Absentee voting didn’t used to be popular in Addison, a rural town of 3,300 in southeast Wisconsin. A few days before the last Supreme Court election in 2023, only about 60 residents had cast absentee ballots in person.

This year, at the same point in the election cycle, that number was over 300.

The sharp increase is due partly to Republicans’ recent embrace of absentee voting, especially in the nearly two-week period before Election Day when voters can cast absentee ballots in person. Washington County, where Addison is located, is one of the state’s most Republican counties and one of many Republican-dominated areas across Wisconsin where early voting rates have surged. 

But perhaps a bigger reason is a recent Washington County initiative aimed at making early voting more accessible for voters and more feasible for municipalities. The program compensates municipalities for the costs of extending their hours during the state’s early in-person voting period. It makes up for the gaps in municipal budgets that previously limited early voting opportunities.

“It really comes down to a matter of priorities,” Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, a former municipal clerk, told Votebeat. “And there’s nothing more fundamental to county government and to government in general, in Wisconsin and America, than the opportunity for people to vote.” 

County absorbs the added costs for municipalities

The county first rolled out the initiative during the November 2024 election as part of a broader funding package approved by the county board. The package included over $150,000 for extended in-person absentee voting hours, voluntary audits and cameras for ballot drop boxes across the county. 

Public funding for such activities is more critical now after voters last year approved a Republican-written constitutional amendment banning private funding for election support, responding to a Republican outcry over private grants to fund election administration, especially in Democratic strongholds.

County Board Chair Jeff Schleif said he was eager to support the proposal because it would ensure that Republicans, who were just coming around to voting early, had the time and opportunity to do it, just as Democrats did in places like Milwaukee. 

“Our board is as conservative as it’s ever been,” he said, adding that extending early voting hours is helpful to everybody.

Moreover, Schleif said, the proposal would authorize and fund election audits that could debunk allegations from people like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that some voting machines were being hacked to change votes.

After the November election, about $71,000 of the funds remained unspent. This year, the county signed off on using that money to continue the program into this high-stakes April election.

For this election, the county is compensating municipalities at 150% of the added cost for extending their early voting hours beyond what they were in the April 2023 election. About 90% of the municipalities in the county are participating, Washington County Clerk Ashley Reichert, a Republican, said. The county also mailed voters a schedule of their town’s early voting hours.

Reichert said the initiative aims to provide local residents with voting opportunities comparable to urban areas, including weekend and night voting options. The additional hours benefit many residents who commute to Milwaukee for work and can’t vote during typical business hours, she said.

“We have quite a few very rural communities where the clerks are very part-time, and their budgets are small, and so for them, offering additional time was just not a feasible option,” she said. “Being able to take the funding off the table as a concern really helped quite a few of our municipalities.”

More hours for voting, and more voters showing up

Addison Town Clerk Wendy Fairbanks said early voting hours have expanded significantly due to the county’s support. In 2023, Addison’s early voting was generally open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Now it’s open as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 6 p.m., including Fridays.

“I’m able to bring in election workers to help me with this so I’m not doing it all on my own,” Fairbanks said. “Otherwise, I’d get no other work done.”

The county’s help, she continued, “takes the burden off the town, so that we’re not using money from our tax levy that could go towards road repair or something in the town.”

Another Washington County municipality, the village of Richfield, now offers Saturday hours for early voting thanks to county funding. About 90 residents participated on a recent Saturday, contributing to a total of 1,674 early ballots cast as of Thursday morning  — about double the amount from this time two years ago.

Village Administrator Jim Healy said the initiative was crucial for voters who couldn’t vote during regular hours. “We really felt strongly for these types of elections that have either state or national implications that we ought to try to go the extra mile,” Healy said, expressing hope that other Wisconsin counties might follow Washington County’s example.

In all, as of Thursday morning, Washington County had over 13,400 voters cast absentee ballots in person, nearly triple the number of votes at this point in the 2023 cycle and the fourth most in the state, despite it being only the 10th largest county by voting age population. 

While increased absentee voting means additional ballots to process, local clerks aren’t concerned about significantly longer counting times.

“This is absolutely adding one more thing,” Schoemann said, “but I also know that their biggest pain point is their budgets. They’re really, really tight. So we want to try to hit their biggest pain point where we can help them and get what voters want, and that is more opportunity.”

