Some anti-abortion state lawmakers are pushing to revise the definition of “abortion” so abortion bans don’t apply to cases in which the death of an “unborn child” is the result of medical care provided to the pregnant woman.

In the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to ban abortion, stories continue to emerge of women with doomed pregnancies who developed life-threatening infections, had to travel to another state, or even died because doctors were afraid to provide what was once considered standard pregnancy-loss care.

Thirteen states have abortion bans, and all of them include a medical exception that allows abortions to protect the life of the pregnant woman. Some, but not all, of the bans also have exceptions to protect the health of the woman.

But patients and providers have argued in lawsuits challenging the bans that such exceptions are too ill defined to give doctors and hospitals the confidence to provide timely care. As a result, they say, providers end up denying care until the woman’s condition deteriorates to a point where the exceptions definitely apply, jeopardizing her health and future fertility.

Last year, states including Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee enacted laws designed to provide additional clarity. Confusion persists in those states and others, however, and research has linked abortion restrictions to higher rates of maternal death and injury.

The latest measures, crafted and promoted by national anti-abortion groups, would redefine “abortion” as the intentional ending of the life of the “unborn child.” Supporters say they would clear the way for doctors to manage miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and other pregnancy-related emergencies.

“No one wants a physician to hesitate or pause and further endanger the life of the mother,” said Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee, which has advocated for all of the measures, in a written statement. “This is why providing clearer language in defining terms can be beneficial.”

But reproductive rights advocates and many OB-GYNs say the real purpose of the bills is to fortify abortion bans that are broadly unpopular, even in states with full bans, and under legal challenge in multiple states. They argue the new measures are still too vague because they hang on the intentions of individual physicians, and many of the same procedures and medicines used in abortions are used to treat miscarriages.

They also say the language in the bills could grant embryos legal rights, thereby making some fertility treatments illegal.

“If you’re trying to define what is and is not an abortion, and you’re creating really specific, narrow guidelines, it could really unintentionally classify some pregnancy-related procedures as abortion care, and therefore within the law not medically necessary,” said Elias Schmidt, state legislative counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group.

South Dakota is first

In March, South Dakota became the first state to enact such a law. Its measure states that the state’s abortion ban only applies to “the intentional termination of the life of a human being in the uterus,” and not to medical treatment that results in “the accidental or unintentional death of the unborn child,” treatment to resolve a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, “the removal from the uterus of a deceased unborn child,” or a medical procedure that aims to save the fetus.

To the concern of fertility-treatment advocates, the law also defines “human being” as “an individual living member of the species of Homo sapiens, including the unborn human being during the entire embryonic and fetal ages from fertilization to full gestation.”

A similar bill introduced in Missouri defines abortion as “the act of using or prescribing any instrument, device, medicine, drug, or any other means or substance with the intent to destroy the life of an embryo or fetus in his or her mother’s womb.” It explicitly exempts miscarriage management and treatment for ectopic pregnancies from the definition.

And a bill in Utah, where abortion is still legal up to 18 weeks’ gestation, would regulate how an abortion procedure is recorded in a patient’s chart, distinguishing between an elective abortion and a medically indicated abortion. It defines the latter as an abortion “to remove a deceased fetus,” resolve an ectopic pregnancy, or to avert the death or “serious physical risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function of a woman.”

Wisconsin’s legislature recently voted not to advance a similar bill this past legislative session.

Blame for the confusion

Anti-abortion groups blame doctors and abortion-rights advocates for creating the confusion around the medical exceptions in abortion bans, insisting it is clear what is a medically indicated abortion and what is purely elective.

“The fact that we’re in a place now that states actually have to define (abortion) is a result of my field, particularly (the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) not clarifying it,” said Dr. Susan Bane, vice chair of the board of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is made up of about 7,500 physicians and other medical professionals who oppose abortion.

The organization has launched a medical education and messaging campaign arguing that abortion bans do not prevent necessary health care.

According to Bane, the main difference between an induced abortion and medically indicated termination is that in the first case, “you want a dead baby at the end of whatever you do.”

The author of the South Dakota law, Republican state Rep. Leslie Heinemann, said he sponsored the measure to quell some of the criticism that the medical exceptions in his state’s ban were ill defined. He admitted he underestimated how difficult it would be to codify in law when care for a miscarriage is necessary.

“Even the medical community had trouble with helping define some of the issues,” he said.

The version of the bill that became law names only a few conditions and leaves the rest up to the discretion of physicians, who must exercise “appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female” to avoid felony charges.

Heinemann insisted his measure would not restrict fertility treatments or birth control. But reproductive health and legal experts say that by defining the beginning of human life as “the entire embryonic and fetal ages from fertilization to full gestation,” it could have that effect.

“Embedding personhood language into state laws does really bring up concern around contraceptive access and IVF access,” said Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy adviser for the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion rights.

“As personhood provisions grow in the state code, it brings up the question: At what point are we granting the legal rights of a person and placing those rights above the individual themselves?”

Dr. Amy Kelley, an OB-GYN in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who was the chair of the South Dakota chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists from 2023 to 2025, said lawmakers ignored her and other doctors’ concerns that the amended abortion ban is still too vague.

“The whole point of medicine is to prevent people from becoming on the brink of death, right? So are they expecting us to wait until that?” Kelley said. “It’s still not very clear, and the definition for miscarriage and ectopic is also not the one we wanted. It’s just not helpful.”

Kelley said that since her state enacted an abortion ban, she often waits longer to terminate a pregnancy for medical reasons, and will sometimes send patients out of state for care. She noted that the new law doesn’t explain what level of risk to the pregnant woman justifies terminating a pregnancy.

“They want to say elective abortions are not allowed. But what do they consider elective?” she said. “Let’s say they have a heart condition and their risk of dying in pregnancy is 40%. Is that an elective abortion because their risk is not 100%?”

Stateline reporter Sofia Resnick can be reached at sresnick@stateline.org

Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) announced his reelection bid on Monday — seeking a fourth term in the state Senate as other longtime Republicans are opting out of running.

Marklein was first elected to the state Senate in 2014 after serving two terms in the Assembly. He last won reelection in 2022 with 60% of the vote. This will be his first time running for reelection to the redrawn Senate District 17 under new voting maps adopted in 2024. 

“I am running again to keep investing in our shared priorities, protect Wisconsin’s checkbook, continue working across the aisle to solve problems, and move Wisconsin forward,” Marklein said in a statement. “We have made a lot of progress, but there is more work to do.” 

The district includes Crawford, Grant, Green, Iowa and LaFayette counties as well as the southwestern corner of Dane County. According to an analysis by John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University, the district leaned Democratic by 1 percentage point in the 2024 presidential election and by over 4 percentage points in the 2024 U.S. Senate race.

Marklein’s decision to run again could help Republicans defend their majority in the state Senate, since his incumbency gives him an advantage, especially as other Republicans, including leaders and longtime incumbents in critical seats opt out of seeking another term. 

Republicans currently hold an 18-15 majority in the state Senate, meaning they can only afford to lose one seat as they struggle to hold control of the chamber.  The GOP has held the Senate majority since 2011.

The retirements of Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) and Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) could diminish  Republicans’ chances of holding the Senate majority as the party loses the advantage of incumbency in two key districts. 

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) are leaving at the end of their terms.

Last week, Rep. Rob Brooks (R-Saukville), who has served in the Assembly since 2015, and Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond du Lac), first elected in 2022, both announced they won’t seek reelection this fall.  

“While I am stepping away from office, I still care deeply about the future of Wisconsin,” Brooks said in a statement. “Strong leadership in Madison matters, and it is important that we continue to elect people who understand our communities and are willing to stand up for them.” 

Other announced retirements include Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), Rep. Kevin Petersen (R-Waupaca), Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville) and Rep. Rick Gundrum (R-Slinger).

Marklein is the co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, a position that has given him a hand in writing Wisconsin’s two-year state budget for the last three sessions, deciding which state programs receive funding. He pointed to his work on the committee in his statement, saying it has given him a “a front-row seat in shaping Wisconsin’s budget and priorities.” 

“I have always used that position to ensure that our communities are well represented when decisions about state spending are made,” Marklein said. “I am proud to have led three successful bipartisan state budgets that have made historic investments in our K-12 schools, local governments, and infrastructure, strengthened our hospitals and healthcare system, and returned billions of dollars to taxpayers through tax relief for the middle-class and retirees. We accomplished this all while putting Wisconsin in one of the strongest fiscal positions in the country, boasting record surpluses and continuing to pay off debt and invest in the rainy day fund.” 

Marklein could face one of three Democrats, who are competing in a primary: Rep. Jenna Jacobson, who has the backing of the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, Corrine Hendrickson, a child care advocate and Lisa White of Potosi, a small business owner.

While he didn’t launch his campaign until Monday, Marklein had been fundraising and reported in January that he raised $194,137 during the most recent six-month period, a number that tops what any of the Democratic candidates raised.

A legal brief filed late last week seeks to have a Dane County judge declare that an 1897 law banning the practice of fusion voting is unconstitutional because it restricts the rights to a “free government,” equal protection and freedom of speech through a law that was passed to explicitly create a partisan electoral advantage. 

The motion was filed on Friday in a lawsuit brought last year by United Wisconsin, a nascent centrist political party hoping to offer voters an alternative to the “duopoly” of the Democratic and Republican parties. The group is represented by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward. 

Fusion voting is a practice through which multiple political parties can nominate the same candidate to the ticket. Under the system, a minor party such as United could choose to nominate its own candidate, but more often the party would endorse one of the major party candidates. Voters would be able to cast their votes for the same preferred candidate under either party line. 

At a conference on fusion voting hosted at UW-Madison last year, political scientists and proponents of the system said that in theory it can give minor parties more influence. A third party candidate under the current system is unlikely to win, but a minor party’s policy preferences are harder to ignore if the party has just enough sway to swing an election result in either direction.

The brief describes a hypothetical congressional race in which United cross-endorses the Democratic candidate, given the name Olson. After the hypothetical votes are counted, the Republican candidate has earned 48.2% of the vote on the Republican ticket while Olson has earned 45.9% of the vote on the Democratic ticket and 4.9% on the United line. When added together, this gives Olson the win with 50.8% of the total vote. 

In Wisconsin, where elections are often decided by single digit margins, this could result in meaningful considerations of the desires of the minor party voters — rather than the current system under which third party candidates, such as Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election, are seen as spoilers who can pull enough support away from the closest ideological major party candidate to help the other side win. 

“That is fusion voting in action. United Wisconsin will claim, with merit, to have helped her over the finish line,” the brief states. “No doubt Olson will be more attentive to her ‘home’ party, but if she’s a competent politician, she won’t ignore the priorities of the moderates and centrists in the United Wisconsin Party. If she does, United Wisconsin, and its key bloc of voters, might cross-nominate her opponent in the next election.”

Fusion voting is often considered alongside ideas such as ranked choice voting and multi-member congressional districts as a reform proposal that could help prevent the country from sliding into an authoritarian government. 

“Fusion offers the opportunity to create meaningful new political identities,” the legal brief states. “It allows voters of all ideological stripes to vote for their values without having to support a rival or opposing party with a mostly intolerable program.”

In the 19th century, fusion voting was used across the country. The practice was phased out in most of the country but exists currently in New York and Connecticut. The brief, which includes as many examples from history and political science as it does legal citations, states that Wisconsin’s fusion voting ban was enacted by the Republican Party in 1897 as it surged to become the state’s dominant political force in a direct effort to limit the ability of the Democratic Party and other minor parties to win. 

“History shows the ban was enacted as a form of invidious political discrimination,” the brief states.

The lawsuit argues the state has no direct interest in maintaining the power of the Democratic and Republican parties, so the law must be put under “strict scrutiny” for fundamentally restricting the speech of Wisconsinites. 

