WASHINGTON — New Hampshire’s Republican governor, frustrated with little information about the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to put a new detention facility in her state, joined local Democrats to oppose the move and disclosed DHS plans to retrofit warehouses across the nation to expand immigrant detention.

Two Republican members of the U.S. Senate, one who chairs the Armed Services Committee and another running for governor, personally lobbied DHS to find other locations for planned large-scale detention centers in rural Byhalia, Mississippi, and Lebanon, Tennessee. 

And a city manager for a small town in Georgia that overwhelmingly voted to put President Donald Trump back in the White House placed a lock on a meter to prevent water access to a newly purchased warehouse for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At every turn, DHS has faced pushback from Republicans in its drive to quickly scale up immigrant detention to 92,600 people by September, a pillar of the president’s mass deportation plan as Trump aims to remove 1 million immigrants without legal status each year. Republicans warn that the move to convert warehouses into hulking detention sites in rural areas will strain local communities’ water, sewage, electricity, heat and health care. 

Yet Republicans also cheered Trump’s 2024 campaign rhetoric on deportation, voted to return him to the White House and in Congress last year, GOP lawmakers spearheaded $45 billion for ICE detention. 

Experts on detention say the growing burden on communities and the subsequent uproar should be no surprise to members of the GOP. 

“You cannot have a successful deportation agenda, which is the president’s obsession of wanting to have 1 million a year … unless you scale up detention,” said Muzaffar Chishti, Migration Policy Institute senior fellow and director of the MPI office at New York University School of Law. 

Billions for detention

Last year, congressional Republicans provided a separate funding pool of $175 billion for immigration enforcement through the massive tax cuts and spending package, with $45 billion set aside specifically for the detention of immigrants. 

Of that sum, the Trump administration plans to use $39 billion to overhaul its current detention model of using existing jails and prisons and instead consolidate 34 facilities owned by the federal government for detention. 

That would include eight mega-sites of refurbished warehouses to hold as many as 10,000 people each; 16 processing centers, also refurbished warehouses, to each hold 1,000 to 1,500 people; and 10 “turnkey” facilities, which would be the preexisting jails and prisons with ICE contracts. 

Those plans for DHS to expand immigrant detention became public after New Hampshire’s GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte released documents about a now-canceled site planned for Merrimack, as well as sites across the rest of the country.

The eight large-scale sites would hold more people than the largest federal prison in the United States, which houses roughly 4,000 inmates.

“I think for a lot of people, it sounds and looks a lot like we’re building an infrastructure for concentration camps,” said Elliott Young, a professor of history at Lewis & Clark College.

The Trump administration’s rapid expansion of detention — as many as 68,000 immigrants, as of February — has proven deadly. In 2025, there were 31 known detainee deaths, the highest in 20 years. This year alone, more than a dozen immigrants already have died in detention, and advocates are concerned the plans to detain up to 10,000 immigrants in mega-sites will only lead to more deaths. 

This is not the kind of economic development many rural communities may have envisioned.

“Having such a big amount of people detained in one place comes with its own issues, but the second thing is that industrial warehouses are just not equipped, and they will never be equipped, to be able to detain that many folks,” said Luis Suarez, the senior field advocacy manager at Detention Watch Network.

“With the current facilities that ICE is managing, we have seen an unprecedented amount of inhumane conditions and deaths, and we feel that with this large-scale expansion that we’re going to continue to see it on a larger scale,” Suarez continued.

Public opinion on detention centers

The GOP pushback on warehouses in communities grew after two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota, and public opinion ratings on ICE and the president’s agenda took a dive. 

“This is just coming off the heels of what happened in Minneapolis,” Suarez said. “I feel like for people it’s sending a signal that if these facilities open up, there might be increased enforcement, and they don’t want to continue to see the violence that DHS and ICE has been inflicting on communities.”

How the DHS push to acquire warehouses develops over the coming months could also be affected by the newly confirmed Homeland Security secretary, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who replaced Kristi Noem.

While NBC reported on March 31 that Homeland Security is pausing plans to buy more warehouses, quoting two senior DHS officials, the officials “stressed the decision may only be temporary.” 

During Mullin’s confirmation hearing, he agreed to work with local communities concerned with large detention centers after New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim raised the issue. 

Kim said in the town of Roxbury, New Jersey, which has a volunteer fire department and 42 police officers, DHS purchased a warehouse as a processing center to detain up to 1,500 people. 

Roxbury is in western Morris County, where Trump gained 50% of the presidential vote in 2024. City officials filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to prevent the conversion of the warehouse. 

“Does that sound like the kind of town that has the resources to take on a warehouse of this magnitude?” Kim asked Mullin during his confirmation hearing.

Mullin pledged to personally visit the facility himself, if confirmed. 

Out west, red states object

In Mullin’s own Republican-led state, officials in Oklahoma City met with the owners of a warehouse that DHS was looking to purchase, and the owners eventually backed out of talks with the federal government.

Oklahomans were only made aware of the potential warehouse because of a local law requiring a mandatory disclosure that any property purchased will not impact the historic preservation of certain buildings. 

But not all officials have received warning. 

Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, along with congressional lawmakers from both parties, were blindsided by the sale of a warehouse in Salt Lake City to the federal government.

“When the sale went through, we were not given any notice,” Cox told reporters during a press conference. “No members of our congressional delegation were given any notice. No locals were given any notice. That’s, I think, a little frustrating for everyone. We want to work closely together to get things right.”

In response, Salt Lake City officials have placed restrictions on how much water ICE can use.

So far, DHS has purchased 10 warehouses among the 34 planned. 

But communities and lawmakers have been able to end the bids of another 13 proposed detention centers, according to Project Salt Box, which is tracking the purchases of warehouses by the federal government.

In Social Circle, Georgia, and Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, located in counties that gave Trump more than 70% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election, local leaders are opposed to the government’s purchase of two large-scale warehouses.

Social Circle City Manager Eric Taylor said a lock would remain on the water meter at a recently purchased facility until ICE officials can demonstrate that the warehouse can operate without overburdening water and sewer services. DHS plans to use the warehouse as one of its mega-facilities to detain up to 10,000 immigrants, which is double the entire population of Social Circle.

The GOP lawmaker who represents that area, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, also raised concerns about the huge detention center in Social Circle. He voted for the tax cuts and spending package that added billions for detention. 

“I’m all for helping DHS, and I’m behind that to make sure we get rid of these illegal criminals that have been throughout our country, but I also understand Social Circle’s concerns, from not just the infrastructure but the resources that may be needed,” Collins said in an interview with a local TV station. 

