(The Center Square) – The latest pitch for Wisconsin’s budget surplus would see nearly a billion dollars spent on clean water projects across the state.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s population was estimated at 5.96 million as of July 1, an increase from 5.90 million a year before and up from 5.89 million in July 2020, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Shereen Siewert, publisher of the Wausau Pilot and Review, has been breathing easier these days. In September, a Wisconsin appeals court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of state Sen. Cory Tomczyk’s defamation lawsuit against Siewert, the nonprofit newsroom she founded in 2017 and one of its reporters.
The ruling, which Tomczyk did not appeal, ended a three-year legal nightmare that began after the Pilot and Review reported that Tomczyk, before joining the Legislature, “was widely overheard” calling a 13-year-old boy a “fag” at a Marathon County board meeting about a surprisingly contentious resolution affirming community inclusivity. Tomczyk denied using the slur and accused the news outlet of having “smeared” his reputation.
Although the Pilot and Review prevailed, the lawsuit took a severe financial and emotional toll, including some $200,000 in legal bills, lost donors and sponsors and the trauma of fearing bankruptcy while Siewert was caring for her dying sister and mother.
“I had serious conversations with my son about selling him my home if I couldn’t pay my legal bills,” says Siewert, noting that she was personally named in the suit. “I woke up in a panic thinking — I’m 56 years old and am about to lose everything.”
Jim Malewitz
The case drives home the need for what are sometimes called anti-SLAPP laws; the acronym stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation. While 34 states and the District of Columbia have enacted such laws to protect media and individuals from frivolous defamation lawsuits, Wisconsin has not.
“We are starkly aware that any reporter and any news organization in Wisconsin can be sued at any time for anything,” Siewert says. “Every time we write a story, we’re putting our livelihood on the line.”
Bills introduced last year by Democrats would have allowed Wisconsin judges to quickly dismiss SLAPP suits and require plaintiffs to pay the defendants’ legal fees. The state’s GOP-controlled Legislature did not even give them a hearing. But 2025 offers lawmakers a fresh opportunity to pass anti-SLAPP legislation.
Under the current standard set for defamation of public figures, a news outlet must show “actual malice” in publishing the information in question — either knowing it to be false or with “reckless disregard” as to its veracity. The Pilot and Review argued, and both a trial court judge and three-member appeals court panel unanimously agreed, that Tomczyk, as a local businessman who publicly opposed a resolution to declare Wausau a “Community for All,” qualified as a public figure and had failed to prove “actual malice.”
Indeed, the record showed that the Pilot and Review took appropriate steps to affirm the accuracy of its reporting. Three people swore they heard him use the slur, which he acknowledged using on other occasions. (Tomczyk did not respond to requests for comment for this column.)
The two lead Democrats behind last year’s anti-SLAPP bills — Sen. Melissa Agard of Madison and Rep. Jimmy Anderson of Fitchburg — aren’t returning this session.
But Rep. Alex Joers, D-Middleton, expects his colleagues will revive the legislation in 2025 and hopes slimmer partisan margins will encourage more compromise than in the past. The Assembly’s unanimous passage last year of a bill to protect student media from censorship showed Republicans and Democrats can find common ground on press protections. (The bill, however, died in the Senate.)
The benefits of an anti-SLAPP law would extend beyond newsrooms. Joers, who worked for Agard before joining the Legislature, recalled Agard researching the issue after learning that companies were suing people who left negative reviews on Yelp. Anti-SLAPP laws in other states — including Republican-led Texas and Tennessee — have protected residents from expensive lawsuits.
“This could happen to anybody,” Joers said.
It should happen to no one.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Council member Jim Malewitz is managing editor of Wisconsin Watch.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously authorized an investigation Thursday into Madison’s mishandling of nearly 200 absentee ballots that were never counted from the November 2024 election.
It’s the first such investigation that the bipartisan commission has authorized since becoming an agency in 2016. The review will allow the agency to probe whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated the law or abused her discretion.
Ahead of the vote, Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs told Votebeat that her priority wasn’t “punishment” but to figure out “what on earth went wrong here.”
