The Raccoon River weaves past downtown Des Moines, Iowa, in June. One of the primary drinking water sources for the region, the river has high nitrate levels that have led to water restrictions for some 600,000 customers. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

For nearly a month, hundreds of thousands of Iowans have not been allowed to water their lawns — even though there’s no drought.

Local authorities previously asked the public to refrain from washing cars and filling pools. And some cities turned off splash pads in the height of summer heat.

While such measures are common during dry periods, there’s no shortage of water: Rather, the water in and around Des Moines contains too much nitrate, a natural component of soil and a byproduct of commercial fertilizer and livestock manure. Persistent rainfall has flushed nutrients out of fertilized fields into streams and rivers.

While the water bans are temporary, they’re the starkest sign yet of the state’s long-brewing struggle with high nitrate levels in streams and rivers that supply drinking water.

“It’s a big deal: the first time ever that lawn watering has been banned,” said Tami Madsen, executive director of Central Iowa Water Works, a regional water authority serving 600,000 people.

Federal law limits nitrate levels in drinking water because of its association with infant asphyxia, also known as blue baby syndrome. And a growing body of research has found links between nitrate consumption and cancer.

While Iowa’s problems are uniquely severe, nitrate levels are a rising concern in other regions, from California to the Chesapeake Bay. And climate change is expected to worsen the problem as more intense cycles of drought and severe storms increase farm runoff.

Iowa’s concentration of fertilized row crops and massive livestock confinements that produce tons of nitrogen-rich manure have caused concerns over increased nitrate levels for years. And the state’s unique underground system of farm drainage pipes quickly pumps nitrate and other nutrients into streams and rivers.

The water system serving the Des Moines metro area has invested heavily in nitrate filtration and removal equipment. The primary facility in Des Moines, one of the largest nitrate removal systems in the world, costs $16,000 per day to operate, Madsen said.

“I’m confident in our ability to continue to provide safe drinking water,” Madsen said. “It’s just going to be at what cost.”

More frequent and extreme storms because of climate change will heighten the problems nationwide, said Rebecca Logsdon Muenich, an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Arkansas.

Because nitrogen travels with water, nitrate levels are especially hard to control during times of severe weather.

Muenich said farm conservation practices such as establishing wetlands and landscape buffers can help keep nitrogen out of water supplies. But the growth of the livestock industry, availability of cheap crop fertilizer and lack of regulation over nitrogen application make nitrate levels hard to control.

“We’ve kind of put ourselves in a bind unless we start investing in better technologies or more conservation,” she said.

The role of agriculture

As hundreds of thousands of residents were being asked to conserve water last month, a group of 16 experts released a years-in-the-making report analyzing the quality of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, the main sources of drinking water for the Des Moines region.

The researchers found that central Iowa rivers have some of the nation’s highest nitrate levels, routinely exceeding the federal drinking water standard. While some pollutants are naturally occurring, the researchers concluded that most of the nitrogen in the two rivers comes from farmland.

Commissioned in 2023 by Polk County, the state’s most populous county and home to Des Moines, the report underscored the connection between industrial agriculture and water quality.

Larry Weber, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa who worked on the report, said Iowa’s problem spreads to other areas: Iowa waterways export hundreds of millions of pounds of nitrogen per year, much of it flowing into the Mississippi River and eventually the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone.

He said water restrictions may become more common as more cities confront high nitrate levels.

“This is happening more frequently and it’s going to continue to happen more frequently,” he said.

Weber said individual farmers aren’t necessarily to blame for the crisis. They’re doing their best to survive market demands and operate within federal farm policy. But he said the broader industry and the state could do more to invest in conservation methods to prevent pollution.

He noted that Iowa lawmakers in 2023 cut $500,000 for a water quality monitoring network across the state. While the Iowa Nutrient Research Center received a short-term grant to stay open, Weber said next year it will shut down 75 sensors that measure nitrate and other pollutants in state waters.

“The agricultural system doesn’t want this unfortunately difficult information to be made available,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Iowa Farm Bureau referred questions to the state agriculture department.

In a statement to Stateline, Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig, a Republican, said many Iowa groups are working on conservation and infrastructure projects to improve water quality.

“We’re not interested in stoking animosity between rural and urban neighbors,” the statement said. “Agriculture, conservation, recreation, urban and rural development, and business growth can and must co-exist in Iowa.”

In a lengthy social media post last month, Naig said nitrate levels were primarily driven by weather and stream flows. The secretary said advances in farming practices can help farmers apply fertilizer more efficiently and touted efforts such as new wetlands and structures that reduce stream erosion. But he said the fast-growing Des Moines area also needed to examine its investments in water treatment infrastructure to meet future needs.

“The blame game is unproductive,” he wrote.

On Tuesday, Naig’s department announced a $1.9 million water quality project upstream of Des Moines. That project will install landscape buffers and bioreactors to help reduce runoff of nitrate and other nutrients. The department is contributing $244,000 of that money.

Matt McCoy, chair of the Polk County Board of Supervisors, said that local government is trying to work with landowners and farmers to prevent water pollution. The county has spent millions on projects to seed cover crops and plant vegetative buffers between fields and waterways to prevent runoff of pollutants, including nitrogen.

“I don’t think we want to disparage agriculture and farming because it’s such a big part of who we are as a state,” McCoy said.

A former Democratic state lawmaker, McCoy said the recent water restrictions and daily news reports on nitrate levels in local rivers have elevated public awareness of water quality concerns.

“There are conversations that I know are happening now that were not happening prior to the restrictions,” he said.

Citizen action

The water restrictions in Iowa sparked an influx of interest from locals in the Izaak Walton League of America’s Nitrate Watch program, which provides volunteers with nitrate test kits and maps the results from across the country.

Heather Wilson, the league’s Midwest Save Our Streams coordinator, said the nonprofit environmental organization received more than 300 inquiries from Iowans during a single week in June. For comparison, the organization received about 500 inquiries from across the nation during the first six months of the year.

While the problems in the Des Moines area are severe, she said, volunteers are recording rising nitrate levels across the state. The project gives people who can often feel helpless an active way to contribute to the understanding of nitrate pollution.

“It’s really empowering to be able to put resources in people’s hands so that they can measure the waterways that they personally care about,” she said.

Retired science teacher Birgitta Meade has been testing nitrates around her rural northeast Iowa home for years both as classroom instruction and for Nitrate Watch.

“They’re higher than I have ever tested at any prior point,” she said. “I feel like I’m meticulously documenting the death of my home and nobody else gives a rip.”

Meade said she’s considering investing in a reverse osmosis system to remove nitrates from her home’s private well. Though her nitrate levels are below the federal drinking water standard, she pointed to the growing body of research linking cancer with consumption of nitrate — even at lower levels.

Meade acknowledged the pressures facing farmers, but she said she grows frustrated every time she drives past giant storage containers full of fertilizer and other farm chemicals.

“These are people who are choosing to poison their neighbors,” she said. “And this is just untenable.”

Small towns struggle

Climate change will only intensify nitrogen pollution, said Thomas Harter, a professor and water researcher at the University of California, Davis. Last year, he worked on research that found drought and heavy rains accelerate the speed of nitrogen absorption into groundwater.

In some parts of California’s Central Valley, nearly a third of drinking and irrigation wells exceed federal nitrogen standards.

“We are ever more productive on the grower side, and that means more fertilizer being used and more fertilizer being lost to groundwater and to streams,” Harter said.

That’s particularly challenging for drinking water systems serving small population bases.

“It gets really expensive for really small systems and it’s also a lot of maintenance,” he said.

That’s a reality currently facing Pratt, Kansas, a community of about 6,500 people, where some wells have recorded nitrate levels above the federal standard.

City Manager Regina Goff said nitrate levels are pushing the community’s pursuit of a new water treatment facility that’s expected to cost upward of $45 million. The city’s proposed 2025 budget totaled about $35.7 million.

Goff said the city is exploring financing options, including potential grants. But she said it’s frustrating for the town to spend so much to meet regulatory standards for safe drinking water, which she characterized as an “unfunded mandate.”

Currently, nearly a quarter of the city’s groundwater supply is unavailable because of high nitrate levels. But the city must notify residents of high nitrate levels even in wells that are not pumping.

“It causes a panic,” Goff said. “That’s been a hard pill for us to swallow as a city — that we have to alarm our population even though we know there’s no possibility of harm.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the Izaak Walton League of America.

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

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

The Milwaukee County Courthouse (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Republicans are proposing a bill to stop paying judges who have been suspended in response to the arrest and suspension of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan. 

Dugan was indicted in May by a federal grand jury and has pleaded not guilty to charges that she impeded the arrest by federal agents of an immigrant who was appearing in her court room.  She was arrested by FBI agents in April.

Critics have condemned the arrest as an example of the Trump administration discouraging pushback to mass deportation efforts and a worrying sign for democracy. Federal and state Republicans have supported the arrest of Dugan, saying those who stand in the way of deportations should be arrested and that Dugan should resign or be removed.

The bill, cosponsored by Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) and Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers), would require that if the state Supreme Court imposes a suspension as proceedings are pending or as a disciplinary sanction due to misconduct, it must be without pay. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court chose to suspend Dugan in April, saying it was in the public interest to relieve her of her duties for now. Dugan is still being paid her nearly $175,000 annual salary.

The lawmakers noted that Dugan’s trial was postponed from July 21 and may not take place until 2026. They said taxpayers will be paying for “an extended vacation” even as reserve judges have to fill in for her and they argued the bill is needed to stop suspended judges from getting paid in the future.

According to the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, 15 judges have been suspended by the Supreme Court from 1978 to 2024.

“In these rare circumstances, these judges’ actions and alleged misconduct rose to such a level that suspension was warranted,” the lawmakers said in a memo.  “Simply put, Wisconsin taxpayers must be protected from the misconduct and/or commission of a crime by rogue judges.”

Children enrolled in the Head Start early education program operated by Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council. (Photo courtesy of Western Dairyland EOC)

A new Trump administration federal rule would bar immigrants without legal status from a range of public programs, canceling a policy that was implemented nearly three decades ago.

The change bars the children of those immigrants from the Head Start child care program. It also closes the door to immigrants lacking legal status for various programs that provide mental health and substance abuse treatment, job training and other assistance.

Head Start, which provides early education and child care for low-income families, has never been required to ascertain the immigration status of its families, said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association.

Families enrolling in the program have to provide a variety of pieces of information to verify they are eligible, Mauer told the Wisconsin Examiner Monday, and the programs are “very compliance oriented” and collect “exactly what they have to collect.”

Mauer said a trusting relationship between Head Start programs and the families they serve is important.

“We’re serving some of the neediest families in our community,” she said. Some have had “challenging relationships” in the past with schools and other government agencies — making nurturing that trust even more critical, she added.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a notice July 10 that declared Head Start and a list of other federally funded programs would now be considered “public benefits” that exclude immigrants without legal status under a law enacted in 1996. The notice revokes a policy enacted in 1998 that had exempted the affected programs from the 1996 law.

The federal announcement said that the policy change was instituted to “ensure that taxpayer-funded program benefits intended for the American people are not diverted to subsidize illegal aliens.”

Mauer said there has been no implementation guidance from HHS since the notice.

The Wisconsin Head Start Association is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in April by the American Civil Liberties Union opposing Trump administration actions against Head Start. The other plaintiffs include parent groups in Oregon and in Oakland, California, along with state Head Start associations in Washington, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

In a statement Friday the plaintiffs said they will amend the lawsuit if the administration follows through with the limits in the July 10 announcement.

