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The day before federal funding ran out for SNAP, the U.S. Agriculture Department warned retailers against giving discounts to recipients of the nation’s largest food assistance program.
“OFFERING DISCOUNTS OR SERVICES ONLY TO SNAP PAYING CUSTOMERS IS A SNAP VIOLATION UNLESS YOU HAVE A SNAP EQUAL TREATMENT WAIVER,” the Oct. 31 notice said.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps and called FoodShare in Wisconsin, provides food assistance for 42 million low-income people.
Funding ran out because of the government shutdown, though the Agriculture Department said Nov. 3 it would provide partial SNAP funding for November.
Federal regulations state: “No retail food store may single out” SNAP recipients “for special treatment in any way.”
Some retailers offered discounts.
Retailers can apply for a waiver to offer SNAP discounts on healthier food purchases. SNAP cost $100 billion in 2024, 1.5% of the federal budget.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Did the federal government warn retailers not to give discounts to SNAP food stamp recipients? 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.
Fawn Anderson of Eau Claire says she worked her whole life and never applied for food assistance until five months ago when she relocated after a “violent act through domestic violence” upended her life. She started receiving $263 per month, money she said she could count on during uncertain times.
“One of my only safety nets was to not worry about what I was going to be able to eat,” Anderson told WPR.
Now, Anderson is among more than 700,000 Wisconsinites left wondering whether they’ll get their November federal food assistance benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown.
“It’s been like a roller coaster of ups and downs of feeling hopeful and not knowing how to prepare,” Anderson said.
Anderson volunteers with the Feed My People Food Bank distribution center in Eau Claire. She says she’d gotten multiple calls on Monday from people asking where they can get groceries.
When asked what she’d do if her SNAP benefits don’t come this month, she said she’d “hit the pantries.” Anderson said she’s fed up with politicians arguing when people could go hungry.
“It really shows that they don’t care about us,” said Anderson.
Nationally, 42 million people get federal food assistance through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. In Wisconsin, the program is known as FoodShare.
A note on the USDA’s website Monday said “there will be no benefits issued November 01.” It blamed the disruption on Democrats in the U.S. Senate who have refused to support a stopgap federal funding bill that doesn’t include an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits.
On Friday, two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to use contingency funds to keep SNAP benefits moving out the door. On Monday, the administration said partial payments would go to recipients, but didn’t say when.
In Wisconsin, the state Department of Health Services administers food assistance, but a message on the agency’s website Monday noted the benefits are entirely federally funded.
“DHS is fighting to get November FoodShare benefits out to members,” read the DHS website. “However, benefits will continue to be delayed.”
Clay McKee of Eau Claire has been experiencing homelessness for about a year. Just after noon on Monday, he was finishing his lunch at the Community Table, which provides free meals to anyone with no questions asked. He said he gets around $300 per month from FoodShare.
“I don’t know why they would take it away, and abruptly as well,” said McKee. “I think it’s inconsiderate, you know?”
McKee said he’s resourceful and if his food assistance doesn’t come in November, he’ll get by. But he worries about how others will fare.
“What if a pregnant woman needed food for their baby or something? And now all of a sudden … I hope at least those people you know can get their benefits,” McKee said.
McKee described the standoff in Congress as a “bull**** fight,” but said there are a lot of good people in Wisconsin who will step up and help those in need.
“People will make it,” McKee said. “Maybe we’ll go fishing more, or whatever the heck, you know?”
Lillian Santiago is a single mother who provides food for her seven children. Santiago, who lives in Milwaukee County, has used SNAP benefits on and off over the years.
“I’ve had three jobs, and it (SNAP) still wasn’t enough to make ends meet,” Santiago said.
Santiago said the uncertainty around the program is leading her to worry about the coming weeks.
“Paying cash out of pocket for food is — at this time with the economy and things — it’s really expensive,” Santiago said. “And especially when you’re a single parent, doing it on your own, it’s definitely a little struggle.”
Milwaukee resident Donte Jones has been receiving SNAP benefits for years. Monday, he went to three food pantries to stock up on groceries amid the uncertainty surrounding the benefits.
“The economy out here, how they shut everything down and everybody have to worry about food,” Jones said while standing in line at the The House of Peace food pantry. “Thanksgiving coming up, Christmas coming up. It’s like, what’s going on?”
Jones said he usually gets around $250 in SNAP benefits every month. He’s worried about not receiving enough money from the program in November or December.
“That’s the irritating thing,” he said. “Trying to figure out how to keep food in our freezers.”
This story was originally published by WPR.
‘It really shows they don’t care about us’: Wisconsinites uncertain about November food aid 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.
Kahya Fox knows a solution to Wisconsin’s housing crisis won’t fall from the sky. But she has seen a crane suspend one in the air.