“Our lack of knowledge, information that wasn’t given to us in a timely fashion, I think we need to do something more formal,” Jacobs said at the meeting.
The late discovery that 193 absentee ballots from voters in the state capital weren’t counted appears to have resulted from mistakes at two polling locations and the lack of a comprehensive system for poll workers to track whether they’ve counted every absentee ballot.
At a polling site in Ward 56, just west of downtown, Witzel-Behl said election workers didn’t open two large carrier envelopes — used to transport absentee ballots from city offices to neighborhood polling places for counting — that contained a total of 125 ballots. At another site in the Regent neighborhood, poll workers at Ward 65 didn’t open an envelope carrying 68 absentee ballots, including one ballot that should have instead been sent to a different polling place for counting.
It’s unclear whether the uncounted ballots were checked in when they were sorted at the Madison clerk’s office. If they had been, a discrepancy between the number of recorded voters and ballots would likely have been apparent on Election Day.
The city’s election results were certified without any acknowledgment of the 193 missing ballots. Some of the missing ballots were discovered on Nov. 12, as the county canvass was still going on, though most weren’t found until nearly a month after Election Day.
When the initial batch was discovered on Nov. 12, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat, “Staff was under the impression that it was too late for these ballots to be counted, unless we had a recount.”
The oversight wasn’t reported to the commission until Dec. 18, about six weeks after the Nov. 5 election and after the commission had already certified the results. Madison officials outside the clerk’s office, including the city attorney and the mayor’s office, didn’t know about the error until the commission told City Attorney Mike Haas about it on Dec. 19.
“There’s been zero transparency on this,” Jacobs said.
Witzel-Behl said she was largely out of the office on vacation during that period and “was not aware of the magnitude of this situation.”
Last week, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat that she still doesn’t know why the three carrier envelopes containing 193 absentee ballots were overlooked on Election Day.
“My issue is not with the magnitude,” GOP Commissioner Don Millis said. “While the magnitude is significant, the issue is why was this not determined or caught by the time of either the local canvass or county canvass.”
“My assumption,” he continued, “is either there was a failure to follow procedures, or our procedures aren’t good and we have to correct them.”
Marge Bostelmann, a Republican commissioner and former clerk, said the WEC can provide guidance to prevent similar mistakes, but she said, “unless we find out how it happened, I don’t know that we can give that guidance.”
Jacobs pointed out the spring primary elections are scheduled for Feb. 18, adding urgency to the investigation.
“We have about six weeks until our next election, so the more information we can learn about what went wrong — even if we’re only able to send out a quickie clerks memo saying, ‘Hey, there’s a step here. Don’t forget about it,’ as we work on more formal guidance — I think we want to do that,” Jacobs said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Attempts to implement a red flag gun control measure in Wisconsin have been rebuffed several times in recent years, but some legislators hope the results of November’s election can change that.
“When the political dynamic shifts in the Legislature, we have a better shot at not only introducing the (red flag) legislation but giving it a fair public hearing,” said Dora Drake, current state representative and senator-elect. “The people of Wisconsin overwhelmingly support red flag laws.”
Red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders, allow judges to issue court orders to temporarily restrict access to guns by individuals who could pose a threat to themselves or others.
A red flag resolution was last introduced in Wisconsin in July 2023 but was shelved along with other resolutions in April.
In an interview before the election, Drake said she was hopeful that Democrats, who overwhelmingly support red flag laws, would assume a majority control in the Wisconsin Assembly.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, when the Wisconsin Legislature returns, Republicans will be in charge but have the narrowest majority since 2011, when they took control.
A push for stronger gun control laws
Drake said Wisconsin Republican lawmakers have not done enough when it comes to gun control measures. As a result, she said, people are at risk.
“As Democrats, we just want common sense laws on gun control, and that doesn’t mean we’re trying to take away someone’s Second Amendment rights,” she said. “People are tired of life being unnecessarily taken away.”
Jacob Taylor, communications director for Sen. LaTonya Johnson, said he thinks Gov. Tony Evers will once again include Extreme Risk Protection Orders policy in his biennial budget proposal. If Republicans remove it, he said, it will be reintroduced by Johnson and other legislators.
