Wisconsin politicians denounce the "billionaire loophole" that makes state elections so expensive, but they're still raising tons of cash. | Getty Images

Two high-profile candidates for governor of Wisconsin, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Democratic former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, have denounced the unlimited flow of cash into state political campaigns. Then, practically in the same breath, both men announced their plans to raise tens of millions of dollars, signalling to their less well funded primary opponents that they might as well get out of the way.

In an interview with PBS Wisconsin on Dec. 5, Tiffany criticized “that pass-through loophole, I call it the ‘billionaire loophole,’” in Wisconsin law, adding, “there’s just so much money that comes into Wisconsin.” 

“You can cry about it or you can compete,” Tiffany continued. “We choose to compete … We’re hoping to raise $40 million.”

As Baylor Spears reports, Tiffany actually voted for the “billionaire loophole” he now criticizes back when he was serving in the state Senate in 2015. 

Mandela Barnes, in a recent campaign stop in Madison, told Spears and other reporters that he has raised a “strong haul,” in the first week of his campaign, and that he intends to raise a staggering $50 million by the end of the race. He added that he doesn’t like the role of money in politics. “It’s not a good sign,” he said, and his future goal is “to get big money out of politics” and enact “campaign and ethics reform.”

Back in 2015, when Republicans were ramming through the “billionaire loophole,” Barnes opposed it, saying at the time that it would allow “shady special interest money and allow for more corruption to go undetected and unprosecuted.”

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, remembers that moment well. Under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Republican legislative majorities passed the law eviscerating campaign finance limits along with other measures getting rid of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board and eliminating the John Doe procedure that was used to criminally prosecute leaders of both political parties for campaign finance crimes in the infamous caucus scandal of the early 2000’s.

The 2015 law doubled the amount individuals could give to candidates. More importantly, it eliminated all limits on state party contributions to candidates and allowed coordination between candidates and outside groups that make issue ads supporting the campaigns. Donors were able to give as much as they wanted to political parties, which then funneled that money to candidates, creating the billionaire loophole to which Tiffany belatedly objects. The 2015 law cleared the way for outsiders like Elon Musk to pour limitless cash into state races to try to affect the outcome.

“The Republicans did that in 2015 because they were convinced that they would have a great financial advantage since they generally raised more money from donors and special interests,” says Heck. “Of course, what they didn’t anticipate was [former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair] Ben Wikler and the Democratic Party’s ability to take that big hole in the law and use it to raise massive amounts of money.”

Recently, Democrats in Wisconsin have been beating Republicans in the fundraising arms race. In 2025, in the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, Susan Crawford, the candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court supported by the Democratic Party, raised $28.3 million compared with Republican-supported Brad Schimel, who raised $15.1 million. Outside special interests accounted for most of the spending on the race, with Musk alone putting in nearly $20 million through his political action committees and millions more laundered through the state Republican Party for Schimel, while the Democratic Party of Wisconsin funneled $10 million to Crawford.

The lesson of the 2015 law, says Heck, is, “be careful what you wish for.”

That certainly applies to Republicans, who lost the two most expensive state Supreme Court races in history as well as the last two record-breaking gubernatorial races won by Gov. Tony Evers with $93 million in total spending in 2018 and $164 million in 2022. 

But it also applies to Democrats, who cannot count on continually bringing in more money than Republicans.

More importantly, when it costs tens of millions of dollars to win state elections, regular voters’ voices are drowned out by billionaires, who are not investing in candidates just out of the goodness of their hearts.

Heck believes that change will only come when voters demand reform, most likely because a big scandal clearly illustrates that politicians are doing favors for their donors in exchange for campaign cash.

“It’s going to require a bipartisan coming-together to establish some limits,” Heck says. 

Even as the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the floodgate for campaign spending with the Citizens United decision, which in 2010 struck down a federal ban on political donations from corporations, and McCutcheon v. FEC, which in 2014 found that annual caps on total political donations from one person are unconstitutional, states have the ability to impose limits. 

A report by the National Conference of State Legislatures shows Wisconsin is one of only 11 states that allow unlimited candidate contributions by state parties and among the top 10 for the highest limits on PAC contributions to candidates. Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and most other states limit how much political parties can accept, which reduces the Elon Musk effect. Plus, “We are one of few states that allows so-called coordination between political candidates and outside groups,” Heck says.

The problem is that candidates, while acknowledging that massive amounts of money fueling their campaigns is a bad look, don’t want to unilaterally disarm. 

But now, as the Trump administration drags the country to new levels of overt corruption, it could be a good time for a campaign that ties together billionaires’ destructive influence on society and the fact that they are buying our democracy. 

“There has to be public disgust with the amount of money being spent,” says Heck. “If a candidate put corruption front and center, it might get a lot of traction.”

President Donald Trump displays a signed executive order as, left to right, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar David Sacks look on in the Oval Office of the White House on Dec. 11, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday night that aims to preempt states from enacting rules governing artificial intelligence, a major departure from the typical federalist structure of American government that Trump said was necessary because of the issue’s high stakes.

In an early evening signing ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump said the order would position the United States to win a competition with China to dominate the burgeoning AI industry. Coordinating policy among 50 different states would put the U.S. at a disadvantage, Trump said, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not have similar restraints.

“This will not be successful unless they have one source of approval or disapproval,” he said. “It’s got to be one source. They can’t go to 50 different sources.”

The order creates a task force to monitor state laws on AI and to challenge them in court, and directs the Commerce secretary to complete a review of state laws within three months.

David Sacks, the chair of a White House board on technology, said there were more than 1,000 pending AI bills in state legislatures.

White House staff secretary Will Scharf said during the Oval Office event that the order would “ensure that AI can operate within a single national framework in this country, as opposed to being subject to state level regulation that could potentially cripple the industry.”

“The big picture is that we’re taking steps to ensure that AI operates under a single national standard so that we can reap the benefits that will come from it.”

The order, a major assertion of presidential power over state governments and Congress, is likely to see court challenges, including from environmental groups that oppose AI expansion because of the energy resources the technology requires.

“Congress has repeatedly rejected attempts to undermine states’ and local communities’ efforts to protect themselves from the unchecked spread of AI, which is driving a wave of dangerous data center development,” Mitch Jones, the chief of policy and litigation at the advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said in a statement. 

“We’ll be following the administration’s attempts to implement this farcical order, and we’ll fight it in Congress, in the states, in the courts, and with communities across this country.”

Protesters rally outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday that would overturn an executive order from President Donald Trump that strips collective bargaining rights for roughly 1 million federal employees. 

The 231-195 vote was a rare bipartisan pushback against the president. The bill was sponsored by Maine’s Jared Golden, a Democrat, and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican. Twenty Republicans joined all Democrats in supporting the bill.

It’s now referred to the Senate, but it’s unclear if it will garner enough support to reach the chamber’s 60-vote threshold — or even be brought to the floor for a vote.

The move also bucked House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, who did not bring the bill to the floor for Wednesday’s vote. Instead, lawmakers were able to vote on it through a legislative maneuver known as a discharge petition. 

The procedure allows rank-and-file members to compel the lower chamber to vote on measures that are not brought up by the leadership of the majority party, which is how bills typically reach the floor.

On Wednesday’s vote to advance the discharge petition, 13 Republicans joined all Democrats.

Following Wednesday’s procedural vote, Golden said in a statement that the bill would restore the rights of federal employees.

“President Trump said ending collective bargaining was about protecting our national defense,” he said. “But in my District, many affected workers build our warships and care for our veterans. If the majority we built over the past few months sticks together, we can overturn this union-busting executive order, and we can show America that this body will protect workers’ rights.”  

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, argued against the bill on the floor Thursday, saying lax accountability among the federal workforce harmed taxpayers.

“Accountability problems in the federal workforce are legendary,” he said. “It takes a Herculean effort to fire a poorly performing federal worker or one who is engaged in misconduct.”

Trump signed an executive order in March that banned collective bargaining agreements for federal agencies dealing with national security.

Those agencies include the departments of Defense, Veteran Affairs, Homeland Security, State and Energy, along with the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Coast Guard, most entities within the Department of Justice and several pandemic response and refugee resettlement agencies within the Health and Human Services Department, among others. 

Federal police and firefighters are exempt from the order.

Federal employees have limited bargaining agreements, compared to the private sector. Workers cannot strike or bargain for higher wages or benefits, but they can push for better working conditions, such as protection from retaliation, discrimination, and illegal firings. 

Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island speaks during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Dec. 11, 2025, as Chairman Roger Wicker looks on . The hearing examined the Trump Administration's deployment of the National Guard across the United States. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers who oversee armed services policy split along party lines Thursday when examining the deployments of the National Guard to cities across the country under what President Donald Trump describes as a crime-fighting strategy.

Members of the Senate Committee on the Armed Services questioned for nearly two-and-a-half hours high-level Department of Defense officials, including the Pentagon’s No. 2 lawyer and the head of U.S. Northern Command who oversees National Guard troops under federal deployment.

The hearing on Capitol Hill came less than one month after a gunman shot two West Virginia National Guard members in broad daylight outside a Washington, D.C., Metro station just blocks from the White House.

U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is recovering from critical injuries. A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with American troops in Afghanistan has been charged with first-degree murder. 

Senators on the panel expressed bipartisan messages of support and gratitude for Beckstrom, Wolfe and their families, but divisions were apparent over why and on what grounds Trump deployed the guard to five U.S. cities since June: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Ore.; Chicago and Memphis, Tenn.

Trump also threatened to send the guard to other places, including New York City, Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans.

Trump first federalized the California National Guard in early June, deploying them to Los Angeles against the wishes of Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats. 

A California federal district judge ruled Wednesday the Trump administration must return the troops to Newsom.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled Nov. 20 — six days before Beckstrom and Wolfe were attacked — that Trump’s deployment of the guard in the district was illegal. A federal appeals court has allowed the service members to remain in the district while the appeal plays out. 

Other cases, including challenges to Trump’s deployment of the guard to Oregon and Illinois, have also been tied up in court.

Countering crime

Sen. Roger Wicker, Armed Services Committee chair, opened the hearing by saying, “In recent years violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” citing the Department of Justice.

For that reason, he said, Trump “ordered an immediate and coordinated response by deploying the National Guard to some of our nation’s most dangerous cities.”

