A billboard advertises an artificial intelligence company in San Francisco in September. California is among the states leading the way on AI regulations, but an executive order signed by President Donald Trump seeks to override state laws on the technology. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

State lawmakers of both parties said they plan to keep passing laws regulating artificial intelligence despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop them.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday evening that aims to override state artificial intelligence laws. He said his administration must work with Congress to develop a national AI policy, but that in the meantime, it will crack down on state laws.

The order comes after several other Trump administration efforts to rein in state AI laws and loosen restrictions for developers and technology companies.

But despite those moves, state lawmakers are continuing to prefile legislation related to artificial intelligence in preparation for their 2026 legislative sessions. Opponents are also skeptical about — and likely to sue over — Trump’s proposed national framework and his ability to restrict states from passing legislation.

“I agree on not overregulating, but I don’t believe the federal government has the right to take away my right to protect my constituents if there’s an issue with AI,” said South Carolina Republican state Rep. Brandon Guffey, who penned a letter to Congress opposing legislation that would curtail state AI laws.

The letter, signed by 280 state lawmakers from across the country, shows that state legislators from both parties want to retain their ability to craft their own AI legislation, said South Dakota Democratic state Sen. Liz Larson, who co-wrote the letter.

Earlier this year, South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed the state’s first artificial intelligence law, authored by Larson, prohibiting the use of a deepfake — a digitally altered photo or video that can make someone appear to be doing just about anything — to influence an election.

South Dakota and other states with more comprehensive AI laws, such as California and Colorado, would see their efforts overruled by Trump’s order, Larson said.

“To take away all of this work in a heartbeat and then prevent states from learning those lessons, without providing any alternative framework at the federal level, is just irresponsible,” she said. “It takes power away from the states.”

Trump’s efforts

Thursday’s executive order will establish an AI Litigation Task Force to bring court challenges against states with AI-related laws, with exceptions for a few issues such as child safety protections and data center infrastructure.

The order also directs the secretary of commerce to notify states that they could lose certain funds under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program if their laws conflict with national AI policy priorities.

Trump said the order would help the United States beat China in dominating the burgeoning AI industry, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not have similar restraints.

“This will not be successful unless they have one source of approval or disapproval,” he said. “It’s got to be one source. They can’t go to 50 different sources.”

In July, the Trump administration released the AI Action Plan, an initiative aimed at reducing regulatory barriers and accelerating the growth of AI infrastructure, including data centers. Trump also has revoked Biden-era AI safety and anti-discrimination policies.

The tech industry had lobbied for Trump’s order.

“This executive order is an important step towards ensuring that smart, unified federal policy — not bureaucratic red tape — secures America’s AI dominance for generations to come,” said Amy Bos, vice president of government affairs for NetChoice, a technology trade association, in a statement to Stateline.

As the administration looks to address increasing threats to national defense and cybersecurity, a centralized, national approach to AI policy is best, said Paul Lekas, the executive vice president for global public policy and government affairs at the Software & Information Industry Association.

“The White House is very motivated to ensure that there aren’t barriers to innovation and that we can continue to move forward,” he said. “And the White House is concerned that there is state legislation that may be purporting to regulate interstate commerce. We would be creating a patchwork that would be very hard for innovation.”

Congressional Republicans tried twice this year to pass moratoriums on state AI laws, but both efforts failed.

In the absence of a comprehensive federal artificial intelligence policy, state lawmakers have worked to regulate the rapid development of AI systems and protect consumers from potential harms.

Trump’s executive order could cause concern among lawmakers who fear possible blowback from the administration for their efforts, said Travis Hall, the director for state engagement at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression.

“I can’t imagine that state legislators aren’t going to continue to try to engage with these technologies in order to help protect and respond to the concerns of their constituents,” Hall said. “However, there’s no doubt that the intent of this executive order is to chill any actual oversight, accountability or regulation.”

State rules

This year, 38 states adopted or enacted measures related to artificial intelligence, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures database. Numerous state lawmakers have also prefiled legislation for 2026.

But tensions have grown over the past few months as Trump has pushed for deregulation and states have continued to create guardrails.

In 2024, Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the nation’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence framework into law. Under the law, developers of AI systems will be required to protect consumers from potential algorithmic discrimination.

But implementation of the law was postponed a few months until June 2026 after negotiations stalled during a special legislative session this summer aiming to ensure the law did not hinder technological innovation. And a spokesperson for Polis told Bloomberg in May that the governor supported a U.S. House GOP proposal that would impose a moratorium on state AI laws.

Trump’s executive order, which mentions the Colorado law as an example of legislation the administration may challenge, has caused uncertainty among some state lawmakers focused on regulating AI. But Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone and state Sen. Robert Rodriguez, Democratic sponsors of the law, said they will continue their work.

Unless Congress passes legislation to restrict states from passing AI laws, Trump’s executive order can easily be challenged and overturned in court, she said.

