Racine County and two juvenile detention center staff members in Caledonia, Wisconsin have been sued for allegedly using excessive force on a teen. In a statement, the county says it has made changes since the incident. 

The teen’s mother, Kianna Reed, brought the lawsuit against the county and Robert and Jordan Knight, described in the suit as former and current security coordinators. The facility, the Jonathan Delagrave Youth Development and Care Center, opened less than a month before the incident. 

The lawsuit alleges that on May 27, 2025, the teen, who suffers from emotional and psychological disabilities, became emotionally dysregulated and the Knights egged him on and physically attacked him with excessive force that violated his Eighth Amendment rights. . 

In December, the state public defender’s office released video footage of part of the incident, which appeared to show four staff members directing the then-15-year-old to move from a spot by a wall in a hallway, possibly to a nearby room, and the teen not moving, the Examiner reported. 

After a staff member took a swing at the teen, the situation devolved into a struggle. The teen was struck repeatedly by staff before and after he was on the ground. 

“I’m devastated. No mother should ever have to watch her child be beaten by the very people entrusted with his safety,” Reed said, according to the December release from the public defender’s office. “Seeing that video and knowing my son is still in that facility is terrifying.”  According to the lawsuit, which was filed April 28, the teen is no longer at the facility as of April 9. 

The lawsuit says his placement in the facility stemmed from being found guilty of a misdemeanor count of retail theft and a misdemeanor count of obstructing an officer. 

On the evening of May 27, 2025, while the teen was in the facility dayroom, he “became dysregulated due to one or more of his disabilities, and he began arguing with another (facility) resident,” the lawsuit alleges. An employee requested assistance from safety and security coordinators.

The Knights responded to the dayroom, and the teen willingly walked with them to the intake area with no physical resistance, the lawsuit alleges. Two other coordinators accompanied them to the intake room.

In December, the county said that the teen made multiple threats of physical violence to other juveniles and staff. During the walk to the intake area, he was “mouthing off” to the Knights, who egged him on, the lawsuit alleges. The teen told Jordan Knight he would beat him up but “made no physical contact or aggressive moves toward Jordan Knight.” 

In the intake area, Robert Knight pointed in the teen’s face and screamed at him to “stop making threats,” the lawsuit states. 

The lawsuit says Knight told the teen to enter a holding room and repeatedly said “go ahead then.” It says that without physical provocation or physical resistance from the teen, he punched the teen in the face.

The lawsuit alleges that the teen did not punch, kick or otherwise try to injure the Knights during the incident. Robert and Jordan Knight hit him over 20 times with closed fists, knee strikes and elbow strikes, it says.

The teen experienced physical injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress and other damages, the lawsuit says.

According to the public defender’s office, the teen had bruises, swelling on his right eye, blurred vision and headaches, scrapes and cuts and dried blood in his ear, based on records from evaluations arranged by the facility. 

The county executive’s office sent a statement to the Examiner, saying that after the incident, Racine County conducted an internal review of policies, procedures and operational practices at the center, with protocol updates receiving final approval from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. 

“Racine County Human Services is dedicated to continuous improvement. It is imbedded in our operations with the goal for the highest quality of services for those entrusted in our care,” the county asserted in a written statement. 

The county stated that as part of that review, it implemented additional measures focused on supervisor practices, staff training and continued development on de-escalation, trauma-informed care and evidence-based responses for youth with complex behavioral and mental health needs. 

The county said it also reviewed treatment-oriented models used in other facilities serving youth with significant behavioral or mental health challenges “to inform ongoing operational improvements.”

Racine County said in December that “the primarily involved staff member” was immediately placed on administrative leave after the incident and resigned within three days. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in December that this was Robert Knight and that Knight said the teen was displaying signs of aggression at the time of the incident. He said his actions were justified based on the teen’s history at the center.  

The Journal Sentinel reported that he said he intended to force the boy back and not actually strike him but that this is not apparent in the video. 

Knight said he resigned because of a shift toward working with more youth with mental health issues, according to the Journal Sentinel. 

The lawsuit alleges that he resigned to avoid investigation of his conduct and actions. 

A different worker seen repeatedly striking Anthony was ordered to complete eight hours of remedial training, according to the public defender’s office release in December. The Journal Sentinel reported that this was Jordan Knight, who, according to the lawsuit, is still working at the facility.

In December, the county said that law enforcement and independent human services agencies fully investigated and reviewed the incident. It said the details of the investigation and relevant video were provided to the Racine County District Attorney’s Office, and that the office declined to pursue prosecution. 

On Friday, the Examiner asked the district attorney’s office for a statement on why the office declined to pursue prosecution. District Attorney Tricia Hanson said in an email that the lawsuit does not change her decision. She said the burden of proof in a criminal case is significantly higher than in the civil lawsuit. 

In December, the public defender’s office called for a “full-scale” investigation into conditions at the facility and the qualifications of staff members who interact with children. State Public Defender Jennifer Bias said that meaningful reforms to how children are treated in the juvenile justice system are needed. 

In its statement on Friday, the county said it will respond to the allegations through the legal process and will not further discuss the pending lawsuit. 

The Alabama Legislature on Friday passed two bills that would allow the state to set new primary elections in certain congressional and legislative district if federal courts allow the state to revert to maps it previously declared racially discriminatory.

The session came after the U.S. Supreme Court substantially weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, preventing racial discrimination in voting laws, in Louisiana v. Callais, and as the Alabama Attorney General’s Office sought to overturn prior court rulings that led to the creation of a second congressional district with a substantial population of Black voters.

Republicans said the efforts were meant to allow state officials to draw maps. Gov. Kay Ivey, who called the special session on May 1, said it would take mapping power from “activist groups who think they know Alabama better than Alabama.”

Democrats through the session said Republicans were trying to reduce Black political representation, won through the suffering and deaths of civil rights activists.

“My aunt bludgeoned on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, tear gas, billy clubs, trampled over for the right to vote not a long time ago,” said Sen. Robert Stewart, D-Selma, during debate on Friday. “We didn’t even have the Voting Rights Act intact for 50 years. That is a sin and a shame.”

Protestors shadowed the session all week, from a Monday rally that drew at least 400 people to demonstrations in legislative committees on Thursday to a protest on Friday that led to the removal of one activist from the House galleries and drew Democratic state representatives attempting to intervene on her behalf.

Litigation over the new laws is likely if the federal courts reverse their previous rulings and allow the state to redistrict. Democrats throughout the week noted an amendment to the Alabama Constitution passed in 2022 forbids election law changes six months before an election. Republicans said the amendment did not apply to primaries.

Alabama Reflector staffers documented the session and took photos throughout the week.

Tensions erupted Friday as Republican state lawmakers presented new election maps to eliminate one or both of Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional districts.

Hundreds of people came to the State Capitol, filling several overflow rooms, to watch the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, which met to consider new U.S. House district boundaries and give the public a chance to comment. Lawmakers don’t plan to start voting on the maps until at least next week. 

Committee chairman Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, called the hearing after Gov. Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency and suspended Louisiana’s upcoming U.S. House primary elections April 30, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state’s existing congressional map was  an unconstitutional racial gerrymander against white voters. 

Within minutes of the meeting coming to order, Sen. Gary Carter Jr., D-New Orleans, began questioning Kleinpeter about how many absentee ballots had already been cast in the May 16 U.S. House primaries and whether the votes would be counted.  

“Can you give the public certainty that those ballots will not be discarded?” Carter asked.

Kleinpeter said Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry, no relation to the governor, was the appropriate official to answer his question, but she was not in attendance. 

Carter continued his questioning, asking Kleinpeter if he was personally concerned about the status of his own ballot. 

“Have you voted yet?” Carter asked.

“I don’t have to answer that,” Kleinpeter responded. 

Surprised by the rapid-fire questions from the generally soft-spoken Carter, Kleinpeter called for a recess, which eased tensions enough for the meeting to resume after several minutes. 

Kleinpeter told Carter he would make sure the secretary of state was made aware of his questions, and that she or someone from her office would attend the committee’s next meeting, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Nancy Landry has declined to answer questions related to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, explaining that the case, Callais v. Louisiana, is still in litigation after being returned to the federal district court where it originated. There are also ongoing legal challenges to the governor’s order to postpone the U.S. House primaries.

The rest of Friday’s hearing saw tempers flare among senators and protesters, with chants of “shut it down” heard from attendees watching from the Senate committee hall corridor and adjacent overflow rooms.

The discussion grew particularly heated when state Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, presented his congressional map that eliminates both majority-Black U.S. House districts. Morris, who is white, said his proposed boundaries don’t prevent a Black candidate from winning one of the state’s six seats. 

“I didn’t draw it with the intention to draw it 6-0,” Morris said. “I left race out of it … It’s intended to comply with the Supreme Court in Callais.”

Carter began a fiery exchange with Morris about legislation the West Monroe senator sponsored this session to eliminate the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court and eliminate several of its judgeships. Gov. Jeff Landry signed the clerk bill into law, preventing exonerated “prison lawyer” Calvin Duncan, who is now an actual attorney, from assuming office. Morris’ measure paring back the Orleans judges’ roster awaits House consideration.  

“Let’s look at the totality of your work,” Carter told Morris. “Your work has eliminated the elected seat of an African American in the city of New Orleans. Your work has eliminated the political power of numerous elected officials in the city of New Orleans.”

Morris said his legislation is meant only to consolidate Orleans Parish’s dual court systems for civil and criminal cases, the only one of its kind in the state.

Carter and Morris began speaking over each other, prompting Kleinpeter to call another recess, which cut off the microphones and the Capitol’s live video feed. 

“Put my microphone back on!” Carter yelled. “He’s suggesting he’s not racist. I suggest we look at his work.”

“You are out of line,” Kleinpeter said.

 

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The sergeants-at-arms intervened, trying to calm the room as Carter and Morris both stood up to leave. As Morris walked away, he turned to the spectators seated behind him, all against his proposals, and said, “Y’all need to shut up.” 

“I was frustrated when, as I was trying to answer questions from committee members, people in the audience directly behind me were continuing to comment and talk loudly enough so that it was hard for me to concentrate and answer questions,” Morris said in a statement issued after the hearing.  

As Carter and Morris both left the committee room for another recess, the crowd in the hallway  chanted “let him speak,” referring to Carter. Sergeants-at-arms stood guard on each side of the committee room’s two sets of double doors, refusing to let anyone enter or exit. 

@wesleysmuller Protestors try to barge into Senate hearing on congressional redistricting #livehighlights #tiktoklive ♬ original sound – Wes Muller

One protester, Mike McClanahan, the NAACP’s state conference president, managed to open the door and try to enter, but guards physically forced him back into the hall and shut the doors.

