Elected leaders and public health officials in Milwaukee gathered at the Marcia P. Coggs Center for Health & Human Services building to announce that opioid overdose deaths in Wisconsin’s most populous county have declined for the fourth straight year in a row. 

According to data provided through the county’s overdose dashboard, there has been a 17.7% decrease in fatal overdoses and a 22.7% decrease in fatal opioid overdoses since 2024. There has been a 42.6% decline since 2022 in all forms of overdose death, with a 54.6% decline in opioid-related overdose deaths specifically.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley praised the use of opioid settlement funds to expand  treatment and harm reduction strategies. The funds originate from lawsuits against the producers and distributors of pain killers that triggered the opioid crisis. The nationwide epidemic of addiction and overdoses is also tied to the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl which began spreading in  the mid-2010s, causing deaths on an unseen scale.

“As we acknowledge the progress we have made, we must also remember those we have lost,” said Crowley. “Their lives matter, and their stories remind us why this work is so critical. I am committed to continuing this work until every person in Milwaukee County has access to the care, support and second chances they deserve.” 

The latest data shows that 387 people in Milwaukee County still lost their lives to an overdose last year. “These are our neighbors, these are our loved ones, these are our family members,” said Crowley, “people who we care about that live in our own communities.” At a press conference Tuesday, Crowley said he has seen family and neighbors struggle with addiction as he grew up. “And I saw firsthand the barriers that they faced when trying to access treatment, but also continue to take those steps towards healing,” said Crowley. “Healing is a lifelong journey. So to me these aren’t just numbers on a dashboard. They’re people, and even one overdose death is one too many.” 

Milwaukee County will receive $111 million over the next 18 years through the opioid settlements. This represents the largest amount recovered by a local government in Wisconsin history, a county press release states. 

“Three years ago, we were losing a life to opioid overdose every 16 hours,” said Chief Health Policy Advisor Dr. Ben Weston, praising the sharp decline in deaths since then.

Weston recalled an April weekend three years ago when there were 16 overdose deaths in Milwaukee County. The scale of the epidemic was “unimaginable” Weston said, and it forced emergency management staff, firefighters, police and community members  to “say enough,” said Weston. 

Over the  last several years Milwaukee County adopted multiple harm reduction strategies. Narcan — the nasal spray used to revive someone from an opioid overdose — has been distributed in vast quantities to emergency responders and average citizens. There are also 27 free-to-use harm reduction vending machines around the county providing narcan, fentanyl testing strips and even gun locks. 

The vending machines were launched through a Department of Health and Human Services program called Harm Reduction MKE. Another program called Pull Up & Pick Up offers residents the opportunity to order free supplies and pick them up at the Coakley Brothers building (400 S. 5th St) on the third Friday every month. Vivent Health Depot has also partnered with Milwaukee County to provide free harm reduction supplies delivered right to people’s homes. 

“We’ve expanded community paramedicine programs and peer support to close the gaps in care and reach people who might never otherwise have entered into the system,” said Weston. “And we’ve partnered with the state using real-time overdose data and predictive learning and modeling to better understand who is at highest risk, and be able to intervene early.” 

Treatment centers have also worked to overcome zoning restrictions and stigma to open in new parts of Milwaukee. Treatment access has also been expanded for people both entering and leaving incarceration, a particularly dangerous time when people are more likely to overdose, Weston said. 

“At the Medical Examiner’s Office, we see firsthand the human toll of this crisis, and while the data shows progress, it also reminds us that this work is far from over,” said Dr. Wieslawa Tlomak, Chief Medical Examiner of Milwaukee County. ”

Tlomak said that it should concern everyone that every third or fourth death in Milwaukee County is due to drug overdose. She noted that usually overdose deaths are caused by multiple drugs. While Narcan can reverse an opioid overdose from fentanyl, there is no equivalent medication to reverse the effects of stimulants like cocaine or meth. “In other words, the landscape of overdose deaths has changed,” said Tlomak. “It is more complex, more unpredictable, and more difficult to treat.”

Tlomak said that of the 387 people who died of fatal drug overdoses last year, 263 involved opioids. 

Jeremey Triblett, Prevention Integration Manager at the Department of Health and Human Services, highlighted the importance of new campaigns in Milwaukee to continue to reduce overdose deaths. One program, dubbed “Better Ways To Cope,” provides residents with strategies to deal with life problems. 

On June 12, recognized as National Harm Reduction Day, the Department of Health and Human Services is inviting residents to participate in the 1,000 Doors Challenge, a neighborhood canvassing project aimed at spreading information and supplies to the people who need it. 

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The U.S. Forest Service’s plan to close scores of research stations could threaten the nation’s wildfire readiness, many foresters fear, and erode decades of work to understand timber production, soil health, pests and diseases, watersheds and wildlife.

Late last month, the Forest Service announced plans to close 57 of its 77 research stations, located across 31 states, merging them into a single organization in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The agency described the move as a way to consolidate, not cut, the agency’s scientific work, and “unify research priorities.”

It’s unclear how many scientists will be affected by the transition, but it comes as part of a larger agency reorganization that is expected to move roughly 5,000 employees to new outposts. Forest Service leaders have framed the closures as a way to reduce the agency’s real estate footprint, citing a facilities budget Congress has shrunk, as opposed to curtailing its scientific work.

But many longtime foresters fear the closures will threaten vital research that has been the backbone of forest management for state agencies, timber companies and tribes. Many of the research stations slated for closure study fire behavior, forecast smoke dispersal and help inform evacuation decisions.

“The research arm of the Forest Service is one of the unsung heroes in forest management around the world,” said Mike Dombeck, who served as chief of the Forest Service under President Bill Clinton and remains a vocal conservation advocate. “It is the premier forest research entity in the world, on everything from invasive species to wildland fire risk, watershed protection, basic silviculture and harvest methods.”

The Forest Service’s revamp also will relocate the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and restructure its regional management system.

The Forest Service did not grant a Stateline interview request. The agency has not said how much money it expects to save by closing the research stations.

Many Western leaders are skeptical that the consolidated operation will be able to replicate the work of the existing research stations. State officials said they’ve been given few details about how the transition will play out and whether existing research will continue.

In Washington state, the Forest Service plans to close research stations in Seattle and Wenatchee, while maintaining a facility in Olympia.

“The station in Seattle does some of the most practical-based research that we use for fire and forest management,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “We don’t want to lose that work. They’ve said they’ll keep Olympia open, but we don’t know what that looks like. Are they making sure we don’t lose the ongoing research?”

Forestry veterans say it’s important for the agency to continue its scientific work across a wide variety of forests and climates.

“This is research that’s been going on for decades or even a century or more,” said Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for agency workers. “They’re able to see how climate change impacts are playing out in a dry ponderosa forest or a humid hardwood forest. There are research plots and experimental forests that have been diligently studied for decades. This could be a loss of a lot of knowledge.”

The Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory, for instance, plays a crucial role in issuing wildfire smoke forecasts that are relied on throughout the Northwest. After a hot, dry winter, that work could be critical as a dangerous wildfire season approaches.

In Vermont, the Burlington research station slated for closure studied maple syrup production and the effects of acid rain on different tree species, according to VTDigger.

And in Mississippi, the Southern Institute of Forest Genetics, also on the chopping block, has guided tree improvement programs that improved growth and pest resistance in Southern timber forests.

Some conservation advocates are concerned that the research station closures are aimed at suppressing studies that might show the environmental harms of logging or mining. President Donald Trump has pledged to increase timber production on federal lands. He has moved to limit environmental reviews and protections for endangered species to speed up logging projects.

In an interview with the Deseret News, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said that the move was designed to ensure that the Forest Service’s research “will better align with the priorities of the administration” — minerals, recreation, fire management and “active management” of forests, which can include timber harvests and thinning projects. He said the research would support not just forests but also private landowners.

“It’s not streamlining, it’s dismantling,” said Chandra Rosenthal, Western lands and Rocky Mountain advocate with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that defends whistleblowers in the federal service. “It’s going to really impact how the Forest Service makes decisions on the ground. The way the Trump administration is trying to make a lot of decisions is gut feelings.”

In a webpage set up to respond to news coverage of the move, the Forest Service said it is a “myth” that the station closures will eliminate scientific positions or cancel research programs. But many forestry veterans said that attrition is inevitable, as researchers are asked to move their families across the country to work under a new model with few details.

“There’s concern that we’re going to see a lot of really good individuals who cannot uproot their families that we’ll lose,” said Geissler, the Washington state forester. “It’s taken a long time to develop that kind of expertise. It’s scary.”

Foresters in both conservative and liberal states said they rely heavily on the research the Forest Service provides. Most were unwilling to comment extensively about the closures without seeing more details.

“That work is absolutely important, and I sure hope it continues,” said Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris. “I don’t think research should stop. It may need to look a little different.”

Some leaders said there may be opportunities for states, through forestry agencies and universities, to pick up the slack and ensure research continues, even if the Forest Service is no longer playing a lead role.

“This is still a little bit of an unknown area, but we’ll have to make sure that if there’s a gap there, that we’re working with our universities and (state) research centers to make sure that is still being provided,” said Utah State Forester Jamie Barnes.

Nick Smith, public affairs director with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, expressed support for the agency’s effort to consolidate its work, saying he’d had “limited interaction” with the research stations.

While some of the Forest Service’s work is controversial, agency veterans say its research program is valued by loggers and tree-huggers alike.

“Nobody was asking for this,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment during the Obama administration. “There was no call to do anything like this.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

An ordinance that prohibits local or federal law enforcement officers from wearing face masks, except in dangerously cold weather, passed the Milwaukee Common Council Tuesday. The measure is part of a package the council considered under the heading “ICE Out Milwaukee”. 

CBS 58 reported that there was support for the policy change even from the police union. This comes in response to the recent federal immigration crackdown in Democratic-led cities including Minneapolis and Chicago, where agents dressed in military-style tactical gear and wearing masks made arrests or used force against immigrants, protesters and bystanders. In Minneapolis, two U.S. citizens were killed by federal immigration agents during confrontations. Agents who shot another man in the leg were later found to have lied about the events leading up to the non-fatal shooting. 

The ICE Out Milwaukee package was pushed by a group of Milwaukee alders after these events raised anxieties among area residents. Ald. Alex Brower told the Wisconsin Examiner that after a huge crowd attended a town hall on immigration, he realized Milwaukeeans wanted to see local government do something, anything, to protect residents from immigration enforcement. 

