Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit newsroom that uses journalism to make the communities of Wisconsin strong, informed and connected, seeks a regional editor to launch and lead our northeast Wisconsin bureau — covering Green Bay, Appleton, the Fox Valley and surrounding region. 

This position is ideal for someone who believes that local news should be built for people who most need information to navigate their lives and engage with their communities. The right candidate will be a mission-driven, collaborative leader with a track record of producing journalism that investigates problems, explores solutions and serves the public.  

Insights from community listening efforts and partnerships with other Wisconsin news organizations, built upon years of collaboration, will help the editor direct the high-impact, responsive coverage that residents deserve. 

Wisconsin Watch aims to strengthen the quality of community life and self-government in Wisconsin by providing people with the knowledge they need to navigate their lives, drive forward solutions and hold those with power accountable. We pursue the truth through accurate, fair, independent, rigorous, nonpartisan reporting. We share our stories freely and collaborate with other news organizations that share our independent, nonpartisan, truth-seeking values. 

Why northeast Wisconsin? 

In our broader efforts to strengthen the local news ecosystem, Wisconsin Watch is launching a bureau that will serve key information and accountability needs of northeast Wisconsin residents. The bureau will build upon the success of the NEW News Lab, a collaborative launched in 2021 that provides technology support, capacity building and funding to boost local journalism and newsrooms in the region. The collaboration’s five other partners include: WPR, FoxValley365, The Post-Crescent, Green Bay Press-Gazette and The Press Times. The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Journalism Department is an educational partner.

Job duties

The editor will: 

• Work with the managing editor and director of partnerships for northeast Wisconsin to establish and grow Wisconsin Watch’s presence in the region, playing a key role in attracting and retaining talented journalists to staff the bureau.
• Work with the director of partnerships for northeast Wisconsin and community ambassadors to understand community information and accountability needs, ensuring that residents’ perspectives shape the bureau’s coverage. This will include helping to identify strategies for meeting folks’ most important news and information needs and for “meeting those audiences where they are” in terms of information levels, preferred formats and distribution channels.
• Recruit, lead and edit reporters, overseeing the production of stories that will appear on Wisconsin Watch platforms and be distributed to news outlets across Wisconsin and the country. This may include occasional editing of reporters outside of the region when applicable. 
• Collaborate with journalists at for-profit and nonprofit news organizations in Wisconsin and across the nation.
• Represent Wisconsin Watch at community events, developing relationships with readers and supporters to ensure we stay embedded and connected in the communities we serve.
• Help launch a paid citizen observer team to watch and take notes at public meetings and hearings not covered by journalists.

Required qualifications: The ideal candidate will bring a public service mindset and a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisan journalism ethics, including a commitment to abide by Wisconsin Watch’s ethics policies. 

More specifically, we’re looking for a newsroom leader who: 

• Has at least five years of experience in public affairs journalism, including demonstrated experience in newsroom leadership — such as managing direct reports, mentoring early-career journalists or managing projects.
• Is familiar with various ways newsrooms can inform the public — from narrative investigations and features to Q&As and “how-to” explainers to visual stories, interactive graphics and social videos.
• Has demonstrated experience collaborating across and/or outside of an organization.
• Has experience in WordPress or similar content management systems.

Bonus skills:

• Has familiarity with northeast Wisconsin, its history and its politics. 
• Has experience setting strategic priorities and vision.
• Can communicate in multiple languages, particularly Spanish.

Location: This editor will be located in northeast Wisconsin. 

Salary and benefits: The salary range is $65,000-$80,000. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, and higher compensation may be available for someone with advanced skills and/or experience. Wisconsin Watch offers competitive benefits, including generous vacation (five weeks), a retirement fund contribution, paid sick days, paid family and caregiver leave, subsidized medical and dental premiums, vision coverage, and more.

Deadline: Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. For best consideration, apply by May 6, 2025.

To apply: Please submit a PDF of your resume, work samples and answer some brief questions in this application form. If you’d like to chat about the job before applying, contact Managing Editor Jim Malewitz at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.

Wisconsin Watch is dedicated to improving our newsroom by better reflecting the people we cover. We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. We are an equal-opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or any other status protected under applicable law.

Wisconsin Watch seeks regional editor for northeast Wisconsin 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.

A Milwaukee nonprofit expects tariffs to make new housing and renovations cost more, but it says homeownership is still attainable for Wisconsinites.

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The bipartisan legislation is currently being circulated for sponsorship. It would establish a two-year pilot program to offer kindergarten readiness educational opportunities at child care centers in Wisconsin.  

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Northland College’s board has hired an appraiser as it seeks to sell the Ashland campus and other real estate once the college closes this spring.

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With the UW-Madison’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs under fire and its chief diversity officer position vacant, the university has created a new position: special advisor to the chancellor and provost. 

