Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Ron Cogswell | used by permission of the photographer)
Update: This story has been updated to include the number of students across campuses other than UW-Madison who have had their visas canceled and to include comment from Sen. Kelda Roys.
President Donald Trump’s administration canceled the visas of six current University of Wisconsin-Madison students and seven alumni who had employment extensions, the university announced. Universities of Wisconsin spokesperson Mark Pitsch said in an email that there have also been cancellations at other UW campuses and the system is working on gathering more information.
“We are aware of visa terminations other than those described at UW-Madison. Resources for students are available through our universities,” Pitsch wrote.
As of 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, Pitsch said that the UW knows of at least 14 other cancellations on other campuses. This brings the total to at least 27 students across the UW system.
The cancellations come as the Trump administration has been cracking down on immigration, including the presence of international students in the country.
UW-Madison said in a press release Monday that it played no role in the cancellations. According to the release, UW learned from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) that the students’ records were terminated.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin told the Faculty Senate that it wasn’t contacted directly about the cancellations and only learned about them because staff has been reviewing federal databases every day to see whether students have been affected.
UW-Madison noted that a status termination generally means an affected person should depart the United States immediately. UW-Madison’s office responsible for providing services to international students has contacted the students and alumni whose visas were canceled to advise them about the potential consequences of the cancellations and provide information about legal resources if requested.
UW-Madison also said that while it’s not uncommon to see terminations for many reasons, it and peer institutions have seen an elevated volume and frequency of terminations over the last week.
On March 28, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that at least 300 visas for international students have been revoked. Rubio told reporters that every time he finds “one of these lunatics,” referring to students that have participated in protests, he takes away their visa.
UW-Madison said the “precise rationale” for the termination of the visas is unclear, but that it doesn’t believe they were specific to participation in any “free speech events or political activity.” The university hasn’t responded to an inquiry for more information about the students.
Some of the students targeted by the Trump administration have been outspoken activists against the war in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, a former student at Columbia University who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on campus, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is being held in a Louisiana detention facility with federal authorities claiming to have revoked his green card. Tufts doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen with an F-1 student visa, was detained by mask-wearing DHS agents as she was leaving her off-campus apartment in Massachusetts. She is also being held in Louisiana.
UW-Madison said it is not aware of federal law enforcement activity on campus as of Monday.
“International students, faculty, and staff are important members of the UW–Madison community, and the university deeply values their presence,” the university said in the statement.
Mnookin also told faculty that while she can’t force people to, she is hopeful faculty will use their discretion to offer accommodations to affected students to help them finish their courses and degrees.
UW-Madison also pointed students to resources included in an update from April 2.
In that update to its international community, UW-Madison said it understood that ICE’s detainments of students at other institutions were “highly unsettling — especially for you and our broader international community.”
“You are a valued and integral part of campus life, not only for the perspectives you bring to our teaching, research, and engagement mission, but also for the many ways you enrich the university’s social and cultural life,” Vice Provost and Dean Frances Vavrus said in a statement earlier this month. “We continue to be deeply grateful for your presence at UW–Madison.”
State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), who represents the UW-Madison campus, called on people to push back against the actions of the federal government.
“All of us must stand up to the Republican regime’s lawless, unconstitutional and un-American actions to abduct, arrest, and kick out, and intimidate international students, legal permanent residents, and others, without due process of law,” Roys said. “This is unacceptable and we must unite in opposing it.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 26, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge sided with The Associated Press Tuesday in a case alleging the Trump administration denied the wire service access to restricted spaces in the White House due to its editorial decision to continue using the term “Gulf of Mexico” rather than “Gulf of America.”
District Judge Trevor McFadden for the District of Columbia granted the AP a preliminary injunction on the merits of the case. McFadden wrote that the news outlet is likely to succeed on its First Amendment and retaliation arguments in further court proceedings, and that the White House’s action has caused irreparable harm to the news agency.
The legal battle tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”
The injunction orders the White House to immediately rescind the denial of AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and “other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool.”
The order also states the administration’s press team “shall immediately rescind their viewpoint-based denial of the AP’s access to events open to all credentialed White House journalists.”
The mandate will remain in place while the case is carried out at the district court level, though the White House is likely to appeal the case.
In his 41-page order, McFadden, appointed by Trump in his first term in office, stated the analysis of the AP’s arguments is “straightforward” and that ramifications for the organization have “undoubtedly been adverse.”
“The AP made an editorial decision to continue using ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in its Stylebook. The Government responded publicly with displeasure and explicitly announced it was curtailing the AP’s access to the Oval Office, press pool events, and East Room activities. If there is a benign explanation for the Government’s decision, it has not been presented here,” McFadden wrote.
The AP and the Trump administration presented evidence to McFadden during a March 27 hearing.
The judge contends in his order that the AP clearly showed that its print reporters “have been systematically and almost completely excluded from events open to the broader White House press corps since February 13, while its photographers have suffered curtailed access.”
“The Government declined to offer witnesses in rebuttal. The Court credits the detailed timeline that the AP built through testimony and evidence,” he wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond for comment.
Trump and administration officials also did not immediately react on social media.
A group of coal miners watch as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House shortly before signing executive orders on the coal industry on April 8, 2025. (White House livestream)
President Donald Trump signed four executive orders Tuesday aiming to invigorate the U.S. coal industry.
In wide-ranging comments in front of a phalanx of coal miners at the White House, Trump said the orders would revitalize an industry pushed to the brink by Democratic policies that encourage renewable energy.
“This is a very important day to me, because we’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned, despite the fact that it was just about the best, certainly the best in terms of power, real power,” Trump said.
The orders:
End a moratorium on leasing federal lands for coal mining;
Remove Biden administration environmental regulations that Trump said slow approvals of new mining projects;
Prioritize grid security and reliability; and
Direct the U.S. Justice Department to block states from enforcing their own regulations on coal.
Two of the orders cite increased energy demand for the power-intensive task of artificial intelligence data processing as the rationale for increasing coal production.
Reopening plans for mines in Montana, Wyoming
A press release from the Interior Department, which oversees resource management on public lands, added that one of the orders reopens plans to build mines in Montana and Wyoming, removes regulatory burdens on coal production and lowers royalty rates coal companies owe for production on federal lands.
Environmental groups cautioned against a renewed federal investment in coal and took particular exception to the provision allowing the federal government to undermine state efforts to move away from the sector.
“Reviving or extending coal to power data centers would force working families to subsidize polluting coal on behalf of Big Tech billionaires and despoil our nation’s public lands,” Tyson Slocum, the energy policy director for the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “States planning to move to cleaner, cheaper energy sources could be forced to keep old coal plants up and running for years, forcing nearby residents to breathe dirty air and harming the climate.”
In a line that appeared ad-libbed, Trump also promised the orders could not be reversed by a future president.
“We’re going to give a guarantee that the business will not be terminated by the ups and downs of the world of politics,” he said. “We’re going to give a guarantee that it’s not going to happen, so that if somebody comes in, they cannot change it at a whim.”
Trump said he’d thought of the idea “about 15 minutes before” getting on stage at the White House.
‘Beautiful, clean coal’
Trump cast the move as a direct rebuke to his Democratic predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and said it was in service of restoring working-class jobs in states like West Virginia.
“We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all. And it wasn’t just Biden, it was Obama and others, but we’re doing the exact opposite… We’re going to put the miners back to work.”
Coal is stored outside the Hunter coal-fired power plant, operated by PacifiCorp, in Emery County, Utah, on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A 2024 Biden rule to raise emissions standards on coal plants was unworkable, one of the orders, which reversed the Biden rule, said.
“The Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form,” the order said. “The Rule therefore raises the unacceptable risk of the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants, eliminating thousands of jobs, placing our electrical grid at risk, and threatening broader, harmful economic and energy security effects.”
With both U.S. senators from West Virginia, Republicans Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, on hand, Trump said the state’s workers rejected Democrats’ vision of transitioning away from their mining identity.
“One thing I learned about the coal miners is that’s what they want to do,” he said. “You could give them a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in a different kind of a job, but they’d be unhappy. They want to mine coal. That’s what they love to do.”
Environmental groups slam orders
Even before the orders were signed, environmental advocacy groups panned them as a giveaway to the industry and a reckless move away from attention to the climate crisis.
“Trump’s coal orders take his worship of dirty fossil fuels to a gross and disturbingly reckless new level,” Jason Rylander, the legal director of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a written statement. “This is yet another assault on efforts to preserve a livable climate.”
Lena Moffitt, the executive director of environmental group Evergreen Action, said true energy reliability would come from renewable sources.