Collins also shepherded a bill through the House, now law, that requires mandatory detainment by DHS of immigrants charged with local theft, burglary or shoplifting. The bill was named after Georgia college student Laken Riley, whose murder by a Venezuelan immigrant conservatives blamed on the immigration policies of the Biden administration.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said he’s opposed to the detention center in Schuylkill and another proposed facility, and noted the pushback did not come from Democrats alone. 

“I’m going to do everything in my legal power and my regulatory power to see to it that these facilities are not sited here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said at a press conference. “After concluding this meeting here today, I’m even more determined … To hear from Republicans and Democrats alike expressing opposition to this, I think speaks volumes about how unwanted these facilities are in our communities.”

Rural America as a home for detention centers

It’s no surprise to Young, a professor of history at Lewis & Clark College, that the federal government is aiming to place detention centers in rural areas, which often lean Republican. 

“I think there’s a number of reasons for that,” he said. “One, these rural areas tend to be poorer areas where space is available cheaply, but it’s also areas where the local community might be lobbying for jobs that would come as a result of it. I think the other reason why they put them in these remote areas is it makes it very difficult for lawyers and advocates to access immigrants.”

Two Republican senators, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, petitioned DHS to halt its plans to acquire warehouses for the purpose of detaining thousands of immigrants. 

Wicker wrote a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Noem, asking that ICE look elsewhere for its proposed 8,500 bed-space detention center other than the rural town of Byhalia, which has a population of under 1,500.

“Existing medical and human services infrastructure in Byhalia is insufficient to support such a large detainee population,” Wicker said. “Establishing a detention center at this site would place significant strain on local resources.”

Blackburn also worked with DHS to end plans to build a mega-detention center to hold up to 16,000 immigrants. She told her residents that the planned facilities for detention in Lebanon “will not move forward.”

Additionally, Young said “there is some sort of early version of” the federal government trying to retrofit warehouses to detain immigrants.

“If you go back to the origins of immigrant detention, late 19th century, under Chinese exclusion, there was absolutely no infrastructure for detaining immigrants,” Young said. “And so the first immigrant, Chinese immigrants, were detained and jailed in dock warehouses in San Francisco.”

The most recent example of the federal government turning to quickly constructed detention facilities to detain thousands of immigrants is the mass deportation campaign of 1954.

Most recently was the 1980s, when Mariel Cubans were held on military bases. One of the bases in Arkansas held up to 20,000 Cubans, and a riot erupted. It was a disaster that nearly ended then Arkansas Democratic Gov. Bill Clinon’s political career, and the blunder continued to follow him to the White House.

Detention centers and communities

Deirdre Conlon, an associate professor of geography at the University of Leeds, and Nancy Hiemstra co-wrote a book about the web of financial relationships that detention centers have with local communities and private corporations.

“The people who are detained become commodities out of which revenue is generated, that not only the private provider makes money off, but then the county government becomes dependent on,” Conlon said.

When the federal government disinvests in some communities, filling in budget gaps tends to come from detention centers owned and operated by private companies, Hiemstra added. 

“But the warehouse model just axes that relationship,” she said.

Hiemstra, an associate professor at Stony Brook University in New York, points out that even though DHS is trying to pitch to these communities that the operation of a warehouse will create jobs, those skills needed to run a facility are unlikely to come from the local community. A majority of the daily operations of the facility comes from the migrants detained, who typically earn up to $1 a day in cleaning and cooking.

“For the size of some of these facilities and the skills that are required … they will have to pull people from the outside (of the community) in,” she said. “That is not going to benefit the existing community at all.”

Hiemstra said it’s no surprise that DHS is facing opposition to operate  large-scale detention facilities in communities. 

“It removes the economic benefit to local communities that is present with the existing model,” she said. “Not that we want that to continue, but this will just pull it out of local communities even more and make it a total corporate money grab.”

But the main concern, she added, is using a warehouse to detain thousands of people.

“If these come to pass and it seems normal to throw humans in warehouses that will further normalize the deaths that are occurring and this dehumanization of people,” Hiemstra said. 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday declined to rule out bombing certain types of civilian infrastructure in Iran, including schools and hospitals, and said that any agreement to end the war must include free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me,” he said during a 90-minute press conference. “And part of that deal is going to be, we want free traffic of oil and everything else.”

Trump said he hopes he doesn’t need to bomb non-military targets, like power plants and bridges, but that even if he did, he doesn’t believe it would constitute a war crime. International law, including the Geneva Conventions ban on destroying “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,” generally considers the targeting of civilian infrastructure a war crime.

Trump also reiterated a Tuesday evening deadline for Iranian leaders to make a deal to end the war.

“We’re giving them until tomorrow, eight o’clock Eastern time,” he said. “And after that, they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages, yeah. Stone ages.”

Negotiations to end the war that Trump and the Israeli government began in late February, have been slow going, in part, due to the destruction of Iran’s communications infrastructure.  

“We’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth,” Trump said. “They have no communication.”

Trump contended during the press conference that many Iranians have welcomed their country being bombed and that they get upset when the destruction halts. 

“They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. “We’ve had numerous intercepts. ‘Please keep bombing.’ Bombs that are dropping near their homes. ‘Please keep bombing. Do it.’ And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we’re not hitting those areas, they’re saying, ‘Please come back. Come back. Come back.'” 

Trump said that after the war ends, his administration “may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation.”

“Right now, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country, and it would never be as good as it was,” he said. “And the only way they’re going to be able to rebuild their country is to utilize the genius of the United States of America.”

Prosecuting leak

Trump said a search had begun for whichever official or officials released information last week about a U.S. aircraft being shot down over Iran, leading to rescue operations for two servicemen. 

“So whoever that was, we think we’ll be able to find it out, because we’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security, give it up or go to jail,’ he said. “And we know who, and you know who we’re talking about.” 

Numerous news organizations published the information on Friday and it wasn’t immediately clear which one Trump planned to pursue. 

Update: This story has been updated with new information. 

The University of Wisconsin system Board of Regents is planning to meet on Tuesday to consider terminating UW President Jay Rothman, who has refused to resign under pressure from regents.

In a statement on Monday provided by a UW spokesperson, Regent President Amy Bogost said the decision is “about the future.” She noted that the regent president is responsible for an annual performance review of the system president and over the last several months she met with UW stakeholders including, regents, chancellors and other members of UW communities. She said the results were shared with Rothman. 

“President Rothman was not without notice, nor was this process sudden. The Board has engaged with President Rothman in good-faith discussions over the past several months,” Bogost said. “At a time of profound change in higher education, this decision is about the future. The Universities of Wisconsin must be led with a clear vision that both protects and strengthens our flagship, supports our comprehensive universities and ensures we are meeting the evolving needs of our students, workforce and communities across all 72 counties.”

The Board of Regents plans to meet on April 7 at 5 p.m. to consider terminating Rothman, according to a meeting notice. The regents will first meet in closed session and may then reconvene in open session regarding matters taken up in closed session, including voting where applicable.

