A view of medical marijuana products at a New York medical marijuana cultivation facility. Wisconsin Assembly Republicans have proposed a bill to legalize medical cannabis in the state under strict conditions. (Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

“Illness does not discriminate,” said Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health on Wednesday. “It affects people from all walks of life. There is no doubt that each and every one of us knows someone that has suffered through an illness and struggles to find ways to make it through each day.” 

Testin was speaking in favor of SB 534, a bill introduced by Republicans to legalize medical cannabis in Wisconsin. If passed, the bill would allow registered patients to have cannabis in a non-smokeable form such as a concentrate, oil, tincture, edible, pill, cream or vapor. The bill would also create an Office of Medical Cannabis Regulation attached to the state health department and tasked with overseeing the budding program. 

Testin shared a story about his grandfather, whom he described as his role model and as “the reason I decided to take a life of public service.” Back in the 1990s, Testin’s grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, which then metastasized to bone cancer. 

The senator recalled watching his grandfather undergo chemotherapy. The man “was a big guy,” Testin said, “and we watched him wither away.” At that moment, over 25 years ago, “my family made the very difficult decision to go outside the law to get him marijuana,” Testin said. “It gave him his appetite back, and it gave him time that we probably otherwise would not have had.”

Testin said his story was not unique. Although other medications exist, he said that many “come with side effects that can make living a normal life much more difficult.” He noted that 40 states, including Wisconsin’s neighbors Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, give patients access to medical cannabis when recommended by doctors. Texas is the most recent state to legalize medical cannabis, he noted

“So both red and blue states alike have been able to come together and recognize that this is a viable option,” Testin said. “Medicine is never a one size fits all, and it’s time for Wisconsin to join the majority of the country and add another option which may help patients find relief they need.”

Legislation’s provisions

Under the proposed bill, medical cannabis sales would be tracked through the state’s prescription drug monitoring program. Pharmacists would also be required to be on-site at dispensaries. The legislation would only cover certain conditions: cancer, seizures or epilepsy, glaucoma, severe chronic pain, severe muscle spasms, severe chronic nausea, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and any terminal illness, including patients with a life expectancy of less than a year. 

Patients must be at least 18 years old. Minors could have access if there is  written consent “from all” of their parents or guardians. Patients would be given registration cards and would be charged $20 a year to remain on the registry. 

The bill also prohibits dispensaries or their staff “from claiming that medical cannabis may cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent any disease or medical condition.” Dispensaries would also be prohibited from “advertising their services to the general public, with certain exceptions.” 

The bill includes a provision preventing courts from considering  lawful use or possession of cannabis, or being registered as a patient, when determining  custody or placement of a child, except where the child has access to the cannabis. Unlawful possession or use could still be used against parents in court, however. The bill also protects people who lawfully possess cannabis against housing discrimination, and prevents local governments from regulating legal medical cannabis programs or using zoning laws to restrict the location or operation of a legal cannabis operation. 

Support and opposition

Earlier this year, two-thirds of registered voters polled by Marquette Law School said that cannabis should be legalized in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Wellness Coalition has registered with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission in support of the legislation and the Wisconsin Medical Society against it, The Alzheimer’s Association, Outdoor Advertising Association, and Pharmacy Society have all registered their positions as “other.” 

People from a variety of backgrounds also spoke during the public hearing. Many supported legalizing cannabis, but had concerns about restrictions in the bill. 

“This should not be a partisan issue,” said Testin. “It is clear that we as a state need to begin having a real discussion about medical cannabis legalization, and it is our hope that this bill will be the first step. It’s time for Wisconsin to provide our citizens with another option in their health care.” 

Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), who has proposed  medical cannabis legislation for years, echoed that sentiment. 

“Wisconsin is on an island surrounded by neighboring states that allow the use of medical cannabis products,” Felzkowski said during the Wednesday hearing. “Someone who suffers from a serious health condition should not have to make the choice to travel to another state or break the law so that they can try an alternative medicine for relief.”

Felzkowski recounted her battles with breast cancer, first when she was 40 years old, which resulted in a double mastectomy, and then a stage 4 diagnosis a decade later. She described the side effects of opioids that doctors prescribed to control her pain as “something nobody should have to live through.” 

She said her oncologist called medical cannabis  “another tool in the toolbox, and it could help a lot of people.” 

 “Here we are sitting in our Ivory Tower, denying that for people that really need it, and it’s wrong that we’re doing that,” Felzkowski said.

Legislators are divided

Lawmakers hope to get more colleagues behind the bill. Yet, despite lagging behind many other states, Wisconsin’s Legislature still struggles with just talking about cannabis. “We are not going to be talking about overall legalization for cannabis products,” said Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevera (R-Appleton), as she chaired a meeting of the Senate Committee on Health on Wednesday. “So, if you’re here to testify on how this should be 100% legal, this is not the spot for you today.” 

The Legislature held its first public hearing on legalizing cannabis in 2022 in the Senate. Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston), who also spoke during Wednesday’s hearing, said in an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner that he’s optimistic that the new bill will survive the Senate. “My goal this time,” Snyder told Wisconsin Examiner, “is something we haven’t done yet since I’ve been here and that is to have a hearing in the Assembly, where people I talk to can come down and explain their situations.”

Snyder said he hears from constituents who want the state to legalize medical cannabis. When he talks to Republicans who oppose the bill, he said, “I try to tell them first of all, this is something that helps a person. This is something that is going to be focused on folks that really need it.” 

Snyder stressed that “these are people not looking for shortcuts to get marijuana, I mean they could do that without [legalized medical cannabis].” Rather, his constituents are people who often don’t want to travel so far north or south to get their medicine, or who would prefer going to a local farmer or dispensary instead.

The bill’s critics include Republicans who feel medical cannabis would only lead to legalizing recreational use, which they don’t want, as well as Democrats who criticize the bill’s restrictive framework and want Wisconsin to legalize recreational use of cannabis. 

Even with the Republican bill’s restrictions on the form in which cannabis can be used and its system of rigorous licensing, testing and enforcement, Snyder said there are “far right” Republicans in the Assembly who need to be won over. 

Felzkowski said of the 24 states that allow recreational marijuana, 15 did so through ballot measures, which aren’t available in Wisconsin. “So that’s never going to happen in the state,” she said. 

Nine states that have legalized recreational  marijuana after legalizing medical cannabis “are solid blue states like Illinois, New York, and Connecticut,” she said. “Wisconsin is not a solid blue state.”  

Another 16 states have only legalized medical cannabis. Hawaii, the first state to pass a comprehensive medical cannabis program in 2000, still does not allow recreational cannabis, she said.  

“Fortunately, Wisconsin is able to learn from the experience of other states,” said Felzkowski. “We can create an effective program with safeguards, so patients and small businesses can benefit from medical cannabis products, while preventing abuse, or those without medical need from gaining access.”

A boy plays with a wooden numbers puzzle. Sensory exercises like this are often used in special education classrooms. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Proposed mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education have raised alarm among disability advocates and Democratic lawmakers over the potential impact on millions of students with disabilities. 

Advocates warn that the department cannot carry out its legally mandated functions for special education services and support at the staffing levels put forward by President Donald Trump’s proposed reduction in force, or RIF. 

The agency is also reportedly weighing a transfer of special education programs to a different department. 

“If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that the fight is just beginning,” Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, told States Newsroom. “And we’re going to do everything we can to fight these illegal firings and the dismantling of the department, but it is just beginning.”

Trump’s administration took another axe to the department earlier this month amid the ongoing government shutdown, effectively gutting key units that serve students with disabilities. The affected offices administer $15 billion in formula and discretionary grant programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provide guidance and support to families and states and investigate disability-based discrimination complaints, among other responsibilities. 

Though a federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the layoffs, the ruling provides only short-term relief as legal proceedings unfold. 

The administration moved to lay off 465 department employees, including 121 at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, 132 in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, or OESE, and 137 in the Office for Civil Rights, or OCR. 

The layoffs also hit the Office of the Secretary, Office of Communications and Office of Postsecondary Education. 

“You can’t look at any of this in a silo,” Gittleman said. “When you’re thinking about special education specifically, you also have to think about the fact that OESE, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, also saw an almost full RIF as well.” 

Gittleman called the civil rights office “the place that ensures families have a place to go for help when students are denied access for education based on their disability.”

“That was also almost entirely gutted,” she said. “So you’re debilitating these programs in multiple ways because … kids with disabilities benefit from OESE programs, OCR assistance and OSERS programs.” 

Those three units had already been hit with a separate set of department layoffs earlier this year. 

Parents as advocates

Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that while IDEA has not been changed and the rights of children with disabilities continue, the government’s ability to enforce and implement those rights has deteriorated. 

OSERS is responsible for managing and supporting IDEA, which guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities and is in its 50th year. The umbrella unit OSERS includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

“You take away the knowledge of the folks at the U.S. Department of Education at the Office of Special Education Programs — the law is complex, the combination of the federal law with state laws is complex — you need that trusted source of accurate information, and so, I think it’s going to make the implementation of this law that much more difficult,” Neas told States Newsroom. 

During the 2022-2023 school year, 7.5 million students in the United States received services through IDEA, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency. 

Neas encouraged parents to “know your rights” and “understand what the law does and does not do for your child, and don’t take no for an answer.” 

She said parents “really have to be well-versed in what the law requires schools to provide to their child,” and “have to be the ones that insist that the law is implemented with fidelity, because they’re the ones that are going to be on the front lines trying to make that happen.” 

‘Flabbergasted’

Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said the RIFs would make it “impossible” for the Office of Special Education Programs to “carry out its statutory requirements.” 

Rodriguez, whose organization advocates for people with learning and attention issues, said “we had hundreds of staff doing this type of work — the statutory requirements are monitoring, compliance, guidance, support — it’s not just pressing a button and issuing funding.” 

She also noted that advocacy groups, including hers, are “flabbergasted” regarding the sweeping layoffs of special education staff because of the contrast with previous assurances Education Secretary Linda McMahon has made to both Rodriguez and Congress about supporting students with disabilities. 

“I am not stunned that the administration would try to dismantle something that was legally required in place,” she said. “But I am flabbergasted that the secretary would sit and give congressional testimony at her confirmation hearing. She did it at the oversight hearing. She sat in front of me and said, ‘No, Jackie, this administration supports kids with special needs. We will always be good advocates. You don’t have to worry.’”