Red flag “legislation will remain a priority for Senator Johnson and other Democrats committed to reducing gun violence in our state,” Taylor said.
Twenty-one other states, including neighboring states Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, have already enacted red flag measures.
In March, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center, which provides training and technical assistance to law enforcement, judges, social service providers and others on how to implement red flag laws.
Gun laws don’t address core issues, opponents say
Nik Clark, founder and chairman of Wisconsin Carry Inc., a group that advocates for Second Amendment protections, said his organization is against red flag laws for a number of reasons.
Specifically, he doesn’t believe the laws will reduce crime.
“Ninety-five percent of crime is committed by people who are already felons and not even allowed to have a gun,” Clark said.
He said red flag laws and other gun control measures such as universal background checks are attempts by the government to weaken due processes for gun owners, making it easier for their weapons to be unlawfully seized.
He said taking away people’s rights to legally bear arms won’t make communities safer.
“If someone is willing to harm someone else, they don’t care about any laws,” Clark said. “We spend so much time on trying to prevent things, and we need to spend more time on preparedness to address them.”
What do Extreme Risk Protection Order laws do?
Nick Matuszewski is the director of policy and program at WAVE Educational Fund, Wisconsin’s oldest anti-violence advocacy group.
He said Extreme Risk Protection Order laws add a layer of protection for communities by improving the system in which a gun can be removed from people in crisis or are looking to harm themselves or others.
These laws “can be applied in cases where family members and other folks in the community are able to notice that there are dangers,” Matuszewski said.
He said red flag laws are known to reduce firearm suicides and can help prevent mass shootings.
“Unfortunately, there are too many folks in the state legislature . . . beholden to the gun lobby and are unwilling to enact a gun policy that infringes upon that relationship,” Matuszewski said.
What happens next?
Now that the dust has mostly settled from Election Day and Republicans still control the Assembly and Senate, will anything change?
Drake said lawmakers need to work together to move the needle in the right direction when it comes to preventing gun violence.
“We’ve already experienced so much trauma in our own communities, but there are things we can do to be preventative and intervene before more lives are lost, like implementing red flag laws,” she said.
The nearly 200 uncounted votes would not have affected the outcome of any race or referendum on November's ballot. But election commissioners say they're disturbed by a lack of information about how the problem occurred, and say they want to avoid a repeat in the future.
“This hit home and is very hard as we have and share a special connection with many people, dance groups and the entire New Orleans community,” said Jean Knutson, co-leader of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies.
Winter slips and falls are dangerous and can be debilitating. While Milwaukee’s Shauna Singh Baldwin was recovering from her slip and fall, she discovered a Wisconsin community of support, ingenuity, […]
Rioters are shown inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin on Thursday urged Americans to demand President-elect Donald Trump justify each Jan. 6 defendant pardon if he issues them on his “first day” in office, as promised.
The Maryland congressman, who sat on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, said it would be an “extraordinary event in the history of the republic to have a president pardon more than 1,000 criminal convicts who were in jail for having engaged in a violent insurrection incited by that very president.”
“And if it is actually going to happen, people should demand a very specific accounting of how there is contrition and repentance on part of each of the people being pardoned,” said Raskin, who will be the top Democrat this Congress on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
Raskin spoke alongside other panelists for a virtual event hosted by the State Democracy Defenders Action, a nonpartisan advocacy group that describes its mission as fighting against “election sabotage and autocracy.”
Trump promised on the campaign trail to pardon those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory. Trump has repeatedly characterized the rioters as “patriots,” “warriors” and “hostages.”
The president-elect, who will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, said during a December interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that he will act “very quickly” to pardon the defendants on day one — though he indicated he might make exceptions “if somebody was radical, crazy.”
More than 140 police officers were assaulted during the attack, and the rioters caused roughly $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol.
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged approximately 1,572 people in connection with the attack, including charging 171 defendants for using a deadly or dangerous weapon to inflict serious bodily harm on a law enforcement officer.
Raskin highlighted the case of a 56-year-old New York man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for assaulting an officer during the riot. Thomas Webster, a former Marine and police officer, tackled and choked a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer while other rioters kicked him.
