLC to an S corporation to a corporation; just to make those mesh well to make it easier for businesses to do business in the state.”
As for the other possible bill, it would create a new special license plate for Wisconsin sports fans. "You know you see the Packers license plates and the Brewers license plates. We’re going to introduce a Bucks license plate to help…there are no Bucks license plates, if you haven’t noticed."
LeMahieu is proposing this to help the state pay off its share of a new downtown Milwaukee arena where the Bucks will play. "And that revenue, since you have to pay little more to get those license plates, will help to pay down the arena. So we’ve been working on the Bucks on that, so that should be something to at least alleviate the public costs a little bit on the arena."