McClanahan was eventually allowed into the room once the commotion had settled down. In a later interview, he said he just wanted to see what was going on because the live feed was cut off.

“This is the people’s house,” McClanahan said. “We have the right to hear every single thing, especially while the session’s going on in our house. So I was just trying to tell them, ‘Let the people speak. Let the people speak.’ Because we need to hear. We want to hear.”

Morris did not return to the hearing and did not respond to a phone call later Friday. 

In a meeting that went on for about six hours, the committee heard from several voting rights advocates. 

Before the second recess, all four of Louisiana’s Black congressmen, past and present, since the Reconstruction era spoke to the committee: current U.S. Reps. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans; Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge; and former Congressmen William Jefferson and Cedric Richmond.

Troy Carter’s 2nd District seat would be eliminated in the version of the map Kleinpeter has said lawmakers are most likely to advance. The congressman is the uncle of state Sen. Gary Carter.

“Today, here in Louisiana we’re being tested and the whole world is watching,” Troy Carter said. “The question before us is not merely about lines on a map. The question before us is whether we will honor the principle that every citizen deserves equal protection of the law.”

Advocates and opponents of abortion access say they’re wondering what happens next in a critical telehealth medication case that created chaos and confusion over the past week after an appeals court blocked nationwide access to the drug and, days later, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay.

Alito’s stay preserves telehealth access until May 11. But it’s unclear what happens next for patients and providers.

The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Friday ruling to suspend a federal rule allowing telehealth prescriptions of the drug mifepristone while the lawsuit Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration unfolds. Abortion providers are determined to continue providing the service, though potentially without mifepristone, the drug at the center for the case, which has had a high record of safety and efficacy since 2000.

Anti-abortion advocates have pushed to reverse the 2023 policy, enacted under former Democratic President Joe Biden, that allowed the FDA to drop its requirement that a patient see a provider in person before the medication can be prescribed. One similar national case already failed unanimously before the Supreme Court, but anti-abortion advocates are hoping this time around, with a more tailored approach, they will be successful.

Abortion-rights advocates say they’re prepared for whatever might happen in the courts, with contingency plans and a message that abortion will still be available even if the particular medication — mifepristone — is not.

Has the abortion pill been banned?

No. Mifepristone is still a legally approved FDA drug commonly used to terminate a pregnancy before 10 weeks’ gestation and is used off-label to treat miscarriages.

Is telehealth abortion still legal?

Yes, for now. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s administrative stay that expires on May 11, it is still legal to obtain abortion medication through telemedicine under the FDA’s regulations. Mifepristone is commonly used with a second drug, misoprostol, in medication abortions. The case doesn’t include misoprostol.

Who would be affected if telehealth access is struck down?

According to the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount report, 27% of all abortions in the first six months of 2025 were obtained through telehealth, adding up to more than 162,000 cases.

Mifepristone is also used for patients experiencing a miscarriage; those patients also would have to visit a provider in person.

The ruling would apply nationwide, meaning that health providers couldn’t prescribe mifepristone without an in-person visit with the patient, even in states with abortion access.

What are the arguments on each side in Louisiana v. FDA?

Louisiana says the Biden-era policy undermines a state law banning abortion, and that the federal rulemaking process allowing telehealth prescriptions was flawed.

The Food and Drug Administration says the state doesn’t have standing to sue, but also notes that it’s taking more time to review the drug’s safety.

Two mifepristone drugmakers, meanwhile, have intervened on the FDA’s side.

What could happen next?

The Supreme Court has many options available moving forward, but a few options are most likely, said Katie Keith, founding director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. The justices could extend the stay when it expires May 11, or the court could make a longer-term ruling.

That could mean sending it back to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with or without upholding the initial ruling blocking the 2023 provision while the appeals case proceeds. Or justices could decide to take up the case and bypass the rest of the 5th Circuit appeal.

If it did that, the manufacturer defendants Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro have asked for an expedited process with a decision by June. That seems unlikely, Keith said, but the court has conducted expedited cases related to abortion before, such as the Moyle v. United States case in 2024 related to the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

What will providers do if they can’t use the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol?

Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, said providers have been preparing since 2023 for the possibility of losing access to mifepristone. There have long been plans to switch to a misoprostol-only protocol, which is the main method of pregnancy termination across much of the world, she said.

“A lot of providers had created these policies and just needed to dust them off,” Fonteno said.

Dr. Angel Foster, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, which provides telehealth abortions to patients in all 50 states, said she and her team spent the weekend scrambling to contact patients waiting on medication abortion pills they had ordered before the ruling, and implementing a contingency plan that many abortion providers have been planning for since the lawsuits against mifepristone began in 2023.

That contingency involves pivoting from the FDA-approved mifepristone-misoprostol regimen to a misoprostol-only regimen.

Early Monday, Foster said her team was getting ready to ship misoprostol-only packages to patients at 2 p.m., but after the Supreme Court stayed the appeals court’s ruling on Monday morning, she said they were able to switch back to the mifepristone-misoprostol regimen.

Foster also said her organization was inundated with requests for pills that people could stockpile — people who didn’t need an abortion but were worried about losing access to the pills. Normally that’s a small fraction of the requests they receive, she said, but on Tuesday, they sent out more than had been sent in the entire month of April.

“Over the last two days, we’ve had a huge increase in the number of people from Louisiana requesting pills, especially pills for future use,” Foster said.

What are the pros and cons of the misoprostol-only regimen?

Dr. Maya Bass, a family physician in New Jersey who also provides abortions in Delaware, said misoprostol-only regimens are still safe and highly effective, but that the regimen has a lower efficacy rate than the combination of the two drugs and comes with potentially more side effects and risks.

Misoprostol-only regimens vary between 85% and 90% effective, while the combination is between 93% and 99% effective. The effective rates are lower as the gestational age increases.

The combination works well, Bass said, because mifepristone stops the hormone that allows the pregnancy to continue and signals to the body that the pregnancy is over. The misoprostol then helps soften the cervix and prompts the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy tissue.

Without that hormonal signal, Bass said, a higher dose of misoprostol is needed to empty the uterus. The usual side effects of nausea, diarrhea, chills and sometimes fevers can be more severe because of the higher dosage. And it may lead to more people needing to seek in-person follow-up care to fully remove all of the pregnancy tissue, which can cause infection if it stays in the uterus.

“A lot of the people who are using telehealth for their medication abortion are not necessarily in places where they can safely access that care,” Bass said. “So it is concerning that we might be relying more on a regimen that means that many more people needing to seek care.”

What are the details of the legal arguments?

Louisiana officials, including Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill, argue that the state is harmed by the 2023 telehealth policy because it undermines a state law banning abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions that don’t include rape or incest. The state also challenged the Food and Drug Administration’s process in deciding to eliminate the in-person dispensing requirement, saying it was based on flawed or nonexistent data.

The state also said the rule has resulted in $92,000 in Medicaid bills from two women who went to the emergency room because of complications related to mifepristone in 2025. And the state says the rule harmed the other plaintiff in the case, Louisiana resident Rosalie Markezich, who said her ex-boyfriend ordered the medication online and pressured her into taking it. That wouldn’t have been possible if the medication had to be dispensed through an in-person visit, the state argues.

“The priority of safety supersedes the priority of access, and that is what ultimately, I believe, needs to be looked at directly,” Sarah Zagorski, senior director of public relations at Americans United for Life, told Stateline on Wednesday. The anti-abortion organization submitted a brief supporting Louisiana’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

The FDA’s response has been to try to dismiss the claims in part on the grounds that Louisiana doesn’t have standing to sue, but agency officials have also said they are in the middle of conducting a safety review of mifepristone and need more time.

GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, two of the manufacturers of mifepristone, intervened as defendants in the case, which can happen when the party that is sued may not be willing to fully defend the case for various reasons.

The two companies argue that Louisiana does not have proper standing to sue because the state does not prescribe or use mifepristone and is an “unregulated party” as it relates to the 2023 telehealth provision. They also noted that the FDA reviewed 15 studies evaluating medication abortion outcomes for more than 55,000 patients before approving the rule, “all of which supported the safety and effectiveness of dispensing mifepristone by mail, courier, or through pharmacies.”

How does this compare to the 2023 case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA?

Both lawsuits were designed to restrict access to mifepristone. The plaintiffs in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case included a group of anti-abortion doctors who said they would be harmed by having to care for people who took mifepristone. They also argued that the FDA’s approval of the drug was improper.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was involved in that case as well, and determined that the FDA should roll back its decision to ease restrictions on the drug, including the 2023 telehealth rule. But the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided in June 2024 that the Alliance plaintiffs didn’t have proper standing and sent it back to the lower court.

After that ruling, the attorneys general of Missouri, Idaho and Kansas stepped in as plaintiffs, and the case was transferred to Missouri’s U.S. district court, where it’s still pending.

The Louisiana case is more limited because it would strike down one provision of mifepristone regulation, noted Jenna Hudson, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. The Alliance plaintiffs sought to revoke the drug’s approval altogether.

Stateline reporters Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org and Sofia Resnick can be reached at sresnick@stateline.org.  

The staff of the Wisconsin Examiner won 12 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism in the online category Friday evening.

Editor Ruth Conniff took first place for Best Multi-story Coverage of a Single Feature Topic or Event for her series, Midwest-Mexico Connections on Mexican farmworkers and Wisconsin dairy farmers.

Deputy Editor Erik Gunn won the first place award for Best Long Hard Feature Story for his piece Wisconsin legislators pause to remember former colleague Jonathan Brostoff 

Isiah Holmes took home the first-place gold award in the Best Investigative Story or Series category for How the Milwaukee Investigative Team protects officers when investigating police shootings. 

Top honors went to Baylor Spears for Best Coverage of a Single News Topic or Event for her series about public schools and the struggle over Wisconsin’s budget. Spears also took first place in the Best Short Hard Feature Story category for ‘What is the bar?’: Wisconsin Legislature divided as it passes resolution honoring Charlie Kirk. 

Criminal Justice Fellows Andrew Kennard and Frank Zufall won gold in the Best Public Service Story category for Shredding of legal mail by Wisconsin prisons worries advocates

Conniff also won the second-place silver award for Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion for her column We need a populist, pro-democracy movement, not more gerrymandering, and third place for Best Columnist for her 2025 columns.

Gunn won third place in the Best Short Hard Feature Story category for People with autism and their families find Trump-Kennedy autism message harmful and wrong.

