The Waupun Correctional Institution, the oldest prison in Wisconsin built in the 1850s, sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood (Photo | Wisconsin Examiner)

Under scrutiny over prison deaths and living conditions, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has received recommendations that aim to improve life in adult prisons, including solitary confinement, suicide watch, mental health care and basic corrections practices. 

The study was conducted by Falcon Correctional and Community Services Inc. experts partnering with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). The department said it is planning to contract with the consulting firm to create a framework to implement recommendations. 

“While the report affirms that DOC is moving in the right direction, it also shows that there is more work to be done,” Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said in the department’s press release. 

In a statement, the advocacy group Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) said the report “confirms what directly impacted people and advocates have said for years: Wisconsin’s prisons are dangerously overcrowded, under-resourced and in desperate need of healing-centered reform.”

Many of the suggested changes will affect the entire correctional system, the agency said. Consultants and staff will work to “reimagine existing space, create new processes and training at five pilot sites.” 

In a letter dated July 9, 2024, Hoy told a state Assembly committee that the department planned on bringing on Falcon for an outside review. News of criminal charges against staff at Waupun Correctional Institution over prisoner deaths had broken just weeks before Hoy wrote the letter. The same day, the committee heard testimony about the toll of solitary confinement and other issues in the prison system. 

The department and Falcon signed a contract in November 2024, and the Examiner reported in January on details of the partnership obtained through public records requests. Criminal justice reform advocates expressed hope the report would be beneficial but have called for independent oversight of the Department of Corrections. Last week, the department published the 137-page final report, which lists strengths for the department to build on as well as recommendations for improvement.  

The report states that while all recommendations are made based on Falcon’s overall review of the adult prison system, “we understand that the majority of recommendations will require funding, often requiring budget approval.”

Susan Franzen of the prison reform advocacy group Ladies of SCI expressed concern about whether overcrowding and staffing shortages will affect DOC’s ability to effectively carry out recommendations. 

“Legislators need to help the DOC out by giving them a fighting chance to make these changes,” Franzen wrote in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner. 

The report states that the study involved working with DOC officials, gathering data, reviewing policies, statutes and prior studies and conducting virtual workshops with DOC experts and others, including formerly incarcerated people and advocates. 

It also included visits to 15 facilities, such as the Waupun and Green Bay prisons, and interviews with staff and incarcerated people.

Suicide watch

Preventing suicide is a pressing concern, the report states in a section that summarized information from mental health-related discussions with staff during mental health workshops and site visits.

One concern is that observation cells are typically in restrictive housing units; in addition, “individuals on observation status are not allowed therapeutic items, visits, phone calls, or recreation,” the report states.  

People who pose threats to themselves, or who pose threats to others because of mental illness, may be put on observation.

The report recommends housing people in observation in “more appropriate environments that support therapeutic care and patient safety.” 

Over the last 15 years, 59 people died by suicide in Wisconsin prisons, an average of four deaths per year. Suicide watch placements reportedly rose from 1,200 to 1,500 per year to about 2,500 in 2024. In June, the Examiner reported on Victor Garcia, who died due to an attempt to hang himself while he was on observation in a Wisconsin prison.

Psychological services staff decide what items a person can have access to while they’re on clinical observation. Department policy provides a list to use as a starting point, including items like soap, toilet paper and suicide-resistant clothing. 

The report described the list as “very limiting,” and the security mat or mattress was observed to be inadequate for most people on suicide precautions. Later on in the report, it suggests replacing small sleeping mats with suicide-resistant mattresses.

Solitary confinement

The Falcon report includes priorities and steps to take on “restrictive housing” in state prisons, where incarcerated people experience “very limited” out-of-cell programming and recreation time, such as:

• Giving people in restrictive housing at least two hours of recreation and/or programming each day, not including out-of-cell time for necessary activities, such as showers 
• Reviewing the status, programming and needs of people in restrictive housing every week instead of every 30 days 
• Improving cleanliness and removing all graffiti 
• Establishing units that are alternatives to restricted housing for people with serious mental illnesses

Incarcerated people in Wisconsin prisons can be put in restrictive housing as a punishment for a violation or when having the person live with the general population would create a serious threat. 

An average stay in disciplinary separation — a punishment for committing a violation — decreased from 39.7 days in January 2019 to 27.4 days in April 2025, the report notes. However, this varies by facility, and the latest average published online for Green Bay Correctional Institution is 48.7 days. 

The department has begun to address the number of people in restrictive housing and how long they spend there, the report states. However, the number of people placed in restrictive housing has not changed significantly over the last five years.

“High rates of substance use and mental illness among individuals placed in restrictive housing was noted, often contributing to a ‘revolving door’ for this population,” the report stated in the section about mental health insights from staff. 

Solitary confinement has potential effects of physical harm, health issues and negative effects on mental health, the report notes.

Solitary confinement is also associated with increased risk of violence towards oneself and suicide, and research shows that solitary confinement as a tool does not reduce institutional misconduct or violence or the risk of recidivism, the report states. 

There were 950 people in restrictive housing as of September, 863 of whom were placed there due to a rule violation, according to online Department of Corrections data. 

Under a policy that went into effect last May, a placement of over 120 days has to be approved by the assistant administrator for the division of adult institutions, the report noted. 

An overcrowded system

All medium and maximum-security facilities in Wisconsin except for Waupun Correctional Institution are over capacity, as of January, the report states. Facilities for men were at 130% of capacity, while women’s prisons were at 166% of capacity. People are living at security levels that don’t fit their classification — for example, a person sentenced to medium-security being held in maximum security, or a person sentenced to minimum-security being held in medium security. 

The state building commission took an initial step toward updating the aging and overcrowded prison system last month, when it agreed to create plans for a revamp. 

Inconsistency in the department 

Leaders and staff at the facility level of the agency felt a lack of autonomy in their day-to-day jobs, the report found. They believe there is “significant and often excessive and unnecessary scrutiny from outside entities.” 

But the study also found a problem with “a general lack of uniformity across facilities,” which is creating challenges relating to monitoring, oversight and accountability. It recommends “system-wide alignment” on areas including basic security practices, incident reporting and investigation processes.

The report recommends that the agency take an approach that involves both oversight and collaboration. The goal would be to carry out the strategy of DOC leadership with both efforts from leadership and “input and innovation” from frontline staff, stakeholders and incarcerated people. 

A central part of a section called “Back-to-Basics in Correctional Practices” recommends a three to five-day training for all staff about basic corrections practices, such as searches, use of force and out-of-cell time for people in restrictive housing. 

The department “has experienced a great deal of staffing changes, with a significant number of the current staff hired during or after the COVID19 pandemic,” the report found.

Strained mental health care

Mental health services were described as strained, according to the section of the report about mental health-related discussions with staff.

That section of the report suggests that an “unsustainable” number of people have been assigned to receive mental health care at least once every six months, and that this interferes with treatment for people who need more intensive care. 

