Young Black men in cities across America died of drug overdoses at high rates in the 1980s and 1990s. During the recent fentanyl crisis, older Black men in many cities have been dying at unusually high rates.

They’re all from the same generation.

An investigation of millions of death records — in a partnership between The New York Times, The Baltimore Banner, Big Local News and nine other newsrooms across the country — reveals the extent to which drug overdose deaths have affected one group of Black men in dozens of cities across America at nearly every stage of their adult lives.

In recent years, the opioid epidemic has brought dangerous drugs to every corner of the country, and overdoses have risen among younger, whiter and more rural populations.

That huge tide now appears to be ebbing — but not for this group of Black men. In the 10 cities examined in this partnership, including Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Newark, Washington, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, Black men ages 54 to 73 have been dying from overdoses at more than four times the rate of men of other races.

“They were resilient enough to live through a bunch of other epidemics — HIV, crack, COVID, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis — only to be killed by fentanyl,” said Tracie M. Gardner, the executive director of the National Black Harm Reduction Network and a former New York state health official.

In all, the analysis identified dozens of cities, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest, where a generation of Black men were at higher risk of overdose deaths throughout their lives. In many of those places, cities have done little to distribute resources to this population.

The details vary from city to city.

• In Chicago, there is no focused effort in nearly $1.3 billion of state opioid settlement money to help older Black men, despite a heavy death toll for this group, The Chicago Sun-Times found.
• In Pittsburgh, Black men in jail with opioid use disorders have been less likely to receive medications to combat their addictions than white men, a PublicSource investigation has found, though local officials are working to close the gap.
• In San Francisco, many of the men vulnerable to overdoses use both opioids and cocaine, a combination that may make treating their addictions more complex, according to an analysis of mortality data by The San Francisco Standard.
• In Newark, NJ.com/The Star-Ledger also found that overdose victims were using both opioids and cocaine.
• In Baltimore, hundreds of men have been dying in senior housing, The Baltimore Banner found.
• In Philadelphia, older Black men were actually less likely to die than their white peers — until recently. By 2018, their death rate had shot up, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer analysis.
• In Washington, local regulations and insurers have prevented doctors from giving longtime opioid users effective doses of drugs meant to curb their cravings, reporters for The 51st found.
• In Indianapolis, Black men said they were reluctant to use public health solutions like syringe exchanges or fentanyl test strips because of a fear of harassment by police, Mirror Indy found.
• In Milwaukee, around half of older Black men lost to drugs spent time in state prison. Wisconsin is trying to increase access to a Department of Corrections treatment program, which has a waitlist of 11,700, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Wisconsin Watch found.
• In Boston, where this generational disparity is a more recent phenomenon, older Black men feel less welcome in treatment programs, the Boston Globe found.

‘Dying for decades’

Black men of this generation, born from 1951 to 1970, came of age at a time of wide economic disparities between Black and white people in their cities. Some of them served in Vietnam, where they were first exposed to heroin. In cities where heroin was available, others started using the drug closer to home in the 1970s and ’80s, and became addicted.

Many have continued to use drugs on and off for decades. Though some managed their addictions safely, the risk of overdose was always there.

Mark Robinson, 66, grew up in Washington and now runs a syringe exchange program in the city. He estimates he knows 50 people who have died over the years from overdoses, including one of his best friends.

“Black men didn’t just start dying,” he said. “We’ve been dying for decades as a direct result of opioid use disorder.”

The cities with this pattern of drug deaths tend to be places with large Black populations, intense residential segregation and heroin markets that were active in the 1970s, when the oldest of these men were young and first became exposed to illicit drugs, according to Dr. Dan Ciccarone, a professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Heroin has become an endemic problem,” he said. “It never went away.”

In addition to the risk of overdose, men of this generation lived through convulsions in public health and criminal justice. In the 1980s, some became exposed to HIV through drug injections. In the 1990s, more aggressive sentences for drug crimes meant many of them spent time in jails or prisons.

Several public health researchers said widespread incarceration may have reduced these men’s chances of staying clean. “You’re basically disarming them from having a good life,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, a professor of public health at the University of Southern California, who has studied injection drug users for decades. “They lose girlfriends, they lose houses, they lose connections to their children.”

They have lived through the social upheavals of COVID, a period of isolation that coincided with an increase in the overdose rate for nearly all groups.

They also stand to benefit from the recent embrace of more medical approaches to drug addiction. Drugs that can reverse an overdose are widely distributed in many cities now. And more doctors are willing to prescribe medications that can curb drug cravings for people who want to quit.

But in many of the cities where older Black men are dying at high rates, those innovations may not be reaching this group.

Decades of drug use, criminal risk and stigma have made some reluctant to discuss their addictions. The Philadelphia council member Kendra Brooks said she recently learned about nine overdoses among older Black residents in her neighborhood. The overdoses had happened quietly, in private homes.

“In this generation, you don’t get high in public,” Brooks said. “It’s something very private and personal. Amongst folks that I know, it’s like a secret disease.”

Older Black drug users have been less likely than white ones to receive prescription medicines that are now the gold standard for addiction treatment.

Medicare, the public program that insures older Americans, tends to cover fewer addiction services than insurance for younger people.

And, more generally, many outreach programs are aimed at younger populations.

“If you go to a harm reduction program, it’s not typically set up with older folks in mind,” said Brendan Saloner, a professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, who studies access to health care among people who use drugs. “They’re not in any way unwelcome, but they’re not generally the target.”

In Chicago, Fanya Burford-Berry, who directs the West Side Heroin and Opioid Task Force, pleaded with state officials to devote more resources to the city’s older Black drug users at a recent meeting.

“It seems like there’s a blind spot when it comes to prioritizing Black men, older Black men and drug usage,” she said.

‘Not any real heroin’

This generation’s experience also highlights how much more dangerous the drug supply has become. Despite better treatment and more resources to combat addiction, the overdose death rate among older Black men in these cities has risen in recent years, as heroin has been replaced by the more potent fentanyl.

“There is not any real heroin being sold in the streets, period,” said Joe Henery, 77. Henery, who lives in Washington, used heroin for 30 years before getting clean. He said his friends who are still alive were “fortunate enough to survive the epidemics of all sorts,” but he worries about the risk of overdose for those who are still using. What was once heroin in Washington is now almost all either replaced by or mixed with fentanyl.

Fentanyl is easier for cartels to manufacture in labs and smuggle into the country. But the high doesn’t last as long as heroin’s, which often means drug users take more doses a day to avoid withdrawal symptoms. And its variable strength makes it more likely for even experienced users to take a fatal dose accidentally.

Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, said the pattern of deaths in Baltimore reported by The Times and The Banner has caused her to seek new research on why these men are dying and how to prevent it.

Volkow acknowledged that their drug addiction has long placed them at risk, but she said that fentanyl has greatly intensified that risk.

“If you were, in the past, using heroin, your chances of dying were much, much lower than your chances of dying now,” she said. “The key element now is the dangerousness of the drugs.”

Reporting was contributed by Cheryl Phillips, Eric Sagara, Sarah Cohen and Justin Mayo of Big Local News; Frank Main, Elvia Malagón and Erica Thompson of The Chicago Sun-Times; Aubrey Whelan and Joe Yerardi of The Philadelphia Inquirer; Venuri Siriwardane and Jamie Wiggan of PublicSource; Abigail Higgins and Colleen Grablick of The 51st; Ryan Little of The Baltimore Banner; David Sjostedt, Noah Baustin and George Kelly of The San Francisco Standard; Steve Strunsky and Riley Yates of NJ.com/The Star-Ledger; Darian Benson and Mary Claire Molloy of Mirror Indy; Edgar Mendez and Devin Blake of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Wisconsin Watch; and Chris Serres and Yoohyun Jung of the Boston Globe.

About this project

The data and methodology behind this project can be downloaded from the Stanford Digital Repository. This article was published in partnership with The Baltimore Banner, Stanford’s Big Local News and other local news outlets: The Chicago Sun-Times; The Philadelphia Inquirer; PublicSource; The 51st; The San Francisco Standard; NJ.com/The Star-Ledger; Mirror Indy; Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Wisconsin Watch; and the Boston Globe.

How drug overdose deaths have plagued one generation of Black men for decades is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In many ways, Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar’s life story involved redemption. A victim of abuse who was exposed to alcohol and drugs while growing up on Milwaukee’s North Side, he made dangerous choices as a teenager. By age 19, he landed in prison after shooting and killing a man during a 1988 drug house robbery. 

But he worked on himself while incarcerated, his wife Desilynn Smith recalled. After he walked out of prison for good, he found a calling as a peace activist. He became a violence interrupter for Milwaukee’s 414 Life program, aiming to prevent gun violence through de-escalation and intervention. 

Abd-Al-Jabbar may have looked healed on the outside, but he never moved past the trauma that shaped much of his life, Smith said. He wouldn’t ask for help.

That’s why Smith still grieves. Her husband died in February 2021 after ingesting a drug mixture that included fentanyl and cocaine. He was 51.

Smith now wears his fingerprint on a charm bracelet as a physical reminder of the man she knew and loved for most of her life.

“He never learned how to cope with things in a healthy way,” said Smith, executive director of Uniting Garden Homes, Inc., an organization that provides mental health and substance use services on Milwaukee’s North Side. “In our communities addiction is frowned upon, so people don’t get the help they need.”

Abd-Al-Jabbar is part of a generation of Milwaukee’s older Black men who are disproportionately dying from drug poisonings and overdoses, even as the opioid epidemic slows for others.

Milwaukee County is among dozens of U.S. counties where drugs are disproportionately killing a generation of Black men, born between 1951 and 1970, an analysis by The Baltimore Banner, The New York Times and Stanford University’s Big Local News found. Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Wisconsin Watch are collaborating with them and eight other newsrooms to examine this pattern.

Times and Banner reporters initially identified the pattern in Baltimore. They later found the same effect in dozens of counties nationwide.

In Milwaukee, Black men of the generation accounted for 12.5% of all drug deaths between 2018 and 2022. That’s despite making up just 2.3% of the total population. 

The county’s older Black men were lost to drugs at rates 14.2 times higher than all people nationally and 5.5 times higher than all other Milwaukee County residents. 

Six other Wisconsin counties — Brown, Dane, Kenosha, Racine, Rock and Waukesha — ranked among the top 408 nationally in drug deaths during the years analyzed. But Milwaukee was the only one in Wisconsin where this generation of Black men died at such staggering rates.

Milwaukee trend accelerates

The trend in Milwaukee County has only accelerated since 2022, the last year of the Times and Banner analysis, even as the county’s total drug deaths decline, Milwaukee NNS and Wisconsin Watch found.

Drugs killed 74 of the county’s older Black men in 2024. The group made up 17.3% of all drug deaths  — up from 16.2% in 2023 and 14.1% the previous year, medical examiner data shows.

Abd-Al-Jabbar’s story shares similarities with many of those men. Most used cocaine that was cut with stronger fentanyl — the faster-acting drug has fueled the national opioid epidemic. Most had a history of incarceration. 

They lived in a state that imprisons Black men at one of the country’s highest rates. Wisconsin is also home to some of the country’s widest disparities in education, public health, housing and income. Milwaukee, its biggest city, helps drive those trends. 

Marc Levine, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researcher, concluded in 2020 that “Black Milwaukee is generally worse off today than it was 40 or 50 years ago” when considering dozens of quality of life indicators.

Meanwhile, limited options and lingering stigma prevent a generation of Black men from accessing drug treatment, local experts told Milwaukee NNS and Wisconsin Watch.  

“Black men experience higher rates of community violence, are often untreated for mental health issues and experience greater levels of systemic racism than other groups,” said Lia Knox, a Milwaukee mental wellness consultant. “These all elevate their risk of incarceration, addiction and also death.” 

A network of organizations providing comprehensive treatment offers hope, but these resources fall far short of meeting community needs. 