Holmes won the the second-place silver award for Best Long Soft Feature Story for UW psilocybin study gives man second chance after 10-year opioid addiction and the bronze award in the Best Explanatory Story or Series category for Biodiversity in Wisconsin amidst the 6th great mass extinction.

Spears won bronze for her Best Short Soft Feature Story Wisconsin Democrats want to say ‘Bye Bye Baby’ to unfair ticket selling practices  and another bronze award for Best Coverage of a Single News Topic or Event, including Breaking News for a series of stories over five months about the defunding of a Wisconsin veterans housing program, and the conflicting attempts to revive that funding.

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents president appointed UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter as the interim president of the UW system on Friday, about a month after firing the previous president. 

Wachter has served as the 10th chancellor of UW-Superior since 2011, making her the longest-serving chancellor in the system. Effective May 18 she will serve as the UW system interim president.

Board President Amy Bogost said in a statement that Wachter “knows our universities, our communities and the challenges and opportunities facing public higher education in Wisconsin.” 

“She has earned the trust and respect of colleagues across the system through steady leadership and a collaborative approach. At a time when continuity, focus, and forward momentum are essential, the Board is confident she understands what must be done to support our universities during this transition,” Bogost said.

Prior to her tenure at UW-Superior, Wachter served as the Dean of the School of Business at Truman State University in Missouri. 

The Board of Regents decision to fire Jay Rothman, who had served as president since 2022, on April 7 came as a surprise and led to criticism from Rothman, who said he wasn’t given a reason for the termination, and from Republican lawmakers. Regents said, however, that they were dissatisfied with Rothman’s leadership, especially as he moved too slowly to act on issues including artificial intelligence, and had communicated their concerns with him during his review process. 

Bogost said that the next president must “bring the courage, discipline, and forward-looking leadership needed to guide the Universities of Wisconsin through one of the most consequential periods in higher education.”

The Board also announced the 25-member Presidential Search Committee that will conduct a nationwide search for the next permanent president. The last time there was a retirement from the position the search for a UW system president lasted for nearly three years. 

The committee will be led by Regent Ashok Rai, and it is expected that a president will be selected later this year.

The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down the voter-approved redistricting amendment, upholding a lower court ruling that had declared the measure unconstitutional less than 24 hours after last week’s special election and briefly halted its implementation.

State Democrats later said they would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The high court found that the amendment itself was flawed because lawmakers approved the proposal after voting had already started in the 2025 House of Delegates elections, depriving more than 1.3 million Virginians of an opportunity to weigh the issue when choosing their representatives.

Virginia voters back redistricting amendment after months of legal and political battles

The 4-3 ruling leaves the state’s current congressional districts — which give Democrats a 6-5 advantage — in place throughout the 2026 midterm election and the rest of the decade, instead of proposed districts that Democrats believed could produce a 10-1 advantage.  

The decision affirms the ruling by a Tazewell County judge who had blocked the amendment, siding with Republican challengers who argued the General Assembly failed to follow required constitutional procedures. 

In the opinion, the justices said Article XII, Section 1 of Virginia’s constitution requires “an intervening general election” between the legislature’s first and second approvals of a constitutional amendment so voters can evaluate candidates based on their stance on the proposal.

“The purpose of Article XII, Section 1 is to give voters the opportunity to participate in the process of amending their Constitution,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority. “The commonwealth in this case … ended up denying over 1.3 million Virginians their constitutional right to have a voice in the debate over whether their Constitution should be amended.” 

State Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, the Senate Republican leader and one of the appellees in the case, praised the ruling as a reaffirmation of Virginia’s constitutional process.

“The Supreme Court ruling today affirms what we all know: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” McDougle said in a statement. He added that the decision showed “even the General Assembly must follow the law.”

McDougle called the ruling “not a partisan one — it is a constitutional one” and said “every Virginian wins.”

House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, another appellee, praised the decision as a reaffirmation that constitutional amendment procedures must be strictly followed regardless of political considerations.

“Today’s ruling establishes once again that the Constitution of Virginia means what it says,” Kilgore said in a statement. 

“The rule of law requires that Virginians have an opportunity to review a constitutional amendment before they vote for the House of Delegates in a meaningful way. You cannot violate the constitution to amend the constitution.”

And Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which had filed an amicus brief in the case and brought a similar challenge, accused Democrats of trying to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts for political advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the rule of law and struck down Democrats’ unconstitutional maps.”

Gruters said the RNC had “led the charge in court against this blatant power grab” and accused Democrats of spending “more than $66 million into an effort to lock in control and silence voters.”

Meanwhile, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones criticized the ruling and said the state is still considering its legal options.

“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21 special election on redistricting,” Jones said in a statement. “This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the commonwealth.”

Jones defended the amendment process as “timely, constitutionally-compliant, and legally sound,” and accused the court’s Republican-appointed majority of “contort[ing] the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia.”

He said his office is “evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections.”

By Friday afternoon, state Democrats made a filing asking the high court to delay enforcing its ruling, suggesting they would pursue an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

“Appellants and the Commonwealth intend to file an emergency petition to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the court document read.

But Carl Tobias,  a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States would face significant practical and legal obstacles, particularly this late in the court’s term and so close to the 2026 elections.

“It is very late in the SCOTUS term for the U.S. Supreme Court justices to give an appeal a full-dress treatment, and the justices are often reluctant to rule on voting disputes as elections approach,” Tobias said. 

“However, this is an important case, so it may be possible that SCOTUS would entertain an appeal.” He added that the nation’s highest court “may also be reluctant to second guess the interpretation of Virginia’s Constitution by a 4-3 majority of the Virginia Supreme Court justices.”

The court’s decision comes twelve days after justices heard oral arguments in the case, pressing attorneys on whether lawmakers complied with constitutional requirements governing amendments. 

At issue was whether Democrats had lawfully advanced the amendment through the required legislative process before sending it to voters. 

The case focused on disputes over whether there was a valid intervening General Election between legislative approvals, whether the public received the required notice ahead of the November election, and whether the amendment could legally be taken up during a special session initially called to address changes to the state budget. 

During arguments, Justice Wesley G. Russell Jr. questioned both sides closely, probing the limits of legislative authority and whether alleged procedural defects should invalidate the measure already approved by the voters. 

The morning after the hearing, the court denied a request by the Virginia Department of Elections to stay Tazewell County’s April 22 order while it continued to consider the case. 

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, one of the chief architects of the amendment, said Friday that while he respects the court’s decision, the referendum still reflected the will of millions of Virginians who backed the measure at the ballot box.

“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” Scott said in a statement. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear.” 

He added that supporters would “keep fighting for a democracy where voters — not politicians — have the final say.”

President Donald Trump weighed in on his Truth Social network, calling the ruling a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”

GOP challenges test limits of amendment process

The lawsuit was filed in October by Republican lawmakers and a member of Virginia’s redistricting commission. Plaintiffs included state Sens. Ryan McDougle of Hanover and Bill Stanley of Franklin, Del. Terry Kilgore of Scott, and Commissioner Virginia Trost Thornton. 

They argued that the legislature overstepped its authority and failed to follow the constitutionally mandated process, which requires amendments to pass the General Assembly twice with an intervening General Election before going to voters. 

Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley agreed in January, ruling that the amendment process was flawed. 

The state appealed, and while the Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed ahead of the April 21 vote, it did not immediately resolve the underlying legal questions, setting the stage for a post-election hearing and this week’s decision. 

The case has drawn national attention as both parties look ahead to the 2026 midterms, when control of the U.S. House could come down to a small number of competitive districts. 

Virginia’s attempt to redraw congressional districts outside the normal post-census cycle became part of a broader national push by both parties to revisit House maps ahead of the midterms. The effort gained momentum after Trump encouraged Republican-led states, beginning with Texas, to pursue similar redistricting moves.  

The lower court’s ruling April 22 briefly halted those plans in Virginia.

Hurley found lawmakers exceeded the scope of the special session in which the amendment was first introduced, failed to meet public notice requirements and did not properly satisfy the intervening election requirement. 

Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed that decision, although it remains unclear if the ruling will be viewed as a precedent for two related cases currently moving through the court system, or whether these cases will be taken up separately by the high court.

David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, said the ruling represents both a political blow to Democrats and a broader affirmation that constitutional procedures still matter, regardless of the political stakes involved.

“The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling today is an obvious setback for the Democrats, but it is also a win for making the state government pay closer attention to the rules,” Richards said. 

“The whole referendum was hastily put together, and this is the result we get — so much time and money wasted in an effort to work around the rules and a districting system that the voters had just approved a few years earlier.” 

He added that while “it may not be the outcome some people wanted,” the court “was right not to give in to pressure and instead soberly look at the process.”

From late-October push to legal showdown

The redistricting battle began on Oct. 27, just days before the Nov. 4 state elections, when Democratic lawmakers introduced a constitutional amendment during a special session of the General Assembly that would allow congressional districts to be redrawn outside of the once-in-a-decade redistricting cycle tied to the census. 

The proposal immediately sparked partisan fights over both the timing of the amendment and Democrats’ push to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the midterms. 

The House advanced the proposal the next day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 along party lines, pushing it forward as required by the multi-step constitutional process, which required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent session. 

When lawmakers returned to Richmond in January, they approved the legislation a second time, but the measure soon became entangled in legal challenges. 

After Hurley first ruled the amendment invalid, the Supreme Court of Virginia intervened, allowing the referendum to proceed despite the lower court ruling. At the time, justices made clear they were not resolving the broader legal questions, only ensuring that voters would have the opportunity to weigh in. 

The court’s earlier decision to allow the referendum onto the ballot led many legal observers to believe the amendment would likely survive if voters approved it. 

As the legal fight continued, Democrats began outlining what the new congressional districts would look like. A proposed map released in early February that would likely favor them in most of Virginia’s 11 districts.

Republicans escalated their opposition soon after, filing additional legal challenges and seeking to block the vote. A temporary restraining order by the Tazewell County court applied locally, but the Supreme Court again stepped in to stay that order, allowing the referendum to proceed statewide. 

Heated campaigns culminate in close final margin 

The fight over the amendment intensified in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Outside groups backing both sides poured millions of dollars into the campaign in March, flooding voters with ads and mailers. Some of the messaging drew criticism for using civil rights-era imagery.

Civil rights imagery in anti-redistricting mailers draws outrage in Virginia

Both parties expanded outreach efforts as early voting data showed strong turnout in Republican-leaning parts of the state, making the final outcome harder to predict. 