“When political parties cannot nominate their candidates of choice, they cannot effectively organize, campaign, advance priorities, or exercise political power,” the brief states. “They are relegated for perpetuity to a spoiler role, whereby any electoral effort they make is not only futile in advancing their own candidate and platform, but also seriously risks helping their least-favored major-party candidate win the race and get to govern. While the ban still allows political parties to nominate most candidates, it prohibits them from nominating the only candidates who can win; and while it allows political parties some degree of speech, it constrains their speech in the context for which political parties exist — the ballot.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lashed out at Pope Leo XIV Sunday night following the pontiff’s sharp criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and wider Middle East conflict.

In a lengthy post, littered with falsehoods, on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump accused the first U.S.-born pope of being “WEAK on crime” and of supporting Iran having a nuclear weapon. The president also invoked the 70-year-old pontiff’s brother, Louis Prevost, “because Louis is all MAGA.”

Leo, born Robert Prevost, is from Chicago.

During a flight to Algeria on Monday, Leo told reporters, “I have no fear of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do.”

“We are not politicians,” he said, as reported by Vatican media. “We don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.”

List of complaints

Trump’s Sunday night post criticized Leo for not backing his foreign policy and aggressive immigration agenda, and generally for not being more supportive of his administration. 

The United States and Israel ordered military strikes on Iran in late February, despite not facing an imminent threat from the Islamic state. Trump did not give a clear rationale for the strikes until about a month after they launched, saying they were meant to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country,” Trump posted just after 9 p.m. Eastern.

“And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History,” the president continued in his 334-word message about the pontiff.

Further, Trump claimed Leo should be “thankful” because Trump is responsible for the Chicago native being installed as the leader of the Roman Catholic church.

“He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” he wrote.

Less than an hour later, the president posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ blessing an ailing man as what appear to be angels in full military fatigues hover in the clouds above with fighter jets nearby. Trump deleted the post Monday morning.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

While speaking to reporters outside the Oval Office Monday afternoon, Trump said he posted the image but that he wasn’t depicted as Jesus. Rather, he said, he was supposed to represent a doctor associated with the Red Cross.

“I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support, and only the fake news could come up with that one,” he said in response to a question about the image.

“So I just heard about it, and I said, ‘how do they come up with that?’ It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better, I make people a lot better,” he continued.

One minute after the post depicting Jesus, the president posted an AI-generated image of a skyscraper bearing his name on the moon’s surface.

Iran talks crumble

In the hours prior to sounding off on the pope, Trump posted a video of himself shaking hands with mixed martial artist Paul Costa following an Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended in Miami on Saturday night.

At the time of the fight, Vice President JD Vance was wrapping up failed peace talks with Iranian leaders in Pakistan. U.S. and Iranian leaders reached a two-week ceasefire deal last week. Trump described it at the time as a major step toward a permanent peace deal.

Trump threatened to establish a U.S. military blockade in the Strait of Hormuz Monday after talks collapsed. Not long after the war began, Iran effectively closed the narrow maritime passageway that moves one-fifth of the world’s oil.

Vance, whose forthcoming book focuses on his conversion to Catholicism, was one of the last guests to visit Pope Francis before his death nearly one year ago.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement Sunday night disapproving of Trump’s social media post about the pontiff.

“I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father,” said Coakley, the archbishop of Oklahoma City. “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s post “viciously attacked” Leo’s opposition to the Iran war. Trump’s comments that the pope is “weak on crime,” among other claims, reached “a new low,” the New York Democrat added.

Schumer also said the president’s AI-generated image of himself depicted as Christ “makes a mockery of millions of Christian Americans, many of whom voted for Trump and who fervently believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.”

“If King Herod had a Truth Social account in the first century, I think he’d probably describe Jesus Christ, who saved the penitent thief crucified alongside him, as weak on crime,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales both announced Monday evening that they would resign from Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations.  

Swalwell’s announcement came just one day after he suspended his campaign for governor over allegations of sexual assault. 

“I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members,” he wrote in a statement on X. “Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong. But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress.”

Just over an hour later, Gonzales posted his plans to resign on social media.

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all,” he wrote. “When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas.”

Debate about whether to expel four House members, which would require the support of two-thirds of the chamber, resurfaced this weekend when Swalwell dropped out of the gubernatorial election. 

New Mexico Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, wrote in a statement that the reports regarding Swalwell were “horrific.”

“Rep. Swalwell’s actions would not be tolerated in any place of work, and the United States Congress should be no different,” she wrote. “We must believe and support survivors, and hold perpetrators accountable.”

Fernández called for an immediate investigation that ensures the “staffers and interns who courageously came forward must be listened to and kept safe.”

Fernández wrote in a separate statement that Swalwell and Gonzales, who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegations he engaged “in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his congressional office,” should immediately leave Congress. 

“Reps. Gonzales and Swalwell are not fit to serve. They must resign. If they do not, I will vote to expel them,” she wrote. 

Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote in a social media post that she “will be supporting this resolution!”

The House Ethics Committee announced Monday afternoon its members had opened an investigation into Swalwell “with respect to allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, including towards an employee working under his supervision.”

Florida lawmakers

There is also the possibility that an expulsion resolution would include Florida Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Florida Republican Rep. Cory Mills.

The House Ethics Committee voted to find Cherfilus-McCormick guilty on more than two dozen ethics charges in late March after holding a public hearing. The panel plans to hold another hearing on April 21 to decide “what, if any, sanction would be appropriate for the Committee to recommend to the House of Representatives.”

Mills has been under investigation by the Ethics Committee for months over allegations he “engaged in misconduct with respect to allegations of sexual misconduct and/or dating violence,” among several other possible violations. 

Few expulsions in history

The House has rarely expelled its members, voting just six times to force lawmakers out. 

New York Republican Rep. George Santos was the most recent member removed from the House, following a 311-114 vote in December 2023 to approve an expulsion resolution sponsored by Mississippi Republican Rep. Michael Guest, chairman of the Ethics Committee. 

The resolution noted that in May 2023 “Santos was charged in Federal court in the Eastern District of New York with wire fraud in connection with a fraudulent political contribution scheme, unlawful monetary transactions in connection with the wire fraud allegations, theft of public money in connection with his alleged receipt of unemployment benefits, fraudulent application for and receipt of unemployment benefits, and false statements in connection with his 2020 and 2022 House of Representatives Financial Disclosure Statements.”

The next most recent expulsion came in 2002, when Ohio Democratic Rep. James A. Traficant was expelled for conspiracy, defrauding the government, illegal gratuity, obstruction of justice, racketeering and tax evasion violations, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. 

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Michael J. Myers was expelled in 1980 for bribery, conspiracy and Travel Act violations. In 1861, during the Civil War, Kentucky Rep. Henry C. Burnett along with Missouri Reps. John B. Clark and John W. Reid were expelled for “disloyalty to the Union.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

Wisconsin will officially allow DACA status holders to obtain an occupational license under a bill Gov. Tony Evers signed into law last week. 

AB 759, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 240, allows DACA status holders to apply for and obtain professional credentials from the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS).

Evers said in a statement that it was the right thing to do to help “Dreamers… pursue their higher education and career goals to give back to the communities that raised them” and to help the Wisconsin economy by ensuring “smart, talented and capable people can join our workforce in high-need areas.” He signed the bill while surrounded by advocates at the Nuevo Mercado El Rey in Milwaukee.

“Here in Wisconsin — whether it’s restrictions on obtaining a driver’s license to operate a vehicle or certain work-related credentials — unnecessary barriers are holding hard-working people, as well as our workforce, economy, and communities, back,” Evers said in a statement. “Immigrants play a critical role in our economy and our communities in every corner of our state — and they have for generations. In Wisconsin, we’ve always believed that if you work hard, obey the law, pay taxes, and play by the rules just like everyone else, you should have a fair shot at pursuing the American Dream, including having the opportunity to join our professional workforce.” 

The bill made it through Wisconsin’s Republican-led Legislature and to Evers at a time when the federal government has been cracking down on immigrants, detaining more than 260 DACA recipients and deporting more than 80. 

Proponents of the legislation got it over the finish line using the tag line, “This is not an immigration issue; this is a workforce issue.”

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), adopted in 2012 under President Barack Obama, provides temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The program does not provide recipients with legal status, a path to permanent residency or citizenship. 

According to a September 2025 report by the Migration Policy Institute, there are about 505,000 active DACA recipients from close to 200 different countries of birth in the U.S, about 5,100 of whom reside in Wisconsin.

DSPS issues thousands of licenses for more than 200 types of jobs in the health, business trades and other fields each year in Wisconsin. Nurses, real estate agents, cosmetologists, plumbers, dentists and emergency medical technicians all receive licenses through DSPS.

Without the change in state law, DACA recipients have been ineligible to apply, limiting the types of jobs they can do in Wisconsin. 

Under the law, workers will still be required to have a valid, unexpired employment authorization document issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and as long as the federal work authorization is renewed, their Wisconsin credentials may continue to be renewed. 

Under the law, the bill will only apply to DACA recipients under the original DACA program. President Donald Trump rescinded the DACA program in September 2017. The provision in the state law means that should DACA be reopened to new applicants, they would not be eligible for occupational licenses.

Erika Colón, who has been a nurse for more than 30 years, told the Examiner that the legislation could help relieve the nursing shortages in Wisconsin. Colón, who spoke to the Examiner in her personal capacity, is the president of the Milwaukee Chapter of the Hispanic Nurses Association. 

“I’ve never worked in a hospital where we were fully staffed, and it wasn’t because the hospitals didn’t want to hire. It’s just that the people didn’t exist,” Colón said. 

According to a 2024 Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) report, the state faces a projected deficit of 12,000 to 19,000 registered nurses by 2040.

In her work with the Hispanic Nursing Association, Colón said that she has met students pursuing nursing who were DACA holders, but had to relocate out of the state to practice. She noted that the shortage issue is a nationwide trend. 

“In the big picture, it does help that they became nurses, and they’re helping other states, but they’re from here. They lived here many years. Their families are here. Their roots are here, and essentially we need them here,” Colón said. “We have so many job openings to fill that people could be filling easily, and unfortunately, because of the licensure barriers, they have to pick up everything and move out.”

Advocates worked hard to push through the new policy allowing DACA recipients to work in Wisconsin, instead of moving and taking their skills to other states.

A bill allowing DACA recipients to get occupational licenses was first proposed in 2023 by former Rep. John Macco, a Republican from Brown County. He worked on a package of bills, including one to allow DACA recipients to become police officers and one to allow DACA recipients to be eligible for in-state tuition at Wisconsin’s universities, with Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee). He had heard from local law enforcement in Green Bay that one of their employees was not eligible to become a police officer due to his status. The bills did not advance that session and Macco opted not to run for reelection in 2024. 

“For me, it was a jobs bill,” Macco told the Examiner in an interview. “We are graduating nurses… They went to grade school here, high school here, college here, and then they have to leave the state of Wisconsin to get a license and to sit for their nursing boards and practice somewhere else. It’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen. They can’t even be a barber in the state of Wisconsin.”

This session, Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) signed on as lead coauthor this session alongside Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Ortiz-Velez. The lawmakers intentionally decided to focus their efforts on just the occupational license bill.

Ortiz-Velez told the Examiner that getting the bill done was a team effort. She said the recent national environment surrounding immigration was in the background as lawmakers and advocates worked on the bill. 

“People have such negative images, and they automatically assume that this is gonna promote illegal immigration and where they don’t understand is this is a finite group of people,” Ortiz-Velez said. “It took a lot of us explaining and educating people and being very precise in the messaging that we were using to make sure that people understood. This is not an immigration bill.”

There were obstacles to getting committee hearings. Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers), the chair of the Assembly committee where the bill got a hearing, is a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration agenda. He ended up speaking in favor of and voting for the bill, but some Republicans who share his views on immigration were opposed to the measure from the beginning. When it came to the final floor session, the bill was not initially listed on either the Assembly or Senate’s calendars.

