A soldier with the 28th Division stands amid the ruins of Gathemo, France, in August 1944. (Screenshot from National Archives film)

Shaun Nadolny is finally making the trip from Wisconsin to visit his great-uncle’s grave in the Brittany American Cemetery in France.

Tradition holds that for visiting family members, staff will place moistened sand on the engraving on the marker for Jerome Nadolny, who was killed in the fierce fighting around Gathemo, a small village in Normandy, using a wet sponge. The process brings the name out on the marble Latin cross, so it can easily be seen from 15 to 20 feet away.

An American and French flag – standing about knee high – will be placed in front of the grave. Traditionally, the U.S. marker is symbolically on the right side – as if it were in the soldier’s right hand and facing home. The French will be on the left – always toward inland territory.

Then, he and his cousin, Kurt, will travel to Gathemo, where nine soldiers of the 28th Division, including three from Pennsylvania, lost their lives as the Allies pushed inland from the beaches of Normany to liberate Europe.

They’ll be the sole American relatives of the fallen soldiers who will be on hand for a ceremony Saturday honoring their sacrifice during the fight for the town 81 summers ago. The gathering will include the dedication of a plaque and memorial and a renaming of a street in honor of the 28th Division, a Pennsylvania National Guard unit before the war. The trip is the culmination of an improbable sequence of events that began when Nadolny went in search of the war history of a long-lost great-uncle. Nadolny admits to feeling a little pressure, because he doesn’t want to let his family down or any of the other families.

“I know it’s going to be a heavy experience for me personally. I wish I could share this with my dad,” he said. “It was on my bucket list to just go to that cemetery, but now to actually go to the cemetery? It’s obviously a trip of a lifetime, right?“

Gathemo today

Visitors to Normandy will notice Allied flags – American, British, and Canadian – hanging not just on poles, but in windows and on doors in village after village. This isn’t just a phenomenon that happens in the typical tourist areas around the landing beaches or landmarks made famous in the 1962 movie, The Longest Day, or the HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers.

The Battle of Normandy stretched beyond what happened on June 6, 1944. Allied troops applied relentless pressure in an effort to push the German occupiers back.

The clash lasted for more than two months, as it became a war of attrition. Allied troops had to constantly resupply the front lines, while the enemy dealt with losses – in terms of men and machines – it simply couldn’t replace

In the end, the Allies suffered 210,000 casualties,while the Germans dealt with losses of 400,000 men.

Town and after town touched by the Battle of Normandy has its own monuments or historical markers to pilots whose downed aircraft crashed nearby, soldiers who died in their streets or units that helped liberate them.

In Periers for example, The Four Braves memorial honors the 90th Infantry Division — which liberated the town as part of Operation Cobra. This was a piece of the successful U.S. breakout — which played a big role in the rapid collapse of the Germans’ defense in Normandy.

Two Pennsylvanians who lost  their lives — Private 2nd Class Andrew J. Speese III of Philadelphia and Sgt. Tullio Micaloni of Oneida — are immortalized as part of the memorial.

One tour group recounted how in the town of La Haye du Puits, a man noticed they were Americans. He hurried home and later found the group at a restaurant eating lunch. He excitedly, in French, described what it was like as a boy in the summer of 1944 to see his home liberated.

As his story was translated, he pulled a piece of silk parachute from his jacket — given to him by a U.S. soldier. He simply wanted to share his gratitude for the sacrifice made by the Allies.

Even in 2025, people in Normandy’s villages and towns still think there is history to be acknowledged and a debt owed.

Gathemo, with a population of 267, will join the others Saturday, with a permanent “thank you.”

Over several days in early August, 1944, the 28th attacked German troops occupying the town.

Progress was slow, measured in a few hundred yards at times, but by the afternoon Aug. 10, the 28th had liberated Gathemo. The division’s losses were nine men killed, including three from Pennsylvania, and an estimated 235 wounded.

The 77-day Battle of Normandy came to an end on Aug. 19, after tens of thousands of German troopers were captured when the Falaise pocket was closed by Allied troops.

A mere 10 days after that, the men of the 28th Division were in Paris, taking part in the liberation day parade through the city.

Located nearly 90 minutes from the English Channel and Omaha Beach, Mayor Christelle Errard describes Gathemo as having all the hallmarks of a quaint Norman community – a bakery, a bar, gift shops and five farms.

The church, destroyed in the fight, was rebuilt after the war and features a pointed bell tower. According to the mayor, the granite used for the altar and the cross came from Gathemo’s quarries.

‘There are no words strong enough’

The town’s role in the Allied push to encircle and destroy part of the German Army in the final weeks and days of the clash has largely been forgotten – overshadowed by the fight in Mortain and Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives, among others. Errard became mayor of Gathemo in July of 2020 and has lived in the community for a decade. She was born in another historically significant part of France – Verdun. It’s the site of one the longest and most ferocious battles of the First World War.

“We have a mission in our world: to listen to our history, to transcribe it, so as not to forget Our duty to remember is here. And the witnesses of this period will soon all be gone. I also understood that many don’t want to share what they experienced,” she wrote in an email exchange using Google Translate to go from French to English. “My father never spoke about this period when he was 6-years-old, yet four years ago, on his deathbed, he relived the scenes he had witnessed.”

Now, she said, it’s Gathemo’s turn to pay tribute to the young Americans who fought to liberate Europe.

“Many returned home with physical and mental injuries, but many, like Pvt. Nadolny, did not return to their families,” Errard wrote. “My son will be 23 in June, the same age Pvt. Nadolny was when he lost his life in Gathemo, for Gathemo. I cannot remain indifferent. The tribute is small, but I hope it is the beginning of another story for Gathemo and all the people who will stop and pay their respects at this memorial.”

The monument with the names of the nine men killed will be located close to the back of the church in Gathemo. It will be on a granite stone with an M1 helmet featuring the division logo placed on top. A plaque honoring the entire division will be dedicated, and a street will be renamed in honor of the 28th Division, which, according to unit lore was nicknamed the “Bloody Bucket” by the Germans because of the red keystone patches worn on their uniforms.

The Mike Pride Museum in Normandy covered the 1,800 Euro price tag.

“Dear American friends, there are no words strong enough to express our gratitude and respect,” Errard said. “I would like to say BRAVO and THANK YOU.”

Two men who were just children at the time of the battle will be on hand for the ceremony – 87-year-old Guy Lelandais and 80-year-old Michele Golonde.

Errard says for Lelandais, whose cousin was killed by an exploding shell in front of his eyes, preserving the history of the liberation of his hometown has been a lifelong passion. He has – collecteding testimonies from around the region.

Galonde was just six months old when the 28th Division pushed the Germans out of Gathemo, hiding in a cellar with his family, according to Gerrard. His older sister was in front of the baby carriage he was in when a shell exploded – wounding her in the leg, which left her permanently disabled.  But as fate would have it, she likely saved Galonde’s life because of where she was standing.

Nadolny plans to have dinner with the mayor and hopes to shake Lelandais’ hand and ask him what he remembers about the fight to free the town.

“I mean sincerely, we are so thankful…my family and I are almost just unbelievably thankful,” he said. “(Jerome) was a blue-collar soldier that gave everything and moved us along, So to me, that’s what it’s about. A lot of forgotten stories. So, if we can share a little bit of it or be a part of it, I think it’s incredible.”

The commemoration is a reminder that “freedom has a cost and that true friendship endures,”  Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a letter to the event organizers.

“More than 80 years ago, the sons of Pennsylvania crossed an ocean to stand in defense of liberty and peace, forging a bond of courage and shared sacrifice. The soldiers of the 28th Infantry Division fought with extraordinary bravery, with some making the ultimate sacrifice,” Shapiro said. “The people of Gathemo have, across generations, honored the legacy of these brave men not only with gratitude, but with a deep and enduring partnership that continues to unite our communities. Pennsylvania is proud of the heritage of the 28th Infantry Division and of the shared history we hold with our friends in Gathemo.”

The ceremony is set to begin Saturday, June 7, at 5 a.m. EST and will be livestreamed on the Mike Pride Museum YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@grpicardie3945.

If you missed part one, read about the battle of Gathemo and the effort to track down the families of the men who died to liberate the town. 

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.

Then-President Joe Biden gives a pen to Bette Marafino, president of the Connecticut Chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans, after he signed the Social Security Fairness Act during an event in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 5, 2025. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump late Wednesday ordered the White House legal counsel and U.S. attorney general to investigate when Biden administration staff used an autopen to sign the former president’s name on official documents, alleging that Biden might not have known or approved of their actions.

The inquiry represents an escalation in Trump’s animosity toward and legal action against former President Joe Biden, who vehemently denies the allegations that he didn’t know what executive orders or pardons were signed during his term.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Biden wasn’t fully cognizant during the end of his administration. Similar concerns were reported on by dozens of news organizations following Biden’s answers and behavior during a debate in June 2024.

Biden’s apparent confusion during some of the debate raised alarm bells among fellow Democrats and eventually led him to withdraw from his reelection campaign, later endorsing then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump’s memorandum alleges “Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority.

“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.” 

The memo stated that if Biden staff used an autopen, a mechanical device that mimics a person’s signature, “to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden’s name.”

Trump said Thursday during an appearance in the Oval Office that he hadn’t discovered any evidence that Biden aides violated the law.

“No, but I’ve uncovered the human mind,” Trump said. “I was in a debate with the human mind and I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. So it’s one of those things, one of those problems. We can’t ever allow that to happen to our country.”  

Biden released a written statement rejecting the claims Trump laid out in the memo, arguing the investigation “is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.”

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” Biden wrote. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey,  the largest immigrant detention center on the East Coast, was the sight of a May demonstration against the Trump administration's immigration policies. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)

WASHINGTON — Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pledged Thursday to make more visits to immigration detention centers across the country to carry out oversight of the Trump administration’s crackdown.

The members detailed their visits to various detention centers over last week’s recess. Many people they visited in those centers were arrested while attending their court hearings or had no criminal record, they said.

“What we and our colleagues witnessed was the system being used to punish people simply for being an immigrant, and we all know that cruelty is the point with this president,” said New York Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez.

Continued oversight of immigration detention centers will only become more important, members of the all-Democrat caucus said, if congressional Republicans succeed in passing a massive tax and spending bill that would increase immigration enforcement funding by billions, including for detention centers.

Republicans are moving ahead with a legislative procedure known as reconciliation to fulfill President Donald Trump’s priorities without needing 60 votes in the U.S. Senate.

The vow to continue with oversight at detention centers comes after three congressional Democrats said they were accosted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at a New Jersey detention center last month. That incident ended with the Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrested, and Rep. LaMonica McIver facing federal charges. The charges against Baraka were dismissed about two weeks later.

“We will not succumb to any intimidation tactics,” CHC Chair Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York said. “We will continue to comply with our duty to have oversight of these detention centers, and we will visit them within the parameters of the law.”

Members of Congress are allowed to conduct oversight visits at any Department of Homeland Security facility that detains immigrants, without prior notice, under provisions of an appropriations law.

Collateral arrests

Washington state Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, slammed the Trump administration’s expansion of government contracts with private prison companies to detain migrants.

“It is critically important that we members of Congress continue to investigate what are supposed to be civil detention centers, but instead operate as private for-profit prisons with substandard medical care and they make billions of dollars … in contracts from this administration detaining people of all legal statuses,” Jayapal said. 

The detention center in New Jersey reopened this year and ICE awarded GEO Group Inc. with a $1 billion contract to run the facility.

Jayapal said when she conducted an oversight visit at the Tacoma, Washington, Northwest ICE Processing Center, which was formerly known as the Northwest Detention Center, over the recess, some of the people being detained were caught up in immigration enforcement raids targeting other people. Such immigration arrests are known as collateral arrests.

She said one woman she spoke to who was detained had been in the country for more than 20 years, but did not have a permanent legal status.