In the final days of the campaign, Gov. Abigail Spanberger ramped up her public support for the amendment while former Gov. Glenn Youngkin urged voters to reject the measure and continued pressing the courts to block the measure. 

Spanberger said Friday she was disappointed by the ruling but emphasized that voters will still ultimately decide the balance of political power in the 2026 midterm elections.

“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a president who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum,” Spanberger said in a statement. “They made their voices heard.”

She added that while she disagreed with the court’s decision, her administration’s focus would now shift toward voter participation in the upcoming elections. 

Voters ultimately approved the amendment by roughly three percentage points April 21, before the dispute returned to the Supreme Court. 

With the Supreme Court’s decision now in place, the new congressional maps will not take effect, leaving Virginia’s current districts in place until a previously passed amendment requires the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission to draw new maps following the 2030 census. 

Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story that will be updated as more information becomes available. 

WASHINGTON — The federal student loan system is set to see a dramatic overhaul beginning this summer, and critics warn it likely will make loans more expensive and difficult to obtain for borrowers — driving them to private lenders or altering their plans for higher education.

Among the major changes are new loan limits for graduate and professional students, a restructured repayment system where new borrowers will have only two plans to choose from and the elimination of a key loan program for graduate and professional students that allowed for unlimited borrowing.

The provisions — most of which will take effect July 1 — stem from congressional Republicans’ mega tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year. 

The U.S. Department of Education finalized regulations, published May 1, that implement sweeping changes outlined in the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law. The department received more than 80,000 public comments before the rule was finalized. 

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said that “at a high level,” the reforms center on “lowering the cost of college, simplifying student loan repayment and restoring accountability to the federal student lending system,” during an April 30 call with reporters regarding the new regulations. 

The average federal student loan debt balance stands at $39,547, according to the Education Data Initiative.

As July 1 approaches, here’s a closer look at some of the biggest changes coming to the federal student loan system: 

Elimination of Grad PLUS 

The Grad PLUS program, which allowed for graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, will soon be eliminated under the package and unavailable for new borrowers.

“If you are currently borrowing Grad PLUS loans, so you borrowed Grad PLUS loans before July 1, you will be allowed to continue using Grad PLUS until you finish your program, or until three years have expired, basically whichever is sooner,” said Preston Cooper, senior fellow in higher education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

“Current students are grandfathered in — it will only be new graduate students, as of this fall, after July 1, who will be subject to the new loan limits,” Cooper said. 

New borrowing caps 

The package also sets forth new annual and aggregate loan limits for graduate and professional students, along with parents who take out federal student loans for dependent undergraduate students. 

Graduate student loans will be capped at $20,500 annually, with a $100,000 aggregate limit. 

Parent PLUS borrowers will have an annual cap of $20,000 and an aggregate cap of $65,000 per dependent. 

Professional student loans will have a $50,000 annual limit and an aggregate cap of $200,000. 

The programs that fall within the department’s “professional” category and are subject to that larger loan cap include: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology. 

The department clarified in a fact sheet on the finalized regulations that the “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any occupation or field” but instead serve a “loan-administration function.” 

The agency has received immense pushback from groups representing people in fields that do not fall under the department’s definition and will thus be subject to lower annual and lifetime borrowing caps. 

Incoming repayment options 

In another major shift, the regulations replace prior repayment options with two new plans — the Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, and the Tiered Standard plan — both of which will launch July 1.

RAP is an income-based repayment plan that “waives unpaid interest for borrowers who make on-time payments that do not fully cover accruing interest,” per the department’s fact sheet. 

Balances under the plan will also “decline with each on-time payment, as unpaid interest is fully waived and the Department then reduces principal by an amount equal to the borrower’s payment, up to $50,” per the agency. 

The Tiered Standard plan offers fixed monthly payments, ranging from a 10-year to 25-year period, depending on the outstanding principal balance of the borrower. 

‘A lot more expensive’

“The upshot is that loan repayment is going to get a lot more expensive for almost everyone, and for some people, it’s going to get significantly more expensive, and the transition is also going to be difficult for a lot of people to manage,” Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access & Success, told States Newsroom.

Zampini, whose organization aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education, said she thinks “there will be a lot of students who will have to turn to the private loan market, who otherwise would have been able to cover their costs through the (Grad PLUS) program.”

Victoria Jackson, assistant director of higher education policy at the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said that with the new loan limits and “drastic cuts to aid availability” in the regulations, “you would really hope that it would come with other, more affordable and better forms of financial aid.” 

“And what they’ve done is just created this vacuum that right now can really only be filled with private loans, which are costlier and riskier for students, or students are just not going to go,” Jackson said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues its efforts to eliminate the Department of Education, including through a series of interagency agreements that transfer several of its responsibilities to other departments. 

Under the most recent agreement, the Treasury Department will take over Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt — the first step in a multiphase process toward Treasury taking on Education’s entire, roughly $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.

Transition to new system

Zampini noted that, when it comes to the incoming student loan regulations, she does not have confidence in the Education Department’s “ability at this moment to successfully manage the transition without a lot of issues, as far as servicing and as far as account tracking and plan enrollment and things like that.” 

Jackson, of EdTrust, said that “by weakening the federal financial aid system, I think there’s a weakening of our higher education system and making it more difficult for low-income students, students of color and other marginalized students to access graduate education.”

She added that “people who complete those degrees tend to have more financial security in the future — they earn more over their lifetimes and, on markers of financial success and opportunity, do better.” 

“I think this is one prong of a plan of undermining our overall higher education system.” 

As former Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan approaches sentencing after being convicted of obstructing federal agents during an immigration arrest last year, attorneys on both sides of the case are battling over whether new precedents around federal statutes should apply to the former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge. 

The FBI arrested Dugan last year on charges she helped a man who was making a routine appearance in her court evade immigration officers who were waiting for him in the public hallway outside the courtroom. 

Court staff initially noticed the agents and informed Dugan, who approached them and told the agents to go check in with the chief judge. 

While the agents waited to talk to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, Dugan went back to her courtroom and quickly called 30-year-old Mexican-born Eduardo Flores Ruiz and his attorney, set a date for them to come back, and then allowed them to exit the courtroom through a non-public hallway, at the end of which was a door back into the hallway where the agents waited. After going out that door, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney unknowingly rode the elevator down with one of the undercover agents. Flores Ruiz was arrested outside after a brief foot pursuit. 

Dugan was charged with obstructing federal agents and concealing Flores Ruiz. After a trial in December, a federal jury found Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but not guilty of misdemeanor concealment. Dugan’s attorneys highlighted the split verdict and moved for U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to overturn the conviction. 

In April, Urban Milwaukee reported, Dugan’s legal team filed a motion arguing that a recent U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision changed the precedent governing the legal interpretation of the federal statute under which Dugan was convicted. The decision, in United States v. Hernandez, held that immigration proceedings do not include deportation operations, relevant since Dugan, who resigned shortly after her trial, was convicted of obstructing an immigration “proceeding.” 

Federal prosecutors have countered that the appeals court decision “is neither binding nor persuasive, and it does nothing to call into question this Court’s reasoning.” They argue that the jury instructions crafted by prosecutors and provided to the jury by Judge Adelman over instructions crafted by the defense team were sound. Adelman had previously denied a request from Dugan’s legal team for acquittal and a new trial.

Dugan faces up to five years in prison and $350,000 in fines. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 3. 

When Katy Dicks’ two children were both in childcare programs, she and her partner would dread sitting down each month to have the hard conversations about which bills would go on their multiple credit cards, the highest with a 20% interest rate, and which they could pay outright. “It’s a constant budgeting game,” Dicks said, although she and her family watch every penny and keep their finances as tight as possible. 

According to Act For Early Years, the global childcare campaign, the major expense that weighed on Katy and her partner each month is what also plagues 70% of American parents: the high cost of childcare. According to Care.com, Katy, 45, and her domestic partner, who live in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, are like parents across the nation for whom care has become an “all-consuming strain.” The same source found that mothers report “significantly higher levels of overwhelm, guilt, and identity loss” than fathers, pressuring many to leave the workforce. In fact, of the 455,000 women who left the workforce in 2025, roughly 42% pointed to caregiving costs as the No. 1 reason. In the past 40 years, cost has been the primary reason for the steepest decline in mothers of young children participating in the workforce. 

Katy, whose children are now ages 7 and 11, works primarily as a Pharmacy Project Coordinator, but she is also a realtor, and a co-owner of a logistics business with her partner. Katy considers herself “blessed” because she found wonderful, regulated childcare nearby for both of her children, and she “felt good with the care my children received.” However, between the full-time home-based care and the preschool for both children, it cost her and her partner between $20,000-$30,000 per year over six years for a total of $167,000. Average annual costs for childcare in Wisconsin range between $13,000 and $18,000. Even working her three jobs, she and her partner still owe $45,000 in credit card debt because of their childcare costs. According to a new study, a two-child family would need to earn $400,000 to make childcare affordable, defined as 7% of income by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an unreachable sum for most families including Katy and her partner.

The reason for the high cost of childcare in the U.S. is primarily due to the fact that early childhood education is not considered a public good. Therefore, with little to no public investment in childcare for everyone, early educators are often entirely reliant upon parents’ private tuition payments to operate their programs. Despite high tuition rates, Wisconsin providers earn, on average, $13.55 per hour, compared to the average hourly wage of $28.44 for Wisconsin workers, with family childcare providers earning $7.46 per hour. 

This changed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government recognized childcare as essential and distributed funds to states to stabilize the childcare workforce. In Wisconsin, $20 million per month was distributed to approximately 5,000 licensed providers, assisting in the retention of 72,000 professionals, and supporting care for over 417,000 children throughout the state through a program called Child Care Counts. While recent research shows that this program was highly effective, the majority of Republican legislators rejected continued funding for the program. Additionally, even though the 2025-2027 budget for the first time included state funds for childcare, that funding ends in June 2026, leaving providers once again on their own to figure out how to continue, or in many cases simply to close their programs. 

Katy also experienced complications during pregnancy and her maternity leave. During her first pregnancy she developed pre-eclampsia and had to be hospitalized and induced. After just three months of maternity leave at partial pay, she said, “It was the hardest day of my life to go back to work. What I needed was 12 months to heal and bond with my baby.” Nonetheless, she felt fortunate that she had childcare in place, had kept her job, and therefore had health insurance to pay all of her medical bills. 

When Katy returned to work, she went to her infant’s child care program every day to breastfeed her baby on her lunch break, to bond with her baby and also because she wasn’t able to pump enough milk to last through the day. When she tried pumping at work, she felt like her male supervisor was always “breathing down my neck,” and pumping twice a day felt like she was “pushing it.” Not long after, her supervisor gave her a performance improvement plan (PIP) for taking time out to pump breast milk.

