Wis. Legislature Set To End With Major Work Undone

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Legislature is poised to end its session this week without passing the two biggest priorities majority Republicans said at the start of the year they wanted to accomplish.

A bill designed to help a mining company begin digging for iron ore in northern Wisconsin failed to pass after Republican Sen. Dale Schultz sided with Democrats against it.

And Republican leaders could never find a way to pay for another plan to bolster venture capital investment in start-up companies.

While the 2012 legislative year was shaped by those failures, the overall two-year session that ends this week was anything but uneventful.

In fact, Republicans say they got so much done in 2011 that there was little left to accomplish this year.

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