Just days after the layoff notices were sent out, McMahon took to social media to downplay the consequences of the shutdown on her department.   

Two weeks into the shutdown, “millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon wrote. 

The secretary added that “it confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary, and we should return education to the states.” 

McMahon also specified that “no education funding is impacted by the RIF, including funding for special education.” 

Rodriguez said McMahon’s post indicates the secretary believes the “status quo is perfectly reasonable — when we know that’s not the case — and she dismantles every opportunity for a kid with a disability to actually have his or her legally-entitled education.”

“I am beyond being polite and providing professional deference because there has been no consideration or deference to kids with disabilities for the last 10 months,” she added.

The groups that advocate for students with disabilities are united in their opposition, Rodriguez continued.

“Disability organizations across the country are united, we are all talking to one another,” she said. “We all work collaboratively, and we are in concert, lock and step.”

Congressional Dems fiercely oppose cuts 

Meanwhile, a slew of Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage and concern over the department RIFs in two separate letters to the administration this month. 

Reps. Lucy McBath of Georgia, Mark DeSaulnier and Lateefah Simon of California, led dozens of fellow House Democrats in an Oct. 17 letter voicing to McMahon and White House budget director Russ Vought their “deep opposition” to the layoffs and urging them to “immediately reverse course and rescind the termination notices that were sent to these workers.”

In another letter to McMahon, 31 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus wrote Monday that “punitive, reckless actions like these latest firings demonstrate how President Trump and …Vought are relishing the government shutdown they caused — and are treating students as political pawns,” adding: “That is outrageous — and flatly unacceptable.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, led the letter, along with: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York; Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing Education Department funding.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The government shutdown became the second longest in U.S. history Wednesday, though the mounting repercussions for dozens of federal programs, including food aid for some of the country’s most vulnerable residents, failed to spur any momentum in Congress. 

The Senate was unable for the 12th time to advance a stopgap spending bill that would have reopened the government and kept funding mostly on autopilot through Nov. 21. 

The 54-46 vote was nearly identical to those that have come before, a predictable outcome since neither Republicans nor Democrats are talking to each other. The legislation needed at least 60 votes to advance under the Senate’s legislative filibuster. 

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance the legislation. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

The vote came shortly after Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley held the floor for nearly 23 hours, speaking at length about his concerns and objections to President Donald Trump’s administration. 

The government staying shut down much longer will lead to a funding shortfall for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which is relied on by 42 million low-income Americans, nearly 40% of them children younger than 17. 

Despite that looming deadline, congressional leaders remain in their political silos, just as they have since before the shutdown began 22 days ago. They’ve repeatedly held press conferences and meetings with their own members instead of making the types of compromises needed to keep government functioning on the most basic level. 

Republican leaders are waiting for Democrats to help advance the stopgap spending bill in the Senate and say they won’t negotiate on anything until after that happens. 

Democrats maintain they won’t support the House-passed continuing resolution until there is bipartisan agreement to extend tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. 

Johnson warns funding process at risk

The stalled short-term spending bill is supposed to give lawmakers more time to work out agreement on the dozen full-year government funding bills, which Congress was supposed to pass by the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year. 

But Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., warned during a morning press conference that lawmakers may scrap that process for a second year in a row if Democrats don’t advance the continuing resolution soon. 

“We’re getting closer to November. It is going to be more and more difficult with each passing hour to get all the appropriations done on time,” Johnson said. “We acknowledge that, but we have to do this on a day-by-day basis.”

House Democratic leadership dismissed the notion of a longer temporary spending bill or continuing resolution, possibly for a full year, during an afternoon press conference. 

Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, of Massachusetts, said her message to Republicans is, “Why are you talking about the length of the (continuing resolution)? Come to the table and negotiate with us. End this health care crisis, help the American people.”

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sidestepped specifics when asked about a longer stopgap funding bill.

“At this point, we need to reopen the government. We need to enact a spending bill that actually meets the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety and economic well-being, particularly in terms of driving down the high cost of living, while at the same time decisively addressing the Republican health care crisis that grows greatly by the day,” the New York Democrat said.

Lawmakers have been unable to approve all the annual funding bills on time since 1996 and have consistently relied on stopgap spending bills to give themselves more time to work out agreements between the House and Senate. 

The alternative to full-year government funding bills is to use a series of stopgap spending bills, or one that lasts the entire year that keeps spending mostly on autopilot. 

Either option requires bipartisanship to gain the support of at least 60 senators, since Republicans control 53 seats. That means the only solution to the shutdown is for Republican and Democratic leaders to compromise. 

But that seemed like a remote possibility Wednesday. 

Democrats criticize layoffs

House Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee held a mock hearing where they railed against Republicans and Trump for how they’ve managed unified control of government. 

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., rebuked Trump administration officials for trying to lay off federal workers by the thousands and for canceling funding to projects in regions of the country that vote for Democrats. 

“It is a corrupt abuse of power that they have chosen to carry out,” DeLauro said. 

White House budget director Russ Vought and Trump, she said, “have launched a scorched earth campaign to decimate the federal government and the programs and services the American people depend on.”

Rob Shriver, managing director of the civil service strong and good government initiatives at Democracy Forward, who worked as deputy director at the Office of Personnel Management during the Biden administration, said the layoffs could negatively affect federal operations for years. 

“The government has had historic challenges in recruiting young people and recruiting tech talent, and what this administration is doing is turning it into a workforce that doesn’t try to recruit the best and the brightest, but that tries to recruit the most loyal,” Shriver said. 

Lawsuit gains more unions

The Trump administration’s efforts to lay off thousands of workers during the shutdown have been on hold since last week, when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that was later expanded.  

The lawsuit was originally brought by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It expanded last week to include the National Federation of Federal Employees, the National Association of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union.

The updated restraining order issued by U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Susan Illston applies to any federal department or agency that includes employees represented by those unions, even if the Trump administration doesn’t recognize their contracts. 

Illston on Wednesday granted a request to add the National Treasury Employees Union, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and American Federation of Teachers to the case. 

Illston wrote that she found “good cause exists to modify the existing TRO without a written response from defendants due to the emergency nature of this case.” 

Those three unions represent hundreds of thousands more federal workers, including those at the departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice and Veterans Affairs. 

Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Social Security Administration are also represented by the three new unions seeking to join the case. 

The next stage in the lawsuit comes on Oct. 28, when the judge has set a hearing to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction in the case. 

‘Patently illegal’

AFGE National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement released Wednesday that the “administration’s move to fire thousands of patriotic civil servants while the government is shut down is patently illegal, and I’m glad we are able to expand our lawsuit to protect even more federal workers from facing termination.”

“President Trump has made no secret that this is about punishing his political enemies and has nothing to do with the actual work that these employees perform,” Kelley added. “Data provided by the administration under court order illustrates how vast and unlawful these intended firings are and validates our union’s determination to challenge this illegal action.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump speaks as FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi look on during a press conference in the Oval Office on Oct. 15, 2025. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said late Tuesday he is personally owed a massive payment from the Department of Justice and would have the authority to approve it, saying he was “damaged very greatly” during the government’s investigations into his alleged hoarding of classified documents and Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Responding to a question about reports that he was seeking up to $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department, Trump replied, “I don’t know what the numbers are. I don’t even talk to them about it. All I know is that they would owe me a lot of money, but I’m not looking for money.” 

“I’d give it to charity or something. I would give it to charity, any money. But look what they did. They rigged the election,” Trump said, apparently referring to his false claim that President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results, including sparking the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, was the subject of a separate federal criminal investigation.

The situation shines a spotlight on ethical concerns that Trump’s former defense attorneys, who now occupy top positions at the Justice Department, would presumably play a role in deciding whether the president receives the money. 

Trump claimed he would make the final call on whether to pay himself the damages.

“It’s interesting because I’m the one that makes the decision, right? And you know that decision would have to go across my desk, and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself,” Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Tuesday evening after a White House Diwali celebration.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Trump submitted claims in 2023 and 2024 seeking compensation for violations to his rights during a special counsel probe into whether his 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia, and violations to his privacy when federal agents searched his Florida Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022 for classified documents.

“But I was damaged very greatly, and any money that I would get, I would give to charity,” he added.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the status of Trump’s claims.

“In any circumstance, all officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials,” department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has been a vocal advocate and legal adviser for Trump on multiple probes, including the handling of the 2016 Russian meddling inquiry. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche defended Trump during the government’s investigation into classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago following the president’s first term. 

Stanley Woodward, the former defense lawyer for Trump’s co-defendent in the classified documents probe, now heads the Justice Department’s civil division, which reviews compensation claims, according to the Times.

When asked Wednesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he was not aware of the details, but largely defended Trump.

“I didn’t talk with him about that. I know that he believes he’s owed that reimbursement. What I heard yesterday was if he receives it, he was going to consider giving it to charity. I mean, he doesn’t need those proceeds. But we’re for the rule of law, we’re for what is just and right. And it’s just absurd. As has been noted here several times this morning, they attack him for everything he does. It doesn’t matter what it is,” the Louisiana Republican said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, slammed Trump’s request for compensation as the president trying to “rob taxpayers of $230 million to continue to line his pockets.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

A “SNAP welcomed here” sign is seen at the entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — More than 42 million low-income Americans are at risk of losing food assistance Nov. 1 if the government shutdown continues.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has about $6 billion in a multi-year contingency fund. That’s short of the roughly $9 billion needed to cover a full month of the program.

Even if a shutdown deal were reached immediately, the time needed to process the payments and make them available for recipients means benefits would likely be delayed.

The shortfall is caused by the shutdown, which hit its 22nd day Wednesday. The fund is supposed to maintain a balance of about $9 billion, but $3 billion of the funds expired at the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. Because Congress has not approved the next year’s funding, the fund only has $6 billion.

USDA would have to come up with the remaining $3 billion. The department could try something similar to its shuffle of more than $300 million in tariff revenue into its Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, through the rest of the month. 

It’s unclear if USDA plans to use the SNAP contingency fund or any other maneuvers to extend benefits.

Nearly 40% of the 42 million SNAP recipients nationwide are children 17 and younger, according to the USDA. About 20% are seniors aged 60 and older and the remaining 40% are adults aged 18 to 59.

USDA did not respond to multiple requests for comment from States Newsroom.

Parties in Congress remained nowhere near a deal to end the shutdown as of Wednesday.

