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• The average Wisconsin farmer is nearly 57 years old, and farmers are increasingly finding that their children don’t want to take over their operations. 

• Legislation introduced by Wisconsin lawmakers would create a state-run farmland link program to connect farmers who are interested in selling or renting out their land to beginning farmers. 

• Eight states, including Minnesota and Michigan, have land link programs run in whole or in part by government agencies. 

• While advocates say the need for this type of program is real, some feel the legislation needs to include funding to be successful.

Joy Kirkpatrick spends much of her time thinking about the future of Wisconsin’s farmland. 

As a farm succession outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, she helps farmers figure out what to do with their farms when they’re ready to retire. 

A flood of farmers will soon face that question. The average Wisconsin farmer is nearly 57, and a growing share are 65 or older.  

For generations, the answer was simple: Hand off the land and operations to their kids. But farmers are increasingly finding their grown children have other plans. 

To fund their retirement, today’s farmers will often weigh whether to rent or sell their land to larger agricultural operations, real estate developers, energy companies or even private equity firms. 

Meanwhile, a new generation of aspiring farmers is struggling to get started. Many didn’t grow up on farms and don’t have the land they need. In surveys, beginning farmers nationwide say their biggest challenge is finding affordable farmland. 

Nationally, nearly 70% of all farmland is expected to change hands in the next 20 years, whether through inheritance or sale, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. What happens to that land will determine whether Wisconsin’s farmers can retire comfortably, and whether small farms have a place in the state’s future. 

“If we want land to be available to new or beginning farmers, figuring out ways that the land can be affordable for them and still provide the income that the owner generation needs is key,” Kirkpatrick said.

Experts say meeting those two goals will require a combination of strategies including tax incentives, conservation easements and loan assistance. But a group of Wisconsin lawmakers is looking to make a dent in the problem with a simple step: a website to connect those with farmland for sale or rent to those looking to start new farms.

A group of Republican lawmakers introduced Assembly Bill 411 and its Senate counterpart, SB 412, this summer. The legislation would direct the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to create a “farmland link” program to assist farmers with transferring property. Central to that effort, the bill instructs DATCP to build and maintain a website where farm owners could post land for sale or rent, and beginning farmers could inquire about the opportunities they’re looking for, including the chance to be mentored by an experienced farmer before taking the reins.

The legislation’s lead author, Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, grew up on a dairy farm and now runs a roughly 50-head beef operation. He’s watched farmland prices rise, much like home prices. 

“It’s much, much more challenging than it was even five to 10 years ago,” Moses said. 

It’s not just a cost problem, Moses said. In the past, farmers looking to pass on their land would talk to their neighbors to see who was interested. Today, those communities are often less connected, so prospective farmers need other ways to find land, Moses said. That’s the purpose of a farmland link website.

“It kind of allows them to not have to go out and sift through all the other real estate listings,” Moses said. 

Eight other states, including neighboring Minnesota and Michigan, have land link programs run in whole or in part by state or local governments. In Wisconsin, where the previous state-run program shut down around a decade ago, only regional nonprofit organizations now offer the service.

While some Wisconsin farm advocates are optimistic the bill could chip away at a tough problem, others say it lacks the funding and specifics to make it work. 

Pair finds farm of their dreams

Les Macare and Els Dobrick of Racing Heart Farm in Colfax found their 36 acres in the Farmland Clearinghouse listings, published by the Minnesota-based nonprofit Land Stewardship Project. 

It was 2016, and the two lived in Minneapolis and rented farmland in Stillwater, where they grew vegetables for Minneapolis farmers markets and a CSA.

But they were getting tired of commuting 40 minutes every morning and evening. 

“We knew either we were going to start looking for land, or not farm,” Macare said.

From the listing, the former sheep and vegetable farm in Dunn County sounded like a dream. The owners, a pair of sisters and their young families, were looking to move somewhere less rural. When Macare and Dobrick visited, the rolling hills and rocky outcroppings reminded Macare of their home state of Connecticut. 

“We got back in the car and we looked at each other like, can we make this happen? Because it was absolutely the perfect thing for our farm business, and for us,” Macare said.

Getting financing took more than nine months, but the sellers waited. That, Macare said, is one benefit of this kind of listing service: The buyers and sellers know the farm business and its particular challenges.

Many landowners who advertise through the Clearinghouse are motivated by more than money, said Karen Stettler, who oversees the listings for the Land Stewardship Project. Many have cultivated their land organically for years and want to see their farms continue the same way.

“People have a lot of connection to land and to what they’re doing on farms and so are very good stewards and caretakers of their land, and they’re wanting to make sure that the next generation also has that same sort of value and vision around stewardship,” Stettler said.

Today, Macare is grateful for the opportunity to raise their vegetables and sheep on their own land. 

“The cost of land has just gotten really astronomical,” Macare said. “I feel so lucky that we bought when we did because I don’t know that 10 years later I would be able to even consider spending what I think the value of this land is now based on seeing prices around us change.”

How would the program work?

If the proposed legislation passes, Wisconsin will offer a similar service to the one Macare used, but the one-page bill offers little detail on how it would work. 

That might be a good thing, said Dan Bauer, program supervisor for the Wisconsin Farm Center at DATCP. His office would oversee the program if the Legislature passes the bill and it’s signed into law. 

The broad nature of the bill could allow his team to create what they think will be most effective, Bauer said. 

He first heard about the bill around the time it was introduced in August, when his department was asked to estimate its cost. They budgeted $66,800 in one-time costs for building the website and $100,300 a year for a full-time staff person to help design and promote it, as well as to provide “shoulder-to-shoulder, on-the-ground, wraparound farmland access services” to site users. They added another $5,000 for initial education, outreach and marketing efforts. 

For the plan to work, Bauer said, staff will need to reach out to farmers who are preparing to transition out of farming and encourage them to advertise their land. Farmers will also need expert help before, during and after any land transfer. 

“A website by itself is not going to deliver the desired outcomes as a stand-alone,” Bauer said. “To really design and launch a program that the state would be happy with, I think it has to be a combination of the website and then also that on-the-ground coaching and advising and mentorship.”

The bill doesn’t include any appropriations, so if it passes, Bauer said the department “would have to explore its options” to cover the $172,100 total. 

While Wisconsin’s two nonprofit-run farmland link programs primarily serve farmers who use organic or “sustainable” practices, the state-run program would serve all kinds of farms and farmers, Moses said. 

Bauer and an agency spokesperson said they knew the Farm Center previously administered a similar program, but they did not know how it worked, when it operated or why it closed. Ryan LeCloux, a Legislative Reference Bureau analyst, said the prior program began in 1993 as part of DATCP’s Farmers Assistance Program and existed until at least 2015, before it was removed from the agency’s website.