“She was swept up in a raid at the workplace, and she was detained less than a week before she was going to get married to a U.S. citizen,” Jayapal said.

She said another person she talked to was a man who had been in the U.S. for 31 years and is a permanent legal resident.

“These are not the so-called worst of the worst that Trump kept saying he was going to go after,” Jayapal said. “These are simply people who love this country, who have been in this country for decades, who are married to U.S. citizens and have U.S. citizen children, and do not understand why the country they love would be doing this to them.”

Democratic Rep. Lou Correa of California, said that he’s come across immigrants in detention centers who were arrested while attending their court hearings.

“These individuals are following the law, showing up … to court hearings, and they’re having their removal cases dismissed,” he said. “Immediately as they walk out of that courtroom, they are rearrested and put into what is called an expedited removal process … to quickly get them out of the country.”

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2025. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a long-awaited “travel ban” late Wednesday to bar entry of nationals from a dozen countries and partially restrict entry for nationals from a smaller set of countries.

Countries that will have a full ban are Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Countries with partial bans are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The proclamation goes into effect Monday.

Wednesday’s proclamation is a modified version of the travel ban from the president’s first term that barred entrance to nationals from predominantly Muslim countries. Federal courts struck down several versions of the travel ban until the Supreme Court upheld it in 2018. Former president Joe Biden repealed the travel ban when he came into office in 2021.

Wednesday’s proclamation allows for some exceptions, including visas that were issued to people from those countries before Wednesday, those who have been granted asylum by the U.S. or have a refugee status and lawful permanent residents.

The president’s proclamation cited national security concerns, but gave little detail on the reasoning that led to selecting the countries.

“Publicly disclosing additional details on which I relied in making these determinations, however, would cause serious damage to the national security of the United States, and many such details are classified,” according to the proclamation.

The Trump administration has moved to end temporary legal status such as humanitarian protections for nationals that hail from some of the countries on the ban list: Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. Immigration advocates have challenged those moves to end those legal protections in federal courts across the country.  

Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a tour of the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to allow Venezuelan men removed under an 18th-century wartime law and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador to have their cases heard in court, though he conceded the logistics of the order would be challenging to sort out.

In a 69-page order, Judge James Boasberg partially granted an injunction to require 137 Venezuelans be given due process. He ruled that they had no chance to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, or the accusation that they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

The Trump administration will have until June 11 to put forth a plan for the men removed under the wartime law and sent to the mega-prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, to be afforded their due process rights.

“The Government has violated the CECOT Class’s vested right to due process, an infringement that risks inflicting irreparable harm for which the public interest requires a remedy,” Boasberg said. “The question — simply asked but not so simply answered — thus becomes what relief they must obtain for that violation.”

Boasberg said that the Trump administration “plainly deprived these individuals of their right to seek habeas relief before their summary removal from the United States — a right that need not itself be vindicated through a habeas petition.”

He said that even if President Donald Trump lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act and if those subject to the proclamation are members of the Tren de Aragua gang, they must be given a chance to contest the charges.

“This is the critical point —there is simply no way to know for sure, as the CECOT Plaintiffs never had any opportunity to challenge the Government’s say-so.”

“Defendants instead spirited away planeloads of people before any such challenge could be made,” Boasberg continued. “And now, significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.”

Order doesn’t require return

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, sought to require the Venezuelans be brought back to the U.S. from El Salvador to challenge their removals. But Boasberg rejected that argument.

Boasberg determined that even though there is a financial agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to detain the men, they are in the custody of the Salvadoran government.

“While it is a close question, the current record does not support Plaintiffs’ assertion that they are in the constructive custody of the United States,” Boasberg said.

“Even crediting the public statements characterizing the arrangement as outsourcing the U.S. prison system and acknowledging the President’s unofficial assertion of his power to request a release, such comments cannot overcome a sworn declaration from a knowledgeable government official attesting that the CECOT Class’s ongoing detention is a question of Salvadoran law.”

Department of Justice attorneys have used the same reasoning in a separate case to resist the return of the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the Maryland man’s return to the U.S.

ACLU will be allowed to have input to determine how due process can be afforded to the men at CECOT, Boasberg wrote.

Wednesday’s order is the latest in a months-long dispute between the Trump administration and Boasberg after three planes landed in El Salvador and roughly 300 men were sent to CECOT in mid-March, despite the judge’s temporary restraining order against using the Alien Enemies Act.

Boasberg found probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt for violating his temporary restraining order that ordered the deportation planes carrying men removed under the Alien Enemies Act to be returned to the U.S. over concerns they did not receive due process.

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon testifies before the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. (Screenshot from committee livestream)

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Linda McMahon took heat from Democrats on the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce on Wednesday over the Trump administration’s initiatives to dramatically overhaul the federal role in education and eliminate the Education Department.

Lawmakers took aim at President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request — which includes $12 billion in spending cuts — as well as efforts to dismantle the agency and threats to yank funds for schools that use race-conscious practices across aspects of student life.

A department summary said the cut “reflects an agency that is responsibly winding down.”

Chair Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, praised McMahon’s efforts.

“We believe in reducing bureaucracy, trusting our educators, trusting our state and local leaders and trusting the innovators who are pushing against the barriers thrown up by the bureaucracy,” he said. “And above all, we trust our parents — this is our vision, and thankfully, we finally have an administration in place that shares this vision.”

But Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the panel, blasted the department’s priorities, including the budget proposal, which he said “would make it more difficult for students to enroll in and afford a college education by proposing reductions in funding to need-based grants such as Pell and work study.”

“At the end of the day, it is the students of this nation who will suffer under this budget proposal,” the Virginia Democrat said. “Students from low-income families and students with disabilities, English learners, international students and students of color will face more hurdles accessing equal educational opportunity.”

The budget calls for eliminating key programs administered by the Education Department for disadvantaged and low-income students, including Federal TRIO Programs and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP.

The budget request also proposes a $60 million increase to expand the number of charter schools in the country and lowering nearly $1,700 from the maximum amount a student can receive annually through the Pell Grant — a government subsidy that helps low-income students pay for college.

A federal judge in Massachusetts in May dealt the administration a major setback to its education agenda, ordering the agency to reinstate the more than 1,300 employees gutted during a reduction in force effort, blocking the department from carrying out Trump’s order to close the department and barring the department from transferring the student loan portfolio and special education services to other federal agencies while the case challenging those policies is ongoing.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the trial judge’s order. 

DEI lesson plans

Democrats on Wednesday took aim at the administration’s efforts against diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs. The administration had sought to bar schools from using DEI practices across aspects of student life to continue to receive federal funding, an effort that multiple federal judges have blocked.

Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania said the Trump administration “has undoubtedly revived the culture of racism we haven’t seen since the Jim Crow era,” adding that “they’ve made it clear that open attacks on Black and brown and other marginalized communities is not just tolerated, but it’s encouraged.”

Asked by Lee whether a lesson plan on the Tulsa race massacre would be considered “illegal DEI,” McMahon replied: “I’d have to get back to you on that.”

Lee then asked McMahon whether she knew what the Tulsa race massacre was, to which the secretary said: “I’d like to look into it more and get back to you on it.”

McMahon was similarly noncommittal on a question about assigning school desegregation icon Ruby Bridges’ autobiography.

State flexibility

The budget proposal also calls for consolidating 18 grant programs for K-12 education and replacing them with a single formula grant program, which the administration says will give states spending flexibility.

Democrats at Wednesday’s hearing blasted the administration’s push to return education “back to the states,” noting that some states have poor records on education.

Rep. Yassamin Ansari said the education system is “absolutely failing” many students in the United States. The main cause of that, the Arizona Democrat said, was that many states have “woefully underfunded” their public education systems and not, as the administration has claimed, due to “too much” federal oversight or DEI policies.

When asked by Ansari what risk McMahon weighed for public schools and universities if federal education funding is gutted or devolved to the states, the secretary said “federal education wouldn’t necessarily be gutted” and that “there would be more money to go to the states without the bureaucracy of the Department of Education.”

Ansari rejected that claim, noting that some states, including hers, have an “abysmal track record of managing education.” She pointed to Arizona’s low rankings on public education, teacher salaries, test scores and the highest student-to-teacher ratio in the country.

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court late Wednesday upheld a lower court’s order requiring the U.S. Education Department to reinstate more than 1,300 fired employees and blocking an executive order to dismantle the department and a directive to transfer some services to other federal agencies.

The ruling from a three-judge panel in the United States Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit marks a setback for President Donald Trump’s education policy agenda that includes transferring the federal student loan portfolio and special education services out of the Education Department on the way to closing the department entirely.

The panel kept in place a preliminary injunction issued by a district court in Massachusetts requiring the administration to reverse course at least while a case  challenging its education policies is ongoing.

“What is at stake in this case, the District Court found, was whether a nearly half-century-old cabinet department would be permitted to carry out its statutorily assigned functions or prevented from doing so by a mass termination of employees aimed at implementing the effective closure of that department,” 1st Circuit Chief Judge David J. Barron wrote in the panel’s opinion.

“Given the extensive findings made by the District Court and the absence of any contrary evidence having been submitted by the appellants, we conclude that the appellants’ stay motion does not warrant our interfering with the ordinary course of appellate adjudication in the face of what the record indicates would be the apparent consequences of our doing so,” Barron wrote.

The Trump administration had immediately challenged an order in May from U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun of Massachusetts.

Joun granted a preliminary injunction in a consolidated case stemming from a pair of lawsuits from a coalition of labor and advocacy groups and a slew of Democratic attorneys general.

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

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

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. 

Unemployment benefits application (photo by Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Catholic Charities organization in Wisconsin doesn’t have to take part in the Wisconsin unemployment insurance (UI) system.

The ruling rejected a Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion that said the agency’s purpose was essentially secular and didn’t qualify for a religious exemption in state unemployment law.

Advocates who supported Catholic Charities cheered the ruling as a blow for religious liberty and against attempts to define whether or not an organization’s motives are sufficiently rooted in faith.

“We have maintained throughout the process and in an amicus brief that Catholic Charities is in fact a religious institution and is eligible for the unemployment insurance tax exemption offered by the state law,” said David Earleywine, associate director for education and religious liberty at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

Organizations that represent workers, however, have raised questions about the decision’s broader implications for employees of other institutions connected to churches, including the large networks of Catholic hospitals across the U.S.

“It is crucial that employees, especially low-wage workers, have the protections of unemployment insurance, regardless of the identity of their employer,” said Larry Dupuis,  director of litigation and advocacy at Legal Action of Wisconsin. The law firm joined with groups including the Economic Policy Institute, the Century Foundation and the National Employment Law Project on a friend of the court brief supporting the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling.

“Unemployment payments help the laid off worker, and the economy as a whole, during a downturn by supporting consumer demand,” Dupuis said.

Thursday’s ruling overturns a 4-3 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision issued in March 2024 that declared the work of Catholic Charities Bureau Inc. of the Superior Diocese of the Catholic Church doesn’t get a pass from Wisconsin’s UI law on religious grounds.

The Wisconsin ruling, written by Justice Anne Walsh Bradley, declared that the Catholic Charities work is “secular in nature” and that the agency and its subsidiary organizations that took part in the case “are not operated primarily for religious purposes” as defined in the UI law’s religious exemption.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote Thursday for the U.S. Supreme Court that the Wisconsin high court majority’s arguments amounted to giving preference to one religious denomination over another.

The Wisconsin ruling held that the agencies’ work was not religious in nature because they didn’t attempt to preach the Catholic faith to participants and did not serve only Catholics.

“Petitioners’ Catholic faith, however, bars them from satisfying those criteria,” Sotomayor wrote. The ruling quoted from the dissent by Justice Rebecca Bradley in the Wisconsin decision.