States scrambling

A Democratic congressional staffer familiar with the SNAP program said that even if Congress passes a stopgap before Nov. 1, the month’s benefits will still be delayed because it takes time to process the benefits and there are limited vendor processors.

The program issues electronic benefits on a card that can be used like cash to purchase food. States will upload either all or part of a month’s benefits on the first day of the month.

Even in states that say they have enough funds to extend SNAP through November, such as North Dakota, state officials have said they are unable to load the funds on the cards. 

Kansas officials said once Congress passes a stopgap, the state can distribute benefits to the state’s 188,000 SNAP recipients within 72 hours, meaning any deal would have to be completed by next week to avoid an interruption of services. 

Other states, including Minnesota, have halted new enrollments in SNAP. 

Wisconsin’s Gov. Tony Evers warned that 700,000 residents are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits. 

Tennessee officials have informed SNAP recipients — nearly 700,000 people — that it received notice from USDA that SNAP funding will cease entirely on Nov. 1 if the government shutdown doesn’t end.

Unheeded warnings

USDA on Oct. 10  warned states to hold off on sending SNAP files to electronic benefit transfer vendors due to the government shutdown

“Considering the operational issues and constraints that exist in automated systems, and in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are forced to direct States to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to State EBT vendors until further notice,” SNAP acting Associate Administrator Ronald Ward wrote. 

“This includes on-going SNAP benefits and daily files,” Ward continued. 

Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that SNAP will run out of funds by the end of the month if Congress fails to strike a deal and end the government shutdown.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, speaks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. Merkley began speaking Tuesday evening. (Screenshot via C-SPAN)

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley spoke on the Senate floor for nearly 23 hours beginning Tuesday night against what he called President Donald Trump’s authoritarian actions. 

Merkley started speaking after 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and ceded the floor at about 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The marathon speech was not a traditional filibuster, in which a senator holds the floor indefinitely to block action on a piece of legislation, as the chamber has been stalemated for weeks over government spending. 

Instead, Merkley spokespeople say he is seeking to draw attention “to how Trump is ripping up the Constitution and eroding our democratic institutions.”

Merkley read from the book “How Democracies Die,” blasted the administration’s efforts to control media companies that broadcast critical content, such as CBS and Disney, and spoke against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities. 

The speech follows thousands of No Kings demonstrations throughout the country Saturday that saw millions protest against Trump, particularly an immigration crackdown and the use of military troops for policing. 

Early in his speech, Merkley focused on the National Guard deployments, which include Portland, Oregon. 

“This is an incredible threat to our nation, to the entire vision of our Constitution, to the entire platform on which our freedom exists,” he said.  “If you remove a clear standard as to whether there is a rebellion, and just say a president can deploy the military on a whim in places he doesn’t like, … then you have flung the doors open to tyranny.”

A produce cooler at Willy Street Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. FoodShare funding from the federal government will stop Nov. 1 if the federal government shutdown continues. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Unless the shutdown ends by that date, Wisconsin’s FoodShare program, which serves more than 700,000 Wisconsin residents — about 12% of the state’s population — will run out of funds Nov. 1, Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday. FoodShare is funded through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, previously known as Food Stamps.

Two Wisconsin Head Start early childhood education programs are at risk for not receiving their expected federal authorization that was to start Nov. 1, according to Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association.

“Our social safety net is stretched,” Mauer said Tuesday. “This is just going to really short communities, and I think providers are bracing. We just don’t know the tidal wave that’s going to hit us, so everybody is really concerned.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture notified states earlier this month that the SNAP program would not have enough funds to pay full benefits to the program’s 42 million participants nationwide.

The department directed states to hold off on the transactions that move SNAP funds onto the electronic benefit cards that FoodShare members use to buy groceries.

FoodShare “may not be available at all next month if the federal government shutdown continues, leaving nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites without access to basic food and groceries,” the governor’s office said in a statement Tuesday.

“President Trump and Republicans in Congress must work across the aisle and end this shutdown now so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have access to basic necessities like food and groceries that they need to survive,” Evers said.

Both the FoodShare and Medicaid programs refer to their participants as members. “FoodShare benefits are 100 percent funded by the federal government and the shutdown will need to end before members can begin getting benefits again,” the state Department of Health Services announced in the FoodShare news page Tuesday.

If FoodShare benefits stop in November, they won’t be lost, but they will be delayed, said Matt King, CEO of the Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee. When the shutdown ends, benefits will become available again, including those not paid during the shutdown.

The Hunger Task Force supplies food pantries throughout the greater Milwaukee area. If benefits stop, food pantry operators and suppliers expect to see a sharp increase in the need for their services.

“FoodShare is the first and most critical line of defense against hunger,” King said Tuesday. “The food pantry network across Wisconsin acts as a safety net to help people in an emergency. It’s not set up to be a sustainable source of food to meet all of their grocery needs.”

While helping people get access to food in an emergency, the food pantry network also works to connect people with “more sustainable and ongoing resources like the FoodShare program,” he said.

The impending pause on FoodShare funds will compound a need that has already increased by 35% across the state in the past year, King said. “The longer the government shutdown goes on, the more strain it will put onto the emergency food system.”

Mauer of the Head Start association said two of the state’s 39 Head Start programs were to receive authorization for their next round of funding starting Nov. 1, and with them the ability to draw on their federal grants for the next several months.

So far, the authorization hasn’t been received, Mauer said. In addition, however, if the authorization is issued but the shutdown remains in effect, “there’s no money” until a budget is enacted, she added. “They need money in the coffers for [Head Start agencies] to draw down.”

The issue will repeat for programs that must reauthorize by Dec. 1 and Jan. 1 if the shutdown continues.

The remaining Head Start programs are not believed to be in peril, Mauer said, because their grants have already been funded by the previous fiscal year’s appropriations.   

The Head Start program operated by the Sheboygan Human Rights Association is one of the two awaiting its Nov. 1 reauthorization and the new round of funding that would ordinarily begin then.

“At this point, we are unsure how we will be affected,” said Theresa Christen-Liebig, the executive director of the nonprofit. The agency is using “some state funding resources to continue services until mid-November,” Christen-Liebig told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email. The agency’s board will meet next week to consider its steps for the rest of November and beyond, she said.

“The uncertainty makes the situation stressful and hard on our staff and families,” Christen-Liebig said. “We are keeping everyone updated as we try to work things out and decisions are made to continue to provide services.”

David Bintz, who was wrongly incarcerated, stands outside Mountains of Hope, the nonprofit where he finally found temporary housing after trying local shelters. | Photo courtesy Jarrett Adams Law

David and Robert Bintz’s release last fall drew attention to a Wisconsin law about compensation for people wrongly convicted of crimes. Wisconsin law allows less compensation for wrongly convicted people than many other states, unless the state passes a bill awarding additional money to a specific wrongly convicted person. 

In decisions released last week, the Wisconsin Claims Board decided the Bintz brothers, now 69 and 70, will each be awarded $25,000 and attorney fees. The board recommended an additional $1 million for each brother to the Wisconsin Legislature. Two of the board’s five members dissented from the majority’s decision on David Bintz’s compensation. 

“We are thankful for the board’s recommendation and pray that [legislators] vote to approve the recommendation in expedited fashion,” Jarrett Adams, an attorney advocating for the brothers, told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email. 

Over two decades after their convictions in a 1987 murder case, the brothers were released from prison. In April, the Examiner reported on challenges the brothers have experienced, as well as gaps in support for people who reenter society after being wrongly convicted of crimes in Wisconsin. The compensation claims that the brothers submitted included mention of medical expenses, housing needs, additional neurological testing and day-to-day needs.

“Increasing the annual cap and adding a robust layer of services would be beneficial to exonerees who are trying to reestablish themselves in their communities,” Rachel Burg, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, told the Examiner over email in March. 

The board’s decisions state that both brothers sought the maximum compensation under the statute — $25,000 — and attorney fees, as well as recommendations that the Legislature award $2 million for each brother. 

Under Wisconsin’s law, the board decides whether the evidence of the petitioner’s innocence of the crime for which they were imprisoned is “clear and convincing.” If they find the petitioner was innocent and that they did not contribute to bring about their conviction and imprisonment by action or inaction, the board decides how much money the petitioner should receive. 

A three-member majority of the board found David met the requirement about not contributing to his conviction and imprisonment. 

“Nonwithstanding any contradictory statements, David maintained his innocence and was willing to go to trial to defend his innocence,” the decision states. 

The Examiner has reported on how in his request for compensation, David Bintz argued that he was interrogated for several hours and coerced into a confession, and on Brown County District Attorney David Lasee’s disagreement with that argument. Bintz’s request also said he was intellectually disabled.

Over a quarter of 375 DNA exonerations between 1989 and 2020 were cases that involved false confessions, according to the Innocence Project. 

State Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) and state Rep. Alex Dallman (R-Markesan) disagreed with the other three board members regarding David Bintz. Both legislators are part of the finance committees in the Assembly and the Senate, respectively, and on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee. 

According to Fox 11 News, Wimberger said that “it had everything to do with the fact that David Bintz’s conviction was really his own fault and not anything the state did wrong” in reference to a conversation David had with a cellmate. David Bintz’s cellmate Gary Swendby said David talked about committing the crime in his sleep and also admitted his involvement while he was serving time for a different crime. 

“I think on the Robert Bintz side of things, there’s a lot of sympathy and perhaps there should’ve been a better investigation done,” Wimberger said.

A research project took up the question of how much money states pay exonerees per each year lost, specifically for exonerees who were paid. For Wisconsin, they found an average of $4,947 per year lost. The research was by the National Registry of Exonerations and Professor Jeffrey Gutman of the George Washington University Law School.  

Gutman analyzed wrongful convictions compensation in Wisconsin in the 2022 publication “Compensation Under the Microscope: Wisconsin,” which was updated in July 2023. 

Gutman wrote about Wisconsin exonerees wrongly convicted in state courts and  recorded by the National Registry of Exonerations, going back to 1989. Of the exonerees awarded compensation, he wrote that only one appeared to have been provided additional compensation from the Legislature following a claims board recommendation. 

In 2014, then-Gov. Scott Walker awarded an additional $90,000 to Robert Lee Stinson, after the claims board had awarded $25,000. Stinson had requested reimbursement for 23 years in prison at the rate of $5,000 per year.

Lindsey Buscher, a volunteer with the Wisconsin chapter of Moms Demand Action, said at a press conference at the state Capitol that the group’s policies reflect Wisconsin values of “responsibility, accountability and community.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin gun violence prevention advocates, including Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, laid out their legislative goals for 2025 and spoke to lawmakers about their priorities on Tuesday, including a package of bills focused on gun trafficking. 

