More than halfway through Evers’ term, WEDC looks here to stay

We wrote in 2019 that the governor had flipped his position on dissolving and replacing the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, a public-private partnership that oversees grants and loans given to businesses in exchange for the promise of new jobs. 

On the campaign trail, Evers had been critical of WEDC, created by former Gov. Scott Walker, calling the agency "a constant source of controversy, inefficiency and ineffectiveness" in a 2018 interview. 

By November of that year, he had announced plans to replace it with a state agency.

State Republicans blocked him from taking action by giving themselves control over WEDC for the first nine months of his term in 2019. 

Nearly two years after he regained control, however, those plans have not materialized, and WEDC is still up and running. 

Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback said the agency has entered "a new era of transparency and accountability" under the governor and WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes.

Maybe so. But that was not the promise made.

We rate this Promise Broken.