The Sixty-Seventh Wisconsin Legislature convened from January 10, 1945, to September 6, 1945, in regular session, and reconvened in a special session in July 1946.[1]
Senators representing even-numbered districts were newly elected for this session and were serving the first two years of a four-year term. Assembly members were elected to a two-year term. Assembly members and even-numbered senators were elected in the general election of November 7, 1944. Senators representing odd-numbered districts were serving the third and fourth year of a four-year term, having been elected in the general election of November 3, 1942.[1]
February 11, 1945: The Yalta Conference concluded, agreeing to the denazification and postwar partition of Germany, as well as self-determination rights for a liberated Poland.
April 3, 1945: Wisconsin voters ratified two amendments to the state constitution:
Aboliting the office of justice of the peace in first class cities.
Allowing the state to take on debt for aeronautical improvements.
April 12, 1945: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office. Vice President Harry S. Truman immediately succeeded him as the 33rd President of the United States.
April 2, 1946: Wisconsin voters rejected an amendment to the state constitution which would have removed term limits from the sheriffs.
April 6, 1946: Wisconsin governor Walter Samuel Goodland appointed James Ward Rector to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to succeed the deceased justice Joseph Martin.
April 18, 1946: The League of Nations met for the last time, transferred its mission to the United Nations and disbanded.
August 14, 1946: Wisconsin's senior United States senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., after the dissolution of the Wisconsin Progressive Party, was defeated in the Republican Party primary by Wisconsin circuit court judge Joseph McCarthy.
Wisconsin voters ratified two amendments to the state constitution:
Removing audit powers from the Secretary of State.
Assigning audit powers to the Legislature.
Wisconsin voters also rejected an amendment to the state constitution:
Allowing public transportation to be used for students to attend private or parochial schools.
Major legislation
July 30, 1945: An Act ... relating to aeronautics, and making an appropriation, 1945 Act 513. Established Wisconsin's Aeronautics Commission.
August 27, 1945: An Act ... creating a Wisconsin department of veterans' affairs, providing educational aid, economic aid, medical, hospital, or other remedial care for World War II veterans and their dependents, transferring to said department certain powers, duties, and functions vested in the soldiers' rehabilitation board and adjutant general, and custodian of memorial hall, and making an appropriation, 1945 Act 580. Created the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.
1945 Joint Resolution 2: Second legislative passage of a proposed amendment to the state constitution to abolish the office of justice of the peace in first class cities. This amendment was ratified by voters at the April 1945 election.
1945 Joint Resolution 3: Second legislative passage of a proposed amendment to the state constitution to allow the state to take on debt to fund aeronautical improvements.
1945 Joint Resolution 47: Second legislative passage of a proposed amendment to the state constitution to abolish term limits for Wisconsin sheriffs. This amendment was rejected by voters at the April 1946 election.
1945 Joint Resolution 73: Second legislative passage of a proposed amendment to the state constitution to remove audit powers from the Secretary of State and transfer those powers to the Legislature. This amendment was ratified by voters in two separate questions at the November 1946 election.
1945 Joint Resolution 78: Second legislative passage of a proposed amendment to the state constitution to allow public transportation to be used for students to attend private and parochial schools in addition to existing transportation for public schools. This amendment was rejected by voters at the November 1946 election.
