Examiner staff at the Milwaukee Press Club Awards dinner on Friday, May 8. Left to right: Frank Zufall, Andrew Kennard, Henry Redman, Isiah Holmes, Baylor Spears, Ruth Conniff and Erik Gunn
The staff of the Wisconsin Examiner won 12 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism in the online category Friday evening.
Editor Ruth Conniff took first place for Best Multi-story Coverage of a Single Feature Topic or Event for her series, Midwest-Mexico Connections on Mexican farmworkers and Wisconsin dairy farmers.
UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter was named as the interim president of the UW system on Friday. (Photo courtesy of UW system)
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents president appointed UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter as the interim president of the UW system on Friday, about a month after firing the previous president.
Wachter has served as the 10th chancellor of UW-Superior since 2011, making her the longest-serving chancellor in the system. Effective May 18 she will serve as the UW system interim president.
Board President Amy Bogost said in a statement that Wachter “knows our universities, our communities and the challenges and opportunities facing public higher education in Wisconsin.”
“She has earned the trust and respect of colleagues across the system through steady leadership and a collaborative approach. At a time when continuity, focus, and forward momentum are essential, the Board is confident she understands what must be done to support our universities during this transition,” Bogost said.
Prior to her tenure at UW-Superior, Wachter served as the Dean of the School of Business at Truman State University in Missouri.
The Board of Regents decision to fire Jay Rothman, who had served as president since 2022, on April 7 came as a surprise and led to criticism from Rothman, who said he wasn’t given a reason for the termination, and from Republican lawmakers. Regents said, however, that they were dissatisfied with Rothman’s leadership, especially as he moved too slowly to act on issues including artificial intelligence, and had communicated their concerns with him during his review process.
Bogost said that the next president must “bring the courage, discipline, and forward-looking leadership needed to guide the Universities of Wisconsin through one of the most consequential periods in higher education.”
The Board also announced the 25-member Presidential Search Committee that will conduct a nationwide search for the next permanent president. The last time there was a retirement from the position the search for a UW system president lasted for nearly three years.
The committee will be led by Regent Ashok Rai, and it is expected that a president will be selected later this year.
The Supreme Court of Virginia in Richmond on April 27, 2026. (Photo by Samantha Willis/Virginia Mercury)
The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down the voter-approved redistricting amendment, upholding a lower court ruling that had declared the measure unconstitutional less than 24 hours after last week’s special election and briefly halted its implementation. State Democrats later said they would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The high court found that the amendment itself was flawed because lawmakers approved the proposal after voting had already started in the 2025 House of Delegates elections, depriving more than 1.3 million Virginians of an opportunity to weigh the issue when choosing their representatives.
The 4-3 ruling leaves the state’s current congressional districts — which give Democrats a 6-5 advantage — in place throughout the 2026 midterm election and the rest of the decade, instead of proposed districts that Democrats believed could produce a 10-1 advantage.
The decision affirms the ruling by a Tazewell County judge who had blocked the amendment, siding with Republican challengers who argued the General Assembly failed to follow required constitutional procedures.
In the opinion, the justices said Article XII, Section 1 of Virginia’s constitution requires “an intervening general election” between the legislature’s first and second approvals of a constitutional amendment so voters can evaluate candidates based on their stance on the proposal.
“The purpose of Article XII, Section 1 is to give voters the opportunity to participate in the process of amending their Constitution,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority. “The commonwealth in this case … ended up denying over 1.3 million Virginians their constitutional right to have a voice in the debate over whether their Constitution should be amended.”
State Sen. Ryan T. McDougle, R-Hanover, the Senate Republican leader and one of the appellees in the case, praised the ruling as a reaffirmation of Virginia’s constitutional process.
“The Supreme Court ruling today affirms what we all know: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” McDougle said in a statement. He added that the decision showed “even the General Assembly must follow the law.”
McDougle called the ruling “not a partisan one — it is a constitutional one” and said “every Virginian wins.”
Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, said the “referendum was a violation of the (state) Constitution and as a result, it is null and void” at a press conference at the state Capitol May 8, after the state’s high court on the same day struck down the redistricting amendment voters approved in April. (Photo by Shannon Heckt/Virginia Mercury)
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, another appellee, praised the decision as a reaffirmation that constitutional amendment procedures must be strictly followed regardless of political considerations.
“Today’s ruling establishes once again that the Constitution of Virginia means what it says,” Kilgore said in a statement.
“The rule of law requires that Virginians have an opportunity to review a constitutional amendment before they vote for the House of Delegates in a meaningful way. You cannot violate the constitution to amend the constitution.”
And Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which had filed an amicus brief in the case and brought a similar challenge, accused Democrats of trying to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts for political advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the rule of law and struck down Democrats’ unconstitutional maps.”
Gruters said the RNC had “led the charge in court against this blatant power grab” and accused Democrats of spending “more than $66 million into an effort to lock in control and silence voters.”
Meanwhile, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones criticized the ruling and said the state is still considering its legal options.
“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21 special election on redistricting,” Jones said in a statement. “This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the commonwealth.”
Jones defended the amendment process as “timely, constitutionally-compliant, and legally sound,” and accused the court’s Republican-appointed majority of “contort[ing] the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia.”
He said his office is “evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections.”
By Friday afternoon, state Democrats made a filing asking the high court to delay enforcing its ruling, suggesting they would pursue an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
“Appellants and the Commonwealth intend to file an emergency petition to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the court document read.
But Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States would face significant practical and legal obstacles, particularly this late in the court’s term and so close to the 2026 elections.
“It is very late in the SCOTUS term for the U.S. Supreme Court justices to give an appeal a full-dress treatment, and the justices are often reluctant to rule on voting disputes as elections approach,” Tobias said.
“However, this is an important case, so it may be possible that SCOTUS would entertain an appeal.” He added that the nation’s highest court “may also be reluctant to second guess the interpretation of Virginia’s Constitution by a 4-3 majority of the Virginia Supreme Court justices.”
The court’s decision comes twelve days after justices heard oral arguments in the case, pressing attorneys on whether lawmakers complied with constitutional requirements governing amendments.
At issue was whether Democrats had lawfully advanced the amendment through the required legislative process before sending it to voters.
The case focused on disputes over whether there was a valid intervening General Election between legislative approvals, whether the public received the required notice ahead of the November election, and whether the amendment could legally be taken up during a special session initially called to address changes to the state budget.
During arguments, Justice Wesley G. Russell Jr. questioned both sides closely, probing the limits of legislative authority and whether alleged procedural defects should invalidate the measure already approved by the voters.
The morning after the hearing, the court denied a request by the Virginia Department of Elections to stay Tazewell County’s April 22 order while it continued to consider the case.
House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, one of the chief architects of the amendment, said Friday that while he respects the court’s decision, the referendum still reflected the will of millions of Virginians who backed the measure at the ballot box.
“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” Scott said in a statement. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear.”
He added that supporters would “keep fighting for a democracy where voters — not politicians — have the final say.”
(Photo courtesy @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social)
President Donald Trump weighed in on his Truth Social network, calling the ruling a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”
GOP challenges test limits of amendment process
The lawsuit was filed in October by Republican lawmakers and a member of Virginia’s redistricting commission. Plaintiffs included state Sens. Ryan McDougle of Hanover and Bill Stanley of Franklin, Del. Terry Kilgore of Scott, and Commissioner Virginia Trost Thornton.
They argued that the legislature overstepped its authority and failed to follow the constitutionally mandated process, which requires amendments to pass the General Assembly twice with an intervening General Election before going to voters.
Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley agreed in January, ruling that the amendment process was flawed.
The state appealed, and while the Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed ahead of the April 21 vote, it did not immediately resolve the underlying legal questions, setting the stage for a post-election hearing and this week’s decision.
The case has drawn national attention as both parties look ahead to the 2026 midterms, when control of the U.S. House could come down to a small number of competitive districts.
Virginia’s attempt to redraw congressional districts outside the normal post-census cycle became part of a broader national push by both parties to revisit House maps ahead of the midterms. The effort gained momentum after Trump encouraged Republican-led states, beginning with Texas, to pursue similar redistricting moves.
The lower court’s ruling April 22 briefly halted those plans in Virginia.
Hurley found lawmakers exceeded the scope of the special session in which the amendment was first introduced, failed to meet public notice requirements and did not properly satisfy the intervening election requirement.
Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed that decision, although it remains unclear if the ruling will be viewed as a precedent for two related cases currently moving through the court system, or whether these cases will be taken up separately by the high court.
David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, said the ruling represents both a political blow to Democrats and a broader affirmation that constitutional procedures still matter, regardless of the political stakes involved.
“The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling today is an obvious setback for the Democrats, but it is also a win for making the state government pay closer attention to the rules,” Richards said.
“The whole referendum was hastily put together, and this is the result we get — so much time and money wasted in an effort to work around the rules and a districting system that the voters had just approved a few years earlier.”
He added that while “it may not be the outcome some people wanted,” the court “was right not to give in to pressure and instead soberly look at the process.”
From late-October push to legal showdown
The redistricting battle began on Oct. 27, just days before the Nov. 4 state elections, when Democratic lawmakers introduced a constitutional amendment during a special session of the General Assembly that would allow congressional districts to be redrawn outside of the once-in-a-decade redistricting cycle tied to the census.
The proposal immediately sparked partisan fights over both the timing of the amendment and Democrats’ push to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the midterms.
The House advanced the proposal the next day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 along party lines, pushing it forward as required by the multi-step constitutional process, which required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent session.
When lawmakers returned to Richmond in January, they approved the legislation a second time, but the measure soon became entangled in legal challenges.
After Hurley first ruled the amendment invalid, the Supreme Court of Virginia intervened, allowing the referendum to proceed despite the lower court ruling. At the time, justices made clear they were not resolving the broader legal questions, only ensuring that voters would have the opportunity to weigh in.
The court’s earlier decision to allow the referendum onto the ballot led many legal observers to believe the amendment would likely survive if voters approved it.
As the legal fight continued, Democrats began outlining what the new congressional districts would look like. A proposed map released in early February that would likely favor them in most of Virginia’s 11 districts.
Republicans escalated their opposition soon after, filing additional legal challenges and seeking to block the vote. A temporary restraining order by the Tazewell County court applied locally, but the Supreme Court again stepped in to stay that order, allowing the referendum to proceed statewide.
Heated campaigns culminate in close final margin
The fight over the amendment intensified in the weeks leading up to the vote.
Outside groups backing both sides poured millions of dollars into the campaign in March, flooding voters with ads and mailers. Some of the messaging drew criticism for using civil rights-era imagery.
Both parties expanded outreach efforts as early voting data showed strong turnout in Republican-leaning parts of the state, making the final outcome harder to predict.
In the final days of the campaign, Gov. Abigail Spanberger ramped up her public support for the amendment while former Gov. Glenn Youngkin urged voters to reject the measure and continued pressing the courts to block the measure.
Spanberger said Friday she was disappointed by the ruling but emphasized that voters will still ultimately decide the balance of political power in the 2026 midterm elections.
“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a president who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum,” Spanberger said in a statement. “They made their voices heard.”
She added that while she disagreed with the court’s decision, her administration’s focus would now shift toward voter participation in the upcoming elections.
Voters ultimately approved the amendment by roughly three percentage points April 21, before the dispute returned to the Supreme Court.
With the Supreme Court’s decision now in place, the new congressional maps will not take effect, leaving Virginia’s current districts in place until a previously passed amendment requires the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission to draw new maps following the 2030 census.
Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story that will be updated as more information becomes available.