Ortiz-Velez said it was helpful to keep the conversation focused on Wisconsin, rather than federal immigration policy.

“As a state, we have to put Wisconsin first, and regardless of what’s going on at the federal level, we have job openings that we have, and we have people that are qualified… I think for Republicans that was important to them — the idea of losing workforce,” Ortiz-Velez said. 

Ortiz-Velez said it was unclear during the Assembly’s last week in session whether the bill would get a vote. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats spoke in favor of the bill and it passed in a bipartisan voice vote.

Macco remained involved in the effort to get the legislation over the finish line including in the Senate. 

“My point to the Legislature was, look, conservative Republicans can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Macco told the Examiner in an interview. “We can both be against illegal immigration and breaking the laws and criminals coming into our country at the same time, we want to make a path for citizenship to all of those DACA recipients, and Congress needs to do that.” 

Macco testified at the committee hearing on the bill. He also made calls to his former Republican colleagues.

“I called a bunch of them. I remember calling [Senate President] Mary [Felzkowski] and she called me back,” Macco said. “I had that conversation with her on how this is so important while I was riding on a ski lift… My request to her was, would you be willing to waive the 17 rule or go to a voice vote.” 

The “rule of 17” is an informal rule sometimes invoked by Republicans in the state Senate, who have insisted that only bills that have the support of the majority of the Republican caucus should be allowed to come up for a vote. This informal rule has stymied bipartisan efforts that could have passed with votes from members of both parties. With an 18-15 Republican majority, any two Republican senators can block a bill from getting a floor vote under the “rule of 17.” 

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), who is retiring at the end of his term, broke the rule to pass a handful of bills during the Senate’s final floor session this year.

On the last day of the Senate floor session, the DACA licensing bill was still not on the calendar. Ortiz-Velez said that was a purposeful maneuver to avoid any amendments on the bill that could have killed it.

The bill passed in the Senate 31-2. The only opposing votes came from Sens. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) and Steve Nass (R-Whitewater). 

After the vote, Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) said in a statement that it was a “great accomplishment” for the state.

“Dreamers came to our nation as children, brought by their parents because America has long held itself to be the land of opportunity,” Carpenter said. “That is the same reason that many proud Americans live freely in our great nation today, because our ancestors once had that same dream of building a better life for their children.”

Colón said her members wrote to lawmakers and Evers as a part of their advocacy efforts and worked to educate and win support of people who wouldn’t be directly affected. Before they heard about the bill, she said, “a lot of people didn’t know that DACA recipients could not obtain the license.” 

“We need this. Licensed professionals are highly needed in the state. It’s not like they’re taking other people’s jobs,” Colón said. 

Colón said she knew of at least two nurses who would be able to move back from Illinois. 

“This will be able to bring two people back to the workforce here and to care for our communities that greatly need it,” Colón said.

Ortiz-Velez said she is hopeful the success of the law could open the door to additional legislation for DACA recipients. She said in-state tuition is one of her top priorities. She said she also hopes that working with others on these issues could also “reinvigorate” a conversation about a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, so that “they can be fully members of our society.”

Macco said that he would like to see the state take more action to address the barriers that DACA recipients face, however, he also called them “Band Aid approaches.”

Macco said he wants to see the federal government allow DACA recipients to apply for a green card. He said that he plans to speak with Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Tony Wied about the issue. 

“[It] doesn’t mean they’re going to get it. It just allows them to apply, and so if [the federal government] would just simply do that, to me, I think that’s a win,” Macco said.

Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt called a press conference Friday to push back against reports about a U.S. citizen who claimed last month that she was detained by federal immigration agents and held at the Dodge County Jail. Schmidt announced he is filing a civil lawsuit against the woman who made the allegations, saying, “it is important that we correct the facts, so today we’re here to talk about the fact vs. the fiction in the Sundas Naqvi allegations that were made.” 

In early March, Naqvi, 28, of Skokie, Illinois, claimed that she and her co-workers had been detained by federal immigration authorities at the O’Hare airport in Chicago after returning from a work trip abroad. Naqvi’s family and Kevin Morrison, a Cook County commissioner, said that Naqvi had been taken to the Broadview Detention Facility and was then transferred across state lines to the Dodge County Jail, then released without aid or transportation in the pre-dawn hours. 

Schmidt said during his press conference Friday that these allegations are false. “They gained significant attention, but they have not been supported by any — any — verified evidence at all,” he said. Schmidt noted that Morrison, a candidate in the Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat, held a press conference to air the Naqvi allegations in the leadup to a the election, which he  lost. 

Naqvi’s alleged detention took place against a backdrop of news reports and widespread public outrage over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which targeted Chicago and Minneapolis. 

Research conducted by the Deportation Data Project found that 1,300 arrests made by federal immigration agents were listed as “collateral,” meaning they were not the intended targets of the enforcement, the Minnesota Reformer reported. The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has also been criticized for assisting in detaining and transporting people arrested by federal immigration agents. 

Schmidt said that the initial claims about Naqvi’s arrest were “coordinated messaging designed to generate outrage and media attention.” He showed a picture posted to social media showing Naqvi being reunited with her family after her alleged detention.

Schmidt said that there “is no record of booking, there is no record of detention, there is no record of release, no contact with the individual, no transfer to any federal agency.” He also blasted media outlets that covered Naqvi’s allegations as factual, repeatedly saying those kinds of stories hurt the reputation of law enforcement. 

“Media coverage has impacts,” said Schmidt. “What you publish has impacts on more than just those readers and viewers. It has impacts on real human beings.” Schmidt showed hate mail the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office received after the Naqvi allegations surfaced, and revealed the names of the people who sent the messages. “These are the types of things that we as elected officials, that public officials get when media put out information that is not verified. And many times, it’s false information that goes out and we get these regularly. And I don’t think that the media understand the impact that these kinds of stories have on real people every single day.”

Schmidt stated that Naqvi had been briefly detained by Customs and Border Protection until 11:42 a.m. at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, after which she left and checked in at a Hampton Inn and Suites hotel in Illinois at 1:17 p.m, just minutes from the airport. While investigating the allegations, Schmidt made contact with a man he calls both a witness and a victim, who provided corroborating evidence refuting Naqvi’s story.

The witness — who Schmidt refused to identify citing Marsy’s Law — allegedly received texts from Naqvi telling him that she’d arrived to her hotel room, and asking to use his credit card to buy some food. Records from the hotel confirm when Naqvi checked in, and that she was not at the Dodge County Jail when she claimed. Naqvi also asked to use the witness’s card to pay for a spa treatment during this time. “Now I don’t know about you, and my staff have never recorded one, there is no spa at Broadview in Chicago Illinois,” said Schmidt. “I can also tell you there is no spa lady in our jail here in Dodge County.”

Schmidt said that on the morning Naqvi claimed she was released from custody, she’d actually asked the witness to drive her to Wisconsin to help her sister with car trouble. The witness allegedly told Schmidt in a recorded interview that he thought she was  going to the Kenosha area, but it turned out Naqvi wanted to go to another hotel in Beaver Dam. Schmidt showed images and played video of Naqvi at a gas station with the witness, wearing the same striped black and white shirt she wore in a social media post that purportedly showed her being reunited with her family. Schmidt called the witness “a true gentleman” for holding the door open for Naqvi as they left the gas station. 

It was around this time, Schmidt said, well-past 5:00 in the morning, that Naqvi claimed she was being released from the Dodge County Jail. The witness’s vehicle was also captured by several Flock cameras along the journey, Schmidt said. The sheriff wanted to check whether the timeline of events he believed occurred tallied with what the witness was saying. “So I put those times into A.I. and I said ‘what time would he have left?’” The software’s results lined up with what the witness described, Schmidt said.

Later, Schmidt played video of Naqvi at another location taking selfies. At 6:50 a.m. on the morning she was allegedly released, Naqvi’s sister and others arrived in a silver SUV to pick her up. The unnamed witness told Schmidt that he was then asked by Naqvi to pose for media as one of the coworkers who allegedly went with her on the overseas work trip, and who were allegedly detained with her upon returning to the country. Schmidt said that none of this happened, and that the witness refused to make those claims to the media, but did claim to be one of the coworkers to Naqvi’s attorney. 

Schmidt said that the witness paid for Naqvi’s trip to Turkey, and that the trip was not related to or paid for by an employer. In fact, later media coverage reported that the company where Naqvi claimed to work denied that she worked there. Schmidt said that while Naqvi was overseas, she wanted to get a medical procedure for which the witness took out a $3,000 loan. Schmidt said that Naqvi spent about $25,000 of the witness’ money, maxing out his credit card. The witness did all of this, Schmidt said, because he believed he might be able to have  a long term relationship with Naqvi.

The sheriff also discounted the images of Naqvi’s phone location showing her at Broadview and Dodge County. “I’m here to tell you that in the world of A.I., in the world of technology that they live in, things like this can be spoofed very easy,” he said. “I could do it on my phone in only a matter of minutes.” Schmidt noted that one of the screenshot images actually had two different time stamps. Schmidt also highlighted Naqvi’s past disputed allegations, including an accusation of sexual misconduct against a professor that the professor denied.  

In 2019, Schmidt said, Naqvi made a report to the Skokie police that she was violently sexually assaulted. Although officers observed injuries, took forensic evidence and arrested an ex-boyfriend of Naqvi’s, they later determined the report was false, Schmidt said. Another 2020 report with the Skokie police made by Naqvi accused a driver of being impaired in a Walmart parking lot. The driver showed no signs of impairment, and claimed he met Naqvi on a dating app and was waiting for her to come out of the Walmart. The report was classified as disorderly conduct and categorized as not made in good faith, Schmidt said. 

Schmidt said he has not had any success getting other law enforcement agencies interested in following up on what he regards as Naqvi’s bad acts, none of which are likely to be charged as crimes in the state of Wisconsin. He added that he does not know the status of any investigation the FBI may be doing, and the state police he reached out to in Illinois never got back to him. Schmidt said that he was told by local law enforcement officers that while they would like to act, that they can’t because Cook County prosecutors don’t take on cases of this nature. Later, Schmidt claimed that upon hearing this the witness allegedly said “it sucks to live in a blue state.” 

Schmidt is filing a lawsuit in an attempt to hold Naqvi and anyone else involved in her allegations accountable, he  said. “This is not a misunderstanding or a minor discrepancy,” said Schmidt. “This is not a violation of the constitutional or civil rights of Sundas Naqvi or those allegedly with her. The timeline claimed is not physically possible based on the evidence that we have, and that matters.” He also condemned the media and politicians for spreading false reports, saying they damaged respect and trust in law enforcement. 

“Let me be clear,” said Schmidt, “ICE is not the enemy. Law enforcement is not the enemy.” Schmidt said that he won’t stand by “while false narratives are used to portray law enforcement as something it is not.” He added, “I take it personally when my staff are called liars. These are men and women who do the job the right way every day and those accusations are simply not supported by facts.”

Schmidt said that a criminal investigation is ongoing, in addition to the federal civil lawsuit he’s filed, which seeks $1 million in damages. He wouldn’t comment on whether any phones were forensically downloaded as part of this investigation, which Schmidt said he used a lot of his own time to pursue. 

In a statement provided over email, Morrison said that he understands that a lawsuit has been filed, and that while he has not seen it, he cannot comment on pending litigation.  Morrison did not comment on whether he has been in contact with Naqvi or her family. The Examiner reached out to the office of attorney Robert Held, who represented Naqvi and her family when the allegations were first made, but no comment has been forthcoming.

The headlines following Wisconsin’s April 2026 spring election told a story of Democratic triumph: Chris Taylor expanded the  liberal majority on the State Supreme Court, and in a stunning upset, the candidate supported by Democrats, Alicia Halvensleben, defeated Republican state Rep. Scott Allen to win  the nominally nonpartisan mayoral race in the city of Waukesha, in the heart of a Republican-leaning area that has been key to past Wisconsin GOP victories.

