We’re goin’ into the weeds folks! Sure to be scintillating debate.
City Attorney couldn’t decide what the law was
Mayor Soglin, President Schmidt, and others:
Attached is my legal opinion on the question of the Council’s authority to reconsider a failed vote to override the Mayor’s veto.
In the event you do not wish to wade through the 10 pages of legal analysis and 12 pages of appendices, the bottom line is that there is no clear legal answer, leaving the Mayor and Council to work this out. I recommend that an amendment to the Council’s rules be prepared to clarify the rule in the event it ever comes up again.
. . . so this is a really educated guess about what might happen from the Council President Chris Schmidt. But who knows!
John will presumably move reconsideration of the veto override vote. I expect the Mayor would rule that out of order and then that ruling would be appealed. Then there would be a debate on the question of whether a mayoral veto override is subject to reconsideration, as was discussed in Atty May’s memo. This reconsideration motion on overriding the Mayor’s veto is on the agenda, so we could take it up at this meeting and do not have to wait until the next meeting.
If the Mayor’s ruling is upheld, that’s the end of the debate if/until the ordinance comes back as a new legislative action at least 60 days from, I believe but I am not certain, the date the Mayor vetoed it.
If the Mayor’s ruling is overturned, we would vote on the reconsideration motion (I suspect the debate on that will have been exhausted during the rules debate). If reconsideration passes, the debate on overriding the Mayor’s veto would pick up at the point immediately before the final vote on it. The motions that could be made at that point are procedural, we cannot amend the ordinance just as we could not amend it during the override vote. Since it is a new meeting all of the speaking limits are reset. And I imagine if there are registrations that the body will allow them to speak – but that will only happen if reconsideration is approved.
If the Mayor’s veto is overridden, amendments would have to be separate legislative actions, as typical ordinance amendments are. We would not be able to move reconsideration of the ordinance for the purpose of amending it because our rules state that had to take place no later than the last meeting.