This story was originally produced by Virginia Mercury, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The U.S. Department of Education on Feb. 20, 2026. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The federal student loan system is set to see a dramatic overhaul beginning this summer, and critics warn it likely will make loans more expensive and difficult to obtain for borrowers — driving them to private lenders or altering their plans for higher education.
Among the major changes are new loan limits for graduate and professional students, a restructured repayment system where new borrowers will have only two plans to choose from and the elimination of a key loan program for graduate and professional students that allowed for unlimited borrowing.
The provisions — most of which will take effect July 1 — stem from congressional Republicans’ mega tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
The U.S. Department of Education finalized regulations, published May 1, that implement sweeping changes outlined in the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law. The department received more than 80,000 public comments before the rule was finalized.
Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said that “at a high level,” the reforms center on “lowering the cost of college, simplifying student loan repayment and restoring accountability to the federal student lending system,” during an April 30 call with reporters regarding the new regulations.
The average federal student loan debt balance stands at $39,547, according to the Education Data Initiative.
As July 1 approaches, here’s a closer look at some of the biggest changes coming to the federal student loan system:
Elimination of Grad PLUS
The Grad PLUS program, which allowed for graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, will soon be eliminated under the package and unavailable for new borrowers.
“If you are currently borrowing Grad PLUS loans, so you borrowed Grad PLUS loans before July 1, you will be allowed to continue using Grad PLUS until you finish your program, or until three years have expired, basically whichever is sooner,” said Preston Cooper, senior fellow in higher education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
“Current students are grandfathered in — it will only be new graduate students, as of this fall, after July 1, who will be subject to the new loan limits,” Cooper said.
New borrowing caps
The package also sets forth new annual and aggregate loan limits for graduate and professional students, along with parents who take out federal student loans for dependent undergraduate students.
Graduate student loans will be capped at $20,500 annually, with a $100,000 aggregate limit.
Parent PLUS borrowers will have an annual cap of $20,000 and an aggregate cap of $65,000 per dependent.
Professional student loans will have a $50,000 annual limit and an aggregate cap of $200,000.
The programs that fall within the department’s “professional” category and are subject to that larger loan cap include: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.
The department clarified in a fact sheet on the finalized regulations that the “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any occupation or field” but instead serve a “loan-administration function.”
In another major shift, the regulations replace prior repayment options with two new plans — the Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, and the Tiered Standard plan — both of which will launch July 1.
RAP is an income-based repayment plan that “waives unpaid interest for borrowers who make on-time payments that do not fully cover accruing interest,” per the department’s fact sheet.
Balances under the plan will also “decline with each on-time payment, as unpaid interest is fully waived and the Department then reduces principal by an amount equal to the borrower’s payment, up to $50,” per the agency.
The Tiered Standard plan offers fixed monthly payments, ranging from a 10-year to 25-year period, depending on the outstanding principal balance of the borrower.
‘A lot more expensive’
“The upshot is that loan repayment is going to get a lot more expensive for almost everyone, and for some people, it’s going to get significantly more expensive, and the transition is also going to be difficult for a lot of people to manage,” Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access & Success, told States Newsroom.
Zampini, whose organization aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education, said she thinks “there will be a lot of students who will have to turn to the private loan market, who otherwise would have been able to cover their costs through the (Grad PLUS) program.”
Victoria Jackson, assistant director of higher education policy at the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said that with the new loan limits and “drastic cuts to aid availability” in the regulations, “you would really hope that it would come with other, more affordable and better forms of financial aid.”
“And what they’ve done is just created this vacuum that right now can really only be filled with private loans, which are costlier and riskier for students, or students are just not going to go,” Jackson said.
Under the most recent agreement, the Treasury Department will take over Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt — the first step in a multiphase process toward Treasury taking on Education’s entire, roughly $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.
Transition to new system
Zampini noted that, when it comes to the incoming student loan regulations, she does not have confidence in the Education Department’s “ability at this moment to successfully manage the transition without a lot of issues, as far as servicing and as far as account tracking and plan enrollment and things like that.”
Jackson, of EdTrust, said that “by weakening the federal financial aid system, I think there’s a weakening of our higher education system and making it more difficult for low-income students, students of color and other marginalized students to access graduate education.”
She added that “people who complete those degrees tend to have more financial security in the future — they earn more over their lifetimes and, on markers of financial success and opportunity, do better.”
“I think this is one prong of a plan of undermining our overall higher education system.”
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the Milwaukee Federal Courthouse. Judge Dugan is on trial on charges that she helped Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant, elude federal arrest while he was making an appearance in her courtroom on April 18. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
As former Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan approaches sentencing after being convicted of obstructing federal agents during an immigration arrest last year, attorneys on both sides of the case are battling over whether new precedents around federal statutes should apply to the former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge.
The FBI arrested Dugan last year on charges she helped a man who was making a routine appearance in her court evade immigration officers who were waiting for him in the public hallway outside the courtroom.
Court staff initially noticed the agents and informed Dugan, who approached them and told the agents to go check in with the chief judge.
While the agents waited to talk to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, Dugan went back to her courtroom and quickly called 30-year-old Mexican-born Eduardo Flores Ruiz and his attorney, set a date for them to come back, and then allowed them to exit the courtroom through a non-public hallway, at the end of which was a door back into the hallway where the agents waited. After going out that door, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney unknowingly rode the elevator down with one of the undercover agents. Flores Ruiz was arrested outside after a brief foot pursuit.
Dugan was charged with obstructing federal agents and concealing Flores Ruiz. After a trial in December, a federal jury found Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but not guilty of misdemeanor concealment. Dugan’s attorneys highlighted the split verdict and moved for U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to overturn the conviction.
In April, Urban Milwaukee reported, Dugan’s legal team filed a motion arguing that a recent U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision changed the precedent governing the legal interpretation of the federal statute under which Dugan was convicted. The decision, in United States v. Hernandez, held that immigration proceedings do not include deportation operations, relevant since Dugan, who resigned shortly after her trial, was convicted of obstructing an immigration “proceeding.”
Federal prosecutors have countered that the appeals court decision “is neither binding nor persuasive, and it does nothing to call into question this Court’s reasoning.” They argue that the jury instructions crafted by prosecutors and provided to the jury by Judge Adelman over instructions crafted by the defense team were sound. Adelman had previously denied a request from Dugan’s legal team for acquittal and a new trial.
Dugan faces up to five years in prison and $350,000 in fines. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 3.
(The Center Square) - Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson announced Friday that he won’t be running for governor and that he is endorsing Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany for the post.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin state Rep. Jessie Rodriguez, R-Oak Creek, announced that she would not run for reelection while Rep. Bob Donovan, R-Greenfield, said that he will be running to retain his seat.
Former Gov. Tommy Thompson has endorsed Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany's bid for governor, officially ending any speculation that he might challenge Tiffany in a GOP primary.
For women in prison, Mother's Day can be especially difficult. A group of Wisconsin activists wants to let incarcerated moms know they're lot alone. To do that, they got in their cars.
As of May 1, some smaller Ascension Wisconsin ICUs in Mequon, Brookfield and Franklin are staffing critical care specialists by video call only — raising concerns from staff about patient outcomes.
Students at Wisconsin's K-12 schools and universities lost access to course work Thursday after a cyberattack took the popular education app Canvas offline nationwide.
A 25-member search committee has been named to find the next Universities of Wisconsin president after the Board of Regents fired system leader Jay Rothman last month.
Many of us are grateful for everything our mothers taught us. For Jana Rose Schleis, she’s thankful that her mom — Betty Schleis of Two Creeks, Wisconsin — taught her […]
Farm organizations were in different stages of a grant process when the US Department of Agriculture cut dozens of projects to help underserved farmers access land and capital. Agriculture leaders say the termination deals a blow to future farmers.
Manal Stulgaitis' children at play in Denmark (Photo courtesy Manal Stulgaitis)
When Katy Dicks’ two children were both in childcare programs, she and her partner would dread sitting down each month to have the hard conversations about which bills would go on their multiple credit cards, the highest with a 20% interest rate, and which they could pay outright. “It’s a constant budgeting game,” Dicks said, although she and her family watch every penny and keep their finances as tight as possible.
According to Act For Early Years, the global childcare campaign, the major expense that weighed on Katy and her partner each month is what also plagues 70% of American parents: the high cost of childcare. According to Care.com, Katy, 45, and her domestic partner, who live in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, are like parents across the nation for whom care has become an “all-consuming strain.” The same source found that mothers report “significantly higher levels of overwhelm, guilt, and identity loss” than fathers, pressuring many to leave the workforce. In fact, of the 455,000 women who left the workforce in 2025, roughly 42% pointed to caregiving costs as the No. 1 reason. In the past 40 years, cost has been the primary reason for the steepest decline in mothers of young children participating in the workforce.
Katy Dicks’ children Zac and Izzy, at a childcare rally in Madison (Photo courtesy Katy Dicks)
Katy, whose children are now ages 7 and 11, works primarily as a Pharmacy Project Coordinator, but she is also a realtor, and a co-owner of a logistics business with her partner. Katy considers herself “blessed” because she found wonderful, regulated childcare nearby for both of her children, and she “felt good with the care my children received.” However, between the full-time home-based care and the preschool for both children, it cost her and her partner between $20,000-$30,000 per year over six years for a total of $167,000. Average annual costs for childcare in Wisconsin range between $13,000 and $18,000. Even working her three jobs, she and her partner still owe $45,000 in credit card debt because of their childcare costs. According to a new study, a two-child family would need to earn $400,000 to make childcare affordable, defined as 7% of income by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an unreachable sum for most families including Katy and her partner.
The reason for the high cost of childcare in the U.S. is primarily due to the fact that early childhood education is not considered a public good. Therefore, with little to no public investment in childcare for everyone, early educators are often entirely reliant upon parents’ private tuition payments to operate their programs. Despite high tuition rates, Wisconsin providers earn, on average, $13.55 per hour, compared to the average hourly wage of $28.44 for Wisconsin workers, with family childcare providers earning $7.46 per hour.
This changed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government recognized childcare as essential and distributed funds to states to stabilize the childcare workforce. In Wisconsin, $20 million per month was distributed to approximately 5,000 licensed providers, assisting in the retention of 72,000 professionals, and supporting care for over 417,000 children throughout the state through a program called Child Care Counts. While recent research shows that this program was highly effective, the majority of Republican legislators rejected continued funding for the program. Additionally, even though the 2025-2027 budget for the first time included state funds for childcare, that funding ends in June 2026, leaving providers once again on their own to figure out how to continue, or in many cases simply to close their programs.
Katy also experienced complications during pregnancy and her maternity leave. During her first pregnancy she developed pre-eclampsia and had to be hospitalized and induced. After just three months of maternity leave at partial pay, she said, “It was the hardest day of my life to go back to work. What I needed was 12 months to heal and bond with my baby.” Nonetheless, she felt fortunate that she had childcare in place, had kept her job, and therefore had health insurance to pay all of her medical bills.
When Katy returned to work, she went to her infant’s child care program every day to breastfeed her baby on her lunch break, to bond with her baby and also because she wasn’t able to pump enough milk to last through the day. When she tried pumping at work, she felt like her male supervisor was always “breathing down my neck,” and pumping twice a day felt like she was “pushing it.” Not long after, her supervisor gave her a performance improvement plan (PIP) for taking time out to pump breast milk.
With her second child, in a new position, Katy developed pre-eclampsia again, and had to be induced, but at this employer, she felt the pressure to quit working more intensely. After she repeatedly brought up the topic of maternity leave with her male supervisor, the company finally agreed to give her three months of unpaid leave. She made a plea for partial pay during her leave, only to be informed by her supervisor that the company would indeed adopt a partially paid maternity leave, but not until after her maternity leave was over. He also told her that she was the first employee he had who was pregnant and required maternity leave.
