Planes line up on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport on Nov. 10, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The record 43-day government shutdown that ended Wednesday night scrambled air travel, interrupted food assistance and forced federal workers to go without a paycheck for weeks.

It also cost the U.S. economy about $15 billion per week, White House Council of Economic Advisers Director Kevin Hassett told reporters Thursday.  

As the government began to reopen Thursday, officials were working to untangle those issues and others.

But in some areas, the processes for getting things back to normal after such a lengthy shutdown will also take time. 

President Donald Trump on Wednesday night signed a package passed by Congress reopening the government, which closed on Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass a stopgap spending bill.

Flights back on schedule by Thanksgiving?

The Federal Aviation Administration’s shutdown plan, announced last week by Administrator Bryan Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, was to reduce flights to 40 major airports by 10%. 

As of Thursday afternoon, the FAA had not lifted the order restricting flights. But the agency did stop ramping up the percentage of those affected. 

The FAA started by asking airlines to cancel 4% of flights Nov. 7. A Wednesday order halted the rate at 6%.

That was enough to cause major disruptions to travel, and it remained unclear Thursday how long it would take to resume normal operations. 

In a statement, Airlines for America, the trade group representing the nation’s commercial air carriers, welcomed the end of the shutdown but was vague about how much longer air travelers would see disruptions. The statement noted the upcoming holiday as a possible milestone. 

“When the FAA gives airlines clearance to return to full capacity, our crews will work quickly to ramp up operations especially with Thanksgiving holiday travel beginning next week,” the group’s statement said. 

The FAA and Transportation Department did not return messages seeking updates Thursday.

The reduction in flights was meant to ease pressure on air traffic controllers, who worked through the shutdown without pay. 

Many missed work as they pursued short-term jobs in other industries. Duffy said that left the controllers on the job overstressed and possibly prone to costly mistakes.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to reward other federal workers at airports, those employed by her department’s Transportation Security Administration, with $10,000 bonuses if they maintained high attendance records during the shutdown.

Noem handed out checks to TSA workers in Houston on Thursday and said more could come. 

Federal workers return, with back pay on the way

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers who had been furloughed returned to the office Thursday and those who had been working without pay will continue their duties knowing their next paycheck should be on time. 

All workers will receive back pay for the shutdown, in accordance with a 2019 law that states employees “shall be paid for such work, at the employee’s standard rate of pay, at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations, regardless of scheduled pay dates.”

A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said the White House has urged agencies to get back pay to employees “expeditiously and accurately.”

Agencies will need to submit time and attendance files, and payroll processors can then issue checks. According to the spokesperson, agencies have different pay schedules and payroll processors, and “discrepancies in timing and pay periods are a result of that.”

The office estimates that workers will receive a “supercheck” for the pay period from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1 on the following dates:

Nov. 15

• General Services Administration
• Office of Personnel Management

Nov. 16

• Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Defense

Nov. 17

• Departments of Education, State, Interior and Transportation
• Environmental Protection Agency
• NASA
• National Science Foundation
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Social Security Administration

Nov. 19

• Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor and Treasury
• Small Business Administration

Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement Wednesday that federal workers across all agencies “should not have to wait another minute longer for the paychecks they lost during the longest government shutdown in history.” 

“The anxiety has been devastating as they cut back on spending, ran up credit card debt, took out emergency loans, filed for unemployment, found temporary side jobs, stood in line for food assistance, skipped filling prescriptions and worried about the future. Federal employees should receive the six weeks of back pay they are owed immediately upon the reopening of the federal government,” said Greenwald. 

The union represents workers at 38 federal agencies and offices.

States Newsroom spoke to several furloughed federal workers who attended a special food distribution event during the shutdown.

The American Federation of Government Employees, one of multiple unions that sued the Trump administration over layoffs during the shutdown, said its members were used “as leverage to advance political priorities,” according to a statement issued Tuesday by the union’s national president, Everett Kelley.

The AFGE, which according to the union represents roughly 820,000 federal workers, did not immediately respond for comment Thursday.

The shutdown-ending deal reinstated jobs for fired federal employees and prohibits any reductions in force by the administration until Jan. 30.

Federal workers speak out

A statement released Thursday by a group of federal workers across agencies struck a different tone on the shutdown and praised the 40 senators and 209 representatives who voted against the temporary spending bill deal.

“The fight mattered. It changed the conversation. More members of the American public now understand that Trump is shredding the Constitution,” according to the statement issued by the Civil Servants Coalition.

The coalition also noted, “Even though the government is reopening, none of us will be able to fully deliver our agency’s missions. Our work has been exploited and dismantled since January through harmful policies and illegal purges of critical staff.”

The group emailed the statement as a PDF document to an unknown number of government workers and urged them to “channel that frustration toward action” by contacting their representatives.

SNAP saga concludes

The government reopening ended a drawn-out saga over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps 42 million people afford groceries. 

The U.S.Department of Agriculture told states in a Thursday memo they “must take immediate steps to ensure households receive their full November allotments promptly.”

The guidance also noted that states should prepare for another shutdown as soon as next October by upgrading systems so that they could allow for partial payments. 

A key point of dispute between the administration and those seeking SNAP benefits was the lengthy time the administration said it would take to fund partial benefits. 

A Wednesday evening statement from a department spokesperson said full benefits would be disbursed in most states by Thursday night. 

Lauren Kallins, a senior legislative director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Thursday “states are all working hard to resume full benefits.”

 “But there will likely be logistical challenges, depending on a state’s system’s capabilities and whether the state had already issued partial benefits, that may impact how quickly a state is able to push out” benefits, she wrote. 

The program, which is funded by the federal government and administered by states, sends monthly payments on a rolling basis. 

That means that the day of the month each household receives its allotment varies. Households that usually receive benefits mid-month or later should see no interruption. 

But many of the program’s beneficiaries receive their payments earlier in the month, meaning that, depending on their state, they may have missed their November payments. 

Some states, including Democrat-run Wisconsin, Oregon and Michigan, began paying full benefits last week after a Rhode Island federal judge ordered the administration to release full November payments and the department issued guidance to states to do so.

The administration then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause enforcement of the Rhode Island judge’s order and reversed its guidance to states, telling them to “immediately undo” efforts to pay out full November benefits.

The Department of Justice dropped its Supreme Court case Thursday. 

“Because the underlying dispute here is now moot, the government withdraws its November 7 stay application in this Court,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to the high court.

In the trial court, the administration cited the USDA guidance and said it would discuss the future of the litigation with the coalition of cities and nonprofit groups that brought the suit. 

Capital area tourist attractions reopen

Tourists in the nation’s capital have been shut out of the Smithsonian Institution’s 17 free museums and zoo for most of the federal shutdown.

The institution on Friday will open the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Air and Space Museum located at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, according to a message posted on the Smithsonian’s website.

All other museums and the National Zoo will open on a “rolling basis” by Nov. 17.

Multiple public-facing agencies, including the National Park Service and Internal Revenue Service, did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for reopening information.

National parks were closed or partially closed during the shutdown.

Several IRS services were reduced or altogether cut as the funding lapse dragged on. Those disruptions included limited IRS telephone customer service operations and the closure of in-person Taxpayer Assistance Centers.

An aerial view shows an Amazon data center last year in Ashburn, Va. A new study found that most states offering subsidies for data centers do not disclose the recipients of those tax benefits. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Most states offering incentives to data centers don’t disclose which companies benefit, according to a new report.

At least 36 states have crafted subsidies specifically for data center projects, according to Good Jobs First, a nonprofit watchdog group that tracks economic development incentives. But only 11 of those states — Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin — disclose which companies receive those incentives.

In a new study, the organization examined a lack of transparency in data center deals, which are proliferating across the country as technology demands increase.  

Despite data centers’ significant energy requirements, states frequently compete heavily to land the projects, which invest millions or even billions into new construction. But the study noted those projects often employ nondisclosure agreements, project code names and subsidiary names that hide the firms behind the new server farms.

“Only when governments disclose information on which companies get public money and what they do with it can there be meaningful analysis, greater public participation, and wiser use of public financial resources,” the report says.

Good Jobs First specifically examined sales and use tax exemptions that benefit data centers. The study does not account for local property tax abatements, corporate income tax credits and discounts on electricity and water rates.

Virginia, the largest data center market in the world, forgoes nearly $1 billion in state and local sales and use tax revenue each year without telling the public which companies benefit or how much they receive, the study said.

Good Jobs First underscored state calculations that show data center subsidies do not provide a return on taxpayer investments. It recommends states eliminate or curtail data center subsidies. “At the very least, states should practice full transparency,” the report said.

Good Jobs First says states must reassess their investments in data centers with federal cuts looming that will strain state finances.

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

A sign acknowledging Stewardship program support at Firemen's Park in Verona. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

A Wisconsin Assembly committee deadlocked 6-6 Wednesday on a Republican-authored bill to prevent the broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program from lapsing next year. 

The program, which allows the state Department of Natural Resources to purchase, conserve and maintain public land enjoys bipartisan support among Wisconsin residents. However a subset of Republican legislators have soured on the program’s intentions, arguing too much land has been pulled off local property tax rolls in northern Wisconsin. Republicans have also complained that a state Supreme Court decision removed their authority to conduct oversight of the program. 

Previously, members of the Joint Committee on Finance had the ability to anonymously hold up stewardship projects. 

Republicans in the Legislature stripped money to re-authorize the program out of the state budget earlier this year and both parties have proposed competing pieces of legislation to keep it running beyond 2026. 

On Wednesday, the Assembly Committee on Forestry, Parks and Outdoor Recreation took up the Republican bill, authored by Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc). Democrats and environmental groups have been unsupportive of the Kurtz bill since its initial release because it requires that any attempt by the DNR to acquire land at a cost of more than $1 million be approved by the full Legislature through standalone legislation. 

Critics have argued the full legislative process is the opposite of what the Court intended when it took the anonymous hold power away from JFC, that the Legislature could never move quickly enough for the speed at which real estate transactions must sometimes take place and the public nature of legislation could scare off potential sellers. 

Earlier this week, Kurtz released a proposed amendment to his bill that would lower the threshold requiring legislative approval from $1 million to $250,000. 

A Democratic proposal, which was introduced as a separate bill this summer and offered as an amendment to the Republican bill this week, would create an independent board, nominated by members of both parties, to oversee the program outside of the legislative process. 

On Wednesday, the committee voted 7-5 in favor of accepting Kurtz’s amendment to his bill. Rep. Paul Melotic (R-Grafton) voted with the committee’s four Democrats against the amendment. 

But on the vote to advance the bill out of committee, Reps. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) and Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) joined the Democrats to vote no, resulting in the 6-6 tie.

When an Assembly committee votes for a bill, it reports the bill to the full Assembly floor and recommends that it be passed. According to Assembly rules, when a committee ties on a vote, the chair of the committee has the discretion to report the bill to the full Assembly “without recommendation.” 

The bill has already been reported to the full Assembly for a potential vote, according to the office of Rep. Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz), the committee’s chair.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Rep. Vincent Miresse (D-Stevens Point), a co-author of the Democratic proposal, said “Wisconsin Democrats are united in their support and vision for Knowles-Nelson,” while “Republicans cannot seem to agree on a path forward.”

Charles Carlin, the director of strategic initiatives at the non-profit land trust organization Gathering Waters, told the Wisconsin Examiner that Wednesday’s vote shows the only way to save the program is with a bill that can get support from both parties. 

“Today’s hearing was a missed opportunity for bipartisan cooperation on the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program,” Carlin said. “There is ample room for compromise across the aisle. But today’s deadlocked committee vote demonstrates that no reauthorization is going to move forward without buy-in from both parties. The hearing should motivate legislators on both sides of the aisle to come together and work out a compromise that keeps Knowles-Nelson working for Wisconsin.”

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, accompanied by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., points to a poster depicting rising medical costs if Congress allows the Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire in December as he speaks to reporters following a Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Congress has roughly two months to find bipartisan agreement to curb rising health insurance costs if lawmakers want to avoid another government shutdown.

That herculean task would be difficult in the best circumstances, but is much more challenging after lawmakers spent the last 43 days criticizing each other instead of building the types of trust that are usually needed for large deals. Democrats maintained they wanted to address skyrocketing premiums for individual health care plans, while Republicans insisted those talks had to occur when the government was open.