But further down the ballot, a quieter, more granular political battle reached a turning point. In school board races across the county, a multi-year, well-funded right wing project to seize control of school policymaking came to a grinding halt due to years of community-led organizing.

Since 2021, the Republican Party of Waukesha County’s WISRED initiative has systematically targeted down-ballot races as part of a precinct-focused strategy aimed to energize conservative voters in low-turnout elections. This relied mostly on manufacturing outrage around “culture war” topics in public education and resulted in partisan majorities installed on school boards across the county.

2026 saw another installment of this effort. This time the county was blanketed by a range of competing, and in some cases overlapping, endorsements from a variety of organizations including WISRED, Moms for Liberty, The 1776 Project PAC, The Heartland Post, Blue Sky Waukesha, The Waukesha Dems, KM Alliance, the Alliance for Education Waukesha, Grassroots Germantown, and Grassroots Menomonee Falls.

This cycle, however, marked a dramatic reversal of fortune for right-wing groups. So-called “conservative” candidates backed by WISRED, Moms for Liberty, and The 1776 Project PAC won around 60% of their races in this Republican stronghold, hardly the dominant track record of previous cycles. 

This shift is not merely the result of a tarnished MAGA brand. It is the direct outcome of parents, students and activists working at the local level to reclaim their school boards for their communities.

There are four districts that stood out this election cycle:

• Menomonee Falls: In perhaps the most decisive result, the school board flipped from partisan control back to a nonpartisan, community-focused majority. All three candidates backed by WisRed, Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project were defeated in their bids.
• Elmbrook: Considered one of the last holdouts against the partisan takeover, the Elmbrook School District successfully defended its nonpartisan board. Incumbent Sam Hughes lost his race despite receiving over $30,000 in in-kind support from conservative PACs, a huge blowout for the WISRED initiative.
• Waukesha: In the county’s largest district, the Waukesha GOP’s slate was largely defeated. While partisan-backed incumbent Bette Koenig retained her seat, the other two candidates on the WISRED ticket lost. This race also involved a new group, Forward Wisconsin, a PAC exclusively funded by former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, that backed those same GOP-supported candidates. The district will now see two community-backed members, Diane Voit and Mitch Gallagher, on the board, up from one.
• Hartland: Even in the very heart of Republican Waukesha County, the trend held. In the Hartland-Lakeside School District, the WisRed-backed challenger, who had appeared at campaign events with the chair of the Republican Party of Waukesha County, failed. Incumbent Morgan Henning, the non-partisan candidate, successfully retained her seat.
• Kettle Moraine: One school board candidate, Jay Crouse, stood out for receiving endorsements from each of WISRED, Moms for Liberty, The Heartland Post, Blue Sky Waukesha, the Waukesha Dems, and KM Alliance. Unsurprisingly, Crouse won his race.

After several election cycles, communities are beginning to see and react to the negative consequences of partisan-controlled school boards. The 2026 results show that there is a path for communities to flip the script on the MAGA takeover of public education.

Correction: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly identified Sam Hughes as a challenger instead of an incumbent on the Elmbrook school board.

Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.

I first heard about Delvin Francisco Rodriguez four months ago when ICE published a notification about his death on its website. 

The agency shared only a few details.

According to the post, Rodriguez, 39, who was being held at the ICE detention center in Adams County, Mississippi, had died after a medical emergency landed him at Merit Health hospital in Natchez, in December. 

A second post two months later said that Rodriguez had tried to hang himself in the detention center. Staff members found him, tried to revive him and sent him to the hospital, the report said, but Rodriguez did not regain consciousness and his family agreed to remove him from life support about 10 days later.

At the time, that’s all we knew from official sources.

When I read ICE’s version of events, as sparse as they were, I didn’t have a specific reason to wonder if there was more to the story. Still, the unexpected deaths of people living in ICE custody were becoming a flashpoint.

When Rodriguez died, on Dec. 14, he was the fourth person in four days to die in ICE custody across the nation.

It was a grim year. ICE reported 33 in-custody deaths in 2025, making it the deadliest year for ICE detention centers since the agency was formed. Complaints of deplorable living conditions, spoiled food and medical neglect had been piling up.

The high rate of deaths has continued this year, with ICE reporting 15 more through early April. Several of the deaths have been ruled suicides. And last month, The Associated Press reported that guards in a Texas ICE facility had been overheard betting on which detainee would die by suicide next.

In light of all this, I started trying to learn more about what exactly happened to Rodriguez.

I knew that ICE was unlikely to share details beyond what it had already published on its website. In the five times I’ve reached out to its local spokesman, he has never answered my questions or provided a comment. Representatives for CoreCivic, a private prison operator that runs the Natchez facility, have been polite and responsive but not particularly informative. 

Regardless, I started working on a list of questions for ICE and CoreCivic. I knew Rodriguez had been arrested in September and held somewhere else before his transfer to Mississippi. Where had ICE held him, and what had happened there? Does ICE pass along details regarding the well-being of detainees when they change facilities? And if so, had it communicated any such information about Rodriguez to administrators at Adams?

In the meantime, I had been trying – unsuccessfully – to find Rodriguez’s family. But I had a breakthrough earlier this week when I came across a post about Rodriguez’s death that had been published in January by a nonprofit based in Colorado called Voces Unidas. I hadn’t seen this post before, and it raised some concerning questions from Rodriguez’s family about the circumstances surrounding his death. 

On Tuesday, I got in touch with Alex Sanchez, the president and chief executive of Voces Unidas. He explained how his organization had helped Rodriguez hire a lawyer for his immigration case, and how it was now trying to help Rodriguez’s family learn more about his death. 

Sanchez agreed to ask Rodriguez’s family if they would be willing to speak to me. He told me that they had been fearing retaliation and would want to remain anonymous. 

He also told me that there were several reasons Rodriguez’s family felt like ICE wasn’t telling the full story. 

He said Rodriguez had agreed to self-deport the same month he was arrested, in September 2025. Rodriguez had been in touch with his mother back in Nicaragua, making plans for his return – even asking her to buy clothing for him.

Up until the day before Rodriguez was taken to the hospital, he had been talking regularly to his sisters by phone. His biggest frustration had been that he was being detained indefinitely,  months after he had voluntarily agreed to leave the country. Rodriguez did not show any signs that he was going to harm himself, Sanchez said. 

Rodriguez had described his unit as one of the big ones, a large room where more than 100 people shared living space. But after his death, Sanchez said, Rodriguez’s family was told that he had been found hanging in a cell. They did not receive an explanation for why he was in a cell. By this point, multiple detainees I’d interviewed had told me that the individual cells in the Adams facility are used either to discipline detainees who break the rules or to quarantine sick detainees. 

Sanchez also recounted that Rodriguez’s family found his death suspicious because of a video conversation they’d had with the nurses who were taking care of Rodriguez in his final days at Merit Health in Natchez before he was finally removed from the ventilator. According to the family, the nurses said Rodriguez’s injuries seemed inconsistent with what ICE was telling them – that Rodriguez had hung himself with a sheet, Sanchez said. The nurses also noted that Rodriguez had an injury on his forehead that didn’t look like it could have come from hanging, Sanchez said.

On Wednesday, Brian Todd, a CoreCivic spokesman, responded to my questions with a written statement. I had asked specifically about where Rodriguez had been housed and where he was found, and for details of his mental well-being and security footage of the incident, but Todd didn’t answer any of those questions. 

He expressed sadness on behalf of the company and said Adams detainees had “daily access” to medical care, including mental health services. He noted that Rodriguez had been discovered around 4:15 p.m., which was new information. 

Nobody I reached out to at ICE has responded to the questions I emailed them earlier this week. But I have also filed a public records request with ICE asking for the report it is required to prepare after it reviews an in-custody death, Rodriguez’s detention history and footage of the incident. I’ll let you know how ICE responds. 

The email and statement from Brian Todd of CoreCivic regarding the death of Delvin Francisco Radriguez:

We are deeply saddened by the passing of any individual in our care, and we take each instance very seriously. The safety, health and well-being of the people entrusted to us is our top priority. 

As you previously reported, on December 4, 2025, at approximately 4:15 p.m., Adams County Correctional Center (ACCC) staff responded to a medical emergency involving an unresponsive detainee inside their living area. Staff immediately began lifesaving measures. EMS was called, and paramedics transported the individual by ambulance to a local hospital. Our partners at ICE were notified immediately.

On December 14, ACCC leadership was informed by the hospital that the detainee had passed away. As with all incidents of this nature, it has been thoroughly reviewed in accordance with established protocols and in coordination with our government partners.

We adhere to all applicable federal detention standards in our ICE-contracted facilities, including ACCC. These facilities are monitored very closely by our government partners, and they are required to undergo regular review and audit processes to ensure an appropriate standard of living and care for all detainees.

Solitary Confinement
Solitary confinement, whether as a term or in practice, does not exist in CoreCivic facilities. Restrictive housing is in place for various reasons, including medical and mental health observation and administrative or investigative purposes. Individuals in restrictive housing maintain full access to courts, visitation, mail, showers, meals, all medical facilities and recreation. We always strive to ensure detainees are cared for in the least restrictive environment necessary to maintain their safety and security, as well as that of the institution.

Medical and Mental Health Care
CoreCivic is committed to providing access to high-quality medical and mental health care for all residents. At ACCC, the onsite medical clinic is staffed by licensed health care professionals including physicians, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health counselors and dentists who contractually meet the highest standards of care, as verified by multiple audits and inspections. All detainees have daily access to sign up for medical care, including mental health services. CoreCivic also ensures access to offsite care for residents by coordinating with staff, government partners, community physicians, hospitals and ambulatory care providers. In 2024 alone, there were over 800,000 onsite medical and mental health care encounters in CoreCivic facilities. All CoreCivic staff are trained in CPR and first aid.

Brian Todd
Manager, Public Affairs

As states enact stricter work requirements for the federal food stamp program, a new analysis suggests those requirements won’t enhance employment and will push more people off of food assistance. 

The researchers conducted a review of studies on work requirements and concluded that “the best evidence shows they do not increase employment. Moreover, this research finds work requirements cause a large decrease in participation in SNAP.”

The research from The Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, comes at a time of major upheaval for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Participation is already declining as states implement changes mandated by the president’s major tax and domestic policy law enacted last summer. 

Since the fall, states and counties that administer SNAP have been notifying residents who rely on food stamps that they must meet work requirements or lose their food assistance. Those changes affected exemptions to work requirements for older adults, homeless people, veterans and some rural residents, among others. 

Known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the law mandated cuts to social service programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.

While SNAP enrollment is declining nationally, more people will likely lose food assistance as states continue to implement the work requirements and recertify participants, said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at Brookings Institution and the associate director of The Hamilton Project. 

“Everything that we know about work requirements is that they do not increase employment among the groups that are subject to them,” she told Stateline. “All they do is make it more likely that they are disenrolled from the program. And so, should these work requirements continue to be rolled out and implemented, we would expect to see declining enrollment and no changes in employment.”

Bauer said the growing body of research on SNAP has changed her mind about its ability to affect employment. While food stamps reach millions of people each year, the program’s work requirements have proven ineffective, confusing and burdensome, she said. 

“I am now of the mind that SNAP should be an anti-hunger program, and there are many, many ways to do workforce development, career ladders, career training, job search — all of those things. That’s not an anti hunger program and it shouldn’t be associated with it.”

What’s more concerning to her is how the stricter work requirements will affect people who lose jobs in an economic downturn. Traditionally, SNAP has been one of the most effective social supports for the unemployed, helping people who lose their jobs quickly gain food assistance. But laid-off workers will increasingly be told they cannot receive benefits without working. 

“It’s just this dissonant, unhelpful interaction that you have with the government,” Bauer said. “I lost my job, I need food benefits. Well, you can only get food benefits if you have a job.”