The post UW-Madison’s chief diversity officer position remains unfilled, but similar job created appeared first on WPR.

Astrophysicist Adam Frank is terrified for our future. He believes the climate crisis will wipe out much of humanity unless we take drastic steps to curb its impact. But he also says there’s an emerging scientific worldview that can help lead us out of this mess.

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In 2023, state lawmakers created three workforce housing programs they said would boost house construction around Wisconsin. They didn’t work as well as legislators hoped.

The post Bipartisan housing programs have little to show. Legislators are working on fixes. appeared first on WPR.

Ludington was built on woods and water. Once the largest car ferry port on the Great Lakes, it’s also home to disc golf, museums and an energy plant.

The post John McGivern’s Main Streets:Ludington, Michigan appeared first on WPR.

The center is expected to cost $419 million, and will consist of a 395,000-square-foot facility. School leaders say it will allow them to accept an extra 1,000 engineering students each year.

The post Evers, campus leaders break ground on UW-Madison engineering building after years of political conflict appeared first on WPR.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on April 17, 2025, over the White House denying The Associated Press journalists from certain spaces open to other journalists. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press and the Trump administration faced tough questioning in court Thursday as the White House fights to block a lower court order mandating officials stop denying the wire outlet entry to spaces where other journalists are permitted.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia grilled the parties at length on how the First Amendment applies to journalists in the Oval Office and other areas, and whether the president can decide which journalists follow him in the press pool and exclude others based on their viewpoint.

The case, playing out at the district court level as well, tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

District Judge Trevor McFadden sided with the AP on April 8 on the grounds that the Trump administration violated the wire service’s First Amendment rights when it publicly retaliated against the agency for an editorial decision to continue using “Gulf of Mexico” in its reporting and influential stylebook.

Oval Office not for ‘silent retreat’

Before the appeals court Thursday, Eric D. McArthur, representing the government, argued against McFadden’s “unprecedented” preliminary injunction, saying it interferes with the president’s “autonomy” in “highly restricted spaces.”

Pointing out the AP was not demanding access “when the president wants to concentrate on his writing and his work,” Judge Corenlia Pillard said “it’s a little confusing to me when you say a place of ‘autonomy.’”

“You make the Oval sound like a place of silent retreat,” said Pillard, who was appointed to the appeals bench during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Pillard also highlighted the expectation of privacy is different for people in “high public office.”

“There’s already a dozen people in there, so he’s agreed to have a press pool,” she said during McArthur’s roughly 45-minute questioning.

The administration argued in its emergency appeal to block the ruling that Trump will be “irreparably injured” if the higher court doesn’t stay the lower court order while it adjudicates the case.

Officials also countered that the First Amendment protects the president’s right to choose which journalists enter the Oval Office, Air Force One or Mar-a-Lago based on the content of their coverage.

Where’s the distinction?

Charles Tobin, attorney for the AP, argued that the White House has “brazenly excluded” AP reporters and photographers from opportunities open to other journalists.

McFadden “appropriately and very narrowly tailored” his injunction, Tobin said. The lower judge ruled that, under the First Amendment, once the White House opens doors for all journalists to spaces including the Oval Office and East Room, it cannot then exclude them based on viewpoint.

McFadden explicitly wrote his ruling does not mandate journalists be given access to the president or that the president cannot choose which outlets to grant exclusive interviews.

Judge Neomi Rao said, “the AP concedes he could choose journalists based on viewpoint for exclusive interviews.”

“When you’re talking about 10 or 12 journalists in the Oval or on his plane or in his home at Mar-a-Lago, what is the distinction?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first presidency.

Tobin replied that the pool is a system that invites numerous journalists to participate on a rotating basis.

“That’s exactly where the distinction lies,” he said.

Private invitations allowable

Judge Gregory Katsas presented other scenarios when the president could invite only “supportive” members of the public and press, for example in the Cabinet room for a policy rollout.

Tobin argued if the event is open to all press members, the president cannot discriminate based on viewpoint.

“Once you have a system of rotation, that’s when the viewpoint becomes anathema,” Tobin replied.

What if the president “tapped (certain reporters) on the shoulder” and invited only them into the Oval Office, asked Katsas, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Tobin replied the president could handpick reporters for a private interview in the Oval Office, as long as it wasn’t an event open to the wider press pool.

“This seems awfully close to what’s happening here,” Katsas said.

Wire position axed

On Wednesday the White House announced a new media policy placing restrictions on all wire services’ access to the Oval Office and other spaces. Other wire services include Bloomberg and AFP.

Despite McFadden’s court order, the White House on Monday denied entry to an AP reporter and photographer to an Oval Office press conference between Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

The AP filed a motion in district court Wednesday requesting McFadden to enforce his preliminary injunction.