Lindsey Buscher, a volunteer with the Wisconsin chapter of Moms Demand Action, said at a press conference at the state Capitol that the group’s policies reflect Wisconsin values of “responsibility, accountability and community.”

“We believe in a safer future for our communities — one where every Wisconsinite, no matter where they live, work, go to school or attend their place of worship, can thrive without fear of gun violence,” Buscher said. “We all know that gun violence is shattering communities across our state from Milwaukee and Madison to the small towns that make Wisconsin who we are.”

The proposals will take several actions including requiring secure storage of inventory, employee background checks and recording gun sales, closing loopholes and ensuring that all gun sales require comprehensive background checks, ensuring that law enforcement can trace weapons and “shut down trafficking rings” and stopping bulk trafficking by prohibiting multiple gun purchases within a single month.

There were 762 firearm deaths in Wisconsin in 2023, including 502 firearm suicides and 236 firearm homicides, according to a report released this year by the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) Educational Fund, the state’s leading gun violence prevention organization, and the Violence Policy Center (VPC), a national research and advocacy organization working to stop gun death and injury. 

According to the report, 84.9% of firearms recovered in Wisconsin originate in state. 

Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson), who will sponsor the measures, called on her Republican colleagues to work with her on the legislation. Draft bills will be ready for official introduction in the coming weeks she said.

“If we want to stop that gun violence we have to start at the source, and that is at the sale of those guns,” Fitzgerald said at the press conference. “Each year, tens of thousands of illegal guns are trafficked across our country, getting into the hands of criminals… We need to crack down on those few bad actors who endanger everyone else and make our communities less safe. We need to finally bring Wisconsin law in line with the views of the majority of our citizens who value safe communities.”

“We don’t have to live in fear of our loved ones getting shot and killed,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of the national Moms Demand Action. “Law enforcement, faith leaders, students, doctors, parents are all saying the same thing: enough. Enough is enough. I’m a woman of deep faith, but we can’t have just thoughts and prayers without action. That’s what we need from our lawmakers.”

Ferrell-Zabala said their “fight isn’t against the Second Amendment… We can respect responsible gun ownership in Wisconsin, as we should, while also stopping illegal gun trafficking and protecting our communities from violence.”

Other speakers at the press conference included Nessa Bleill, founder and president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison chapter of Students Demand Action and a survivor of a mass shooting at a parade in Illinois in 2022. 

After the press conference, Fitzgerald told the Wisconsin Examiner that she hasn’t spoken with her Republican colleagues about the proposals yet. Republicans currently control the state Assembly and Senate, meaning their support will be necessary to advance any bill. 

“Prior bills we’ve introduced had very little Republican support,” Fitzgerald said, adding that Democrats haven’t been able to get a public hearing on proposals either. 

Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) told the Examiner that in her experience, some of her Republican colleagues would say behind closed doors that they support some measures similar to those being proposed, but they won’t put their name on proposals publicly.

“I would say that they probably should find their backbone and do what the vast majority of Wisconsin voters want,” Andraca said. “Students are tired of being scared in their classrooms. Teachers don’t want to have to do lockdown drills. As a gun owner with my concealed carry permit, I am not worried about taking away anyone’s Second Amendment rights… We need these measures because we have too many guns in too many places, and it’s endangering our safety and all of our neighborhoods.”

Andraca said her colleagues should at least give Democratic proposals a public hearing. 

The lawmakers said the day of action, which includes advocates speaking directly to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, is helpful for ensuring that lawmakers know people want action.

“Otherwise, legislators say, ‘Oh, I never hear from anyone’,” Andraca said. “You have to keep showing up, so people know that you won’t go away, because that’s what they’re counting on.”

Fitzgerald, a freshman lawmaker, and Andraca, who is in her third term in office, were both volunteers with Moms Demand Action prior to running for office. Fitzgerald added that they are “good examples of taking advocacy and turning that into running for office” to change the makeup of the Legislature. 

“If they’re not going to react, then we need to start… holding them accountable — electing them out of office and electing people who will pass legislation to reduce gun violence,” Fitzgerald said. 

Advocates were scheduled to meet with over 50 state lawmakers, including about 30 Democrats and about 20 Republicans. Buscher said there were only a few lawmakers who weren’t in town or declined to meet and that they planned to drop off literature at their offices anyway.

While Democratic lawmakers are focused on bills that seek to prevent gun violence, Republican lawmakers are focused on proposals that would protect the Second Amendment and gun access in Wisconsin.

Republican gun proposals

Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) and Rep. Chanz Green (R-Grand View) are circulating two proposals, including a constitutional amendment. 

One bill would exempt firearms, including accessories, attachments and parts, and ammunition from the state sales tax. The bill would also exempt bows and arrows for archery and crossbows from the sales tax. 

“Taxing constitutionally protected rights can act as an effective restriction,” the bill authors wrote in a cosponsorship memo. “By reducing the tax burden on lawful firearm purchases, this bill ensures that law-abiding citizens can fully exercise their constitutional freedoms.”

Wisconsin already guarantees a right to keep and bear arms in its state Constitution, similar to over 40 other states. 

The constitutional amendment proposal, which would need to pass in two consecutive sessions and be approved by voters to become law, would add language to the state Constitution to ensure the the right of the people to keep and bear arms is without qualification, that it is “an inalienable and fundamental individual right that shall never be infringed” and that any restrictions on the right would be “subject to strict scrutiny.” 

Strict scrutiny, which is the highest standard of review a court can use, is a legal test that when applied would mean that any gun regulations would have to be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest and be the least restrictive means possible. 

Only a handful of states, including Louisiana, have changed their state constitutions to include this type of language, while others, including Kansas, have debated it.

“Do any of those bills do anything to make our community safe, to make our kids feel safe in school? Do they do anything to reduce gun violence?” Fitzgerald asked. “If they can prove that those are going to reduce gun violence, then let’s have that conversation again.”

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington. D.C., on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON —  On day 21 of the federal government shutdown, the political tensions and policy differences that contributed to it appeared likely to destroy any chance for the GOP-controlled Congress to find the bipartisanship needed to pass the dozen bills needed to fund the government. 

While that is very inside baseball, failing to approve the 12 appropriations bills will block lawmakers’ funding requests for high-profile projects in their home states, known as earmarks, from becoming law—like highway construction, water systems, education projects, research facilities and more. 

A full-year stopgap spending bill would also cause significant headaches for departments throughout the government that have faced challenges adjusting to the series of stopgaps that funded the government for the last year, even without the turmoil of the layoffs and funding cancellations enacted by the Donald Trump administration.

The full-year spending bills are also the best chance Congress has to exercise its constitutional authority over government spending and are supposed to spur debate about where taxes paid by Americans can most help the country. 

Skipping that process and avoiding tough conversations about where funding is most needed, and where it is not, absolves lawmakers of a core job responsibility — securing money to help their constituents have better lives. 

As of Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans appeared nowhere near any kind of deal to reopen the government, which has been shuttered since Oct. 1. Members of the House are not in session and last voted on Sept. 19. The Senate has voted unsuccessfully 11 times on the same House-passed stopgap spending bill, failing to gain the 60 votes needed for it to advance. 

‘Extremely harmful’ effect of another stopgap 

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she’s opposed to using what’s called a continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year instead of working out an agreement on the full-year government funding bills. 

“The impacts of another year-long CR would be extremely harmful to federal programs, particularly the Department of Defense, and should be avoided at all costs,” Collins said. 

Congress used three continuing resolutions to keep government funded during the last fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30. 

Lawmakers have relied on stopgap spending bills to fund the government for the entire fiscal year a handful of times during the past several decades. 

But Congress has not used stopgap spending bills for two consecutive years since the late 1970s, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. 

Senate Republicans lunch with Trump

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said after a lunch at the White House with President Donald Trump and other GOP senators that talks about the full-year government funding bills can only begin after the shutdown ends. 

“We want a normal appropriations process. We want to give them an opportunity to sit down and litigate some of the issues they want to talk about,” Thune said. “But that can’t happen until the government gets opened up again.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee, said a full-year continuing resolution is “absolutely” possible if the process doesn’t start moving forward soon. 

But Hoeven declined to say if he’d vote for a stopgap spending bill that voids the appropriations process for the second year in a row. And said he’s “of course” concerned about the negative impacts of a full-year continuing resolution. 

“I don’t want to get ahead of the process. What I want to do is get government open and get back to regular order,” Hoeven said. 

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and a senior appropriator, said it will take real leadership in both chambers to get any movement on the full-year bills. He also said he’s vehemently opposed to a stopgap spending bill for the entire year. 

“I think if we vote for a full-year CR, we’ve fully abdicated our responsibility, constitutionally, to be the power of the purse,” Reed said. 

South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said he “could not support a full-year CR.”

“We’ve gotten so much of the work done, and now it’s just a matter of whether or not Democrats allow us to bring them to the floor,” Rounds said, referring to the full-year Defense spending bill that failed to advance last week. 

Rounds said he thinks Democrats are struggling to figure out a way to end the government shutdown, which would potentially allow work on the full-year bills to get going again. 

“I think they made a very serious strategic error when they decided to jump on and to shut down government in the first place,” Rounds said. “And now they don’t have a graceful way out, and that’s a problem.”

Process, interrupted

Normally, by now, Republicans and Democrats would have agreed how much to spend on defense and domestic programs and divvied up that roughly $1.8 trillion to the dozen full-year government spending bills. 

The lawmakers tasked with writing those appropriations bills would have started meeting to work out spending levels and policy differences between the original House bills and the original Senate bills. 

That is all on hold because of the shutdown and may never even happen, potentially leading Republicans to write a stopgap spending bill for the rest of the year. 

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, said she wants Democrats to vote to reopen the government, so she can get back to working on her full-year appropriations bill. 

“I want to do my job, which is why I am so frustrated that we didn’t get to move forward with appropriations bills on Thursday,” Britt said, also referring to the Defense bill. “I think it was incredibly short-sighted of my Democratic colleagues to vote that down, because this is our opportunity to actually do work for the American people. And I think we should get our job done, not pass the buck.” 

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, the top Democrat on the State-Foreign Operations appropriations subcommittee, said he still has “hope for the appropriations process.”