“Wisconsin’s exemption,” Sotomayor wrote, “as interpreted by its Supreme Court, thus grants a denominational preference by explicitly differentiating between religions based on theological practices. Indeed, petitioners’ eligibility for the exemption ultimately turns on inherently religious choices (namely, whether to proselytize or serve only co-religionists).”

Earleywine said the decision reflected the position of Catholic Charities and its supporters. 

“For Catholic Charities in particular, serving the poor is part of our Catholic mission — that is something that we are called to do,” he said.

Sotomayor’s ruling noted that the church offers its own unemployment compensation program for laid-off workers and dismissed the suggestion that the organizations were “more likely to leave their employees without unemployment benefits.”

Earleywine underscored the ruling’s reference to the Catholic unemployment compensation program as  “essentially equivalent” to the state UI program. 

The employment lawyers’ amicus brief disputed that comparison, however, and also noted that there’s no guarantee other religious employers made exempt would have any kind of substitute benefits program. The brief also argued that in the event an individual diocesesan employer can’t afford to pay benefits for a laid-off employee, the overall program has renounced any obligation to pick up the tab. 

Earleywine said the ruling enables Catholic Charities organizations to sign up with the church system, which is available to employees of Catholic dioceses, including church parishes and schools. Other Catholic-related organizations without a diocesan connection — such as Catholic hospital systems or universities — are not eligible under current rules.  

Justice Clarence Thomas, while joining in the unanimous opinion, wrote a separate concurrence stating that because the Wisconsin ruling did not defer to the Bishop of Superior’s assertion that Catholic Charities and its affiliates are “an arm of the Diocese, the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated the church autonomy doctrine.”

While Thursday’s ruling was emphatic, it also appeared to suggest how Wisconsin’s UI religious exemption might be rewritten to produce a different outcome.

The Wisconsin UI law exempts all churches, church conventions or church associations “without differentiating between employees actually involved in religious works” and those who are not, Sotomayor wrote.

Dupuis of Legal Action Wisconsin pointed to another concurrence, by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote that state UI laws could cover nonprofit employees of religiously associated organizations by focusing on the work involved rather than its underlying motivations to determine who is and who is not exempt.

“As Justice Jackson’s concurrence shows, this ruling still gives states the ability to limit the scope of the religious exemption so large employers that provide services that are not inherently religious, like hospitals, must still cover their employees,” Dupuis said.

When the federal law was revised in 1970 to include nonprofit employees in state UI programs, Congress exempted certain church-affiliated employees. The goal, Jackson wrote, was to avoid the state getting involved in a dispute “over the sufficiency of a fired employee’s prayers or the accuracy of their scriptural teaching.”

The intent of Congress was to exempt “a narrow category of church-affiliated entities” that could produce such an entanglement “precisely because their work involves preparing individuals for religious life,” Jackson wrote.

She concluded: “It is perfectly consistent with the opinion the Court hands down today for States to align their [federally-based] religious-purposes exemptions with Congress’s true focus.”

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The aftermath of the battle between the 28th Division and German troops in Gathemo, France, in August, 1944. (Screenshot from National Archives film)

The liberation of Gathemo, France, won’t be found in many history books about the Second World War.

After all, it was one town among hundreds on a map that needed to be taken from the occupying Germans in the slow, methodical, grinding Battle of Normandy that began on D-Day: June 6, 1944. That’s when the Allies landed soldiers on five beaches and airborne troops dropped behind enemy lines as part of the war to wrest Europe from Nazi Germany.

Public perception may condense what happened after the invasion into simple terms: The Allies landed, established a beachhead and the fight was over. Tragically, it did not all end in a matter of days and the cost was steep – nearly 210,000 Allied casualties, and around 400,000 German losses.

Throughout the summer, the Allies pushed the German Army back through tiny villages, cities, farmland, hedgerows and plains in a war of attrition. U.S., British, Canadian, and other allied forces gained ground – sometimes only in mere yards — each day.

By August, the Germans were retreating and desperately attempting to avoid becoming encircled. Gathemo soon found itself in the midst of the maelstrom.

For the first time in the war, Pennsylvania’s own 28th Infantry Division was leading the way to try to liberate the town, flanked by the veteran 4th and 29th divisions.

The men and women of Gathemo have never forgotten the men who wore the red keystone patch – dubbed the “bloody bucket” by the Germans – on their shoulders.

Nearly 81 years later, the community will show its gratitude on Saturday by unveiling a memorial honoring nine men from the 28th who gave their lives so Gathemo could be free and  are renaming a street after the division.

At a time when international relations are tense and some American leaders are questioning alliances in Europe, the gesture is a reminder of how deep the bond runs between the French and their liberators. And the commemoration that will take place Saturday began because one man wondered what happened to his great-uncle in the war.

He could never have imagined where his search would lead.

‘Filling in the blanks’

Fifty-year-old Shaun Nadolny doesn’t have any ties to Pennsylvania.

The assistant airport operations manager for Milwaukee County in Wisconsin is a self-described history lover, whose grandfather Leo Nadolny fought in the Pacific Theater with the Marines against the Japanese.

Shaun Nadolny’s dad, born four years after the war ended in 1949, was named after Leo’s brother Jerome Francis, who was one of nine men killed in Gathemo. The two brothers never knew each other’s whereabouts while in combat, so Leo didn’t learn about Jerome’s death for nearly a year.

Letters from his parents informing him about the loss weren’t reaching him, so tragically, he kept asking about his brother when writing home.

Like most families at the time, the Nadolnys didn’t know much about Jerome’s service, except that he died in France. A family member has the Purple Heart that was issued posthumously.

“I’ve learned a lot about my grandpa, Leo, because in about 2001, I sent a letter to the government saying, ‘As part of the Freedom of Information Act, I was wondering if you could share his military file.’ And they did,” he said.

The packet arrived about 18 months later and provided him with a window into his grandfather’s wartime experiences – where he fought, the battles he survived and even the ships he was transported on in the Pacific.

“It kind of led me down this path about his brother Jerome, that we knew nothing about. We just literally had a picture of his cross on his grave over in Brittany (France), and a picture of him. That’s all my dad ever had,” he said. “He just knew that, ‘Hey, I was named after my uncle who I never met who was killed over in France.’”

About a decade ago, he wrote the government again with a request for Jerome’s military file. He wasn’t as fortunate this time around. The records were believed to have been destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis in 1973. It was one of up to 18 million service members’ files lost.

He did receive some basic information: Jerome’s draft enrollment card and where he was originally buried in France before his remains were repatriated in the Brittany American Cemetery.

Another key detail came from a picture of Jerome’s grave marker. He served in the 109th Infantry Regiment, as part of the 28th Infantry Division. Prior to the war, the 28th was a Pennsylvania National Guard unit based at Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County. It was nationalized by the federal government in February 1941.

“I just started kind of looking into that unit in that division,” Nadolny said. “A friend said, ‘Hey man, you’re kind of at a dead end with this research on your great uncle. You should look at a 28th Infantry Facebook group or a family group, because you’re not going to get anything more from the government.’”

So in the group, he ended up in touch with a Frenchman, Christophe Clement, who works in logistics. But, his real passion is World War II history. When he was 15 or 16, he would ride his bike from cemetery to cemetery to make sure the graves of Allied soldiers were well kept. He’s studied in Canada to be a historical adviser and volunteers with the Mike Pride Mobile Museum. Clement’s Facebook page is filled with pictures and videos – historical and current – of his efforts to keep the memory of Allied soldiers alive.

But, he has always felt a connection to the men wearing the keystone symbol on their uniforms and helmets. His hometown of Senlis was liberated by the division. During WWI, a soldier from the 28th died there and another five were killed in the same area during the second worldwide conflict.

Clement connected Nadolny with a retired lieutenant colonel from the 28th – Corey Angell, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and who has a passion for documenting the history of his beloved unit.

Angell soon was able to add a few more pieces to the puzzle for Nadolny – Jerome’s company, his death from a gunshot wound and how he was identified by his paybook.

“So, they kind of started filling in just some of the blanks,” Nadolny said. “And all I ever was doing for the last 15 years was just learning a little bit more about my family history.”

‘Just another guy’

Clement had an idea after corresponding with Angell and Nadolny – to build a memorial to the 28th’s fallen in the nondescript town of Gathemo in Normandy. The idea blew Nadolny’s mind. He figured his great-uncle was just a typical grunt doing his job. After all, he wasn’t part of the D-Day landings or some super soldier that earned a chestful of medals.

“He’s just another guy. He came after the invasion, and was killed very early in – Aug. 12,” he said. “Nothing heroic about it.”

Nadolny didn’t want his relative to be singled out, so Clement did some digging and learned the names of eight other members of the 28th who were killed in the fight to liberate the townspeople from four years of German occupation.

“When you search for information about soldiers or about combat actions or whatever, it really is like a police inquiry,” Clement said, speaking through a translator.

Clement is an old pro at working to honor the memory of Allied soldiers who paid the ultimate price on French soil. About a dozen years ago, he started working to create monuments to members of the 28th around his part of France.

He will turn 40 on Saturday, the same day as the ceremony, which will have special significance because Clement says it will be the last monument he helps build. Organizing the tributes is becoming increasingly complicated, said Clement, who has worked to preserve the memory of 15 members of the Bloody Bucket who were killed in France during the world wars and an estimated 400 other Allied soldiers.

The Battle

The 28th Infantry Division didn’t enter the conflict until about a month-and-half after D-Day – July 22, 1944 – and landed at Omaha Beach. At that point, the Allies were building  momentum toward a breakout inland.

The division found itself in hedgerow country (known to the French as “bocage”).

The fighting across the terrain  – made up of farm fields broken up by a series of overgrown hedges and trees that towered above walls of dirt that could reach up to six feet in height— was slow, brutal and hindered any sustained advance.

Six days after arriving on French soil, the 28th suffered its first casualty when an officer was seriously wounded.

But its biggest test to come was in Gathemo, beginning on Aug. 7.

“The 28th Division troops got their first experience in hedgerow warfare during the fighting at Percy and Hill 210, but they faced a far more intense test a week later at Gathemo and Hill 288, just outside the town,” said Walter Zapotoczny an author, Army veteran, former command historian of the 28th Infantry Division and president of the 28th Infantry Division Association.

Jerome Nadolny and his fellow soldiers in the 109th regiment were among the first American troops moving toward the town around 6:30 a.m. Waiting for them, according to Zapotoczny, was at least half of the German 84th Infantry Division, an 88-mm anti-tank battalion, the 84th Division artillery and other enemy forces.

After hours of heaving fighting and nightfall approaching, three battalions of the 28th dug in – without much forward progress. But, the Germans weren’t done. As the Allies had learned through Africa, Sicily, and Italy, their enemy utilized the counterattack as a favored tactic.

Major Paul F. Gaynor, who was commanding the regimental anti-tank company described what happened next:

The next day didn’t yield much gain in ground. The 28th advanced another 300 to 400 yards. The Germans may have been in retreat, but continued to fight tenaciously. It wouldn’t be until the morning of Aug. 10 that American troops entered the town, and by the afternoon Gathemo was liberated.

“The battle of Gathemo caused the greatest losses and the most resistance up to that point in the 28th Division’s experience,” Zapotoczny added,  “It was at Gathemo that the 28th Division endured its most brutal battle of the Northern France campaign.”

The cost in and around Gathemo was the lives of nine members of the 28th, including three from Pennsylvania:

An estimated 235 men were wounded.

On Aug. 19, the 77-day Battle of Normandy came to an end with the Germans in full retreat and tens of thousands captured when the Falaise pocket was closed by Allied troops.

“Although not directly involved in the fiercest fighting at Chambois, where Polish and Canadian forces sealed the pocket, the 28th Division’s aggressive advance helped prevent German units from escaping to the east or regrouping, effectively pressing the western and southern flanks of the pocket,” Zapotoczny said.

A mere 10 days after the German defense of Normandy collapsed, the men of the Bloody Bucket were taking part in the liberation day parade throughout Paris.

