Thanks to Michael Boerger, legislative aide to Senator Ellis, for the explanation below, in response to Mike's comment:

Well, it's not quite as simple as that. First, there is not really a legislative fix to this potential raid in this biennium. The $200 million lapse -- including its potential to come partially or entirely from the transportation fund was in the bill and it is assumed it came from the legislature. By passage of the budget, the legislature -- those legislators who voted for it, that is -- approved the potentiality. Theoretically, the legislature could introduce a bill to prohibit using the transportation fund for this lapse -- but again, the legislature allowed it in the first place. Even if such legislation were passed, the governor could simply veto the bill.

As to the language that allegedly protected the fund, in reality that was always more symbolic. In its simplest terms, today's legislature may not prohibit the (constitutional) actions of a future legislature -- they simply change the law. The original prohibition -- inserted into the gas-tax indexing repeal by Dean Kaufert last session -- said that the transportation fund could not be used for nontransportation purposes. But all it would take to remove that is an act of the legislature, or the governor in his budget bill. The budget language attempted to further restrict that by saying the governor could not repeal, amend or "notwithstanding" (i.e., the governor can't say "notwithstanding this section.") that section when introducing a budget bill. But again, it had more symbolic weight than actual legal teeth.

The point senators Ellis and Cowles were making by pointing out this veto was to provide further evidence that Doyle is likely to look to the transportation fund to make this lapse.

Although it's disheartening I'm sure, I hope this helps explain.