WISN 12 News reported that the vote on the mask ordinance was delayed last month because of City Attorney Evan Goyke’s concerns that it might not be enforceable. But last week, Goyke sent a letter to the council saying it was legal.

“I do want to thank City Attorney Evan Goyke, who he and his team, worked very hard, very diligently. They were committed to getting to yes, in my opinion,” alder JoCasta Zamarripa told WISN-12.

Alds. Brower, Marina Dimitrijevic, Zamarripa and José Perez, who is the common council president, all supported the measure.  

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Fallout from a weekend attempt by animal rights activists to breach the Ridglan Farms Biomedical Research Facility and rescue beagles bred inside continues. On Tuesday, four of the activists were charged in Dane County with felony burglary. Meanwhile, Ridglan Farms has been cited for filling a trench around its facility with manure — an environmental hazard for which it lacked a permit — in an effort to prevent the activists from entering over the weekend.  Calls for an investigation into the farm and  police use of force  against them continue. 

Wayne Hsiung, Aditya Aswani, Michelle Lunsky, and Dean Wyrzykowski were all charged with felony burglary. Hsiung was noted as among the first people arrested within minutes after arriving at the farm. Although the activists had publicly advertised the rescue — which included hundreds of participants — as  planned for Sunday, the activists hit the farm a day early. Images captured on Saturday showed the air thick with tear gas, and witnesses  reported that rubber bullets and pepper balls had been used. Injuries were also reported, including one man who reportedly lost multiple teeth after being beaten by officers. 

The action Saturday was the second one since March, when activists successfully breached fences and doors at Ridglan and carried over 20 dogs away. Some of the dogs were adopted, while others were intercepted by police and returned to Ridglan. Although the activists were  arrested during the April 18 action, the charges against them stem from the first raid in March. 

Thousands of dogs are kept and bred at Ridglan Farms. The facility has been accused of subjecting beagles to cruel and inhumane conditions by enclosing them in gated cages, not allowing them outside or play time, and removing parts of their bodies or subjecting them to experiments without anesthesia. Ridglan has denied some of the allegations.

Last year, a special prosecutor made a deal with the farm to discontinue its beagle breeding operations by July or face penalties. Animal rights activists, elected officials, and others have called for the dogs to be adopted  before that deadline. 

The plight of the Ridglan beagles has gained national attention. During hearings in Washington D.C. last week, Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan asked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. why the National Institutes for Health continue to provide grants to groups that use Ridglan beagles for experiments, Democracy Now reported. 

Pocan highlighted that Ridglan has had 311 code violations, stating that the institute has policies about beagle testing prohibiting animals from being tortured. “And that’s part of what’s happening with this facility,” said Pocan. “So grants are still, in the last month, going to groups that are getting beagles from Ridglan Farms.” Pocan asked Kennedy to look into grants provided to the facility, adding that if Ridglan doesn’t get rid of the beagles then they’ll likely be euthanized. Kennedy said “I believe you but I have a hard time believing that. I need to look into this…Because we’re trying to end…We’ve done more than any administration in history to end animal testing.”

Following the attempted rescue on Saturday, animal rights activists and community members held vigils near the Ridglan property as well as a rally at the Capitol. Activists and supporters also visited the office of Gov. Tony Evers, calling on him and Attorney General Josh Kaul to shut down the facility. 

Meanwhile, Ridglan was cited for constructing or altering a manure storage facility without a permit, Channel3000 reported. Ahead of the weekend, Ridglan erected barriers around its facility to prevent the activists from entering as they had in March. Reports have also circulated describing masked armed men believed to be security guards discouraging people from being nearby, but Ridglan denied those claims. In a statement to Channel3000, Ridglan denied constructing a manure facility, but said  it took “reasonable measures” to protect the facility “from the announced unlawful invasion.” The facility acknowledged that it dug a trench around Ridglan Farms. The trench was filled with manure. 

Two elected members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors have also said they’re initiating the steps needed to begin an independent investigation into the force used by the Dane County Sheriff on activists and protesters Saturday. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett has said that the actions of his deputies was proportionate and appropriate to the situation they faced Saturday.

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Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade congressional redistricting, a move expected to dramatically reshape the state’s political map and potentially shift its congressional delegation from a closely divided 6-5 split to a heavily Democratic-leaning 10-1 advantage.

By 8:50 p.m., the measure passed by a vote of 50.7-49.3% out of 2.5 million ballots cast, according to unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections, clearing the way for lawmakers to redraw district lines outside the traditional once-a-decade census cycle. The winning margin continued to increase throughout the night as more votes were tallied. 

Supporters argued the amendment gives Virginia flexibility to respond to aggressive redistricting efforts in several Republican-led states at the urging of President Donald Trump, while critics warned it opens the door to partisan gerrymandering and undermines long-standing constitutional guardrails.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in a statement Tuesday evening that voters “approved a temporary measure to push back against a president who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” adding that Virginians “responded the right way: at the ballot box.” 

She said she plans to campaign with candidates across the commonwealth ahead of the midterms and emphasized her commitment to restoring the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission after the 2030 census.

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said the results reflect what he described as a reaffirmation of democratic principles, arguing that voters “answered a question about the nature of our democracy … in favor of the people.” 

He said Virginians acted in response to what he called “unprecedented gerrymandering in other states,” adding that “fairness won” and “accountability won,” and that the outcome shows “the people will decide.”

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said the outcome sends a national signal, arguing that voters rejected efforts to “rig our democracy” and instead affirmed that “power belongs to the people.” He said the vote could shape the 2026 midterms, adding that Virginians “stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country” and that “when the stakes are highest, we lead.”

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said the vote delivers “a massive blow to the GOP plot to rig control of Congress,” praising Virginia voters for what she described as answering a national call to protect democracy. 

At the same time, she cautioned that “the fight is far from over,” arguing that redistricting battles will continue to play out in state legislatures and that upcoming elections will be critical in determining who draws maps and holds power in the years ahead.

Virginia House GOP Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, said Tuesday’s outcome was “not unexpected,” arguing the process was “tilted” by what he described as “misleading ballot language and a massive spending advantage.” 

He said legal challenges will continue, adding that “the ballot box was never the final word here” and that Republicans will keep pushing for “fair maps, transparent process, and equal representation for every Virginian.”

Special session sparks fast-moving redistricting push 

The effort to change Virginia’s redistricting rules began abruptly in late October, during a special legislative session that had been called to address budget matters but quickly veered into a broader political fight.

On Oct. 27 — days before the Nov. 4 statewide elections — Democratic lawmakers unveiled plans to pursue a constitutional amendment allowing congressional maps to be redrawn outside the traditional post-census cycle. 

Within hours, the proposal ignited a sharp debate over timing, process and political intent.

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, framed the move as a response to national redistricting battles, saying at the time, “I think we have an opportunity now to send a message to the rest of the country that we’re not going to stand by while you rig this election. We will do everything in our power to level the playing field we were talking about.”

Republicans, meanwhile, questioned both the substance and the setting. Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, said the special session had been called for budget work, not constitutional changes.

“We went into a special session to solve a very specific problem. It was not meant to be used as a tool to continuously identify issues and keep what they’re doing,” Webert said. “We shouldn’t (have been) in two sessions at the same time (and) because of that confusion, I believe … it delegitimizes specific legislative processes.”

The session’s temperature rose further when Senate Democrats blocked the reading of a communication from then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who had sharply criticized the effort.

“I am disappointed to see the General Assembly reconvening this week to ram through a constitutional amendment on redistricting only seven days before the close of our 2025 statewide and House of Delegates election and with over one million voters already casting their ballot,” Youngkin wrote.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, appealed to what he described as Virginia’s past bipartisan approach to redistricting reform.

“Sometimes we must overcome our partisan desires and do what is right for the commonwealth as a whole,” Stanley said. “We looked Virginia voters in the eye, and promised them something fundamental, that Virginia would pick their representatives, and not the other way around. What message do we send to them if we walk away now?”

Despite the divisions, lawmakers moved quickly. On the same day, Democrats released the amendment’s language, outlining a framework for mid-cycle redistricting subject to voter approval. 

The House advanced the measure the following day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 in a party-line vote, sending it forward in the multi-step constitutional process. That process required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent legislative session. 

When lawmakers reconvened in January, the proposal moved forward — but soon became entangled in a series of legal challenges.

Legal battles complicate road to the ballot 

In late January, a Virginia court struck down the amendment that had been slated for the April ballot, casting uncertainty over whether voters would ultimately weigh in.

In a 22-page ruling, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley found that the legislature acted unlawfully in approving the redistricting amendment during a special session just days before the Nov. 4 election. Hurley concluded that lawmakers exceeded the scope of that session, violated their own procedural rules and failed to comply with constitutional and statutory requirements governing amendments to the Virginia Constitution.

The state’s highest court soon reversed that trajectory. In February, the Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to proceed, clearing the way for the issue to appear on the ballot.

“Certainly the General Assembly was clear with the amendment process they put forward, and now it’s up to voters,” Spanberger said at the time, mere weeks after taking her oath of office.  

At the same time, Democrats began outlining what new congressional lines could look like.

A proposed map released in early February would significantly reshape district boundaries and was widely seen as favoring Democrats across most of the state’s 11 congressional districts.

Republicans escalated their opposition later that month, filing an emergency lawsuit seeking to block the vote and challenging the amendment process itself — a move that the same Tazewell County judge granted but that only applied to his jurisdiction. 

Once again, the Supreme Court of Virginia stepped in, granting a petition for review of the case and staying the temporary restraining order, which allowed the election to move forward statewide. 

However, the justices emphasized their decision does not resolve the underlying legal claims about whether the General Assembly followed proper procedures in advancing the amendment.

Meanwhile, the referendum drew national attention, with prominent Democrats — including former President Barack Obama — voicing support while Virginia Republicans intensified their warnings as the campaign entered its final stretch.

On Tuesday evening, Obama praised the outcome on X, writing, “Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet,” and thanking voters for “showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.”

Campaign messaging grew increasingly contentious in March, particularly after mailers opposing the amendment invoked civil rights era imagery, prompting backlash and public criticism. 

Some Republicans defended the mailers, adding to the broader political dispute surrounding the vote.

Early voting data added another layer of uncertainty, with turnout showing strength in Republican-leaning areas even as both parties ramped up efforts to mobilize voters statewide.