Nearly half of all incarcerated people in adult prisons had been classified as needing mental health care as of May 20. It’s a much higher rate than other state correctional departments see, the report states. 

Department data shows the agency isn’t fully staffed in psychological services, with a vacancy rate of 19.7%. 

About nine in ten incarcerated women were on the mental health caseload. The report also noted that the population of maximum security facilities has a higher percentage of incarcerated people with mental health needs than medium or minimum security facilities.

Other recommendations in the report address medical practices, investigations and intelligence practices, data management and human resources and staffing.

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President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 24, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed into law late Wednesday a bill compelling the release of unclassified investigative files from the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he shared a well-documented friendship, though Trump denies any involvement in the financier’s crimes. 

Epstein, who surrounded himself with the rich and powerful, died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.

Trump signed the bill the day after the House sent it to the Senate, which agreed by unanimous consent to accept the measure.

In a post on his own social media platform Truth Social, the president name-called several prominent figures in business and politics, including former President Bill Clinton.

“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote.

In the lengthy post, Trump credits himself and Republican leaders in Congress for the legislation, though the bipartisan bill was forced to the House floor via a discharge petition. 

After months of loud cries to release the files, even from his base, Trump changed his position Sunday night and directed Republicans to support the measure.

In July, Trump’s Department of Justice issued a memo that it would not publicly release any further records about the Epstein case.

The legislation overwhelmingly passed the House Tuesday in a 427-1 vote. GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was the lone no vote. 

The legislation compels the Justice Department to publicly disclose “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or (co-conspirator Ghislaine) Maxwell.” 

They include records related to Epstein’s detention and death; flight logs from Epstein’s planes; names of those connected with Epstein’s alleged crimes; records of civil settlements, and sealed and unsealed immunity deals and plea bargains; records pertaining to entities with ties to Epstein’s trafficking or financial networks; and internal DOJ communications “concerning decisions to investigate or charge Epstein or his associates.” 

The bill carves out exceptions for records containing victims’ identities, images of death or physical abuse, and information that could jeopardize a federal investigation. 

The bill also notes that the “DOJ may not withhold or redact records on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”

The bill’s passage and Trump’s signature came less than a week after lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released some 20,000 pages of emails from Epstein’s estate that repeatedly mentioned Trump’s name. 

In one email from Epstein to convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier and sex offender claimed Trump “knew about the girls.”

Many other names turned up in the thousands of pages of correspondence, including that of Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a residence, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

A House Republican effort to censure Plaskett narrowly failed in the House Tuesday night. Summers announced Wednesday that he would resign from prominent board and other positions.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., talks with reporters as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  Graham is one of eight senators who could sue the government over an FBI subpoena of his cell phone call logs, under a law passed to reopen the government. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House approved legislation Wednesday that would revoke part of a law Congress approved just last week, which for the first time allows senators to sue the federal government, potentially for millions of dollars, if their data is subpoenaed without their knowledge. 

The 426-0 vote sent the bill to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., doesn’t appear inclined to put the measure on the floor for a vote, though he hasn’t entirely ruled it out. 

“You have an independent, co-equal branch of the government whose members were, through illegal means, having their phone records acquired, spied on if you will, through a weaponized Biden Justice Department,” Thune said. “That, to me, demands some accountability.”

Thune said he understands why several Republican senators were frustrated they didn’t know the provision was added to the funding package that ended the government shutdown.

“I take that as a legitimate criticism in terms of the process,” Thune said. “But I think, on the substance, I believe that you need to have some sort of accountability and consequence for that kind of weaponization against a co-equal branch of the government.”

Thune declined to say if he thinks it’s appropriate for senators to sue for millions in taxpayer dollars for having their phone call records pulled as part of the investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

“I don’t think there’s anybody that was targeted for whom the money matters,” Thune said. “I think it’s more about the principle.”

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of eight senators who could benefit, said shortly after the House wrapped up debate he plans to sue Verizon as well as the Department of Justice under the new provision. 

“The subpoena that was issued, I think, was fatally flawed. The judicial order saying if you told me (about the subpoena) I would tamper with witnesses or tamper with evidence is legally offensive,” Graham said. “I’m not going to take this crap anymore. I am going into court, and we’ll see what happens.”

Dispute among Republicans

Senate Republicans’ decision to include the lawsuit provision in the stopgap spending law that ended the 43-day government shutdown represented a rare public break between GOP congressional leaders.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said last week just after the House passed the funding law he was “very angry” the lawsuit language was added to the package without his knowledge or sign off. 

“I think that was way out of line. I don’t think that was the smart thing to do. I don’t think that was the right thing to do,” Johnson said at the time. “And the House is going to reverse it. We’re going to repeal that. And I’m going to expect our colleagues in the Senate to do the same thing.”

The provision, which will remain in effect unless the Senate passes the new bill and Trump signs it, allows senators who had their cell phone or other data subpoenaed without their knowledge to sue the federal government for $500,000 “for each instance of a violation.” 

The language is retroactive until Jan. 1, 2022, and allows the eight senators who had their cell phone call logs subpoenaed as part of the FBI’s 2023 investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election to sue for millions of dollars. 

The FBI reportedly obtained data for cell phone use between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021, for Graham and Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, as well as Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly. All are Republicans. 

The law allows judges to delay notification for 60 days if the information was pulled as part of a criminal investigation and if telling the senator would endanger someone’s safety or life, lead the lawmaker to flee prosecution, result in someone tampering with or destroying evidence, lead to witness intimidation, place the investigation in jeopardy, or unduly delay the trial. 

A judge could keep renewing that 60-day notification delay in criminal investigations if one or several of those elements continued to exist. 

Both parties object 

House debate on the two-page bill sponsored by Georgia GOP Rep. Austin Scott was broadly bipartisan, though Democrats and Republicans expressed frustration with the lawsuit language for different reasons. 

Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said the “troubling provision” in the spending law must be stricken.

“These provisions are not the right path to address the true concerns over the separation of powers,” Steil said. “Remember, Congress serves the American people, not the other way around.”

Steil said the FBI pulling cell phone call records for senators as part of its investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, known as Operation Arctic Frost, was an abuse of power that should be addressed. But he said allowing senators to sue for millions of dollars in taxpayer money was the wrong way to do that. 

“I’m committed to holding those involved accountable. No one benefited by the failures of the Biden administration,” Steil said. “However, that does not mean that elected officials should be financially benefiting from those failures now.”

New York Rep. Joe Morelle, ranking Democrat on the committee, said those eight senators’ cell phone logs were pulled because FBI agents believed the lawmakers “had knowledge of or even participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Efforts that culminated in a violent attack on this very institution.”

Morelle said anyone with a basic understanding of criminal investigations knows that phone records “are among the most routine tools used” to gain a better understanding of events. 

“They do not reveal the content of any conversations. They simply show which numbers were called, which numbers called them and when those calls were made,” Morelle said.