With her second child, in a new position, Katy developed pre-eclampsia again, and had to be induced, but at this employer, she felt the pressure to quit working more intensely. After she repeatedly brought up the topic of maternity leave with her male supervisor, the company finally agreed to give her three months of unpaid leave. She made a plea for partial pay during her leave, only to be informed by her supervisor that the company would indeed adopt a partially paid maternity leave, but not until after her maternity leave was over. He also told her that she was the first employee he had who was pregnant and required maternity leave. 

The U.S. is the only wealthy nation on Earth that lacks federally mandated, paid maternity leave, even though about three-quarters of mothers are employed. As of January 2026, only 14 states and the District of Columbia had a mandated, paid maternity leave of eight to 12 weeks. Wisconsin does not have mandated, paid maternity leave. 

Katy’s  experiences ultimately drove her to take a leadership position in the Mother Forward chapter in Wisconsin to push for better policies so that mothers are set up for success.

It’s different in Denmark

When Manal Stulgaitis, an American, moved to Denmark to work for the United Nations, she had no idea how the early childhood education system worked. She visited the country  ahead of her family before the move to check out childcare programs. One morning, when she was out for a jog, she stumbled across an enchanting scene. Peering through a tall fence surrounding a huge residential house, she saw children in snowsuits playing on climbing equipment built into the trees and sitting under a structure whittling sticks around a fire. Teachers stood nearby, observing and supporting the children in their explorations. Manal decided to visit the place right away. She found the administrator and teachers welcoming and they quickly determined that they had space, so she was able to enroll her 3-year-old without delay. The center was part of the public early childhood education system, and she remembers it cost approximately $400 per month, and “was absolutely zero stress.” Meanwhile, her 6-year-old attended public school. 

Manal, 51, whose children are now 10 and 13 years old, like all parents in Denmark, was  entitled to a guaranteed childcare slot regardless of income or geographic location. Indeed, Danish law mandates this and ensures that parents pay no more than 25% of the cost of childcare, unless a family’s income is below a certain threshold, in which case it is free. 

As for maternity leave, although it did not apply to Manal since her children were older, the standard in Denmark is a paid shared parental leave that begins four weeks before a mother gives birth and continues for 24 weeks post birth. Another parent can share up to 10 weeks of the leave, and there is additional flexibility depending on the circumstances for a total of 52 weeks. Recent research shows that Denmark’s childcare and paid parental leave policies combined erase 80% of what’s called “the motherhood penalty” for working mothers, allowing them to pursue their careers and passions. This is certainly the case for Manal, who said, “I don’t think there are words to describe how it impacts you individually or how it impacts our family. To have the essentials like healthcare and childcare and education taken care of by the state – both financially and in terms of the regulatory aspects — gives every single Danish person a huge measure of confidence. We were so lucky to experience that system, which serves children and their parents so well.” 

Policymakers in the U.S. have chosen a hands-off approach to childcare and maternity leave. This has had the effect of normalizing the suffering new mothers and parents experience, pressures mothers to leave the workforce, stalls their careers, and loads parents with debt. Denmark, on the other hand, has chosen to promote equality for mothers by mandating and investing in both paid parental leave and childcare. For Manal, the impact of having her daughter welcomed and supported in a high-quality early childhood education system was “a lifesaver.” She could be a  mother and have a high-powered career that demanded long days and frequent travel. Total confidence in her child’s program meant that she or her husband could “drop the kids off in the morning and not have a second thought about their safety or their wellbeing.” Having a high-quality system freed both her and her husband to focus fully on their work, without all the stress parents in the U.S. feel over their children’s well-being and the toll having a baby takes on their household  finances. Childcare advocates in the U.S. say policymakers here could choose policies that set mothers up for success, rather than test their grit, tolerance for debt, and willingness to endure the pain of worrying whether their children are getting good care. 

Across the country, citizens demanding universal child care in their own  communities are joining the thousands of mothers, child care providers, and advocates gathering on Monday, May 11, 2026 for the 5th annual Day Without Child Care.

Support for this reporting came from the Better Life Lab at New America.

The Atwood Music Hall in Madison was packed Wednesday afternoon, as community members said goodbye to Stuart Dymzarov, the founding principal of Malcolm Shabazz City High School and, for many, many people, a beloved mentor and friend.

Colleagues and former students at Shabazz, the alternative school launched in 1971 with a grant from the Ford Foundation, remembered Stuart’s fierce advocacy for his vision of an open-minded, flexible school. “Education by any means necessary,” was his riff on the famous slogan of the school’s namesake, Malcolm X.

Hearing the eulogies for Stuart, a big bear of a man with a wild beard, radical politics and a radiant warmth, brought back the optimism and high spirits of a generation of Madisonians who protested the war in Vietnam, rejected careerist striving and established their own little cooperative communities in the idealistic belief that they were on the cusp of changing the world for the better. 

One of those starry-eyed idealists was my mother, Dorothy Conniff, who lived in a collective household with Stuart and a dozen other young radicals on Spaight Street on Madison’s East Side. She was in her 20s then and I was just a toddler. “We supported each other’s projects and ideals and had intense discussions about how to change the world,” my mom wrote in the online guest book for Stuart’s memorial. I remember a single check she kept in a scrapbook from the joint household account of those days, with 14 names in the upper lefthand corner — a testament to the trust and cooperation in that happy group. 

Like a lot of young people in the heady 1960s and 1970s in Madison, my mom, Stuart and their whole cohort felt progress over injustice and violence was underway and the world would soon be a brighter place.  “We were optimistic because the antiwar movement had forced Lyndon Johnson out of office,” my mom told me. A lot of former Madison radicals were in the white-haired crowd at the memorial service, including former Mayor Paul Soglin, former Alderman Billy Feitlinger and Jeff Feinblatt, one of the Shabazz teachers who, inspired by Stuart, nurtured and inspired a new generation of young people.

I remember Stuart as a big, benign presence in striped overalls, hoisting the kids in the Spaight Street household on his shoulders and rumbling around the house. Later he became a devoted father to his own three children with his wife of 50 years, Marsha (the two combined their last names, Dym and Zarov) and a beloved uncle, grandfather and father figure to hundreds of Shabazz students. 

Stuart’s nephew Miles Kietzer gave a touching tribute to the uncle who used to pick him up along with his sister after school and take them wherever they wanted to go, buying them treats and letting them fritter away his money on plastic trinkets with an easy-going smile.

Stuart’s brother Harvey described how Stuart would spend endless hours hanging out and having conversations with people, and when Harvey quizzed him on what they had said and what he had learned, he shrugged it off. “I like experiencing people,” he told Harvey. That acceptance and enjoyment of people with no particular goal in mind was classic Stuart.

Stuart was always willing to give people rides, day and night, including, according to one of his younger relatives, on a memorable night when he called Stuart from a biker bar where he was having a drug-induced attack of paranoia. Stuart drove across town in the middle of the night, appeared in the doorway of the bar, a looming presence in a khaki jacket and driving cap, wrapped his younger relative in a hug and took him home.

The feeling of safety and love he gave people is the strongest, lasting impression Stuart left.

He was a fighter — against the “fascist” politics he despised in the U.S. government, even before the current era, and on behalf of people he felt were not given a fair shake. His friends remember his ferociousness on the basketball court, his relentlessness in political arguments, and his tireless, aggressive advocacy at school board meetings and the superintendent’s office on behalf of the staff and students at Shabazz.

But mostly, Stuart made people feel cared for, appreciated, heard. It seems to me that quality is exactly what we need right now, to counter the epic cruelty, hatred and greed that is engulfing our nation and the world.

The sunny optimism of the 1960s counterculture seems far away today. But Stuart’s legacy lives on, not just at the still-thriving alternative high school he founded (where the family encourages people to make a donation to the scholarship program in his name), but also in the light he brought into the world by really seeing other people, accepting and loving them. Experiencing that quality in Stuart in small ways, one on one, is what made such a difference for people. More than any grand political program or analysis, it is a powerful antidote to despair. 

The publisher of the Cap Times said Thursday that the news organization’s management will voluntarily recognize the eight-member newsroom staff’s union. 

The employees formally announced their union campaign in a meeting with Publisher Paul Fanlund and other Cap Times managers a week ago. They have affiliated with the NewsGuild-CWA, which also represents employees at Wisconsin Watch and at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

“The Capital Times Co. has decided to voluntarily recognize the labor union being formed by Capital Times reporters and we hope to work towards an amicable outcome,” Fanlund said in a statement Thursday. “In the meantime, we will continue the excellent reporting and opinion journalism that the community has come to depend upon.”

The Capital Times newspaper was founded in 1917 by William T. Evjue and throughout its history has been known in Madison as a staunch voice for liberal and progressive values, including its support for labor unions.

Since 2008, what was once a daily evening newspaper has published online with a weekly print tabloid edition. While retaining its original name as a business entity, the newspaper adopted its longstanding nickname among readers as its moniker.

In making their case for a union, the employees primarily focused on the paper’s progressive heritage as well as their interest in greater involvement in its operation.

“I’m proud of all the work we put into forming a union,” said Erin Gretzinger, the K-12 reporter at the Cap Times. “Management’s decision to voluntarily recognize us aligns with the Cap Times’ longstanding values, and it is reflective of our value to the newsroom and the broader Madison community. I look forward to the next steps in this process and working collaboratively to ensure a strong future for our newsroom.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s trade agenda faced another major setback Thursday when the U.S. Court of International Trade handed a win to two small businesses and the state of Washington after they challenged the president’s 10% global tariffs, imposed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his previous emergency tariff regime.

In a 2-1 decision, the court granted a permanent injunction to a Florida-based toy manufacturer and a New York-based spice importer that sued the Trump administration in March, alleging the new tariffs would harm their businesses.

The court also granted relief to Washington state, which was among nearly two dozen states that sued over the tariffs. 

Tariff ‘bazooka’

Jay Foreman, CEO of toy company Basic Fun!, said he was “extremely excited” upon learning the decision.

“It takes a lot of guts and chutzpah for small companies like us and Burlap and Barrel to put ourselves out on the line to fight what we feel is injustice and unfair,” he said during a virtual press conference, referring to the other company named in the lawsuit, an online spice retailer.

“Certainly, there’s a place for tariffs on strategic products that make sense to protect in this country …  but in cases across the board, to approach this situation with a bazooka instead of a fine-tooth comb makes no sense, and it hurts companies like ours, hurts companies like Burlap and Barrel, hurts the consumer,” Foreman said Thursday evening. 

