In this aerial view, Mexican immigration officials and police escort deportees after they were sent back into Mexico on Jan. 22, 2025, as seen from Nogales, Arizona. U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders on his first day in office declaring a state of emergency at the U.S. southern border, halting asylum claims and launching a campaign of mass deportations. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is giving immigration officers an expanded authority to rapidly deport immigrants, including people the Biden administration temporarily allowed into the country under parole authority, according to an internal memo.
The Thursday memo from U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman means that officials can try to cancel parole — something the agency has authority to do because it’s a discretionary immigration status — for immigrants who arrived in the country within the last two years. That parole conferred a temporary legal status for those immigrants.
The New York Times first reported on the memo revoking parole status.
Such cancellation could throw those immigrants into quick deportation proceedings — which is now possible with the separate reinstatement of a 2019 policy this week known as expedited removal. President Donald Trump, who campaigned in 2024 on a pledge to enact mass deportations, oversaw that policy in his first administration.
Under expedited removal, immigrants without authorization anywhere in the country who encounter federal enforcement must prove they have been in the United States continuously for more than two years.
If they cannot produce that proof, they will be subject to a fast-track deportation without appearing before an immigration judge.
The Trump administration policy is far more expansive than former President Joe Biden’s expedited removal policy. It was limited to 100 miles from the southern border and applied to immigrants without authorization who had to prove they had been in the country for more than 14 days.
Immigration experts said the speed of expedited removal can put numerous people at risk, even U.S. citizens.
“In expedited removal … the burden is on the migrants to show that they’ve been here for more than two years, that they have a lawful status, or that they have a claim of persecution,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration. “You could even have a lawful permanent resident or U.S. citizen mistakenly arrested or even deported because of how fast the procedure works.”
CBP One app
One of those parole programs that could fall under the Thursday memo is the CBP One app, through which nearly 1 million appointments have been made with U.S. officials by people seeking asylum. Those who used the app and have been in the United States for less than two years could face a fast deportation.
Another is the initiative through which roughly 530,000 people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti were allowed to work and live in the United States. It could also potentially include those from Ukraine who received parole.
Trump has often criticized the use of the programs, and on Monday he signed an executive order to end parole for Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti, along with shutting down the CBP One app.
That means those immigrants who were part of those programs are left potentially vulnerable to expedited removal.
Karen Tumlin, an attorney who challenged several immigration policies during the first Trump administration, said the recent memo is “very sweeping and quite unlawful.”
“I do think it’s intended to clearly apply to (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela) parolees. Exactly how they do it, I still have a lot of questions,” Tumlin, who is the director of the immigration advocacy group Justice Action Center, said. “I don’t think it’s legally valid. Certainly we won’t hesitate to challenge that in court.”
Because those in the parole program have to give so much information to be approved, DHS can easily find them and prioritize them for removal, Bush-Joseph said.
“So unlike people who have been living in the shadows, who the government doesn’t know that they exist, the government does know that these people exist, and knows where they live,” she said.
The memo followed a separate directive from Huffman on Thursday to expand immigration enforcement abilities to several law enforcement offices within the Department of Justice, such as the U.S. Marshals, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Expedited removal
During the first Trump administration, expedited removal was put in place in 2019, but due to legal challenges, the policy was only in place for three months before Trump’s first term ended.
What’s different this time around, Bush-Joseph said, is that more people have been paroled into the country within the last two years and there is no injunction blocking implementation of the 2019 notice.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a new lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Trump administration’s reversion to the 2019 policy.
Anand Balakrishnan, the senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel on the case, said in a statement that the policy will fuel Trump’s promise of mass deportations.
“Expanding expedited removal would give Trump a cheat code to circumvent due process and the Constitution, and we are again here to fight it,” he said.
In Trump’s first week into his second term, he also expanded ICE enforcement. He rescinded a memo that limited immigration enforcement to occur in so-called sensitive areas, such as schools, places of worship, hospitals and funerals, among other social services and relief locations.
On Thursday, ICE officials conducted a raid on a business in Newark, New Jersey, where officials detained a citizen who is a U.S. military veteran and multiple undocumented residents without producing a warrant, city officials said.
An empty high school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)
Over a year since Milwaukee Public Schools first missed a deadline to place 25 school resource officers (SROs) in schools, a judge has ordered the district to do so by Feb. 17. If the school district doesn’t comply, the district will need to appear in court to explain why it hasn’t adhered to the law.
The order comes as the result of a lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of a mother whose child attends a Milwaukee school. The complaint filed in October stated the district’s noncompliance presented a “substantial risk to her and her child’s safety.”
WILL Associate Counsel Lauren Greuel called the order a “massive triumph for parents and kids who want to go to school in a safe environment.”
“Without this ruling, MPS would have simply continued to ignore the law and parents like our client would have been left with no options,” Greuel said in a statement.
Officers haven’t been stationed inside MPS schools since 2016, and in 2020, after years of student activism, the district also ended its contract with the Milwaukee Police Department.
The law in question — 2023 Wisconsin Act 12 — provided a boost in funding to local governments and allowed the city of Milwaukee to implement an additional sales tax to help ease financial strains. However, it also included a controversial requirement that the school district place 25 SROs in schools by Jan. 1, 2024, but the school district missed that deadline.
Lawmakers and the Department of Public Instruction had previously told the school district that it needed to come into compliance with the law.
Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown) called the ruling “great news.”
“The law couldn’t be more clear. MPS needs to put School Resource Officers back into the schools,” Jagler wrote in a post on social media. “It’s bonkers that it took a lawsuit to get MPS to follow the law.”
In addition to the February deadline, the judge also instructed WILL to amend its initial complaint and add the City of Milwaukee to the case.
MPS said in a statement that it “remains ready to implement a School Resource Officer (SRO) program as soon as officers are made available by the City of Milwaukee,” and that the judge’s decision to order the City of Milwaukee to “participate in the implementation of the SRO program at MPS is a recognition that the City plays an integral role in implementation of the SRO program.”
“MPS remains committed to working collaboratively with the City to build a sustainable SRO program,” the district said.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson previously told WISN 12 that the city was working with the district on the issue, but appeared opposed to having the city cover the majority of the funds.
“Usually when you go to a restaurant and you order a meal, the chef doesn’t prepare your meal and then pay the bill. That’s essentially what we’re being asked to do, the taxpayers of the city of Milwaukee,” Johnson said. “We’ll continue to work with MPS leadership to get it sorted out.”
A DPI fiscal estimate, submitted to lawmakers while Act 12 was a bill, found that 25 SROs would likely cost $2 million. “The cost to MPS would depend on what is agreed upon by the City of Milwaukee and MPS, but if we assume an equal share between the two entities, the additional cost to MPS could be at least $1.02 million annually,” the estimate stated.
Charlene Abughrin, the parent whom WILL represents, said in a statement she was “grateful” WILL brought the lawsuit.
“I will sleep better knowing that my child, and others, will be protected once MPS begins to comply with the law,” Abughrin said.
Linda Sánchez, Democrat of California, speaks at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus press conference. From left to right, Democratic Reps. Emily Randall of Washington state, Ted Lieu of California, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Juan Vargas of California, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico and Rob Menendez Jr. of New Jersey. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Following a host of immigration-related executive actions from President Donald Trump and his vow to enact mass deportations, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Thursday highlighted how those policies would harm three specific groups — farm workers, immigrant families and so-called Dreamers.
“These three major linchpins are critical to this caucus and bring us all together, whether we are progressive, moderate or a little bit more moderate,” said the chair of the caucus, Adriano Espaillat, Democrat of New York. “We will be speaking about these three important items as the (immigration) debate continues.”
Republicans gained unified control in Washington in the November elections after campaigning on promises to increase border security and backing Trump on his pledge to launch mass deportations of people without legal status.
Now some Democrats are shifting to the right on the immigration issue as well, with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate to send a bill to the president’s desk that will lead to mass detention of immigrants charged or arrested for shoplifting, among other crimes. Trump is expected to sign it into law.
New Mexico Democrat Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who represents a border town, said, “I believe it’s our collective responsibility to move past the divisive rhetoric and work with our colleagues to find the solutions that our Americans truly care about.”
That includes legal immigration pathways and resources for border security, he said.
An executive order Trump signed this week axed one way migrants were able to make appointments with asylum officers, known as the CBP One app. He also terminated asylum, along with ending humanitarian parole protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
During the press conference, Democrats highlighted the importance of immigrant labor to the U.S. economy, and how Trump’s promise of mass deportations will raise the prices of food, as farm workers are afraid to go to work over fears of deportations.
“Farm workers, on the other hand, are critical, not just to the economy, but if they continue to be scared and missing work because they feel they’re going to get deported, it will show up at our dinner table,” Espaillat said. “The prices of the fruits and vegetables and produce that they pick will dramatically go up. So if you think we have an issue with inflation, this will put it on steroids.”
Members of the caucus, such as Rep. Linda Sánchez, Democrat of California, stressed how “immigrants are the backbone of the economy.”
“Despite their contributions, our communities are under attack from President Trump because he sees them as an easy target,” she said. “Whether we want to recognize it or not, we depend on their labor.”
DACA program
When it comes to Dreamers, the more than 500,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program who were brought to the United States as minors, Espaillat said a majority of Americans agree they should be protected.
“I think there’s a general consensus in America that these young people, for the most part, should be allowed in, and their status should be regularized,” he said.
Texas Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia said that she is hopeful that Trump will want to keep Dreamers in the United States. Trump in December said he was open to working with Democrats in order to keep DACA recipients in the U.S., but did not elaborate on any plans and lawmakers have remained skeptical.
“He hasn’t said how, and that is the question of the day,” she said.
During Trump’s first term, he tried to end DACA, but was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that the procedure to end the program was improper.
Brooke Rollins, President Donald Trump's nominee to be agriculture secretary, speaks during her Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee confirmation hearing on Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture said during her confirmation hearing Thursday that she has “a lot to learn” about highly pathogenic avian influenza or bird flu, the virus that’s wreaking havoc on the country’s poultry industry and dairy farms.
The outbreak has affected more than 136 million poultry flocks and nearly 1,000 dairy herds, and infected 67 humans, with one person dying so far. Public health experts continue to assess the risk of infection to the general public as low, but are closely monitoring bird flu’s spread among farm workers and livestock as well as domestic cats and other mammals.
The four-hour hearing showed Brooke Rollins likely has the support to secure Senate confirmation, though members from both political parties raised concerns about the decline in family farms, hollowing out of rural America, speed with which USDA delivers disaster aid to farmers and future of nutrition programs.
Tariffs and trade
Rollins also received numerous questions from both Democrats and Republicans about Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on imports, likely leading to retaliatory tariffs on American exports and negative repercussions for farmers and food prices.
“Regarding the president’s tariff agenda, I think it probably comes as no surprise to anyone sitting in this room that he believes it is a very important tool in his toolkit to continue or bring America back to the forefront of the world and to ensure that we have a thriving economy,” Rollins said. “But just as he did and we did in the first administration, he also understands the potential devastating impact to our farmers and our ranchers.”
Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin raised concerns about what happened during Trump’s first administration after he placed tariffs on allied nations as well as China. She urged Rollins to make sure Trump understands that would likely happen again, if he does place steep tariffs on other countries.
“President Trump announced 25% tariffs on Chinese products — batteries, TVs, medical devices,” Slotkin said. “China retaliated and put 25% tariffs on soybeans, fruits, pork and some other items. Then we got into a trade war; we started adding more things to the list, they already started adding more things to the list. It went on and on and on and back and forth.
“Suddenly our farmers across the country are screaming bloody murder, because … no one wanted to buy our stuff because it had a 25% tariff. We felt that very acutely.”
The prior Trump administration then pulled billions out of the Commodity Credit Corporation to aid farmers who were harmed by the retaliatory tariffs, she said.
“That emergency fund is the same fund that helps us with things like avian flu that we’re now dealing with all over the country,” Slotkin said.
Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell said he hoped the country won’t go down the same path it has before with respect to tariffs and trade wars.
“It seems to me that trade has sort of become a word for a lot of Americans that implies exportation of jobs,” McConnell said. “In Kentucky, we think of trade as exportation of products and it’s an extremely important part of what we do.”
Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet told Rollins that he is “sympathetic to some of the trade policies that President Trump is trying to advocate for.”
“But agriculture’s already in a tough spot … and we don’t want it to be in a tougher spot as a result of what happens here,” Bennet said.
He then asked Rollins if she believed her responsibility as secretary of agriculture would be “to go into the Oval Office and say, ‘You haven’t thought through the unintended consequences that are going to flow to American agriculture if you pursue these trade policies.’”
Rollins said her role, if confirmed, would be “to defend, to honor, to elevate our entire agriculture community in the Oval Office, around the table, through the interagency process. And to ensure that every decision that is made in the coming four years has that front of mind as those decisions are being made.”
Bird flu
Rollins was less secure in telling senators how she should handle the ongoing bird flu, or H5N1, outbreak.
Poultry farmers and the USDA have had to deal with the virus in domestic flocks for years, but it didn’t begin infecting dairy herds until about a year ago.
The spillover into another section of American agriculture and the uptick in farmers catching the virus led to a multi-agency response from the federal government that included the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and USDA.
“There is a lot that I have to learn on this. And if confirmed, this will be, as I mentioned in my opening statement, one of the very top priorities,” Rollins said, referencing her previous comments about getting a “handle on the state of animal disease outbreaks.”
Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who had asked Rollins what her plan was for curbing the spread of bird flu, then questioned her about a new requirement that prevents some public health officials from external communications.
“I will note that just yesterday the administration announced they will halt external public health communications from the CDC on these avian flu (and) animal diseases,” Klobuchar said. “These important announcements have helped keep producers up to date with the latest information on disease spread, health of workers. And while I know that wasn’t under the USDA, I just urge you to talk to them about that. We’re concerned.”
Effect of mass deportations on ag
Rollins was pressed during the hearing about how sweeping deportations might impact the agriculture industry and food supplies throughout the country. Senators also asked how she planned to keep the pipeline that moves food from farms to people’s tables from collapsing if mass deportations are carried out.
“President Trump ran and was overwhelmingly elected on the priority of border security and mass deportation,” Rollins said. “He and his team are, I’m assuming, currently putting in place the plans to begin that process. Of course, first with those who have committed criminal offenses once they have been here.”
Rollins said she planned to work with Labor Secretary nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer, if she is confirmed, on issues related to the agriculture workforce.
California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff asked Rollins whether a potential sudden drop-off in agricultural workers due to mass deportations might lead to higher food prices “in sharp contrast with what the president said he wanted to do.”
Rollins said while that was a hypothetical, it was one that “we do need to be thinking through.”
“And I think it’s a very fair point,” Rollins said. “The president has made food inflation and the cost of food one of his top priorities. I have worked alongside him. I have been part of his team for many years now. I believe in his vision and his commitment to America and to his promises. And in so doing, I believe that we will be able to find in our toolkit what we need to do to solve for any hypothetical issues that end up turning out to be real moving forward over the coming months and years.”
Rollins was the director of the Domestic Policy Council during Trump’s first administration before going on to become the president and chief executive officer of the America First Policy Institute think tank.
Trump announced Rollins as his pick for agriculture secretary in November, writing that she “has a practitioner’s experience, along with deep Policy credentials in both Nonprofit and Government leadership at the State and National levels.”
Rural development
During the hearing, Rollins also addressed the needs of rural communities, including housing, child care and food assistance, during a detailed exchange with Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith.
“I sometimes think that people forget that the rural development side of the USDA is really important,” Smith said. “And I will be honest, I’m fearful that the work done there — those efforts not being well understood — could become the target for budget-cutting.
“I also know that American farmers and ranchers really trust the USDA on those issues. They don’t want to see those programs farmed out to other agencies, where we all are worried that they would just get less attention.”
Rollins said that if confirmed, she would be excited “to put forward a vision and build a program around revivifying, restoring and bringing back rural America.”
Smith also asked about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, saying that nutrition programs, many of which are administered by USDA, are “foundational for healthy Americans.”
“In Minnesota, rural communities have the highest food insecurity in the whole state,” Smith said. “And in this country, 9 out of 10 (counties) with the highest food insecurity rates are rural.”
Rollins testified that she does believe in work requirements, though she conceded she didn’t have extensive knowledge of the SNAP.
“I don’t fully understand, but plan to get more in the weeds on this, if confirmed,” Rollins said. “And working with all of you to make sure that your concerns are part of that education process for me.”
Smith took the opportunity to note that SNAP does have work requirements, but that there are exceptions if people “are taking care of a child or an incapacitated person,” or if “they are participating in an alcohol or drug treatment program,” or if they are “already working under some other programs.”
From left, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and U.S. Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Thursday blasted Russ Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee to again lead the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, over his involvement in Project 2025 and called on their colleagues to reject his nomination.
Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in the Heritage Foundation’s nearly 900-page conservative blueprint, which seeks to dramatically reshape the federal government and drew much attention throughout Trump’s presidential campaign as Democrats sought to tie the document to him.
Vought was the OMB director during Trump’s first administration after serving as deputy director and acting director of the office responsible for administering the federal budget and overseeing the performance of departments throughout the federal government.
During a Thursday press conference, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Vought is “at the levers of power to implement these dangerous, dangerous proposals” outlined in Project 2025, dubbing the nominee its “chief cook and bottle washer.”
The New York Democrat said that while a “good number” of Trump’s Cabinet nominees are “very, very troubling,” Vought is “probably at the very top of the list in terms of how dangerous he is to working people and to America.”
Schumer highlighted how the OMB director “holds one of the most critical positions in the federal government,” adding that “it affects every federal agency, every local economy, every town, city, every American family — so someone in this position has to understand what working families in America need.”
Programs ‘on the chopping block’
Multiple Democrats on the Senate Committee on the Budget — including ranking member Jeff Merkley of Oregon as well as Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico — also lambasted Vought and his involvement in Project 2025.
Murray, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said Vought “has made very clear that as Trump’s budget director, he will put everything … on the chopping block, from programs that people rely on, to the checks and balances that our democracy is actually founded on.”
“Given his extremism and his clear disdain for the rule of law, we should not hand Vought power that he has made clear he will abuse to help billionaires get ahead at working people’s expense,” she added.
Impoundment belief
Vought sat Wednesday for a confirmation hearing in the Senate Budget Committee.
During that hearing, Vought expressed his and Trump’s beliefs that the president has the sole authority to withhold funding Congress has approved through impoundment.
Impoundment refers to when the president withholds funds Congress has already approved. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the president “has no unilateral authority to impound funds.”
In a November announcement of the nomination, Trump said that during his first White House term, Vought “did an excellent job” serving as the OMB director.
He described Vought as an “aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies.”
Children, parents and child care workers take part in a 2023 demonstration urging lawmakers to include money in the state budget to support child care. Gov. Tony Evers' request was denied that year, but advocates and the governor are trying again. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Child care advocates and Gov. Tony Evers are campaigning once again for a significant infusion of state money to bolster child care, a little more than a year after their last attempt ended in deadlock.
“The cost of putting two young kids in child care costs more than the average rent or mortgage in Wisconsin and exceeds the annual cost of tuition to send two students to the University of Wisconsin-Madison,” Evers told lawmakers in his State of the State message Wednesday evening.
Evers is calling on state lawmakers to put $500 million in the 2025-27 budget “aimed at lowering child care costs, supporting this critical industry, and investing in employer-sponsored child care.”
The governor’s proposal would use state money to renew and make permanent a child care subsidy that began during the COVID-19 pandemic with federal funds. A previous attempt to extend the support ended in a deadlock in late 2023. Without it, however, providers say they will remain in a crisis that has been building over the last year.
A September 2024report by the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty for the state Department of Children and Families found that nearly 60% of providers surveyed said they were caring for fewer children than their capacity allowed. Almost half of those said they weren’t able to take more kids because they lacked staff.
The survey found that if child care providers were able to hire enough educators to fill their empty rooms, at least 33,000 more children in Wisconsin could get child care.
Federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds supported Wisconsin’s Child Care Counts program from 2020 through 2023, granting $20 million a month in subsidies that providers used to raise wages and keep staff without hiking the fees they charged parents.
Evers pressed the Legislature to continue the subsidy program with state funds in the 2023-25 state budget, but the Republican majority rejected their appeals. Evers renewed the proposal along with several others in a special session later in 2023, but the legislators rebuffed him a second time.
Evers subsequentlycobbled together $170 million from other unspent federal funds for a scaled-down version of Child Care Counts that will soon run out.
Ruth Schmidt, executive director, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. (Courtesy WECA)
“When Child Care Counts was reduced we saw child care tuition increase by almost 15%,” Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), said in an interview Thursday.
For families whose incomes qualify them for the state’s Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program, the tuition increases meant that their subsidy would only pay 50% of the market price for child care instead of 75%, Schmidt said, increasing the corresponding copayment for parents.
Without a renewal of Child Care Counts or the equivalent, “some programs may be able to stay open by raising tuition, and some families may be able to afford it,” Schmidt said. “Some programs may raise tuition and lose families, because they’re tapped out.”
During a panel discussion in the Capitol Thursday with lawmakers, providers and parents, Corrine Hendrickson, a New Glarus provider, said that some providers have closed after raising their rates because they’ve lost parents who can no longer afford their services.
“Until we act, we’re going to continue to shed programs,” said Hendrickson, a cofounder of WECAN, an advocacy group for providers and parents. The name stands for Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed.
Providers say that as rates go up, child care is getting out of reach for people who aren’t well-off.
From left, Corrine Hendrickson and Brooke Legler take part in a panel discussion on child care and the 2025-27 Wisconsin state budget in the state Capitol on Thursday (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
“If we invest in our child care system, it will not be a system just for the wealthy any more,” said Brooke Legler, co-owner of a New Glarus child care center, WECAN’s other cofounder and a panel participant.
Child care providers play an important role in young children’s brain development and in helping them learn social skills, Legler and Hendrickson said. For that reason, at state-licensed child care centers teachers must meet certain educational requirements.