Other clerks look at the Washington County model

Reichert, the Washington County clerk, said she has heard from a number of county and municipal clerks, along with legislators, interested in replicating this initiative across the state. Right now, though, she said Washington County appears to be the only county offering municipal clerks that compensation. 

That may change soon: At a recent event, Rep. Scott Krug, a legislative leader who formerly chaired the Assembly Elections Committee, said one of his top upcoming legislative priorities was funding early voting so every municipality offers the same availability. He wasn’t available to comment further on Thursday.

Meanwhile, in most counties, early voting hours are uneven from town to town. In neighboring Ozaukee County, municipal clerks are staggering their hours to try to make time for residents seeking to vote early in person, said County Clerk Kellie Kretlow, a Republican. Some municipal election offices are open every day for early voting, while others are only open a few days across the nearly two-week voting period.

Sheboygan County Clerk Jon Dolson, a Republican, told Votebeat he was interested in the proposal but couldn’t see how his fiscally conservative board would approve a $15,000 funding increase, much less a $150,000 package like the one passed in neighboring Washington County. The county board recently cut the number of positions in his office, he said. 

So how did such a large spending proposal for election offices get through the fiscally conservative Washington County Board of Supervisors, which represents one of the most staunchly Republican constituencies in the state?

Schoemann, the county executive, said the board prioritized this initiative after years of disciplined budgeting and surplus management.

He said it was important for officials at the county level to take the lead, rather than expecting local clerks to each ask for help.

The proposals together were billed as an “election integrity package” that would enhance election security — a concern that Republicans have repeatedly raised.

Reichert, the county clerk, said it likely helped that the support for extended early voting hours was rolled into a broader package addressing security concerns around drop boxes and audits. Extending early voting hours itself addressed a security concern, she said, since some supervisors questioned whether mailed ballots would arrive too late or get lost in the mail.

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

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

How Wisconsin’s Washington County helped its municipalities expand early voting hours is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Multiple Republican-led states have sued to rescind a federal rule keeping the records of those who sought legal reproductive care private, while a federal judge in Texas is questioning the constitutionality of the federal HIPAA law in its entirety. (Photo by Wichayada Suwanachun/Getty Images)

The decades-old federal law protecting the privacy of individual health information is threatened by multiple lawsuits that seek to throw out a rule restricting disclosure of information in criminal investigations, including for those seeking legal abortion and other reproductive health care.

In one of the cases, the Texas federal judge who has been at the center of several anti-abortion court battles appears to question the constitutionality and legality of the health privacy act in its entirety.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — or HIPAA — established in 1996 to protect the privacy and security of patient health information, includes some exceptions under limited conditions, such as law enforcement investigations. But after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights in 2022 and more than a dozen states passed abortion bans, advocates worried that such records could be used by state officials and law enforcement to investigate and prosecute patients seeking an abortion and those who help them.

Health officials under former President Joe Biden’s administration enacted a HIPAA rule to keep health information private when the patient was in a state with legal access and the care was obtained legally. In order to release information related to this type of care, the entity subject to HIPAA rules must sign a document stating it is not released for one of the prohibited purposes.

“These cases may have been prompted by this newer rule, but they threaten more broadly the entire HIPAA system on which we all rely when accessing medical care,” said Carrie Flaxman, senior legal adviser for Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization.

Two lawsuits seek to rescind that most recent rule, while another brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton goes a step further, asking the court to remove the general rules established in 2000 about how much health information can be disclosed to law enforcement.

“The threats to the 2000 privacy rule would be a seismic shift that could erode patients’ trust entirely in their providers and dissuade them from wanting to seek out health care and be transparent about their symptoms,” said Ashley Emery, a senior policy analyst for the nonprofit Partnership for Women and Families. “A law enforcement officer could pressure a psychiatrist to share patient notes from therapy sessions without a subpoena, without a warrant, if the 2000 privacy rule is invalidated.”

The state of Missouri sued to rescind the Biden rule in January, and the state of Tennessee filed a similar action the same day that 14 other Republican attorneys general joined as plaintiffs: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia. All but three of those states either heavily restrict or outright ban abortion, and if the lawsuits are successful, records kept by doctors and pharmacists in other states could be subpoenaed.