Basic Fun! is behind popular toys, including Tonka Trucks and Care Bears.

Foreman said he expects imports that were subject to the tariffs to arrive as soon as tomorrow.

“I’m already emailing my customs broker to make sure they’re on it,” he said.

The ruling only applies to the plaintiffs Basic Fun! and the online spice retailer Burlap and Barrel, and does not give universal relief to all businesses that must pay the blanket 10% tax on imports. 

Jeffrey Schwab, who argued the case on behalf of the clients for the Liberty Justice Center, said the nonprofit advocacy law firm has been “wrestling” with what the decision means for other businesses that are paying the import tax.

“It’s not entirely clear, and probably will depend on what happens now if the government appeals. If the government seeks a stay that could have an effect. Certainly, I think companies will probably want to file (legal challenges), being concerned about making sure that the tariffs stop for them, and possibly ensuring that they get a refund too,” Schwab said.

Win for Washington state

The ruling also applies to Washington state as an importer subject to the tariffs, according to the ruling. 

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown called the ruling “a win for both affordability and the rule of law.”

“It’s American consumers and businesses that have ultimately paid for the president’s illegal tariff campaign,” he said in a statement. “The court’s order will encourage more parties to challenge this illegal executive overreach.”

The judges ruled other states that sued did not have standing because they were “non-importers.” Among them were Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Trump ordered the fresh round of tariffs on Feb. 20, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 opinion, that his initial global tariffs under the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA, exceeded his presidential authority.

Following the Supreme Court loss, Trump’s alternative tariffs, imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, went into effect on Feb. 24.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is now in the legally mandated process of refunding businesses and importers who paid a collective $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

A new report forecasts that changes to Medicaid enacted in 2025 will cut $7 billion from the program in Wisconsin alone over the next 10 years, according to the advocacy group Protect Our Care.

Calculations last year from KFF, a nonprofit, nonpartisan healthcare policy and news organization, indicate that at least 57,000 more people in Wisconsin will become uninsured by 2034.

“Wisconsinites and people everywhere have either lost coverage or they’re living with the ongoing fear of not knowing whether or not they’ll have health coverage in the next month,” said state Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) in a media call conducted Thursday by Protect Our Care.

The organization has issued a new report on the impact on Medicaid across the country from the 2025 tax cut and spending bill that passed with only Republican votes and was signed by President Donald Trump July 4. The legislation’s tax cuts primarily went to the wealthiest Americans, said Protect Our Care’s Joe Zepecki.

“Every single state in the United States is going to see these cuts and it’s going to have all kinds of consequences,” said U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee), who also took part in the call Thursday.

The legislation included new requirements for some Medicaid recipients to prove they are working or are exempt from a work requirement. It also included requirements that those recipients submit paperwork showing they qualify for Medicaid twice a year instead of once a year.

Those requirements will take effect in 2027. The work-reporting requirements, however, have been broadly criticized by healthcare experts.

“We have also consistently seen in our research and everybody’s research that work requirement policies often do not meaningfully increase employment or access to inclusive, competitive employment,” said Dr. Kiley McLean, a social work professor, researcher and advocate for people with disabilities.

“Instead, they create paperwork barriers that cause eligible people to lose coverage, not because they are ineligible because but because the system becomes too difficult for them to navigate,” McLean said.

McLean said she has heard from people with disabilities and their families who are concerned that they could lose access to Medicaid for healthcare and personal care in their homes and communities.

“For decades, disability advocates like myself have fought to move away from unnecessary institutionalization and toward community living and inclusion,” she said. “Medicaid is what made that possible.”

States can apply waivers to cover those home and community based services — referred to as HCBS for short. But while federal law requires Medicaid coverage for people in institutions, it’s optional for home and community-based care, McLean said.

“That means when states face budget pressure or major Medicaid cuts, community services, HCBS services are among the first at risk,” McLean said.

Another call participant, Dr. Chris Ford, said he has seen the consequences on the job as an emergency room specialist in Milwaukee.

“When access to primary care disappears, when those clinics close, and when people lose that insurance, the emergency department becomes a safety net for an entire — albeit collapsing — system,” Ford said. “We are already seeing the warning signs happening now.”

Ford said he’s seen longer wait times in the emergency room, more patients who, lacking insurance, are “delaying care until they’re critically ill.”

“These cuts disproportionately hurt the very people  who already face the greatest barriers to care to begin with,” Ford said. “This is not something that is a potential. This is something that is happening already.”

This report has been updated.

All three members of the Public Service Commission criticized the lack of transparency from Meta and Alliant Energy during a meeting Thursday in which the body approved a contract for the social media giant to obtain power for its planned data center in Beaver Dam. 

Meta is in the process of spending more than $1 billion to construct a hyperscale data center campus that, when completed, would use six to eight times more power than the city of Beaver Dam’s current energy load. 

Like similar massive data center projects across the state, Meta’s Beaver Dam project has drawn opposition from local residents. For months, the project was shrouded in secrecy with Meta operating under the name Degas LLC. Opponents have complained about the lack of openness, the massive use of energy and the impact the construction and operation of the center could have on the community. 

PSC Chair Summer Strand said in her opening remarks she didn’t understand “why it needed to be this difficult” to achieve a transparent process. 

“To me, transparency is not a cliche, feel good, bare minimum, check the box concept,” Strand said. “If there’s one takeaway from our discussion and decisions today I want it to be clear that, whether you’re a large load customer coming into Wisconsin for the first time, or regulated entity familiar with our process, transparency — and by that I mean actual and real transparency — is the foundational expectation and a necessity.”

Commissioner Kristy Nieto said in her opening remarks Thursday morning that the case is one of the “most consequential” decisions the PSC has seen. 

“It bears repeating, existing Wisconsin customers should not pay a single cent to subsidize the service of data centers, not now and not decades from now,” Nieto said. “This means these very large customers must bear the full cost of the infrastructure required to serve them — generation, transmission and distribution — and that those costs must be fully and transparently assigned.” 

The three members of the commission lamented the redactions that had initially been made to the documents submitted in the case — which were later removed after objections from outside parties including members of the public, Clean Wisconsin and the Citizens Utility Board. 

The commissioners also decided that moving forward, hyperscale data centers constructed within Alliant’s territory must pay for and receive energy through a standardized tariff, rather than a one-off contract negotiated without public scrutiny. Late last month, the PSC made a similar ruling for large customers in WE Energies territory. 

Under the PSC order, Alliant will have to develop a tariff that applies for any data centers using more than 100 megawatts of energy. The Meta campus is expected to use 220 megawatts. 

“This is not going to be the last data center contract we see from this utility, and I will say Alliant needs standard guidelines and rules for its data center customers,” Nieto said. “A clear public tariff would create consistent, transparent rates and rules for future data centers, instead of handling each one through separate, confidential negotiations.”

While Alliant was ordered to develop a tariff rate for large customers, the PSC on Thursday approved the contract negotiated between Meta and Alliant with some modifications meant to insulate regular customers from bearing the costs of Meta’s energy use and any related infrastructure upgrades by Alliant. Nieto said denying the agreement while the tariff rate is developed would have allowed Meta to operate for up to a year without any guardrails, an outcome she said didn’t think would benefit anyone.

Brett Korte, a staff attorney with Clean Wisconsin, said the PSC putting a halt to the development of a case-by-case patchwork of data center energy deals in Alliant’s territory — which covers parts of more than a dozen Wisconsin counties — will protect Wisconsinites.

“Tariffs create a consistent, transparent framework that helps protect the public interest,” Korte said in a statement. “Without them, Wisconsin risks a patchwork system where costs and responsibilities are unclear and potentially shifted onto other utility customers.”

After the meeting, consumer advocacy and environmental groups were complimentary of the PSC’s actions.

“Today, the Public Service Commission highlighted the importance of transparency and oversight: accountability is a must, and it cannot be bypassed,” Britnie Remer, organizing director of climate advocacy group 350 Wisconsin. “The Commission also recognized that protecting Wisconsinites from subsidizing billion-dollar data centers needs to be front and center when it comes to these massive projects. With more data center proposals inevitable, requiring tariff filings in the future will ensure large energy customers pay for their costs, not our families and small businesses.”

Republican Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) announced she will not run for reelection this year, creating another open seat in an Assembly district that will be decisive in determining partisan control of the chamber in 2027.

Rodriguez, 48, has represented the 21st Assembly District since 2013 when she was first elected in a special election. She noted in her announcement that her son was 3 years old when she first ran. During her time in office she has served on the powerful Joint Finance Committee, helping shape the state’s two-year budget as well as being an outspoken advocate for school choice.

“Throughout my time in office, I have tried to keep family first. But the truth is, it is difficult to do this job well without it affecting the people who care about you most. My family has given me patience, encouragement, and support through long days, busy weeks, and many moments when this work required more of me than they deserved to lose,” Rodriguez said in a Thursday statement. “After a great deal of reflection and many conversations with my family, I have decided that I will not seek reelection this fall.

Her district changed with the new maps adopted in 2024. It sits in Milwaukee County and includes Oak Creek and a portion of the city of Milwaukee around the Mitchell International Airport, and has a slight Democratic lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis. 

Even under the new maps, Rodriguez won her most recent term in 2024 with 51.3% of the vote against her Democratic challenger. 

Her departure means that Republicans will lose the advantages that come with incumbency in a key district that will determine control of the state Assembly. Republican lawmakers currently hold 54 seats in the Assembly to Democrats’ 45 seats, meaning Democrats need to hold all their seats and win five additional seats in November to win the majority. 

Morgan Hess, the executive director for the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, said in a statement that “Rodriguez, like others in the Republican Assembly caucus, sees the writing on the wall.” 

“Rather than serve in the minority, they are calling it quits. Democrats have the momentum to win the majority this fall and today’s announcement brings us one step closer,” Hess said. 

Democrat Dan Bukiewicz, the mayor of Oak Creek, announced his campaign for the seat in January.

Hess said he is a “proven leader in this community and will make an excellent state representative.”

Rodriguez’s announcement adds to the wave of Republicans, including nine Assembly members and six Senate members, deciding not to seek election this fall, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) who was the first Assembly Republican in one of eight key seats to decide against running. 

Donovan running

Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) announced that he will run for a third term to represent Assembly District 61, which covers Greendale and Hales Corner in Milwaukee County. The district has a slight  Republican lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis, but is one of eight districts that Democrats are targeting to flip. 