A silent struggle 

Smith and Abd-Al-Jabbar first started dating at 14, and they had a child together at 16. But as their relationship blossomed, Smith said, Abd-Al-Jabbar silently struggled with what she suspects was an undiagnosed mental health illness linked to childhood trauma.

“A lot of the bad behaviors he had were learned behaviors,” Smith said. 

Abd-Al-Jabbar became suicidal as a teen and began robbing drug dealers. 

When he entered prison, Abd-Al-Jabbar read and wrote at a fifth grade level and coped like a 10-year-old, Smith said. By age 21, she said, he’d already spent two years in solitary confinement. But he had the resolve to change. He began to read voraciously and converted to Islam. 

He was released from prison after 11 years, but returned multiple times before leaving for good in 2018. Smith and Abd-Al-Jabbar married, and he started earning praise for preventing bloodshed as a violence interrupter. 

Still, he struggled under the pressures of his new calling. The work added weight to the trauma he carried into and out of prison. His mental health only worsened, Smith said, and he turned back to drugs as a coping mechanism.   

“The main thing he learned in prison was how to survive,” she said. 

Most men lost were formerly incarcerated

At least half of Milwaukee’s older Black men lost to drugs in 2024 served time in state prison, Milwaukee NNS and Wisconsin Watch found by cross-referencing Department of Corrections and medical examiner records. More than a dozen other men on that list interacted with the criminal justice system in some way. Some served time in jail. For others, full records weren’t available.

Most of the men left prison decades or years before they died. But three died within about a year of their release. A 55-year-old North Side man died just 22 days after release. 

National studies have found high rates of substance use disorders among people who are incarcerated but low rates of treatment. Jails and prisons often fail to meet the demands for such services. 

In Wisconsin, DOC officials and prisoners say drugs are routinely entering prisons, putting prisoners and staff at risk and increasing challenges for people facing addiction. 

Thousands wait for treatment in prison

The DOC as of last December enrolled 815 people in substance abuse treatment programs, but its waitlist for such services was far higher: more than 11,700.   

“You don’t really get the treatment you need in prison,” said Randy Mack, a 66-year-old Black man who served time in Wisconsin’s Columbia, Fox Lake, Green Bay and Kettle Moraine correctional institutions.

Leaving prison can be a particularly vulnerable time for relapse, Mack said. Some men manage to stop using drugs while incarcerated. They think they are safe, only to struggle when they leave. 

“You get back out on the streets and you see the same people and fall into the same traps,” Mack said. 

Knox, the wellness consultant, agrees. After being disconnected from their communities, many men, especially older ones, leave prison feeling isolated and unable to ask for help. They turn to drugs. 

“Now with the opioids, they’re overdosing and dying more often,” she said. 

For those who complete drug treatment in prison, the DOC offers a 12-month medicated-assisted treatment program to reduce the chances of drug overdoses. Those who qualify receive a first injection of the drug naltrexone shortly before their release from prison. They continue to receive monthly injections and therapy for a year. 

Access to the program is uneven across the state. Corrections officials have sought to expand it using settlement money from national opioids litigation. In its latest two-year budget request the department set a goal for hiring more vendors to administer the program. 

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers plans to release his full budget proposal next month. His past proposals have sought millions of dollars for treatment and other rehabilitation programs. The Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected or reduced funding in most cases.

Mack said he received some help while in prison, but it wasn’t intense enough to make a breakthrough. Now he’s getting more holistic treatment from Serenity Inns, a North Side recovery program for men. 

Executive Director Kenneth Ginlack said the organization helps men through up to 20 hours of mental health and substance use treatment each week. 

What’s key, Ginlack said, is that most of his staff, including himself, are in recovery. 

“We understand them not just from a recovery standpoint, but we were able to go back to our own experiences and talk to them about that,” he said. “That’s how we build trust in the community.” 

Fentanyl catches cocaine users unaware

Many of the older men dying were longtime users of stimulants, like crack cocaine, Ginlack said, adding they had “no idea that the stimulants are cut with fentanyl.”

They don’t feel the need to use test strips to check for fentanyl or carry Narcan to reverse the effects of opioid poisoning, he said. 

Last year, 84% of older Black men killed by drugs had cocaine in their system, and 61% had fentanyl, Milwaukee NNS and Wisconsin Watch found. More than half ingested both drugs. 

Months after relapsing, Alfred Carter, 61, decided he was ready to kick his cocaine habit. 

When he showed up to a Milwaukee detox center in October, he was shocked to learn he had fentanyl in his system. 

“What made it so bad is that I hear all the stories about people putting fentanyl in cocaine, but I said not my people,” Carter said. “It puts a healthy fear in my life, because at any time I can overdose — not even knowing that I’m taking it.” 

Awareness is slowly increasing, Ginlack said, as more men in his program share stories about losing loved ones.

Milwaukee’s need outpaces resources 

Expanding on its original outpatient treatment center on West Brown Street, Serenity Inns now also runs a residential treatment facility and a transitional living program and opened a drop-in clinic in January.

Still, those don’t come close to meeting demands for its services. 

“We’re the only treatment center in Milwaukee County that takes people without insurance, so a lot of other centers send people our way,” said Ginlack, who said the county typically runs about 200 beds short of meeting demand.

“My biggest fear is someone calls for that bed and the next day they have a fatal overdose because one wasn’t available.”  

‘I don’t want to lose hope’

Carter and Mack each intend to complete their programs soon. It’s Mack’s fourth time in treatment and his second stint at Serenity Inns. This time, he expects to succeed. He wants to move into Serenity Inns’ apartment building — continuing his recovery and working toward becoming a drug counselor. 

“My thinking pattern has changed,” Mack said. “I’m going to use the tools we learned in treatment and avoid high-risk situations.” 

Carter wants to restore his life to what it was before. He spent years as a carpenter before his life unraveled and he ended up in prison. He knows he can’t take that life back if he returns to drugs.

“I have to be able to say no and not get high. It doesn’t do me any good, and it could kill me,” he said. “I have to associate myself with being clean. I don’t want to lose hope.”

As Smith reflects on her partner’s life and death, she recognizes his journey taught her plenty, too.  “I was hit hard with the reality that I was too embarrassed to ask for help for my husband and best friend,” she said. “I shouldn’t have had that fear.”

Need help for yourself or a loved one?

You can find a comprehensive list of substance abuse treatment services by visiting our resource guide: Where to find substance use resources in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee is losing a generation of Black men to drug crisis is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The liberal candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court participated in a briefing with Democratic donors billed as a “chance to put two more House seats in play,” a move that Republicans say shows that she is committed to redrawing congressional districts to benefit Democrats.

The event is just one of many partisan gatherings the candidates in the nonpartisan-in-name-only race have attended. Both candidates are also accepting large donations from partisans, including the Democratic and Republican parties, as both sides fight for control of the court in the battleground state.

Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, faces liberal Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford in the April 1 election. The race will determine whether liberals maintain their 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court or it flips to conservative control.

The 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which was also for ideological control of the court, was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. This year’s race is shaping up to be even more expensive and has already garnered national attention from multibillionaire Elon Musk, a Donald Trump loyalist.

The possibility of redrawing Wisconsin’s congressional district boundaries is just one of several major issues the court could tackle, in addition to abortion rights, election laws and union rights. The liberal-controlled court in December 2023 ordered new legislative maps, which Democrats credited with them gaining seats in November.

Now Democrats are hoping the court will redraw congressional lines. The state Supreme Court in March declined to take up a congressional redistricting case brought by Democrats.

The Wisconsin Republican Party on Wednesday accused Crawford of “selling two of Wisconsin’s seats” in Congress because of her participation in an event with Democratic donors organized by the liberal group Focus for Democracy. The email invitation to the Jan. 13 event billed it as a “chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.”

The New York Times first reported on the event, saying it was organized by California billionaire and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler, who is running for the Democratic National Committee chair, appeared at the event with Crawford.

“In an appeal to entice out-of-state billionaires, Susan Crawford said the quiet part out loud: she is begging to be bought and paid for,” Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said in a statement Wednesday.

Schimel’s campaign said Crawford sees the Supreme Court seat “as a political weapon used to undermine the Wisconsin people and deliver favors to out-of-state, liberal elites.”

“Susan Crawford has proven she will do anything in her pursuit of power, even offer congressional seats for support of her campaign,” the Schimel statement said.

Crawford’s campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said in a statement that Crawford is running to be a “fair, impartial, and common sense justice.”

“She has not publicly or privately commented on congressional redistricting at any time and was on this call briefly to share her background and why she’s running,” Honeyman said.

Honeyman pointed to partisan events that Schimel has attended, including an inaugural gala for Trump in Washington, D.C. Schimel also traveled the state talking with county Republican parties and other conservative groups. Schimel has said he expects conservative outside groups to spend between $10 million and $15 million on the race.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party has given $1 million to Crawford’s campaign. Democrats also spent millions last year trying to flip two of the state’s congressional districts but were unsuccessful.

Democrats have long targeted the 1st Congressional District in southeast Wisconsin held by Republican Rep. Bryan Steil and western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District held by Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate criticized for attending briefing with Democratic donors is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The topic of lead poisoning is back in the news in Milwaukee after officials confirmed a case this month at Golda Meir Lower School.

A student at the school was exposed to chipping lead paint in a bathroom in the school’s basement, said Tyler Weber, deputy commissioner of environmental health at the Milwaukee Health Department.

Weber said the Health Department’s investigation continues, but said: “The most apparent lead paint hazards have been controlled.”

The Health Department also plans to conduct testing for lead in the school’s water.

Here are some things you should know about lead poisoning.

1. How serious is lead poisoning?

Lead poisoning can pose a significant risk, especially to young children and pregnant people. According to a Milwaukee Health Department webpage, lead poisoning is “one of the most serious health threats facing young children in Milwaukee.”

Lead exposure and lead poisoning can contribute to learning and behavioral difficulties in children, according to the World Health Organization. Lead is absorbed into the body at a much higher rate for young children, and extremely high exposure to lead can be deadly.

But lead poisoning can sometimes be difficult to detect from symptoms alone.

“It’s not always apparent if your child is lead poisoned,” Weber said. “That’s why it is important to follow our blood screening recommendation … especially if you are a child in the city of Milwaukee.”

2. Importance of blood tests

Blood tests for lead can show whether you and your child are being exposed to dangerous amounts of lead. Both the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Milwaukee Health Department recommend blood tests for lead for all children under the age of 5.

The Milwaukee Health Department recommends testing all children at the ages of 12, 18 and 24 months, and then once every year until the age of 5. Testing is recommended for all children, regardless of previous testing frequency and results.

3. Where can I get tested for lead poisoning?

Blood testing for lead poisoning is free for those enrolled in BadgerCare Plus, Wisconsin’s Medicaid program.

Even if you are not eligible for coverage under BadgerCare, your children could be. BadgerCare provides coverage for adults at 100% of the poverty level, but children are covered in families with an income of up to 300% of the poverty level.

(Current income limits for BadgerCare eligibility are available here, and you can find out more about BadgerCare and enrollment here.)

Testing for lead poisoning is covered under most private insurance plans.

4. Free community resources

For those without health insurance, local options for free lead testing are available.

In Milwaukee, the MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary and the Coalition on Lead Emergency offer a free monthly lead testing clinic on the second Saturday of every month from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2461 W. Center St. Every participating child will receive a free stuffed animal, and each participating family will receive a $10 gift card.

A weekly lead awareness program takes place as a part of the sanctuary’s Fantastic Fridays event at Hephatha Church at 1720 W. Locust St. every Friday from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

5. What can I do to limit lead exposure?

“Lead paint is the primary source of lead poisoning in the city of Milwaukee,” said Caroline Reinwald, a public information officer with the Milwaukee Health Department.

Lead paint was banned for residential use in 1978, but homes built before 1978 can contain lead paint. The paint can chip or create dust, which is dangerous to ingest.

A guide published by the Environmental Protection Agency recommends several steps if you think your home may contain lead-based paint, including regularly cleaning surfaces with warm and soapy water and making sure that you and your children regularly wash hands, pacifiers, bottles and toys.