In the final weeks, Spanberger balanced her governing responsibilities with public support for the amendment, while Youngkin returned to the campaign trail urging voters to reject it and continued to press for court intervention.

In her statement Tuesday, Spanberger said that she remained “committed to ensuring Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission gets back to work after the 2030 census, and to protecting the process Virginians voted to create.”

FULL COVERAGE: Virginia redistricting referendum

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, vowed Tuesday the central bank would remain “strictly independent” if he’s confirmed to the top spot, even as the president has broadcast his demand for the new Fed chair to lower interest rates.

Warsh, a former Fed board governor, faced questions during his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, as the clock winds down on the term of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who is in Trump’s crosshairs.

Trump’s criminal probe into Powell, over a $2.5 billion renovation project at the Fed’s offices, stands in the way of Warsh’s confirmation on the closely divided committee. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., maintains he will vote against Warsh’s nomination until Trump directs federal prosecutors to halt their “bogus” investigation into one of his most high-profile political foes.

The Senate Banking Committee is made up of 13 Republicans in the majority, and 11 Democrats in the minority. All Democrats plan to oppose the nomination, and with Tillis, a tied vote means Warsh’s nomination would not advance to the full Senate.

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, alleged Trump wants to install a “sock puppet” and “use monetary policies to artificially juice the economy in the short term, and this is his last chance to do that before the November elections.”

Instead of questioning Warsh, Tillis displayed a series of images and figures illustrating the “unfortunate, but legitimate” cost overruns at the Federal Reserve’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. 

“If we put everybody in prison in federal government that had had a budget go over, we’d have to reserve an area roughly the size of Texas for a penal colony,” Tillis said. “… Let’s get rid of this investigation so that I can support your nomination.”

Court action

U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, for the District of Columbia, last month blocked the administration’s subpoenas to probe the central bank and Powell, pointing to “a mountain of evidence” that Trump is using the investigation to force Powell to lower interest rates, or resign.

Still, the president has not backed down. One week before Tuesday’s hearing, two investigators from the office of Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, showed up unannounced at the Fed’s construction site, according to details reported by the New York Times.

On more than 100 occasions, according to Boasberg’s order, Trump and his allies have made public statements ridiculing Powell and threatening to fire him if interest rates were not lowered.

Powell’s term expires May 15. During a recent press conference, Powell said he plans to stay on, as permitted by Fed regulations, as chair pro tempore until his successor is confirmed.

If Powell stays on, “well then, I’ll have to fire him,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on April 15. 

A ‘battle-tested’ pick

While Trump’s clash with Powell overshadowed Warsh’s nomination hearing, Republicans largely praised the former board governor, who served from 2006 to 2011.

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., said Warsh is “battle-tested” after helping to steer the central bank during the 2008 financial crisis.

“During his first term as governor, he helped our economy through the crisis and restored faith in the economy,”Scott said.

But Democrats questioned Warsh’s ability to remain independent of Trump’s demands, particularly as the president must justify higher costs from tariffs and the Iran war ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when voters are expected to focus heavily on affordability issues.

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., asked Warsh, “Do you agree that the American families are struggling right now with affordability?”

Largely laying the blame on post-COVID-19 monetary policy decisions under President Joe Biden, Warsh said the Fed bears “some responsibility for the things that you’ve described, and that the legacy of inflation, what I think is the biggest economic policy error in 40 or 50 years, happened just a few years ago, and we’re still living with the with the remnants of it. I think inflation is less problematic than it was a couple of years ago.”

When Kim pressed whether the Fed should be concerned about spiking fuel and fertilizer costs amid Trump’s continuing war in Iran, Warsh said, “Senator, if my reform agenda, if confirmed, stands for anything, it’s for the central bank, especially the Fed chairman, to stay in its lane.”

Lisa Cook firing

Warren and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., also invoked Trump’s contested August 2025 firing of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, currently under review in the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The high court’s oral arguments in January drew a high-profile appearance from Powell. Trump alleged Cook committed financial fraud, but even conservative Supreme Court justices questioned his argument for her firing.

“Will you commit to defending Governor Cook’s tenure as Chairman Powell has done?” Alsobrooks asked.

“Senator, it was a pleasure to meet you in your office, and spend time with you. As I said to you then, I’ll repeat here to the broader committee: If I stand for anything, it’s the Fed should stay in its lane. As I understand that matter, it’s pending before the United States Supreme Court,” Warsh said.

In his opening statement, Warsh defended a president’s right to share opinions on interest rates but told Democratic lawmakers multiple times Tuesday that Trump has not asked him for a commitment.

Following up on an answer Warsh provided earlier during the hearing, Alsobrooks asked, “You said he never — ‘specifically’ is the word you used — demanded that you decrease interest rates. Well, did the president generally suggest this to you as well?”

“I wasn’t trying to be clever. The president never generally or specifically instructed me, or suggested I should commit to any interest rate path whatsoever,” Warsh said.

Congress’ move to allow mining in a national forest near a wilderness area may have broad ramifications across the country.

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to overturn a mining ban in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest, the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

By using an obscure tool known as the Congressional Review Act to open the national forest for mining, lawmakers have called into question the validity of every management plan issued by the U.S. Forest Service over the past several decades. That could result in legal chaos for thousands of permits covering logging, grazing, mining and outdoor recreation. 

Over the past year, Congress for the first time has used the Congressional Review Act to revoke management plans for regions managed by the Bureau of Land Management, seeking to allow more mining and drilling. Such plans had not previously been considered “rules” subject to lawmakers’ review. 

Under the act, federal agencies must submit new regulations to Congress before they can take effect. Because management plans, which function as high-level guidance documents, were never considered rules, federal agencies did not submit them to Congress for review. 

Using a new legal theory, Republicans in Congress have opened reviews and revoked several specific plans that limited resource extraction in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. But those actions call into question whether more than 100 other such plans are legally in effect, since they are now considered rules that were not sent to Congress as the law requires.

Public lands experts say the new interpretation could create legal jeopardy across hundreds of millions of acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management, threatening any permit issued under a management plan drafted after the passage of the Congressional Review Act in 1996.

Now, for the first time, Congress has used the review tool to overturn a management decision on Forest Service land. 

“There’s a huge playing field of actions that would be forbidden if none of these management plans are lawfully in place,” Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration, told Stateline earlier this year. “This could bring things to a screeching halt.”

Longtime outdoors writer Wes Siler, who has written extensively about the Boundary Waters review battle, said in a post Thursday that the vote will “destroy the Forest Service’s ability to conduct regular business for the foreseeable future.” If the agency’s management plans suddenly become invalid, he wrote, “not only could this grind industrial operations on (Forest Service) land to a halt as all of this winds its way through federal court, but it could also set (the Forest Service) the task of re-doing 30 years of work.”

On Thursday, the Senate voted 50-49 to revoke a Biden-era plan that banned mining on land in the Superior National Forest. The resolution will now go to President Donald Trump for his signature.

A Chilean mining company has proposed to mine for copper, nickel and cobalt along Birch Lake in Minnesota. The planned mine would sit at the headwaters of the wilderness area’s watershed. The Boundary Waters is the most popular wilderness in the country, and advocates say the water is so pristine that many visitors fill their bottles straight from the surface of its lakes.

Wilderness proponents say such mines have a long track record of pollution, and leaks from the proposed site would flow downstream and irreversibly contaminate the treasured Boundary Waters.

U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, the Minnesota Republican who sponsored the review action, has said the mine would bring jobs to the region. Opponents have argued that the tourism economy centered on the Boundary Waters is a larger economic driver, and noted that the mine will be run by a foreign company that will likely export the copper to China. 

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, led the effort to uphold the mining ban on the Senate floor. Following the vote, she said that supporters of the Boundary Waters would likely mount a legal challenge, questioning the use of the Congressional Review Act to revoke a public land order from the Forest Service. 

“I question the legality of what Congress did,” Smith said, according to the Minnesota Reformer.  

Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, also voted against the measure. Tillus also questioned the use of the Congressional Review Act.

“It’s a precedent that I think our Republican colleagues are going to regret,” he told The Minnesota Star Tribune. 

The Forest Service oversees nearly 200 million acres of land, managed for multiple uses, including timber harvests, grazing, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. Some legal experts fear the management plans governing those activities are now in legal jeopardy. 

“That right there is chaos,” Peter Van Tuyn, a longtime environmental lawyer and managing partner at Bessenyey & Van Tuyn LLC, told Stateline earlier this year. 

“Those (plans) go across the full spectrum of what land managers do: conservation and preservation, mining approvals, oil and gas drilling, resource exploitation, public access and recreation,” he added. “There’s a very real chance that a court could say that a resource management plan was never in effect and all the implementation actions under the umbrella of that plan are invalid.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders in Congress appeared to be on the same page Tuesday about how to fund immigration activities for the next three years as they released a party-line measure that will pave the way for a special process known as budget reconciliation.

But they weren’t unified about another problem — when to clear a bipartisan funding bill for the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security that would end a shutdown that’s been underway since mid-February.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a morning press conference he wanted to make sure funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol isn’t left behind and that’s why he’s held back a Senate-passed bill that would fund  most of the shuttered DHS programs. 

“There’s some concern on our side that if you do the bulk of the department first before that, then they could be left out. We can’t allow for that,” Johnson said. “So we’re working through that. The sequencing is important.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he “had heard” the House may approve the regular DHS funding bill once the Senate approved the new GOP budget resolution, which it could do as soon as this week. That appeared to be a contrast to the plans Johnson laid out. 

Both chambers of Congress must adopt a budget resolution in order to unlock the complex budget reconciliation process they hope to use to fund ICE and the Border Patrol for the next three years. 

“I don’t think that DHS has the money to fund all those agencies for that long,” Thune said, referring to the Trump administration’s move to pay employees from the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law during the shutdown. “But that’s, I guess, a question, you know, they’ll have to answer.”

White House officials, he added, have been pressing for the House to clear the Senate-passed DHS funding bill that would officially end the shutdown and ensure consistent paychecks for employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration. 

Thune said it will take the Senate a while to move the actual reconciliation bill across the floor, which can only happen after both chambers agree to a budget resolution. 

“I think there’s a certain time, as you all know, that it takes to get reconciliation across the floor here,” he said. “And I think there is a limited amount of time in which they can continue to fund the various agencies that aren’t currently funded.”

$70 billion 

Senate Republicans released a budget resolution later in the morning that would give the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee the ability to write a bill that spends up to $70 billion on immigration enforcement and provides the same limit to the Judiciary Committee. 

Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a statement the budget resolution instructs those two committees “to create a reconciliation bill that fully funds Border Patrol and ICE for 3.5 years, which will carry us through the Trump presidency.”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking member on the panel, wrote in a statement of his own that “Republicans are hellbent on passing another bill to provide even more funds to ICE and (Customs and Border Protection) — agencies that were already funded at multiple times their former budget last year!”

“In addition, Republicans rejected any commonsense reforms for these agencies such as wearing identification or getting a warrant before breaking into homes,” Merkley added. “Instead, the Republican plan is more money for more secret police tactics that are terrorizing communities across America.”

Democrats began pressing for guardrails on immigration officers after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. 

Vote-a-rama to press GOP 

The Senate voted 52-46 in the afternoon to proceed with the budget resolution, setting up a final passage vote later this week.

That Senate process requires a marathon amendment voting session, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech the party will use to question Republicans’ legislative priorities. 

“Americans want to know why Republicans aren’t fighting to lower their gas, health care, grocery and housing costs,” he said. “During reconciliation, Democrats are going to make sure this majority answers to the American people.”

The amendment votes won’t be just about policy, especially with Democrats looking to regain control of the Senate during this November’s midterm elections. 

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter categorizes Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ and Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s reelection bids as “toss-up” races, making them the most at-risk members of their party. 

Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan’s race is rated as “lean Republican,” making him more vulnerable than many of his colleagues seeking reelection. 

Democrats running to unseat those three GOP senators could use their votes on certain amendments in campaign advertisements or debates later this year. 

Voting rights groups launched a legal challenge Tuesday against the Trump administration’s effort to sweep up sensitive data on millions of Americans with the aim of identifying noncitizen voters, arguing that the U.S. Department of Justice is building a dangerous centralized national voter list ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The federal lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia by the voting rights and civic group Common Cause with help from other organizations, seeks to block the Justice Department from obtaining and analyzing unredacted state voter lists that include driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. 

The DOJ plans to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security, which operates a powerful computer program that can verify U.S. citizenship. Democratic election officials say the program has wrongly flagged Americans as possible noncitizen voters and could erode faith in election results.

“This is a blatant, partisan power grab designed to cast doubt on the validity of our elections and whose vote should be counted,” Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause president and CEO, said in a statement.

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the data. But at least a dozen other states have provided the data, handing the Trump administration information on millions of registered voters. 

The latest lawsuit by Common Cause, with legal representation by the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and other voting rights groups, opens a new front in the legal fight against the Trump administration’s campaign for the data. It represents an attempt to halt the administration from using the voter information it’s already obtained — and stop it from collecting more.

The suit asks a court to order the Justice Department to halt any actions to compile, use or disclose sensitive voter data. The groups also wants the DOJ to delete the data already in its possession.

Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming have voluntarily provided, or will turn over, their sensitive voter data, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which has been tracking the Justice Department’s efforts.

Federalization of elections

Since taking office last year, President Donald Trump has moved to assert presidential power over federal elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are run by the states. The president and his allies have framed his moves as necessary to ensure the security of elections by purging noncitizen voters.

Trump issued an executive order a year ago that attempted to impose a nationwide requirement that voters must produce documents proving their citizenship. Federal courts blocked the order. He is also pressuring Congress to pass legislation, the SAVE America Act, containing a similar requirement.

Late last month, Trump signed another executive order clamping down on mail ballots. It directs the U.S. Postal Service to restrict the delivery of ballots and instructs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state, effectively building a national database of voters and would-be voters. Several active lawsuits are challenging the order.

“By attempting to interrogate and exploit voter data for political purposes, President Trump’s DOJ isn’t just threatening the privacy of every American—they are building a system designed to imprison the ballot box and silence millions of eligible voters,” Kase Solomón said. “We won’t stand by while Americans’ rights to privacy and voting are under attack.” 

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In other lawsuits, Justice Department lawyers have argued the agency is entitled to voter data under the 1960 Civil Rights Act, a federal law to combat voting discrimination. DOJ lawyers have also denied that the agency is building a nationwide voter list — but they have acknowledged voter data will be sent to Homeland Security for analysis by SAVE, an online tool short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements.

SAVE was previously used for one-off searches of individual immigrants to check whether they were eligible for government benefits. The Trump administration last year refashioned it into a program capable of checking the citizenship of voters. Some GOP states have begun voluntarily using SAVE to scan their state voter rolls for potential noncitizens.

“That’s how we are going to ensure that they have the proper identification as to each and every voter,” Justice Department Voting Section acting Chief Eric Neff said in federal court in Rhode Island in March, according to a transcript.

DOJ losing streak

Federal judges have so far uniformly ruled against the Justice Department’s efforts to force states to turn over voter data. Federal judges in five states — California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island — have dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuits.

The Justice Department has appealed some of the rulings. Oral arguments in those cases are set for mid-May.

The DOJ’s most recent court loss came last week in Rhode Island from Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee. In a 14-page order, she ruled that federal voting laws — including the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act — don’t empower the Justice Department to demand state voter data.

“Neither the NVRA nor HAVA authorize DOJ to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” McElroy wrote.

Wisconsin spends less on law enforcement and on its judicial and legal systems than the majority of states, but it’s in the top 12 for spending on its prison and corrections system, according to a new report published Tuesday. 

The report, from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, investigates how the state is faring on issues like crime, racial disparities and its prison system. The 104-page report, titled “Cross Examination: A comprehensive review of Wisconsin’s criminal justice system,” tracks topics including state spending on criminal justice, crime rates over decades and a changing prison population.

State incarceration rate draws closer to national

As of Dec. 31, 2022, for every 100,000 Wisconsin residents, 311 of them were imprisoned in state or federal correctional facilities, the report says. 

Although this was below the national rate of 355 people per 100,000, the difference between the state and the nation was “considerably wider” a decade earlier, the report says. 

Wisconsin ranked 23rd among other states. Indiana and Michigan had higher incarceration rates, while Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota had “considerably lower” rates. 

The rate of violent crime has risen in Wisconsin over time despite a decline nationwide, the report finds. Wisconsin’s rate of violent crime remains lower than the national rate. The state has followed a national trend of steadily declining property crime. 

Criminal justice spending 

In 2022, Wisconsin spent less than the national average on state and local law enforcement, ranking 32nd in the country, the report finds. Judicial and legal spending was also below average, at 35th. 

The report says that over the last 15 years, the population of county jails in Wisconsin has declined considerably. The jail population was roughly 20% lower in the average month in 2023 compared to 2003.

However, Wisconsin’s corrections spending, which includes the prison system and monitoring people on community supervision,was above the national average and ranked 12th in the country, greater than all other Midwest states except Nebraska. 

Per capita, Wisconsin spends about the same as the national average on its criminal justice system, the report finds. 

Costs related to corrections are likely to go up from wage bumps for prison staff that the Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers approved to counteract persistent understaffing, and from growing medical costs of an aging prison population, the report says. 

The aging prison population “likely means” increasing health care needs among prisoners, and may lead to changes in the Department of Corrections budget, the report suggests. 

While people 60 or older are a minority of people arrested or incarcerated in Wisconsin, the number in that age group who have been arrested and have faced court cases “have grown considerably,” the report says. The incarceration rate for adults over 60 in Wisconsin has doubled since 2010.

The report says that the prison population is getting older both because incarcerated people are aging while in the system and because more older adults are being admitted into the system. 

Growth in violent crime, operating a vehicle while intoxicated and other public order offenses are among the factors that have driven these trends, the report says. The long-term impact of the truth-in-sentencing law and people serving extremely long sentences may also be a factor. 

Racial disparities 

The Wisconsin Policy Forum called racial disparities a “clear and persistent trend across Wisconsin’s

justice system,” with a disproportionate number of Black Wisconsinites among crime victims, among people arrested and among people who are incarcerated or on supervision in the community. 

Wisconsin has the second-largest disparity of any state between Black and white incarceration rates, the report finds. High rates of poverty in the city of Milwaukee worsen these trends. 

The number of Black people incarcerated in Wisconsin has decreased to 8,965 in 2023 from 9,489 in 2000, according to the report, while the number of incarcerated white adults increased to 11,627 from 9,983 in the same period, according to the report. Despite that shift, “Black residents were highly overrepresented in Wisconsin’s prisons in 2023,” the report states.  

Overcrowded, understaffed prisons 

The state adult prison population fell in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has since risen closer to pre-pandemic levels, the report states. Many criminal cases delayed during the height of the pandemic have finally been processed, leading to an increase in people being sentenced for crimes —  a major factor behind recent increases in incarceration in Wisconsin, according to the report. 

The average number of youth in state prisons has plummeted to 77 in 2024. County governments run 12 centers in Wisconsin for youth sentenced to secure detention for lower-level offenses. Generally, the reported number of youth housed at these facilities has remained lower since 2010 than in the preceding decade, “when their numbers often exceeded 300,” the report says. 

In its conclusion, the report says that Wisconsin’s correctional system comes with “significant financial and human costs.” For example, “overcrowding, understaffing and aging infrastructure of prisons such as Green Bay and Waupun Correctional Institutions has also led to several deaths and prolonged lockdowns in recent years.” 

The report says the Department of Corrections has made progress on the issues of staff turnover and vacancies. 

The department’s adult facilities have an overall vacancy rate of 14.8% for correctional officers and sergeants, according to the latest data on the department’s website. However, the percentage of vacancies varies by facility; for example, at Green Bay Correctional Institution, this vacancy rate is much higher, at 42.1%.  

The report says that the question of whether and when to close prisons at Green Bay and Waupun has not been settled, and that Evers’ proposed plan to make changes to the prison system was almost entirely removed from the 2025-2027 state budget. 

But even if the governor’s entire proposal had been approved, “the problems of a large, increasingly expensive and increasingly elderly prison population would remain,” the report says. 

The Public Welfare Foundation, which commissioned the Wisconsin Policy Forum study, provides funding for the Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project. 

Advocates and loved ones of Salah Sarsour gathered in Washington D.C. to demand his release from federal immigration detention. Sarsour — a green card holder and lawful permanent resident of Milwaukee and president of the city’s Islamic Society — was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents earlier this month. The federal government accuses Sarsour, who is Palestinian, of lying on his green card application in 1993. 