Donovan, 69, was first elected in 2022. He joins a handful of other Republican lawmakers from swing districts  seeking another term, including Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston), Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls), Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) and Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R- De Pere). 

Democrat Ben Brist, a U.S. Army veteran announced he would run for the seat in March. His candidacy could mean Donovan would face someone other than Democrat LuAnn Bird, who he defeated in his first two runs for the Assembly. 

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker said in a statement that Republicans are “abandoning ship.” 

“To those like Bob Donovan and Shannon Zimmerman who have decided to run again, you have 23 days to retire or you will be fired by the voters in November. Your leaders and colleagues know what is coming and it is not the cavalry; it is only defeat,” Remiker said.

Three weeks after two right-wing groups demanded the repeal of a professional licensing board’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ clients of social workers and other therapists, Gov. Tony Evers sent a sharply worded reply.

In a Tuesday letter to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and Wisconsin Family Action, Evers declared, “my administration has no intention of repealing Wisconsin’s conversion therapy ban.”

Evers asserted that the April 14 demand letter from the two groups was based on “a significant misreading” of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that threw parts of a Colorado ban on conversion therapy into question. 

Evers wrote that it was “disappointing” that the organizations support “a long-disavowed and outdated practice” that extensive research has shown to be ineffective and responsible for harms including depression, suicide, substance misuse, posttraumatic stress and anxiety.

“On the other hand, this should come as no surprise,” Evers wrote. “After all, bullying LGBTQ kids and Wisconsinites seems to be an important goal for Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and Wisconsin Family Action.”

Purported to dissuade people from same-sex attractions and from gender dysphoria — which the American Psychiatric Association has defined as  “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity” — conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, has been widely discredited.

Conversion therapy is not limited to talk therapy. “Aversive techniques used in reparative therapies have included electric shock, physical violence, administration of emetics, and personal degradation and humiliation,” the American Academy of Nursing wrote in a 2015 statement opposing the practice.

The Wisconsin Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board published an updated professional code in April 2024 that declared “any intervention or method” used or promoted to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity to be “unprofessional conduct” that could subject a practitioner to professional discipline.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a March 31 ruling, sent a lawsuit challenging a Colorado law against conversion therapy back to lower federal courts. The ruling instructed the lower courts to apply “strict scrutiny” on First Amendment grounds to the Colorado law because it seeks to “regulate speech based on viewpoint.”

In their demand letter, WILL and Wisconsin Family Action called on the Evers administration to repeal the ban in the Wisconsin therapists’ code. The letter declared that it was similar to the Colorado law and claimed that “the Supreme Court held that Colorado’s substantively identical statute was unconstitutional.”

Evers wrote that the demand “relies on a significant misreading of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision” and had “erroneously” characterized its findings. 

“First, the Court intentionally — and specifically — stopped short of striking down any applications of Colorado’s law,” Evers wrote. The high court instead remanded the case to the lower court to apply a “more searching scrutiny” to the law, he added. “Repeal before that occurs would be premature.”

Evers also wrote that the ruling “expressly held that heightened scrutiny applies only to certain applications of Colorado’s law, not the entire provision. Specifically, the case concerned only Colorado’s conversion therapy prohibition as it applied to talk therapy — not to other treatment, such as physical or medication interventions.”

Quoting the Court’s ruling, Evers wrote that the Colorado plaintiff, therapist Kaley Chiles, stated that “the statute has many valid applications. Indeed, [she] did not take issue with Colorado’s effort to ban what she herself calls ‘long-abandoned, aversive’ physical interventions. Instead, Ms. Chiles objected to Colorado’s law only as it applies to her talk therapy, therapy that involves no physical interventions or medications, only the spoken word.”

Wisconsin’s professional rule also covers more than talk therapy, Evers wrote, and the therapy, counseling and social work board “will maintain the rule and continue to enforce its valid applications, in order to protect Wisconsinites from harmful and offensive practices by Board licensees.”

WILL’s initial response Thursday to a request for comment was a two-word email message from WILL Deputy Counsel Rebecca Furdek: “Lawsuit incoming.”

In a follow up statement, Furdek said that Evers was “resorting to personal, baseless attacks on WILL and its mission.” Contrary to the distinctions Evers made about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the statement reiterated WILL’s characterization that the Court found Colorado’s “substantively identical law amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.”

Making no reference to other conversion therapy tactics, the statement concluded: “Government shouldn’t be deciding which viewpoints are ‘acceptable’ for Christian counselors to express when providing talk therapy to the individuals who voluntarily seek out faith-based counseling.”

In his letter, Evers wrote that because the Colorado case remains active in lower federal courts, the Department of Safety and Professional Services will attach a note to the conversion therapy rule stating that “certain instances of the unprofessional conduct” it refers to “are the subject of ongoing litigation.”

Wisconsin’s conversion therapy ban was enacted after several previous attempts were blocked by the Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules. A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in July 2025 found that state laws the committee’s Republican majority used to review and suspend administrative rules were unconstitutional and encroached on the examining board’s legal authority.

Marc Herstand, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin chapter, praised Evers’ letter Thursday. The association was among the groups that urged the counseling board to add conversion therapy to practices considered unprofessional conduct. 

Wisconsin state law “clearly gives professions the authority to establish their own Conduct Code as the social work profession, along with the marriage and family therapy and professional counseling professions,  have done in classifying Conversion Therapy as unprofessional conduct,” Herstand said in an email message. 

“I applaud Governor Evers for his recognition of the severe harm that Conversion Therapy inflicts on LGBTQ children and his commitment to retain the ban on Conversion Therapy [in the professional code] to the maximum extent possible.”

Tribal governing board members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northwest Wisconsin voted to make May 5 the Tribal Day of Awareness of missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives (MMIW/R) and authorized the creation of the Bad River MMIW/R Task Force on April 22.

All 11 federally recognized Wisconsin tribes participate in the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s MMIW/R Task Force, but Bad River is creating its own tribal task force. On Tuesday, more than 50 members of the Bad River community participated in an annual MMIW/R Awareness walk. They followed a route inside the reservation marked by posters and red dresses (one of the visual symbols of the MMIW/R movement) displayed on hangers hung from garden stakes.

The annual Bad River MMIW/R walk is one of several across North America to raise awareness of the violence, especially murder and disappearance, affecting indigenous people.

Bad River Chair Liz Arbuckle and several members of the task force participated in the Tuesday walk and discussed the newly formed task force.

“When I became chair, this was something I wanted to prioritize,” said Arbuckle. “Violence against our people, particularly women, is catastrophic. It’s a crisis, and we know every tribal community has been affected by it, both on rez and off rez, and so this is a good way for us to educate people about the issue.”

She said the task force has three main goals:

• Education, outreach, and prevention.
• Creating response teams and response plans.
• Preparing for the possibility that the Canadian energy company Enbridge will bring a large workforce for the Line 5 pipeline reroute to the area, creating what has been termed “man camps,” a concentration of male pipeline workers in rural areas, especially tribal areas.

Bad River and environmental groups are challenging the 41-mile Line 5 reroute around the reservation in court, but Arbuckle said the tribe must prepare as if the project will proceed.

“We’ve seen in other communities when there are large groups of men in camps, especially outside of Native reservations, the statistics show that it can be a really dangerous place, because some of these guys have a lot of money and these girls get caught up in that, or people get caught up in that and bad things can happen,” she said, “So we want to make sure we educate people about that and prepare them to make good decisions for themselves.”

A 2021 Guardian article, “Sexual violence along pipeline route follows Indigenous women,” reported that crisis centers noted more than 40 reports of workers on Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement in northern Minnesota were alleged to have harassed and assaulted women and girls. 

In that same article, Michael Barnes, an Enbridge spokesperson, said the corporation has “zero tolerance for illegal behavior by anyone associated with our company or its projects,” and the article also noted the corporation fired two workers charged with sexual/human trafficking.

Another, larger objective of the task force, said Arbuckle, is to create dialogue among local, state and federal agencies to share information and work cooperatively across jurisdiction lines, which is often difficult  when tribal lands are involved.

The task force includes members of social services, legal, public health and law enforcement agencies.

“I thought this is a great group that has different skills and different programs to come after it from different angles,” said Arbuckle.

If there is a crisis or emergency, such as a disappearance, all the preparation and forethought from the task force, said Arbuckle,  will have at least put the tribe in a better position to respond.

“We shouldn’t just start from scratch if someone goes missing,” she said. “We should have a plan. We should know the people. We should have a good relationship with the police or the sheriff.”

Theresa Morris, a community health manager, is a member of the task force, whose goal is to educate members about man camps and encourage members to travel in pairs and to let others know their whereabouts and plans.

Gina Jensen, a health worker who represents the tribe’s police commission, noted one of her motivations for being on the task force is that the murder rate for indigenous women is 10 times the national average.

Aurora Conley, one of the tribal governing board members who voted to approve the task force, said its creation signals the tribe is paying attention and is committed to being proactive and prepared, including networking and working with other tribes, communities and the state.

“I thought it was a beautiful thing, definitely,” Coley said of the task force’s creation, “and to let our community members know that those that have gone missing or murdered in the past have not been forgotten.”

Conley said as a parent of two Indigenous children she feels an obligation to make them aware that they are at higher risk.

“I have a small daughter, and it’s a different sense of awareness that we have to create … it better prepares our children and our communities,” she said.

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court crippled the federal Voting Rights Act, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson addressed a virtual gathering for the group’s members and supporters where he ranked the landmark decision alongside the court’s most infamous cases.

Dred Scott excluded Black people from American citizenship ahead of the Civil War. Plessy blessed policies of racial segregation in 1896. And now there was Callais. 

The opinion will “probably go down in the history book as one of three of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this nation,” Johnson said.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana vs. Callais on April 29 cleared states to split apart, for political gain, congressional districts where a majority of residents belong to minority groups. The court’s conservative majority said Louisiana lawmakers acted unconstitutionally when they intentionally created the state’s second majority-Black district, which the justices found unnecessary.

A week after its release, the decision is roiling politics across the South as states move at a rapid pace to recast the political landscape that has taken progressives by surprise. 

Republicans, triumphant over their victory at the court, are rushing fresh gerrymanders through Southern statehouses in time for the November midterm elections in an effort to strengthen their party’s control over the region’s U.S. House delegations. They’re acting at lightning speed, over loud protests, and have nullified votes by suspending ongoing elections.

Democrats, especially Black residents, are furious with both the court and GOP politicians, who they believe are poised to wipe away decades of Black political progress in the region. The new maps that seek to oust Black members of Congress and prevent the election of Democrats in the future recall a Jim Crow past of literacy tests and poll taxes, they say.