“Coal is toxic and outdated,” Mofitt said in a statement. “It poisons our air and water, jacks up household energy bills, and is deadly for communities living under the shadow of its smokestacks. If Trump actually cared about meeting rising energy demand, he’d invest in affordable, clean power—not drag us backward to prop up a dying industry.”
Immigration and tariffs
Trump spoke for about 45 minutes and touched on issues beyond energy policy, including his recently enacted tariffs that have rocked world financial markets and the case of a Maryland man erroneously swept up in a deportation operation.
Trump promoted his aggressive immigration policy and referenced the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a man who the administration has admitted was mistakenly deported from Maryland to his native El Salvador despite being granted legal protection to remain in the United States.
The administration sent planeloads of Venezuelan nationals to an El Salvador mega-prison last month, accusing them of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua.
Without naming Abrego Garcia, Trump referenced a man sent to El Salvador who was not a member of the Venezuelan gang, but said he was a member of a different Latin American gang. The government has produced no evidence to suggest Abrego Garcia is a gang member.
On tariffs, Trump said the taxes on imported goods were already bringing in billions of dollars daily in new federal revenue and were critical to protect U.S. industries.
“We’ve been ripped off and abused by countries for many years with the tariff situation,” he said. “They’ve used tariffs against us. We didn’t use tariffs against them in any way, but we just didn’t use them of any monumental proportion. And so we are doing it now.”
He did not respond to a shouted question about Republican unease with the worldwide tariffs at the close of the White House event.
Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Two dozen Democratic senators Tuesday demanded the Trump administration return to the United States a Maryland father who was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by mistake.
Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge.
“Your unwillingness to immediately rectify this ‘administrative error’ is unacceptable,” according to the letter addressed to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Tedd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was led by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Court battle
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily paused a lower court order that required the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia from the prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
A full decision by the high court on whether the Trump administration would be required to return him is expected this week, and it could have implications for the more than 250 men who have been taken to the prison.
The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, despite paying El Salvador $6 million to detain him, along with other immigrants deported.
Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with reporters Tuesday outside the White House, and said she did not agree with the lower or appeals court orders to require the U.S. to return Abrego Garcia.
“We believe he should stay where he is,” she said.
Bondi also placed the DOJ attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.
‘Need for due process’
An appeals court Monday unanimously upheld an order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that the administration return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by midnight Monday.
The 24 Democratic senators and one independent argued the Trump administration should comply with the order by Xinis.
“The Administration’s mass deportation agenda does not transcend immigration law or the need for due process,” according to the letter.
“And when the Administration makes a mistake as severe as sending an individual with protected status to a foreign prison, it cannot simply shrug off responsibility and allege that there is nothing it can do to reunite him with his wife and child, who are American citizens,” according to the letter.
The letter also requires Noem and ICE to answer several questions and return answers by April 22.
The senators ask why the agency and ICE are not working to return a wrongly deported individual, as the agencies have done so in the past and why Trump officials like the vice president and White House press secretary continue to label Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, as a gang member without evidence.
The letter also asks for a copy of the contract agreement between El Salvador and the U.S. to detain the immigrants at CECOT.
List of senators
The 24 Senate Democrats on the letter besides Van Hollen included Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed of Rhode Island; Peter Welch of Vermont; Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California; Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts; Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Cory Booker of New Jersey; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia; Christopher Coons of Delaware; Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii; Ron Wyden and Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon; Martin Heinrich of New Mexico; Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland; Gary Peters of Michigan; and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont also signed the letter.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Aug. 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
The Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections held a public hearing Tuesday morning for Republican-authored bills introduced in response to third-party candidates in last year’s election — one who faced challenges getting on the presidential ballot and the other who wasn’t allowed to get off.
The first bill, authored by Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken), would allow third-party presidential candidates to gain access to Wisconsin’s presidential ballot without their party having any members holding elected office in the state.
Last year, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint arguing the Green Party was not eligible to be on the presidential ballot because state law requires presidential electors nominated in October to be chosen by state officers and legislative candidates.
The statute states that presidential electors must be nominated by each political party’s state officers, holdover state senators and candidates for the state Senate and Assembly. The Democrats argued the Green Party doesn’t have anyone who qualifies, so it couldn’t be on the ballot.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the DNC’s lawsuit against the Green Party. Jill Stein, the party’s nominee for president, received 12,275 votes, about 0.4% of the statewide total.
In his remarks introducing the bill, Sortwell said the effort to exclude the Green Party from the ballot was “an attack upon democracy.”
“No political candidate should be restricted ballot access and discouraged to run because their respective party has not yet won a political office,” Sortwell said. “It’s rather ludicrous on its face, if you consider that a party is not entitled to a monopoly for ballot access and to certain votes. To make the law clear, this legislation protects political third parties from frivolous lawsuits by allowing the chairperson of the party’s state committee to nominate their presidential electors.”
The other bill heard by the committee Tuesday addresses Robert F. Kennedy’s failed effort to get his name off Wisconsin’s presidential ballot after he had dropped out of the race and endorsed President Donald Trump.
Kennedy had filed nomination papers with the Wisconsin Elections Commission that included the signatures of enough voters for him to qualify and be placed on the ballot. Before the Wisconsin Elections Commission met on Aug. 27 to make its final certification of candidates, Kennedy dropped out of the race and wrote a letter to the commission asking to take his name off the ballot.
Under state law, however, candidates who file nomination papers and qualify to run cannot withdraw and must remain on the ballot, unless they die. Kennedy unsuccessfully sued to have his name removed, taking the case all the way from Dane County circuit court to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Once the candidates are certified, county clerks begin printing and mailing absentee ballots, making it much harder to change who is on the ballot.
Under the bill, authored by Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard), qualified independent candidates for president and vice president, and all qualified candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the state Senate and Assembly, governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state treasurer could remove their name from the ballot if they file a sworn statement withdrawing their candidacy before the WEC deadline for certifying candidates.
The bill would also make it a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and a $25,000 fine to file a false statement withdrawing someone’s candidacy for office.
In his testimony, Steffen said California is the only other state that doesn’t allow candidates off the ballot unless they die and that the policy is “unrealistic and somewhat embarrassing.”
“So having such a law probably made sense in the 1800s when death was more of a reality, a regular occurrence, but in current times, it seems appropriate that we develop a mechanism, like all the other states, to allow individuals who, if between the time that they submit their paperwork and the election, that they have some sort of opportunity on their own to pull themselves off the ballot,” he said.
The bill would not apply to candidates for local office. In this year’s spring election, a candidate for Madison Common Council won by a slim margin after dropping out of the race and endorsing her opponent.
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson testified that her only concern is that Steffen’s proposal could limit clerks’ ability to get ballots out on time. She noted that clerks begin designing, preparing and testing their ballots long before the elections commission certifies the candidates.
For the clerks, she said, the WEC certification is the go-ahead that ballots can be printed and mailed. She said their work will be slowed down if they need to wait until the last possible moment to begin that preparation work, because a candidate might drop out.
“Those are really tight time frames, and as absentee ballots keep growing in popularity, we have to print more ballots, and printing ballots takes more time, so if we need that extra time, please don’t take any time away from us,” Tollefson said.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testifies before the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs Tuesday as he faced senators from both sides of the aisle who relayed their constituents’ economic anxiety.
Democratic and Republican senators alike questioned how the policy will affect their states’ industries in the coming months.
“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves wrong?” asked GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Greer told members of the Senate Committee on Finance that President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to trigger steep worldwide import taxes is “common sense.”
“Our trade deficit, driven by these non-reciprocal conditions, is a manifestation of the loss of the nation’s ability to make, to grow, and to build,” Greer said.
“The president recognizes the urgency of the moment. On the first day of his second term, President Trump issued a comprehensive memorandum setting out his trade policy direction. No other president has done this,” Greer continued in his opening statement.
Responses from around the world range from all-out retaliation to negotiation to capitulation. Chinese officials, who could see tariffs reach 104% after Trump threatened Monday to pile more on, said Tuesday they will “fight to the end.”
Tariffs launch just after midnight
The previously scheduled hearing on Trump’s trade agenda came less than a week after the president used his emergency powers to unveil new import taxes on products from nearly every country around the world.
Trump’s tariffs will begin just after midnight, hitting major exporters to the United States as well as poor and developing nations. They range from a 46% tax on Vietnam, whose major exports to Americans include tech products, to a 50% tax on Lesotho, a small African nation that exports diamonds to U.S. jewelers.
Claims from the administration that dozens of governments have reached out to negotiate buoyed U.S. and world markets Tuesday after three days of turbulence erased trillions of dollars in wealth.