Contaminated water can also be a cause of lead poisoning. Many buildings in Milwaukee have lead service lines or water mains, and the city is currently conducting a Lead Service Line Replacement Program to change the old pipes. You can check to see if your building has lead pipes here.

Even if a building does not have lead service lines or water mains, some older water fixtures may still contain lead. Milwaukee Water Works recommends running your water pipe for three minutes before drinking or cooking with it and only using the cold water tap to reduce the amount of lead in your water.

“A water filter can also help. Not all filters remove lead, however – look for a point-of-use filter, such as a pitcher or faucet mounted filter, with the NSF/ANSI/CAN 42 and 53 for lead certification. More information is available here.”

Maintaining a full diet with enough iron, calcium and vitamin C can also help limit lead absorption among children. This guide includes food and recipe recommendations that can provide these nutrients.

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

Lead poisoning is a serious health threat: Here are 5 things to know is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature on Tuesday asked that a liberal state Supreme Court justice step aside in a pending case that seeks to overturn a 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most state workers.

If Justice Janet Protasiewicz agrees not to hear the case, the court would be deadlocked 3-3 between liberals and conservatives. The lawsuit has massive implications for union rights in the battleground state.

A Dane County Circuit Court judge last month overturned the bulk of the law, saying it violates equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into “general” and “public safety” employees. Under the ruling, all public sector workers who lost their collective bargaining power would have it restored to what was in place before 2011.

The judge put the ruling on hold pending the appeal. School workers unions that brought the lawsuit have asked the Supreme Court to take it directly, skipping the appeals court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, controlled 4-3 by liberals, has not yet decided whether to take the case.

Republicans enacted the law in the face of massive protests 14 years ago that made Wisconsin the center of the national fight over union rights. The debate also catapulted then-Gov. Scott Walker onto the national stage, sparked an unsuccessful recall campaign and laid the groundwork for his failed 2016 presidential bid. The law’s adoption led to a dramatic decrease in union membership across the state.

Protasiewicz is the court’s newest member and ran in 2023 as an opponent of the union law, known as Act 10. Her victory gave liberals the majority on the court for the first time in 15 years. That majority is on the line again in the April 1 Supreme Court election to fill the seat of a retiring liberal justice.

Protasiewicz said during the campaign that she believes Act 10 is unconstitutional. She also told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she would consider recusing herself from any case challenging the law. Protasiewicz participated in protests against it and signed the petition to recall Walker.

The Legislature’s top Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, said Tuesday that it would be “right and ethical” for her to step aside. The motion seeking her recusal references comments she made during the campaign about coming from a union background, her belief that the law was unconstitutional and her opposition to Walker.

“Recusal is warranted because of the appearance that she has prejudged the merits of this case,” Republicans argued in the motion.

Protasiewicz declined to comment when asked via email if she would recuse herself. The decision on whether to do so is entirely hers.

Jacob Karabell, attorney for the unions seeking to overturn the law, called the recusal request “meritless” and an attempt to delay a final ruling.

Protasiewicz is not the only justice on the court with a potential conflict.

Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn was Walker’s chief legal counsel and had a role in drafting Act 10. During his successful run for the court in 2019, Hagedorn would not promise to recuse himself if a case challenging Act 10 came before the court.

No motion has been filed with the court asking Hagedorn to step aside, but Democratic legislative leaders on Tuesday said he should. Hagedorn did not respond to an email seeking comment.

If both Protasiewicz and Hagedorn recused themselves, liberals would have a 3-2 advantage.

Supporters of the law have said it provided local governments more control over workers and the powers they needed to cut costs. Repealing the law, which allowed schools and local governments to raise money through higher employee contributions for benefits, would bankrupt those entities, backers of Act 10 have argued.

Democratic opponents argue that the law has hurt schools and other government agencies by taking away the ability of employees to collectively bargain for their pay and working conditions.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Republicans ask Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz to step aside in union case is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Dueling ads in Wisconsin’s high-stakes Supreme Court election focus on a backlog of criminal cases that took place during one candidate’s stint as the state’s top lawyer.

Sexual assault kits — often referred to as rape kits — are collections of DNA and other evidence taken from an assault survivor that can help identify or prosecute an assailant. But in some cases, the evidence is collected and then goes unprocessed, creating what some advocates have described as a national backlog of hundreds of thousands.

In Wisconsin, that backlog was about 6,000 when Brad Schimel, the Republican-backed candidate for Supreme Court, took office as Wisconsin’s attorney general in 2015. He served until 2019, and in a recent campaign ad he claimed that his office cleared 4,000 sexual assault kits during that time.

This week, his Democratic-backed opponent, Susan Crawford, released a competing ad that focused on the early years of Schimel’s time as attorney general.

“He let 6,000 rape kits sit untested for two years,” the ad states.

Crawford’s ad refers to a statistic from midway through Schimel’s tenure. As of early 2017, his office said the state had cleared just nine of those 6,000 backlogged tests, according to reporting by the Green Bay Press-Gazette at the time.

That came after the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York County district attorney’s office sent $4 million in grant funds to Wisconsin to assist with the process. A Schimel spokesperson at the time said the DOJ was following proper protocols for respecting survivors and adhering to requirements of the grant money.

A year and a half later, much of the backlog had been cleared. Schimel announced in September 2018 that all but five of the eligible tests had been cleared, using about $7 million total in grant funding.

That announcement came ahead of his reelection campaign against Democrat Josh Kaul, who criticized Schimel’s handling of the backlog and ultimately bested him that November. Schimel said at the time that there was no political motivation behind the announcement.

“We didn’t delay anything. We didn’t set anything aside. This was done as quickly as possible,” Schimel said in 2018, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

All told, Schimel said at the time that his office had cleared about 4,154 kits, in which survivors consented to the testing. Some of those incidents dated back to the 1980s.

Now, sexual assault kit testing is once again a subject of political debate — this time in a battle for a seat on Wisconsin’s high court, which has no say in how the state manages its DNA testing.

But being able to hold up a record in addressing crime — or suggesting that one’s opponent is soft or slow to respond to crime — is standard messaging in these races, said Damon Cann, a political scientist at Utah State University who has written extensively about judicial elections.

“Rape kits are crime-related, and crime tends to be the No. 1 issue for voters in judicial elections,” Cann said. But, he added, “the big money and the most influential cases that the courts decide that have the most policy consequences are almost never criminal cases.”

Schimel and Crawford are both running to replace outgoing liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in an election that will determine whether the high court maintains its 4-3 liberal majority or flips to a conservative majority.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Dueling Wisconsin Supreme Court ads focus on rape kit backlog is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Democrats on Saturday will gather just outside Washington to take an early step in their journey out of the political wilderness: electing their party’s next national chair.

Among the candidates vying to lead the Democratic National Committee is Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler, who has served as chair of the state Democratic Party since 2019. His fiercest competition to lead the national Democratic Party comes from Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. The three have sparred in recent days over who is leading the race to secure a majority of votes from the DNC’s 448 voting members.

Wikler’s camp declined Monday morning to share an updated whip count with Wisconsin Watch. As of Friday afternoon, he said 151 voting DNC members were backing his bid. The Martin and O’Malley camps did not respond to questions about updated whip counts, but Martin said last week he had the backing of 200 members. Both Wikler and O’Malley questioned that number, with a Wikler spokesperson calling it “inflated.”

The first candidate to secure 225 votes on Saturday will serve as Democrats’ next national chair. If no candidate reaches that threshold during the first round of voting, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated, and members will cast another ballot, repeating the process until a chair is selected.

Wikler’s time as head of the state party has been, by most standards, a success. Capitalizing on the anti-Trump momentum of the 2018 midterms, Democrats have won eight of 11 statewide races since Wikler took over — including the 2020 presidential race and the 2022 gubernatorial election. The state Democratic Party was also instrumental in winning a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has remade Wisconsin’s political landscape. 

But there have been setbacks: U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson got reelected in an otherwise positive year for Democrats in 2022, and Donald Trump carried the state last year, helping return him to the White House.

Wikler maintains he’s the right person to lead the party, and he says Democrats need to make their party more transparent, change the way they communicate with voters and return to being focused on addressing the needs of working people.

“(Democrats) don’t talk the talk in a way that shows people that they’re fighting the fight,” Wikler said last week during an introspective moment at a candidate forum hosted by the Texas Democratic Party. “And that’s where we need to change.”

A shift in the landscape

Republicans and Democrats alike in Wisconsin said that if Wikler is tapped to lead the national party it will change the political landscape in Wisconsin.

“I know politics. And I love politics. And he is a very good politician,” Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson said of Wikler. “The Democrat Party could do a hell of a lot worse going with somebody else than Ben Wikler.”

In fact, Thompson, who congratulated Wikler on his success as state party chair, seems keen on having the Democratic leader move on from his current post.

“I want to contribute to him!” he joked about Wikler while speaking with reporters.

Brian Schimming, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, also acknowledged that Wikler “is a talented guy.” But he was quick to point out that Wisconsin Democrats came up short on key goals in November. Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t carry the state, U.S. Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil are still in Congress, and Republicans still control the Legislature, Schimming noted. Their only success, the GOP chair claimed, was getting Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin reelected.

“Whether it’s Ben or anybody else, that party has a lot of issues,” Schimming said of Democrats. “So they are going to need a lot of people to step up, not just their chair, to fix what’s wrong with that party right now.”

While Democratic leaders acknowledge that Wikler moving on to the national party would be a loss for their efforts in Wisconsin, they said it’s time for the national party to choose a leader from a state that has a history of deciding elections.

Wikler helped Wisconsin Democrats crawl out of the political hole they found themselves in in the 2010s, said Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, which gives him experience the national party could lean on.

“He’s been very invested in the Legislature, (we’ve) spoken often about our strategy and how to win, and he was involved even in calling candidates and helping recruit people,” Neubauer said. “So it’s, of course, going to be a loss for us, but we’re certainly very supportive of his run for DNC chair.”

Wisconsin Democrats have built out infrastructure that will last beyond Wikler’s time as chair, Neubauer added, pointing to year-round organizing efforts that will persist regardless of who is state party chair.

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A bill that would empower Wisconsin municipalities to block the construction of solar and wind farms in their backyards has been introduced a second time.

Currently, local governments possess limited authority to regulate the siting and operations of solar and wind farms, but as the number and size of projects grow — solar panel fields spanning thousands of acres and wind turbines as tall as the Statue of Liberty — some residents from the Driftless Area and central Wisconsin say the state’s system for approving energy projects unfairly stacks the scales of power against communities that live alongside the facilities.

Meanwhile, a clean energy advocacy group and former Wisconsin utility regulator said the bill would enable a discontented minority to dictate energy policy for the entire state, effectively kill renewable energy development and generate uncertainty for businesses.

The Republican-backed proposal comes amid a wave of construction after federal lawmakers invested billions of dollars during the Biden administration to slow the pace of climate change. The ensuing backlash and enactment of local restrictions are playing out across the country.

Here’s what you need to know:

Some context: Investment in renewable energy has been a state priority for decades and a requirement for Wisconsin’s utilities. It also is central to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ ambitious climate goals. Wisconsin seeks to operate a carbon-free electric grid by 2050. 

In 2023, 9% of net electricity generated within the state came from renewable sources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The governor’s Task Force on Climate Change expects most future emissions reductions to come from large-scale utility projects, especially the replacement of aging coal plants with solar farms.

In 2016, the state generated just 3,000 megawatt-hours of electricity from utility-scale solar facilities. Seven years later, it increased to 1.2 million. Nearly two dozen more solar farms are in the pipeline.

Wisconsin’s utility regulator, the Public Service Commission, oversees the approval of large projects, but opponents say gaps in state oversight make Wisconsin attractive to private developers, who aren’t mandated to share project expenses or evaluate ratepayer impacts.