Bogost said they would be meeting “to consider next steps with that responsibility firmly in mind.”

Rothman wrote in letters, first reported by the Associated Press last week, that the regents had lost confidence in his leadership and were telling him he needed to resign or be fired. He said he hasn’t been given any clear reasons for why they are pushing him out, but just that “each Regent has his or her own perspective on the matter.”

The Board last met in closed session on April 1 to discuss “ongoing personnel matters.” In a statement, Bogost said the Board “is responsible for the leadership of the Universities of Wisconsin and is having discussions about its future” and that they “don’t comment on personnel matters.”

State leaders have responded to the news that the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is seeking to oust Rothman. 

Gov. Tony Evers, who previously sat on the Board when he served as state schools superintendent, did not take a position Monday morning on whether Rothman should be ousted.

“[Rothman] works for the board and if the board is dissatisfied, they have the right to do this,” he told reporters. “It’s their call.” 

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have been critical of the lack of clarity around the effort.

Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), who chairs the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee, said in a statement on April 2 that he was troubled by the reports, saying that the “lack of transparency is unacceptable.”

“President Rothman deserves to know exactly why the Board has lost confidence in his leadership,” Murphy said. “I am concerned that the push to oust him may actually stem from his strong support for free speech and open inquiry on our campuses — core principles that must be defended in higher education. The Board owes Wisconsin taxpayers, students and families a full explanation. They should provide specific reasons or stand down from this effort.”

Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevera (R-Fox Crossing), who lead the Senate Universities and Technical Colleges committee, said in a statement on April 3 they were concerned the regents were trying to avoid public scrutiny and noted the news broke heading into the holiday weekend.

“If the Regents will not tell the public why they are making such a significant move, the public will be left to assume this is the latest example of backroom politics dictating how the Board of Regents is overseeing the UW System,” Hutton said. “Instead of secretive maneuvering, they should be focusing on reducing their bureaucracy, consolidating more of the struggling two-year campuses, instituting reforms that align with the needs of Wisconsin employers, and making higher education more affordable for all Wisconsin students.”

Rothman, who was an attorney in Milwaukee and CEO of the law firm Foley and Lardner, was selected by the UW Board of Regents in January 2022 to be president. He was chosen after the UW system did not have a permanent leader for two years. In the position, he is responsible for overseeing the vice presidents and chancellors who run the systems campuses, including flagship UW-Madison. 

While it’s unclear what prompted the push to pressure Rothman to resign, he has once floated the idea of resigning in 2023 while working on a deal with Republican lawmakers. 

Rothman agreed to an anti-diversity deal lawmakers demanded in exchange for releasing previously allocated funds for building projects and staff cost-of-living adjustments. Under the terms of the deal, the UW system schools changed their approach to diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI). Regents initially rejected the deal, then reversed their decision. 

During his tenure, Rothman has worked to secure funding from the state Legislature, which has often been hostile to the UW system, worked to bring pro-Palestinian protests on campuses to an end, implemented a direct admissions program for eligible in-state high school students and has overseen the closure of campuses and brought in third-party advisors to address financial pressures facing campuses as well as rebranding the system from the UW System to the Universities of Wisconsin.

Rothman argued in his letter that there are also to-do list items that make it a bad time for him to leave, including finding new chancellors for UW-Madison and UW-Eau Claire as well as establishing priorities for the next state budget.

“I understand that, as you indicated on Saturday, the Board may act to terminate my employment, which the Board is empowered to do,” Rothman wrote. “If, however, the full Board would like to discuss this matter with me in either an open or closed session, I would welcome the opportunity to participate in such a meeting.”

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As the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week about the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed skeptical.

The order as written applies only to babies born in the future, and the Trump administration has asked the court to exclude current citizens from any decision. Still, the court’s senior liberal justice wasn’t so sure it would work out like that.

“But the logic of your position, if accepted, is that this president or the next president or Congress or someone else could decide that it shouldn’t be prospective,” Sotomayor told U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the government’s top advocate at the court. “There would be nothing limiting that, according to your theory.”

The birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, is forcing the Supreme Court to confront the prospect of the United States becoming a much different kind of nation — one where Americans risk losing their citizenship and babies could be born effectively stateless. It’s also a nation that would more closely resemble its past, when broad swaths of people were excluded from the coveted title of American.

A majority of the court, including several conservative justices, appeared unpersuaded by the Trump administration’s argument that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified during Reconstruction, doesn’t guarantee citizenship to nearly everyone born on American soil. The court may very well strike down the order, which has never taken effect, later this year.

But whatever the decision, the case has prompted a high-stakes debate over who is an American — and the consequences of that definition — that’s playing out in the courtroom, in court documents and on the steps of the Supreme Court.

“Birthright citizenship is not just a legal principle,” Norman Wong said at a demonstration outside the Supreme Court last week.

Wong is a grandchild of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco but denied entry back into the country after visiting China more than a century ago. Officials at the time argued he wasn’t a citizen, but he took his case to the Supreme Court and, in a 1898 decision, the justices affirmed that virtually all children born in the United States were guaranteed citizenship.

“It’s a statement about who we are as a nation,” Wong said of birthright citizenship. “It affirms that America is not defined by bloodlines or exclusion, but shared values and equal rights.”

A different view

Trump and some Republicans view birthright citizenship differently. 

The 14th Amendment says “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” 

The Trump administration, which has worked to carry out mass deportations, contends that children born to parents in the country illegally or temporarily are not subject to the country’s jurisdiction. Most historians and legal scholars repudiate that position.

The executive order, signed on Trump’s first day back in office, calls citizenship a privilege — not a right — that’s a “priceless and profound gift.” 

During a recent Oval Office event, Trump told reporters that birthright citizenship was intended to extend citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their children following the Civil War. 

“The reason was it had to do with the babies of slaves,” Trump said.

Some Republicans have embraced a conception of the U.S. as a nation bound by a distinct cultural heritage — sometimes in language that celebrates European settlers — as opposed to a people brought together by the idea of America or a set of common principles. Like Trump, they advocate for a restrictive approach to immigration.

At a conference last fall on national conservatism — the name sometimes given to this perspective — U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, called America a “a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.”

Schmitt filed a brief with the Supreme Court in January, along with Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, in support of the executive order. 

“The Citizenship Clause applies only to those who have been allowed to adopt our country as their permanent and lawful home,” the brief says.

Revoking citizenship?

At the Supreme Court last week, Sotomayor pressed Sauer on a 1923 Supreme Court decision, U.S. vs. Thind. In that case, the justices ruled that a Sikh man from India, Bhagat Singh Thind, wasn’t eligible for citizenship. 