“Obviously, we have to get through the shutdown, but there’s bipartisan desire to get something done and to avoid a full-year CR,” Schatz said, adding that it’s hard to do anything with the House out of session. 

New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee, opposes using a full-year continuing resolution over negotiating bipartisan versions of the full-year government funding bills. 

“I am concerned about a full-year CR, and I do think that we should get back to the appropriations process and get those bills done,” Shaheen said. “I think there’s interest on both sides of the aisle to do that.”

Uncharted waters

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the top Democrat on the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations subcommittee, said that GOP leaders will have to accept the regular give-and-take of bipartisan negotiations if they want to get anything through the upper chamber. 

“I think first and foremost, we have to really make sure that Speaker (Mike) Johnson recognizes that the only way forward with appropriations and other matters is a bipartisan way forward,” Baldwin said. “That’s the only way you pass things that require 60 votes in the Senate.”

Baldwin said that means both chambers should use the total spending level that received bipartisan backing in the Senate Appropriations Committee, not the lower spending level used by the House panel. 

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, was far more pessimistic than many of his colleagues.

“I think you’re living in a world that does not exist,” Murphy told States Newsroom. “I think 2025 is totally unlike every other year that has existed before. Our democracy is literally dying under our feet. The president is engaged in mass scale illegality and corruption, and nothing that we have done here in the past will be precedent for what will happen in the future. The House of Representatives has never boycotted Washington for a month-and-a-half. The majority party has never refused to negotiate with the minority party. So I think we’re in really uncharted waters, and nothing can happen until the House Republicans return and Senate Republicans decide to negotiate.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels and GOP attorney general candidate Eric Toney hold a press conference at the Milwaukee Police Association in this 2022 photo. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, a Republican, announced Tuesday he’s running for a second time to unseat Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul. 

The 41-year-old Toney has been the DA in Fond du Lac County since 2012. He ran against Kaul in 2022, losing by 35,000 votes. Kaul, a Democrat, recently announced he would be running for a third term as attorney general, ending speculation that he would run for governor after Gov. Tony Evers announced his retirement. 

In a news release, Toney said he decided to run again after having open heart surgery two years ago. 

“By the grace of God — and years of running — my heart held on,” Toney said. “That clarity led me here: if I could still make a difference for Wisconsin, I would. After seven years of broken promises and political spin in the Attorney General’s office, it’s time for change.”

In the campaign announcement, Toney said he would prioritize supporting law enforcement officers, reducing violent crime in Milwaukee and being more aggressive in prosecuting drug crimes. 

“As your Top Cop, I will stand up for every Wisconsinite, enforce the law, and bring conservative, common-sense leadership back to the DOJ,” he said. “That’s what Wisconsinites expect and deserve.”

The Wisconsin attorney general is the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the state, responsible for overseeing state law enforcement agencies, enforcing state laws as varied as water quality rules and election laws and defending state agencies in court. This year, Kaul has been especially active in joining multi-state lawsuits against Trump administration policies.

Miraya Gran and her husband took out a second mortgage and had a family fundraiser to be able to conceive their first child through in vitro fertilization in 2021. She still does not have insurance coverage for IVF, and despite having two embryos waiting to be implanted, she cannot afford the cost on her own to give her daughter a sibling. (Courtesy of Miraya Gran)

Miraya Gran is the kind of person who Republican President Donald Trump and his administration say they are going to help with new policies on in vitro fertilization.

It took a second mortgage on her Minnesota house and a family fundraiser to afford the IVF treatment she needed to have her first child in 2021. Gran’s husband has male-factor infertility, and she has a genetic blood disorder, making it extremely difficult for them to conceive on their own. But unless the cost of IVF goes down a lot, Gran can’t afford to give her daughter a sibling.

“I’ve got two embryos waiting for me, and I’m not accessing them due to lack of insurance coverage,” she said.

But Gran doesn’t have much hope left that IVF costs will drop enough after Trump’s announcement at the White House on Thursday, Oct. 16. The president said his administration negotiated steep discounts on a key fertility drug, as well as a new regulation allowing employers to offer IVF coverage as a standalone policy like dental or vision. EMD Serono, a major pharmaceutical brand, will offer the medication at an 84% discount via direct sales on a government webpage called TrumpRX, according to a company representative who spoke at the White House event.

Gran said that isn’t good enough. The drug prices are only a portion of what makes treatment expensive. One IVF cycle ranges between $12,000 and $25,000 on average but can cost more depending on medical needs. Many people require more than one round of IVF to get pregnant. 

Plus, the new policy only clears the way for employers to offer coverage options — it’s not required by the government.

“They have the ability to put the onus on insurance companies,” Gran said. “There really isn’t a solution for our community until we have insurance coverage.”  

Trump campaigned on a promise to make IVF treatment free for all, either through federal funding or insurance, but has so far not fulfilled that promise.

Dr. Eve Feinberg is an OB-GYN professor at Northwestern University, and a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist who treats IVF patients every day. She said lowering the cost of the drugs is a positive step, but that’s only about one-third of the cost of a typical IVF cycle — less in some cases.

“For some patients, the medications can go as high as half the cost,” Feinberg said. “If you have a good reserve of eggs, you require less medication. If you have a lower reserve, you’ll need more. So for some, it’s $3,000 … and for some, it’s $10,000.”

‘Restorative reproductive medicine’ not a replacement for IVF, doctor says 

Trump’s promise to make IVF free is a difficult one to fulfill not only because of the overall cost but because of divisions among conservative groups about the ethics of the treatment. IVF requires the collection of as many eggs as possible that are then fertilized. Some are later destroyed because they would not make it after implantation in the uterus due to abnormalities or other medical factors.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that embryos have the same legal rights as children, which threw the medical community into chaos and caused some Alabama IVF clinics to close. Later that year, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted an anti-IVF resolution stating the church’s opposition to the practice.

The ruling happened just as Latorya Beasley was waiting on a transfer date for the embryo she hoped would be her second child. Her clinic temporarily canceled appointments but eventually reopened, and she was able to have a second child. Beasley had IVF insurance through her employer, which only about 25% of companies with more than 200 employees offer nationwide, according to KFF. But there were still out-of-pocket costs.

“There was a point where we ran out of medicine for like one day, and we paid $1,000 out of pocket for that,” Beasley said. “And that was with insurance coverage.”

Feinberg said she was also worried about the aspects of the announcement that talked about “restorative reproductive medicine,” which is a newer field of medicine not recognized by the same medical boards guiding reproductive endocrinology. The practice has been promoted by the Heritage Foundation — a conservative advocacy organization that authored Project 2025 — as the “new frontier” of reproductive medicine.

“There were certain things said in the briefing that made me think the idea of fertility coverage, especially for companies whose beliefs and ideas are religiously focused and religiously based, that may mean offering restorative reproductive medicine and not offering IVF,” she said.

The restorative practice focuses on cycle tracking to conceive, as well as weight loss and nutrition. Feinberg said she had a patient who had been using those methods for four years with no success, and she was 43 by the time a reproductive specialist told her that her husband had such a low sperm count, there was no way they could conceive without medical intervention.

“He had a genetic mutation that the restorative reproductive medicine person was not trained to ever diagnose,” she said. “They could have and should have done IVF.”

Gran and Beasley said if the Trump administration put forward plans that made a real difference for families in need of IVF, they would be the first to celebrate it. But until then, the lack of action is frustrating.

“It just feels like I’m being sold a complete line from a traveling salesman, because until there’s actual substantiated change, I have no faith in what they say,” Gran said.

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Education Department is looking to move the $15 billion Individuals with Disabilities Education Act program outside of the agency, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. 

In a statement to States Newsroom, department spokesperson Madi Biedermann did not explicitly confirm the report, but said the department is generally looking for ways to move its operations to other agencies. President Donald Trump has pledged to eliminate the Education Department.

The agency “is exploring additional partnerships with federal agencies to support special education programs without any interruption or impact on students with disabilities, but no agreement has been signed,” Biedermann wrote. 

Biedermann said Education Secretary Linda McMahon “has been very clear that her goal is to put herself out of a job by shutting down the Department of Education and returning education to the states” and that McMahon is “fully committed to protecting the federal funding streams that support our nation’s students with disabilities.”

Trump’s administration moved to lay off 465 department employees, including 121 at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, earlier this month amid the ongoing government shutdown.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the layoffs, but the ruling provides only short-term relief as legal proceedings unfold. 

The department’s many responsibilities include guaranteeing a free public education for students with disabilities through IDEA.

Trump has already suggested rehousing special education services under the Department of Health and Human Services. 

HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on social media in March that the agency is “fully prepared” to take on that responsibility.

Fully transferring responsibility for IDEA would require an act of Congress — a significant undertaking given that at least 60 votes are needed to break a Senate filibuster and Republicans hold just 53 seats.

An Oakland, Calif., grocery store displays a sign notifying shoppers that it accepts electronic benefit transfer cards used by state welfare departments to issue food assistance benefits. States are just beginning to implement changes to work requirements for the national food stamp program approved by Congress and President Donald Trump this summer. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

States are rushing to inform some residents who rely on food stamps that they will soon be forced to meet work requirements or lose their food assistance.

Recent federal legislation ended exemptions to work requirements for older adults, homeless people, veterans and some rural residents, among others. A rapid timeline to put the changes into effect has sparked chaos in state agencies that must cut off access if residents don’t meet certain work, education or volunteer reporting requirements.

States are implementing these permanent changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly called food stamps — amid the uncertainty of the federal government shutdown. The budget impasse could result in millions of Americans not getting their SNAP benefits next month if money runs out. But even before the shutdown, states were assessing the new work rules for food stamps — the first in a wave of cutbacks to the nation’s largest food assistance program required under President Donald Trump’s major tax and spending law enacted in July.

Known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the law mandates cuts to social service programs, including Medicaid and food stamps. In the coming years, the law will require states to pay a greater share of administering SNAP and could cause millions of Americans to lose benefits.

But states are currently confronting the end of exceptions to work requirements for older adults, homeless people, veterans and those recently living in foster care. Those could threaten benefits even for people who are working but who may struggle with the paperwork to prove they’re meeting the requirements, advocates say.

Under the new law, states have also lost funding for nutrition education programs, must end eligibility for noncitizens such as refugees and asylees, and will lose work requirement waivers for those living in areas with limited employment opportunities.

And the federal government wants those changes made quickly.