“This is not a field where you just want a warm body,” said Legler.
Average wages for child care workers with a high school diploma are 40% less than the average wage for all Wisconsin high school graduates, according to data collected by the Wisconsin Economic Development Commission (WEDC). Early child care workers with a master’s degree have an average salary of less than $36,000 a year, less than half the average for all master’s degree holders in the state.
To hire and keep qualified child care workers requires paying them “living wages,” Legler said. “We need to treat this field with the respect it deserves.”
Participants in the Capitol panel said that despite the failure to enact a support program in 2023, they believe the case is even stronger this year and with this budget.
“This is one of the most challenging policy problems in our state,” said panel participant Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison). “But we know what to do.”
This week, the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association launched a new division focused on policy research and engagement. Schmidt said that was made possible by the organization’s success at raising private support for the new operation.
It was also aimed at ensuring a bright line between that work and the federally funded services that WECA offers child care providers around the state, assisting with licensure, training and other operational requirements, she said.
The new policy arm is preparing research to further document the condition that the child care sector is in.
“First and foremost, I think everyone in the Legislature, the governor’s office and organizations that are working on this issue understand that there’s no backup plan for Child Care Counts,” Schmidt said.
The forthcoming reports from the new policy arm will further underscore the case, she added: “It’s more compelling this time around than it was when we were doing this a year and a half ago now.”
State Superintendent Jill Underly with Madison La Follette High School Principal Mathew Thompson and Madison Public School District Superintendent Joe Gothard in the hallway at La Follette in September 2024. Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
Wisconsin lawmakers are seeking to reset the state’s testing standards to what they were in the 2019-2020 school year after the Department of Public Instruction implemented new performance level standards last year — a decision that DPI Superintendent Jill Underly has repeatedly defended.
The co-authors on the bill — Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown), Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) and Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) — say it’s needed to “reinstate” high academic standards in Wisconsin. In a statement, Jagler accused DPI of making the decision to change the way the state measures academic standards in a nontransparent way.
“These changes were made behind closed doors in advance and revealed only when the test scores were announced,” Jagler said in a statement. “Not surprisingly, the massive uptick in artificial performance gains was confusing at best and misleading at worst. We also lost, because of these changes, the ability to compare performance from previous years.”
The changes and reactions
Wisconsin students take standardized tests every year with third graders through eighth graders taking the Forward test, which was first created in 2016, and high school students taking the ACT and PreACT Secure. The tests are meant to help inform schools, teachers and families about “what students know in core academic areas and whether they can apply what they know.”
According to DPI, evaluating standards is a routine process. Specifically, every seven years the state reviews, and may update, its state standards in various subject areas to ensure they remain current. This process happened for English, Language Arts (ELA) in 2020 and math in 2021.
The new standards meant that DPI also needed to reevaluate the Forward exam and corresponding performance level standards and “cut scores” — the minimum scores needed to qualify for categories including “advanced” and “developing.” The DPI started the process of reevaluating cut scores in 2023.
A similar process for setting standards took place in June 2016 when the Forward exam was administered for the first time, under the guidance of then-Superintendent and now-Gov. Tony Evers.
Last year, two changes were made to the cut scores after an evaluation process.
First, new terms were established to describe student achievement — “advanced,” “meeting,” “approaching” and “developing.” Previously, the terms, which were established in 2016, were “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.”
The new terms were announced in early June 2024 after DPI received feedback in December 2023, including 800 responses and 500 comments to a survey sent to educators, administrators, parents, families and education groups.
“I’ve often heard confusion from parents, families, and legislators on what performance terms on tests meant in regard to where students are at academically,” Underly said at the time. The new terms, she said, are “not only clearer, it also recognizes the endless potential each of our students has as learners.”
The second change was to the state’s cut scores, which came after a standard-setting meeting also held in June.
According to DPI, about 88 educators — including mathematics and reading specialists, classroom teachers, school principals, curriculum and instruction coordinators and specialists, interventionists, instructional coaches, gifted and advanced coordinators and CESA staff — participated in the standard-setting meeting. The group included representatives from each of Wisconsin’s CESAs, the five largest school districts, private schools in the school choice program and rural, suburban, and urban school districts. The group then submitted a recommendation to the state superintendent, which was approved later in June.
The new cut scores switched the state from a 3-digit number to a 4-digit number score for the math and ELA test and changed the test scores needed to qualify to be placed in each performance level. For example, under the previous cut scores, a third-grade student would need a 624 on the ELA test to be considered “advanced.” Under the new cut scores, a third-grade student would need a 1622 on the ELA test to be considered “advanced.”
Under the new standards, the 2023-24 test results showed that the public school student proficiency rate in ELA was 48% and Wisconsin students had a proficiency rate of 49% in math. In the previous year, public school student proficiency rates in ELA and math were at 38.9% and 37.4% respectively.
The changes mean that the test was no longer aligned with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Prior to the changes Wisconsin’s scores were aligned to NAEP, and its performance level expectations were among the highest in the nation. Underly has said tying Wisconsin’s standards to NAEP’s created a “misalignment” in how success was measured and that the state’s standards were excessively high when compared to other states.
The changes, however, drew pushback from Evers and Republican lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester).
“I hate to even talk about things that aren’t my purview anymore in the Department of Public Instruction but I just think there should have been some information and dialogue happening with all sorts of people before that decision,” Evers said at a press conference in January. “It’s hard to compare year to year if one year you’re doing something completely different. “I think it could have been handled better.”
“Superintendent Underly wants to make it harder for parents to understand when their school is succeeding or failing,” Vos said at a press conference earlier this month. “She wants to make it easier for failing schools to somehow seem like they’re succeeding.” He said he wants to see “speedy discussion” and “bipartisan support” for raising Wisconsin’s educational standards.
“I would hope that no one, the most liberal person or the most conservative person, would want to dumb down our standards so kids aren’t able to read, and the parents aren’t able to even know whether or not their kids are succeeding,” Vos said.
Critics of the change have also complained that the new cut scores “lowered” educational standards in Wisconsin and have made it difficult to compare data to earlier years.
Republicans’ proposal
Republicans’ new proposal would require that Wisconsin revert its educational assessments to using the cut scores, score ranges and qualitative terms that DPI used for report cards published for the 2019-2020 school year.
The bill would also require DPI to align the Forward exam cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories to the cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
When it comes to the PreACT and ACT with Writing in English, Reading, and Mathematics, the bill would require DPI to use the same cut scores, score ranges, and pupil performance categories that DPI used in the 2021-22 school year and for DPI to use the terms “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced” for pupil performance categories on these assessments.
“There is no doubt we have many great schools in Wisconsin but when every school is given a ‘C’ or better it makes it impossible to have an honest discussion of where we need improvement,” the lawmakers wrote.
Wittkes said in a statement that it was “troubling” to see “changing testing protocols is the path the State Superintendent has chosen in response to students’ poor reading and math performance.”
“Let’s set the bar as established by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and make a better effort to understand student needs for academic improvement,” Wittke said.
Underly has repeatedly defended the changes, and did so again in a statement rejecting the claims that Wisconsin’s standards were lowered and criticizing lawmakers for seeking to interfere with the changes that were made.
“As I have repeatedly said, standards have not been lowered,” Underly said, adding that the process for changing the standards was “transparent” and changes reflected the recommendations of experts.
“The updated assessment, developed with significant and transparent communication with the field, is more accurate and reflective of student performance for Wisconsin families,” Underly wrote.
“As it relates to report cards, we share legislators’ belief that the system can be improved but the right answer is not to look to the past, but to work together to create the best system for the future,” Underly said. “It’s disappointing but unsurprising that some politicians believe they know better than our educators. When historic numbers of teachers are leaving our state or classroom altogether, they should be investing in education, not picking political fights on false premises.”
Underly is running for a second term as DPI superintendent and faces two challengers — Brittany Kinser and Jeff Wright — in a February primary. Both candidates said they support the bill.
Kinser said she “strongly” supports the effort to restore the standards that were in place under Evers.
“As a former teacher and principal, I know students rise to the expectations set for them,” Kinser said in a statement. “Lowering standards deprives our kids of the opportunity to be college- or career-ready, and that is unacceptable in Wisconsin. Our kids deserve more, not less, and I look forward to working with the legislature to pass this proposal.”
Wright said the changes came at “the worst possible time” given that schools are still trying to assess students’ progress after COVID, but said it’s “unfortunate” that lawmakers are stepping in.
“This is happening because of the absence of system-wide collaboration and open communication,” Wright said. “I look forward to working with our Legislature as a nonpartisan problem solver to do what is right for our schools.”
Back during President Donald Trump’s first administration, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson was known as Trump’s most reliable ally in the U.S. Senate. He led investigations into Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton and alleged irregularities in the 2020 election that Trump lost. A proponent of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines and climate science, Johnson is not one of those Republicans who had to overcome principle to get in line behind Trump.
He is completely at ease with the new administration — including the pardons of the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol, battered police officers and sought to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence. The blanket pardon for the rioters, including those convicted of violent crimes, was “maybe a little more sweeping than I wanted to see,” he averred during a Politico breakfast this week. But, overall, Johnson said, the Jan. 6 defendants were victims of a “grotesque miscarriage of justice.” So Trump was right to pardon them.
If ever Johnson struggles to go along with Trump’s more out-there ideas, like slapping huge tariffs on imports that could devastate Wisconsin businesses and farms, he just figures he must not truly, deeply understand their wisdom.
“When I don’t necessarily agree with him, I always ask myself, what am I not seeing here?” he told Politico’s Zach Warmbrodt. Like any good enabler, Johnson figures Trump must have some extra-tricky reason for doing harm that actually makes what he’s doing good.
That kind of thinking will come in handy during the next four years. It could prove particularly useful to Trump as he tries to hold together supporters drawn to his promises to lift up the working class — the “forgotten men and women of America” — and tech billionaires including Elon Musk who want to liquidate the safety net, drive down wages and establish a permanent American oligarchy.
Johnson embraces white grievance and the racist, right-wing populist “replacement theory”— suggesting Democrats want more immigrants to cross the southern border and come to the U.S. to “change the makeup of the electorate” — but he is also fully, cheerfully on board with oligarchy.
Nothing suits Johnson better than the Trump administration’s plan to cut taxes for the very rich and slash entitlements to pay for it.
This was the gist of his appearance at the Politico breakfast this week, where he was introduced as someone who will have “a big role” in tax battle, having played “a very important role” in Trump’s 2017 tax cut.
Johnson basked in the glow, recalling how he held up the whole 2017 law until he managed to shoehorn in a big tax cut for “pass-through corporations” Johnson confirmed that he personally benefited from the change in the tax code that he pushed through in 2017. He cast the deciding vote for Trump’s tax code rewrite giving corporations tax cuts worth $1.4 billion — but only after he arm-twisted Trump and Congress into including special benefits for so-called “pass-through” corporations — companies like his own PACUR plastics firm — whose profits are distributed to their owners. A few months later, Johnson began the process of selling his company, reaping the benefits of the tax law change, which increased the value of pass-through companies and made him more money on the sale.