At the same time, congressional leaders will try to wrap up work on the nine full-year government funding bills that were supposed to become law before Oct. 1 and weren’t included in the package that reopened the government. 

Congress must pass all of those bills or another stopgap measure before the new Jan. 30 deadline, regardless of how well or disastrous talks on a health care bill turn out. 

The two-track negotiations will push party leaders to compromise on issues they’d rather not, especially as next year’s November midterm elections inch closer. 

Early signs were not good.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Wednesday night press conference the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire at the end of the year are a “boondoggle” and that “Republicans would demand a lot of reforms” before agreeing to extend those in any way. 

“We currently have 433 members of the House of Representatives. There’s a lot of opinions in this building. And on our side, certainly, a lot of opinions on how to fix health care and make it more affordable. I have to allow that process to play out,” Johnson, R-La., said. 

While Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made a commitment to hold a vote on a health care bill before the end of December to conclude the shutdown, Johnson has avoided giving a timeline for when he would bring any similar legislation to the floor. 

President Donald Trump, aside from throwing insults at Democrats, largely stayed on the sidelines of the shutdown fight, though he suggested the funds used for the tax credits should in some way go directly to individuals instead of large insurance companies.

Pessimism over progress

The shutdown highlighted the stark differences Republicans and Democrats hold on health care as prices for insurance continue to spike, forcing millions of Americans to choose between taking care of themselves and breaking their budgets, States Newsroom found in interviews with members of Congress. 

GOP leaders held together throughout the funding lapse and didn’t negotiate on the expiring ACA marketplace tax credits, or anything else. 

Now that it’s over, Republicans will need to put something forward.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said her sense is that Congress will “probably be in the same place on January 30th that we are now.”

“We have two parties here, two sides,” DeLauro said. “In the past … we’ve had serious negotiation back and forth, and that’s what we need to do, and that’s not happening.”

While Republicans have unified control of government, major legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance in that chamber. Republicans hold 53 seats at the moment, meaning at least some Democrats must support a bill for it to pass. 

DeLauro did not rule out another shutdown, saying Democrats plan to take the next few months “one day at a time,” while closely watching what Republicans are willing to do on the nine full-year appropriations bills and health care costs. 

Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, former House majority leader and a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said Republican leaders keeping that chamber in recess for nearly two months leading up to and during the shutdown significantly delayed work on the full-year government funding bills. 

Hoyer said that scheduling decision was a clear “indication they’re not interested in solving the problem.”

“If they were, they would have had members here working on appropriation bills,” Hoyer said. “And the only way you’re going to ultimately solve this problem is to pass appropriation bills.”

Hoyer said the real question facing Congress now isn’t whether there is time to work out agreement on the remaining nine government spending bills, but whether there’s a will to make the types of compromises needed. 

Untangling spending bills

The spending package that reopened the government included three of the dozen full-year bills, funding the Agriculture Department, Food and Drug Administration, Legislative Branch, military construction projects and Department of Veterans Affairs.

The remaining appropriations bills will be considerably tougher to resolve, especially because the House and Senate have yet to agree on how much they want to spend across the thousands of programs. Trump proposed major cutbacks in multiple programs in his budget request earlier this year that Democrats have strongly resisted.

The Defense, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education and State-Foreign Operations bills will be some of the more difficult to settle. 

Congress could always lean on another stopgap spending bill to keep funding relatively flat for the departments and agencies not covered by a full-year bill before Jan. 30. But lawmakers will need bipartisan support to advance in the Senate.

Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Republicans don’t seem to grasp how much Americans are struggling with the cost of living, including for health insurance and health care. 

“My constituents are already telling me that they’re making that choice between having health insurance or having a house to live in, and they’re going to choose the house,” Jayapal said. 

Whether or not a partial government shutdown begins in early 2026 will likely depend on whether Republican lawmakers from swing districts force bipartisanship on a health care bill. 

“I really don’t know,” Jayapal said. “I think it depends on these vulnerable House Republicans, who are not going to be able to go back to their constituents without telling them that they’ve done something on health care.”

Political juice and a backbone

Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico said she wouldn’t be surprised if Congress is unable to strike a deal on government funding and winds up in a partial shutdown by February. 

“Do I think that the Republicans have the political juice to get … the rest of their appropriation bills across the finish line and a health care deal? No,” Stansbury said. 

She added that she hopes a handful of Republicans decide to join Democrats on the discharge petition bill that would force a floor vote on a bill to extend the ACA marketplace subsidies for three years. 

“We gotta find a few brave Republicans who still have a backbone and some guts to stand up to this administration and actually care for their constituents,” Stansbury said. 

But any bipartisan deal to extend those health care tax credits seems fraught, as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed Republicans as having “zero credibility on this issue.”

He pointed to Republicans trying several times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, including their last attempt in 2017, when GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and the late John McCain of Arizona crossed party lines to vote against repealing the 2010 law.

“There’s no evidence that they’re serious about extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries, of New York, said. “Republicans have zero interest in fixing the health care crisis that they’ve created.”

‘No point in taking 41 days to cave’

When Democrats controlled both chambers, temporary health care subsidies were originally passed as part of the COVID-19-era American Rescue Plan in 2021 for two years. 

With Democrats still controlling both chambers, lawmakers approved the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 signature climate policy bill from the Biden administration, that extended those health care subsidies for three years, expiring at the end of December 2025.

The outcome of the just concluded shutdown is shaping some House Democrats’ views.

Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott said if there is a new shutdown come February, Senate Democrats will have to decide whether they’re going to “cave again, or at least engage in negotiations.” 

“When the (Senate) Democrats say: ‘Our strategy wasn’t working,’ it wasn’t working because they assume you’re going to cave, which you just proved,” Scott told States Newsroom. “Their strategy worked — trying to get them to negotiate and talk to you doesn’t because they know you’re going to cave.”

Scott said “there’s no point in taking 41 days to cave,” pointing to the eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who broke ranks to advance and later approve the package to reopen the government. 

“Why don’t you just cave right at the beginning, on February 2nd?” he said. “If the Republican strategy is: ‘We’re not going to negotiate at all because you’re going to cave,’ you have to show them that you’re not going to cave, then you can have a discussion.”

Scott said the same health care issues will still exist if nothing happens between now and the package’s Jan. 30 government funding deadline.  

“By then, we’ll know that several million people don’t have health insurance, we’ll know that rural hospitals are beginning to suffer,” Scott said. 

Delaware Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride said that “from today through November (2026) and after, we will continue to be talking about health care, to be fighting for health care.”

“I think what you’ve seen over the last several months, you will continue to see from us through November and then, God willing, once we’re in a majority, we’ll do all that we can to reverse these cuts and restore care and expand access to it,” she said. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) speaks Wednesday about the effort to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act insurance premium tax credits that will expire at the end of 2025. Nancy Peske, left, and Julia Harris-Robinson, center also joined the press conference. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

With the loss of enhanced subsidies for the health insurance she has bought on the federal marketplace HealthCare.gov, Nancy Peske’s health plan will cost $1,163.50 a month in 2026.

That’s more than three times what she paid this year — $372 a month, Peske said Wednesday.

But if there’s one thing she wants everyone to know, it’s this: The higher prices for health insurance aren’t just something that she and other people who buy their coverage on the federal marketplace are facing.

Long before the ACA, Peske learned about “the premium death spiral,” she said.

“The more you raise the price, the more people drop out of the pool. This means you have to raise the price, which means more people drop out of the pool. And it goes on and on and on,” Peske said.

“It’s not just my health insurance that’s going to go up. It’s everybody’s — right?” she said. “We’re all in this together.”

Peske was one of two people who have relied on HealthCare.gov, created as part of the Affordable Care Act, who spoke Wednesday at a press conference in Milwaukee with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin).

Baldwin called the press conference  to draw attention anew to the skyrocketing cost of health insurance — and to the failure of Congress to address it in the stopgap spending bill that passed the U.S. Senate Monday, the U.S. House Wednesday evening and was signed by President Donald Trump.

“This is a health and wellness issue,” Baldwin said. “This is an affordability and cost-of-living issue, and this is a quality of life and dignity issue. And it touches every single one of us right now.”

A success amid ‘a broken system’

Health care in the U.S. is “a broken system that prioritizes profits over patients,” Baldwin said. Despite that, she said, the 2010 Affordable Care Act was an important advance for expanding health care access.

She said that was improved by enhanced federal subsidies enacted in 2021 to offset the cost of health insurance for people who must buy their own policies on the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace that was created by the ACA — making insurance more affordable and drawing record numbers of people to the marketplace to get health coverage.

The enhanced subsidies expire at the end of 2025, however, and until this week a Republican stopgap spending bill that passed the U.S. House in September stalled in the U.S. Senate as Democrats pushed unsuccessfully to extend the subsidies.  

“That is what is at the center of the government shutdown and debate in Washington, D.C.,” Baldwin said. “We know the impact of taking away these tax breaks. For 275,000 Wisconsinites, their health care [insurance] costs will double, triple or even more. For 30,000 Wisconsinites, they predict the price will be too high, and that those Wisconsinites will go without insurance altogether.”

A handful of Democratic Senators changed their votes Monday to advance the spending bill in return for a promise of a future vote on the subsidies, with the House taking up the revised bill Wednesday. Baldwin didn’t join them.

“I said the entire time that a handshake deal with my Republican colleagues to reopen the government and no real action to lower health care costs was simply not good enough,” said Baldwin of her vote against the bill.

She also forced an amendment to extend the tax credits for a year — a compromise, she said, because she wants them extended permanently, but one she offered “to avoid catastrophe for families across Wisconsin and give folks breathing room while we negotiate longer-term solutions.”

The amendment failed on a party-line vote.

“Every single Republican voted no on my amendment,” Baldwin said. “They chose to send a clear, unmistakable message that they are OK with jacking up health care costs on 22 million Americans.”

Early retirement, then sticker shock

HealthCare.gov user Erica Topps also joined Baldwin’s news conference. Topps took early retirement in April and bought a health insurance policy through the federal marketplace for herself and her college-age daughter that started in June.

At the marketplace open enrollment for 2026 that started Nov. 1, that plan’s premium increased by $1,200 a month and the deductible went from $6,700 per person to $10,600 per person, Topps told reporters She found another plan via the marketplace and is enrolling, but she’s concerned about the future beyond that.

“Part of my plan is to go back to work” so she can get health insurance, Topps told the Wisconsin Examiner, because it will be 10 years before she can qualify for Medicare.

Before taking early retirement, “I did my due diligence,” she said. “I feel like the rug was pulled out from under me.”

Peske is a freelance writer, editor and consultant. She is also a cancer survivor, whose diagnosis two years ago was covered thanks to her HealthCare.gov policy. Going without health insurance is unthinkable, but at the age of 63, she must wait another two years before she can go on Medicare, she said.

Peske told the Wisconsin Examiner that she will scrape together the money to afford her new premium. “I’ll not put a dime into my underfunded retirement account,” she said. She expects to “tighten the belt” on household expenses, “and I will probably cut into my savings.”

Freelancers and small businesses account for 40% of the U.S. economy, Peske told reporters.

“Do you want everyone to go out of business?” she asked. “Should I just do what so many people do and get a much lower paying job at a company? Because I’m desperate for health care. I don’t think that’s the solution. I think you want to keep people like me in business, generating money, adding to the economy, and being able to live, to not die of cancer.”

Seeking inroads with GOP lawmakers

Baldwin said she has been talking with Republicans about finding common ground in increased transparency in the health care system, from insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers and providers.

In addition, she told the Wisconsin Examiner after the press conference, she continues to have conversations with GOP Senate colleagues who have expressed interest in continuing the subsidies to avert the sharp hike in premiums.

None of them were willing to break ranks and vote for her amendment this week, however.

“Those discussions were happening informally, in quiet, not in the public spotlight,” Baldwin said. “But they were afraid to vote on something that they, probably, some of them want, because Donald Trump said you can’t talk about this before the government reopens.”

Baldwin said that the next step will be for the Democrats to settle on the bill that Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised they could bring to the upper chamber for a vote.

As much as she favors a permanent extension of the enhanced credits, if the Democrats go that route, “we know it will go down, and it will be on a pretty much a partisan vote,” Baldwin said.

“I want results, so that probably dictates towards supporting something that conceivably does respond to some of the concerns Republicans have raised,” she said. “I’d like to pick the path most reasonably likely to succeed on behalf of the people who sent me to Washington to fight for them.”

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The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is over and all we got was the near-cancellation of food assistance just in time for Thanksgiving and a looming explosion in health care costs.

None of the problems that led to the shutdown have been resolved. Instead, a handful of Democrats abandoned their fight to force Congress to address the health care crisis in exchange for rolling back some of the damage the Trump administration did during the shutdown itself. Federal workers are getting their jobs back — for now — and flight cancellations will end just in time for the holiday travel season. Otherwise, we’re pretty much back where we started. 

Democrats are fuming and Republicans are gloating over the end of this game of chicken, in which the party that showed it doesn’t care at all about the pain and suffering of its own constituents is the apparent winner. Stay tuned to see how long the glow of victory lasts as members of Congress go home to face the voters. 

During the fruitless shutdown battle, a couple of politicians from Wisconsin who are not facing election anytime soon showed real leadership. Their focus on serving the needs of real people, not political posturing, was a breath of fresh air, and a model of the kind of public service we badly need.

Gov. Tony Evers deserves a lot of credit for acting quickly to pay out food assistance funds to nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites last Friday as soon as a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release the money, which it had been withholding for a week. Evers acted in the nick of time. The Trump administration appealed the decision and, on the strength of an emergency ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, demanded that Wisconsin and other states that had paid out the benefits overnight claw them back. Evers issued a terse response: “No.” 

Thanks to his leadership, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, including 270,000 kids, were spared from going hungry because of the Trump administration’s capricious cruelty. With the shutdown over, the battle over food assistance has ended and the USDA has said full nutrition benefits will begin flowing to states again within 24 hours of the shutdown’s end. But as Evers said when he seized the moment and released the funds, “It never should’ve come to this.” The feds had the money to prevent kids from going hungry all along. Trump made a deliberate decision to cut off aid, and then to demand that states pay only partial benefits, on the theory that doing so would punish Democrats for refusing to reopen the government on Trump’s terms. 

Evers deserves a lot of credit for his decisive action to protect Wisconsinites from harm.

Another Wisconsin politician who has been working overtime to stave off disaster for residents is U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. 

Baldwin has spent her entire career working to expand health care access, including writing the provision of the Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they reach the age of 26. She has a reputation for doggedly working across the aisle and, during the shutdown, she never gave up trying to get Senate Republicans to agree to extend ACA tax credits. 

This week, when eight Senate Democrats joined the Republicans on a resolution to reopen the government that didn’t include any language about the coming spike in health care costs, Baldwin forced a Senate vote on an amendment to extend the ACA credits for one more year. Many Senate Republicans had told her they knew the expiration of those credits would drive health care costs through the roof in their states.  

In her floor speech introducing her amendment, Baldwin said: 

“My Republican colleagues are refusing to act to stop health care premiums from doubling for over 20 million Americans. I just can’t stand by without a fight.”

Even as people across the country express shock and dismay, “Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have simply refused to address the biggest increase in American premiums they’ll likely ever experience,” Baldwin said.  

“I’m getting calls daily from Wisconsinites begging me to stay in this fight,” she added. She told her Senate colleagues about a couple from Door County who told her their premiums are going up by over $550 per month because of the failure to extend the ACA tax credits. “Everything is already too expensive. So where are they supposed to find 6,500 extra dollars in their budget?” she asked. 

Another couple from Butternut, Wisconsin, told her their premiums are going from $400 per month to more than $5,000 per month — “that’s $55,000 more a year,” she said. “As they wrote to me, ‘health care tax breaks are not just numbers on paper. They are a lifeline that allows us to sleep at night knowing that we won’t lose everything if one of us gets sick.’” 

Baldwin was back in the state Wednesday where, as Erik Gunn reports, she is holding a series of town hall meetings with people affected by rising health care costs. She is holding out hope that some of her Republican colleagues will come around on the issue. She refused to answer questions about whether she thinks Sen. Chuck Schumer should be ousted from his position as Minority Leader because of the end of the shutdown fight. 

Characteristically, she is keeping her head down and working to build bipartisan support — as she did, successfully, when she persuaded enough Republicans to join her to pass the Respect for Marriage Act protecting same-sex and interracial couples — instead of using it to score political points.

As we move past the shutdown power struggle and into the real fight over people’s lives, we need more of that kind of leadership. 

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SB 403 would prohibit a political committee, political party or conduit from accepting contributions that are made with a credit card online unless the contributor provides their credit card verification value (CVV) or code and the billing address associated with the card is located in the United States. Wisconsin State Capitol (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Wisconsin lawmakers considered proposals to crack down on political contributions made with credit cards online and to provide additional information on constitutional amendment proposals to voters during a Senate Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs committee meeting Wednesday. The committee also took up a constitutional amendment proposal to forbid the government from shutting down places of worship during a state of emergency. 

New requirements for credit card political donations

Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee) said his bill creating new requirements for political donations made with a credit card online will  ensure there is a “good, secure” process in place in Wisconsin. 

“Let’s acknowledge that we need to know that unlawful sources and foreign entities are not infiltrating our campaigns and elections,” Tomczyk said, and that “citizens are funding candidates here in Wisconsin.”

The bill, SB 403, would prohibit a political committee, political party or conduit from accepting contributions that are made with a credit card online unless the contributor provides their credit card verification value (CVV) or code and the billing address associated with the card is located in the United States. 

If a U.S. citizen is living outside the country and wants to make a contribution from a credit card that doesn’t have a U.S. billing address, then the person would need to provide a mailing address used for voter registration. 

“I’m trying to make elections more secure, the donation process more secure,” Tomczyk said. 

The bill comes as Republicans and the Trump administration have targeted ActBlue — a Massachusetts-based platform that processes donations to Democratic campaigns — claiming that the platform facilitates so-called “smurfing,” a form of money laundering where large sums of money are broken down into smaller, less noticeable transactions and could allow for “straw donors” and foreign contributions. Stakeholders, including ActBlue and Democrats, have said that the action by the administration is an attack on the democratic process.

Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, in his position as chair of the U.S. House Committee on House Administration, launched an investigation into ActBlue asking whether it required CVV information from contributors in 2023. 

The company said at the time that while it did not, it has many other measures in place to confirm the permissibility of contributions and prevent fraudulent transactions including a requirement for passport information if a donor provides an address outside the U.S. 

Steil has since proposed federal legislation that would require credit card verification for online donations. 

Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) expressed concerns over how the bill could create barriers for individuals looking to contribute.

“Why are you trying to ban citizens from being able to donate by credit card?” Larson asked. 

“If they’re not voting in the United States, they’re allowed to donate by credit card if they’re providing all the information that the bill outlines. If they don’t have a voting address, it’s kind of odd,” Tomczyk replied. “I’m pretty sure it’d be a pretty small amount of people.”

The authors of the bill also said people could still donate by check and other methods if they didn’t have the necessary information. 

“It sounds like this is just putting up additional hurdles for people who want to donate by credit card and it just seems like, especially for smaller dollar donations, people who aren’t writing a lot of checks,” Larson said. “Most of the people that I know are giving with credit cards because they don’t use checks.”

Larson said the bill could make it harder for people to participate in democracy through political contributions. 

The authors of the bill claimed there have been examples of “smurfing” in Wisconsin, though they provided no specific examples when asked. 

“This is not something that comes up out of the blue. People have been interviewed about contributions that they gave with their credit card that they said they never gave,” Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville) said. 

“You guys sound like Gargamel as much as you’re talking about smurfing,” Larson said at one point, referring to the fictional antagonist in the Smurfs cartoon franchise. “Come up with an example. Give me some proof really if you want the governor to be able to sign it.”

“In testimony, I don’t think I have to show proof. I have to provide information and… get enough support to pass it through,” Tomczyk said. 

Providing information on constitutional amendments

Lawmakers are also proposing a way to ensure Wisconsin voters have information on the potential effects of constitutional amendments. 

SB 205 follows years of the Republican-led Legislature turning to constitutional amendment proposals as a way to make changes to law without going through Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The most recent constitutional amendment that was approved by voters enshrined voter identification requirements in law, and other amendment proposals are circulating this session, including one to restrict the governor’s partial veto power. 

The committee heard from Tomczyk and Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) on their bill, which seeks to provide information about constitutional amendments to voters ahead of elections. 

“I’ve heard from countless friends and constituents, even people with college degrees and professional titles, all who tell me that every time they vote on a constitutional amendment the wording on the ballot makes no sense to them,” Tomczyk said. “The legalese, if you will, that is used on the ballot, is of course necessary and should be presented, but for regular everyday residents of Wisconsin, it might as well be in a different language. There has to be a way to explain what these amendments do so that people know what they are voting for.” 

“This is only meant to inform voters better about what they are voting for or against,” Tomczyk said. 

The bill would require a notice to go to voters that would include the date of the referendum, the text of the ballot question, the plain language summary of current law, an explanation in plain language of a proposed constitutional amendment and an explanation in plain language of the effects of a “yes” versus a “no” vote.

O’Connor said the Legislative Reference Bureau, the nonpartisan agency that drafts bills and proposals for the Legislature, would be responsible for writing the information in a black box. 

“The black box we cannot touch as legislators,” O’Connor said. He added that the legislation is “non-partisan, bipartisan and voter focused.” 

While the bill only has Republican cosponsors, it advanced through the Assembly Campaigns and Elections committee unanimously with support from two Democratic lawmakers. The bill is also supported by the League of Women Voters, the ACLU of Wisconsin, Disability Rights Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. 

Places of worship constitutional amendment

The committee also took up Senate Joint Resolution 4, a constitutional amendment proposal that would prohibit the state from ordering the closure of places of worship during a state of emergency. 

This is the Legislature’s second consideration of the proposal, which was first introduced and passed by the Legislature during the 2023-25 session. 

The proposal was introduced in reaction to actions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic when Gov. Tony Evers’ administration declared a state of emergency. 

Evers’ initial “Safer at Home” order in March 2020 explicitly designated religious entities as essential, though it said any gatherings should include fewer than 10 people in a room or confined space at a time and that people needed to adhere to social distancing requirements as much as possible. It also advised and permitted places of worship to have drive-in services. 

Before the constitutional amendment proposal, Evers vetoed a bill in 2021 that would have prohibited local health officers from taking any action to close or forbid gatherings in places of worship to control outbreaks and epidemics of COVID-19. 

Tomczyk noted an incident at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in West Bend where a law enforcement officer showed up to shut down a service after a neighbor called in to report the gathering. According to a Wisconsin Public Radio report, the incident was a misunderstanding and the police department later apologized to the church.

“In America, in Wisconsin, law enforcement stopped the church service because the government decided that a virus was more important than the constitutional rights of Americans. That is unacceptable,” Tomczyk said. “Many people in our great state seek solace in times of difficulty within their church, synagogue, or other plates of worship. It is critical that we continue to protect every individual’s ability to gather and worship at the times when they rely on their faiths the most.” 

Larson asked Tomczyk whether he was open to holding a religious organization liable if people “get sick and die” because they decide to meet against the direction of a public health emergency.

“No,” Tomczyk replied. 

“So… if there is a deadly pandemic, people are dying… and their parishioners die, you are fine with those deaths?” Larson asked. 

“I’m supportive of people’s constitutional right to gather and to worship at the times that they choose and, and if they make that decision, God bless them,” Tomczyk said. 

According to the constitutional amendment draft, voters would be asked whether the state constitution should be “amended to prohibit the state or a political subdivision of the state from ordering the closure of, or forbidding gatherings in, places of worship in response to a state of emergency, including a public health emergency?”

The proposal received a hearing in the Assembly in May, but has not yet been voted on there. 

If the bill passes the Assembly and Senate this session, it would be placed in front of voters during the November elections in 2026 alongside a slate of other high-profile races, including the one for governor.

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Advocates and lawmakers attend a listening session on social justice issues hosted by WISDOM. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Advocates and lawmakers packed a room at the Capitol Wednesday for a listening session hosted by WISDOM, a statewide network of faith-based social justice organizations, to discuss immigration, criminal justice, housing and environmental policy. Participants said they hoped hearing personal stories would move lawmakers beyond “political posturing” and inspire change.

“It’s been almost nine years since I was last charged with anything,” said Jessica Jacobs, a formerly incarcerated woman who was one of the first to speak. “I’ve rebuilt my life, I’ve stayed in recovery, and I’ve dedicated myself to helping others do the same. But my criminal record still follows me, especially when it comes to finding a place to live.” Jacobs said that every time she pays a non-refundable fee only to fail a background check for housing, she’s reminded “that society hasn’t fully forgiven me, even though I’ve done everything I can do to make things right.”

When Jacobs was released from prison in 2010, she was placed in a transitional living program. It should have been a second chance, but it wasn’t because that apartment complex was in the very same neighborhood where she would get the substances she used. “It was a setup for failure,” said Jacobs, adding that women and men all over Wisconsin have similar experiences. “Imagine being locked up, and all you can imagine is being with your children again. You count the days dreaming about that reunion. But when you’re finally released, you find out that you can’t get housing that will allow your children to live with you. The pain doesn’t just stop with the mother, the children suffer, too. Families stay separated not because of lack of love or effort, but because there’s nowhere safe and stable for them to go home to.”

Jacobs finally found a landlord who was also in recovery, and could empathize with her situation. “No one’s success story should depend on luck,” she said. “When people don’t have housing, we see the same cycles of recidivism repeat and repeat. Without a place to live, it’s almost impossible to look for a job, maintain recovery, or reunite with your children and family. We say that we want people to come home and be better. But how can they if we won’t give them a place to call home?”

Crystal Keller, a member of the group My Way Out, shared  the struggle incarcerated mothers have in Wisconsin. Keller’s daughter is locked up at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution, where she will be for two years. Keller pointed to a 1991 Wisconsin law that says that incarcerated mothers should be housed with their babies until they turn 12 months old. Yet Keller’s daughter has never been offered access to that program, despite having a two-month-old when she was sentenced. “The program was allocated $198,000 per year,” Keller said. “Where is that money? That’s $6.7 million in the 35 years that they’ve never offered it.” 

Keller said that the Department of Corrections claims to offer the program for women who are out in the community. “That’s a lie,” said Keller. “…when are they going to start complying with the law?” Keller said that when her daughter was sent to Taycheedah, she was placed in restrictive housing for the first six months. “And it took them a month to pick her up from the county jail,” said Keller. “She was not allowed to hold her son for seven months, from two months old until just last month.” Keller’s family would travel from Milwaukee to Fond du Lac just to do hour-long video visits. “Often, visits would get cancelled…Why do I even need to go there?” 

Just last Sunday during a visit, Keller said that another family was told by a correctional officer that they weren’t allowed to even play hand-clapping games with their children. “It’s disgusting, it needs to stop, and DOC who punishes people for breaking the law has been breaking the law for 35 years.” 

Attendees drew attention to other conditions endured by people held in Wisconsin’s prisons and jails. Randy Gage, a member of WISDOM’s Solitary & Conditions of Confinement Task Force, who also has a background in psychology and experience working in prisons in both Georgia and Wisconsin. “Segregation is not the best way to go,” said Gage. “We went through a long period starting around the 1980’s of ‘get tough on crime’. Enough already with getting tough on crime! Enough!” Gage said that when he was growing up in Milwaukee, he didn’t have to worry about things like gun violence. “That didn’t happen, and that was before ‘get tough on time’. Since ‘get tough on crime’ all of this is going on? Don’t tell me it works. No, it doesn’t work.” 

Advocates also discussed Act 196, a bipartisan law that favors short-term sanctions for probation and parole violations like a weekend stint in jail, treatment program or community service over total revocation back to prison. “For more than a decade, the DOC has resisted implementing this law that could’ve reduced and stabilized our prison population,” said Tom Gilbert, a member of MOSES. “Finally in June of this year, the DOC issued proposed rules, but they are an extreme disappointment.” Although the proposed rules adopted some features of the law, they do not establish “a system of short-term sanctions,”, said Gilbert, saying that the DOC is choosing to keep a system that “sabotages” people’s chances of returning home rather than promoting healing. “It would save millions of taxpayer dollars spent on needless incarcerations,” said Gilbert. “Those dollars could be re-directed to proven, successful programs such as treatment programs and diversions.” 

Others pushed for restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people, which is already law in 25 states. Jeremy Dings, a formerly incarcerated member of WISDOM’s Post-Release Issues Task Force, said that he has not been able to vote in eight election cycles because even though he has been  back in the community for 13 years. Dings said that democracy is strongest when it includes everyone’s voice, and that such a policy change would help people transition and feel like active, valued members of the community. 

Restoring drivers licenses for immigrants was also discussed by immigrant rights advocates and dairy farmers. People in mixed-status families take great risk to perform simple tasks like driving to work, or dropping their children off at school, they said. “This is not just about paperwork,”  said Grace Mariscal, a student at St. John’s Northwestern Academies. “This is about parents being able to drive their children to school safely, or go to a doctor’s appointment, without fear.” 

Mariscal said that 19 other states have passed laws that allow members of mixed-status families to have drivers licenses, policies which reduce hit-and-run accidents, increase state revenue, and reduced law enforcement costs. “These reforms would also strengthen Wisconsin’s economies,” said Mariscal. “Our dairy farms, our factories, our restaurants, our food processing plants all depend on immigrant labor. By allowing workers to drive legally, we help businesses maintain stable workforces, and ensure that the industries that feed and sustain our state continue to thrive.”

The rights of nature was also discussed, with advocates pushing for laws that establish personhood for natural habitats, rivers, forests and other ecosystems. “It really comes out of Indigenous values,” said Bill Van Lopik, a member of ESTHER. “It is an international movement.” Van Lopik pointed out that in America, even corporations are given personhood. So why not the ecosystems and natural environments that all things, human or otherwise, depend on? Van Lopik also advocated for policies to require sulfide mines to prove that they won’t be harmful to the environment before digging begins, and new protections for Devil’s Lake State Park. “Wisconsin has a long history of environmental stewardship”, said Van Lopik, pointing out that former Wisconsin Gov.  Gaylord Nelson was the founder of Earth Day. 

Advocates also discussed closing the prison in Green Bay, and granting parole to older incarcerated people who were sentenced when they were young. Some in the room condemned Gov. Tony Evers for using his veto power to remove a deadline to close Green Bay Correctional, and pointed to the fact that the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison is still open despite plans to build new prisons to replace the aging and controversial facility. 

Several lawmakers including Reps. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), and new legislators including Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) and Karen DeSanto (D-Baraboo) said  hearing stories like those shared Wednesday are crucial for their work.

“Remember the folks that are not here,” said Madison, who told an emotional story about his brother and friends who struggled with mental illness, suicidal thoughts, and incarceration. “Give your anger to those folks, channel your grief towards those folks, because it’s a damn shame that they’re not here.” 

This article has been edited to correct the names of Bill Van Lopik and WISDOM’s Post-Release Issues Task Force.

A sign explaining delays in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the government shutdown is displayed at a Sprouts grocery store in Bountiful, Utah, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)

The Trump administration will release full benefits for most participants in the nation’s major federal nutrition program within 24 hours of the reopening of the federal government, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said Wednesday. 

Many of the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to help afford groceries have faced uncertainty for weeks about their November benefits, which President Donald Trump and other top administration officials said could not be paid while the government was shut down. 

A USDA spokesperson answered an afternoon email from States Newsroom inquiring about when benefits would restart with a single sentence:

“Upon the government reopening, within 24 hours for most States,” the spokesperson wrote. 

Politico first reported the department’s 24-hour timeline.

While the federal government funds SNAP benefits, states are responsible for their administration, meaning an array of different processes across the country. 

The U.S. House was set to vote Wednesday evening to clear a bill to reopen the government after a record 43-day shutdown, after the Senate acted earlier this week. Trump is expected to sign it into law as early as Wednesday night. 

The enactment of the bill — and the subsequent renewal of federal payments — would resolve a dizzying weekslong saga over SNAP that placed the roughly 1 in 8 Americans who use the program in the middle of a political and legal battle playing out across every level of the federal judiciary. 

Since the shutdown began Oct. 1, the USDA has reversed its own position, the U.S. Supreme Court paused lower court orders and Trump himself expressed contradicting views.

In the most recent chapter, USDA said it would authorize states to pay 65% of benefits for November, and the Supreme Court paused until Thursday night lower court orders compelling full payments. 

The department had previously told a Rhode Island federal court it could take weeks or even months for beneficiaries to receive the partial allotments and the administration continued to fight rulings to immediately release full funding, even as the shutdown crept toward its conclusion.

U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., was sworn in to office on Nov. 12, 2025, by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. (Screenshot courtesy of C-SPAN)

WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to office Wednesday after a delay that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson attributed to the long government shutdown, but that critics allege was because the Arizona lawmaker pledged to be the deciding signature on a petition to release the so-called Epstein files.

Grijalva, who was elected on Sept. 23, has publicly vowed to add her name to a bipartisan measure that would force the House to vote on the release of files from the government’s investigation of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The Trump administration said in July it would not release further information related to the case. President Donald Trump had campaigned on releasing the files.

Grijalva, Arizona’s first elected Latina, called the delayed ceremony an “abuse of power.”

“It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District elected me to represent them. … One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing-in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons,” said Grijalva, who filled the seat occupied by her late father, Raúl Grijalva, who died earlier this year.

“Our democracy only works when everyone has a voice. This includes the millions of people across the country who have experienced violence and exploitation, including Liz Stein and Jessica Michaels, both survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse,” Grijalva said. “They are here in the gallery with us this evening.”

To cheers from her Democratic colleagues in the chamber, Grijalva said she was going to sign the petition “right now.”  

Massie, Khanna lead petition drive

As of early September, the discharge petition, led by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., had garnered the signatures of all Democrats and four Republicans, leaving the petition just one shy of the 218 signatures needed to bypass Johnson and force a vote on the House floor.

The three Republicans who joined Massie in signing were Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.

The petition forces to the floor, likely at some point in the next few weeks, a Massie-sponsored resolution from July compelling the Department of Justice to “disclose all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein” and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges.  

The resolution attracted 50 cosponsors, nearly a dozen of them Republicans.

Johnson defends delay

Grijalva and her supporters have outright accused Johnson of delaying the swearing-in because of the Epstein petition.

“When the American people vote, this chamber respects their will and seats them immediately. Politics should never come into play,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., on the House floor moments before Johnson administered the oath to Grijalva.

Democrats pointed to the fact that Johnson has previously sworn in other lawmakers when the House was not in session. 

Johnson argued in mid-October that Grijalva hadn’t yet been sworn in because she won her special election after the House went home on Sept. 19, followed shortly thereafter by a government shutdown on Oct. 1.  “As soon as (Sen.) Chuck Schumer opens the government … we’ll have that as soon as we get back to business,” he said. 

At a press conference on Oct. 15, Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego accused Johnson of protecting “pedophiles, whether it’s involving Donald Trump or any of his rich, elite friends.”

Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein. Trump maintains he booted Epstein from his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because the financier had poached young female employees.

A deluge of Epstein documents

New emails revealing details about the relationship between Trump and Epstein surfaced Wednesday. Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released three exchanges with content suggesting Trump was aware of Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. 

Republican leaders on the committee soon followed by releasing more than 20,000 documents they received from the Epstein estate.

Reports also surfaced that the Trump administration had reached out to two GOP lawmakers, Boebert and Mace, about removing their names from the petition.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm during Wednesday’s briefing that Trump had met with Boebert in the Situation Room, a secure center of national and global information for the president.

“I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room,” Leavitt said when asked about Trump approaching Boebert to remove her name.

Boebert’s office pointed States Newsroom to the lawmaker’s afternoon social media post that read,“I want to thank White House officials for meeting with me today. Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people.”

Mace’s office did not respond to questions to confirm the White House reached out to the South Carolina lawmaker. Rather, Mace’s Communications Director Sydney Long said, “​​The Congresswoman is not removing her name from the discharge petition because of her personal story.”

Mace has publicly shared her own story of sexual assault.

Furloughed federal workers stand in line for hours ahead of a special food distribution by the Capital Area Food Bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries on Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The longest shutdown in U.S. history ended Wednesday night when President Donald Trump signed a spending package that  reopens the government and funds most of it through January.

The Oval Office ceremony came just hours after the House voted to approve the legislation, which senators passed earlier in the week. 

“I hope we can all agree that the government should never be shut down again,” Trump said, before urging Senate Republicans to eliminate the rule that requires bills to garner the support of at least 60 lawmakers to advance. “Terminate the filibuster.”

The 222-209 vote marked the first time that chamber took up a bill since mid-September, when Republican leaders recessed after members approved a stopgap spending measure they knew couldn’t advance in the Senate. 

That stalemate, centered around sharply rising health care costs, led to a 43-day shutdown that affected nearly every corner of the country through delayed funding for nutrition programs for millions of Americans, no pay for federal workers, flight delays tied to staffing shortages and much more. 

But after nearly six weeks of failed procedural votes, seven centrist Senate Democrats and one independent broke with party leaders on Sunday to advance the reworked spending package and then voted to approve the legislation Monday. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who said throughout the shutdown he was interested in a bipartisan path forward on health insurance costs after the shutdown ended, committed to hold a floor vote on a Democratic bill “no later than the second week in December.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said repeatedly throughout the funding lapse GOP lawmakers have ideas to improve the health care system. However, he didn’t detail any of those publicly and hasn’t committed to a floor vote. 

“We have volumes of ideas on how to do this, on how to fix it, on how to drive costs down and how to increase access to care and quality of care, and you’re going to see all that vigorous debate,” Johnson said during a brief press conference after the vote.

House debate on the spending package that will reopen government was largely along party lines, though Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida voted against the bill.

Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Adam Gray of California, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state and Tom Suozzi of New York voted for passage. 

Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., urged support for the legislation ahead of the vote, saying “history reminds us that shutdowns never change the outcome.” 

“Over the last 43 days the facts did not shift, the votes required did not shift, the path forward did not change,” Cole said. “The only thing that did move was the level of pain Democrats inflicted on the nation.”

Much higher premiums predicted 

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the spending panel, rejected the legislation and said it does nothing to address the rising cost of health care. 

“More than 20 million Americans will have to pay double, even triple, their monthly insurance premium in just a matter of weeks,” DeLauro said. “And this bill leaves families without even a glimmer of hope that their costs might go down.”

The Senate significantly reworked the stopgap bill the House originally passed in mid-September into what is now a 394-page package, adding in three of the full-year government funding bills and changing the date of the stopgap measure to Jan. 30, among many other provisions. The original stopgap was set to last through Nov. 21. 

The updated measure gives Congress a couple more months to work out agreement on the remaining nine appropriations bills that were supposed to become law before the start of the current fiscal year on Oct. 1. 

Lawmakers could create a partial government shutdown if they’re unable to agree on approving the remaining appropriations bill before the new government funding deadline at the end of January.

Democratic discharge petition

Trump will turn his attention toward the rising cost of health care that Democrats highlighted during the shutdown, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Wednesday briefing, though she didn’t put a firm timeline on when he’ll release any plans.

“Once the government reopens, the president, as he’s always maintained, is absolutely open to having conversations about health care,” Leavitt said. “And I think you’ll see the president putting forth some really good policy proposals that Democrats should take very seriously to fix, again, the system that they broke.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters following a closed-door meeting that Democrats will try to get the necessary signatures on a discharge petition to force a floor vote on legislation to extend tax credits for three years for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

The New York Democrat said the extension mirrors how long the enhanced tax credits were set to last initially in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. 

Temporary health care subsidies were originally passed as part of the COVID-19-era American Rescue Plan in 2021 for two years. The Inflation Reduction Act, the signature climate policy bill from the Biden administration, then extended those health care subsidies for three years, expiring at the end of December 2025. 

“The legislation that we will introduce in the context of a discharge petition will provide that level of certainty to working-class Americans who are on the verge of seeing their premiums, co-pays and deductibles skyrocket,” Jeffries said. 

Democrats will need the support of at least a handful of Republicans in order to get the 218 signatures needed to force a vote on the bill. The discharge petition was released mid-afternoon.

What’s in the new bill

The spending package wraps in several different bills and provisions, such as the three full-year funding bills that cover the Agriculture Department, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Legislative Branch, military construction projects and Department of Veterans Affairs.

Included are:

• A stopgap spending bill that will keep the rest of the federal government running through Jan. 30;
• $30 million for the U.S. Capitol Police to enhance protections for lawmakers, $30 million for the U.S. Marshals Service to bolster security for members of the judicial and executive branches, and $28 million for enhanced safety for Supreme Court justices;
• Language requiring the Trump administration to reinstate the thousands of workers it sent layoff notices to during the shutdown and preventing officials from firing those workers through January;
• Provisions mandating the Trump administration provide back pay to all federal workers, including those furloughed during the shutdown. Trump at one point during the shutdown had threatened to yank that back pay, though it is required by law.

The Trump administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy a few hours before the House voted, saying the administration strongly supports the bill, describing the measure as “a fiscally responsible package that provides the full-year funding necessary to support the Nation’s veterans, farmers, and rural communities.”

The package also “ends disruptions to programs the American people rely on and ensures the thousands of Federal employees who have been forced to work without a paycheck, such as air traffic controllers, will be promptly paid,” the administration added. 

The Agriculture and Military Construction-VA spending bills include tens of billions of dollars in earmarks requested by lawmakers from both political parties, important to them as midterm elections loom in 2026.

‘Legislative self-dealing’ in Senate attacked

But not every Republican on Capitol Hill is happy with how the full-year bills turned out. 

Speaker Johnson announced mid-afternoon that the House would take a separate vote later this month to remove language from the package that will allow senators to file suit against the federal government if their data is subpoenaed.

“We are putting this legislation on the fast track suspension calendar in the House for next week,” Johnson wrote in a social media post. 

The provision, tucked into the full-year Legislative Branch spending bill, is retroactive to January 1, 2022, and would apply to the eight senators who had their cell phone records subpoenaed during a 2023 investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. 

The FBI reportedly obtained data for cell phone use between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021, for Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, as well as Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania. 

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said during floor debate the bill “contains the single most corrupt provision for legislative self-dealing that anyone in this chamber today has ever voted on.”

“This provision is an affront to our taxpayers, to the rule of law, to everyone who believes that we in public office must be the servants of the people, not the masters of the people who get special legal rights and privileges and multi-million-dollar payoffs,” Raskin said. 

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters earlier in the day that he will “definitely” be filing a lawsuit after the new provision becomes law. 

“And if you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars? No. I want to make it so painful no one ever does this again,” Graham said, later adding he wasn’t sure if he’d win such a case.

Dissatisfaction among GOP lawmakers with that provision was on full display on social media, where Florida’s Steube responded to Speaker Johnson’s post by writing that the “Senate will never take up your ‘standalone’ bill. This is precisely why you shouldn’t let the Senate jam the House.”

 

A bin of THC edible products from Virginia stores is displayed by the state attorney general. While states continue to expand access to legal marijuana, a separate market of hemp-derived intoxicants has blossomed. (Photo by Graham Moomaw/ Virginia Mercury)

A provision significantly limiting the sale of intoxicating hemp products made its way into legislation to reopen the federal government just a day before the Senate approved the bill. Its inclusion follows years of pressure from states and the marijuana industry.

While states continue to expand access to legal marijuana, a separate market of hemp-derived intoxicants has blossomed. The products, from drinks to gummies, are sold in gas stations and smoke shops. Critics say some companies have exploited a legal loophole from 2018 to manufacture products that get people high — without the safety regulations and taxes facing the legal marijuana industry.

That’s led dozens of states to limit or ban certain intoxicating hemp products. Most states also have pushed for federal changes, though some farm states worry the pending federal bill — which the House is expected to vote on as soon as today — goes too far.

A bipartisan group of 39 state attorneys general recently urged Congress to clarify the federal definition of hemp, arguing that the underregulated industry threatens public health and undermines law enforcement.

Texas lawmakers this year approved a strict ban on intoxicating hemp, but that measure was vetoed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor raised constitutional concerns because federal law allowed the products, but he then issued an executive order increasing state agency regulations, including age restrictions.

This summer, Florida regulators seized tens of thousands of packages of hemp products that failed to meet new child protection standards, including child-resistant packaging, marketing restrictions and enhanced labeling rules. In Tallahassee, the state Senate approved a ban on hemp-derived THC products, including beverages, but that measure died in the state House. A similar effort last year was vetoed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said it would harm small businesses.

Last month, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation strengthening state enforcement of its ban on intoxicating hemp products. Similarly, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine declared an emergency last month in an executive order banning intoxicating hemp products for 90 days while lawmakers debate potential legislation.

Missouri hemp businesses fear new federal THC limits will destroy the industry

Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the primary psychoactive component of the cannabis plant. The 39 state attorneys general argue manufacturers are manipulating hemp to produce synthetic THC that can be more intoxicating than marijuana.

“In this way, legal, nonintoxicating hemp is used to make Frankenstein THC products that get adults high and harm and even kill children,” the attorneys general wrote.

Hemp-derived gummies and beverages are sold without consistent age restrictions or labeling regulations and oftentimes resemble candy. During his announcement, DeWine showcased brightly packaged intoxicating hemp products that resembled name-brand candy products.

“Certainly, it’s easy to see how a child will confuse this product with real candy and eat a few gummy bears and ingest enough THC to require hospitalization,” he said, according to the Ohio Capital Journal.

Though it has faced mounting restrictions in the states, the hemp industry says the federal change poses an existential threat.

On Monday, the U.S. Hemp Roundtable said the legislation pending in Congress would wipe out 95% of the nation’s $28.4 billion hemp industry.

“The language will force patients, seniors and veterans who rely on hemp products to break federal criminal law to acquire them,” the trade group posted online.

Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the organization, said the industry has been pushing for regulation rather than outright prohibition. He acknowledged the problem of bad actors, but said those can be addressed with strong regulations like those that exist in Kentucky and Minnesota.

“These are good examples of states that have put together robust regulations. But we need to see that at the federal level, and we’ve been supporting legislation to do that for the last seven years,” he told Stateline.

Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator, said he included the hemp measure in the bill to close an unintended legal loophole and that the measure would still allow farmers to grow hemp for fiber, oil and drug trials.

But fellow Kentucky Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said the move would “eradicate the hemp industry” and could override some state laws. Paul offered an amendment to remove the hemp provision but failed.

The hemp loophole

Hemp derives from the same cannabis species as marijuana, but is legally defined by its lower levels of THC, the psychoactive component of the plant.

While marijuana remains illegal under federal law, Congress sanctioned hemp in the 2018 farm bill to allow an agricultural market for hemp-based textiles, animal feeds and human wellness products centered on cannabidiol, or CBD, products. The farm bill allowed cultivation of hemp plants with a THC concentration of 0.3% or lower by dry weight.

But that threshold has become essentially meaningless, said Katharine Neill Harris, a fellow in drug policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

That’s because manufacturers have found ways to convert legal hemp plants into potent forms of synthetic marijuana. Aside from the potential of creating very strong products, she said the process requires the addition of solvents and other ingredients that raise many safety questions.

“With marijuana products, you can get some very potent products,” she said. “But the psychoactive components to THC are naturally occurring. It naturally occurs in that natural amount. You’re not doing a whole bunch of manipulation to increase the potency of the product and adding ingredients.”

Harris has tracked the growing number of states regulating the industry: Six states and the District of Columbia now ban all consumable hemp products with any amount of THC. In 24 states, intoxicating hemp products are permitted, though 15 of those states allow only low-potency products.

But even states with strict regulations still must contend with legal online markets.

“There’s a big part of that activity that you can’t control as a state when something is federally legal, and so that’s one thing that they’re asking for is federal leadership on this issue,” she said. “I think there is a big demand for some sort of industry standards.”

If approved by Congress and signed by the president, as expected, the new hemp legislation will likely have uneven impacts across the states.

For example, the change likely won’t dramatically alter the legal landscape in Alaska, where the regulators have banned all intoxicating hemp products. Marijuana businesses complain those products are still being sold, despite the ban.

But in a state like Nebraska, where lawmakers have been unsuccessful in limiting intoxicating hemp, the change could drastically alter both consumer access and business sales, depending on enforcement.

On Monday, Paul said the federal legislation would wipe away hemp regulations in many states, including Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine and Utah.

“The bill before us nullifies all these state laws,” he said.

‘Running with knives’

The hemp industry has argued that a lot of the opposition to it stems from marijuana businesses looking to protect their own markets, noting that campaigns for restrictions are often more organized in states that have legalized marijuana.

But producers of intoxicating hemp are looking for market access without the associated safety regulations and tax structures states have created for marijuana, argued Chris Lindsey, the director of state advocacy and public policy at the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp, an organization representing the legal marijuana industry.

“They want to have some kind of regulatory framework that’s somehow different than the one that states already have [for marijuana],” he said.

His organization cheered the Senate’s efforts “to address the dangerous proliferation of unregulated synthetic THC products.”

Lindsey said hemp-derived products can contain contaminants, including pesticides. Many hemp products can be sourced cheaply overseas, he said, and with lax oversight, there is no system to recall tainted products here.

“To me, that’s like running with knives,” he told Stateline.

Floridians react to federal legislation that could ‘devastate’ state’s hemp industry

The Missouri Cannabis Trade Association recently purchased hemp products from gas stations and smoke shops from across the state to test them in an effort to show they need more regulation.

In its “Missouri Hemp Hoax Report,” the organization said independent testing found 53 of the 55 products purchased were actually intoxicating marijuana well above the legal limit of THC. Third-party lab results also showed some of the products contained pesticides and heavy metals.

Those results underscore that the products should face the same rules as legal marijuana does, said Andrew Mullins, president and executive director of the cannabis trade association. State law requires marijuana to be grown and manufactured in Missouri, mandates lab testing and allows for sales only at licensed dispensaries.

“In my mind, if it’s marijuana, which most of this is, then it should be regulated like marijuana,” Mullins said.

He said calling the unregulated products “hemp” is akin to someone selling whiskey and calling it corn: “Everybody is using hemp as a cover to basically sell intoxicating drugs.”

Mullins acknowledged the confusion among policymakers and law enforcement. But he said there are already laws — including those against trafficking marijuana without a license — that could help address the issue.

Catherine Hanaway, a Republican who was sworn in as Missouri’s new attorney general in September, has vowed action on unregulated hemp products, particularly THC beverages that are booming in popularity.

“Our focus is on the health and safety of Missourians,” James Lawson, her deputy chief of staff, told the Missouri Independent last month. “This is an unregulated industry that makes untested, unknown substances available to the public without any oversight, including children where we think it’s particularly detrimental.”

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

A photograph of President Donald Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is displayed after being unofficially installed in a bus shelter. (Leon Neal/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democrats investigating the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein released emails Wednesday they say show President Donald Trump knew about the financier’s abuse of underage girls as far back as 2011.

The three emails released by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were among 23,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee by Epstein’s estate, according to Democrats.

In a 2011 correspondence with the now-convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote that Trump “spent hours at my house” with a victim whose name is redacted from the email. In the same email, Epstein refers to Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked.”

In a 2015 email exchange between Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff, Wolff tells Epstein that he’s heard CNN will ask Trump about his relationship with the financier. The two have an exchange about how to hypothetically “craft an answer” for Trump. 

Wolff responds, “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable (public relations) and political currency.”

In a January 2019 email, also to Wolff, Epstein referenced a victim’s name, redacted, as having been at Trump’s Florida estate and private club, Mar-a-Lago, and wrote “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.” 

 

 

Trump has said he had a falling out with Epstein and kicked him out of his club over allegations Epstein poached young women workers from the club’s spa.

Emails raise more questions, leading Dem says

House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia said in a statement Wednesday the emails “raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President.”

“The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately. The Oversight Committee will continue pushing for answers and will not stop until we get justice for the victims,” Garcia continued.

Within hours of the committee Democrats’ release of the emails, committee Republican leaders issued a brief press release linking to “an additional 20,000 pages of documents received from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein” contained on Google Drive and Dropbox clouds. 

During Wednesday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”

Leavitt added that Trump and Epstein both lived in Palm Beach, Florida.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar a Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep,” she said.

Congress investigates after FBI backtracks

The bipartisan committee investigation began shortly after the FBI released a July memo stating the Department of Justice would not be releasing any further information on the government’s sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.

Epstein was found dead, apparently by suicide, in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell where he was awaiting federal trial.

The FBI’s announcement that the agency would not release further details caused a firestorm of demands to release all investigative material, even among Trump’s supporters in Congress and far-right media influencers, including Megyn Kelly and the late Charlie Kirk. 

Trump campaigned on releasing what are often referred to as the “Epstein files.”

A bipartisan effort in the House of Representatives is aiming to force a vote on the release of the files as soon as this week after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., swears in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva. 

Grijalva has pledged to be the final signature needed on a discharge petition by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that will compel a floor vote on a bill to release all Epstein investigation files.

Massie and Khanna hosted a press conference on Capitol Hill in early September featuring several women who told stories of abuse by Epstein and Maxwell.

Since the FBI memo, a magnifying glass has been fixed on Trump’s past relationship with Epstein. 

The president sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on a 50th birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a doodle of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair. 

The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear. 

Trump has denied the reports.

Telephones inside the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia, Mo., where incarcerated people pay per-minute rates to call loved ones. (Photo by Amanda Watford/Stateline)

The Federal Communications Commission voted to roll back limits on how much companies can charge incarcerated people and their families for phone and video calls.

The 2-1 vote in late October reverses rate caps the FCC adopted last year under a 2023 law that allows the agency to set limits on prison phone and video call rates. Critics say the rates are kept high by limited competition among major providers such as Securus Technologies and ViaPath.

Under the new interim rules, phone calls will cost up to $0.11 per minute in large prisons and $0.18 per minute in the smallest jails. Video calls will cost up to $0.23 per minute in large facilities and as much as $0.41 in small ones.

Only three states — Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma — currently have rates above the new rates, meaning most prison systems across the country are already below the previously adopted 2024 rate caps.

The new 2025 rates will take effect 120 days after being published in the Federal Register.

In June, the FCC had abruptly announced a two-year delay in implementing the 2024 rate caps after receiving complaints from local sheriffs and prison telecom companies. Republican attorneys general from 14 states also filed a lawsuit last year challenging the commission’s authority to limit how much prisons and jails can charge for phone calls, arguing that the rules deprived correctional facilities of needed funding.

Republican Commissioners Brendan Carr and Olivia Trusty, both appointed by President Donald Trump, supported the rollback. Carr argued the previous caps limited facilities’ ability to recover safety and security costs, such as monitoring calls, leading some to scale back or eliminate calling services altogether. Trusty said the 2024 rules “did not always strike the right balance,” and cited “unintended consequences” like service disruptions in some facilities.

At least one small jail — in Baxter County, Arkansas — ended phone services earlier this year in protest of the lower rate caps.

Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez, appointed by President Joe Biden, voted against the order and called it “indefensible.” She said the decision gives monopoly telecom providers “the authority to increase the costs for families to maintain critical connections with their loved ones in prison.”

Advocates for incarcerated people condemned the vote.

“These changes are a betrayal of the families who entrusted the FCC to protect them from the notoriously predatory correctional telecom industry,” Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, said in a news release. Worth Rises is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry.

Some research suggests that incarcerated people who maintain consistent contact with loved ones are significantly more likely to succeed upon release and are less likely to reoffend.

The FCC’s latest decision comes months after New York joined California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Minnesota in offering free phone calls in state prisons. Colorado’s policy won’t take full effect until 2026.

At least two states — Maryland and Missouri — considered legislation this year to make prison and jail calls more affordable. Maryland’s proposal to make calls free in state prisons did not pass, but Missouri enacted a law in August capping phone call rates at no more than 12 cents per minute in correctional centers.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

Wind turbines rise up above farmland near Middleton on November 19, 2013. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Wisconsin Democrats have announced a bill that would cap residential energy bills at 2% of household income. 

On Tuesday, Democrats said the proposal from Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) would protect Wisconsinites’ bank accounts while the state finds ways to expand clean energy production in the face of climate change and manage the increasing energy burden posed by data center developments across the state. 

“Rising energy rates are becoming an unsustainable burden on regular people in Wisconsin,” Madison said at a Tuesday morning press conference. “Our energy system still has big problems to tackle, like dramatically moving towards carbon-free electricity, or the challenge of data centers, which are currently on course to double the amount of energy creation in Wisconsin. Regardless of your stance on data centers, artificial intelligence and the role these technologies can or should play in our communities, the people of Wisconsin must have their energy burden lifted. This bill is a common sense, necessary protection for people struggling to afford their basic needs before we take further action on any of these things as legislators to address those issues.”

At the press conference, residents who have struggled with energy bills spoke about how getting power disconnected can reverberate through people’s lives, causing health problems or forcing choices between other household costs. 

“We’re doing everything we can, yet we still cannot keep up,” said Jill Sexton, a Wausau resident who is on disability assistance with a husband on Social Security. “I ended up taking a part time job specifically to cover the increase in our electric and heating bills. Nowadays, here’s our reality: Each month we choose between paying the electric bill and heat bill or filling our prescriptions. Some months I don’t buy the medication. Some months we stretch food until the very last day.”

Several lawmakers tied the bill to the national Democratic party’s growing focus on “affordability” and bipartisan skepticism of data centers. 

“We have the money. It’s all about how we prioritize where we spend it,” Rep. Ryan Spaude (D-Ashwaubenon) said at the press conference. “Folks in my district and around the state are on a knife’s edge. Many of them are just barely getting by. This bill is going to do something. It’s going to keep more money in their pockets. It deserves a hearing and it deserves to be passed by this body.” 

Legislators announced the bill just as communities are grappling with the construction of massive data centers across the state. While the centers can provide an easy source of property tax revenue for local governments, they also use a massive amount of water and energy — raising questions about the protection of local water supplies, adequacy of the state’s existing renewable energy sources and concerns that a data center-generated spike in energy use will be passed on to local ratepayers. 

Last week, Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) introduced a bill that would require data centers to cover the cost of increased energy use, mandate the development of more clean energy and ensure data center construction pays local workers living wages. 

“While our state energy system faces deep uncertainty, especially when it comes to the climate crisis, we’re responding to data centers that are going to have increasing energy demands and raise rates for many communities,” said Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) who is running in the Democratic primary for governor. “It is vital that we cap all utility payments at 2% of income so that we can protect our ratepayers and our communities first. This bill is a clear and systemic practical response to rising energy rates, and it’s one of the key cornerstone priorities of the Assembly Democrats’ affordability agenda.”

Under the rate cap bill, the Public Service Commission would be responsible for administering an energy burden relief fund. The fund would cover the difference for any household with energy costs that are more than 2% of the monthly household income. The bill would give the PSC 12 months after enactment to start the fund and three years to automatically enroll every eligible household. 

The bill would allow the PSC to prioritize households making less than 300% of the federal poverty level, only provide payments to cover energy costs for primary residences and provide a maximum energy use threshold to prevent people from receiving state aid for energy intensive home businesses such as mining cryptocurrency. 

Also, the bill would prevent public utility companies from disconnecting the service of people making less than 300% of the federal poverty level and require the PSC to annually report the number of utility disconnections.

An empty high school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)

Wisconsin lawmakers are exploring ways to make it easier for school districts to consolidate as they face  declining enrollment and financial difficulties.

There are 421 school districts in the state of Wisconsin and about two-thirds are struggling with declining enrollment. According to preliminary numbers from the Department of Public Instruction, enrollment for public school districts in the 2025-26 school year fell by about 13,600 students, representing a nearly 2% decrease from last year’s estimate. Total enrollment across school districts is about 759,800 this year. 

Reps. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) and Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said during an Assembly Education Committee public hearing Tuesday that declining enrollment is to blame for the financial troubles that schools are facing.

“The districts that are going to referendum all the time. It’s almost always because of declining enrollment. It just gets more expensive per student to educate those kids as the districts become smaller,” Kitchens said. “We’re not telling districts this is what you have to do or what you should do. We’re telling them this is an option for you to consider.” 

Schools in Wisconsin have seen a drop of about 53,000 students over a decade, from the 2013-14 to 2022-23 school years. Kitchens pointed to estimates from the Wisconsin Department of Administration that the population in Wisconsin is projected to drop by 200,000 by 2050, noting it will be largely due to the state’s declining birth rate.

Wisconsin’s school funding system is based in part on per pupil numbers, meaning that if fewer students are enrolled schools receive decreased funding from the state, even if a district’s overall costs may not fall. 

Kitchens said that having 421 school districts is not going to be sustainable in the long term in Wisconsin and questioned whether there is another state that “on a per capita basis has that many” school districts. 

Kitchens said the issue shouldn’t be partisan. He noted that school consolidation is something that the 2019 Blue Ribbon Commission on Wisconsin school funding supported through its  recommendations.

“Many districts have used the referendum process to increase the property tax burden on the local residents to backfill the loss in state aid revenue,” Nedweski said. “Many others have seen them repeatedly fail as property taxpayers are unwilling to raise their taxes to increasingly fund empty schools.” She noted that a recent Marquette Law School Poll found that 57% of participants said they would vote against a referendum request. “There is no referendum that can be passed or law that can be signed to single-handedly reverse decades of birth rate declines to alleviate the stresses of declining enrollment in our schools. It’s clear that a more long-term solution is needed to address these demographic challenges because the status quo is not sustainable.” 

Wisconsin has had a record number of school districts go to referendum to help meet costs. But beyond declining enrollment, public school advocates say the burden on local taxpayers asked to fund their schools through referendum has grown mostly due to the fact that state investments in public schools have not kept pace with inflation for almost two decades. In the most recent state budget, Wisconsin lawmakers provided additional special education funding, but opted not to provide any increase in general aid, leaving increased costs to fall on property taxpayers.

State Superintendent Tom McCarthy noted during the hearing that Wisconsin is currently spending the least, proportionally, in state revenue that it has ever spent on schools under the current funding formula. He noted that about 32.1% of state general purpose revenue goes to state general aid to schools, and that percentage used to be around 35%. He also said the conversation about declining enrollment and costs had to include the acknowledgement that school districts’ revenue limits have been frozen at different points over the last decade, prohibiting school districts from raising more funds unless they go to referendum to ask voters.

Nedweski said the bills would be useful tools and incentives for districts facing decisions about whether to consolidate.

“Buildings do not educate kids, teachers do,” Nedweski said. “By finding efficiencies through voluntary consolidation, districts will be able to reduce overhead and direct resources to the classrooms so that our students can continue to receive a quality education, while taxpayers receive relief on their property tax bills.”

The package of bills would take a number of steps to encourage districts to explore consolidation, including providing financial incentives.

School districts already receive additional aid when they consolidate. For the first five years after consolidation, a consolidated school district gets $150 per pupil. In the sixth year, the aid drops to 50% of what the school district received in the fifth year and in the seventh year, the aid drops to 25% of the fifth year. 

AB 644 would increase that additional state aid to schools that consolidate in 2026, 2027 and 2028 to $2,000 per pupil in the first year. The last six years would be the same as under current law. 

Kitchens said that he thought most school districts would be able to decide within a year whether consolidation is something that they want to pursue. 

“I’m very open in the future to extending that deadline, but I think to get it passed, we need to put a sunset on it, so we’re doing three years,” Kitchens said. 

Dee Pattack, executive director of the Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance, noted that the inclusion of 2026 won’t really be useful for school districts since districts that want to consolidate have missed the opportunity to do so if they haven’t decided by now for next year. She also suggested that lawmakers look at spreading out  the additional aid more gradually, saying that dropping aid from $2,000 to $150 per student creates a cliff.

Kitchens said he would look at amending the timeline included in the bill. 

Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) noted that decisions about consolidation can be emotional and personal for communities. 

“Public schools are the heart of our communities, oftentimes in rural communities, especially. They’re one of the largest employers. It’s where you have the most celebrations. There’s athletic events that are important to everyone in the communities and so this decision of consolidation is deeply complex. It’s personal for a lot of school districts,” Hong said. 

Hong, who is running in the Democratic primary for governor, questioned whether lawmakers had considered just leaving the decisions on consolidation up to local communities altogether, noting that Wisconsin law favors local control of schools. 

“That’s why it’s voluntary. That’s why we’re offering these tools. It is not mandatory. We know it’s going to be difficult,” Kitchens said, adding that Door County used to be full of one-room school houses until there was a consolidation in 1960. “When they consolidated that and formed Southern Door [County] School District, people were out there with pitchforks. It’s always going to be difficult, but we have to look at the future and what it’s going to be.” 

Kitchens noted that districts are not “clamoring” to consolidate and that the option exists as a last resort for most. 

“There are a few that are, and you’ll hear from at least one of them today that really have reached that point where they know it’s necessary,” Kitchens said. “We’re not hearing districts begging for this.” 

Joe Green, district administrator and director of special education for the Greenwood School District, and Chris Lindner, district administrator for the Loyal School District, testified about the rural school districts’ journey of consolidation, which their school boards are focused on getting done by July 1, 2028. They said it has been an emotional journey as people are attached to their schools and communities, but that it could be the best option for them. 

“It might be the thing that gets us over the hump to consolidation,” Green said of the new legislative proposal. “It might be the funding that our two districts need to put a good plan in front of our communities. It might allow us to do some small projects to make consolidation smoother. There may be small construction, or things that we need to do to retrofit buildings, if that’s the way that our facility studies go. There’s a million different scenarios out there on what consolidation can look like. But without that funding, I mean, honestly, with our two districts $150 bucks a kid is $100,000 — not gonna do much with that… it’s just not going to do much.”

Green said the districts already share bus service and that 50% of their co–curricular activities are shared. They said that the schools began sharing students and staff due to their difficulty finding adequate staff to deliver instruction in rural Clark County in central Wisconsin. 

Lindner said that consolidation could help open up more opportunities for students. “We do drama together. If we did not, we would have five to six students that would not be able to do drama because, you know, can’t do it with five or six kids,” he said. 

Lindner said consolidation could also help save money.

“Our taxpayers are paying a lot of money for our operating referendums,” he said. “We tell communities if we do not start working together more, then we will be losing.”

AB 645 would instruct DPI to provide grants of up to $25,000 to groups of two or more school district boards for the costs of a feasibility study for school district consolidation or whole grade sharing agreements. 

Another bill, AB 647, would have DPI provide four-year grants of up to $500 per pupil enrolled in a single grade to school districts that enter into a whole-grade sharing agreement, agreeing to educate students at one location. 

Felzkowski said that whole-grade sharing is a step before consolidation.

“It lets them test the waters if they ever want to move to full consolidation,” Felzkowski said, adding that middle and high schools may be able to provide more class offerings, including advanced coursework, to students with grade sharing.

AB 648 would help create new supplemental state aid for consolidated school districts to  address differences in school districts’ levies when they merge. The measure is meant to address concerns of higher property taxes for residents of low-levy districts when a consolidation takes place.

AB 649 provides the funding for the bills, including $2.7 million for grants to schools that enter whole-grade sharing agreements, $3 million to provide state aid to offset levy limit differences and $250,000 for feasibility studies. 

McCarthy of DPI noted at the hearing that there are already several legal and mechanical supports in place to encourage consolidation, and that even with those, the last major consolidation that took place was on July 1, 2018. Two K-8 districts merged to become the Holy Hill Area School District in Richfield. 

McCarthy of DPI said the slate of bills being proposed are “largely building from past efforts to support and to incentivize consolidation” and that the agency doesn’t view them as “a brand new door that’s being opened up” to solve problems.

The final bill in the package, AB 646, would study what changes should be made to Wisconsin’s school districts. Under it, DPI would hire a contractor to conduct a study of Wisconsin’s school districts that looks at current school district boundaries, potential school district consolidations, existing school district facilities, staffing levels and salary scales, the population of school-age children in each school district, and revenue limits and current overall spending. 

McCarthy said the agency is most excited about this final proposal.  He said it is similar to what Vermont has done and addresses some of the factors that are important to consider when consolidating. 

The study would culminate in recommendations for changes to school district boundaries, a survey on the conditions of school district facilities across the state, information on the current and 10-year projection of the population of school-age children in each district and recommendations for school district consolidations that promote efficiency, are geographically feasible and economically viable. 

“We probably owe it to our school partners to take a long look at what are the right geographical boundaries here,” McCarthy said. “As we’re thinking about how to manage this stuff, it might be a good moment in time to slow down and think about how do we sync some of these things up to be a more effective patchwork of schools that are serving our communities?”

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Green Bay Correctional Institution. (Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner)

When a prison built in the 1800s is still housing people in 2025 with the same aging infrastructure, we have to be honest, the system is broken. Wisconsin’s prisons have been in crisis for years, and for the first time in a long time, we’re seeing a small but important step toward change. 

Gov. Tony Evers recently received bipartisan approval to overhaul Wisconsin’s aging prison system and close the outdated Green Bay and Waupun prisons. The overhaul strategy includes a $15 million project investment and outlines a four-year process to reduce the number of beds, modernize facilities, and shift the focus toward rehabilitation and safety. That’s progress, but 2029 is too far away, and Evers’ plan lacks the kind of decarceration measures needed to actually reduce the prison population and make Wisconsin safer. 

The reality inside our prisons doesn’t have four years to wait. People are dying. Staff are exhausted. Families are breaking under the weight of a system that punishes more than it prepares people to come home. Every delay costs lives and wastes taxpayer dollars that could be used to help people rebuild instead of being locked away. 

I know this firsthand because I lived it. I spent part of my incarceration inside Green Bay Correctional Facility, one of the oldest and most overcrowded prisons in Wisconsin. The facility was built in 1898 with a design capacity of about 17,000 people statewide, yet Wisconsin’s prison population has hovered above 22,000 for years. That means thousands of people crammed into cells meant for far fewer. Walking those halls, you can feel the age of the place, the air thick with humidity, the bitter cold in winter, and the lack of ventilation that makes it hard to breathe. The walls are cracking, the infrastructure is failing, and the environment itself strips people of their dignity. 

Those conditions don’t make anyone safer. They don’t prepare people for reentry. They create desperation, both for both the incarcerated and the staff working inside. The best way to ensure a safer Wisconsin is to get the people who are ready to reenter society out of our prisons and into reentry. Overcrowded and understaffed prisons overtax our correctional officers and make prisons unsafe for officers and incarcerated people. In addition, understaffing makes it harder to ensure that everyone gets the programming that they need. The Federal First Step Act and CARES Act Home Confinement have both proved that bringing the right people back early can result in lower recidivism, better public safety and safer and more effective prisons. 

I was one of the many people affected by Wisconsin’s Truth in Sentencing law, which eliminated parole and early release. That law has kept countless people behind bars longer than necessary, removing the hope and incentive that parole once provided.

If Wisconsin wants to lead on justice reform, this can’t just be a construction project. Real reform means reducing the number of people behind bars, ending excessive revocations, expanding reentry programs, and investing in housing, treatment, and mental health care. It means giving people a path forward, not just warehousing. 

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Wisconsin imprisons about 663 people per 100,000 residents, far more than Minnesota (173) or Illinois (341). Despite years of promises to reform, the state’s prison population has remained between 21,000 and 23,000 people for nearly two decades. 

Nearly 40% of new admissions each year come from revocations, not new crimes, meaning thousands are sent back to prison for breaking supervision rules like missing curfew, losing housing, or failing a drug test. That’s roughly 4,000 to 5,000 people every year, based on Department of Corrections data. I lead a statewide Smart Justice campaign focused on ending these excessive revocations, because it’s one of the biggest drivers of mass incarceration in Wisconsin. 

Add to that the worst racial disparity in the country. Black residents are imprisoned at 11 times the rate of white residents, according to the Sentencing Project, and it’s clear that our problem isn’t just old buildings. It’s old thinking. Reducing prison beds without changing these policies is like draining a bathtub while leaving the faucet running. Until we reform supervision, expand early release and invest in reentry and community support, the system will keep refilling itself. 

Closing prisons built in the 1800s is a step in the right direction, but it has to come with urgency and intention. We can’t keep reacting; we have to start transforming. The same energy that went into passing this plan must go into implementing it quickly and with input from the people most affected by it, those who have lived behind those walls, their families and the communities most affected by incarceration. 

As we head into a new election season, this issue must be front and center for every candidate running for governor. Wisconsin deserves leaders who will move us forward, not just talk about reform, but act on it. The next administration should be judged on whether it has the courage to close outdated prisons, expand second chances, and build a system rooted in rehabilitation, dignity, and justice. 

Gov. Evers was right when he said, “We’ve got to get this damned thing done.” But getting it done means more than moving money; it means moving with purpose. Justice reform isn’t about buildings; it’s about people. 

Wisconsin’s motto is Forward. It’s time for our justice system and our next governor to finally live up to that.

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Surveillance cameras monitor traffic on a clear day | Getty Images Creative

The Greenfield Police Department has been engulfed in controversy since its chief was charged with felony misconduct in public office earlier this month. Chief Jay Johnson is accused of having a pole camera, owned and operated by the police department, installed at his Racine County home in late 2024. A 15-page criminal complaint states that Johnson put up the camera for personal use while he was in the process of divorcing his wife. 