“If these Republican senators genuinely believe that their civil liberties were violated or if they are interested in changing the law relating to subpoenas, then they are better positioned than literally anyone on planet Earth to hold hearings, draft legislation and debate proposed changes in the open,” Morelle added. “But that’s not what this is all about. This is about ensuring the law applies to every other American, just not to them.”

Scott said House Republicans voted for the spending law to end the government shutdown, not because they supported the lawsuit provision, which he called “the most self-centered, self-serving piece of language that I have ever seen in any piece of legislation.”

He also rebuked Sen. Graham for saying during interviews that he plans to sue the federal government. 

“We have one senator, one, who maintains that this provision is good and is currently saying that he is going to sue for tens of millions of dollars,” Scott said. “I believe my side did the right thing in voting to open up the government. There are a select few people that did the wrong thing in putting language in the bill that would make themselves individually wealthy.”

Bombs, cows, the Postal Service and lawsuits

Graham, who was an Air Force Judge Advocate General officer before entering politics, compared having his cell phone data pulled as part of the investigation to a case he handled earlier in his career after the Air Force “dropped a bomb on a guy’s barn and killed his cow. And he was able to make a claim.”

Graham also compared it to someone suing the government after being hit by a U.S. Postal Service truck, when asked by a reporter what he plans to do with the millions of dollars he will likely receive if he were to win the case. 

“You do whatever you want to do with the money if you’ve been wronged,” Graham said.  

In addition to filing a lawsuit, Graham hopes to broaden the language so that organizations and private individuals can file suit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act if they feel they’ve been wronged similarly. 

“I will insist on a vote in the United States Senate to expand the ability of people to make claims that may have been harmed,” Graham said, adding that would likely include the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Republican National Committee and Turning Point USA.

Graham rejected criticisms of the lawsuit provision from fellow GOP lawmakers, saying it doesn’t represent “self-dealing.”

“I understand politics, but I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about getting the right outcome,” Graham said. “I mean, if you don’t want me to sue the government, that’s up to you. I’m going to sue, whether you like it or not. I’m not going to put up with this anymore, and people in my spot shouldn’t have to deal with this in the future.”

American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)  

WASHINGTON — U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said Wednesday he will proceed with his inquiry on whether there is sufficient evidence to charge officials in the Trump administration with contempt for violating his order to return deportation flights to the United States.

Following an appeals ruling last week, Boasberg has the ability to resume a contempt investigation against the Trump administration relating to his March 15 order, which required several deportation planes that contained hundreds of Venezuelan men removed under an obscure wartime law to return to the U.S. Instead, the planes landed in El Salvador, and 137 men were detained at the mega-prison known as CECOT.

“I certainly intend to find out what happened that day,” Boasberg said.

He ordered the Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit against the government, to submit by Monday filings on how to proceed with the inquiry, such as potential witnesses and hearings as well as sworn declarations to the court. 

An attorney on behalf of the Department of Justice, Tiberius T. Davis said the Trump administration doesn’t believe Boasberg should move forward with the inquiry.

Boasberg cited several appellate judges who have ruled that he has the ability and jurisdiction to continue his fact-finding inquiry into the events of March 15.

“Justice requires me to move promptly,” he said.

Boasberg told Davis that he wants to get to the bottom of which official, or officials, gave the order to ignore his temporary restraining order to turn the planes back toward U.S. soil while they were in the air. 

Removals challenged

Additionally, Boasberg heard arguments from ACLU lead attorney Lee Gelernt on a request to require the Trump administration to give the 137 Venezuelan men the opportunity to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. 

The men removed under the law remained at CECOT for several months until they were returned to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange. 

Gelernt said that a majority of that group want the opportunity to challenge their removal under the wartime law, in the form of a habeas petition, which immigrants use to challenge their detention. He said the ACLU has been able to reach about one-third of the group members and they wish to pursue their claims either back in the U.S. or through a virtual hearing. 

“They are still very, very traumatized about what happened,” Gelernt said, adding that many fear being returned to CECOT if they come back to the U.S.

Remote hearings?

Davis argued that if the men want to continue with their habeas claim, then they would have to be detained in the U.S., rather than make the challenge virtually. 

“To fulfill a habeas, they have to be in our custody one way or another,” Davis said. 

He said they would likely be taken to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but said that was not definite. 

Gelernt said the federal government should provide a plan in order for the men to make their due process claim.  

“Some may want to know if there is a remote option, if they found a sufficiently safe hiding place within Venezuela,” Gelernt said.

Boasberg agreed, and said the U.S. Supreme Court also agreed when it ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia as part of a due process case. 

Abrego Garcia was also taken to CECOT and detailed the physical and psychological torture he experienced there. 

The return of the sandhill crane to Wisconsin is a conservation success, but now the state needs to manage the population and the crop damage the birds can cause. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature are trying once again to establish a sandhill crane hunting season in the state and once again the issue has caused a heated debate. 

At a public hearing on a bill to establish a crane hunt Wednesday morning, Democrats and conservation groups complained that the proposal was a solution in search of a problem while hunters repeatedly insisted the only way to manage the crane population is through a hunt. 

The bill is the product of a Joint Legislative Council study committee convened last year — which spent months trying to find a compromise solution that would satisfy farmers concerned about the more than $1.5 million in crop damage the birds cause each year, hunting groups dead set on establishing a hunt and bird conservationists worried a hunt could damage a population that the state spent decades working to reestablish. 

Sandhill cranes were once gone from the Wisconsin environment, but years of careful work have reestablished the birds. However, many of the wetland habitats that originally served as the bird’s nesting sites have been replaced with farmland and the birds like to eat the corn seeds out of those fields. 

The compromise proposal barely eked through the study committee — which was divided along similar lines as Wednesday’s hearing. 

In the version of the bill under consideration now, a number of proposals meant to help farmers with the crop damage problem have been stripped out, including a program that would subsidize part of the cost for pre-treating corn seeds with a chemical that makes them unappetizing to the birds. 

Dave Considine, a retired state representative whose former district includes the Baraboo-based International Crane Foundation, said at the hearing it was a “travesty” that aid for farmers has been left out of the bill. 

“I thought we had a really decent compromise [in the study committee]. Now I come here to testify and we have given farmers no help, nothing,” Considine said. “Matter of fact, most of the science in the committee meeting, spoke of the fact that if anything [a hunt] may increase damage.”

Plus, a number of anti-hunt advocates questioned how holding a hunt in the fall is meant to deter crop damage, which largely happens in the spring before the seeds have sprouted. 

A number of pro-hunt speakers at the hearing pointed to Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which hold or are preparing to start sandhill crane hunting seasons. 

The difference, conservationists argued, is that the sandhill cranes that migrate through the eastern flyway (the region of North America of which Wisconsin is a part), use Wisconsin as their annual nesting ground. 

“Cranes are long-lived, and slow to breed one or two young annually,” said Ann Lacy, director of North American eastern flyway programs at the International Crane Foundation. “They do not have the same biology as ducks or geese; therefore, they cannot be managed similarly. They have unique biological considerations, especially in Wisconsin. What happens to these birds in Wisconsin has an effect on the Eastern Population as a whole.”