Sarsour’s son Kareem said that his father is the main caregiver for an elderly member of their family who has dementia. Kareem demanded Sarsour’s release, emphasizing that he is  a father, grandfather and leader in the community. 

Supporters are demanding that Sarsour be released and returned to his family, and that all charges against him be dropped. They also  demanded that the U.S. to stop weaponizing immigration law to target pro-Palestine advocates, and for Congress to investigate the targeting of lawful permanent residents for First Amendment activity. 

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said of Sarsour, “He has spent more than 30 years of his life strengthening those around him. As a Palestinian resident of this country, he has built a huge community. He’s a business owner, a job creator, a leader who is well respected in the inter-faith community, among elected officials, and a diversity of communities fighting in the state of Wisconsin.”

Awad and other supporters of Sarsour say that he’s a political prisoner being persecuted over his opposition of the Israeli government and support for the Palestinian people. “To abduct Salah Sarsour for his politically protected First Amendment activity, upholding justice for the Palestinians and for all people, sends the troubling message that our government is failing to protect basic freedoms that sets America apart from other countries,” said Awad. “We call on this administration to listen to the American people who have been telling them in one form after another to stop the Israelization of U.S. policy, and to serve the American people.” 

Sarsour’s loved ones say that he has long been vocal about Israel and Palestine, having grown up in the West Bank where he was detained for two years by Israeli authorities. Sarsour’s family members say  he was tortured while in custody, a practice which has been documented by humanitarian organizations even in recent years. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement earlier this month that Sarsour had been accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli armed forces.

Sarsour is currently being held in an ICE facility in Indiana. Dr. Osama Abu Irshaid also echoed the First Amendment concerns around Sarsour’s arrest. “What does it even mean?” Irshaid asked. “What does it even mean to be a threat to our foreign policy? Someone who stands up and speaks on behalf of the oppressed. On behalf of a people who were the subject and continue to be the subject of a genocide.” 

Naming other Muslim activists who’ve been arrested or detained by ICE for speaking out for Palestine, Irshaid asked, “what does that mean? Does it mean that America stands for genocide?” Irshaid said that the Trump administration  has openly pursued what it views as political opponents, including high profile people such as former FBI director James Comey, and New York Attorney General Latisha James.

“So America has to reckon with this stuff,” said Irshaid. “It’s no longer about minorities. You could be a white American and be shot in broad daylight and get called a domestic terrorist, as what happened to the two American citizens who were shot by a rogue agency called ICE now,” a reference to the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year.

“And you could be abducted from the middle of the street just because you dare to say I disagree with this government, and I disagree with our foreign policy,” Irshaid said. “And you could be targeted just because you dared, at one point, to prosecute Donald Trump based on the laws of the land.” 

Irshaid stressed that it is time for people to realize “that the weaponization of our own government against any minority group, against any people means that it could be weaponized against the entire American people.”

Oussama Jammal, secretary general of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, also said that he feels Sarsour is being detained for political reasons. “This is a free country, we are allowed to speak our minds,” said Jammal. “Otherwise we could be another rogue country of the ones that we see — what do they call it — banana republics. So we demand the immediate release of Mr. Salah Sarsour, and truly hold the American values ahead of any other agenda other than an American agenda.”

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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the Trump administration’s approach to energy production Monday, as Democrats on a U.S. House Appropriations panel accused the department of kowtowing to oil and gas interests at the expense of renewable energy.

Burgum said President Donald Trump’s administration aimed to ease regulatory burdens on oil and gas producers, and said former President Joe Biden sought to shut out those industries in a misguided attempt to boost renewable energy sources. 

Burgum indicated at several points that what Democrats called a pro-oil-and-gas bias was a correction to Biden’s “over-rotation” toward wind and solar.

“The last administration said ‘all of the above’ and then there were a set of rules that were completely punitive against the stuff that we needed to actually, you know, have baseload power in this country,” he said about Biden’s oil and gas policy. “It was just too early. It was too premature to say we’re going to shut all that down and we’re going to transition.”

But Democrats on the House Appropriations Interior-Environment Subcommittee said the Interior Department under Burgum was doing exactly the opposite: subsidizing fossil fuels while discouraging solar and wind power.

“Shortly after taking office, the White House moved quickly to halt offshore wind development and took steps to rein in solar and wind projects,” Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said. “Why? Why are we kneecapping industries that create jobs, expand our energy supply and help address the climate crisis? Because this administration’s energy policy is based on political grievance, ideological hostility and, of course, propping up big oil and gas.”

California Democrat Josh Harder called for an overhaul of permitting regulations to enable faster construction of renewable energy infrastructure. Some of that responsibility fell to Congress, he said, but he complained that Trump was making it even harder for wind and solar projects to get off the ground.

“There is, again, one standard for one type of energy and another standard for another type,” he said. “I hear the complaints about previous administrations putting their thumb on the scale. What I see now is secretary-level approval required for one type of project, but not for another. And again, I don’t think that’s sustainable or good policy.”

Burgum responded that the administration was pro-hydro power and pro-nuclear, but was wary of “weather-dependent, intermittent” solar and wind power because those sources can be more expensive for ratepayers.

Cutbacks in parks, Bureau of Indian Education 

The topic of Monday’s hearing was Trump’s $16 billion budget request for the Interior Department for the next fiscal year. The request would keep the department’s funding roughly even with the current fiscal year, which was a nearly 12% cut from fiscal 2025.

Democrats voiced their disapproval of that new baseline, including a $757 million cut to National Park Service operations.

“The department is on a dangerous course,” Pingree said. “This budget would only make the damage worse, and as the ranking member of the subcommittee, I will do everything in my power to oppose these reckless cuts and fight the administration’s destructive policies.”

Members of both parties raised questions about proposed cuts to the Bureau of Indian Education budget after the Department of Education offloaded part of its responsibility in that area to Interior. 

The BIE would receive about $437 million less under the proposed budget, a roughly 32% cut.

“While your agency begins to manage these new programs, I would strongly recommend — I’m sure you will — carrying out thorough tribal consultations to ensure that there are no funding award delays or program disruptions that would potentially harm,” full Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole told Burgum.

Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, is the first Native American to lead the Appropriations Committee.

Full committee ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who is also the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees Education Department funding, said she was concerned about the shift.

“I worry about transferring the programs from Education,” she said. “Quite honestly, (BIE) doesn’t have a great track record, and I don’t know whether or not the funding that goes along with those programs is going to come over.”

Burgum said 16 full-time staffers in four Education Department programs would transfer to the BIE, along with all the funding for the programs.

Local issues

Members also raised a host of specific concerns.

Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum criticized the U.S. Senate vote last week to undo restrictions on mining in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.

Rep. Jake Ellzey, a Texas Republican, focused much of his time on poor conditions at Maryland’s Fort Washington, a unit of the National Park Service a short drive from Washington, D.C.

Ellzey pointed to photos of buildings in need of repair and noted that a longtime park ranger retired last year and her role has not been filled, leaving only two rangers across almost 350 acres.

And subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, joked that the Bureau of Land Management’s $144 million wild horses and burros program was his top priority.

“If you can solve that problem, I don’t care what happens to the rest of the budget,” Simpson said. “We’ve been trying to deal with that for so long that it’s crazy.”

WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will step down from her post, the Trump administration announced Monday, following multiple reports alleging work misconduct including misuse of funds and more.

Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican from Oregon who lost her U.S. House reelection bid in 2024, will take a role in the private sector, White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung wrote in a social media post. 

“She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives,” Cheung said. 

Keith Sonderling will lead the agency as acting secretary of Labor, he added. Sonderling also worked at the Department of Labor during the first Trump administration, in the Wage and Hour Division. 

Chavez-DeRemer is the most recent member of the Donald Trump Cabinet to be ousted, following former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The Department of Labor’s independent watchdog started an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer and her top aides over allegations of sending inappropriate messages to young staffers at the department, according to the New York Times. 

The department’s inspector general was also investigating reports of misuse of department funds for personal travel and into allegations Chavez-DeRemer had an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail.

Separately, her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, was barred from entering the Department of Labor after female staffers said he touched them inappropriately, according to the Times. 

Two right-wing organizations are taking aim at the ban on conversion therapy in Wisconsin’s professional code for social workers, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

But the head of a group that fought for the ban says professional standards are the central issue — and aren’t subject to free speech claims. 

In a joint letter Wisconsin Family Action and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty are demanding that Wisconsin repeal the ban. Conversion therapy is a widely discredited practice purporting to change sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Wisconsin Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board included the ban in its updated professional code published in April 2024.

The code declares that it is “unprofessional conduct” for practitioners to use or promote “any intervention or method that has the purpose of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including attempting to change behaviors or expressions of self or to reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”

WILL has been at the center of many conflicts over trans-inclusive policies and gender identity. Wisconsin Family Action has also lobbied against including gender identity in state civil rights protections.

Their letter seeking the conversion therapy ban’s repeal cites a U.S. Supreme Court ruling March 31 in a lawsuit that challenges Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy on First Amendment grounds.

The high court ruling didn’t throw out the Colorado law directly. Instead, it instructed the federal court hearing the Colorado lawsuit to subject that law to “strict scrutiny” on First Amendment grounds because it seeks to “regulate speech based on viewpoint.”

The WILL-Wisconsin Family Action letter, first reported by Wisconsin Health News, was sent April 14 to Gov. Tony Evers, the Department of Safety and Professional Services and the chair of the social work examining board. 

The letter demands that the board stop enforcing the ban and start the process of repealing it. WILL represents a Christian counselor in a pending federal lawsuit to block a La Crosse city ordinance that bans conversion therapy.

Marc Herstand, executive director for the National Association of Social Workers’ Wisconsin chapter, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling isn’t relevant to the Wisconsin rule.

“I don’t think it applies because we have a rule, and according to state statute, professional boards can create their own ethical standards,” Herstand told the Wisconsin Examiner. That is supported by both the general law that applies to the state’s licensing boards as well as specific provisions authorizing the social worker board, he said.

Herstand said rules against conversion therapy are to prevent harm. He compared the practice to an electrician’s bad advice that leads to a homeowner’s fatal electric shock or a health provider whose bad advice leads a patient with diabetes to lose a limb to nerve damage or the loss of circulation.

“That’s not free speech — that’s unprofessional conduct,” Herstand said. The electrician or health professional “would be held accountable by the [relevant professional] board. Conversion therapy is exactly the same thing.”

