Judge Chris Taylor addresses the crowd after winning a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Chris Taylor, an appeals court judge and former Democratic lawmaker, was elected to an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday, securing a 5-2 majority for the Court’s liberal wing and ensuring that control remains intact until at least 2030.
With nearly 80% of the vote counted shortly before 10 p.m., Taylor had a massive 20 point lead over Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, marking a four-election winning streak for the liberal candidates running for Wisconsin’s highest court. It also gives an early signal on the mood of the state’s voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections, when the governor’s office, majority control of the Legislature and a few competitive congressional seats will be up for grabs.
With ideological control of the body not at stake, the 2026 Supreme Court race was markedly lower energy this year. After the more than $100 million spent on last year’s race set national fundraising records for a judicial campaign, Taylor was able to win the race with $8 million in spending from her campaign and outside advocacy groups.
Turnout on Tuesday fell far short of the mark set last year, when the election’s stakes, its spot on the calendar shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration and Elon Musk’s effort to sway the race with millions of dollars of spending supercharged turnout among the state’s liberals.
Throughout the race, Crawford polled several points ahead of Lazar, however a large portion of the electorate, about 50%, continued to tell pollsters they remained undecided.
At an election night watch party at Madison’s Concourse Hotel, Taylor was surrounded by her family and introduced by Chief Justice Jill Karofsky.
In her victory speech, Taylor said she would help move Wisconsin forward.”
“We live in an incredible state, and people are hungry for a government that works for them,” she said. “People are hungry for a judiciary that prioritizes them, that protects our rights, that affords all Wisconsinites equal justice under the law. That is exactly what I will do as your next state Supreme Court justice.”
Throughout the campaign, Taylor sought to define herself as a careful judge who despite her history as policy director of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and a Democratic state lawmaker would act as an independent voice on the bench. She often sought to position herself as a potential bulwark on the Court against efforts from Republicans and President Donald Trump to interfere with Wisconsin’s election system during the 2028 presidential race.
Taylor will now join Justices Jill Karofsky and Susan Crawford to be the third former Dane County Circuit Court judge to sit on the state Supreme Court. Under its current liberal majority, the Court overturned Wisconsin’s 1849 criminal abortion ban and declared the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps unconstitutional.
At the watch party, Ana Wilson, an early education major at Mount Mary University, told the Wisconsin Examiner she believed Taylor was going to care for Wisconsin people from the bench.
“As much as there’s chaos with the Trump administration, I want what’s best for Wisconsinites,” Wilson said. “Health care, abortion access, human rights that people deserve. I’ll take these small wins at the state level.”
Lazar’s campaign, while endorsed by the state Republican Party, received less financial support from the state GOP and its allied donors than recent conservative candidates for the Court Dan Kelly and Brad Schimel had received — both lost by double digits. But Lazar’s campaign message that she was the true independent in the race while her opponent would act as a partisan on the bench was similar to the conservative message in 2025 and 2023.
Taylor’s win also continues the success that Democratic and liberal candidates have had in off-cycle and non-presidential elections in recent years — particularly since Trump took office last year.
After the race was called, Democrats said the win represented the first steps in the effort to win up and down the ballot in November.
“The victory Wisconsinites delivered tonight is an indictment of Trump and Tom Tiffany, who are using the federal government to bully and intimidate people into submission,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker said in a statement. “Our state Supreme Court has repeatedly shown it is the last line of defense against the federal government’s unconstitutional overreach, and with tonight’s election, we have secured a pro-freedom, pro-democracy majority on the Court through 2030. This victory is only the beginning of the fight ahead to win a Democratic trifecta in November and deliver real, lasting change for the working people of Wisconsin.”
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously to fire UW President Jay Rothman on Tuesday, ending his tenure as the leader of UW system campuses. (Photo by Althea Dotzour / UW–Madison)
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously to fire UW President Jay Rothman on Tuesday, ending his tenure as the leader of UW system campuses and launching the process of finding a new leader.
The regents’ decision to oust Rothman became public last week after the Associated Press obtained letters from Rothman to regents telling them that he would not be resigning from his position after the regents told him to resign or be fired.
The regents convened in a virtual meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday and immediately entered closed session for about 25 minutes. Once they returned to open session, Regent President Amy Bogost read the statement she released Monday about the action.
Bogost said that over the last several months while conducting the annual review of Rothman in accordance with her responsibilities as regent president, she met with UW stakeholders including regents, chancellors and other members of UW communities. She said the results were shared with Rothman.
“President Rothman was not without notice, nor was this process sudden. The Board has engaged with President Rothman in good-faith discussions over the past several months,” Bogost said, adding that the decision doesn’t “diminish the President’s many contributions.”
“At a time of profound change in higher education, this decision is about the future,” Bogost said. “The Universities of Wisconsin must be led with a clear vision that both protects and strengthens our flagship, supports our comprehensive universities and ensures we are meeting the evolving needs of our students, workforce and communities across all 72 counties.”
No other regents spoke about the decision before voting for Rothman’s termination. Regent Joan Prince was not present at the meeting.
In a statement, the Board of Regents said that Rothman had “worked hard to bring the best to the campuses, students, faculty and staff” and those efforts are appreciated, but “despite these accomplishments, based on the annual performance review and subsequent discussions, the Board has lost confidence in President Rothman’s ability to lead the UWs moving forward.”
The Board is also “immediately” moving forward in its work to identify the successor with more details about the process to be shared in the coming weeks. Chris Patton, UW’s vice president for university relations, will serve as acting executive-in-charge prior to the appointment of interim president.
In a statement released ahead of the Board of Regents’ meeting, Rothman said that regents have “repeatedly declined to cite a specific reason for finding no confidence in my leadership” and told him they “would have to meet as a full board to discuss the issue.”
“It is disappointing that the first I heard any sort of defense of their position was when they communicated with the media. I am left to conclude that, at best, this reflects an after-the-fact rationalization of a decision that was previously made,” Rothman said. “At no point in the last six months was it ever indicated to me that an evaluation could lead to termination and, in fact, the most recent evaluation delivered to me by Regent President Bogost was noted by her as being ‘overwhelmingly positive.’”
Rothman also noted some of his accomplishments from his tenure. Rothman was an attorney in Milwaukee and CEO of the law firm Foley and Lardner before being selected by the UW Board of Regents in January 2022 to be president. He was chosen after the UW system did not have a permanent leader for two years. In the position, he is responsible for overseeing the vice presidents and chancellors who run the systems campuses, including flagship UW-Madison.
“While the board’s apparent decision to move to terminate me is disappointing, I am incredibly proud of our bold, transformative accomplishments during my time as president,” Rothman said. “We secured the largest revenue increase from the state in two decades, eliminated structural deficits at our universities, maintained affordability, increased student enrollment for three consecutive years, secured funding for student mental health services, focused on the First Amendment rights of our students, expanded continuing education programs to meet workforce needs, and more. If those achievements do not reflect strong leadership and a vision for the future, I really don’t know what would.”
While the specifics of what prompted regents to seek his resignation are not public, Rothman once floated the idea of resigning in 2023 while working on a deal with Republican lawmakers in which he agreed to cuts to the UW’s diversity programs in exchange for releasing previously allocated funds for building projects and staff cost-of-living adjustments. Under the terms of the deal, the UW system schools changed their approach to diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI). Regents initially rejected the deal, then reversed their decision.
Republicans may seek consequences for regents
After the news broke that the regents were seeking to remove Rothman, Republican lawmakers came to the defense of the president, and it appears they may seek to remove unconfirmed regents who voted to oust Rothman.
On Monday, Sen. Patick Testin (R-Stevens Point) suggested that lawmakers consider firing regents for voting to fire Rothman.
There are 18 members on the Board of Regents with 16 appointed by the governor and subject to Senate approval, along with the state school superintendent and the president or a designee of the Wisconsin Technical College System Board. Only five of Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees have been confirmed. The other 10, including Bogost, have not received a confirmation hearing.
“If the Board of Regents remove President Rothman without just cause, the Senate should reject every one of their nominations,” Testin wrote in a post on X on Monday evening. “Their actions should have consequences.”
This is not the first time a Republican state senator has threatened consequences against regents making choices they don’t agree with.
In 2024, the Republican-led Senate fired two of Evers’ appointees to the Board who had voted against the deal between lawmakers and Rothman: John Miller and Dana Wachs. Ahead of the floor session, Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) posted on X that a vote against the DEI deal could cost the regents their confirmation.
The Senate Universities and Technical Colleges committee noticed a public hearing and executive session on Tuesday ahead of the meeting to consider the appointments of 10 regents on Thursday.
Rep. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), who chairs the committee, said in a statement reacting to the vote that the Board of Regents “once again appears to be distracted by politics and unable to concentrate on addressing the big picture challenges the UW System faces.”
“Instead of focusing on major structural and curriculum reforms throughout the entire system, the Regents seem determined to stray into backroom maneuvering that further diminishes the reputation of the UW brand and undermines its long-term mission of preparing our students for an ever-changing marketplace,” Hutton wrote. “The Regents owe the Wisconsin citizens, employers, and students who rely on a strong, stable UW system an explanation for why they chose to throw the system into turmoil.”
Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), who chairs the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee, said ahead of the meeting that he plans to hold a hearing on the action. He said the regents “owes Wisconsin taxpayers, students and families a full explanation.”
“I am troubled by the lack of transparency surrounding these reports,” Murphy said in a statement. “President Rothman deserves to know exactly why the Board has lost confidence in his leadership. At the hearing, members of the Board of Regents will be called to testify and explain their reasons for pursuing his removal.”
A date and time for the hearing will be announced in coming days, according to Murphy.
Ahead of the regents’ vote, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, also issued a statement expressing support of Rothman and urging the regents to reconsider, saying the effort appeared to be “capricious, unfair and possibly partisan.”
WMC said Rothman has helped to enhance the UW’s reputation and “that reputation will be severely tarnished by the Board of Regents if it votes to remove Jay from his position without justification.”
Evers, who previously sat on the Board when he served as state schools superintendent, did not take a position on whether Rothman should be ousted.
“[Rothman] works for the board and if the board is dissatisfied, they have the right to do this,” he told reporters on Monday morning. “It’s their call.”
A view of a damaged bridge shown on April 3, 2026, a day after it was destroyed by an airstrike west of Tehran in Karaj, Iran. Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers wrote to U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) Tuesday urging Congress to take control of the Iran war under the powers vested in federal lawmakers by the U.S. Constitution. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
Ten Democratic state legislators wrote Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil Tuesday urging him and the GOP majority in Congress to take control of the war in Iran in reaction to President Donald Trump’s social media threats against the country.
The lawmakers sent the letter after Trumpposted on his social media platform Tuesday morning that “a whole civilization will die” if Iran doesn’t meet his deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz. The post followed Trump’s threat on social media Sunday to bomb bridges and power plants if Iranian leaders don’t open the waterway to ship traffic.
“We are writing to you with an urgent request and to express our grave concerns for the safety of our country and civilians around the world,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Steil (R-Janesville), led by Assembly Minority Leader Rep. Greta Neubauer (D-Racine).
“Earlier today, President Donald Trump warned the world through a social media post that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if Iran fails to meet his deadline,” the letter states. “This appears to be an explicit threat to commit unimaginable atrocities against civilians. Congress must act and stop the president’s actions.”
The letter continues: “We are calling on you and the Congress of the United States to assert your authority and enforce congressional war powers as laid out in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. The president and his administration are letting this conflict spin out of control. It’s time for Congress to step in.”
The president’s threats target non-combatants, the letter notes.
“Threatening millions of civilian lives is fundamentally un-American and violates the core values that both Democrats and Republicans share. Whether President Trump intends to follow through on his threat or not, his statement demonstrates he is not fit to be commander-in-chief,” the letter states.
“It’s time for you to summon your courage, recognize the gravity of this moment, and do the right thing for our shared future. We must rise above partisanship and call out the president’s recklessness immediately.
“Reassert congressional control over the conflict in Iran and put an end to the president’s erratic and dangerous actions before it is too late.”
In addition to Neubauer, the letter was signed by Democratic state Reps. Christine Sinicki, Brienne Brown, Ann Roe, Clint Anderson, Angelina Cruz, Tip McGuire and Ben Desmidt, and Democratic Sens. Mark Spreitzer and Robert Wirch.
Trump agreed Tuesday evening to a two-week ceasefire with Iran and said the countries were near a long-term peace agreement.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the Milwaukee Federal Courthouse on May 15, 2025. Judge Dugan appeared in federal court to answer 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)
A federal judge on Monday denied the appeal of former Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, who was seeking to overturn a jury’s guilty verdict against her.
Dugan was convicted last year of obstructing federal immigration enforcement efforts for helping an undocumented man who was appearing in her courtroom go out a side door to evade immediate detection by federal agents. After a trial in December, she was found guilty of felony obstruction of justice and not guilty of a misdemeanor charge alleging she concealed an undocumented person from arrest.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman ruled against Dugan’s appeal in a 39-page order. He also again rejected a claim that she was immune from prosecution because her actions were taken while she served as a judge.
Dugan’s legal team indicated in a statement that they plan to appeal Adelman’s ruling. That appeal will take that case to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We continue to maintain that Hannah Dugan acted lawfully and within her independent authority as a judge,” Dugan’s attorneys stated. “The inconsistent jury verdicts demonstrate that the trial proceedings were flawed, and we plan to appeal.”
Emergency crews work at the site of a US-Israeli strike on a residential building that also destroyed the adjacent Rafi-Nia Synagogue on April 7, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump agreed Tuesday evening to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, at least delaying his threat of a catastrophic attack on the country’s civilian population as he said the countries were near a long-term peace agreement.
The ceasefire was negotiated with Pakistani leaders as intermediaries, Trump said in a post to his social media site, Truth Social. The deal was conditional on Iran agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane for the global supply of oil, Trump wrote.
“Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” he wrote.
Trump added that he had received “a 10-point proposal from Iran” that would form the basis of a long-term agreement.
“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” he said.
A day of global outrage
Earlier Tuesday, Trump had escalated his rhetoric against Iran, even as some Republicans in Congress began to back away from his declarations, threatening that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he wrote.
He ended the 85-word message with “God Bless the Great People of Iran!”
The threat drew intense opposition throughout the day, including from Pope Leo XIV.
Trump posted the early-morning message roughly 12 hours before his self-imposed deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or otherwise face U.S. strikes on the country’s bridges and power plants, he wrote Sunday in an expletive-laden Truth Social post.
“Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is,” he wrote on X Tuesday morning.
Some Democrats in Congress said it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and remove Trump from office.
Threats followed rescue operations
Trump’s flurry of fresh threats followed Iran’s downing of two U.S. military aircraft. U.S. forces and intelligence officers launched a major operation to rescue one of the plane’s weapons system officers, which proved successful Sunday, according to the president and U.S. officials. Two pilots had already been rescued.
As of Tuesday, the United States struck Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal, according to The Associated Press, and Israeli forces struck eight bridges, according to a post on X by Israel’s military.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday forces had also struck railways. “Yesterday, we destroyed transport planes and dozens of helicopters. Today, we attacked the train tracks and bridges used by the Revolutionary Guards,” he wrote on social media.
Speaking in Hungary, Vice President JD Vance said he hopes Iran chooses “the right response” by Trump’s evening deadline.
“We’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use. The president of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct,” Vance said.
Sharif n a statement prior to Trump’s post announcing the ceasefir urged all parties to continue negotiations, and for Trump to abandon his Tuesday night deadline.
“To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” Sharif wrote on social media.
Trump repeated the threat to bomb Iran’s civilian infrastructure Monday during a lengthy White House press conference. Targeting civilian infrastructure violates international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions that were updated following World War II.
U.S. cybersecurity officials alerted critical infrastructure operators to “urgently review” cybersecurity protocols and take measures to disconnect certain components from the internet after indications that Iranian hackers have begun exploiting water and energy systems.
The advisory Tuesday from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, and a host of other federal agencies including the FBI and Department of Energy, did not provide details on locations.
Sens. Ron Johnson, John Curtis express objections
Republicans on Capitol Hill, with the exception of Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie, have blocked efforts to rein in Trump’s war on Iran, but three more GOP voices against the conflict emerged in recent days.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told conservative commentator John Solomon Monday that he is against Trump’s threats to bomb civilian targets in Iran.
“I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster,” he said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast, produced by Just the News. “… We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them.”
Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, declared opposition Friday to funding the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
“I stand by the President’s actions taken in defense of our national security interests in the Middle East. But we must be clear-eyed about history and the Constitution. While I support maintaining our readiness and replenishing stockpiles, I cannot support funding for further military operations without a formal declaration of war from Congress,” he wrote on X.
On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Nathaniel Moore, R-Texas, joined the opposition, posting on X that “what sets America apart is not only our strength, but how we use it.”
“I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization.’ That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America,” Moore wrote in a statement on X.
The U.S. and Israel began a joint bombing campaign on Iran on Feb. 28, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and numerous other senior officials of the Islamic state.
In response, Iran has targeted global oil trade by effectively choking off the Strait of Hormuz, a major maritime passage for one-fifth of the world’s petroleum and liquid natural gas.
The conflict has killed thousands of civilians across the Middle East and injured thousands more. Thirteen U.S. service members have died, and 372 have been injured since the start of fighting, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System.
25th Amendment
Trump’s rash threat to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” sparked numerous calls to remove the president from office.
Former U.S. House GOP lawmaker and Trump loyalist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, swiftly denounced Trump’s latest threat.
“25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” she posted on X.
Nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers, including several progressive members, also turned to social media to appeal for the 25th Amendment, which authorizes the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members or Congress to deem the president unfit for office. The amendment has never been invoked.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., accused Trump of threatening “massive war crimes” and also implicated Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
“In the last 48 hours alone, the rhetoric has crossed every line. Pete Hegseth is complicit. I’ve called for the 25th Amendment and am introducing Articles of Impeachment against Hegseth,” said Ansari, an Iranian-American.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said “removal is the top priority.”
In a video message posted on X, Markey urged the House to “immediately” come back into session and pass articles of impeachment against Trump, and for the Senate to remove him from office.
“He is completely unstable and dangerous,” Markey said.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., countered the calls, saying, “The president is facing serious mental decline; I’m with you on that.”
“But unfortunately, invoking the 25th is not realistic right now, given his oddball cabinet of sycophants and eccentrics, and Republican ‘spines of foam.’ We’re going to have to buckle down and win this the old-fashioned way.”
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, whose seat in red northwest Ohio is under threat, stopped short of mentioning the 25th Amendment, but urged GOP congressional leadership to act as Trump is “recklessly threatening to commit atrocities and war crimes.”
“This is unhinged saber rattling that follows consistent threats over the past week to violate international law. The President is using the might of the United States military to wage war without constitutionally mandated approval from Congress. Until Congress reasserts itself as a co-equal branch of government, he will remain unchecked and the security of our nation will continue to be at risk,” she said in a statement.
Illegal orders
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., reminded American service members in a statement Tuesday that attacking civilians en masse “puts them in very real legal jeopardy,” as the action is not only in violation of the Geneva Conventions, but also the Pentagon’s Law of War Manual.
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, and five other congressional Democrats who served in the military or national security roles, published a video in November stating that members of the armed services are not obligated to follow illegal orders. The video came during the height of the administration’s strikes on small alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean.
“It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops — especially those in command — will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders,” Slotkin said in a statement Tuesday.
Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who appeared in the video with Slotkin, said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., must bring the House back into session and vote to end the war.
“Members of our Armed Forces must remember their oaths to the Constitution. As I have said before, if servicemembers are asked to carry out illegal orders, they have a solemn duty to follow the law,” said Crow, a former paratrooper and Army Ranger.
Pope Leo XIV, during a press gaggle outside his summer residence near Rome, appealed to Americans to contact Congress and express opposition to the Iran war.
“I would invite the citizens of all countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always,” he said.
The offices of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Johnson did not respond for comment on Trump’s latest statements.
A general social media account for the Senate Republican Conference posted mid-day Tuesday: “Iran would be wise to take President Trump at his word. They can choose the easy way or the hard way.”
Voting booths set up at Madison, Wisconsin’s Hawthorne Library. Today is Election Day. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin’s non-partisan spring elections are Tuesday. The race for an open seat on the state Supreme Court between Court of Appeals Judges Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor is at the top of the ticket, but Wisconsin voters will also decide a handful of races for circuit court seats, hundreds of school board races, school referendum questions and other local contests.
Polls open on Tuesday at 7 a.m. and remain open until 8 p.m. Voters who are still in line when polls close should remain in line and will still be able to cast their ballots. Absententee ballots that have not yet been returned need to be received by local election officials by the time polls close. It’s too late to drop a ballot in the mail, but voters can bring their absentee ballots to their designated polling place, their municipal clerk’s office or, in communities that use them, to a municipal absentee ballot drop box. Details on how and where to vote as well as same-day voter registration at the polls can be found at MyVote.WI.gov.
As of Monday, 424,651 absentee ballots had been requested and 324,396 ballots had been returned, according to Wisconsin Elections Commission data. The absentee numbers show a steep drop from last year’s spring election when the state Supreme Court race drew massive national attention with the ideological balance of the Court at stake. Last year, 750,240 absentee ballots were requested and 693,981 were returned.
Wisconsin voters head to the polls amid a flurry of national headlines about efforts from President Donald Trump and Republicans to change the rules around voter registration and absentee ballot eligibility.
Trump signed an executive order last week that seeks to severely limit access to voting by mail. He is also pushing for congressional Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, a bill that would change the rules guiding how people register to vote in an effort to make it harder for non-citizens to vote. Non-citizen voting has become a major focus for Republican election skeptics, however there is no evidence non-citizen voting happens in statistically significant numbers.
Trump’s executive order curtailing mail-in ballots is being challenged in court and the SAVE Act has not yet been signed into law. At an online news conference Monday, WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said there have been zero changes to federal law that will affect Wisconsinites trying to cast a ballot Tuesday.
“As it pertains to the April 7, 2026 election, there are no changes,” she said. “Any federal bills that are being proposed or other measures that might be proposed at the federal level — none of those are in place. And so when voters head to the polls on April 7, they should know that nothing has changed. The same processes that you’ve used to vote in the last number of years are still in place. There have been no changes. So the photo ID requirements remain unchanged. The process where you state your name and address and you show your ID and you’re given a ballot at the polls and you sign the poll book, all of those things are still in place.”
On Monday, the Republican Party of Wisconsin announced it had filed a complaint with WEC against the city of Green Bay after 152 people were mistakenly sent two absentee ballots. Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffries said a “system glitch” caused the error.
Since 2020, the Wisconsin Republican Party has regularly encouraged conspiracy theories about the state’s election systems. In a statement, party chair Brian Schimming called for WEC to investigate and make sure people aren’t able to cast two votes.
“Wisconsin law is clear: one voter, one ballot,” said Schimming, who was involved in the effort to cast false Electoral College ballots on behalf of Trump after the 2020 election. “This reckless failure by the Green Bay Clerk has created serious risks of double voting and fraud. The Elections Commission must immediately investigate and order a concrete plan to secure Tuesday’s election.”
Wolfe said at the news conference that state law prevents her from commenting on the specifics of any complaints made to WEC, but that Wisconsin’s system has a “very, very established process” for how clerks handle duplicate ballots.
The system for logging returned ballots would never allow the same voter to return two ballots, Wolfe said.
“If two ballots come back, one of them is rejected, because only one ballot can be checked in and actually sent to be tabulated per voter,” she said. “And all that’s going to happen as part of a public process. So the actual rejection and then sending one of the ballots tabulated, all that’s going to occur at the polling place or where ballots are tabulated in that jurisdiction, and observers and the public will be made aware of exactly what’s happening and why one ballot’s being rejected and one’s being sent on to be counted. And so we always, in this situation, encourage our clerks to be very transparent in exactly how these are handled and the many, many safeguards that are in place to ensure that only one ballot can be counted.”
Gov. Tony Evers signed a pair of bills Monday that will release $125 million for communities to fight PFAS water contamination. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers signed a pair of bills Monday that will release more than $133 million for communities to fight water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Wisconsin.
The bill signing is the culmination of about three years of debate over the money. The state initially set $125 million aside in the 2023-25 state budget, but the total dedicated to fighting PFAS has grown to $133.5 million as interest accrued on the funds while it sat unused, according to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo. The Town of Campbell, Marinette, the town of Stella near Rhinelander and French Island near La Crosse are just some of the communities in Wisconsin that have been managing PFAS pollution in local drinking water for years.
Evers called it a “historic” day for the state.
“Today the people of Wisconsin can begin to have PFAS-free water,” Evers said.
PFAS — also known as “forever chemicals” — are a large group of cancer-causing chemicals that do not break down easily and have been used to make products including nonstick cookware, firefighting foam and fast food wrappers that are resistant to heat, grease, stains and water.
Under the laws, about $80 million will go to a community grant program to assist local governments in combating and remediating PFAS contamination in their communities, a little over $5 million will go to a grant programs for public airports and $35 million will go to expanding the Well Compensation Grant Program to assist homeowners and businesses with private wells to ensure their drinking water is safe from PFAS. The Well Compensation Grant Program will also be expanded to allow non-community water supplies, schools and child care facilities to receive funding.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will get 10 new positions and $1.3 million to help with managing conservation, fishery resources and trapper education, protecting the state’s water resources and for other agency responsibilities including communications, customer services, aids administration, watershed management and environmental analysis.
The laws also amend the state’s Spills Law to protect farmers, landowners, certain business owners and fire departments from being held responsible for PFAS contamination if it is discovered on their land and they did not cause it.
“This will provide real relief to families and communities tackling the pressing threat of PFAS in local wells, municipal water systems and more,” Evers said, adding that the day has not come without challenges. “It’s been a long road, but this will make a real difference for families living with the challenges of people every day, so today, we’re here to chart a new path forward— one where folks can trust that the water coming from their tap is safe to drink.”
Evers was joined by advocates, Department of Natural Resources Secretary Karen Hyun as well as a bipartisan group of state lawmakers including Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett), Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz) and Rep. Renuka Mayadev (D-Madison). He thanked all of them for their work on the issue and emphasized the importance of working together to get it done.
Evers said that it is always “worth the effort” to find a bipartisan way to get work done. Once the money was set aside in 2023, lawmakers and Evers disagreed on the framework for getting the money to communities. Evers vetoed a 2024 Republican bill, saying it limited the enforcement power of the DNR and wouldn’t do enough to combat the PFAS contamination challenges that Wisconsin faces.
Over the last year, lawmakers and Evers worked to get to a compromise that passed the Assembly and Senate unanimously.
“This was a really important two bills, and the only way we were going to do it is that people compromise, give, take and win,” Evers said.
According to a DNR release, it will take time for the agency’s staff to get the programs going, and DNR will be prioritizing grants for sampling of private wells, schools, child care facilities and biosolids. The grants are expected to be available starting in the summer or fall of 2026.
Lee Donahue, the health, education and welfare supervisor for the Town of Campbell, said the laws were critical for the “healing and health” of people in affected communities.
“Sadly, today I can quickly and easily say that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are toxic,” Donahue said. “I’ve seen how people’s exposure can devastate a community with kidney, testicular, ovarian, thyroid cancer, Parkinson’s disease, endocrine disruptions like polycystic ovarian syndrome, impacting women’s fertility, and the impacts on child development.”
Donahue said the change in the law represents progress.
“It lays the foundation for future PFAS legislation that will continue to protect Wisconsinites,” Donahue said. “For the 4,500 neighbors of mine and the town of Campbell and all those in Peshtigo, Stella Rib Mountain, and sadly, the list goes on and on, may this legislation accelerate your access to safe water.”
Wimberger, who alongside other Republicans fought for the provision absolving parties they termed “innocent landowners” from responsibility for contamination, celebrated the signing of the bills in a statement.
“At the heart of our reforms is an idea: the state should not treat landowners who discover PFAS contamination on their property like polluters. Through meetings and negotiations, that idea transformed into real policy that will protect innocent victims of PFAS across Wisconsin from unfair state action,” Wimberger said. “From French Island to Marinette and Madison to Stella, we’ll soon begin the important work of identifying and fighting PFAS contamination in lands and waters across our state.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the amount of money that is available.
Kimberly Dudley, of Cincinnati, is one of the last five Affordable Care Act navigators in Ohio, helping residents find a private health care insurance plan on the public HealthCare.gov marketplace. In one of its first acts, the second Trump administration cut annual funding for the navigator program by 90%. (Photo by Anne Saker/Stateline)
CINCINNATI — For four years, Kimberly Dudley has worked on the front line of the Affordable Care Act as a navigator, helping Ohioans solve the puzzle of buying private insurance on the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace.
But the job is harder now, the answers scarcer. In one of its first acts, the second Trump administration cut annual funding for navigators by 90%, from $100 million to $10 million, arguing the program was wasteful. Under the ACA, better known as Obamacare, navigators help educate and enroll people — especially those living in hard-to-reach communities. They were paid through a user fee on monthly premiums.
In January 2025, 50 navigators served Ohio’s 88 counties, toting their laptops to meet Ohioans at rural libraries and suburban food courts to help them search for a health care plan on the marketplace. But by the Nov. 1 start of open enrollment, the busiest time of year, only five navigators remained. Dudley, of Cincinnati, is one of them.
Married with a child, she was hired in 2022 at Cincinnati’s Freestore Foodbank and found “such a joy from helping people, although it’s been hard this year.” The hotline, for example, is in Dudley’s hands now. The other navigators who worked calls were laid off.
The administration did not respond to requests last week to discuss the navigator program cut. But in announcing the cuts last year, an administration statement said: “Navigators are not enrolling nearly enough people to justify the substantial amount of federal dollars previously spent on the program. This reduction will ensure funding is focused on meeting the statutory goals of the program more efficiently and effectively.”
Dudley’s task got even tougher at the end of last year, when the Trump administration and Congress allowed certain pandemic-era subsidies to expire, and policy premiums rose sharply, often to more than many Ohioans can pay.
She hears the stories every day on her own phone, which doubles as Ohio’s ACA hotline. People call when they are ruled ineligible for Medicaid, usually because their incomes are too high. In early March, Dudley heard from Tonya Horn, 59, of Cleveland Heights, who needed help.
All her working life, said Horn, she felt lucky to have employer-paid health benefits up to her most recent job, working remotely for Empower, a Colorado financial services company, as a talent acquisition diversity program manager. But last year, her job at Empower felt less secure. Her pink slip came in January.
Helping Horn, Dudley spotted a plan on HealthCare.gov that with an income-based subsidy would cost $450 a month with no deductible. But then Dudley discovered that Horn’s doctor does not accept that insurance plan.
“I don’t know if this works for you,” Dudley said, “but getting insurance could involve switching doctors.”
Horn sighed. “Can we keep looking?”
Drop in enrollment
This year, Ohio’s enrollment in the HealthCare.gov marketplace fell by 20%, the second-largest decline among the 50 states. The overall national enrollment slid 5%.
Experts in Ohio said a few factors depressed enrollment. Some people aged into Medicare. Others found jobs with health benefits. But one certain force was the Dec. 31 expiration of the pandemic-era subsidies on most marketplace plans.
The ACA does provide premium subsidies based on income, but the federal government began offering additional help in 2021 as temporary pandemic relief. The “enhanced” subsidies cut many people’s monthly premiums by hundreds of dollars.
They also helped boost the number of people buying health coverage from the insurance marketplaces, from 11.4 million people in 2020 to 24.3 million last year.
Americans who had the enhanced subsidies got warnings from their insurers about the Dec. 31 expiration. As of March 26, the number of Americans with marketplace coverage dropped by about 1.2 million compared with 2025, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Last week, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, said that Husted proposed to extend the subsidies two more years, with new restrictions to prevent fraud in marketplace plans. Democrats rejected the idea, said Joshua Eck, Husted’s deputy chief of staff. “But had they supported the bill, or been willing to discuss it, it’s likely this problem would have been solved in December.”
In Ohio, the Columbus nonprofit research group Health Policy Institute of Ohio found that of the more than 580,000 Ohioans with 2025 HealthCare.gov plans, nearly 90% used the temporary subsidies.
California and at least nine other states that run their own health insurance marketplaces have used state money to help residents absorb the expiration price shock, though only New Mexico is completely filling the gap. Ohio could not dip into its budget that way because it uses the federal marketplace.
In January, the Health Policy Institute of Ohio estimated that 2026 premiums for Ohio marketplace plans would surge by 114% on average. Said institute analyst Brian O’Rourke: “It’s reasonable to expect that (the enrollment drop is) because of the expiration of the subsidies.”
On the statewide ACA hotline call with Horn, Kimberly Dudley said her own mother got a notice from her insurance company that her $40-a-month premium would increase to $400. “I was able to help her figure out a plan, but her premium still went up some,” Dudley said. “We’re going to find a way forward for you.”
“I hope so,” Horn said.
Ohio expands the ACA
Ohio’s industrial base collapsed in the 1990s, and hundreds of thousands of workers lost employer-paid coverage. Young people left Ohio for work, and the insurance pool shrank as it rapidly aged. Numerous studies found Ohio’s health declining, in no small part because nearly 1.5 million Ohioans, more than 10% of the population, had zero health insurance.
The ACA also allowed states to expand Medicaid to adults with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level, although some Republican-led states have refused the expansion. In Ohio, GOP Gov. John Kasich pushed the Republican-led state legislature to approve the expansion in 2013; 40 states and the District of Columbia have expanded their programs. Ohio’s participation in the federal marketplace grew until 2025, when enrollment hit a record high.
How did we help people back in the day when they didn’t have coverage?
– Charlotte Rudolph, UHCAN Ohio executive director
The speed of the retreat in Ohio of the ACA brought swift consequences. The Columbus nonprofit group UHCAN Ohio “has been helping people since the law’s inception,” said Executive Director Charlotte Rudolph. Then last fall, “If we saw five people, maybe one enrolled. They’re making that tough decision to say, ‘I hope I don’t get sick.’”
“We are now going through our archives, asking ourselves, how did we help people back in the day when they didn’t have coverage?”
Further complicating Ohio’s health care horizon are Trump administration cuts to Medicaid. More than 3 million Ohioans use the health program for low-income residents. But under the broad tax and spending measure President Donald Trump signed last summer, as many as 1 in 10 of those Ohioans could be found ineligible through new work requirements and other hurdles.
Horn, on the hotline phone call, said her weekly $624 unemployment payments had put her over the Medicaid threshold. Dudley nodded as she tapped on her keyboard. “I hear that a lot,” she said.
What the future holds
While the immediate problems are stressing the system, experts say they are anxious for what is to come in Ohio’s health care.
Uninsured people often use emergency departments for primary care, straining hospitals still under pandemic duress and understaffed. Many Ohioans on Medicaid live in its rural spaces, where the safety net has long been fraying. The trade group the Ohio Hospital Association told the state legislature last year that more than 70% of the state’s rural hospitals have been running in the red for years.
“My fears,” said Grace Wagner of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, “are that as these changes continue to come, decision-makers aren’t aware or prepared to respond.”
Dudley and Horn spent another 30 minutes on the ACA hotline, but none of the HealthCare.gov options clicked. Finally, Horn said she would call back.
“Sure, it’s a lot to think about,” Dudley said, and ended the call. Then she sat looking at her laptop screen full of HealthCare.gov. She doesn’t like to leave a puzzle unsolved for someone who came to her for help.
“I love what I do. Being able to do this work is fantastic, even in the midst of all this stuff happening,” she said. “But there are times when I feel a little overwhelmed.”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, 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 Center Square) - Judge Chris Taylor won the Wisconsin Supreme Court race over conservative candidate Maria Lazar on Tuesday, increasing the amount of liberal justices on the court to a 5-2 advantage compared to conservatives with another conservative seat…
(The Center Square) – Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Gillett, wants Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction to continue an investigation into allegations of grooming and sexual assault at Oconto Falls School District even after one of those accused voluntarily surrendered his teaching…
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill that would have ended the ability of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to raise fees for animal market licenses, animal dealer licenses, animal trucker licenses and…
Tom Tiffany has received about $11,500 from the political action committee linked to We Energies.
Both state and federal records show the WEC Energy Group PAC shares an address with WEC Energy Group, which houses We Energies, the state’s largest utility provider.
Federal Election Commission records, which capture his campaign for Congress, show the PAC made five donations totaling $9,500 to Tiffany between 2019 and 2023.
The PAC has not donated to Tiffany since he began his campaign for governor, records show.
Tiffany is far from the largest recipient of donations tied to We Energies. The PAC contributes to both Democrats and Republicans in Wisconsin, including six donations totaling $136,000 to Gov. Tony Evers’ campaign.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin voters Tuesday elected Madison-based Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor to a seat on the state Supreme Court, a decision that expands the high court’s liberal majority to five justices and cements liberal control until at least 2030.
Taylor, a former Democratic state lawmaker and former policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, defeated conservative Waukesha-based Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar in the race to replace outgoing Justice Rebecca Bradley, a member of the court’s conservative wing. Wisconsin Supreme Court justices are elected to 10-year terms.
“Tonight, the people of Wisconsin stood up for our rights and freedoms, our democracy, our elections and a strong state Supreme Court that will protect the independence of our beloved state,” Taylor told a packed room of supporters at the Madison Concourse Hotel. “Once again, Wisconsin showed the entire nation that we believe that the people should be at the center of government and the priority of our judiciary.”
The Associated Press called the election only 36 minutes after polls closed as early returns showed Taylor dominating the liberal bastions of Dane and Milwaukee counties, while leading or running close behind Lazar in rural counties. Taylor told supporters that Lazar called her to concede the race.
The state’s court races are technically nonpartisan contests, but like recent high court elections, public support for Taylor and Lazar broke along party lines with Taylor backed by Democrats and Lazar by Republicans.
Taylor’s victory further cements liberal control of the state’s judicial branch, even as a new governor enters the executive branch and Democrats and Republicans fight for control of the state Legislature later this year. Lazar had raised concerns that a five-member liberal bloc could prevent certain cases from reaching the bench because three votes are needed to take up an appeal.
Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar gives her concession speech after losing the Wisconsin Supreme Court race to Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor during her election night watch party at The Ingleside Hotel on April 7, 2026, in Pewaukee, Wis. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Since Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s 2023 election win that secured a liberal majority for the first time in years, the high court has been a factor in disagreements over the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches and has made major decisions on politically charged cases, such as the 2025 ruling that invalidated Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban.
The 5-2 liberal court is likely to continue to play a major role in such cases, including challenges to the limits on collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions under Act 10 redistricting of Wisconsin’s congressional maps. Conservative Justice Annette Ziegler already announced she won’t seek reelection next year, creating another open seat that could further entrench a liberal majority.
Liberals have now won five of the last six Supreme Court elections going back to 2018. UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden called the election results “a remarkable turning of tides” from a decade ago when conservatives controlled the court and Ziegler didn’t have an opponent in 2017.
“Republicans have had a difficult run in Wisconsin during the Trump years,” Burden said. “With the court now out of reach, there will be tremendous pressure on the party this fall to take back the governorship and hold the state Legislature. The GOP is facing serious headwinds in a midterm year that will favor the Democrats nationally.”
Despite a sleepier race, politics remained a part of the 2026 election. In addition to political party support for each of the candidates, Taylor and Lazar represented starkly different judicial philosophies and career paths to the bench.
Taylor centered her campaign on protecting rights and freedoms. In campaign stops across the state, she warned of future threats to Wisconsin’s elections and highlighted her advocacy work in the state Assembly and for Planned Parenthood to support reproductive health care and victims of domestic violence.
Lazar’s campaign frequently zeroed in on Taylor’s legislative career and painted her as an activist and a politician rather than a judge. Lazar, who said the 2025 court race went “overboard” on politics, also sought to refocus Wisconsin’s Supreme Court elections on judicial experience instead of political issues.
“I have led the type of campaign that I always said I would,” Lazar told her supporters Tuesday night in Pewaukee. “I have been honest. I’ve been transparent. I have been above board. I have led with integrity, and I want you to know that that is how we need to run races in the state of Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The board that runs the Universities of Wisconsin voted unanimously Tuesday to fire the system’s president, drawing the ire of Republican lawmakers who called it a “partisan hatchet job.”
Jay Rothman had refused an offer from the board of regents to quietly resign, saying it never gave a clear reason why he should. Rothman has led the system that oversees the state’s four-year universities, including the flagship Madison campus, for nearly four years.
Rothman has had to tread carefully dealing with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a board of regents where all current members were appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. When Rothman was hired, the board also had a majority of Evers appointees.
Asked Monday about the move to oust Rothman, Evers didn’t take a side. “It’s their call,” he said of the board.
But Republican lawmakers were furious and threatened to fire regents who have yet to be confirmed by the state Senate.
“Make no mistake about it, the firing of UW President Rothman is a blatant partisan hatchet job,” Republican Senate President Patrick Testing said in a statement.
He said Rothman was fired for “not being liberal enough.”
“His only crime was his willingness to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get things done,” Testin said.
The vote to fire Rothman came just five days after The Associated Press first reported that the regents asked Rothman to either resign or be fired. Rothman said in two letters to the regents that he would not leave voluntarily without knowing what he did wrong.
Regent President Amy Bogost said in a statement Monday that the board has shared results of a performance review with Rothman, with “direct conversations and clear feedback regarding leadership expectations.” She said the system needs “a clear vision” but did not elaborate on the review’s findings.
She repeated the statement Tuesday following a roughly 30-minute closed session regents meeting. No other regents spoke before the vote to fire Rothman, effective immediately.
Rothman said in an earlier statement Tuesday that regents repeatedly declined to cite a specific reason for finding no confidence in his leadership. No one ever indicated to him that an evaluation could lead to termination, he said, adding that Bogost called his review “overwhelmingly positive.”
“It is disappointing that the first I heard any sort of defense of their position was when they communicated with the media,” Rothman said. “I am left to conclude that, at best, this reflects an after-the-fact rationalization of a decision that was previously made.”
Rothman declined to comment after the vote.
The state Senate’s committee that oversees higher education scheduled a hearing for Thursday for 10 regents whose appointments by Evers have yet to be confirmed. Testin called for the Senate to reject all 10, which would mean they could no longer serve as regents.
However, the Senate is not scheduled to be in session again this year.
Rothman has served as president of the 165,000-student, multicampus system since June 2022. The former chair and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner law firm, Rothman had no prior experience administering higher education.
He has spent his tenure lobbying Republican legislators to increase state aid for the system in the face of federal cuts, navigating free speech issues surrounding pro-Palestinian protests, and grappling with declining enrollment that has forced eight branch campuses to close. Overall enrollment across the system has remained steady under his leadership.
Rothman brokered a deal with Republicans in 2023 that called for freezing diversity hires and creating a position at UW-Madison focused on conservative thought in exchange for the Legislature releasing money for UW employee raises and tens of millions of dollars for construction projects across the system.
The regents initially rejected the deal only to approve it in a second vote held just days later. Evers said at the time the deal left him disappointed and frustrated.
The fight over Rothman’s future comes as the flagship Madison campus is losing its chancellor. Jennifer Mnookin is leaving in May at the end of the current academic year to take the job as president of Columbia University.
Rothman makes $600,943 annually as UW president. He can be fired for no stated reason and he has no appeal rights, said Wisconsin employment law attorney Tamara Packard, who reviewed Rothman’s contract at the AP’s request.
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.
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Decades of repression and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar have driven most Rohingya from their western Myanmar homeland.
Several forms of written Rohingya have emerged in the diaspora, but none has reached widespread use among a scattered population.
A small group in Milwaukee, home to what may be the country’s latest Rohingya population, is testing whether teaching a written form of Rohingya can help preserve the language.
Advocates face a major hurdle: persuading families to prioritize learning Rohingya alongside work, school and resettlement.
Similar efforts among Hmong refugees in the Midwest suggest a written language can take hold — but only with sustained community buy-in.
A dozen fasting teenagers filed into the basement of a community center on Milwaukee’s South Side in mid-February to mark the first night of Ramadan around folding tables. The building belongs to the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin (BRCW), a bare-bones nonprofit serving hundreds of local Rohingya refugee families. Brand-new carpets muffled the sounds of worshippers in the mosque one floor up.
Nearly everyone in the nonprofit’s Clarke Square community center spoke Rohingya, but not a single printed word in the language appeared on the whiteboards in the center’s classrooms where recent arrivals study English and prepare for citizenship exams. Flyers advertising a food giveaway were in English, as were posters listing prayer times and an illuminated sign over the center’s front entrance.
Printed Rohingya words could be found only in a small stack of children’s books and loose-leaf dictionaries in an office just off the prayer hall — raw materials for an experiment in cultural preservation.
A first-of-its-kind picture dictionary translating English words to a written Rohingya language is being tested at the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, shown on Jan. 19, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Hardly anyone passing through the community center can easily read a sentence in Rohingya.
Decades of state-sanctioned repression and ethnic cleansing have driven most Rohingya from their western Myanmar homeland. Several forms of written Rohingya have emerged in the diaspora, but none has reached widespread use among the scattered diaspora. Without an agreed-upon alphabet or enough people literate in Rohingya to teach it, community leaders worry the language will wither, taking with it a core part of a culture already frayed by displacement and state-sanctioned violence.
Milwaukee is now a proving ground for Rohingya literacy. If this community center with a tiny volunteer staff can build an audience for Rohingya language education — in the city likely home to the country’s largest Rohingya population — momentum could spread, boosting the language’s chances of surviving in exile.
It’s a big if.
What does it take to preserve a language that’s rarely written down? The center’s indefatigable co-founders, a Dallas-based linguist and an international network of Rohingya scholars are trying to figure it out.
From Myanmar to Milwaukee
Mohamed Anwar is always on the move. Even while juggling a half-dozen jobs, the BRCW co-founder leaves a few gaps in his schedule to help refugee families navigate their new country.
He, too, came to Milwaukee as a refugee.
Anwar grew up on a knife’s edge. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar’s government has chipped away at the rights of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group in a majority-Buddhist nation. In 1982, when Anwar was 7, the Myanmar government stripped the Rohingya and other disfavored groups of citizenship, leaving millions stateless.
Anwar managed to secure a high school diploma and an undergraduate degree — the latter a rare accomplishment for a Rohingya student of his generation. But with prospects dimming and the threat of state-sponsored violence mounting, Anwar set aside his graduate studies and fled, joining thousands of other Rohingya refugees risking death and enslavement to reach Malaysia.
He remained in Kuala Lumpur for over a decade, initially surviving on low-wage jobs until he eventually crossed paths with United Nations outreach workers.Recognizing his talents, the U.N. brought him on as a translator.
When the State Department approved his family for resettlement in the U.S. as refugees in 2015, Anwar landed in Milwaukee, where a few friends had already begun putting down roots.
Afternoon sunlight shines on the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin on Jan. 19, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Mohamed Anwar, co-founder, president and executive director of the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, sits for a portrait while preparing for the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Even a decade ago, the city’s Rohingya community was large enough for Aurora Health Care to require interpreters. Anwar was a natural fit for the job.
Like other specialists, health care interpreters must pass a certification course. “They had no one to test me in Rohingya,” Anwar recalled. Without an agreed-upon alphabet, a written test was also off the table. His examiners took his time with the U.N. as proof of his fluency, and he has since taken charge of recruiting and training new Rohingya interpreters for the hospital system.
Milwaukee becomes a magnet
BRCW estimates more than 4,000 Rohingya live in the Milwaukee area — an educated guess, but a difficult one to confirm. Roughly half of the more than 13,000 refugees resettled in Wisconsin since 2012 came from Myanmar, but the State Department resettlement statistics do not distinguish between Rohingya and other refugees from the country.
The city has become a magnet for Rohingya refugees who first settled elsewhere in the United States, drawn by cheaper housing, abundant jobs for immigrants with limited English, a strong support network and private Islamic schools. That pattern shows up in BRCW outreach data: 17% of phone numbers collected by 2020 had out-of-state area codes — some belonging to families whom the nonprofit helped relocate from as far away as New Hampshire.
Most Rohingya families have settled on Milwaukee’s South Side and southern suburbs, with a growing number purchasing homes within walking distance of BRCW’s community center. Anwar himself owns a few nearby properties, renting them to Rohingya newcomers finding their footing in the city.
BRCW co-founder Andrew Trumbull says audio recordings are the only viable means of reaching most new arrivals, at least for now.
The nonprofit offers English classes, but many Rohingya adults have little free time between long shifts and family responsibilities. Parents often rely on their children as interpreters, but translating technical terms into Rohingya is a stretch for children who have never formally studied the language.
A volunteer effort takes shape
Trumbull sticks out in the halls of the BRCW community center. He doesn’t speak Rohingya, doesn’t pray in the center’s mosque and has no family ties to Rohingya Milwaukee, but he’s been there from the start. A decade after helping get the nonprofit off the ground, the self-described weekend warrior spends much of his scarce free time applying for grants and managing English-language communications in the cluttered office he shares with Anwar.
Andrew Trumbull, co-founder and administrative director at the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, works on his computer in his office, Jan. 19, 2026, in Milwaukee.
The pair met through Anwar’s brother, for whom Trumbull acted as a tutor and Milwaukee tour guide as the former settled into his new city. They soon launched BRCW, with Anwar managing community affairs and Trumbull managing relationships with government agencies and nonprofit peers — both as volunteers.
Trumbull’s enthusiasm for Rohingya language preservation is partially motivated by his own feelings of cultural loss. He spent most of his childhood in Germany, but after moving to the U.S. at age 11, he refused to speak his grandparents’ language. “I wanted not to be different, so I did not speak German,” he said. While he doesn’t compare his experience to those of refugees, he’s watched similar assimilatory pressures play out among Rohingya children in Milwaukee.
“All of the Rohingya parents know that the Rohingya language is dying,” he said. “The question is what they can do about it.”
For now, a small selection of children’s books and a Rohingya-to-English dictionary offer the closest thing to a Rohingya literacy curriculum in the U.S. Trumbull hosts a digital version of the dictionary on the center’s website; the physical copies in his office are the leftovers from a pile passed out to families. Without a grant to support a more structured distribution program, Anwar and Trumbull are “field-testing” the materials by handing them out whenever they can and seeking feedback.
An episode of the Sesame Workshop International series “Playtime With Noor & Aziz,” which was introduced to refugee children after field testing in Milwaukee.
The written Rohingya materials on display at BRCW are the product of decades of work by Rohingya linguists.
An earlier form of written Rohingya died out roughly 200 years ago, said Dallas-based linguist Miranda Kuykendall; the reasons for its extinction remain unclear. Revival efforts took off in the 1980s, when a Rohingya academic in Bangladesh developed the Hanifi script by adapting the alphabet family used to write Arabic and Urdu.
By the turn of the century, a Rohingya engineer in Saudi Arabia introduced a Latin alphabet alternative — a more straightforward option for standard keyboards.
“Different pockets of the Rohingya population prefer different scripts for different reasons,” Kuykendall said. For Rohingya students familiar with Arabic through religious education, the Hanifiscript may be more approachable, and pilot programs in Bangladesh teach the script to some refugee children. The Latin-based script is familiar to the growing Rohingya diaspora in North America, the United Kingdom and Malaysia, where the primary languages rely on the Latin alphabet.
Mohamed Anwar, co-founder, president and executive director of the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, left, prepares for the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
A Ramadan prayer calendar is taped on the wall at the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Kuykendall, the Rohingya language program manager for Texas nonprofit International Literacy and Development, helped roll out the Rohingya-to-English dictionary and partnered with nonprofit publisher Books Unbound to release a picture dictionary for younger audiences. The same network of collaborators is now developing a Rohingya translation app.
Though her team included multiple Rohingya scripts in the dictionary, Kuykendall noted that children of Rohingya parents born or raised in the U.S. typically find the Latin script version of the language, also called “Rohingyalish,” far easier to pick up.
That isn’t necessarily the case for Rohingya-speaking adults — even those already literate in several other languages. “It’s difficult for me to read,” said Anwar, squinting at a page of a picture dictionary. “I never got a chance to learn.”
Kuykendall and BRCW say boosting adult literacy could be transformative for Rohingya refugee communities, with written Rohingya serving as a useful counterpart for teaching English.
But in Anwar and Trumbull’s view, children and young adults are more likely to have time for the Rohingya literacy materials now in the informal testing process in Milwaukee.
For some young people, the pitch might be practical: Learning written Rohingya could help teenagers translate technical language and complicated documents for their parents. For others, the draw could be more existential. “When they become preteens and teenagers,” Trumbull said, they might “grasp the importance of what it means to have lost their language.”