In any case, Bauer said, his team would likely create the new program from scratch. “Even if we had really good information on how the last program was operated, I’m not even sure how relevant it would be when you consider just how much technology has advanced in the last 10, 15, 20 years.” 

Need is real, advocates say

Before the bill was introduced, representatives of a handful of organizations that support farmers and aspiring farmers were already discussing such a possibility. A working group convened by the Farmland Access Hub began meeting last year after members identified the idea as a top priority.

“The big elephant in the room is that Wisconsin doesn’t have a (state-run) Farm Link program,” said Mia Ljung, a member of that working group and a community development educator for Outagamie and Winnebago counties through UW-Madison Extension. 

“Not to say that it’s going to be a quick fix, but if you don’t have a Farm Link program in your state, it’s going to be much harder to make those connections between current land holders, land owners and land seekers.”

The group has been studying how such programs work in other states. That research is especially important as legislators consider the bill, Ljung said, calling the proposed budget “very slim.” 

“If the initiative will be supported by enough infrastructure, funding and outreach, I am supportive because there’s a big need,” Ljung said.

The state’s biggest farm lobby has officially backed the bill. Jason Mugnaini, executive director of government relations at the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, said supporting Wisconsin’s current and future farmers will take a variety of strategies, from creating conservation easements to helping farm families get health insurance.

Creating a land link program would be a key step, Mugnaini said. “It’s a challenge for those young folks, so finding access to land is one of the easiest ways that they can start farming full time,” Mugnaini said.

Still, the proponents agree it will take much more to get land into the hands of a new generation of small farmers.

“It’s a good tool in the toolbox, but it’s just one part of a very difficult and challenging discussion that has to be had, not only just in Wisconsin, but throughout the United States: Who are the next generation of farmers going to be? Where are they going to find the ability to continue farming, and how are we going to continue to feed the United States of America?” Mugnaini said.

Among the other challenges to address are the reasons farmers may be reluctant to list their land. Many farmers invest nearly everything they have into their farms, and some haven’t paid enough in Social Security taxes to qualify for payments. That means they need their land to pay their bills after they retire, said Kirkpatrick, the farm succession planner.

Fearing a hefty capital gains tax bill, many farmers opt not to sell during their lifetimes. But the idea of renting to someone just getting started in a tough business may sound risky, and beginning farmers may not be able to pay as much as bigger players can.

“If the owner generation is dependent on the sale or some sort of income coming from farmland or other assets for their late years, they’re going to be making decisions that they perceive as less risky to them,” Kirkpatrick said, explaining that many will choose to rent to an established farm operation that’s looking to expand. 

Beginning farmers need affordable land, Kirkpatrick said, “and we also need to make sure that that owner generation is able to live and age gracefully.”

A land link program won’t change the economics of the market, but Kirkpatrick thinks such a website, combined with proactive succession planning, could help farmers achieve their own goals for their land.

“I think there are a lot of farm owners that would love to see their farm used in a similar way of, you know, raising a family on it … And to be honest, it would be great for rural communities to still have those farms,” Kirkpatrick said. “If this linking program helps them realize that that’s possible, that’s great.”

“I think that we need to really think about what that generation of owners need and how we can help them plan in a way that feels right for them, and also give opportunities to others,” Kirkpatrick said.

Critics call bill ‘incomplete’

Meanwhile, several other farm lobby groups in the state have taken a neutral stance on the bill. That includes state associations of producers of cattle, corn, pork and vegetables, as well as Wisconsin Farm Credit Services and the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, a nonprofit that researches and promotes sustainable farming practices. 

“This bill is incomplete as written and requires funding to be successful,” read the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute’s comments on the legislation. “However, we encourage the idea and want to explore this option further.”

Chuck Anderas, the institute’s policy director, said he’s worried that the bill doesn’t include any appropriations. 

“That doesn’t mean that there’s no plans ever to include funding for it, but it needs to be funded enough to be successful,” Anderas said. “Otherwise, it could just be like a website that doesn’t really get used all that much.” 

That could discourage farmers and land seekers who come to the site hoping for help, Anderas said.

“We’d rather see it not happen than happen in a way that sets it up to fail.”

Neither the Senate nor Assembly versions of the bill have any Democratic co-sponsors. Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska, serves on the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Revenue, which is currently reviewing the bill. 

Pfaff said creating a farmland link program is “an excellent idea” but the bill is “incomplete.”

“Let’s hope that we can get some more meat on the bones here and be serious about the piece of legislation, and hopefully we can get it passed before the legislative session comes to an end.”

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

Beginning farmers struggle to find land. Could a new website help? 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.

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Contentious legislation, including a bill to end the federal government shutdown, is sometimes delayed or derailed by the U.S. Senate’s 60-vote rule.

Generally, a bill passes the Senate with a simple majority – 51 votes.

But for most bills, any senator can indefinitely postpone a vote with a filibuster – unlimited debate on a bill. 

Ending debate requires 60 votes.

Currently, Republicans have 53 seats. As of Oct. 23, they had not persuaded enough Democrats to support ending debate and vote on a House-passed bill that would end the shutdown with temporary funding.  

The shutdown began when funding ended with the start of the fiscal year, Oct. 1. 
One potential effect: The Trump administration announced that funding might not be available in November for the 42 million people receiving SNAP food stamps. Wisconsin said it would run out of SNAP funding after Oct. 31.

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

Sources

• U.S. Senate: About Voting
• U.S. Senate: About Filibusters and Cloture
• U.S. Senate: Party Division
• The Hill: Chip Roy floats nuclear option on Senate filibuster to end shutdown
• CBS News: Government shutdown nears three-week mark as Senate fails for 11th time to advance funding bill
• Bipartisan Policy Center: What Happens if the Government Shuts Down?
• U.S. Department of Agriculture: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Benefit and Administrative Expense Update for November 2025
• WisPolitics: Gov. Evers: Wisconsin FoodShare program to run out of funding in 10 days

Is the government shutdown due partly to the Senate’s 60-vote rule? 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.

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• The number of seasonal workers hired by Wisconsin farmers through the H-2A program has increased six-fold over the past decade.

• Although the surge began before President Donald Trump returned to office, farmers now consider the program even more critical during Trump’s crackdown on immigrants without legal status.

• The Trump administration has introduced adjustments to program rules, including cuts to minimum wages and a pending $250 per-visa fee.

• Mexican nationals made up over 90% of the H-2A workforce last year, but South Africans make up a growing share of workers as well.

• The program does not offer visa holders a pathway to legal permanent residency in the United States.

By the time Monty Lilford received a call from the American consulate in Cape Town in February, he had only days to get from his home in South Africa’s Western Cape to Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. If all went according to plan, the 35-year-old mechanic would spend the next nine months as a do-it-all farmhand, joining the thousands of seasonal agricultural workers seeking better wages in Wisconsin through the H-2A visa program.

Lilford could not afford a last-minute flight halfway across the world. There’s a market for lending to H-2A workers crunched for time, he said — one dominated by “people doing scams to get your banking details.” 

Lilford turned to his father-in-law for help. “I begged him,” he said. “I needed to go.”

The temporary visa program offers Lilford a chance to build a middle-class life back home, albeit one that requires spending much of the year sharing a modest ranch house with seven fellow farmworkers near Fountain City. His visa does not offer him a pathway to legal permanent residency in the United States, and he will be barred from the program if he overstays.

Mike Bushman, Lilford’s employer and the owner of B&B Agri Sales in Buffalo County, considers the program the only legal and reliable source of labor for his farm. While he could hire workers who lack legal status, Bushman is wary of the legal risks. 

“You work your whole life to put something together and then take the risk of losing it all,” he said. 

The H-2A program comes with higher up-front costs, he explained, but he considers it essential  to keep his farm afloat amid a labor shortage.

Bushman is not alone. The number of seasonal workers hired by Wisconsin farmers through the H-2A program has increased six-fold over the past decade, according to 2024 state Department of Workforce Development data. The surge began long before President Donald Trump returned to office in January. Amid the White House’s ongoing immigration crackdown, however, some farmers now consider the program an even more critical alternative to workers without legal status.

The program is far from a flawless solution to the agricultural sector’s labor crisis. 

For farmers, the H-2A application process is often an expensive, slow-moving headache – one they must relive year after year.

Workers, meanwhile, frequently report wage theft and other mistreatment, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division routinely uncovers violations of H-2A rules on Wisconsin farms. With inspectors stretched thin, patterns of abuse and fraud can go unpunished for years. Workers who walk away from a dishonest employer or dangerous workplace risk losing their visa.

The Trump administration has introduced a litany of adjustments to the program’s rules in recent months, including cuts to minimum wages and a yet-to-be-implemented $250 fee per visa. With some details still hazy, farmers and workers are awaiting clarity on what lies ahead. 

Application process is ‘constant battle’

Farmers argue the program is rife with inefficiencies. Program staff are often difficult, if not impossible, to reach, the application process relies almost entirely on physical mail, and farmers regularly spend thousands of dollars on attorneys to help navigate the labyrinth of paperwork. Keeping an application moving on schedule is a “constant battle,” Bushman said. 

The application requires approval from multiple federal and state agencies, often resulting in delays during handoffs from one agency to another. Those hurdles and screening interview backlogs at American consulates and embassies can leave workers stuck in their home countries past the planned start of their contract.

“Last year, the workers came almost three days late,” said Adam Lauer, co-owner of a pickling cucumber farm in Waushara County. “At three days late, you’re throwing a lot of pickles away.”

Bushman said such delays were responsible for Lilford’s last-minute rush to secure a plane ticket – a systemic flaw loan sharks exploit by charging desperate workers extortionate interest rates, he added. 

Earlier this month, the Trump administration took steps to address some delays, allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to begin reviewing workers’ applications while the Department of Labor considers applications from employers. That could buy more time for workers to schedule screening interviews at consulates and embassies, said Tom Bortnyk, senior vice president and general counsel for Virginia-based másLabor, which provides H-2A recruitment and application services for farmers nationwide, including in Wisconsin.

Other hurdles are tougher to fix. Federal regulators can be slow to send crucial paperwork, said Ethan Olson, a labor contractor who works with Lauer. That can leave farmers without documentation required – at least in theory – to prove they comply with H-2A rules. “You’re at the government’s mercy,” he said.

The Department of Labor did not respond to a request for comment during an ongoing government shutdown. 

Remaking the workforce

Wisconsin’s H-2A workforce is smaller than those of its neighbors, in part because the seasonal visa program is largely off-limits to the year-round dairy industry, which plays an outsized role in state agriculture. Michigan farmers hired roughly 15,000 H-2A workers in 2024, compared to fewer than 3,000 in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s H-2A workers spent the summer picking celery near Janesville, driving farm equipment in Fond du Lac County and tending pheasants outside of Marshfield. Lilford spent an October afternoon bundling equipment in Bushman’s fabrication shop while another farmhand moved feed corn into storage.

In years past, at least some of those jobs went to workers without legal status. “We went down to Florida to recruit,” said Lauer. Between 2021 and 2022 – the most recent years for which Department of Labor survey data are available — roughly 42% of crop workers surveyed lacked work authorization.

Lauer noted practical reasons to switch to an H-2A workforce. “We were so short on people,” he said. “Multiple years, 20 to 30 people short.” By the time his farm needed workers in mid-summer, many undocumented farmworkers had already found jobs elsewhere. 

Hiring undocumented workers also comes with legal risks. If caught, employers face fines of up to $3,000 per worker. Amid a nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown, Lauer said, “I wouldn’t take that chance.”

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, some farmers turned to the program as local alternatives slipped away. 

Before 2019, Dan Hanauer largely hired in and around Shawano for seasonal jobs on his Christmas tree farm. Some local workers were out of high school; others arrived through a county jail employment program.

By law, employers must offer seasonal jobs to “qualified, eligible U.S. workers,” including past employees, before hiring H-2A workers. In the past six months, prosecutors in Mississippi and Washington state have scrutinized employers who allegedly prioritized H-2A workers over U.S. workers.

Hanauer argues he was forced to switch. His local workforce, he said, was dwindling and prone to missing shifts. 

“The job description says you miss three days and you’re gone,” he added. 

On a recent weekday morning, several H-2A workers cut boughs from the bases of fir trees to be sold as Christmas wreaths — a new product for his business made possible by a more reliable team of seasonal workers from Mexico, Hanauer said.

Most of the roughly 20 H-2A workers who spoke to Wisconsin Watch — all employed by either Bushman, Lauer or Hanauer — were from Mexico. 

Upon returning to Mexico, “I take a week off to rest, and then it’s back to work,” said Israel Cruz, a construction worker who spent much of the summer picking cucumbers on Lauer’s farm in Waushara County.

Mexican nationals made up over 90% of the H-2A workforce last year, often traveling by van to and from farms in rural communities like Shawano. This year, a handful of Hanauer’s workers flew to Appleton instead. 

South Africans make up the second-largest nationality in the H-2A workforce, as they have for much of the past two decades. They outnumbered Jamaican workers, the next-largest cohort, more than 3-to-1 last year. 