“Not surprisingly, Democratic governors and left-wing pundits have decried these deployments,” the Mississippi Republican said, dismissing any concerns as “manufactured and misguided.”

While capturing accurate crime statistics is challenging — as many crimes go unreported — murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery all decreased nationwide in 2024, according to the FBI’s latest crime statistics.

Data also show U.S. property and violent crime plunged between 1993 and 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. 

However, the analysis showed attitudes about crime split according to party affiliation.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., argued Thursday that guard deployments to cities across the U.S. are not out of the ordinary.

He asked Charles Young III, principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense, to explain how the process works.

Young, pointing to a stack of books on the table, said the examples are “voluminous.”  

“Rather than bringing in troops from the regular Army or the active component … the Founding Fathers wanted to resort to utilizing the National Guard because they were citizens and from the communities that were involved. And these books that I have here are just books on the role of federal military forces in domestic disorders,” he said.

‘Is that a legal order?’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Army National Guard veteran who said she pushed for the hearing, slammed Trump’s guard deployments when she delivered the Democrats’ opening remarks.

Duckworth said Beckstrom’s death and Wolfe’s injuries “should never have happened in the first place.”

“Military service involves risks, and our service members accept those risks knowingly, selflessly. So we better be damn sure that the mission is the right one,” said Duckworth, who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm in Iraq when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade

Duckworth and other Democratic senators on the panel questioned the legality of Trump’s guard deployments and alleged the president was using the show of force to curtail public demonstrations and free speech.

Duckworth recalled Trump’s Sept. 30 speech to military generals in Quantico, Virginia, when he said the administration should use American cities as “training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military because we’re going into Chicago very soon.” 

In that same speech, Trump said Democratic-run cities are “in bad shape,” and “it’s a war from within.” 

Harking back to reports that Trump asked former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper about shooting protesters in 2020, Duckworth asked, “Let’s say the president issued such an order. He said so. Is that a legal order?”

“Senator, orders to that effect would depend on the circumstances,” Young replied.

“We have a president who doesn’t think that the rule of law applies to him, and he wants to show force,” Duckworth responded.

Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s ranking member, delivered a similar line of questioning, asking Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, “If the president declared an organization, a terrorist organization … and you were ordered to attack them on U.S. soil, would you carry out that order?”

“Sen. Reed, as with any order I get, I would assess the order, consult the legal authorities to ensure that it was a lawful order, and I would, if I had questions, I would elevate that to the chairman and the secretary, as they welcome at all times,” Guillot said. 

“And if I had no concerns and I was confident in (the) lawful order, I would definitely execute that order.”

Reed noted that Guillot was present for Trump’s speech in Quantico.

“The president essentially indicated that you should be prepared to conduct military operations in the United States against this enemy within. Are you doing that?” he said.

“Sir, I have not been tasked to do anything that reflects what you just said,” Guillot replied.

Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he didn’t believe testimony delivered Thursday by Mark Ditlevson, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense, that Trump is “clearly doing the right thing” and the guard is working in conjunction with local authorities.

King, of Maine, said the testimony “was borderline humorous.”

“That didn’t happen in Illinois or in California,” King said. “We’re talking about a broader issue here that I think is extremely dangerous, and the reason it’s particularly dangerous in the present moment is we have a president who has a very low bar as to what constitutes an emergency.”

Cities targeted

Trump deployed thousands of guard troops to Los Angeles after local immigration raids sparked protests that city officials said local law enforcement were able to handle without assistance.

In D.C., he based his deployment on a “crime emergency” and the deployment of troops on the district’s streets happened as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out weeks of raids, traffic stops and other actions as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. 

District residents protested the deployment, and opposition posters, stickers, flags and graffiti sprang up across the city.

Trump justified sending the guard to Portland after falsely claiming the city was “burning down.”

District of Columbia and Tennessee officials have worked with the administration to bring the guard to their cities, which grants the troops power to assist local law enforcement. 

Illinois, Oregon and California officials have not agreed to work with the guard, which results in an order restricting members to only duties of protecting federal property.

Trump previously activated the National Guard to the nation’s capital in response to protests during the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“Costs, like everything else, are out of control, and coming from a family that had to make every dollar count, I know what that feels like,” Joel Brennan said in his launch video. (Screenshot from campaign video)

Joel Brennan, formerly the Department of Administration (DOA) secretary under Gov. Tony Evers, announced his campaign for governor Thursday, saying that President Donald Trump’s “chaos and incompetence” are hurting the state and that “the numbers just aren’t adding up for Wisconsin families.”

“Costs, like everything else, are out of control, and coming from a family that had to make every dollar count, I know what that feels like,” Brennan said in his launch video. “I’ll be a governor who will stand up to Trump’s dysfunction and be laser focused on improving the lives of people across our state.”

In the video, Brennan introduces himself, saying many voters “probably don’t know much about me.” He talks about growing up as one of 11 children in a family that was “long on potential, although sometimes a little short on resources.” He relates that he worked in many jobs including landscaping, retail and deep frying egg rolls to help put himself through college and that his first car had no working blinkers.

“I’ve raised two great kids with my wife, Audra, passing on lessons like rolling up our sleeves to get things done and showing up for our community, and for 25 years I’ve worked with businesses and non-profits to create jobs and strengthen Wisconsin’s economy.”

Brennan served as the DOA secretary from 2019 through 2021. The agency is responsible for assisting the governor with the state budget, providing centralized purchasing and financial management for state agencies and working with the 11 federally recognized Native Nations in Wisconsin on gaming and coastal programs. 

“It’s easy to forget how broken things were after [former Gov.] Scott Walker and his right-wing Legislature had spent eight years gutting state government,” Brennan said. “We got to work putting the state on firmer financial footing, generating a budget surplus of nearly $4 billion dollars and growing our rainy day fund to $1.7 billion, then COVID hit and all of that progress was put at risk. We stood up to the extremists and delivered help to tens of thousands of small businesses, farmers, and families across Wisconsin.”

Prior to his time in Evers’ administration, Brennan worked as the executive director of Discovery World, the largest science museum in Wisconsin. 

Brennan stepped down from leading the DOA in December 2021 to serve as the president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee (GMC). The private-sector, nonprofit civic organization works to foster economic development and cultural growth in Wisconsin’s largest metro area.

According to the Greater Milwaukee Committee, Brennan is stepping aside from the role as he runs for governor. 

Brennan joins a crowded field of hopefuls seeking the Democratic nomination next year. Candidates include Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Milwaukee County Exec. David Crowley, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former state Rep. Brett Hulsey. The primary is scheduled for Aug. 11, 2026.

Roys criticized Brennan in a statement after his announcement over a position the GMC took on a Milwaukee Public Schools referendum last year, saying that Wisconsin needs “a leader who knows how to deliver higher wages, lower costs and the freedom to thrive.”

“While I look forward to a spirited primary, I will not be able to overlook the fact that only one of the candidates in this race tried to defeat a desperately needed referendum to fund our biggest school district,” Roys said. 

The GMC, under Brennan’s leadership, was one of the city’s business organizations that opposed the $252 million operational referendum successfully sought by Milwaukee Public Schools in 2024. GMC expressed concerns at the time over transparency and the “failure to clearly articulate a measurable plan for how these additional financial resources will improve student outcomes.”

The Republican field for governor is not as expansive with just two candidates: U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the frontrunner in the race, and Washington Co. Executive Josh Schoemann.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., center, joined by Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., speaks to reporters following a Senate Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 9, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate in long-anticipated votes failed to advance legislation Thursday that would have addressed the rising cost of health insurance, leaving lawmakers deadlocked on how to curb a surge in premiums expected next year. 

Senators voted 51-48 on a Republican bill co-sponsored by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo that would have provided funding through Health Savings Accounts for some ACA marketplace enrollees during 2026 and 2027. 

They then voted 51-48 on a measure from Democrats that would have extended enhanced tax credits for people who purchase their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace for three years. A group of Senate Democrats in November agreed to end a government shutdown of historic length in exchange for a commitment by Republicans to hold a vote on extending the enhanced subsidies.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted for the Democrats’ bill. Paul also voted against the GOP bill. 

Neither bill received the 60 votes needed to advance under the Senate’s legislative filibuster rule. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., criticized the ACA marketplace and the subsidies for leading to large increases in the costs of health insurance. 

“Under Democrats’ plan insurance premiums will continue to spiral, American taxpayers will find themselves on the hook for ever-increasing subsidy payments,” Thune said. “And don’t think that all those payments are going to go to vulnerable Americans.”

Thune argued Democrats’ bill was only an extension of the “status quo” of a “failed, flawed, fraud program that is increasing costs at three times the rate of inflation. 

Thune said the Republican bill from Cassidy and Crapo would “help individuals to meet their out-of-pocket costs and for many individuals who don’t use their insurance or who barely use it, it would allow them to save for health care expenses down the road.”

Schumer calls GOP plan ‘mean and cruel’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the three-year extension bill was the only option to avoid a spike in costs for people enrolled in ACA marketplace plans. 

“By my last count, Republicans are now at nine different health care proposals and counting. And none of them give the American people the one thing they most want — a clean, simple extension of these health care tax credits,” Schumer said. “But our bill does extend these credits cleanly and simply and it’s time for Republicans to join us.”

Schumer referred to the Cassidy-Crapo proposals as “stingy” as well as “mean and cruel.”

“Under the Republican plan, the big idea is essentially to hand people about $80 a month and wish them good luck,” Schumer said. “And even to qualify for that check, listen to how bad this is, Americans would be forced onto bare-bones bronze plans with sky-high deductibles; $7,000 or $10,000 for an individual, tens of thousands for a couple.”

After the votes failed, Schumer outlined some of the guardrails Democrats would put in place regarding negotiations with GOP colleagues.

“They want to talk about health care in general and how to improve it — we’re always open to that, but we do not want what they want — favoring the insurance companies, favoring the drug companies, favoring the special interests and turning their back on the American people,” he said. 

Health Savings Accounts in GOP plan

The Cassidy-Crapo bill would have the Department of Health and Human Services deposit money into Health Savings Accounts for people enrolled in bronze or catastrophic health insurance plans purchased on the ACA marketplace in 2026 or 2027, according to a summary of the bill. 

Health Savings Accounts are tax-advantaged savings accounts that consumers can use to pay for medical expenses that are not otherwise reimbursed. They are not health insurance products.

ACA marketplace enrollees who select a bronze or catastrophic plan and make up to 700% of the federal poverty level would receive $1,000 annually if they are between the ages of 18 and 49 and $1,500 per year if they are between the ages of 50 and 64. 

That would set a threshold of $109,550 in annual income for one person, or $225,050 for a family of four, according to the 2025 federal poverty guidelines. The numbers are somewhat higher for residents of Alaska and Hawaii.  

The funding could not go toward abortion access or gender transitions, according to the Republican bill summary. 

Members of Congress have introduced several other health care proposals, including two bipartisan bills in the House that would extend the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits for at least another year with some modifications. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been reluctant to bring either bipartisan bill up for a floor vote, though he may not have the option if a discharge petition filed earlier this week garners the 218 signatures needed. 

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick wrote in a statement the legislation represents a “solution that can actually pass—not a political messaging exercise.”

“This bill delivers the urgent help families need now, while giving Congress the runway to keep improving our healthcare system for the long term,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “Responsible governance means securing 80 percent of what families need today, rather than risking 100 percent of nothing tomorrow.”

But Johnson said Wednesday that he will put a package of bills on the House floor next week that he believes “​​will actually reduce premiums for 100% of Americans who are on health insurance.” Details of those bills have not been disclosed.

Thune told reporters that if “somebody is successful in getting a discharge petition and a bill out of the House, obviously we’ll take a look at it. But at the moment, you know, we’re focused on the action here in the Senate, which is the side-by-side vote we’re going to have later today.” 

Alaska’s Murkowski said lawmakers can find a compromise on health care by next week “if we believe it is possible.”

Political costs

The issue of affordability and rising health care costs is likely to be central to the November midterm elections, where Democrats hope to flip the House from red to blue and gain additional seats in the Senate. 

The Democratic National Committee isn’t waiting to begin those campaigns, placing digital ads in the hometown newspapers of several Republicans up for reelection next year, including Maine’s Collins and Ohio’s Jon Husted. 

“Today’s Senate vote to extend the ACA tax credits could be the difference between life and death for many Americans,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a press release. “Over 20 million Americans will see their health care premiums skyrocket next year if Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Jon Husted, and Dan Sullivan do not stand with working families and vote to extend these lifesaving credits.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted Senate Democrats’ proposal during Thursday’s press briefing, calling it a “political show vote” meant to provide cover for Democrats, whom she blamed for creating the problem. 

Trump and Republicans would “unveil creative ideas and solutions to the health care crisis that was created by Democrats,” she said. “Chuck Schumer is not sincerely interested in lowering health care costs for the American people. He’s putting this vote on the floor knowing that it will fail so he can have another talking point that he can throw around without any real plan or action.”

Shauneen Miranda and Jacob Fischler contributed to this report. 

Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks to a crowd holding a prayer vigil and rally on his behalf outside the ICE building in Baltimore, Maryland, on Aug. 25, 2025. Lydia Walther Rodriguez with CASA interprets for him. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

WASHINGTON — The wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after a federal judge ordered his release earlier Thursday, according to his attorneys and an immigrant rights group that has advocated his case.

CASA, the immigrant rights group that has supported Abrego Garcia and his family since he was erroneously deported to a brutal Salvadoran prison, told States Newsroom he was released from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania before a 5 p.m. Eastern deadline set by the judge. He has remained there since September. 

 However, it remained unclear Thursday night if the Department of Homeland Security will follow the judicial order, and the White House press secretary said the Department of Justice would swiftly appeal the decision.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to States Newsroom the “order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”

She did not respond to a follow-up question if ICE would follow the order from U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis to release Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant and longtime Maryland resident who cast a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown after he was wrongly deported.

Abrego Garcia was imprisoned in a brutal prison in El Salvador and returned to the United States to face criminal charges in Tennessee. After he was ordered released from U.S. marshals custody by a federal judge, ICE detained him again at an appointment at the Baltimore, Maryland, ICE field office.

‘Without lawful authority’

Xinis, in a ruling highly critical of the administration’s actions in the case, found that since Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States, he was detained “again without lawful authority,” because the Trump administration has not made an effort to remove him to a third country, due to his deportation protections from his home country of El Salvador. 

The order comes after Abrego Garcia challenged his ICE detention in a habeas corpus petition. Xinis was mulling a Supreme Court precedent that deemed immigrants cannot be held longer than six months in detention if the federal government is not actively making efforts to remove them.

“Separately, Respondents’ conduct over the past months belie that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal, lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no longer,” Xinis wrote in her opinion.

Costa Rica has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, but in court, Department of Justice lawyers did not give Xinis a clear explanation of why the Trump administration would not remove him to Costa Rica. Instead, the Trump administration has tried to deport Abrego Garcia to several countries in Africa. 

Prolonged detention found

In her opinion, Xinis said that Abrego Garcia’s release is required under the Supreme Court’s precedent, referred to as the Zadvydas v. Davis case, because his nearly four-month detention at an ICE facility in Pennsylvania had been prolonged. 

“Respondents’ persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” Xinis said.

She also noted witness testimony from several ICE officials who were unable to provide any information on efforts to remove Abrego Garcia to a third country where he would not face torture, persecution or deportation to El Salvador.  

“They simply refused to prepare and produce a witness with knowledge to testify in any meaningful way,” she said of the Department of Justice.

While the Trump administration has floated removing Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, Ghana, Liberia and Uganda, the Department of Justice is moving forward with criminal charges lodged against Abrego Garcia that stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. 

The judge in that Nashville case is trying to determine if the human smuggling of immigrants charges against Abrego Garcia – to which he has pleaded not guilty – are vindictive. 

Missing order of removal

Another issue Xinis pointed out was the Department of Justice’s inability to produce a final order of removal for Abrego Garica.  

“No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia,” she said. “When Abrego Garcia was first wrongly expelled to El Salvador, the Court struggled to understand the legal authority for even seizing him in the first place.”

She also cited the ICE officials’ testimony, which did answer whether a removal order existed. 

“Respondents twice sponsored the testimony of ICE officials whose job it is to effectuate removal orders, and who candidly admitted to having never seen one for Abrego Garcia,” she said. “Respondents have never produced an order of removal despite Abrego Garcia hinging much of his jurisdictional and legal arguments on its non-existence.”

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have argued if there is no order of removal, there is no basis for his ICE detention.

Abrego Garcia is not challenging his deportation, and has agreed to be removed to Costa Rica, but has remained in ICE detention since August.

William J. Ford contributed to this report. 

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks with reporters inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

The Democratic National Committee will run ads Thursday on the home pages of newspapers in a quartet of Republican senators’ hometowns, calling on the incumbents up for reelection next year to support a Democratic bill to extend health care subsidies.

The digital ads target Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and John Cornyn of Texas on the day the Senate is expected to vote on a Democratic proposal to extend enhanced subsidies for insurance purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

Without the extension, premiums are projected to sharply rise next year.

“REPUBLICAN ARE DOUBLING HEALTH CARE COSTS,” one mockup of the ad provided to States Newsroom reads. “Tell Senator Collins we can’t afford their price hike.”

The ads running in states with two GOP senators also mention the one not on the ballot next year: Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Ted Cruz of Texas.

“Today’s Senate vote to extend the ACA tax credits could be the difference between life and death for many Americans,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a press release. “Over 20 million Americans will see their health care premiums skyrocket next year if Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Jon Husted, and Dan Sullivan do not stand with working families and vote to extend these lifesaving credits.”

‘Affordability’ on the ballot

Democrats have sought to make health care costs a major issue as both parties have projected a focus on affordability issues in next year’s midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

Senate Democrats initiated a six-week government shutdown this year in an effort to force Republicans to negotiate on the expiring subsidies, which Congress expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised a vote on a bill to address rising premiums in exchange for ending the shutdown.

The chamber will vote Thursday on a Democratic proposal that would extend the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits for three years.

Senators will also vote Thursday on legislation from Republicans Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mike Crapo of Idaho that would provide up to $1,500 annually for people who buy either bronze or catastrophic health insurance plans from the ACA marketplace.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that chamber would vote next week on an unspecified measure to address the expiring tax credits.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Republicans’ goal was to provide funding “directly to the people” to “buy their own health care.”

Kimberly LaRonge of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and other LCO members show their support for two Catholic nuns who have taught at a school on tribal land for more than 50 years. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)

Sisters Felissa Zander, and Maryrose Theobald, both 88 years of age, have served as teachers for more than five decades at the only tuition-free Catholic School in Wisconsin: St. Francis Solanus School, a mission school founded in 1885 on the Lac Courte Oreilles Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation in Sawyer County.

Recently, the two sisters informed tribal members, many of whom attended the school as children, that their religious order, School Sisters of St. Francis (SSSF), was calling them to leave their teaching positions on the reservation and move to an assisted living facility in Milwaukee.

The news caused a stir, especially after Sister Felissa expressed concern that no replacements from her order were scheduled to arrive, raising questions about how the school could continue to function.

A small group of protesters gathered at the entrance to the church/school Sunday morning, Nov. 23. The demonstrators all had a connection to the parish, the school and the sisters. 

Susan Aasen, a tribal member and lawyer who had attended the school, said she had been in contact with the two sisters and said they were distraught over the pressure to leave.

“They’re crying,” she said of the sisters. “This is their home. They have no connections in Milwaukee.”

“You see them crying and they’re sad,” said tribal member Denise Cross. “They don’t want to go.”

Sister Felissa, who has taught at the school for 64 years, told the Wisconsin Examiner she didn’t want to leave the mission or teaching and even though she had experienced some medical issues, she was still capable of serving the community and wanted to continue until she was unable. She added that she was originally informed she would have to leave Dec. 2 and then the date was changed to Jan. 6.

“I have known Sister Felissa for a generation; she’s woven into the fabric of our community,” said Kimberly LaRonge, a tribal member who practices the Midewinwin spiritual tradition, but whose family helped build the church. She said she had been helped by Sister Felissa over the years.

Laronge said there was “outrage” in the community because of the perceived disrespect towards the sisters and also the lack of communication with the tribe.

Tribal members expressed concern for the two sisters, the school, but also what would happen to the church property, including the graveyard where many of their ancestors are buried, and artifacts tribal members had given to the church. They said they had heard the convent would be converted into a retreat for retired priests, a rumor the local bishop said was not true at a community meeting on Dec. 2. He also assured tribal members the graveyard would not be disturbed. 

Applause for Bishop’s statement that the nuns won’t be sent away

On Tuesday night, Dec. 2 in the Bingo Hall of the St. Francis Solanus Catholic Church on the LCO reservation, Bishop James Powers spoke to 185 people, mostly tribal members.

“Let me begin first of all by saying that the School Sisters of St. Francis stationed in Milwaukee, headquartered there, have decided not to call Sister Felissa and Sister Maryrose back to Milwaukee, at this time,” he said, as the room burst into applause.

An undated statement to parishioners was circulated after the Dec. 2 meeting, from Sister Kathleen O’Brien, U.S. Provincial Coordinator in Milwaukee for the religious order.

“We have profound respect for our Sisters’ many decades of loving service to generations of Catholics in the Lac Courte Oreilles region,” Sister O’Brien wrote. “We have rejoiced in their milestone of consecrated life, supported their tireless ministry efforts, and worked closely with them to meet their physical and spiritual care in times of surgery and recovery.”

Sister O’Brien noted the order supports their sisters with a “philosophy of care of sisterhood.”

“…our sisters affirm that we are women of faith, responding to God’s call,” she wrote. “We value holistic growth and self-responsibility, interdependence and conservation of God’s resources. We believe in the goodness and potential of all sisters throughout the life course.”

Michael O’Loughlin, the congregation’s communications director, said that sisters from the Milwaukee order are in regular contact with Sister Felissa and Sister Maryrose.

O’Loughlin reiterated the order’s commitment to “self-responsibility as well as interdependence,” and the  “right of each individual to make informed health choices” while collaborating with others in making those decisions. 

“In keeping with this philosophy of care, our sisters in leadership and healthcare professionals will continue to work in partnership with Sister Maryrose and Sister Felissa to compassionately and evaluate their health needs and responsibilities,” he said.

O’Loughlin clarified that the sisters had not been ordered or directed to leave St. Francis Solanus. 

At the Dec. 2 meeting, Bishop Powers announced that no decision had been made about closing the school. O’Loughlin said that given the sisters’ advanced ages and that only a handful of students attend the school, the diocese has been in conversation with the order regarding the school’s financial viability.

Sister O’Brien acknowledged the widespread support the two sisters had received from the tribe and community, and she also pointed out that her order had sent sisters to the reservation for over 100 years, starting in 1909.

Dan Blank, the director of administrative services for the diocese, which has direct authority over the school, wrote in an email to the Examiner:

“The Diocese was aware that the School Sisters of St Francis (SSSF) had talked to Sisters Felissa and Maryrose about returning to Milwaukee on or about Jan 6. There was no specific intent to close the school, but the reality of having no one to replace the Sisters had put pressure on Father David (Father David Neuschwander, the local priest of a church cluster, five churches under one priest, that includes St. Francis) and the Diocese to evaluate the options. The SSSF became aware of the unrest among the parishioners and tribal community, and changed their position with hope that the Sisters will be able to continue their teaching ministry at the school through this school year.”

Financial questions and an uncertain future

After announcing the sisters were not leaving at the Dec. 2 meeting, Bishop Powers said he wanted to focus on the financial status of the school.

“Those accounts that are referred to as ‘sisters’ monies’ are monies the sister has received or raised for the direct support of the school,” he said. “And I need to know, how much is there, so that we can know, is it possible to continue the school? There’s nobody who wants to close a school. I don’t care what school where … but we can’t go on without money.”

Vickie Shibilski, a tribal member and a long-time volunteer and cook at the school, peppered the diocese with questions during the meeting. She also defended Sister Felissa saying she understood the school’s finances and “knew what she was doing.”

“Sister does, but we don’t,” responded the Bishop. “We have to know what funds are available. We need to know whether it’s money enough to keep running the school.”

Shibilski complained that Father David had not met with the community regarding the fate of the school.

“He may look at us like, oh, we’re just folks,” she said. “We’re just cleaners or whatever. We talk to the donors. We work with the donors. We’re in the community, and we’re everywhere, and we’re going to stay here. We’ll be here.” 

She also raised a complaint that a staff person at the church had been rude to Sister Felissa, swearing at her, and demanded the staff person be fired. Blank, the diocese administrator, said the incident would be investigated.

Another community member demanded clarification of the bishop’s statement that the nuns would not be sent away “at this time.” 

“Does that mean, like, not today, not tomorrow, but maybe in the spring, then they’re going to be asked to leave? Because that’s not a clapping matter,” she said. 

The Bishop responded, “I cannot stand up here and say that they’re going to be here til they die. No, I can’t, because, again, the community has that right to call them back,” adding that as the Bishop he had authority to call them back as well but had chosen not to.

A tribal member said the two nuns had given their lives to the tribe and the parish and school and if they retire, they shouldn’t be forced to live in Milwaukee.

Blank encouraged tribal members to make the Milwaukee order aware of community sentiment.

Another tribal member said she didn’t think Blank understood how much Native Americans care for elders, including their health needs.

Father David gave a presentation about the school’s finances.

“My desired outcome for this meeting is to raise awareness of the financial needs, particularly at the school, so that they can be met,” he said. “There are so many people who have volunteered so much and given so much of their lives. I would love to see more people financially supporting our school. In order to do that, people need to know what’s going on.”

Shibilski challenged the priest, saying he hadn’t mentioned the St. Francis parish or school during his Sunday services from Hayward that are broadcast on the radio. She was also critical that he had not attended important community events.

“Rarely do you visit our school or spend any time with our children, and I think you’ve only been in our classroom maybe once,” she said. “If you’re going to lead you need to lead all of us and be here and show the children and your parents, because right now, I don’t really believe they know you well. I don’t even know you well.”

Father David responded that he wanted to communicate “more clearly.” He added that during his first two years of service he looked at the finances of the church, and then the last year, he began looking at the finances of the school.

He noted neither the parish nor the school was in debt.

He then shared a pie chart showing the school’s expenses and revenue of $260,370. The biggest source of revenues is an endowment of $86,850. In two years, he said, the endowment would be spent down.

After the meeting, Father David said, “I hold Sister Felissa and Sister Maryrose in the highest respect, and I am grateful for their decades of loving ministry at St. Francis Solanus. They have been and remain a profound blessing to generations of families on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation.”

 As pastor, he said, “I am called to ensure the long-term health of all five parishes within the Lac Courte Oreilles and Hayward Area Catholic Churches, including financial health. Because of this responsibility, I expressed concerns to the Diocese regarding the long-term financial sustainability of the school.”

“The diocese is primarily focused on financial sustainability,” he added, “while the motherhouse in Milwaukee has the responsibility of caring for the health and well-being of their sisters.”

Parish concerns

At the Dec. 2 meeting, Bishop Powers noted the Catholic church has had a presence with the tribe since the late 18th century.

“Let me say again, there has never been nor will there ever be any talk of closing the parish as long as I am Bishop,” he said.

A complaint lodged several times during the meeting was that money from St. Francis and the other church on the reservation, St. Ignatius, is going to fund staff working at the Hayward church, and the perception that the tribal parishes were not receiving value from their dollars.

“What has St Francis gained from having this cluster?” Shibilski asked. “I don’t see that we gained anything; we’re losing here.”

Bishop Powers noted there were not enough priests in the diocese to serve just one parish, and he said the advantage of a cluster is “stability of operation” and the use of standard bookkeeping, which he said hadn’t been used for years at either the St. Francis parish or the school.

Shibilski said the cluster could just consist of St. Francis and St. Ignatius, with Father Karunakar Madanu (an international priest from India) serving both parishes.

“I’m begging you. I’m begging you, please, give us our cluster back,” she said. “Give us our parish back.”

“I can’t make that promise,” responded the Bishop.

Father David said he would like to hire a bookkeeper from the parish and create a finance council.

“But sometimes we think you’re just worried about the money, that’s all you’ve been asking about,” Shibilski responded.

Another community member said churches often donate to the mission field, and that St. Francis was designated as a mission and therefore should not be expected to generate revenue for the Church.

Larry French, the director of finance for the diocese, said when he asked about receipts for St. Francis school none could be produced.

“We didn’t have receipts for this school,” said French. “We didn’t know what was coming in. We didn’t know what was going out. You can’t audit when you don’t have anything to audit.”

Blank also noted that St. Francis parish didn’t have a finance council and questioned whether it had a parish council. And he also said if there are concerns on how contracts were given for facility work, there should be a building and grounds committee overseeing those projects

Several audience members then suggested an audit of the Hayward church.

“You know you should respect us a little more than what you are giving us,” said one community member.

Blank responded, “We have great respect, and we continue to support you. We are listening and learning. So yes, there can be an audit. Yes, there can be a request to the mother house that the sisters stay here forever. We can’t speak to that. We don’t have authority for that. Bishop can be in conversation with them.”

Blank also asked the audience to give Father David a second chance to work with the parish and school.

After the Dec. 2 meeting, the  diocese put out a statement thanking those who participated.

“We listened to the many concerns and requests from parishioners and LCO tribal members. There are many issues to consider and act on. In order to move forward together, we will need many volunteers for councils and committees for St Francis and St Ignatius. We promise to continue to communicate and to respect the many years of service by Sisters Felissa and Maryrose.”

The Covering Wisconsin webpage. The nonprofit, housed at the University of Wisconsin Extension, is a navigator agency to help people understand their options when buying health insurance through the HealthCare.gov marketplace. (Screenshot)

About 4,000 fewer people in Wisconsin signed up at the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace in November for a health plan for next year than did in November 2024 for coverage this year, recently released numbers from the federal government show.

It’s too soon to tell for sure whether that will forecast a significant drop in health coverage through the marketplace, according to William Parke-Sutherland of the Wisconsin family policy research and advocacy group Kids Forward.

Parke-Sutherland and others who pay close attention to health care access in Wisconsin are watching those numbers closely, however.

Monday, Dec. 15, marks a critical deadline — the last day that people who purchase a health plan through the marketplace can sign up for coverage that starts Jan. 1, 2026.

The Healthcare.gov marketplace was created as part of the Affordable Care Act. Enacted in 2010 to drive down the ranks of Americans without access to health care, the ACA established the marketplace to make it easier and cheaper for people without coverage from an employer or through government programs such as Medicaid to buy health insurance.

Enhanced tax credit subsidies first enacted in 2021 on health plans sold through the marketplace have helped boost enrollment to new records over the last four years nationally and in Wisconsin. More than 300,000 state residents received their health coverage for 2025 through the marketplace.

Those enhanced subsidies expire at the end of this year, however, leading to forecasts that enrollment will decline in 2026 as the cost of insurance climbs.

“Many Wisconsinites will see their premiums double, and some will see staggering increases of over $30,000 a year,” Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday during a press call with the ACA advocacy groups Protect Our Care and Main Street Alliance. “That’s ridiculous and unattainable for many.”

The event was held both to alert people about Monday’s open enrollment deadline and to urge voters to lobby Congress to extend the subsidies.

“Each year, the Affordable Care Act and open enrollment has ensured hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites having life-saving health care coverage,” Evers said. “These tax credits are not luxuries — they are lifelines that make the difference between kids and families and communities getting care or going without it.”

This year, 88% of Wisconsin residents who enrolled at HealthCare.gov qualified for the enhanced subsidies and saved $644 a month on average, Evers said.

Thad Schumacher, a Fitchburg pharmacist who also joined the call, said losing coverage would lead people to forgo “their primary care visits, their medications, for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, and preventative care that keeps people healthy.”

Early numbers send mixed signals

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid reported that from Nov. 1 to 29 this year, 84,398 Wisconsinites enrolled in coverage through the marketplace. From Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, 2024, Dairy State enrollment totaled 88,189, according to CMS.

Nationally numbers are up, however — 5.76 million in November this year, compared with 5.36 million in November last year, according to CMS.

While Wisconsin’s decrease of less than 4,000 people signing up may look small, “It’s just hard to know what this means,” Parke-Sutherland told the Wisconsin Examiner.

In the years going back to 2022, the first month of open enrollment saw anywhere from 29% to 42% of that year’s total HealthCare.gov sign-ups, he said.

At Covering Wisconsin — a federally licensed navigator that helps guide people through the process of enrolling in HealthCare.gov plans — the volume of November calls and contacts through the navigator’s web-based chat portal have been about even with the same month last year, said Allison Espeseth, the Covering Wisconsin director.

In 2024, however, there was “a pretty big spike” in contacts in the first two weeks of December leading up to the Dec. 15 deadline for coverage to start Jan. 1.

“This year, we are definitely continuing to have people call us, but we haven’t seen that spike,” Espeseth said.

She offered several possible reasons for that. Some people may have seen higher premiums for their plans and decided to go without. Others may think that there won’t be any subsidies, despite the fact that smaller subsidies that were part of HealthCare.gov plans from the beginning remain in place.

And some have wondered whether they should hold off on signing up in case Congress does reach a deal and extend the subsidies, Espeseth noted.

“We’ve been encouraging people to please sign up regardless,” Espeseth said. “Don’t wait.”

Abortion-rights advocate Kristin Hady helps a car navigate past protesters toward  A Preferred Women’s Health Center of Atlanta in Forest Park, Georgia, in August 2023. Independent clinics are facing fresh challenges, and at least 23 more closed this year, bringing the total to 100 since the Dobbs decision. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder) 

When Wisconsin Planned Parenthood clinics temporarily paused abortion services in October because of a new law halting federal Medicaid reimbursements, patients turned to the state’s two independent clinics for care. 

Demand at Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee quadrupled, according to clinic director Dabbie Phonekeo. 

“It happened all of a sudden. We were all scrambling to figure out what we needed to do and how we were going to accept all patients,” Phonekeo said. 

The staff secured additional funding to meet need before Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood clinics resumed abortions, adapting under a law that bans certain reproductive health care providers from receiving federal funding until July 2026. 

“This was a reminder of why it’s so important to have independent clinics and abortion access overall,” Phonekeo said. 

At least 23 independent clinics have closed this year, according to a report released Tuesday by Abortion Care Network, compared with 12 last year.

Most were in states with abortion-rights protections, the report found. 

Independent providers face less recognition than Planned Parenthood and ongoing barriers to funding. Donations to abortion clinics and funds have waned, leading to more out-of-pocket costs for patients, States Newsroom reported last year.  

Independent clinics provide 58% of all abortions nationwide, while Planned Parenthood provides 38%, hospitals 3%, and 1% occur at physicians’ offices, according to the latest Abortion Care Network findings. 

Medication abortion, allowed during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, has been a focus of abortion-rights advocates and opponents this year. But independent clinics are more likely to offer legal procedural abortions after that. 

More than 60% of all U.S. clinics that offer abortion care after the first trimester are independent, 85% that provide abortion at 22 weeks or later are independent, and all clinics that perform the procedure after 26 weeks are independent, according to the report. 

“While both medication and in-clinic abortion are safe and effective, people may need or prefer one method over another,” the report states. “This is especially true for patients for whom it’s not safe or feasible to terminate outside the clinic — including those experiencing intimate partner violence, minors without support at home, people experiencing homelessness, and patients who cannot take time off from work or caretaking.” 

The latest clinic closures come more than three years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision forced many to cease operations: 100 independent clinics closed between 2022 and 2025. 

Affiliated Medical Services in Wisconsin is one of the few independent abortion providers that was able to reopen after closing the day the nation’s highest court overturned federal abortion rights on June 24, 2022. 

The clinic reopened in March 2024 a few months after a Wisconsin judge ruled that a 19th century abortion ban was invalid, Wisconsin Examiner reported. 

Phonekeo said people were initially hesitant to book appointments at the clinic. 

“Most of our patients that we saw had asked, ‘Is this legal? Am I going to go to jail if I have an abortion today? Can we do this in Wisconsin?’ So I think a lot of patients were still afraid to be seen,” she said. 

Independent clinics could become even more significant to reproductive health care access if lawmakers permanently bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal resources.  

Some anti-abortion groups have urged the Trump administration to disqualify Planned Parenthood as a federal vendor, States Newsroom reported in November. 

Nearly 50 Planned Parenthood clinics closed this year due to federal health officials’ cuts to Title X and Medicaid. At least 20 closed since a federal “defunding” provision that halts Medicaid funds for reproductive health care providers that offer abortion and received more than $800,000 in fiscal year 2023 took effect, according to a tally released on Nov. 12 by the national organization. 

Some of the clinics that closed did not offer abortion. And under the law, federal funding only covers abortions in extreme circumstances, so the Medicaid reimbursement ban primarily affects patients who go to Planned Parenthood for other services, like birth control, cervical cancer screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. 

Some independent clinics offer non-abortion care, too, but many don’t accept Medicaid, clinic directors said at a Wednesday news briefing. 

Amber Gavin is the vice president of advocacy of operations at A Woman’s Choice, an organization that has three clinics in North Carolina and one each in Florida and Virginia. She said staff members at the Charlotte location have seen an uptick in patients seeking STI testing and related services. 

Karishma Oza, chief of staff at DuPont Clinic in Washington, D.C., also said providers there have seen an increase in patients who are uninsured or underinsured since the Medicaid ban, which mostly affects Planned Parenthood, took effect. 

Phonekeo said the Wisconsin clinic hasn’t dealt with more demand for reproductive health care services beyond abortion. Still, Affiliated Medical Services offers birth control pills, IUDs, STI testing and treatment, miscarriage care and even follow-up care for medication abortion provided through online-only clinics such as Hey Jane. 

While all three clinic leaders said they don’t accept Medicaid, they offer sliding-scale payments for people who cannot afford the full cost of care. 

“We’re more than just abortion providers,” Phonekeo said. 

Gov. Tony Evers signed “Bradyn’s Law,” which creates a new crime for sexual extortion and the “Swenson Starkie Act,” which extends the statute of limitations for hiding a corpse. Evers addresses the Legislature in his 2024 State of the State message. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

Gov. Tony Evers signed two bills this week introduced in response to crimes, including “Bradyn’s Law,” which creates a new crime for sexual extortion and the “Swenson Starkie Act,” which extends the statute of limitations for hiding a corpse. 

AB 201, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 48, was introduced by Rep. Patrick Snyder and Sen. Jesse James after the death of 15-year-old Bradyn Bohn from Kronenwetter, a village outside of Wausau. Bohn died by suicide in March after being targeted online by a perpetrator who convinced him to send photos of himself and told him that he needed to send money or face major consequences. He suffered through hours of threats and was coerced into sending money before his death.

“Today is an important day to remember Bradyn as we honor him and his memory, because now, moving forward, we will be able to hold bad actors responsible for reprehensible behavior, especially when they prey on our kids, and that is so important,” Evers said in a statement. “We wouldn’t be here today without Bradyn’s family and their relentless advocacy to keep kids safe online and hold predators accountable. We will be able to protect more of Wisconsin’s kids because of Bradyn’s family’s efforts to fight back.”

Sexual extortion, or “sextortion” is defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a crime in which “an offender coerces a minor to create and send sexually explicit images or video and then uses that material to extort the victim by threatening to release it.” 

2025 Wisconsin Act 48 makes it a Class I felony to coerce someone to engage in sexual conduct or to produce “an intimate representation” by threatening to injure someone’s property or representation, by threatening to commit violence or by threatening to distribute intimate photos of another person. The crime would be a Class H felony if the victim does any of those acts or is under the age of 18, and a Class G felony if the defendant was previously convicted of a sexually violent offense, the violation was committed during the course of a child abduction or the victim is under age 18 and the defendant is more than four years older than the victim. 

A person can also be prosecuted for felony murder if the person commits extortion and it causes the death of the victim. 

Sexual extortion has become a growing threat in the U.S. in recent years. The FBI observed from October 2022 to March 2023 an increase of more than 20% in reports of financially motivated sextortion incidents involving minor victims. 

From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors that included at least 12,600 victims, mostly boys, and led to at least 20 suicides.

Rep. Brent Jacobson (R-Mosinee) said in a statement that the bill is the first step towards “protecting vulnerable Wisconsinites from exploitation.” 

“As technology creates new avenues for exploitation, my colleagues and I have an obligation to make sure our laws protect our constituents, and that Wisconsin parents have the resources and awareness to keep their children safe from harm,” Jacobson said. “We must continue to come together to prevent these heinous crimes from claiming children in our state.”

Statute of limitations for hiding a corpse

SB 423, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 59, extends the statute of limitations for prosecuting the crime of hiding or burying a corpse by specifying that it only begins “once the victim’s remains are found and identified or when the crime occurs, whichever is later.” The current statute of limitations is six years in Wisconsin.

The legislation was introduced by Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) and Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) after the case of Starkie Swenson. Swenson disappeared in 1983 but his remains weren’t found until 2021, 38 years later. 

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, John C. Andrews accepted a plea in the case and was convicted on a charge of homicide by negligent use of a vehicle in 1994 and served 16 months in prison. He refused to reveal where Swenson’s body was. 

Police charged him with hiding a corpse after identifying the remains in 2021, but the charges were dismissed due to the statute of limitations. 

“The killer should’ve faced justice for hiding the remains in an attempt to conceal his crime. However, because of a loophole in Wisconsin law, Starkie’s killer was able to avoid charges,” Tusler said in a statement. “Although we cannot heal the wounds caused by the murder of Starkie Swenson, 2025 Wisconsin Act 59 ensures that no violent criminal will be able to exploit the corpse-hiding loophole again,” Tusler said in a statement.

Notifying parents of sex offenses

AB 74, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 57, requires Wisconsin schools to notify a pupil’s parent or guardian if the pupil is an alleged victim, target or recipient of alleged sex offenses while at school. The law also requires school boards to provide parents and guardians each year with information on their rights to access records regarding school employee discipline.

“Doing everything we can to keep our kids safe at school, at home, and in our communities is a top priority for me, as well as our schools and education professionals, who are frontlines of doing what’s best for our kids every day,” Evers said in a statement. “This bill will strengthen transparency by making sure parents and family members are notified if any misconduct at school affects their kids’ safety or well-being and bolster accountability by ensuring they know what their rights are and what their kids’ rights are.”

Evers signs several other bills this week

Under AB 136, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 55, the penalty for impersonating a peace officer, a firefighter, an emergency medical services practitioner or an emergency medical responder is increased from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class I felony. Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rep. Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego) introduced the legislation this year following an incident in New Berlin.

AB 388, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 75, creates a legal framework to establish a behavioral health hospital in Chippewa Falls using $10 million, which was set aside in the state budget this year to be used for Rogers Behavioral Health. Sen. Jesse James, who coauthored the bill, said in a statement that it “is extremely monumental for the people of northwestern Wisconsin” and provides “a renewed sense of optimism” to the community as it will provide mental health support for children and adults in the area.

Under SB 11, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 79, principals will now be required to allow youth membership organizations, including the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts, to schedule at minimum one time to visit their school to encourage students to join their organization. The visit can consist of both spoken and written information on how the organization helps students with educational interests and civic engagement. 

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) celebrated Evers signing the bill, saying that the organizations “create more engaged, confident, and community-minded citizens” and the law “ensures the next generation of Wisconsin children will continue to benefit from these life-changing experiences.” She also criticized Evers for vetoing another bill that would have added new requirements on schools related to military recruiters, saying the state should “proudly support our military, not slam the door shut when they’re offering students legitimate career options, which is precisely what the governor did with this veto.”

SB 310, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 61, limits the amount of time covered by an emergency power proclamation by a local government’s chief executive officer to 60 days, unless extended by a local governing body. The bill was part of a controversy surrounding Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez earlier this year who claimed that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is running for governor, abused his power during the COVID-19 pandemic when he issued emergency orders in 2021.

AB 265, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 56, requires judges to sentence offenders to a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime.

A 2026 America the Beautiful Annual Pass to gain entry to U.S. national parks. (Photo from federal court documents)

WASHINGTON — A public lands advocacy group sued the Trump administration in federal court Wednesday over the inclusion of President Donald Trump’s face on the forthcoming National Park annual pass.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that alleges the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture violated the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, which requires department officials to feature an image on the annual pass chosen from a public photo contest.

The 16-page complaint alleges the administration has replaced a contest-winning photo of Montana’s Glacier National Park on the annual pass for U.S. residents with a graphic featuring the images of George Washington and Trump commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The photo of Glacier National Park will still be featured on the administration’s newly created, more expensive non-resident pass, according to the lawsuit.

“The Interior Department’s bait-and-switch betrays the expectations of the thousands of people who participate in the contest and is directly at odds with the public participation mandates of the statute,” according to the complaint. “It also undermines the stability of this well-established program and the conservation, recreational, and educational outcomes (the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act) provides.”

The White House and the Department of Interior did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

‘Treasured’ national parks

In a statement, the center’s Executive Director Kierán Suckling said, “Blotting out the majesty of America’s national parks with a closeup of his own face is Trump’s crassest, most ego-driven action yet.” 

“The national parks are treasured by Americans of every stripe. Their timeless power and magnificence rise above even the most bitter political differences to quietly bring all Americans together. It’s disgusting of Trump to politicize America’s most sacred refuge by pasting his face over the national parks in the same way he slaps his corporate name on buildings, restaurants, and golf courses. The national parks are not a personal branding opportunity,” Suckling said.

Passes in recent years have featured photos of Everglades National Park, Wupatki National Monument, Sequoia & Kings Range National Park, San Juan National Forest, Redwood National Forest, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Acadia National Park, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and Nantahala National Forest. 

Passes for non-residents to be $250

The America the Beautiful annual pass is $80 for U.S. residents and provides entry to every national park and special fee areas of national forests, wildlife refuges and other national lands. 

The new nonresident annual pass is priced at $250.

Sales of the pass generated $119.4 million in revenue in 2023 that went back into the care and maintenance of the parks, according to data included in the court filing.

Democratic U.S. Rep Jared Golden of Maine announces plans for a discharge petition to force a vote on his bill to overturn an executive order restricting collective bargaining for federal workers Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2025. (Photo via Rep. Jared Golden)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House agreed Wednesday to consider a bill that would void President Donald Trump’s executive order that strips collective bargaining rights for roughly 1 million federal workers.

The 222-200 vote was a rare bipartisan agreement from the lower chamber to rebuke a policy decision from the president. Thirteen Republicans joined all Democrats voting for the resolution. 

Maine’s Jared Golden, a Democrat, and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican, forced the vote by garnering enough signatures from lawmakers under a legislative move known as a discharge petition. The procedure allows rank-and-file members to compel the chamber to vote on measures that are not brought up by the leadership of the majority party, which is how bills typically reach the floor.

Wednesday’s vote was to discharge the bill out of committee and bring it to the floor for a vote. A vote on the bill itself is expected Thursday. 

The discharge petition gained the 218 signatures needed from 213 Democrats and five Republicans: Fitzpatrick, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, and Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler of New York. 

In March, Trump signed an executive order that banned collective bargaining agreements for federal agencies dealing with national security. 

Those agencies include the departments of Defense, Veteran Affairs, Homeland Security, State and Energy, along with the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Coast Guard, most entities within the Department of Justice and several pandemic response and refugee resettlement agencies within the Health and Human Services Department, among others. 

“Protecting America’s national security is a core constitutional duty, and President Trump refuses to let union obstruction interfere with his efforts to protect Americans and our national interests,” according to the executive order.

Federal law enforcement and firefighters are exempt from the order.

Bargaining agreements for federal employees are somewhat limited. Workers cannot strike or bargain for wages or benefits, but they can push for better working conditions, such as protection from retaliation, discrimination, and illegal firings. 

Cows graze at Nice Farms Creamery in Federalsburg, Maryland.  (Photo by Preston Keres/USDA)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend $700 million to support regenerative agriculture as part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday. 

The USDA pilot program for regenerative agriculture — a conservation management approach centered on improving the health of soil and increasing biodiversity — enacts part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s September “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy,” which offered more than 120 recommendations for addressing childhood chronic diseases.  

The pilot program will take funding from existing USDA conservation programs, which provide financial and technical assistance to farmers, with the aim of improving soil health.

“Protecting and improving the health of our soil is critical, not only for the future viability of farmland, but to the future success of American farmers,” Rollins said at a press conference alongside Kennedy and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

“In order to continue to be the most productive and most efficient growers in the world, we must protect our topsoil from unnecessary erosion and boost the microbiome of the soil,” Rollins said.

Kennedy said a September report from the administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, which the health secretary chairs, included “the promise to make it easier for farmers in this country, to give them an off-ramp — farmers who are dependent on … chemical and fertilizer inputs — to give them an off-ramp where they can transition to a model that emphasizes soil health.” 

Kennedy has long advocated against use of chemicals in farming.

Repurposing funding

The department will dedicate $400 million to the initiative through the department’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program and $300 million from its Conservation Stewardship Program, according to a USDA press release.

“It’s baseline funding that we received through our budget, so we have the ability to tag that funding specifically for this pilot, and that’s what we’re doing,” Aubrey J.D. Bettencourt, chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, said.

Rollins also said she would seek corporate partners for the program using a 2022 law that authorizes USDA to channel private contributions to conservation programs. 

The move “will bring corporate label and supply chain partners directly into partnership” with NRCS, Rollins said.

The pilot program “connects the producer and the work that they’re doing on the farm, granting them the credit for that voluntary action of change in practice on their farm that then can transition into the supply chain, into the marketplace and directly back to the consumer,” Bettencourt said. 

SNAP waivers 

Meanwhile, Rollins and Kennedy also announced Wednesday six more states whose waivers were approved to prohibit Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits from being used to purchase certain non-nutritious items beginning in 2026. 

The effort, also part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda, adds Hawaii, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee to the list of states that will have such bans. 

The bans restrict which items recipients of the federal food assistance program that helps 42 million Americans afford groceries can buy with their SNAP benefits.

Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia already have similar incoming bans.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, June 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is ratcheting up pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to finish a study into medication abortion and to change its prescribing guidelines, sending a letter to Commissioner Marty Makary on Wednesday that the pace of the review is “totally unacceptable.”

The letter came just one day after leading anti-abortion groups called on President Donald Trump to fire Makary, following a report from Bloomberg Law that he planned to delay the agency’s review into mifepristone until past the November midterm elections. 

Hawley wrote in the two-page letter he posted to social media that it was “unclear” whether the FDA was actually conducting a review of the current prescribing guidelines and the safety of medication abortion. 

“There are more abortions in America now than when Roe was still law,” Hawley wrote, referring to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling from the Supreme Court, which established the constitutional right to an abortion. “And this is largely because of the chemical abortion drug and its generics, like the one you approved.”