“This is just a bunch of hot air,” Titone said. “It doesn’t hold any water and it doesn’t have any teeth because the president doesn’t have the authority to supersede state law. We will continue to do what we need to do for the people in our state, just like we always have, unless there is an actual preemption in federal law.”

California and Illinois also have been at the forefront of artificial intelligence legislation over the past few years. In September, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the nation’s first law establishing a comprehensive legal framework for developers of the most advanced, large-scale artificial intelligence models, known as frontier artificial intelligence models. Those efforts are aimed at preventing AI models from causing catastrophic harm involving dozens of casualties or billion-dollar damages.

California officials have said they are considering a legal challenge over Trump’s order, and other states and groups are likely to sue as well.

Republican officials and GOP-led states, including some Trump allies, also are pushing forward with AI regulations. Efforts to protect consumers from AI harms are being proposed in Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

Earlier this month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also unveiled a proposal for an AI Bill of Rights. The proposal aims to strengthen consumer protections related to AI and to address the growing impact data centers are having on local communities.

In South Carolina, Guffey said he plans to introduce a bill in January that would place rules on AI chatbots. Chatbots that use artificial intelligence are able to simulate conversations with users, but raise privacy and safety concerns.

Artificial intelligence is developing fast, Guffey noted. State lawmakers have been working on making sure the technology is safe to use — and they’ll keep doing that to protect their constituents, he said.

“The problem is that it’s not treated like a product — it’s treated like a service,” Guffey said. “If it was treated like a product, we have consumer protection laws where things could be recalled and adjusted and then put back out there once they’re safe. But that is not the case with any of this technology.”

Stateline reporter Madyson Fitzgerald can be reached at mfitzgerald@stateline.org.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to get involved in the former Donald Trump lawyer and Dane County Circuit Judge Jim Troupis, who is facing 11 felony charges in Wisconsin related…

(The Center Square) – Many state labor laws in Wisconsin no longer apply to Minor League Baseball players after Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation to redefine what counts as minimum wage, overtime and record keeping.

(The Center Square) – Opening arguments are scheduled Monday for the Wisconsin judge accused of helping a person illegally in America evade federal authorities leaving her courtroom.

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The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday declined to send the state’s unredacted voter rolls to the federal government, joining more than a dozen states pushing back against disclosing sensitive voter information.

The commission’s move comes as the U.S. Department of Justice has asked all 50 states for their voter files — massive lists containing significant personal information on every voter in the country — claiming they are central to its mission of enforcing election law. 

“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something that the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” said Don Millis, a Republican appointee on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “There’s a clear consensus that personally identifiable information is to be protected.”

While pieces of these lists are public, election officials typically redact voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license information and dates of birth before issuing them in response to records requests. The DOJ, in many cases, has asked for information not traditionally made public. That was also the case in Wisconsin: The DOJ requested voters’ partial Social Security numbers, license numbers and dates of birth. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission — which is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans — ultimately voted in closed session to send the DOJ a letter declining the request for unredacted voter information. Republican commissioner Bob Spindell appeared to be the only member in favor of cooperating with the federal government and said Wisconsin will likely face a lawsuit as a result of the commission’s choice. 

The letter, signed by every commissioner except Spindell, says state law “explicitly prohibits” sending the unredacted voter list.

Officials in both Democratic and Republican states have pushed back on disclosing their voter rolls in response to these requests. On a podcast with conservative talk radio host Joe Pags, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said these states were refusing to cooperate because they were embarrassed that their voter rolls were not sufficiently cleared of inactive or unlawful registrants. 

Rather, many states, like Colorado, have said the federal government isn’t entitled to unredacted voter information that could put voters at risk. The DOJ, they say, has not provided sufficient explanation for how the data will be used.

In early December, after receiving a memorandum of understanding similar to the one sent to Wisconsin, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told the DOJ to “take a hike,” adding that she “will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections.” The DOJ sued Griswold just over a week later.

All 50 states were asked to turn over their voting rolls, Dhillon said on the podcast: Four states have voluntarily cooperated, 12 are in negotiations, and 14 have been sued by the DOJ over their refusal.

Wisconsin election officials have repeatedly said that federal officials can obtain the publicly available, and therefore redacted, voter roll the same way anybody else can: by purchasing it online for $12,500.

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 Elections Commission refuses to send Justice Department unredacted voter list 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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• Since its debut in March, the “Plaster + Patina” podcast has inspired excitement in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood.

• Residents have pitched stories about their historic homes to the podcast team and opened their homes to them. 

• The first season focused on homes between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.  

• The team does extensive research and searches for interesting stories about the properties they feature.

Inside Skip Heverly’s modified Dutch Colonial home, five people thaw from the near-freezing November evening by a green-tiled fireplace. Between them, a coffee table is littered with loose-leaf newspaper clippings, notepads and snacks. 