Lilford, like the other members of Bushman’s crew, is an Afrikaner – a descendant of early Dutch, French and German settlers. Data on the nationalities of visa recipients does not specify ethnicity, but labor contractors who recruit in South Africa say most H-2A workers from the country are white. 

Labor costs and pay cuts

To theoretically avoid undercutting U.S. farmworker wages, the Department of Labor sets a minimum wage for H-2A workers. This year, Wisconsin H-2A employers must pay at least $18.15 an hour, up from $14.40 in 2020. The program also requires employers to pay for housing and transportation and to reimburse travel to and from workers’ home countries, none of which is required when hiring local farmworkers.

The Department of Labor announced cuts to the program’s minimum wage in early October, responding to farmers’ complaints about rising labor costs.

In a preamble to the new rule, the agency argued that the cost of participating in the H-2A program has become “increasingly burdensome” — surpassing the cost of hiring U.S. workers if they were available. The agency also noted that a decline in the number of undocumented agricultural workers will “deprive growers of a relatively cheaper labor supply,” pushing more farmers to the H-2A program.

The new rules reverse a 2023 Biden administration decision requiring farmers to pay H-2A workers based on the specific duties they perform. Some roles, like veterinary medicine and truck driving, required higher wages than standard field work, and farmers were obligated to pay according to the highest-earning role employees performed, even if it was not their primary role.  

That standard prompted legal challenges from H-2A employers, including Bushman, who joined a federal class action lawsuit challenging the rule earlier this year. A federal judge in Louisiana vacated the rule in August after a sugar cane growers’ association brought a separate lawsuit.

Instead, the Department of Labor’s new rule divides H-2A workers into two “skill levels” based on the experience and training required for their job. It does not guarantee that workers who have spent previous seasons in roles deemed “entry-level” will be paid at the higher end of the scale.

The department will also now allow employers to deduct a portion of workers’ hourly wages to reflect housing costs, which the agency argues will even the playing field for domestic farmworkers.

Wisconsin workers classified as less-skilled could receive as little as $12 per hour next year under the new standards — a reduction of 34% from the current H-2A minimum wage.

“In the countries where they’re recruiting, people are desperate enough to take a job for less than the prevailing wage,” said Jose Oliva, campaign director with HEAL Food Alliance, a national group that organizes and advocates for food supply chain workers.

New H-2A minimum wages are higher in every state neighboring Wisconsin. In Michigan and Illinois, H-2A workers will be paid at least the state minimum wages, exceeding the federal program minimum.

Program wages have always varied from state to state, said Bortnyk of másLabor. The latest changes, however, create a “meaningful enough difference” to fuel steeper recruiting competition for Wisconsin farmers. 

For Bushman, that competition is reason enough not to cut wages. The lower minimum “won’t save us anything,” he said, because retaining experienced crew members makes more business sense than training new hires.

Room for abuse

The minimum wage changes follow the Trump administration’s decision in June to suspend enforcement of Biden-era rules intended to crack down on H-2A abuses. 

Among other protections, those rules previously guaranteed that workers could invite guests like legal aid providers and clergy into employer-provided housing. In Wisconsin, H-2A workers retain that right through the state’s migrant labor law.

Wisconsin farmers are well aware of the opportunities for exploitation. 

Lauer recalled discovering that a recruiter in Mexico had charged job seekers hundreds of dollars to apply for openings on his farm — a violation of program rules.

“It all happened in Mexico, so we never saw the money,” he added. Lauer says his business cut ties with the recruiter after consular officials in Mexico alerted him of the recruiter’s practices.

None of the workers who spoke with Wisconsin Watch shared firsthand accounts of violations or mistreatment at their current workplaces. However, the Department of Labor has fined 23 Wisconsin H-2A employers for program violations in the past decade.

Auditors cited one labor contractor, Adams County-based J&P Harvest, for more than 650 violations of H-2A program rules between 2019 and 2023. The department approved J&P Harvest’s most recent application in March of this year. The company, which lists a Florida phone number in its contact information, did not respond to a request for comment.

In some cases, the Department of Labor can temporarily ban, or “debar,” farmers and contractors from participating in the program. J&P Harvest does not appear on the agency’s current list of debarred businesses, but Jan Enterprises, a flower-growing business near Green Bay, is currently banned from participating in the program for allegedly hiring H-2A workers in place of an American applicant. A related greenhouse is also on the department’s debarment list. 

According to a 2015 review by the federal Government Accountability Office and 2023 reporting by Investigate Midwest, loose enforcement of debarments has enabled some businesses to continue hiring through the H-2A program by operating under a new name. 

Federal inspectors do not catch every violation. The Wage and Hour Division employed just over 720 investigators to enforce labor laws nationwide last year, according to the Department of Labor’s fiscal year 2025 budget. The agency audited 659 agricultural workplaces last year — less than half the number of audits conducted a decade ago. 

Inspectors have recorded H-2A violations by more than half of the 42 Wisconsin agricultural employers audited since 2015, not all of which employ H-2A workers.

“There are other places where you’ll work 10 hours and they’ll pay you for nine,” said Salvador Gonzalez Mosqueda, a veteran member of Hanauer’s crew, recalling warnings about dishonest employers from fellow seasonal workers during an earlier stint in Kentucky. 

Some citations were for technical reasons. Lauer Farms, for instance, says it was fined in 2019 for missing date information on pay stubs.

Trump’s law brings new fees 

The Trump administration’s signature “big beautiful” bill-turned law adds another potential hurdle for workers and employers: a new $250 fee for all nonimmigrant visas, including H-2A. 

If federal rulemakers decide workers must pay the fee before entering the country, employers would likely be required to reimburse them. But Oliva warned that enforcement could be weak. “$250 is not chump change” for already vulnerable workers, he added.

It remains unclear whether employers will be eligible for reimbursement from the federal government once their workers return home.

“We’ll just eat another $30,000,” said Lauer, who often hires 120 or more H-2A workers over the course of the year – Wisconsin’s largest crew. While that expense alone won’t bankrupt him, Lauer considers the rising overall costs of participation unsustainable. 

“They’ll eventually push us out of business,” he said.

Workers keep returning  

Most H-2A workers who spoke with Wisconsin Watch worked on the same farms last season. 

Gonzalez, the veteran member of Hanauer’s team, said that he has returned to Shawano for the past six years, turning down offers from other farms. At Lauer Farms, roughly 90% of last year’s crew returned for the most recent harvest season. 

Some workers say they would prefer to settle in the U.S. rather than traveling back and forth from their home countries. 

“Things in Mexico are very hard,” said Jesus Hernandez Robles, another member of Hanauer’s crew. Hanauer says he has researched sponsoring seasonal employees for green cards, but without a full-time job to offer, that option is out of reach.

But Robles considers the H-2A program preferable to entering the country without a visa. 

“You can enter and leave, spend time with your family,” he said. “If you come here illegally, you have to work for a few years to pay off a coyote.” 

South African workers may have a clearer path to legal residency through the Trump administration’s new refugee program for Afrikaners. 

None of the members of Bushman’s crew who spoke to Wisconsin Watch had applied for refugee status as of early October. Anyone who did secure refugee status, Bushman said, “won’t be working in agriculture. There are just better opportunities.”

International workers continue to show interest in H-2A jobs, Bushman added. But when the federal government entered a shutdown earlier this month, the Department of Labor furloughed staff responsible for reviewing H-2A applications. If the shutdown continues into December and January — the busiest season for applications — Wisconsin farmers could be left high and dry next spring.

Farmers turn to flawed visa program in search for legal labor. Now the rules — and costs — are changing. 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.

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Communism and socialism oppose capitalism but are different ideologies, despite the terms sometimes being used interchangeably.

Communism: Replacing private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and control of means of production and natural resources. Wealth divided equally, or according to need. One-party government oversees economy.

Socialism: Public, rather than private, control of property and natural resources, but allowing private property ownership. Socialism can seek to restrain capitalism through democracy or authoritarian control. 

On Oct. 2, Wisconsin state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, called Milwaukee state Rep. Ryan Clancy a communist. Clancy, like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, identifies as a democratic socialist. 

Clancy’s positions include a right to legal counsel for people facing eviction, shifting funds from law enforcement to community services and eliminating property tax funding of schools.

Mamdani advocates for freezing rent, government-owned grocery stores and free child care.

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

Sources

• Britannica: Socialism
• Britannica: Communism
• History.com: How Are Socialism and Communism Different?
• National Geographic: Socalism
• Investopedia: Communism vs. Socialism: What’s the Difference?
• Milwaukee Magazine: Meet Ryan Clancy: The Socialist Next Door
• Zohran for New York City: The Platform

Are communism and socialism the same? 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.

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The clock is ticking before Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will be delayed for approximately 42 million Americans in November due to the federal government shutdown.

That leaves just nine days until Wisconsin — a key battleground state with two competitive House races in the 2026 midterms — runs out of funding for its food assistance program, Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday. Already, November benefits will certainly be delayed, Evers said.

“President Trump and Republicans in Congress must work across the aisle and end this shutdown now so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have access to basic necessities like food and groceries that they need to survive,” Evers said in a statement.

The governor is one of several Wisconsin Democrats who added SNAP delays to the long list of shutdown impacts they blame on Republicans.

“I want the government to reopen and to lower health care costs and to undo some of the devastating things that were done in Trump’s signature legislation, the ‘Big, Ugly bill,’” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin told NOTUS. “It’s in the Republicans’ hands to do that.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation on Tuesday to use unappropriated Treasury funds for payment of SNAP benefits during the shutdown. It is unclear if his bill will gain traction in the Senate.

“We need to start forcing Democrats to make some tough votes during this shutdown,” he said in an X post.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson declined to comment on SNAP’s funding lapsing.

Nearly 700,000 people rely on FoodShare, Wisconsin’s SNAP program for families and seniors that is entirely funded by federal dollars. Wisconsin’s program already took a hit from Trump’s budget law, which will raise the state’s portion of administrative costs for running FoodShare by at least $43.5 million annually.

Wisconsin is among a slew of states sounding the alarm on SNAP funding, with Texas officials setting Oct. 27 as the last day before benefits will be disrupted. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state’s food assistance program may be disrupted if the government does not reopen by Thursday, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Health Services announced that benefits will not be paid starting last week.

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, lamented risks to FoodShare in a statement to NOTUS.

“This funding risk could be resolved tomorrow if Republicans would return to Washington to vote with Democrats on a bill to fund the government and protect access to affordable health care for millions of Americans,” he said.

November benefits will be delayed in Wisconsin “even if the shutdown ends tomorrow,” according to the announcement from Evers’ office.

It is not yet certain that delays in benefits will occur, and any disruptions would be a deliberate “policy choice,” said Gina Plata-Nino, the interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture could use a similar tactic as Trump did when he directed the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 15 to issue on-time paychecks to active duty members of the military using leftover appropriated funds, Plata-Nino told NOTUS.

The Trump administration transferred $300 million to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children to prevent benefits disruptions earlier this month. The Department of Agriculture will release more than $3 billion in aid to farmers during the shutdown.

“It is in their hands to issue a letter to the states and say, ‘We have $6 billion in contingency funding. We’re going to go ahead and utilize that, and we’re looking for sources of funding like we did for WIC, but then also how we’ve done to farmers when there’s been issues,” Plata-Nino said.

Plata-Nino said states and Electronic Benefit Transfer processors — companies that process EBT transactions for stores — would need to know they are getting contingency funds by later this week or early next week for SNAP benefits to go out smoothly on Nov. 1.

“Even if on the 30th, the USDA acts late and then finally issues its contingency funds, benefits are still going to be late,” she added.

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement Republicans should “come to the negotiating table” on the shutdown.

“After already cutting FoodShare in their One Beautiful Bill, Republicans’ inaction could again increase hunger and food insecurity,” she said.

When asked about FoodShare delays, Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican from northern Wisconsin who is running to replace Evers, pointed to Democrats’ 11 votes against Republicans’ continuing resolution bills.

“Maybe Governor Evers should ask Senator Baldwin why she is blocking the bipartisan budget bill and holding these programs hostage,” Tiffany said in a statement.

Republican Rep. Tony Wied, who represents the Green Bay area, pointed at Baldwin and other Democrats’ votes against the continuing resolution, accusing them of playing “political games.”

“House Republicans voted for a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open and ensure critical programs like FoodShare continue uninterrupted,” Wied said in a statement to NOTUS. “I am calling on Senator Baldwin and the rest of her Democratic colleagues to change course and vote to open the government immediately so Wisconsinites in need do not have to worry about going hungry.”

But Danielle Nierenberg, the president of the nonpartisan advocacy organization Food Tank, said Democrats and Republicans are “both in the wrong” for potential SNAP disruptions.

“Food should never have been politicized in this way. So whether you’re Democrat or a Republican you shouldn’t be punishing poor people for just being poor and denying them the benefits they deserve,” Nierenberg said.

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Wisconsin members of Congress point fingers as SNAP benefits run out 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.

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As October comes to an end, the threat of missing FoodShare and WIC benefits looms for people across Wisconsin and across the nation. 

In an Oct. 10 letter, Sasha Gersten-Paal, director of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s development division, said: “SNAP has funding available for benefits and operations through the month of October. However, if the current lapse in appropriations continues, there will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the nation.” 

Nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites receive food and nutrition assistance through FoodShare. 

Here are some things you can do if you live in Milwaukee and may be impacted by a lack of food resources in November.

Food resources 

If you or someone you know needs emergency food, call 2-1-1, or visit the IMPACT 211 website here. 

Hunger Task Forces’ Mobile Market : Operating as a grocery store on wheels, the Mobile Market provides healthy and affordable food options to families. The Mobile Market offers 25% off all items beyond Piggly Wiggly’s prices. 

To find out where the Mobile Market will be next, you can look at the Hunger Task Force website.

Community-powered fridges: In September, Tricklebee Café, One MKE and Metcalfe Park Community Bridges opened a community-powered fridge. Several more are planned to open. 

Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin provides a pantry locator and distributes food to partners across the region. 

UMOS operates a food pantry for residents in the 53207 and 53221 ZIP codes, as well as all first-time visitors. 

NourishMKE is a network of community food centers that provides a market-style experience for selecting and preparing food. 

Milwaukee Christian Center offers community services, including a food pantry. 

Tricklebee Café hosts a pay-what-you-can community café that provides meals.

Milwaukee County Senior Dining Program provides nutritious lunches to seniors 59 and older at various senior centers. 

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

SNAP benefits may not go out in November. Here’s where you can go for food assistance. 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.

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In the days following the release of my report focused on the shortage of public defenders in Wisconsin, Tracy Germait — the main subject of the story, who after three years and more than 10,000 calls still didn’t have a defense attorney — received a flood of messages. 

“I know they passed out the newsletter in the jails because I have a friend that’s in Redgranite (Correctional Institution), and he’s like, ‘I seen your article,’” Germait said. “Then somebody in Brown County (jail) messaged me too and said that. I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’”

On Sept. 8, Wisconsin Watch published the investigation. The next day Germait saw her story on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Hours later Germait received notice that a Milwaukee-based criminal defense attorney, Jane Christopherson, had taken on her drug cases from 2022 and 2023. 

Without an attorney earlier, Germait spent years in legal limbo despite her constitutional rights. Like many other Wisconsin residents caught up in the criminal justice system, she had to abide by bail conditions or face time in prison related to crimes she had not yet been tried for.

Now that Germait has an attorney, she will report to court on Oct. 22 for the preliminary hearing for her 2023 case. After that, she will report to court again in November for her 2022 case. 

Germait also recently passed her Wisconsin state exam to be a certified parent peer specialist for the next two years, supporting parents and families who are navigating similar situations.

Wisconsin’s court system is under intense stress, and yet when lawmakers had a chance to address those issues in the latest state budget, they increased funding for prosecutors to file more cases, rather than protecting more people’s right to a speedy trial. Our story points out the toll that legislative decisions can take on individuals when their Sixth Amendment right is neglected, exacerbating jail crowding, eroding evidence and witness testimony for cases, and decreasing the strength of cases due to overburdened public defenders.

At Wisconsin Watch, we’re thrilled to shed a light on stories like Germait’s and see individual problems get resolved. We remain hopeful that the bigger problems get solved, too.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an incorrect description of Christopherson’s representation of Germait.

Wisconsin mother gets defense attorney after three years in legal limbo 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.

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The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Friday appealed a Waukesha County judge’s order requiring election officials to verify the citizenship of all registered voters and people seeking to register.

Attorneys for the Wisconsin Department of Justice wrote that the Waukesha County Circuit Court decision was “impermissively vague” and would require election officials to disregard multiple voter registration laws.

The appeal follows a request for a stay, filed last week, in which the attorneys told the court it would be virtually impossible for the election commission to implement Judge Michael Maxwell’s decision by the February statewide election, and that it would illegally have to shut down online voter registration in the meantime. 

In response, Maxwell stayed the part of his ruling that required citizenship verification for new registrants, but let stand the part requiring the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify the citizenship of all currently registered voters.

Maxwell’s ruling did not specify how the commission should go about verifying the citizenship of registered voters: whether it should check them against other databases, confirm that they properly attested under oath to their citizenship when they registered, or demand documentary proof from registered voters, as some other states now require.

The case has further escalated a political debate in Wisconsin over how to ensure that only citizens can vote. Last fall, Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to ban voting by noncitizens across the state, and other states enacted similar bans. 

Across the country, Republicans have also been pushing for laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, on the grounds that they’re needed to prevent noncitizen voting.

But there’s no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens, and a Votebeat analysis and other studies have shown that such requirements can disenfranchise eligible U.S. citizens.

Wisconsin has lagged behind other states in seeking such measures through legislation, but the case in Maxwell’s Waukesha County court has sped up bill writing on the issue. Since his early October court ruling, Republicans have introduced a bill requiring an audit of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls, and directing election officials to compare those rolls against state and federal citizenship data, and they have raised the issue in political campaigns.

When Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who’s seeking reelection, filed a motion for a stay on Maxwell’s decision, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — now running for governor — accused Democrats on social media of wanting “illegal aliens voting.” 

That talking point has dominated conservative talk radio, while Democrats have stayed mostly quiet outside court filings. 

How the state has responded to the lawsuit

The lawsuit in Maxwell’s court, filed last year by a Pewaukee resident represented by conservative attorneys, seeks to require citizenship verification checks of all new registrants and to require the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to provide the Wisconsin Elections Commission with its data on citizenship so that it can compare them against the voter roll. 

Maxwell ruled Oct. 3 that the election commission was failing to ensure only lawful voters remained on the rolls, citing statutes limiting voting to citizens. He ordered the agency to check for noncitizens by February, but didn’t specify how, other than suggesting a match with DOT data, as the plaintiffs demand. 

The election commission has told the court that there’s no state law requiring documentary proof of citizenship.

Kaul, the attorney general, has argued in court that launching a citizenship verification program before next year’s elections would be unfeasible, and that relying on DOT data that may be inaccurate could wrongly disenfranchise newly naturalized citizens. In the appeal, Justice Department attorneys said Maxwell’s ruling could disenfranchise eligible voters unable to meet Maxwell’s “undefined verification criteria” and lead Wisconsin’s 1,850 clerks to apply inconsistent standards.

Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, said Maxwell’s decision conflicts with Wisconsin election law, which calls for requiring proof of certain qualifications to vote, like residence, but not others, including citizenship, competence, or clean criminal record.

Existing laws already deter noncitizens from voting, Godar argued. “Noncitizens who register to vote face criminal liability under state law,” he said, “and if they vote, it also renders them permanently inadmissible under federal immigration law, which means deportation and other immigration consequences.”

Flawed tools for citizenship verification

There’s no standardized method used in states that require or retroactively check for proof of citizenship, but two methods have been recommended for Wisconsin for already registered voters.

The first is to check the voter rolls against citizenship records held by other state agencies, such as driver’s license information, as the plaintiffs in the Waukesha County case have suggested.

But the state Department of Transportation has told the court that its citizenship data can be inaccurate and outdated.The department records applicants’ citizenship status based on their proof of citizenship or legal residence at the time the license is issued. Those cards typically remain valid for eight years, and current state law doesn’t require applicants to update their citizenship status with the department if it changes during that time. 

Because many people become U.S. citizens well before their licenses expire, the department’s data can quickly become outdated — a problem that grows as the number of naturalizations spikes ahead of major elections, a Wisconsin Department of Justice official said in a court hearing last October.

Another method that some states use — and that conservative legal groups such as the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty recommend — is to use the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE program. SAVE is a search tool designed for states to check whether their residents qualify for certain public-benefit programs, but the Trump administration has encouraged states to use it for checking voter rolls as well.

But its data can also be incomplete and outdated, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, which found it should be “considered useful, but not definitive” for citizenship verification. 

Jasleen Singh, counsel for the Brennan Center’s voting rights program, told Votebeat the SAVE database includes only immigrants known to the U.S. government. Undocumented immigrants who haven’t interacted with federal agencies wouldn’t appear, and citizens born before 1978 may also be missing, since the Social Security Administration didn’t collect citizenship data until then.

What citizenship checks in other states have turned up

Louisiana ran its voter rolls through the SAVE program this year as part of an investigation into noncitizen voters. It found 390 potential noncitizens in records going back to the 1980s, including 79 people who voted at least once in that period. That’s a minuscule share of Louisiana’s registered voters.

Democrats say these figures show noncitizen voting is rare enough that it doesn’t need a blunt legislative solution that could disenfranchise anyone. But Republicans argue that even a single illegally cast ballot undermines election integrity.

In Arizona, those who haven’t shown proof of citizenship can vote only in federal elections. About 35,000 people as of last December, or just under 1% of the state’s voters, are on this “federal only” voter roll. A Votebeat analysis found these voters are concentrated on Native land, college campuses, and near the state’s main homeless campus; they tend to be younger, and vote at lower rates. 

In Texas, about 1% of the voting-age population lacks proof of citizenship and another 6% would struggle to locate it, according to a University of Maryland study, which found Black, Latino, young, and Republican voters are particularly likely to face those challenges.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has proposed a multistep noncitizen audit — including matching voter rolls against DOT data as well as the SAVE database, checking for discrepancies, and then providing time for flagged voters to provide citizenship proof. Republican state Rep. Scott Krug, a Republican, introduced a proposal this month requiring a noncitizen audit that follows these steps.

Mequon City Clerk Caroline Fuchs already follows a similar process, using the DOT database to check registrants’ citizenship and sending flagged names to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security contact. She said the agent found about a dozen voters incorrectly marked as noncitizens in the DOT database, but none of those identified by DHS disputed the finding.

Fuchs told Votebeat in early October that she was pleased to see the Waukesha County judge’s order, but said she and other clerks weren’t rushing to implement it since they knew it would be appealed.

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.

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

Wisconsin officials appeal judge’s order on checking voters’ citizenship 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.

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Click here to read highlights from the story

• Pulaski High School students have kept their community informed through the Pulaski News for more than 80 years.

• As local news has dwindled nationwide, the Pulaski News has become a fixture in the community.

• The publication’s niche is positive news on community members, but some wish it included independent, critical coverage. One thing it’s missing is coverage of village board meetings, for example. 

• Educators say students learn soft skills, like how to communicate with others, through their work on the paper.

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t introduce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.”

Three weeks into the school year at Pulaski High School, six teenagers sit around a cluster of desks, listening intently as journalism instructor Amy Tubbs taught them the mechanics of writing a news story. 

While Tubbs knows it might sound harsh, the task of hooking readers carries weight for the students. For more than eight decades, Pulaski High School’s student newspaper has been the community’s newspaper of record, as the only news outlet consistently covering the rural village. 

As local news has dwindled across the country, Pulaski News has become a fixture of the community, a tool to prepare students for the workforce and the last official source keeping residents informed about hyperlocal happenings. 

Through routine practice with writing, interviewing, photography and media literacy, the teenagers secure skills that prepare them for life after high school. Students say working for the paper helps them feel closer to their northeast Wisconsin community. 

“I joined last year because I really love writing, and I saw this as an opportunity to get to do that,” sophomore Dellah Hall said. “I’m now able to write not just for school and grades, but this is for the community.”

Along the way, the paper has secured a level of community buy-in that might feel foreign to some news organizations today, as trust in news declines. Students nurture this by regularly sharing feel-good stories.

For example, freshman Neville Nguyen is writing a profile on a well-known “legend of Pulaski”: an 84-year-old woman who runs the local McDonald’s drive-through every morning. Nguyen’s article is going to be published in the Pulaski News’ Thanksgiving edition, an annual feature that highlights someone who has something for which to be thankful. 

“Its own kind of niche … That’s not necessarily something that a bigger paper is going to pick up … There’s definitely very much a hometown kind of feel to it,” Tubbs said. 

‘Pulaski needs a newspaper’

Roughly 20 miles outside of Green Bay, the village of Pulaski sits amid an expanse of farmland. The modest 3,700-person town straddles Brown, Oconto and Shawano counties. 

The area has a turbulent history with local news. Residents saw a flurry of different papers stumbling to provide the headlines before Pulaski High School took the reins in the 1940s.

During the 1920s, residents relied on the Pulaski Herald. Archives of the Herald are sparse, but they show it ceased publication by the 1930s, when a resident launched the Pulaski Tri-Copa. In 1939, the Tri-Copa abruptly announced it would be rebranding, ambiguously citing “skirmishes” over the previous year.

“We don’t care to divulge what we have up our sleeve at this time,” the Tri-Copa’s farewell edition read. “It will be more pleasant to surprise you, but take our word for it, you are going to get more paper for your money.”

Two months later, the paper restarted as the Tri County News. It ran for three years before folding due to financial issues brought on by the Great Depression. 

Leaders at Pulaski High School saw an opportunity for their student newspaper, which was roughly four years old, to fill the gap left by the Tri County’s closure. Ahead of the 1942-43 school year, the paper debuted a new title: The Pulaski News. 