“That’s just one example,” Raskin said. “The press has gotten to know several police officers who’ve been outspoken about the outrageous, medieval-style violence that was trained on them.”
According to the latest Justice Department figures, approximately 996 defendants have pleaded guilty — 321 to felony charges and 675 to misdemeanors.
About 215 defendants have been found guilty at contested trials in federal court, including 10 who were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Sign for the Wisconsin Elections Comission. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted Thursday to investigate how nearly 200 absentee ballots cast in Madison were overlooked and not counted on Election Night.
“This was such a serious oversight that I didn’t want to wait for a complaint,” the commission chair, Ann Jacobs, said at a special meeting the commission held Thursday.
The investigation findings will be summarized to commissioners, who will “provide further direction” at a future meeting.
The uncounted ballots didn’t affect the outcome of any state or local elections, according to the elections commission staff.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said Thursday that the city welcomed the investigation.
“I fully support this independent review, and look forward to WEC’s findings and recommendations, which will inform any changes we make to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future,” Rhodes-Conway said in a statement.
The Madison City Clerk’s office told the elections commission ina memo Dec. 20 about the overlooked Nov. 5 ballots in two Madison wards. A bag containing 68 unprocessed absentee ballots from two wards was found Nov. 12 in a tabulator bin, the memo stated. During reconciliation of ballots on Dec. 3, clerk employees found two sealed envelopes contained a total of 125 unprocessed absentee ballots from another ward.
The mayor’s office announced the unprocessed ballots Dec. 26. In a public statement the same day, the clerk’s office said that in future elections, “every polling location will receive a list of absentee envelope seal numbers that will be verified as counted on Election Day.”
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., is pictured amid fog on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Law enforcement agencies in the nation’s capital were closely monitoring security Thursday following a terrorist attack in New Orleans and a vehicle explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
The violent incidents took place just ahead of several high-profile events in Washington, D.C., including the swearing-in of the new Congress on Friday, the certification of the Electoral College vote on Monday, former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral next week and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20.
Matthew Young, assistant special agent in charge at the U.S. Secret Service, said in a statement the agency would “adjust our security plans as needed.”
“While we cannot comment on protective means or methods, what we can say is that we will continue to work with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in assessing the ever-changing threat landscape and will adjust our security plans as needed,” Young said. “Our mission is to provide a safe and secure environment for our protectees, and all individuals involved in these events.”
The Secret Service has already designated Congress’ certification of the Electoral College, Carter’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9 and the inauguration as National Special Security Events, which puts the agency in charge of planning and security logistics.
Those special security events are somewhat common for major political events, like the Republican and Democratic national conventions this summer and for presidential inaugurations.
This is, however, the first year the certification of the Electoral College on Monday will hold that designation after a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol during the last certification.
‘An abundance of caution’
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., posted on social media that while “there is no known threat to the District of Columbia, out of an abundance of caution, MPD has heightened its security posture across the city in light of recent events.”
“Whenever an incident occurs in the country, MPD closely monitors the situation, evaluates intelligence and assesses our security posture,” MPD wrote in the statement. “As the nation’s capital, we maintain a heightened level of security at all times to ensure the safety of our residents, businesses and visitors.”
The U.S. Capitol Police said in a written statement that they “have already been ramping up security, as planned, ahead of a busy month at the U.S. Capitol.”
USCP had to close off several streets near the building on Thursday after someone drove on a sidewalk a few blocks away.
“Before 10 a.m., our officers spotted a car that had been driving along the sidewalk, near Peace Circle, and into the grassy area near Third Street, NW, & Constitution Avenue,” USCP wrote on social media. “Officers took the man into custody. Please continue to avoid the area while we investigate the car.”
The person was later charged with reckless driving after the USCP bomb squad determined there was no explosive device inside the car.
At least 15 people died and 37 were injured in New Orleans early Wednesday after a man drove a truck onto Bourbon Street in what law enforcement has declared a terrorist attack.
Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, introduces Sen. Tammy Baldwin at her victory celebration Thursday. (Erik Gunn | Wisconsin Examiner)
The Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, is backing Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler in his bid to lead the national party.