According to Politifact, “Analyses from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the National Bureau of Economic Research have found that ultra-wealthy Americans have received billions in tax savings stemming from that deduction, while those earning less have gotten less of a break.” The news organization cites one study by the National Bureau of Economic Research that found the top 1% of Americans received nearly 60% of the tax savings created by the provision, with most of that amount going to the top 0.1%.
“I made sure all the passthroughs got a tax cut, that was my contribution,” Johnson said.
“Whatever we do, we need to make it permanent,” Johnson said of the individual income and estate tax provisions of the 2017 Trump tax law. That law was heavily skewed to the rich. Households with incomes in the top 1% will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60%, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Thanks to the law, revenue as a share of GDP has fallen from about 19.5% in the Bush years to just 16.3% in the years immediately following the Trump tax cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That leaves commitments to Social Security and health care benefits for retirees in jeopardy, the Center concludes.
Nor did the tax cut yield the big benefits Trump projected. New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw “no change in earnings” from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply, the Center reports. “Similarly, rigorous research concluded that the tax law’s 20% pass-through deduction, which was skewed in favor of wealthy business owners, has largely failed to trickle down to workers in those companies who aren’t owners.”
Yet making those tax cuts permanent is among the “top priorities” for Congress and the new administration, Johnson said. His biggest contribution to the next tax debate will be his push to rewrite the tax code and “keep it simple,” and cut spending to pay for more cuts.
“We have to return spending levels to some reasonable pre-pandemic levels,” he told the audience at the Politico breakfast. Building Trump’s border wall and keeping low taxes that benefit the very rich are the top two priorities for government, Johnson said.
Everyone would be able to see the wisdom of that program, as long you “keep it simple,” he added. The formula he laid out was “eliminate expenditures” and then you can dramatically cut rates.
He wants to “free corporations from all this complexity in the tax code,” he said, adding he favors “a corporate tax rate of zero.”
Health care and Social Security, though? Not so much.“Stop trying to socially and economically engineer through the tax system,” Johnson advised.
Let the rich keep their money. Slash the safety net. It’s simple.
The number of people employed in Wisconsin reached a new high in December. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Employment in Wisconsin once again reached a new record in December, with a federal survey of households projecting that 3,076,000 people were working during the last month of 2024 — an increase of nearly 32,000 from December 2023, the state labor department reported Thursday.
The state’s unemployment rate for December, measuring people who aren’t working but are actively seeking work, ticked up slightly to 3% from November’s 2.9%, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD).
The unemployment rate is based on the household survey, which asks people if they’re working, actively seeking work and other related questions.
The same survey projects that 65.9% of Wisconsinites age 16 or older are working or looking for work — the labor force participation rate.
Compared with Wisconsin, for the U.S. as a whole labor force participation is lower (62.5%) and the unemployment rate is higher (4.1%), DWD reported — both continuing what has been a long-term trend.
From a separate federal survey of employers, there were a projected 3,042,100 nonfarm jobs in the state in December, also near a record. That’s an increase of 20,300 from December 2023, although a slight dip from November 2024.
In addition to being projections, all of the numbers and rates are seasonally adjusted, to smooth out increases or decreases that result from change-of-season fluctuations such as high tourism employment in the summer or high retail employment during the last couple months of the year.
President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
Coughenour called the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order,” the judge told the Trump administration’s attorney. “It boggles my mind.”
Coughenour’s decision came after 25 minutes of arguments between attorneys for Washington state and the Department of Justice.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Nick Brown, along with peers in Oregon, Arizona and Illinois, sued the Trump administration over the order. Shortly after filing the lawsuit, the states asked Coughenour to grant a 14-day temporary restraining order stopping the executive action from taking effect nationwide.
Eighteen other states filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts. Those states haven’t requested a temporary restraining order.
Trump signed the executive order shortly after he was sworn into office on Monday. It would end birthright citizenship for babies born to a mother and father who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Brett Shumate, of the Department of Justice, argued the rush for an emergency pause is unwarranted because the order doesn’t go into effect until Feb. 19. He called the state’s motion “extraordinary.”
Attorneys for the state acknowledged the temporary restraining order is extraordinary, but warranted. Washington would lose federal dollars used to provide services to citizens and officials would be forced to modify those service systems.
The order is “causing immediate widespread and severe harm,” said Lane Polozola, of the Washington attorney general’s office. “Citizens are being stripped of their most foundational right, which is the right to have rights.”
Addressing reporters after the hearing, Brown said while the executive order doesn’t go into effect for nearly a month, it forces states to start preparing now for the change.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution codified birthright citizenship in 1868. It begins: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The executive order focuses on the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase.
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” Trump’s order reads. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”
Polozola called this interpretation “absurd,” saying children without legal immigration status are still subject to U.S. law. He added birthright citizenship is a right that is “off limits.”
Legal precedent has long backed up birthright citizenship. In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the concept when justices ruled Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, was a U.S. citizen.
In 2022, about 153,000 babies were born to two parents without legal immigration status across the country, including 4,000 in Washington state, according to the lawsuit filed this week.
Coughenour has been a federal judge for decades. Republican President Ronald Reagan nominated him for the bench in 1981.
Brown called Thursday’s hearing “step one.”
“But to hear the judge from the bench say that in his 40 years as a judge, he has never seen something so ‘blatantly unconstitutional’ sets the tone for the seriousness of this effort,” Brown said.
Video and audio recording were not allowed in the courtroom Thursday.
Looking forward, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would have jurisdiction over the case. Democratic presidents appointed a majority of the circuit court’s judges. Appeals could eventually land the dispute before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Shumate said the case will almost certainly end up there. But Brown said he’s taking it “one step at a time.”
“I see no reason why in a court of appeals, or even the United States Supreme Court, would reach a different decision than was reached today,” Brown told reporters.
A court hearing on a preliminary injunction to pause the executive order while litigation is ongoing is set for Feb. 6.
In court filings this week, state officials, academics and nonprofit leaders explained how the order could have detrimental effects on Washington, including losing federal reimbursements for a variety of social programs.
Tom Wong, an assistant professor at University of California, San Diego, retained by the state, wrote the order will create a “permanent underclass of people who are excluded from U.S. citizenship and are thus not able to realize their full potential.”
Congressional Republicans on Thursday introduced legislation to restrict birthright citizenship. The bill would amend federal immigration law to only allow children to be U.S. citizens if one of their parents is a citizen, a green card holder or a legal immigrant serving in the military.
The U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Wednesday passed legislation that greatly expands mandatory detention requirements of immigrants charged and arrested on petty crimes, among other crimes.
In a 263-156 vote, 46 House Democrats voted with Republicans to send the bill, S. 5, to President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law. The passage of the measure gave Trump — who campaigned on an immigration crackdown and promised mass deportations — an early victory for a president not even a full week into his second term.
The GOP-led bill is named after 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. The man convicted in her murder was said by immigration officials to have entered the country without proper authorization and was later charged in the United States with shoplifting.
“I am proud the Laken Riley Act will be the very first landmark bill President Trump signs into law, and it is proof that President Trump and the Republican Senate Majority stand ready to come turn promises made into promises kept,” Alabama GOP Sen. Katie Britt, who led the bill, said in a statement.
Many immigration attorneys and advocates have argued the passage of the bill will help fuel Trump’s promise of mass deportations, because it would require mandatory detention of immigrants without the ability for an immigration judge to grant bond.
Additionally, there is no carve-out for immigrant children in the bill, meaning if they are accused or charged with shoplifting, the bill would require them to be detained.
And while the bill aims to target immigrants who are in the country without proper legal authorization, immigration attorneys have argued that some immigrants with legal status could be ensnared as well.
Another concerning provision pointed to by some Democrats and immigration attorneys is the broad legal standing the bill gives state attorneys general to challenge federal immigration policy and the bond decisions from immigration judges.
That same authority could also force the secretary of state to halt the issuing of visas on the international stage.
There’s also the issue of resources. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimated the cost of enforcing the law would be at least $26.9 billion in its first year, according to NPR. The budget for ICE for fiscal year 2024 is about $9 billion.
Twelve Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the bill out of the upper chamber on Monday. The House already passed the bill earlier this month, but because amendments were added to the measure in the Senate, it went back to the House for final passage.
Those Senate Democrats included Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Mark Warner of Virginia.
A majority of those Senate Democrats are up for reelection in 2026 or hail from a battleground state that Trump won in November.
Senators also agreed to attach two amendments to the bill that expand the mandatory detention requirements even further.
One amendment by Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn requires mandatory detention for assault of a law enforcement officer. Another from Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa includes mandatory detention requirements to apply to the serious harm or death of a person.
Gov. Tony Evers delivers his seventh State of the State address while standing in front of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate President Mary Felzkowski. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
In his seventh State of the State address Wednesday night, Gov. Tony Evers started to outline his budget priorities — declaring 2025 the “Year of the Kid” and laying out investments and policies to support children and their families.
The address came at the start of a legislative session in which Republicans continue to hold majorities in the state Senate and Assembly, though with smaller margins than last session, and a $4.5 billion budget surplus remains unspent. Wisconsin also has about $1.9 billion in the state’s rainy day fund.
“We begin the new year with a new Legislature elected under new, fair maps,” Evers said in his address. “For the first time in a generation, this Legislature was not elected under some of the most gerrymandered maps in America. I am hopeful this will mean more collaboration, more partnership, a little less rancor and a renewed commitment to do right by the will of the people.”
Evers announced an array of proposals to support schools, including by providing free meals to students, expanding mental health resources, supporting child care for families and implementing better gun violence prevention measures.
Bipartisan collaboration will be necessary for Evers to accomplish the priorities he laid out, and the road could be difficult as Republican lawmakers were mostly critical following the address.
“What we heard tonight was Gov. Evers’ longest State of the State address and it was chock full of liberal wishes, empty promises and a whole lot of things that are not going to happen in Wisconsin,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters.
“The things the governor talked about tonight, every single thing that he talked about, was a new government program, new government spending,” Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) said. “I really am at a loss for words at how ridiculous the things he talked about were tonight.”
Highlighting lower taxes
Before speaking about his proposals, Evers highlighted the state of taxation in Wisconsin, pointing to a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report that found the local and state tax burden has fallen to the lowest level on record.
“Just two decades ago, Wisconsin was in the top five states for our tax burden and the taxes Wisconsinites paid as a share of their income. Today, Wisconsin is in the bottom 16 states in the country,” Evers said. “We have seen the largest drop in our tax burden of any state over the last 20 years.”
Evers said tax cuts have been a bipartisan priority. He noted that he has proposed tax cuts in each of his budget proposals targeted at middle class Wisconsinites. He has also accepted some of the proposals that Republicans have sent him. Evers’ emphasis on the state’s declining tax burden came as Republicans have said their top priority for the next state budget will be to further cut taxes.
August accused Evers of taking credit for work that Republicans did — pointing out that Evers vetoed Republicans’ major tax proposals last session.
“[Evers] actually vetoed the biggest tax cut that has ever been proposed in the state of Wisconsin. He vetoed that,” Rep. Tyler August told reporters. “Everything that he took credit for tonight economically was because of legislative Republicans’ work over the last 20 years. He’s an educator, he should know you can’t take credit for somebody else’s work.”
Evers pivoted from taxes to his vision for increasing spending and implementing new policies that would help children across the state.
“I will soon introduce our next state budget, laying out our state’s top policy priorities for the next two years. Every budget I have ever built began first by doing what is best for our kids, and this one will be no different,” Evers said.
Proposals to support kids in school
“If we want to improve our kids’ outcomes, then we have to shorten the odds,” Evers said. “If we want our educators and schools to be able to do their very best work in the hours our kids are with them, we have to set them up for success, and we have to start by making sure our kids can bring their full and best selves to our classrooms.”
Evers said he would propose “historic investments in K-12 education” and “meaningful” investments in early childhood education, the University of Wisconsin system and the state’s technical colleges.
Evers also called for lawmakers to release $50 million that was allocated in the last budget to support new literacy efforts in classrooms. Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee have withheld the money due to disagreements over exactly how the money should be spent, and if the money isn’t released before June 30, it will lapse back into the state’s general fund.
“Our kids and their futures are too important for petty politics,” Evers said. “Republicans, release those investments so we can get to work improving reading outcomes statewide.”
In addition, Evers said that he would propose ensuring that children have access to food and clean water by reintroducing his “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” plan, which would provide free lunch and breakfast in schools, as well as by seeking to address the issue of lead in water.
“Making sure our kids are healthy — physically and mentally — is a crucial part of improving outcomes in our classrooms. But we have to connect the dots between school achievement and the challenges our kids are facing at home and in our communities,” Evers said. “Take lack of access to clean and safe drinking water, for example. There is no safe level of lead exposure for kids.”
Evers is proposing that the state dedicate $154.8 million for his “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids” initiative. The initiative, he said, would use the money to provide free breakfast and lunches to students as well as for other programs including modernizing “bubblers” in schools to remove harmful contaminants.
Evers called for urgency when it comes to addressing a mental health crisis among Wisconsin children.
“The state of our kids’ mental health continues to be concerning for me, both as a governor and as a grandfather. A kid in crisis may be distracted or disengaged and may not be able to focus on their studies, if they are able to get to school at all,” Evers said.
Evers noted that the 2023-25 state budget included $30 million for school-based mental health services, but it was “just a fraction of what I asked the Legislature to approve.” His renewed call for more mental health resources comes as children in Wisconsin have reported increasing levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts over the last decade, especially among girls, kids of color and LGBTQ youth.
Evers said he’ll propose dedicating almost $300 million to supporting mental health services in schools. This would include about $168 million for comprehensive school mental health services aid, $130 million to modify the existing aid for school mental health programs to provide 20% reimbursement for the costs of pupil services professionals, $500,000 for peer-to-peer suicide prevention programs and $760,000 to increase the amount and types of mental health trainings provided to schools.
“Making sure our kids are healthy—physically and mentally—is a crucial part of improving outcomes in our classrooms. But we have to connect the dots between school achievement and the challenges our kids are facing at home and in our communities,” Evers said.
Violence prevention — including for gun deaths
Highlighting the recent school shooting in Madison and the recent death by suicide of a former state lawmaker, Evers said gun violence prevention will be another priority this year.
“Thirty-seven days ago, a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison took the lives of Erin and Rubi — a student and an educator — who woke up and went to school that morning and will never return home. Six others were injured, and countless lives will never be the same,” Evers said.
Evers urged lawmakers to come together to work to prevent the next school shooting.
Specifically, Evers called for a law that would require background checks for any person seeking to purchase a gun, and implementing “red flag” laws in Wisconsin so “law enforcement and loved ones” have a way to remove guns from people who pose a risk to themselves or others.
“We aren’t here in Madison to quibble about the semantics of the last shooting. We are here to do everything we can to prevent the next one,” Evers said. “We do not have to choose between respecting the Second Amendment or keeping kids, schools, streets and communities safe.”
Evers said that he would also propose a $66 million investment to support services for crime victims statewide and help critical victim service providers, which would help address recent reductions in federal funding under the Victims of Crime Act.
Evers also outlined proposals that would help address deaths by suicide, and spoke about the recent loss of Former Milwaukee Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, who died by suicide in November.
“We are so deeply saddened that he is no longer with us,” Evers said before asking the room to recognize Brostoff’s wife and parents, who stood in the gallery looking over the lawmakers.
According to the Department of Health Services, Wisconsin reported 932 deaths by suicide in 2022 with almost 60% of those deaths involving a firearm.
“If you talk to someone whose loved one died by suicide, many will tell you their loss was not a foregone conclusion. That maybe — just maybe — if the person they loved had just made it through one more dark night to see with certainty that the sun again would rise, things might have ended up differently,” Evers said. “I’m asking this Legislature to give the next family and the next one, and the family after that, hope for that same opportunity.”
Evers proposed the creation of a “Self-Assigned Firearm Exclusion” (SAFE) Program, which would allow people to temporarily and voluntarily register to prevent themselves from purchasing a firearm.
Evers also called for lawmakers to reimplement a law that would require a 48-hour waiting period for buying firearms.
“The window for intervention is very short. Being able to purchase and possess a gun in minutes significantly increases the risk of firearm suicide — and firearm homicide, as well,” Evers said.
Republican lawmakers said they likely wouldn’t take up any of Evers’ proposals related to guns.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) talks to reporters after Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State address Wednesday evening in the state Capitol. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Vos said that there are already some measures in place including background checks and that some money has gone into helping schools protect against shootings. Background checks are required for purchasing a handgun or long gun from a licensed dealer, but aren’t required for private sales or at gun shows.
“Unfortunately, sometimes people do bad things and there’s only so much that we can do to prevent it,” Vos said.
Vos said that everyone feels “bad for Jonathan Brostoff’s death,” but accused Evers of using it as a “cheap political stunt to try to get a piece of legislation passed.” He said Evers’ response “demeans Jonathan’s death.”
Lower costs for family through supporting child care
“There are a lot of ways we can lower everyday, out-of-pocket costs to make sure Wisconsinites and working families can afford basic needs,” Evers said.
Describing child care as “too darn expensive,” he highlighted a bipartisan bill that he signed into law last year that will expand the child care tax credit once it goes into effect this year.
Evers also said he will propose investing $480 million to continue the state’s Child Care Counts program, which has provided funding assistance to eligible child care providers to support operating expenses, investments in program quality, tuition relief for families, staff compensation and professional development. The program was started in March 2020 using federal funds and Evers wants to keep it going with state funds. He also wants to dedicate another $20 million to other programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and he wants to use the budget to create the framework for community-based 4K.
Cautions against forgetting immigration history
Evers cautioned Wisconsinites about forgetting the state’s historical ties to immigrants during his address, appearing critical of President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated on Monday and immediately issued orders sending troop to the U.S.-Mexico border, calling for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and even attempting to end constitutionally protected birthright citizenship.
“A lot has happened in Washington in the last 72 hours, and I know there is a lot of angst about what may happen in the days, months and years ahead,” Evers said. “I want to talk about what that means for Wisconsin and how we move forward together.”
“Wisconsin began as a land of many people, of many origins, each important and none any better than any other,” he continued, “and that is still who we are 177 years later. The state of Wisconsin was born of immigrants, but today, there are those who would have us forget this fact.”
“Let’s agree to be honest about the fact that, in this state, some of our state’s largest — and most important — industries and companies have always welcomed the hard work of immigrants,” Evers said. “Let’s agree to be honest about the fact that the story of our state’s success today is told in the labor of over three million Wisconsinites, including tens of thousands of workers whose only transgression to date was not having the good fortune of being born in this country.”
Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul have joined a multi-state federal lawsuit that was filed in Massachusetts to challenge the order trying to deny birthright citizenship.
Republicans, meanwhile, were supportive of Trump’s work, saying that Wisconsinites voted in favor of it when the state voted for Trump in November.
“[Evers is] clearly pushing back against the president. He’s lashing out because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were not only resoundly rejected by the American people, but by the state of Wisconsin,” August said, adding that Republicans would be ready to lead on the issue of immigration in Wisconsin.
Vos said that a proposal will be coming from Republicans next week that will require cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ensure that “if someone is here illegally and committed a crime” they are deported.
Vos said that he is “open” to the idea of repealing birthright citizenship.
“I certainly think that there’s a legal case to be made. It wasn’t enacted until sometime, I think, around the year 1900, so it’s only been part of our country for about half of our nation’s existence,” Vos said.
Apart from immigration legislation, Vos said that Republican priorities would include a tax relief proposal, which he says would provide $1,000 to Wisconsinites, and a proposal to ensure “high educational standards” if there is an increase in funding for schools.
Evers will deliver his budget address and announce his full 2025-27 budget proposal on Feb. 18.
President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Wednesday invoked an executive order he signed on his first day in office to send 1,500 military troops to the southern border, despite encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border being the lowest in several years.
“President Trump is sending a very strong message to people around this world – if you are thinking about breaking the laws of the United States of America, you will be returned home. You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, according to pool reports.
While Leavitt said 1,500 troops would be sent, she did not specify from where or when they would arrive at the border.
The comments by Leavitt followed a flurry of immigration-related orders that Trump signed on his first day in office cracking down on immigration in multiple ways.
One declared a national emergency at the southern border that outlined military support would be deployed “through the provision of appropriate detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services in support of civilian-controlled law enforcement operations.”
Other orders, some of which are already facing legal challenges, include the end of asylum and the move to end birthright citizenship for immigrants in the country without authorization, among other stipulations.
It’s not the first time an administration has sent U.S. military to the southern border. The Biden administration did so in 2023 amid high encounters of migrants. In fiscal year 2023, there were about 2.5 million encounters, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
Troops largely handle administrative work, rather than law enforcement work, due to the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the U.S. military from performing civilian law enforcement duties.
However, that could change.
A separate executive order Trump signed Monday directs the secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense to evaluate within 90 days if the Insurrection Act should be invoked, which allows military action to be used in civilian law domestically.
The troops heading to the southern border will be doing so at a relatively quiet time period, as the most recent CBP data in December showed 96,000 encounters, compared to the December of fiscal year 2023, when there were 252,000 encounters.
Reproductive rights supporters marched in Phoenix to mark Roe v. Wade’s anniversary in January 2024. Arizona voters approved an amendment restoring abortion access up to fetal viability in the fall. (Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez/Arizona Mirror)
Erika Christensen decided to become a patient advocate for abortion later in pregnancy after she had to travel from New York to Colorado to get a third-trimester abortion.
Christensen found out her wanted pregnancy wasn’t viable around 30 weeks. At that time in 2016, New York banned abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy, and only allowed abortions after that limit to save a patient’s life.
She and her husband were able to borrow thousands of dollars from her mother and put last-minute travel funds on a credit card to access abortion care across the country, Christensen told States Newsroom.
“At every stage, I realized how many pieces had to be in the perfect place for me to be able to do that, to be able to get this urgent health care that I desperately needed,” she said.