Katy Dicks (left), with children Izzy and Zac and Mother Forward co-leader Summer Schneller, joins a Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN) ‘Time’s Up’ rally at the Capitol and delivered letters to legislators saying the budget that was recently passed prior to the rally did not include enough funds for child care. (Photo courtesy Katy Dicks)
The U.S. is the only wealthy nation on Earth that lacks federally mandated, paid maternity leave, even though about three-quarters of mothers are employed. As of January 2026, only 14 states and the District of Columbia had a mandated, paid maternity leave of eight to 12 weeks. Wisconsin does not have mandated, paid maternity leave.
Katy’s experiences ultimately drove her to take a leadership position in the Mother Forward chapter in Wisconsin to push for better policies so that mothers are set up for success.
It’s different in Denmark
When Manal Stulgaitis, an American, moved to Denmark to work for the United Nations, she had no idea how the early childhood education system worked. She visited the country ahead of her family before the move to check out childcare programs. One morning, when she was out for a jog, she stumbled across an enchanting scene. Peering through a tall fence surrounding a huge residential house, she saw children in snowsuits playing on climbing equipment built into the trees and sitting under a structure whittling sticks around a fire. Teachers stood nearby, observing and supporting the children in their explorations. Manal decided to visit the place right away. She found the administrator and teachers welcoming and they quickly determined that they had space, so she was able to enroll her 3-year-old without delay. The center was part of the public early childhood education system, and she remembers it cost approximately $400 per month, and “was absolutely zero stress.” Meanwhile, her 6-year-old attended public school.
Manal, 51, whose children are now 10 and 13 years old, like all parents in Denmark, was entitled to a guaranteed childcare slot regardless of income or geographic location. Indeed, Danish law mandates this and ensures that parents pay no more than 25% of the cost of childcare, unless a family’s income is below a certain threshold, in which case it is free.
Manal Stulgaitis’ daughter at childcare in Denmark (Photo courtesy Manal Stulgaitis)
As for maternity leave, although it did not apply to Manal since her children were older, the standard in Denmark is a paid shared parental leave that begins four weeks before a mother gives birth and continues for 24 weeks post birth. Another parent can share up to 10 weeks of the leave, and there is additional flexibility depending on the circumstances for a total of 52 weeks. Recent research shows that Denmark’s childcare and paid parental leave policies combined erase 80% of what’s called “the motherhood penalty” for working mothers, allowing them to pursue their careers and passions. This is certainly the case for Manal, who said, “I don’t think there are words to describe how it impacts you individually or how it impacts our family. To have the essentials like healthcare and childcare and education taken care of by the state – both financially and in terms of the regulatory aspects — gives every single Danish person a huge measure of confidence. We were so lucky to experience that system, which serves children and their parents so well.”
Policymakers in the U.S. have chosen a hands-off approach to childcare and maternity leave. This has had the effect of normalizing the suffering new mothers and parents experience, pressures mothers to leave the workforce, stalls their careers, and loads parents with debt. Denmark, on the other hand, has chosen to promote equality for mothers by mandating and investing in both paid parental leave and childcare. For Manal, the impact of having her daughter welcomed and supported in a high-quality early childhood education system was “a lifesaver.” She could be a mother and have a high-powered career that demanded long days and frequent travel. Total confidence in her child’s program meant that she or her husband could “drop the kids off in the morning and not have a second thought about their safety or their wellbeing.” Having a high-quality system freed both her and her husband to focus fully on their work, without all the stress parents in the U.S. feel over their children’s well-being and the toll having a baby takes on their household finances. Childcare advocates in the U.S. say policymakers here could choose policies that set mothers up for success, rather than test their grit, tolerance for debt, and willingness to endure the pain of worrying whether their children are getting good care.
Across the country, citizens demanding universal child care in their own communities are joining the thousands of mothers, child care providers, and advocates gathering on Monday, May 11, 2026 for the 5th annual Day Without Child Care.
Support for this reporting came from the Better Life Lab at New America.
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