Wisconsin Question 1, Municipal Debt Limit Exclusion Amendment (April 1975)

Wisconsin Question 1
Election date April 1, 1975
Topic State and local government budgets, spending, and finance
Status Defeated
Type Legislatively referred constitutional amendment	Origin State legislature

Wisconsin Question 1 was on the ballot as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment in Wisconsin on April 1, 1975. It was defeated.

A "yes" vote supported amending the constitution to allow for certain debt to be excluded from municipal debt limits.

A "no" vote opposed amending the constitution to allow for certain debt to be excluded from municipal debt limits.

Election results

Wisconsin Question 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		310,434	47.88%
No		337,925	52.12%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Question 1 was as follows:

“

Shall section 3 of article XI of the constitution be amended to exclude from the debt limit of a town, village, city, county, or special district debt secured solely by the property or income of a public project which produces regular income from normal operations where no general obligation is created, and to extend to counties the present nondebt incurring exclusion afforded to towns, villages, cities, or special districts for municipally-owned public utility mortgage or revenue financing?

”

Constitutional changes

(Article XI) Section 3. ...An indebtedness created by a town, village, city or special district for the purpose of purchasing, acquiring, leasing, constructing, extending, adding to, improving, equipping, conducting, controlling, operating or managing a public utility of a town, village, city or special district, or public project, the latter of which produces regular income from its normal operations, and secured solely by the property or income of such public utility or public project, and whereby no municipal liability general obligation is created, shall not be considered an indebtedness of such town, village, city, or special district, and shall not be included in arriving at such debt limitation within the meaning of the limitation on indebtedness herein imposed, except that this exception shall not apply to a county-owned gas or electric power utility or project

Note: the above text is only the affected portion of Article XI, Section 3.

Path to the ballot

See also: Amending the Wisconsin Constitution

A simple majority vote is required during two legislative sessions for the Wisconsin State Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. That amounts to a minimum of 50 votes in the Wisconsin State Assembly and 17 votes in the Wisconsin State Senate, assuming no vacancies. Amendments do not require the governor's signature to be referred to the ballot.

See also

1975 Measures

• 1975 Measures
• State and local government budgets on the ballot
• spending on the ballot
• and finance on the ballot
• 1975 legislative sessions

Wisconsin

• Wisconsin ballot measures
• Wisconsin ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls