Nicole Boyd, chairwoman of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, delivers the 2026 State of the Tribes address. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

To the beat of a ceremonial drum flags representing Wisconsin’s 11 Indigenous nations streamed into the State Assembly Tuesday, carried by military veterans who are regarded as warriors in their tribal communities. Their families and loved ones, many also dressed in traditional regalia, watched from the gallery above during the 2026 State of the Tribes Address.

Chairwoman Nicole Boyd  of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians thanked her relatives, community members and lawmakers from both political parties for assembling in the ornate room. Boyd’s community lies six hours north of north of the Capitol in the northernmost point of Wisconsin on Lake Superior and within “the ceded territory of the Ojibwi Nations,” the Chairwoman said. 

“Today, you will learn of my beliefs and values and why I think education is the key to making tribal nations in Wisconsin great,” said Boyd. “I intend to reflect on the work our tribal nations accomplished in 2025, and to set a course for the milestones we will celebrate in the future. We are ready to work hard. And we expect that same dedication from our state partners.”

Boyd spoke of “trust” and “responsibility” in the 250-year-old legal relationships tribal communities have with the U.S. government, including court decisions reaffirming tribal sovereignty and the treaties that ceded “millions of acres of our land in this region,” Boyd said. “But for the original inhabitants of this land, the Anishinaabe, trust-responsibility has much deeper meaning. The Anishinaabe were brought to this Earth by the Creator for a greater purpose: To caretake for this place, the people, and all beings. To ensure it now, and for many generations to come. We are not here simply to take. Our ancestors knew this, they fought for this, and they left us the teachings of reciprocity.”

Boyd said that “wealth is not solely defined by monetary value and material items.” Her elders often reminded her that “we’re the richest people on this Earth because we have everything needed to survive from the Anishinaabe Walmart,” a reference to the land and water that has provided Indigenous people with shelter and sustenance for generations. Boyd shared a traditional story that the Anishinaabe once had an abundance of sweet syrup that would flow from the sugar maples in the forests, a gift from the Creator so that they could fulfil their caretaking responsibilities. But one day, the Creator visited the people and found that the Anishinaabe had over-indulged in the syrup and were sleeping lazily under the maple tree. The Creator decided to water down the syrup, causing the people to labor more to get the final product they craved. 

“To this day, the gathering of this bountiful resource from the Anishinaabe Walmart is a lengthy lesson-learning process,” said Boyd. “Some years we have bountiful harvests, and other years we do not. We believe this is a result of many factors, including how well we are taking care of the resource and our responsibilities. We have ecological knowledge about all of our abundant resources in the Anishinaabe Walmart. Yet, when we want to share our views on why we will protect our water, air, land and beans at all costs we continue to be considered radical, or less than our equal counterparts. We could show all the evidence or research in the world, and still be considered wrong. Meaningful diligence is more than just checking a consultation box. It is taking the time to truly understand the impact of something in the past, now and in the future. That is the legal, fiscal, and moral obligation we all must balance together.”

Boyd asked whether tribal communities were wrong to weigh in on changing a national lakeshore to a national park, or to push back when a major oil pipeline project is re-locating near the largest and most pristine aquifer in the region, connected to the Bad River watershed. Boyd asked, “Why is it wrong to expect that feasibility of projects of this magnitude be ecologically sound, and ensure the water will be protected?”

Each time the chairwoman finished a major point, the Assembly parlor would erupt with cheering and applause from tribal members and Assembly Democrats. Republican lawmakers, however, appeared mostly disengaged from the speech with many refusing to applaud, checking their phones frequently, or leaning over to joke and laugh in one another’s ears after Boyd’s remarks. Nevertheless, Boyd pressed on. 

“Your great great grandchildren will not be righting wrongs if you choose this path,” said Boyd. She encouraged people in the room who are unfamiliar with the issues she brought up  to watch the documentary “Bad River: A Story of Defiance.” “I guarantee that you will understand that ‘water is life’ is not a slogan, it’s why we exist,” she said.

Boyd praised Gov. Tony Evers for increasing collaboration with tribal communities. She asked that wild rice be made the state native grain, as it’s been in Minnesota since 1997 and in Michigan since 2003. She said she  hopes the Legislature will take it up during the next session. She also highlighted tribal gaming as a key part of Wisconsin’s economy. Boyd highlighted how the NFL draft, held in Green Bay in cooperation with tribal communities, brought $125 million to Wisconsin. Yet, a lot of sports betting revenue is lost to unregulated and even illegal platforms which operate outside of Wisconsin, and even outside of the U.S. Wisconsin tribes’ efforts to find  a way to regulate and legalize mobile sports betting platforms would help secure even more revenue for Wisconsin, while creating a safer environment for consumers, Boyd said. 

Health care access is another major issue for tribal communities. Boyd said that tribal nations in Wisconsin own 11 qualified health care providers, and have seen decreases in drug overdose deaths. Some tribal communities have been able to build new health care and fitness facilities, with millions of dollars worth of investments supporting the efforts. Yet, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as access to mental health treatment, are top concerns for tribal communities, as are high rates of suicide. Boyd also called on the Legislature to look closely at gun regulation, saying that in some places children are afraid to go to school because of fear of being shot. Assembly Democrats applauded Boyd, while Republican lawmakers held their applause or appeared distracted. 

Boyd also called on the Legislature to take on flavored vape pens which have grown in popularity among youth. “Kids are being expelled and they are experiencing permanent health damage,” said Boyd. Broadening access to healthy food and treatment to prevent and fight cancer are also key areas for the tribes. Boyd herself recounted having lost two uncles, her father, a father-in-law and many community members to cancer since 2024. 

Food sovereignty and independence, as well as supporting local economies based on food, was another issue she highlighted. Tribal communities produce nuts, fish, bison, maple syrup, rice and many other goods which support Wisconsin’s economy. To many tribal communities, food is also medicine, and having access to healthy and culturally appropriate food is something they hold close to their hearts. 

At one point in her speech, Boyd described what life is like “north of Highway 29,” both the successes and challenges. Although tribal communities have made great strides reducing overdose deaths, they’ve also seen a sharp decline in the number of narcotics investigators dedicated to northern Wisconsin. In 2013 there were four resident narcotic investigators from the state Department of Justice, Boyd said. In 2022 there were only three, and today there are none. Access to emergency medical services is another thing tribal communities hope to work with lawmakers to expand. “We need your partnership,” said Boyd.

Boyd praised Evers for acknowledging the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a remark which earned applause from both Democrats and Republicans. Tuesday was the last time Evers would attend a State of the Tribes Address as governor. Boyd said that the newly established state Office of Violence Prevention is a good start, but not enough. Women hold important roles in Indigenous communities as the givers of life and matriarchs of their tribes, she said. On Tuesday for her address, Boyd chose to wear strawberry-colored clothing, symbolic of the moon under which her daughter was born. 

Boyd called on the Legislature to make greater investments in education, cultural immersion schools and professionals trained in language. She  called on the Legislature to consider establishing free school lunch programs for children, another remark which earned standing ovations and applause from Democrats but not Republicans. She also pushed for expanded access to higher education, with just 1.6% of college students in Wisconsin being from a tribal community, she said.

She thanked the Department of Transportation for creating dual-language signs around tribal nations, and for establishing a Ho Chunk World War II Memorial highway. Finally, Boyd also called on the Legislature to work together to finally legalize cannabis in Wisconsin. The chairwoman stressed that over 60% of voters want legalization, and that there is great interest among tribal communities to use this “plant medicine” for pain, PTSD, and other chronic ailments. “Wisconsinites are beyond ready and growing more impatient with lawmakers every day on this topic,” Boyd said.

In conclusion, Boyd said that tribes have worked hard to shield themselves from what she called “attacks on human decency” from militarized federal immigration raids as well as increased surveillance and cuts to essential services including  SNAP and Head Start. “Wisconsin is our home,” said Boyd. “The motivation to protect our home may never be relatable to some…I urge us to be vigilant and not surrender our values.”

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The U.S. Capitol as seen from New Jersey Avenue SE on Jan. 6, 2025.  (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A handful of House Republicans tanked a procedural vote Tuesday night that would have kept intact a ban on congressional action against President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs.

Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Kevin Kiley of California joined all Democrats in a 214-217 vote  blocking language to continue a prohibition on any House votes challenging the unprecedented import taxes Trump triggered under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA. Rep. Gregory Murphy, R-N.C., did not vote.

“I don’t like putting the important work of the House on pause, but Congress needs to be able to debate on tariffs. Tariffs have been a ‘net negative’ for the economy and are a significant tax that American consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are paying,” Bacon said in a post on X following the vote. 

“Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed that authority to the executive branch. It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility. I also oppose using the rules votes to legislate. I want the debate and the right to vote on tariffs,” Bacon continued, referring to the “rules” vote, a procedural vote often taken prior to advancing legislation.

The provision, tucked in a vote to advance three unrelated bills, would have continued the ban until July 31.

Trump declared national emergencies on numerous occasions in 2025. The resolution, enacted in September, effectively prohibited any congressional counteraction to Trump’s emergency tariffs imposed on Feb. 1, April 2, July 30 and Aug. 6. 

The president targeted imports from a host of trading partners on those dates, including establishing steep tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil and India.

Trump’s novel use of IEEPA to immediately trigger tariffs on global imports is currently under review at the U.S. Supreme Court after a group of small businesses sued the president. The justices heard oral arguments in early November, and an opinion has been expected for months. 

As power-hungry data centers proliferate, states are searching for ways to protect utility customers from the steep costs of upgrading the electrical grid, trying instead to shift the cost to AI-driven tech companies. (Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

At a public hearing held by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission Tuesday, dozens of Wisconsin residents decried the effects massive data centers could have on the state’s electricity rates and ability to adopt renewable energy sources. 

The three-member PSC is considering a proposal from the Wisconsin Electric Power Company to establish a tariff system for providing electricity to massive data centers. Under the proposal, “very large” customers that would be subject to the tariff would have a combined energy load of 500 megawatts — the equivalent of powering about 400,000 homes. 

The first phase of Microsoft’s $13.3 billion data center project in Mount Pleasant is projected to require 450 megawatts. 

Critics of the proposal say that under this system, regular consumers will still be on the hook for 25% of the infrastructure costs associated with increasing the state’s energy load. 

Over the past year, the growth of data center development in Wisconsin has spurred an increasingly tense debate. Local governments have been tempted to allow their construction as a source of property tax revenue while local residents raise concerns over energy and water use, the conversion of historical farmland, the ethics of artificial intelligence and long-term environmental impacts.

The massive energy needs of data centers have become the central issue in the debate, with people in Wisconsin and around the country questioning how to manage the demands of giant corporations seeking to use orders of magnitude more energy than is currently being produced.

“I speak to you not only as a We Energies customer, a member of the Wisconsin State Senate, but on behalf of people across Wisconsin who have communicated to me their worry and fear about the development of hyperscale data centers,” Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said at the hearing. “This worry and fear transcends political divides and income brackets, residents and small businesses alike fear that these data centers will fundamentally alter and potentially destroy our Wisconsin way of life, and with good reason; the scale of the proposed development is unprecedented.” 

Larson added that often “this debate is framed as a false choice that our state must prioritize economic growth or meet our clean energy and climate goals. This is simply not true. In reality, Wisconsin can and must be a leader in pursuing both advancing economic development while accelerating a just transition to affordable, reliable, clean energy in a way that does not harm residents, health, economic security or the environment.”

The vast majority of those testifying during the more than three-hour hearing Tuesday afternoon were opposed to the structure of the proposed system — largely due to the 500 megawatt threshold proposed by the utility company. 

Several people said they were concerned that the threshold being set at this level would encourage the growth of still large data centers that use less than 500 megawatts of energy — and the costs of those centers’ electricity use will be passed on to regular consumers. 

“I submit that 500 megawatts is at least an order of magnitude too high,” Pleasant Prairie resident Charles Hasenohrl said. “The threshold should be lower than 50 megawatts, where at that point, companies are required to cover all costs, which again include generation, transmission and distribution.” 

Opponents also said they were concerned that data centers increasing the energy demand in Wisconsin will encourage the PSC and the state’s utility companies to construct new natural gas power plants, instead of encouraging the growth of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

“Renewable energy is the cheapest way to generate electricity, and it’s only getting cheaper,” Dr. Jonathan Patz, a professor of health and the environment at UW-Madison, said. 

Patz added that burning fossil fuels to provide energy for currently proposed data centers in southeastern Wisconsin will increase air pollution not only in the immediate region but spread to Chicago and western Michigan. 

“Because the right choice happens to be both the safest and the most affordable. That’s solar and wind power,” Patz said. “Let’s stop killing people unnecessarily with pollution from burning fossil fuels, especially knowing the multi-decadal life span of a power plant. The rest of the world is turning to renewable energy. Why should the PSC prevent us from transitioning to clean energy and improving our health at the same time?”

The handful of people who testified in favor of the proposal were union representatives. Several of the state’s unions have been vocal in supporting the construction of data centers, arguing that their members will benefit from the jobs created while the centers are being built. The union representatives said that the state should work to protect costs from being passed on to ratepayers, but that the state shouldn’t discourage data centers from coming to Wisconsin. 

“These projects require significant amounts of power, far beyond what’s available today to be operational and successfully run,” Jim Meyer, business manager for IBEW Local 2150, said. “Faced with this problem, the traditional method of having a utility company add power generation capacity through building more power plants, then spreading those costs over its customer base, would simply be unfair to its everyday customer, like my membership, who live and work in the areas and are also customers themselves. The VLC tariff will put the tab for those plants exactly where it belongs, with those very large customers who need that new electric load.”

PSC Administrative Judge Mark Newman said that the job of the commission isn’t to decide if the state should go all in on encouraging data center construction but only the “reasonableness of the rates, terms, and conditions of electric service” in the We Energies proposal. Several people testifying expressed frustration that often the commission holds public hearings only to ultimately vote against the majority sentiment of the public and side with corporate utility interests. 

“I am wondering whether this is an exercise in futility,” Milwaukee resident Ted Kraig said. “Technologically, it makes no sense to be building up old fossil fuel infrastructure, and still, the Public Service Commission just goes and basically rubber stamps it. My concern is that we can have 1,000 people testifying with the best evidence and arguments imaginable, but the Public Service Commission sitting there with little check boxes … We Energies gets whatever it wants.” 

The Public Service Commission is expected to make its decision on the tariff by May 1.

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Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Tuesday lawmakers are in negotiations with Gov. Tony Evers on a bill package to provide property tax relief before the end of the legislative session. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address with Republican legislative leaders sitting behind him. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Tuesday lawmakers are in negotiations with Gov. Tony Evers on a bill package to provide property tax relief before the end of the legislative session. 

Vos made the comments ahead of an Assembly floor session during which lawmakers passed a bill to provide long-term financial support to WisconsinEye, the state’s version of C-Span. Vos said the state Senate may have its own bill in the works.

Vos said that lawmakers have been discussing a property tax-reduction package for weeks, and had intended to announce it last week, but delayed due to discussions with Evers. Republicans want to  tap into Wisconsin’s budget surplus, estimated at over $2 billion, to fund a property tax relief package. 

“We have been trying to negotiate with Gov. Evers to have a bipartisan package that can get through both chambers, hopefully, and to his desk,” Vos said. “The goal would be to try to return a sizable chunk of the surplus back to Wisconsinites to help deal with rising property taxes.” 

Property tax bills jumped significantly in December, fueled by a state budget that increases  school revenue limits while keeping state general aid flat — pushing education costs onto local taxpayers — as well as voter approval of school district referendum requests. Further property tax hikes are expected in coming years without action from policymakers.

Republicans, angry about a line-item veto by Evers in the last budget, refused to give any state aid to schools in the current two-year budget.  Evers’ partial veto extended a $325 per-pupil increase in revenue-raising authority granted to school districts in the last two-year budget cycle for the next 400 years. Without state funding to backfill the revenue limit increases, school districts only had the option to raise property taxes or to forgo additional revenue. Vos had earlier said he wanted to see a repeal of Evers’ partial veto in any property tax package, but he backed off that demand Tuesday.

“Certainly want to see if we can have reforms in there, but the most important thing for us is to get relief, so some of the politics might have to wait until the election cycle,” Vos said. 

There is an open race for the governor’s office and control of the state Legislature is up for grabs in November. Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is seeking to make property taxes a major point of his campaign — promising to freeze property taxes and repeal Evers’ partial veto if he is elected.

WisPolitics reports that Evers is proposing a $1.3 billion package that would pair school funding with tax relief, according to  emails from Zach Madden, Evers’ legislative affairs director, to Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) the news outlet obtained. 

According to WisPolitics, the deal put forth by Evers would include $200 million towards special education funding and $450 million for general aid to schools in 2027 to lower the amount of revenue that districts would raise through property taxes. Evers would in exchange support providing $550 million toward the School Levy Tax Credit and $97.3 million in 2027 to exempt taxes on cash tips.

Assembly passes bill to create endowment for WisconsinEye

The Assembly passed a bill Tuesday to provide a long-term funding solution for WisconsinEye, the nonprofit organization that livestreams and archives government proceedings, but the bill likely faces difficulty in the Senate.

AB 974 would eliminate the match requirement on $10 million, which was initially set aside for WisconsinEye in the state budget, and place it in an endowment fund to help provide a stable form of income to the organization. WisconsinEye would receive the interest from the endowment for its operations, though the revenue is not expected to cover all of its costs so the nonprofit would still need to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. 

Lawmakers have been working on a way to support the organization after it said it was dealing with fundraising difficulties and had to shut down its coverage. WisconsinEye resumed its coverage on Feb. 2 after over a month offline after the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization approved $50,000 for it to do so. 

“They need around $50,000 a month to be able to continue operations as they work toward their long-term goal of having a partnership with the state and through their private fundraising,” Vos said. “I think the goal would be that the Legislature and the executive branch hopefully will be able to provide a longer term contract to at least get us through the balance of this year.”

The bill would require WisconsinEye to focus its coverage primarily on official state government meetings and business, provide free online public access to its live broadcasts and archives as well as submit an annual financial report to the Legislature. It would also require WisconsinEye to add additional members to its board of directors.

The bill states that if WisconsinEye ceases operations and divests its assets, then it must pay back the grants and transfer its archives to the Wisconsin Historical Society.

An amendment to the bill will require WisconsinEye to open all meetings of its board of directors to the public, broadcast those meetings and archive them and stipulates that the state will own all video cameras, audio equipment, connecting cables and wireless transmission equipment that is operated or maintained by WisconsinEye in the Capitol.

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), the lead coauthor on the bill, said she is glad WisconsinEye is back online.

“Without it, however briefly, the Legislature was less transparent and accessible to all of our constituents,” Neubauer said. “Thankfully, we’re here to fix this issue today… I certainly hope that this bipartisanship will continue with the Senate, and they will pass this bill so that we can ensure that WisconsinEye has a path to long-term sustainability.”

The bill passed 96-0 in the Assembly.

Vos said that lawmakers have had “brief discussions” with the Senate, but he believes that Senate Republicans are working on their own bill related to WisconsinEye. 

LeMahieu’s office has not responded to a request for comment from the Examiner.

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Gov. Tim Walz held a press conference in The Market at Malcolm Yard in Minneapolis on Feb. 10, 2026, to highlight the adverse impacts the federal immigration surge has had on Minnesota businesses. (Photo by Michelle Griffith/Minnesota Reformer)

Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday said that he expects the federal immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota to wind down soon.

During a press conference intended to highlight the adverse impacts of President Donald Trump’s federal immigration enforcement on small businesses and restaurants, Walz said federal officials have “assured us that I think we are moving towards that.”

“It would be my hope that Mr. Homan goes out before Friday and announces that this thing is done,” Walz said in an empty Market at Malcolm Yards in Minneapolis.

Walz said that since Trump’s border czar Tom Homan took over operations in Minnesota from Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino two weeks ago, his administration has spoken with Homan daily. Walz said he also spoke to Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles this morning.

Over the past two months, immigration agents have shot three people, killing two; racially profiled people, asking them to produce proof of legal residency; detained legal immigrants and shipped them across state lines, including young children; caused numerous car crashes; deployed chemical irritants on public school property; smashed the car windows of observers and arrested them before releasing them without charges; and threatened journalists who were filming them from a distance in a public space, among other high-profile incidents.

Walz cautioned that although he expects the operation to wind down soon, Trump is unpredictable and will likely declare the immigration operation successful before he orders federal agents out of Minnesota.

“It is very important for the president of the United States to believe he wins,” Walz said. “They’ve got to believe they accomplished what they were going to accomplish. It’s my understanding they think they did that.”

The governor said that when the operation is over, the state will shift to recovery mode. Walz noted that the fallout of “Operation Metro Surge” will affect Minnesota’s revenue streams and hospitality industry long after federal agents leave, likening the impact to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said President Donald Trump "uninvited" him from a National Governors Association black-tie dinner at the White House planned during the group's annual meeting Feb. 19-21, 2026. (Photo by Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters)

WASHINGTON — Democratic governors headed to an annual bipartisan gathering in the nation’s capital will not participate in a traditional White House black-tie dinner after President Donald Trump disinvited several Democrats from the event.

A joint statement Tuesday from the Democratic Governors Association said the state leaders “have a long record of working across the aisle to deliver results and we remain committed to this effort. But it’s disappointing this administration doesn’t seem to share the same goal.”

“At every turn, President Trump is creating chaos and division, and it is the American people who are hurting as a result,” the statement continued. “If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year. Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, the association’s chair, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, vice chair, led the statement, and were joined by 16 Democratic governors from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. 

A traditional formal working meeting at the White House including governors of both parties also appeared to be off the agenda.

Brandon Tatum, the National Governors Association’s acting executive director and CEO, said, “The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administration’s decision to make it a partisan occasion this year.”

“To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration. At this moment in our nation’s history, it is critical that institutions continue to stand for unity, dignity, and constructive engagement. NGA will remain focused on serving all governors as they deliver solutions and model leadership for the American people. Traditionally the White House has played a role in fostering these moments during NGA’s annual meeting. This year, they will not,” Tatum said in a statement.

Reports surfaced over the weekend that Trump had planned to exclude some Democratic governors from the annual White House events when Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the National Governors Association vice chair, made public that the president had “uninvited” him from the dinner.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at the daily briefing that Trump “can invite whomever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.”

Leavitt said Tuesday that Moore “did not show up” to last year’s dinner, and “nobody reported on it.”

“But again, the president has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House, and he welcomes all those who received an invitation to come, and if they don’t want to, that’s their loss,” Leavitt said.

The association’s 2026 gathering is scheduled for Feb. 19-21. The gathering will include “special guests and national experts for solutions-driven conversations on pressing national issues including education, energy, economic growth, artificial intelligence and more,” according to the association website.

Pictures of Alex Pretti sit in front of his Minneapolis home on Jan. 26, 2026. Pretti, an ICU nurse, died Jan. 25, after being shot multiple times during a brief altercation with Border Patrol agents in south Minneapolis. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined during a U.S. House hearing Tuesday to apologize to the families of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the victims of fatal shootings by immigration officers in Minneapolis last month.

Top Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, had said both Minneapolis residents engaged in “domestic terrorism.” Good was a poet and mother of three and Pretti was an intensive care unit nurse. 

ICE acting Director Todd Lyons demurred when asked by California Democrat Eric Swalwell if he would apologize for that characterization. 

“I’m not going to speak to any ongoing investigation,” Lyons said.

Lawmakers on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee grilled Lyons, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow during Tuesday’s hearing, following the fatal shootings of Good on Jan. 7 and Pretti on Jan. 24. The deportation campaign in Minneapolis began more than two months ago.

Following the shootings, Democrats have pushed for policy changes to the appropriations bill that funds the agency for fiscal year 2026, scrambling a bipartisan agreement on the measure. 

If lawmakers don’t reach a deal by Friday, funding for much of DHS will run out. Funding for immigration enforcement will remain due to provisions in Republicans’ tax cuts and spending law last year.

Scott called the thousands of protestors and legal observers in Minnesota “paid agitators.” There is no evidence of that. 

Noem, who Democrats are pushing to impeach, was not at the hearing. 

The chair of the committee, Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York, acknowledged that the country was at an “inflection point” and called the deaths of Good and Pretti “unacceptable and preventable.”

But he otherwise largely defended federal immigration officials and the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics. 

The top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said the Trump administration was weaponizing DHS against Americans. 

Body cameras, masks and roving patrols

Democrats questioned Scott and Lyons on a handful of policy proposals that Democrats are pushing for in the DHS appropriations bill.

The Democrats’ proposals include mandating body cameras for immigration agents and requiring those officers to identify themselves and not wear masks.

Thompson asked Lyons how many body cameras ICE officers have. Noem earlier this month announced DHS would be sending body cameras to all ICE officers across the country. 

Lyons said about 3,000 ICE officers currently have body cameras with another 6,000 cameras on the way.

Scott said that about 10,000 Border Patrol agents have body cameras out of 20,000 agents. 

Democratic Rep. Tim Kennedy of New York asked Lyons if he would commit to instructing ICE agents to stop wearing face coverings and masks in enforcement actions. 

“No,” Lyons said. 

Kennedy then asked Lyons if he believed Noem should resign, given the deadly shootings of Good and Pretti. 

“I’m not going to comment on that,” Lyons said. 

GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, a former chair of the committee who is retiring next year, said some of the roving patrols should be kept at the southern border, rather than in residential areas. 

“I’ve called for de-escalation after the two deaths, the two shootings that took place,” McCaul said. “I believe that these roving patrols should be done at the border rather than in the major cities of the United States.”

Democrats are also calling for an end to those roving patrols in enforcement in the interior of the U.S.  

McCaul added that federal immigration agents “are not trained to effectuate crowd control.”

“They are trained to move in surgically, go in and remove these dangerous, violent criminals from the United States of America,” he said.

Judgment day, Klan invoked 

The hearing had a few heated exchanges between Democrats and the administration officials.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver, who is facing federal charges after a clash with immigration officers at a detention facility in Newark where she tried to conduct an unannounced oversight visit, asked Lyons if he considered himself a religious person. 

Lyons said he did and McIver asked him how he thought “judgment day would work for you with so much blood on your hands.”

“I’m not going to entertain the question,” Lyons said.

She asked Lyons if he thought he was “going to hell.”

Garbarino quickly shut down her line of questioning. 

Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois criticized the officials before her, and called for ICE to be abolished.

“I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol,” she said. “Those activities were criminal and so are yours.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks at a news conference in December about the Trump administration's plans for immigration enforcement in the city. Frey encouraged other mayors last month to stand up to President Donald Trump; some mayors have taken a more compromising tone. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

WASHINGTON — Five days after federal immigration enforcement agents killed the second of his constituents, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a message for his peers: Speak out.

“Mayors, we do not back down to bullies. We stand up for democracy,” Frey said in a speech last month in Washington, D.C., at a gathering of hundreds of mayors from around the country.

Frey left the U.S. Conference of Mayors and rode to Capitol Hill to meet members of Congress, and five days after that, President Donald Trump said that he’d pull 700 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of Minneapolis. Some 2,300 would remain.

Frey, a liberal mayor governing a predominantly liberal city, illustrated his way of responding to Trump’s increasing encroachment into city limits and city business, and he urged that way — public, loud, strong — for others too.

But his path isn’t the right one for all mayors, who hold mostly nonpartisan jobs in an increasingly hyper-partisan political environment. Their jobs are primarily to pick up trash, fill potholes and keep people safe. While some view confrontation with the White House as the right approach, others are opting for accommodation — or just keeping their heads down.

Cities rely on federal money, and Trump has made it clear that more ICE agents and fewer federal dollars will flow to cities that don’t respond to his requests.

Plainfield, New Jersey, Mayor Adrian Mapp, the son of immigrants, said in an interview at the conference that some disagreements with the federal government, such as those over immigration raids, can feel like a personal and political battle. Residents expect their mayor to fight for them, he said, especially against unpopular policies or federal overreach.

“There is a sense in our community that this is what people want from their mayor — to know we’re standing up, putting resources together and doing everything we can to support those who are affected,” Mapp said.

Boots on the ground

Chris Jensen, a two-term mayor of Noblesville, Indiana, told Stateline that city leaders are often insulated from Washington’s partisan battles, and that unless those issues get local, they’re not worth engaging in.

“Mayors don’t get to go on cable news and just repeat talking points,” Jensen said. “We have to do the work every single day. Snow has to be plowed. Roads have to be built. Trash has to be picked up. That’s not partisan, that’s just governing.”

A registered Republican who used to work for former Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, Jensen said mayors must embrace bipartisanship so they can get resources for their constituents. And federal leaders, he added, could better utilize mayors by asking them for on-the-ground data and feedback from their constituents.

“We’re the boots on the ground,” Jensen said. “If you want to talk about housing, we know how many permits we pulled. If you want to talk about mental health, we know how many crisis calls we ran. Rely on us and get out of the way when we need to move faster.”

At last month’s conference, several mayors described tensions with the Trump administration — often not naming the president directly — as having intensified in recent months, particularly around immigration enforcement, federal deployment of National Guard troops and threats of revoked federal funding.

Much of Trump’s ire, they pointed out, has been aimed at big cities with large Democratic populations. The African American Mayors Association has noted that the cities Trump has decried as lawless and in need of National Guard troops — Chicago; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tennessee; Oakland, California; and Washington — are all led by Black mayors. All have seen significant declines in violent crime.

Trump has also threatened to send troops to New Orleans, despite its falling crime rate. Mayor Helena Moreno, who took office in January, was among the mayors visiting Washington. She told constituents in an Instagram message that she grabbed a moment with Trump at another event — and worked to shift his attention to other city needs.

“I thought it was very important for the president to hear directly from me on what the city of New Orleans actually needs from the federal government,” she said in the video. The city’s homicide rate is at its lowest in 50 years, she said, and she told Trump of the city’s infrastructure needs.

“I think he was receptive,” Moreno told constituents. “I’ve always said this: That even though I might not be politically aligned with someone, that if they are in a position of power, and have the ability to help the city of New Orleans, then I want to make sure that our needs are being told … so that we can figure out if there’s a path to being able to work together.”

Pushing back

Trump had told mayors that if they didn’t agree to drop sanctuary status, which bars local police agencies from working with ICE on immigration enforcement, their federal dollars would be cut off Feb. 1.

When the funding threats from the president didn’t materialize, newly sworn-in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration “will continue to stand up for the city” against efforts to restrict federal funding for cities based on politics and ideology.

But Mamdani, like other mayors, has looked for ways to connect with the president, meeting with Trump in the Oval Office shortly after his election last fall.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Browser, who finishes her third term next year, has said that whoever succeeds her in office will have an especially tricky job, because of the city’s unique circumstances — the federal government can overrule local laws.

Bowser pushed back strongly against Trump in his first term, but has been more pragmatic in his second term — looking for common ground over his National Guard deployment, accelerating homeless encampment sweeps and erasing a block-long “Black Lives Matter” mural that had been painted onto the street as protest in front of the White House. At the same time, Bowser has warned that such measures could limit city autonomy.

Similarly, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie persuaded Trump in a phone call last fall to hold off on surging immigration agents to the city, telling the president that the city was doing well. Trump told reporters he was giving San Francisco a chance.

But sustained pushback may have been what led to the scaling back of ICE operations in Minneapolis.

Portland, Oregon, Mayor Keith Wilson has been hoping for a similar reduction in immigration enforcement in his city as he calls for ICE officers to leave the city.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who noted at the conference that mayors are facing “headwinds” at the federal level when it comes to funding, recently joined regional mayors to announce a slew of accountability measures for ICE officers.

Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor James Solomon are both advocating for state lawmakers to pass legislation limiting how much state officials and local police can cooperate with ICE agents.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order to expand the city’s investigation into possible misconduct by ICE officers.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said during a panel session at the mayors conference that the administration’s use of partisan politics — and the scope of the federal government’s powers — has profoundly changed the job for mayors.

“It’s absolutely affecting trust at every level,” he said.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

One City Schools founder and CEO Kaleem Caire, left, foreground, and state Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison), center, take part in a Jan. 28 hearing on a bill to boost funding for "demonstration" charter schools. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin lawmakers are set to advance a bill that would create a “demonstration” charter school designation and boost state aid for that school by more than 50%.

During the Jan. 28 public hearing, Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) said the bill would help create a mechanism in the state to try out innovative teaching methods and export them across the state.

“Right now, we are reinventing the wheel in isolation rather than sharing the blueprint for success,” Wittke said. “A teaching hospital receives higher funding to train research and innovate. Similarly, a demonstration school would be a K-12 education lab.” 

Independent charter schools are different from traditional charter schools. They are not authorized by a public school district and do not answer to a public school board, but instead are authorized by one of a number of designated authorizers, including the Universities of Wisconsin’s Office of Educational Opportunity (OEO).

AB 818 would allow the Office of Educational Opportunity to designate a school that meets a certain set of criteria as a “demonstration” charter school. For a school to receive the designation, it would need to participate in a longitudinal study; provide professional development opportunities; share the best practices from its educational model to other schools and maintain partnerships with community organizations. 

The school would receive an additional $6,863 per pupil — a 55% increase from its current funding. The bill is scheduled for a vote in the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee Tuesday.

Wittke said that any school authorized through the Office of Educational Opportunity could apply once the program is set up. 

“Once this bill would get signed into law, they would have to make an application to be designated as this. Any other charter school that is under the OEO presence could make an application to do the same. There could be others that want to be chartered under OEO for the purpose of doing this. We would love to see that,” Wittke said. “This is an idea that was brought in front of me, so we looked at this framework. It wasn’t to preclude anyone, but this is what I believe is a step in the right direction so that others can follow, and we can start moving the needle up so that our children will realize opportunities that are in front of us.”

The UW Office of Educational Opportunity currently authorizes nine schools, though there is one that is seeking to serve as a model for what the bill proposes.

One City Schools, a Madison area independent charter school, operates One City Elementary and One City Preparatory Academy. The two schools serve kindergarten through 8th grade, in Monona. It also operates One City Preschool, which serves ages 2 through 4-year-old kindergarten, on Madison’s south side.

Kaleem Caire, One City Schools’ founder and CEO, told lawmakers that the organization is trying to serve students who have not been served by traditional schools, as well as to act  as an incubator for innovation. But One City Schools is always in need of money to continue operating.

“If any of you have money that you don’t like, you can send it to One City Schools,” Caire quipped, adding, “Yes, we are always at risk of closing our doors” because of the needs of students. 

He said the student population of One City Schools is 94% students of color, about 70% students in poverty and 17% special needs.

“We are the least funded public school,” he said.

The school has struggled with sustainable growth in the past. In 2023, the school sent 51 ninth- and tenth-graders back to Madison Metropolitan School District after one semester due to teacher shortages, pausing its high school aspirations for several years.

At the time, Caire said the school would reopen its high school in 2025, but as of last year, those plans have been delayed until 2026-27 due to its eighth grade enrollment numbers, facility readiness and funding uncertainties.

Caire said the independent charter school currently serves about 400 students and its preschool serves about 80. Practices that he said set the schools apart from traditional schools include providing breakfast and lunch to students each day and its partnership with Project Read AI, an artificial intelligence program meant to help teach literacy.

The bill has support of one Democratic lawmaker: Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison), whose district includes the schools.

Stubbs urged lawmakers to support the bill, calling the school a “pioneer in providing innovative, high quality education and wrap-around support services to some of Dane County’s and Wisconsin’s most vulnerable scholars.” She said the bill will “ensure that an operator with an innovative learning model is able to continue improving the educational outcome of hundreds of scholars in our community every year.” 

Stubbs said the additional funding would come from the existing charter school payment appropriation.

“Why do we need to spend more if you’re really successful?” Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville) asked Caire, who said that the organization currently must raise about $5 million annually to meet the needs of its students.

According to written testimony provided by One City Schools, the organization’s long-term sustainability goal will rely on increased state funding, including by nearly doubling its student base and boosting state aid overall. 

“Their goal is to reach 900 students, which they consider a funding tipping point where they’ll receive more predictable public funding and substantially reduce their need for private support,” the testimony stated. It also identified a plan for achieving financial sustainability including securing multi-year funding, growing enrollment, achieving “economies of scale” and increasing state aid.

Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) said he didn’t think the funding in the bill would provide a “phenomenal advantage” to the schools, but would instead give them, as independent charter schools, “equal funding.” 

“These are poor lives and kids and people, so I don’t have a problem with the funding,” O’Connor said. “I like the fact that the rules are in place. There’s accountability. There are consequences.”

Democratic lawmakers expressed caution and concerns about the bill, saying they weren’t sure how it would help schools and students more broadly. 

“It feels like you all are doing some amazing things at One City and I appreciate that. I think most schools would like to have the holistic approach that you are aiming for, but money is always the issue,” Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), a member of the committee, said during the hearing. 

Emerson noted that Democratic lawmakers have proposed legislation that would allow for free school meals at all public and voucher schools in the state. “That’s what I’d like to see our body advocating for more than picking winners and losers, and to be honest, sir, I feel like that’s what this bill is right now.”

Caire told lawmakers that there aren’t other schools that have volunteered to serve as a “demonstration” school for the state.

“That is why we’re coming here to you,” Caire said. “How many public schools in Wisconsin do you know of are germinating this level of opportunity for kids intentionally to scale across the country at an affordable price?… What we’re asking the state for is the average per-pupil revenue that the average public school system gets from the state of Wisconsin.”

The Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teachers union, opposes the bill, saying it would further drain resources from traditional public schools. 

“This bill hands a single, unaccountable charter operator a funding windfall that educators in every comer of this state can only dream of for their own students,” WEAC said in written testimony. 

The union said the bill comes as public schools continue to face difficulties, and as state funding has not kept pace with inflation.

In the most recent state budget cycle, Wisconsin’s traditional public schools did not receive any increase in its state per-pupil aid. The budget did provide additional funding for special education, but the available funds are not expected to meet the percentage promised by lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers. School districts are instead turning to property tax increases to raise additional funds.

“Public school educators experience the consequences of state budget choices every day in crowded classrooms, growing student mental health needs, outdated materials, and painful cuts to electives that once kept kids engaged in school,” WEAC’s statement said. “AB 818 does nothing to address those real and urgent problems. Instead, it carves out a special lane for one favored type of charter operator and invites others to line up for the same bonus, further draining resources from the vast majority of students who attend public schools that are transparent, democratically governed, and open to all.” 

Democratic lawmakers on the Assembly Education Committee, including Reps. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire), Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) and Joe Sheehan (D-Sheboygan), submitted testimony opposing the bill. They said they had concerns the legislation would divert resources from public schools and continue a pattern of “linking education privatization to segregation.” 

“Policies that funnel public money toward select private and charter operators have repeatedly exacerbated segregation and disparities along lines of race, socioeconomic background, disability status, and more, leaving public schools with fewer resources to meet all students’ needs despite our constitutional obligation to help them do so,” the lawmakers stated. “AB 818 promises to continue that legacy.” 

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Photos of flooded streets in Milwaukee during the August 2025 storm. (Photo courtesy of Anne Tuchelski)

Disaster relief for six Wisconsin counties inundated by historic flooding back in August has again been denied by the federal government. It’s the second time that Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Grant, Milwaukee, Door and Grant counties have been denied assistance from the Trump administration since the floods drowned parks, damaged homes and trapped people in their cars in the middle of the night. 

This latest denial was in response to an appeal filed by Gov. Tony Evers in November, after the first denial came from  the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At the time, Evers stressed that the extreme storms had left over $26.5 million in disaster costs. 

In a statement Monday, Evers called the new denial “completely unsatisfactory,” saying that the Trump administration  had again denied the  relief for Wisconsin “without any explanation” and calling for the decision to be reversed. “Wisconsinites have been hard at work to build back from these historic flooding events, but folks are not out of the woods yet,” said Evers. “Efforts to rebuild will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that local communities will be on the hook for, and it’s really disappointing to see our federal leadership turn their backs on Wisconsin, our families, and our communities in our time of need. We will continue to advocate to the Trump Administration and our federal partners that Wisconsin needs these resources to rebuild and recover, and we will continue to do what we can to support our local partners however we can in the meantime.” 

FEMA’s letter to Evers said that assistance “is not warranted,” but does not otherwise explain the rationale for the denial. 

Evers declared a state of emergency on Aug. 11, as communities across Wisconsin picked themselves up from the storms. A ceaseless downpour began on Aug. 9, though the extent of the flooding wasn’t apparent to many until after the sun went down. In Milwaukee County, the Wisconsin State Fair had to close early as people fled the grounds in waist-high water. People who traveled the roads that evening found themselves trapped by floodwaters, requiring rescue from local authorities and neighbors. 

Swaths of Hart Park in Wauwatosa were left underwater, and the storm’s aftermath left neighborhoods strewn with downed trees and abandoned vehicles. Flooding also challenged emergency response in Waukesha County, though no injuries or missing persons reports had been received by the sheriff’s department. In Milwaukee, reports of people missing from homeless encampments emerged in the days after the floods. 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley called the denial for disaster relief “deeply disappointing” in a statement Monday. “My administration has worked to rebuild and recover after last summer’s historic storms and flooding,” said Crowley. “Without federal assistance, the financial burden of these public infrastructure repairs falls to local governments to cover. Communities rely on intergovernmental partnerships in times of crisis, and this decision by the Trump administration erodes that public trust. To move forward, my administration will continue working with the State of Wisconsin, our municipalities, and community partners to identify responsible funding solutions to rebuild our roads, bridges, parks, and public buildings. Our residents should not be forced to shoulder the full cost of disasters beyond their control, and we will continue advocating for the resources our community deserves.”

Leaders from the other counties, most of them Republican-leaning, that were denied disaster relief have not commented. The executives for Door, Washington, and Ozaukee counties could not be reached and Robert Keeney, the county board chairman for Grant County, refused to comment on the denial. 

Hillary Mintz, public information officer for Waukesha County, told Wisconsin Examiner that the county was disappointed by the denial. Although Mintz expressed gratitude that federal assistance for individual residents was approved by the Trump Administration, she explained that the county had estimated in the fall that an additional $300,000 in public repairs would also be needed. Mintz said that Waukesha County is working out how to plug that gap, but that its needs may not be as severe as some communities in Milwaukee, which are still dealing with storm damage.

This article has been updated with comment from Waukesha County.

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Federal agents in fatigues gather in Minneapolis last month. Health care workers in Minnesota and other states say ICE is increasing its presence in health care facilities, deterring people from seeking medical care. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Last month, the parents of a 7-year-old girl whose nose wouldn’t stop bleeding took her to Portland Adventist Health in Portland, Oregon, for urgent care. Before the family could get through the doors, federal immigration agents reportedly detained them in the parking lot and took them to a detention center in Texas.

At Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, workers say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers hang around the campus, asking patients and employees for proof of citizenship. Last month, tensions came to a head when ICE agents used handcuffs to shackle a 31-year-old Mexican immigrant to his hospital bed. ICE claimed the man, who had broken bones in his face and a fractured skull, had run headfirst into a wall on purpose while handcuffed and trying to flee.

And last summer, ICE agents chased an immigrant into the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center in Ontario, California, precipitating a confrontation with two surgery center workers wearing scrubs. The two workers were later indicted by a federal grand jury, charged with assaulting and interfering with federal immigration officers.

As the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown, health care workers in multiple states say ICE is increasing its presence in health care facilities, deterring people from seeking medical care and creating chaos that jeopardizes the safety of their patients.

Even before Trump took office last year, Republican-led states such as Florida and Texas began mixing health care and immigration enforcement by requiring hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status. Now that ICE has extended its enforcement activities to hospitals and health care facilities — areas that were largely off-limits during the Biden administration — an increasing number of Democratic-led states are pushing back.

Last month, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey filed legislation “to keep ICE out of courthouses, schools, child care programs, hospitals and churches,” and signed an executive order to limit ICE actions on state-owned property.

In December, Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed a measure that bars health care providers from sharing sensitive health information with federal immigration agents and requires hospitals to develop policies around how they will interact with agents.

And in September, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that makes immigration status and place of birth protected health information, and prohibits agents from entering nonpublic, patient-sensitive areas of health care facilities without a warrant signed by a judge.

Other Democratic states — including Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington — are considering similar bills.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Arizona are pushing legislation that would require hospitals accepting Medicaid patients to include a question on intake forms about immigration status.

Skipping medical care

Whether or not ICE presence is actually increasing at health care facilities, it’s clear that people living in the country illegally are being deterred from seeking medical care, said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at the health policy research group KFF.

A KFF and New York Times survey released last November showed that 43% of respondents identifying as immigrant parents living in the country illegally skipped or delayed health care for their children over a 12-month period because they were concerned about immigration enforcement. Even among lawfully present immigrants,10% said that they avoided seeking medical care for their children due to immigration-related concerns.

Pillai also pointed to the Trump administration’s efforts to consolidate the bits of personal data held across federal agencies, creating a single trove of information on people who live in the United States.

“We are expecting that these fears have further been exacerbated this year since the data sharing agreement was made public, and there are certain concerns around privacy of data going forward,” Pillai told Stateline.

Dr. Paula Latortue, an OB-GYN in Washington, D.C., who volunteers with the Migrant Clinicians Network, a nonprofit group that provides health care to immigrants, said it’s unclear how many people are avoiding health care, and how often.

“The one part that is really hard to know is people who are not showing up to the hospital when they usually would for some sort of urgent or emergency complaint,” Latortue said in an interview. “But I think there’s a concern for many physicians in the community that has happened.”

States step in to protect sensitive locations

The Biden and Obama administrations directed ICE to avoid enforcement activities in “sensitive” places such as hospitals, schools and churches unless it received permission from top leaders at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In January 2025, however, the Trump administration rescinded those guidelines, opening up these spaces to immigration enforcement.

Stateline reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security multiple times but did not receive a response. When the administration changed the guidelines, the Department of Homeland Security said that opening up “sensitive” areas to agents “empowers the brave men and women in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to enforce our immigration laws.”

The previous guidelines didn’t prohibit ICE from operating in those locations, but it did “strongly discourage” them, according to Sophia Genovese, a legal fellow specializing in immigration law at Georgetown University.

She added, however, that states and cities can enact laws to protect such spaces, even though they are limited in their capacity to “infringe and engage in immigration lawmaking.”

“Warrants are always needed to conduct searches or investigations in private, nonpublic areas, and these warrants need to be signed by a judge. This is just a basic Fourth Amendment right,” Genovese said. “When it comes to ICE entering hospitals and gaining access to private areas of hospitals, that’s an issue of individual hospital policy.”

Genovese said states also can require that hospitals standardize their policies on where law enforcement agents can go within a medical facility and create protocols to ensure agents are presenting a warrant before entering the premises.

Health care workers want protections

Those moves are exactly what health care workers in many states are asking for.

“There’s a high level of fear and anxiety. Nurses see the videos of what’s happening around the country, and nurses have experienced it themselves,” Peter Starzynski, spokesperson for the Oregon Nurses Association, told Stateline.

Last month’s incident involving the 7-year-old girl and her parents in Portland highlighted the importance of protecting health care spaces from ICE, he said.

“That should never happen. That’s disgusting,” Starzynski said.

The Oregon Nurses Association also has condemned ICE’s presence at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, claiming agents are violating hospital policies, including on access to patients. Legacy has disputed the union’s allegations, saying that no ICE officers have entered its facilities “unless accompanying a patient in custody.”

“Nurses in emergency rooms deal with local law enforcement on a regular basis, and those relationships are built on mutual respect, where law enforcement understands what they need to do once they enter a hospital,” Starzynski said. “That has changed with the increase in federal agents in Oregon.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

An absentee ballot drop box with updated signage in Madison following the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision to allow the use of ballot drop boxes. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

A Dane County judge on Monday denied a motion from the city of Madison to dismiss a lawsuit against the city over its loss of nearly 200 absentee ballots during the 2024 election. 

Since misplacing and failing to count the ballots, Madison has been subjected to penalties from the Wisconsin Elections Commission and has hired a new city clerk. The lawsuit against the city was brought by a group of the voters whose ballots were not counted. The voters are represented by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward. 

Madison’s defense against the lawsuit has sparked criticism from voting advocates across the state for diminishing the importance of the right to vote. The city had argued it could not be sued for losing the ballots because absentee voting is a “privilege” and not a constitutional right. A legislative policy statement adopted in 1985 states that “voting is a constitutional right,” but that “voting by absentee ballot is a privilege exercised wholly outside the traditional safeguards of the polling place.”

The lawsuit comes as Wisconsin election officials and Democrats have been defending absentee voting rights from Republican attacks for years. The argument by Madison officials drew criticism from a number of Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers.

Dane County Judge David Conway wrote in his order denying Madison’s motion to dismiss that it wouldn’t make sense if the constitutional right to vote did not extend to absentee voting.

“Just because the absentee voting process is a privilege does not mean that those who legally utilize it do not exercise their constitutional right to vote,” he wrote. “Of course they do. Once a voter casts a valid absentee ballot that complies with the Legislature’s rules for utilizing the absentee process, the voter has exercised the same constitutional right to vote as someone who casts a valid in-person ballot at a polling place. And that right to vote would be a hollow protection if it did not also include the right to have one’s vote counted.”

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President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive for the National Governors Association Evening Dinner and Reception in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Trump hosted the governors in Washington for the annual National Governors Association meetings. (Photo by Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump decided to exclude Democratic governors from a traditional annual meeting at the White House and to disinvite several others from a black-tie dinner, according to the White House, the governors and the National Governors Association.

The National Governors Association organizes the bipartisan winter gathering that usually includes a working meeting with the U.S. president and a major dinner at the White House. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, serves as current chair of the association, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, is vice chair.

The governors’ visit to the nation’s capital comes amid rising tensions over Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and surge of federal immigration border patrol agents into Democratic-led states, including California, Illinois, Minnesota and Oregon.

Moore: ‘blatant disrespect’

Moore issued a statement Sunday that he was “uninvited” from the dinner, adding that the decision was “especially confounding” given that he was among a bipartisan group of governors at the White House in recent weeks to discuss lower energy costs.

“My peers, both Democrats and Republicans, selected me to serve as the Vice Chair of the NGA, another reason why it’s hard not to see this decision as another example of blatant disrespect and a snub to the spirit of bipartisan federal-state partnership,” Moore said. “As the nation’s only Black governor, I can’t ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight — whether that was the intent or not.”

Moore’s exclusion also comes on the heels of Trump’s posting of a racist video Friday depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Trump deleted the post following loud disapproval that included criticism from his own party but has declined to apologize.

The offices of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did not immediately respond for comment. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek decided “some time ago” not to attend the event so that she could be in her state during the legislative session, according to spokesperson Elisabeth Shepard.

Moore added: “As Governor of Maryland and Vice Chair of the NGA, my approach will never change: I’m ready to work with the administration anywhere we can deliver results. Yet, I promised the people of my state I will work with anybody but will bow down to nobody. And I guess the President doesn’t like that.”

The office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, learned Friday about the exclusion of Democratic governors and similarly issued a statement of concern.

“Gov. Polis has always been willing to work with anyone across the political spectrum who wants to help work on the hardest problems facing Colorado and America, regardless of party or who occupies the White House. This is a disappointing decision for a traditionally bipartisan event between governors and whomever occupies the White House,” according to a statement from his office emailed to States Newsroom. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office confirmed Monday he had also been uninvited.

‘Many Democrats’ invited, but not all

A White House official on Monday confirmed Trump’s exclusion of some Democratic governors from the annual dinner.

“Many Democrats were invited to dinner at the White House, and others were not. These are White House events and the President reserves the right to invite whomever he wants,” the official told States Newsroom in an emailed statement.

Brandon Tatum, the National Governors Association’s acting executive director and CEO, said, “The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administration’s decision to make it a partisan occasion this year.”

“To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration. At this moment in our nation’s history, it is critical that institutions continue to stand for unity, dignity, and constructive engagement. NGA will remain focused on serving all governors as they deliver solutions and model leadership for the American people. Traditionally the White House has played a role in fostering these moments during NGA’s annual meeting. This year, they will not,” Tatum said in a statement.

This year’s meeting follows a tense exchange during the 2025 gathering between Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and Trump, who threatened to withhold all federal funding from the state unless Mills complied with the president’s executive order to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.

The association’s 2026 meeting is scheduled for Feb. 19-21. The gathering will include “special guests and national experts for solutions-driven conversations on pressing national issues including education, energy, economic growth, artificial intelligence and more,” according to the association website.

Julia Shumway contributed to this report.

Enbridge pumping station, Mackinaw City, Feb. 7, 2023 | Laina G. Stebbins

On Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released the final version of its Environmental Impact Statement on Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 tunnel project, starting a 30 day waiting period before making its final decision on whether to grant the pipeline company a permit to move forward with the proposal.

Canada-based Enbridge celebrated the release of the statement as a true milestone, with spokesperson Ryan Duffy praising the six-year review as “thorough, transparent, and science driven.” However, Line 5 opponents argue the final document fails to address several key concerns, including the project’s impacts on Indigenous treaty rights and alternatives for transporting oil outside of the Great Lakes.

The Line 5 tunnel project would replace the segment of dual pipelines operating in the Straits of Mackinac – where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet – with a new, single segment housed in a tunnel in the bedrock beneath the lakes. 

The 645-mile long pipeline runs from Northwestern Wisconsin, through Michigan where it ends in Sarnia, Ontario. It carries up to 22.68 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids through the Straits of Mackinac each day. 

Julie Goodwin, a senior attorney for Earthjustice, which is supporting the Bay Mills Indian Community in its fight against the pipeline, said the final environmental impact statement sets up a predetermined decision to approve the tunnel by failing to consider scenarios where oil is not flowing through the straits.

In its review, the corps looked at four main scenarios: taking no action and allowing the dual pipelines to continue operating, constructing a tunnel beneath the lakebed as Enbridge would prefer, placing a gravel/rock protective cover over the dual pipelines, and replacing the dual pipelines with a new segment installed using horizontal directional drilling under the lakebed.

“The corps had the opportunity, of course, during this environmental review process to look at alternatives that transport oil outside of the Great Lakes region or in different ways. And they just, they never took that opportunity,” Goodwin said.

A 2016 study from the University of Michigan determined more than 700 miles of shoreline in lakes Huron and Michigan would be vulnerable to pollution should Line 5 rupture. A 2018 study published by Michigan State University determined that the economic damage from a Great Lakes oil spill would amount to $5.6 billion dollars.

While the environmental impact statement acknowledges the straits are a profoundly sacred place in the culture, history and spirituality of Anishinaabe Tribal Nations, it does not address the tunnel project’s impact on treaty rights, which grant tribal nations the right to hunt, fish and gather on lands ceded to the federal government. 

The corps writes that its review of treaty rights is separate from its review of the project under the National Environmental Policy Act and that it is consulting on a government-to-government basis with federally recognized Tribes to determine if the tunnel project would infringe upon treaty rights. The final finding will be included in its record of decision.

On March 21, 2025, Bay Mills Indian Community alongside the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi, and Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi sent a letter to the Army of Corps of Engineers withdrawing their participation as cooperating agencies in drafting the environmental impact statement, due to President Donald Trump’s Administration’s plan to expedite review of the tunnel project. 

The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians similarly withdrew from talks with the corps on March 26.

Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community, said it has been frustrating to watch the corps move forward with the environmental impact statement without completing surveys and research on cultural resources and treaty rights. 

“That’s one of the reasons we left as a cooperating agency,” Gravelle said. “The corps has disregarded tribes. They’ve disregarded tribal treaty rights, they’ve disregarded cultural resources, and it has just been one of the most dehumanizing processes I have ever participated in.”

The tunnel itself will bore through several cultural sites, archaeological resources and what Anishinaabe consider to be the site of creation, Gravelle said and there are hundreds if not thousands of archaeological sites on the north and south ends of the straits.

“Those burial places are how we understand our history, how we understand our culture, how we understand our trade movements, or where we’re meant to be harvesting, hunting and gathering,” Gravelle said. “To then be told that all of these places can be destroyed and that it doesn’t really matter, what you’re really saying is that our Indigenous lifeways then don’t matter.”

Gravelle emphasized that the impacts from the tunnels construction are not abstract or theoretical, telling Michigan Advance that these places are where parents go to teach their children ceremony on the water, uncles teach their families how to hunt and put food on the table and elders share stories so their community can understand who they are as a people. 

“To have those rights limited or overlooked or misunderstood is really undermining the impact that will be felt by generations,” Gravelle said. “Not only by myself, but by my niece, you know, by my children, by the generations that will exist long after I’m gone from this earth.”

In a statement, Sean McBrearty, the campaign coordinator for anti-Line 5 Oil & Water Don’t Mix coalition pointed to several of the environmental impacts included within the assessment. 

“The EIS confirms that the tunnel would result in permanent wetland loss and require excavation and removal of roughly 665,000 cubic yards of bedrock from beneath the Straits of Mackinac, the ecological heart of the Great Lakes system,” McBrearty said. “These impacts are not temporary, and they cannot be undone.”

While much of the focus on Line 5 has centered around the Straits of Mackinac, Gravelle noted that concerns about an oil spill stretch the length of the pipeline, which has leaked more than 30 times over its lifespan, spilling more than 1 million gallons of oil.

However, Gravelle and several other pipeline opponents emphasized that a permitting decision from the Army Corps of Engineers does not give Enbridge a green light to move forward with the project, as the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has yet to decide on a Clean Water Act permit for the project. The Sierra Club and Oil and Water Don’t Mix have already called on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to block the project from moving forward. 

“All eyes are really turning to Governor Whitmer,” Goodwin said. “She has two choices to either cave to the Trump administration’s agenda and their friends in the oil industry, or stand up for Michigan and protect the Great Lakes.”

Gov. Tony Evers vetoes legislation in April 2024 that would have eliminated work permits for 14- and 15-year-olds. A large child labor case against a Burger King franchise owner demonstrates the importance of the work permit requirement in educating employers and youth workers about the state's child labor regulations, says Amy Pechacek, the head of Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development. (Governor's Facebook page photo)

A child labor investigation that uncovered more than 1,600 violations of Wisconsin law at more than 100 Burger King restaurants was probably the largest case of its kind in the state’s history, according to the head of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. 

DWD has ordered Chicago-based Cave Enterprises to pay more than 600 Wisconsin teens back pay as well as damages totaling $237,436. The company owes the state an additional $828,000, according to DWD — $500 for every one of the 1,656 violations uncovered in an extensive audit of the company’s payroll and employment records.

The company has until Feb. 25 to pay the back wages and penalties, although it also has the option of challenging DWD’s actions in court. 

Cave Enterprises has not responded to requests for comment about DWD’s audit findings, which the department announced Friday.

State alleges child labor violations at more than 100 Wisconsin Burger Kings owned by one firm

Amy Pechacek, the department’s secretary-designee, said in an interview after the agency announced the results of its investigation that the case was the largest one DWD could document. 

“Since the records are somewhat limited in terms of going back several decades, we just chose to be safe and said this was the largest violation we have in modern history,” Pechacek said. 

Cave Enterprises received a formal letter notifying it of the investigation findings on Thursday, according to DWD. But in the months before, there were repeated communications between DWD auditors and management personnel for the company, Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The investigation was triggered by a series of complaints DWD’s Equal Rights Division received in 2024, Pechacek said. The division’s responsibilities include enforcing Wisconsin’s child labor and wage laws. 

Pattern of company behavior

The complaints in 2024 prompted investigators to look back through department records. Investigators turned up 33 previous complaints in the years since 2020. Pechacek said those complaints were resolved individually.

The number of complaints, however, showed investigators a disturbing pattern in “how this employer interacts with its minor-age workforce,” Pechacek said. “And due to that, they then said, this warrants a very deep-dive, intensive audit about their practices as it relates to employing minors here in the state of Wisconsin.”

DWD has 25 auditors who review workforce practices in response to complaints, eight of them focusing on minors. 

“So this was a large undertaking,” Pechacek said of the Cave Enterprises review. “They poured their heart and soul into this, and we’re just really proud of that work and what this means in terms of making sure our youth can engage and work in a meaningful and safe way in our state.”

The audit showed that the problems weren’t confined to just a handful of the more than 100 Burger King locations that Cave owned between 2023 and 2025, the audit’s time span. There were violations found at 103 of the company’s stores, according to DWD. 

Work permits underscore child labor rules

In the letter to Cave detailing the audit findings, DWD reported that 593 14- and 15-year-olds started work without required work permits — 84% of the company’s employees in that age group, according to the agency. At a Green Bay Burger King, one teen started working at the age of 13, auditors reported — too young for that work under Wisconsin law.

In 2024, Republican majorities in both houses of the state Legislature passed bills that would have repealed Wisconsin’s work-permit requirement for 14- and 15-year-olds. Supporters of the repeal argued they amounted to a needless bureaucratic roadblock and discouraged young people from working. 

Democrats opposed the bill and Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it. Pechacek said cases like the audit of Cave Enterprises demonstrate the value of the work permit requirement. 

“Every time a permit is even requested for a minor child, there is an explanation of obligations that are sent to the employer as it relates to child labor laws,” Pechacek said. Those informational documents list Wisconsin’s wage and hour laws, the requirements for breaks and the restrictions on what machines minors can operate under state law. The parents, who must sign the work permit, get the same information.

“We want to be able to allow youth to participate in a safe manner that doesn’t impact or impair their ability to still go to school and still be children, but also help out our local economies and our businesses,” Pechacek said. “These duties of the employer and the rights of the minor-aged worker are continually enforced and communicated throughout the process.” 

The widespread lack of work permits at the Cave Burger Kings means that neither the employer nor the teenage workers would have received that communication at hiring. Despite that, each of the previous 33 complaints would have resulted “in another explanation of the law throughout the complaint process,” Pechacek said. “So there are many opportunities for this employer — and for every employer — to get it right.”

The audit also found 627 workers 17 or younger — 45% of the company’s minor employees — who worked longer than six hours without a required 30-minute meal break. 

“All minor employees under the age of 18 must have a 30-minute, duty-free break during shifts of six or more consecutive hours,” states the DWD audit report sent to Cave management. “Multiple shorter breaks totaling 30 minutes are not a lawful substitute for the required 30-minute break.”

Breaks that are less than 30 minutes must be paid under Wisconsin law, regardless of the worker’s age, the DWD report states. Unpaid breaks must be at least 30 minutes, with no duties during that time and with the employee free to leave the worksite.

“We found multiple instances of employees taking unpaid breaks of less than 30 minutes in length,” the DWD letter states — one of the reasons for back pay owed to teen workers. 

Large Wisconsin footprint

The Cave Enterprises website states the company currently owns 100 Wisconsin restaurants and that it has the largest number of Burger King franchises under a single owner in the country. The company also operates 77 Burger King franchises in seven other states. 

The company’s list of Wisconsin locations has 105 restaurants, but internet search results for three of them — two in Milwaukee and one in Waukesha — describe them as permanently closed. 

The Wisconsin Examiner’s review Friday of a job portal on the company website showed 379 openings at the company’s Wisconsin Burger King locations. 

Pechacek acknowledged that filling job openings has been a stiff challenge for employers for years.

“We know that youth are a very important part of our workforce, especially during worker shortages,” Pechacek said. “There is no excuse ever to violate labor laws — especially when it comes to protecting our youth, but for any worker.”

DWD has an outreach operation and can send personnel to help train employers about the ins and outs of state and federal child labor regulations. The department has videos available online along with other information in plain language, she said.

“We aren’t here just to be a compliance arm. We would rather have this conversation before any type of laws are violated and before anybody’s rights are infringed on,” Pechacek said.

“So there are many opportunities for education and compliance before forfeitures and penalties even come into play — or large-scale audits. And we are always available to have those conversations with any employer and any minor-aged child or parent who is unclear about what the rules are.”

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Milwaukee's Fire and Police Commission (FPC) holds a public hearing on facial recognition technology used by the Milwaukee Police Department. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A years-long debate over the use of facial recognition software by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) came to a head at a contentious Thursday meeting of the city’s Fire and Police Commission (FPC) attended by more than 60 local residents. Over the course of questioning, stretching late into the evening hours, commissioners learned from MPD leadership that the department had continued using facial recognition software, even as a draft policy to put guardrails on the technology was still being developed outside of the FPC’s control. 

By meeting’s end, FPC vice chairwoman Bree Spencer expressed a desire for the commission to consider finding some way to push for a pause to MPD’s use of facial recognition software, though the FPC itself did not take any immediate formal action. Less than 24 hours later, MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman announced that the department would ban the use of facial recognition technology, and discontinue its efforts to acquire permanent access to the technology. 

During the Thursday meeting, Norman and his staff were grilled by FPC commissioners after hours of impassioned public testimony. The sweltering meeting room was packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder, with every seat taken and people standing along the wall in spaces not already taken by the local news station’s bulky cameras. Many others waited in the hallway, as an overflow room had not been set up.

One by one, local residents expressed a variety of grievances about facial recognition. Some decried MPD’s prior use of software without disclosure to the public or FPC, while others expressed fears about how the technology could be used against Milwaukeeans by what many called an authoritarian federal government. 

Paul Smith, a member of the Oneida Nation who serves on Milwaukee’s Equal Rights Commission, was the first to speak. Smith described how his relatives had been among the first to come down from the Oneida reservation to Milwaukee seeking factory work. “We are also people who have to carry two IDs all the time,” said Smith. He suggested that facial recognition and other camera technologies are methods the government uses to track people it considers enemies. 

“I live in fear every day,” said Smith, describing how his heart rate accelerates when he drives out of Milwaukee County. Smith added that facial recognition technology is unreliable.  “My dad can use my phone because his face looks like mine,” he said.  “These cameras don’t work and they punish people, and there’s no presumption of innocence when you’re being watched all the time.”

Nadiyah Johnson, founder and CEO of the Milky Way Tech Hub, highlighted the notoriously high error rates facial recognition software has for people of color. Johnson said that federal tests have shown false positive rates as much as 10 to 100 times higher for Black people. “I’m sure that we all can understand why that would be a problem for the city of Milwaukee,” said Johnson. She added that “guardrails do not fix the core problem.” 

When surveillance infrastructure is created, Johnson said, the scope of who is targeted expands. She and other community members who spoke brought up Flock license plate reader cameras which, like facial recognition, are AI-powered and a top concern for many who attended Thursday night’s FPC meeting. Flock has attracted criticism for being used for vague or unlawful reasons by police, and for leaving some feeds exposed on the open internet. “This is not a future concern, this is already happening nationally,” said Johnson. “The public cannot meaningfully consent to systems we can not see, audit, or challenge.”

Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, recounted her attempts to learn more about MPD’s use of facial recognition by filing open records requests. After waiting five months and threatening to sue, the ACLU was sent a response that the MPD does not track requests made for use of facial recognition in individual investigations. When the city’s IT department ran an email search, the term “facial recognition” appeared in 196,688 emails from 2020-2025. 

When the ACLU narrowed the request to 16 cases which MPD cited in presentations to city commissions, they found that “in a handful of those cases” which had been “hand picked” by MPD for those presentations, “the police reports did not mention [Facial Recognition Technology] at all,” Merkwae told the FPC. “In conversations with some defense attorneys, it appears that [Facial Recognition Technology] use was not turned over to the defense in discovery in some cases,” said Merkwae. “In cases where attorneys filed pre-trial motions to get insight into the notoriously racially biased [Facial Recognition Technology] algorithms, they hit a brick wall because that information is proprietary.” 

In its presentations to city officials, MPD had said that facial recognition helped identify suspects in cases including sexual assault and shooting investigations.

Much of the public testimony Thursday focused on the potential for surveillance technologies to harm democracy. Speakers focused on the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, where thousands of people have been arrested and two people killed by federal agents. Videos posted online show immigration agents taking pictures of protesters, legal observers and vehicles, using facial recognition technology to identify detainees, and taunting members of the public by saying their pictures were going to be uploaded to a database of  domestic terrorists. An immigrants’ rights group recently discovered what it describes as a watchlist of immigration attorneys created by ICE.

Taleavia Cole and her husband Caliph Muab-El have experienced police surveillance after protesting the killing of Cole’s brother Alvin. Several of Cole’s family members, their lawyers and dozens of others were placed on a list created by the Wauwatosa Police Department. The list, which also included a Wisconsin Examiner reporter, was shared with numerous state, local, and federal agencies and was also referred to by police as a “target list”.

Muab-El said Black and brown communities have been used as test subjects for surveillance and militarized policing. This is how he views MPD’s deal with the data company Biometrica, which has offered to trade 2.5 million jail and booking photos from Milwaukee for MPD to have access to facial recognition software. 

“We’re talking about people,” said Muab-El. “And when we’re talking about people, we need to focus on the things that are most important for people to thrive in circumstances like this. Everything in our society and our community has been gutted from us almost. The resources are very scarce already…To institute something like this that will exacerbate the circumstances of our already falling and broken-in-pieces communities is definitely an attack on justice on our people.” 

He stressed that “anybody can be misidentified at any time,” and that the city will not be able to prevent federal agencies from accessing the data it collects using facial recognition software. “No one is safe,” said Muab-El. “Bystanders who believe in justice and the cause of people, these people are going to become more vulnerable. These attacks are going to become more prevalent…They’re going to become more intense.”

Cole recounted her own experiences of being placed on the target list, and her belief that even her family’s phone calls were being monitored. “So whose side are you on is the real question, because someday it could be your family member,” she said. “And next thing you know, they want to know what you know, what you’re saying, what you’re doing. Like you’re a criminal, like you’re nobody.” 

Testimony went on for several hours, pausing for a presentation on facial recognition technology from the New York University Law School Policing Project. The presenters said that while facial recognition can assist law enforcement investigations, the technology also carries serious constitutional and civil risks. Whether a city or town uses facial recognition software should be a decision made by the entire community, the presenters said, adding that having guardrails to prevent abuse of the technology is important. 

Late in the meeting, after many people had left, Chief Norman and MPD staff provided an update and took questions from the FPC. Norman said a draft policy his department’s use of facial recognition technology had not yet been finalized, and that he was “slow walking” the process to get as much input as possible. He stressed that facial recognition software is used to develop leads, and cannot be used as the sole basis for establishing probable cause for an arrest. The department had also begun logging uses of facial recognition, but those records only captured uses since 2024. 

Under sharp questioning from FPC Commissioner Krissie Fung the commission learned that MPD had continued using facial recognition technology even as the drafting of a policy was ongoing. Some sort of of a draft policy — described by Fung as a “draft of a draft of a draft” — appeared to have been viewed by at least some members of the city’s common council, but not the FPC. 

Although several commissioners expressed concerns about facial recognition technology and MPD’s deal with Biometrica, the FPC’s power to do anything about it is limited, since the Republican-controlled Legislature had worked to eliminate the FPC’s policy-making powers for the Milwaukee police. The debate over the use of facial recognition software in Milwaukee had gone on since last year, with members of the public speaking against its adoption consistently and in great numbers. Spencer, the FPC’s vice-chairwoman, said that the public shouldn’t have to attend more meetings to say the same things, and that her own trust in the department on the issue had eroded. 

In a statement issued Friday, Heather Hough, Norman’s chief of staff, said the police department understands “the public concern, particularly in light of national circumstances…Despite our belief that this is useful technology…we recognize that public trust is far more valuable.” Hough’s statement continued, “therefore, effective immediately, Chief (Jeffrey) Norman will issue a department directive banning the use of facial recognition for all members.” 

Hough said that MPD will continue work on creating a policy, but will not use facial recognition technology until that process is complete. While MPD appeared to be responding to the public outcry, the Milwaukee Police Association (the department’s union) said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned and disappointed” by the decision to restrict facial recognition technology. The police association was also irked by recent restrictions on vehicle pursuits saying that both policy shifts do not “eliminate crime or danger,” but instead “risks shifting that danger onto Milwaukee residents and the officers sworn to protect them.” 

The union’s statement described facial recognition as “an investigative tool that can assist detectives in generating leads in violent crime cases. It does not replace traditional police work or serve as a basis for arrest without further investigation. When used responsibly and with appropriate safeguards, this technology can help identify violent offenders, support victims, and improve case clearance rates.”

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An advocacy group's report highlights the financial impact Trump administration policies is having on Wisconsin residents. (Getty Images)

Democrats hoping to end GOP control of the state Legislature and Congress are stepping up their argument that the administration of President Donald Trump along with Republican majorities in both the U.S. and Wisconsin capitols have driven up costs for average members of the public.

On Monday, an advocacy group that opposes the Trump administration released a six-page document that focuses on Wisconsin examples of higher costs across the board, from groceries to utilities to health care. The report, from Defend America Action, draws on news reports, government data and polling to argue that federal policies “are ripping away Wisconsinites’ economic security.”

The opening page of the document — signed by five state Senate Democrats and Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski — declares, “Between his massive cuts to government spending, the Trump-GOP Big, Ugly Bill, and his disastrous tariff regime, Trump’s agenda is hurting the local economy in all areas, stoking a dire affordability crisis as food prices, energy bills, health care costs, and housing costs spike.”

“What I am hearing in the district every day is that ‘Everything is getting more expensive. I am working more and I am getting less in return,’” state Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), one of the signers, told the Wisconsin Examiner via email.

“The common theme here is who is looking out for them,” Drake said. “Trump and the Republican Party are praising higher stocks, but that investment is not trickling down to working families, and they are paying the price.”

Combining the answers of people who are “very concerned” and “somewhat concerned,” the report cites the finding that 89% of people who answered a Marquette Law School poll released Oct. 29, 2025, were worried about the state of the economy. The poll also found 95% of those surveyed were concerned about inflation.

The same poll found that 80% of Wisconsin voters surveyed were concerned about housing affordability, including 53% who answered that they were “very concerned.”

The October poll was the most recent from Marquette Law School focusing on Wisconsin’s 2026 elections and voter issues. (Two subsequent Marquette poll reports, in early November and late January, surveyed national samples on national issues, focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court.)

The report marshals data from across nearly all sectors of the economy. It cites the persistence of higher grocery prices and increases in health insurance premiums, particularly for people who buy their own coverage through the HealthCare.gov marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.

Enhanced subsidies to lower the cost of those premiums expired at the end of 2025. A bill to extend them for another three years has passed the U.S. House but has been stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), who also signed the report, said in an interview that he recently heard from a farmer in his district whose insurance through the marketplace, which used to cost $50 per month last year, is now $500 per month due to the loss of the subsidies.

“It went from $600 a year, I guess, to $6,000,” Pfaff said. Referring to the federal government’s decision to end enhanced subsidies, he added, “When we are telling the self-employed and those at small businesses that purchase their health insurance though the marketplace that, you know what, we’re not going to do that anymore because of partisan politics, that causes real consternation.”

The report also cites recent data showing a cooling job market and cuts to clean energy projects that had been initiated under President Joe Biden. It blames agricultural economic turmoil on see-sawing tariffs as well as, in some sectors, the Trump administration’s focus on deporting immigrants.

Farmers “are being squeezed on both ends,” Pfaff said, with the rising costs for seed, fertilizer, machinery repairs and other inputs.

“When farmers need certainty, you add on top of that the fact that they continue to struggle to move their crop commodities in the marketplace because of this ping pong that’s being played at the national level by the White House when it comes to trade policy,” Pfaff said. “When you have a situation in which grocery prices are rising, but yet farmers struggle in order to put a crop in the ground, there’s something wrong.”

The Defend America Action report pins responsibility for other impending cost increases on the 2025 federal tax- and spending-cut bill that Republicans in Congress passed and Trump signed in July. The bill rolled back clean energy tax credits enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and also made changes to Medicaid and to the federal Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP).

A clean energy advocacy organization has estimated that canceling clean energy tax credits will raise utility costs for Wisconsin consumers by 13% to 22%. Gov  Tony Evers has projected Medicaid changes could cost Wisconsin $284 million.

A separate report Feb. 3 from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that overall the megabill — referred to by Trump and Republican authors as  the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — “will redistribute trillions of dollars upward over the next decade, making it harder for families with modest incomes to meet their basic needs while helping those at the top accumulate more wealth.”

The bill cuts taxes by $4.5 trillion, primarily benefiting the wealthiest households, the CBBP reported. The bottom 20% of households by income “will lose more from the cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and other programs than they will gain in tax cuts,” the CBPP said, citing Congressional Budget Office data. 

For the bottom 10% of earners, average household incomes will fall by $1,200, or 3.1%, the report said, and the top 10% of earners  will see their household incomes rise by $13,600 on average, or 2.7%.

Drake told the Wisconsin Examiner that she believes the Trump administration’s actions attacking democracy and targeting immigrants are aimed at distracting people from policies that redistribute wealth upwards.

“Affordability is the underlying issue affecting everyone regardless of who you are,” said Drake. “Instead of helping people and holding those with the most power accountable, he wants Americans to blame our neighbors and communities of different backgrounds for the reasoning behind their struggles.” 

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Alabama state Sen. Matt Woods, a Republican, speaks to a colleague on the floor of the Alabama Senate in January. The Senate passed a bill Woods sponsored that would prohibit civil courts from issuing nondisclosure agreements against survivors of child sexual abuse. (Photo by Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

Cindy Clemishire was 12 years old on Christmas night in 1982 when a traveling evangelist staying with her family first abused her.

According to Clemishire, the sexual abuse continued over the next four years. She eventually told her family and the abuse stopped. But her abuser, Robert Morris, went on to found Gateway Church in Texas, which became one of the largest megachurches in the nation.

When Clemishire sought restitution in 2007, Morris’ attorney offered her $25,000 if she would sign a nondisclosure agreement that would prevent her from speaking publicly about the abuse. She refused.

“Had I agreed to that NDA, Robert would have continued to have power over me,” Clemishire told Texas lawmakers last May, as she urged them to pass a state law that would ban nondisclosure agreements in child sexual abuse civil cases.

“Because I refused to sign that NDA at 37,” she said, “I am able to sit here today at 55 years old and share my story in hopes of helping others.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the bill into law last June. Texas joined other states, including California, Missouri and Tennessee, in prohibiting nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, from being used in civil settlements that involve child — and in some states, adult — sexual abuse.

Morris pleaded guilty to child sex abuse charges in October, publicly admitting what he did to Clemishire.

This year, Clemishire’s home state of Oklahoma, as well as Alabama and Georgia, are considering similar laws.

Oklahoma’s bill was introduced this week. Last month, Alabama lawmakers unanimously passed identical bills in the state House and Senate. If one of the bills passes the other chamber, it will head to the governor’s desk. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp announced during his final State of the State address last month that he would support a version of the law.

Kemp said the bill would “further protect our children, expose abusers, and save lives by preventing the silence imposed on far too many victims.”

Many of the new bills are versions of Trey’s Law, model legislation — first passed in Missouri — named for Trey Carlock, a survivor of child sexual abuse. Carlock died by suicide in 2019 at age 28. Though his abuser was convicted of sexually abusing several boys, Carlock had signed a nondisclosure agreement in a civil settlement that prevented him from speaking about his abuse at Kanakuk, a popular Christian sports camp based in Missouri, and the camp’s role in enabling the abuse.

Elizabeth Phillips, Carlock’s sister, later founded the Trey’s Law movement in his memory. Trey’s Law works to get NDA bans passed at the state and federal levels.

Such bills attempt to address a civil litigation issue that gained increased attention during the #MeToo movement. Organizations such as Kanakuk that are caught up in child abuse allegations sometimes offer financial settlements to abuse survivors in exchange for their signing agreements that legally restrict them from speaking publicly about the abuse or the organization’s role in it.

Critics of these kinds of NDAs say they’re a legal tool — originally intended to protect confidential corporate information — that’s been misused to suppress survivors’ stories and shield organizations that enable abuse.

“NDAs may be presented as legal formalities, but in cases like mine, they are tools that continue the abuse,” Clemishire told Texas lawmakers last year. “They protect the abuser and keep victims in shame. They prevent the children from being protected and they make it harder to stop abuse from happening again.”

State laws vary in their protections. California enacted a law in 2016 banning NDAs for felony sex offenses, child sexual abuse and sexual assault against vulnerable adults, such as older adults and those with disabilities. Tennessee‘s 2018 law voids NDAs in child sexual assault claims. New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have placed restrictions on NDAs. Various courts have also struck down some NDAs that appeared to be designed to hide misconduct.

There’s not currently a federal law analogous to Trey’s Law, though Congress has tried to address the issue. The 2022 federal Speak Out Act specifically targets preemptive NDAs used in workplaces. It nullifies nondisclosure contracts that are signed, often as a condition of employment, before a dispute involving sexual assault or sexual harassment happens. But the law doesn’t apply to NDAs signed after allegations are made.

Much of the new state legislation, such as in Oklahoma and Texas, applies retroactively, nullifying older NDAs. Alabama’s bill would only apply to contracts entered into or amended after the measure is signed into law.

It’s difficult to find public detractors for such legislation. It’s one of the few issues that has, so far, united both sides of the political aisle. In the handful of states that have enacted bans on NDAs in sexual assault cases, they’ve passed with unanimous or near-unanimous bipartisan support.

But in Alabama last month, Republican state Sen. Greg Albritton expressed concern that a blanket ban could harm churches and institutions like the Boy Scouts of America that have faced civil allegations that they ignored child abuse or protected abusers.

“That nondisclosure statement is a lifeline, very often, for the institution to continue its efforts in trying to do good,” Albritton told Alabama lawmakers from the Senate floor, adding that he believes NDAs allow organizations to implement reforms and move forward. “If we pass this, we could be doing damage to institutions — including churches, including those not-for-profit organizations — that are doing their best to do good in the communities.

“I would caution that eliminating that tool from civil procedure does more harm to our society than it does good.”

The lawmaker sponsoring Alabama’s bill is another Republican, state Sen. Matt Woods. The Alabama version of Trey’s Law is his first bill in the Senate, after he was elected in a June 2025 special election. He said the bill was brought to his attention by some of Carlock’s relatives who live in his home county.

“We need to allow victims of this terrible act to heal,” Woods told the Alabama Reflector in January.

“The only way they can heal is to be able to disclose what’s happened to them, talk about it, and move on with the healing process.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

FBI agents load boxes of election documents onto trucks at an elections warehouse in Fulton County, Ga. State and local election officials are bracing for the prospect of federal action after President Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

President Donald Trump’s calls this week to “nationalize” elections capped a year of efforts by his administration to exercise authority over state-run elections. The demands now have some state and local election officials fearing — and preparing for — a tumultuous year ahead.

“I don’t think we can put anything past this administration,” Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read told Stateline in an interview. “I think they’re increasingly desperate, increasingly scared about what’s going to happen when they are held accountable by American voters. So we have to be prepared for everything.”

Ever since Trump signed an executive order last March that attempted to impose a requirement that voters prove their citizenship in federal elections, the federal government has engaged in a wide-ranging effort to influence how elections are run. Under the U.S. Constitution, that responsibility belongs to the states.

Then came Trump’s remarks on a podcast Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections and take over voting in at least 15 places, though he didn’t specify where. In the Oval Office the next day, the president reaffirmed his view that states are “agents” of the federal government in elections.

“I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, despite the Constitution’s clear delegation of that job to states.

Across the country, election officials are watching recent developments and, in some instances, grappling with how the Trump administration’s moves could affect their preparations for November’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. Local election officials say they are considering how they would respond to the presence of federal law enforcement near polling places and what steps they need to take to ensure voting proceeds smoothly.

Several Democratic election officials, and some Republicans, have spoken out. Placing voting under control of the federal government would represent a fundamental violation of the Constitution, they note.

The U.S. Constitution authorizes states to set the time, place and manner of elections for Congress but also allows Congress to change those regulations. The elections themselves are run by the states.

“Oh, hell no,” Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a video statement posted to social media about federalizing elections. Bellows, who is running for governor, said she would mail the White House a pocket Constitution, “because it seems they’ve lost their copy.”

The U.S. Department of Justice already has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia to obtain unredacted voter rolls that include sensitive personal information that it says is needed to search for noncitizen voters. The Department of Homeland Security wants states to run their voter rolls through a powerful citizenship verification tool. Those opposed to the demand say sharing the data risks the privacy of millions of voters. Many fear the administration could use the information to disqualify eligible voters, challenge the legitimacy of a victory in a closely contested midterm election, or use the information to target political enemies.

In recent weeks, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the presence of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in part to Minnesota’s refusal to turn over its voter rolls. And the FBI seized ballots from an elections warehouse Fulton County, Georgia — a state that was a central focus of Trump’s push to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“I think it does affect our planning as far as, what if there is some sort of federal law enforcement presence on Election Day or before or after? So that definitely factors into our planning,” said Scott McDonell, the Democratic clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, which includes Madison.

Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat running for secretary of state, said she and other election administrators conduct tabletop exercises and keep emergency plans for numerous scenarios. Those used to focus on floods, power outages and cyberattacks.

“Now, unfortunately, it’s turning into the president of the United States meddling in elections,” Byrum said. “We will be prepared. Voters will hopefully not see anything different at their polling locations. … But we need to be diligent.”

Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the election security nonprofit Verified Voting, said election officials and their lawyers need to study up on laws and regulations, including chain-of-custody requirements for ballots.

David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, which operates the Election Official Legal Defense Network, said more than 10,000 lawyers have been recruited who are ready to provide pro bono legal assistance or advice to election officials.

Trump doubles down on calling for the feds to take over state elections

When Stateline asked Read whether he anticipates Oregon facing federal pressure over its voter rolls, the secretary of state said he was set to meet this week with county clerks in the Portland metro area “to talk about that very question.” Read’s office later confirmed the meeting took place.

Oregon’s largest city, Portland, has been a focus of the Trump administration. Last year, Trump deployed federalized Oregon National Guard members to the city after protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. And federal agents last month shot two people in a hospital parking lot. Portland is a self-described sanctuary city that does not aid the federal government in immigration enforcement.

The concern in Oregon comes after Bondi on Jan. 24 sent a letter to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz after federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in separate shootings in Minneapolis that were captured on video.

Bondi’s letter outlined three “common sense solutions” that would help end the “chaos” in Minnesota, she wrote. One of those solutions called for the state to provide the Justice Department with its full, unredacted voter rolls.

Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon has called Bondi’s letter an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota” into handing over the data. Simon hasn’t provided the voter list, but White House border czar Tom Homan is pulling 700 immigration agents from Minnesota amid outrage over their presence. Roughly 2,300 agents will remain in the state.

In North Carolina, Durham County Director of Elections Derek Bowens called Trump’s rhetoric and recent federal actions concerning. Bowens, a nonpartisan official appointed by the Durham County Board of Elections, said that as long as the rule of law persists, a “constitutional guard” will protect election administration.

Still, Bowens, who oversees elections in a largely Democratic area in a presidential swing state, said he and other local officials are preparing to prevent potential “intrusion” into the process.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge what that would be in terms of security protocols, but that’s definitely in the forefronts of our minds,” Bowens said in an interview, adding that he would be working with local emergency services officials “to make sure we’re positioned to ensure everyone that is eligible has unfettered access to the ballot box.”

Trump wants federal control

Trump appears to be crossing a line from urging Congress to set additional election requirements into wanting the federal government’s hands on states’ election administration infrastructure, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Elections Research Center at the university.

“That would be brand new,” Burden said.

After Trump called for nationalizing elections during Monday’s appearance on the podcast of Dan Bongino, a right-wing media personality who was previously a top FBI official, the White House said Tuesday that the president had been referring to legislation in Congress that would require individuals to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The bill has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate.

But Trump late Tuesday doubled down on his original comments during an unrelated bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office. He suggested the federal government should take a role in vote counting.

“The federal government should get involved,” Trump said. “These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Even before Trump’s nationalization comments, Democratic state chief election officials and some Republicans had refused to turn over copies of voter rolls containing driver’s license numbers, date of birth and full or partial Social Security numbers after the Justice Department began demanding the data last spring.

Federal judges in California and Oregon have ruled those states don’t have to provide the data; numerous other lawsuits against other states are ongoing.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Trump-supporting Republican who campaigned for office on calls to hand-count ballots, told a Missouri House committee on Tuesday that he wouldn’t provide the state’s full voter list without a court order. He said his office had only shared a public version of the voter rolls; Missouri hasn’t been sued by the Justice Department.

The Trump administration has previously confirmed it is sharing records with Homeland Security, which operates an online program that it uses to verify citizenship. The Justice Department has also offered some states a confidential agreement to search their voter lists.

“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a statement to Stateline.

“The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

But U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a Jan. 15 decision that the voter roll demands risk a chilling effect on Americans who may opt not to register to vote over concerns about how their information could be used. He dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking California’s voter rolls.

“The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left. The case before the Court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans,” Carter wrote in a 33-page decision.

Some Republicans oppose nationalization

Amid Trump’s call for nationalizing elections, some Republican election officials have broken with the president even as they have avoided criticizing him directly. State control has long been a central tenant of conservatism, though Trump has challenged elements of Republican orthodoxy over the past decade.

Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, told state lawmakers on Tuesday, “I personally don’t believe we should nationalize elections.”

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a news release on Monday urged lawmakers to focus on strengthening state administration of elections. He said that was better than “moving to federalize a core function of state government.”

Raffensperger, who is running for governor this year, was famously targeted by Trump following the 2020 election to overturn his loss in Georgia. In a phone call, Trump told Raffensperger he wanted to “find 11,780 votes” — the size of his loss in the state. Raffensperger refused to aid Trump.

Five years later, Raffensperger now faces pressure from Georgia state lawmakers to provide the state’s unredacted voter list to the Justice Department. The Georgia Senate on Monday passed a resolution calling on the secretary of state to fully comply with the department’s request.

Georgia Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson, the resolution’s lead sponsor, said during a state Senate committee hearing last month that federal law supersedes limits on data sharing in Georgia law. He didn’t respond to an interview request.

In a statement to Stateline, Raffensperger said that state law is “very clear” that officials aren’t allowed to turn over the information. “I will always follow the law and the Constitution,” Raffensperger wrote.

The Georgia Senate vote came less than a week after the FBI searched the Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots. Fulton County, which includes much of the Atlanta metro area, was where Trump was indicted on charges of conspiracy and racketeering related to his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. The case was dismissed last year.

The Justice Department didn’t answer a question from Stateline about whether it plans to seek search warrants for other election offices.

On Wednesday, Fulton County filed a motion in federal court demanding the return of the seized ballots and other materials, Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts, a Democrat, said at a news conference. The motion also asks for the unsealing of the affidavit used by the FBI to support its search warrant application.

“We will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections,” Pitts said. “Our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight.”

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

An Amazon Web Services data center is shown situated near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Va., in 2024. As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers.

For years, many states competed aggressively to land data centers, sprawling campuses full of the computer servers that store and transmit the data behind apps and websites. But many officials are now scrutinizing how those power-hungry projects might affect the electric bills of households, small businesses and other industries.

Oregon last year became one of the first states to enact a law requiring utilities to charge data centers different electric prices than other industries because of how they drive up the cost of energy production and transmission.

“We are now making data centers pay a higher rate commensurate with the amount of energy they’re sucking out of the system,” said Oregon state Rep. Tom Andersen, a Democrat.

Republican and Democratic leaders in at least a dozen states have targeted data centers with separate, higher electric rates to protect other customers. States also are requiring long-term commitments and financial guarantees through collateral before greenlighting infrastructure investments for new data center projects. But lawmakers acknowledge that numerous factors affect energy prices, so targeting data center-specific costs can be complicated.

An increasingly digital world and the rise of energy-intensive artificial intelligence has led to major expansion of data centers: Consultant McKinsey & Company expects companies to spend nearly $7 trillion worldwide on data centers by 2030. But the industry is facing growing scrutiny, from neighbors who don’t want to live near the massive server farms and from residents worried about how data centers will affect their own swelling utility bills.

Delaware legislation that would charge data centers higher rates advanced out of committee last week. On Tuesday, a Florida state Senate committee approved a bill that would create new rate structures for data centers.

In Oklahoma, a Republican state senator has proposed a moratorium on new data centers until late 2029, allowing the state to study how data centers affect utility rates, the environment and property values.

Separate legislation from state Rep. Brad Boles will seek to protect other ratepayers from the costs of data centers. Boles, the Republican chair of the state Energy and Natural Resources Oversight Committee, said his in-the-works measure would ensure data centers pay their fair share.

Boles told Stateline that his constituents are increasingly worried about data centers, with a dozen potential major ones proposed across the state.

“We’re trying to ensure that those data centers pay for their own infrastructure and we don’t shift that cost or burden to everyday Oklahomans,” he said.

In Oregon, Andersen’s legislation created a new rate structure for data centers with long-term contracts and required regulators to separate the costs of those facilities from other ratepayers.

But consumer advocates have already accused the state’s largest utility of trying to skirt the new law by making residential customers pay part of the long-term cost of supplying large data centers in a pending rate case.

Andersen, a member of the state House Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment, said the new rate structure is unlikely to immediately lower consumer bills. Rather, it aims to curb future increases as data centers require more power generation and transmission.

“We’re not going to change the rates that are being currently paid by the ratepayers and the users of the electricity,” he said. “It’s just going to stop future raises.”

The data center boom

Rising utility bills continue to outpace inflation, sparking anger from consumers and more scrutiny from state regulators, governors and lawmakers.

The boom of data centers is frequently cited as a prime reason for rising electricity prices, as their operation requires more power generation, transmission and distribution upgrades. A Bloomberg News analysis in September found wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas with significant data center activity.

Data center companies say they aren’t the only reason prices are rising.

“It’s inaccurate to draw a clear line between large load customers like data centers coming online and increases in prices. It’s just not that simple,” said Lucas Fykes, senior director of energy policy and regulatory counsel at the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing data center owners and users, including Amazon, Meta and Visa.

He said many factors have contributed to higher electricity prices, including extreme weather events and the nation’s aging electric grid.

Fykes said his organization opposes rate structures that treat data centers differently from other large electric users such as industrial sites. The organization is working with regulators as states increasingly implement practices to ensure residents and small businesses aren’t on the hook for big energy investments if major projects including data centers don’t come to fruition.

Fykes said the country is likely just in the “beginning innings” of a longer ramp-up in technology and power needs.

“We are also in a global race to build out data centers, to support AI, to support cloud infrastructure,” he said. “It’s important to make sure that we maintain those assets here in the United States.”

That can pose competing interests for political leaders, including mayors, who have pushed hard to land investments from tech companies.

“We want to be leaders in AI, but we don’t want the infrastructure needed to support it,” said Rusty Paul, the mayor of Sandy Springs, Georgia, in the Atlanta metro area.

He was among several mayors addressing the issue of data centers at last month’s winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. On a data center panel, Paul acknowledged the effect of Georgia’s tax incentives for data centers: “They’re just popping up everywhere,” he said.

But utilities and regulators are also making long overdue grid upgrades that aren’t tied to data centers, he said.

“The cost of electricity is going up for everybody — and it’s not all related to data centers,” he said.

A bipartisan push

The Georgia Public Service Commission last year created new rules that officials said would protect ratepayers from data center costs. In addition to covering costs of power consumed at their facilities, data centers would have to fund the costs incurred by upstream generation, transmission and distribution, the regulator said.

But lawmakers aren’t convinced those steps went far enough.

State Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Republican, is again pushing legislation that would solidify the regulator’s rules into law. His bill would prohibit utilities from passing along the fuel, generation or transmission costs of data centers to other customers.

He told Stateline that the regulator’s rules need to be codified into law so they can’t be weakened later.

Hufstetler said rising utility bills are among the biggest issues facing his constituents. High prices played a key role in November’s election, when Democrats flipped two seats on the state’s Public Service Commission board — the first time Democrats won statewide constitutional office in nearly two decades.

“I saw people with MAGA hats going into the election polling places that were saying, ‘I’m not voting for those guys that raised my rates,’” Hufstetler said, referring to the Republican incumbents who lost.

Hufstetler said the bill, which passed out of committee last year, has already gained major bipartisan support in the Senate, where it is sponsored by multiple Republicans and Democrats.

“This is very bipartisan,” he said. “We have all heard from our people around the state of Georgia.”

The Georgia Public Service Commission agrees in principle with the legislation, said agency spokesperson Tom Krause. But he said the regulator worries about losing flexibility if its rules are written into law.

“Not just this bill, but whenever the legislature codifies a rule that we put in place, we get a little nervous because it can tie our hands in special circumstances,” he said.

A complex challenge

As part of implementing a law enacted last year, Maryland’s utility regulator is weighing a new rate structure for data centers and other large load users.

Proposed regulations would require certain preapproval analysis for heavy power users, a separate rate tariff for data centers and collateral to ensure other ratepayers don’t end up paying for major investments if projects do not come to fruition.

Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel, an independent agency representing residential utility users, said the proposed changes meet statutory requirements but could do more to protect consumers.

In a news release last month, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said residents are already facing higher costs from data centers from outside the state.

“While we push for better federal rules to address those costs, Maryland has the power—and customers a clear need—to make sure data centers within Maryland take on every cost that they impose on residential customers,” Lapp said.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore recently joined 12 other governors and the Trump administration in urging the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to shield residents and businesses from the infrastructure costs from data centers.

Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat, said the grid operator has for years failed residents in the 13 states plus the District of Columbia that it serves. By delaying renewable energy projects, she said, PJM has kept older, more expensive power plants online, driving up prices as data centers increase demand.

PJM’s board last month rolled out a new data center plan that it said would improve demand forecasting, accelerate the addition of new generation projects and give states a larger role.

Charkoudian said states and utilities struggle to determine just how much power is needed. Data center users shop around for sites, which can cause wildly inaccurate forecasts of just how much power a utility will need.

“It actually has a very concrete financial impact on ratepayers,” she told Stateline. “And so that’s why one of the things that really could make a difference for ratepayers is if we actually had an accurate count of how much we’re getting online.”

While some of those challenges lie outside the realm of state control, Charkoudian said there are things the state can do, including the new rate structure for larger users. She’s crafting a bill encouraging data centers to curtail their power usage during peak periods, such as hot days, when the electrical system is taxed by heavy usage of air conditioners, Maryland Matters reported.

Charkoudian said adding solar generation and storage are low-cost ways to respond quickly to demand. And states can avoid the need for more generation by doubling down on energy efficiency programs that lower demand and also consumer costs.

“The best time to fix this was five years ago,” she said. “The next best time is right this minute, because it’s only going to get worse.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira contributed to this story. Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.