All of the lawsuits are filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is now under Republican President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Trump administration has so far followed the direction of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which calls for the most recent HIPAA rule to be rescinded.

Amarillo judge ordered briefing on HIPAA’s constitutionality and legality

Three cases are still in motion, including one with a physician as the plaintiff. Dr. Carmen Purl, the sole owner of Dr. Purl’s Fast Care Walk In Clinic in Dumas, Texas, sued HHS because she said the rule creates a conflict with the laws requiring her to report child abuse.

“I consider both a pregnant woman and her unborn child to be human persons, and both are entitled to medical care and deserve the protection of the law,” Purl said in court documents. “I believe … that elective abortions harm patients’ health and public health.”

The location of Purl’s clinic puts her in the judicial district that has only one federal judge — U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee. Most federal cases are assigned randomly to a group of judges in a district, but since Kacsmaryk is the only one, many advocates and attorneys have accused law firms like Alliance Defending Freedom, who is representing Purl in the case, of “judge shopping,” or finding a plaintiff in a certain area for the purpose of putting it in front of an ideologically friendly judge.

On Dec. 22, Kacsmaryk granted an injunction blocking enforcement of the rule against Purl while the case proceeds, and he is still considering whether to permanently block the law.

As part of the decision, Kacsmaryk also ordered the parties to submit briefs explaining how recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that delegate more authority to Congress over administrative agencies “affect the constitutionality or legality of HIPAA and HHS’s authority to issue the 2024 rule.”

Kacsmaryk presided over a lawsuit in 2023 brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors seeking to revoke the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used to terminate pregnancies in the first trimester and to treat miscarriages. Kacsmaryk ruled in favor of removing its approval, but the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overruled him in 2024.

Purl added that she thinks gender-affirming care is harmful to children, never medically necessary and a matter of concern for public health, though she has never treated a child with gender dysphoria. In the process of providing routine medical care, she said she could learn that a child was being subjected to gender-affirming treatments or procedures that could constitute child abuse, and she would be obligated to report it.

Purl’s clinic has fewer than 20 employees, and she has been licensed to practice family medicine in Texas since 1986. In that time, she said she has treated many patients who have been victims of abuse and neglect, and estimates she has personally treated more than 100 pediatric patients who were victims of sexual abuse.

“I have treated hundreds of girls under the age of consent who were either pregnant or reported sexual activity. During my career, I have delivered babies from mothers as young as 12 years old,” Purl wrote.

Purl said she has responded to Child Protective Services investigations between 10 and 12 times, and she fears that providing full, unredacted patient records in response to an entity such as CPS would violate the 2024 rule and subject her and the clinic to civil and criminal penalties, which often means hefty fines.

In a response filed by HHS in December, before Trump’s second term began, the department said the rule does nothing to prevent Purl from reporting suspected child abuse, and denied the other harms Purl said she would incur.

“Given the nature of her medical practice, Dr. Purl is highly unlikely to ever encounter a conflict between her obligations under state law and under the Rule,” the department said in court documents.

AGs from ban states are testing newly enacted shield laws

The Texas case led by Paxton has been on hold since February, after the U.S. Department of Justice asked the court to delay scheduling until the new administration could determine how to proceed. U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, ordered the parties to file a status report by May 1.

Attorneys general in states with abortions bans have already attempted to prosecute providers in other states for prescribing abortion pills via telehealth and prosecute women who obtained an abortion in another state without the consent of a male partner. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed an extradition warrant for a doctor in New York for prescribing and mailing abortion pills to residents of the state.

New York is one of 17 Democratic-led states that has a shield law to protect providers and patients from out-of-state legal actions for reproductive care and gender-affirming care, and the state government has so far refused to comply with Louisiana’s law enforcement efforts.

The coalition of states that joined Tennessee’s lawsuit claim the privacy rule harms their ability to investigate cases of waste, fraud and abuse, and “sharply limits state investigative authority.”

Chad Kubis, spokesperson for Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, told States Newsroom via email that the office could not comment for this story because of the ongoing litigation.

“The final rule will hamper states’ ability to gather information critical to policing serious misconduct like Medicaid billing fraud, child and elder abuse, and insurance-related malfeasance,” the complaint says.