Mauer said that the Wisconsin association is advising Head Start providers to “refrain from making any immediate changes to enrollment policy until they have an opportunity to fully evaluate their legal obligations.”

She said the notice has heightened concern about the safety of children whose families might be targeted by the new federal stance. But it will affect the entire program, she said.

Mauer said a second concern is that the policy could lead some families to take their children out of the program despite their need for it. If enrollment falls below the federally prescribed level of 97% of capacity, she’s concerned that the federal government might then take back grant money — creating “a negative feedback loop,” she said.  

“I am so afraid for our families,” Mauer said. “This is fracturing the safety of all of our children. This will hurt all of the children in Head Start.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in an unsigned order to allow President Donald Trump to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration, for now, to proceed with mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier this year.

The decision from the nation’s highest court marks a major victory for President Donald Trump, who has sought to overhaul the federal role in education.

The order was unsigned, while Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, indicating a 6-3 decision.

The dissent, authored by Sotomayor, was scathing.

“The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive,” she wrote. “But either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave.”

The Supreme Court’s order temporarily suspends lower court orders that: forced the agency to reinstate more than 1,300 employees gutted from a reduction in force, or RIF, effort; blocked the department from carrying out Trump’s executive order to dismantle the department; and barred the agency from transferring some services to other federal agencies.

In a statement Monday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon celebrated the decision, saying “today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies.”

“While today’s ruling is a significant win for students and families, it is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution,” she said.

“The U.S. Department of Education will now deliver on its mandate to restore excellence in American education. We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most — to students, parents, and teachers.”

A coalition of teachers, unions and school districts that sued over Trump’s order to eliminate the department and the mass layoffs said they were “incredibly disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Trump-Vance administration to proceed with its harmful efforts to dismantle the Department of Education while our case moves forward.”

“This unlawful plan will immediately and irreparably harm students, educators and communities across our nation. Children will be among those hurt the most by this decision. We will never stop fighting on behalf of all students and public schools and the protections, services, and resources they need to thrive,” they added.

Challenge from Democratic state AGs, unions

The labor and advocacy coalition and a slew of Democratic attorneys general each sued in March over some of the administration’s most consequential education initiatives.

One of the lawsuits comes from a coalition of Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin.

The other lawsuit was brought by the American Federation of Teachers, its Massachusetts chapter, AFSCME Council 93, the American Association of University Professors, the Service Employees International Union and two school districts in Massachusetts.

A Massachusetts federal judge consolidated the lawsuits and granted the states’ and groups’ preliminary injunction in May.

The administration appealed that decision, leading to a June decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit keeping in place the district court’s order.

The Trump administration then asked the Supreme Court to intervene. 

New townhomes are under construction this year in Minnesota. Milwaukee joined two Minnesota counties along with dozens of cities and counties suing over Trump administration threats to tie federal funding for housing and other programs to local policy on immigration enforcement; diversity, equity and inclusion; and abortion. (Photo by Ellen Schmidt/Minnesota Reformer)

Twenty-eight cities and counties including Baltimore, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Rochester, New York, joined a lawsuit July 10 challenging Trump administration attempts to withhold federal funds because of local policies on immigration enforcement; diversity, equity and inclusion; gender equity; and abortion access.

Funding for housing, transit, health care, civil rights and other essential programs has been threatened by new grant conditions, according to the lawsuit, which now includes 60 cities, counties and other entities.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein issued a restraining order in May against tying unrelated federal funds to ideological conditions, saying the Trump administration was forcing the local governments to “choose between accepting conditions that they believe are unconstitutional, and risking the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant funding.”

The first places to sue in early May were three counties in Washington state, two more in California, plus Boston, Columbus, Ohio, and New York City. Since then, 52 cities, counties and other entities have joined from states including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Two of the latest to join are Ramsey County and Hennepin County in Minnesota, where Minneapolis and St. Paul and located. Hennepin County has almost $272 million in federal funding for this year for things such as emergency shelter and road projects, all threatened by new grant conditions imposed by the Trump administration, according to the court filing.

“Communities shouldn’t have to lose critical services because of the Trump administration’s political agenda,” said Jill Habig, CEO of Public Rights Project, a nonprofit legal organization doing work in the case. “These federal funding conditions aim to strip billions of dollars from local governments working to help people thrive.”

Lawyers for the Trump administration opposed the injunction, saying the court had no authority to require the federal government to pay local governments grant money.

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

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Congresswoman Gwen Moore speaks during the protest against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore joined U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) in issuing a letter calling on the heads of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to reinstate directives protecting crime victims who are seeking T or U visas from immigration enforcement.

Moore and Jayapal called for the Trump Administration to reinstate ICE Directive 11005.3, which offered protections for immigrant crime victims, and for people currently in ICE custody who have applied for a T or U visa to be released within 60 days of the letter.

“Congress created victim-based immigration benefits to encourage noncitizen victims to seek assistance and report crimes committed against them despite their undocumented status,” Moore and Jayapal wrote.

The Biden-era directive posited that, rather than hindering law enforcement, “when victims have access to humanitarian protections, regardless of their immigration status, and can feel safe in coming forward, it strengthens the ability of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE, to detect, investigate, and prosecute crimes.”

In their letter, Moore and Jayapal highlighted the directive’s ties to the Violence Against Women Act,  stressing that, “T and U visas were designed to strengthen the relationship and build trust between victims of crime and law enforcement.” Prosecutors often rely on T and U visa holders for “critical eyewitness testimony” the letter states. “These visa programs make everyone in our communities safer. Without them, undocumented victims and witnesses might be too scared to come forward to report crimes to the detriment of all.”

Under ICE Directive 1105.3, the agency was instructed to “exercise prosecutorial discretion to facilitate access to justice and victim-based immigration benefits by noncitizen crime victims.” Agents were directed to “refrain from taking civil immigration enforcement action against known beneficiaries of victim-based immigration benefits and those known to have a pending application for such benefits.” ICE officers were also directed to “look for indicia or evidence that suggests a noncitizen is a victim of a crime, such as being the beneficiary of an order of protection or being the recipient of an eligibility letter from the Office of Trafficking in Persons.”

The Trump administration’s broad crackdown on immigrants who lack permanent legal status has targeted  crime victims who hold or are applying for T or U visas.  In June Ramone Morales Reyes, a Milwaukee man who had lived in the United States for decades and was actively cooperating in a U-Visa investigation, was arrested and detained by ICE. After arresting Morales Reyes, DHS Sec. Noem issued a press release claiming that Morales Reyes had penned a letter threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump. The letter, however, had been written in perfect English with only a few misspellings. Morales Reyes’ family, as well as immigration advocates and attorneys, said that it was impossible for him to have written the letter as he could not speak English and was not proficient in reading or writing in Spanish. When ICE arrested Morales Reyes, local law enforcement were already investigating the possibility that someone was attempting to frame him. 

In early June, Morales Reyes was released from ICE detention on bond, and a man who’d been arrested for attempting to rob him months earlier admitted to forging the letter to trigger a deportation, and prevent Morales Reyes from testifying against him. Moore and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan sought to visit Morales Reyes while he was in custody, and called on Noem to retract her statement accusing him of threatening Trump. 

Rather than retracting the accusations, however, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement after Morales Reyes was released on bond calling him a “criminal illegal alien” and claiming that, while he is no longer under investigation for threats against Trump, “he is in the country illegally” and has committed previous crimes. The statement asserted  that “DHS will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of illegal aliens who have no right to be in this country.” 

ICE also worked to deport Yessenia Ruano, a Milwaukee  teacher’s aid. Ruano had been a victim of human trafficking, and was applying for a T-Visa. In mid-June, Ruano opted to return to El Salvador with her two daughters, who were born in the United States. 

A PFAS advisory sign along Starkweather Creek. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Now that work on the state budget is complete, environmental groups and residents of communities affected by PFAS contamination believe progress can still be made on getting money out the door to help remediate water pollution across the state. 

Since the last biennial budget was passed, $125 million in funds meant to help with cleaning up contamination of water from PFAS has been sitting untouched with no legislative mechanism for getting that money out to communities.

PFAS, a family of man-made chemical compounds known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment, have been connected to cancer and other diseases. The chemicals have been used in products such as firefighting foam and household goods such as non-stick pans and fast food wrappers. Communities across the state have found PFAS contamination in their water. 

During the last legislative session, early hopes of compromise crumbled after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach agreement on a provision aimed at protecting “innocent landowners” from being subject to enforcement actions for PFAS contamination under the state’s toxic spills law by the Department of Natural Resources. 

Republicans, including the bill’s author, Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) argued the bill had to include language that protected people who have PFAS contamination on their property through no fault of their own. Democrats said the language in the bill defining innocent landowners was so broad that it would exempt property owners responsible for pollution from being held responsible. 

Ultimately, Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill. 

Wimberger and Rep. Tim Mursau (R-Crivitz) authored legislation this year to get the $125 million earmarked for PFAS remediation out the door. 

Sara Walling, Clean Wisconsin’s water and agriculture program director, says she’s “hopeful” that discussions between the Republican bill authors, Evers and affected residents have been productive. 

“There is opportunity now I think that the budget is done for Wimberger and others, of course, to pay attention, put a little energy into this, and really sit down and hash out the provisions in there, and get to a point that there’s something hopefully that we can all live with, and that will get the money to impacted communities and private well owners and all the things that the money is intended to be used for,” Walling says. 

While people see progress being made, there are still objections to the legislation. Wimberger and Mursau have proposed two bills, one of which exempts certain groups of people from enforcement under the spills law. 

Exempting ‘innocent landowners’

The exemptions include anyone who spread biosolids or wastewater contaminated with PFAS onto a field while in compliance with a DNR permit; owns land on which contaminated biosolids were spread under a permit; a fire department, public airport or municipality that used PFAS-contaminated firefighting foam to train for or respond to emergencies; solid waste disposal facilities that accepted PFAS and anyone that owns, leases, manages, or contracts for property on which PFAS has moved through the groundwater (unless they caused the contamination on another piece of property). 

Earlier this year, Evers suggested he’d support exempting farmers and residents from being held financially responsible for cleaning up PFAS contamination if they unknowingly caused it by spreading contaminated biosolids. 

But Walling says she’d like to see that language tightened further to make sure it does not create a loophole for responsible parties. 

“The provisions that are laid on that out there now just provide far too big of a loophole for who would be considered an innocent landowner in the current bill language,” she said. “And we really want to see that tightened so that truly innocent landowners, the passive receivers, the farmers out there who unknowingly were accepting municipal biosolids … those are the innocent landowners that I know that the authors are trying to protect.” 

What’s an allowable level of PFAS?

The other bill creates the mechanisms and grant programs through which the $125 million would be awarded to affected communities. 

Doug Oitzinger is the former mayor and a current city councilmember of Marinette and a founder of a group of community members fighting to clean up PFAS pollution in his area from the manufacture of fire suppression technologies by Tyco/Johnson Controls. 

Oitzinger says he’s wary of a provision in the bill that exempts private property owners who don’t qualify as innocent landowners from enforcement under the spills law unless the level of PFAS present violates an existing state or federal standard. The federal government doesn’t regulate groundwater and for years the state Department of Natural Resources has been unable to promulgate an administrative rule that sets the allowable amount of PFAS in groundwater. 

The DNR failed once because of a deadlocked vote on the state Natural Resources Board and a second time because the proposed rule had a potential economic impact greater than $10 million and therefore required approval of the full Legislature under a law known as the REINS Act. 