Tracking down the relatives

As plans for the dedication ceremony took shape, Cory Angell, the retired 28th Division officer, continued to try to reach as many families of the nine soldiers killed in Gathemo as possible to give them a chance to attend in-person or watch it online.

He spends his spare time researching photos and videos throughout history of the men and women who served in the country’s oldest Army division.

“We’re kind of a small group, right? A lot of people just retire and move on. There’s some of us that are just diehards and I’m one of them,” Angell said. “I’m an old soldier, retired from the division which I grew up with. Really, the beginning and end of my career was in the division wearing the keystone patch.”

Since Pvt. Irwin S. Fox was from Pittsburgh, he turned his attention to trying to find his relatives.

Military records show Fox enlisted in the Army on Jan. 9, 1944, just months before the invasion. He was assigned to the 110th Infantry Regiment with the 28th Division.

Angell started by Googling the names of the nine soldiers. With Fox, he was able to make a connection to Pittsburgh. He then reached out to the Heinz History Center, who put him in touch with the Pittsburgh Jewish Genealogy Society.

“The guy said, ‘Last I can tell, that family moved to Columbus, Ohio. Let me put you in touch with a guy for Jewish history in Columbus, Ohio.’ And that’s how they go, ‘Yeah, we got him. Here’s her phone number.’”

Soon, he was on the phone with Evelyn Fox Weiner, Irwin’s 89-year-old niece.

“What was a real joy to me and I hope that all those that are involved can really appreciate it when we do find the family members, the three that we found have been amazed and thrilled,” Angell said. “People are like, ‘What? You’re kidding me.’”

‘My grandmother became a Gold Star mother’

Fox was a first-generation American. His grandfather was from Ukraine and his grandmother grew up in Latvia. He graduated from Schenley High School in Pittsburgh’s North Oakland neighborhood. His mom, dad, sister and brother eventually moved to Squirrel Hill. He was married to Josephine Greenberg. A picture from 1944 shows a striking couple – Josephine sporting a knee-length skirt and a clean-shaven Irwin in uniform with his right arm casually, but firmly around her hip.

He was 29 when he died in combat.

“He was very loving and nice,” said Weiner. “He was revered enough that my family had another son who was named after him.”

His namesake, Irwin S. Fox, is 77-years-old and lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife.

He didn’t know much about his uncle until about 1964, when he came across some old photos.

“All I knew was that he was killed shortly after D-Day. I didn’t know any of the details until I saw the gravestone,” Fox said. The headstone is marked with his uncle’s date of death, Aug. 13, 1944. “I just knew from history that he was in hedgerow country in France.”

Irwin Fox and his wife recorded a message on a record to his parents, after Passover in the spring of 1944. The audio and photos were provided to the Capital-Star by his namesake, Irwin S. Fox. (Audio slideshow produced by Tim Lambert)

Fox’s death in Gathemo hit the family hard and Weiner isn’t sure her grandmother ever recovered from the loss of her youngest child.

“I remember the Blue Star in the window in their apartment and their home at that time, if you had somebody in the service, it was a small banner,” said Weiner, who still has the telegram from the War Department informing the family of his death. “Then my grandmother became a Gold Star mother after he was killed.”

When the war was over, families had to decide whether to bring the remains of their loved ones home or whether they would remain buried in Europe. Fox’s mother chose to have his body returned to the U.S.

In March 1949, he was buried at Shaare Torah Cemetery in Whitehall in Allegheny County.

A family photo dated Sept. 15, 1964, shows his mother standing in front of his grave marked by an American flag. Her graying hair peeks out from her yellow headscarf and she’s wearing a long, black coat. Her hands are clasped and her face is grief-stricken.

“I think that’s the most poignant picture I have,” Irwin Fox said.

The family is grateful to have learned a little bit more about Irwin’s short time in France, but will not be able to make the ceremony.

“It meant enough, and Irwin was revered enough, then when we found out about it, which was only two weeks ago, that there were 15 members of our family that were ready to go to France, really, to be there at that dedication, that’s how quickly we all wanted to be there to honor and to share what we could with him,” Weiner said. “Due to logistics and complications due to travel, it’s not happening. We all revered Irwin’s service to the United States and what he did and the sacrifice that he made. It totally changed several generations.”

She and Irwin are touched by the gesture of the people of Gathemo.

“The people actually cared what Americans did and the sacrifice they made (It) had an effect on the world. That is wonderful,” Irwin said. “It kind of renews in me to want to make a difference in the world.”

Weiner said it’s gratifying that the town is remembering the soldiers who died to liberate it from the Germans.

“It never replaces a life, but does it give hope or meaning or set something up for generations to come,” she said.

 ‘Such a rewarding feeling’

The next puzzle piece was tracking down another fallen soldier with Pennsylvania connections.

Not much is known about Pfc. Merritt Boyle’s military service. He was from Chinchilla, Lackawanna County, and served in the 109th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division.

He’s buried at the Shady Lane Cemetery in Dixon City.

Angell had a lead on another namesake – 53-year-old Merrit Boyle of Old Forge,, who trains athletes, owns a gym and does life coaching.

It turns out, though, that Merrit doesn’t really answer his phone.

So Angell reached out to the 109th Infantry Regiment Association in Scranton and one of their members just showed up at Boyle’s doorstep.

“I came back from walking my dogs and I locked both doors and I’m setting up my schedule for the day and I heard a banging on the back door. I’m like, ‘Who the hell is banging on my back door?’” he said. So, I’m looking at him and he said, ‘Are you Merrit?’”

The two talked for about 90 minutes about the division, about where Merritt was killed and the upcoming ceremony. The talk started to fill in some blanks for the younger Boyle.

He had heard some stories about the man he was named after – like how he loved his country and was only in France a short time before his death.

Like, how his grandmother, Marjorie, who was Merritt’s mother, asked her daughter, Mary, to name one of her children after her fallen son.

“They weren’t planning on having another kid. I’m the youngest by six years, so I was kind of like a surprise,” he said. “Marjorie went to my mom and said, ‘Look, it would mean a lot for me to keep his legacy alive,’ because Merritt was a very special person to her. You could tell just from talking to her, telling me stories, and I remember sleeping over at her house and she’d be telling me great stories on how he was always into trouble.

Video of tank crews and members of the 28th Infantry Division in an around Gathemo, France, during the Battle of Normandy in August 1944. (From the National Archives)

The twist is they spelled his name wrong on his birth certificate. As his namesake, he has one “T” in his name.

“I love that I have that legacy. I’ve always felt a connection to him when I pray at night, I always have that connection that there’s someone watching me,” Boyle said. “That’s why it was such a rewarding experience to find out a little bit more of his history and I learned a lot from talking to many people that were very helpful and getting me up to pace with some of the details of where he was and what happened.”

Boyle said his uncle didn’t get a chance to live his life.

“I feel him live through me in many regards. …  That I was named after him and (in) his honor and that just hearing how they spoke of him, it made me want to do better,” he said. Merrit does have a wooden carving Boyle made when he was in service and the flag that was put over his coffin when his remains were returned to Pennsylvania.

He is grateful to know his uncle’s memory will live on in the land where he fell.

“We kind of sometimes today get caught up in the politics and the cynicism a lot of times of Republican or Democrat, all this kind of stuff. To see 80 years later that there’s still appreciation for what those great men did gives such a rewarding feeling,” he said.

Tomorrow, read about Shaun Nadolny’s trip of a lifetime, as Gathemo prepares to pay tribute to the 28th Division and the men who died to liberate it. If you would like to watch the dedication ceremony, it is set to begin at 5:00 a.m. EST and will be livestreamed on the Mike Pride Museum YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@grpicardie3945.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.

Children at the Growing Tree child care in New Glarus. Wisconsin is one of only six states that doesn't put any money into early childhood education. (Photo by Kate Rindy)

Children are born into this world innocent. They did not choose their parents. They did not choose to be born into poverty. They do not get to choose if a parent is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Children do not get a choice to be born into an environment of neglect. Children do not choose to grow up in a home with violence. Children do not get a choice to be abused or assaulted. Children do not choose to be born with a disability. Children do not get to choose if they can access medical care. Children do not get a choice on whether they are even wanted or loved. 

Adults do have choices. In Wisconsin, we  have chosen to have a state where children are the largest demographic living in poverty. We have chosen to allow some children to live with constant hunger. We have chosen not to support children with disabilities. We are still choosing not  to create systems to support children who have experienced adversity like abuse and neglect. We made the choice to create an education system based on the income of the people living in the community. We choose to allow children to be uncared for. We as a community have made these choices deliberately and without shame. 

Consequently, we have chosen for those children to be  less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to fail at a job, have poor health (which is connected to stress in the early years) and to be statistically more likely to be placed in the prison system. 

We, as a state, have chosen to prioritize funding for  prisons and spend nothing on early care and education, one of only six states that don’t invest a penny in early childhood programs, even though we know that when children have access to quality early education that they are more likely to graduate high school, have higher incomes, be healthier, and are less likely to enter the prison system. We have chosen to remove health care options for children by not expanding Badgercare. We are soon to be the only state that does not provide postpartum Medicaid, risking the lives of new mothers and  increasing the likelihood that children will have to grow up without them. We have decided that children with disabilities will receive services not based on their actual needs, but based on the budget  for special education, which our state keeps at the barest minimum. 

We have chosen to make the word “welfare” into a bad word. Welfare by definition is the health, happiness and fortunes of a person or group. And we have chosen to deny the health, happiness and fortune of children in our state. Referring to a bipartisan push for Medicaid expansion to cover postpartum care, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has said he  “cannot imagine supporting an expansion of welfare.” Why is providing welfare to support the health and wellbeing of children or anyone for that matter a negative concept? Why are we so afraid that if we support people in need  that it somehow takes away from us? For example, why would providing children with free lunches at school be a bad thing to do? Why would ensuring that children have access to medical care regardless of whether their parents can afford it or not be bad to do? Why would ensuring that children have access to quality care and education in their early years, regardless of their parents’ income, be a bad thing? Why would ensuring that children with disabilities have access to the services they need be bad? Why is it wrong  to have systems in our state that ensure we are doing everything we can to give all children the best opportunities to grow, thrive and become productive members of our communities? 

Rep. Vos and Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Sen.Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) all disagree with creating and funding policies that support our children. Time and time again, they have voted down policies that would have provided support to children. They have continued to forgo our future by not investing in our children. Instead,  they invest in the wealthiest in our state and invest in our punitive prison systems. They invest in large businesses with expensive lobbyists who demand tax breaks and deregulation. They invest in those most likely to donate to their campaigns. These grown-up white men cannot stand the idea of anyone, even a child, getting help from the state. If they had to pay for school lunch, they figure, so should  everyone else. If they had to pay for their child’s medical visit, then so should everyone else. If they had to pay for child care, then so should everyone else. They are incapable of seeing past their privileges. They cannot appreciate what it is like to be a child born into an environment that causes  harm and the trajectory that puts the child on. However, they will certainly be there when that child becomes an adult and enters the prison system. They are more than willing to pay for incarceration and punishment. 

That’s not just financially irresponsible — we spend about four times as much to keep someone in prison as we spend on education —  it’s inhumane, and it impoverishes our state and condemns children to unnecessary suffering and a bleak future.

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Negotiations on the state budget between Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers broke down on Wednesday. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Republican lawmakers are planning to move forward on writing the two-year state budget without input from across the aisle after negotiations with Gov. Tony Evers broke down on Wednesday. 

Senate and Assembly leaders and Evers each released statements on Wednesday in the early evening saying that while negotiations have been in good faith, they are ending for now after meetings late on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday morning. Evers said Republicans were walking away from the talks after being unwilling to compromise, while Republicans said Evers’ requests weren’t reasonable.

“Both sides of these negotiations worked to find compromise and do what is best for the state of Wisconsin,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Joint Finance Committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said in a statement. “However, we have reached a point where Governor Evers’ spending priorities have extended beyond what taxpayers can afford.” 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) left the possibility of future negotiations open in a separate statement.

“Assembly Republicans remain open to discussions with Governor Evers in hopes of finding areas of agreement, however after meeting until late last night and again this morning, it appears the two sides remain far apart,” the lawmakers said. 

Vos and Born said JFC will continue “using our long-established practices to craft a state budget that contains meaningful tax relief and responsible spending levels with the goal of finishing on time.” 

In previous sessions this has meant that the Republican committee throws out all of Evers’ proposals, writes the budget itself, passes it with minimal Democratic support and sends the bill to Evers — who has often signed it with many (sometimes controversial) partial vetoes. 

LeMahieu and Marklein noted that the Republican-led committee has created budgets in the last three legislative sessions that Evers has signed and they are “confident” lawmakers will pass a “responsible budget” this session that Evers will sign.

Lawmakers have less than a month before the state’s June 30 budget deadline. If a new budget isn’t approved and signed into law by then, the state will continue to operate under the current budget. 

Evers said in a statement that he is disappointed Republicans are deciding to write the budget without Democratic support.

“The concept of compromise is simple — everyone gets something they want, and no one gets everything they want,” Evers said. He added that he told lawmakers that he would support their half of priorities, including their top tax cut proposals, even though they were similar to ones he previously vetoed, but he wanted agreements from them as well.

“Unfortunately, Republicans couldn’t agree to support the top priorities in my half of the deal, which included meaningful investments for K-12 schools, to continue Child Care Counts to help lower the cost of child care for working families and to prevent further campus closures and layoffs at our UW System,” Evers said.  

“We’ve spent months trying to have real, productive conversations with Republican lawmakers in hopes of finding compromise and passing a state budget that everyone could support — and that, most importantly, delivers for the people of Wisconsin. I am admittedly disappointed that Republican lawmakers aren’t willing to reach consensus and common ground and have decided to move forward without bipartisan support instead.”

Democratic leaders said that Republicans are refusing to make investments in the areas that Wisconsinites want. 

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said in a joint statement that it’s disappointing Republicans are walking away from negotiations. 

“The people of Wisconsin have a reasonable expectation that their elected leaders will work together to produce a state budget that prioritizes what matters most: lowering costs for families and investing in public education,” the lawmakers said. “This decision creates yet more uncertainty in a difficult time. Democrats will continue to stand up for all Wisconsinites and work to move Wisconsin forward through the budget process.”

Democrats on the budget committee accused Republicans of giving in to the “extremist wing of their party” by walking away from the negotiations and not committing to “fully funding our public schools, preventing the closure of child care centers, or meeting the healthcare needs of Wisconsinites.”

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New Nissan cars are driven onto a rail car to be transported from an automobile processing terminal located at the Port of Los Angeles on April 3, 2024, in Wilmington, California.  Tariffs are being levied by President Donald Trump on most foreign vehicles and auto parts.  (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s tariffs would decrease the deficit over the next decade but overall shrink the U.S. economy and raise costs for consumers, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Wednesday.

Tariffs are paid to the U.S. government by domestic companies and purchasers who buy goods from abroad.

The nonpartisan CBO found that tariffs would reduce the nation’s primary deficit by $2.5 trillion from now until 2035, plus an additional $500 million saved from avoiding even more mounting interest payments on the U.S. debt.

But the office also found that tariffs would slow down the U.S. economy over the same time, in part by affecting behavior in the private sector.

For example, businesses may pull back from investment and growth when faced with higher costs. The CBO, the official financial scorekeeper for Congress, estimates that Trump’s tariffs, as they stand now, would lower the U.S. gross domestic product, or the total value of a country’s goods and services, on average by 0.6% per year through 2035. 

In addition to increasing costs on supplies and other assets businesses use in production, the tariffs are expected to raise prices on consumer goods in the next couple years. The CBO projects the price index used to measure personal consumption will be 0.9% higher by the end of 2026.

While lower-income households spend a higher percentage of their income on consumer goods, the CBO projects that prices will increase the most on goods like home appliances and vehicles more likely to be purchased by higher earners.

The eight-page analysis only takes into account the effects of Trump’s tariffs as of May 13. These include the following taxes calculated on the value of imports: a baseline 10% on goods from most countries; a base of 30% on all goods from China and Hong Kong; 25% on most foreign vehicles and auto parts; 25% on steel and aluminum; and 25% on certain goods from Canada and Mexico.

The CBO released the figures in response to a request from U.S. Senate Democrats wanting to know the cost of the administration’s import taxes.

The report did not take into account any tariff changes after May 13, including Trump’s doubling to 50% the import taxes on steel and aluminum. The report also did not factor in changes that could result from a May 29 trade court decision striking down most of Trump’s tariffs — though an appeals court swiftly left them in place while the case plays out. 

The U.S. Capitol on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released detailed analysis Wednesday showing Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” would increase federal deficits by $2.4 trillion during the next decade.

CBO projects that if enacted as written, the legislation would result in 10.9 million people losing access to health insurance by 2034, a number that includes “1.4 million people without verified citizenship, nationality, or satisfactory immigration status who would no longer be covered in state-only funded programs in 2034.”

The score is the most up-to-date analysis by Congress’ official scorekeeper on how the sweeping tax and spending cuts package the House approved last month will impact the federal budget in the years ahead.

Republicans have been highly critical of the CBO’s assessment of the legislation’s real-world impacts, arguing that keeping tax rates as they are now, instead of letting them rise at the end of the year when the 2017 GOP tax law expires, will boost economic growth.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., lambasted the CBO during a press conference shortly after the report came out, arguing its economic growth projections haven’t been completely accurate.

“This bill will actually reduce the deficit, if you recognize the historical economic growth that has always been there,” Scalise said. “To say you’re going to get 1.8% growth. At a minimum, we think you can get 2.5 to 4% growth. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, says over 4% economic growth. So I get that we’ve got to play by the rules of the referee, but the referee has been wrong.”

During the last decade, U.S. growth only surpassed 3% during one year, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Gross domestic product growth measured 2.5% in 2014, 2.9% in 2015, 1.8% in 2016, 2.5% in 2017, 3% in 2018, 2.6% in 2019, -2.2% in 2020 during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, 6.1% in 2021, 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024. 

White House budget director Russ Vought posted on social media that the CBO score “confirms what we knew about the bill at House passage.”

“The bill REDUCES deficits by $1.4 trillion over ten years when you adjust for CBO’s one big gimmick–not using a realistic current policy baseline,” Vought wrote. “It includes $1.7 trillion in mandatory savings, the most in history. If you care about deficits and debt, this bill dramatically improves the fiscal picture.”

Disagreement over the ‘big beautiful bill’

GOP lawmakers have also sought to brush aside criticism from some of their own members, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who both argue the legislation must cut spending more to reduce the federal deficit in the long run.

Billionaire and former Trump administration staffer Elon Musk has also become increasingly vocal about his opposition to the package, writing on social media this week that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.”

The House voted mostly along party lines in May to send the sweeping spending and tax cuts package to the Senate, which is expected to debate and amend the legislation in the weeks ahead.

CBO’s analysis will likely inform some of that conversation, and help senators better understand how the policy changes proposed by their House colleagues would affect state government budgets and the communities they represent. 

The CBO previously shared analysis of each of the 11 bills that make up the package, but those didn’t reflect several changes GOP House leaders made just hours before the floor vote in that chamber.

Updated numbers

The updated projections show Republicans’ plan to extend the 2017 tax law and make other tweaks to tax policy would increase the deficit by $3.754 trillion during the next decade. That increase to the deficit caused by the tax changes, which CBO has also found would decrease resources for low-income families over the next decade while increasing resources for top earners, would be partly offset by spending reductions on certain programs.

The Armed Services Committee’s bill would increase deficits by $144 billion, more than the $100 billion ceiling Republicans envisioned in the budget outline that was supposed to set guardrails on the package. Homeland Security’s provisions would increase deficits by $79 billion. And the Judiciary Committee’s language would increase deficits by $9 billion during the 10-year budget window.

The section of the package drafted by the Energy and Commerce Committee, which would make substantial changes to Medicaid and several other programs within the panel’s jurisdiction, would decrease spending by $1.086 trillion during the 10-year budget window.

The panel’s bill has four subcategories: energy, environment, communications and health. The health provisions, which include substantial changes to Medicaid, would reduce federal spending by $902 billion between 2025 and 2034.

Language barring Medicaid from covering gender transition procedures for anyone in the state-federal health program would reduce federal spending by $2.6 billion during the next decade.

Requiring some people on Medicaid to work, participate in community service or attend educational programs for at least 80 hours a month would reduce federal spending by $344 billion during the next 10 years.

Blocking any Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood would cut federal costs by $261 million during the 10-year budget window. Federal law already bars health care programs like Medicaid from covering abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or it endangers the life of the woman.

Separate analysis from CBO, released later Wednesday, projects that 7.8 million people would lose access to Medicaid because of the policy changes laid out in the House GOP bill. Another 2.3 million would lose access to health insurance due to changes to tax policy and 1.3 million people would no longer be able to purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

CBO estimates that about 500,000 people would be impacted by interactions among the various health care policy changes. That number, subtracted from the numbers of those who would lose access, leads  to a total of 10.9 million people losing access to health insurance by 2034.  

Democratic criticism

Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, wrote in a statement that it’s “shocking House Republicans rushed to vote on this bill without an accounting from CBO on the millions of people who will lose their health care or the trillions of dollars it would add to the national (deficit).

“The truth is Republican leaders raced to pass this bill under cover of night because they didn’t want the American people or even their own members to know about its catastrophic consequences.”

The Agriculture Committee’s provisions, including pushing off some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to states, would reduce federal spending by $238 billion during the next decade.

The Education and Workforce Committee’s language would decrease federal spending by $349 billion. The Financial Services section of the package would reduce federal spending by $5 billion. Natural Resources would lower spending by $18 billion. And Transportation and Infrastructure would reduce spending by nearly $37 billion. 

The Oversight and Government Reform bill would decrease spending by $12 billion, significantly less than the minimum of $50 billion the panel was supposed to cut under the reconciliation instructions included in the budget resolution. 

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey,  a Maryland Democrat who represents the district where Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his wife live, led the chant “bring him home” outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt before a hearing in Abrego Garcia’s case last month. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Maryland federal judge overseeing the lawsuit concerning the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia unsealed documents Wednesday that the Trump administration had asked to keep unavailable to the public under the so-called state secrets privilege.

The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis unsealed three documents that she said did not contain any privileged information. Xinis questioned the Trump administration’s broad use of the privilege during a hearing last month.

The request to unseal the documents came from a coalition of news organizations, arguing First Amendment rights and the public’s right to information in a case that has become a flashpoint between the judiciary branch and the Trump administration.

“The Press Movants rightly contend that, at common law, the public enjoys a presumptive right to access court records, overcome only when outweighed by competing interests,” Xinis wrote Wednesday.

President Donald Trump has said Abrego Garcia, who was removed in March due to an “administrative error,” will not return to the U.S. and Department of Justice attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration have argued in court that the Maryland man is in the custody of El Salvador and the federal government has no authority to bring him back.

In a separate case of another wrongly deported immigrant to El Salvador, the Department of Justice submitted a document detailing that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was personally working with the Salvadoran government to return a 20-year-old referred to in court documents as only “Cristian,” after another federal judge ordered his return.

Discovery documents

Some of the filings that were unsealed Wednesday had been public until the Trump administration moved to seal them.

One unsealed record related to an April discovery request Abrego Garcia’s attorneys made to the government seeking information about how the administration was facilitating Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must facilitate the Maryland man’s return, but stopped short of requiring it.

Another document related to the Trump administration’s request for more time in discovery proceedings.

“It does not disclose any potentially privileged or otherwise sensitive information for which a compelling government interest outweighs the right to access,” Xinis wrote.