Attorneys at Democracy Forward have asked the courts to allow the clients they are representing to intervene as defendants in all four cases, arguing that the new administration is likely to either not defend the cases at all or defend them inadequately. They are representing the cities of Columbus, Ohio, and Madison, Wisconsin, as well as Doctors for America, an activist organization of physicians and medical students. None of the judges have ruled on their motions yet.

Partnership for Women and Families filed an amicus brief with 23 other advocacy organizations to support upholding the rule.

“We can’t count on the Trump administration to defend this regulation, given its longstanding record of hostility toward reproductive health and rights,” Emery said.

It’s possible the new leadership at HHS will rescind the 2024 rule, Emery said, but the lawsuits alone are concerning enough because of the threat posed to privacy protections. That’s part of the goal, said Emery and Flaxman — to present the threat and sow fear and intimidation in patients and providers. And the method of launching multiple lawsuits in various jurisdictions fits a pattern that has been observed in the fight for abortion rights, Emery said.

“Anti-abortion extremists’ legal campaign against HIPAA’s reproductive health privacy protections is designed to test out different legal venues and arguments to obtain the most favorable outcome possible,” she said.

Doctor who has been investigated before says intimidation tactics have an effect

Indiana OB-GYN Dr. Caitlin Bernard knows what it’s like to be the target of an investigation, and said she’s still in court fighting new attempts to instill fear in doctors and patients.

Bernard was an abortion provider in Indiana before the state enacted its ban in August 2023. She reported in 2022 that she had provided a medication abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to Indiana from Ohio when the state briefly had a ban in place. She was accused of violating patient privacy laws and investigated by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, and the state licensing board fined her $3,000 and reprimanded her for the incident after Rokita asked the board to revoke her license to practice medicine. She was not found to have violated patient privacy and kept her license.

“Now my case is held up as an example of what can happen to you if you speak out about abortion bans,” Bernard said. “I’ve spoken to many physicians across the country who are intimidated by that. They say, ‘Look at Dr. Bernard and what happened to her.’”

Now, Bernard is part of a lawsuit against the state to categorize terminated pregnancy records as medical records in state law that cannot be released to the public. Indiana has historically treated abortion reports as public record with certain details redacted, but Bernard said with the ban in place and so few people qualifying for its limited exceptions, that policy should change. The records include demographic information like age, ethnicity and education level, as well as information such as diagnoses and the date, location and physician who provided care.

“It also includes the county, so you could imagine in these very small counties, somebody could absolutely figure out who that person is,” Bernard said.

Ashley Emery, senior policy analyst at Partnership for Women and Families, said the lawsuits take aim at a deeply needed line of defense against abortion criminalization, and said it will disproportionately affect immigrants, people of color and low-income populations. Trust is already low between marginalized people and health care providers, Emery said, and this would further erode that trust.

“These challenges to HIPAA are designed to take protections away from patients and try to allow anti-abortion politicians to have more control, and I think that power deficit is really important to note, and it should be very chilling,” she said.

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway alongside other Wisconsinites at a city celebration for Transgender Day of Visibility. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.

Wisconsin Democrats and city of Madison leaders recognized transgender visibility day in Wisconsin Monday, introducing legislation that would provide protections for people and raising the transgender pride flag. 

This year’s International Transgender Day of Visibility comes amid a political environment in which trans people have been targeted by new proposed federal and state restrictions. Wisconsin Republican lawmakers spent significant time in March on a slate of bills focused on transgender kids and would have limited their ability to play sports, access gender affirming medical care and change their names and pronouns in school. The bills are among more than 800 anti-trans bills that have been introduced nationwide this year.

Participants in the Madison celebrations said the point of the day was not to focus on the negative and harmful actions being taken, however, but to focus instead on the positive experiences of being transgender. 

Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), co-chair of the Transgender Parent and Nonbinary Advocacy Caucus, said during a press conference that the purpose of the day is to “elevate the voices of our trans and non-binary communities, emphasize the joy of living life as your authentic self and to visualize the world in which all our trans and non-binary children, co-workers, neighbors, parents and elected officials throughout Wisconsin and the world are loved, accepted and safe.”

Democrats holding the press conference proposed a handful of bills. One would extend Wisconsin’s nondiscrimination laws to include transgender and nonbinary people by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender expression.

