MADISON, Wis (NBC 26) -- On Thursday the Republican-controlled Assembly was supposed to vote on whether or not to repeal Governor Evers' mask mandate, but in a surprising turn of events the vote was canceled.
Wisconsin's face mask ordinance is a topic on the minds of many, throughout Wisconsin.
"Just about every medical, health care group, business group in the state is weighing in," said Representative Gordon Hintz the Democratic Minority Leader.
Representative Hintz says he's not exactly sure why republicans agreed to cancel Thursday's vote to repeal the mask mandate, but he's still chalking it up as a win.
"I just know there were a lot of people around the state who have recognized that this is not the time to be doing something like this."
Turns out Governor Ever's emergency order, including the mask ordinance, was tied to federal funds. And if the order was canceled the state could lose out on nearly 50 million dollars a month from the federal government.
"So we wanted to have a little bit more time with our attorneys and other advisers to dig into that a little bit. To find out what do we have to engineer, the flexibility. So the governor could still apply for those funds," says Representative John Macco.
Representative Macco, a Republican from Ledgeview, says the state could have lost out on about 600 million dollars a year from the federal government. He adds that the allocated money is designated for food assistance for low-income families and it could have been halted if the assembly voted to repeal the mask mandate.
"Many of those people, the vast majority of people that qualify for that are senior citizens. If we eliminate the emergency order, then we were concerned that the ramifications of that would be we could lose those federal dollars."
And while the vote was canceled on Thursday, democrats say they are preparing for what could be headed to the Assembly floor, soon.
"We've been told to be ready to come in next week. Both on whatever the latest version of COVID legislation is, as well as reconsideration of a repeal of the mask mandate," said Representative Hintz.