At least 2.5 million low-income people, or 6% of those enrolled, have lost SNAP benefits since the legislation was signed into law, according to a study by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published Wednesday.

Bauer said it’s unclear how much of that decline is directly related to the federal legislation. That’s because SNAP participation generally declines during times of economic prosperity and increases during downturns.

But the program is facing unprecedented changes: Under the new law, states have also lost funding for nutrition education programs, must end eligibility for noncitizens such as refugees and asylees, and will lose work requirement waivers for those living in areas with limited employment opportunities. States are also forced to cover more of the costs of the program. 

Earlier this week, a USDA spokesperson applauded the drop in SNAP participation, noting the program’s rolls had fallen below 40 million for the first time since the pandemic. The spokesperson told States Newsroom the program would continue “to serve those with the greatest need while also strengthening program integrity.”

Republicans, including  U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, have defended the legislative changes to SNAP, arguing they will help eliminate waste and fraud in the program.

In a June news release, he characterized SNAP as a “bloated, inefficient program,” but said Americans who needed food assistance would still receive it.

“Republicans are proud to defend commonsense welfare reform, fiscal sanity, and the dignity of work,” Johnson said in the release.

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

In the eight states that expanded Medicaid after 2018, the number of people receiving prescriptions for the opioid addiction treatment medication buprenorphine increased dramatically, according to a paper that researchers will present next month.

The states that expanded Medicaid before that period also saw gains, but they were generally smaller. That’s because other changes, aside from Medicaid expansion, made buprenorphine easier to get after 2018.

The researchers found that among all patients — those covered by Medicaid, other insurers and the uninsured — the number of buprenorphine prescriptions increased in the eight most recent Medicaid expansion states (Idaho, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia) by more than 21% between 2019 and 2023. Maine, Oklahoma and Virginia saw the most dramatic increases.

Among the states that expanded Medicaid in 2018 or before, Kentucky, Vermont and West Virginia experienced the largest boosts. The study, published in February in JAMA Network Open, was conducted by researchers from Rutgers University and Indiana University, based on pharmacy claims data from retailers across the country.

Stephen Crystal, director of the Center for Health Services Research at Rutgers University and one of the authors, explained that buprenorphine became more accessible after 2018 as the federal government loosened various prescribing rules, including allowing prescribing via telehealth.

“Longer-term tracking shows that expansion, whether early or later, provides essential financial access and supports the growth of a provider network that improves population-level treatment rates,” Crystal told Stateline.

Experts warn that looming Medicaid cuts could cut off buprenorphine access to thousands of patients. The broad tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed last summer is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $886.8 billion over the next decade, largely because new work requirements will push people off the rolls, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office. CBO estimates that it could increase the number of people without health insurance by 7.5 million in 2034.

Opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a high of 81,806 deaths in 2022. They’ve fallen sharply since then, to 79,358 in 2023 and 54,045 in 2024.

Medicaid is  the largest payer of opioid use disorder treatment, and in 2023 it covered nearly half of all non-elderly adults in the U.S. with opioid use disorder in 2023, said Robin Rudowitz, a senior vice president at KFF, a health policy research group.

“Having health insurance is the main way for people to have consistent access to health care services, and also particularly for Medicaid, as most people are low income, and it provides protections against financial burdens,” Rudowitz said.

“And for (opioid use disorder) specifically, research shows that when people discontinue treatment, mortality risk increases. And for discontinuation of Medicaid, specifically, when coverage lapses, mortality rate increases.”

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

Gov. Tony Evers signed bills into law this week that will legalize sports betting, provide funding to the University of Wisconsin system to help student athletes get paid for the use of their name, image and likeness as well as measures that address internet crimes against children. 

AB 601, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 247, will legalize online sports betting in the state. This will be an expansion of access to sports betting, which has been legal in Wisconsin since 2021, but only in person at tribal casinos. 

Following a legal framework first used in Florida, the law will allow for the servers that manage the bets to be housed on tribal land. The law was designed this way because the Wisconsin constitution requires that any legal gambling be managed by the state’s federally recognized Native American tribes.

The bill faced a complicated path through the state Legislature. At first it sped through the hearing process, only to be pulled from the Assembly floor calendar. It finally received  a vote about three months after it passed committee. When it passed the Senate in a 21-12 vote, with some opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, one Republican senator said the bill would be the reason Republicans lose their majority in this year’s midterm elections. The bill also faced opposition from lobbying groups representing the country’s largest online sportsbooks. 

Evers said he signed the bill because it is his obligation to “always to respect the sovereignty of Tribal Nations in Wisconsin,” and because it will provide an opportunity to put revenue paid into the state into mental health programs and efforts to combat the opioid crisis. However, he said, he also had “reservations” about signing the bill. 

“This legislation is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one,” Evers said in a statement. “The real work begins today.” 

Online sports betting will not become immediately available since  the tribes and the state will need to renegotiate their gaming compacts. The governor is tasked with the responsibility of negotiating compacts with the tribes under the Wisconsin Constitution. A new agreement would then need approval from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

Before the bill passed the Legislature, Evers had expressed concerns about getting support from all of the tribes. 

All 11 tribes then signed a letter saying that each was on board with the legislation, according to WisPolitics.

“Each of the 11 Tribes must now work diligently — and together — to shape the future of sports betting in Wisconsin,” Evers said. “What I will not accept is a plan that fractures this opportunity into unequal pieces, allowing some Tribes to reap great benefits while leaving only crumbs for others. An approach that exacerbates long-standing inequalities among Tribal Nations is not good for Wisconsinites or Wisconsin.” 

Wisconsin is the 33rd state to legalize online or mobile sports betting since a 2018 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that had barred betting on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states.

“A joint venture — with each Tribe contributing, and each Tribe benefiting in equal shares — is gaining traction in these discussions, and I strongly support pursuing this or a similar model,” Evers said in his statement. “This is an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of past compact amendments that left some Tribes and their members in poverty while only lifting up a few.”

Student athlete name, image and likeness

Evers also signed a bill this week to help University of Wisconsin student athletes in getting paid for the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) and to provide the UW system with funds so it can help provide NIL opportunities to those athletes.

AB 1034, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 203, provides $14.6 million annually in state funds to go towards debt service for the costs of UW-Madison’s athletic facilities, $200,000 for the UW–Milwaukee Klotsche Center and $200,000 for the UW-Green Bay soccer complex. Providing the state funds is meant to free up other funds so the UW can provide students with opportunities for NIL agreements. The bill passed with nearly unanimous support in the Assembly with a 95-1 vote, but in the Senate the margin was much closer with a 17-16 vote. 

Evers partially vetoed the bill to remove language related to the funds going to “maintenance costs” saying he wanted to allow greater flexibility in how the UW system can use the funds. 

“I object to the potential confusion created by referring to ‘maintenance,’ and my partial veto will better reflect the intent that the funding alleviate existing debt service. I also object to how this bill unnecessarily restricts the use of funds appropriated for athletic facilities within the University of Wisconsin System,” Evers wrote in his veto message. “I believe that greater flexibility is necessary to ensure this funding can be used effectively and allow the system to maximize the state’s investment.” 

The law codifies some policies that UW-Madison and other campuses already have in state law, including prohibiting NIL contracts that conflict with school policies and providing money in exchange for athletic performance, as well as those that require student athletes to endorse alcoholic beverages, gambling, banned athletic substances or illegal activities or substances. It also includes a requirement that student athletes disclose third-party NIL deals they enter. 

UW schools are also going to be able to contract with organizations that can help student athletes find NIL opportunities.

The law also includes language exempting records related to the “generation, deployment, or allocation of revenue generated by an intercollegiate athletic program” from the state’s open records law in an effort to “protect competitive interests and student privacy.” Open records advocates expressed concerns about the provision as the bill was debated. UW representatives said the provision would only be used to clarify what is already the UW’s existing practice of denying access to student athlete NIL agreements and certain university records that are related to NIL strategy, allocation, revenue generation. 

Addressing internet crimes against children

Evers signed four bills into law to help combat internet crimes against children.

The laws build on previous efforts to address online crimes affecting children. Last year Wisconsin passed a law that defined  “sextortion” as a crime. Lawmakers started working on that legislation after 15-year-old Bradyn Bohn from Kronenwetter, a village outside of Wausau, died by suicide after being targeted online by a perpetrator who convinced him to share nude photos of himself and told him that he needed to send money or face major consequences. He suffered through hours of threats and was coerced into sending money before his death.

AB 923, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 215, will allow for victims of a sexual extortion to sue their perpetrator for damages including for emotional distress, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and investigation costs. In the case that someone died by suicide due to sexual extortion, a victim’s family would be able to file a wrongful death suit. 

Sexual extortion has become a growing threat in the U.S. in recent years. From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors that included at least 12,600 victims, mostly boys, and led to at least 20 suicides.

The other bills give the DOJ additional resources and tools to address internet crimes against children. 

AB 957, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 216, provides $400,000 in each year of the 2025-27 state budget to the state Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce laws against internet crimes against children and AB 958, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 217, provides four new DOJ positions that will focus on internet crimes against children. 

AB 964, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 21, gives the attorney general administrative subpoena authority in the case of a sextortion crime if the victim was a child at the time of the violation.

AB 966, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 219, will require the DOJ to conduct a children’s online digital safety awareness campaign and provide materials on digital safety awareness to schools for free.

Other bills Evers took action on 

• AB 1027 was vetoed. It would have instructed the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to turn over data related to SNAP to the Department of Health Services to provide to the U.S. Department of Agriculture information. Evers said in his veto message that he objected “to sharing Wisconsinites’ most sensitive personal data, including their Social Security numbers, without the federal government having to meaningfully demonstrate how Wisconsinites’ personal data will be appropriately secured, will not be able to be accessed by broad swaths of federal employees, and will not be shared inappropriately both within and outside of the federal government.”
• AB 759, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 240, was signed into law. It will make Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status holders in Wisconsin eligible to apply for occupational licenses.
• AB 373, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 241, was signed into law. It creates a $2,000 nonrefundable income tax credit for parents of a stillborn child. The credit is meant to provide financial relief to help parents with expenses associated with the stillbirth.
• AB 918, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 202, makes adoption a required topic to be covered for school districts that choose to offer human growth and development instruction, also known as sex education. Wisconsin school districts are not required to offer human growth and development instruction.
• SB 782, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 245, extends a penalty for falsely texting 911 to report an emergency. Violators could face fines between $100 and $600 and/or up to 90 days in jail for a first offense. A subsequent offense committed within four years of the first would be a Class H felony.

WASHINGTON — Spikes in energy prices caused by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran drove up inflation for Americans in March, according to the latest consumer price index figures released Friday.

Costs jumped 0.9% in March compared to the previous month — that’s up from the 0.3% increase in February. 

Prices for all items together, including food, energy, shelter and other commodities like vehicles, rose by 3.3% from a year ago. That’s the highest annual jump since May 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data. 

Fuel costs drove the spike, with gasoline and fuel oil together rising 10.9% in March compared to the previous month. Singled out, gas prices jumped 21.2% in March. The cost for airfare, largely driven by jet fuel prices, rose 2.7% in March, up from the 1.4% jump in February.

President Donald Trump launched the joint war in Iran with Israel on Feb. 28. In response to the intense bombing campaign that killed the country’s supreme leader and numerous senior officials, the Iranian regime effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage in and out of the Persian Gulf vital to the transport of one-fifth of the world’s petroleum.

As of Friday, Americans were paying $4.15 on average nationwide for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA. The average for diesel across the U.S. is $5.68 per gallon.

Prior to the war, a gallon of regular hadn’t topped $3 all year.

Iran’s de facto takeover of the Strait of Hormuz by threatening to strike any tankers, other than a handful from friendly countries, has caused the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, according to the International Energy Agency.

Despite a tenuous ceasefire agreed to Tuesday evening Eastern time, Iran is still controlling the strait. Ten oil tankers transited the waterway Tuesday, and only one on Wednesday, according to the latest figures available from the Joint Maritime Information Center, which tracks tankers and cargo ships worldwide that are transmitting location data.