The DNR is currently working on the economic impact analysis of another proposed groundwater standard. Oitzinger says he’s doubtful that proposal will stay clear of the REINS Act. So, he says, he’s working with Mursau to include a groundwater standard in the bill. 

The most significant amendment Oitzinger is fighting for in the legislation is the creation of a temporary standard for the regulation of PFAS in Wisconsin’s groundwater. 

“We’ve been working to see if legislatively, we can get something that does not undermine the spills law to get the $125 million out the door, that the governor would sign, that we would be in support of and, at the same time, establish some kind of interim groundwater standard for PFAS,” Oitzinger says. 

As someone fighting for a community that’s been heavily polluted with PFAS, Oitzinger says his goal is to find a compromise that helps people get clean water, even if environmental and industry groups aren’t fully satisfied. 

“It doesn’t do us any good to get into our respective camps and not find common ground,” he says. “And then the bill reaches the governor’s office and he vetoes it. That’s not helping anybody, so we’ve got to find compromise. Some of the environmental groups won’t like it, and certainly I think some of the industry lobbying groups won’t like it, but this is what we’ve got to do.”

A new national school voucher program allocates up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for individuals who donate to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships. (Photo by Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A national private school voucher program is now law, though the school choice initiative comes with a huge caveat. States also choose — whether or not to participate. 

It’s a setback for advocates who hoped to see the program — baked into the mega tax and spending cut bill President Donald Trump signed into law on July Fourth — mandated in all 50 states.

The permanent program, which starts in 2027, saw several versions between the House and Senate before getting to Trump’s desk as part of congressional Republicans’ massive reconciliation package.

Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice, touted aspects of the program, but said his organization would have preferred to see a 50-state program, rather than allowing states to opt in or decline. 

“I think I’m really worried about that because this is seen as a sort of more partisan issue and as a result, what would make a governor in a blue state say, ‘Let me bring in school choice’?” said Enlow, whose nonprofit focuses on advancing school choice options.

Still, Enlow described the program as “just another step along the way of giving parents more choices.”

Who will join?

It remains to be seen which states will participate, including those with their own voucher programs already underway.

Jon Valant, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, said he’s “not clear on how states will shake out on the question of whether or not to participate.”

“I’m sure the vast majority of, really, all red states will participate in this thing, but I don’t know what’s going to happen in blue and purple states,” said Valant, who also serves as director of the think tank’s Brown Center on Education Policy.

Despite that unknown, Valant said that states “do have some incentive to participate because if they don’t, then they’re potentially losing access to some funds that they wouldn’t otherwise get.”

How the program works

The program allocates up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for individuals who donate to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.

There is also no cap to the cost of the program, unlike earlier versions seen in both chambers of Congress.

The scholarship funds would be available to families whose household incomes do not exceed 300 percent of their area’s median gross income.

More than 138 million people could be eligible to make use of the tax credit in 2027, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

However, Carl Davis, research director of the left-leaning think tank, notes in the analysis that “most of those people will not contribute” given the necessary paperwork and vouchers’ unpopularity with the public.

A state’s program participation will be decided by its governor or “by such other individual, agency, or entity as is designated under State law to make such elections on behalf of the State with respect to Federal tax benefits,” according to the final bill text.

The GOP’s school choice push

The umbrella term “school choice” centers on alternative programs to one’s assigned public school.

The effort has sparked controversy, as opponents say these programs drain critical funds and resources from school districts, while school choice advocates describe the initiatives as necessary for parents dissatisfied with their local public schools.

Trump and congressional Republicans have made school choice a major part of their education agenda.

The program also reflects a sweeping bill that GOP Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Burgess Owens of Utah and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana reintroduced in their respective chambers earlier this year.

‘Very little quality control’

Valant, of the Brookings Institution, expressed several concerns about the program, saying “there’s very little quality control, transparency or accountability for outcomes in this program, and it’s potentially a major use of public taxpayer funds.”

He said he doesn’t see anything in the program’s text that “protects against widespread waste, fraud and abuse and from programs and schools that aren’t providing much value at all to students from continuing to get a large amount of funding.”

The program also came as Trump and his administration continue to dramatically redefine the federal role in education.

Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request calls for $12 billion in spending cuts to the Education Department. A summary from the department said this cut “reflects an agency that is responsibly winding down.”

Billions on hold

The administration has also taken heat for its recent decision to put on hold $6.8 billion in federal funds for K-12 schools.

Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy at AASA, The School Superintendents Association, said that a time when the administration is withholding billions of dollars in these funds for public schools, “the idea that we’re going to spend an unlimited amount of tax dollars to support private and religious schools is unthinkable, unimaginable — it’s horrific.”

“This is yet another handout to wealthy Americans who can already afford to send their children to private religious schools and at a cost that comes from tax dollars being deferred away from public education that serve the poorest and neediest students in America,” added Pudelski, whose organization helps to ensure every child has access to a high quality public education.

A worker walks beneath a United Airlines Boeing 737-900ER after it arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on June 5, 2019. The flight from Chicago to Los Angeles used aviation biofuel, a critical component of airlines’ goal of reaching a net-zero carbon goal by 2050. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Congress’ passage of President Donald Trump’s spending and tax cuts bill this month could help grow the market for sustainable aviation fuel, a nascent industry that could be a boon for corn-producing states as airline operators are betting on it to decarbonize the sector.

The Republican budget reconciliation law that Trump signed July 4 pared back some of the credits for sustainable energy in the law that congressional Democrats passed and President Joe Biden signed in 2022 — the Inflation Reduction Act.

But the recent law extended one energy tax credit for producing clean fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuel, an alternative to the typical jet fuel planes use. The credit initially went through 2027, but the GOP law extends it through 2029.

Advocates for sustainable aviation fuel had been pushing Congress to extend the tax credit to support production as states across the U.S. have passed or proposed their own tax credits to grow the sector and lure production within their borders. Lawmakers in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York have introduced bills enacting tax credits for sustainable aviation fuel.

For airlines, increasing availability of the fuel is essential for the sector to meet its net-zero goal for 2050, with the International Air Transport Association estimating the cleaner fuel could get the industry 65% of the way toward its target.

“We’re not yet at commercial-scale production and you need that longer lead time for these types of projects so I think the extension is really key,” said Chris Bliley, senior vice president of regulatory affairs at Growth Energy, a biofuel industry group.

While the credit’s lifetime was extended, others say the environment for sustainable aviation fuel isn’t as favorable as it was just a few years ago. The new budget reconciliation law also included provisions to lower the credit amount for sustainable aviation fuel specifically and clawed back unobligated grant funding to support the sector.

The amount of sustainable aviation fuel that producers make today is far from how much the airline industry needs to be able to use the alternative fuel regularly. U.S. production capacity over the last couple of years, however, has grown, jumping from less than 5,000 barrels per day at the start of 2024 to more than 30,000 by February of this year, according to a May report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Badger State bill

Wisconsin state Rep. David Steffen, a Republican who sponsored a bill to incentivize sustainable aviation fuel, said he learned about a sustainable aviation fuel production company based in Madison called Virent Inc., now a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corp. Virent’s fuel helped power the first domestic flight powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel in one of its engines.

“I was intrigued that we had this company in our state and I want them and other companies of similar interest to find Wisconsin as their new home,” Steffen said. “It’s a great opportunity for not only the environmental benefits that come with it but for our farmers, dairies and timber producers to access a brand-new market for their product.”

Steffen’s bill also requires that to receive the tax credit, source materials for the fuel must be domestically sourced.

Wisconsin’s legislative session doesn’t end until next March and Steffen said he’s “very comfortable in saying (the bill) will have a clear path to the finish line.” Should it pass in its current state, the tax credit would go into effect in 2028.

Other states

Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and Washington state all already have enacted laws to provide tax credits for sustainable aviation fuel.

Lawmakers in New York and Michigan have also proposed legislation to create their own tax credits. The New York bill barely moved in the most recent session, while legislation in Michigan has made it out of one committee and been referred to a second.

New York state Sen. Rachel May, a Democrat, plans to re-introduce the legislation next year. She said she wants to amend her bill to offer a larger tax credit for companies making sustainable aviation fuel specifically by mimicking photosynthesis so it doesn’t incentivize diverting feedstock like corn from being used for food, she said.

Her concern is moving the agriculture industry “away from both food production and maybe what might be the best uses of the land,” she added.

Corn ethanol, a common ingredient in automotive fuel, can be used to make sustainable aviation fuel.

Federal extension

While the extension of the federal clean fuels tax credit could be beneficial to the sustainable aviation fuel industry, the new law also lowers the amount of the tax credit for the fuel. It’s now the equivalent to what other biofuel producers qualify for, giving sustainable aviation fuel production less of a competitive advantage.

One version of the budget reconciliation bill also called for extending the tax credit by four years instead of two, but that got scaled back in the version of the bill ultimately signed into law.

The new law also took away any funding not yet obligated as part of a grant program for sustainable aviation fuel and makes fuels derived from feedstocks that come from outside the U.S., Canada or Mexico ineligible for the tax credit.

Despite any limitations, some analysts expect the law will still boost sustainable aviation fuel.

“The Trump administration has yet to outline its approach to SAF, but we expect the fuel to benefit from the administration’s focus on supporting biofuel-producing states,” analysts for Capstone DC, a firm that advises business clients on policy issues, said in a note in late June.

But changes to the federal tax credit could also make states more interested in adopting their own credit to support sustainable aviation fuel, Capstone added.

‘Not nearly as strong’

Tariffs, meanwhile, could also make U.S. feedstocks for producing the fuel more competitive, Paul Greenough, a vice president on Capstone’s energy team.

But Greenough cautioned that sentiment around sustainable aviation fuel still isn’t as rosy as it used to be.

“Momentum still exists for SAF but it’s not nearly as strong as it was under the Biden administration,” he said.

Some climate groups have also expressed concern over changing the clean fuels tax credit at the federal level. The Clean Air Task Force, ahead of the bill becoming law, said extending the credit will largely service other fuels that aren’t sustainable aviation fuel, which will in turn be costlier for the government.

“This purported attempt to incentivize ‘clean fuels’ is little more than a giveaway to the conventional biofuels industry,” the organization said in a post on its website.

A protester holds a photo of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations in New York City on April 24, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

GREENBELT, Maryland — U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis seemed inclined during a Friday hearing to grant a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he is released from pretrial detention next week.

Xinis said if she granted a temporary restraining order, it would be narrow and would prevent immigration officers from deporting Abrego Garcia from the U.S. It would also keep the longtime Maryland resident at a detention center near Maryland as the immigration lawsuit about the conditions of his deportation under a final order of removal proceeds.

She also upbraided Justice Department attorneys for claiming immigration officials had a detainer on Abrego Garcia, but not producing the document.

The attorneys for Abrego Garcia’s case in Maryland, which was brought after the longtime resident was unlawfully arrested by immigration officials and mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, are asking Xinis for a 72-hour restraining order if he is released from pretrial detention Wednesday.

Abrego Garcia awaits federal trial in Tennessee on criminal charges lodged while he was mistakenly removed to El Salvador.

The restraining order, if granted, would prevent the Trump administration from removing Abrego Garcia to a third country without proper notice and an opportunity to challenge his removal.

“The concern that we have here is that he’ll be gone in a blink and never to be heard from again,” Andrew Rossman, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, said.

Abrego Garcia detailed psychological and physical torture he experienced at the notorious Salvadoran prison CECOT. The U.S. is paying El Salvador up to $15 million to detain roughly 300 men at the prison.

Prosecution

As soon as Wednesday, Abrego Garcia could be released from pretrial detention on charges that accuse him of human smuggling that stem from a 2019 traffic stop. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Tennessee federal court on an order pausing Abrego Garcia’s release, at his lawyers’ request over concerns the administration could deport him if he is released from jail.

DOJ attorneys have said that the Trump administration intends to deport Abrego Garcia before his trial in Tennessee is complete.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. His attorneys have accused President Donald Trump’s administration of using the indictment to save face in light of court orders finding Abrego Garcia’s deportation unlawful and the Supreme Court’s order for the federal government to facilitate his return.

Abrego Garcia has had deportation protections in place since 2019, barring his removal to his native El Salvador due to concerns he would experience gang violence there.

The Trump administration has labeled Abrego Garcia a leader of the gang MS-13, but has not produced any evidence of those allegations in court.

Xinis also raised the concern that Abrego Garcia could face harm in a third country because the Trump administration has labeled him a gang leader.

She raised the possibility that if Abrego Garcia is deported to a third country, that country could then take him to El Salvador.

ICE detainer produced

The Trump administration has placed a detainer on Abrego Garcia upon his potential release, meaning U.S. Marshals would hold him until immigration agents can arrest him and take him into custody.

Xinis has repeatedly asked DOJ lawyers for a copy of the detainer to determine what statue Abrego Garcia is being detained on.

DOJ attorneys said they were still working on it and Xinis slammed them for not producing it and said she wouldn’t take the DOJ’s word that the detainer even existed.

“You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it, in my view,” Xinis said.

Halfway through the hearing, DOJ attorney Sarmad M. Khojasteh produced the detainer and gave a copy to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, who have also been asking for a copy of the form.

Rossman said the detainer “has a massive hole in it.”

He said that according to the detainer, the reason for holding Abrego Garcia is a final order of removal.

However, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official testified Thursday that because Abrego Garcia is not in removal proceedings yet, the federal government cannot detail what actions it will take in removing him.

“We have an obvious chicken-and-egg problem,” Rossman said.

DOJ argument ‘defies reality’

Thomas Giles, ICE’s assistant director for enforcement and removal operations who testified Thursday, could not detail which track the Trump administration planned to take for Abrego Garcia. The agency is likely to try either deporting him to a third country or  challenge the bar on removal to El Salvador.

Xinis also expressed doubt that the Trump administration has not had conversations on what to do about Abrego Garcia, given the high-profile nature of the case.

Khojasteh said that an immigration officer would determine next steps for Abrego Garcia.

“It defies reality that this is going to be left to a desk officer,” Xinis said.

Xinis said she’ll make a decision before Wednesday on a temporary restraining order.

Federal immigration authorities face off against protesters during an ICE raid at Ambiance Apparel in Downtown Los Angeles on June 6, 2025. (Photo by J.W. Hendricks for CalMatters)

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Carlos was pulled out of a deep sleep by a series of frantic phone calls one Friday morning in June. By the time he arrived at a downtown Los Angeles garment factory sometime after 10 a.m., his brother was in chains.

Agents from a constellation of federal agencies descended on the Ambiance Apparel factory and storefront on June 6, detaining dozens of people. It was the first salvo of the Trump administration’s prolonged engagement in Southern California, where masked federal agents are filmed daily pulling people off the street as part of what the president has promised will be the largest deportation program in American history.

Carlos’ brother, Jose, 35, was shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles. Carlos watched as agents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement vests led Jose and 13 other garment workers into a waiting white Sprinter van. Carlos hasn’t seen his brother since, though he did confirm that Jose is being held at an immigration detention center in Adelanto.

“We had just lost our other brother, he died,” said Carlos, whom CalMatters is only identifying by his first name because of his own fears of deportation. “Then, for our family, losing Jose, it was like someone died again.”

Worksite raids like the one at Ambiance are an attention-grabbing component of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, one that it remains committed to despite a brief reversal in mid-June. They’re unfolding across California, from Los Angeles’s Fashion District to farm fields in the San Joaquin Valley and a restaurant in San Diego.

While one stated purpose of worksite raids is to remove illegal competition from the labor marketplace, the reality is far messier: Studies have found that immigration raids don’t do much to raise wages — and actually deflate them. Even after a raid, employers are no more likely to use federal immigration verification tools like E-Verify during hiring.

Nevertheless, on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump focused on the threat of illegal competition as the political and emotional lynchpin of his deportation plans.

“They’re taking your jobs, they’re taking your jobs,” Trump told a crowd in Wilmington, N.C., on Sept. 21. “ Every job produced in this country over the last two years has gone to illegal aliens, every job, think of it.

“We’re going to save you. We’re going to save you. We’re going to save you.”

Every new job between 2022-2024 was not, in fact, filled by undocumented immigrants. Studies show actually deporting workers en masse from industries that rely on undocumented labor does little for U.S. workers. Giovanni Peri, a UC Davis economist who has studied the economic impacts of deportations in the 1930s and during the Obama administration, has found doing so actually reduces job opportunities for American-born workers.

That’s in part because many American workers, even those outside of immigrant-heavy industries, rely on the services generated by low-wage, undocumented labor — the costs of which would rise with mass deportations.

“Losing some of these workers and jobs that Americans are moving out of, it shrinks the local economy and there’s a reduction in jobs for Americans,” he said.

There is no evidence, Peri said, that in the face of mass deportations, immigrant-heavy industries would raise their wages to hire American workers instead.

“If there is such a world, it has not been the reality in the U.S. in a long time,” he said.

What does tend to happen, according to a study last year by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, is that raids lead to more job turnover while showing little net change in the employment rate.

“Actions that target employers — audits, investigations, fines, and criminal charges — have larger effects than raids, which target workers,” the study authors wrote.

The impact to the families can be long-term and devastating. Absences, suspensions, expulsions and rates of substance abuse and self-harm increased among Latino students in a Tennessee town that was raided, even among students whose families were not directly impacted. Property crime dropped but violent crime increased in a small northeast Iowa meatpacking town after a massive 2008 raid. Infants born to Hispanic mothers in that same Iowa town had a 24% risk of low birth weight compared to the same population one year before the raid.

“Our mom is devastated, and she’s scared for herself, too,” Carlos said. “A lot of us are from the same (Zapotec Indigenous) community in Mexico, a lot of people kidnapped in the raid, so it’s like a whole bunch of families had a death.”

In his first term, Trump’s worksite raids focused on the South and the Midwest, when more than 1,800 people were detained, mostly at manufacturing plants and meat and poultry processing facilities. That’s a tiny segment of the estimated 1.5 million people deported under Trump from 2017 to 2021, but it played a significant role in another of the administration’s goals: To create enough fear and mistrust among undocumented immigrants that they self-deport.

But this time, Trump’s focus is on California.

‘There’s no money’ after raid

Employees at Ambiance Apparel told each other that immigration enforcement was likely coming to their garment factory. Employees who did not want to be identified told CalMatters that people in Department of Homeland Security jackets were on site at least twice this year, most recently in April. Those workers say they were told by the company not to worry about a raid.

Ambiance Apparel, through an attorney, denied that the company had any advance warning or involvement with the raid and the company declined to comment further.

The garment industry is a logical target for immigration enforcement because so much of the workforce is undocumented. The same is true of agriculture. Estimates vary, but anywhere from one third to more than one half of California farmworkers are undocumented immigrants.

William Lopez, a University of Michigan public health professor who has written a book on the impact of immigration raids on mixed-status families, said he learned in interviews of people present at six immigration raids in the Midwest and South in 2018 that people “haven’t developed the language” to capture the impact of large-scale immigration raids on a community.

After a raid, “people don’t drive, there’s no money because everyone’s paying bond, no one’s going to school anymore,” Lopez said.

He continued, “the comparisons were, there was hurricanes, there was tornadoes, there was war, some people compared it to a public execution. Some people described it like the death of a grandchild.”

Congress made it illegal to knowingly hire workers who don’t have authorization in 1986, as part of an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system. The overhaul also legalized about 2.7 million undocumented immigrants.

Still, false Social Security numbers have been fairly easy to obtain, and employers are largely able to duck liability with only a cursory review of the documents workers present when they’re hired.

Employers have had little incentive to get stricter, even after the high-profile raids of meat and food processing plants during the second term of the George W. Bush administration. Demand for labor has remained high, fines for those caught have been lax and the use of contractors and subcontractors has proliferated, spreading out the risks of hiring..

“The number of employers who have been fined or imprisoned under the statute is very low compared to the number of employees who have been rounded up as a result of these (workplace) raids,” said Leticia Saucedo, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law. “The idea behind all of these was, yes, to target the employers, but employees were collateral damage.”

Saucedo said workplace raids and the deportation of workers highlight tensions between two wings of the Republican Party. Nativist groups want to curb immigration because they believe it displaces American workers, while business interests want access to a stable, legal pool of immigrant workers.

California farmer ready to demand a warrant

California farmers are especially sensitive to potential immigration raids. The Border Patrol conducted a sweep in Kern County just before Trump took office in January that previewed its approach in the new administration. In June, agents swept through farms in Ventura County, conducting immigration raids. iIndustry groups implored the administration to reconsider such tactics.

“To ensure stability for our farm families and their communities, we must act with both common sense and compassion,” Bryan Little, policy director at the California Farm Bureau, said in a statement. “The focus of immigration enforcement should be on the removal of bad actors or lawbreakers, not our valuable and essential farm employees.”

In an interview, Little said he hasn’t seen evidence of widespread enforcement at farms. But reports of any ICE sightings or arrests in agricultural areas have spread on social media, spreading fear among the workforce.

“The way this is all being handled, it’s interfering with food production,” he said.

In Ventura County, federal agents ultimately arrested more than 30 immigrants in June, said Hazel Davalos, director of the local farmworker advocacy group CAUSE.

Lisa Tate manages three of her family’s eight ranches in the county, where they grow citrus, avocados and coffee. Depending on the day, anywhere from five to 100 directly hired and contracted workers plant, trim or harvest on the land.

They were not among the farms visited by immigration agents, but Tate said she held a meeting with her workers to communicate a longstanding company policy: if agents ever show up, “nobody’s to be on our farm without proper authorization.”

Tate said the raids have put employers like her in a tough position. She said she has never knowingly hired any undocumented workers. She said she reviews the employment documents her workers present, fills out the I-9 form and follows the rules.

Still, she called it a “well-known secret” that many in the industry don’t have valid work permits.

She’s tried to use the guest worker visa program before, but it comes with costly requirements to provide housing and transportation, and to guarantee the guest workers have enough paid hours for the months they’re here. That was hard to budget for on a smaller farm like hers, she said, so she prefers hiring contracted workers locally as needed.

“We need an immigration program that allows for longer-term workers,” she said. “Until we have a solution in place, we shouldn’t take action because the whole system is built on what it is. And if you start picking it apart, there’s all kinds of fallout.”

This story was updated to clarify that President Trump has promised in his campaign to carry out the largest deportation program in American history. The largest mass deportation event took place during the Eisenhower administration in 1954 and 1955.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. To republish, go to the original and consult the CalMatters republishing guidelines.

Child care provider Corrine Hendrickson addresses a rally in front of the state Capitol Friday demanding a re-do on the state budget to increase child care funding. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

While Gov. Tony Evers has touted the new state budget’s child care funds as a compromise victory, some providers say they’re deeply disappointed. 

“This was not a win,” said Bloomer child care provider Caitlin Mitchell at a rally outside the Capitol Friday morning organized by Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN). “It was a temporary fix with long-term consequences.”

A press release from Evers’ office after he signed the budget early on July 3 said the document contains “Over $360 million to support Wisconsin’s child care industry and help lower child care costs for working families, a third of which is in direct payments to providers.”

A majority of Democratic lawmakers voted against the budget, citing shortcomings in funding for public schools as well as for child care. Assembly and Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the plan described it as a compromise. 

“I really really wish that the governor and the Democrats had just admitted that this was the best that they could do and that it’s still not good,” Corrine Hendrickson, a child care provider and WECAN co-founder, told reporters at the Friday morning rally.

“Everything we’re being told about the budget absolutely does not help children in our state at all,” said WECAN’s other co-founder, Brooke Legler. “The only compromise was the children’s safety. And this isn’t OK.”

WECAN members say that the budget’s child care funding is well short of what they need, and that regulatory changes are bad for providers, families and children. 

A pilot program increases Wisconsin Shares payments by up to $200 a month if providers agree to higher ratios of four children to one teacher for children 18 months or younger, and seven children to one teacher for children 18 months to 2½ years old. Wisconsin Shares subsidizes child care for low-income families.

According to Hendrickson, the ratio increase lowers the quality of care, and tying it to the subsidy program treats the poorer children differently than the rest of the children in care.

“Those children deserve to have more time and attention,” she said in her address to the rally. “Their parents are loving, their parents are caring, but their parents are stressed because they’re in poverty and that affects those kids.”

Child care providers should refuse to participate in that pilot, she said. 

Another provision lowers the minimum age for an assistant child care teacher to 16 from 18, while retaining the education requirements for the position.

“Sixteen-year-olds are wonderful human beings but they are not teachers of young children,” said Hendrickson.

“Those exact same policies were presented two years ago through the normal process of creating a bill. And we as a state overwhelmingly said no,” said Legler. “It did not even make it out of committee.”

In addition to $110 million in direct payments to providers, the child care total’s other big ticket items include $123 million to increase reimbursements that providers get for children in the Wisconsin Shares subsidy program and $65 million for providers who participate in a new “school readiness” program similar to 4-year-old kindergarten.

The $110 million direct payments, which would end after the budget’s first year, amount to about one-fourth of the $480 million that Evers originally sought. His budget proposal aimed to continue the state’s Child Care Counts program, funded by federal pandemic relief money.

At its height, Child Care Counts paid out $20 million a month and was credited with helping providers boost wages for child care teachers without raising tuition for parents. Two years ago the Evers administration dialed the program back to $10 million a month to stretch out its payments. The federal funds have now run out.

In a survey of child care providers earlier this year the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty reported that about one in four said they could close without continued payments. Evers cited the survey during the spring while campaigning for his original $480 million child care proposal.

WECAN leaders sent Evers a statement Friday, calling on him to order a special session of the Legislature and seek the full amount of child care support that he originally submitted for the 2025-27 state budget.

“We’re asking Gov. Evers to finish what’s been started,” Mitchell said in her rally speech. “Temporary funding and weakened standards are not enough. We need a comprehensive long-term investment in child care.”

After the 2023-25 budget was enacted without the child care investment that Evers sought, the governor called a special session and introduced a bill that included funding for child care, education and other priorities. The Legislature’s Republican majority rewrote the bill, replacing his provisions with tax cut measures that Evers vetoed. 

Hendrickson acknowledged the outcome of the special session call two years ago, but said in an interview that Evers should pursue  effort anyway. 

“This is the only thing that we can do to keep this in front of everybody, to keep it top of mind,” she said. 

“The $110 million over the next 11 months is around 20% less than we are currently receiving,” WECAN’s letter to the governor states. “So, no, tuition prices will not be lowering; in fact, they will be going up next month to cover this loss, or providers will be closing their doors, especially in rural areas.”

The WECAN statement tells Evers that his public assertion that the child care provisions will lower costs “creates confusion and parents will blame us; disrupting our important relationship due to the distrust your words have sown.”

Legler told the Wisconsin Examiner later Friday that when the WECAN group delivered the letter and spoke with Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback, the conversation didn’t go well from her perspective.

“We felt very minimized, unheard and condescended to,” Legler said.

Evers’ office has not responded to requests for comment.

The Waupun prison sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood (Photo | Wisconsin Examiner)

Most of those speaking at the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) online public hearing on community supervision – parole, probation and extended supervision – said the system is  too rigid. Instead of helping people successfully integrate back into society, they said, the system creates a tripwire of rules that can easily be broken and result in too many people being ordered back to prison when supervision is revoked.

The public hearing on July 8 took up proposed rules to amend the DOC’s Administrative Code because of a law passed in April 2014, Act 196, that directs the creation of a system of appropriate short-term sanctions for violation of conditions of supervision. The law sets out  eight criteria, including minimizing the impact on the offender’s employment and family, and offers rewards for those complying with conditions of supervision.

Of the 18 members of the public who spoke at the hearing, most addressed the need for implementing the spirit of the 2014 law to create a less burdensome system of community supervision and reduce the number of revocations that in 2023 represented over 30% of those entering prison and in 2024 reached nearly 60%.

Several people who had been on community supervision or were still serving on supervision also spoke and asked that the DOC do more than just provide accountability and make the system less oppressive and also offer resources, such as help obtaining housing.

One of the first to speak was Tom Gilbert, an advocate for WISDOM, a statewide network working on reform of the prison and criminal justice systems and other social justice issues. Gilbert, whose son has twice had supervision revoked, has been pushing since 2019 for the DOC to implement Act 196.

“Act 196 is a good law passed with broad bipartisan support, and it calls for a cultural shift in how the Department of Corrections administers its supervision programs,” he said. 

“For many years, WISDOM has called on the department to implement the law and thereby provide a solid alternative to thousands of revocations each year,” he added. 

However, Gilbert said, when he read DOC’s proposed rules for implementing the law he was upset that the DOC only stated the eight criteria without creating or describing a system for “new and revised policies and practices.”

Gilbert accused the DOC of not wanting to fulfill the intent of the law.

“This cannot be an oversight. It is a conscious omission,” he said. “To me, it signals that the DOC is not committed to creating a system of short-term sanctions, that it is not serious about shifting the community corrections program from an operation that sabotages the successful reentry of people into their communities to an operation that is focused on healing individuals, families and communities by providing the treatments and supports needed to accomplish that goal.”

Gilbert challenged the DOC’s current protocol of calling 90 days of jail a short-term sanction because, he said, even 60, 30, 21, or 14 days in jail has a negative impact on employment and family.

He also challenged the DOC’s perspective that the rules revision would only impact those on community supervision, vendors and DOC staff.

 “The decisions you and your agents make every day regarding people under your supervision widely affect families, employers, health care providers, social service providers, schools — in  other words, whole communities and this whole state,” Gilbert said. “The proposed rules should be revised by adding back the language from Act 196 that explains its whole purpose — creating a system of short-term sanctions.”

Sean Wilson, senior director of organizing and partnership of Dream.Org, a national non-profit working on social justice issues, was also critical of the proposed rule for offering no description for short-term sanctions.

“There’s no real short-term sanctions framework,” Wilson said. “Instead of building a system that redirects people before they spiral back into incarceration, this proposal simply restates the existing law; meanwhile, revocations without new convictions in Wisconsin still account for 40% of our prison admissions.” (The rate rose from 40% early in 2024 to nearly 60% at the end of the year)

“Here in this state, there are no guardrails to prevent over-punishment,” Wilson added. “The proposal leaves full revocation on the table for things like substance abuse, missed check-ins, minor violations that are far too often treated as major. There’s no real focus on rehabilitation. There’s no clear investment in helping people reintegrate successfully, and no mention of support, supportive services, trauma-informed care, or reentry pathways.”

He said the rules are “vague about how sanctions will be applied, who will review them, and how racial disparities, which are deeply embedded in our system, will be addressed.”

He also raised concerns about private contractors offering supervision, creating a “financial incentive that undermines fairness and accountability.”

Carol Rubin, a former administrative judge, also encouraged the implementation of Act 196 and was also critical of the proposed rules not fleshing out the intent of the 2014 law.

“I want to express my dismay that DOC has delayed issuing formal rules for Act 196 for 11 years, despite being ordered to issue rules in 2014 by the Wisconsin Legislature,” she said. “In the meantime, thousands of individuals have been denied the benefit of a real, short-term sanction system with trained agents that could have stabilized their new lives in the community.”

Rubin said the DOC should provide examples of how short-term sanctions should be employed to minimize the impact on employment.

“For a low violation, consider imposing a short-term sanction that does not restrict the hours that a client could be available for employment, such as a verbal or written reprimand,” she said. “For a medium or high violation, consider a brief house arrest or weekend jail sanction of two days or less that will not interfere with the client’s current or future hours of employment; if appropriate, a weekend home arrest could be repeated.”

Liz Monroe noted that the DOC’s manual for Evidence Based Response to Violations (EBRV) has two mentions of using rewards, including stating that rewards are “more effective than only using sanctions” and that incentives and rewards are “helpful for compliance and positive behaviour and that there should be at least four rewards for every sanction.”

As a reward for compliance, she encouraged reducing the supervision time, such as 30 days of compliance resulting in 30 fewer days on supervision.

Barbie Jackson, vice president of MOSES, an affiliate of WISDOM, asked for a description that “clearly defines short-term sanctions to assure that they focus on helping people avoid harmful behaviors and fulfill societal obligations, minimize disruption of the impacted person’s employment, minimize the effect on the impacted person’s family and establish incentives and rewards for compliance and positive behavior.”

Jeremy Dings, who said he had been originally sentenced to five years in prison but ended up serving 12 because of two revocations, talked about how he was unable to help his family during a health crisis after he broke a rule and was revoked. He was allso not allowed to attend his mother’s funeral.

“People on supervision have families, too, just like all of you,” he said. “Revocation for rule violation ends the person’s employment and their ability to support their family and themselves.”

Marianne Oleson, operations director for Ex Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO), noted she had been on supervision for eight years and still had 18 more years to serve.

“I’ve rebuilt my life. Started over with nothing, and dedicated myself to helping others,” she said, “but despite everything I’ve done, I wake up every day with 18 more years of supervision ahead of me, not because I’ve reoffended, not because I’m a danger, but because the system has failed to evolve with science.”

She contended that recent research on community supervision says the ideal period is three to five years.

Oleson noted that her clients include many who have been revoked and sent back to prison for a technical rule violation. 

She said the present system often does not have the goal of rehabilitation but “surveillance disguised as support.”

“People on supervision are trying to live,” said Oleson. “We’re parenting, working, healing and giving back, but we live in fear that one misstep will erase years of progress. You have a chance to change that, to lead with justice instead of fear. Please rewrite this to reflect what the courts, the research and those of us directly impacted are telling you. Our futures matter. Please treat us like they do and we do.”

JenAnn Bauer of West Bend who had been in prison and on supervision said that “excessive supervision” creates challenges for rebuilding a life.

“Every job, every lease, every new agent and every step forward comes with extra scrutiny and extra risk,” she said. “I have done everything the system has asked of me. I pay taxes, I’ve reintegrated, I’ve contributed. These things don’t just affect the formerly incarcerated. They affect our families, our children and future generations. When a parent is stuck under financial pressure or the constant threat of being sent back for a technical violation, it creates instability that reaches far beyond one individual, it holds entire families hostage and in survival mode, and that affects the health, safety and future of whole communities and our entire state.”

Robert Thibault, vice president of Prison Action in Milwaukee, said he had been on supervision for 15 years and had experienced a “huge inconsistency” in how supervision was administered depending on the parole or probation officer (PO), adding the attitude of a PO over the interpretation of “arbitrary rules” could result in a revocation.

Meah Flowers of Madison talked of having family members going in and out of prison and the disruption that revocation causes. She encouraged implementing Act 196 to help families.

Eric Howland said there is an expectation that those coming into community supervision obtain employment, housing and a positive social network, but a 90- or 60-day jail sentence for a supervision violation negatively impacts those goals.

Why 11 years?

The DOC has not yet responded to questions from the Examiner on why it has taken 11 years to implement Act 196.  

Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition signs on a table outside the Capitol meeting room where the coalition took testimony opposing a Republican redistricting proposal. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

A new lawsuit filed this week in Dane County Circuit Court seeks to have Wisconsin’s congressional maps declared an unconstitutional, anti-competitive gerrymander and thrown out. 

The suit, filed Tuesday, is another attempt by Democrats and their allies to have new maps drawn before the 2026 midterm elections. Just a few weeks ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear two challenges to the current congressional districts. 

Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight congressional districts. Democrats have focused on southern Wisconsin’s First District, currently held by Rep. Bryan Steil, and western Wisconsin’s Third District, currently held by Rep. Derrick Van Orden, as possible targets. 

The current maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and selected by the state Supreme Court, which was at the time controlled by conservatives. In that case, the Court had ruled that any proposed maps must follow a “least change” standard and adhere as closely as possible to the maps installed by Republicans in 2011. 

The new lawsuit was filed at the local level, rather than directly with the Supreme Court as an original action, a slower process but perhaps more likely to be taken up by the Court — which has declined to hear challenges to the congressional maps a handful of times in the last few years, despite the Court’s liberal wing gaining majority control after the 2023 Supreme Court election. 

The new suit was filed by attorneys from voting rights focused Law Forward on behalf of the bipartisan business group Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy Coalition, arguing that the current maps are unconstitutional because they’re anti-competitive. Previous challenges to the maps argued the districts were rigged to benefit the Republican party and violated equal protection laws. 

“Wisconsin’s current congressional plan presents a textbook example of an anti-competitive gerrymander,” the lawsuit states. “Anti-competitive gerrymanders are every bit as noxious to democracy as partisan gerrymanders and racial gerrymanders.”

The lawsuit adds that Wisconsin’s maps are an “anti-competitive gerrymander that artificially suppresses electoral competition.” The suit argues that when the congressional maps were drawn in 2011, the lines were drawn to protect incumbents of both parties. When those maps were largely kept intact by the Supreme Court’s “least change” standard in 2021, the decision to insulate incumbents was carried over. 

“After the Wisconsin Legislature adopted the 2011 congressional map, congressional races over the ensuing decade were, as intended, highly uncompetitive,” the lawsuit states, noting that only one congressional election under those maps was decided by less than 10 percentage points. “The Court’s adoption … of the ‘least change’ congressional map necessarily perpetuated the essential features — and the primary flaws — of the 2011 congressional map, including the 2011 congressional map’s intentional and effective effort to suppress competition.”

Nichole Robarge, right, describes the challenges faced by people with disabilities she assists when enrolling in Medicaid. With her is Kathleen Cummings, who provides similar assistance to people 60 and older. Both said impending changes to the program are likely to increase those challenges. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

With the Congressional mega-bill that cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid now law, people who have relied for their health care on the state-federal insurance plan and their advocates are scrambling to figure out  how and when it will hit home.

The timing of many of the law’s changes is still uncertain.

“This bill was written very hastily,” said Tami Jackson, policy analyst for the Wisconsin Board for People with Development Disabilities (BPDD), at a discussion of the law Thursday morning in the Wisconsin Capitol.

“There are implementation dates for various pieces of Medicaid that are not all in alignment,” Jackson said. “So, you’re going to get this in waves.”

Janet Zander of the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources paraphrased promises from members of Congress who publicly defended the bill.

“It’s really easy to listen to what we’re hearing about — ‘This isn’t going to harm us here in Wisconsin. We’re not doing anything that’s going to hurt older adults, people with disabilities, low-income families,’” Zander said. “Those of us who are working in these programs know that’s not the case at all.”

The new law imposes requirements for Medicaid participants to work or be preparing for work — although a majority already are working — or else be approved as exempt from having to meet the requirement.

That provision’s implementation date of Jan. 1, 2027 is less than 18 months away, Jackson said. And it could be up to a year before the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) produces an administrative rule to direct states on how they manage the requirement.

That doesn’t allow for much time to work out “20 or 30 unanswered questions” about how to require people to demonstrate they’re working, qualify for an exemption or prove that they’re exempt, Jackson said.

The added requirements will also impose new demands on agencies in charge of implementing the Medicaid changes in each state, as well as county agencies that help people navigate the program.

“If you are ramping up the workload and how much people have to do, and ramping up the staffing it takes to do that, that’s a lot more that counties are going to be doing locally, or will have to do,” Jackson said. “That’s going to exacerbate how many people lose coverage.”

Other items have no implementation date — which is usually interpreted as taking effect with the bill’s signing, said William Parke-Sutherland, government affairs director at Kids Forward.

“This bill, which is being kind of talked about as a tax and spending bill, is really a health care redesign bill, and it makes the most substantive changes to the health care system that we’ve seen since the Affordable Care Act,” Parke-Sutherland said.

That national health care law had four years to be implemented. With the new Medicaid changes, “we have no time in comparison.”

But the probable long-term impact remains dire, advocates said — making it harder for people to get coverage and keep coverage.

Taking together the projected loss of Medicaid coverage as well as the projected loss of Affordable Care Act coverage for low-income people who lose subsidies for their premiums that expire at the end of this year, as many as 17 million people in the U.S. could lose health care and long-term care coverage, Zander said.

The state Department of Health Services estimated in April that at least 52,000 Wisconsin residents could lose Medicaid coverage. Changes the Senate made in the bill will likely increase those estimates, however, according to advocates.

Safety-net barriers, old and new

As ultimately passed by the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and signed into law by President Donald Trump, the legislation has thrown new barriers in front of the nation’s safety-net programs, including Medicaid as well as the federal food aid program, SNAP.

Existing barriers were already very high, advocates said.

Kathleen Cummings works for the Columbia County Aging and Disability Resource Center assisting people who are 60 or older applying for Medicaid and other benefit programs. Based on their annual income and total assets, some people on Medicare also qualify for Medicaid to cover their out-of-pocket Medicare costs.

Cummings recounted the experience of a woman who had qualified for Medicaid but recently contacted her because she was getting bills for her health care. The woman accidentally failed to renew her Medicaid coverage when the renewal form she received got buried in a flurry of other Medicaid-related mail, Cummings said.

Under current law the client can get coverage retroactively for bills incurred in the last three months. But with the new law, “that will be changing to 30 days, so we will not, in the future, be able to request that backdated coverage for bills under the situation that she is in,” Cummings said.

Another client has had extensive treatment for lung cancer, she said. The man “is just barely, barely over the federal poverty level” — about $1,300 a month.

“A lot of my clients are very proud and do what they can with what they have,” Cummings said. “But when something like lung cancer comes along, he’s suddenly faced with all these bills that he only had limited coverage [for].”

She’s helping the man apply for Medicaid coverage backdated three months to cover those bills, she said. “Once he shows proof that he qualified, which he will, [he can] get some of these bills paid.”

Nichole Robarge also works for the Columbia County ARDC, helping people from ages 16 to 59 who qualify for federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits and other programs.

Robarge said that currently the disability application takes 12 to 18 months for a decision. As many as 85% of applications are denied at first, she said, and about 20% get overturned on appeal, which takes another 18 to 24 months. A second appeal, with a hearing before an administrative law judge, can take another two years.

In Wisconsin, approval for SSI automatically qualifies a person for Medicaid coverage. Until the SSI decision is resolved, however, the applicant has to apply for Medicaid separately, Robarge said — something that a disability can make much more difficult.

She pulled out the Medicaid application, which currently must be completed annually — a 41-page document that is a half-inch thick.

“Can you imagine getting one of these in the mail and having a cognitive disability or a physical disability, or maybe you had a stroke?…Or maybe you can’t read at all,” Robarge said.

“I bought a house and had less paperwork. I’ve bought a car and I’ve had less paperwork than what it takes to fill one of these out,” she added. “It’s tedious and it’s treacherous … This first barrier is huge, and this is even without getting the documents that you need to provide the proof that they’re asking for.”

Unintended consequences

The new law is poised to make those delays worse, advocates argue — blocking people from Medicaid coverage even though they meet the program’s qualifications.

“Medicaid is a wildly complicated program,” said Lisa Hassenstab, public policy manager for Disability Rights Wisconsin. “What we’ve seen in this bill is that all of these little changes [and] the unintended consequences, because people don’t understand what the program is. They don’t understand what it is, and so they don’t understand what the impact of these changes is really going to be.”

One thing the law won’t do, advocates said, is protect taxpayers.

“It won’t protect me,” said Tyler Engel, whose Medicaid coverage enables him to live more independently in the community with coverage for his caregivers.

“This bill saves money by making it so that, for somebody who is now currently eligible for health care, the provider who provides that care is not going to get paid,” Parke-Sutherland said. “This saves money by people who are currently eligible for health insurance” with federal help “not getting health insurance or having to pay more for it. That’s the only way that this bill saves money.”

Two-thirds of Medicaid participants are working, and therefore they are taxpayers, too, Jackson said.

“It’s a cost shift to the taxpayers,” said Jackson, because when people aren’t covered by Medicaid, “somebody else picks that up — whether it’s uncompensated care, whether it’s a medical bankruptcy, whether it’s your private insurance or your group premium going up.”

“If you stop paying for care, people’s care needs don’t go away,” Parke-Sutherland said. “You still pay. So this isn’t a boon to the taxpayers.”

Gov. Tony Evers signed the budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, at 1:32 a.m. in his office Thursday, less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The budget that Gov. Tony Evers recently signed was a missed opportunity for Wisconsin. It’s also a cautionary tale about the consequences of a Democratic leadership style that cedes power and demobilizes the public in the face of an increasingly authoritarian opponent.

During the budget process, Wisconsin Democrats had more leverage than they have had since the 2000s, holding the governorship and, due to fairer maps and GOP divisions, the deciding votes in the state Senate. Combined with an unusual state budget surplus made possible by Biden-era policies, and the striking unpopularity of the GOP’s budget stands on the big issues, this was a golden opportunity to start to undo the damage wrought by Republicans during the administration of former Gov. Scott Walker. This budget could have begun to reverse Wisconsin’s long term disinvestment in public education and local government services, expand BadgerCare, start to address the affordability crisis in child care, housing, home energy, and health care, and build a buffer against a coming tsunami of slashing cuts from President Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.

But rather than marshalling all the power at his disposal to achieve progress on at least some of these objectives, the governor gave away his leverage by not bringing Senate Democrats into negotiations until the very end, and then signing off on a concessionary bargain without a public fight, even whipping Democratic votes to support the disappointing deal. 

Despite improved leverage, Evers followed the script of his first three budgets. In 2019, facing a gerrymandered supermajority, Evers appeared to have a fighting spirit. I was there with dozens of Citizen Action members when he seemed to throw down the gauntlet, memorably declaring days after Republicans removed BadgerCare Expansion from the budget: “I’m going to fight like hell.” Democratic legislators and advocacy groups were blindsided when he suddenly backed down.

The governor and his team are spinning the latest deal as the kind of bipartisan compromise necessary under divided rule in a purple state, hoping that voters will not read the fine print. Republicans were right to brag during the floor debate that the one-sided deal was much closer to their priorities than the ultra moderate blueprint Evers proposed. 

The budget lowlights include the first $0 increase in general school aid in decades. (after inflation, that amounts to a real dollar cut in state support for public schools contrasted with yet another large increase for unaccountable voucher schools); a cut in support for child care in the midst of an affordability and access crisis; a $0 increase for mass transit at a time the state’s largest transit system is facing service cuts; and $1.5 billion on regressive tax giveaway which, according to a Kids Forward analysis of the original legislation, funnels nearly 60% of the benefit to the wealthiest households, and a miniscule proportion to Black and Latino families. It contains a huge giveaway to the hospital industry, the Capitol’s most powerful lobby, with no requirements to reduce cost and increase access for patients, or keep facilities open in underserved areas, while missing yet another opportunity to expand BadgerCare in the last year Wisconsin can secure the full financial benefit of 95% federal funding.

After Evers’ second budget surrender in 2021, I wrote a column for the Wisconsin Examiner arguing that hand-wringing over the leadership of establishment Democrats like Evers is counterproductive because it deflects responsibilities away from grassroots progressives for not building enough power to force their hand. As Shakespeare put it in Julius Caesar: “The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” 

This year, the reaction from the organized grassroots was dramatically different. For the first time organizing groups and education unions, representing tens of thousands of Wisconsinites, publicly campaigned for the governor to fight by wielding his potent veto power and appealing over the heads of the Legislature to the public. As Ruth Conniff reported for the Wisconsin Examiner, at a joint lobby day in late May a raucous crowd filled the hallway at the State Capitol leading to the governor’s office to deliver a letter demanding that he veto any budget that did not meet minimum standards on education, health care, child care and criminal justice. In the weeks leading up to the deal, grassroots leaders kept the pressure on. 

The governor’s concessionary bargain also divided his own party. Dozens of rank and file Democrats at the party convention wore stickers urging Evers to veto a bad budget. A striking number of progressive state legislators spoke out against the budget deal, and despite the administration using the power and resources of the governor’s office to whip votes, 80% of Democratic legislators rejected a budget Evers touts as a victory.

The reaction against Evers’ refusal to fight is parallel to the growing frustration with the failure of national Democratic leaders to adjust their leadership to the authoritarian situation. The critique of establishment Democrats focuses on two dimensions: their willingness to cede power to authoritarians, and their lack of appreciation of the increasingly important role of mass public organization and mobilization as traditional inside levers of power lose their effectiveness. 

The Republicans began shredding the 20th century governing norms well before the rise of Trump. The national GOP has steadily devolved from the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to the Newt Gingrich insurgency, the Tea Party, Mitch McConnell’s power grabs during the administration of President Barack  Obama, and finally MAGA, into an authoritarian populist movement seeking to totalize its grip on power by erasing what remains of the checks and balances of the liberal constitutional order.

Wisconsin’s GOP has followed a parallel path towards authoritarianism, including voter suppression laws targeting Democratic constituencies, the scuttling of settled law by a former Republican-backed majority on the Wisconsin  Supreme Court to legally sanitize Walker’s gross violations of campaign finance laws, a lame duck session stripping Evers of powers, and the unprecedented refusal to confirm the governor’s appointments to cabinet positions and state boards so they can be fired at will by the Legislature. Wisconsin did not meet the accepted political science definitions of democracy in its lawmaking branch of government from 2012-2024 because of a partisan gerrymander so severe that, as in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, one party was guaranteed victory. 

In the face of the  onslaught in the second Trump administration, establishment Democrats at the national level are violating historian Timothy Snyder’s well-known first lesson in fighting authoritarianism: Do not freely cede power by obeying in advance. Emblematic was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to supply the votes needed to keep the government open. Schumer ratified many of Trump’s illegal cancellations of programs without the consent of Congress, arguing that in a shutdown he would have even more power to ransack federal agencies. In effect, Trump and his allies took the government hostage, reaping the rewards of their own lawlessness. 

Evers also rewards his opposition for the damage they are willing to inflict on the body politic, wrapping appeasement in the tinsel of a mythic bipartisanship which borders on delusional in the face of an increasingly authoritarian GOP. Evers has long argued that using his power to veto a bad budget, or force an impasse to mobilize public opposition, would empower Republicans to do worse damage by “going back to base.” The “base,” in Wisconsin budget-ese, is the last state budget, which would, factoring inflation, constitute a massive cut in all state programs. By Evers’ logic, a bad deal is better than no deal.

The second lesson in an authoritarian situation violated by the likes of Schumer and Evers is the necessity of empowering mass mobilization. There is an overwhelming consensus among democracy scholars that resistance to authoritarians requires the large-scale and sustained marshalling of the power of the public. An impressive body of political science research documents that large scale peaceful nonviolent resistance movements are the most effective vehicles for overturning authoritarian regimes.

This populist orientation is not entirely new. In the early 20th century Wisconsin’s progressive Gov. Fighting Bob La Follette and Progressive Era presidents mobilized the public to break the stranglehold of the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, winning the power to enact major reform.

The lesson also applies to the liminal status of the U.S., somewhere between healthy democracy and autocracy, where traditional levers of power are losing their effectiveness, and large-scale popular resistance is an essential power to slow and ultimately reverse the authoritarian advance.

In this light, the problem with Evers’ approach to governing is that by making it entirely an inside game of bargaining with the Legislature, he freely gives away power, cutting out civil society groups that want to mobilize on behalf of his agenda and denying the public clear rallying points for exerting pressure on the process. This leadership style also erodes democracy by failing to deliver for average people, building an audience for authoritarian scapegoating of marginalized people and fake solutions.

If Evers had established a clear bottom line in the budget process on popular issues like public education and health care, and used both his veto power and the need for Democratic votes in the Senate to block a budget that did not include them, then he would have been in a position to work with grassroots groups and use his bully pulpit to rally public opinion against his opponents ahead of an election where control of the Legislature is in play, exerting tremendous pressure. Instead the public is left with no clear understanding of why they still can’t afford health care and child care, and why more schools are closing or cutting vital academic programs, as property taxes skyrocket to pay for less and less.

Despite these catastrophic failures in leadership, the future of multiracial democracy does not depend on Evers or other Democrats. It depends on  us. Political parties and social movements make leaders, not the other way around. Grassroots organizing groups and education unions made progress this budget cycle, but we need more people to join and commit, and greater investments in organizing, to win a more progressive Wisconsin. The national resistance to Trump, as measured by the number of people coming to rallies, is gaining steam, but that does not mean we are winning. The history of mass resistance shows that large scale mobilizations lose momentum over time unless enough people actively participate in permanent community-rooted organizing groups that demand bold and transformational leadership. The beating heart of democracy is direct personal engagement in cause-driven voluntary groups. In the end, it’s up to all of us.

A summer day on Golden Trout Lake in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, in east-central Idaho. (USDA Forest Service photo)

Members of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee differed along party lines at a Thursday hearing about how the U.S. Forest Service should partner with states and how the federal wildfire response should be organized.

Senators of both parties emphasized the importance of working  with state forest managers. But while Republicans praised the efforts of Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, a former state forest administrator in Idaho and Montana, to reach out to state governments, Democrats noted that President Donald Trump’s budget request for fiscal 2026 proposed eliminating a key program for state and tribal partnerships.

Democrats on the panel also raised a series of questions about the still-unfinished Forest Service budget request as the next fiscal year approaches in less than three months.

Schultz told the senators the budget proposal was not yet final, but confirmed the agency was telling states to prepare for zero dollars in discretionary spending for the State, Private, and Tribal Forestry program in fiscal 2026.

The program received more than $300 million in discretionary funding in fiscal 2024, plus another roughly $300 million in supplemental funding.

The Trump budget request does include $300 million for supplemental funds to the program that can be used for disaster relief.

Impact of ‘big, beautiful’ law

Ranking Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico noted states are facing tighter budgets after passage of Republicans’ “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation law that includes a host of policy tweaks meant to reduce federal safety net spending while extending tax cuts for high earners.

Under the law, states will be required to pay billions more per year to cover a greater share of major federal-state partnership programs for food assistance and health coverage.

“States need that funding,” Heinrich said of the forestry program. “That is an example of a successful partnership. If we don’t have that funding, that’s not shared responsibility, that’s abdicating our federal responsibility… at a time when (state) budgets are being decimated by Medicaid cuts thanks to the big, whatever bill.”

Schultz said the state foresters had relayed similar concerns, which the administration was considering as it finalized the budget request.

Chairman Mike Lee of Utah said the Forest Service under Schultz had given states greater flexibility to set their own forest management policies.

“I want to thank you, Chief, for giving the states more and more authority, more involvement and more of an ability to set a course for the proper management of these lands,” he said. “I know that Utah is really looking forward to working with you to expand these partnerships and I know my state is not alone in that.”

Funding versus dialogue

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California also blasted the administration for cutting the state forestry spending.

“Every state that I’m aware of is having a tougher budget picture to face,” he told Schultz. “The threat of fires is real. The threat of fires is growing. How does it make sense for the federal government to zero out these programs?”

Schultz answered that the agency would continue “partnering with the states in dialogue and discussion.”

“But you’re zeroing out their resources,” Padilla said.

“That’s correct,” Schultz said. “It’s sharing that responsibility and pushing it to the states.”

Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a former governor and Denver mayor, said the Trump budget request more broadly called for shifting more funding responsibilities to state and local governments.

“I see again and again, throughout all the budgets we’re seeing, is more costs shifted from the federal government to states and local areas that are going through their own budget struggles right now,” he said.

Montana Republican Steve Daines defended the idea of greater state responsibility, saying he had found the Gem State’s approach to land management more effective than the federal government’s.

“If you take a look at the landscapes across Montana and look at federal lands versus state lands, I can tell you the state’s doing a much, much better job in terms of stewardship of public lands than the federal government,” Daines said.

New firefighting service

Schultz said several times the administration had not yet finalized a plan to shift federal firefighting authorities to the Interior Department. The responsibility is currently split between the Forest Service, which is under the Department of Agriculture, and various Interior agencies, primarily the Bureau of Land Management.

Heinrich, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, raised concerns about the lack of a plan.

Heinrich said he was open-minded about the reorganization effort but was concerned that Congress had not yet seen a blueprint.

“I think there are many of us who are more concerned about the adequacy of that plan and would like to see that plan before we start making budgetary decisions about whether it’s a good idea or not,” he said. “I am very open to different ways of organizing how we fight fires on our national forests and our public lands. But I want to see the plan.”

Wyden raised opposition to the idea more broadly, saying the Forest Service should remain involved in firefighting.

“Nobody in my home state… has told me, in effect, ‘Ron we gotta have the Forest Service less involved in fighting fires,’” Wyden said. “But that is the net effect of your organizational plan.”

Schultz said the proposed reorganization would not cut any federal firefighting resources, but move the federal agency responsible for overseeing the issue. The administration would not put the reorganization in place this fire season, he added.

The FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 23, 2023.  (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s plan to relocate the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters to the Ronald Reagan building in the District of Columbia, and not a previously selected location in suburban Maryland, hit a roadblock Thursday.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to adopt an amendment from Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen that would bar any federal funding from being used to move the FBI from its current headquarters in the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building to anywhere other than the Greenbelt location.

The amendment was added to the FBI’s annual government funding bill, though that legislation’s bipartisan support dried up after the change was made, leaving the committee searching for a solution.  The panel went into an indefinite recess.

A ‘snatch’ of monies

Van Hollen argued the Trump administration’s choice to abandon the site in his state was arbitrary and didn’t follow the decade-long process that ultimately resulted in the federal government selecting a more suburban location.

“If we allow the executive, whoever the president may be, to snatch monies that this committee and this Congress have set aside for purposes that we mandated, we are opening the door to taking a lot more money,” Van Hollen said.

The Trump administration, he added, failed to analyze whether the Ronald Reagan building would meet the FBI’s security and mission requirements. The building at 1300 Pennsylvania NW, down the street from the White House and coupled with the International Trade Center, now houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices, which Trump administration officials said would move elsewhere.

Murkowski sides with Democrats

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted with all of the committee’s Democrats to approve the amendment on a 15-14 vote.

Murkowski said that “in fairness” she was one of many who believed the new location for the FBI headquarters was long settled and “was a little bit surprised to see that this was now an issue in front of us.”

She said she wanted to understand how exactly the Trump administration decided the Ronald Reagan building was a secure enough location for the FBI headquarters and suggested that Van Hollen withdraw his amendment until the committee could be briefed.

“I, for one, would like to know that this analysis has actually been going on for more than just a couple months — that there’s actually been that effort to ensure that (if) we’re going to move forward, this is the right place and it’s the right place, not for a Trump administration, not for a Biden administration, not for a Jon Ossoff administration, but this is the right place for the FBI,” Murkowski said, referring to the Democratic senator from Georgia.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to start any rumors,” she added to laughs.

Micromanagement of site planning criticized

Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Van Hollen if he’d withdraw his amendment in exchange for a briefing from the FBI director, noting he could still offer the amendment if the bill is brought to the floor for debate. He declined.

“The best way forward would be for the committee to say that we will not allow funds to be spent on an alternative site,” Van Hollen said. “And then, if we are persuaded, which is what we’ve decided in the past, if we’re persuaded by the FBI that we could revisit that decision.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin spoke against the amendment, saying the Trump administration should be allowed to use funding to move the FBI to whichever headquarters it wishes.

“For us to try to micromanage their site planning is ridiculous,” Mullin said. “They’re not going to put their men and women in harm. We need to allow them to make a decision.”

Amendment throws bill into disarray

Several hours after the amendment was adopted, it upended debate on the entire bill — which includes funding for the Departments of Commerce and Justice as well as science programs, like NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Collins had given Van Hollen and subcommittee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., a few hours to broker some sort of deal, but after they were unable to do so, several GOP senators switched from voting for the bill to opposing it.

She then sent the committee into a recess that will likely last until at least next week to give everyone involved more time to find some sort of bipartisan agreement.

“I think it is sad that one issue is sinking a bill that was completely bipartisan and strongly supported on both sides of the aisle,” Collins said.

Moran said his “overriding goal has been to work with Sen. Van Hollen to draft a bill, to work with all of you to draft a bill that can pass not only this committee but pass the United States Senate.”

“And while we have worked to try to find an agreement that would take us in that direction, we are not there,” Moran added. “I don’t know whether we’re even close to being there.”

Murkowski said she hopes the pause will lead to “a more earnest conversation” between members of the committee and the Trump administration about the FBI headquarters.

“We’re in a place where we’re trying to scramble right now, and we haven’t been able to scramble fast enough,” Murkowski said. “And it has caused people who, in good faith, chose to vote in the affirmative at the beginning and now in the negative, and switch back both ways. So there is now total confusion.”

Van Hollen said he believed resolving the dispute about who gets to choose the new FBI headquarters location “is important, not just for this particular case, but for the larger precedent.”

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  Trump was joined by, left to right, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Executive Chairman of Fox Corporation Rupert Murdoch and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Democratic lawmakers argued in a new legal filing this week that President Donald Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs usurped congressional power, and they urged a federal appellate court to strike down the duties on foreign imports.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is set to hear oral arguments over some of Trump’s tariffs after a lower court blocked them in May. Despite being tied up in court, Trump continued threatening tariffs Wednesday on numerous trading partners, including a 50% import tax on goods from Brazil.

Nearly 200 lawmakers signed onto the amicus brief Tuesday, asserting that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, under which Trump triggered the duties, “does not confer the power to impose or remove tariffs.”

The lawmakers argued that Trump’s unprecedented use of IEEPA violates Article I of the U.S. Constitution that authorizes Congress to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises” and “regulate commerce with foreign nations.”

“This reflects the Framers’ interest in ensuring the most democratically accountable branch — the one closest to the People — be responsible for enacting taxes, duties, and tariffs,” wrote the 191 Democratic members of Congress, citing the Federalist Papers, in their 65-page brief.

Congress has “explicitly and specifically” delegated tariff-raising powers to the president, but not under IEEPA, according to the lawmakers.

“Unmoored from the structural safeguards Congress built into actual tariff statutes, the President’s unlawful ‘emergency’ tariffs under IEEPA have led to chaos and uncertainty,” the lawmakers wrote.

‘Economic chaos,’ price hikes cited

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, co-led the brief with Oregon’s Sen. Ron Wyden, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also co-led, along with Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York, Joe Neguse of Colorado, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Richard Neal of Massachusetts.

In a statement Wednesday, Shaheen said Trump’s “reckless tariff agenda has caused economic chaos and raised prices for families and businesses across the country at a moment in which the cost of living is far too high.”

“The Trump Administration’s unlawful abuse of emergency powers to impose tariffs ignores that he does not have the authority to unilaterally impose the largest tax increase in decades on Americans. This brief makes clear that IEEPA cannot be used to impose tariffs,” Shaheen said.

May decision

The U.S. Court of International Trade struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs in a May 28 decision, following two legal challenges brought by a handful of business owners and a dozen Democratic state attorneys general.

Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among the states that brought the suit.

The lead business plaintiff is V.O.S. Selections, a New York-based company that imports wine and spirits from 16 countries, according to its website. Other plaintiffs include a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company, and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.

Following an appeal from the White House, the Federal Circuit allowed Trump’s tariffs to remain in place while the case moved forward.

Triple-digit tariff

Trump used IEEPA to declare international trade a national emergency and announced tariffs on nearly every other country on April 2 in what he dubbed as “Liberation Day.”

Tariffs reached staggering levels on major U.S. trading partners, including 46% on Vietnam, 25% on South Korea and 20% on the European Union.

The announcement wiped trillions from markets, which have largely recovered. Trump delayed all but a 10% base tariff for 90 days on every country except China. Trump fueled a trade war with the massive Asian nation, peaking at a 145% tariff rate, but then temporarily settling between 10% and 55%, depending on the good.

Even before Trump shocked the world with his “Liberation Day” announcement, small business owners from around the U.S. told States Newsroom they were bracing for potentially devastating economic effects.

The trade court’s ruling — a pending appeals litigation — does not apply to tariffs Trump imposed under other statutes, including national security-related duties on foreign automobiles, as well as steel and aluminum. Some of the steel tariffs, imposed during Trump’s first term, were left in place under former President Joe Biden.

Protesters outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt rally on April 4, 2025, in support of Kilmar  Abrego Garcia, calling for him to be returned to the U.S. (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

GREENBELT, Maryland — A top U.S. immigration official testifying in federal court Thursday did not give details of the Trump administration’s plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he is released from pre-trial detention next week in Tennessee.

Thomas Giles, the assistant director for enforcement and removal operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was noncommittal about how the agency would handle Abrego Garcia if he is released from jail in Tennessee where he awaits trial on federal charges, saying officials could not consider the question until he’s in ICE custody.

“There’s been no decision made as he’s not in ICE custody,” Giles said.

Department of Justice attorneys have said they would seek Abrego Garcia’s removal again, because he has a final order of removal, but have not detailed the process for that deportation, raising concerns of a lack of due process in the closely watched case that were not answered by Giles’ testimony Thursday.

Giles appeared after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration on Monday to produce a witness to detail the plan for Abrego Garcia’s removal.

The government is likely to pursue either a revocation of the deportation protections the El Salvador national and longtime Maryland resident has had since 2019 that bar deportation to his home country, or removal to a country other than El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia was wrongly removed in March to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador where he says he faced psychological and physical torture.

ICE detainer

Giles said that ICE placed a detainer on Abrego Garcia last month, meaning the agency requested the U.S. Marshals to notify ICE when he will be released so immigration officials can detain him. Abrego Garcia could be released July 16 after a pretrial hearing that day in Tennessee.

The Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last month to face federal charges of human smuggling that stemmed from a 2019 traffic stop. Abrego Garcia has denied the charges.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said in court Thursday that they found out Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. through media reports and they were given no information by the Trump administration.

DOJ attorneys said that Abrego Garcia will be removed from the U.S. before his trial in Tennessee is complete.

Restraining order considered

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said Thursday they are concerned he will again be removed without due process or the ability to challenge his removal to another country if he fears he will experience harm or persecution. 

Earlier in the week, they pressed for Xinis to have Abrego Garcia brought back to Maryland, rather than remain in Tennessee. 

Xinis is still mulling that request from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys. This week, she also denied the Department of Justice’s move to dismiss the case as moot, because Abrego Garcia had been returned to the U.S.

Xinis said Thursday she is considering issuing a temporary restraining order if Abrego Garcia is released on pre-trial detention. The order would last for 48 business hours and bar immigration officials from removing Abrego Garcia to a detention center outside of Tennessee or from the U.S.

She also called for a hearing on Friday at 9 a.m. ET on the temporary restraining order.

Vague answers

Sascha Rand, an attorney representing Abrego Garcia in the immigration case in Maryland, grilled Giles on how familiar he was with Abrego Garcia’s case.

Giles said that he had not directly overseen Abrego Garcia’s case and had about four hours to prepare for Thursday’s hearing.

Rand asked Giles which country Abrego Garcia would be removed to if not El Salvador.

Giles said that if Abrego Garcia is removed to a third country, it would take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to determine which country.  

Giles said that Mexico is one country that accepts nationals from other countries – including El Salvador – and has diplomatic assurance that an individual removed won’t face harm.

He added that South Sudan is also a country that the Trump administration has deemed acceptable to send deportees to.

In a ruling last month, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with removing eight men from different nationalities to South Sudan, which recently experienced a civil war. The U.S. State Department advises against traveling to the country.

Xinis asked Giles if Mexico, “at a minimum,” would be a country Abrego Garcia could be removed to.

Giles said that was possible.

Rand asked if South Sudan was a possibility.

Giles said that “we have removed people to South Sudan.”

Rand then asked Giles multiple times which path the Trump administration was considering for Abrego Garica, either deportation to a third country, or trying to remove the 2019 bar on removal to El Salvador.

“Do you have any actual knowledge of which one of these tracks Mr. Abrego Garcia might be put on next Wednesday?” Rand asked.

Giles said because Abrego Garcia is not in ICE custody, a discussion on the options for his removal is not happening. He said those determinations will be made once Abrego Garcia is in ICE detention.

Giles added that it’s also unclear where Abrego Garcia will be held in ICE detention, as it’s based on available bed space, meaning Abrego Garcia could be transferred anywhere in the U.S.