Hawley asked Makary to reply to three questions before Dec. 15, including whether the FDA is “conducting a comprehensive safety review of mifepristone separate from the (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies) process,” if Makary delayed any safety reviews of mifepristone and if the FDA has plans to revert prescribing guidelines to require in-person dispensing. 

President Donald Trump, asked about the timeline during a roundtable at the White House, said he would find out whether the FDA was stalling. 

“I’ll find out. I’ll ask them,” Trump said. “I don’t think they’re slow walking anything, but I’ll find out.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, said that “FDA’s comprehensive scientific reviews take the time necessary to get the science right, and that is what Dr. Makary is ensuring as part of the Department’s commitment to gold-standard science and evidence-based reviews.”

Second day of pressure on Makary

Hawley’s letter continued the public pressure campaign from anti-abortion organizations and lawmakers that began Tuesday when leaders at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Live Action called for Makary to be fired over the Bloomberg Law news story reporting he had delayed the review of mifepristone over political considerations related to the midterm elections.

Americans United for Life CEO John Mize released a statement after meeting with Makary, saying it “is glaringly obvious that flawed political calculations” have stalled the FDA’s review of mifepristone, but not calling for him to lose his job over it. 

Access to mifepristone

Mifepristone is one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion. It is approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and can be prescribed via telehealth and shipped to patients. 

Reducing or eliminating access to mifepristone has become a linchpin of the anti-abortion movement since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion in 2022. 

Anti-abortion medical organizations, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Erin Morrow Hawley, tried unsuccessfully to have the Supreme Court revert the prescribing guidelines for mifepristone in 2024. 

Josh Hawley and Erin Morrow Hawley are married. 

Numerous medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, filed briefs to the justices in that case attesting to the safety and efficacy of medication abortion. 

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming: major adverse events occur in less than 0.32% of patients,” the groups wrote. “The risk of death is almost non-existent.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters during a press conference on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. Also pictured from left are Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain of Michigan, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson committed Wednesday to hold a vote next week on a package of bills that he said would lower health insurance premiums for hundreds of millions of Americans, not just those enrolled in Affordable Care Act plans. 

But the Louisiana Republican’s promise didn’t come with any details about which bills would be included in the package or whether the legislation will have the GOP votes needed to pass, amid vastly different views among his members about the federal government’s role in health care. 

“You’re going to see a package come together that will be on the floor next week that will actually reduce premiums for 100% of Americans who are on health insurance,” Johnson said. 

That will be a challenging task for Johnson and other House Republican leaders since they hold an especially narrow 220-213 majority. Democrats are unlikely to support GOP bills that don’t extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the ACA marketplace. Without the tax credit subsidies, costs are expected to rise sharply.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said just after a closed-door meeting of House GOP lawmakers on health care that leaders were still finalizing which bills would go into the package. 

“We showed a list of what the three committees of jurisdiction have been working on for months today. And then encouraged all the members to give their feedback. And they did,” Scalise said. “A lot of members spoke today at the mic, which we want. They gave their feedback. And frankly, a lot of it was very positive about those bills.”

Senate votes Thursday

The House bills are part of a larger debate in Congress and at the White House about the rising cost of living, including health care affordability, that surged to the forefront in October and November after Democrats shut down the government. 

Senate Democrats throughout the six-week shutdown demanded a vote to extend the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised Democrats a floor vote on a health care bill of their choosing in exchange for votes to end the shutdown. 

The Senate is expected to vote Thursday on a Democratic bill that would extend enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits for three years.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that proposal would increase the federal deficit by $83 billion during the next decade. 

That three-year extension would boost the number of people with health insurance by 400,000 in 2026, 3 million in 2027, 4 million in 2028, and 1.1 million in 2029, compared to current law. 

Senators will also vote Thursday on legislation from Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, both Republicans, that would provide up to $1,500 annually for people who buy either bronze or catastrophic health insurance plans from the ACA marketplace.

The funding would go directly into a Health Savings Account for people between the ages of 18 and 64 who make up to 700% of the federal poverty level. That would be about $109,550 for one person or $225,050 for a family of four. The funding would last for 2026 and 2027 but end after that. 

Neither proposal is expected to get the 60 votes needed to advance under the Senate’s legislative filibuster rule. Even if a bill moved through the Senate, it would still need to get a House vote, a prospect that seemed like a long shot now that House GOP leaders are putting out a package of their own. 

Abortion coverage

South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said after the conference meeting that “the devil’s in the details” of exactly which bills go to the floor but added GOP lawmakers had begun to form a “consensus.”

Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris said he doesn’t believe GOP lawmakers are responsible for addressing any aspect of the Affordable Care Act, including the expiring tax credits. 

“It’s not our responsibility to fix Obamacare,” Harris said. “They broke it. They should fix it.”

Harris, chairman of the far-right Freedom Caucus, said he wouldn’t support any bill to extend the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits unless it restricted abortion access in those health insurance plans to only cases of rape, incest, or the life of the pregnant patient. 

That issue has become a central negotiating point for many GOP lawmakers, even those who are open to extending the tax credits a little while longer. 

‘Moment of truth’

Democrats argue adding those constraints, often referred to as the Hyde Amendment, is unacceptable and would represent a new restriction on abortion access. 

“I don’t understand when you’ve had a number of Republicans in the House and the Senate say they get it, this is a disaster to have these premiums double and triple, why they want to mess around right now and put abortion politics into the middle of this,” Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said. “They know that that’s not going to work.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the only proposal on the table to extend the enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits, avoiding a surge in premiums next year, is the Democratic bill. 

“Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the Republicans here in the Senate,” Schumer said. “Are they going to bring health care costs down, or will they sit by and let premiums explode for millions of Americans?”

Discharge petition on bipartisan bill

Later in the day a potential solution emerged when a bipartisan group of House lawmakers filed a discharge petition that would force a floor vote on their compromise bill if they can get at least 218 signatures. 

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick wrote in a statement the legislation represents a “solution that can actually pass—not a political messaging exercise.”

“This bill delivers the urgent help families need now, while giving Congress the runway to keep improving our healthcare system for the long term,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “Responsible governance means securing 80 percent of what families need today, rather than risking 100 percent of nothing tomorrow.”

The 79-page bill, formally titled the Bipartisan Health Insurance Affordability Act, is co-sponsored by Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, North Carolina Democratic Rep. Donald Davis, Washington state Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, New York Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and New York Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. 

The legislation would extend enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits through 2027 and expand access to Health Savings Accounts, among several other changes.

Golden wrote in a statement announcing the bill’s introduction Tuesday that it “implements sensible income caps” on who can receive the ACA marketplace tax credits.

“This moment requires leaders to abandon their partisan corners and govern,” Golden wrote. “Our bill provides a path out of gridlock and toward solutions.”

Gluesenkamp Perez wrote that no one “wants to shell out more cash to insurance companies or (pharmacy benefit manager) middlemen.”

“At the same time, we can’t lose sight of the fact that national health doesn’t come from insurance coverage — it hinges on people having good jobs, being able to sleep 8 hours a night, cook real food and see their kids at night,” she added. “Affordable healthcare and medicine are imperative and worth the fight, but a strong nation is longer work.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

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

Midwest Environmental Advocates filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Wisconsin Public Service Commission seeking to force the release of unredacted documents showing how much electricity will be used at Meta’s planned data center in Beaver Dam. 

In a news release, MEA said it had sought electrical load projections for data center projects in Beaver Dam and Port Washington in an October open records request. The PSC initially provided the firm with versions that redacted the electrical load information. MEA sent a follow-up request seeking unredacted versions of the document. 

The PSC sent the unredacted version of the Port Washington project but denied the request for the Beaver Dam project, claiming it contained trade secrets. 

Wisconsin’s open records law allows government agencies to deny records requests if the information within the document is a trade secret, however MEA disputes that the amount of energy Meta plans to request for its data center counts. 

“It appears the PSC is unlawfully withholding this information because either Meta or a public utility is claiming the electricity demand for the data center is a trade secret,” MEA legal fellow Michael Greif said in a statement. “We call on Alliant Energy, American Transmission Company and Meta to be forthright with the public about their plans. These companies are asking a lot of the public and the public deserves, at least the very least, basic information about the data center’s massive energy needs.” 

Data center projects across the country are often shrouded in secrecy. A study in Virginia found that at least 80% of local governments involved with data center proposals had signed non-disclosure agreements with the data center companies — though it’s unclear how an NDA would be enforceable against Wisconsin’s public records laws. 

Earlier this year, MEA filed a separate lawsuit to force the city of Racine to release records related to the projected water use at Microsoft’s planned data center in Mount Pleasant.

A new report urges federal policy makers to reverse the decline in resources and staff for federal statistics agencies. (J Studios/Getty Images)

Federal agencies that count jobs, measure incomes, track health information and provide countless other forms of data are under unprecedented strain, according to a new report — compounding years of neglect by Congress and the federal government.

The report, released Wednesday by the American Statistical Association, calls on the federal government to reverse course, bolstering support for the national statistics infrastructure with staff, expertise and resources. It’s part of an ongoing project by the association to monitor the work of federal statistics agencies.

“In combination, we are seeing the system approach a crisis point unless immediate action is taken by Congress and the Executive Branch to reform the current trajectory,” the report states.

It’s a call that state and local officials say matters to them as well.

“It  might make people’s eyes glaze over, but for 235 years, we’ve understood the value of using federal data in particular,” said Zach Brandon, president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce. “This has been an underpinning of how this country has been built and the resources we use to understand not only where we’ve been but where we’re headed.”

Federal data informed a 2019 think tank report that found Wisconsin was uniquely poised to become a national hub for biomedical research and development, Brandon said. That conclusion culminated in the state’s selection for a biohealth technology hub under a program included in the 2022 federal CHIPS and Science Act.

He considers accurate data not just a record of the past, but an assist to forecasting the future — “a flashlight that helps you see the challenges and the opportunities before they just become anecdotes.”

Brandon is skeptical that the private sector can provide an adequate substitute. “Even if it could be as robust, we likely couldn’t afford it,” he said.

Resources needed, report finds

The statistical association’s report states that for federal agencies to produce accurate data promptly that can be trusted, they need expert staff and enough resources for now and the future.