Thind argued that he was a “free white person,” a category of person allowed to naturalize under federal law at the time. The court found that Thind didn’t meet that definition under the common understanding of the phrase. The federal government revoked the citizenship of dozens of South Asian Americans following the decision.

Sauer reiterated that the Trump administration was only asking for “prospective relief,” prompting Sotomayor to interject.

“No, what I’m saying to you (is), yeah, that’s what you’re asking for relief right now,” Sotomayor said. “I’m asking whether the logic of your theory would permit what happened after the court’s decision in Thind, that the government could move to unnaturalize people who were born here of illegal residents.”

Sauer responded no, before concluding that “we are not asking for any retroactive relief.”

The exchange spotlighted the scenario that many advocates for immigrants fear if the Supreme Court strips away birthright citizenship. 

In a court brief, the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, which uses litigation to advance racial justice, and more than 70 other nonprofit groups warned that upholding the order would invite efforts to revoke the citizenship of countless Americans.

While the order is styled as only forward-looking, the groups said it threatens much deeper harms. To uphold Trump’s order, the Supreme Court would need to conclude that birth on U.S. soil doesn’t guarantee citizenship. Once that happens, they argue, “it is all too easy” to imagine the government retroactively removing citizenship.

“In that scenario, without further intervention from Congress, the affected individuals would become undocumented, with many or most becoming stateless,” the brief says.

American Civil Liberties Union national legal director Cecillia Wang, arguing against the order at the Supreme Court, said the 14th Amendment has provided a “fixed, bright-line rule” on citizenship that has contributed to the growth and thriving of the nation. 

She cautioned that the order would render whole swaths of American laws senseless.

“Thousands of American babies will immediately lose their citizenship,” Wang said. “And if you credit the government’s theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans — past, present and future — could be called into question.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — Congress will look considerably different next year, after dozens of its members move on to other political offices or retire, a number that’s likely to grow as some of those hoping to stay lose their reelection bids. 

A turnover of at least 13% will be the highest in more than three decades, bringing in a wave of new lawmakers, who will be looked to as a source of solutions for some of the country’s biggest problems. 

But the loss of institutional knowledge and negotiating expertise held by committee chairmen and seasoned lawmakers will not be easily replaced. 

Experts interviewed by States Newsroom said a surge of freshmen could lead to a further concentration of power in congressional leaders and heighten the influence of lobbyists, though they added there are benefits as well. 

“Serving in Congress is like any other job. It takes you some time to figure out how to be good at it,” said Molly Reynolds, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. “Even members who come in with state legislative experience, they will know some things about legislating, but they won’t know all the things about Congress.”

New lawmakers don’t often understand the more complicated procedures and practices, like budget reconciliation, which Republicans used last year to enact their “big, beautiful” law. 

“We ran the reconciliation process last year with lots of members who had never experienced a reconciliation bill before,” Reynolds said. “And one consequence of this kind of lack of experience is that that can stand to empower party leaders even more.” 

But, she added, there can be value in “having younger members, who have a different time horizon for thinking about some of the problems facing the country.” 

Generational change ahead

So far 57 House lawmakers, 21 Democrats and 36 Republicans, have opted to run for another political position or retire. In the Senate, four Democrats and seven Republicans are choosing to leave for one reason or another, according to data compiled by Ballotpedia. 

Jonathan K. Hanson, lecturer in public policy at the University of Michigan, said it can take a while for newer members to learn the policy landscape well enough to understand when to listen to outside influence and when not to. 

“A person doesn’t walk into Congress knowing how things work,” he said. “And the more that you have people who are fresh, kind of green, don’t know how to navigate the institution, the more power that special interests, lobbyists, so forth might have to influence the political process.”

Hanson also said that “some generational change is a good thing.”

Longing to be the chief executive

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven said many of his colleagues are opting to run for governor, which he believes is a superior role to the one he holds now. 

“I was governor for 10 years before I came here. It’s the best job you can have. It’s a better job than Senate,” Hoeven said. “I mean, it’s an honor to serve in the Senate, for sure. But you just can’t find a better job than being governor. So that’s totally understandable.”

More than a dozen lawmakers are running for governor, including Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said being a member of Congress can be difficult, leading some lawmakers to head for the exits and other opportunities.  

“This is not an easy job and people, you know, decide that they’ve had a good chapter and want to do something else,” Kaine said. “I can understand why people might make that call.”

South Dakota Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson, who is campaigning to be governor of his home state, said that every two years, the institution changes when more experienced members leave and newer ones are voted into Congress. 

“Every cycle, we always have plenty of retirements, certainly enough retirements to change the nature of the body,” Johnson said. “The bigger factor is, who replaces those who have left? And of course, we’re not going to know that until after the primaries and generals are wrapped up.”

Primary elections began in early March and will take place on different dates in each state through mid-September. 

Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who is set to leave at the end of this year, said the impact of retirements will depend on which candidates Americans elect during November’s midterm elections.

“If you have people who are getting elected who are practical, common-sense problem solvers, that’ll be good,” Peters said. “If people are hyper-partisan, either left or right, that’s not going to be good.” 

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole said the retirements from members of his own party could have an impact on the elections.

“Obviously, we’re losing some very good members. And it’s easier, as a rule, to defend an incumbent than it is to win an open seat, particularly in a challenging year,” Cole said. “But look, these things run in cycles. You just have to work your way through it.”

Travel, long hours, little satisfaction

Hanson from the University of Michigan said more Republicans have decided to retire or seek another office because their party is likely to lose at least one chamber of Congress. 

“They’re expecting to lose control of the House of Representatives, and it’s not very enticing for them to stay in the fight under those circumstances,” he said. 

The mounting challenges that come with being a member of Congress are part of the reason some lawmakers are planning to step aside from their current roles, Hanson said. 

“I do think that the job, while seeming glamorous from the outside, is not that glamorous from the inside,” he said. “There’s lots of travel. Even when you go home, you’re traveling around your district. It’s hard on family life. The hours can be very long in those late-night voting sessions. 

“And then that would be one thing if what you’re getting out of it is a positive sense of contributing to the broader good, to, you know, the idea of public service.”

But, Hanson added, there aren’t that many opportunities these days for lawmakers to pass legislation they believe is meaningful. 

“So I think it’s fair to say that while there are certain people who are attracted to being in the thick of this kind of scene, a lot of people find that it’s just not a very satisfying occupation,” he said. 

Zachary Peskowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Georgia, said there are both pros and cons to more than 65 lawmakers leaving Congress at one time.  

“On the one hand, there are a lot of members who have a lot of seniority and have served for a long time and a lot of expertise but are in their 70s and 80s in some cases,” he said. “And there have been concerns about how engaged some of them are.”

Younger members, Peskowitz said, may “approach the job with more energy than you might get from somebody who’s been in Congress for decades.” Newer lawmakers will also likely come with different viewpoints and priorities, he said.