The Habitat for Humanity of the Greater La Crosse Region executive director watched this summer as semitrucks pulled into the Vernon County city of Hillsboro, population 1,400. Instead of bringing materials to build a traditional home, they each carried a preassembled half of a house.
Workers removed the wheels that carried them down the interstate. Then, a crane hoisted them up and onto a concrete foundation.
The scene illustrated a transformation within Habitat for Humanity, which has since the 1970s relied on community members to help construct homes from their foundations to the roofs. But even with volunteer labor, construction costs have skyrocketed over the years. That has prompted the nonprofit to introduce factory-built homes as an option, finding savings that allow it to develop more affordable homes for first-time buyers and working-class families.
Habitat’s La Crosse affiliate was early to embrace the factory-built model, which is spreading to affordable housing organizations nationwide. But the organization hasn’t gotten all Wisconsin municipalities and residents on board.
Some local governments use zoning laws to prohibit manufactured home developments like the one in Hillsboro. Others require extra work or alterations before allowing manufactured housing projects. Some green-light developers that restrict factory-built housing from filling empty lots where they build.
Several states require local governments to allow manufactured homes alongside site-built single-family housing. Wisconsin is not among them.
Critics of the model still associate manufactured housing with cheaply built and short-lived mobile homes built in the 1960s and 1970s — before the government started to regulate construction, Fox said.
But construction must now follow a federal building code, and manufactured homes can appreciate in value at similar rates to traditional homes, a Harvard University study found.
The cheaper cost of developing factory-built homes does not reflect poorer quality, Fox said. Savings come from finding scale in mass production, with factories buying materials in bulk and cutting down material waste through computer design. Building can unfold faster in factories than on site, where builders face unpredictable weather.
While Fox said building a traditional Habitat home can take professionals and volunteers longer than a year, four homes trucked to Hillsboro this summer were placed in one day.
Fox highlighted farmhouse sinks and stainless steel appliances as she walked through each house — features already assembled as the crane lifted the homes into place.
A seam in the laminate wood floors split the kitchen from the living room, the only interior evidence of how the home arrived. Drywall and floor boards will eventually cover the seams, making the Hillsboro homes look similar to any site-built development, Fox said.
“It’s not until you see them standing there and get in and walk through and touch things that you’re like, ‘No, this is like any other house,’” Fox said. “It’s beautiful.”
Russell and Katie Bessel expected to learn the fate of their Habitat for Humanity application on May 28. By 1 p.m. on May 29, Russell started calling friends and family to tell them they must not have been chosen for a new home.
The family was getting used to bad news. A motorcycle crash in 2024 paralyzed Russell from the waist down, around the same time Katie started dealing with a cancer diagnosis.
But just as Russell finished speaking with his mom, Katie walked through the door crying. She showed him an email once she managed to stifle her sobs: They would move to Hillsboro in 2026.
It didn’t feel real until they saw one of the Hillsboro homes this summer, Katie said.
“Beautiful countertops, cabinets, flooring. It’s gorgeous,” Russell said.
And most importantly, the home will be wheelchair-accessible, unlike the family’s current apartment.
Russell sleeps, bathes and eats in the living room because his wheelchair can’t fit through narrow halls and doorways. He can’t maneuver to the dining table, forcing him to watch from his chair or bed as his wife and three children eat dinner.
“I’m tired of that,” he said. “I want to sit down and have a family meal.”
Their new home will have a giant kitchen island where he can eat next to his kids.
The family will move into one of 10 manufactured homes in Habitat’s Hillsboro development — three of them for traditional Habitat homeowners, including the Bessels, who must work a set number of hours for the nonprofit and earn less than 60% of the local median family income, $95,400 in Vernon County.
Three other homes are for first-time buyers who earn less than 80% the median income and will receive down payment assistance. Families earning no more than 120% of the local median income will be eligible to purchase four homes, which Habitat listed this spring during the rendering stage for about $350,000.
The tiered system benefits families with different levels of need, Fox said. Proceeds from Habitat’s sale of the four homes will help finance the rest of the development. The nonprofit has attracted interest in the homes since posting photos of their move-in-ready state, Fox said.
The city of Hillsboro will pay Habitat up to $206,000 if the development is finished by July 2026, according to its contract.
No- or low-interest loans will help keep the Bessels’ mortgage payments affordable. But the family will ultimately pay for the full value of their home, like any other buyer.
“It’ll be the place that I can leave my family,” Russell said. “I don’t have to worry about when I do pass from this earth, that they’re gonna struggle.”
A crane will do most of the work once the trucks with the Bessel home arrive in Hillsboro. That doesn’t eliminate the need for volunteers and future homeowners to work at the sites, Fox said. They will help landscape the nearly half-acre lots for the traditional Habitat recipients and construct two-car garages attached to each home.