The group members, all residents of Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood, are preparing to spend the evening trading bits of local lore and hatching ideas that could make for an interesting deep dive. 

The neighbors run “Plaster + Patina,” a podcast series that digs up long-buried — and sometimes spooky — tales tied to the historic homes in Astor, one of Green Bay’s oldest neighborhoods. Through the project, they hope to create a shared sense of wonder and community among neighbors while memorializing the area’s history.

“Slowly but surely, I think we’re kind of seeing how this is really helping to bring the community together,” said Morgan Fisher, podcast chief editor and treasurer of the Astor Neighborhood Association. Each person on the podcast team is also a volunteer member of the association, which advocates for the area to local government and organizes events. 

After debuting in March, the series has inspired excitement around the neighborhood, with residents pitching their own houses to be featured and opening their homes to the team. At the mid-November brainstorm, the group invited longtime local civic leader Jim Gucwa to share stories he’s collected and spark inspiration for a future episode. 

The first season of “Plaster + Patina” uncovered a forgotten spring water bottling business; examined architectural changes that speak to larger societal shifts; and told tales of ghosts, among other topics. 

Each person has a unique role in the process, from digging through yellowed archives to splicing audio. Several enrolled in nearby community college to learn the skills they use. The project doesn’t currently have sponsors or advertisers to generate revenue, or plans to do so. The team pools resources, leveraging each others’ connections, interests and skills. 

“That’s what a neighborhood’s about,” said Paul Jacobson, the podcast’s historian.  

Bringing people out of their homes — and into others’

Between the 1830s and 1920s,  a high, dry slope running parallel to the Fox River — colloquially known as “The Hill” — was an attractive place for doctors, lawyers and other businessmen to build their homes. 

Today, the houses in the affluent neighborhood still reflect the period in which they were constructed. A 1980 historic district designation, championed with Gucwa’s help, preserves the homes’ exteriors from being substantially altered, among other protections. 

Astor’s design encourages social connection. Homes with large front porches sit close to the sidewalks lining each street. Parks host an ice rink, a wading pool and a shell where local bands regularly perform. 

Despite this, the area hasn’t been immune to the social isolation that’s swept across the country in recent years. 

“People have kind of gone into their (homes),” Fisher said. “They’re not on their porches anymore. They’re not out meeting their neighbors as much.”

When the Astor Neighborhood Association coalesced in 1974, it started as a way to improve the area and combat crime. It now focuses on maintaining a sense of community among residents, Fisher said. 

To do that, last summer several neighborhood association members discussed creating something where people could walk around the area, learn the stories behind the architecture they see and feel more connected to its past and present.

“What better way to do that than a podcast?” Jacobson said. 

Tales of ghosts, lost springs and … alligators?

At first, the group was nervous about how the endeavor would turn out. But once they started chatting about history and architecture, old stories of folks from the area, “everyone just lit up,” said Heverly, the producer of “Plaster + Patina.”

The first season focused on homes nestled between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.  

“It’s nice to stay within an area, just to kind of really lay out that area,” host Al Valentin said. “We want to create a visual while you’re listening to it of what the neighborhood looked like at that time.”

Once they choose a home, Jacobson digs up the stories behind it. He dives into a slew of online resources, including newspaper archives, historical atlases and — his favorite — fire insurance maps, which include detailed hand drawings of buildings in the area dating back to the 1880s. 

After Jacobson goes “down a rabbit hole,” they zoom out and choose the most interesting event or detail he found. “Otherwise, you could spend five hours on one particular home,” Valentin said. 

The team then drafts a rough script, a bullet-point list of topics they want to hit during the show. Finally, they record the episode for free in a studio at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. They invite homeowners or people connected to the stories to appear as guests for a live interview. 

“We kind of shoot from the hip,” Valentin said. “When you hear us converse on the podcast, it’s pretty real, with our knowledge and expertise.”

Lastly, Heverly edits out “ums,” “uhs” and any mistakes made during recording. He learned the skill at NWTC, where he studied audio editing, video editing, social media marketing and how to use Adobe applications. 

Since March, the team has created eight episodes.

In one, Jacobson shared the story of a forgotten mineral spring he unearthed when scouring old hand-drawn maps. Residents bottled and sold the water, marketing it as a natural health remedy, he discovered.

In another, they explored how the neighborhood’s first backyard pool signaled the shift of leisure from front porches to more private backyards — and was once home to an alligator.

For a Halloween edition, Valentin interviewed a paranormal investigator who shared supernatural experiences at Astor’s Hazelwood House — including an apparition descending stairs, a baby cradle rocking on its own and echoes of drums played by the Native Americans who first called the area home.

Throughout the season, local support for the project has grown. 

Lawn signs advertising the show sprouted up in front yards across the neighborhood. People asked for their home to be featured. Residents opened up their homes to the crew, giving them tours to aid the podcast. 