“They’ve given us a virtually nonexistent window — I’ll just describe it that way — in which to implement the changes, so we are working on them very quickly,” Andrea Barton Reeves, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Social Services, told lawmakers last week.

She said changing work requirements could threaten the benefits of tens of thousands of people in Connecticut.

“We do believe that if we cannot in some way either move them into another exemption category or they don’t meet the requirements, we have about 36,000 people in these new categories that are at risk of losing their SNAP benefit,” Barton Reeves told lawmakers.

The federal government issued guidance to states earlier this month saying several key changes to food stamps would need to be implemented by early November.

The Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit working to address poverty-related hunger, characterized that deadline as an “unreasonable” timeline for states.

In California, for example, the state previously had been approved for a waiver to work requirements through January 2026. But this month, USDA told states they had 30 days to terminate waivers issued under the previous guidelines. In California, the end of that waiver could affect benefits for an estimated 359,000 people.

Gina Plata-Nino, interim SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center, said states must quickly train their social services workers on eligibility changes, communicate those changes to the public and deal with an onslaught of calls from people relying on the program.

“It’s incredibly complex,” she said.

Plata-Nino said implementation will be uneven: Some states are already in compliance with the changes, while others will phase them in as households go through regular eligibility reviews.

USDA and the White House did not respond to Stateline’s questions about the changes.

Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, have said the cuts would eliminate waste in the food assistance program. In a June news release, he characterized SNAP as a “bloated, inefficient program,” but said Americans who needed food assistance would still receive it.

“Democrats will scream ‘cuts,’ but what they’re really defending is a wasteful program that discourages work, mismanages billions, and traps people in dependency. Republicans are proud to defend commonsense welfare reform, fiscal sanity, and the dignity of work,” Johnson said in the release.

Rural residents

Changes to work requirements will prove especially burdensome for rural residents, who already disproportionately rely on SNAP. Job opportunities and transportation are often limited in rural areas, making work requirements especially difficult, according to Plata-Nino.

“None of these bills came with a job offer,” Plata-Nino said. “None of them came with additional funding to address the lack of transportation. Remote and rural areas don’t have public transportation — they don’t even have taxis or Ubers.”

With waivers, states previously could show USDA evidence that certain areas had limited job opportunities, thus exempting people from work requirements.

“Because it doesn’t make sense to punish SNAP participants for not being able to find a job when there are no jobs available, right?” said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the left-leaning Brookings Institution and the associate director of The Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative.

The legislation changed the criteria for proving weak labor markets to what Bauer characterized as an “utterly insane standard,” of showing unemployment rates above 10%. (The national unemployment rate was 4.3% in August, according to the most recently released figures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

“The national economy during the Great Recession hit 10% in one month,” Bauer said. “Ten percent unemployment is a very, very high level. So they set this standard basically to end the waiver process.”

That change will not only affect recipients now but also will drastically impair the program’s ability to respond to recessions: Traditionally, SNAP has quickly helped people who lose their jobs. But the new law requires states to cover more costs, meaning they will be stretched even thinner during economic downturns when demand increases.

“Not only are these changes difficult to implement — and certainly at the speed that the administration is asking for — they could be devastating to the program, to residents who are in need in their states, and eventually SNAP may no longer be a national program because states will not be able to afford to participate,” Bauer said.

‘Widespread confusion’

Since July, Pennsylvania officials have been working to not only inform the public about the federal changes, but also to update information technology systems — a process that generally takes a minimum of 12 months.

“Strictly speaking from an IT perspective, we’re talking about massive systems that generate terabytes of data and are working with records for hundreds of thousands — and in the case of Pennsylvania, 2 million people,” said Hoa Pham, deputy secretary of the Office of Income Maintenance for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

Pham said the timing of the federal legislation and lagging guidance from USDA was “simply not ideal.” But the state is doing its best to train thousands of employees on the changes and help affected recipients get into compliance by finding work, education or volunteer opportunities that meet federal guidelines.

The end of geographic waivers put the benefits of about 132,000 SNAP recipients at risk in Pennsylvania.

“It is difficult, it requires time, it requires planning, it requires money,” she told Stateline. “And I want to be super clear that H.R. 1 [the new law] delivered a ton of unfunded mandates to state agencies.”

Pennsylvania created a detailed webpage outlining the changes and will notify individuals if their eligibility is jeopardized in the coming months. Pham said those who depend on SNAP should make sure their contact information is up to date with both the department and the post office.

“As a state agency, we’re working very hard to make sure that people have accurate, factual information when it is most immediately necessary for them to know it,” she said.

States are implementing the SNAP changes even as the ongoing federal government shutdown might temporarily cost recipients their benefits.

New Hampshire leaders say they are days away from running out of food stamp funds. No new applications will be approved in Minnesota until the government is reopened, officials announced last week.

And the changes hit agencies already strained from staffing shortages and outdated software, said Brittany Christenson, the CEO of AidKit, a vendor that helps states administer SNAP and other public benefits.

“The result is widespread confusion among both administrators and beneficiaries, as states are tasked with integrating new compliance requirements while maintaining service continuity.

“The changes not only increase workloads for states, but they can lead to more errors and longer wait time or applicants,” Christenson said.

“Beneficiaries face a heightened risk of losing aid not because they are unwilling to work, but because they cannot meet new documentation or compliance requirements on time,” she said.

Slow trickle of changes

In Maine, the new work requirement rules are in place, but recipients have some time to meet the altered guidelines, the Portland Press Herald reported. The state estimates changes to work requirements could affect more than 40,000 recipients as soon as this fall.

The state’s Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to Stateline requests for comment. But advocates said food banks are already struggling to keep up with increased demand and decreased supply because of the high cost of food.

“They’re seeing huge increases in families and individuals showing up, needing groceries, needing food every month, some every week, and that’s before any of these cuts to SNAP have happened. So we’re really, we’re very worried,” said Anna Korsen, deputy director of Full Plates Full Potential, a nonprofit focused on ending childhood hunger in Maine.

More than 70% of Maine households receiving SNAP have at least one person working, Korsen said. While some recipients — including those who are caretakers for relatives — cannot work, many more who are employed will struggle to meet documentation requirements.

“They call them work requirements, but we’ve started calling them work reporting requirements, because we think that’s a more accurate way to portray what they are,” she said.

Alex Carter, policy advocate at the nonprofit legal aid organization Maine Equal Justice, said SNAP recipients will be affected on a rolling basis because of regular six-month eligibility reviews. For example, a 59-year-old who previously would have been exempt from the work requirement may not be notified until next month that their eligibility status is in jeopardy.

“So people are not going to be losing their benefits this month because of those changes, which I think is the thing that is hard to explain to people,” she said. “These things are happening, but we can’t tell people this will happen to you in October or this will happen to you in January. It’s different on a case-by-case basis.”

Carter said her organization is urging Mainers to ensure their contact information is correct with the state and to remain vigilant for official communications on SNAP.

While states are forced to implement the federal changes, Carter said they should emphasize they’re only the messengers. She said Congress and the president should be held responsible for the fallout when people begin losing benefits.

‘It’s very natural to think this is a state decision, or this is a departmental decision, and to direct your anger and your frustration there,” she said. “ … In this case, this is not a state decision. They are required by federal law to implement these work reporting changes.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

The Supreme Court on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

Every state with either a Democratic governor, attorney general or both signed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to side with Illinois and Chicago to continue blocking President Donald Trump’s proposed deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.

In an amicus brief filed Monday in the Trump administration’s appeal to overturn lower courts’ rulings that Trump lacks the legal authority to send troops to Chicago, 24 Democratic officials argued that restraining presidential power to mobilize National Guard troops was an essential constitutional safeguard.

“The President has asserted a boundless power far out of step with our Nation’s laws and tradition: the power to federalize and deploy unlimited numbers of National Guard troops at his whim and without any judicial review,” they wrote. “This Court should not endorse such a power.”

State National Guard units are generally under the control of the state’s governor. Federal law does allow the president to federalize state National Guard units in rare cases of invasion, insurrection or when the state is unable to enforce federal laws. 

The Trump administration has argued that circumstances in Chicago constitute both the threat of an insurrection and the inability of local police to enforce federal law.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have argued that lower courts correctly decided that those circumstances were not met in Chicago and Trump may therefore not deploy troops to the city.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown and Washington state Attorney General Nicholas W. Brown led the brief. 

Attorneys general in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia also signed on, as did the governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat whose state led its own lawsuit against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, filed a separate amicus brief Monday.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Tussle over Chicago

The case stems from Trump’s order to federalize Illinois National Guard troops and deploy them to Chicago. 

Trump has said the move is needed to control crime that threatens federal personnel and buildings. Pritzker and Johnson, as well as the state officials in Monday’s brief, say the use of military forces to respond to routine crime is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution’s balance of powers.

The states, even where Trump has not threatened to send troops, are in danger of losing the power granted to them by the Constitution, the officials wrote. 

“President Trump’s invocation of 10 U.S.C. § 12406 to deploy armed, federalized National Guard soldiers and entangle them in everyday civilian law enforcement activities like responding to small-scale protests—over the objection of Illinois’s Governor—is a stunning break from law and tradition,” they wrote, referring to the law outlining the conditions under which a president may federalize a state National Guard.

High court appeal

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the Trump administration emergency motion for a stay Friday. He argued that an injunction from Illinois federal court on Oct. 7 wrongfully decided the scope of the president’s power to control National Guard units.

Sauer argued for a broader interpretation of Trump’s authority, saying the president alone could determine if the conditions for federalizing National Guard units had been met.

“The district court’s injunction impermissibly substitutes the court’s own judgment for the President’s on military matters and rests on a construction of Section 12406 that would render the statute a virtual nullity,” Sauer wrote in the Oct. 17 motion. “The injunction improperly impinges on the President’s authority.”

The Democratic officials on Monday called the assertion of such authority an overreach of presidential power.

“Allowing the President to commandeer state National Guards and use them at his whim would fundamentally upset the balance of power between States and the federal government,” they wrote. “This Court should decline Defendants’ invitation to take such an unprecedented and drastic step.”

Images depicting Dodge County deputies transporting ICE detainees to Broadview, Illinois. (Photo courtesy of Unraveled)

The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin has been sending deputies into Illinois to transport migrants to and from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in suburban Chicago at the center of the Trump administration’s clash with Illinois officials and activists. 

For more than two decades, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has had a contract with the U.S. Marshal’s Service to hold federal detainees in the county jail. As part of that contract, which budget documents show provided the county with more than $6 million last year, the sheriff’s office regularly holds migrant detainees for ICE and transports federal detainees of all sorts. 