Another bill would create an exception to current law for those seeking a name change for gender identity reasons. Under the current state statute people seeking a name change petition must publish notice of their petition in a local newspaper, including in the area where the petition will be heard, once per week for three consecutive weeks before they may petition the court.

A third bill would declare March 31, 2025 as Transgender Day of Visibility in Wisconsin and recognizes the achievements of several transgender people and organizations who have made contributions to Wisconsin.

In addition to the bills, Gov. Tony Evers, who has committed to vetoing any anti-trans legislation that makes it to his desk, signed a proclamation declaring Monday Transgender Day of Visibility.

Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said the bills are important because lawmakers need to send a positive message to young Wisconsinites who may be paying attention. He said that when he was young he remembers feeling discouraged as a gay teen when the state passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. 

“Thirteen-year-olds across Wisconsin are listening to political actions and messages that are being sent out of the Capitol,” Phelps said, adding that children should know there are elected officials and allies and leaders who are fighting for transgender, non-binary and gender-expansive people of all ages across Wisconsin.

“That’s the message that we want people to take out of the Capitol and into their communities and to see [protections] passed in the state law as well,” Phelps said. 

When asked about plans to discuss the legislation with Republicans and the potential for garnering support across the aisle to pass any of the bills, the lawmakers sounded doubtful. Republicans hold majorities in the Assembly and Senate and support from them would be necessary for any of the Democratic legislation to be taken up.

“I don’t think they will sign on to this legislation. I certainly wish that they would take a look at it and hear our voices here today and see the love and support of so many community members,” Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) said. 

Clancy called it a “valid question” that Democrats get every time they hold a press conference. 

“Will Republicans sign on to this? And every time the answer is somewhat the same…,” Clancy said. “Republicans, two weeks ago, sat on the floor of the Assembly just feet from here for hours. They said that trans people should not exist, should not have basic rights. They have had the opportunity to weigh in on this, and I would welcome any of them moving across the aisle, breaking ranks from their, frankly, hateful leadership and joining in on these things.” 

The city of Madison also recognized Transgender Visibility Day by raising the transgender pride flag outside of the city municipal building.

Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway said the city was raising the flag to celebrate trans people, because the city respects individual rights and “rejects hate.” 

“The safety and the livelihoods of trans people are being threatened, and the issue of the fact of trans people is being used to divide our country in a hateful and really disappointing way, but here in Madison, we refuse to go backwards, and we refuse to let hate divide.” 

Asked about communicating the message of acceptance to those who disagree, Rhodes-Conway said that she thinks it’s important people recognize that diversity makes the Madison community stronger and invited people to “learn about the things that maybe make them nervous or scared and to be a part of the incredible diversity.” 

Rhodes-Conway also urged people to educate themselves.

“Folks can educate themselves and each other and a lot of the fear and resistance comes from lack of knowing, and so I just encourage people — there’s a lot of resources,” Rhodes-Conway said. “Please don’t ask the trans people in your lives to educate you. There’s a lot of resources out there and our libraries, our fantastic resources, and people can educate themselves about the history.”

Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford, the first out transgender member of the Madison Common Council, said that transgender people are all “part of an unbroken legacy of resilience” and “authenticity.” 

Martinez-Rutherford said that she never expected to feel “so much love and community” when first elected in 2023 and never expected when she first started transitioning in 2007 to be in a position to advocate for people. 

“We raise the transgender flag today for it to be a symbol that Madison is welcoming and that you belong here,” Martinez-Rutherford said. “Let it be a beacon of hope, a reminder that we will not be erased.”

Democratic members of Congress on Monday gathered on the National Mall in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility. (Stock photo by Vladimir Vladimirov/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers Monday gathered on the National Mall in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, pushing back against the Trump administration’s policies that harm the trans community.

It came as the Trump administration has moved to block gender-affirming health care for transgender children, bar transgender members from serving in the U.S. military, deny gender markers for passports and ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.

Transgender Day of Visibility is dedicated to recognizing the transgender community for their accomplishments and raising awareness of the discrimination that trans people face. 

Lawmakers like Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida slammed President Donald Trump and his administration. He said that Trump is using transgender people as scapegoats.

“In (an) even more despicable move, he’s chosen to scapegoat kids, trans kids,” he said. “The reason you can’t pay your rent, you can’t afford health care, the reason that you have to fear gun violence, the reason that you can’t afford your grocery has nothing to do with trans people and everything to do with the billionaires and corrupt corporations that have been giving us crumbs for generations.”

Interfaith groups, trans advocacy groups

Interfaith groups and transgender advocacy groups also joined lawmakers for the event organized by the Christopher Street Project, a nonprofit that aims to elect pro-trans Democratic members of Congress.

“My religion has taught me that every human being is the divine image,” Rabbi Abby Stein said. “When the people in (Congress) or the White House try to take away our rights, try to legislate us out of existence, what you are doing… is an affront not just to humanity but to divinity and to any version of spirituality or creed.”

Democratic members in attendance included Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York, Robin Kelly of Illinois, Paul Tonko of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, Sara Jacobs of California, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, Frost of Florida, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Jill Tokuda of Hawaii, Julie Johnson of Texas, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Judy Chu of California and Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia.

Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Ed Markey of Massachusetts also attended.

Trans family members

A handful of lawmakers with transgender family members spoke at Monday’s rally.

Lee said that she is the proud aunt of a transgender nibbling, a gender-neutral term for a child of a sibling, instead of niece or nephew.

“What’s happening right now, especially to our trans siblings, is cruel,” she said of the Trump administration’s policies. “They are purposely targeting some of the most marginalized people in our society.”

Chu said that she fears for her nephew, who is transgender.

“I fear for what the future will hold for him as this punitive administration takes it out on trans people, but I tell you, we will fight back,” she said. 

Legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate would order the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume frozen payments to farmers on contracts that have already been signed. (Photo by Gregory Conniff for the Wisconsin Examiner)

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats introduced legislation Monday that would order the agriculture department to resume paying farmers on contracts already signed.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are stiffing our farmers and processors — taking away resources these folks were guaranteed, threatening small businesses’ ability to stay open and people’s livelihoods,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), one of 17 cosponsors.

In addition to 15 Democrats, two independent senators who caucus with them, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, signed on to the bill.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has stopped reimbursing farmers and farm organizations for money they’ve spent, despite contracts they have already signed with the agency. The contracts call for farmers to be reimbursed for expenses they incur under the contracts.

Honor Farmer Contracts Act, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), would require USDA “to release illegally withheld funding for all contracts and agreements previously entered into by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” Baldwin’s office said in a statement announcing the legislation.

Under President Donald Trump, “USDA has refused to make reimbursement payments to fulfill signed contracts, without any indication of when or whether farmers will be paid the money they paid out and are owed,” Baldwin’s office said.

Farmers and organizations serving them contract with the USDA for various programs to connect with local markets and improve their productivity. The department then pays farmers back for the expenses they incur under those contracts. The department’s failure to pay strains finances both for the individual farmers and for the organizations that work with them under the programs, Baldwin’s office said.

The legislation would require USDA to unfreeze all signed agreements and make all past due payments as quickly as possible. It would also bar the department from canceling agreements or contracts unless there has been a failure to comply with their terms and conditions.

The bill would prohibit the department from closing county offices, field offices or centers of the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service or the Rural Development Service without notification at least 60 days in advance and justifying the closing to Congress.

On March 7, Baldwin said the USDA had resumed another previously stalled stream of funding, $6.5 million in grants for dairy businesses to diversify and market their products.

Baldwin has also demanded the Trump administration to reverse its cancellation in March of a program connecting farmers to local food banks.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress are asking the Government Accountability Office to open an investigation into whether the Trump administration violated federal law by freezing funding for several programs.

Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking members on the House and Senate Budget committees, wrote in a two-page letter sent Monday to the government watchdog organization that certain actions appear to have violated the Impoundment Control Act.

“Unilaterally impounding funds is illegal, and Donald Trump and Russ Vought are trying to gut the federal government piece by piece,” Merkley wrote in a statement accompanying the letter. “GAO must get to the bottom of this and reiterate to the administration that Congress has the power of the purse, not Trump and Vought.”

The Senate voted along party lines earlier this year to confirm Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget, which has wide-reaching authority over decisions within the executive branch

A Government Accountability Office spokesperson told States Newsroom the agency is working through its process to determine whether it will launch an investigation based on the letter.

GAO, the spokesperson said, also has ongoing work related to the ICA.

OMB authority

Boyle wrote in a statement that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine when and where the federal government spends money.

“The administration’s withholding of critical investments harms American communities that rely on these funds for jobs, economic stability, and essential infrastructure,” Boyle wrote. “Robust congressional oversight, alongside litigation, is vital to protecting the interests of the American people.”

The Impoundment Control Act, enacted in the 1970s, bars presidents from not spending the money that Congress has appropriated. Vought has said repeatedly he believes the law is unconstitutional and that presidents have this authority.

Several lawsuits have been filed over the Trump administration opting not to spend federal money, some of which have blocked the actions from taking effect while the cases proceed through the federal courts. 

The Boyle-Merkley letter alleges the Trump administration has run afoul of the law on several occasions, including on his first day in office when he ordered a pause on foreign development assistance as well as funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The two ask GAO to also look into the Trump administration’s decision to halt military aid to Ukraine for about a week in March, writing they are “concerned this pause may have been an illegal impoundment with negative foreign policy and national security implications.”

“The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation,” Boyle and Merkley wrote in the letter. “Instead, Congress has vested the President with strictly circumscribed authority to impound or withhold budget authority only in limited circumstances as expressly provided in the Impoundment Control Act.

“The executive branch may withhold amounts from obligation only if the President transmits a special message to Congress that includes the amount of budget authority proposed for withholding and the reason for the proposal (2 U.S.C. §§ 683–684).”

What can GAO do?

During the first Trump administration, the GAO found the Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act  when it halted assistance to Ukraine.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote in the report. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

The GAO writes on its website that the ICA “authorizes the head of GAO, known as the Comptroller General, to file a lawsuit if the President illegally impounds funds.”

Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before Congress earlier this year that he plans to do just that if the independent agency finds violations of the ICA.

“We’re going to make these decisions as fast as possible,” Dodaro said, according to a news report. “I fully intend to carry out our responsibilities under the Impoundment Control Act expeditiously and thoroughly . . . I’ll do it as quickly as I can, but we need to be careful and thorough, because the next step for us is to go to court ourselves. If we say there’s been impoundment and money isn’t released in a certain period of time, we have to go to court.”

Jack Kelly of Wisconsin Watch waits with reporters outside the state Capitol for a press conference to begin in September 2023. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Journalists at Wisconsin Watch — a nonprofit news organization that includes the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service — have ratified their first union contract.

The agreement, signed on Friday, March 28, includes minimum salary guarantees and annual cost-of-living increases along with layoff restrictions, severance pay and benefits as well as “just cause” protections against arbitrary terminations, according to the Wisconsin Watch Union. The contract also includes provisions for medical, parental, caregiver and bereavement leave.

The union is a subunit of Milwaukee NewsGuild Local 34051, which also represents newsroom employees at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“I’m really proud of the outcome,” said Jack Kelly, a Wisconsin Watch reporter and union bargaining team member. Staffers represented by the union were active in advocating for their priorities during contract negotiations, giving personal testimony about issues important to them, he said.

“They put some faces and names to the numbers we were asking for,” Kelly said in an interview Monday.  “I think the contract is going to make Wisconsin Watch and Neighborhood News Service better places to work.”

Kelly also commended Wisconsin Watch management’s handling of the bargaining process.

“We certainly had meetings that were long and stressful, but I think in general we were able to engage a collegial approach to bargaining,” Kelly said.

“We’ll continue to do great journalism knowing our workplace is more structured, secure and protected,” said Phoebe Petrovic, a Wisconsin Watch investigative reporter who was among those who initiated the union organizing effort, in a statement released by the union.

Wisconsin Watch journalists announced their union organizing campaign in October 2023, and the organization’s board subsequently agreed to voluntarily recognize the union. Protection against arbitrary firings was among the goals employees cited.

Wisconsin Watch was founded in 2009 as the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, still its legal name. The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service became part of Wisconsin Watch in July 2024 and its employees became part of the bargaining unit.

Devin Blake, a Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reporter who joined the bargaining team, said that in addition to tangible gains the union brought him closer to coworkers. “I have such a clearer sense of what matters to their lives and work,” Blake said in the union’s statement.

Digital news outlets and nonprofit news organizations have seen growing union representation in the last several years, with outlets including ProPublica and The Marshall Project joining the ranks of unionized newsrooms.