Kaul tells the fellow Democrat Evers in a letter Thursday that he can’t do that without approval of Republican lawmakers.
The news is a setback for Evers a day after he announced his directive to Kaul in his first State of the State speech.
Evers reversed himself less than a day after giving the speech, saying Wednesday that he wasn’t directing Kaul “to take any specific course of action.”
A law passed by Republicans in last month’s lame-duck session gives authority to the GOP-controlled Joint Committee on Finance to decide on withdrawing.