One document was partially redacted, because it “includes some information potentially implicated by the state secrets privilege,” Xinis wrote.

The document, signed by Abrego Garcia attorney Jonathan G. Cooper, objected to the Trump administration’s attempt to pause discovery. The government had argued that complying with discovery in the lawsuit would hinder efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

“As we explained to the government, in our meet-and-confer, we do not understand why the production of documents or interrogatory responses — none of which has occurred in the public eye — has any bearing on efforts to facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release and return,” Cooper wrote in the partially redacted document unsealed Wednesday.

A fourth document, a transcript from a late April hearing, will be released but redacted until the high-profile case is settled, Xinis wrote.

“Although the Court does not wholly agree with the Defendants’ overbroad characterizations of the government interests at stake, the Court does recognize that certain information touches upon Defendants’ asserted state secrets privilege as applied to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department,” she wrote about the partially redacted transcript.  

Children at Mariposa Learning Center in Fitchburg. (2023 file photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

While providers, their supporters and Democratic lawmakers are pressing for a substantial continuing direct state investment in Wisconsin’s child care sector, Republicans in the Legislature are pursuing another route: expanding a child care tax credit for employers.

So far, child care providers and some small business owners aren’t interested.

The legislation circulated in draft form in early May. On Friday, May 30, it was formally introduced in the Assembly (AB 283) and the state Senate (SB 291).

“We really think it’s an important opportunity to reward employers for getting involved in child care,” Neil Kline, who says he encouraged GOP lawmakers to draft the tax credit legislation, told the Examiner.

Kline is executive director of Family Friendly Workplaces, a nonprofit based in Woodville that works with businesses in Burnett, Pierce, Polk and St. Croix counties. The organization certifies employers as family-friendly “to support their recruitment and retention efforts,” Kline said. To that end, one of its missions is focusing on workforce-related problems such as housing and child care access.

In early May Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Karen Hurd (R-Withee) circulated the proposed bill seeking cosponsors.

The legislation was written “to encourage more businesses to invest in child care in their communities,” Marklein and Hurd wrote in their May 12 cosponsor memo. “These changes will increase the number of available child care slots and provide more options for families.”

Demanding direct support

The legislation has been introduced while child care providers and Democrats are continuing their campaigns to revive direct support for the child care sector.

During the COVID-19 pandemic the Evers administration used federal pandemic relief funds to pay child care providers monthly stipends through the Child Care Counts program. The $20 million a month that the state doled out helped providers stabilize child care, increasing workers’ pay while keeping care more affordable for families.

When Evers tried to use $360 million from the 2023-25 budget to continue Child Care Counts with state money, none of the Legislature’s Republican majority got behind the measure. The governor was later able to reallocate other federal dollars to fund Child Care Counts through June 2025, but at half the original amount: $10 million a month.

With lawmakers now writing the 2025-27 budget, Evers, child care providers and their advocates have been campaigning for $480 million to continue the program for the next two years. A survey commissioned by the state and conducted by the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty forecast closures and tuition hikes if the state payments end.  

At their very first budget vote, however, Republicans on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee removed the proposal along with more than 600 other items Evers had included in his budget draft. The GOP outnumbers the Democrats 3 to 1 on the committee.

Democratic lawmakers responded by circulating a draft stand-alone bill to reinstate the Evers proposal.

“Child care providers are facing increasing cost to operate while still making poverty-level wages,” said Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) at a May 22 press conference to announce the Democrats’ bill. “This has made it extremely difficult to hire and retain quality staff. [Meanwhile] providers desperately want to avoid rising costs and rates on families already struggling to afford child care.”

Child care as business investment

As yet no Republican lawmakers have gotten behind the Child Care Counts proposal.

Instead, the bills that Marklein and Hurd have introduced would make changes to the Business Development Tax Credit, which is provided through the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC).

That tax credit is granted to reward a variety of business investments and reduces the state income tax that a business pays by the amount of the credit.

Currently, a business that spends money on starting a child care program for its employees can get up to 15% of that cost taken off its tax bill. The credit applies only to capital investments, however — building or remodeling the child care facility.

“Unfortunately, we have heard that the current program parameters limit the incentive for businesses to invest in child care programs,” Marklein and Hurd wrote in their co-sponsor memo. “While many businesses may want to provide child care as a benefit to employees, the current credit limitations reduce the incentive for this investment.”

In addition to capital expenditures, the draft bill would extend the tax credit to cover 15% of several other costs:

• An employer’s spending on child care program operations;
• Spending to reimburse employees for their child care expenses;
• Spending to buy or reserve openings for its employees at a child care center;
• Contributions an employer makes to an employee’s flexible spending account for dependent care.

The draft bill also allows the tax credit for “any other cost or expense incurred due to a benefit provided by an employer to facilitate the provision or utilization by employees of child care services.”

The tax credit would be refundable: Even if the credit totals more than the employer pays in taxes, the company would get its full value back from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. 

It also would give a refund to nonprofit employers, which don’t pay taxes.

“While not a silver bullet, these changes are another step in the right direction to address the child care issue in Wisconsin,” Marklein and Hurd wrote in their memo.

Kline, the Family Friendly Workplaces director, said the proposal would help engage employers more directly in addressing child care shortages.

“We really think it lays the groundwork for ongoing, self-sustaining support of child care in Wisconsin,” he said. “The primary goal is to help introduce new money into the child care — really, the child care ecosystem — by rewarding employers to support the ongoing expenses of child care, because the reality is that the sector needs additional money in it.”

Kline said he understands that “the ongoing operational economics” is a central problem for the child care sector. “That’s why we are so focused on helping employers find avenues and be rewarded for helping defray the expenses that are related to child care and helping support that ongoing operational side of child care.”

Chilly reception

To date the existing child care employer tax credit hasn’t had any takers, according to the WEDC. In January, as part of an overall evaluation of the state’s business development tax credit, an outside consultant told WEDC that “due to the high operational costs of childcare centers, affordability would likely be better achieved through subsidy as opposed to a tax incentive.”

The proposal to expand the tax credit isn’t gaining traction with providers or small business owners.

Main Street Alliance, which organizes small business owners to advocate for state and national legislation, has already announced objections to the bill.

“These kinds of programs and tax credits are often advantageous for employers who can afford compliance and the procedural costs and have economies of scale,” said Shawn Phetteplace, MSA’s national campaign director. That leaves out the typical small business, said Phetteplace, who sent lawmakers a memo calling the proposal “deeply unserious.”

Evan Dannells, a chef and owner of two Madison restaurants, questioned how a relatively small business like his would benefit from the tax credit.

Of his eight full-time employees, one has two children. Most of the others are graduate students. Directly paying for the one employee’s child care, even if receiving a tax credit, doesn’t feel fair to the others who don’t have that expense, Dannells said.

“If you put the onus of taking care of child care on the employer, the employer won’t hire people with children,” he said.

Dannells considers the cost of child care a legitimate use of his tax dollars. “This is why government should be doing this,” he said. He observed that children are required to go to school when they reach the age of first grade. “Why can’t we take care of them from age 1 to 5?”

While the tax credit may make it easier for a particular company’s employees to afford child care thanks to the employer’s support, skeptics of the proposal say that assistance only helps some people — not the system as a whole.

“That doesn’t help keep the doors open,” said Heather Murray, who operates a child care center in Waunakee. “We’re hitting crisis mode and centers are shutting down now, and a quarter of them will be gone if [Child Care Counts] isn’t renewed. We need the investment to go directly to providers to make sure that the doors stay open.”

Child care as a public good

National child care analyst Eliot Haspel is also skeptical. Haspel is a fellow at Capita, a think tank that works in the area of family policy. In February 2024, the think tank New America published his report raising questions about the impact of various employer-sponsored child care benefits.

Haspel views child care as a public good that benefits society broadly. For that reason, he contends, it should serve families regardless of whether they work for an employer able to fund a child care benefit.

“Small business will never be able to offer a really robust child care workplace benefit,” Haspel says. That puts small businesses and small business employees at a disadvantage if supporting child care is primarily an employer’s responsibility, he argues.

The large number of low-wage workers and “gig workers” “also raises the specter of increasing inequalities,” he writes in the New America report.

Haspel says that tying child care to a job also locks people into a job — or strands them from needed care if they lose their job. It also disrupts children’s early education at a time when they need consistent and reliable connections with their caregivers, advocates say.

“It’s really bad for workers and it’s really bad for kids for your child care to be tied to your employment,” Sen. Kelda Roys said at the Democrats’ May 22 press conference.

Tying health insurance to employment has been “a disaster,” Roys said. Health care is “rationed based on the job that you have or the wealth that you have,” she added, “and we do not want to exacerbate the current problems in our child care system by tying it to people’s employment.”

In his New America report and in an interview, Haspel says the problem isn’t providing child care at the workplace.

“I’m not against the idea of onsite child care — that can make all the sense in the world,” he says. “You can have an onsite center as part of a publicly funded system” — one to which employers contribute as taxpayers.

Focusing on the employer, however, carries with it “an opportunity cost,” Haspel says. “The more we say child care should be solved primarily through employers, the harder it is to say we need a fully public system that is universal and reaches everyone.”

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Members of the group Initiative Urheberrecht (authors' rights initiative) demonstrate to demand regulation of artificial intelligence on June 16, 2023 in Berlin, Germany. The AI regulation later adopted by the European Union is a model for many U.S. lawmakers interested in consumer protection but a cautionary tale for others who say they're interested in robust innovation, experts say. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The European Union’s landmark AI Act, which went into effect last year, stands as inspiration for some U.S. legislators looking to enact widespread consumer protections. Others use it as a cautionary tale warning against overregulation leading to a less competitive digital economy.

The European Union enacted its law to prevent what is currently happening in the U.S. — a patchwork of AI legislation throughout the states — said Sean Heather, senior vice president for international regulatory affairs and antitrust at the Chamber of Commerce during an exploratory congressional subcommittee hearing on May 21.

“America’s AI innovators risk getting squeezed between the so-called Brussels Effect of overzealous European regulation and the so-called Sacramento Effect of excessive state and local mandates,” said Adam Thierer, a Senior Fellow at think tank R Street Institute, at the hearing.

The EU’s AI Act is comprehensive, and puts regulatory responsibility on developers of AI to mitigate risk of harm by the systems. It also requires developers to provide technical documentation and training summaries of its models for review by EU officials. The U.S. adopting similar policies would kick the country out of its first-place position in the Global AI race, Thierer testified.

The “Brussels Effect,” Thierer mentioned, is the idea that the EU’s regulations will influence the global market. But not much of the world has followed suit — so far Canada, Brazil and Peru are working on similar laws, but the UK and countries like Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Singapore, and Japan have taken a less restrictive approach.

When Jeff Le, founder of tech policy consultancy 100 Mile Strategies LLC, talks to lawmakers on each side of the aisle, he said he hears that they don’t want another country’s laws deciding American rules.

“Maybe there’s a place for it in our regulatory debate,” Le said. “But I think the point here is American constituents should be overseen by American rules, and absent those rules, it’s very complicated.”

Does the EU AI act keep Europe from competing?

Critics of the AI Act say the language is overly broad, which slows down the development of AI systems as they aim to meet regulatory requirements. France and Germany rank in the top 10 global AI leaders, and China is second, according to Stanford’s AI Index, but the U.S. currently leads by a wide margin in the number of leading AI models and its AI research, experts testified before the congressional committee.

University of Houston Law Center professor Peter Salib said he believes the EU’s AI Act is a factor — but not the only one — in keeping European countries out of the top spots. First, the law has only been in effect for about nine months, which wouldn’t be long enough to make as much of an impact on Europe’s ability to participate in the global AI economy, he said.

Secondly, the EU AI act is one piece of the overall attitude about digital protection in Europe, Salib said. The General Data Protection Regulation, a law that went into effect in 2018 and gives individuals control over their personal information, follows a similar strict regulatory mindset.

“It’s part of a much longer-term trend in Europe that prioritizes things like privacy and transparency really, really highly,” Salib said. “Which is, for Europeans, good  — if that’s what they want, but it does seem to have serious costs in terms of where innovation happens.”

Stavros Gadinis, a professor at the Berkeley Center for Law and Business who has worked in the U.S. and Europe, said he thinks most of the concerns around innovation in the EU are outside the AI Act. Their tech labor market isn’t as robust as the U.S., and it can’t compete with the major financing accessible by Silicon Valley and Chinese companies, he said.

“That is what’s keeping them, more than this regulation,” Gadinis said. “That and, the law hasn’t really had the chance to have teeth yet.”

During the May 21 hearing, Rep. Lori Trahan, a Democrat from Massachusetts, called the Republican’s stance — that any AI regulation would kill tech startups and growing companies — “a false choice.”

The U.S. heavily invests in science and innovation, has founder-friendly immigration policies, has lenient bankruptcy laws and a “cultural tolerance for risk taking.” All policies the EU does not offer, Trahan said.

“It is therefore false and disingenuous to blame EU’s tech regulation for its low number of major tech firms,” Trahan said. “The story is much more complicated, but just as the EU may have something to learn from United States innovation policy, we’d be wise to study their approach to protecting consumers online.”

Self-governance

The EU’s law puts a lot of responsibility on developers of AI, and requires transparency, reporting, testing with third parties and tracking copyright. These are things that AI companies in the U.S. say they do already, Gadinis said.

“They all say that they do this to a certain extent,” he said. “But the question is, how expansive these efforts need to be, especially if you need to convince a regulator about it.”

AI companies in the U.S. currently self-govern, meaning they test their models for some of the societal and cybersecurity risks currently outlined by many lawmakers. But there’s no universal standard — what one company deems safe may be seen as risky to another, Gadinis said. Universal regulations would create a baseline for introducing new models and features, he said.

Even one company’s safety testing may look different from one year to the next. Until 2024, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman was pro-federal AI regulation, and sat on the company’s Safety and Security Committee, which regularly evaluates OpenAI’s processes and safeguards over a 90-day period.

In September, he left the committee, and has since become vocal against federal AI legislation. OpenAI’s safety committee has since been operating as an independent entity, Time reported. The committee recently published recommendations to enhance security measures, be more transparent about OpenAI’s work and “unify the company’s safety frameworks.”

Even though Altman has changed his tune on federal regulation, the mission of OpenAI is focused on the benefits society gains from AI — “They wanted to create [artificial general intelligence] that would benefit humanity instead of destroying it,” Salib said.

AI company Anthropic, maker of chatbot Claude, was formed by former staff members of OpenAI in 2021, and focuses on responsible AI development. Google, Microsoft and Meta are other top American AI companies that have some form of self safety testing, and were recently assessed by the AI Safety Project.

The project asked experts to weigh in on the strategies each company took for risk assessment, current harms, safety frameworks, existential safety strategy, governance and accountability, and transparency and communication. Anthropic scored the highest, but all companies were lacking in their “existential safety,” or the harm AI models could cause to society if unchanged. 

Just by developing these internal policies, most AI leaders are acknowledging the need for some form of safeguards, Salib said.

“I don’t want to say there’s wide industry agreement, because some seem to have changed their tunes last summer,” Salib said. “But there’s at least a lot of evidence that this is serious and worthwhile thinking about.”

What could the U.S. gain from EU’s practices?

Salib said he believes a law like the EU AI Act in the U.S. would be too “overly comprehensive.”

Many laws addressing AI concerns now, like discrimination by algorithms or self-driving cars, could be governed by existing laws — “It’s not clear to me that we need special AI laws for these things.”

But he said that the specific, case-by-case legislation that the states have been passing have been effective in targeting harmful AI actions, and ensuring compliance from AI companies.

Gadinis said he’s not sure why Congress is opposed to the state-by-state legislative model, as most of the state laws are consumer oriented, and very specific — like deciding how a state may use AI in education, preventing discrimination in healthcare data or keeping children away from sexually explicit AI content.

“I wouldn’t consider these particularly controversial, right?” Gadinis said. “I don’t think the big AI companies would actually want to be associated with problems in that area.”

Gadinis said the EU’s AI Act originally mirrored this specific, case-by-case approach, addressing AI considerations around sexual images, minors, consumer fraud and use of consumer data. But when ChatGPT was released in 2022, EU lawmakers went back to the drawing board and added the component about large language models, systematic risk, high-risk strategies and training, which made the reach of who needed to comply much wider.

After 10 months living with the law, the European Commission said this month it is open to “simplify the implementation” to make it easier for companies to comply.

It’s unlikely the U.S. will end up with AI regulations as comprehensive as the EU, Gadinis and Salib said. President Trump’s administration has taken a deregulated approach to tech so far, and Republicans passed a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI laws in the “big, beautiful bill” heading to the Senate consideration. 

Gadinis predicts that the federal government won’t take much action at all to regulate AI, but mounting pressure from the public may result in an industry self-regulatory body. This is where he believes the EU will be most influential — they have leaned on public-private partnerships to develop a strategy.

“Most of the action is going to come either from the private sector itself — they will band together — or from what the EU is doing in getting experts together, trying to kind of come up with a sort of half industry, half government approach,” Gadinis said.

Amanda Becker, reporter for The 19th, and Colleen Long, editor for NBC News, presented their post-Dobbs books at the 2025 Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg, Maryland, May 17. Becker’s “You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America” and Long and Rebecca Little’s “I’m Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America,” were both published in 2024. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)

During the pandemic, when many people were reevaluating their life goals, Colleen Long texted her childhood best friend and fellow journalist Rebecca Little to see if, together, they could write a relatable, even funny, book about pregnancy loss.

“My friend Rebecca … she likes to say she kind of had the pu pu platter of loss,” Long said during an author panel at the 2025 Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg, Maryland, on May 17. “She had all sorts of terrible things happen: a stillbirth; she had to end the pregnancy of twins; she had several miscarriages. And I had a stillbirth.”

They wanted to understand why it was so hard to talk about pregnancy loss in public, and thus difficult to process.

“She and I started talking about how what we would really like to do is to write a book about why we are so bad at talking about pregnancy loss,” said Long, a senior editor at NBC News. “What is it about our culture that makes it impossible to sort of discuss this, and yet, when it happens to you, then all of these people come out of the woodwork and talk about it. We’re saying it’s like ‘Fight Club,’ but maybe we should be taking fewer cues, you know, from Brad Pitt.”

Long and Little ended up speaking to about 100 people who experienced some form of pregnancy loss and continue to hear from people with experiences since their book, “I’m Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America,” came out last year. Their book is also about how the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of federal abortion rights in June 2022, with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, has exacerbated the consequences when pregnancy doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to. In the book, Little and Long document how pregnant and miscarrying women have been denied standard medical treatments because of state abortion bans, and how many people — disproportionately people of color — have been criminalized for decisions made while pregnant, long before Dobbs.

“In some ways, reproduction in America has been stripped back to basics, but we don’t find ourselves suddenly reliving a colonial life,” they write. “We would argue it’s more perverse in some ways because the advances in medicine are available, but they’re being withheld. Like the Back to the Future timeline where Biff Tannen runs a dystopian Hill Valley, we’re going back to a place we never really were.”

Joining the panel was The 19th’s Amanda Becker, whose “You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America,” also published in 2024, tells the story of the first year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, from the perspective of abortion providers and reproductive rights activists.

“I truly think a lot of the people I feature in my book are heroes,” Becker said. “Being around them was just so incredibly inspiring, and how hard they’re working to help people and take care of people and preserve the ability to access care where people can still get it, and fighting to get it back where they can’t.”

States Newsroom reporter Sofia Resnick moderated the Q&A with the authors. The version below has been edited for brevity and clarity. The full conversation is scheduled to be broadcast on C-SPAN 2 Book TV on June 8.

States Newsroom: You both were working on these books before the Dobbs decision and you’ve been both covering major national stories. Why did you both decide to dedicate so much time to this particular story?

Colleen Long: When Roe fell, it really sort of informed our reporting in a different way, because a lot of the procedures that are used to treat pregnancy loss are used to treat abortion. So, our book was focused more on pregnancy loss. But really, our sort of principle for the book is, what has happened in the past 50 years — since Roe has been codified and now fallen — is that we sort of hold out everything that isn’t a perfect pregnancy or the end of an unwanted pregnancy. But there’s this vast middle ground that a lot of people tend to experience. … When Roe fell, everybody was like, “Oh, this is not going to affect miscarriage care. This could possibly not affect a woman who is wanting a pregnancy and is unable to continue her pregnancy.” And so what we’ve seen, obviously, since the fall of Roe, is that actually these things are all very much intertwined. So our idea was to better inform everyone.

Amanda Becker: My background is as a political reporter, not a health care reporter. So I was more interested in how reproductive rights, and abortion specifically, have really reordered our politics. It’s the biggest political story of my lifetime, and because I’m a person that was capable of giving birth, I also thought it was the most important story overall that affects more than half of this country directly. And I would argue that it affects everyone indirectly in some way.

I just knew it was going to be a very big year, and that’s why I decided to structure the book — it literally starts with the decision in June, and it ends the next June — because it was just such a sprawling story that I knew would affect every single state in a different way, and the residents in those states in different ways.

SN: What were the parts of your books that were hardest to write?

Long: Rebecca trained at [the famed Chicago improv theater] Second City, so she’s funny, she will be the first to tell you. We wanted to make this book readable … so we worked on the tone a lot. That said, the hardest part about writing this book was interviewing the people. We interviewed 100 different people, and they ran the gamut. Some experienced a miscarriage, some had a stillbirth, some had multiple stillbirths. Some had to end their pregnancies because of a host of reasons. We interviewed people from every religion, conservative people, liberal people, all kinds of different people, and it was hard. As a journalist, you are used to listening to people and hearing stories that are upsetting, but I think the thing that was most upsetting for us was how common a lot of their stories were in that they all felt, like, alone, unsure, didn’t know where to go.

Becker: I was trying to write a book that was ultimately hopeful. … I would say the most difficult points were just, like, the overwhelmingness of what was happening that year. And because my book is kind of looking at the loss of abortion rights as happening in tandem with the erosion of our democracy, which is something I care a lot about, it just would start to feel overwhelming sometimes. Like, how are we going to fix these things that have been happening over the last 100 years, you know? How can we get reproductive rights back unless we fix gerrymandering?

SN: In your respective historical research, what were some things that surprised you?

Becker: I was floored when I found out that the American Medical Association came into being to elevate male doctors over female midwives and then go on an anti-abortion crusade over the next 30 years that eventually changed the laws in almost every state in this country.

[Addressing Long:]And you get into this in your book, too: The father of gynecology did non-consensual experiments without anesthesia on enslaved women. And I’m learning this history of women’s healthcare and gynecological care and being like, this is how we ended up here.

Long: We have a long history in the beginning of our book — it’s literally called “How We Got Here” — to sort of explain how our attitudes have changed over the years on pregnancy and pregnancy loss. Because, for example, the way we view pregnancy — this was really surprising to me — the way we view pregnancy today is really only like 47 to 48 years old, and it has to do so much with modern medical advances, sonograms, the home pregnancy test. Our ideas about how we bond and the way we discuss pregnancy is just so different. 

SN: What have been some of the impacts of increased anti-abortion laws on health care and grief and loss?

Long: My OB-GYN came from Oklahoma [where abortion is banned] because she was, like, “I feel as though I can’t practice safely.” … And the other thing we’re noticing is that doctors — not OB-GYNs, but like any doctors — they’re considering where to go to medical school. And the states in which the abortion laws are very strict, they’re sort of looking away from those states because … they’re afraid of their own medical care. So I would expect us in — I don’t know, five years, maybe, let’s say six years — we’re going to start seeing like a real disparate situation in the United States, where we have some states with very good medical care, and other states, which, let’s face it, already had poor medical care, are going to have worse medical care.