“The beauty of local businesses putting teams together and retirees showing up and picking up hammers is a piece of Habitat for Humanity that’s been there since the very beginning, and it runs through everything that we do,” Fox said.
Still, less reliance on volunteers helps at a time when fewer people are volunteering for nonprofits nationwide, said Kristie Smith, executive director of St. Croix Valley Habitat for Humanity.
Smith’s affiliate started its final site-built home last year. This year, it’s developing six factory-built homes — all purchased through the La Crosse affiliate.
So far, St. Croix Habitat has developed only modular housing, building homes inside a factory but for a specific plot of land in line with specific state and local building codes.
Modular housing cuts the affiliate’s costs and time spent by 30%, Smith said. Manufactured housing like what’s being developed in Hillsboro would be even more affordable.
Unlike modular housing, manufactured homes are built to a federal building code, allowing for larger-scale building with fewer customizations. The average manufactured home in 2021 cost half the price per square foot than a site-built home, according to the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research firm.
The Hillsboro homes are a relatively new manufactured housing model called CrossMod — built to federal code, but with room for amenities typically associated with a site-built home. The Hillsboro development will feature the first CrossMod homes placed on full basements. They will be more energy-efficient than traditional homes.
Thirty minutes away from Hillsboro, however, Reedsburg’s zoning ordinances prohibit mobile and manufactured homes outside of mobile home parks, where homeowners pay a monthly fee to rent a lot. It is among many municipalities to limit such housing.
“People want affordable housing, but they want it in the next town over,” said Amy Bliss, executive director of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance, a manufactured housing trade association.
Other local governments say they allow manufactured homes in single-family neighborhoods, but reject them in practice, Bliss said.
And the Habitat development isn’t unanimously popular in Hillsboro. Several local homeowners strongly opposed it, arguing that the city does not need more housing or should add it to a different neighborhood, according to previous reporting by Hillsboro Sentry-Enterprise.
A decades-old federal policy bans zoning that discriminates against factory-built housing, industry leaders say. But a lack of government enforcement leaves developers and customers to fight the restrictions in court, a costly, rarely pursued process, Bliss said, adding that projects like the one in Hillsboro should help ease any stigma surrounding nontraditional homes.
“Some municipalities are coming around because they realize that that’s the only way to get housing that is affordable for their workers,” Bliss added.
The Bessels’ 8-year-old daughter isn’t thinking about how her house will be built.
“When we have the yard, we can play tag. We could play whatever game we want,” she said.
With months left until the move, she’s already planning summer barbecues in a new yard. Her parents will cook while she rides bikes with her siblings and new friends.
Russell hopes this will be the last time his kids must start over after bouncing around Wisconsin in search of housing. They’ll finally lay down roots in the Hillsboro home.
“This is the end of the road for us,” Russell said. “This is finally ours.”
Trisha Young of Wisconsin Watch contributed to this report.
‘Finally ours’: Factory-built homes help families realize ownership dreams. But stigma and barriers persist. 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.
One Wisconsin resident reached out to WHYsconsin with a crop-related mystery that's been puzzling her ever since she was a child. To get to the root of her question, WPR hopped in the car with a plant expert.
The post Why is there so much asparagus growing along the side of the road in Wisconsin? appeared first on WPR.
A $700 million natural gas pipeline enhancement project designed to improve reliability and meet rising demand came online in Wisconsin and northern Illinois at the start of the month.
The post $700M natural gas pipeline upgrade comes online in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.
A Republican bill that would ban absentee ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin spurred debate among GOP lawmakers Tuesday about whether the proposal is based in reality.
The post GOP bill to ban ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin spurs intraparty debate appeared first on WPR.
Evan Larson, a fire ecologist at UW-Platteville, says the spark has been ignited for a return to cultural prescribed burns. This centuries-old Indigenous practice once helped red pine and blueberries flourish along Lake Superior.
The post Prescribed burn in Superior marks return of ‘ishkode,’ or ‘good fire’ appeared first on WPR.
A Wisconsin family is suing Tesla over a fiery crash that left five people dead in suburban Madison last year.
The post Wisconsin family sues Tesla over crash that killed 5 appeared first on WPR.
WPR’s music producer, Ava Kuredjian, interviewed composer Viet Cuong about his new work debuting in Milwaukee, his creative process and what other works inspire him.
The post WPR interviews composer Viet Cuong appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly announced several changes on Tuesday to strengthen student safety amid criticism of her agency's handling of accusations of sexual misconduct by educators.
The post State Superintendent announces changes after report on educators accused of sexual misconduct appeared first on WPR.
A more efficient, affordable development model helps Habitat for Humanity build more homes during a housing crisis. But some Wisconsin municipalities exclude manufactured homes from neighborhoods.
The post ‘Finally ours’: Factory-built homes help families realize ownership dreams. But stigma and barriers persist. appeared first on WPR.
Dick Cheney, the hard-charging conservative who became one of the most powerful and polarizing vice presidents in U.S. history and a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, has died at age 84.
The post Dick Cheney, one of the most powerful and polarizing vice presidents in US history, dies at 84 appeared first on WPR.
A father holds his son's hand during the Disability Pride Parade in New York City. Advocates fear changes made, or proposed, by the Trump administration will strip away crucial federal oversight and deny vulnerable children the educational services they’re guaranteed under law. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
In its quest to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration wants to let states police themselves when it comes to educating students with disabilities, a move many teachers and parents fear will strip away crucial federal oversight and deny vulnerable children the services they’re guaranteed under law.
In October, the Trump administration fired nearly all the employees in the U.S. Department of Education office that’s responsible for enforcing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the landmark federal civil rights law that guarantees students with disabilities the right to a free and quality public education. A federal judge blocked the layoffs a few days later, in response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers unions.
In addition to making sure states and school districts follow the law, the office distributes billions in federal funding to help states educate students with disabilities such as autism, deafness, developmental delays and dyslexia.
The court ruling halting the layoffs is likely just a temporary setback as Trump proceeds with his broader mission of closing the federal department. Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have said their goals are to reduce bureaucracy and return more education responsibilities to the states.
Neither the Department of Education nor the White House, which are operating with fewer communications officers because of the government shutdown, responded to Stateline requests for comment.
Congress has never fully funded special education at 40% per-pupil costs promised to states under IDEA. Funding has fluctuated over the years; in 2024, it was about 10.9%. Federal IDEA funding is expected to continue, though without federal oversight from the Education Department.
Disability rights and education advocates worry that most states don’t have the resources — or, in some cases, the will — to adequately police and protect the rights of students with disabilities.
Some states in recent years have failed to provide adequate special education services, prompting investigation from the feds. Just 19 states meet the requirements for serving students with disabilities from ages 3 through 21, according to the most recent annual review from the Department of Education, released in June.
“Shifting all of that to the state and away from the feds is not something we’ve been able to wrap our heads around,” said Quinn Perry, the deputy director of the Idaho School Boards Association.
“Our state education department are excellent people, but that is a huge, drastic shift in workload they’d have to do on compliance,” she said, adding that Idaho is already facing a budget shortfall.
In Iowa, Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, the former House minority leader, said she’s concerned that without federal oversight, the state would not hold schools accountable for providing special education services. She pointed to state lawmakers’ willingness to pass Iowa’s relatively new school choice program, which directs taxpayer funding to private school tuition but does not require private schools to provide services to students with disabilities.
“There are no provisions with private school vouchers that they have to provide special education,” she said. “Those kids are left at the public schools, which have been underfunded.”
IDEA passed 50 years ago this month. Before then, education for children with disabilities depended entirely on where they lived.
They were often refused admission to public and private schools that lacked the resources or the will to properly educate them. Some had to forgo education entirely, while others were shut away in poorly equipped institutions that prioritized containment over learning.
In 2022-2023, about 7.5 million students — 15% of the kids in public schools — received special education services under IDEA, according to the most recent data available from the National Center for Education Statistics, the federal agency that collects education data.
The law requires public schools to provide a “free appropriate public education” in the least restrictive environment from birth through age 21 to children and youth with disabilities. That education includes services such as additional time to complete school work, assistive technology, or even a one-on-one aide.
Some supports, such as providing large-print materials or giving a student extra time to complete a task, are low-cost. But others can be expensive for schools to provide. For example, an American Sign Language interpreter might cost $50,000 a year, said Perry, of the Idaho school boards group.
And a recent Idaho state report noted that it costs upward of $100,000 per year to educate some special education students.
Educators there are already pushing for additional funding to help fill a gap — $82.2 million in 2023 — between available state and federal funding for special education and the amount that school districts actually spend.
The state report also found that, unlike the neighboring states of Oregon, Utah and Washington, Idaho doesn’t provide additional state funding for special education beyond the base per-pupil amount allocated by the state.
The federal government currently covers less than 12% of the costs of special education services nationwide, leaving state and local governments to foot the rest, according to the National Education Association, a labor union representing 3 million educators nationally. Without federal oversight, critics fear, nobody will hold states and school districts accountable for not spending enough.
We still have a federal mandate to provide services to these kids.
– Quinn Perry, deputy director of the Idaho School Boards Association
In some states, limited state funding means a disproportionate financial burden lands on individual school districts. On average, local districts are responsible for $8,160 per special education student per year, according to a report released last year by education nonprofit Bellwether that studied funding across 24 states.
The situation is so dire in Idaho that the state superintendent made special education funding her key issue for the state’s upcoming legislative session. She requested $50 million to help close the special education funding gap.
It’s an issue affecting school districts across the nation, said Perry.