Despite all those concerns, hunting advocates refused to budge, even as several experts testified explaining the scientific reasons why a hunt won’t help the crop damage problem. For example, sandhill cranes mate for life and are extremely territorial but most of the damage in the state every year comes from single birds moving in larger flocks. If one or both members of a mated pair are killed in a hunt, that only opens up the pair’s territory to be taken over by an unruly group of unmated birds. 

“[We’ve] heard several times that hunting is not a tool that will help us against agricultural damage,” Todd Schaller, a member of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association board said in response to the expert testimony. “I’m going to say, in my pragmatic thinking, that’s false.”

In 2021, Republicans in the Legislature proposed a similar bill to start a crane hunt. When announcing that bill, conservative rock musician Ted Nugent appeared at a press conference in which he called the birds “ribeyes in the sky.” On Wednesday, Tim Andryk of Wisconsin Ducks Unlimited argued people would be less squeamish about having a crane hunt in Wisconsin if they tasted the meat. 

“They’re just amazing when it comes to eating them,” Andryk said. “They’re a delicate, dark red meat … they’re such good eating that people that are opposed to hunting them, once they’ve eaten one, I don’t think they would be opposed to hunting.”

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Traders work as the market opens on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 18, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — At least 25 bills have been introduced this Congress to further limit lawmakers and their family members from trading individual stocks, and representatives across the aisle renewed pressure Wednesday on U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up the issue.

Their contention is members of Congress hold a serious advantage over everyday Americans when buying and selling stocks because of their access to information on Capitol Hill.

The House Committee on Administration convened Wednesday morning to hear how existing guardrails laid out in the 2012 STOCK Act fall short and consider the options to revamp it.

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, shortened to the STOCK Act, codified that members of Congress, congressional employees and other federal officials are not exempt from federal insider trading laws. 

The law also required that lawmakers and certain congressional staffers must disclose stock transactions that amount to over $1,000 within 45 days.

The law built upon the late 1970s-era Ethics in Government Act that established financial disclosure requirements for officials in all three branches of government.

“While rules already govern how public officials trade stocks, stronger restrictions may be necessary to restore trust and ensure officials are not profiting from their positions,” said Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis.

Ranking member Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., said that he “unequivocally” supports a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks and “that ban should extend to the co-equal branches of government as well.”

Law seen as ineffective

Policy experts before the committee poked holes in the protective measures already on the books.

“Despite allegations of improper conduct, no member of Congress has ever been prosecuted under the (STOCK) Act, nor do any public records exist indicating that officials have ever paid statutory fines for STOCK Act disclosure errors,” said James Copland, senior fellow and director of legal policy at the conservative Manhattan Institute. 

Trust in lawmakers and government officials to self-police is eroding, argued the experts and several committee members. 

Roughly 86% of the public across party lines wants to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, according to a 2023 survey from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

Dan Savickas, vice president of policy and government affairs for the advocacy group Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said data collected by stock activity trackers and journalists reveals Congress’ sticky entanglement with the market. 

According to a January 2024 report from Unusual Whales, a platform that monitors lawmakers’ stock transactions, dozens of members who traded in 2023 outperformed the S&P 500 Index. 

A New York Times investigation published in 2022 found 3,700 stock transactions by members of Congress from both parties from 2019 to 2021 “posed potential conflicts between their public responsibilities and private finances.” 

Savickas said a number of issues exist in the law’s current form, not least of which is that the STOCK Act “does not prevent conflicted trading by members of Congress, but merely requires them to report when and if they do so.”

Plus, many report them late without consequence, he added. Additionally, a violation is only subject to a $200 penalty and enforcement is left up to the executive branch, leaving it vulnerable to subjectivity and politics, Savickas said.

Some members of the committee questioned how lawmakers would be taxed should they be forced to divest, and how to navigate specific family investments. That included Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., whose family owns 20% of a community swimming pool he and his family have long used.

“How do we make sure that we’re not eliminating me or making me sell something that I feel strongly about? This has been part of my childhood, part of all my kids’ childhoods,” Griffith said, adding that his son coached the local swim team to the championships last year.

“How do we protect that while curing the ills of people who are trying to do bad things?”

‘As crooked as a dog’s leg’

During a press conference ahead of the hearing, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said “this place is as crooked as a dog’s leg, and it needs to stop.”

Burchett joined Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., in urging Johnson to bring to the floor the Restore Trust in Congress Act, a bill joining together several members’ proposals from this year.

The bill would prohibit Congress members, their spouses, and any dependent children and trustees from owning, buying or selling securities, commodities, futures and certain other assets. If enacted, a lawmaker and their family members would have 180 days to divest. Those newly elected would have a 90-day timeline to do so. The ban would not apply to diversified funds.

“Everybody standing here along with a number of others have been working on this issue for some time,” Magaziner told reporters. 

“We all worked together over the course of the summer to come up with a single, unified bill. So we have one bill, one strategy, and now it is on leadership to get this done and give us a vote,” he continued.

Other leaders on the issue who’ve signed onto the joint effort include Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Chip Roy, R-Texas, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Joe Neguse, D-Colo. Nearly 80 others signed as cosponsors in addition to the 16 original names.

Fitzpatrick said lawmakers “have to get this done, we will get this done this Congress.”

“Mark my words, this bill, or a bill, will come to the floor, hopefully through an open amendment process where we can make this better,” Fitzpatrick told reporters.

“If we are all willing to accept the premise, and I hope everyone is, that members of Congress unequivocally have access to inside information — we do — if you accept that premise then we have to do something on the stock trading front,” he continued.

Johnson timeline for action

When asked by States Newsroom if Johnson has a timeline for bringing any of the proposals to the floor, a spokesperson responded in an email, “We’ll defer to House Admin (committee) for the time being whether they plan to markup a bill etc.”

Johnson told Punchbowl News in September that a stock trading ban bill is “a tough issue.”

In May, Johnson said he worried whether a ban would affect who could serve in Congress because salaries haven’t risen in several years.

“But on balance, my view is we probably should do that because I think it’s been abused in the past and I think, sadly, a few bad actors discolor it for everyone,” he said.

Masked federal immigration officers talk while they patrol at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York City on Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — Federal immigration officers are making unlawful arrests in the District of Columbia because they are relying on ethnicity to identify targets, immigration advocates argued in federal court Wednesday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are allowed to make warrantless arrests if an officer has probable cause or reason to believe a person is in the United States without legal authorization and can escape before a warrant is obtained. But the immigration advocates challenging ICE’s methods say the officers are using ethnicity-based criteria that have led to wrongful arrests.

“People are living in fear that they will be arrested unlawfully or subject to detention,” Ama Frimpong, the legal director of immigration advocacy group CASA and lead counsel in the case, said.

CASA is seeking class certification for people affected by the policy.