Prior to the war, roughly 140 vessels daily flowed freely through the Strait of Hormuz.

Dems pounce on affordability issue

Democrats blamed Trump Friday for higher inflation, as affordability is emerging as perhaps the single-most important issue ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in November that will determine control of Congress.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said the president is “pushing working families to the brink.” 

“Trump promised to ‘lower prices on Day One,’ and instead he waged an unhinged trade war and started an unpopular war with Iran — and what have Americans gotten in return? Nothing except even higher prices. Americans are sick and tired of this president putting his own interests first and using their hard-earned dollars to fund his war instead of making health care more affordable or expanding access to child care,” Martin said in a statement Friday morning.

White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai responded to the inflation figures, saying the president “has always been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, disruptions that the Administration has been diligently working to mitigate.”

“Although gas and energy prices are seeing volatility, prices of eggs, beef, prescription drugs, dairy, and other household essentials are falling or remain stable thanks to President Trump’s policies. As the Administration ensures the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, the American economy remains on a solid trajectory thanks to the Administration’s robust supply-side agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance,” Desai wrote in a statement Friday morning posted on social media. 

Other costs

The price index for food consumed at home decreased 0.2% compared to the previous month, but increased 1.9% from a year ago. 

The costs of fruits and vegetables rose 1% in March compared to the previous month, but prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs declined 0.6%, according to the latest BLS figures.

The price index for items minus food and energy rose 0.2% in March, matching the increase in February. The cost of all items, less food and energy, rose 2.6% over the past 12 months.

A state Senate committee put off taking action despite threats from lawmakers to fire unconfirmed members of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents after two regents shared more details Thursday about the decision to fire former UW President Jay Rothman. 

While the regents were legally prevented from sharing specific details about the firing, they said, they described their sense that Rothman moved too slowly to act on pressing issues including developing a UW policy on artificial intelligence.

The UW Board of Regents voted unanimously in a virtual meeting Tuesday to fire Rothman, who had refused to leave his position voluntarily. The decision took effect immediately and the the search for the next leader has already begun. Rothman, who will get six months of severance pay, told the Associated Press after the vote that he was “blindsided” by the ousting but wasn’t going to challenge it.

Republican lawmakers had come to the defense of Rothman after the news broke about the effort to oust him. Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) said lawmakers should reject the regents’ nomination if they fired Rothman without cause. The Senate Technical Colleges and Universities committee quickly scheduled Thursday’s public hearing and executive session on the consideration of the nominations of the ten unconfirmed Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees, including Bogost and Nixon. 

Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) said at the start of Thursday’s meeting that the decision required an explanation.

“Transparency is the foundation of public trust, and when decisions are made without explained justification, it further erodes confidence, not just to the Board of Regents, but in the institution itself,” Hutton said, adding that lawmakers could provide oversight of state entities. “We are faced with a sudden leadership shake-up at risk, creating instability at a time when the chancellor turnover is high and our flagship university is losing its CEO.”

Regent President Amy Bogost and Regent Timothy Nixon said that Rothman had been told about the changes the regents wanted to see. Their decision to let him go, they said, was not made lightly and came after he failed to make those changes. They also said that his decision to take his complaints public was harmful to the UW system.

Bogost has served on the Board for the last six years, including as president since 2024. Nixon has served as a regent for the last two years. Neither has received a confirmation hearing, which has become standard procedure for the Republican-led Senate, which has left most Evers appointees unconfirmed. 

Until the meeting, the regents hadn’t given any additional details about the decision to fire Rothman, other than that the decision came after an annual review was conducted by Bogost and that Rothman was “not without notice” and the process was not “sudden.”

Evers stood behind the regents’ decision in a statement released during the meeting, saying the choice was their and that they decided to make a leadership change, “nothing more, nothing less.” 

“Republican lawmakers should resist their temptation to turn this into a political conversation, because it isn’t one,” Evers said. “The UW Board of Regents is not supposed to be an extension of any politician or political party. The Regents are responsible for doing what’s best for our UW System, and they should be able to do their jobs without political interference from elected officials.” 

Evers also warned it would be a “mistake” if the lawmakers used it as an opportunity to fire people and that that would “jeopardize our continued bipartisan work this session.” 

“It’s pretty simple: I trust that the Regents are doing what is best for students, faculty, staff, and our UW System — lawmakers should, too.”

At the start of the hearing, Bogost told lawmakers that she would be as transparent with them as she legally could. 

“President Rothman knows exactly what he is doing. He is a sophisticated professional who understands that personnel matters are confidential,” Bogost said. “The confidentiality surrounding his evaluation was not arbitrary… It is what law requires and is what our obligation is to these universities, and yet, President Rothman, who understands all of this, has chosen to use that constraint as a shield — making public statements, he knows I cannot deny, and framing a narrative he knows I cannot correct.” 

Rothman was a Milwaukee lawyer and CEO of the law firm Foley and Lardner before being chosen to serve as the UW president in 2022.

Bogost told lawmakers that she would also be willing to walk the committee through the details of the conversations held in closed session with Rothman and the decision to fire Rothman if he waived his confidentiality.

Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) asked why Bogost thought he hadn’t waived his confidentiality. 

“I believe that his objective is to be able to get his narrative out and be one-sided…He knows the truth, and he understands what this is all about, and we were hoping that he would move on,” Bogost said. “To do the media circuit that he’s on denigrates our wonderful universities, and that makes me really sad, because I know that he worked tirelessly for the universities, and I really was hoping to celebrate his past accomplishments… it’s unfortunate that he’s taking that path.”

Before firing Rothman, the regents had offered him the opportunity to resign. Rothman refused, saying he hadn’t been given clear reasoning for his firing and that he thought he had accomplished a lot during his tenure as president.

Nixon also said offering at-will employees the option to leave voluntarily is standard procedure within the UW system and in private businesses. As an example, he noted former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who served as interim president of the system between 2020 and 2022 and voluntarily stepped down from the position. He also noted James Langdon, who, according to WisPolitics, wrote in an email that Rothman fired him in a similar way from his position as vice president of administration. 

Nixon added that the same practice applies to corporate CEOs, who are routinely let go by companies that don’t want to harm their brands. “You try not to have these public blow-ups, alright,  and so nothing here in my mind [is] unusual, and not only that, it follows UW practice.”

In a statement, Rothman said his recent evaluation from Bogost was “overwhelmingly positive.” However, during the hearing, Bogost said that when giving reviews it is typical to “give at least four positives to every negative,” which is what happened with Rothman. 

“He was very disheartened by those… I was surprised. These were things that we tried to work on. It was not sudden,” Bogost said. “Mr. Rothman knows that it was ongoing situations that we had many discussions with him about.”

Bogost said there is not an evaluation document, but that she took notes and delivered the evaluation in person to Rothman.

Bogost said Rothman was the right person to lead the UW system as it sought to deal with a tough financial and operational situation. During his time as president, Rothman oversaw the “right-sizing” of campus budgets and the closure of campuses. Nixon said when it comes to other accomplishments Rothman has touted, he is “a bit like the rooster crowing and then taking credit for the sunrise after.”

As the UW system is addressing other pressing issues, the regents said Rothman was too slow to act. 

Nixon noted that U.S. News and World Report ranked the 50 most innovative universities in the U.S., and the only Wisconsin school on the list was Marquette University. 

“Thank God, one higher education institution in the state has made the list,” Nixon said. “Change is not Mr. Rothman’s strong suit, yet change is what we desperately need.”

Nixon said there was a “lack of urgency” coming from Rothman, adding that coming from a law background he tends to move deliberately to ensure that every i is dotted and every t is crossed. 

As an example, Nixon said the regents started asking for a system-wide policy on artificial intelligence in November, but they still had not received one. 

“We can’t take a year and six months to decide and think about every single issue. This is no different than moving on to a new quarterback — no matter what you thought of the previous quarterback or what they did,” Nixon said. 

Nixon said he had also spoken with Rothman about reassigning some of the over 500 employees who work for the UW system administration to campuses, but there had not been changes. 

Sen. Rachael Cabral Guevara (R-Fox Crossing) thanked Nixon for giving the committee some concrete reasons for its decision  rather than staying in the “gray zone.”

The regents said that the timing of the decision was partly the result of state budget negotiations and the implementation of the state budget. In the most recent state budget, the UW system received a boost in state funding, which came as a result of negotiations between Evers, Democratic and Republican lawmakers and advocacy efforts from UW stakeholders. Republican lawmakers had initially sought a cut to the UW budget. 

At the end of Thursday’s hearing, the committee delayed its vote on whether to recommend confirming the nominees.

Hutton told reporters afterwards that there was more information the senators needed to consider and it would have been “premature” to vote. He said that he wants to see more documents related to Rothman’s evaluation and hear from more of the regents. 

“Based on some of the information we requested from the board president, really thought that was beneficial to receive that information, let the committee go through that a little bit more, maybe ask some additional questions before we go to exec[utive session],” Hutton said, adding that Bogost was “very willing” and “cooperative” when it came to providing information. 

Hutton said that there would need to be a conversation with the Republican caucus leadership on whether the full Senate, which has adjourned for regular session work, will come back to take a long-delayed vote on the regents’ nominations.

Elliott Landrum, 46, has spent decades of his life in the Wisconsin prison system. He told the Examiner that he was a handler for Louann, a puppy who went on to graduate and become a hearing assist dog.

“We can still make something out of our lives, and still do something to help someone else, and I think that’s the biggest part about the PAWS program,” Landrum said, referring to Wisconsin’s Prisoners Assisting With Service Dogs (PAWS) program. 

Can Do Canines matches service dogs with clients to help with mobility issues, hearing loss, seizures, autism or type one diabetes, executive director Jeff Johnson told the Examiner last month. He said that the organization partners with five Minnesota prisons and four Wisconsin prisons.

“I also frequently hear from inmates that this is — I don’t know if redemption is the right word, but this is a way to give back that they haven’t really had before in their lives,” Johnson said. “They also get the unconditional love of a dog, and some of them haven’t had unconditional love from anything or anyone before this.”

Last month, Can Do Canines published an article about a woman named Colleen and her hearing assist dog Louann, who were matched together last year.

Colleen said that Louann loves people, the article states, and while Louann is trained to alert Colleen to a wide variety of sounds, her favorite alert is probably the doorbell. The article lists Jackson Correctional Institution, where Landrum participated in the dog training program, among those who made the partnership possible.  

“I’m grateful having her,” Colleen said, according to the article. “Besides having her helping me, she keeps me busy.”

Of the four prisons in Wisconsin that partner with Can Do Canines, Fox Lake, Stanley and Jackson Correctional Institutions are medium-security prisons, while Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility is minimum-security. Earlier this year, Stanley Correctional reached a milestone: a decade of training service dogs.

“For the inmate handlers, it teaches them people skills,” Johnson said. “They’re dealing with dogs — like patience and positive reinforcement and persistence and teamwork, ‘cause they have to work together as a team. And for many of these guys, those aren’t personal strengths of theirs going in.”

Johnson said there is essentially a separate part of each prison for the dog program and handlers. Each dog has two incarcerated handlers, who live together in a cell with the dog.

Lindy Luopa, puppy program manager at Can Do Canines, said over email that dogs are typically raised in a prison program for approximately eight months. At around the three and six-month marks in the prison program, they go out for two-week breaks in host homes, so they can hear the sights and sounds of a home environment and be exposed to a variety of public experiences.

Prison staff screen incarcerated people to decide who gets to be involved, Johnson said. 

Incarcerated handlers work on all of the foundation skills of a service dog, Johnson told the Examiner, including sitting, staying, retrieving items and cleaning up items and putting them in a container. 

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections stated in a 2018 press release that Can Do Canines was decreasing the cost to train service dogs by partnering with the DOC, increasing the number of dogs who could be trained and placed with people. 