While the Wisconsin Supreme Court race draws most of the headlines — and, even this year with less national attention, most of the money — elections for six county circuit court seats across the state are contested. 

The Supreme Court weighs in on the state’s most hot button issues, but during its 2024-25 term issued only 22 decisions. The state’s circuit courts, on the other hand, are responsible for thousands of cases ranging from criminal prosecutions to civil lawsuits and family law disputes. 

More than 250 judges across the state are elected to six-year terms. The spring elections are Wisconsin voters’ only real chance at changing their local judges, yet the races often go uncontested. This year, 25 seats on the circuit court bench are up for election, and only six of those races are contested. 

Dane County

In Dane County’s first contested circuit court election since 2018, incumbent Ben Jones is up against immigration attorney Huma Ahsan. Jones was appointed to the court last year to fill the seat vacated by Susan Crawford’s election to the state Supreme Court. 

Before joining the bench, Jones spent almost a decade working as an attorney at the Department of Public Instruction. Jones told the Capital Times that he applied for his appointment because of his dedication to public service. 

“I bring … all of that experience, all of that training to me on the bench every day,” he said. “Not just experience with the practice of law, but the experience as a public servant and the mentality of serving the public, as opposed to my own ego.”

Ahsan works in private practice as an immigration attorney. Prior to starting her practice, she was a legislative attorney for the Ho-Chunk Nation and the deputy director of the Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

She told the Cap Times she’s running to help make Dane County welcoming for everyone. 

“That’s why I’m running, is to make sure that this community stays welcoming, open to all of us,” Ahsan, the daughter of immigrants, said. “Because it is a haven for all of us that have ever experienced something different.”

Jones has raised $126,000 for his campaign, which includes $52,000 of his own money. He’s also received $10,000 from Crawford, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. He’s spent the largest portions of his campaign funds on mailings and consultant services. 

Ahsan has raised $93,000, nearly $19,000 of which came from her personally. She’s spent $26,000 of her funds on digital advertising. 

Florence and Forest counties 

Voters in Florence and Forest counties will be choosing someone to replace the retiring Judge Leon Stenz on their shared circuit court bench. Stenz has held the seat since 2008. 

The candidates in the race are Robert A. Kennedy Jr. and Alex Seifert.

Kennedy previously served one term as the Florence County District Attorney and one term on the Florence-Forest circuit court. He ran unsuccessfully against Stenz in 2014. 

Seifert is the Forest County district attorney. He was appointed to the role by Gov. Tony Evers in April 2024 before being elected to a full term in the 2024 November election. He ran as an independent in his one partisan race. 

Prior to his appointment to the DA’s office, Seifert worked in the Forest County Corporation Counsel’s office and for the Wisconsin State Public Defender. He also previously ran for and lost a race to be the Langlade County district attorney. 

Seifert hasn’t raised any money for the race while Kennedy has contributed $48,000 of his own money to the race — spending that largely on newspaper and radio ads and yard signs. 

Marathon County 

In Marathon County, Michael Hughes and Douglas Bauman are running to succeed Judge LaMont Jacobson. 

Hughes works in private practice in Wausau and serves as the president of the Marathon County Bar Association. Bauman is a Marathon County court commissioner and staff attorney at the circuit court. 

Bauman said in a Wisconsin Justice Initiative questionnaire that his election to the bench would allow him to play a fuller role in the county’s justice system. 

“Becoming a judge is the best way to continue and expand my service to the community,” he said. “It would also make my service more direct and comprehensive. In the position I hold now, I work on pieces of particular cases, but the ultimate decider is a judge. I want to become a judge in order to cut out the middleman. Becoming a judge would allow me to take the experience I’ve gained during my 28-year legal career, particularly the last 24 years at the circuit court, and apply it directly to the legal disputes that come before the court. It would also allow me to ensure that litigants have the opportunity to feel heard, and that they are treated with compassion and respect.” 

Hughes has touted endorsements he’s received from local officials on both sides of the political aisle, saying his broad experience as a private attorney has prepared him to work as a judge. 

“We must have a court system that is strong, fair, efficient, and which keeps our community safe,” he told WJI. “A key part of that system are judges. We need judges who are impartial and who will make decisions based on the law and the facts. We need judges who will treat everyone in the courtroom with respect. We need judges who are committed to serving with integrity.”

Bauman has raised $11,700, with $10,000 of that coming from his own money. He’s only spent $2,400 of those funds.

Hughes has raised $27,000 for his campaign, which includes $20,000 in his own money. 

Washburn County 

Washburn County District Attorney Aaron Marcoux is running to unseat incumbent Judge Angeline Winton-Roe. 

Marcoux was appointed DA by Evers in 2019 before being reelected in 2020 and 2024. He previously worked as an assistant district attorney in the county and for the state public defender’s office. 

Winton-Roe was appointed to her seat by Evers in 2019 before being elected to a full term in 2020. She was the county’s elected DA from 2017 until her appointment to the bench. 

Marcoux told WJI that his experience as both a prosecutor and public defender help him understand what is needed from a circuit court judge. 

“I also believe strongly that the court belongs to the people it serves, not the individual sitting on the bench,” he said. “A judge’s role is not about power or position, but about responsibility. The judge must apply the law fairly, listen carefully, and treat every person who enters the courtroom with dignity and respect.” 

Winton-Roe said on the questionnaire that she hopes her court is a place where the people of Washburn County don’t get overlooked. 

“A community court must also be a place where people feel welcome, even during some of the most difficult moments in their lives,” she said. “Many who come before the court are facing uncertainty, conflict, or hardship. Some arrive feeling overwhelmed, overlooked, or even forgotten. It is essential that the courtroom remain a place where every person, regardless of their circumstances, knows they will be treated fairly and respectfully, and that their voice is heard.” 

Marcoux has raised about $13,000 for his campaign, with nearly all of it coming from his own money. Most of his funds have been spent on digital, newspaper and billboard advertising. 

Winton-Roe has raised about $16,000, with $10,000 of that coming from her own money. Most of her money has been spent on digital advertising.

Washington County 

In Washington County, incumbent Judge Gordon Leech is being challenged by Grant Scaife. 

Leech was appointed to the court by Evers last July. He previously worked as a prosecutor in Fond du Lac County and as an attorney in the U.S. Marine Corps. Scaife is an assistant district attorney in the Washington County DA’s office. 

Scaife is running explicitly as a conservative judge. He has touted his desire to “maintain a tough on crime approach” from the bench and has been endorsed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. 

Leech told WJI that he believes his 35 years of legal experience have prepared him for the role as a judge. 