U.S. Justice Department attorney John Bardo said the Trump administration was against class certification because it would cause “micromanaging” by the courts for federal immigration officials and he argued that the plaintiffs in the class have different immigration statuses.

“You don’t even have commonality among the four plaintiffs,” Bardo said.

U.S. District Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell said she would make a decision on class certification and whether to narrow a preliminary injunction soon. 

Quota challenged

The suit stems from President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration in the district that flooded the 68-square-mile capital with federal law enforcement and National Guard troops. As a result, there has been an uptick in aggressive immigration enforcement.

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said officers should arrest 3,000 people per day on suspicion of being in the country without legal authorization. 

Bardo confirmed that policy in court Wednesday, but said the figure was a goal. 

Questioned by Howell, he said the quota was not leading to unlawful arrests and that officers were properly trained. 

Profiling policy

A policy that allows officers to target people based on factors like ethnicity and accent has also swept up U.S. citizens and legal residents. 

Groups challenged the policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually heard it. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a 6-3 decision temporarily allowing profiling based on ethnicity that citizens face few problems in having their immigration status verified if federal agents apprehend them.

The four individual plaintiffs in the case in Howell’s court are immigrants who have some form of legal status such as a pending asylum case or temporary protections but were arrested by federal officers. They argue they were targeted because of their ethnicity and fear they will continue to be targeted because they are Latino. They have moved for class certification.

One plaintiff, B.S.R., said in his declaration he was arrested twice by officers in the district, despite having a pending asylum claim.

Another plaintiff, N.S., said in his declaration that was leaving a Home Depot after buying supplies and was arrested by officers, even after he showed his documentation showing he had Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela. He was transferred to several ICE facilities across the country and detained for 28 days before he was released and able to return to his family in the district.

A third, R.S.M., has a pending application for a visa category for victims of a crime who are helpful to law enforcement in cases. 

In her declaration, R.S.M. said that during her arrest, officers scanned her husband’s face, and found he was not the person they were looking for. 

“For a moment, I was relieved and thought they would not arrest us, but one officer said it did not matter that my husband didn’t match the person they were looking for, and the officer decided to arrest us anyway,” she said, adding that only one officer out of the seven who arrested them was in clothing that identified them as law enforcement.

R.S.M. said she was released and given an ankle monitor, but her husband is still detained.

‘Like being kidnapped’

In a declaration submitted to the court, the lead plaintiff, José Eliseo Escobar Molina, detailed how he was detained by federal immigration officials. 

Escobar Molina came to the U.S. in 1998 and obtained Temporary Protected Status in 2001. The status is granted when the Department of Homeland Security deems a national’s home country too dangerous to return to due to violence, natural disaster or other unstable environments.

He lives in the district neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, which has a large Salvadoran immigrant population, with his significant other and their two sons, both U.S. citizens. Escobar Molina, who works in construction as a scaffolder, said he was getting in his truck to head to work.

“Officers dressed in plainclothes got out of the vehicles,” he said in his declaration. “First, two of them grabbed me by the arms and immediately handcuffed me, and then the two officers from the other Suburban came over and grabbed me by the legs.”

Escobar Molina said the officers didn’t identify themselves and he tried to inform them of his legal documentation, which he said was in his wallet.

“I felt like I was being kidnapped,” he said. “Once in the car, I told them again that I had papers. The driver of the car, who was one of the officers that handcuffed me, told me, ‘Shut up b–-h! You’re illegal.’ After he yelled at me, I stayed silent. I did not try to resist arrest or to flee.”

Escobar Molina said he was asked no questions from any law enforcement officer before being transferred to a facility in Chantilly, Virginia. He said that during his 23-hour detention, all he was given was “one small bean burrito, something sweet, and a glass of water.” 

Officer mistake

Escobar Molina said while at Chantilly, Virginia, one of the officers at Homeland Security said his TPS “doesn’t count as being legal here,” and he was then transferred to Richmond, Virginia. 

TPS for El Salvador is still valid, and DHS extended the status earlier this year. 

Escobar Molina said once he was at Richmond, an ICE supervisor realized the mistake and said he was free to leave.  

“He said to me, ‘Sorry you had to live through this. These are new officers. They do not know what they are doing,’” Escobar Molina said, recounting his interaction with the ICE supervisor. “He gave me a copy of my TPS approval notice and told me to carry it with me so I could show it if officers stopped me again.” 

Escobar Molina said when he was arrested in the summer, it was the first time he had been arrested since being in the U.S. for more than 20 years. 

“I fear the same for my sons because even though they are U.S. citizens, they are Hispanic just like me,” he said. “I told them to carry their U.S. passports with them at all times just to be safe.”

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., amid fog on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators began debating how to reduce health care costs for Americans during a hearing Wednesday, where experts’ varied recommendations and comments from lawmakers previewed the rocky and potentially long path ahead. 

Republicans on the Finance Committee argued the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has led to a spike in health insurance costs for individuals  that shouldn’t be offset by tax credits any longer. 

Democrats urged their colleagues to extend the enhanced subsidies for at least another year to give Congress more time to address larger, more complex issues within the country’s health insurance and health care systems. 

Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said the hearing marked “the first step in building the foundation for” health care reform.

“We need both short-term and long-term solutions,” Crapo said. “In the short term, we cannot simply throw good money after bad policy. If we keep advancing a system that drives up premiums, we will make this problem even harder to solve.”

“Instead, we should set the groundwork for giving Americans more control over their health care choices,” Crapo added. “Rather than accepting the current system of giving billions of taxpayer dollars to insurers, we should consider providing financial assistance directly to consumers through health savings accounts, which are now available on the Obamacare exchanges through a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Such tax-advantaged accounts are used to save money to pay for medical expenses and generally are used in conjunction with a high-deductible insurance plan, but an HSA “is a trust/custodial account and is not health insurance,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

The ACA, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, overhauled the U.S. health care system with the intent of reducing high rates of uninsured people and ending insurance industry practices such as exclusions based on pre-existing conditions and the sale of policies with high costs and skimpy coverage. The law also expanded Medicaid and, for individual coverage, introduced the health insurance exchanges, or marketplaces, that now are at issue.

According to the health organization KFF, the number of uninsured Americans fell from about 14% to 16% in the years preceding passage of the law to a record low of 7.7% in 2023.

Pessimism about health care action

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the panel, rebuked Republicans for focusing on other policy areas throughout the year instead of making improvements to health care.

“Sitting on your hands has consequences,” he said. 

Wyden doesn’t see a way for Congress to extend the enhanced tax credits set to expire at the end of the year for people who get their health insurance from the ACA marketplace, despite Democrats pressing for that during the 43-day government shutdown that ended in mid-November. 

Wyden expressed support for working with Republican senators to address health insurance companies’ structure, though he said he is “skeptical” his GOP colleagues will actually approve legislation on that particular issue in the months ahead. 

“Now if they are serious about taking on the crooks that dominate big insurance, like UnitedHealthcare, I’m all in,” Wyden said. “In my view that starts with a laser focus on lower costs for consumers, going after fraud where it truly exists, and cracking down on middlemen.”