“Especially in today’s world, we’re all looking for that connection. We want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves,” marketing and writing director Maddy Szymanski explained in the podcast’s first episode. “When you live in an old neighborhood — or a new neighborhood, really anywhere —  you’re a part of something that is bigger than you. You’re a part of a community and you can build that connection.”

The team is currently producing a final episode before moving onto the podcast’s second season. Find the episodes here. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Green Bay podcasters dig up long-buried tales in their own neighborhood 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.

Two state judicial panels held their first hearings Friday on lawsuits claiming Wisconsin's eight U.S. House districts are unconstitutional, but they sent signals that the cases may not be resolved by the 2026 midterms.

The post Judges hold hearings on Wisconsin map lawsuits, but signal decisions will take time appeared first on WPR.

A hearing in the felony case against a key figure in Wisconsin's false electors scheme will proceed Monday — even as allies of President Donald Trump have ramped up pressure to stall the proceeding.

The post Ron Johnson asks US DOJ to intervene in Wisconsin false electors case appeared first on WPR.

A trans Middleton person has used the nonbinary X on IDs to better reflect their identity and appearance. The Trump administration is now requiring people to use the gender they were originally assigned on their birth certificates on passports.

The post Wisconsinite shares why nonbinary ‘X’ on IDs matters amid Trump rule changes appeared first on WPR.

The state of Texas in a new lawsuit claims Verona-based Epic Systems is running an illegal monopoly and restricting parents’ access to their children’s medical records.

The post Texas sues Wisconsin-based Epic Systems, accusing it of running a monopoly appeared first on WPR.

There are more than 57,000 jobs posted on the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Job Center website.

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Nearly all artificial Christmas trees in the world today are made in China. And with that comes an up to 30 percent tariff rate on imported Christmas products — including artificial trees. Here's how tariffs are affecting Wisconsin’s real and artificial Christmas trees.

The post How tariffs are affecting Wisconsin’s real and artificial Christmas trees appeared first on WPR.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters during a press conference on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. Also pictured are, from left, Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain of Michigan, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans released a health care bill Friday evening they hope will help curb rising costs, though the measure doesn’t have the level of Democratic support needed to get through the Senate. 

The 111-page bill will likely move to the House floor next week, where Speaker Mike Johnson will need nearly every one of his members to vote to pass the legislation, an uphill battle given the vastly different views among centrists and far-right members of the party on health care issues. 

The Louisiana Republican said in a statement the bill offers “clear, responsible alternatives that will lower premium costs and increase access and health care options for all Americans.”

Democrats have been pressing for a three-year extension of the enhanced tax credits for people who purchase their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

So far, House and Senate Republican leadership hasn’t gotten on board with any extension of those subsidies, arguing they have led to a sharp rise in the cost of health insurance. 

GOP lawmakers have instead pursued their own legislation, but without at least some backing from Democrats, no bill will make it through the Senate’s 60-vote procedural hurdles. 

Senate Republicans tried to advance a bill earlier this week from Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo but fell short of the votes needed. 

Democrats were also unsuccessful trying to move their bill to extend the ACA marketplace tax credits for three years. 

The House Republican bill, sponsored by Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks, is unlikely to break the logjam in Congress over the rising cost of health insurance and health care, potentially leaving the issue as one the parties can debate leading up to next year’s midterm elections. 

Targeting ‘real drivers’ of cost increases

Johnson rebuked Democrats in his statement for enacting the Affordable Care Act during President Barack Obama’s first term, saying the law hasn’t made health care cost less. 

House Republicans’ new legislation, Johnson said, will address “the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation’s health care system for all Americans.”

The bill would require Pharmacy Benefit Managers “to provide employers with detailed data on prescription drug spending, rebates, spread pricing, and formulary decisions—empowering plans and workers with the transparency they deserve,” according to a summary in Johnson’s release. 

Starting in 2027, the legislation would appropriate funding for cost sharing reduction payments that the summary said would reduce health insurance premiums and stabilize the individual market. 

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to prepare the bill for floor debate on Tuesday by considering whether to allow any amendments to be considered on the floor. 

The full House will then debate the legislation later in the week before departing for the two-week holiday break. 

Trump wants direct payments

President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office shortly after the bill was released, reiterated his preference that the federal government send payments directly to Americans.

“We want to give the money to the people and let the people buy their own great health care, and they’ll save a lot of money, and it’ll be great,” he said.

But Trump also appeared to signal he is going to stay out of negotiations in Congress, saying, “I leave it to them and hopefully they’re going to put great legislation on this desk right here.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks before dozens of supporters Friday outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a free man, at least temporarily.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and Maryland resident, appeared early Friday for a check-in at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, less than day after a federal district judge ordered him released from ICE detention in Pennsylvania.

At his last ICE check-in, in August, Abrego Garcia walked in but didn’t walk out: Authorities detained him and held him until Thursday. But Friday, Abrego Garcia walked out of the building to cheers and chants, led by members of the immigrant rights group CASA to a black car that took him to rejoin his family in Prince George’s County.

Before Abrego-Garcia walked inside the building Friday, he thanked his supporters who rallied there, talked about spending the holidays with his family and offered advice for others suffering similar legal battles against the Trump administration.

“I stand before you as a free man, and I want you to remember me this way with my head held up high,” Abrego Garica said in Spanish, through a CASA translator.

“I stand here today with my head held up high, and I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me,” Abrego Garcia said. “Regardless of this administration, I believe this is a country of laws, and I believe that this injustice will come to its end. Keep fighting. Do not give up. I wish all of you love and justice. Keep going.”

One of his attorneys, Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, told reporters and a few dozen protesters outside the field office that the federal judge who ordered Abrego Garcia freed Thursday said Friday that he could not be detained by ICE at his latest check-in.

Based on a temporary restraining order filed by his attorneys, Sandoval-Moshenberg said the judge will schedule a hearing at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt that Abrego Garcia will be able to attend.

“The legal fight is far from over,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “I wish I could say that with this, the government is going to leave well enough alone. This man has suffered enough.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s decision to let Abrego Garcia free “naked judicial activism.”

“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” McLaughlin said in an email Friday morning that repeated her statement from the day before.

Abrego Garcia’s return to the Baltimore ICE office came one day after U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paul Xinis ordered the Trump administration to release him from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where he had been held since September. He was released Thursday evening and spent the night at his home in Beltsville.

Since he was first detained by immigration officials in March and wrongly deported to his home county of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia’s case has shone a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

Abrego Garcia was originally deported to a brutal prison in El Salvador, despite a previous court ruling that prohibited his transfer there because of fear of violence by Salvadoran gangs.

Months later — and months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s April order that the Trump administration “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return –he was brought back to the U.S. on June 6, only to face charges of human smuggling in Tennessee. The judge in that case eventually ordered Abrego Garcia released to home detention while his claim of vindictive prosecution in the Tennessee case proceeded.

Xinis, who got involved in the case when Abrego Garcia was first deported, issued a ruling Thurday that was highly critical of the administration’s actions in the case. She found that Abrego Garcia’s latest detention, since his August ICE check-in, was “again without lawful authority,” because the Trump administration has been holding him for deportation but has not made an effort to remove him to a third country.

The government’s “conduct over the past months belie that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal, lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no longer,” Xinis wrote in her opinion.

Costa Rica has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, but Justice Department lawyers could not give Xinis a clear explanation of why the Trump administration would not send him there. Instead, the administration has proposed deporting Abrego Garcia to several countries in Africa.

Back in Baltimore on Friday morning, dozens of supporters braved the cold to hold up signs, chant and then clap and cheer when Abrego Garcia walked back outside the ICE building a free man, chanting “todos somos Kilmar,” or “we are all Kilmar.”

“It’s definitely a good day, but it is a good day to know that he’ll be able to spend the holidays with his family, “said Baltimore City Councilmember Odette Ramos, who attended the rally.

“He and his family have been so brave to go through all of this and to have their story really symbolize, frankly, what so many others are going through,” she said. “The fight’s not over.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.

Wisconsin's health department is sticking with a recommendation that children receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Wisconsin’s health department is reaffirming longstanding recommendations that all newborns get a vaccination for hepatitis B.

The Department of Health Services announced Thursday it has sent a memo to Wisconsin vaccination providers about the vaccine.

“DHS continues to recommend that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, and then go on to complete the standard three-dose series within the first 18 months of life,” said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer in the DHS bureau of communicable diseases, at a media briefing Thursday.

Hepatitis B, a viral infection, can lead to lifelong liver disease, Westergaard said, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.

“Infants and young children are particularly at high risk,” he said. A baby infected with the virus has up to a 90% chance of developing chronic liver disease, he said.

Infants can be exposed during birth or through close contact with adults and caregivers “who may not even know that they carry the virus,” Westergaard added. “That’s why vaccination early in life is so important.”

DHS issued the announcement following a federal shift in vaccine policy, eliminating a recommendation in place since 1991 for newborns to receive the hepatitis B shot. The recommendation was eliminated Dec. 5 in a vote by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In June, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced all 17 members of the advisory committee with a new group of appointees, many of whom are seen as vaccine skeptics.

CDC vaccine committee overturns decades-old hepatitis B recommendation for newborns

The decision to end the recommendation for all newborns to get the hepatitis B shot dismayed the leaders of  medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

“For more than 30 years, the hepatitis B vaccine has been used safely and effectively in newborns,” Westergaard said Thursday. Since the 1991 recommendation was put in place, hepatitis B infections in children have declined by 99%, he said.

“This recommendation is grounded in decades of research showing that the vaccine is safe and effective, and it aligns with guidance of the American Academy of Pediatrics and other leading medical groups,” Westergaard said. “So, our message today is straightforward, hepatitis B and its long-term health consequences are preventable. And routine childhood vaccination remains one of our most effective tools we have to protect children’s health and prevent lifelong disease.”

Westergaard said there has been no change in insurance coverage for the vaccine and that the hepatitis B shot remains among the vaccines available through the Vaccine for Children’s program for patients without health insurance.

ACIP also recommended blood testing for antibodies before giving the rest of the hepatitis B series shots for infants and young children, but Westergaard said that recommendation is not supported by scientific evidence.

The presence of hepatitis B antibodies in adults is a good indicator that they are protected against an infection, he said. “There’s no science suggesting that that same strategy works for newborns and children,” he added.

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Voters at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center on Madison's East Side cast their ballots. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday denied a demand from the U.S. Department of Justice for the state’s full voter registration list, including personally identifiable information such as dates of birth, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers. 

At a special meeting Thursday afternoon and in a letter sent in response to the DOJ demand, WEC stated that Wisconsin law explicitly prevents the commission from sharing the personal information of voters. 

“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” commissioner Don Millis said. 

This is the second time this year the DOJ has requested Wisconsin’s voter database. Both times, the department has been informed that Wisconsin state law requires that the commission charge a fee to obtain the list. 

Since the summer, the DOJ has requested the voter databases of several states — raising concerns over why the department is seeking massive amounts of voter data, especially as President Donald Trump has remained fixated on conspiracy theories that his 2020 election loss was rigged. 

In its demand for the data, sent Dec. 2 as a “confidential memorandum of understanding” the department said it was seeking the data to check if Wisconsin is properly complying with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.

VRLData Sharing Agreement DOJ-WI

“The Justice Department is requesting your state’s [Voter Registration List] to test, analyze, and assess states’ VRLs for proper list maintenance and compliance with federal law,” the memo states. 

However the WEC response questions the authority with which DOJ is asserting its right to the records. For one, Wisconsin is exempt from the NVRA because it offers same-day voter registration at polling places. Also, WEC wrote in its response letter that HAVA does not grant the DOJ access to confidential voter data. 

Compliance with HAVA and the thoroughness of states’ compliance with voter list maintenance requirements have become regular talking points among Republicans who say they’re concerned that there are thousands of people who have active voter registrations when they should be ineligible to vote because they’ve moved, died or otherwise are unable to cast a ballot. 

The sources of those complaints include the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a right-wing law firm that in October sent a letter to the DOJ asking for the department to assess Wisconsin’s compliance with HAVA. 

WEC has said repeatedly that the commission and Wisconsin’s municipal election clerks are properly maintaining the voter rolls. They’ve also noted that the concerns are often overstated because even if a voter is ineligible and their file is deactivated in the database, their name will still appear in the system.

WEC Letter – Resp to 12.2.25 DOJ Correspondence

“The joint effort between state and local election officials enhances the integrity of the system by ensuring responsibilities are distributed across thousands of officials in every city, village, and town, rather than concentrated among a small handful of state employees in the Capitol,” the WEC response letter states. “The vast majority of list maintenance work consists of routine updates, and the processes also serve to identify attempts at wrongdoing. Each year, Wisconsin election officials at all levels of government identify and refer to criminal prosecution: felons attempting to vote, double voters, non-citizens, and others trying to circumvent election law.” 

In the WEC decision to deny DOJ’s request as well as to release the DOJ memo and the response letter, Republican commissioner Bob Spindell was the lone vote against. Spindell pointed to a provision of state law that allows WEC to share restricted information in the voter database with law enforcement agencies. Spindell has often used his role on the commission to indulge conspiracy theories and cast doubt on the security of the election system. 

“This is a highly, highly controversial issue throughout the country at this point in time, and my point of view is that this information can be released,” Spindell said. “I believe that through the HAVA Act, the federal government has the appropriate ability to see if we’re doing everything that’s correct and OK. I’ve talked forever about we need to have, in the state of Wisconsin, an independent audit, or whatever, of the registration list to satisfy the many individuals and groups and so forth that question it. And all HAVA is doing here, the federal government is asking for a chance to take a look at us.” 

But commissioner Mark Thomsen said there is no way that a provision meant to help law enforcement find information about suspects in criminal investigations could be interpreted to mean WEC can give the personal information of every Wisconsin voter to the federal government. 

“Our rights as commissioners are limited by the Fourth Amendment, by state law itself,” Thomsen said. “Mr. Spindel is just flat out wrong that this one provision that he relies on would allow us to legally give Wisconsin citizens’ private information off to someone for some unknown reason. It’s not just a person that’s suspected of a crime, it’s everybody, and Wisconsin has never stood for the proposition that any government is entitled to all this data anytime someone asked. So I think Bob, you’re just making up the law there.”

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Child care provider Heather Murray, right, gives Mandela Barnes, left, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor, a tour of her facility, Art House Preschool in Waunakee. Joining them were, second from left, Paula Drew and Kayla Gardner, both from the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin should make child care universally available, just as public education is, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes said Thursday during a child care center visit that was part of the rollout for his campaign for governor.

“I support having full, comprehensive, universal childcare,” Barnes told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview that followed a round table session with providers, parents and child care policy analysts. “I, for sure, hope others understand the urgency of this issue, understand the complexity of it as well, and we’ll be ready to fight tooth and nail to do everything we can to improve the system for our providers, for our parents and most importantly, for the young people, for the students, for our children.”

The round table took place at the Art House Preschool, a Waunakee child care center.

Barnes is not the first Democratic hopeful in the 2026 race for governor to visit the Art House. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley held a round table on child care issues in November at the same location. And virtually every other active Democratic primary candidate in the governor’s race mentions affordable child care on their website as a priority of their campaigns.

During his event Thursday, Barnes coupled state funding for child care with his support for better public education funding.

“If we aren’t invested in children, what are we doing as a state? What are we doing as a country?” he asked at the start of the nearly hour-long discussion. “We need to ensure, one, that our schools, K-12, are fully funded, but also that our children are ready to enter K-12. And that means that early childhood education has support.”

During most of the session, Barnes refrained from lengthy policy prescriptions and focused instead on questions for the round table participants — asking for both their biggest challenges and their “biggest ideas” for addressing Wisconsin’s child care needs.

“Direct investment to providers, I believe, would be the best to keep people from closing their doors,” said Heather Murray, the owner of Art House, who has been a child care provider for nearly two decades. “I like to call it a public good, because I don’t believe it can exist without government funding.”

Stephanie Frontz is an IT specialist and the mother of four, one of them at Art House. She recently gave birth to infant twins who are slated to be enrolled there.

“We need the help there so the state can help pay fair wages,” Frontz said. That will  ensure child care workers stay, which in turn makes it possible for more parents to work, she added. “It impacts my family and the economy if I can’t work.”

Child care providers who have a shortage of teachers reduce the hours that they’re open, said Carly Eaton, a parent whose day job is with an organized labor environmental group.

She understands why, but jobs in construction, manufacturing and especially health care often “don’t fit in the 7 a.m. to 6 a.m. hours that you may be able to find child care,” Eaton said. “To hear legislators on a certain side of the aisle talk about the worker shortage and then not do anything about child care just breaks my brain.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal relief funds included money designated for child care. In Wisconsin that money went to the Child Care Counts program, which originally distributed $20 million a month to the state’s child care providers.

The monthly support was later cut in half and extended through mid-2025 after the GOP majority in the Wisconsin Legislature rejected the proposal Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, made in the 2023-25 state budget to continue the subsidy with state funds.

Evers again proposed ongoing state funding in the 2025-27 budget. “I heard a lot of people say during the last budget cycle, ‘We can’t just keep writing checks …. It didn’t work,’” said Kayla Gardner, engagement specialist at the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. “It actually did — it very much did work.”

“When the payments were the highest, we had very few closures,” said Paula Drew, director of early childhood education policy and research at WECA. “It stabilized the field.”

When the current budget finally passed in late June, it for the first time included some direct state funding for centers, but just for one year and at a smaller amount than Evers or child care advocates originally sought.

That money helped, said Jenn Bilderback, administrative director of Big Oak Child Care in Madison. But it also came with restrictions that made it less accessible for some providers and it will go away in June 2026.

“We have to do something that’s much more universal and that allows the flexibility for a provider,” Bilderback told Barnes.

She said her center’s board of directors, most of whom are parents, have supported providing benefits — a rarity for many child care providers — and paying a living wage. “We need to do this, but the cost of living in Madison and outside Madison is increasing too high to be able to keep up with that.”

Barnes — who along with most Democrats running for elected office in the 2026 cycle has seized on affordability as a campaign theme — responded that “the cost of living is top of mind for everybody.” But then he turned back to her earlier comments.

“You mentioned ‘something more universal,’ Barnes said. “I want you to say the thing out loud. Somebody can say it — universal child care, right?”

“We do dream big, and we do think of all these things,” said Gardner. “But what we see in return is almost nothing.”

Drew said that with turnover among child care teachers, programs are often operating at less than capacity, even as parents have trouble finding care.

“We don’t necessarily, right now, need new buildings, because we’ve got 33,000 open spots . . . across the state. We need teachers that can be working in programs to open up those 33,000 spots,” Drew said. “We’ve got the demand, but we also need the supply available in early education.”

Katie Licitis, an Art House Preschool teacher, said she first took the job four years ago after she and her husband moved to Wisconsin from Georgia. For the first time, she said, she needed child care after having been a stay-at-home mom until then. But with the turnover that providers are seeing, she asked Barnes, “Do you have a plan to retain teachers?”

“You shouldn’t have to choose between a job you love and Kwik Trip, as an example, because they’re paying more money, right?” Barnes replied. “Like, that’s an indictment on the way that things have been going. And I think that’s a big part of the broader universal child care package. And I don’t think people should be shy about wanting universal child care in this state. I think that this is exactly one of those areas that Wisconsin should be a leader in the nation.”

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(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s prison managers say it took them a couple of hours to deal with the Slenderman Stabber’s broken ankle bracelet because they had hundreds of other calls that night.

(The Center Square) – Democrat Joel Brennan, a former Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary, announced Thursday he is running for governor.

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The Senate on Thursday rejected legislation to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, essentially guaranteeing that millions of Americans will see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year.

Senators rejected a Democratic bill to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative that would have created new health savings accounts — an unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats to prevent the COVID-19-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1.

Ahead of the votes, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans that if they did not vote to extend the tax credits, “there won’t be another chance to act,” before premiums rise for many people who buy insurance off the ACA marketplaces.

“Let’s avert a disaster,” Schumer said. “The American people are watching.”

Republicans have argued that Affordable Care Act plans are too expensive and need to be overhauled. The health savings accounts in the GOP bill would give money directly to consumers instead of to insurance companies, an idea that has been echoed by President Donald Trump.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote that a simple extension of the subsidies is “an attempt to disguise the real impact of Obamacare’s spiraling health care costs.”

But Democrats immediately rejected the GOP plan, saying that the accounts wouldn’t be enough to cover costs for most consumers.

The dueling Senate votes are the latest political messaging exercise in a Congress that has operated almost entirely on partisan terms, as Republicans pushed through a massive tax and spending cuts bill this summer using budget maneuvers that eliminated the need for Democratic votes. In September, Republicans tweaked Senate rules to push past a Democratic blockade of all of Trump’s nominees.

The Senate voted 51-48 not to move forward on the Democratic bill, with four Republicans — Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan — voting with Democrats. The legislation needed 60 votes to proceed, as did the Republican bill, which was also blocked on a 51-48 vote.

No interest in compromise

Some Republicans have pushed their colleagues to extend the credits, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who said they should vote for a short-term extension so they can find agreement on the issue next year. “It’s too complicated and too difficult to get done in the limited time that we have left,” Tillis said Wednesday.

But there appeared to be little interest in compromise. Despite the potential for bipartisan agreement, Republicans and Democrats have never engaged in meaningful or high-level negotiations on a solution, even after a small group of centrist Democrats struck a deal with Republicans last month to end the 43-day government shutdown in exchange for a vote on extending the ACA subsidies. Most Democratic lawmakers opposed the move as many Republicans made clear that they wanted the tax credits to expire.

Still, the deal raised hopes for bipartisan compromise on health care. But that quickly faded with a lack of any real bipartisan talks.

An intractable issue

The votes were also the latest failed salvo in the debate over the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature law that Democrats passed along party lines in 2010 to expand access to insurance coverage.

Republicans have tried unsuccessfully since then to repeal or overhaul the law, arguing that health care is still too expensive. But they have struggled to find an alternative. In the meantime, Democrats have made the policy a central political issue in several elections, betting that the millions of people who buy health care on the government marketplaces want to keep their coverage.

“When people’s monthly payments spike next year, they’ll know it was Republicans that made it happen,” Schumer said in November, while making clear that Democrats would not seek compromise.

Even if they view it as a political win, the failed votes are a loss for Democrats who demanded an extension of the benefits as they forced a government shutdown for six weeks in October and November — and for the millions of people facing premium increases on Jan. 1.

Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said the group tried to negotiate with Republicans after the shutdown ended. But, he said, the talks became unproductive when Republicans demanded language adding new limits for abortion coverage that were a “red line” for Democrats. He said Republicans were going to “own these increases.”

A plethora of plans, but little agreement

Republicans have used the looming expiration of the subsidies to renew their longstanding criticisms of the ACA, also called Obamacare, and to try, once more, to agree on what should be done.

Thune announced earlier this week that the GOP conference had decided to vote on the bill led by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee, and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, even as several Republican senators proposed alternate ideas.

In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has promised a vote next week. Republicans weighed different options in a conference meeting on Wednesday, with no apparent consensus.

Republican moderates in the House who could have competitive reelection bids next year are pushing Johnson to find a way to extend the subsidies. But more conservative members want to see the law overhauled.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., has pushed for a temporary extension, which he said could be an opening to take further steps on health care.

If they fail to act and health care costs go up, the approval rating for Congress “will get even lower,” Kiley said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

U.S. Senate rejects health care subsidy extension as costs are set to rise for millions of Americans 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.