Instead, however, federal budgets have shortchanged them for years, it states. The Trump administration is proposing more of the same in its 2026 budget, with cuts to all 13 of the federal statistical agencies, the report warns.

“Immediate action must be taken to halt the severe decline in the federal statistical agencies’ ability to meet their basic mission and be positioned to keep up with increasing information needs and to address uncertainty in the trustworthiness of federal statistics,” the report states.

The 43-day federal shutdown that began Oct. 1 and ended Nov. 12 was an especially dramatic gap in data collection — among other things, for the monthly national and state jobs reports.

“People rely on reliable, consistent and timely data from the federal government when they make decisions,” said Haley McCoy, communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which produces Wisconsin’s reports drawing on surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Whether a business owner is considering opening a new plant or shutting one down, “they need to have the most robust information that they can have to make a solid decision,” McCoy said. “It’s like taking the boat out on the water without looking at the weather forecast.”

That data was missing for the month of September because the shutdown began before the federal report could be completed, and the October data was never collected. DWD will post the state’s September numbers Wednesday — two months behind schedule.

“Those are the last statewide numbers that will come out this year,” McCoy said. “The most recent data we have are three months old.”

The next releases will come in January — November jobs numbers early in the month and December numbers later. But the October numbers are unlikely to be produced or posted ever, she said.

Long funding decline

The statistical association report documents declining fiscal support for federal statistical agencies over the last 15 years — suffering losses of 16% or more in real dollars since 2009, while facing new mandates from Congress.

Most agencies have also lost 20% to 30% of their staff, the report finds — from senior managers with important statistical knowledge to specialized data scientists and experts in methods that ensure greater accuracy.

The report finds that the Trump administration’s actions that have weakened the statistical agencies outweigh actions that would support them.

The administration has left leadership positions vacant, disrupted operations by relocating or attempting to relocate agencies, and eliminated some data collection projects unilaterally without consulting Congress, the public or stakeholders.

That’s coupled with deteriorating safeguards for the integrity of federal data. “In several cases, delays in releasing key data and administration officials’ statements questioning agencies’ neutrality have raised concerns about the protections for credible, objective statistics,” the report states.

Public trust of federal statistics has plummeted, according to the report. A University of Chicago survey found that among U.S. adults, trust in federal statistics fell from 57% in June to 52% in September.

Increased support recommended

The report makes a series of recommendations — for increased staffing, support for innovation, stable and sufficient funding for statistical agencies to fulfill their mission under federal law and systematic management of the agencies and their work, as well as other changes.

It also calls on the administration and Congress to strengthen public trust, including ensuring the data collected for statistical purposes isn’t used for law enforcement or to impose regulations.

At DWD, according to McCoy, there have not yet been concerns about the accuracy or reliability of the federal data it relies on, such as for state job reports.

“We trust how the data is collected,” she said. “It goes through rigorous checks for accuracy.”

But concerns remain about gaps in the data as some collection projects — such as  a report on food security — get turned off, McCoy said.

Steve Pierson, the statistical association’s director of science policy, told the Wisconsin Examiner Tuesday that so far data from the government has continued to be trustworthy.

“We believe that the federal statistics being issued are absolutely still objective and credible,” Pierson said. “What would really help, though, is comments to that effect from the administration.”

Pierson said he believes there are reasons for hope even in the face of grave concerns about the nation’s statistical resources.

Congressional budget writers have rejected the Trump administration’s proposals to cut budgets for the BLS and the National Center for Education Statistics — the latter of which the administration proposed virtually eliminating, he observed.

Key staffers in Congress “hear our concerns, and they share that they’re also concerned,” Pierson said. “That is encouraging.”

The roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine is topped with a green roof planted with sedum and covered with solar panels. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

A Wisconsin Senate Committee held a public hearing Tuesday on a bill that would allow private companies to construct small solar projects on underutilized farmland and commercial rooftops across the state. 

The bill, which would encroach on the monopoly the state’s existing utility companies are allowed to maintain under state law, is being considered while people across the country worry about rising energy costs amid a boom in the construction of data centers and the increased use of electric vehicles and appliances. 

Environmental groups in the state have also regularly complained that the utility companies aren’t constructing enough renewable energy projects or sunsetting existing coal and natural gas power plants quickly enough. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) and Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa), would allow people in Wisconsin to subscribe to get some of their power from a local “community solar” installation. The subscribers would receive credits they can put toward their utility bill. Because the power developed at the local solar installation will still need to travel through the utility company’s infrastructure, the bill includes a provision that all subscribers to the program would have to pay at least $20 per month on their electric bill. 

In the hearing of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Local Government, the bill’s authors said allowing community solar projects would increase people’s energy choices while allowing the expansion of solar power in the state that avoids the objections from local residents that often come with large, utility-scale solar projects. 

“This change will open a new market sector in a high energy industry, attract economic investments in Wisconsin, create local jobs, drive innovation and competition, and ultimately save consumers and small businesses money on their energy bills,” Testin said. 

But the authors also acknowledged there is still a lot of disagreement over the details and the bill is not yet in its final form. 

“We’re not exactly there yet. We’re not all agreeing on this being the best way forward just yet, but this public hearing is a really important step to vet that out a little bit more to get us closer to that answer,” Krug said. “So yes, there are still some kinks to work out between the utilities and individuals who want a more market-based approach to solar. I hope we can work through those issues here.”

Over the hearing’s three and a half hours, the testimony split among two groups — the utility companies who are opposed to the bill and a coalition of solar companies, economists, farmers and employers who are in favor. 

The utility companies accused the bill of creating a “shell game” that would lower the costs for the subscribers of a given project while raising electric bills for everyone else. Zack Hill, testifying on behalf of Alliant Energy, said the utility estimated that community solar would result in an additional $8.75 billion in costs for ratepayers over the next 25 years. 

“How does [the bill] pay for subscribers 10 to 20% energy savings? The short answer: It will shift costs to your other constituents,” Hill said. “Some have said this sounds like community solar voodoo economics, but all you have to remember is this, when a company promises you a discount, someone else has to pay for it.”

People in favor of the bill argued that the generation of more energy could only help lower energy costs while disputing the utility companies’ claims. Will Flanders, the research director at the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, also said the utilities’ estimates undervalue the benefits that community solar can add. 

“This is a model that expands energy choice without large subsidies, without mandates, without turning more power over to monopoly utilities,” Flanders said. “In fact, it introduces competition at a time when Wisconsin needs it the most.” 

“We argue that community solar can deliver net savings to the entire system,” he continued. “When we talk about a shell game, what we’re really saying is there’s no real additional resources being put into the system, but obviously there is additional resources being put in when we have these with these programs in place.” 

Karl Rabago, a Denver-based energy consultant who testified with Flanders, said that the Alliant $8.75 billion estimate amounted to a threat that if the utilities don’t get to sell the energy, they’ll charge consumers for that loss. 

“No one knows where this number comes from, but having seen how utilities make their case in other states, I am 99.9% confident they are basically saying, ‘If we don’t get to make the electricity and sell it, we could potentially lose $8.75 billion and and if we don’t make that money, we’re going to charge you for it anyway,’ and that’s how customer costs could go up,” Rabago said. “That’s the most likely explanation for a histrionic number. The utility position, to summarize, seems to sound a bit like ‘let us do it all and no one gets hurt.’ We’ve heard those kinds of exhortations. Monopolies do it particularly well.” 

Toward the end of the hearing, a number of Wisconsin property owners testified, touting the benefits they’ll receive if they’re able to allow solar projects to be constructed on their land. 

Duane Hinchley, a Cambridge dairy farmer, said community solar is an “innovative solution” that can give farmers a stable income to hedge against the risks in the agriculture business. Plus, he said, allowing farmers to participate will prevent land that has been farmed for generations from being developed into subdivisions. 

“With the right policies in place, our state’s proud agricultural heritage can be a cornerstone of Wisconsin’s clean energy future,” Hinchley said. 

But throughout the day, lawmakers from both parties appeared skeptical of the bill’s benefits. 

Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) said repeatedly he didn’t understand how the program would work for the utility companies. 

“It sounds like a shell game to me,” he said. “I just, I’m really having a challenge with trying to figure out how that would work, because it would seem to me that the energy company, the regulated company, is the one that’s going to be footing the bill for this.” 

Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) questioned how the program wouldn’t eventually raise energy costs for non-participants, but said one selling point for the bill was that it would encourage the increased development of renewable energy. 

“I heard you say this is going to force more solar to be built, whether or not you need it,” Spreitzer said to a utility company representative. “And I guess that, to me, is the one selling point of the bill. Is that I look at where we’ve been in the landscape lately, where we have, unfortunately, federal incentives for solar that are going away. We have increasing demand for power from data centers. We’re seeing new natural gas plants get built. We’re seeing coal plants not being retired, when we hoped they would. To me, there’s plenty of need for solar.” 

If the utility companies won’t support a community solar proposal, Spreitzer wondered, what do they need from the Legislature to encourage more solar development? 

“And so if we’re not going to go down this route, what are the incentives that you all need to make sure that we can continue to drive solar development without increasing rates for customers and without saying, ‘let’s go build a natural gas plant instead?” he asked. 

Anti-rights of nature bill 

Also on Tuesday, the committee heard testimony on a bill from Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) that would prohibit local governments in Wisconsin from enacting “rights of nature” ordinances, which grant natural elements legal rights that can be protected in court. 

Nass said in his testimony that the idea is anti-American and is contrary to the values of the U.S. Constitution.

“This is a radical departure from our current law. Rights are something that human beings have,” Nass said. “This concept of granting nature rights is something that has been done primarily in foreign countries … and many of these countries lean dramatically towards socialism and communism, and their attitude is not compatible with private property rights in our country.”

But proponents of rights of nature resolutions frequently point to the fact that corporations are granted rights under U.S. law. Communities including Green Bay and Milwaukee have passed or begun drafting rights of nature ordinances and some Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would grant Devil’s Lake State Park some rights that can be protected in court. 

In a statement after the hearing, Rep. Vincent Miresse (D-Stevens Point), one of the co-authors of the Democratic proposal, wrote, “As we heard from advocates today, Rights of Nature is one of the strongest tools local governments have to protect clean air, clean water and healthy soil for future generations — so that our grandchildren, and their children after them, can drink our waters, eat food grown in our soils, and hunt in our forests.”