In a statement released Thursday, Schumer said he is “enthusiastically supporting Ben Wikler to be the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee.”
Schumer called Wikler “a tenacious organizer—one of the best organizers in the country—a proven fundraiser, a sharp communicator, and able to reach out to all segments of the Democratic Party.”
“Most importantly,” he added, “he knows how to win.”
Wikler assumed leadership of the state party after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2018. Since that time, he has led the party as state Democrats slowly clawed back power, holding the governorship and winning key state Supreme Court races to flip the ideological balance of the court. Those victories led to the elimination of gerrymandered voting maps that had locked in disproportionate Republican control of the state Legislature. In the 2024 election, Democrats flipped 14 previously Republican-held legislative seats, narrowing GOP majorities and, Wikler says, setting Democrats on a path to win control of at least one chamber in 2026 for the first time since 2010.
“Since becoming the state party chair in 2019, Ben has led Wisconsin Democrats to victory after victory, up and down the ballot,” Schumer said. “Under his leadership, Wisconsin Democrats have become one of the most formidable fundraising and organizing machines in the entire country. I am confident he will bring that same record of success to the national party.”
Local officials including Rep. Shelley Berkley, Metro Sheriff Kevin McMahill, and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford during a briefing on the Cybertruck exploding. (Dana Gentry | Nevada Current)
The sheriff of Clark County, Nevada, has called the apparently intentional New Year’s Day explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside Pres.-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel an isolated incident, but says law enforcement is investigating any connection with a suspected terrorism incident that killed at least 15 and injured dozens hours earlier in New Orleans.
Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference late Wednesday that he doesn’t know if the events in the two tourism capitals are related. “But what I can tell you is we’re absolutely investigating any connectivity to what happened with New Orleans, as well as other attacks.”
Musk posted on X that the two vehicles were rented from the same online company.
Pres. Joe Biden, in a televised address Wednesday, confirmed officials are investigating a link between the incidents.
FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeremy Schwartz said the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is made up of federal and local law enforcement, is working to determine the identity of the driver, and whether the explosion was an act of terrorism.
“We believe this is an isolated incident,” Schwartz said. “We do not believe that there’s a bunch of folks out there supporting this or helping, and don’t believe that there’s any other danger to the community right now.”
Law enforcement is also investigating whether the type of vehicle rented and the location of the explosion were intentional.
“It’s a Tesla truck,” McMahill said at the news conference, where he was flanked by state and local officials, including Attorney General Aaron Ford. “We know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump Tower. So there’s obviously things to be concerned about there.”
The bed of the Cybertruck was laden with mortar-style fireworks, gas cans and other explosives, according to McMahill, who says he’s unaware of how they were detonated.
Law enforcement, he said, cannot yet identify the driver “with 100% certainty.” The individual was killed in the blast, which was captured on hotel security video. He also declined to release the name of the individual who rented the truck in Colorado, pending confirmation and notification of relatives.
License plate readers detected the truck in Las Vegas around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, about an hour before it pulled into valet parking at the Trump International Hotel and exploded about 15 seconds later, McMahill said. He thanked Tesla founder Elon Musk for assisting law enforcement by providing information and video from charging stations along the truck’s route from Colorado.
He also praised the vehicle’s engineering, which “limited the damage that occurred inside of the valet” because the force of the blast went upward, not outward, and did not break the hotel entrance’s glass doors.
McMahill said a review of security procedures on the Las Vegas Strip, which hosted some 400,000 New Year’s revelers hours before the blast, is in order.
“We were very successful the night before,” McMahill said.“I’m surprised this happened, to be quite frank with you, and that’s certainly something we’re going to have to look at and target.”
“I just want to make sure that our community understands we believe this would be an isolated incident, and it is now over, as far as the danger,” he said, but added that out of an abundance of caution he’s extending his New Year’s staffing plan of 1,000 officers in the tourism corridor and the community.
Gov. Joe Lombardo, who McMahill succeeded as sheriff, was not at the news conference. His spokeswoman declined via email to say whether Lombardo believes security protocols on the Strip should be reviewed.
Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com.
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