“I have been out in the community talking to people about my judicial philosophy, which is committed to keeping politics out of the courtroom, and everyone agrees that is important,” he said. “I don’t see the same commitment from others. So I believe I have something unique and critical to offer the citizens of the county: judicial independence from political parties and special interests that would like to influence the courts.”

Leech has raised about $10,000 for his campaign, contributing about $3,000 of his own money. He’s only spent about $1,100 of the funds. 

Scaife has raised $60,000, $28,000 of which are personal funds. He’s also received a $2,000 donation from conservative Court of Appeals candidate Anthony LoCoco. 

Wood County 

Incumbent Judge Emily Nolan-Plutchak is being challenged for her seat on the Wood County Circuit Court by Elizabeth Gebert, an assistant district attorney for Monroe County and Marathon County.

Nolan-Plutchak was appointed to the seat by Evers last year and was previously an attorney manager for the state public defender’s office in Wisconsin Rapids. Gebert has worked in seven county DA offices across the state since 2008, she’s also married to current Wood County Judge Timothy Gebert. 

Nolan-Plutchak told WJI her experience as a public defender has helped her to understand how much people can be assisted just by the judge slowing down the process to explain what’s going on, and the community’s need for judges to take a more proactive role in addressing problems such as addiction and mental illness. 

“Knowing the difference this approach can make in an individual’s life inspires me to serve,” she said. 

Gebert touted her experience as a prosecutor as preparing her to be a judge. 

“I know that I have the ethical grounding necessary to issue decisions that reflect the values of the people of Wood County,” she told WJI. 

Gebert has raised about $6,000 for her campaign, with about $2,400 coming from her personal funds. She’s spent the most money on newspaper ads and billboards. 

Nolan-Plutchak has raised $27,000, with almost $14,000 coming from her own money. She’s also received $563 from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Her largest campaign expense has been $8,000 on brochures.

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Late last month, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the federal government will pay a French energy company nearly $1 billion — not to build clean energy here in the U.S., but to kill it.

The developer, which was set to invest private dollars in two offshore wind projects that could have powered more than a million American homes, will be paid off by our government to simply walk away. In exchange for this extraordinary payment of taxpayer dollars, the company will use the government payoff to expand fracking and drilling operations in the U.S. 

“The era of taxpayers subsidizing unreliable, unaffordable and unsecure energy is officially over,” declared the secretary as he unveiled the deal. 

The comment is laughable in the face of skyrocketing energy prices caused by — no surprise — unsecure, unreliable oil and gas. The price of gas has risen more than a dollar per gallon in a matter of weeks as the war with Iran upends global oil markets.

Fossil fuels always come with volatility. Even American oil is sold on a global market influenced by geopolitics, supply shocks and other events outside our control. Wind and solar, on the other hand, can be paired with battery storage to offer reliable American power at the lowest cost.

That was the plan in 2022 when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a historic investment in domestic clean energy like wind, solar, and battery storage. The idea was simple: generate more energy here, reduce dependence on global fuel markets and give families more control over their energy bills. It was a hedge against exactly the kind of volatility we’re seeing right now.

But that strategy was dismantled through the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” That law repealed the IRA’s clean energy tax credits, ripped away help for families to install better insulation and rooftop solar and rolled back pollution protections. Now, energy costs are on the rise as the federal government chokes the supply of wind and solar, the cheapest forms of energy. In states like Wisconsin, where more than $140 million in clean energy grants have been canceled, the ugly side of that “beautiful bill” is showing. 

Over the next decade, projections show that Wisconsin could miss out on about 17 gigawatts of generation capacity due to measures in the bill. That’s more energy than current peak demand for the entire state. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is spending about $14 billion to bring in oil, coal and gas from out of state — money that could be kept in Wisconsin if we prioritized capturing abundant and free energy resources like wind and solar. Despite this, state energy regulators have approved expensive new gas-burning power plants to power the surge of energy-hungry data centers. Wisconsinites will pay more for electricity and breathe dirtier air as a result.

As these long-term consequences take shape, utilities are moving ahead with rate hikes that will cost Wisconsinites even more. In 2025 alone, Wisconsin utilities proposed or enacted more than $2.7 billion in increases, affecting millions of customers.

So, Mr. Burgum, where is this “affordable energy” and who is benefiting from it?

There’s a deep contradiction in turning away from clean energy in this moment. At a time when electricity demand is rising dramatically from data centers, why are we choosing to build fewer of the resources that can be deployed most quickly, scaled most affordably and insulated most effectively from unstable global markets?

There is simply no path to American energy independence that relies heavily on fossil fuels. Wisconsin families and businesses could be enjoying lower bills and cleaner air instead of bracing for the next geopolitical shock. 

The good news is that none of this is set in stone. Congress could restore clean energy tax credits and invest in energy sources that are built here, priced here, and controlled here. But they need to hear from their constituents to understand how important this is. If the past few weeks have shown us anything, it’s that the most unreliable and unaffordable energy system is the one we don’t control.

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(The Center Square) – The head of Wisconsin’s elections commission says it was mistakes, not fraud, that led to some voters getting two ballots ahead of the primary election on Tuesday.

(The Center Square) - Wisconsin congressman and candidate for governor Tom Tiffany said that he will “end subsidies for data centers in Wisconsin” if he becomes governor.

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Hey, Wisconsin. There’s an election on Tuesday.

If that comes as news, it could be because the top race is a relatively low-key Wisconsin Supreme Court contest between Appeals Court judges Maria Lazar, backed by Republicans, and Chris Taylor, backed by Democrats. They are running for an officially nonpartisan open seat on the court after conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley chose not to run for another term. 

While the state Supreme Court race will appear at the top of the ballot, there are other local municipal and judicial elections and school referendum questions for voters to decide.

As of Monday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission reported 317,000 people voted early in-person or by mail. In 2025, more than 693,000 people voted early ahead of the spring election.  

The polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Tuesday. You can find out what’s on your ballot, the location of your polling place and more at myvote.wi.gov. Voters can register at the polls on Election Day. 

Wisconsin Supreme Court 

The 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court election is a quieter race with fewer fireworks and significantly less overall spending than the two recent contests in 2023 and 2025, which the liberal candidate won by 10 points. 

The sleepier race is likely due to there being no majority on the line in 2026. A Lazar victory would maintain 4-3 liberal control. A Taylor win would grow the liberal majority to five out of the seven seats on the court and guarantee liberal control through at least 2030. 

Lazar and Taylor represent contrasting judicial philosophies on political issues that come before the court, including reproductive health care, redistricting, criminal justice and the power balance between government and business. 

The candidates have taken starkly different paths to the bench. Lazar served as an assistant attorney general under former Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen after starting her career in private practice. She was elected to the Waukesha County Circuit Court in 2015 and 2021 and then to the Court of Appeals in 2022. 