‘Very little that this Congress can do’

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president at the center-right American Action Forum and former chief economist at the Council for Economic Advisers during the President George W. Bush administration, told the committee the structure of the Affordable Care Act poses problems. 

“As a piece of health policy, economic policy and budget policy, the ACA has always been a troubling construct,” Holtz-Eakin said, later adding there is “very little that this Congress can do to change the outlook” for 2026. 

Holtz-Eakin testified that Congress is long “overdue for a real rethinking of health care policy at the federal level” that he believes should focus on two primary areas. 

The first is to “rationalize the insurance subsidies” and the second is to address what he referred to as “high-value care,” which he said should include Medicare, the health program that covers 69 million Americans over 65 and some people with disabilities. 

“Medicare is a great budgetary threat, and so I encourage the committee and the Congress as a whole to take a hard look at that and make some progress toward better health care outcomes and better budgetary outcomes,” Holtz-Eakin said.  

Jason Levitis, senior fellow of the Health Policy Division at the left-leaning Urban Institute and a Treasury employee who led the ACA implementation at the department during the Obama administration, urged lawmakers to address the “too complicated and segmented” health insurance marketplace. 

Levitis said the best short-term option for Congress would be to extend the enhanced tax credits for ACA enrollees during 2026, despite the time crunch. 

“At this point the only feasible option is a clean extension of the existing enhancements,” Levitis said. “The marketplaces have already built that option and have been preparing for months for the possibility of an extension.” 

Former Trump adviser says ACA ‘failed’

Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute and a former special assistant to President Donald Trump at the White House National Economic Council, said bluntly that the Affordable Care Act has “failed.”

“The law entrenched an inefficient insurance-dominated health sector with massive subsidies flowing straight from the Treasury to health companies,” Blase said. 

The subsidies for ACA marketplace plans, he said, were “ill-designed and inflationary,” urging lawmakers not to extend them for another year.  

“The enrollee share of the premium is capped regardless of the total premium. When enrollees pay only a small slice of the premium or no premium at all, insurers face almost no price discipline,” Blase said. “Insurers can raise premiums knowing the taxpayers will absorb almost all of the increase.”

Blase said he believes the ACA’s regulations on health insurance companies are one of the reasons costs have spiked. 

“For example, under the medical loss ratio, insurers must spend a minimum share of premium revenue on medical claims. In other words, to increase profits, insurers must increase premiums,” Blase said. “The ACA’s essential health benefits require plans to cover the same set of services regardless of what people want or need. These rules increase premiums and wasteful spending.”

The medical loss ratio was included in the ACA in response to insurers who spent “a substantial portion” of premiums on administrative costs and profits, including executive salaries, overhead and marketing, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

‘We all believe we need to reform’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters separately from the hearing the debate over how to restructure health insurance to bring down costs has highlighted the “differences of opinion” among GOP lawmakers. 

“We’ve got a lot of people who have strong views, but the one thing that unites us is we all believe we need to reform, and we’ve got to do something to drive health care costs down,” Thune said. 

GOP leaders, he added, are “looking for solutions that will lower health care premiums, not increase them. And what we see today is just constant inflationary impacts from some of these policies of the past.”

Trump, who would need to support any health care overhaul bill for it to move through Congress, wrote in a social media post Tuesday that he wants lawmakers to send money straight to Americans, without detail on how that would work. 

“THE ONLY HEALTHCARE I WILL SUPPORT OR APPROVE IS SENDING THE MONEY DIRECTLY BACK TO THE PEOPLE, WITH NOTHING GOING TO THE BIG, FAT, RICH INSURANCE COMPANIES, WHO HAVE MADE $TRILLIONS, AND RIPPED OFF AMERICA LONG ENOUGH,” Trump wrote. “THE PEOPLE WILL BE ALLOWED TO NEGOTIATE AND BUY THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, INSURANCE. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Congress, do not waste your time and energy on anything else. This is the only way to have great Healthcare in America!!! GET IT DONE, NOW. President DJT”

Senate Chambers in the Wisconsin State Capitol. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

During its last floor session of the year, the Wisconsin Senate passed bills Tuesday that would eliminate the annual $325 per pupil revenue increase for school districts, define abortion to not include treatment for ectopic pregnancies and other emergency medical conditions and block state and local dollars from being used on health care for people not legally in the country.

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said she is “dismayed” and “disgusted” that lawmakers were not taking up bills that focused on affordability. She said she is open to working across the aisle on the issue.

“Republicans do not care about affordability, and they have no plan about affordability either,” Hesselbein said. “There are no bills on this calendar that will lower prescription drug costs, increase access to health care, lower housing costs or make child care more affordable.”

Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) noted a few of the more than 60 bills lawmakers were scheduled to take up and questioned whether they addressed pressing matters. 

“Republicans, who determine the issues and bills we focus on, today are addressing things like exempting tobacco bars from the public smoking ban, delaying the implementation of commercial building code rules,” Keyeski said. “While these may be worthy issues to discuss, I would suggest that it does not meet the threshold of emergent need when families are facing dire economic circumstances. GOP legislators are essentially forcing us to sit idly by and watch Wisconsinites suffer.”

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said at a press conference that Democratic lawmakers were just “filibustering” and rejected the claim that Republicans weren’t working to help with affordability in the state.

“We passed a budget which had the second largest tax cut in state history to get money back into people’s pockets for utility bills, for retirees on fixed incomes, for middle class tax cuts. We’re doing everything we can to try to keep things affordable, ending the 400-year veto so taxes don’t go up in the next budget process,” LeMahieu said. “We are very concerned. It seems like Democrats can make these statements, but yet they’re introducing bills that let local governments increase their levies to tax, raise property taxes, and everything else, so it seems a little disingenuous.”

Republicans advance bill to eliminate 400-year veto

The Senate voted to pass a bill that would reverse Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that extended school revenue limit increases for 400 years. 

Lawmakers during the 2023-25 state budget gave school districts a $325 increase to schools’ revenue limits for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. When the bill reached Evers’ desk, he exercised his partial veto power, striking two digits and a dash from the years to extend the annual increases through 2425, to lawmakers’ dismay. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in April that the partial veto was within Evers’ powers.

In response, lawmakers introduced SB 389 to eliminate the $325 per pupil school revenue limit increase beginning in the 2027-28 school year. It passed along party lines. 

“We’re very concerned with the ruling of the state Supreme Court, but what we want to do is to clarify that the original intent of the Legislature in the budget was to increase school funding for the next budget period,” Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield), a coauthor of the bill, said. “He changed the bill in a way that no governor in the history of the state of Wisconsin has changed [a bill], and that’s very concerning for us because the Legislature is where the voice of a people is supposed to take place, and the governor is supposed to look at that and use his veto authority to determine where he stands on that, but he went far beyond what’s ever been done before.”