When she and her husband returned home to New York, a lawyer at the state American Civil Liberties Union affiliate reached out and asked if they wanted to be advocates. They led a grassroots effort to get legislation passed in 2019 that protected abortions after 24 weeks for fetal abnormalities and to preserve a patient’s health.
The Reproductive Health Act also decriminalized abortion later in pregnancy and allowed health care providers besides physicians to perform abortions. Former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on Jan. 22, 2019, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that protected the right to an abortion nationally.
This year would have marked the 52nd anniversary of Roe, which ensured abortion rights until fetal viability, when a fetus can survive outside the womb — generally thought to be around 24 weeks. Only about 1% of all abortions in the United States happen after that point, typically for medical reasons, research shows.
But a conservative-majority bench overturned Roe nearly three years ago, upending abortion access across the nation with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. States rolled out a patchwork of varied health care restrictions.
Twelve states ban most abortions today, while voters in 10 approved ballot measures enshrining the right into state constitutions. Most of the states with constitutional protections have fetal viability limits.
“Advocates, activists and folks in the movement have different opinions about how we reach the ideal policy on reproductive rights and justice, and initiatives and laws may vary from state to state depending on the political realities that we see,” said Ashley All, president of Kansas Coalition for Common Sense, who has worked on several successful abortion-rights initiatives.
Some within the reproductive rights movement argue that gestational bans on abortion later in pregnancy cause patients harm, and say that the protections of Roe — the 1973 Supreme Court said abortion is a privacy right based on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment — are insufficient.
Renee Bracey Sherman is the founder of the nonprofit WeTestify, a nonprofit devoted to evaluating and shifting the narrative around abortion.
“Allowing the public to vote on personal medical decisions is wrong and completely ridiculous,” she said. “But somehow it’s acceptable with abortion, and then doubly acceptable when it comes to later abortion. We have a population that does not understand how anatomy works, how pregnancy works, how abortions happen, and why people need later abortions.”
In pregnancy, “viability” isn’t straightforward and can be used in more than one way. The word can reference whether a pregnancy is expected to develop normally or if it could lead to a miscarriage, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. And fetal viability is the point in pregnancy when a fetus is able to survive outside of the womb. Premature babies have a 42% to 59% chance of survival at 24 weeks, according to ACOG and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
ACOG, the national OB-GYN organization, “strongly opposes policy makers defining viability or using viability as a basis to limit access to evidence-based care” and said the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be between patients and medical providers.
Viability language in policymaking stemmed from the Roe decision in 1973, according to Adrienne Ramcharan, assistant director of state policy at Physicians for Reproductive Health and MiQuel Davies, the former public policy director at the organization.
“While this framing was built into the law, researchers and medical providers who care for pregnant people recognize that viability is not a set point in time,” Ramcharan and Davies wrote in August 2024. “Instead, it occurs along a continuum shaped by an individual’s medical history, access to medical care, and demographic characteristics among other things.”
Later abortion care is criminalized and stigmatized, Christensen said, causing the cost of care to go up. Plus, abortion providers willing to offer the procedure later in pregnancy are scarce.
“I have the benefit of having directly experienced a viability ban and knowing in my core how unjust it was, how my humanity was erased, my dignity was erased,” Christensen said.
She is the co-author of a memo published last year titled Abortion Justice Now. The authors wrote that they reject efforts to restore Roe-era limits into abortion policy.
“Gestational and viability limits will disproportionately impact the most marginalized among us, either denying them critical care or pulling families toward financial instability,” they wrote. “These limits will result in an inequitable ability to exercise rights, allow for criminalization in pregnancy, and ultimately reinforce the dangerous assertion that the government has any role in regulating a pregnant person’s body.”
Abortion opponents, including doctors, sometimes hinge their argument on the concept of fetal viability.
“I think, certainly, beyond the point where a child can survive outside of his or her mother, there would never be a reason you would need to intentionally end that child’s life,” Dr. Christina Francis, chief executive officer at the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told lawmakers on a U.S. Senate committee in June, States Newsroom reported.
“You would simply deliver that baby,” Francis said. “You’d take care of mom and you’d take care of baby in an appropriate way.
Patients may seek abortion after fetal viability for several reasons: They receive a fetal fatal diagnosis later in pregnancy, giving birth could risk their life or health, they couldn’t access or afford an abortion earlier, or they didn’t know they were pregnant, according to ACOG.
Polling shows that Americans support abortion in most cases, but not necessarily after fetal viability. A June 2023 poll from Gallup found that 69% of respondents said abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, while 37% said it should be legal in the second trimester and 22% in the third.
But the nonpartisan public opinion research firm PerryUndem found last year that most public polling on abortion later in pregnancy lacks context. Of those who heard stories about women with complications later in pregnancy who needed to travel out-of-state for abortions, 69% said abortion should be legal in all cases.
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, speaks during a press conference inside the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. Also pictured is Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., left, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats blocked legislation Wednesday that would have established penalties for health care professionals who don’t provide medical care for infants born following an attempted abortion, arguing the bill would have kept parents from making decisions about care for newborns delivered early following a fatal fetal diagnosis.
Republicans said the issue should lend itself to common ground between the two political parties, citing a “loophole” in federal law that could potentially permit health care providers to allow an infant to die, instead of using medical interventions.
The 52-47 procedural vote needed the support of at least 60 senators to advance under the chamber’s legislative filibuster rules, but no Democrats voted to move the bill toward final passage. Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty didn’t cast a vote.
The vote marked the first time this year Republicans, who now control both the House and Senate, brought up an abortion bill for debate. The vote took place on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973, but was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford, who sponsored the eight-page bill, said debate on the legislation was “not just an academic issue,” but one with real-world implications.
“It’s rare, but the question is, what do we do in those situations? How do we track this? How do we engage on it?,” he said.
When an abortion results in a live child, Lankford said, “the current practice is everyone kind of backs away and allows the child to die on the table by exposure because it is against American law in every single state to take the life of a child. But if everybody just steps back and watches the child die that’s okay.”
Lankford cited the story of Melissa Ohden, a woman he says lived following an attempted abortion because a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or NICU, nurse noticed her crying and breathing in a pile of medical waste, before rushing her to the emergency department for medical care. Ohden is founder and CEO of the Abortion Survivors Network.
“It was years later that she learned her adopted mom had adopted her because her birth mom literally didn’t know she still existed. Her birth mom was never told that the abortion, quote unquote, didn’t work,” he said.
‘Killing a baby is illegal in every single state’
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said during a floor speech Tuesday the bill was a “sham” and a “disgrace,” before noting that “killing a baby is illegal in every single state.”
“In fact, we passed a law in 2002 that made that crystal clear. I would know because I was here. It passed unanimously,” Murray said. “Doctors already have a legal obligation to provide appropriate medical care to any infant born in this country.”
The legislation, she said, would have created “a new government mandate that would override the best judgment of grieving families who find out their fetus has a fatal condition.”
“And it would create new, medically unnecessary barriers for doctors and patients, at a time when doctors already have their hands tied when it comes to providing basic reproductive health care,” Murray said.
New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said during a press conference on Wednesday ahead of the vote she wasn’t concerned about Republicans using the vote against vulnerable incumbents up for reelection in 2026.
“I have run now in seven statewide races in New Hampshire and in every single one of those races, I have been attacked by Republicans for my support for allowing women to make their own decisions,” Shaheen said.
“It’s not a decision that I should make as a senator, that the court should make, that the men who are in the Senate should make,” she added. “It’s a decision for women and their families. And for those people who don’t understand that, they are on the wrong side of morality on this one.”
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters are the two most vulnerable Democrats up for election in 2026, both representing states President Donald Trump won in November’s presidential election.
Details of Senate legislation
Lankford’s bill would have required medical providers “to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
The bill adds that anyone who “intentionally performs or attempts to perform an overt act that kills a child” would be charged with “intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.”
It is already illegal to kill children, or adults, under federal law as well as state laws.
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was the sole Democrat to vote for the bill, while Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas., voted “present.”
Wagner’s House bill appeared extremely similar to the Senate version, though the two weren’t marked as “related bills” on Wednesday in the congressional database.
Dr. Stella M. Dantas, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, wrote in a statement sent to States Newsroom that the “offensively named legislation does not reflect the reality of abortion later in pregnancy, harms families who receive devastating diagnoses and restricts their ability to choose the path of medical care that is right for them.”
“This legislation is not evidence-based,” Dantas wrote. “Its impacts fall with crushing weight on families trying to access reproductive care in devastating circumstances and limits how clinicians are able to provide care.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists writes on a webpage about the differences between abortion and perinatal palliative care that “the idea of ‘abortions’ being performed after delivery of a fetus is” misinformation and that “no such procedure exists.”
Perinatal palliative care, ACOG explains, “encompasses a coordinated care strategy that centers on maximizing quality of life and comfort for newborns who have life-limiting conditions in early infancy.”
“When providing perinatal palliative care, obstetrician–gynecologists’ chief aim is to alleviate the newborn’s suffering and honor the values of the patients involved—namely, the newborn’s parent or parents,” the website states. “Ultimately, the parent or parents, in consultation with their physician, decide which course of perinatal palliative care to pursue.”
Eighteen medical organizations — including ACOG, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing and the American Academy of Pediatrics — sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday urging lawmakers not to pass the bill.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser released a written statement that the 2024 election showed Americans “have clearly rejected the extreme pro-abortion agenda.”
“We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to that baby fighting for his or her life, whether in a hospital or an abortion center, whether that little one is deemed ‘wanted’ or not,” Dannenfelser wrote. “These children must not be discarded like trash. With a new administration in Washington and new majorities in the Senate and House, there has never been a better or more urgent time to protect the life of every newborn equally.”
A SBA webpage about the legislation notes that while the 2002 law was “a step in the right direction,” it didn’t include any “enforcement mechanisms.”
“Federal law and 31 states do not adequately protect the lives of infants born alive after botched abortions (state and federal laws are not necessarily redundant, either),” the webpage states.
Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute, wrote in a statement to States Newsroom the bill “misrepresents the reality of care later in pregnancy and seeks to criminalize and intimidate health care providers, despite existing laws that already ensure appropriate medical care is provided.”
“By perpetuating disinformation and stigma, this bill undermines reproductive autonomy and paves the way for political interference in deeply personal and painful decisions, particularly for families facing tragic situations such as fatal fetal diagnoses,” Bernstein wrote.
The Guttmacher Institute, she wrote, “strongly opposes this bill, as it disregards the complexities of people’s lives, attempts to criminalize providers, and perpetuates misinformation about abortion care.”
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — All federal employees in diversity, equity and inclusion positions are ordered to be placed on paid administrative leave by the close of business Wednesday, according to a memo from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
The move came as President Donald Trump spent the early days of his second term issuing executive orders that gut DEI programs and activities across the federal government and end affirmative action in federal contracting.
Trump’s sweeping efforts reflect a broader Republican push to repeal programs and hiring practices aimed at facilitating equitable and inclusive workplaces.
A Tuesday memo from Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, orders the leaders of federal agencies to notify employees of DEI offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave no later than 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. OPM is the federal agency in charge of human resources and employee management.
The heads of agencies are also tasked with canceling any DEI-related training, terminating DEI-related contractors and taking down “all outward facing media” of DEI offices by Wednesday evening.
By Thursday at noon Eastern, the agencies’ leaders must also report to OPM with “any agency plans to fully comply” with the executive orders and Ezell’s memo.
They must also submit a written plan “for executing a reduction-in-force action,” or layoffs, surrounding DEI office employees by Jan. 31.
In one of a barrage of wide-ranging executive orders issued this week, Trump ordered an end to all DEI “mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities” in the federal government.
The White House described these DEI efforts as “radical and wasteful.”
Trump also terminated all environmental justice positions and offices across the federal government. Environmental justice centers on improving the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities, who are disproportionately affected by environmental harms.
In another major move, he revoked a series of diversity and inclusion initiatives, including a decades-old executive order from then-President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 on affirmative action in federal contracting.
He is also encouraging a push to end DEI efforts across the private sector. Some U.S. companies already have rolled back their programs in recent months.
Reactions from Congress
U.S. Rep. James Comer, who chairs the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, praised Trump’s executive orders regarding DEI and a separate, federal return-to-office mandate in a statement earlier this week, saying: “For too long, the unelected federal bureaucracy has wielded too much power over Americans’ lives and wasted hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”
“Under these executive orders, the federal workforce is expected to work in-person for the American people, the federal government must stop wasting money on woke DEI programs, and no tax dollars can be used to fund the censorship industrial complex,” the Kentucky Republican added.
Meanwhile, at a Wednesday press conference, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California said “it’s unfortunate that a lot of the decisions — including this one that Donald Trump did on Day 1 — don’t do anything to address real issues that Americans are facing.”
“None of these affect lowering the prices of groceries that Donald Trump said he would do on Day 1, and they reduce our ability to hear different ideas and perspectives when we make decisions,” Aguilar said.
Aguilar also noted that the House Democratic Caucus represents “the most diverse caucus ever assembled in the history of Congress — from every corner of our country, every background — that’s who the Democratic caucus is.”
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke and members of the group said Trump’s executive order to end all DEI initiatives in the federal government “is not only a broken economic promise” but also “stands in opposition to evidence which shows that diversity initiatives improve the government’s ability to better serve our communities,” per a Wednesday statement.
“Under the Biden Administration, Democrats worked to prioritize racial equity with a whole of government approach,” the New York Democrat and caucus members added. “President Trump’s executive actions undermine that progress and will only make our country less prosperous.”
President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — New allegations of alcohol abuse and misconduct by defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth drew fresh scrutiny Wednesday about the veteran, former Fox News host and author who President Donald Trump wants to install at the top of the U.S. military.
New revelations in a sworn affidavit from Hegseth’s ex-sister-in-law accuse Hegseth of causing his second wife to fear for her life, and of being so drunk in uniform during a Minnesota National Guard drill weekend that his brother had to carry him out of a Minneapolis strip club.
The nominee has been accused of numerous occasions of public drunkenness and sexual misconduct, and was grilled by Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing. Hegseth has blamed allegations on a smear campaign. “I’m not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged, saved by the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny,” he said, referring to his third wife, television producer Jennifer Hegseth, who was seated behind him, during his hearing. The couple lives in Tennessee.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, expressed concern Wednesday over Hegseth’s fitness to lead the Pentagon and the importance of “serious oversight of the U.S. military and its leaders.”
Reed said the late December testimony provided to the FBI by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law was not included in the FBI background check provided to the committee. The Rhode Island Democrat directly requested the former family member recount the testimony to the committee.
“As I have said for months, the reports of Mr. Hegseth’s history of alleged sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and public misconduct necessitate an exhaustive background investigation. I have been concerned that the background check process has been inadequate, and this affidavit confirms that fact,” Reed said in a statement.
“The sworn affidavit from this courageous woman, provided at enormous personal risk and with nothing to gain, documents a disturbing pattern of abuse and misconduct by Mr. Hegseth,” Reed said. “This behavior would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the Secretary of Defense.”
The FBI told States Newsroom Wednesday that it does not comment on specific background investigations.
Republican committee leadership did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senators reviewing allegations
The affidavit was obtained and reported byseveralmajornewsoutlets. NBC News, which broke the story, reported that at least 15 senators, including Republicans, had reviewed the document by Tuesday afternoon.
Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, reportedly told the committee that the nominee’s second wife, Samantha, feared Hegseth’s volatile behavior and created a plan with family members for a safe word, used once, that could be texted in the event she needed immediate help, according to Reed’s office. The statement detailed that on one occasion, sometime between 2014 and 2016, Samantha hid in a closet for safety.
Danielle also reported being verbally attacked by an inebriated Hegseth at a family event, to the point of needing intervention, and multiple drunken incidents and racist and misogynistic statements.
Hegseth’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, did not respond to an email Wednesday requesting comment.
A man who answered the phone number listed for Parlatore on his law firm’s website said, “I rely upon the public statements I’ve already made.”
In a statement provided to NBC News Tuesday, Parlatore said: “Sam has never alleged that there was any abuse, she signed court documents acknowledging that there was no abuse and recently reaffirmed the same during her FBI interview. Belated claims by Danielle Dietrich, an anti-Trump far left Democrat who is divorced from Mr. Hegseth’s brother and never got along with the Hegseth family, do nothing to change that.”
Hegseth’s second wife denied the allegations to NBC News, telling the network that “There was no physical abuse in my marriage” and that she would not be commenting further.
The Senate approved a motion to proceed on Hegseth’s nomination Tuesday evening in a 53-45 vote. Hegseth could be confirmed as soon as Thursday.
States Newsroom reached out to the White House for comment.
Assembly members being sworn in in January 2025. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
Wisconsin Assembly committees look different this session with new committee names and several old committees now made up of fewer members. The differences will affect the way legislation is shaped.
Each session the Assembly Speaker has the responsibility for determining the number of members per committee, unless a rule specifies otherwise. The Speaker also determines the ratio of majority to minority members on each committee. The committees are essential to the lawmaking process given that they are where bills are first moved to be discussed after being introduced, where bills receive public input and are debated by lawmaker before ever being considered for a vote by the full body.
Democrats have complained about losing members on committees despite winning additional seats in the full body. Despite Republican’s narrower majority this session, in some cases Democrats make up a smaller proportion of members on committees than they did in the last session.
“Unfortunately, Assembly Republican Leadership has chosen to begin the legislative session in a highly partisan fashion, reducing Democratic positions on the vast majority of committees despite the people of Wisconsin choosing to replace ten incumbent Republican legislators with Democrats in the last election,” Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said in a statement announcing Democratic committee membership. “I hope my Republican colleagues will choose to shift course and join Democrats in putting the people of Wisconsin over partisan politics in the coming legislative session.”
Neubauer’s staff said they were not consulted by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) about the committee sizes or ratios.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said there was a “general understanding” that with more members in the house overall, Democrats were expecting that to be reflected in committees. Democrats picked up 10 additional seats in the Assembly, making the body about 55% Republican and 45% Democratic.
Instead Republicans and Democrats both lost seats on some committees, but the losses were exaggerated for Democrats, who now make up a smaller percentage of representation on several committees. For example, the Campaigns and Elections Committee last session had six Republican members and three Democrats. This session the committee is made up of five Republicans and two Democrats — or a 71% Republican to 29% Democratic makeup.
Vining described the change to committee membership as a punishment.
“We were penalized for maps that the Republicans actually passed themselves…,” Vining said. “They're penalizing us for having more seats and I think that's unfair to Wisconsinites.”
Vining said having diverse representation on committees matters because of how it shapes the way legislation turns out.
“Our job in committee is to vet bills. We're supposed to bring our perspective to the room and bat it around and figure it out… We need voices in the room,” Vining said. “When you have less voices in the room, I would argue that there's less there to vet a bill, to put a bill into the best form that it could possibly be in for the Wisconsin people.”
Vining is the ranking member on the Assembly Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention Committee this session. She also sits on the Children and Families, Health Aging and Long Term Care and Small Business Development committees.
The Mental Health committee is one where Democrats lost representation. The committee last session had eight Republicans to four Democrats — meaning Democrats made up 33% of the committee. This session the committee includes seven Republicans and three Democrats — bringing Democrats to only 30% of the committee.
One Democrat not returning to the Mental Health committee, Vining noted, is Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee).
“I have one less member, which means I have one less microphone around the state of Wisconsin,” she said, “one less community that's represented on the mental health committee and one less person going out to destigmatize mental health, so yeah, that's a loss.”
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa). Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
Vining said Omokunde’s absence is also notable given that one of the goals of the committee this session will be to discuss the issue of male loneliness. She noted that he has done a lot of work within the Black Caucus on Black mental health, including Black men's mental health.
“We'll find another way to keep that conversation going and I'm sure he will because he is fantastic at that,” Vining said. Still, she said that it is important to have ethnically diverse representation and gender representation on committees.
“Something I'm very aware of is we have two wonderful women who are joining me on the mental health committee but all the Democrats are women,” Vining said.
It’s not just Democratic lawmakers who have expressed disappointment about committee memberships this session.
Rebecca Aubart, executive director of Ladies of SCI, a nonpartisan prison reform advocacy group, said the situation is upsetting to the group. The group has been working to improve the state’s correctional system, including by advocating for an ombudsman to serve as a watchdog.
“This isn't what Wisconsin voted for. We voted for more fair representation. We voted for both of the sides to have to come together because it was going to be more fair representation,”Aubert said. “This seems like such a power struggle that just makes me sick.”
Aubert said the group had been waiting for several months to see how committees would turn out this session given the new legislative maps, and so they could return to their advocacy work. She said she was looking forward to there being new discussions with fresh ideas this session, and feels like that may not end up being the case.
“Most of our meetings are between 65% and 68% Republican, because that is who has been in control, but the Democrats have really good points too and are very sympathetic and their voices aren't heard,” Aubert said. “They have a lot of good ideas that would help straighten out corrections, but their voices are still going to go unheard.”
“If we want new legislation to come through, everything comes through the committee first, and then it goes to everybody else. I just don't think the people of Wisconsin are aware that even though our votes changed a lot in the Assembly, it actually didn't change anything because of how these committees are picked.”
Aubert said that she thinks there should be rules that the Speaker should have to follow, including that the partisan balance on committees should match the Assembly as a whole.
Vining noted that she encouraged her Republican colleagues in a public statement to push back on the decision made by their leadership.
Vos did not respond to requests for comment from the Examiner.
Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) is leading the newly formed Government Operations Accountability and Transparency (GOAT) committee and also serves as vice-chair of the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee. In an interview discussing her new roles this session, Nedweski said she didn’t think the fluctuation in the committee memberships were intentional or political.
Nedweski said having fewer people on committees isn’t a disadvantage given that the committee process is public and anyone is still welcome to show up to committee meetings.
“People who are interested in being on that committee are there and, you know, if there's legislation that comes before the committee that people who are not on the committee are interested in, they can always come and testify and you know, be a part of discussion,” Nedweski said. “No one's being locked out of anything.”
New committees highlight Assembly priorities
Other changes this session include several new and revived Assembly committees, highlighting some of lawmakers’ priorities in the coming months.