Taylor also began her career in private practice but then worked as the policy and political director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. She won a special election in 2011 as a Democrat to represent a Madison-focused district in the Assembly. Gov. Tony Evers appointed Taylor to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020, and she ran unopposed in 2023 for her seat on the Madison-based 4th District Court of Appeals. 

Taylor has maintained a significant fundraising and spending advantage over Lazar throughout the campaign. The Marquette University Law School Poll in the weeks leading up to Election Day found a large percentage of undecided voters. 

In the last poll conducted before the April 7 election, 30% of likely voters said they supported Taylor, 22% favored Lazar and 46% said they were undecided.

School district referendums

Seventy-two Wisconsin school districts are asking voters in their communities to approve tax increases totaling $1 billion to borrow money for construction projects or to pay for operations, such as educational programs, technology or transportation services. 

The districts are turning to voters at a challenging time for referendum approvals. Referendum approval rates have declined since 2018, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

Sixty-two of the school districts are seeking operating referendums. The remaining districts are asking for capital referendums, or approval of construction projects. Two districts, Howard-Suamico and Sauk Prairie, are asking for both operating and construction referendums. 

Appeals and circuit court races

There are appeals court and circuit court races on the ballot in multiple counties across the state, but most of these are uncontested elections. Candidates elected to county circuit courts and the Court of Appeals are elected to six-year terms.

The appeals court races in the Milwaukee-based 1st District, the Waukesha-based 2nd District and Madison-based 4th District are uncontested. The unopposed candidates include incumbent Judge Joe Donald in the 1st District, conservative attorney Anthony LoCoco in the 2nd District and incumbent Judge Rachel Graham in the 4th District. 

Twenty-six circuit court district seats are on ballots across the state, but only six — Dane, Marathon, Washburn, Washington, Wood, and a shared seat in Florence and Forest counties — feature contested races. 

Voters in Marathon and Florence and Forest counties will select new circuit court judges after the incumbents in those seats did not seek reelection. Evers-appointed judicial incumbents are running against challengers in circuit court branch races in Dane, Washburn, Washington and Wood counties. 

Other local elections 

Voters on Tuesday can also make decisions on who represents them on school boards, as county supervisors and as city mayors and alderpersons. 

What is on the ballot in these local races will differ from community to community. To find out more about specific local races on your ballot, visit myvote.wi.gov.

Wisconsin’s spring election is Tuesday. See what’s on your ballot. 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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• Wisconsin allows child welfare agencies to take federal benefits and child support payments meant for children who are in foster care. 

• The practices cost foster children and their parents more than $10 million annually. 

• While there’s been increasing bipartisan support for restrictions and bans on these practices, Wisconsin lawmakers haven’t acted.

Who foots the bill when a child is placed in foster care? In Wisconsin, it’s sometimes parents — and even the kids themselves.

Like many U.S. states, Wisconsin allows child welfare departments to take federal benefits intended for children who have a disability or a deceased parent. The practice means some foster children are paying for care the state is legally required to provide — care others get for free.  

The state also bills some parents for foster care — even when parents are trying to bring their kids home and struggling to make ends meet. 

In Wisconsin alone, these practices cost foster children and their parents more than $10 million a year. 

Now those approaches are facing growing criticism for prolonging family separation and depriving kids and families of much-needed resources. In response, some states have enacted bans or restrictions, but Wisconsin hasn’t — despite bipartisan support.

Advocates decry ‘orphan tax’

Wisconsin child welfare authorities take around $3 million each year in Social Security benefits intended for foster children, according to the state’s Department of Children and Families. 

Five years ago, nearly every U.S. state was taking these payments, NPR and The Marshall Project reported in 2021. Their investigation focused on Alaska, where hundreds of former foster youth sued in 2014, demanding the state return their money. Many didn’t know about the payments — often several hundred dollars a month — until they were about to age out of the foster care system, reporters found. On their own, those young people often struggled to afford things like rent, car payments and college tuition. 

“We get out and we don’t have anybody or anything. This is exactly what survivor benefits are for,” one former foster youth told NPR and The Marshall Project. 

Last year, Alaska’s Supreme Court ruled in their favor. It ordered the state to notify foster children if they are entitled to Social Security benefits and allow eligible children to choose to have their benefits managed by someone else instead of the state. It did not require the state to repay the estimated $1.8 million in lost benefits.   

Chief Justice Susan Carney recommended banning the state from taking such funds in the future. 

“I urge the Legislature to consider joining those of our sister states that have restricted their child protection agencies from depriving vulnerable children of these benefits intended to help them overcome extraordinary trauma as they move to adulthood,” Carney wrote.

Nationwide – largely after the Alaska case was filed – 38 jurisdictions have introduced legislation or executive actions to preserve those benefits for foster children, according to the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego, which has been lobbying for such change for years.  

Ten of those jurisdictions have barred authorities from taking any Social Security benefits intended for foster youth: Arizona, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.

“The attention has been truly overwhelming. It’s like a tsunami,” said Amy Harfeld, national policy director for the institute.

Consensus grows in Wisconsin 

The agency that oversees foster care in Wisconsin now favors ending the practice too. Children who turn 18 in foster care are at a higher risk of homelessness, incarceration and health problems. 

For those children, the state’s goal should be to “help launch them into success,” Department of Children and Families Secretary-designee Jeff Pertl told lawmakers at a March hearing. Holding these payments in trust is one way to do that.

“We do a lot of things for kids who are aging out of care as an agency, but I would say (this is) probably one of the areas where we could spend just a little bit of resources and generate pretty significant improvements in people’s lives,” Pertl said.

Last year, Gov. Tony Evers proposed limiting the practice. Under his plan, child welfare departments must screen all incoming foster children for eligibility for Social Security benefits, apply on behalf of eligible children and hold the money in trust. The proposal included $3 million to hire a contractor to apply for benefits and manage those accounts.

The plan would have allowed the money to be used for expenses the agency would not typically cover for a child, as is the case now, but it would have barred agencies from using it to reimburse themselves for the care they’ve already agreed to provide. Leftover funds would be transferred to the child or their guardian when they leave foster care. 

The proposal was one of more than 600 items Republicans on the Legislature’s budget-writing committee removed in a single vote, a move that has become routine in Wisconsin’s divided Statehouse. 

Months later, President Donald Trump’s administration called for an end to the “orphan tax.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent letters in December to 39 governors. The letters demanded their child welfare agencies stop taking children’s Social Security survivor benefits, which are based on contributions made by a deceased parent.

“Every earned benefit dollar belongs to these foster youth, not the government agencies or bureaucrats,” Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary of the department’s Administration for Children and Families, said in a statement. 