“We serve far more people each year because of the prison program and save money because these volunteers provide valuable training that we might otherwise have to hire more staff to provide,” Johnson told the Examiner. 

Johnson said that after the dog’s prison stay, there is much more training involved to become a service dog, but the incarcerated handlers put them on that path. 

(Video uploaded April 13, 2017 to Vimeo by Barbara Wiener.)

Can Do Canines didn’t have a prison program for a period of time due to the COVID pandemic, Johnson said.

“That was very difficult,” Johnson added. “You only have so many volunteers.” 

William Ward, who is incarcerated at Stanley Correctional, said he participated in Stanley’s program from February 2020 to February 2025 and wants to see the dog program in more prisons. He said that while the dog program doesn’t involve a large percentage of prisoners, it provides the participants with something constructive to do at a prison where opportunities are limited. 

Dogs behind bars around the state

Since 2016, nearly 300 dogs have received service dog training at Stanley Correctional, according to a Facebook post from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections last month. 

For about three hours a day, handlers train the dogs on obedience and other skills with the help of Can Do Canines, the department said. More than 180 incarcerated people have volunteered in that role. 

The DOC reported an overall success rate of over 71% for those dogs. The 10-year anniversary was recognized earlier this year during a celebration with Can Do Canines clients, staff, volunteers and other guests, the department said. 

Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility reported that 31 puppies were successfully trained during fiscal year 2025. And in February of last year, six puppies came to Fox Lake Correctional Institution.

“We welcomed Shelby, Smudge, Skyler, Scout, Sailor and Solly to FLCI where they began their training,” Fox Lake reported. 

Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls reported raising 36 puppies in fiscal year 2025. In addition, the prison has worked with 50 3-year-old “finishing” dogs for a three-month program, as of Jackson’s annual report for fiscal year 2025.

Staff and incarcerated people at Jackson celebrated the graduation of their first group of Can Do Canines dogs in 2018, according to a 2018 DOC press release.  

“The participating inmates feel a sense of pride in their accomplishments and are extremely grateful to others for the chance to give back,” Lizzie Tegels, the warden at Jackson at the time, said in the press release. “This program has also had a very positive effect on the climate at our institution.” 

Randy Forsterling, a formerly incarcerated man, connected the Examiner with Landrum and three other men who said they are current or former participants in prison dog training programs with organizations such as Can Do Canines. One of them, Michael Lappen, was released from prison in 2023 and is currently on community supervision.

Like Landrum, Lappen said he was in the dog program at Jackson Correctional Institution. He said he was also in a dog program at Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution, and plans to volunteer with R-PAWS, a wildlife sanctuary program involving volunteer members that cares for injured and orphaned wildlife for release back into the wild.  

Dogs for veterans

Can Do Canines isn’t the only group working with incarcerated people to train dogs behind bars. In 2022, WISN 12 News reported on incarcerated people volunteering with the Journey Together Service Dog program at Oshkosh Correctional Institution.

Shaun Lynch told the Examiner he was in Oshkosh Correctional’s Journey Together program from January 2017 until April 2019. 

“When I got to Oshkosh in 2016 I hadn’t seen a dog in nearly 20 years,” Lynch said in a message to the Examiner over the messaging app GettingOut. 

Lynch has been in the state prison system since 1998 and has a life sentence, according to online Department of Corrections records. He said that he is going to school for his associate degree in small business entrepreneurship so that he can start his own program if he ever gets out of prison. 

According to Lynch, he helped start a program called Paws for Patriots at Redgranite Correctional Institution, where he has been incarcerated since 2019. He said he started in March 2022 and is still in the program.

According to its most recent available report, Redgranite Correctional partners with Patriot K9’s, an organization that aims to help veterans “win the war against suicide, depression and anxiety” through service dogs and connections to needed resources. 

Patriot K9’s website says that the dog training programs provide incarcerated people with employable skills, such as social skills and problem solving, and help make the transition to life outside prison go more smoothly. 

“I hope I am able to inspire others to look beyond themselves and do something to give back, whether it’s training dogs or just giving back in some way that can help make a difference in someone’s life,” Lynch said. “I also hope that it shows people that no matter what you’ve done in your life you can change for the better and make a difference in someone’s life.”

Lawmakers have given final approval to a moratorium on data centers larger than 20 megawatts — the first statewide ban of its kind in the country.

“What we’re talking about here is an ability for us to absorb and understand the impact of data centers potentially on the State of Maine,” Sen. Mark Lawrence (D-York) said Wednesday ahead of the Senate vote. “The states that have had data centers come in have had tremendous impacts.”

The bill, LD 307, bans data centers larger than 20 megawatts until November, 2027. It also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities.

“We’ve seen across the U.S. the rapid expansion of AI data centers, with few to no safeguards to insulate people from shocks to electricity demand, impacts to local water supplies, and more,” Maine Conservation Voters said in a statement. “LD 307 will help protect Maine people and the environment, pushing pause on large-scale data centers to ensure strategic and strong policies and protections are in place first.”

The bill was passed in both chambers this week, and is now awaiting funding on the special appropriations table.

“My point here is not that data centers should never happen,” said Sen. Nicole Grohoski (D-Hancock) Wednesday. “The point is we do not have the correct regulatory regime on the books to ensure that a decision like this isn’t neutral, at a minimum, or positive for everyone that would be affected by that decision.”

Discussion in both the Senate and Maine House of Representatives focused on the impact on proposed data center projects, primarily one in Jay and another in Sanford. Lawmakers volleyed back and forth on the potential benefits to a former mill town like Jay, and possible negative impacts to the surrounding areas. They also considered an amendment that would have created an exemption process to the moratorium that was ultimately rejected by both chambers.

“I’m not going to support something that doesn’t support business, the expansion of business in the State of Maine, especially in a community that’s dying for commerce and to get back on its feet,” said Sen. Jeff Timberlake (R-Androscoggin).

Republican lawmakers also raised concerns that Maine would lose out on economic opportunities, but would still feel the negative impacts when the data centers are built in other states.

“These projects are going to happen whether or not we pass this moratorium,” said Sen. Matt Harrington (R-York). “For those who care about the environment, they will be built in states that use 70% coal power, and we will be the tailpipe for that. These data centers will be built in groves in states that don’t have an economic death wish, and we will receive all the negative environmental impacts of that.”

Rep. Steven Foster (R-Dexter) said in March that any data centers are already subject to environmental and local regulations.

“This moratorium is not needed here in the state of Maine,” Foster said. “A lot of fear has been stoked up about an AI data center being built anywhere in Maine, which is contrary to reality. We would not see the facilities here the size of those being built in other states.”

But Democrats countered that Maine residents can’t afford the potential costs from the projects.

“We’re already seeing a tremendous impact from rising gas prices, rising oil prices, and how that feeds into also rising electric energy prices,” Lawrence said. “We don’t need to add an additional risk on energy costs for Mainers when we have time to reflect on this, study this and do this right.”

Grohoski also pointed to the local opposition to data centers, and said if the state doesn’t take the time to build intentional regulations, residents may just continue to stop projects at the local level.

“So I think if we do think that Maine is a place where we would like data centers at some point, if we don’t figure out how to do it right, they’re not going to happen anyhow, because people are concerned that we have not done our jobs to protect them,” Grohoski said.

In March, Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-Freeport) argued that the moratorium is not against innovation.

“Maine has always been a place that embraces new industries and new ideas, but we are also a state that understands the value of stewardship of our land, our water, our communities and our long-term future,” she said.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is one of seven Democrats vying for the nomination in this year’s primary for governor,  is calling domestic violence a “public health emergency” after learning about the killing of a Kenosha woman, Makayla Plaza, 28, allegedly by her estranged ex-husband. Plaza’s attempts to get a restraining order against her ex-husband were shot down by a Kenosha County judge. 

In February, Plaza told the court she feared for her life and the lives  of her young children. But the judge denied her request for a restraining order. Markus Plaza, her 33-year-old ex-husband, was taken into custody after a 24-hour man-hunt following her death on April 1 TMJ4 reported that law enforcement found the man, Marckus Plaza, hiding in the basement of a salon. 

Makayla Plaza’s boyfriend said that her ex-husband would take her keys from her, lock her inside the house, and listen in on her phone calls. The Kenosha Police Department said that the husband had a history with the department, including an arrest for battery in February which resulted in no charges being filed. 

In a statement released through his campaign, Crowley said that “I have been sitting with this since I heard the news because I am also grieving,” recounting how his own friend Nancy Metayer — vice mayor of Coral Springs, Florida — was allegedly killed by her husband just days ago. Metayer was soon to announce her campaign to run for Congress. “Two women. Two states. The same devastating, preventable outcome. How many more?” Crowley said in his statement.

“I need Wisconsin to understand that this was not a fluke,” Crowley said. “This was not an isolated failure.” Rather, he said, tragedies like Plaza’s death are the result of underfunded shelters, understaffed courts and setting the legal  bar for protection “so impossibly high that a woman has to prove she is already in danger before we will act to prevent it.” He called for treating domestic violence as “the public health emergency it is.” 

Wisconsin has the tools and research it needs to make a difference, Crowley said, as well as the expertise of  social workers, survivors and advocates. “What we have lacked — what Wisconsin has lacked for too long — is the political will to act,” he added.  “I am done waiting.” If he is elected  governor, he said, tackling domestic violence would be a priority, including changing  how restraining orders are processed statewide, ensuring that survivors and their families have legal assistance and investing in mental health and substance use disorder treatment, as well as in domestic violence prevention and crisis support programs in all 72 counties. 

“So to the women of Wisconsin who are living this right now — I see you,” said Crowley. “If you are afraid, if you are trying to find a way out, if you have asked for help and been turned away or doubted or made to feel like what is happening to you isn’t serious enough — I want you to hear this directly from me: You are believed. What is happening to you is real. You deserve a system that fights for your life the way you are fighting for it every single day.” 

WASHINGTON — First lady Melania Trump said Thursday she was “never involved in any capacity” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and that “baseless lies” about her are being circulated.

In a rare solo statement livestreamed on the White House website, Melania Trump also called for a congressional hearing featuring the women who have shared stories of abuse by Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.

“I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors, to give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress,” the first lady said in her nearly six-minute remarks. 

“With the power of sworn testimony, each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record,” she added. “Then and only then, we will have the truth.”

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed the government’s files related to Epstein as a “hoax.” However, throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to make the investigatory materials public.

The scandal has followed the president through most of his first term. While Trump shared a well-documented friendship with Epstein, who pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor in Florida in 2008, he denies any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.

The first lady also reproached individuals who she said are “devoid of ethical standards” for spreading “completely false” stories that she shared relationships with Epstein and convicted sex trafficker Ghislane Maxwell. 

“I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane, and never visited his private island,” she said. “I have never been legally accused or (convicted) of a crime in connection with Epstein sex trafficking, abuse of minors and other repulsive behavior. The false smears about me from meanspirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.”

Free speech suit

It was unclear what spurred the first lady’s statement. 

She specifically mentioned the Daily Beast, James Carville and HarperCollins UK. The three are mentioned in exhibits attached to a lawsuit in New York against Melania Trump by journalist Michael Wolff, accusing her of seeking to intimidate him into retracting statements he’d made alleging a connection between her and Epstein. 

She also mentioned a 2002 email exchange between her and Maxwell that was revealed among the hundreds of thousands of records from the federal Epstein investigation that the Justice Department released beginning in December, as required by law. The first lady defended the email exchange as “casual correspondence.”

All but one member of Congress supported legislation compelling the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. 

The effort gained steam after the department, then under Attorney General Pam Bondi, said in July it would not release anything further related to the case. Bondi had previously claimed she had Epstein’s client list sitting on her desk.

Trump removed Bondi this month.

Dem endorses call for hearing

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, lauded the first lady’s call for a hearing.

“We agree with First Lady Melania Trump’s call for a public hearing with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. We encourage Chairman Comer to respond to the First Lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately,” Garcia wrote on X.

The Oversight Committee, led by Kentucky Republican James Comer, is conducting its own investigation into the files and has subpoenaed high-profile figures to testify, including former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as Bondi.

The millions of migrants who were released into the country during the immigration surge that began in 2021 and peaked in 2023 caused a political firestorm when Republican states transported them to Democratic cities. Now, according to a new analysis, many of them are back working in the states that expelled them.

Many of the migrants turned themselves in to immigration officials when they entered the United States illegally, but avoided immediate removal by claiming a “credible fear” of persecution or torture if they returned home, giving them the right to seek asylum. It can take years to receive an asylum hearing. Others seeking asylum arrived with appointments made through a government app or relied on temporary parole programs while pursuing legal status in court.

Now, amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, these migrants are under increasing pressure, threatened with arrest and detention even when they appear for their court dates. Currently, they can begin to work legally after waiting six months, but the Trump administration is seeking to extend the waiting period to one year.

A Stateline analysis of court records shows that the largest numbers of recent asylum-seekers are in New York, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Utah, all of which have populations that are at least 1% higher than they were in 2020 because of the new migrants. Also in the top 10: Texas, Connecticut, California, Illinois and Colorado. Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas led the charge to transport migrants out of state. Stateline’s analysis counts only those migrants who are not being detained.

The country that is the single largest source of recent asylum-seeking migrants is Venezuela, with 363,000 as of February. The next largest is Mexico (251,000), followed by Guatemala (241,000), Honduras (240,000) and Colombia (235,000). But those nationwide numbers are scrambled in individual states: Ecuadorians predominate in five states, Nicaraguans in four, and Brazilians and Cubans in three each.

The influx of migrants that began escalating when President Joe Biden loosened immigration rules in January 2021 generated a political backlash that intensified after DeSantis and Abbott began busing and flying border migrants to Democratic-led cities, putting a significant strain on their finances. New York City, for example, spent a total of $8.13 billion on shelter and services for the more than 223,000 asylum-seekers and other migrants who arrived between the spring of 2022 and the fall of 2024.

Meanwhile, some established immigrant communities resented what they saw as lenient treatment of the newcomers.

Local news accounts reported anger over competition for jobs in Latino communities in New York City. But Ernesto Castañeda, director of American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, said interviews there showed more resentment over the aid that was offered to the new arrivals.

“For the first time in U.S. history, there were many big programs to temporarily house and feed the newcomers,” Castañeda said. “People (in New York City) talked about the food cards they got, or the free meals, or the hotel rooms, and that took a lot of the media attention locally.”

But many of the new immigrants also have provided much-needed labor, from the streets of New York City and its suburbs to the dairy farms of Idaho.

“All we can do is just work and hope for the best,” said a woman from Ecuador, who asked to be identified only as Rosa. Rosa works in a family food service business in suburban Spring Valley, New York, one of the top five areas in the country for the sheer number of the migrants, with most coming from Ecuador, according to court records.

“It’s hard here but in Ecuador it’s worse — there are gangs blackmailing you,” said another woman who works in a Queens store labeling packets of Ecuadorian herbs. She declined to identify herself.

In suburbs as well as cities, the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda has immigrants worried. About 22% of the newcomers around the country, in and out of detention, have orders of removal from immigration courts, meaning they could be arrested and summarily deported at any time.

“There were a lot of arrests right around here. People who did everything right got detained,” Rosa said in Spanish, glancing around nervously as she worked making traditional Ecuadorian dishes like corviches, fish fritters, and a fish and onion soup called encebollado.

Many of the new arrivals have stopped socializing and stay home when they’re not working, afraid to be caught up in raids that have swept thousands of them up into detention, according to interviews conducted in New York and the District of Columbia by the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.

Even when much-hated Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was arrested in January and removed to the United States for trial, many Venezuelan asylum-seekers stayed home rather than risk being arrested at public celebrations.

Ecuadorians got less media attention than Venezuelans because they came to a more established community in New York, Castañeda said.

“(Ecuadorians) already had networks, so they were not staying in shelters. They were not in the streets,” he said. “They could work and they were becoming part of the fabric of New York, but now they’re being deported by Trump because ICE knows who they are, where they live and their status is very easy pickings. They’re low-hanging fruit.”

Many Venezuelans would like to go home but face even more chaos after the fall of Maduro, said Héctor Arguinzones, organizer of a Venezuelan immigrant group in New York City.

“Many of us fled Venezuela because our own neighbors were our persecutors,” said Arguinzones. “We’re not trying to, you know, sneak into the United States. A lot of us want to go back. We are full of hope. But we cannot think that this crisis in Venezuela will be solved in three months. We must be patient. What we really need is humanitarian treatment.”

Texas has ended up with the largest number of Venezuelans, an irony noted in a book written by the American University research team. After initially receiving aid in more sympathetic areas such as Colorado, New York City and Washington, D.C., many of the Venezuelans traveled around the country looking for work, but trickled back to Texas where jobs were available and the cost of living was lower.

Living in the U.S. with an immigration court date is a tenuous existence for people fleeing gangs and political oppression in South America and Central America. Fear of returning to a home country can be a valid legal reason to avoid deportation, but it requires legal help and doesn’t prevent detention and pressure to “self-deport.”

“Unfortunately, having an asylum case is not a legal status,” Arguinzones said. “We tell people to keep up with their court cases and keep the paperwork with them, so at least they have something to show. At least it’s something.”

Robin Nice, a Boston attorney, said six of her clients with pending asylum cases were detained in a January sweep called Operation Catch of the Day, and only one had had a brush with the law in the form of a year-old traffic case.

“They were typically on their way to or from work, sometimes just getting into their car after finishing a shift,” Nice said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in an unattributed statement to Stateline, said: “A pending asylum case does NOT confer any type of legal status in the United States. If a person enters our country illegally, they are subject to detention or deportation.”

Some of the asylum-seekers pursuing legal status through the courts have already been detained, but they make up a small fraction of the 2.8 million total cases.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Millions of women could face new challenges to voting under President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship before casting a ballot.

The federal legislation would mandate that most Americans show a birth certificate or passport to register to vote. But people with names that don’t match their birth certificate in some instances could have to produce additional documents like a marriage certificate or divorce decree linking their past and current identities.

The proposal holds potentially outsized consequences for millions of married and divorced women, transgender individuals and others who have changed their names. 

As many as 69 million American women have birth certificates that don’t match their current name, according to an analysis by the liberal Center for American Progress. 

“The fact that the majority of women upon marriage do change their name already means that this is going to be completely unequal in how the law is applied,” said Letitia Harmon, senior director of policy and research at Florida Rising, a racial and economic justice nonprofit.

Harmon, 43, has personal experience with the issue because of state proof-of-citizenship laws, which have become more common in recent years. 

The Florida resident used to live in Kansas, which required individuals to show documents like a birth certificate or passport to register to vote until federal courts struck down the law as unconstitutional. Ahead of the 2014 election, Harmon was unable to locate her birth certificate before the registration deadline and couldn’t vote.

More recently, Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Utah have all enacted proof-of-citizenship measures this year, in addition to Wyoming in 2025. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Florida SAVE Act last week.

A dozen years later, Harmon worries she could again face additional hurdles to voting — this time because of multiple name changes. Harmon, who changed her name when she married but later divorced and changed it back, voiced concern that if election officials ever check her registration, it will be flagged.

“It’s heartbreaking and it’s infuriating. It feels like we’re going backwards,” Harmon said.

Debate in D.C.

In Washington, the U.S. Senate has been debating the SAVE America Act, Trump’s signature elections initiative, after a version of the legislation passed the House. The bill doesn’t appear to have enough support to survive a filibuster, but Trump and his allies have pressured senators to end the filibuster to pass it before the midterm elections.

Supporters of the bill describe it as an election integrity measure and say it’s necessary to prevent noncitizen voting, though studies have shown that’s extremely rare. The measure reflects a long-running effort by Trump to assert more federal control over elections that includes a campaign by the Department of Justice to obtain sensitive state voter data and an executive order signed last week restricting mail-in voting.

Opponents condemn the legislation as unneeded and poorly drafted. If enacted, the bill would take immediate effect, throwing the election process into chaos in a midterm election year as millions of people registering to vote attempt to prove their citizenship. The new requirements would risk disenfranchising American voters struggling to obtain the documents they need in time.

Disproportionate effect on married women

Critics have especially focused on the disproportionate effect the legislation could have on women. Eighty-four percent of women in opposite-sex marriages take either their husband’s last name or hyphenate their name, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey. By contrast, less than 6% of men took their wife’s last name or hyphenated their name.

“Given that 85% of American women change their name when they get married, the impact on women is going to be huge and it’s going to be very problematic,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said in a February interview.

The House-passed version of the bill says that when individuals applying to register have names that don’t match the name on their proof-of-citizenship documents, they could provide “additional documentation as necessary to establish that the name on the documentation is a previous name of the applicant” or sign an affidavit affirming that the name on the documents is their previous name.

According to the bill, each state would establish a process to carry out this provision, in line with guidance from the federal Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan independent commission that aids election officials.

Affidavit provision unclear

Some election and legal experts have said the affidavit provision is unclear. It comes immediately before another provision that allows individuals without proof-of-citizenship documentation to register if they sign an attestation that they are a citizen and an election official signs an affidavit saying the person has sufficiently established citizenship. The Election Assistance Commission would create a uniform affidavit for use in that situation.

“Who knows what sort of process they’ll say,” said Alison Gill, director of nominations and democracy at the National Women’s Law Center, a progressive legal advocacy group. “So there is language there, but it’s still very vague and conflictual.”

Because states would be responsible for setting procedures to vet those with different names on their documents, Gill said some states would probably try to make the process easier than others. But election officials would likely err on the side of strict enforcement because they could be prosecuted for registering individuals who don’t provide citizenship documents.

“Ultimately, this puts the burden on election officials, who face criminal and civil liability under the bill, potentially to decide whether to risk registering a person with mismatching documents,” Gill said.

‘Frankly insulting’

White House officials and some congressional Republicans have denied that individuals who change their name would face greater difficulty registering to vote. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in March that there was “zero validity” to claims that the legislation would stop women from voting or make it harder for them to vote.

Married women who have changed their name and are already registered to vote would be unaffected by the legislation, Leavitt said. She added that for the “small fraction” of individuals who go on to change their name or their address, they would have to go through their state’s process to update their documentation.

“I think it’s frankly insulting that the Democrats are saying that there are certain groups of people in this country who aren’t smart enough to update their documentation to allow them to vote,” Leavitt said.

But Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has raised concerns about how the SAVE America Act would affect married women. Murkowski, who opposes the bill, said in a floor speech that an estimated 155,000 female citizens in Alaska age 15 and older have names that don’t match their birth certificates.

“Again, is it impossible? No,” Murkowski said. “Is it going to be really challenging? Absolutely, yes.”

Lawsuits ensured

The SAVE America Act would almost certainly face legal challenges if it became law and the Supreme Court would come under immense pressure to weigh in because of the sweeping, nationwide changes in the legislation.

Some federal courts have ruled against proof-of-citizenship voter registration requirements. In 2020, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Kansas’ law, finding that it violated federal voting laws as well as the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The Supreme Court at the time declined to take the Kansas case.

The provisions on name changes alone could face their own legal challenges. 

Tracy Thomas, a constitutional law professor at the University of Akron School of Law in Ohio, said opponents could argue the bill’s impact on people who change their name amounts to voting discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law.

Courts have affirmed some election restrictions, like requirements to show a photo ID at the polls, as acceptable rules that don’t overly burden voters. However, Thomas suggested the SAVE America Act may go too far if it delays people from registering, requires multiple steps and forces them to pay for needed documents.

“That starts to sound like more than minimal inconvenience,” Thomas said.