The complaint also states that Johnson’s alleged personal use of the camera  violated the wishes and advice of Greenfield’s mayor, city attorney and members of the police department. In July, special agents from the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) attended a meeting held at Greenfield City Hall to discuss a months-long investigation with city officials. 

According to the complaint, the special agents “were advised that during an internal investigation of Chief Johnson, which was conducted earlier in 2025, investigators uncovered actions they deemed as possibly criminal in nature. Outside agencies were later contacted to investigate potentially criminal violations committed by Chief Johnson.” 

Interviews with Greenfield’s human resources director, mayor, city attorney and police department staff turned up statements  that Johnson wanted to use a tax-payer funded, police department-owned pole camera at his home in Wind Lake because of  “safety concerns stemming from his divorce,” according to the complaint. Mayor Michael Neitzke said Johnson claimed to have been attempting to get a retraining order against his wife “in part because she was dating a felon,” the complaint states. Johnson claimed to have experienced harassment including a white rose being left in his driveway. The chief’s restraining order was denied, the complaint states, after which he asked the mayor about installing a pole camera. “Mayor Neitzke advised agents that he did not understand the type of camera Chief Johnson was talking about and believed it was equivalent to a trail camera or Verizon-type camera,” the complaint states. 

The mayor gave Johnson the go-ahead to install the camera, but later began to reconsider the decision. Neitzke contacted city attorney Christopher Geary, who said Johnson shouldn’t install the camera “citing legal issues with its use for personal reasons.” Geary then contacted Johnson stating that “his divorce is not related to his job,” the criminal complaint states. Johnson’s reaction was reputedly bombastic, “‘I think it’s f-ing ludicrous,’ was the exact quote,” Geary wrote in an email to the mayor. 

Johnson tried to argue that what he wanted was no different from the security former Gov. Scott Walker received during the Act 10 protests, and that a prior Greenfield police chief also had home security. “I tried to explain the difference is that the threats in those situations stemmed from the person’s public employment and/or public policy positions, whereas this is, as I understand it, an entirely personal situation,” Geary wrote in the same email, which is featured in the criminal complaint. “He didn’t appreciate the distinction.” 

The mayor said he thought that was where the issue ended, and that Johnson hadn’t installed the camera. In December 2024, however, Greenfield Police Department  Captain Chuck Fletcher was asked by Johnson about installing the pole cameras, according to the complaint. Fletcher told the DCI special agents that he had known Johnson his entire career and “considers him a close friend.” Fletcher stated that he also knew Johnson’s wife, and didn’t consider her to be an angry or violent person. Johnson allegedly told Fletcher that he wanted to keep the camera installation “low key” and discrete. Fletcher then assigned Detective Scott Simons to handle the installation, and told investigators that he did not know that the city attorney had advised against it. 

The complaint states that Fletcher communicated the chief’s desire to be “low key” and quick about things to Simons. The detective said he was asked to “change the password for logging onto the camera, as all pole cameras have a general username and password,” according to the complaint. “The camera that was to be installed at the Defendant’s residence would have a unique username and password.” Although Greenfield’s pole cameras are owned and monitored by the police department, they are installed by We Energies technicians. A camera was taken down “from a closed drug investigation,” according to the complaint. Simons told another detective that it was “being installed in another county for another investigation.” The camera was eventually installed across the street from the chief’s home. 

Some time later, Greenfield Police Association president and detective Aaron Busche “found out by accident” about the chief’s personal camera. Busche keeps track of the department’s four pole cameras, which are listed on a whiteboard by number and location. Busche realized that the camera at Johnson’s home had no documented location. “Detective Busche was told by Detective Scott Simons that the camera was loaned to an outside agency for their investigation,” the complaint states. “Detective Busche was not told what agency the camera was loaned to.”

 

Criminal Complaint_1 - Johnson, Jay A_ 2025CF005150_ Johnson, Jay A._28099053_1

 

In the spring of 2025, Busche heard that there was video feed from the mystery camera, but then realized he couldn’t log in because the password had been changed. Busche then used a “backdoor process” to access the camera feed, and realized it was the chief’s home. During a meeting with acting chief Eric Lindstrom, Simons was asked to take the camera down. 

Johnson is accused of violating Greenfield PD’s standards of conduct by using department equipment for personal gain, and omitting or even falsifying information given to staff who carried out the camera’s installation. The criminal complaint also accuses Johnson of threatening behavior towards law enforcement. In late August, it states, a person attempting to disguise their voice called the police department saying, “Hello you f-ing pigs, revenge is sweet!” The dispatcher and Busche both recognized the voice as Johnson’s. 

Acting Chief Lindstrom had also filed a complaint against Johnson with the Oak Creek Police Department, accusing Johnson of threats and harassment over Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. One email copy says: “He’s on board, hold on tight!!!! Idiot and the ice princess will pay dearly. JJ DOJ is the man! Boom. God is good.” Another message says: “KL is on board. Friday meet with us. Ughhh. So unnecessary but he’s all in for me rn. HR and MN GOING DOWN!!!! EL is dirty so stay tuned. TY owe you!!!!” The criminal complaint states that “EL” is a reference to Eric Lindstrom who, like Busche, has also served on the Milwaukee-area team which investigates civilian deaths by police. 

The controversy raises questions about oversight of police surveillance technology, accountability for officers, and how problematic police officers climb the ranks. Community members in Milwaukee County have pushed for Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) local ordinances, which would provide more oversight and control of police surveillance tools.

Fox6 reported that a string of disciplinary issues going back to 2013 followed Chief Johnson. The news outlet obtained documents which described Johnson, who was a captain at the time, as having issues with “failing to own decisions and initiatives by administrative staff” or “engaging in inappropriate conversations with officers.” Johnson had been accused of sharing management-level discussions or information related to subordinates, and planning a “booze cruise” and other organized parties. 

A 2015 memo stated that “he can’t be allowed to supervise,” and in 2017 he signed a settlement to become Greenfield’s emergency management coordinator with the fire department, before becoming chief. Asked by Fox6 how Johnson became chief, Mayor Neitske redirected blame to the city’s Police and Fire Commission.

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

The U.S. Supreme Court has extended through Thursday a pause on lower courts’ orders that the Trump administration authorize a full month of benefits for a food assistance program that 1 in 8 Americans use to buy groceries.

A brief, unsigned order published Tuesday evening also said the full court would decide on the administration’s request to block court orders that the U.S. Department of Agriculture release full November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. 

The case was presented to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said she would have dismissed the case and denied the request for an administrative stay. Jackson was appointed to the high court by President Joe Biden.

The order adds another wrinkle to a case that was already the object of a weekslong tug-of-war over how the program should operate during the government shutdown.

The shutdown could end before the stay expires. The U.S. Senate passed a bill Monday to reopen the government, and the House is expected to pass it Wednesday. President Donald Trump has said he supports the measure and will likely sign it before the end of the day Thursday.

Trump and administration officials have maintained they were not authorized to release November SNAP benefits during the shutdown.

A Rhode Island federal judge ordered the USDA on Thursday to release full benefits for November. The department sent states a memo authorizing those payments Friday morning, then appealed to the Supreme Court on Friday evening to have the district court’s order overturned.

At the same time, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s order.

In the face of often contradicting administrative guidance and court orders, some states began processing full benefits for November, while others have yet to release them.

Workers and volunteers help distribute food boxes to those in need at a large-scale drive-through food distribution, in response to the federal government shutdown and SNAP/CalFresh food benefits delays, on Nov. 5, 2025 in City of Industry, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Payments for November for the nation’s main food assistance program have been delayed during the government shutdown, amid a confusing mess of contradicting guidance from the Trump administration and a flurry of court orders in two cases at every level of the federal judiciary.

The off-and-on freeze of benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that serves about 42 million people, was among the most consequential effects of the record-setting shutdown. Roughly 1 in 8 Americans use SNAP to help buy groceries.

Lawmakers, advocates and judges all repeatedly called for urgency to restore the program to keep Americans from going hungry. Yet the dizzying back-and-forth continued, often leaving both states and families at a loss.

While the shutdown is likely to end this week, the legal fight continues over the responsibilities of the federal government, which funds SNAP, and the states that administer the program.

Here’s a timeline of events over 42 days since Congress failed to appropriate new funding for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1:

Sept. 30, 2025: On the brink of the current shutdown, the Trump U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a plan for how its various programs will be affected. It says SNAP benefits will continue to flow from a $6 billion contingency fund during a shutdown.

“Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds,” the document reads in part.

States Newsroom discloses the document is later removed from USDA’s website.

Oct. 1: Congress fails to appropriate any money for discretionary government programs. The federal government shuts down. USDA pays October SNAP benefits.

Oct. 10: USDA sends a letter to states telling them not to pay SNAP benefits for November, a reversal from its Sept. 30 plan.

Oct. 24: USDA tells states in a memo that it will not pay November SNAP benefits, even though it held billions in a contingency fund.  

Oct. 28: Democratic states sue USDA in Massachusetts federal court, seeking to force the department to pay for November benefits.

Oct. 30: Nonprofits, religious groups and municipal governments bring a similar suit in Rhode Island federal court. 

Oct. 31: In an initial hearing in the Rhode Island case, U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. says he is ordering USDA to continue SNAP benefits in November.

In the Massachusetts case, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani rules that withholding November benefits is illegal, but gives the administration until Nov. 3 to respond.

Nov. 1: McConnell issues a written ruling laying out two options for USDA: pay full benefits for November by Nov. 3 or partial benefits by Nov. 5.

Some SNAP recipients begin to miss benefit payments. The program administers benefits on a rolling basis throughout each month, so more people are affected every day the department is not authorizing benefits.

Nov. 3: In a filing in McConnell’s court, USDA says it will pay about half of November benefits. But it says the administrative difficulties of calculating partial benefits could take weeks or even months.

Nov. 4, just after 11 a.m. Eastern: President Donald Trump posts to Truth Social that SNAP benefits will not be paid until Democrats agree to reopen the government. At the White House press briefing in the afternoon, press secretary Karoline Leavitt walks back that post and says Trump was referring to future benefits.

Nov. 5, late: In a memo to states, USDA corrects a table for the amount of partial benefits households should receive based on income, size of household and other factors. USDA says the table fulfills its duty under McConnell’s Nov. 1 order to pay partial benefits by this date. 

Nov. 6: McConnell orders the USDA to pay full November benefits by the next day. His earlier order was clear that partial benefits must be paid by Nov. 5, he said. Because recipients did not receive their benefits, the government missed that deadline, and it must pay for the whole month, he says. He also notes Trump’s Truth Social post appeared to defy the order.

States, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Oregon, begin to authorize full November benefits. 

Nov. 7, 8:53 a.m. Eastern: The department appeals McConnell’s order the day before to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Nov. 7, midday: Despite its morning appeal, the USDA issues guidance to states greenlighting full November benefits. A USDA spokesperson says the department must comply with McConnell’s order.

Consistent with the USDA guidance, more states begin to authorize full November benefits.

Nov. 7, evening: The Trump administration asks the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay of the 1st Circuit and district court orders that it provide full November benefits that day.

Nov. 7, just before 10 p.m. Eastern: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson orders an administrative stay while the 1st Circuit appeal is pending. The order temporarily halts the lower courts’ order to provide benefits.

Nov. 8, late: Following the Supreme Court stay, USDA sends states a letter demanding they “immediately undo” any moves to provide full SNAP benefits. The letter threatens to cancel other federal funding for states that don’t comply. 

Nov. 9, late night: A 1st Circuit panel affirms McConnell’s order. The trial judge was within his right to order USDA pay full November benefits, the three-judge panel says.

Nov. 10: The Trump administration continues its Supreme Court appeal, even as the shutdown nears its end and the 1st Circuit has ruled on the appeal.

Talwani issues a restraining order on the Nov. 8 letter asking states to “undo” November benefit payments. At a hearing, she says USDA has created the confusion and that states were acting in line with court orders and the department’s own guidance.

The U.S. Senate approves a bill to reopen the government and fund SNAP, sending the measure to the House. 

Later this week: The U.S. House is expected to clear the Senate bill; Trump is expected to sign it. The Supreme Court could rule on the administration’s request to freeze the lower court orders. 

It is not clear when full November benefits will flow to households.

Text by Jacob Fischler/timeline graphic by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom.