The support-animal bill named condominium boards by title. It was vetoed
The support-animal bill named condominium boards by title. It was vetoed
2026-09-21 · Wisconsin · Legislation · Did not pass
Wisconsin came closer than any other state proposal of the session to writing condominium boards into its emotional-support-animal law by name. The bill passed the Assembly and the Senate. The Governor vetoed it on December 5, 2025, and the override attempt failed five months later.
2025 Assembly Bill 366 (LRB-3364/1) was introduced July 17, 2025 by Representatives Tittl, Behnke, B. Jacobson, Kitchens, Knodl, Maxey, Moses and Murphy, cosponsored by Senator Cabral-Guevara, and referred to the Committee on Housing and Real Estate. Its title: “relating to: emotional support animals in housing; falsely claiming that an animal is a service animal; and providing a penalty.”1
The sentence that named associations
From the Legislative Reference Bureau's analysis of the bill:
“An owner or lessor, an agent of an owner or lessor, or a representative of a condominium association (collectively, ‘housing representative’) may request from an individual who wishes to keep an emotional support animal in housing reliable documentation of the individual's disability-related need for an emotional support animal from a licensed health professional and may deny the individual the ability to keep the emotional support animal in the housing if the individual fails to provide the documentation. The bill allows the housing representative to require that this documentation include a prescription from a licensed health professional for the emotional support animal.”
The same analysis sets out what the bill would have barred a housing representative from doing to an individual with a disability and a disability-related need: “refuse to rent or sell housing to the individual, charge the individual more for housing, evict the individual from housing, or harass the individual.”
The penalties
“An individual who provides false documentation of a prescription for an emotional support animal and a health care provider who provides a prescription for an emotional support animal without having at least a 30-day relationship with the individual before providing the prescription must each forfeit at least $500.”
A separate provision addressed service animals in places of public accommodation: intentionally misrepresenting possession of a service animal would carry a forfeiture of up to $200 for a first violation and up to $500 for a second or subsequent one, with the Department of Workforce Development required to prepare window signage and an informational brochure.
The path it took, and where it stopped
The Legislature's own history record tracks it closely. An Assembly public hearing was held September 30, 2025. On October 3, 2025 the committee reported adoption of Assembly Amendment 1 by Ayes 11, Noes 3, and passage as amended by Ayes 9, Noes 5. The Assembly passed the bill October 7, 2025.
In the Senate, the committee reported concurrence Ayes 3, Noes 2 on November 11, 2025, and the Senate Organization Committee waived the hearing requirement on the same division. Senate Amendment 1 was rejected Ayes 18, Noes 15, and the Senate concurred on November 18, 2025.
The bill was presented to the Governor December 4, 2025 and vetoed December 5, 2025. On May 13, 2026 the Assembly “[f]ailed to pass notwithstanding the objections of the Governor pursuant to Joint Rule 82” — the veto was sustained.
That was one of four vetoes sustained on the same day. The others were SB 7 on foreign-adversary land ownership (vetoed March 20, 2026), AB 202 on voidable residential lease provisions and the Wisconsin Consumer Act (vetoed March 27, 2026), and AB 549 on manufactured-home sales and certificates of title (vetoed March 27, 2026).
Who lined up where
The Wisconsin Ethics Commission lobbying registry records positions on AB 366. Registered For: the Apartment Association of South Central Wisconsin, the Association of Wisconsin Tourism Attractions, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Tavern League of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Association of Campground Owners, the Wisconsin Grocers Association, the Wisconsin Hotel and Lodging Association, the Wisconsin Housing Alliance, Wisconsin Independent Businesses, and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association. Registered Against: Disability Rights Wisconsin. Registered Other: the Wisconsin Alliance of YMCAs, the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, and the Wisconsin Realtors Association.
What governs instead
Wisconsin associations operate under two fair-housing regimes and neither changed. Wisconsin's Open Housing Law, Wis. Stat. § 106.50, is enforced by the Department of Workforce Development's Equal Rights Division; the federal Fair Housing Act operates alongside it. AB 366 would have amended § 106.50(2r)(br) and § 106.52; because it was vetoed, those provisions read as they did before.
The federal side did move, but not in the direction the bill's supporters wanted and not in a way that changes the underlying law. On May 22, 2026 HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity issued a memorandum, effective immediately, rescinding its prior assistance-animal guidance and stating that reasonable cause would be found only where an animal is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. That is a change in HUD's enforcement posture. It does not amend the Fair Housing Act, it does not bind a federal court in a private suit, and it does not reach § 106.50 at all.
Nor does the related federal regulation on harassment liability. 24 C.F.R. § 100.7, which makes a housing provider liable for discriminatory housing practices including third-party harassment it knew about and had power to correct, was last amended January 3, 2017 and has not been touched since.
The evidentiary vacuum in Wisconsin
There is a further reason this bill mattered more in Wisconsin than the same bill would elsewhere. A full sweep of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinion index for the last three years returns no appellate decision addressing an assistance-animal or Fair Housing Act claim against a homeowners or condominium association. The index returns zero substantive hits for “assistance animal” in that window.
So a Wisconsin board facing a support-animal request has no Wisconsin appellate guidance, an unamended state statute, and a federal enforcement memorandum that changes who investigates rather than what the law requires. Our Wisconsin pet restrictions page covers the framework that remains.
What to watch next
Documentation standards for emotional support animals are a recurring item on the Community Associations Institute's national agenda, and AB 366 had bipartisan-adjacent industry backing without association-sector opposition on the registry. Wisconsin does not pre-file bills; drafts for the 2027-28 biennium are ordered after the November 3, 2026 election, with cosponsorship memos circulating from December 2026. Whether a reintroduced version survives depends on an open-seat governor's race, since the sustained veto is what killed this one.
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