Trump’s baseline 10% tariffs launched Saturday on trading partners, including allies who import more American goods than the amount of their own products they export to the U.S.
The tax on allies with a trade surplus drew the ire of Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat. “Why did they get whacked in the first place?” he asked Greer, raising his voice.
Trump has exempted pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, critical minerals, and semiconductors from his new levies. Those imports are worth $665 billion, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council, a think tank focused on U.S. foreign relations.
The levies come on top of Trump’s previously enacted 25% national security levies on foreign steel and aluminum, and foreign cars, as well as emergency tariffs at 20% on Chinese imports and 10% to 25% on products from Canada and Mexico.
‘Aimless, chaotic tariff spree’
Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the committee, announced at the hearing that he plans to fast-track a resolution “to end the latest crop of global tariffs that are clobbering American families and business members on both sides of the aisle.”
“Donald Trump’s aimless, chaotic tariff spree has proven beyond a doubt that Congress has given far too much of its constitutional power over international trade to the executive branch. It is time to take that power back,” the Oregon Democrat said in opening remarks.
Committee Chair Mike Crapo expressed some optimism that Trump’s tariff agenda would eventually boost American industries.
“Members and the public have questions and concerns about the recent tariff actions. That’s ok. We should think about tariff impacts and ask questions,” said Crapo, an Idaho Republican.
Once people “contextualize” Trump’s tariffs, “the real headline then becomes the fundamental shift in trade policy since President Trump’s inauguration — where the United States actually plans to do trade again,” Crapo said.
Oklahomans worried
But other senators wanted more assurance for small business owners who are contacting them for answers about the sudden economic turmoil.
Sen. James Lankford told Greer he’s heard from a constituent in Oklahoma who switched purchasing from China to Vietnam after Trump’s first administration targeted China with tariffs. Now, the company worries about the 46% tax it will have to pay on imports from Vietnam.
“Is there a timeline you’re dealing with?” the Republican asked Greer.
The trade representative said more than 50 countries, including Vietnam, have reached out to strike new trade agreements.
“We don’t have any particular timeline set on that,” Greer said. “What I can say is I’m moving as quickly as possible.”
“The time piece does matter to them,” Lankford said.
Lankford then asked if any industries, including garment manufacturers in Oklahoma, can apply for an exemption from import taxes on products they can only purchase from abroad.
“I know long term the hope is to have a more diversified (market). In the short term, they don’t have another option. How do you plan to handle that?” Lankford said.
Greer replied: “Senator, the president has been clear with me and with others that he doesn’t intend to have exclusions and exemptions, especially given the nature of the action. If you have Swiss cheese in the action, it can undermine the overall point.”
Warner grew heated during questioning with Greer, saying he’s hearing from Wall Street that business people viewed the U.S. market recovery Tuesday “as a good day in hospice.”
“We have 800,000 small businesses in Virginia. These tariffs are going to wallop them,” Warner said.
EU, other nations react
The European Union is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a list of targeted American imports the bloc of 27 nations plans to tax in response. Trump unveiled a 20% levy on EU products as part of his “Liberation Day” plans.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is staring down a 17% tariff from Trump, promised during an Oval Office meeting Monday that his country will “very quickly” even out trade with the U.S.
Trump wrote on social media Tuesday morning that he held a “great call” with South Korea’s acting president Han Duck-soo. Trump imposed a 25% tariff on South Korean exports into the U.S., which largely include cars, auto parts and electric batteries.
“Their top TEAM is on a plane heading to the U.S., and things are looking good,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The comments came a day Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would lead negotiations with Japan, which faces a 24% levy. Americans mainly import cars, auto parts and construction vehicles from Japan.
The prospect of negotiation brought Japan’s stocks up overnight after flagging upon tariff uncertainty.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the department's Washington, D.C., headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The IRS and Department of Homeland Security reached an agreement Monday to share tax information of immigrants who have final orders of removal to help immigration agents find and deport the immigrants, according to documents filed in court.
No information between the two agencies has been shared yet, according to the filings in federal court in the District of Columbia, but the partnership would impact more than 1 million immigrants with final removal orders, as the Trump administration carries out mass deportations of immigrants without permanent legal status.
According to a memorandum of understanding signed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and submitted to the court, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can ask the IRS to provide information about immigrants with orders of removal or immigrants involved in criminal investigations.
Some of that tax information includes sensitive details such as current addresses and information about child tax dependents.
It would be the first time the IRS shared sensitive tax information to carry out immigration enforcement.
In order to file taxes without a social security number, someone who is not a U.S. citizen would use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or an ITIN. As of 2022, there were more than 5.8 million active ITINs, according to a report by the Treasury Department Inspect General.
Groups challenging information sharing
The government filed the document in a case brought by immigration rights groups the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. The groups are trying to block the IRS from sharing tax records with DHS for immigration enforcement, arguing that such sharing violates IRS disclosure laws.
The Trump administration moved Monday to dismiss the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that “providing information to assist criminal investigations—is lawful.”
A hearing on a preliminary injunction to block such information sharing between IRS and DHS is set for April 16 before federal Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017.
Friedrich ruled against the groups last month, when they asked for a temporary restraining order following a story by The Washington Post that the agencies were considering sharing information in order to find immigrants to deport.
“A single news report about future cooperation between the IRS and DHS does not establish that the plaintiffs’ members are facing imminent injury,” according to the March 19 order.
Pro-Trump protesters gather on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police chief testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, had negative repercussions on morale within the department and for police across the country.
“I think there was an impact, not only to the Capitol Police, but an impact nationwide when you see folks that are pardoned — and I’m really referring to the ones that were convicted of assaulting police officers,” J. Thomas Manger said during a hearing on the department’s budget request.
“I think that’s what bothered most cops and it did certainly have an impact on the USCP,” Manger added. “We’ve got so much change that officers are experiencing over the last four years, so I’m trying to keep them focused on moving forward. But it certainly did have a negative impact. For cops all over this country, you wonder when you put your life on the line every day, and does it matter?”
On Trump’s first day in office, he pardoned nearly 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes related to attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while members of Congress moved through the process to certify President Joe Biden’s win of the Electoral College vote.
Many of those people went to the Capitol after attending a rally near the White House where Trump repeated false claims about winning the 2020 presidential election, despite numerous failed court cases and no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Manger testified during the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing that the department has made numerous improvements since the attacks, but that its nearly $1 billion budget request is necessary to hire more officers and continue updating equipment.
“I recognize that there are other police departments of a similar size whose budget is not as large as ours. But we’re not an ordinary law enforcement agency,” Manger said. “The USCP is unlike any traditional police department. In fact, our mission incorporates elements similar to the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the federal protective service.”
Manger said that in the four years since the Jan. 6 attack, USCP has made substantial changes to how it operates and that many of its “mission requirements simply did not exist four years ago.”
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters as he leaves a news conference following a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on April 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he’s still planning to hold a floor vote this week to adopt the budget resolution that senators signed off on last weekend, despite opposition from enough Republican lawmakers to block final approval.
Johnson, R-La., said that he and others, including President Donald Trump, are working to address concerns the blueprint directs the Senate to cut a minimum of $4 billion, while the House instructions task several committees with cutting at least $1.5 trillion in spending. Some House Republicans say they don’t want to move ahead because the Senate number is too low.
Both chambers of Congress must adopt the same version of the budget resolution before they can use the complex reconciliation process to extend the 2017 tax cuts, bolster spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, and reduce government spending.
Johnson said during a press conference that a House vote to adopt the budget resolution, which the Senate approved early Saturday morning, just starts off the process. He also said writing the actual reconciliation bill would be “a collaborative process between the House and Senate.”
“You’re going to see the Republican Party in both chambers working together as one team. I know that’s a rare occasion, and people don’t really know what that looks like, but we’re actually going to do it this time,” Johnson said. “The House is not going to participate in an us-versus-them charade. We won’t do it.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters following a closed-door GOP conference meeting on Tuesday morning that the chamber could stay in session this weekend, if leaders cannot get the votes they need lined up during the next few days.
“We’ve got to get it done,” Scalise said. “Failure is not an option.”
The House is set to leave for a two-week break on Thursday.
‘A joke from the Senate’
House Republicans can only lose three votes and still adopt the budget resolution, given their extremely thin 220-seat majority. As of Tuesday, many more than three GOP lawmakers have expressed reservations or said outright they won’t vote to approve the budget resolution.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy said the $4 billion floor in spending cuts in the Senate’s reconciliation instructions “is clearly not sufficient.”
“It’s, frankly, a joke from the Senate. And it’s more of the same swamp stuff that we’ve been dealing with for years, and so nothing’s changed,” Roy said. “So, you know, we have to draw a line in the sand now on a budget, and the Senate’s budget is not there.”