Vos put a special emphasis on the GOAT committee this session. In a statement, he said the committee — with Nedweski at the helm — would help the caucus’ focus on its “renewed goal of identifying and addressing government inefficiencies.”
Nedweski said the committee is the result of “demands from the people” and a “mainstream interest in fiscal conservatism and government efficiency.” She said part of the interest in having Wisconsin lawmakers take on the work was driven by President Donald Trump announcing the creation of a federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While a committee existed last session focused on government operations and accountability, Nedweski said it wasn’t very active and the new committee will be.
Rep. Amanda Nedweski. Photo courtesy of her office.
“We had so many people reaching out saying ‘Who's going to be the state DOGE?’” Nedweski said. “I think there are opportunities around every corner to find quick and easy ways for improvement for some things and then certainly there are much bigger problems that could take solutions that are multi-year.”
Nedweski said her background in corporate finance and doing work that involves finding efficiencies inspired her to want to take on the role of chairing the new committee.
“In the private sector, there are natural forms of accountability driven by bottom lines, and government just doesn't have those built in, but we should,” Nedweski said.
The committee is still exploring what exactly its work will include, but Nedweski said it will focus on issues big and small. Ultimately, she said she wants to ensure that the state is using the taxpayers’ resources efficiently and effectively.
One issue she said the committee will likely look at is the number of state employees who are working remotely, which has been a contentious issue over the last several years.
“Are we getting the most productivity out of those people who are working from home? How do we measure that, and if we're seeing that it's not the most productive situation, why aren't those people back in the building?” Nedweski said. “Maybe they are productive, maybe that's the best situation for them, but then what do we do with that physical building? If the solution is we don't need in-person employees, then we don't need to pay for the space either, and I think we have a responsibility to the taxpayer to make sure that we're not wasting.”
Nedweski said other committees could also bring issues to GOAT to explore.
“Our intention is to have the entire body involved in this process where maybe… we're going to maybe do a joint hearing with the education committee, or the college's committee,” Nedweski said. “How do we use our resources within GOAT to help them further explore some of the areas that they identify for us that are in need of oversight, transparency, accountability or efficiency?”
Another issue Nedweski mentioned as an area of interest is “administrative bloat” in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools and in the University of Wisconsin system.
She also mentioned looking at programs and laws as they sunset. She noted that Texas has a Sunset Advisory Commission, a mission that the GOAT committee takes on.
“There's all these statutes on the books that maybe there's appropriations tied to, and sometimes things fly under the radar and are there any circumstances — and I can't say that there are — are there any circumstances where we have continued to fund something that was supposed to end? Maybe GOAT has an arm of that... where we're diving into the weeds and looking at where we spend money and should this have ended five years ago?”
One revived committee this session is the Assembly Small Business Committee. Last session, it became part of the Jobs, Economy and Small Business Development Committee.
Vining said she commends Vos for bringing the committee back because it gives a greater opportunity to speak about the issues affecting Wisconsin small businesses.
“Ninety-nine percent of Wisconsin businesses are small businesses. We're a small business state. We should have a small business development committee. We should be talking about how access to capital is more difficult for women and people of color,” Vining said.
The Assembly is also reviving the Assembly Urban Revitalization Committee this session with Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) serving as its chair. Donovan, who served as a Milwaukee alderman for about 20 years, said he is excited about the opportunity.
“It's certainly fair to say that Milwaukee has some neighborhoods that are very challenged, and we need to work on that, but I suspect other cities around the state may be suffering from the same challenges, so I'm hopeful that we can work a number of initiatives to help revitalize those struggling neighborhoods,” Donovan said.
Donovan said that the “sky's the limit” when it comes to the issues the committee may look at, but that public safety concerns, educational issues and housing, including more home ownership, are some areas that he is interested in exploring.
As the committee’s work is only just starting, Donovan said that he has requested that the Legislative Reference Bureau provide the committee with some information about revitalization efforts that have gone on in other cities across the country as well as about what the 2017 committee did.
“I've always believed we don't need to reinvent the wheel. If something is working in another community, I see no reason why we couldn't make it work here in Wisconsin,” Donovan said.
Donovan said that he is prepared to communicate with local leaders in Milwaukee and other cities. He said he already had a “very good” conversation with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley about some concerns at the county level when it comes to parks and other services.
“[I] just wanted to open up or continue the lines of communication,” Donovan said.
Other new committees include the Commerce Committee, the Constitution and Ethics Committee, the State and Federal Relations Committee, the Public Benefit Reform Committee and the Science, Technology and AI Committee.
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel (second from left) stand next to Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes (second from right), who has been at the center of numerous controversies. (Screenshot)
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
In a television ad and recent endorsements, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel has touted the support of Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes — a controversial figure whose county board voted 19-1 last year to find it had “no confidence” in him after he was accused of sexually harassing a female job applicant and subordinate.
As the race between Shimel and his opponent, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford, heats up, the two candidates have attempted to claim the other is soft on crime. Schimel, a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge who was previously the state attorney general under Republican Gov. Scott Walker, has in recent days announced endorsements from a number of current and retired sheriffs from across the state.
Hakes is one of the sheriffs who endorsed Schimel and appeared with the judge in a television ad behind a graphic that states Schimel is “tough on crime.”
Last February, the Chippewa County Board voted nearly unanimously that it has “no confidence in Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes’ continued leadership” and that the sheriff has “a long history of not being credible.”
An independent investigation into Hakes initiated by the board found that he had sent inappropriate messages to a female job applicant and a subordinate, including a text that shared a “racist ethnically charged meme.”
“For any leader of a law enforcement agency to make such comments calls into question their professional judgement and ability to enforce the law and treat all persons fairly and lawfully,” a joint statement from County Administrator Randy Scholz and Board Chair Dean Gullickson said. “Moreover, for any leader of a law enforcement agency to suggest that his subordinates engage in such conduct with his implied support and tolerance leaves no doubt as to his inability to effectively manage any law enforcement employee and not expose the County to great risk.”
In the texts, Hakes told a female subordinate that she was the “breast person for the job!” in a conversation about birds and then later sent a meme depicting an Asian man crying with the caption “when the chow mein was on point but you kinda miss your cat.”
Hakes’ term as sheriff runs through 2026 and the board has no ability to remove him from office, which led to the no confidence vote. But in December 2023, the Chippewa County District Attorney put Hakes on the county’s Brady list — a document prosecutors are required to send to defense attorneys naming law enforcement officers “who have had incidents of untruthfulness, criminal convictions, candor issues, or some other type of issue placing their credibility into question.”
Hakes has “misled the public and County Board” multiple times about his work history, according to the board’s statement.
Because of his inclusion on the Brady list, Hakes is unable to be actively involved in investigations or handle physical evidence.
Several other sheriffs who have endorsed Schimel have also sparked controversy during their tenures.
Polk County Sheriff Brent Waak drew attention in 2023 for refusing to enforce a rule from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that banned the use of stabilizing braces on pistols. Waak has previously shared his belief in the constitutional sheriff ideology — which states that county sheriffs have nearly unlimited authority to decide what the law is.
Schimel was also endorsed by Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling, who drew the praise of election deniers after he called for the arrest of five members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and declined to arrest an election denier who had requested absentee ballots on behalf of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason.
In his 2018 campaign for attorney general, Schimel ran an ad touting his law enforcement support that included the endorsement of former Taylor County Sheriff Bruce Daniels — who was investigated by the FBI for hacking into a subordinate’s Dropbox account and by the state Department of Justice for pressuring another agency to destroy a report on a traffic accident that involved his son.
Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson Haley McCoy said in a statement that Schimel touting Hakes’ support shows a lack of judgement.
“This isn’t the first time that Brad Schimel has struggled with a photo op, but standing with a man censured 19-1 by local elected officials and accused of sexual harassment, conflicts of interest, poor leadership, and violating his oath is a new low — even for an extreme politician like Schimel,” McCoy said. “Brad Schimel has a long record of failing to keep Wisconsinites safe, from giving light sentences to convicted domestic abusers to failing to test more than 6,000 sexual assault kits over two years. It’s clear as day that Wisconsin voters can’t trust Brad Schimel’s judgment or public safety record on the state Supreme Court since he can’t even get this easy call right.”
Schimel’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Milwaukee cut homicides dramatically by getting community members involved in the work of the Office of Violence Prevention. | Photo by Getty Images Creative
Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order on Jan. 14 establishing Wisconsin’s first statewide Office of Violence Prevention. This announcement was praised by most and erroneously criticized by others who are ill-informed about the life-saving role that this type of office can play in addressing gun violence. I would know, because in Milwaukee we did it.
I became director of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention in 2016 after the city experienced a 70% increase in homicides in 2015. I was committed to ensuring that the voices of those from the neighborhoods most affected by violence would be centered in determining the priorities for increasing community safety and wellbeing in our city.
We engaged thousands of community residents and stakeholders including youth, survivors, former perpetrators, clergy, law enforcement, activists, philanthropies, public health workers, business leaders and elected officials in a process to develop Milwaukee’s first comprehensive violence prevention plan known as the Blueprint for Peace.
The launch and implementation of the Blueprint coincided with a steady four-year decline in homicides and non-fatal shootings in Milwaukee from 2016-2019. In fact, during the same period, Milwaukee experienced one of the deepest declines in homicides and non-fatal shootings in the country and achieved two consecutive years of fewer than 100 homicides before the pandemic.
If arrest and prosecution were the sole answers to violence, America would be the safest country on the planet.
In 2020, Milwaukee and cities across the country were hit with historic levels of gun violence that continue to this day. Over the past four years, federal policies and investments in comprehensive approaches to violence prevention have contributed to historic reductions in homicides and non-fatal shootings across the country.
If arrest and prosecution were the sole answers to violence, America would be the safest country on the planet. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The smartest police chiefs, prosecutors and judges will tell you that investments in violence prevention make a real difference in public safety.
Nothing is stronger on crime than being smart about it. Research from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform’s The Cost of Violence – Milwaukee, WIreport found that a single homicide in Wisconsin cost taxpayers $2 million per incident and a single non-fatal shooting costs $644,000.
For context, Milwaukee ended 2024 with 132 homicides and 639 nonfatal shootings, resulting in a total cost to taxpayers of $264,411,516 in a single year! That is half the cost of building one Fiserv Forum.
In contrast, a single violence intervention program in Milwaukee known as 414 LIFE has intervened in over 250 high risk conflicts since 2018 that could have resulted in a non-fatal shooting or homicide, saving taxpayers approximately $500 million.
Combined funding from the city and county for this program is $2 million per year. The return on investment in violence prevention is clear. Furthermore, doing everything possible to prevent another resident from ending up in a hospital bed, graveyard or jail cell should be a shared priority regardless of political affiliation.
While the details of the state office are being worked out, the effectiveness of such an office is dependent on competent leadership, unwavering support and sustainable funding. I hope that the governor and his team take a similar approach to the one that produced Milwaukee’s Blueprint for Peace by centering the voices of those most affected by violence as they determine the new office’s priorities for solutions and investment. Anything less would be a missed opportunity.
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