Republican lawmakers repeatedly blocked several previous attempts to update Wisconsin’s social work standards. In April 2024, after the Legislature’s session ended, the social work examining board updated its professional standards to restore the conversion therapy ban.

Then, in a landmark state Supreme Court ruling in July 2025, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky wrote that the statutes that state legislators had used to review and suspend administrative rules violated the Wisconsin Constitution. The examining board “exercised its statutory authority” when it revised its rules to ban conversion therapy, Karofsky wrote in the 4-3 decision.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Customs and Border Protection tariff refund system went live Monday, marking what small business advocates call a “complex” first step for entrepreneurs to recoup $166 billion in import taxes accrued under President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February. 

Importers and brokers can now upload a detailed list of each tariff paid under Trump’s now illegal order to charge duties under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA. 

Customs officials estimate 330,000 importers paid the duties. Refunds are expected within 60 to 90 days, according to CBP.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision earlier this year found Trump’s steep global tariffs exceeded his presidential powers.

Following the high court’s decision, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton ordered the government to stop charging the tariffs and establish a refund system.

A handful of small businesses and Democratic state attorneys general led the legal challenge to Trump’s 2025 “Liberation Day” tariffs. 

Small business owners angry, frustrated

States Newsroom documented the experiences of several small businesses across the U.S. who faced increased costs following Trump’s change in international trade policy.

Now many are experiencing a “confusing mix of relief,” Richard Trent, executive director of Main Street Alliance, told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.

Trent, whose organization advocates on behalf of small businesses said “our entrepreneurs, many of whom were angry that they had to pay tariffs in the first place, and were frustrated by the back-and-forth over the last year, opened up the portal this morning only to see that it had crashed. It just feels like the uncertainty just keeps popping up.”

Trent, who spoke to “five or six” businesses Monday morning who experienced technical issues, said the portal was up and running again by afternoon.

Customs and Border Protection did not confirm for States Newsroom whether the system had crashed, but rather provided a written statement.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has developed a new tool, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE), to efficiently process refunds, pursuant to court order, for importers and brokers who paid IEEPA duties,” according to an agency spokesperson. 

“CBP has issued guidance to the trade community to help them prepare to use the new CAPE tool. Importers and brokers can visit CBP’s website for resources and step-by-step guidance,” the statement continued. 

Monday’s launch is the first part of a four-step process in refunding the taxes paid by American businesses of all sizes.

Trent said the “complex” process is yet another hurdle for small operations.

“This is progress, but it’s not yet justice,” Trent said in an earlier statement Monday. “Small business owners should not have to jump through hoops to get back money they never should have had to pay. We need a refund process that is simple, accessible, and fast.”

Guides for refunds

The Liberty Justice Center, the libertarian legal advocacy group that represented small business plaintiffs before the Supreme Court, has established the Tariff Equity Refund Resource for America. The platform offers online guides for how to properly submit documentation for the refunds.

“We took this fight all the way to the Supreme Court on behalf of small businesses, and we’re not stopping now,” Sara Albrecht, chair of the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement Monday. “We are a nonprofit law firm — our only goal is to help businesses recover every dollar they are owed, not to take a percentage of it. At a time when others are looking to profit off confusion, we are making this process clear, accessible and free.”

Trump declared international trade a national emergency just over a year ago, citing a trade imbalance on imports and exports between the United States and several other countries. The president imposed a 10% blanket tariff on all global imports and steeper double-digit taxes on products from some of the top U.S. trading partners.

The president delayed and changed the rates on numerous occasions. 

Following his Supreme Court loss, Trump imposed a new round of universal, temporary tariffs under a separate statute. The Liberty Justice Center is again representing small businesses in court to fight the new import taxes.

Gov. Tony Evers issued two executive orders this month that make the commutation of prison sentences available again in Wisconsin.

Executive Order 287, creating the Governor’s Commutation Advisory Board and Executive Order 288, creating a Juvenile Life Sentence Process, open up new opportunities for people to get out of prison and reestablish their lives in the community. 

A commutation, like a pardon (a type of civil forgiveness with some rights restored), is authorized in the Wisconsin Constitution under the governor’s executive clemency authority. Commutations can shorten terms of incarceration or place applicants on extended supervision, or they may simply push up the date of a parole board meeting, making an applicant eligible for parole sooner. Unlike a pardon, a commutation doesn’t erase the record of the offense.

Nine-month window of opportunity

With Evers leaving office on Jan. 4, the next governor can continue the commutation process, including maintaining the Commutation Advisory Board that holds hearings on commutation applications and makes recommendations to the governor — or the next governor could amend the process or even decide not to offer commutations at all.

Because of Evers’ imminent departure, there is a sense of urgency among people in prison and their advocates to submit commutation applications as soon as possible, before the first commutation hearings are held in June.

In a Substack post, Eau Claire attorney David Carlson, a formerly incarcerated  advocate for people who are leaving prison, wrote about the significance of the executive orders but also a sense of urgency to take advantage of what might be a unique opportunity.

“There are moments in governance when an action is less about its immediate effect and more about what it makes possible,” he wrote. “Governor Tony Evers’s Executive Orders 287 and 288 fall squarely into that category. They do not resolve the issue of excessive incarceration in Wisconsin, nor do they create a permanent commutation system. What they do is create a window, and that window is narrow.”

He noted the commutation board has a “functional runway of approximately nine months.”

“The question is not whether these executive orders are meaningful – they are – but whether Wisconsin will use this time strategically or allow it to pass as another short-lived initiative that never reaches its full potential.”

Carlson encouraged advocates to engage candidates running for the governor’s seat if they “intend to continue, expand or institutionalize this commutation process,” and he also discouraged applicants from waiting until after the November election to apply.

“These are not applications that can be assembled hastily or corrected later,” Carlson wrote. “They must be done correctly the first time and must be started immediately. Individuals seeking commutation must begin now, and advocates must assist in building strong, complete submissions.”

Carlson also notes that the first cases heard before the commutation board are very important because how “the process is perceived” will impact the future of commutations in Wisconsin.

How to apply

On the governor’s online “Commutation Information” page there are commutation applications available for both standard commutations and juvenile life sentence commutations. 

Juvenile commutation is only available to those who were 19 years of age or younger at the time of their conviction. The age of conviction is critical, not the age of the defendant when the offense was charged.

The juvenile commutation is also restricted to those who were sentenced as adults and received a life sentence or 39 years or more of incarceration.

Since 2022, legislation has been introduced but hasn’t gained traction, which would have offered adjustments of sentences for “an individual who committed the crime for which the individual is being sentenced before he or she turned 18 years old,” but was charged as an adult. That legislation would have allowed those who had not been involved in a death to apply for an adjustment at the 15th year of  incarceration, and for those who had committed a crime involving a death to apply at 20 years.

The proposed legislation and Executive Order 288 both reflect the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Miller vs. Alabama, that a sentence of life without parole for a juvenile is unconstitutional, recognizing mitigating factors for youth due to both intellectual and emotional development.

The eligibility requirements for the two commutation applications share five specific conditions:

1. Applicants must currently  be incarcerated in a correctional institution for a Wisconsin conviction with more than one year of the incarceration term remaining.
2. They must have served at least half of their incarceration term or at least 20 years of a life sentence.
3. They must not have any unresolved criminal charges or outstanding warrants in any jurisdiction.
4. There cannot be any  incidents of violent misconduct within the last five years of current incarceration.
5. The commutation is not for any of the following offenses:

* Sexual assault.

* Physical abuse of a child.

* Trafficking of a child.

* Incest.

* Soliciting a child for prostitution.

An additional condition for the general commutation application requires the applicant not to be serving a sentence for “a sex offense or be required to register as a sex offender (either currently or upon release).”

Commutation applicants are encouraged to obtain assistance, and the application even lists three organizations that provide free or low-cost services: Legal Action of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Justice Center, and Legal Assistance to Incarcerated People Project.

Rachel Fox Armstrong of Legal Action of Wisconsin, said her office has been “inundated by calls for assistance” since the governor issued his orders.

“Unfortunately, our limited resources mean we will only be able to help a very small portion of those who call us for assistance with commutation,” she said. “This process is new and developing. We know that the legal community, advocacy groups, the Department of Corrections, and the Evers administration will need to work together to ensure that the many excellent clemency candidates are able to have their applications submitted and thoughtfully considered.”

Questions about the process

During a Saturday, April 11, webinar conducted by the nonprofit group Forward Justice Wisconsin on commutations, participants expressed concern about how “violent misconduct” or “violent behavior “ should be defined for the purpose of the application. 

Another question addressed the requirement that certified copies of each criminal case, including sentencing transcripts, be obtained and submitted, but people confined to prison in Wisconsin must have their legal mail copied and the original destroyed. That raises the question: If  the original is destroyed, how can the certification be preserved?

Other concerns raised included:

*Older cases where there might not be any certified records available.

* Challenging why a question about  “any other interactions with law enforcement” is relevant, as well as “prior arrest that did not lead to charges, deferred judgments, criminal charges that were later dropped or dismissed, or instances where you have been the subject of criminal investigations.”

*Whether a restraining order that was later dismissed should be required to be disclosed.

Issues raised in the April 11 webinar were forwarded by the Wisconsin Examiner to the Governor’s Commutation Advisory Board for a response, but none were available at the time of publication.

Notifying the courts and victims

Three weeks before a commutation hearing, each applicant must provide a notice to the circuit court and the district attorney’s office of the court where offenses were processed. The chair of the Commutation Board can, at his or her own discretion, forward an application directly to the governor without a “non-binding recommendation and without a hearing or any executive action of the board. 

Applicants are also “strongly encouraged” to provide a copy of the application to the clerk of courts and the DA.

At the April 11 webinar, participants suggested that applicants make four sets of each application: the original for the commutation board, a copy for the applicant, a copy for the circuit court judge who heard their case and another for the DA.

All these copies of the commutation application raise another issue: the cost of just obtaining the original certified documents, supporting documents, the application form and copies. Brittany Lee, one of the webinar presenters, noted that certified court documents alone could cost between $60 and $200.

The executive orders also require victim notification, but that is the responsibility of the governor’s office, at the “discretion and direction” of the commutation board and the Office of Victim Services and Programs. “Reasonable attempts” should be made to publish a notice three weeks before the hearing to be published in newspapers in the county where the offenses were committed.

The staff reviewing the commutation application will also collect additional information, perform a background check, and may seek “additional input from the judge, district attorney, defense attorney, and victims”.

According to the application, the review of each submission may take over a year to complete.

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Republican lawmakers want a lawsuit challenging the state’s school funding formula as unconstitutional dismissed, according to court filings. 

The lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s current school funding system was filed in February by Law Forward, a public interest law firm, in Eau Claire Circuit Court. The progressive legal group filed it on behalf of a group of school districts, parents, teachers, students and two advocacy organizations, the Wisconsin PTA and the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN). The suit argues that the state Legislature is not fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide a “sound basic education” under the current school funding formula.

GOP lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and members of the Joint Finance Committee, called the lawsuit “meritless” in their filing and said that the majority of questions asked in the lawsuit have been previously answered in previous court cases, including in the state Supreme Court’s Vince v. Voight decision. That 2000 lawsuit found that the state’s school funding formula was constitutional. 

“For all of plaintiffs’ sky-is-falling assertions, the school finance system that plaintiffs challenge here is the same system that the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld against similar (indeed, mostly identical) constitutional claims in Vincent v. Voight,” the filing states. “That system, Vincent explained, complies with the Wisconsin Constitution because it affords every student the opportunity to obtain a constitutionally adequate education. The Supreme Court reached this conclusion notwithstanding various complaints relating to test scores, school facilities, teacher staffing, and the like — complaints that are materially indistinguishable from those that Plaintiffs raise here.”

The lawmakers said the plaintiffs in the suit are asking the judiciary to take over the Legislature’s constitutional role in determining funding for primary and secondary education, even as the Legislature has fulfilled its constitutional responsibilities by enacting a comprehensive school finance system for the state’s public schools. 

The new lawsuit argues that declines in student proficiency for Wisconsin’s reading and math test scores are the result of declining investments in schools. It also argues that the growth of the state’s school voucher programs, which use state money to cover the cost of private school tuition, have contributed to declining funding for Wisconsin public schools.

The lawsuit asks the court for a declaration that the Legislature hasn’t fulfilled and cannot “shirk” its constitutional obligation to fund schools at a sufficiently high level to “ensure that every Wisconsin student has an equal opportunity to obtain a sound basic education that equips them for their roles as citizens and enables them to succeed economically and personally in a tuition free public school where the character of instruction is as uniform as practicable.” It calls for the current funding system to be ruled invalid.

Jeff Mandell, co-founder of Law Forward, called the motion to dismiss a “predictable attempt to avoid accountability” in a statement.

“We filed this lawsuit because families, educators, and communities across Wisconsin are seeing firsthand that the current system is not meeting that promise — forcing schools to rely on referendums, widening inequities, and leaving too many students without the resources they need,” Mandell said. “We maintain that this case deserves to be heard and are confident that the court will agree.”

The lawmakers also argue in the filing that the five school districts named in the suit, including the Adams-Friendship Area School District, the School District of Beloit, the Eau Claire Area School District, the Green Bay Area Public School District and the Necedah Area School District, should be dismissed from the case, arguing that they lack standing to challenge the constitutionality of the school finance system as a political subdivision of the state.

The lawmakers argue that the issues the plaintiffs pointed to in the lawsuit are not sufficient evidence of the state not upholding its constitutional obligation.

The lawsuit specifically points to the increasing reliance of Wisconsin school districts on asking voters to help them keep up with operating costs by increasing local property taxes through ballot measures (with varying results) as well as the decline in the state’s special education reimbursement rate.

The state currently picks up a little more than one-third of special education costs, despite the state budget promising to cover 42% of costs this year. The Necedah Area School District, which recently failed to pass a  referendum in April, has diverted all of its revenue from its previous operational referendum requests, about $6.6 million, to its special education fund. Meanwhile, the special education reimbursement rate for private voucher schools is 90%. 

“The Wisconsin Constitution makes clear that localities are expected to cover a significant portion of the cost of funding public schools,” the Republicans’ filing states. “That some school districts have had to use some of their own general education funds to cover the costs of special education is not constitutionally significant in the absence of any plausible allegations that any student has been deprived of the opportunity to obtain a sound basic education. And as for districts’ need to use referenda to exceed the revenue limits here, this too is constitutionally irrelevant.” 

The Legislature appropriated more than $7 billion in school aid in the 2024–25 fiscal year, the Republican filing noted. 

Democratic lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee submitted their own filing, which was supportive of the lawsuit. 

“A constitutional promise is not optional,” the lawmakers wrote. “Wisconsin children cannot receive one level of educational opportunity in communities that can raise and pass local referenda and another in communities that cannot.”

The lawsuit also lays out how the state’s private-school choice system, which was launched in the 1990s and has grown exponentially over the years, has contributed to the erosion in  funding for public schools. There are four distinct school voucher programs in the state: the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Racine Parental Choice Program and the Special Needs Scholarship Program. Wisconsin is paying about $700 million this year for more than 60,000 students to participate in the voucher programs.

Republican lawmakers rejected the assertion that the choice programs are related to the lawsuit’s claims.

“This is a baseless attempt to tar these longstanding, alternative educational offerings that are both highly effective and extremely popular across the State,” the lawmakers stated. 

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of parents and School Choice Wisconsin Action are also seeking to intervene in the case as are parents represented by EdChoice Legal Advocates, a school choice litigation firm.

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Clouds of tear gas engulfed the Ridglan Farms Biomedical research facility, as police repelled hundreds of animal rights activists attempting to breach the facility to carry away  thousands of beagles bred and housed inside. The activists gathered at Ridglan in the Dane County village of Blue Mounds on Saturday, a day ahead of the date  they’d publicly announced for the planned rescue action. 

Wayne Hsiung, a lawyer and animal rights activist from California who was one of the lead organizers of the action, was reportedly among the first people arrested. The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said on social media that he was arrested “within minutes” for conspiracy to commit burglary. As the activists attempted to enter the Ridglan facility for the second time in a little over a month, they were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Activists  said some people  were severely beaten by law enforcement. One participant, Nicholas Dickman, lost multiple teeth after officers beat him after Dickman crawled through a hole activists made in the  fence around the facility, according to a press release prepared by the Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs. 

The conflict comes after weeks of escalating tensions around the controversial facility. Ridglan keeps thousands of beagle dogs bred specifically to be used in biomedical research. Ridglan maintains its own research wing, but also sells the dogs to other facilities for use in experiments. Critics of Ridglan have long accused the facility of subjecting the dogs to cruel and inhumane conditions. Last year, a special prosecutor appointed by a Dane County judge found that violations of Wisconsin’s animal cruelty laws had occurred at Ridglan. Instead of filing charges, the special prosecutor reached a settlement deal with Ridglan that gave the company until July to shut down its breeding operation. 

Animal rights advocates denounced the decision to let the beagles remain at Ridglan until July. This prompted a first attempted rescue by dozens of activists in March. More than 20 beagles were taken from the facility and  some were adopted. A few of the dogs were intercepted by police and returned to Ridglan. The group forced its way into the buildings housing the dogs, breaching fences and breaking locks. Some of the activists reported that the dogs they pulled from gated enclosures were living in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Although 27 people were arrested, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett didn’t refer charges to the district attorney’s office until last Thursday, after the activists announced their plans to return to try to get more beagles out. Barrett called the activists “outside groups” who used violence to breach the buildings and “stole dogs from the facility.”

On Saturday, at least 25 people were arrested, a coalition spokesperson said in an email statement to the Wisconsin Examiner. Two people have been charged with tresspassing, one with reckless driving, and four with felony burglary. Hsiung reportedly said in a call from jail that “only a deeply corrupt system will use tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful activists saving dogs. We are seeing the worst in humanity today. But in the courage of the rescuers, also the best.” The coalition  said in a statement that Hsiung was questioned by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The FBI refused to comment for this article. 

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on social media that a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) had been used to warn people that they’d be arrested. The statement said  that hundreds of people attempted to breach the gate, while others “blocked roadways to slow the response of law enforcement and other emergency vehicles.” It also said that one of the activists reckless drove a vehicle around the property before “law enforcement stopped it and arrested the driver.” 

The sheriff’s office also said  that some protesters were peaceful while others ignored warnings and attempted to break into the facility, and that 40mm munitions (tear gas) and pepper balls were used. Dane County deputies were assisted by other law enforcement agencies, though the sheriff’s office  did not name them in its statement. 

Sheriff Barrett said that “it was clear from the beginning that this was not going to be a peaceful protest.” Barrett said the use of force was “appropriate and proportionate to the behaviors observed” and that “resorting to crime, chaos, and violence is not the solution.”

The sheriff’s post included pictures of activists dressed in white biohazard suits, carrying equipment like sledgehammers and power saws to breach the facility. 

Lisa Castagnozzi, a resident of Milwaukee County who participated in the action, told the Examiner that she’d been concerned about Ridglan for at least eight years, ever since she read about the facility’s 311 animal cruelty violations cited by the state, “and yet, they just keep reporting these violations and nothing ever happens.” 

“So everyone — myself included — have tried over eight or nine years now, for me eight, all of the legal channels. You know?” Castagnozzi said. “All the advocacy channels. Going to hearings. Signing petitions. Calling our Congress people. Going to Madison to talk to people at [the state Department of Agriculture and Trade], U.S.D.A., meeting with legislators, being part of Dane4Dogs…I mean literally trying to get any of the four major authorities in Wisconsin to take action. Like we know that there’s cruelty there. Why is no one taking action?”

In frustration, Castagnozzi said she and many others decided to go to Ridglan on Saturday. Originally, the second action was announced for Sunday, and Castagnozzi said that she, like many others, was surprised that the action was moved up a day to Saturday. When they arrived at Ridglan, Castagnozzi said she saw what she thought was smoke in the air as the police fired tear gas and people tried  to get through the gates. Castagnozzi’s team decided to keep their distance, and then people started coming down the hill towards them with injuries. 

One man, she said, “had been pepper-sprayed in the eyes, like brutally. And then from that moment on, for the rest of the day, for me…my team was scattered and there’s so many people and chaos. …  people were shot with rubber bullets. People went to the hospital. Knee injuries. A professor from Sheboygan I know, she was shot in the chest and she had to go to the hospital and make sure it wasn’t a broken rib. A lot of injuries, and tons of people with serious chemical, you know, in the eyes, in the face, in the skin, in their lungs, I mean people were just passing out.”

Castagnozzi also said that she saw people who identified themselves as neighbors and supporters of Ridglan blocking roads with their vehicles and not allowing people to pass. 