Becker: You don’t find out about a lot of really bad fetal abnormalities until the 20- to 21-week anatomy scan, so [people] made really difficult decisions, and a lot of them that I’ve spoken to feel like they can’t even grieve that openly because of what’s in the public discourse right now about abortion and abortion bans. Yes, they had an abortion, but they’re grieving a pregnancy that they very much wanted and a child that they very much wanted, and I think it’s just making it more difficult for people to talk about.

Long: This is where politics is tricky. … We interviewed a lot of women who identified as politically left-leaning who felt they weren’t allowed to mourn their miscarriage because they didn’t want to be seen as a traitor to the cause of abortion rights, which is hard.

And then … you have what has happened with the restrictions and the fetal personhood laws. … This is a very new concept, to have the sort of baby and the mother have the same legal rights, and that’s what we’re seeing play out in some of these places. And it plays out in really strange ways. Because when you have a life or death situation and you have these two entities, one does not exist without the other. And like, who is worth saving more? It’s just a really complicated morass.

Becker: If you talk to experts, both legal and medical, in fetal personhood and what it means in practice, they will tell you that in a fetal personhood situation where you’re putting at odds the rights of a fetus versus the right of the gestational parent, the fetus always wins when we apply fetal personhood. And so we’re going to see more and more of that.

Audience Member: It seems to me that in the last political campaign, we started to hear a lot about the impact of these laws on women, and somehow that’s fallen out of the news. And so how do we mobilize around this issue?

Becker: I think we were hearing about it in part because it was an election season and a presidential election, and I would expect that to come back around for the midterms and the next time we have a lot of abortion ballot measures on ballots. … Politicians pay attention to what gets them elected or not elected. So if that’s a reason you’re going to elect someone or not elect them, let them know that. 

Long: I covered the [presidential] campaign, and like even during the campaign, I felt like these issues sort of only caught fire when they thought it could be a winning issue. And the Democrats are in a weird rebuilding phase right now, and so I think they’re trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. … They were really hoping that reproductive rights and reproductive health was going to drive people to the polls, in particular women, and in the end, they lost. … And the conversation is no longer happening. But if you think about it, the conversation was never happening. It only just started happening, and then it was a blip. And then now we’re sort of back to where we were, which is super annoying. 

Teen protesters call for DACA protections during the first Trump administration. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

WASHINGTON — Ximena Arias-Cristobal knows the risks that can come with driving as a person living in the U.S. without legal authorization, where a simple traffic stop could lead to being deported.

That fear materialized last month when she was pulled over by local police in Dalton, Georgia, for making an improper turn at a red light, but instead of a traffic ticket, the 19-year-old was detained at Stewart Detention Center for nearly three weeks, she said at a virtual event Tuesday.

“Even though my time there was short … the emotional weight is overwhelming,” Arias-Cristobal said during a panel conversation organized by advocacy groups opposing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on students without legal authorization and international students.

“This isn’t just an immigration issue, it’s a human rights issue,” Arias-Cristobal said.

She and her parents arrived in the United States without legal authorization from Mexico when Arias-Cristobal was 4 years old. Her father was in the car with her last month and was also detained at the Stewart Detention Center, she said. He has since been released.

“What affected me the most was the transfer itself, being shackled at the waist and ankles,” Arias-Cristobal said of being transferred by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Stewart Detention Center.

Arias-Cristobal is eligible to apply for deportation protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy. DACA allows some people who were brought into the country as children without legal authorization to obtain a drivers license and work permits and remain in the country, under certain conditions.

But the agency that issues such protections, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, stopped accepting applications in 2021 as part of a court case from Republican state officials challenging DACA’s legality.

The case remains pending and is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Arias-Cristobal now faces deportation to Mexico as she tries to complete her higher education at Dalton State College, where she is studying economics and finance. 

Impact on higher education

Gaby Pacheco, president and CEO of advocacy group TheDream.US, said that cases like Arias-Cristobal’s are becoming more common under the second Trump administration and that “Dreamers are under attack.”

Pachecos’ group provides scholarships to young immigrants without legal status, including Arias-Cristobal, to pursue higher education.

She said that while DACA recipients have not been caught in deportations, “we have heard of people (being) held and questioned” by ICE agents.

“The level of cruelty, inhumanity and lawlessness that we’re seeing from the Department of Homeland Security… is completely alarming,” Pacheco said.

That type of immigration enforcement has impacted higher education, said Miriam Feldblum, the president of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which advocates for international students and students without proper legal authority to attend college.

The Department of Homeland Security informed Harvard University last month that it was revoking the Ivy League school’s ability to accept international students. A federal court has temporarily blocked the move while the case is pending.

“This will directly harm our enrollment at U.S. institutions,” she said of the Trump administration’s stance on limiting how many international students can attend higher education.

Feldblum said that because international students pay full tuition, those costs often subsidize scholarships for U.S. students. 

Elon Musk arrives for a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on March 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Billionaire and former Trump administration official Elon Musk published a flurry of social media posts Tuesday slamming the “big, beautiful bill” in Congress, but his criticisms were mostly ignored or brushed aside by Republican senators.

Musk wrote that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination” and told the GOP lawmakers who voted for it in the House that they “did wrong.”

“In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” he wrote in a later post.

But Musk’s frustrations largely fell flat.

White House press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed Musk’s opposition, saying that President Donald Trump is well aware of his views on the legislation and will be moving forward anyway.

Musk last week said he will continue to advise Trump despite stepping away from his official role as a special government employee who oversaw dramatic spending cuts as head of the U.S. DOGE Service.

The tax and spending package would cut about $1.5 trillion in federal funding for several programs during the next decade, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its full analysis of the package Wednesday, including how changes made just before the bill went to the floor will impact state budgets and people’s access to safety net programs.

‘We have a job to do’

Leavitt’s comments came just before Republican senators were peppered with questions about Musk’s statements following a closed-door working lunch on Capitol Hill.

Many disregarded Musk’s lobbying efforts during brief interviews, saying they don’t expect his opposition to affect Senate debate on the sweeping tax and spending cuts package that the House passed last month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that he and Musk clearly held differing opinions about the package, which he said was possibly based on Musk’s reading of analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Thune said that he expects the tax and spending cuts policies included in the package would “lead to significant growth” and that would lead to a reduction in the annual deficit.

“My hope is that as he has an opportunity to further assess what this bill actually does, that he’ll come to a different conclusion,” Thune said. “But nevertheless, we have a job to do, the American people elected us to do. We have an agenda that everybody campaigned on, most notably the president of the United States, and we’re going to deliver on that agenda.”

Thune added he expects the legislation “can be strengthened in the Senate in a number of ways,” though he didn’t detail exactly what those would be.

‘We’ll see what President Trump does’

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that Musk is “entitled to his opinion” and that GOP lawmakers are well aware that he’s “frank,” but that likely won’t sway them in the weeks ahead.

“President Trump is the one that’s going to be the biggest advocate, biggest influencer, in terms of how the Senate deals with this vote,” Capito said. “So no matter what Elon Musk or anybody else says — and I don’t want to diminish him, because I don’t think that’s fair — it’s still going to be second fiddle to President Trump. So we’ll see what President Trump does.”

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman said he doesn’t expect Musk’s tweets will have much of an impact on internal GOP debates about the bill.

“He’s entitled to his opinion. I don’t think it will make any difference,” Boozman said, adding efforts to cut spending are already a central part of the GOP’s goals for the package.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said the tweets won’t have any influence on which amendments GOP senators propose to the legislation.

“No,” Tillis said, when asked about Musk’s overall sway.

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno said people raising concerns with the legislation need to give that chamber time to review what the House passed and figure out what they’re going to keep and what they’re going to change.

“We have to refocus and remember that this bill, all along, wasn’t supposed to solve every problem on Earth,” Moreno said. “This bill was about making certain that President Trump had the resources to secure our border, that was the biggest part of the election; to avoid a $4 trillion tax increase, that is something that Americans care a lot about; and to start a process of reducing government spending. So that’s what we’re doing.”

‘Donald Trump is our president, not Elon Musk’

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said he didn’t have much of a reaction to the social media posts, while laughing, other than to say that Musk is “entitled to his opinion.”

Hawley said he doesn’t expect Musk’s lobbying efforts would have any impact on how GOP senators amend the bill, before sending it back to the House.

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice noted that Musk isn’t the president, when asked how the tweets might impact his deliberations on the legislation.

“Y’all may like this or not like this, but you know, Donald Trump is our president, not Elon Musk,” Justice said.

“And really and truly, I don’t know of the disagreement that they may have with one another or what they have going on,” Justice added. “I really respect Elon Musk, and I think he did a great job and I’m very, very pleased with all the things that he uncovered. But with all that being said, I think we all should stand by our president.”

‘All of us are a little frustrated’ 

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he hopes Musk’s attempts to influence lawmaking will yield more spending cuts than the $1.5 trillion in the House bill, though he didn’t say he’d oppose the measure if that doesn’t happen.

“Well, I think all of us are a little frustrated. We’re not getting as much cuts as we thought we would, but we could in the long run, because we’re not done with it,” Tuberville said. “So I think that was a little bit of an encouragement.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he shares Musk’s skepticism about the legislation’s impact on the annual federal deficit and the rising national debt.

But when asked how influential Musk has been at swaying Republican senators to oppose the package, Paul noted that anyone standing against the bill risks “the ire of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” referring to the White House’s address.

Paul said that if he and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who has also raised concerns about the way the package is written, can get the support of two more GOP senators, then they believe they can begin direct talks with Trump.

“The president will negotiate if he needs to,” Paul said. He won’t if he doesn’t need to.”

Then-U.S. Rep. Billy Long speaks during a press conference on Feb. 22, 2022, in Jefferson City, Missouri. (Madeline Carter/Missouri Independent)

WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Senate tax writers voted Tuesday to move Missouri Republican former Congressman Billy Long one step closer to taking the reins at the Internal Revenue Service, despite protests from Democrats over his alleged involvement with a company that peddled fake tribal tax credits.

Members of the Senate Committee on Finance advanced Long’s nomination along party lines, 14-13, to the full Senate as the revenue collection agency faces the possibility of a more complex tax code as congressional Republicans are poised to extend and expand President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo said Tuesday that Long presented a “vision to transform the IRS through systems modernization, a renewed focus on efficiency and a much-needed change in IRS culture” during his May confirmation hearing. 

“If confirmed, I look forward to working with him to ensure the IRS focuses on helping American taxpayers to better understand and meet their tax responsibilities, and that it enforces the law with integrity and fairness to all,” the Idaho Republican said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the committee’s top Democrat, slammed the nominee in remarks delivered ahead of the vote. Wyden said Long “has no tax policy experience, but he has lots of tax fraud experience.”

“When he left office, he threw in with a bunch of fly-by-night operators selling tax deals that were sketchy at best,” Wyden said.

Wyden highlighted contributions Long received to his dormant U.S. Senate campaign from officials at the Arkansas-based White River Energy Corps after revelations that Long was tied to the company and its sales of nonexistent tax credits.

The Oregon Democrat said Long’s “scandals here are too big to ignore.”

Long testified before the committee on May 20 and denied any wrongdoing.

Long, who served in the House from 2011 to 2023 and previously spent multiple years as a talk radio host, told lawmakers on the panel that he plans to get rid of “stinking thinking” at the IRS and implement a “comprehensive plan” to modernize the agency and “invest in retaining skilled members of the team.”

The agency has lost more than 11,000 employees, or 11% of its workforce, either through deferred resignations or mass firing of probationary workers since Trump began his second term, according to a May 2 report from the agency’s inspector general.

Trump announced Long as his pick for the IRS post in December.