Roy said he “wouldn’t advise” House leaders to bring the budget resolution to the floor for a vote this week and that he “didn’t come here to make deficits go up.”
The House’s reconciliation instructions allow the Ways and Means Committee to increase deficits by up to $4.5 trillion to extend the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of this year.
The House’s budget blueprint also gives the Armed Services Committee a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, and the Judiciary Committee a maximum of $110 billion in new spending.
The House tasks several other committees with cutting at least $1.5 trillion over the same time period, including $880 billion in cuts by the panel that oversees major health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump weighs in
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said he was undecided, but leaning against voting to approve the budget resolution since it proposed too much spending and not enough cuts.
Burchett said he wasn’t invited to a White House meeting taking place later in the day, but that Trump has his phone number and can call him if he wants to.
South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said he wanted to amend the budget resolution to require the Senate to cut the same amount as the House. He also said he wanted Trump to weigh in.
Trump posted on social media Monday evening that the Senate-passed budget had his “Complete and Total Endorsement and Support.”
“There is no better time than now to get this Deal DONE! The House, the Senate, and our Great Administration, are going to work tirelessly on creating “THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” an appropriate name if Congress so likes,” Trump wrote. “Everyone is going to be happy with the result. Passage will make, even the subject of World Trade, far easier and better for the U.S.A. THE HOUSE MUST PASS THIS BUDGET RESOLUTION, AND QUICKLY — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Senate side
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said later Tuesday he hopes the House will adopt the budget resolution, so both chambers can begin drafting the actual reconciliation package. He also reiterated that GOP lawmakers in his chamber are just as interested in cutting spending as their House colleagues.
“As we get into the reconciliation process, we’re going to be very committed to doing as much as we possibly can on deficit reduction,” Thune said.
Some of the confusion and disagreement, he said, is due to Republicans “speaking slightly different languages because the House and Senate operate in such different ways.”
Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center or CECOT, on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
This story was updated at 10:24 a.m. EDT, April 8
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday said the Trump administration could continue for now to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out rapid deportations of Venezuelans suspected of being gang members — but they must be given a chance to challenge their deportations in court.
The 5-4 decision, which lifted a temporary restraining order by a District of Columbia federal judge, will allow the Trump administration to deport Venezuelans 14 and older who are suspected of Tren de Aragua gang ties, in a victory for the administration of President Donald Trump.
But those immigrants who are subject to the wartime law must have “reasonable notice” in order to challenge their deportation in court “before such removal occurs,” according to the order. The question is which court.
The order argues that the venue of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia is wrong, and that the challenge, which was originally brought by five men in Texas, should be made in the Lone Star State. The challenge is no longer brought by five men and is now a class action.
“The detainees seek equitable relief against the implementation of the Proclamation and against their removal under the (Alien Enemies Act),” according to the Supreme Court. “They challenge the Government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments.”
The president praised the decision, which did not address the merits of the actual law, on social media.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump wrote. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”
Dissenting justices
The three liberal justices dissented: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The fourth dissent, in part, came from Amy Coney Barrett, who is considered a member of the court’s six-justice conservative majority.
“The Court’s legal conclusion is suspect,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
She added that the majority opinion did not note the harm that could come to the Venezuelans who could face deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. Already, 238 men have been subject to the proclamation and are currently in a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador, the Terrorist Confinement Center or CECOT.
“It does so without mention of the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation,” she said. “Because the Court should not reward the Government’s efforts to erode the rule of law with discretionary equitable relief, I respectfully dissent.”
A preliminary injunction hearing against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was set for Tuesday afternoon but U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg canceled the hearing in light of the decision of the high court.
That hearing was set to deal with the administration’s use of the law. Instead, Boasberg is setting a deadline of April 16 for the civil rights group that brought the suit to file a notice “indicating whether they believe that they still have a basis to proceed on their Motion for Preliminary Injunction in this Court.”
This was the second decision from the high court Monday that sided with the Trump administration.
Earlier, Chief Justice John Roberts decided to temporarily pause a lower court’s order to require the Trump administration to return to the United States a Maryland man wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador.
Appeal to the high court
The Trump administration March 28 appealed to the Supreme Court after an appeals court declined to do away with the temporary restraining order placed by Boasberg.
Boasberg had extended his temporary restraining order until April 12 to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals, invoked by Trump with a presidential proclamation on March 14.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit against the Trump administration’s use of the wartime law. The legal organization asked the Supreme Court to keep the temporary restraining order in place because “it is becoming increasingly clear that many (perhaps most) of the men” who were on the March 15 deportation flights to the prison in El Salvador “were not actually members of” the Tren de Aragua and were “erroneously listed” due to their tattoos.
The same day that Boasberg issued his restraining order, on March 15, three deportation flights landed in El Salvador, where 261 men were taken to the mega-prison.
Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order by asking for flight details but the Department of Justice has invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege” to block any information.
Gov. Tony Evers and Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes at the Hannover Messe trade show in Germany last week. (Photo courtesy of WEDC)
The sweeping tariffs President Donald Trump put in place last week have left key Wisconsin business leaders as well as the state’s important trading partners confused and uncertain, the state’s top economic development official said Monday.
Missy Hughes, CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., spoke to the Wisconsin Examiner from Germany, where she and Gov. Tony Evers are in the midst of a trade mission. Hughes left March 29 and returns to Wisconsin this week.
“The government officials, economic development officials, the businesses that we’ve been talking to are very confused about how we got here after over 75 years worth of partnering and working together,” Hughes said. “The folks here are really wondering what has happened and where this is going.”
Hughes said she’s hearing regularly from Wisconsin businesses that have integrated themselves into the global economy.
“I’ve been in touch with companies that are directly importing things like coffee [for which] there’s really no way to work around the tariffs,” she said. “And so they’re very concerned about just increased costs on their bottom line.”
Other businesses have connected with the supply chains that run between Canada and Mexico through the United States. They are “sending products back and forth across those borders, and are now very confused and concerned about how to make their supply chains work,” Hughes said.
For businesses that have had a good run for the last several years, “[there] is real frustration around instability and unpredictability,” she said. “They were experiencing growth, they were doing well, and now they’re concerned that that might be endangered.”
A ‘man-made crisis’
Hughes contrasted the crisis brought on by the tariffs and the responses to them with the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption to the economy five years ago.
“This is a man-made crisis,” whereas the pandemic was “a crisis that was not man-made,” she said.
“For the average Wisconsinite the concern I have is the increased cost in their pocketbook,” Hughes said. “There’s going to be increased grocery prices, there might be inflation. It’s going to cost more to replace your dishwasher or your automobile.”
Those present “an impact [that] is difficult to predict,” she said. “This is really going to be an unfolding crisis as we see immediate impacts and then impacts that will evolve, due to changes that are being made on a daily basis.”
In addition to the volatility from the tariffs, Hughes said, there’s also uncertainty from unexpected and sweeping cuts across federal agencies, resulting in disruptions that range from university research programs cut short to social services delayed or ended.
Farmers are losing grants they have been relying on, she said, but also are faced with losing the counsel they’ve relied on at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help them manage regulations.
Leaders of a biohealth company have expressed “their concern that the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] is no longer going to be the premier global agency that people rely on,” Hughes said.
“There’s things that are going to be immediately apparent and things that are going to be apparent as we see real expertise and institutional knowledge from our agencies disappear,” she added.
Maintaining relationships
The trade mission took the Wisconsin delegation to France as well as Germany. It is aimed at encouraging businesses in Europe to buy Wisconsin exports and talking up the Badger State for companies interested in establishing or expanding their operations here.
A highlight of the visit was kicking off the 50th anniversary of Wisconsin’s sister-state relationship with the German state of Hesse (Hessen). The group also attendedthe Hannover Messe, a major worldwide advanced manufacturing trade show.
In the face of the startling reversal from longstanding relationships between the U.S. and the world, Hughes said, leaders the state delegation met with welcomed Wisconsin’s continued overtures.
“Obviously, things are still very volatile,” Hughes said. Despite that, she added, “people have been so happy that we are here extending a handshake and reminding everyone that there are opportunities for relationships beyond what’s happening in Washington, D.C.”
Joining the trip were four Wisconsin companies and representatives of New North, a Wisconsin regional economic development and business organization. The Wisconsin participants were looking at opportunities such as distribution deals in Europe for their products, Hughes said.
“They were by and large very happy with their visits and the opportunities to create relationships,” Hughes said.
The other principal aim of the trip was to connect with companies in Europe that have Wisconsin operations or are interested in establishing a presence in the state.
“While those conversations were positive, there was certainly also concern expressed about, what if there’s a slowdown, what if there’s a recession,” Hughes said. A recurring theme in those conversations, she added, was the “need to understand what the economy is doing, and we need things to not be as volatile as they are right now.”
The Wisconsin team is working “to remind folks that Wisconsin’s is a strong economy,” she said. “We have strong businesses that are interested in being and already participating in the global market and want that to continue. So I think, you know, we are a steady hand during this volatile time and I think that’s really beneficial.”
Business confidence at stake
In the face of the current economic turmoil, Hughes said she worries about the toll on business confidence.
“When you lose confidence you start to become risk averse, you hold off on making investments,” she said. That’s important in Wisconsin because of the state’s role making large, expensive machinery.
“We make CAT scans and MRIs and tractors and big industrial machinery,” Hughes said. “People need confidence before they make those purchases. And so if we lose confidence, it’s going to be harder to recover even if the tariffs were taken away next week, or next month.”
Confidence is hard to measure and not always easily predicted, she acknowledged. “My fear is that people will really start to become risk-averse, and that hinders the whole growth of the economy.”
Despite that fear, however, she said she’s found reasons to buoy her spirits in the conversations she’s had over the last two weeks.
“The desire for a relationship, the desire for connections, the long-term historic partnerships that we’ve had are still here,” Hughes said. She professed optimism that those connections can still be nurtured and survive the current gyrations of the stock market or the economy itself.
“I’m very confident that we have such strong ties that those will stand strong during these times,” she said. “But it is difficult.”
Health experts say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s firing of public records staffers at federal health agencies undercuts his promise to deliver “radical transparency.” (Eric Harkleroad/KFF Health News)
Public access to government records that document the handling of illnesses, faulty products, and safety lapses at health facilities will slow after mass firings at the federal Department of Health and Human Services swept out staff members responsible for releasing records, according to transparency advocates and health experts.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s layoffs across health agencies in recent days eliminated workers who handled Freedom of Information Act requests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and cut FOIA staff at the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, said six current and former federal workers KFF Health News agreed not to name because they fear retaliation and are not authorized to speak to the press.
FOIA is a transparency law that guarantees public access to the inner workings of federal agencies by requiring officials to release government documents. The 1966 law is a crucial tool for law firms, advocates, businesses, journalists, and the general public. It has been used to hold officials accountable and uncover harm, corruption, and political meddling in policymaking.
At HHS, FOIA requests are used to obtain a litany of records, including detailed CDC information about large outbreaks of food and waterborne illnesses, and FDA inspection reports of facilities that make food, drugs, medical devices, and dental products.
Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the FOIA cuts would have “an enormous effect on patient safety” and are “antithetical” to Kennedy’s promise to bring “radical transparency” to federal health agencies.
“It is simply not possible to honorably make that claim while decimating the staff,” Lurie said. “Can we rely particularly on this government to be forthcoming about the number of cases in an outbreak? You need FOIA to be able to take the lid off of that.”
HHS spokesperson Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano declined to respond on the record to questions about the department’s plans for processing FOIA requests from the CDC, FDA, and NIH.
Gunita Singh, staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the FOIA layoffs were almost certain to further slow the release of public records, which often took months or years before the cuts.
“What we need to be doing is the opposite of what’s happening now: hiring more staff,” she said.
Many records are disclosed only in response to FOIA requests. For example, during the covid-19 pandemic, FOIA requests forced the FDA to release internal documents showing little evidence to support using hydroxychloroquine to treat covid, even though President Donald Trump heavily promoted the drug.
Scientific researchers have used the law to obtain clinical trial data to assess whether drugs are safe and effective, or to get more details about adverse events associated with drugs and medical devices. Lurie said obtaining more information about adverse events is particularly important in serving as a bulwark against cherry-picking data or manipulating what’s available online to spread disinformation about the safety of vaccines and other products.
All these efforts will be slowed by the purge of FOIA offices, said Michael Morisy, CEO of MuckRock, a nonprofit group that helps journalists and others file public records requests. Scientists will have less to study. Attorneys and advocates will struggle to build cases and fight for causes. Simply, Americans will know less about their government and the industries it regulates and be less able to hold them both to account.
“I think one thing we’ve learned is that if there’s less watchdogging over an issue, that issue gets worse,” Morisy said. “I really do think that we are going to see companies become more lax with food safety, companies become more lax with consumer safety.”
Thousands of pending FOIA requests are likely to be affected.
During fiscal 2024 — from October 2023 through September 2024 — the CDC, FDA, and NIH received more than 15,000 FOIA requests and provided at least some records in response to more than 10,000, according to HHS’ most recent annual FOIA report.
Those requests were submitted by university researchers, state governments, laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, animal rights groups, law firms, and news organizations, including KFF Health News. Records sought by law firms appear related to investigations of illnesses, outbreaks, drugs, medical devices, and products used by countless Americans.
Morisy and Singh said filling requests is more complicated than many realize, often requiring an in-depth understanding of complex agencies. That’s why it’s important to house FOIA staff within each agency rather than consolidate them.
“We are sacking the entire staff and sacking all of that knowledge,” Morisy said. “And I just don’t see how these things continue to function.”
David Rousseau, the publisher of KFF Health News, serves on the board of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
We’d like to speak with current and former personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies who believe the public should understand the impact of what’s happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please message KFF Health News on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in a video promoting the partisan review of the 2020 election. (YouTube | Office of the Special Counsel)
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who led a widely derided review of the 2020 presidential election, searching for evidence for baseless accusations of fraud, will have his law license suspended for three years, according to a stipulated agreement between him and the state Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR).
Law Forward, the progressive voting rights focused firm, filed a grievance against Gableman with the OLR in 2023. The OLR filed a complaint against Gableman in November that alleged, among other counts, that he had failed to “provide competent representation” and to “abstain from all offensive personality” and of violating attorney-client privilege.
The allegations against Gableman stemmed from his treatment of the mayors of Green Bay and Madison, whom he threatened with jail time during his review, false statements he made during testimony to legislative committees, violating the state’s open records laws, breaching his contract with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and, when OLR began investigating him, “making false statements” to the investigators in an affidavit.
As part of the stipulated agreement, Gableman admitted that “he cannot successfully defend against the allegations of misconduct … and agrees that the allegations of the complaint provide an adequate factual basis in the record.”
In a statement, Law Forward’s general counsel Jeff Mandel said that Gableman’s actions “were and continue to be a threat to our democracy and the rule of law.”
“Our justice system can work only if everyone plays by the rules,” Mandell said. “Two years and one month after Law Forward first filed a grievance with the Office of Lawyer Regulation explaining how Gableman’s unethical behavior did lasting damage to the public’s faith in elections, we are glad to see consequences for those who plan and promote overturning the will of the people.”
“Gableman violated his sworn duty to uphold both the U.S. and the Wisconsin constitutions and his obligations as an attorney,” Mandell continued. “He broke more rules than he followed, acting with complete indifference to election law, procedural norms, and the ethical obligations that bind attorneys. With this deal, Gableman stipulates that he misled courts, lied in public meetings, and violated government transparency laws.”
A Wisconsin Democracy Campaign poll finds nearly 90% of voters say they're concerned about the influence of money in politics. (Getty Images)
After an April election that broke national records for spending, Wisconsin voters are eager to see measures to rein in money in politics, a campaign finance watchdog group leader said Monday.
“It is an environment where billionaires are running the show and everyday people like you and me are here watching,” said Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. “We will continue to see unprecedented spending unless something changes from our Legislature and our lawmakers.”
The numbers that the organization posted Monday haven’t yet pierced the predicted $100 million threshold in the Supreme Court race, but final data won’t be compiled until the end of June. The Democracy Campaign focuses on the money actually spent, as distinct from what was raised or what was budgeted, said research director Sam DeForest-Davis.
As of Monday morning, the campaign for Judge Susan Crawford, who won the Court race, spent $22 million compared with the campaign for Judge Brad Schimel, which spent just under $10 million.
While the campaigns spent a combined $32 million, independent groups supporting the campaigns spent a combined $51 million. Schimel was the larger beneficiary of independent spending, with $33.5 million in his favor or opposing Crawford. Independent spending that favored Crawford or opposed Schimel totaled $18 million.
In the race for state superintendent, the two candidates’ campaigns — for incumbent Jill Underly, who won, and for her challenger, Brittany Kinser — were just about even in their spending, with $1.3 million for Underly and $1.1 million for Kinser.
Independent spending, however, heavily favored Underly at $1.9 million. Independent spending for Kinser totaled $160,000.
Research director DeForest-Davis said the organization will have a final report in July on spending data, including spending on issue ads that don’t include explicit messages to vote for or against a candidate but are slanted to clearly favor one or the other. That information won’t be available until the end of June.
Along with the campaign finance data released Monday, the Democracy Campaign released results from an opinion poll of Wisconsin voters on campaign finance.
The survey, of 861 voters conducted from Feb. 11-14, found that 88% of participants were “very concerned” or “extremely concerned” about the influence of money in politics.
“I have a hard time thinking of an issue that has this kind of universal feedback across the state,” Ramos said. “After seeing the gaudy amount of money that was spent in this Supreme Court race, I can only imagine that this number and this percentage are going to increase.”
Nearly as many — more than 85% — said “no” when asked if individuals or groups should be able to spend “unlimited amounts of money” to support political campaigns. And 83% said there should be limits on how much campaigns can spend.
Nearly 74% said they would support a ban on campaign spending “by outside political action committees (PACs) that are not directly affiliated with a candidate’s campaign.” About 53% ranked spending by “dark money PACS who do not have to disclose their donors” as their greatest concern where the influence of money on politics is concerned.
Another question showed that so far publicly financed campaigns haven’t gained support from a majority of voters. Almost 47% said they would “strongly” or “somewhat” support such a proposal. Just under 30% said they would “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose public financing, while 23.5% said they were unsure.
President Donald Trump is displayed on a television screen as traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on April 7, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Global markets plummeted Monday for the third consecutive trading day since President Donald Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs — and the administration gave mixed signals on meeting other nations at the negotiating table.
U.S. stocks reacted positively to a short-lived, incorrect report amplified on social media that Trump may pause the tariffs for 90 days, but the market plunged quickly when the White House dismissed the claim as “FAKE NEWS.”
Any upward progress was erased upon Trump’s announcement that he planned to further punish China starting Wednesday.
At about 11:15 a.m. Eastern Trump threatened to raise tariffs on China a further 50% if the country does not back down on its retaliatory 34% tax on U.S. imports by Tuesday. If left unresolved, the latest U.S.-China trade war will hit American farmers, particularly soybean producers.
Writing on his platform Truth Social, Trump said “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”
The administration maintains more than 50 countries have reached out to negotiate.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X that Trump has tasked him to negotiate with Japan, which could face a 24% levy beginning Thursday.
“Japan remains among America’s closest allies, and I look forward to our upcoming productive engagement regarding tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, currency issues, and government subsidies. I appreciate the Japanese government’s outreach and measured approach to this process,” Bessent wrote on the social media platform.
“China has chosen to isolate itself by retaliating and doubling down on previous negative behavior,” Bessent added.
European Union’s stance
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she has offered the U.S. zero-for-zero tariffs on industrial goods.
“But we are also prepared to respond through countermeasures and defend our interests,” von der Leyen said Monday at a press conference.
Trump slapped a 20% tax on goods from the EU, set to take effect Thursday, on top of 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum that began in mid-March. A 25% tariff on all foreign cars imported to the U.S. also launched Thursday.
The EU is poised to impose retaliatory duties on American products in response to the import taxes. The bloc of 27 nations is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a list of U.S. goods to be taxed at its borders.
When asked by reporters in the Oval Office Monday if the EU offer was enough to scale back the tariffs, Trump said “No, it’s not.”
Journalists had gathered in the Oval Office for Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited to discuss Trump’s new 17% tax on his country’s imports.
Netanyahu promised to “eliminate” his country’s trade deficit with the U.S.
“We intend to do it very quickly. We think it’s the right thing to do and we’re going to also eliminate trade barriers, a variety of trade barriers that have been put up unnecessarily. And I think Israel can serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same,” Netanyahu said.
When asked by reporters if he intends to lower the tariffs on Israel, Trump said, “Maybe not.”
“We give Israel billions of dollars a year,” he added.
Two Republican senators publicly urged Trump on social media to take the EU offer.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wrote, “Let’s take that deal! Much to gain.”
“Totally agree,” Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin replied. “At some point you have to take YES for an answer.”
Another Senate Republican, Ted Cruz of Texas, has publicly criticized Trump’s steep levies on almost every nation around the globe.
A bipartisan effort to claw back power from the president’s near-unilateral authority to impose tariffs might not get far, despite the economic uncertainty unleashed since Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” plan.
Legislation co-sponsored by Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington and Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa would require the president to notify lawmakers prior to new tariffs from the White House and limit the levies to a 60-day window unless Congress approves an extension.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota seemed to shut down the idea Monday, according to reporters on Capitol Hill.
“I don’t think that has a future. The president has indicated he will veto it. I don’t see how they get it to the floor on the House,” Thune told Politico.
A companion bill in the House is sponsored by Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska.
Chances of House Speaker Mike Johnson bringing the bill to the floor are likely slim, as the Louisiana Republican supported Trump’s tariff unveiling in person last week.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley said this week she’ll seek another 10-year term on the Court next year.
Bradley’s announcement came just days after Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by 10 points in the most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history. Crawford’s victory gave the Court’s liberals control of the majority until at least 2028. Bradley told WisPolitics that she will run again to “ensure that there is a voice for the constitution and for the rule of law to preserve that in the state of Wisconsin.”
“I’m concerned for what an extremely radical court is going to do over the next three years, and I will be spending the next several weeks assessing what happened on Tuesday and figuring out a path to achieving a court that is not led by and dominated by the radical left, that gets back to deciding cases under the law and respecting the constitution,” Bradley said.
Liberals have now won four of the last five state Supreme Court elections, all by double digits. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that appeals court judge and former Democratic lawmaker Chris Taylor is considering challenging Bradley in next year’s race.
Schimel and former Justice Dan Kelly have lost the last three Supreme Court elections after arguing that their liberal opponents are partisan ideologues seeking to legislate from the bench.
Bradley was first appointed to the Court by Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 and elected to a full term in 2016. In recent years she’s been one of the Court’s most right-wing justices.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she compared restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of the disease to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and she sided with President Donald Trump in his unsuccessful effort to have the Court throw out the results of the 2020 election.
She has often written in her dissents against Court decisions about her belief that the liberal majority is acting politically and said the Court’s liberals are “pursuing a political agenda.”
A view of the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland, looking south beyond the Stokes Labs (Building 50) and Natcher Building (center) to the reflective façade of the National Library of Medicine (upper right). (Photo by National Institutes of Health)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction blocking the National Institutes of Health from implementing a policy that would cap the amount of funding research universities and medical schools receive for indirect costs.
The Friday ruling from Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts came just hours after Trump administration lawyers asked her to convert the preliminary injunction issued in March to a permanent one.
The move will likely speed up the appeals process.
Kelley wrote in her previous 76-page decision that a preliminary injunction prevented the NIH from inflicting “immediate, devastating, and irreparable” harm on research institutions.
“First, the suspension of ongoing clinical trials and the resulting threats to patients’ lives represents a dire risk of a quintessentially irreparable nature. Second, the threats to non-human, yet still essential, research subjects similarly rings in irreparability,” Kelley wrote, referring to research animals. “Finally, the potential loss of human capital and talent to virtually every Plaintiff poses yet another harm incapable of run-of-the-mill legal relief.”
Kelley added the “Court is hard pressed to think of a loss more irreparable than the loss of a life, let alone the thousands of people who are counting on clinical trials as their last hope.”
The case began in February after the NIH announced it would cap Facilities and Administrative fees for every institution receiving a grant at 15%, a significantly lower threshold than many research universities and medical schools had negotiated over the years.
That led to three lawsuits — Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. National Institutes of Health, Association of American Medical Colleges v. National Institutes of Health and Association of American Universities v. Department of Health & Human Services — all of which are before Kelley.
Facilities and Administrative fees, also referred to as indirect costs, cover expenses that are not associated with one specific research project. They can include building construction or renovations, utility bills, salaries for administrative staff, and dozens of other line items.
Prisoners sit at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a mega-prison in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, on April 4, 2025. The Trump administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland resident from El Salvador with protected status to the prison but is arguing against returning him to the U.S. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
This story was updated at 4:34 p.m. Eastern.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily granted the Trump administration’s request Monday to block a lower court’s order to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The order from Chief Justice John Roberts that stays a lower court order “pending further order of The Chief Justice or of the Court” came hours after another appeals court upheld an order to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, Maryland, to the United States.
Roberts’ order is not final, but pauses the lower court’s order to return Abrego Garcia while the justices reach a final decision on that order’s validity.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told reporters Friday she hoped her husband would be returned to the U.S. by the midnight Monday deadline set by a federal judge.
The Trump administration made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday, where U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that, despite the government’s admitted error in deporting Abrego Garcia, the lower court does not have the jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to return someone who the administration argues is no longer in U.S. custody.
The appeal to the high court came within minutes of an appeals court panel unanimously upholding the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who set a deadline of midnight Monday for the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
Despite being granted legal protection from deportation by a judge in 2019, immigration officials detained Abrego Garcia and sent him on a March 15 deportation flight to El Salvador, where he was incarcerated at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.
‘The government screwed up’
A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was a major misstep.
“The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process,” two judges on the panel, Robert B. King and Stephanie D. Thacker, wrote.
King was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and Thacker was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
“The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable,” they wrote.
J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his option that “[t]here is no question that the government screwed up here.”
He noted that President Donald Trump’s administration has not made an effort to rectify its mistake.
“The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone,” Wilkinson said.
The Department of Justice quickly appealed the decision and Xinis issued a scathing 22-page order Sunday that cited records and official statements from Trump officials saying the administration has the power to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” she wrote. “That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador—let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
Abrego Garcia was on one of three deportation flights to CECOT on March 15. Two flights contained 238 Venezuelans who were deported under a wartime law that is currently being challenged in another court case.
Xinis slammed the Trump administration for arguing that she had no jurisdiction to order Abrego Garcia’s return.
“For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law,” she said. “Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
She noted that the two countries have an agreement to house more than 250 deported men at CECOT.
The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at the prison. Trump is scheduled to meet with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14.
In response to the district court’s order to return Abrego Garcia, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted a GIF of a confused cartoon bunny on social media.
Attorney placed on leave
The Department of Justice attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, was placed on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Fox News interview Sunday that Reuveni was placed on leave because he did not “vigorously” defend the administration.
Reuveni, a veteran government attorney, has argued for the DOJ over the course of four administrations.
During Friday’s hearing he was candid that the Trump administration had provided him little information on why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the U.S. and that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”
Volunteers and staff with Worker Justice Wisconsin pose with the group's banner after an action Friday to call attention to wage theft. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
A Wisconsin group that helps workers who have experienced wage theft is broadening its tactics to address complaints of employer misconduct.
On Friday staff members of Worker Justice Wisconsin, along with a group of community supporters, showed up at a Middleton contractor’s office where a former employee demanded payment of unpaid overtime wages.
The public action represents a new step for Worker Justice Wisconsin, according to executive director Rebecca Meier-Rao.
Based in Madison and supported by a group of churches and other religious bodies, Worker Justice Wisconsin has spent the last couple of decades assisting workers who don’t have unions with complaints about their treatment on the job.
For much of its existence the organization has worked one-on-one with individuals, helping them navigate the process of filing complaints with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and other agencies.
“The prevalence of wage theft is astronomical,” Meier-Rao told the Wisconsin Examiner. She added that it’s a nationwide problem. “Every year just millions and millions of dollars are stolen from workers.”
People of color and immigrants are the most likely to be targets, she said. The organization does not discuss the immigration status of those who come to the group for help.
In 2024, the group enabled 103 workers to recover more than $328,000 in wages they were shorted by their employers, Meier-Rao said, but those successes represent “just a fraction” of the wage theft incidents that go on each year. The resolved wage theft cases in 2024 were just some of the 155 that Worker Justice Wisconsin opened that year, involving more than $531,000 in unpaid wages.
“I’m sure the actual amount of wage theft was much higher,” Meier-Rao said.
Not only do those cases deprive people of their rightful earnings, they also cost government the taxes on those earnings, she said.
DWD investigates wage theft complaints and will calculate what is owed to an employee, but “there’s almost no teeth if the employer doesn’t pay,” she added. “That is not going to deter the problem from happening.”
While someone who steals from a store or a warehouse can be charged with theft, wage theft in Wisconsin “is treated not as a criminal offense but a civil offense,” Meier-Rao said.
Worker Justice Wisconsin’s tactics are evolving as it looks for new ways to address the issue. “We’ve been shifting from an advocacy organization to a worker power organization,” Meier-Rao said.
About a year ago the organization began planning to take public actions to call attention to the wage theft incidents it has investigated. The group developed leaders among the workers it has supported and began building a broader support group — a “rapid response network” that has enlisted 120 community members, union activists and other allies.
By directly confronting employers, Meier-Rao said, the organization wants to draw the attention of the public and policymakers to wage theft, encouraging them to enact tougher laws against the practice.
On Friday morning, Worker Justice Wisconsin organizer Robert Christl, Meier-Rao and a small crowd of the organization’s rapid-response volunteers drove up to the storefront of Stone Concepts in a Middleton industrial park.
They were there with Crescencio Albino, who worked for four years building and installing stone countertops at the home design and remodeling contractor.
Albino, who no longer works for the company, said that he had put in extensive overtime hours, but was paid only his regular hourly wage, not the time-and-a-half premium required under state and federal laws. A DWD investigation determined he was owed $6,875 in unpaid premium wages for the last two years of overtime work.
Outside the Stone Concepts office, with Albino at his side, Christl spoke to an employee and asked if the owner was on site. The employer said he was not, and Christl asked him to convey a letter to the owner. The letter called for Albino to be paid in full within two weeks.
Gathering at the other end of the block afterward, Meier-Rao, Christl and Albino addressed supporters. Christl served as interpreter as Albino spoke in Spanish.
Albino said he pursued the case with DWD after trying several times to resolve the issue directly with the business. Despite the DWD’s finding, Albino said the business owner has still not paid him.
“The employer wanted to pay the money already owed to me with a payment plan of six months, which I rejected,” Albino said. “It’s hard for me to understand why, in such a clear cut situation, I have to go through this whole process to get what is mine.”
He added: “If I hadn’t honored my obligation, or if I had stolen from my boss, the consequences would have been immediate and severe, but it seems that when it’s workers like me who are affected, justice isn’t applied equally. This seems wrong to me.”
Meier-Rao told the group that the action and others like it were aimed at throwing a public spotlight on a problem that has long gone unnoticed.
“For more than two decades, we have helped hundreds of workers file claims with the Department of Workforce Development to [recoup] unpaid wages,” Meier-Rao said.
“Although we have had many successful individual cases, the harsh reality is that this approach does not change the system. No amount of complaints filed will put a stop to wage theft.”
To accomplish that, “we have to organize inside and outside the workplace,” Meier-Rao said. “We have to be public. We have to make noise. We have to build collective power. That is why it’s so important that you are all here today.”
Responding Saturday to an email inquiry the Wisconsin Examiner sent Friday to Stone Concepts, Andreia Nogueira wrote that “we are not refusing to make a payment. I am sending the payment to my lawyer.”
As of Sunday, Worker Justice Wisconsin had not received a response on behalf of the company, Meier-Rao said.
People from across southeast Wisconsin gathered in the Wisconsin State Fair Park Exposition Center Friday. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.)
People from across southeast Wisconsin gathered in the Wisconsin State Fair Park Exposition Center Friday to call on legislators to fund a range of priorities in the next state budget — from education to a new public safety building for Milwaukee to public transportation to child care.
The public hearing of the Joint Finance Committee was the second of four across the state this month. A hearing was also held in Kaukauna last week, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the committee agreed Friday morning that education funding was one of the top issues discussed.
Committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein said at a press conference that funding for school districts and the fate of the Green Bay prison were two of the biggest issues discussed during the first hearing. He said lawmakers haven’t discussed any specifics yet when it comes to actions they may take on public school funding, adding that K-12 funding has historically been the No. 1 largest item in the budget and it’ll likely be that way in the future.
“We’re here to listen and input today may influence what we decide to do down the road,” Marklein said.
Co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) added that the lawsuit over Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that extended increases in revenue limits — the cap on how much schools can bring in — for 400 years will play a role in the discussion. The case was heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court last year, but a decision hasn’t been reached yet.
Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said lawmakers hadn’t discussed education funding specifics yet. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Lawmakers also have a $4 billion budget surplus that they will be considering as they write the budget in the coming months.
During a separate press conference held by Democrats on the committee, Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) called attention to education funding, saying that lawmakers need to “stand up and fund education, particularly special education.” Andraca said lawmakers should adopt Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal, which would invest an additional $3 billion in K-12 education.
“I’m looking forward to hearing more today from all the people at this public hearing about what their priorities are in the state budget. I certainly hope my Republican colleagues are listening and will follow our lead,” Andraca said.
A focus on education at the hearings continued as members of the public started speaking on Friday.
School leaders and advocates emphasize dire situation
Three days before the town hall, voters approved 57 referendum requests and a total of $952 million in new funding through property tax hikes for Wisconsin school districts. This was an approval rate of about 58% of the nonrecurring operating referendum requests, 65% of requests for building costs and 20% of recurring requests, which contain increases across multiple years.
While the successful results will help school districts meet costs in coming months, voters also denied over $640 million in requests from other districts, including for Kenosha Unified School District.
Kenosha school board member Todd Price said the failed referendum, which was a $115 million nonrecurring request for operational expenses, leaves the district of 18,500 students in 31 schools facing a $19 million fiscal deficit.
“As we are frozen in what we can raise due to revenue caps, we needed to go to our local tax payers for approval of the money,” Price said. “Our aim was to keep our class sizes reasonable, vital programs intact like advanced placement programs… which are popular for students aiming to go to college, and we want to retain our staff.”
KUSD Superintendent Jeff Weiss, who spoke alongside Price, told lawmakers that they have the power to “be a strong partner of public education.” He said the passage of Act 20, a 2023 law to change literacy education in the state is a recent example of lawmakers using that power.
“I am asking you to do this in the area of finances,” Weiss said. “By raising the reimbursement for special education to 60%, KUSD will receive $13 million of spendable money. We are currently facing a $19 million budget shortfall. $13 million as well as raising the revenue limit… will go a very long way to helping prevent the district from having to seek an operational referendum in the coming year.”
Weiss emphasized that the resources needed to pursue a referendum are “immense.” He said the district held four town halls, 20 small meetings, and five interviews with TV and radio stations in a six-week period ahead of Election Day.
“This is not how I want to spend our time in the school district,” Weiss said. “I would much rather be using that time to increase student learning and improve our educational program.”
Swallow School District Superintendent Jill Ries said that the small district in Waukesha County has a history of being fiscally responsible, a trait that has helped it weather the “storm” caused by the state’s funding formula.
“We can no longer weather the storm, and we are facing a multi-million-dollar deficit in the future. We have reached the fiscal cliff. We can choose to have barebones public education, but is that what we want our state to become?” Ries asked.
Ries also called on lawmakers to increase revenue limits and at a minimum increase the special education reimbursement to 60%.
Zachary Geiger, a physics teacher at Greendale High School, also voiced his support for Evers’ budget request, telling lawmakers that teachers have been trying to accomplish more teaching and learning with fewer resources for the last decade and a half. He said this is catching up with the district, which has had to go to referendum and recently had to cut an engineering course for the first time in 12 years.
“Instead of supporting students in pursuit of their futures and responding to the needs of the industries in Wisconsin, this course was cut with many others to reduce costs in order to balance a budget dependent on insufficient funding from the state,” Geiger said. “Please fund public education.”
The tension between public schools’ financial challenges and the growing costs of the state’s school voucher programs was also on display at the hearing.
Glendale River Hills School Board President Carla Pennington-Cross called on lawmakers to stop using school boards as a “laundering service” by sending an increasing amount of taxpayer money to private schools that don’t have “equal accountability, equal transparency and equal legal obligation” to students.
Pennington-Cross called on lawmakers to increase per pupil funding to keep up with inflation.
“Your long-term failure to do so means that my district has lost more than $3 million in real spending power since 2009 under your revenue limits,” Pennington-Cross said.
Pennington-Cross called attention to the significant increases that voucher schools received in the last budget cycle. She also spoke to the disparity between the rate that public schools are reimbursed for special education costs and the rate that private and charter voucher schools receive.
“In the past year public schools were reimbursed for only 32% of special ed costs, while private schools received 90%. Why are students with disabilities worth less when they go to public schools? They should get the same financial support from the state regardless of their school choice,” Pennington-Cross said. “Your funding model causes people to blame kids with disabilities for budget shortfalls in public schools, reinforcing stigma and discrimination. It is unconscionable.”
Choice advocates appreciative of last investments, seeking more
Advocates for more state funding for the charter and private schools that participate in the state’s voucher programs were also out in full force.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks for the additional funding for school choice. Your decision has made an incredible difference for families like mine,” one parent of a student at Living Word Lutheran High School in Jackson said.
In the last state budget, lawmakers implemented the largest increase for the school voucher program in Wisconsin history. The change increased payments for schools at a minimum by 18% and at most by 44%.
Many of the parents who testified for school vouchers wore matching bright green “Parent Power” t-shirts. A group of about 75 parents were organized to attend the listening session by the City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee-based organization that advocates for school choice.
Executive director of City Forward Collective Colleston Morgan told the Wisconsin Examiner that the last budget was an example of state leaders moving past “partisan rancor” to take action, something he is hoping they’ll be able to do again.
“We saw the Legislature come together on a package that in our understanding benefited everybody — increases in the low revenue ceiling, lifting of the revenue limits and, yes, a significant increase for students in charter and private schools,” Morgan said. “Nobody got everything they needed… but everybody got something.”
Morgan said that there were many participating charter and private schools that were “in existential crisis” during that cycle, and the historic increase to the program helped stabilize the situation. He said many schools have been able to increase staff pay.
“There’s still more work to do, but we’re not today talking about schools on the precipice of closing like we were two years ago,” Morgan said.
Morgan said his group wanted to attend to express thanks and encourage legislators to continue to work in a bipartisan way to get more accomplished, including raising the special education reimbursement rate, lifting the low revenue ceiling and putting additional funding into the voucher program.
Milwaukee leaders on their goals for next budget
Local leaders who spoke at the hearing included Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who thanked lawmakers for their work last session to secure an increased sales tax in the city. He said the investments in the last budget show that “working together and investing in Milwaukee benefits all of us because a strong Milwaukee means a strong Wisconsin.”
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and County Executive David Crowley wait in line to speak to lawmakers. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Johnson called on lawmakers to invest in young people in the next state budget, including by increasing funding for Milwaukee’s Earn & Learn program, a summer employment program where youth can gain experience working with local businesses, nonprofits, community and faith-based organizations. He also called on lawmakers to support Evers’ proposal for investing in 4-year-old kindergarten and increasing state funding for special education and child care.
“It’s our responsibility to ensure that the youngest residents here and young families have the support they need to start off on the right foot as they enter school and the workforce,” Johnson said.
Sarah Kazell, an advocate with Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN), is attending all the budget listening sessions.
“Child care is a public good and without public investment, it just dwindles and dies in the private market, which is what we are seeing,” Kazell said. “We cannot find teachers willing to do a really essential, really high-skilled, high-stress job for $14 an hour, which is the average pay in my field. I’m personally making $12.50 an hour to take care of eight children.”
Evers has requested the state place $480 million towards the Child Care Counts program, which gives facilities funds to help pay staff without raising costs for parents. However, the program, which has been funded with federal money, is quickly approaching the end of those funds.
“We need at the minimum to make the investment that’s in the governor’s budget for child care, but that’s honestly just a starting point to be able to stabilize the field,” Kazell said.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said the “most important” investment for public safety would be to fund the removal and replacement of the Public Safety building.
“We have steered clear of a fiscal cliff. We kept the Brewers in Milwaukee, we shared the burden of funding important services and investments with some of our region’s most urgent issues being addressed,” he said, listing accomplishments in the last budget cycle. Now, he added, it’s time to focus on the “generational impact that we can have in our community on public safety.”
Crowley said that the removal and the replacement of the Milwaukee County Public Safety building, which was built in 1929, would cost $495 million. Milwaukee County has requested $250 million for the project from the state. According to the capital budget, due to the integrated nature of the county’s Courthouse Complex, the Historic Courthouse and Criminal Justice Facility will need to be renovated in addition to the new Public Safety building.
Evers’ budget proposal included $25 million for the project — a tenth of their request.
“Many of you have seen this crumbling, unsafe and inefficient facility firsthand and that’s why, in order to improve outcomes for all, strong partnerships will be key in this endeavor,” Crowley said.
Crowley said almost 80% of Milwaukee County’s property tax levy is dedicated to state-mandated services and the county has invested an additional $70 million in state-mandated public safety services over the last five years.
“The cost continues to rise and outpace our revenues and challenges our ability to continue funding these critical services and make any additional investments in local priorities like transportation, mental health, [services for children ages] birth-to-3,” Crowley said. “That’s why a partnership with the state is essential.”
Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball expanded on the request to replace the deteriorating building that houses the jail.
Ball said the current set-up of the building, which places victims, family members, visitors and defendants together, has created tension and resulted in 852 security incidents that required a response from the sheriff’s office in 2024.
“It is not sustainable to continue working as we have, and it is not fair to those who come in contact with our justice system,” Ball said. “In order to address the significant safety concerns and preserve the comfortability of core operations, funding from the state of Wisconsin will be critical.”
Other public hearings will be held in Hayward and Wausau during the last week of April.
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