On Sunday, sheriff’s deputies were still in the area blocking a road to Ridglan and monitoring passing cars. A planned vigil was not held at the farm. Instead, dozens of activists gathered at the Capitol, saying they would not give up on freeing Ridglan’s beagles.

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The Wisconsin Department of Corrections is making progress on creating a program allowing incarcerated mothers who meet certain requirements to keep physical custody of their babies, the agency argued in court filings in early April. 

Over a year ago, Judge Stephen Ehlke required the Department of Corrections to begin considering women in state prisons for mother-young child programming without delay. 

Lawyers for two formerly incarcerated women argued in February that there had been no meaningful progress in the 11 months since the judge ordered the department to establish the program. They argued that the court should impose sanctions, including a daily fine. 

The department said it wants to have a program that would allow incarcerated women to live with their babies within prison walls, but that it is “currently impossible” to set up such a program in the existing prison system. The DOC cited a lack of sufficient funding from the state Legislature and overcrowding in women’s prisons. 

In its court filings, the agency argued that it has complied with the order by pursuing a program that would involve housing incarcerated women in the community but with some of the same restrictions they would face in prison.

Lawyers for the women from the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and Quarles & Brady LLP haven’t filed a reply to the DOC yet. In an interview with the Examiner on April 10, Wisconsin ACLU Legal Director Ryan Cox said the DOC hasn’t complied with the court order. 

The ACLU’s position is that the department intends to “hide behind the Legislature,” Cox said. 

He said the court can fix the problem by fining the government “until it’s clear to the Legislature that they will be spending more money in sanctions than it would cost to just pass a bill to fix the problem overall.”

Cox said that the agency has said the criteria for its potential program is too restrictive for any person in DOC custody to currently qualify. 

In its filings, DOC said it is aware of one woman who is likely to become eligible in May of this year, and that additional women could become eligible in the future. 

In 2025, 14 mothers gave birth while in the custody of the Wisconsin Women’s Correctional System, DOC communications director Beth Hardtke said in an email to the Examiner. 

The case hinges on a 1991 law that requires the department to create a mother-young child care program that allows women in the correctional system to keep physical custody of their children while they participate. A woman may enter the program if the department approves and she is either pregnant or has a child less than 1 year old. 

Nine states have prison nursery programs, and others are considering or developing a program, Stateline reported in January. 

Last year, Ehlke agreed with the plaintiffs that incarcerated women had to be considered. He rejected the Department of Corrections’ argument that the agency’s existing program for mothers on probation, parole or extended supervision was enough to satisfy the law. 

Plaintiffs Alyssa Puphal and Natasha Curtin-Weber were incarcerated women who wanted to participate, according to the initial complaint filed in June 2024. Both women have since been released from prison. 

DOC pursuing ‘creative solution’

No DOC prisons can support housing infants, and the agency’s budget doesn’t have extra money to build a new facility for the program, the DOC argued. 

The agency said it likely could have created a “more robust” mother-young child program for prisoners if it had the necessary funding, and should not be held in contempt because any shortcoming on its part was not intentional. 

The DOC said it “would have been in no one’s best interest for Corrections to have simply started housing infants in prisons that were not equipped to safely house them.” 

The department said it is actively working with Meta House, a nonprofit that helps women recover from addiction. Meta House is one of the facilities that currently houses the DOC’s mother-young child program for women on correctional supervision in the community, the DOC said, and the department is working with Meta House to enable it to house eligible incarcerated people. 

In April 3 court filings, Daniel Cromwell, an assistant administrator for adult prisons for the DOC, said that a draft policy regarding the program is expected to become final and effective within a few weeks. After the policy is final, the final contract with Meta House will go through a DOC process for approval and signature, according to the department. 

ACLU: Too many women left out  

While Cox thinks women should have to meet some requirements to participate, he thinks the agency’s criteria are too restrictive. 

In its court filings, the department said that its plan with Meta House also relies on another state law: Wisconsin statute 301.046. An incarcerated woman would have to meet the criteria for that law and the mother-child law to participate. 

The law allows prisoners who meet certain requirements to be confined where they live or in other places in the community assigned by the department, the DOC said. 

The law requires the department to keep track of these incarcerated people by electronic monitoring or keeping them in supervised places. Laws that apply to incarcerated people in other correctional institutions still apply to them. The DOC can allow them to leave confinement for activities like employment and education, but it’s unclear whether the agency will permit this.

The DOC said that women placed in the community under this statute are legally considered “prisoners,” and that in this way, the department would meet its responsibility to provide a mother-child program to prisoners. 

Cox said that “we’re still trying to understand” the specifics of the criteria for the community confinement law that the DOC laid out in its court filings, but he contends that it is overly restrictive and doesn’t obey the court order. 

If the program was in one of its women’s prisons or a new facility built for that purpose, the agency might not have included this criteria. However, the department argued that it doesn’t have the resources needed for that. 

Cox also said that the department is trying to confuse the question of who is currently a prisoner, and that the goal of the women’s lawsuit and the court’s order is to provide a program to women who are currently incarcerated.

A drafted DOC policy includes a list of requirements incarcerated women would need to meet. Women convicted of offenses such as homicide or a crime against a child, or who are not classified as minimum custody or minimum community custody, would not qualify. 

Other requirements involve each woman’s behavior while in prison and jail and whether she has actively engaged in parenting classes. Child welfare must have approved or coordinated a safe reunification between the mother and the child, and the woman must have a stable housing and child care plan in place, among other requirements. 

Juli Bliefnick of FREE, an advocacy group focused on the justice system’s impact on women, expressed concern about what criteria the DOC will require women to meet. She said that historically, the department’s discretion limits access to programs, rather than expanding access. 

“And the human cost of excluding mothers and babies from this opportunity to form those critical bonds cannot be understated,” Bliefnick said in a message to the Examiner. 

Request for sanctions

Lawyers for the women requested sanctions, including a daily fine that would accumulate over time. They asked for the money from the fine to be set aside for the mother-child program. 

The DOC argued that it isn’t in contempt of the court order, that Wisconsin law does not allow for money from such a fine to be set aside for that purpose and that the plaintiffs haven’t provided necessary evidence for the court to hold a hearing on contempt. 

DOC’s lack of funding

Wisconsin’s budget includes $198,000 per year for the mother-child program. That’s not enough to construct a new building, and the DOC budget lacks money that could be used to do so, the agency argued. 

According to the DOC, the state Legislature has not provided additional funding despite proposals in the 2025-2027 budget process.

Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), as well as several of the other Republican members of the committee, did not respond to requests for comment from the Examiner.

The DOC said it’s still seeking legislative support for more money but has no “imminent” way to get the money needed to construct a new building to house a mother-child program. 

According to the department’s filings, the $198,000 per year is used by its Maternal and Infant Program, the department’s program for women on supervision. In addition, the department traditionally spends another $400,000 to $500,000 per year on that program. 

The Maternal and Infant Program reportedly offers ten single-occupancy rooms available for women on supervision to live with their babies. The department said it contracts with ARC Community Services, Inc. to administer the program.

Women take part in the program for approximately six months at a time, the department said. In 2024, about 25 women were referred for the program, with 11 admitted and six successfully completing the program.

‘A critical step’ 

The advocacy group FREE said it is working with partners like the Ostara Initiative to develop community-based alternatives that meet the requirements of statute while advancing their goal of ending the immediate separation of newborns and incarcerated mothers. 

“This is a critical step toward eliminating jail and prison births in our state, and we invite community members to join us in this work,” FREE said. 

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Some of the Trump administration’s controversial new warehouse immigration detention centers are getting scaled back and postponed as states and cities fight back and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reviews actions taken by his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem.

Some states and cities have seen more communication and compromise as Mullin takes over and the Department of Homeland Security faces a continued funding shutdown that has reached 60 days.

That includes discussions about a proposed Arizona detention center where DHS agreed to scale back the number of prisoners by two-thirds and pay a city for lost taxes, and a proposed center in Maryland with a similar offer from the department. A lawsuit also is holding up work on that detention center. And in Georgia, a small city cut off the water supply to a proposed immigrant holding site.

A plan to house up to 1,500 immigrants in Surprise, Arizona, starting as soon as May was scaled back to 542 detainees starting in October at the earliest, and DHS agreed to pay the city $300,000 a year for lost property taxes. The department also may offer more to help with any police costs, after negotiations with DHS under Mullin.

“With the new leadership there’s been a lot of communication,” Surprise Mayor Kevin Sartor told a local radio show April 15, a contrast to the “very frustrating” experience of how the city learned from news reports in January that DHS had purchased a 418,000-square-foot distribution center for $70 million.   

“We do have a different leadership style,” Mullin said in a CNBC interview April 16, comparing himself to Noem. “We want to make sure people understand that we’re here working for the people, not against you.” 

In Maryland, the new DHS administration has also offered a scale-back from 1,500 detainees to 542, in a Williamsport warehouse bought for $102 million in January. An April 15 court order keeps most work on the center paused as the state continues a lawsuit claiming “impacts on the environmental, economic, and public health and safety interests of the state.”

In Arizona, dozens of Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter in April asking the city of Surprise to “stop the facility from opening at all costs,” but Mayor Sartor has said he doesn’t see a legal basis for a lawsuit. The mayor’s office is nonpartisan, but Republicans predominate among registered voters in the city by almost 2-1 over Democrats. 

Communities across the country are facing the results of a massive detention expansion fueled in large part by the record $45 billion approved for increased immigration detention by Congress last summer.

U.S. Reps. Maxwell Frost & Darren Soto tell Kristi Noem not to open ICE facility in Central Florida

Other state and local action on the plan to repurpose warehouses for detention centers include a Kansas City, Missouri, ban on nonmunicipal detention facilities passed in January, Developers halted the sale of a south Kansas City warehouse in February.

Owners of an Indiana warehouse sent a letter saying they weren’t in active negotiations with for the site, which had been reported as a potential detention center and drew local opposition from the town of Merrillville. Democratic lawmakers in Florida opposed plans for a warehouse detention center near Orlando in February, while some Republican lawmakers supported it. 

In Georgia, the city of Social Circle cut off water and sewer service for a $128.6 million warehouse proposed to hold 10,000 detainees, saying the town of 5,000 people did not have the capacity to serve it.

“The city’s infrastructure cannot accommodate this level of demand,” according to a February statement from the city, despite a “certainly creative” solution suggested by DHS to fill a water-supply cistern at times of low demand.  

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