They don’t have to demonstrate the energy created by the new installation is even needed at all — requirements if a public utility were to construct the facility. (The commission considers costs when utilities want to purchase power or an energy facility.) But developers can sell solar and wind farms to Wisconsin utilities. Ratepayers shoulder the infrastructure costs and pay state-authorized rates of return.

The commission reports that, compared to the Midwest and national averages, Wisconsin residents pay higher rates but less on their monthly bills because they consume less energy.

Opponents of large-scale projects also criticize the state’s disclosure requirements, which enable developers to acquire land rental agreements, often confidential, before communities are officially notified.

Residents often accuse industry of minimizing their concerns over impacts to wildlife, roads, aesthetics, property values, utility bills, health, topsoil and water quality. 

Yet climate change jeopardizes those same things, and land rental and municipal payments can be a lifeline. The construction of solar and wind farms can divide towns and neighbors. Public hearings quickly get messy. 

Organizers have mounted challenges, playing out in boardrooms, courthouses and the Legislature. Several towns enacted restrictions on renewable energy projects, a push supported by Farmland First, a central Wisconsin advocacy and fundraising group. Last year, a developer sued two Marathon County towns over their wind farm rules.

President Donald Trump is the latest to seed doubt over the merits of large-scale renewable projects after issuing a Jan. 20 executive order that suspends federal permitting for any wind farm while agency officials review government leasing and permitting practices.

The bill: The proposal requires solar and wind developers to obtain approval from every city, village and town in which a facility would be located before the Public Service Commission could greenlight the project.

Senate Bill 3’s authors, Rep. Travis Tranel, R-Cuba City, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, said the measure responds to constituents who feel their concerns over continued development in the Driftless Area continue to fall on deaf ears.

“We are hoping to kick-start a conversation because the way I view it now, renewable energy projects are essentially the wild wild West,” Tranel said. “People have figured out that they can profit exorbitant amounts of money off these projects, and they are just popping them up left and right, and our current attitude is long-term ramifications be damned, and I don’t think that that makes any sense.”

Currently, the commission reviews proposals for energy facilities with a capacity of at least 100 megawatts. For scale, an average wind turbine in 2023 had a capacity of 3 ½ megawatts. A megawatt of solar generation might cover 7 ½ acres.

Local governments review projects less than 100 megawatts in capacity, but municipalities can impose restrictions on solar and wind farms only in limited instances, such as demonstrating they will protect public health or safety — a tall order. Additionally, municipalities that enact siting restrictions on wind farms cannot impose criteria more stringent than commission rules.

The bill would apply to any solar or wind farm with a 15-megawatt capacity or more. If a municipality fails to take action within an allotted period, the proposed facility would be approved automatically. 

An identical proposal introduced during the previous legislative session, exclusively backed by GOP lawmakers, failed to receive a committee hearing.

Yea: Some of the bill’s backers view the influx of large energy projects as the harbinger of “utility districts” across Wisconsin’s rural spaces, primarily for the benefit of urbanites.

It’s not that proponents of local control snub clean energy, said Chris Klopp, a Cross Plains organizer who has joined challenges to transmission and solar projects. Rather, regulators could respond to climate change more equitably.

“This idea that you can just decide you’re going to sacrifice certain people, well, I think there’s a problem with that,” she said. “Who decides, and who gets sacrificed? None of that is a good conversation. It should be something that works for everyone.”

Nay: Representatives from EDP Renewables, NextEra Energy, Pattern Energy and Invenergy — developers with a Wisconsin presence — didn’t respond to requests for comment.

But former Public Service Commission Chair Phil Montgomery said local governments lack the agency’s battery of professionals it takes to evaluate whether an energy project would meet the state’s energy needs.

Empowering Wisconsin’s 1,245 towns, 190 cities and 415 villages to weigh the facts against their own standards would spell disaster for ratepayers, he said.

Michael Vickerman, former executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a renewable energy advocacy nonprofit, said the bill unfairly targets wind and solar.

“You’re deciding that this industry will no longer be welcome in this state,” he said. “It becomes such an arbitrary and mysterious, unstable, unpredictable process that the developer says, ‘Screw it. I’ll just go to Minnesota. I’ll go to Illinois.’”

What’s next? More than 20 co-sponsors, all Republicans, signed on to the bill, and it has been referred to a Senate committee. Klopp hopes to rally more lawmakers to obtain a two-thirds, veto-proof majority.

Montgomery said even if it leads nowhere, the bill certainly sends a message to investors.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify information provided by former Public Service Commission Chair Phil Montgomery.

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Moments before 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow opened fire inside her Madison, Wisconsin, school, killing two people and herself last month, a social media account believed to be hers posted a photograph on X showing someone sitting in a bathroom stall and flashing a hand gesture that has become a symbol for white supremacy. 

As news about the shooting broke, another X user responded: “Livestream it.” 

Extremism researchers now believe that second account belonged to 17-year-old Solomon Henderson, who police say walked into his high school cafeteria in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday and fired 10 shots, killing one classmate and then himself. Archives of another X account linked to him show that he posted a similar photo to Rupnow’s in his final moments. 

While there isn’t any evidence that Rupnow and Henderson plotted their attacks together, extremism researchers who have tracked their social media activity told Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica that the two teenagers were active in the same online networks that glorify mass shooters, even crossing paths. Across various social media platforms, the networks trade hateful memes alongside terrorist literature, exchange tips on how to effectively commit attacks and encourage one another to carry out their own.

The researchers had been tracking these networks for months as part of work looking into growing online extremist networks that have proliferated across gaming, chatting and social media platforms and that they believe are radicalizing young people to commit mass shootings and other violence.

The researchers’ analysis found only a few instances in which Rupnow and Henderson appeared to interact directly. But in the hours, days and weeks that followed the Madison shooting, Henderson appears to have become fixated on Rupnow. He boasted on X that Rupnow and him were “mutuals,” a common internet term for following each other, and shared another post that said, “i used to be mutuals with someone who is now a real school shooter ;-).”  

The researchers, who have collaborated with counterterrorism organizations, academics and law enforcement to prevent violence by tracking how extremist networks radicalize youth online, agreed to share information as long as they weren’t named out of concerns for their physical safety. The news outlets vetted their credentials with several experts in the field.

It’s impossible to know with complete certainty that online accounts belong to particular people without specialized access to devices and accounts from law enforcement. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has acknowledged the existence of two documents they believe Henderson created, both of which contain details about his social media accounts. Other researchers and groups — including The Anti-Defamation League, Canadian extremism expert Marc-André Argentino and SITE Intelligence Group — have also determined these likely belong to Henderson. 

The extremism researchers linked accounts to Rupnow, who went by Samantha, by tracing her activity across multiple social media profiles that revealed common biographical details, including personal acquaintances and that she lived in Wisconsin. On the bathroom post, one person the account regularly interacted with referred to Rupnow by her nickname, “Sam.” Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica were able to verify the social media posts and the connections between the accounts by retracing the researchers’ steps through archived social media accounts and screenshots.

On Thursday, ABC News cited law enforcement sources in reporting that a social media account connected to Henderson may have been in contact with Rupnow’s social media account. The information reviewed by Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica details their suspected connections and interactions. Nearly all of the accounts that researchers have linked to Rupnow and Henderson have now been suspended.

A Madison Police Department spokesperson said the agency knows Rupnow “was very active on social media” and it is “just starting” to receive and review documents from tech companies.  The Nashville police said they had nothing further to add beyond their previous statements.Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, and Erin West, 42, were killed at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. Josselin Corea Escalante, 16, died at Antioch High School in Nashville. Both attackers also killed themselves. 

Rupnow and Henderson both had multiple X accounts, the extremism researchers told Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica. At the time of her attack, Rupnow followed just 13 other users. Two of those accounts have been linked to Henderson.

In November, Rupnow shared a post from Henderson, which appeared to wish a happy Veterans Day to the man who killed more than a dozen people at University of Texas at Austin in 1966. 

After the Madison attack, someone wrote to Henderson and others on X, saying that one of their “buddies” may have “shot up a school.” Henderson told another user, “I barely know her,”  and said he had never exchanged private messages with her. Later, in a 51-page screed that Nashville police are examining, he emulated and praised several past attackers including Rupnow and said, “I have connections with some of them only loosely via online messaging platforms.”

After Rupnow’s shooting, Henderson called her a “Saintress,” using a term common in the networks, and posted or reshared posts about her dozens of times, celebrating her racist, genocidal online persona and the fact that she had taken action. On one platform, he used a photograph of her as his profile picture. In his writings, he said he scrawled Rupnow’s name and those of other perpetrators on his weapon and gear.

The online networks the two teenagers inhabited have an array of influences, ideologies and aesthetics. To varying degrees of commitment and sincerity, they ascribe to white supremacist, anti-Semitic, racist, neo-Nazi, occult or satanic beliefs.

In this online world, the currency that buys clout is violence. This violence often involves children and teenagers harming other children and teenagers, some through doxing or encouraging self-harm, others, like Rupnow and Henderson, by committing mass attacks in the nonvirtual world. 

“This network is best described as an online subculture that celebrates violent attacks and radicalizes young people into committing violence,” said one of the violence prevention researchers. “Many of the individuals involved in this network are minors, and we’d like to see intervention to give them the help and support they need, for their own safety as well as those around them.”

Members of some of these communities, including Terrorgram, 764 and Com, have engaged in activities online and offline that have led to convictions for possessing child sexual abuse materials and sexually exploiting a child and indictments for soliciting hate crimes and soliciting the murder of federal officials. The cases are pending, and the defendants have not filed responses in court. This month, the U.S. State Department designated the Terrorgram Collective as a terrorist organization, saying “the group promotes violent white supremacism, solicits attacks on perceived adversaries, and provides guidance and instructional materials on tactics, methods, and targets for attacks, including on critical infrastructure and government officials.”

When details of the Nashville shooting began to emerge, researchers realized they had seen some of Henderson’s accounts and posts within the network of about 100 users they are tracking. They had previously reported one username of an account belonging to Henderson, as well as others within the network to law enforcement and filed several reports with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 

They had not been aware of Rupnow’s accounts before her attack, but were able to locate her within the network after the fact, discovering she had regularly interacted with other accounts they had been following.

Alex Newhouse, an extremism researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said these subcultures have a long history of lionizing and mimicking past attackers while goading each other to enact as much violence as possible — even by assigning “scores” to past attacks, something Henderson engaged with online. “The Antioch one is very obviously copycat,” Newhouse said.

Although Henderson’s diary indicates he had been contemplating an attack for months prior to Rupnow’s, her shooting drew his attention. Hours after, he retweeted another post that said: “There should be a betting market for which rw twitter figure will radicalize the next shooter.” (RW stands for right wing.)

However the two teens entered this online subculture, their writings reveal despair about their personal lives and the world around them and expressed violent, hateful views.

After the Madison shooting, a separate social media user noted their association and tweeted at the FBI, accusing Henderson and others of having prior warning. They “need to be locked up,” the poster said, “no questions asked.”

The FBI declined to comment. But after Henderson’s attack, social media users returned to the tweet: “hey so this guy literally just ended up calling a future school shooter a month ahead of time and the FBI did nothing about it.”

If you or someone you know needs help:

• Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
• Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. to reach a crisis counselor: 741741

If you or someone you know has been harmed online, you can contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or https://report.cybertip.org/.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Madison and Nashville school shooters appear to have crossed paths in online extremist communities is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Brad Schimel reached a plea bargain with a criminal defendant whose attorney made donations to Schimel’s election campaign. 

An attack on Schimel, the conservative candidate in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, was made by Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate. Schimel has considerably more front-line criminal prosecution experience.

In June 2013, Schimel’s Waukesha County district attorney’s office charged Andrew Lambrecht with felony possession of child pornography.

In May 2014, Lambrecht’s lawyer, Matthew Huppertz, wrote a letter to Schimel, filed in court. Schimel had said that if Lambrecht pleaded to the charge, he would not file more charges and would recommend the mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence.

In January 2015, Lambrecht, who had no prior record, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to three years.

Schimel announced his run for state attorney general in October 2013.  From December 2013 until Schimel won the election in November 2014, Huppertz made monthly contributions to Schimel’s campaign totaling $5,500.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Judge Crawford for Wisconsin: Crawford for Wisconsin: "Never"
• Waukesha County Circuit Court: Brad D. Schimel biography
• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Waukesha County Case Number 2013CF000650 State of Wisconsin vs. Andrew M Lambrecht
• Waukesha County Circuit Court: Huppertz letter to Schimel
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Waukesha County DA Brad Schimel formally launches attorney general run
• Wisconsin Campaign Finance Information System: Matthew Huppertz contributions to Brad Schimel

Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel offer a plea deal to a man whose attorney contributed to Schimel’s campaign? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Of the nearly 200 uncounted ballots that Madison city clerk’s staff discovered after Election Day, about 70 might have gotten counted if the staff members had promptly alerted the county. 

The clerk’s office staff didn’t find 125 of the uncounted ballots until Dec. 3 — after the state already certified the election. But the staff found 68 of them well before that, on Nov. 12, the same day Dane County certified the election. If the clerk’s office had reported the missing votes to the county within a few days, the county election board could have petitioned the Wisconsin Elections Commission to amend its results to include those ballots.

Kevin Kennedy, formerly the state election chief for over 30 years and a chief inspector at a Madison polling site not associated with the errors, said the county canvass, or official count, could have been reopened at that point if officials had known about the problem. 

“From my perspective, you find the ballots, you tell the city attorney. The city attorney is going to advise you to tell the mayor and to reach out to the county board of canvassers,” Kennedy said. “That’s what should have happened once they were discovered.”

Informing the city attorney in this case could have been especially helpful: Madison’s city attorney, Mike Haas, was formerly the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and is regarded by some as one of the state’s top election lawyers.

In a letter to the state election commission, obtained by Votebeat, Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl claimed she “believes” somebody from her office did, in fact, tell the Dane County Clerk’s Office about the ballots on Nov. 12.

On that day, Witzel-Behl said, an employee identified as “employee F” “believes he spoke to the Dane County Clerk in his office but cannot remember what the Dane County Clerk said,” though he was “certain” the conversation had taken place. The office was left with “a general sense that the County would not want” the ballots that had been discovered that day.

Witzel-Behl didn’t supply additional information substantiating that interaction and through a spokesperson said she had nothing to add to the information she shared with the elections commission.

But Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said he “strongly disagrees” with the city’s claims.

“Prior to the information being released publicly, my office and the Dane County Board of Canvassers had no communication with the Madison City Clerk’s Office regarding the discovery of unopened absentee ballots,” he said.

“I find the claim that a conversation took place, without providing details about what was said, difficult to understand,” he continued. “If I had been told about 60 or more uncounted ballots, I would have advised that they talk to their city attorney, who is an election expert.”

“The frustrating part of this whole situation is that a fix allowing some of the ballots to be counted was pretty simple,” he said. “An error of this size is extremely unfortunate, and I worry it will make it difficult for voters to trust their ability to cast an absentee ballot in future elections. I will work to do whatever I can on my part to help ensure our municipal partners know what to do if a similar situation occurs in the future.”

State law outlines what Madison could have done

Under state law, if the Dane County Board of Canvassers — the entity that certifies elections on the county level — becomes aware of a mistake, it can ask the Wisconsin Elections Commission for permission to amend the county results. The window for such a correction stays open until the commission receives every other county’s certification, which in this case didn’t happen until Nov. 18, several days after Madison staff found the 68 ballots. 

Other provisions may also allow the election commission to require the county to correct its canvass, said Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Wisconsin law appears to allow for the “ability to make a correction” if the county board of canvassers or the Wisconsin Elections Commission becomes aware of an error, she said.

Instead, the 68 Madison ballots went uncounted and unreported for weeks. City election staff were under the impression that the ballots couldn’t be counted unless there was a recount, Witzel-Behl said in December.

“They should have asked someone,” said Ann Jacobs, a Democratic member on the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Staff in the city clerk’s office apparently didn’t report the ballot discovery to non-election city staff or any external election agency until Dec. 18, when they told the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The commission told city staff, and the mayor’s office soon after disclosed the oversight to the public. By that point, the window to make any of those ballots count toward the election had all but closed. The 193 ballots weren’t tallied until a Jan. 10 city election board meeting, though none of those ballots counted toward any official election results. Madison voters cast over 174,000 ballots in the November election, and the 193 votes wouldn’t have changed any election outcome. 

At that meeting, Witzel-Behl addressed the lack of city processes that likely contributed to the ballots going missing on Election Day and said there would be new procedures for city election staff and poll workers to prevent a recurrence. 

But at that meeting, Witzel-Behl didn’t explain why her office didn’t communicate with city staff or the county immediately after the ballots were discovered, or identify policies to communicate future errors quicker.

She told Votebeat on Jan. 14 that she’s still developing specific policies.

Kennedy, the former state election chief, said having clear instructions in place from the state would have made a difference. The election commission “needs to lay out some expectations so that everybody in the state, every municipal clerk and county clerk knows, ‘If you have a problem, this is what we expect you to do,” he said. 

Lapse raises doubts for voters

Here’s what we know so far about what happened:

At a polling site in Ward 56, just west of downtown, election officials didn’t open two large carrier envelopes used to transport absentee ballots from the clerk’s office to polling sites, where they are tabulated. Those two envelopes contained a total of 125 ballots, which were discovered on Dec. 3. 

At another site, poll workers at Ward 65 didn’t open a carrier envelope carrying 68 absentee ballots, including one ballot that should have been sent to a different polling place. That batch was found on Nov. 12, and it’s not clear what steps the clerk’s office took after the discovery.

There are two clear issues that arose from the uncounted ballots, Kennedy said. One is the matter of process and communications. Poll workers didn’t count the ballots, and city staff took a long time to find them, but still didn’t report having found them. 

The other is the impact on the voters who cast these ballots. “It’s still personal to them” that their votes didn’t get counted, Kennedy said, even if they wouldn’t have changed any election outcomes.

Among those voters was Carol Troyer-Shank, who received an apology letter from the city about the error. 

“It’s so funny, because I have been a reluctant early voter simply because I imagined such a thing happening,” she said. “It’s too bad this had to happen, but it’s not a big enough deal to lose sleep over. I’m glad the city is apologizing, and I’m glad the city is taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Troyer-Shank said she may still vote early in the future. But she added that there remain outstanding questions about what led to 193 ballots, including hers, going uncounted on Election Day.

“We still don’t know what went wrong,” she said. “We still don’t know why they were uncounted at the sites.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Some missing Madison ballots could have been counted — if clerk’s staff had acted in time is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers used his seventh State of the State speech Wednesday to urge the GOP-controlled Legislature to enact a wide range of proposals Republicans have rejected in the past, including numerous gun control measures just a month after there was a school shooting not far from the state Capitol.

Republicans were quick to dismiss his proposals, much as they have the past six years.

Here’s what to know about the speech from Evers, a Democrat who may run for a third term next year in the battleground state:

Bipartisan approach to immigration and health care

Evers, without mentioning President Donald Trump by name, said “there is a lot of angst about what may happen in the days, months and years ahead.”

“I have always been willing to work with anyone who is willing to do the right thing for the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said. “And that has not changed. But I will not compromise on our Wisconsin values of treating people with kindness, dignity, empathy, and respect.”

Evers called for bipartisan efforts to address immigration.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Republicans would next week introduce a bill that requires cooperation with federal law enforcement officials who are working to deport people who have committed a crime and are in the country illegally.

“He didn’t pay attention to what happened in this state in the election in November,” Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said of Evers. “President Trump won Wisconsin, and one of the cornerstones of his campaign was about illegal immigration. … He’s clearly pushing back against the president.”

Wisconsin is one of 22 states suing the federal government over Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.

Wisconsin is one of the “blue wall” states that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Trump carried Wisconsin in 2024 on his way back to the White House.

Gun control is renewed priority despite Republican opposition

Evers called for a series of gun control measures five weeks after a school shooting just 6 miles from the Capitol left a teacher and a 14-year-old student dead. The 15-year-old shooter shot and killed herself.

Evers called for universal background checks for gun purchases and restoring a 48-hour waiting period for gun purchases, a law that Republicans repealed in 2015.

He also called for banning the purchase of “ghost guns” and closing a loophole that allows for domestic abusers to own firearms.

Evers also called for incentives and new requirements to safely secure firearms and a “red flag” law that would allow judges to take guns away from people determined to be a risk to themselves or others.

Republican legislative leaders said that all of the gun control measures would be rejected.

The governor last week created a state office for violence prevention, which Republicans vowed not to fund after federal funding runs out in two years.

Evers, a former teacher and state superintendent of schools, also called for spending $300 million to provide comprehensive mental health services in schools statewide. That would be 10 times the amount the Legislature approved for school mental health services in the last budget.

Republicans vow to reject proposals, push for cutting taxes instead

Republican leaders immediately rejected the bulk of what Evers called for, saying they instead would be pushing for a tax cut of nearly $1,000 for every taxpayer in the state.

Evers’ speech “was chock full of liberal wishes, empty promises and a whole lot of things that are not going to happen in Wisconsin,” Vos said.

Declaring 2025 as “The Year of the Kid,” Evers called on Republicans to approve $500 million to lower the cost of child care. The bulk of that would go toward funding the Child Care Counts program for the next two years. Without more funding, the program — which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic — is slated to end in June.

Republicans said they would not support that additional funding.

Evers also called for creating new programs designed to set price ceilings for prescription drugs and improve oversight of drug companies, removing the state sales tax on over-the-counter medications and capping the copay on insulin at $35.

In an emotional moment, Evers welcomed the widow and parents of former state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, who died by suicide in November. Evers, his voice cracking with emotion, talked about Brostoff’s death when introducing a new program that would allow people to temporarily and voluntarily register to prevent themselves from purchasing a firearm.

Vos said that invoking Brostoff was a “cheap political stunt” and “kind of sad.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

State of the State: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers urges gun control measures, bipartisan approach to immigration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Phoebe Petrovic is a Wisconsin Watch investigative reporter and a fellow in ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Her reporting on extremism was also funded by the Poynter Institute. She will be discussing extremism reporting at a live Zoom event on Jan. 29 at 4 p.m. Register here. 

On the day of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the violent, far-right street gang known as the Proud Boys marched down the streets of Washington, D.C. Hours later, the new president pardoned or commuted the sentences of their leaders and some 1,500 others for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, struck salutes on stage that neo-Nazis online celebrated (and Musk later downplayed). And in a nod to the Christian nationalists who boosted his campaign, Trump declared the United States would only recognize two sexes, despite science finding it’s not so simple.

It’s clear, today, that extremism reporting matters more than ever. But even just a couple of years ago, I struggled to get pitches accepted on the influence of extremist figures. Once accepted, though, one story turned into a series, each unraveling the thread of increased Christian nationalist influences on politics and, particularly, elections. 

I spent the first six months of 2024 investigating Matthew Trewhella, a militant pastor known in the 1990s for his anti-abortion activism.

Trewhella had a reputation for public stunts that raised eyebrows and generated letters to the editor. He had urged an audience to buy their children rifles for Christmas. He even defended the murder of abortion providers. Surely, someone with that record would be a political pariah today, right? But the investigation found that Trewhella’s manifesto of open defiance has influenced Republicans across the country, at all levels of government.

Like others on the Christian right, Trewhella has called for defying the separation between church and state, arguing that officials must answer to God’s law first and the Constitution second. School board members, county officials, state legislators, congresspeople, even former members of Trump’s Cabinet, we found, had praised “the doctrine of the lesser magistrates,” which Trewhella claimed gave them biblical permission to disobey or defy any law, policy or court opinion. For his part, Trewhella dismissed the extremism label, telling me only those with “mundane, self-absorbed lives” would consider someone like him an extremist.