“Just because [the feds] are shifting responsibility to states does not alleviate the fact that we still have a federal mandate to provide services to these kids,” Perry said. “IDEA is still the law of the land and your school district is still mandated to meet this law, but with perhaps a sprinkling in of chaos and, in a state like ours, still a gap in funding.”
At times, that funding gap has prompted some states to cut corners.
After a 15-month probe, the U.S. Department of Education found in 2018 that Texas had effectively rationed its special education services, capping the share of public school students who could receive those services at 8.5% of a district’s population, regardless of need and in direct violation of IDEA.
The feds also found that some Texas school districts intentionally identified fewer children as eligible for special education services if the number of those students exceeded the 8.5% threshold.
Though Republican Gov. Greg Abbott subsequently released a statement criticizing local school districts, educators and advocates blamed state legislators for recommending the caps as a way to control special education costs.
“Texas had about 5-7% of students who needed special education but were unilaterally denied it because the state decided that was too expensive,” said Lisa Lightner, a special education advocate and the mother of a student with a disability.
“Without this federal oversight, who’s to stop them from doing that again?”
Just last year, the Department of Education released Virginia from an ongoing investigation it had been under since 2019 for repeatedly failing to resolve complaints by parents of special education students.
The feds found the state had no procedures to ensure a timely resolution process for the complaints, leaving parents with little recourse when their students weren’t receiving needed services.
The federal monitoring ended in December 2024 after Virginia’s education department took corrective measures, including creating its own monitoring division, requiring additional educator training, and changing how the state handles complaints.
This year, states including Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and Mississippi were cited by the Education Department for not having systems in place that are “reasonably designed” to identify districts not complying with IDEA.
“No state gets it perfect all the time, but some states are better at it than others,” Lightner said.
Her home state of Pennsylvania has robust state oversight of special education, she said, but added that parents in some other states are panicking.
“There’s a societal mindset in some places that kids who need special education are never going to amount to anything, that they’re a drain on resources. Some people even think [allocating additional funds for their education] is giving them an advantage over other kids,” she said. “It’s an old-fashioned mindset that still exists in a lot of state leaders.”
Some state lawmakers, troubled or encouraged by the Trump administration’s stance toward public education, have already filed their own legislation.
Republicans haven’t talked much about special education oversight, but even those at the state level have embraced the larger goal of shrinking the kind of regulation embodied by the Department of Education.
In Texas, state Rep. Andy Hopper, a Republican, filed a bill in February to abolish the state’s education agency.
“President Trump has called upon every level of government to eliminate inefficiencies and waste,” Hopper said in a statement announcing the bill, which later died in committee. “Texans pour billions into this state agency with the expectation that it will somehow improve education, but have been consistently and profoundly disappointed in the results.”
Alabama state Rep. Barbara Drummond, a Democrat, filed a bill in March to study how the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education would affect public education in Alabama.
Alabama parents are among those who sued the federal agency earlier this year over cuts to its Office for Civil Rights, claiming that investigations into alleged civil rights abuses in schools against students with disabilities and English learners have halted since Trump took office. Drummond’s bill also died in committee.
Since August, McMahon has been on a “Returning Education to the States” tour of all 50 states. She began it in Louisiana, the only state whose recent fourth-grade reading scores showed a significant increase compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to a large, congressionally mandated survey of educational progress across the states.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all in education,” she told reporters during her stop at a Baton Rouge school in August. “What works in one state may not work in another state.”
Federal law already gives states and local districts exclusive control over their own curriculum and education standards; the U.S. Department of Education can’t tell states what to teach, nor how to teach it.
Louisiana U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat, expressed concern that the dismantling of the Department of Education would remove the kind of federal oversight that has, in the past, protected students’ civil rights when state and local governments didn’t. On his podcast in August, he pointed to the need for federal intervention during the Jim Crow era when Southern states tried to maintain segregation in schools.
“We were protected to be able to have an education because of the federal government,” said Carter, who is Black. “When you start taking those protections away, that’s damning for our country and it’s a huge step in the wrong direction.”
Lightner, who has 182,000 followers on her Facebook page, said parents who comment on her posts often debate the merits of the Trump administration’s shift on special education.
But Lightner said she hasn’t seen evidence of a cohesive plan to improve special education.
“If you blow up a house, even if I gave you a few hundred thousand dollars to build a new one, that doesn’t happen overnight,” she said. “This destruction, it’s going to be years until we’re back to normal. And even ‘normal’ missed a lot of kids.”
Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.
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.
Signs at a pro-life rally outside of the Republican National Convention in 2024. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.)
The Republican author of a bill that seeks to distinguish treatment for an ectopic pregnancy and other medical conditions from abortion said her bill was a reaction to Republicans struggling on the issue during elections and that she wants to ban abortion from conception.
Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) introduced the bill in September and it will receive a public hearing on Wednesday in the Senate Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs committee.
The authors have framed the bill as one to help clarify Wisconsin’s laws surrounding abortion by redefining certain medical procedures as not abortions.
At a September town hall posted to YouTube, hosted by the Wisconsin Conservative Coalition (WCC), a nonpartisan association of three conservative groups from the northeast part of the state, Goeben participated on a panel with Jacque and Reps. Nate Gustafson (R-Omro) and Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc).
“It’s very simple,” Goeben said of her bill. “It is taking out the molar pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy — all of these things that we wouldn’t think of that as an abortion, but when there is an election we get killed on that on an emotional stance of, “Oh, this woman was going to die because she couldn’t get her health care,” Goeben said.
During the 2024 elections, Republicans lost 14 legislative seats under Wisconsin’s new voting maps. In many of those races, abortion was a major discussion point for Democratic candidates who criticized their Republican opponents for their positions on the issue.
More will be at stake in 2026 for Republicans, who will be fighting to hold onto the majorities in the Senate and Assembly that they have held for 15 years. Democrats would need to win an additional five seats in the Assembly and an additional two in the Senate to flip each of those houses in 2026.
According to recent polling by Marquette Law School, abortion policy has declined as a “most important” issue among voters across all partisan groups in 2025 as compared to 2022, although 50% of respondents still said they were “very concerned” and 23% said they were “somewhat concerned” about the issue.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federally protected abortion rights, health care providers in Wisconsin worried about criminal penalties under an 1849 law considered a near-total abortion ban denied care to women who faced miscarriage and life-threatening pregnancy complications.
But Goeben called claims that women are restricted from receiving health care under restrictive abortion laws are “an out and out lie.”
Her bill, she said, takes away ammunition from Democrats who criticize abortion bans as harmful to women. “I would love to see our Democrat friends vote against this bill because it is, again, simply defining — these things are not abortion,” Goeben said.
Abortion access in Wisconsin has been in flux since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. For about 15 months, abortion access was effectively eliminated. The state Supreme Court then found in 2023 that the 1849 law no longer applied to abortion since subsequent laws regulating abortion had been passed after 1849, making abortions up to 20 weeks legal.
Strict abortion laws have also resulted in high-profile cases in states including Texas and Georgia where women have died preventable deaths because they were denied timely care.
In recent months, access at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state’s largest provider of abortion services, was paused due to federal changes and then restarted about a month later. The upheaval in access has caused confusion among patients and providers as reported by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Some medical experts told the Wisconsin Watch that Goeben’s bill is misleading because it attempts to distinguish medical procedures that end pregnancy under certain circumstances from abortion, which it defines as not including those circumstances.
Goeben said during the September panel discussion that she hopes the state eventually reverts to banning abortion at conception and told attendees that they could make that possible by helping elect candidates who align with their beliefs on the issue.
“[The bill], unfortunately, isn’t changing the 20 weeks, which I hope at some point we can go back to conception, which is where life begins,” Goeben said. “You need to get online and educate and you need to vote in primaries for people who are 100% pro-life. We are going to have upcoming elections in safe seats. In those safe, conservative seats, are you getting a candidate who is 100% pro-life and is going to stand for that because there are people who are going to run in those seats who are not.”
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A sign in a grocery store indicates that SNAP benefits are accepted. Wisconsin's health department, which administers the state's FoodShare program funded through SNAP, said Tuesday November benefits will be reduced and could take weeks to be paid. (Getty Images)
Despite court orders for the federal government to resume sending federal funds to the states for food assistance programs for the month of November, the money will take weeks or longer to arrive and will only cover a portion of the benefits people are supposed to receive, Wisconsin’s health department confirmed Tuesday.
The delay is a result of the federal decision to spend only the contingency funds said aside for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, according to a statement late Tuesday afternoon from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services communications office. DHS administers Wisconsin SNAP benefits through the state’s FoodShare program.
SNAP benefits stopped flowing Nov. 1 as a result of the federal government shutdown, which has halted federal spending in all but some specific functions of the government.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to tap other funding sources in order to cover the full benefits for November, a department official said in a court document filed Monday.
About 700,000 Wisconsin residents receive SNAP benefits through the FoodShare program, according to DHS. Benefits are distributed to an electronic “QWEST” card that is used like a debit card to purchase food at participating grocers and other vendors.
According to DHS, because of the benefit reduction, states must recalculate the benefits they send to households enrolled in the SNAP program. States must then send an electronic file with the revised benefit information to the electronic benefit transfer businesses that distribute the funds to members’ QWEST cards.
“Due to the many steps that need to be taken as well as the likely bottleneck of only having two vendors that can deploy benefits to cards, the Trump Administration indicates this process will take weeks to months instead of days compared to the timeline if the federal government had chosen to provide full November benefits to states,” DHS said in an update sent to news organizations Tuesday afternoon.
“Because the federal government chose a more complex pathway, the federal government will need to issue guidance to states and then states will have to determine how to allocate partial benefits to each household,” the DHS update stated. “This means the timeline for partial November benefits to be added to [each] member’s cards is still to be determined.”
A provision in the federal mega-bill cutting spending and taxes that President Donald Trump signed July 4 will further complicate the process, according to DHS.
States with error rates of more than 6% in their SNAP programs will bear additional administrative costs. Paying partial benefits rather than full benefits “will force states to use an unprecedented process instead of the process we would typically use,” according to the DHS update, “which has the potential to jeopardize Wisconsin’s and other states’ error rates.”
DHS has asked the Legislature to allocate an additional $69.2 million to the department to cover anticipated increases in administrative costs and hire additional staff to help keep Wisconsin’s error rate low.
Tables that USDA distributed Tuesday indicate that in 48 states, including Wisconsin, the reduced November benefits will range from $149 a month for a one-person household to $497 for a four-person household and $894 for a household of eight. The DHS update noted that “we caution that the tables don’t necessarily reflect what a family would receive.”
Although the Trump administration agreed in court filings to partially fund November’s SNAP benefits, Trump backtracked on that pledge with a social media post, saying that the benefits would not be released until Democrats in Congress agreed to reopen the government.
Tuesday’s update from DHS alluded to the post, stating that the department is “aware of the president’s recent social media message from this morning” — after DHS received the USDA message and the reduced benefit amounts — “and will continue to monitor activity from the federal government.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
President George W. Bush, right, and the late Vice President Dick Cheney in the Oval Office on Jan. 24, 2002. (Photo from National Archives)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect and chief practitioner of neoconservative foreign policy who was an influential figure among a generation of Republicans, died Monday.
Cheney died at 84 of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family published by several news outlets.
Cheney’s decades in Washington included stints as White House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford; as Wyoming’s U.S. House member from 1979 to 1989; and as secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush.
Cheney then served as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.
Cheney was best known for pursuing an aggressive foreign policy to protect American interests, including as a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
That war, in which nearly 5,000 U.S. servicemembers and untold Iraqis died over eight years, without showing that the ruling Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction or had any ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, turned public opinion against neoconservatives.
Cheney kept a relatively low profile after leaving office, other than to endorse his daughter Liz Cheney for the U.S. House seat he once held. He underwent a heart transplant in 2012 after a fifth heart attack.
President Donald Trump, in his first campaign for the White House, criticized the Iraq War and the George W. Bush administration, creating a rift within the GOP in which Trump ultimately prevailed.
Trump’s feud with the Cheneys later intensified while Liz Cheney held the U.S. House seat from Wyoming.
After voting for Trump twice, Liz Cheney consistently strongly criticized Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and later served as vice chair of the House committee investigating that matter.
The younger Cheney’s involvement with that probe resulted in her ouster from House Republican leadership and, eventually, her House seat itself.
In 2022, Dick Cheney, who had mostly retired from public life, appeared in an ad for his daughter’s reelection campaign.
Wearing a large cowboy hat and speaking directly to camera, he called Trump a coward who “tried to steal the last election, using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters have rejected him.”
“He lost his election, and he lost big,” Cheney said. “I know it. He knows it. Deep down, I think most Republicans know it.”
In the 2024 election, both Liz and Dick Cheney endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris against Trump.
Trump did not release an official statement on Cheney’s death Tuesday.
At a White House press briefing Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “aware” of Cheney’s passing and White House flags had been lowered to half-staff, in accordance with law.
She did not answer questions about Trump’s involvement in funeral arrangements or if he’d spoken to Cheney family members.
Most other high-ranking officials across party lines in the nation’s capital sent well-wishes to the Cheney family and recognized the former vice president as an influential figure.
“Dick was a calm and steady presence in the White House amid great national challenges,” George W. Bush wrote in a statement. “I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best. He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people. For those two terms in office, and throughout his remarkable career, Dick Cheney’s service always reflected credit on the country he loved.”
President Joe Biden praised Cheney’s devotion to public service and his family.
“Guided by a strong set of conservative values, Dick Cheney devoted his life to public service,” he wrote on X. “While we didn’t agree on much, he believed, as I do, that family is the beginning, middle, and end.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also praised Cheney’s willingness to oppose Trump.
“Dick Cheney was a patriotic American who loved his country,” she wrote. “While we strongly disagreed on most policy issues, his patriotism was clear when he returned to the House Floor to commemorate the first anniversary of January 6th. We all saw then how proud Vice President Cheney was to see his daughter, Liz, follow in her father’s footsteps to serve in the House with courage and integrity.”
U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune commended Cheney in a Tuesday floor speech, saying he “played a key role in shaping policy in many of the most consequential issues of his day.”
“Dick Cheney was a lifelong public servant who believed very deeply in our country and brought his considerable knowledge and intelligence to its service,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, paid tribute to Cheney’s public service at the start of his daily press conference.
“Scripture is very clear: We give honor where honor is due,” Johnson said. “As you know, Dick Cheney served as vice president, he served as a secretary of Defense. He served as a congressman, of course, in Wyoming, and as the youngest chief of staff to any president in the history of the country. And so the honor is certainly due to him.”
Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican who is the longest-serving member of Wyoming’s congressional delegation, said in a social media post the state “mourns the passing of Vice President Dick Cheney.”
“Dick’s career has few peers in American life,” Barrasso wrote. “His unflinching leadership shaped many of the biggest moments in domestic and U.S. foreign policy for decades. Dick will be remembered as a towering figure who helped guide the course of history in Wyoming, the United States, and around the world.”
Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report.
Volunteers with the Capital Area Food Bank distribute items to furloughed federal workers in partnership with No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Tuesday failed for the 14th time to advance a stopgap spending bill to fund the government, as the ongoing shutdown hit 35 days and is now tied with the shutdown of 2018-2019 as the longest ever.
The 54-44 vote was nearly identical to the previous 13 votes, as Republicans and Democrats remained unwilling to change positions. The legislation extending funding to Nov. 21 needed at least 60 votes to advance, per the Senate’s legislative filibuster.
Even though the upper chamber has been unable to pass a stopgap spending measure for more than a month, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday that he believes senators are “making progress.”
He floated keeping the Senate in session next week. The chamber is scheduled to be in recess for the Veterans Day holiday.
“We’ll think through that as the week progresses, but I guess my hope would be we’ll make some progress,” he said.
Thune added that any stopgap spending bill will need to be extended past Nov. 21, “because we’re almost up against the November deadline right now.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned during a Tuesday press conference at the Department of Transportation that if the government shutdown continues into next week, it would lead to “chaos” and certain airspace would need to be closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers who have continued to work amid the shutdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at a separate press conference at the Capitol that he would bring the House back to vote on a stopgap spending measure if the Senate extends the funding date.
“If the Senate passes something, of course we’ll come back,” Johnson said. “We’re running out of (the) clock.”
Johnson said he is “not a fan” of extending the bill to December and would prefer a January deadline.
He said extending a stopgap funding bill “into January makes sense, but we got to, obviously, build consensus around that.”
On Tuesday’s Senate vote, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance the legislation. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.
Senate Democrats have refused to support the House-passed GOP measure over concerns about the expiration of health care tax subsidies. As open enrollment begins, people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are seeing a drastic spike in premium costs.
Republicans have maintained that any negotiations on health care must occur after Democrats agree to fund the government.
The Trump administration has also tried to pressure Democrats to accept the House stopgap spending measure by instructing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not tap into its contingency fund to provide critical food assistance to 42 million Americans.
Two federal courts have found the Trump administration acted unlawfully in holding back those benefits, and on Monday USDA announced it would partially release Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.
However, President Donald Trump Tuesday morning wrote on his social media platform that SNAP benefits would only be released when Democrats vote to reopen the government, a move that would likely violate the two court orders.
“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!,” he wrote.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Tuesday briefing that the president’s social media post did not refer to the court order, but was referring to future SNAP payments.
“The president doesn’t want to tap into this (contingency) fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to,” she said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York stood firm in his party’s demands over extending health care tax credits in order to back a stopgap spending bill during a Tuesday press conference at the Capitol.
“We want to reopen the government — we want to find a bipartisan path forward toward enacting a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people, that lowers costs for the American people, as opposed to the Trump economy where things are getting more expensive by the day,” Jeffries said.
“And, of course, we have to decisively address the Republican health care crisis that is crushing the American people all across the land.”
He noted that Republicans’ refusal to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits would result in “tens of millions of Americans experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles.”
An analysis by KFF shows that those enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace who currently receive a tax credit are likely to see their monthly premium payments more than double by about 114% on average.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the spike in health care premiums will cause some people to choose to forgo health care insurance.
“It’s a five-alarm health care emergency,” Schumer said.
Meanwhile, Johnson said at his press conference that “a lot of people around here have PTSD about Christmas omnibus spending bills,” when speaking out against a December extension of the stopgap spending bill.
GOP leaders have sought to do away with the practice of bundling at the end of the year the final versions of the dozen annual government funding bills into what’s known as an omnibus package.
“We don’t want to do that. It gets too close, and we don’t want to have that risk,” Johnson said. “We’re not doing that.”
However, it’s unclear how long the new stopgap spending bill will extend. Thune, during a Tuesday press conference, said a year-long continuing resolution, or CR, was not on the table.
“There’s a conversation around what that next deadline would be,” Thune said, adding that there is not an agreement yet.
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