“We house federal inmates/detainees as part of our agreement with the U.S. Marshal Service.  We also transport to and from various facilities as part of our agreement. The federal government reimburses us for transportation. ICE is a rider on the agreement,” Sheriff Dale Schmidt told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email. “It is a simple, non-political arrangement we have had for 20+ years under all previous administrations during this contract (Including President Obama and President Biden).” 

But critics say that this year the arrangement has become more political because of President Donald Trump’s increased immigration enforcement and ICE’s escalation of tactics in both its efforts to capture people without legal documentation, and its confrontations with protesters.

“For two decades or more, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has obtained a steady stream of revenue from ICE for transporting and jailing persons in immigration detention,” Tim Muth, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin said in an emailed statement. “That practice continues. We regret that the sheriff declines to terminate his contract with ICE, a rogue federal agency that is increasingly violating the rights of persons it seizes from our communities, racially profiling and separating families, and landing some of them in the jail which the sheriff operates.”

Advocates and attorneys for immigrants say that ICE has been frequently moving detainees between detention centers as part of a “shell game” in an effort to keep them hidden from their lawyers and family. 

“I don’t even know where to begin,” said immigration attorney Marc Christopher, describing unprecedented difficulties he’s experienced attempting to locate and represent clients under the second Trump administration. Under previous administrations, Christopher said, clients were relatively easy to locate and communicate with, and the attorney felt he had a good relationship with staff at facilities like the Dodge County Jail. 

Now in nearly 70% of cases, Christopher told the Wisconsin Examiner, clients are “being shipped off to different facilities in many different locations…I’ve had clients sent to Indiana, Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, all different locations.” 

In one case, coordinating a telephone conference with a client who’d been detained in a private out-of-state facility required a three day set-up process for a video call with poor audio quality that lasted just 20 minutes, Christopher said. 

Another change he’s seen is that detainees in Wisconsin who are taken to Dodge County are given court dates in Chicago. 

“I had it where I’ve traveled to Dodge County after checking to see if my client’s there, only to drive all the way there to find out that that morning they were moved to a different facility,” said Christopher. 

The Broadview ICE detention center in a suburb of Chicago has drawn regular protests for months. The presence of Dodge County Sheriff’s deputies at the Broadview facility were first reported by the independent media outlet Unraveled.

The federal response to those protests has frequently escalated into violence and those escalations have been used as justification for Trump’s attempt to deploy troops from the Texas National Guard to the Chicago area. 

Illinois state laws restrict ICE cooperation with local law enforcement and prevent the long term detention of migrants in Illinois. Because of that prohibition, ICE has moved detainees from Illinois to facilities in nearby Indiana and Wisconsin. 

Schmidt did not respond to questions from the Wisconsin Examiner about how frequently his deputies have driven detainees in and out of Broadview under Trump, but the department’s 2024 annual report shows sheriff’s office personnel made 302 trips at the request of ICE last year. 

Dodge County is reimbursed for its trips to Illinois. The journey from Juneau to Broadview is a five-hour round trip. State Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), whose district covers part of Dodge County, says expending county resources to help ICE doesn’t keep the community safe and amounts to participating in the administration’s “cruelty.” 

“Local law enforcement does not have to take on federal immigration enforcement duties. When they do, it risks discouraging victims and witnesses from coming forward — making all of us less safe,” Ratcliff said in a statement. “Our local resources should not be diverted from protecting our local communities. Further, there are serious concerns about inhumane conditions at ICE detention centers. There are also troubling political shell games being played in which detainees are transferred from facility to facility — sometimes across state lines — making it difficult for attorneys and families to locate them or ensure they receive due process. That is not justice; that is cruelty disguised as policy and it’s unconstitutional. Wisconsin’s strength lies in our welcoming communities and our commitment to fairness, dignity, and safety for all. I urge our local leaders to prioritize community trust, transparency, and compassion in every action they take.”

“You used to be able to call Dodge, set something up for the next day, spend two-three hours talking,” Christopher said.  “Now I have to fight and find out where they are, try to schedule a time to speak with them. And the family is sitting on pins and needles. They have no idea where their loved one is. They have no idea what’s going on. I’m spending all my time not trying to analyze their case, but simply to find out where they are and try to arrange a time to chat with them. It’s horrible.””

Under the current administration, critics say, transporting ICE detainees is direct participation in an effort to deny due process and avoid transparency. 

“I think there’s a concerning pattern of more local law enforcement being brought in to play an immigration enforcement role as part of the machinery of mass deportations,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera. Local departments are paid to transport immigrants for ICE, “as in Dodge most recently, in Brown County as well and Sauk,” she said, and also receive significant federal money for sharing information on immigrants in their custody through 287g agreements.

Neumann-Ortiz pointed to the 287g agreement sought by the Palmyra Police Department, which is still pending. The 287g program involves local law enforcement agreeing to aid ICE in arresting undocumented migrants or holding them in jail until ICE can pick them up.

“There’s real concern about it,” said Neumann-Ortiz. “They’re really trading off public safety and building trust in a diverse community to take this money. That is particularly alarming when you see what’s happening with ICE, and Customs, and Border Patrol and how they’re operating…They are operating as a militarized operation with masks, with guns, and they are profiling people and physically assaulting people violently, and really trampling over people’s due process rights.” 

“Under that threat which is terrorizing communities,” she added, “why in the world would local law enforcement want to partner with that?”

This article has been edited to correct the name of attorney Marc Christopher. 

An F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft assigned to the 366th Fighter Wing sits on the flightline at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho on March 5, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Senior Airman Trevor Bell/U.S. Air Force)

Saying they were given no advance notice of the announcement, Idaho’s governor and members of Congress have requested a briefing from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth regarding his recent announcement about training Qatari Air Force personnel at Idaho’s Mountain Home Air Force Base.

In televised remarks made Oct. 10, Hegseth said, “Today we are announcing that we are signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.”

Later that same day, Hegseth posted on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, a clarification writing, “Qatar will not have their own base in the United States – nor anything like a base.”

Records show Idaho Gov. Little, Sen. Risch weren’t aware Qatar facility announcement was coming

Records obtained under the Idaho Public Records Act by the Idaho Capital Sun show that several elected state and federal leaders in Idaho, including Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Gov. Brad Little were caught completely off guard by Hegseth’s announcement and had no idea it was coming. 

Then on Thursday, Risch, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson and Little, all R-Idaho, wrote a joint letter to Hegseth asking for a briefing on the announcement and answers to several questions. 

“Like many foreign military sale agreements to allies, the plans to sell F-15QAs to Qatar have been in the process for years,” Crapo, Little, Risch and Simpson wrote in the letter. “However, we were given no advance notice that this agreement had been finalized or that it was going to be formally announced. While Qatar, as a long-time U.S. ally, provides substantial support to the U.S. military in the Middle East, such as allowing a U.S. base hosting thousands of U.S.-ready-to-fight-warriors, it is understandable that Qatar’s history of funding Iran-backed terrorist groups like Hamas and the extremism espoused by Qatari-based Al Jazeera has raised concerns among Idahoans.”

Idaho elected officials raise several questions in letter to Hegseth

The Idaho Republican leaders identified several questions for Hegseth about cost and security concerns, including:

• Given the technological capabilities of the Mountain Home AFB range complex, what measures will be implemented to safeguard against any compromise to our national security?
• What screening, intelligence, or vetting processes are in place to ensure no trainees have ties to hostile or extremist organizations?
• Are there any specific security concerns for the surrounding communities and for U.S. military personnel stationed at Mountain Home AFB?
• Is there a long-term plan to convert Mountain Home AFB into a multi-national training facility for foreign allies?
• How many Qatari personnel will be involved in the training mission?
• How long will they be deployed to Idaho?
• Will families be allowed to accompany Qatari personnel, and what restrictions, if any, will be placed on their travel?
• Is there a cost to American taxpayers to house, train, and feed the foreign military personnel covered by this agreement?

“In the interest of informing our constituents, maintaining open lines of communication, and fostering closer federal and state collaboration regarding this training squadron, we would like the department to provide more information about the plans and intentions of this mission now that it appears to be finalized,” Crapo, Little, Risch and Simpson wrote to Hegseth. “We request that you provide a briefing to the Idaho Congressional Delegation, as well as for the governor of Idaho and state legislators potentially impacted by the agreement, in Boise on the details of this agreement.”

Idaho’s fourth member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, did not sign the letter to Hegseth, but also requested a briefing on the announcement. In a letter to a group of Idaho legislators who call themselves the Gang of Eight, Fulcher wrote that he also requested a briefing from Hegseth, and that Hegseth’s office promised a response. 

“Since the Oct. 10 announcement by Sec. Hegseth, I have been in touch with various federal sources to learn as much detail as possible,” Fulcher wrote in the letter to Idaho legislators. “In addition, I have reached out directly to (Hegseth), expressing my disappointment with the lack of communication and to request a briefing. The secretary’s office has acknowledged receipt and pledged a response.”

Risch issued a press release announcing the joint letter to Hegseth and released the text of their letter to Hegseth. 

Trump has announced that he is changing the title of the Department of Defense to the Department of War and changing Hegseth’s title to Secretary of War, but the name change requires Congressional approval to become permanent. 

Hegseth worked as a host on Fox News prior to being appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as secretary of defense.

Voting carrels set up at Madison's Hawthorne Library on Election Day 2022. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Department of Justice on Monday filed an appeal of a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge’s decision to require that state election officials conduct an intensive search for registered voters who aren’t citizens. 

Judge Michael Maxwell’s Oct. 6 ruling required that the Wisconsin Elections Commission cross reference its voter registration list against the state Department of Transportation’s records to determine people’s citizenship status when they applied for a driver’s license or state ID. He also ordered that WEC and local election clerks stop accepting new voter registrations without obtaining proof of citizenship — though that portion of the ruling was put on hold pending the appeal. 

Under current law, people registering to vote must affirm they are U.S. citizens but are not required to provide proof. However, lying about citizenship status while registering to vote is a crime. 

Fears of non-citizen voting have frequently been raised by Republicans in recent years who, since 2020, have expressed  skepticism of election administration. The initial Waukesha County lawsuit was brought by a pair of right-wing election conspiracy theorists. 

While claims of non-citizen voting revolve around the threat that the issue could swing an election result and occasionally cases are found and prosecuted, there is no evidence that non-citizens vote in substantial enough numbers to influence election results in Wisconsin or anywhere across the country. 

In the appeal, filed in the Madison-based District IV, the DOJ argued that the ruling “reshapes Wisconsin election law” while leaving many details vague and potentially violating other laws. 

“The circuit court’s decision and order drastically alters voter registration and elections in Wisconsin, violates state law, and threatens voting rights,” the appeal states.

Lead by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, the filing states that Maxwell’s requirement to match data with Department of Transportation records would be based on data that’s up to eight years old, which could result in the disenfranchisement of people who were legal residents when they applied for their driver’s license but have since become citizens with the right to vote. 

The appeal also argues that Maxwell’s ruling orders local election officials to change their practices even though they weren’t a party to the lawsuit and does not outline what “proof of citizenship” election officials should use to register people to vote. 

“The court issued this sweeping relief despite no evidence of injury to Respondents: they speculated about the risk of vote dilution by illegal voters, but provided no evidence that a noncitizen had voted or registered to vote in Wisconsin,” the appeal states.

Protesters hold signs opposing the Supreme Courts draft ruling on Roe vs. Wade on May 14, 2022, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Angela Major / WPR)

This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Watch.

A new Republican bill that would exempt certain life-saving medical procedures from falling under the definition of “abortion” is drawing criticism from medical professionals despite being described by its authors as an attempt to protect reproductive health care.

Under the bill, introduced on Friday, medical procedures “designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant woman and not designed or intended to kill the unborn child” would not fall under Wisconsin’s abortion definition. They would also not be subject to state laws prohibiting funding for “abortion-related activities” and Wisconsin’s ban on abortion past 20 weeks.

The bill, authored by Rep. Joy Goeben, R-Hobart, and Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, specifically exempts early inductions or cesarean sections performed in cases of ectopic, anembryonic or molar pregnancies from being considered abortion so long as the physician conducting them makes “reasonable medical efforts” to save both parent and unborn child from harm.

Moreover, the bill would change the definition of “unborn child” in Wisconsin statute from “a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive” to “a human being from the time of fertilization until birth.”

OBGYN Carley Zeal, a representative for the Wisconsin Medical Society and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said “unborn child” is not a medically recognized term because doctors don’t confer personhood to a fertilized egg or fetus. Legal expert Howard Schweber told Wisconsin Watch he doesn’t expect changing the definition of “unborn child” to begin at fertilization will have a meaningful impact.

Abortion as a political issue hits deep in the heart of Wisconsin, where Marquette Law School polls since 2020 show 64% of all voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Democrats have campaigned in support of eliminating restrictions on abortion, while Republicans, who in 2015 passed the state’s current ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy, have sought to increase restrictions on, penalize or ban abortion completely.

The bill follows multiple successive changes to Wisconsin’s abortion law since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and returned the issue of abortion to individual states — leaving Wisconsin scrambling to put together a consistent abortion policy.

The new GOP bill also seems to nod toward several high-profile national incidents of patients dying from being denied reproductive care in states with restrictive abortion bans, even when the bans include exceptions for abortion care if a patient’s life is in danger.

One  National Institutes of Health study found that after Texas’s abortion ban was passed, maternal morbidity during the gestational period doubled from the time before the law despite it having a medical emergency clause.

Goeben and Quinn stated in a memorandum that their bill seeks to “counter misinformation spread by bad actors” about doctors not performing needed medical care for fear of being criminalized under abortion statutes. Goeben told Wisconsin Watch she consulted with physicians about the bill and believes it will reassure them of their ability to provide this care.

“A doctor may at all times, no matter where the state is at on the abortion issue, feel very confident in providing the health care that women need in these very challenging situations that women face,” Goeben said.

Medical and legal experts weigh in

Both Zeal and Sheboygan OBGYN Leslie Abitz, a member of both the state medical society, the Committee to Protect Healthcare and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said they oppose the bill.

They argue it is an attempt by the Wisconsin Legislature to use “emotionally charged, ideologically driven, non-medical terms” to “interfere with the patient-physician relationship” in medical care.

“The stated goal of the bill — to distinguish between medical procedures from abortion — is misleading because it suggests that abortion care is not an essential part of comprehensive health care,” Abitz said.

“A woman is putting her health and her life at risk every time she chooses to carry a pregnancy, and so she shouldn’t be mandated to put her life at risk.”

Schweber views the bill differently. While a clause in Wisconsin’s 20-week abortion ban statutes already exempts abortions performed for the “life or health of the mother,” he believes Goeben and Quinn’s bill could make hospitals and insurance companies more comfortable with authorizing lifesaving reproductive health care procedures.

“Insurance companies and hospitals or doctors, in order to err on the side of safety, will tell the doctors not to perform a procedure that is medically needed and, in fact, properly legal,” Schweber said. “(This) law is trying to prevent a chilling effect on legal medical procedures.”

Though the bill is not yet formally introduced, the Society of Family Planning, an international nonprofit composed of physicians, nurses and public health practitioners specializing in abortion and contraception science, opposes it.

“The narrative that exceptions to an abortion ban — or redefining what abortion care is — can mitigate the harm of restrictive policies is based in ideology, not evidence,” Executive Director Amanda Dennis said in a statement.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has not yet taken a position on the bill, but told Wisconsin Watch that state medical emergency clauses “do not offer adequate protection for the myriad (of) pregnancy complications people experience, resulting in substantial harm to patients” in the case of an abortion ban.

Political reaction to the bill

Prominent Democratic lawmakers, such as gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, have criticized the proposed bill as part of a series of moves by anti-abortion politicians to distance themselves from the “deadly” consequences of abortion bans.

“The way that you protect people from legal jeopardy is by not criminalizing health care,” Roys said. “Goeben’s bill just shows how deadly and dangerous criminalizing abortion bans are. It’s an acknowledgement of the truth, which is that abortion bans kill women.”

Goeben said she is surprised by the opposition because her bill on its own does not introduce any additional penalties to abortion.

“These are the issues that the other side of the aisle has talked about, saying, ‘oh, the poor women that can’t get health care!’” Goeben said. “So I thought honestly that this would be supported by everybody, if we are really concerned about the health care of women.”

She said she would also be open to discussing amendments to the bill, which would include exemptions for abortions performed because of other medical complications such as preeclampsia or maternal sepsis.

Anti-abortion organizations Wisconsin Right to Life, Pro-Life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Wisconsin Family Action have endorsed the proposal.

A similar bill by Quinn prior to the Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidating Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban in July died in the Senate last year. Even if the new bill is to pass through the Legislature, Gov. Tony Evers plans to veto it, spokesperson Britt Cudaback told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Looming gubernatorial, attorney general and legislative races in 2026 could decide the future of abortion laws and enforcement in the state. New legislative maps and a national midterm environment that historically has favored the party out of power in the White House gives Democrats their best chance to win control of the Legislature since 2010.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the GOP frontrunner for governor, previously supported a bill planning to ban abortion after six weeks, though he has rolled back that position in recent media appearances and deleted all mention of abortion from his website.

Schweber said Wisconsin’s newly liberal majority Supreme Court will decide the future of abortion in the state. The justices must answer the cases being brought to them on whether the  state constitution guarantees a right to an abortion.

“Just because the U.S. Constitution does not secure a right to abortion does not mean that Wisconsin or Ohio or Texas constitutionally doesn’t have that right,” he said. “Each state supreme court now has to decide this profound question.”

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Following the April state Supreme Court loss, Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming launched an effort to examine what went wrong led by state Treasurer John Leiber. Schimming, Brad Schimel, Milwaukee pastor Marty Calderon and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney pictured answer questions from the press in February 2025. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Kelly Ruh resigned from her position as treasurer of the Republican Party of Wisconsin over the weekend, saying that she can “no longer meaningfully contribute” to the party’s leadership given current circumstances.

Ruh, who worked for the party for about a decade, said there is an “absence of a strategic plan, defined objectives, measurable outcomes” alongside budgetary issues. 

“As the saying goes ‘what gets measured gets done.’ Unfortunately, without metrics or accountability, it is unclear what we are working toward or what our capacity is to achieve our objective,” Ruh wrote. “Moreover, the internal dynamics of RPW, particularly the dysfunctional leadership, have made attempts at collaboration increasingly difficult, unproductive and discouraging. The lack of transparency, direction and respect for differing opinions — or even basic board oversight — has fostered a culture that is not only ineffective but also absurd.”

Ruh’s departure comes in a year when the state party has faced calls for changes after tough statewide losses, including in the race for state superintendent and the spring state Supreme Court race where the party’s endorsed candidate lost by 10 percentage points — a result that locked in a liberal majority at least through 2028.

Following the April losses, Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming launched an effort to examine what went wrong led by state Treasurer John Leiber, who is the only Republican to hold a statewide office in Wisconsin. 

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the results of the effort included recommended  goals for the party including expanding the out-of-state donor network, encouraging direct donations to candidates and the party, ensuring that third-party groups reinforce candidate and party messaging, hiring an in-house opposition researcher and supplying county parties with talking points. 

“It pains me that the Republican Party of Wisconsin continues to repeat the same mistakes time and again,” Ruh wrote in her resignation letter dated Oct. 19. “Recent election results in Wisconsin are clear — if RPW does not drastically change its approach to everything (leadership, fundraising, messaging, organizing, addressing issues that Wisconsinites care about) then it will play no role in deciding our future.” 

Wisconsin has another slate of crucial elections on deck for 2026 including an open race for governor and lieutenant governor, another state Supreme Court race and elections for the state Senate and Assembly where control will be up for grabs.  

“My sincere hope is that those who remain in positions of authority will institute the critical changes that must be made to our party,” Ruh said. 

Schimming, who was first elected to serve as the state party’s chair in 2022 and won another term in December, thanked Ruh for her service in a statement to WisPolitics without addressing the charges in her letter. He said the party wishes her “the best of luck in her future endeavors.” 

Ruh’s letter was posted to social media Monday by Brett Galaszewski, who serves as fifth Congressional district vice chairman for the state party as well as the vice chair for the Republican Party of Milwaukee County and the national enterprise director for Turning Point Action. He called for the party to heed Ruh’s warnings. 

“Ideologically, Kelly and I didn’t always align. I’m further to the right and we both knew it. But we had real conversations about reforming the movement,” Galaszewski said. “When even voices from the old guard start saying the quiet part out loud, it should be a wake up call for everyone.”