Even if the nonprofit can muster a critical mass of interested young people interested in Rohingya literacy, Trumbull noted, BRCW lacks money and bandwidth to organize formal classes.
The nonprofit seeks grants to support structured outreach, including its earlier work with “Sesame Street.” If all goes well, Anwar and Trumbull hope to offer Rohingya language lessons through BRCW’s after-school religious classes. Aside from Kuykendall’s smaller-scale work with students in Dallas, a BRCW Rohingya language class would be the first of its kind in the country.
‘I am concerned that my kids will never learn’
Those offerings would need buy-in from Rohingya parents like Umi Salmah and Mohammed Rafik, a couple raising three children in Milwaukee.
Rafik, 43, still thinks of Anwar as his teacher. Back in Myanmar, Anwar offered English lessons to young people in his home village — Rafik included.
After fleeing to Malaysia as a young man, Rafik spent early adulthood as a landscaper in Kuala Lumpur. Many of his relatives stayed behind long enough to witness a 2017 ethnic cleansing campaign that killed thousands and drove more than half of Myanmar’s remaining Rohingya into crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, where Rohingya children are barred from attending public schools. U.S. State Department officials later described the attacks as acts of genocide.Those who remain in Myanmar are now caught in the crossfire of the country’s civil war, and the country’s military has begun conscripting Rohingya men even while denying them citizenship.
More than a dozen members of Rafik’s immediate family drowned while en route to Bangladesh in 2024, as have hundreds of other refugees fleeing Myanmar by boat.
“Everything’s lost,” he said, clasping his hands together. “Language lost. Culture lost. People lost. Village lost.”
Rafik’s formal education ended after seventh grade. Salmah, on the other hand, completed high school in Myanmar before leaving for Malaysia, where the couple married. The military has since burned her home village.
They relocated to Milwaukee after six years in Dallas, where they initially settled after securing refugee status. Both are naturalized citizens; their children were born in the U.S.
Though the couple speaks Rohingya at home, their children “can’t speak back,” Salmah said. “Now I am concerned that my kids will never learn.”
Salmah is unusually well-positioned to teach her children to read Rohingya. She completed a degree in early childhood education at Milwaukee Area Technical College, and she has a knack for languages. Aside from English and Rohingya, Salmah can also speak and read in Burmese and Malay.
But even if she had the time to teach her children to read Rohingya — she’s currently working on a degree in phlebotomy — Salmah would first need to teach herself. Flipping to a page of a children’s book in the BRCW office, Salmah sounded out a passage letter by letter. “I have to pay so much attention to read that,” she said.
Rohingya literacy education “is not going to work at home” for most Rohingya families, Rafik said. Most parents have little to no formal education of their own, so many would need to learn to read as adults before they could teach their children.
People fluent in both Rohingya and English are often already busy providing translation services, and asking those ideal candidates to volunteer their time is a tall order. Like Salmah, any teaching candidate must also learn the Rohingya script alongside students. “I (need to) start from the beginning,” Anwar said. “From the ABCs.”
Mohamed Anwar, co-founder, president and executive director of the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, center, eats a community meal during the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Precedent in Hmong experience
If BRCW’s efforts gain traction, Milwaukee’s Rohingya community would not be the first group of refugees in the Midwest to give a struggling written language a new lease on life.
The century-old church that now houses BRCW previously belonged to a Hmong Christian congregation — the last community to pull off this feat.
Thousands of Hmong refugees settled in the upper Midwest beginning in the late 1970s, when the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam made allies, including many Hmong working alongside American forces in Laos, targets for retaliation. Fifty years later, Hmong refugees still outnumber any other refugee group in Wisconsin. More than 60,000 Wisconsinites identified as Hmong in 2020 — the third-largest Hmong population in the country behind Minnesota and California.
Mohamed Anwar, co-founder, president and executive director of the Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin, right, eats a community meal during the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Like more recent Rohingya arrivals, Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S. without a widely used written language. Christian missionaries in Laos developed a version of Hmong in the Latin script in the 1950s, but that system “did not stick,” said Bee Vang-Moua, the director of the Hmong language program at the University of Minnesota.
The mass displacement of thousands of Hmong in the 1970s became a catalyst for Hmong literacy’s rise, Vang-Moua explained. Hmong refugees in the U.S. and in refugee camps in Thailand initially communicated by recording messages on cassette tapes, but that system was difficult to sustain. “It was very expensive,” she said, “so everyone that could learn (to write) tried to learn.”
The introduction of cellphones slowed the uptake of Hmong writing, but only briefly. “Social media has boosted the need to read and write Hmong,” Vang-Moua said, because online networks connected Hmong speakers in the U.S. with Hmong speakers in Southeast Asia or Europe — primarily on text-based platforms like Facebook. The Latin-based script used by American Hmong speakers is now replacing versions of written Hmong developed independently in China and Vietnam, she added, because of the cultural influence of the diaspora in the U.S.
The emergence of Hmong language immersion schools further boosted the written language, Vang-Moua added. Milwaukee’s Hmong American Peace Academy, the first of its kind in Wisconsin, opened in 2004 with 200 students; Appleton’s Hmong American Immersion School opened last year.
Meanwhile, some Hmong groups have begun using the script to preserve community elders’ oral traditions in written form.
Given the unpredictable trajectory of Hmong literacy, Vang-Moua noted that the project underway in Milwaukee’s Rohingya community still has time to find its footing. “I’ve often wondered how it all felt” in the early stages of Hmong language education,” she said. “Here we are, talking about the same things, just with a different community.”
Can the effort last?
A Rohingya charter school is a distant goal for Anwar and Trumbull. An after-school Rohingya class would serve as a trial run, and it could give teenagers a chance to test using written Rohingya in their everyday lives.
But BRCW must also contend with parents’ priorities. Rafik and Salmah, for instance, say Rohingya language education can’t distract from other classes, including religious education.
They aren’t alone. Mohamed Ibrahim, owner of a Rohingya restaurant and grocery store on Milwaukee’s South Side, sees a practical use for written Rohingya. Though he is Rohingya by ancestry, he grew up speaking Burmese in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital. Rohingya-language educational materials could help him communicate more easily with his Rohingya-speaking customers, Ibrahim said, but he doesn’t have time to study it.
Mohamed Ibrahim, owner of Khan Aseya Restaurant, known as “Mom’s Kitchen,” center, serves takeout meals during the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Mohamed Ibrahim, owner of Khan Aseya Restaurant, known as “Mom’s Kitchen,” serves takeout meals during the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Mohamed Ibrahim, owner of Khan Aseya Restaurant, known as “Mom’s Kitchen,” works on his phone during the first day of Ramadan on Feb. 18, 2026, in Milwaukee.
Ibrahim has similar reservations about adding Rohingya language lessons to his children’s routines. “They live in the United States now,” he said. “We have to support our kids in English.”
Meanwhile, Milwaukee’s Rohingya face a new set of hurdles.
The Trump administration’s January 2025 decision to largely end refugee resettlement halted Salmah’s efforts to bring several family members from refugee camps in Bangladesh to Milwaukee. Last year, Anwar sent voice notes to the nonprofit’s WhatsApp group reminding refugees of their rights during run-ins with federal immigration authorities. And last year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began reopening the cases of thousands of refugees admitted under the Biden administration — a policy that could impact many in Milwaukee’s Rohingya community.
Under the circumstances, Anwar and Trumbull aren’t bullish on their project’s short-term prospects. “But when you make things, sometimes they don’t go away,” Trumbull said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated from its original version to add clarifying details.
This story is part of Public Square, an occasional photography series highlighting how Wisconsin residents connect with their communities. To suggest someone in your community for us to feature, email Joe Timmerman at jtimmerman@wisconsinwatch.org.
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