Democratic lawmakers defended the revenue limit increases, saying it is helping school districts that have struggled without inflationary increases in state funding.

“As fists clench over the 400-year veto, know this, it doesn’t even make up for inflation. What it does is, it provides a minimum increase for what people can expect,” Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said. “Unfortunately, with this vote, it is trying to go back and trying to actually make a horrible budget even worse by saying not only are we giving you zero dollars in general aid increase…, but more than that, we’re also going to bar the local school district from making up for that gap by being able to allow them to vote for an increased property tax.”

Larson said that the law could have been changed during the 2025-27 state budget process and that it is the state’s fault that property taxes are bearing the brunt of the increases.

“Everybody who voted for the budget, in essence, voted for the continuation of the $325 dollars per pupil increase to be passed on to local taxpayers to make up the difference,” Larson said. “If you had wanted to change it, there were two things that you could have done. One, you could have voted to have that ended and substituted with a different per-pupil increase. Second thing is, you could have had the state actually fund those increases using funds from the increasing general aid or using the vast surplus that we have, taking money from the agriculture manufacturing tax credit [or] anywhere else, and you could have actually funded our kids.”

Redefining abortion

The Senate also passed SB 553, which seeks to redefine abortion to exempt treatments for certain medical conditions including the removal of a dead embryo or fetus, an ectopic, anembryonic or molar pregnancy.

Bill coauthor Sen. Romaine Quinn (R-Birchwood) said during a press conference that he wanted to remove confusion from state statute, saying he is “pro-life” and hasn’t wanted to stop women from being able to receive the medical care that they need. 

“Women who need medical attention due to situations of stillbirths, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or other related issues, can and should receive the care that they need. That has always been the pro-life position,” Quinn said. “This bill before us today does not ban abortions. It does not restrict abortions, it simply clarifies our laws so that both women and medical providers can do what is necessary in those situations.”

Wisconsin has a web of abortion restrictions in place, including a 20-week ban, but confusion soared in the state after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. An 1849 law interpreted as a near-total abortion ban led health care providers afraid of felony charges to deny care to women who faced miscarriage and life-threatening pregnancy complications.

Recently, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state’s largest abortion provider, stopped providing abortion care in part due to federal changes.

Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said the lawmakers were trying to distance themselves from “the horrors that we are seeing in states that have banned and restricted abortion.” The Assembly coauthor, Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said in September that she introduced it in part because Republicans are getting “killed” on the abortion issue during elections, although she said she favors a total abortion ban.

“Women being turned away from hospital emergency rooms repeatedly, being left to bleed out in Walmart parking lots. In fact, women are dying because they are denied timely abortion care that could easily have saved their lives, and their children left orphaned,” Roys said. “That’s the reality of what it looks like when you ban and restrict access to abortion in this country.”

Recent polling done by Marquette Law School found that abortion policy has declined as a “most important” issue among voters across all partisan groups in 2025 as compared to 2022, although 50% of respondents still said they were “very concerned” and 23% said they were “somewhat concerned” about the issue. 

Another recent poll found that 78% of voters support protecting health care professionals from criminal charges related to providing abortion care and 72% of voters favor allowing advanced health care providers like nurse practitioners and midwives to provide abortion care.

Roys said she was also concerned that the bill could push physicians to do emergency C-sections rather than terminate pregnancies as a way of addressing health issues. 

“Abortion is a necessary medical procedure that sometimes pregnant people need to save their lives, to preserve their health, to preserve their future fertility, and nothing in this bill is going to change that,” Roys said. “This bill will instead push physicians to force women to have unnecessary C-sections or to induce delivery rather than providing them with abortion. A C-section is much more dangerous. It is much more invasive. It’s major abdominal surgery that takes weeks or months to recover from, and it also impairs a woman’s future ability to be pregnant to have the labor and delivery that she wishes.”

The bill will now go to the Assembly for consideration. 

Restricting health care for immigrants

The Senate concurred 21-12 in AB 308, which would prohibit state, county, village, long-term care district and federal funds from being used to subsidize, reimburse or provide compensation for any health care services for a person not lawfully in the United States. Sens. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) and Jamie Wall (D-Green Bay) joined Republicans in favor. 

Bill coauthor Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) said the bill would ensure that Wisconsin doesn’t begin spending large amounts of money on people who aren’t legally in the country. He noted that other states, including Minnesota and California, have rescinded or paused providing coverage for people not legally in the U.S. 

“[Illinois] did an audit and found that they had spent nearly $900 million on health care benefits for illegal aliens, about a 200% increase, and then in Minnesota, the Legislature, by bipartisan vote, they voted to end the eligibility for illegal immigrants due to questions about their state’s financial well-being, and then, lastly, wonderful, California. Gov. [Gavin] Newsom recently froze enrollment of illegal immigrants into the state’s medical programs, citing California’s $12 billion budget deficit,” Wanggaard said at a press conference. “We’re looking at something that is really a no-brainer.”

Wisconsin already doesn’t allow immigrants without legal authorization to apply for the state’s Medicaid program, BadgerCare.

There are two programs available to those without legal status outlined on the Department of Health Services website: Medicaid Emergency Services, which provides short-term medical coverage for people who have a medical emergency and aren’t eligible for BadgerCare Plus or Wisconsin Medicaid, and BadgerCare Plus Prenatal Plan, which provides health care coverage for pregnant mothers who are not eligible for BadgerCare Plus due to immigration status or being in prison or jail.

Democratic lawmakers accused Republicans of seeking to make a political point and neglecting to address health care costs and accessibility.

“We are not in an affordability crisis because of less than 1% of BadgerCare funds that are used to save lives,” Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) said. “This is cruel, it is a mean-spirited bill that is attempting to score cheap political points off of a group that’s already marginalized enough.” 

Advocates have warned that the bill could have a “chilling effect,” discouraging people from seeking care when they need it.

“Why is this sort of thing even coming up for discussion? Are we that heartless? Have we really lost our vision for this country?” Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) asked. “These are all messaging to somebody’s base. Terrible people who are coming here to work in our factories, in our fields without the proper papers need to be punished… How heartless are we to make political points? Go ahead and make your god dang political points.”

The Assembly passed the bill in September, so it will now go to Evers for consideration. 

Other bills passed by the Senate Tuesday include:  

• AB 165, which would ban local governments from using tax money to create guaranteed income programs without a work or training requirement. The Assembly passed the bill along party lines in April and the Senate concurred in it 18-15 so it will now go to Evers for consideration. 
• AB 265, which would require judges to sentence people convicted of human trafficking to at least 10 years in prison, or at least 15 years for trafficking a child, was concurred in in an 18-15 party line vote. Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns about young victims of sex trafficking potentially facing mandatory minimums if they are forced to participate in trafficking, while Republicans brushed away those concerns. 
• SB 498 passed 17-16 with Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) joining Democrats against it. The bill would place specific freedom of speech requirements into state statute, including barring campuses from restricting speakers on campus, and implement new penalties, including a tuition freeze, if a campus violates any parts of the bill.
• SB 394 would make it a Class I felony to damage or graffiti structures, plaques, statues, paintings or other monuments on public property or that is maintained by the state or any county or municipality. It passed 18-15 along party lines.
• SB 11, which would require school districts to provide an opportunity for certain federally chartered youth membership organizations, including the Girl Scouts, to give students information about their organizations. It passed by a voice vote. The Assembly is scheduled to vote on the bill on Wednesday.
• SB 16, which would make the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association subject to open records and open meeting laws, passed 22-11.