In February, in the final weeks of the legislative session, Wisconsin state Sen. André Jacque, a Republican from New Franken, introduced Senate Bill 990, which would require child welfare authorities to save Social Security benefits for foster children in their care. Unlike Evers’ proposal, it does not require authorities to check eligibility or apply for benefits.

“Children who enter foster care are already at a disadvantaged position in life,” Jacque said at a hearing on the legislation. “Preserving their benefits can provide a modest but meaningful financial foundation as they transition into adulthood, helping them pay for education, secure housing, purchasing a first car or beginning a new career.”

Parents billed for foster care 

Years before the Trump administration decried the taking of Social Security payments, President Joe Biden’s administration urged states to limit another controversial practice: charging parents for foster care. 

For years, the federal government required billing parents as a way to lower its own costs. It changed its guidance in 2022, after NPR reported the practice was separating families — sometimes permanently. 

Outside of the foster care system, a parent who doesn’t have custody of their child may be ordered to make monthly child support payments to the custodial parent or guardian. Parents who don’t pay can rack up thousands of dollars of debt.

When a child is placed in foster care, child welfare departments often apply to collect that money, along with any past-due payments, in the child’s name. That can leave the parent who used to receive those payments struggling to cover rent or basic expenses. 

To defray its costs, the child welfare department may seek a court order requiring the custodial parent to pay child support, too. That’s despite the fact that many of those parents are already struggling financially. About two-thirds of the foster children in Wisconsin were removed from their biological homes because of neglect — a condition often tied to poverty, Pertl said.

Wisconsin foster care authorities seldom seek new child support orders, but they do regularly apply to collect payments on existing orders, said John Tuohy, executive director of the Wisconsin County Human Service Association. The group represents child welfare departments in all 72 counties. 

Child welfare authorities bill the parents of 7 in 10 foster children in the state, according to the Department of Children and Families. In recent years, parents have paid an average of more than $7.6 million a year. Studies show those bills can make it harder for parents to bring their children back home. 

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison compared data from Wisconsin counties that tend to collect child support for foster children to counties that don’t. A charge as low as $100 delayed reunification by more than six months, they wrote in a 2017 paper. 

Another UW-Madison study, published in 2024, found children whose parents were ordered to pay for foster care spend more than twice as long in care — an average of 21 months instead of nine — and are less likely to be reunited with their parents.

“The research suggests (allowing parents to keep that money) would help that parent to maintain a residence and have the financial capacity to have a home ready for the kids to go back to,” Tuohy said. 

Meanwhile, charging parents can actually increase the cost to taxpayers. For every dollar the department spends trying to collect these payments, it recoups only 88 cents, according to Connie Chesnik, administrator of the department’s Division of Family & Economic Security, which oversees child support collection. The department estimates ceasing this practice would substantially reduce the time those children spend in foster care, saving counties approximately $18,000 per affected child.

“The evidence indicates that cost recovery child support orders for children in out-of-home care are not in the best interest of children and families, and they’re not in the best interest of government or taxpayers,” UW-Madison social work professor Lawrence Berger told lawmakers.  

The Department of Children and Families wants the practice to stop, too. 

“It’s very clear that this kind of change in policy and practice will yield real results in terms of reunification with families,” Pertl said. 

Bipartisan support, little action

As with Social Security payments, Evers proposed allocating funds to stop child support collections for most children in foster care. The $1.87 million provision was one of the hundreds cut by the Republican-led budget committee. GOP lawmakers then introduced their own legislation at the end of the session.   

“The cost of care should not be subsidized by those who can least afford it,” Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, said at a hearing for Senate Bill 1072, which would bar child welfare departments from collecting child support for most foster children. Rep. Karen Hurd, R-Withee, led the Assembly companion to James’ bill.

At the hearing, lawmakers from both parties voiced support but acknowledged the bills wouldn’t pass so late in the Legislative session.

Sen. Sarah Keyeski, D-Lodi, wondered aloud why the bills didn’t get a hearing until after the Assembly had gavelled out for the session. 

“These are good bills, and I’m just disappointed we didn’t hear them sooner, because we could have done something about them,” Keyeski said. 

Lawmakers could come back to the Capitol this year to take action on spending the state’s $2.4 billion surplus, but ideas floated by Evers and Republican legislative leaders don’t include proposals on foster care payments.

Both James and Jacque said they plan to reintroduce their bills in the next budget cycle, although both lawmakers must first survive reelection bids in 2026. 

“I see a path to it getting done,” Jacque said of his proposal. “It’s certainly an idea that should have bipartisan appeal.” 

In Wisconsin, status quo persists

The lone opposition to the measures comes from the local governments that run foster care in every Wisconsin county except Milwaukee, where the Department of Children and Families directly administers care. Tuohy, of the Wisconsin County Human Service Association, said counties will face a budget shortfall if they can’t collect funds from children or parents.

“County human service budgets are very tight,” Tuohy said. “Counties cannot afford to absorb that fiscal impact.”

He said his group is open to such policy changes, as long as lawmakers allocate funding to make up for what agencies will lose and hire experts to administer these funds. 

“Our group is willing to work with both the Legislature and the governor on those types of things. We want to do what’s best for kids and families and to get better outcomes for kids who go into out-of-home care,” Tuohy said. “But … until you address the fiscal effect, it’s hard to really talk about what’s good policy or not.”

The Department of Children and Families agrees. 

“I’ve been doing this a long time. You know how we get these things done? We keep folks whole,” Pertl said. “In the scheme of the state budget, this is not a particularly expensive proposal. This is a very doable thing.”

Doable or not, any such legislation will likely have to wait until lawmakers return to the State Capitol in January. Jacque and James said they plan to add funding when they reintroduce their bills, to help counties make up the difference.

When they do, Harfeld believes the pressure will be on, especially when it comes to the taking of Social Security benefits. That practice, she said, has riled people of assorted political persuasions. 

“We’ve got the support from Evangelical groups who just see this as an affront to God, in addition to violating at least six different biblical prescriptions on stealing from orphans. We have gotten a lot of attention from the MAGA right, who are seeing this now as waste, fraud and abuse,” Harfeld said. Libertarians, meanwhile, see the practice as government overreach, she said. 

“How many issues are you seeing that have really broken through all of the political divides and resulted in this consensus between very unusual bedfellows?” Harfeld asked. “This is one of them.” 

Have you or your children been in foster care in Wisconsin? I’d like to hear how foster care costs have affected you and your family. Please email me at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.orgor call me at ‪608-616-0752.

Wisconsin takes millions from foster kids and their parents — even as both parties say it should stop 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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The post Federal judge denies Hannah Dugan’s request for new trial appeared first on WPR.

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents will meet Tuesday to discuss whether to fire Jay Rothman from his job as president of the the university system.

The post UW Board of Regents to consider firing President Jay Rothman at Tuesday meeting appeared first on WPR.