McFadden has scheduled a hearing for Friday.

The White House began denying the AP entry to the Oval Office, East Room and other places on Feb. 11.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced in late February that White House officials would take over pool rotation decisions from the White House Correspondents Association, a member organization that has self-governed journalist rotations and briefing seats placement since the Eisenhower administration.

Mural depicting workers painted on windows of the Madison-Kipp Corp. by Goodman Community Center students and Madison-Kipp employees with Dane Arts Mural Arts. (Photo by Erik Gunn /Wisconsin Examiner)

The economic uncertainty that has sent the stock market and consumer confidence plummeting in the last month hasn’t yet affected employment in Wisconsin, according to the state’s chief economist.

Wisconsin’s job numbers reached another record high in March, and unemployment, although up slightly, is still close to an all-time low, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) reported Thursday.

Uncertainty over the impact of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration has contributed to falling consumer confidence as well as business confidence, said Dennis Winters, DWD’s chief economist. So far that hasn’t affected the state’s job market, however, he said.

Based on a monthly federal survey of employers, DWD projected Wisconsin had 3.055 million nonfarm jobs in March — an increase of 10,000 from February and 15,000 from a year ago.

From a separate household survey, the department projected Wisconsin’s March unemployment rate at 3.2%. That’s even with February, but a slight increase from the 2.9% calculated for March of 2024.

The job growth was greatest in service industries, which added more than 21,000 jobs over the last 12 months.

Manufacturing jobs have fallen by 7,000 since March 2024 — all of that in durable goods. Winters said that reflects longstanding challenges in the sector more than specific recent developments. 

Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Thursday that soldiers blocked him from entering a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador where the erroneously deported Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia has been held for more than a month.

The Maryland Democrat arrived in the Central American country Wednesday in an effort to help bring Abrego Garcia, whom the Justice Department admitted in court was deported in error, back to the United States, or at least check on his wellness. He met with El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa that day, who denied his requests to either visit or speak on the phone with Abrego Garcia.

Van Hollen told reporters Thursday afternoon that he again tried to make contact with Abrego Garcia that morning.

A U.S. immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 finding that sending Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, back to his home country would put him in grave danger.

Accompanied by Chris Newman — the lawyer for Abrego Garcia’s wife and his mother — Van Hollen said they tried to enter Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, but soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint about three kilometers from the prison.

“We were told by the soldiers that they’d been ordered not to allow us to proceed any further than that point,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen said that since Abrego Garcia was sent to CECOT, he has not spoken with anyone outside of the prison walls, and “this inability to communicate with his lawyers is a violation of international law.”

The senator pointed out that El Salvador is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“That covenant says, and I quote, ‘A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel,’” he said.

Van Hollen also said he met with the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador and they discussed “the full range of important bilateral relations between the United States and El Salvador.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other Republicans have criticized Van Hollen for making the trip, repeating the accusation that Abrego Garcia is a gang member.

Representatives for the White House and DHS did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.

Appeals court slams administration’s inaction

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s case continues to work its way through U.S. courts as a flashpoint conflict between two branches of government that has led to the precipice of a constitutional crisis.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court panel dismantled the administration’s latest appeal, saying the government had done “essentially nothing” to attempt to return Abrego Garcia in compliance with last week’s Supreme Court order.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the executive branch was due deference in conducting foreign policy, but that the administration’s inaction in seeking Abrego Garcia’s return amounted to defiance of a judicial order.

The unanimous ruling was written by Fourth Circuit Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan. The other two judges, Robert Bruce King and Stephanie Thacker, were nominated by Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” the panel wrote. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

The appeals ruling responded to the government’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ order this week for the Trump administration to offer evidence on how it has sought to help with Abrego Garcia’s release from CECOT.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” — but stopped short of requiring — his return to the United States.

In unusually frank language, the Fourth Circuit panel warned Thursday the conflict between the executive and judicial branches threatened the foundation of U.S. government.

“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” the court asked. “And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present.”

Near the end of the order, the panel urged the administration to obey the judicial branch.

“We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos,” the judges wrote. “This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”

Neither country taking action

The Fourth Circuit panel pointed out that the leaders of both the United States and El Salvador claimed they had no power to return Abrego Garcia.

“We are told that neither government has the power to act,” they wrote. “The result will be to leave matters generally and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort.”

During a White House visit this week, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he would not bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

The Trump administration has admitted in court that Abrego Garcia’s deportation stemmed from an “administrative error.” The administration continues to accuse him of being part of the gang MS-13, despite no charges or convictions of any criminal offenses against him, including gang-related crimes.

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

The U.S. Supreme Court is pictured Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday it will hear oral arguments next month over President Donald Trump’s efforts to restructure birthright citizenship, though the justices won’t decide on the merits of the case just yet. 

Instead, they will choose whether to leave in place nationwide injunctions from lower courts that so far have blocked the Trump administration from implementing the executive order.

The oral arguments, scheduled for May 15, will likely provide the first indication of whether any of the nine justices are interested in revisiting the Court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War.

The amendment states that “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 Supreme Court ruled in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that the 14th Amendment guarantees any child born in the United States is entitled to U.S. citizenship, even if their parents are not citizens.

Trump disagrees with that ruling and signed an executive order on his first day in office seeking to change which babies born in the United States become citizens. If that order were implemented, babies whose parents were “unlawfully present in the United States” or whose parents’ presence “was lawful but temporary” would not be eligible for citizenship.

Several organizations and Democratic attorneys general filed lawsuits seeking to block the executive order, leading to nationwide injunctions against its implementation.

Last month, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the lower court’s nationwide injunctions, limiting them to the organizations and states that filed suit.

The three cases are Trump v. State of Washington, Trump v. CASA, Inc. and Trump v. State of New Jersey.

Legislation

Nationwide injunctions by lower court judges have become an issue for Republicans in Congress as well as the Trump administration.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced a bill in Congress that would bar federal district court judges from being able to implement nationwide injunctions.

“We all have to agree to give up the universal injunction as a weapon against policies we disagree with,” Grassley said during a hearing earlier this month. “The damage it causes to the judicial system and to our democracy is too great.”

Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell arrives at Milwaukee Central Count with Sen. Ron Johnson (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) Chair Ann Jacobs said at a meeting Thursday that the body is still investigating how the City of Madison lost nearly 200 ballots during the 2024 presidential election. 

The city of Madison announced in late December that 193 unprocessed absentee ballots had been found in the weeks following the election. The discovered ballots weren’t enough to sway the results of any contests, but WEC began an investigation into the error to determine what caused it and how similar mistakes can be prevented in future elections. 

On Thursday, Jacobs said that she and Republican commissioner Don Millis had already taken depositions of former Madison city clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl and members of her staff but that there was more work to be done and depositions to conduct with employees of Madison and Dane County. She added that those other interviews were delayed until after the April 1 election. 

Witzel-Behl, who had already been on administrative leave during the spring elections, resigned from her position as Madison city clerk earlier this week after nearly two decades in the role during which time she oversaw more than 60 elections. 

Jacobs said the investigation has already highlighted ways the state can improve its absentee ballot processes. 

“On a positive note, I do think the information we’re learning from the work we’ve done so far will help inform some best practices for tracking absentee ballots, making sure all absentee ballots are counted timely, and as we move to amend our manuals and update them … I really do think that what we’ve learned is going to help us do a better job there on some of that absentee ballot processing,” she said. 

After the update on the investigation, Republican commissioner Robert Spindell began remarks that devolved into a shouting match with Jacobs. 

Spindell began by noting how long Witzel-Behl had been the Madison clerk. 

“I think it’s fine that we’re doing this investigation of the city of Madison, or the misplacement of some [193] ballots and then not properly following through when they were found,” he said. “But I do want to commend the Madison clerk for her 20-plus years service.” 

Spindell then transitioned into what he said he believes is a “more serious problem” — some Milwaukee polling places running out of ballots during the April 1 election. On Election Day earlier this month, seven polling sites ran out of ballots, causing city officials to scramble to replenish supplies. The delay caused long lines to form at some polls. 

City election officials said they generally determine how many ballots to print and distribute to poll locations by assessing voter turnout in previous similar elections. But this year Wisconsin and Milwaukee broke turnout records for a spring election. 

A former member of the Milwaukee Elections Commission who previously sparked controversy when he celebrated and took credit for the low turnout among Black voters in the 2022 midterm elections, Spindell has often been extremely critical of the administration of Milwaukee’s elections. 

Republicans have often attacked Milwaukee’s election administration, resulting in frequent, baseless accusations that the city’s election results are fraudulent. 

Before Spindell could finish his statement, Jacobs banged her gavel, saying she was ruling his comment out of order, but Spindell just got louder and continued. 

Wisconsin open meetings law requires that if a government body such as the elections commission is going to discuss an issue at a meeting, it must have been properly listed on the meeting’s announced agenda. 

“I am not going to let you keep going,” Jacobs said. “I’m going to talk over you until you stop. You must stop. You are out of order, and I will eject you from this meeting. Do you understand the words I am saying? They are simple. You are out of order. The City of Milwaukee is not on this agenda. You do not get to hijack the agenda. You are not the chair. When you are chair you get to put things on the agenda, it’s not on the agenda.” 

Even though most of what he said was inaudible, Spindell ended by saying “I’ve said what I needed to say.” 

During the meeting, the commission also approved the design for a mailer that will be sent to voters who haven’t voted in four years to ask if they still live at the addresses listed in their voter registrations and informing them they risk having their registrations deactivated. The commissioners also  received an update on an audit to determine if any people currently serving felony sentences voted in recent elections and moved forward an administrative rule that would keep the home addresses of judicial candidates off public elections paperwork.

Solar panels in Damariscotta, Maine. (Photo by Evan Houk/ Maine Morning Star)

WASHINGTON — The legal battle over a Biden-era climate program ramped up late Wednesday when an appeals court halted a federal judge’s ruling requiring the disbursement of those funds.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will keep funds frozen in Citibank accounts while a federal suit over the program is ongoing.

The appeals court order reversed a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia issued Tuesday that temporarily barred the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from “unlawfully suspending or terminating” grant awards.

The appeals panel said it had not had access to Chutkan’s opinion explaining her order granting an injunction — which came a day after the order itself — and the trial judge had therefore not met the high bar needed to issue a preliminary injunction. The panel’s order “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits,” the judges said.

“The purpose of this order is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the district court’s forthcoming opinion in support of its order granting a preliminary injunction together with” the government’s appeal, the judges wrote.

Chutkan issued her opinion the day after granting the preliminary injunction, pointing out that “for weeks, despite repeated inquiries to Citibank and EPA, Plaintiffs received little to no communication from EPA or Citibank regarding their inability to access their funds.”

“Overnight, billions of dollars appropriated by Congress were frozen. As a result, nationwide projects were halted, workplans were disrupted, and millions of dollars in approved transactions with committed partners could not be disbursed,” she wrote.

On Thursday, the D.C. Circuit panel asked the government to refile its argument responding to Chutkan’s opinion by 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.

Fight over funding

Climate United Fund and other organizations sued President Donald Trump’s administration and Citibank in March over money frozen in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

The $27 billion initiative, which provides funding to organizations building for energy-efficient projects and other measures to tackle climate change, was authorized by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed along party lines and President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022.

Chutkan’s order blocked the administration from “directly or indirectly impeding” Citibank or causing the bank to “deny, obstruct, delay, or otherwise limit access to funds in accounts established in connection with” the organizations’ grants.

The Trump administration quickly challenged that ruling Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The higher court temporarily blocked Chutkan’s decision “pending further order.”

The appeals court’s ruling halts Chutkan’s preliminary injunction to the extent that it “enables or requires Citibank to release, disburse, transfer, otherwise move, or allow access to funds.”

The higher court also prevented the Trump administration from having to file a status report with the district court within 24 hours of the preliminary injunction’s entry that confirmed their compliance, as outlined in Chutkan’s ruling.

The appeals court also ordered that “no party take any action, directly or indirectly, with regard to the disputed contracts, grants, awards or funds.”

The EPA said in March it would be terminating $20 billion in grants under the program, and the agency’s administrator Lee Zeldin described the climate initiative as a “gold bar” scheme.

Climate United Fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, and the EPA declined to comment. 

Child care providers, parents and advocates arrive at the state Capitol Wednesday, April 16, 2025, for a rally in support of child care funding. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Hundreds of child care providers and parents rallied outside the state Capitol Wednesday, then headed inside to buttonhole lawmakers of both parties, urging support for a $480 million provision in the next state budget for Wisconsin’s child care providers.

“Child care is not a luxury, it’s not a nice-to-have,” said Claire Lindstrom, an Eau Claire parent who addressed the rally. “It is infrastructure.”

“We’re here today because the people who are doing this very important work can no longer afford to hold up a broken system,” said Toshiba Adams, an instructor and instructional chair in early childhood education at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

The rally and afternoon visit with legislators followed a morning gathering of the participants at the nearby Concourse Hotel that included talks by lawmakers, parents and providers. At noon 350 or more people — the largest action by child care advocates in recent memory — marched from the hotel to the rally, with chants of “Kids first, families first, invest in child care now.”

The crowd massed on the Capitol building’s west steps for a half hour of speeches.

Lindstrom broke down the average cost for child care. A single parent paid the minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, “would have to work 43 full-time weeks just to cover one year of infant care,” she said. A family making the median income in Wisconsin — about $75,000 a year — will probably spend 20% of their earnings on care for a single child.

“If they have two kids, an infant and a 4-year-old, they’re spending over a third of their income just to go to work,” Lindstrom said. “This is not a personal budgeting issue. That’s a broken system.”

Gov. Tony Evers has proposed $480 million in the state’s 2025-27 budget that would go to licensed child care providers, replenishing the state’s Child Care Counts program funded from federal pandemic relief. Without that, Child Care Counts will expire for good in June.

At its height between 2021 and 2023, Child Care Counts was credited with stabilizing Wisconsin’s providers, who shared in payments totaling $20 million a month. Providers reported that with the money they were able to raise wages for child care workers while holding down increases in the fees that parents paid.

“Our early childhood educators are trained in how to support brain development, emotional regulation, and school readiness,” Lindstrom said. “We expect them to do this important work and yet we pay them less than workers at Kwik Trip and Culver’s.”

Evers, a Democrat, was unable to persuade the Legislature’s Republican majority to extend the program in the state’s 2023-25 budget. He repurposed other federal funds, and the total payment was reduced to $10 million a month. That will run out in June.

Providers, advocates and early childhood education experts have argued that only with an ongoing investment like Child Care Counts can providers pay child care workers adequately without pricing care out of reach for the average family.

“We need child care for our communities to function,” Lindstrom said. “We can no longer afford to treat this like a personal problem. It’s a public domain. And the solution is clear. We need to fund child care.”

A survey report released April 10 found that up to 25% of Wisconsin providers said they might close without continued support along the lines of Child Care Counts. More than one-third said they might have to reduce the number of children then could serve for lack of staff.

Large majorities said they might have to cut pay and that they expect to have more difficulty recruiting workers. More than half said they expect some employees to quit and that providing high quality care would become more difficult.

“We will see dramatically less care available in virtually every single county in the state,” Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, told the crowd. “Is that acceptable?”

“No!” the crowd roared back in reply.

“Is it acceptable that moms will have to consider leaving the workforce in record numbers because you cannot work if you cannot afford or find child care? Is it acceptable that stressed out parents doing the best they can will have no support from the state to ensure that they can work and contribute to our tax base?”

With each question the rallygoers responded with resounding shouts of “No!”

Sachin Shivaram, CEO of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry in Manitowoc, told the crowd that businesses should support state funding for child care.

His company pays employees with young children $400 a month toward their child care costs, he said. When the crowd applauded, he thanked them, then added, “but I also feel very embarrassed. … That’s so little, and the cost of child care is, you know, several thousand dollars a month, and this is just barely scratching the surface.”

Shivaram pointed out the state manufacturing tax credit that his company receives, along with all Wisconsin manufacturers.

“And guess what? We have to do absolutely nothing to get that tax credit,” he said. “We don’t have to invest in any capital equipment, we don’t have to train any workers, we don’t have to give back to the community, nothing. You know, how about we make that tax credit contingent on helping the child care situation?”

In an interview after the legislative visits Schmidt of WECA said the hundreds who took part went to almost every state Senate office and about 90% of the Assembly members’ offices as well. WECA organized the event along with Wisconsin Head Start Association and Raising Wisconsin — an advocacy campaign that WECA and allied groups launched in 2022.

“We really wanted this to be nonpartisan,” Schmidt said — “just an opportunity to tell stories and share, from a real perspective, from the heart what’s going on with this industry.”

Some of those conversations — with leaders in the Legislature who advocates have already spoken to about the budget request — were “not necessarily a surprise,” she acknowledged.  

With other lawmakers, she added, including some of the 30 first-term Assembly members elected in November as well as others who have not served on committees where child care has been an agenda item, “there was a lot of interest in just learning,”

The visits were an opportunity for personal testimony to reach lawmakers and their staff, Schmidt said. “The power of having parents tell their stories, and the power of having educators tell their stories about how they’ve been using the public funding when it’s available — it was very compelling.”

In 2022, after living as a boy and going by a new name for several years, a 15-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin, wanted to make it official. Like most teenagers, he dreamed of getting his driver’s license, and his family wanted his government identification to reflect who he really was.

But Wisconsin law has a caveat: He would have to publish his old, feminine name and new name in the local newspaper for three weeks — essentially announcing to the world that he is transgender.

In many instances, if he had committed a crime, the law would afford him privacy as a minor. But not as a transgender teenager changing his name.

His parents worry the public notice now poses a risk as President Donald Trump has attacked transgender rights, asserted that U.S. policy recognizes only two sexes and described efforts to support transgender people as “child abuse.” The publication requirements endanger the community, lawyers working with trans people say, by creating a de facto dataset of likely transgender people that vigilantes and even the government could use for firing, harassment or violence.

Transgender people are over four times more likely to be victims of violence, research shows. Most transgender people and their families agreed to be interviewed for this story only if they weren’t named, citing safety concerns.

“Publication requirements really leave folks open and vulnerable to discrimination and to harassment more than they already are,” said Arli Christian, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “It can put people at risk of violence and blatant discrimination simply because of who they are.”

Wisconsin’s legal process stems from a 167-year-old law, one of many statutes across the country that Christian said were intended to keep people from escaping debts or criminal records. Changing one’s name through marriage is a separate process that does not require publication in a paper.

Although the right to change one’s legal name exists in every state, the effort and risk required to exercise it vary. Less than half of states require people to publicize their name changes in some or all cases, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that tracks voting and LGBTQ+ rights. 

Wisconsin law grants confidentiality only if a person can prove it’s more likely than not that publication “could endanger” them. But the statute does not define what that means. For years, some judges interpreted that to include psychological abuse or bullying, or they accepted statistics documenting discrimination and violence against transgender people nationwide. 

In 2023, however, a state appeals court set a stricter standard after a trans teenager was denied a confidential name change in Brown County, home to Green Bay. The teen said he had endured years of bullying, in which peers called him slurs and beat him up. Court records show the Brown County judge asserted that publishing the teen’s name wouldn’t expose him to further harm because his harassers already knew he was transgender. 

The teen argued that a public process would create a record available to people he met in the future. While the appeals court conceded a “reasonable judge” could agree, it found the Brown County judge had not improperly exercised her discretion in denying the request. Crucially, the appeals court determined that “endanger” meant only physical harm. The case wasn’t appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The combination of Wisconsin’s public requirement, the restrictive ruling and the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies has dissuaded at least one person from going through with a name change.

J.J Koechell, a 20-year-old LGBTQ+ advocate from suburban Milwaukee, tried to change his name in November but decided against it after a judge denied his request for confidentiality, ordering him to publish his change in the local paper and create a public court record if he wanted to proceed. 

“That’s already dangerous,” Koechell said of a public process, “given our political atmosphere, with an administration that’s trying to erase trans people from existence completely, or saying that they don’t exist, or that there’s something wrong with them.”

At the end of March, Wisconsin Democrats announced plans to introduce a bill that would eliminate the publication requirement for transgender people, so long as they can prove they’re not avoiding debt or a criminal record. Republicans, who control the Legislature, will decide whether it will receive a hearing or vote. 

There has been a push in some states to make it easier and safer for transgender people to update their legal documents. Michigan and Illinois laws removing publication requirements took effect earlier this year. And a California lawmaker introduced a bill that would retroactively seal all transition-related court records.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, did not respond to emails and a phone call to his office seeking comment. Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica sought comment from four other Republican leaders in the Assembly and Senate. Of the two whose offices responded, a staffer for Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August, R-Walworth, said, “It doesn’t look like something we’d consider a priority,” and a staffer for Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, said he was not available for comment.

Asked about the safety concerns people raised, a White House spokesperson said, “President Trump has vowed to defend women from gender ideology extremism and restore biological truth to the federal government.”

No exceptions for minors

Wisconsin’s law requires a transgender person to publish the details of their identity to change their name whether they are an adult or a child. The notice requirement makes no distinction based on age.

This is less privacy than the legal system typically affords young people, confirmed Cary Bloodworth, who directs a family law clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Bloodworth said both child welfare and juvenile courts tend to keep records confidential for a number of reasons, including that what happens in a person’s youth will follow them for a lifetime. 

“I certainly think having a higher level of privacy for kids is a good thing,” Bloodworth said, adding that she thinks the publication requirement is unnecessary for people of any age.

A mom living near the Wisconsin-Illinois border whose 11-year-old daughter recently went through the name-change process said these proceedings should automatically be private for children.

“The fact that we still have to fight to get something as simple as a confidential name change for a minor who is obviously not running away from criminal or debt charges is just so frustrating and overwhelming,” she said. 

The judge deciding their case seemed reluctant to grant confidentiality at first, questioning whether her daughter was being threatened physically, she said. The judge granted the confidential change. But the family remains shaken. 

“We live just in constant terror of the wrong person finding out that we have an 11-year-old trans child,” she said. “All it takes is one wrong person getting that information, and what we could end up going through, becoming a target, is horrifying.” 

Right before the pandemic, a teenager told her parents she was transgender. She spent much of that first year of her transition at home, attending virtual school like the rest of her peers in the Madison school district. She came out to only a few friends and wanted to keep her gender identity private, so she kept her camera off and skipped her high school graduation. 

When she decided to legally change her name, the prospect of publicizing her transition terrified her, according to her mom.

“I explained to her that it’s in tiny, tiny print, and it’s in some page of the paper that no one is going to read,” her mom said. “But it felt to her like she was just standing out there in public with a ‘TRANS’ sign on her.”

While fewer people read physical newspapers these days, much of their content gets published online and is easily searchable. The court case, too, becomes a public record that is stored online and sometimes aggregated by other websites that show up at the top of search results. 

The parents of the then-15-year-old boy who changed his name before getting his driver’s license discovered that happened to their son. When anyone — say, a prospective employer — searches the young man’s name, one of the first results shows his old name and outs him as trans.

“This is what somebody would use as their first judgment of him,” his mom said. “We certainly don’t want that to be something that people would use to rule him out for a job, or whatever it is he might be doing.” 

Like many other states, Wisconsin does not have laws that ban discrimination against transgender people in credit and lending practices or in public spaces like stores, restaurants, parks, doctor’s offices and hotels. However, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, issued an executive order in 2019 banning transgender discrimination in state employment, contracting and public services.

After Trump took office again and began issuing executive orders attacking trans rights, the boy’s family started to investigate how they could retroactively seal the court records related to the name change. It wouldn’t change what was in the newspaper, but it could help them remove the online records. The court records also contain sensitive information like their home address that someone could use to harass them.

A friend who was a retired attorney helped their son craft an affidavit describing his experiences. His mom read from it during an interview. “‘Because of recent political events, I fear violence —’” she said before breaking off. “Oh God, I hate even reading this. ‘I fear violence, harassment, retribution because of my status as a transgender person.’”

Her son, who is now 18, shared a statement over email. 

“At this moment in time I’m probably more scared about being a trans person than I ever have been before, with the public record if you have my first and last name you can easily find my deadname and therefore find out I’m trans,” he said. “I would love to say that I feel safe and valued in our society but unfortunately I can’t, at times I feel that my personhood is being stripped away under this government.”

Anne Daugherty-Leiter, who has guided transgender clients and their families through the name-change process as board president of Trans Law Help Wisconsin, said where a person lives in Wisconsin, and therefore what court they must petition, affects their likelihood of getting a confidential change.

Confidentiality is important, she said, because of how the state handles changes to birth certificates. Wisconsin birth certificates that are issued through a confidential name change show only the new name. But if a person has to announce their name change publicly, birth certificates are amended to list both the person’s old and new names. Any time the person has to use that document, at the DMV or while getting a loan, it outs them, she said.

‘This is not who I am’

Koechell, a trans man and LGBTQ+ activist, was unwilling to go through with the name-change process after being denied confidentiality by a judge late last year.

Koechell lives in Waukesha County, a Republican stronghold where multiple schools have enacted policies critics have called anti-LGBTQ+. 

In a letter to the judge, Koechell wrote that people had sent him multiple threats and posted his family members’ addresses online, all for “being an advocate and being transgender openly in my community.” 

“I do not want to publish my deadname for people to use against me,” he said in an interview, using a term common among transgender people to refer to their birth names. “I don’t see a reason why people who are not particularly fond of me wouldn’t show up at a hearing like that and try and cause trouble.” 

Court records show the judge denied Koechell’s confidentiality request and his request to reconsider. The judge’s order referred to Koechell, a trans man with a masculine voice and beard, as “she” and “her.”

Koechell decided the public process wasn’t worth the risk. But it’s hard, he said, to move through life with his old identification.

“When I go to a new doctor or new appointment or something, then that’s the name on my chart, and then I get called that in a waiting room full of people, and it’s super uncomfortable. I just want to disappear,” Koechell said. “Then eventually, I have to correct the doctors, and I’m like, ‘Hey, just to let you know, I don’t go by that name. This is not who I am.’”

Data from the latest U.S. Transgender Survey found that 22% of people who had to show an ID that did not match their identity experienced some form of negative consequence, including verbal harassment, discrimination or physical violence. 

If the U.S. Senate passes the SAVE Act, which would require voters to prove citizenship with a passport or birth certificate, those consequences could include disenfranchisement. Transgender people who can’t change the name on their birth certificate or passport would be ineligible to vote, according to the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and chief sponsor of the bill, has said the legislation directs states to create a process for citizens with a “name discrepancy” to register. “No one will be unable to vote because of a name change,” he said.

After Trump won in November, Trace Schlax, a 40-year-old IT project manager, decided to expedite changing his gender marker on his passport, figuring he could update his name later in state court. 

“It matters,” Schlax said. He loves to travel but has encountered extra scrutiny from airport security with outdated documents. “I get comments from TSA when I go through to travel domestically, about my hair, about how I look. I get extra pat-downs.”

He sent his application in early December and crossed his fingers. He received it back in February, rejected. By that time, Trump had issued an executive order banning trans people from changing the gender markers on their passports. 

Schlax decided to continue updating what records he could, like his birth certificate and driver’s license. He worries about having conflicting documents. Will he get accused of fraud? Will he have trouble flying? 

But in the end, he decided it was still important to change his name and update his license to improve his day-to-day experience. 

And he decided to go about it publicly. It felt less painful, he said, to accept the risks rather than detail his personal, traumatic experiences to a judge only to have them decide he hadn’t endured sufficient danger. 

“Me changing my name and my gender marker affects absolutely no one but me,” said Schlax, who has a court date to change his name in late April. “Why does this have to be so hard? Why do I have to prove myself so hard?”

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. 

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Wisconsin’s name-change law raises safety risks for transgender people 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.