“We refuse to let you kill us by killing our vote,” Eliza Jane Franklin, a resident of rural Barbour County, Alabama, told a state House hearing Tuesday.

Decision kicked off legislative efforts

The Alabama Legislature is moving to authorize a special primary election using a congressional map currently blocked in federal court, if a district court or, ultimately, the Supreme Court allows the state to move forward. At least one of the state’s two Black members of the U.S. House would be vulnerable.

In Louisiana, the governor has suspended the state’s primary elections for the U.S. House, setting aside some 42,000 votes that were already cast. Republican lawmakers will begin advancing a new gerrymander in a matter of days, aiming to force out at least one of the state’s two Black House members.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new map into law Monday that aims to hand his party up to four additional U.S. House seats. State lawmakers approved the map hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. The map has already drawn multiple legal challenges.

The South Carolina Legislature is weighing whether to redraw maps. And Tennessee lawmakers want to gerrymander a Memphis district currently held by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat who represents the state’s only majority-Black district. 

“The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind,” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday unveiling a plan to divide the Memphis area among three congressional seats.

More states, in the South and elsewhere, are expected to pursue new maps over the next two years. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp ruled out a special session this year, for example, but supports redistricting before the 2028 election. 

The current moment represents an extraordinary time in America, said Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group. But she also called it a reversion “back to America.”

Many thought the presence of Black, Hispanic and Asian American elected officials somehow meant racial discrimination no longer existed, she said.

“And unfortunately, that is a misread of American history,” Caruthers said. “And perhaps it is a retelling of American history for those who want to gloss over America’s very sordid past, especially when it comes to voting rights.”

Midterms impact

The scramble by a handful of Southern states to redraw districts comes as Republicans grasp for any scintilla of advantage ahead of the midterm elections in November. 

A U.S. House under Democratic control would spell the end of much of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, produce a wave of investigations into his administration and potentially lead to a vote to impeach him in the House, though the Senate would almost certainly acquit him.

“This is all about Donald Trump wanting to avoid hard questions and oversight hearings about his actions,” Cohen said at a news conference in Memphis.

Seth McKee, a political science professor at Oklahoma State University who has studied Southern politics, said Republicans are attempting to “staunch the bleeding” ahead of unfavorable midterm elections.

“The desperation of this Republican Party, it’s off the charts,” McKee said.

Redistricting push supercharged

Prior to Callais, Trump had already urged Republicans to redraw congressional maps for partisan advantage — a process that typically occurs once a decade after the census. 

Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas enacted more GOP-friendly maps, while Democrats struck back in California and Virginia. In Utah, Republicans want to block a court-ordered map that’s more favorable to Democrats.

Republican primary voters have given their approval to that approach. On Tuesday, five Trump-endorsed state legislative candidates in Indiana defeated GOP incumbents who had defied the president to block a gerrymander in the state last year.

But until now the Voting Rights Act limited how far that gerrymandering push could extend.

For decades, Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped protect majority-minority districts from gerrymandering and ensured voters could elect Black candidates to Congress in Southern states following the end of state laws that blocked Black citizens from voting. The Callais opinion guts Section 2 by curtailing the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps.

Republicans have praised the decision and many have been clear that they believe the opinion opens up a path to securing additional GOP seats. Trump has endorsed disregarding primary elections that have already been held so that states can pass new maps — which he predicts can net Republicans an additional 20 seats this fall.

“We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If they have to vote twice, so be it.”

Calls for GOP seats

Over the past week, some Republicans have cast majority-minority districts previously protected by the Voting Rights Act as racist because they were drawn with attention paid to the racial makeup of the map. U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, wrote on X that there are “no more excuses for keeping racist maps,” for example, and called for their immediate removal.

Other GOP leaders have centered their case for quick action on political power. Like Trump, they have explicitly invoked control of the U.S. House as a reason to gerrymander. While Republicans have the House, their margin of control is razor thin: 217 to 212, with one independent and five vacancies. Even a modest Democratic wave in November will likely sweep away GOP control.

Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger Jr. and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said in a joint statement that the state’s lawmakers have a responsibility to offer Alabama a “fighting chance” to elect seven Republican U.S. representatives. Two of the state’s seven districts are held by Democrats.

“Control of the U.S. House of Representatives could come down to just a handful of seats, and when the dust settles, the people of Alabama will know that their Legislature stood firm, acted decisively, and did everything within its power to fight for fair representation,” Gudger and Ledbetter said.

Alabama Republicans want to use a map passed by lawmakers in 2023 that federal courts blocked from taking effect. Alabama’s current map was drawn by a court-appointed special master.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, asked a federal district court Tuesday for an order that would let the state move forward with the gerrymander.

In Louisiana, Republicans obtained special permission from the Supreme Court to quickly move forward on a new gerrymander after the justices struck down its current map in the Callais decision.

Absentee voting was already underway in Louisiana before Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended congressional primary elections set for May 16. Votes already cast for U.S. House candidates won’t count, Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, no relation, has said.

Louisiana state lawmakers are set to begin work on a new map this month that will likely break apart a New Orleans district held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Black Democrat who has fought with the governor.

“The Court’s decision in these cases has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent of the decision to quickly finalize Callais.

Court challenges

Still, Democrats and other opponents of the gerrymandering effort across the South are turning to the courts. Lawsuits have also been filed challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primaries and Florida’s new map also faces court challenges.

A petition filed in Louisiana state court by Elias Law Group, a major Democrat-aligned voting rights litigation firm, alleges the governor’s decision to halt the congressional primary is unlawful and unprecedented. Only the state legislature has the power to set the state’s election schedule, the petition argues.

“Governors do not get to cancel elections by executive fiat, least of all elections that are already underway, with ballots in voters’ hands and votes already cast,” Lali Madduri, a partner at Elias Law Group, said in a statement.

Regardless of how the legal challenges play out, Democrats say the Callais decision and the ongoing fallout from the decision underscore the need for massive voter turnout in the November election. A large Democratic turnout that results in a significant Democratic majority in the U.S. House would serve as a rebuke to Trump’s gerrymandering campaign, they say.

Blue state gerrymanders

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina’s sole congressional Democrat, said during the NAACP virtual meeting that a Democratic House could pass voting rights legislation. 

“I would hope we could do that because I really think that’s our only hope legislatively,” Clyburn said.

Democrats have long called for the passage of a bill to restore preclearance, a major element of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court paused in 2013, which required states and local governments with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes. 

But the measure would face a certain filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Even if Democrats broke a filibuster, Trump would likely veto it. 

In effect, Democrats’ most realistic opportunity to enact major voting rights legislation relies on regaining control of the White House and Congress and ending the filibuster — a set of conditions that’s out of reach until at least 2029.

In the meantime, more Democrats are calling for aggressive gerrymandering of blue states as a way to punch back. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Joseph Morelle, both New York Democrats, on Monday announced an initiative to encourage their state to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election.

Gerrymandering New York would be an intensive effort, likely requiring voters to repeal or suspend anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state constitution. But voters in California and Virginia have previously endorsed Democratic gerrymanders.

“This is just the beginning,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw and we will win.”

Early last month, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced a deal to add 100 acres to  Devil’s Lake State Park, expanding recreational opportunities at one of the DNR’s most popular properties. The move also calls attention to the dwindling life of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship grant program that made the acquisition possible. 

The nearly 40-year-old stewardship grant program has long been a bipartisan success story, allowing the purchase and protection of hundreds of thousands of acres of land across the state. 

Growing opposition to the program within a subset of the Republicans in control of both chambers of the state Legislature — stemming from a combination of antagonism toward land conservation and concerns about the property tax base of Northwoods communities — stymied multiple legislative efforts to re-authorize the program beyond its set expiration at the end of June. 

The Devil’s Lake purchase marks what could be one of the last major actions of the stewardship grant program, which has allocated more than $1.2 billion to conserve more than 700,000 acres of Wisconsin land over its lifetime. 

The program had about $5.5 million remaining as of early April, according to DNR spokesperson Molly Meister. That money is divided into a number of categories, with $2.9 million earmarked for acquiring general easements — agreements with landowners that conserve and protect the land without transferring ownership — and $1.3 million set aside for general land acquisitions. Another $666,667 is meant for acquiring easements specifically for the Ice Age Trail, plus $8,333 for Ice Age Trail land acquisitions. An additional $600,000 is set aside for acquiring land for county forests. 

Meister told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email that the money set aside for the DNR to acquire land itself is expected to be fully used by the time the program expires, while the money set aside for easements will largely be used, but the exact amount is dependent on the agency finding interested landowners. 

“We are currently negotiating with landowners who have expressed a willing interest in selling their land to the department and anticipate all Stewardship general fee acquisition funds to be encumbered before the end of June,” she said.  Easement acquisitions, Ice Age Trail (both fee and easement), and County Forest acquisition is a similar process, but as you have noted, depends on willing landowners looking to acquire an easement versus an outright purchase in the remaining months. We expect a significant amount, but not all, of these funds will be encumbered before the end of June.”

While the program is set to expire, there are ongoing Knowles-Nelson projects around the state that have already been funded through the grant program yet won’t be completed for a few years. Meister said that program staff will close out those active projects before moving to other jobs within the DNR. The rest of the agency has also faced significant cutbacks in recent decades, due to budget constraints and Republican opposition to environmental protection initiatives. 

“It will take several years to close out currently active projects. Staff will continue to work on finishing up these projects,” Meister said. “After these projects are closed out, DNR staff will continue working on other department priorities. Over the past 20 years, we have lost over 500 FTE positions, so there is always more work to do.”

David Grusznski, the Milwaukee programs director for The Conservation Fund, the land conservation non-profit that facilitated the DNR’s purchase of the Devil’s Lake property, told the Examiner that through the stewardship program, the DNR has often been able to function as the last piece of the funding puzzle for projects that conserve land and provide access to that land for the public. 

“It’s very rare that one pot of money funds an entire acquisition, so money is always being leveraged with other people’s money,” he said. “So without the state stewardship funding being able to bring in a portion of that money, we, a lot of partners, are going to be unable to leverage federal dollars, state, city or county dollars that may be available. And we’re going to have to really rely pretty heavily on private fundraising, which is going to be extremely difficult.”

Now, he said, non-profits and land trusts across the state are coming to terms with the pending loss — which will push planned projects years into the future while putting organizations across the state in direct competition over the same pot of private philanthropy money. 

“I think this is all really just starting to set in with a lot of people across the state,” Grusznski said, “as far as the money is not there — what do we do?”