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(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s recent Public Service Commission approvals of energy rates for Alliant Energy and Xcel Energy will amount to a $300 million increase in rates for residential customers over the next two years, according to a Public…

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s online sports wagering bill won’t be voted on during session Wednesday, Rep. Tyler August confirmed on Wednesday morning.

(The Center Square) – There were no “no” votes from Wisconsin on the Jeffery Epstein files.

(The Center Square) – Schools in the University of Wisconsin system will have to justify online class fees if a bill that passed the Senate becomes law.

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Does each ICE deportation cost taxpayers at least $17,000? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Last winter, I got an intriguing story tip: Many Wisconsin manufactured home communities were operating with expired licenses. 

I didn’t initially know much about these communities, often called mobile home parks, where residents own their homes but rent the land they sit on. I quickly learned they provide a critical source of affordable housing in Wisconsin and beyond — the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. 

Housing experts and advocates told me private equity’s growing interest in the model threatens to change that. My reporting found that Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for owners. Still, some residents and groups see pathways for safe, affordable manufactured home ownership as a solution during an affordability crisis. 

That required talking to owners of manufactured homes across the state, starting with a February drive from Wisconsin Watch’s Madison newsroom to snowy La Crosse. There I met with a couple who moved into their manufactured home more than a decade ago. That meeting led to a months-long tour of similar communities. 

A Cumberland couple showed me their favorite part of their manufactured home, the fireplace. I passed out flyers in Richland Center and Spring Green, chatting with a surprising number of people who answered their doors.

As the weather warmed, I walked up to chatty neighbors sitting on porches in Wisconsin Dells. Menomonie residents stopped their yard work to talk. I left a set of Fond du Lac park interviews sunburned after standing on a porch for too long as residents lent me their time and perspectives. 

Not every homeowner’s experience made it into our “Forgotten homes” series, named after a lawmaker’s reference to the homes as “a forgotten segment of real estate.” But they often shared a lot of similarities. Here are some of my takeaways:

1. Park ownership is changing. While some residents said they know the person who owns their park, others were paying rent to out-of-state companies. Some mentioned concerns about what would happen to their homes once their local owner decides to sell. 

2. Residents don’t always know where to turn when conditions deteriorate. Wisconsin uses a patchwork of state and local agencies to monitor different aspects of manufactured home communities. That leaves residents unsure of where to complain about issues or unaware they have that option. 

3. People want to stay in their homes. Even as some residents face surging monthly payments, they struggle with the idea of giving up the space, independence and yards.

4. Owning a manufactured home outside of a park can be complicated. Wisconsin Habitat for Humanity affiliates are developing factory-built housing in residential neighborhoods. But local zoning can block certain homes from residential neighborhoods. And other park residents mentioned needing more money to purchase land themselves.

5. Manufactured homeowners often face stigma but are proud of their homes. Residents showed me carefully decorated lawns, peaceful walking routes through parks, kitchens with custom cabinets and the homes of their longtime neighbors and friends. 

Wisconsin’s forgotten homes: Takeaways from investigating manufactured housing is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A Republican proposal to require every Wisconsin municipality to offer early-voting hours has divided groups representing voters and election officials, with voters calling the proposal a net gain for voting access and some clerks calling the requirements onerous, especially for small municipalities.

The bill originally required every municipality to offer at least 20 hours of in-person early voting at the clerk’s office or an alternate site. It was amended Tuesday, based on clerk feedback, to allow for fewer required hours in some smaller municipalities. 

Municipalities that can’t hold their own early-voting hours would be able to offer it in a neighboring municipality or the county clerk’s office under the bill. A separate measure would provide $1.5 million to municipalities extending their early-voting hours — lowered from an originally proposed $10 million — but that would be available only for the 2025-26 fiscal year, while the early-voting requirements appear to be indefinite. The proposal would apply to the April and November elections.

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, a Republican, previously told Votebeat she wrote the bill after noticing the stark difference in early-voting availability between rural and urban municipalities. Cities such as Milwaukee and Madison offer multiple days for early voting, while some rural municipalities offer just a couple of hours, or do it by appointment only. 

Cabral-Guevara didn’t directly answer a follow-up question from Votebeat on Tuesday about whether the Senate would fund the measure, but said she’s hoping it passes. Rep. Scott Krug, a Republican who wrote the bill with her, told Votebeat he hopes the Senate will pass the measure since he lowered the amount of proposed funding.

“It’s only going to create more opportunities for voting,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin. “That for us is always the key. It should be funded for more than one year.”

The amended bill would set the minimum early-voting period at 10 hours in municipalities with fewer than 600 voters,15 hours in municipalities with between 600 and 799 voters and 20 hours in towns with 800 or more voters.

But some clerks said any hourly requirement would be too burdensome — and could have the unintended consequence of decreasing voter access. Because Wisconsin’s elections are run at the municipal level, a small number of clerks serving only a few dozen voters would still be required to adhere to the minimum hours.

Omro Town Clerk Dana Woods called this “too drastic of a measure” and said the requirements may lead to “honorable public servants” choosing to leave their jobs.

Most Wisconsin clerks work part time, with some scheduled only a few hours per week. Woods, for example, is scheduled to be in her office just seven hours per week and serves 1,800 registered voters.

Lisa Tollefson, the Rock County clerk, acknowledged that the proposal could increase voting across the state but said it still doesn’t make sense in the smallest municipalities, where voters typically choose to vote on Election Day.

Joe Ruth, government affairs director at the Wisconsin Towns Association, said at a public hearing for the proposal that clerks would likely stop offering early voting by appointment if they have to fulfill the proposed hourly requirement. And if they do so, he added, the voters who can’t come during the set hours would lose their opportunity to vote early in person.

Ruth didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the amendment alleviated his concerns.

In an Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections executive session, the five Republicans on the committee voted in favor and the two Democrats voted against it. It is scheduled for an Assembly floor vote on Wednesday.

Republican Rep. Dave Maxey, who chairs the Assembly elections committee, called the bill a great idea and questioned why people would vote against a funded mandate that would expand voting. He said there would be a mechanism to fund early voting in future years through the budget.

Rep. Lee Snodgrass, a Democrat, told Votebeat that she voted against the bill because it allows a county board to decide whether a municipality can hold early-voting hours at the county clerk’s office. She said county boards shouldn’t have oversight over elections. The latest tweak to the bill now requires consent from both the county board and clerk.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin election officials skeptical of proposed early-voting mandate for municipalities is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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