In that first story, I reported on a conservative activist who had used the doctrine as the basis of a nationwide tour, in which he said elections officials should refuse to certify equipment and results on the basis of debunked conspiracy theories. I recounted how a state senator marshaled the doctrine when urging electors to refuse certification. And I discussed the idea’s embrace by some members of the constitutional sheriffs movement, who were also stating their intent to investigate elections.

Reporting that first story, narrowly focused on one person and his impact, revealed the larger theme that would become the subject of the series: the Christian right’s influence on elections. 

It was a defining feature of the 2024 presidential election, one Trump acknowledged during his inaugural address when he claimed: “I was saved by God to make America great again.” 

The stories reported for Faith in Power, for the most part, took one small aspect of it at a time. We looked for gaps in the national conversation and dug into what we found, building on previous work as we went along. I had read dozens of stories about the potential intervention of poll watchers, for example, but few on poll workers. Yet soon after discovering one self-described Christian nationalist recruiting poll workers, I noticed more, and further reporting revealed a pattern.

What made this worth an investigation was not their Christianity, as one critic claimed, but rather their regurgitation of election conspiracies, disdain for the separation of church and state, and stated goal of helping Trump win office. It was the combination of prophecy and proclamations — that Trump had a divine mandate to become president — and the way they used that to enlist support from hundreds or thousands of people on the ground.

To report these stories, to get the theology and context right, required extensive reading. We decided, in the end, to try to help memorialize what we learned and transform it into a more permanent resource for readers in a “guide” to Christian nationalism. It’s not a traditional investigative piece, but rather a meta-report that helps orient the public, helping to explain how we got to the point where the investigations we broke about poll workers or sheriffs claiming a divine right to disobey the government was even possible.

As the new administration takes office, I’m reflecting on the political trends of the last decade. First, media rushed to cover the “Alt-Right.” Then, the coverage seemed to subside. But the movement didn’t disappear — its ideas just became integrated into the larger political right. Same, too, with conspiracy theories about elections being rigged. Once Trump won, the skepticism about elections seemed to vanish overnight. A focus on “extremism” may go the same way. As those who attempted a violent insurrection get pardoned and walk free, extremism has moved from the margins to the mainstream and taken power. It’s up to journalists to draw the public’s attention to what they do with that power.

As extremists move into the mainstream, reporting on them is more important than ever is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A new study builds on previous research that shows winters on the Great Lakes are growing shorter due to climate change.

The Great Lakes have been losing an average of 14 days of winter conditions each decade since 1995 due to warming air temperatures, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters.

The study’s lead author, Eric Anderson, an environmental engineering professor with the Colorado School of Mines, said researchers arrived at their findings by examining ice conditions and surface water temperatures.

“We do see that winter time — whether you think about it in terms of ice or think about in terms of really cold water temperatures — we’re just seeing less days where those conditions exist,” Anderson said.

Research has already found the Great Lakes are losing ice cover at a rate of about 5 percent each decade for a total loss of 25 percent between 1973 and 2023. Those changes are occurring as the region has seen among the greatest increases in average winter temperatures over the past 50 years.

The study builds on that research by focusing on changes in water temperatures during the winter months. Anderson noted only Lake Erie typically sees heavy ice cover each winter, whereas the other Great Lakes often see areas of open water.

Winter is typically a blind spot for researchers due to difficulties in obtaining measurements when there’s less ice cover on the lakes. For the study, they relied largely on satellite data, as well as several monitoring stations, to examine how mixing of the lakes from top to bottom may be changing during the winter. Typically, the lakes tend to mix in the fall and spring when temperatures are the same at the top and bottom.

Winter days on the Great Lakes are being lost to spring and fall

During the summer, the surface of the lakes is warmer and the bottom is colder. In the winter, the opposite is true.

The study’s co-author, Craig Stow, said the reason for that is the maximum density of water is 4 degrees Celsius or about 39 degrees Fahrenheit. Stow, who is a scientist with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, said researchers found there’s been an increase in the number of spring and fall days in the lakes.

“The winter days are being lost to those spring and fall times where the temperatures are essentially the same from the very top to the very bottom,” Stow said.

Stow said that means the lakes are staying warmer in the fall and warming up earlier in the spring.

Winter days on the lakes were defined as days with ice cover or having surface temperatures of less than 2 degrees Celsius. The loss of winter days was found over nearly the entire area of lakes Superior, Huron and Erie. In lakes Michigan and Ontario, the loss of winter days was primarily along the shorelines and bays.

“We saw decreases in ice cover in areas where you tend to see large amounts of ice, so Green Bay and up near Beaver Island and Straits of Mackinac,” Anderson said. “We didn’t see big decreases in ice for the rest of the lake, so you didn’t have a lot of coastal ice loss along the eastern side of Wisconsin or down near Chicago.”

However, researchers did see a loss of colder temperatures in open waters around the southern shoreline of Lake Michigan, shifting to more days that had temperatures like spring or fall.

Lake Superior didn’t lose as many ice days as lakes Huron or Erie because it doesn’t see as much ice cover in the middle of the lake. 

“It was losing some number of days with coastal ice, particularly along the Wisconsin shoreline of Superior in the western end there,” Anderson said.

Even so, he said the lake experienced a big shift to temperatures closer to what one might expect in the spring and fall out in open waters.

Anderson and Stow said the changes could have implications for the Great Lakes in terms of extended periods when algal blooms may occur, the duration of shipping seasons, effects on the food web and the $7 billion fishing industry.

“We looked at a couple decades here of  change that we see you’re losing a half a month of what we used to think about being the winter,” Anderson said. “That’s really important for the chemistry of the lake. It could be important for the biology of the lake.”

Researchers say questions remain about whether the loss of winter days may stay the same or accelerate, which is one of the things they hope to examine in the future.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Study finds winter days on the Great Lakes growing shorter due to climate change is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Flood control along the Mississippi River is a central piece of a newly passed federal law — work that advocates believe is critical as the river basin sees more frequent and severe extreme weather events due to climate change. 

The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) is passed by Congress every two years. It gives authority to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to undertake projects and studies to improve the nation’s water resources. 

Signed into law Jan. 4, this year’s package includes studies on increased flooding in the upper basin, flood mitigation measures throughout the river system, ecological restoration, and a $6 billion floodwall in Louisiana. 

The Mississippi River is managed in large part by the Army Corps, so it often features prominently in the bill, with a dual aim of making the river more suitable for shipping and restoring environmental degradation from flooding, nutrient pollution and climate change. 

Kirsten Wallace, executive director of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, called this year’s WRDA “a pretty special one.” She said it contained wins for many of the diverse stakeholders along the river, including shippers, environmental advocates, riverfront communities and federal and state agencies — who don’t always agree. 

Advocates lauded the law’s emphasis on nature-based solutions. In a press release, Stephanie Bailenson, policy team lead for The Nature Conservancy, said, “Since 2016, Congress has directed the corps to consider natural and nature-based solutions alongside or instead of traditional infrastructure. This latest act continues that trend.”

But all of these projects are only promised because funding doesn’t come until later, when Congress appropriates it. Many projects authorized in previous versions of the law are still unfunded, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Here’s what will affect the river in the Water Resources Development Act of 2024: 

Study of flood risk on the upper Mississippi River

The law authorizes a large-scale study of flooding on the Upper Mississippi River System, which includes the Mississippi River from its headwaters to where it meets the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois, as well as the Illinois River and portions of some smaller tributaries.

The upper river has seen two major floods in the last few years: one in 2022 and one in 2019, which lasted for months and caused billions of dollars in damage. 

The study’s chief goal: figuring out how to reduce flood risk across the entire river system, instead of relying on municipalities to try to solve flooding problems themselves, which can sometimes have impacts downstream. North of St. Louis, for example, levees constrain the river to protect communities and valuable farmland from flooding — and some levee districts have raised those levees higher, safeguarding themselves but effectively pushing floodwaters faster downstream. 

“This plan allows more of a comprehensive way for levee districts to improve what they currently have … in a way that doesn’t put them in a position to be adversarial or just impose risk somewhere else,” Wallace said. 

She said the study will be a challenge, but that levee districts are eager for solutions as flood risks and heavier rainfall increase. 

Once the study receives funding, it will be led by the Army Corps’ St. Louis District, Wallace said. It’ll solicit input from cities, towns and ports along the river, recreators, the shipping industry and federal environmental agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Flood projects for cities from the headwaters to the delta 

Cities and towns along the river could get help for the localized effects of flooding too, thanks to several projects authorized by the law. Upstream, that includes La Crosse, Wisconsin, which will enter into an agreement with the Army Corps to study the role of the city’s levees, which were constructed around the river’s record flood in 1965. 

“We have to have an eye on maintaining what we’ve got and looking toward the future and whatever conditions the river might undergo to be prepared as best we can,” said Matthew Gallager, the city’s director of engineering and public works. “Because obviously, nature is going to win.” 

Downriver, Louisiana secured the largest project authorization within the law. To protect communities in St. Tammany Parish, a county north of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, plans to build a $5.9 billion levee and floodwall system totaling 18.5 miles in length to protect over 26,000 structures, most of which are family homes. 

The St. Tammany Flood Risk Management Project is slated to receive $3.7 billion in federal funding. The other 35% will come from non-federal sponsors, such as the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). 

“By authorizing the St. Tammany project for construction, Congress recognizes again the national importance of Louisiana and that CPRA can work with the federal government to execute a multi-billion coastal protection project successfully,” said CPRA Chairman Gordy Dove.

The law also authorizes a federal study of the Lake Pontchartrain Storm Surge Reduction Project, a component of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan meant to protect nine parishes bordering the lake. The Army Corps will investigate whether the proposed project to reduce flood risk is in the federal interest. 

Other approved flood control projects will be funded along the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries, including the Ouachita River in Louisiana. Several counties in Mississippi will also receive funding to improve environmental infrastructure, such as water and wastewater systems. 

Near Memphis, the bill authorizes the Hatchie-Loosahatchie Ecosystem Restoration project, which covers a 39-mile stretch of the lower Mississippi River. The project aims to manage flood risks while also restoring and sustaining the health, productivity and biological diversity of the flyway. 

In New Orleans, a study was authorized to investigate ecosystem restoration and water supply issues, such as the mitigation of future saltwater wedges that threaten drinking water and wetlands at the very end of the Mississippi River. 

More support for the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program 

The law also increases the amount of money Congress can give to the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program, which funds habitat restoration activities and scientific research on the upper river. 

Congress increased the money it can direct to the research part of the program by $10 million, bringing the total the program can get to $100 million annually. 

The funding boost “really is a recognition of the value of the science … the understanding that has improved about how the system is functioning over the last three decades,” said Marshall Plumley, the Army Corps’ regional manager for the program. 

If given extra funding, Plumley said program staff want to use it to better understand the effects of the increased amount of water that has flowed through the river in recent years. That increase, partly attributed to wetter conditions due to climate change, is changing the river’s floodplain habitats, including forests and backwater areas. 

A change to how new water infrastructure gets funded

The Mississippi River functions as a water superhighway, transporting around $500 million tons of goods each year. Infrastructure to keep shipping running smoothly is costly, and one adjustment in WRDA 2024 is aimed at shifting the burden of those costs. 

Taxpayers have been funding inland waterway infrastructure for nearly two centuries, but in 1978 Congress established the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, which requires the private shipping industry to pitch in. 

Today, the trust fund’s coffers are filled by a 29-cent per gallon diesel tax on commercial operators that use the Mississippi River and other inland waterways, adding up to about $125 million per year in recent years. New construction — like wider, more modern locks and dams on the upper river — is paid for through a public-private partnership: the private dollars in the fund, and federal dollars allocated by Congress. 

Until recently, the private dollars covered 35% of new construction costs, and federal dollars covered 65%. The new WRDA adjusts that to 25% and 75%, respectively. 

Advocates for the shipping industry have long believed taxpayers should have a bigger hand in funding construction because it’s not just shippers who benefit from an efficient river. 

The balance in the trust fund “always limits” construction that can happen in a given year, said Jen Armstrong, director of government relations for the Waterways Council. 

“We can’t afford to have projects take three decades or two decades to complete,” Armstrong said, “because we have other locks that are deteriorating.” 

Armstrong said she believes shifting more of the cost to the federal government will accelerate those projects. 

Not everyone supports the cost share change, however, including American Rivers, which has opposed the creation of new locks on the upper Mississippi in favor of helping the river revert to more natural processes. 

Kelsey Cruickshank, the group’s director of policy and government relations, called it “a disappointing development that continues to give short shrift to the incredible ecosystem of the world’s third-largest freshwater river system.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

New federal law addresses climate extremes and flooding along Mississippi River is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, an award-winning, hyperlocal nonprofit newsroom that covers Black and brown communities in Milwaukee, seeks a managing editor to take NNS to new heights in journalism and community engagement. This is a key role in a 14-year-old newsroom, and NNS is looking for someone who is both a champion of excellent journalism and a champion of the people who produce the excellent work. NNS seeks someone with top-notch leadership skills and impeccable news judgment. Applicants must be committed to collaboration, appreciate diversity and inclusion and have a passion for coaching a talented newsroom while juggling multiple projects.

This person reports directly to the executive director and must be comfortable working with community residents, students, emerging journalists and seasoned veterans to create stories that resonate with readers who often are neglected, underrepresented or misrepresented by other media outlets.

NNS staffers don’t parachute into communities and then leave: They are embedded in neighborhoods and remain invested in the lives of readers.

NNS believes we can transform through the power of fact-based multimedia reporting and is looking for the person who can bring out the best in NNS’s staff and can help Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service become required reading for all those interested in Milwaukee’s Black and brown communities.

In this role, you will:

•  Edit stories, graphics and visuals to ensure they meet the high standards of NNS for accuracy, clarity and newsworthiness.
• Supervise reporters, photographers, interns and community volunteers.
• Lead editorial meetings; coach and collaborate with reporters to identify and prioritize key topics, stories and impactful cross-newsroom special projects.
• Assist in managing the newsroom, working collaboratively to craft strategies that further the organization’s mission, including production of efficient and timely content.
• Work closely with NNS’s community engagement team, which includes News414, a community-centered engagement initiative that uses text messages, social media, events and other tools to listen to and then provide critical information to underserved audiences.
• In collaboration with the executive director, help provide strategic direction and vision for the editorial team in alignment with the organization’s mission and goals.
• In collaboration with the audience engagement manager, develop and execute content strategies that are revelatory, engaging and support the nonprofit mission, with the goal of getting stories to a wider audience.
• Spur and expand collaboration efforts with media partners, with the goal of getting stories to a wider audience.
• Coordinate regular training sessions to elevate the skills of staff.
• Represent NNS at community events to build and maintain relationships with readers and supporters to ensure NNS stays embedded and connected in the communities it serves.
• Collaborate with the business team to support grant applications and donor relations, as needed.

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service is looking for someone who is committed to serving readers, has excellent interpersonal communication skills, is good at multitasking, is attentive to detail (but can see the forest from the trees) and endorses NNS’s mission to paint a complete portrait of our neighbors by intentionally celebrating the ordinary people who do extraordinary things; connecting readers to the resources they need to navigate their lives; serving as a ferocious watchdog on their behalf; and giving them a platform to voice their opinions on issues.

Required skills:

• 7+ years of journalism experience, with experience managing direct reports.
• Outstanding editing, coaching, organizational and communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to multitask and consistently work on deadlines.
• Experience in WordPress or similar content management systems.
• Self-starting, initiative-taking attitude.
• Demonstrated experience collaborating across and outside of an organization.
• Curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge are an essential part of who you are.
• Copy editing experience, with expertise in SEO headlines and knowledge of AP style.

Bonus skills:

• Has experience setting strategic priorities and vision, including content, that advance organizational mission.
• Fluent in Spanish.

The ideal candidate is: 

• Experienced: You have at least seven years in journalism and four years of managerial experience, ideally managing a team of reporters. 
•  Resourceful: You know what you don’t know and how to get your questions answered without an abundance of hand-holding.
• Unflappable and flexible: You can pivot when you need to and know how to keep the trains running.
• Patient: With a good sense of humor. We like to laugh in our newsroom.
• Enthusiastic: You bring a can-do attitude to work.
• Milwaukee-loving: You possess a working knowledge of (or eagerness to immerse yourself in) the character, people, relationships and ways of Milwaukee.
• Curious: You are eager to learn about the topics and  issues important to the communities we serve. You stay current on Milwaukee happenings and national news topics related to our coverage areas.
• Mission-focused: You frame work through the lens of the most vulnerable, with a focus on serving communities that have been or are underserved.
• A lifelong learner: You realize you don’t know everything and are willing to experiment and fill your own knowledge gaps.
• Organized: You know how to prioritize and balance multiple projects simultaneously.
• Possess a start-up mentality: We are building the newsroom of the future in real time. We need folks committed to experimentation, innovation, improvisation and adaptation who are not afraid to get their fingernails dirty as they do the work.
• Is a good human being: We want someone who champions good journalism and the people who do it and the people we serve. If you don’t know how to collaborate, ours is not the newsroom for you.

We know that there will be great candidates who might not check all these boxes or who hold important skills we haven’t listed. Don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. We are an equal-opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or any other status protected under applicable law.

Location: The managing editor should be located in the Milwaukee area.  

Salary and benefits: The salary range is $63,500-$80,000. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, and higher compensation may be available for someone with advanced skills and/or experience. NNS offers competitive benefits, including generous vacation (five weeks), a retirement fund contribution, paid sick days, paid family and caregiver leave, subsidized medical and dental premiums, vision coverage, and more.

Deadline: Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. For best consideration, apply by Feb. 7, 2025.

To apply: Please submit a PDF of your resume, a cover letter explaining why you are the best candidate for this job and answer a brief question in the application form. If you’d like to chat about the job before applying, contact Executive Director Ron Smith at rsmith@milwaukeenns.org.

About NNS

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (https://milwaukeenns.org/), often referred to as NNS, is an ambitious, collaborative and pioneering journalism venture that for 14 years has delivered fact-based reporting to communities of color in Milwaukee. Housed in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, NNS is a division of Wisconsin Watch, a statewide newsroom that focuses on explanatory and accountability reporting.

NNS and Wisconsin Watch merged in 2024 with different but complementary missions that work together to super-serve Wisconsin residents. NNS’s hyperlocal journalism reports on the complex issues facing communities of color. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Watch has a history of accountability journalism, regularly cited by policymakers and government officials. While we frequently collaborate, all editorial decisions are made by the Milwaukee staff.

We approach journalism by integrating ourselves into the community and listening to needs. This process informs what and how we report on issues. For example, in response to growing concerns about the toll of gun violence on Milwaukee residents, NNS added a gun violence solutions reporter. This has helped NNS and Wisconsin Watch reporters consider how gun violence affects urban and rural communities differently and explore how we can improve systems to create safer communities.

Milwaukee NNS’s editorial vision

To provide reader-centered reporting that: 

• Celebrates the ordinary people who do extraordinary things in the city to balance out the overemphasis of trauma and drama as well as doom and gloom in communities of  color.
• Educates the community about resources that are available to help them navigate life.
• Illuminates through watchdog reporting and explanatory journalism significant issues of interest for and in our communities.
• Innovates through the use of technology such as texting, videos, audio, etc., that elevates our storytelling to engage and meet residents where they are.

Catch our momentum

NNS is proud to be known nationally and cherished locally.

Supported by Milwaukee’s generous philanthropic community and by individual donors, NNS was one of 28 news organizations serving communities of color to receive capacity-building funding from the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy and a $1.4 million shared grant with the Wisconsin Watch from the American Journalism Project.  In addition, we have employed journalists through Report for America since 2020.

We are entering 2025 with momentum as our executive director, who’s edited several Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, has been inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club’s Media Hall of Fame; NNS Basic Needs Reporter PrincessSafiya Byers winning the Loeb Award, which is considered the Pulitzer for business journalism, for her collaboration with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on “Milwaukee’s Hidden Landlords”; and NNS being selected in the inaugural cohort of newsrooms to receive funding from Press Forward.

Our newsroom is one of the most racially diverse newsrooms in the city, with 80% of the staff being people of color.

We want to give Milwaukee the newsroom it deserves while also giving the people on our staff the workplace THEY deserve as well.

Salary

$63,500 – $80,000 per year

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service seeks managing editor is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The fate of postpartum Medicaid expansion, a bipartisan effort in the state Legislature, yet again falls in the hands of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who said Tuesday that it’s “unlikely” his chamber will get to vote on it.

Congress previously gave states a permanent option to accept federal funds for 12-month extensions of postpartum Medicaid coverage. Wisconsin and Arkansas are now the only two states that have turned down the federal extension. Wisconsin’s coverage currently lasts 60 days after birth, far shorter than what health experts recommend. 

Extending the coverage has emerged as a way for states to fight maternal mortality rates. Though pregnancy-related deaths are rare,  a third of them in Wisconsin occur beyond the 60-day coverage window, according to the Department of Health Services. 

Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston, on Tuesday reintroduced a bill that would expand coverage to 12 months. The legislation mirrors the extensions that have been introduced in previous sessions, yet have failed to pass the Legislature. That same day, Vos, R-Rochester, said a vote on the 12-month extension would be “unlikely.” 

“Our caucus has taken a position that expanding welfare is not a wise idea for anyone involved,” Vos told reporters. 

Republican lawmakers previously agreed to a three-month coverage period. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ 2021-23 state budget proposal asked for a 12-month extension, but Republican lawmakers on the powerful Joint Finance Committee amended it to instead require DHS to request federal approval to extend postpartum Medicaid eligibility to 90 days instead of the 60 mandated by federal law. 

Vos accused the Evers administration of not applying for the 90-day extension the Legislature already granted, which isn’t true — something Vos acknowledged in response to a follow-up question to his office. DHS submitted the application for the extension, but the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year said it would not approve a waiver request for coverage shorter than one year. 

“I’m glad that I was wrong and it has been submitted,” Vos responded. “The waiver request should be resubmitted to the Trump administration.”

“Going from the 60 to 90 days is pretty negligible,” said Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, chair of the Assembly Committee on Health, Aging and Long-Term Care.  

During the last legislative session, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan bill in a 32-1 vote that would have extended postpartum coverage to 12 months. The lone opponent was Duey Stroebel, who lost his re-election bid in November. In total, 73 lawmakers cosponsored the bill — over half of the state Legislature. The bill authored by Snyder this session is currently circulating for cosponsors. 

Interest groups from both sides of the aisle came out in support of the previous legislation, including Pro-Life Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Kids Forward.

“It made sense to me because if I am pro-life and I don’t want people to abort their babies, why would I not do everything I could to support those mothers to have the babies,” former Republican Rep. Donna Rozar, who authored the bill last session, told Wisconsin Watch. 

But despite bipartisan support, the Assembly never scheduled it for a hearing before adjourning for the rest of the session in February last year. 

Rozar said she and other lawmakers couldn’t get Vos on board. “He dug his heel in, there was no doubt about it,” she said.

Moses put the bill on the agenda for a hearing. But in addition to Vos blocking it, the committee was jammed near the end of the session and didn’t have time to schedule it, he said. 

“There’s 132 people in this building. I don’t think we should legislate by one,” Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, said of Vos. “It’s up to his caucus to elect a different speaker or change his mind. So his members have to put enough pressure on him to get it done.” 

Without Vos’ approval, Moses said it’s not likely that lawmakers will secure a 12-month extension, but he’s hopeful that an extension of at least six or nine months can be agreed to in this year’s state budget, despite the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ indication that anything less than 12 months would not be approved. Moses is willing to schedule a hearing for the upcoming bill, but if Vos remains opposed, it may not get referred to him, he said. 

“When it comes to the budget, if there’s something that we want that would be attractive to negotiate this out with, I think that’s a possibility,” Moses said. 

A fiscal estimate last session estimated the bill expansion would cost $21.4 million per year, including $8.4 million in state taxpayer funds with the rest coming from federal taxpayers. It would increase monthly Medicaid enrollment by 5,290 members. Felzkowski, who sponsored the Senate version, said it’s an extension for those who are already covered rather than an expansion that puts more people on Medicaid. She also said it’s good for taxpayers. 

“The reason states have done this — blue states, red states, purple states — is it’s a return on investment for the taxpayers and it makes sense to do it,” Felzkowski told Wisconsin Watch. “We see the number of complications that happen in that first year, and those complications, by not being covered, cost money — cost a lot of money.” 

Wisconsin’s 306% Medicaid income eligibility limit for the 60 days of postpartum coverage is one of the highest in the country — something Vos has pointed to. 

“When you make a choice to have a child, which I’m glad that people do, it’s not the taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for the delivery of that child,” Vos said in 2023. “We do it for people who are in poverty. We’ve made the decision to go to 300%, that’s the law. But to now say beyond 60 days, we’re going to give you free coverage, no copayment, no deductible, until a year out, absolutely not.”

A 2021 version of the bill failed to get a floor vote in both the Senate and the Assembly, yet had only one lobbying group registered against it.

That group was Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying arm of the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability. The conservative advocacy group did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s requests for comment. FGA has a track record of lobbying against Medicaid expansion and other bills in Wisconsin. 

“I think it’s a little premature to have any discussions about the Medicaid budget right now. We have a brand new administration coming into D.C.,” Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, said in a Tuesday press conference with Vos. “I think the Trump administration is actually going to put some common sense into some of these programs federally.”

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Republicans and Democrats agree on postpartum Medicaid expansion — Robin Vos says it’s unlikely is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday afternoon, focusing on so-called “America First” policies.

Among Trump’s top priorities is a pledge to deport millions of people living in the United States without legal status. Trump’s team has prepared a stack of executive orders to sign in short order, with a heavy emphasis on immigration policy.

But some leaders in in Democratic Wisconsin communities say they won’t play ball with the federal government when it comes to residents living in the United States without legal status.

“Dane County will continue to be strong, we will continue to be compassionate, and we will support one another,” Dane County Executive Melissa Agard told reporters last week, adding that county agencies will continue to deliver services to all residents.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne agreed, saying “no matter who you are or where you come from, my office is committed to helping make Dane County a safe and welcoming place for all.”

“Increased fear of mass deportation has already inhibited some members of our most vulnerable populations from reporting their victimization to law enforcement,” he added. “This reality perpetuates a cycle of violence and criminality that have a chilling effect on our entire community.”

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office will also continue its current practices, spokesperson Elise Schaffer told reporters. For example, the office does not provide “proactive communication” to federal immigration authorities nor does it inform U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if deputies encounter someone without legal status while working in the field or if they’ve taken them into custody.

In Milwaukee, Mayor Cavalier Johnson “wants all residents, irrespective of immigration status, to be appropriately respected,” his spokesperson, Jeff Fleming, told Wisconsin Watch. “The mayor has expressed his opposition to the rhetoric and hostility directed toward immigrants.”

ICE is seeking to move its current Milwaukee facility from downtown to the city’s northwest side, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reported last week, but has so far been met with significant community pushback.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman did not directly respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch. Instead, a spokesperson pointed to the department’s standard operating procedures relating to immigration enforcement.

“Enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws is the responsibility of the federal government,” the policy states. “Accordingly, the Milwaukee Police Department does not unilaterally undertake immigration-related investigations and does not routinely inquire into the immigration status of persons encountered during police operations.”

“A person’s right to file a police report, participate in police-community activities, or otherwise benefit from police services is not contingent upon their immigration status,” it continues, while noting the department may cooperate with federal authorities in certain special cases.

Police officers in the city of Green Bay are also not in the business of keeping tabs on someone’s immigration status, Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Wisconsin Watch in an interview.

“There aren’t very many situations where someone’s immigration status is really relevant to any of the work that we’re doing,” Davis said, adding: “My priority is the safety and the well-being of whoever happens to be in the city of Green Bay at any given time.”

The exact number of people living in Wisconsin without legal status is hard to determine, Wisconsin Watch reported last week, but some groups, like the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, have estimated there to be about 70,000 such people in the state. 

Workers without legal status are particularly critical to the state’s dairy industry, according to a 2023 UW-Madison School for Workers survey. “More than 10,000 undocumented” workers perform around 70% of the labor on Wisconsin’s dairy farms, the report found, and without them “the whole dairy industry would collapse overnight,” the researchers concluded.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Wisconsin Democrats pledge support to immigrants as new administration takes office is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin has long had a photo ID requirement for voting on its books — one of the strictest in the nation. This year, voters will decide whether to make it harder to weaken that requirement.

The April 1 ballot contains a proposal that would enshrine the photo ID requirement in the state’s constitution. Republican lawmakers backed the proposed constitutional amendment in an effort to prevent the ID policy, passed in 2011, from being gutted in court. 

Approval of the amendment wouldn’t affect the current ID requirement, experts say; rather, it would prevent or at least complicate future efforts to undo it.

The ballot question coming before voters on April 1 will ask whether the Wisconsin Constitution should be amended to “require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law.”

The amendment would state, in part: “No qualified elector may cast a ballot in any election unless the elector presents valid photographic identification that verifies the elector’s identity.”

Voters can vote “yes” if they want the proposal in the constitution and “no” if they don’t. Whichever way the amendment goes, Wisconsin would continue to have a photo ID requirement for voting because it’s already state law. 

The amendment appears likely to pass. Most constitutional amendment proposals in Wisconsin pass when they come before voters, and 74% of Wisconsin residents polled in 2021 supported the photo ID requirement. The Assembly and the Senate both passed the amendment proposal in January on party line votes, with Republicans in favor and Democrats against.

Making the policy a constitutional requirement, and not just a state law, makes it far less likely that a court could strike it down, said Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. It also means a future Legislature can’t remove the requirement by simply repealing the statute, she said, though it would allow lawmakers to modify the requirement to some extent by creating exceptions.

It’s unclear how far those exceptions could go before they would effectively “gut the requirement” in violation of the constitution, Wilde said. Some states, for example, allow people without photo IDs to cast a ballot if they sign a legal statement affirming their identity. 

“Maybe there is still wiggle room on the part of the Legislature to provide relief from the requirement in certain circumstances,” she said. “Whether you could say, ‘If you don’t have an ID, you don’t have to provide it,’ that might be too far. A court might not protect that.”

What’s the history behind photo IDs for voting?

The law that the amendment would enshrine was enacted in 2011 but faced court challenges that limited its implementation for several years. Republican proponents said it would make elections more secure by protecting against voter impersonation, something that research has shown is rare. Opponents of the law filed lawsuits alleging that the policy made it too hard to vote. 

Its first use in a presidential election was in 2016, and the requirement has remained in place ever since. 

The law requires voters to present their photo ID when they vote. If they can’t show ID, they can cast a provisional ballot and would have to present their photo ID afterward to have that ballot count.. Acceptable photo IDs include  driver’s licenses, military IDs, IDs issued by federally recognized Native American tribes, U.S. passports, some university IDs, free voting IDs issued by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, and some other types.

Wisconsin is among nine states that have “strict photo ID” laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In these states, voters must have a photo ID when they vote, or have to vote via provisional ballot and then provide photo ID later — either to poll workers on Election Day or to the local election clerk within days of the election — for their ballots to count. Other states either have strict non-photo ID laws, less stringent ID requirements or no ID requirement at all.

Researchers have found that Wisconsin’s law had a disenfranchising effect.

In the 2016 presidential election, an estimated 4,000 to 11,000 eligible people in Dane and Milwaukee counties didn’t vote mainly because they lacked an eligible photo ID, a study concluded, based on survey responses from nearly 300 registered nonvoters. The study, by then-University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Ken Mayer, estimated that for 8,000 to 17,000 people in those heavily Democratic counties, lack of photo ID was one of many reasons they didn’t vote.

People who were Black, who earned lower incomes and who had less formal education were less likely to have eligible photo IDs, the study states. 

Republicans widely criticized the study over its sample size and methodology. Republicans have also criticized Democrats for simultaneously arguing that photo IDs are too hard for some people to get while also saying, in their effort to encourage voting, that free voter IDs are easy to get.

The IDs are indeed free, but getting to a Division of Motor Vehicles office to obtain one isn’t, said Lauren Kunis, CEO and executive director of VoteRiders, which helps voters obtain the identification they need to vote.

“Convenience matters when we’re talking about voting,” she said. “Some of us think about voting all day, every day, and we’ll make it a priority to get your ducks in a row and get everything you need well in advance of any deadlines. But that is not the case for the average eligible voter in the United States, and we need to design policies and systems that think about that voter.”

The law’s specifications about which IDs are acceptable make it more complicated, said Jake Spence, VoteRiders’ Wisconsin coordinator. 

For example, standard IDs issued by some big state universities, including UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, aren’t suitable for voting. The state’s strict criteria for student ID used for voting requires including the date the card was issued, the student’s signature and an expiration date no later than two years after its issuance. The standard student IDs issued at those universities don’t meet those requirements, though students can ask for compliant IDs.

Across Wisconsin, Kunis said, VoteRiders staff and volunteers have encountered not only people who couldn’t vote because they didn’t have an appropriate ID but also people who had appropriate IDs but didn’t vote because they were confused by the law, sometimes unaware that their ID met the requirements.

What should I know about the proposed amendment?

Republican proponents say they want to put the law in the constitution to keep the liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court from striking down the photo ID requirement, especially if liberal candidate Susan Crawford, who argued against the ID rule in court, wins a seat on the high court in April’s election.

“I cannot say for certain how (the) Wisconsin Supreme Court would rule on voter ID laws, but I’m also not willing to risk the Wisconsin Supreme Court, unburdened by precedent and the Wisconsin Constitution, declaring voter ID laws unconstitutional,” Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard said at a hearing on the proposal.

Democratic legislators and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers ardently opposed the proposed amendment, saying it has a disenfranchising effect. 

“This is about voter suppression,” said Rep. Christine Sinicki, a Milwaukee Democrat, adding that there were people in her neighborhood who can’t get a photo ID to vote. 

The measure passed nonetheless in the GOP-majority Legislature. Evers doesn’t have the power to veto constitutional amendment proposals, which must pass two successive legislatures before they can appear on the ballot.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin’s voter ID ballot question: Here’s what you need to know is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Dummies used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in vehicle crash testing roughly represent typical-size adult males, but only small-size adult females.

The adult dummies represent males who are 5-foot-9 and 160-171 pounds and females who are 4-foot-11 and 97-108 pounds. An average female is 5-foot-4 and weighs 171 pounds while an average male is 5-foot-9 and weighs 200 pounds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In March 2023, the federal Government Accountability Office recommended NHTSA address discrepancies in testing of females, and people who are older or heavier. It noted that in crashes, females are at greater risk of death and certain injuries than males.

NHTSA responded saying it is developing more representative dummies.

Congress took no action on legislation introduced in May 2024 to modernize the testing.

The issue was mentioned during the recent U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for Republican Sean Duffy, a former Wisconsin congressman, to be transportation secretary.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Fox Business: Trump nominee Sean Duffy vows to usher in a 'golden age of transportation'
• Commerce Dems: Nomination Hearing: Department of Transportation Secretary
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: NHTSA’s Crash Test Dummies
• U.S. Government Accountability Office: DOT Should Take Additional Actions to Improve the Information Obtained from Crash Test Dummies
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: NHTSA Advanced Anthropomorphic Test Devices Development and Implementation Plan
• Congress.gov: S.4299 – She DRIVES Act
• U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer: Fischer Introduces Bill to Modernize Vehicle Safety Tests, Require Use of Female Crash Test Dummies
• National Center for Health Statistics: Body measurements

Does the US use crash test dummies that represent average-size women? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.