“Pulaski needs a newspaper,” the first edition read. “To fill that need; to provide a means of informing the parents and community on the progress of the school; to provide the community proper channels for information, news, and advertising; and give students experience in journalism the Pulaski Board of Education authorized the publishing of a newspaper.”

When Pulaski News began publishing, it was tabloid-sized. A team of students handled the enterprise’s business aspects, including selling ads across the community. 

Today, 83 years’ worth of newspapers — including those early editions — live on a classroom shelf in dozens of hardcover books. In its current iteration, the paper is lengthier and printed in color, but the model remains largely the same.

Although Pulaski’s students fit within a nationwide demographic that consumes much of their news online, the writers still find appeal in the print product’s legacy. Senior Madelyn Rybak said that while she reads the majority of her news online on her phone, writing for Pulaski News makes her want to consume more print stories. Her parents subscribe to the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s print edition, which she reads.

“I like the feeling of holding the newspaper,” Rybak said. “It kind of feels like I’m more connected to the stories… instead of just being behind my phone.” 

A ‘valuable service’

At the front of the Pulaski News’ classroom, a calendar governing the paper is posted on the whiteboard: Students turn in stories one week before the paper is sent to press every other Tuesday. It’s printed on Wednesdays and delivered on Thursdays. The school mails roughly 1,000 copies to subscribers, who pay $30 or $35 annually. Eight local businesses sell another 100 copies for $1 each.

Each semester, roughly a dozen students work on the paper for class credit. Course enrollment is fueled largely by word-of-mouth between friends or parents encouraging their teenagers to follow in their footsteps. In the summer, students vie for five part-time positions that pay $11 per hour. 

The operation has felt increasingly crucial as Pulaski feels the national trend of thinning local news coverage. 

Nearby papers once covered Pulaski more closely than they do today. Now, regional news outlets sometimes drop in for flashier stories, such as crime issues, but there’s no source of consistent information about local events beyond what the students publish.  

“You’ve seen other local papers close and their communities really don’t have anything,” said Bob Van Enkenvoort, the school district’s communications coordinator and the paper’s editor. “So the district sees this as a valuable community service.” 

Though the students fill a hyperlocal information gap, relying on a school-sponsored paper means the town still lacks independent, critical coverage — like an increasing number of places across the U.S. 

“It doesn’t really have a good feel for political issues in town, so the community is not all that well served, as far as coverage of local village issues like the village board meetings or growth in the village, so that’s sort of a negative,” said Steve Peplinski, a local resident creating a digital archive of Pulaski’s newspapers for the village’s museum. Peplinski wrote for Pulaski News himself when he was in high school. 

While the school district’s administration doesn’t decide what Pulaski News covers — “I’ve never really had anyone say ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you can do this.’ That’s my decision,” Van Enkenvoort said — the staff generally doesn’t wade into hard news. 

Outside of the routine sports, local events and school news, the staff has carved out a niche creating more “positive stories”: They profile interesting community members and spotlight Pulaski alumni doing good deeds. 

While some might have trepidation when it comes to speaking with journalists, that “hometown” feel of the paper has resulted in a deep trust among local residents. 

“It’s well known in the community,” Van Enkenvoort said. “People understand what the mission is, so I think they are willing to work with the students.”

Though Pulaski News is district-funded, the paper isn’t immune to the turbulence plaguing journalism today. The subscriber base skews older, and every obituary that publishes is a possible patron, Van Enkenvoort said. 

Securing soft skills

The first time Morgan Stewart, a 15-year-old sophomore, picked up the phone to call a subject for her story, she was so terrified that she shook. But over time, those nerves dissipated, and she’s found herself growing into more of a “people person.”

“I think I want to pursue doing journalism,” Stewart said. “I didn’t have much of a plan coming into high school, but after doing this … (Van Enkenvoort) has helped me a lot to find what I love most about Pulaski News, and it’s opened my eyes a lot to the future and what it holds for me.”

There’s always a learning curve at the start of a semester. Students are typically scared to make cold calls. They sometimes try to text community members, only to realize they’re messaging a landline. For their first class assignment, students write profiles about one another to practice asking good questions. 

With a few notable exceptions, many students who participate in the Pulaski News aren’t planning to go into the journalism field. But through the routine — and sometimes uncomfortable — work, they learn many “soft skills,” or traits that allow them to communicate and work well with others, Tubbs and Van Enkenvoort said. 

“We tend to try to get them away from their phones and talk to people face-to-face, so they get used to talking to adults and having to think on their feet and have conversations, which will help them when they’re interviewing for colleges or interviewing for jobs,” Van Enkenvoort said. “A lot of them are just not that comfortable with it at the start, but they get better and they feel more comfortable once they do.”

On paper, the experience allows Pulaski students to complete a class that the state considers “post-secondary preparation,” or training for life after high school. In the 2023-24 school year, 39% of Pulaski High School students participated in a “work-based learning program” like Pulaski News, far above the state average of 9%.

Connecting students to community

While stories on sports games and district updates are commonplace in Pulaski News,  students also devise the creative stories that fill the paper. In the process, many become more closely engrained in their community. 

Rybak is from Hobart, a roughly 20-minute drive from Pulaski, so she isn’t as familiar with the area as some of her classmates. Working for the paper has helped change that. When there’s pressure to come up with a story pitch, she finds herself scouring the internet and local organizations’ websites for events.

“We encourage the students to try to come up with story ideas for two reasons,” Van Enkenvoort said. “We need everybody’s eyes and ears out in the community. But also, if they come up with a story and they’re excited about it, they typically do a really good job on it.”

At the end of the year, Tubbs asks students to share their favorite stories. Without fail, it’s always the ones centering community members. 

That’s true for Rybak, whose standout story last year was a front-page feature on Pulaski’s summer school program. She interviewed four teachers, the program director and students who attended classes. 

“Our summer school doesn’t really get recognition, even though there’s a lot that goes into it,” Rybak said. “I kind of liked the feeling that I was shining a light on the people who do a lot of work in our community.”

“(The paper) makes me more aware of what’s going on in the community,” she said. “Through interviewing people who I would literally never talk to otherwise, it just helps me get to know the people there that I wouldn’t have known.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

Meet the teens keeping this northeast Wisconsin village from becoming a news desert 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.

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About 5% of Americans identify as atheists, though one poll shows about 1 in 5 don’t believe in God.

Atheists believe God doesn’t exist.

According to recent polls (2023 and 2024):

Pew Research Center: Asked about their religion, 5% said they are atheists.

Asked if they believe in God or a universal spirit, 16% said no.

Pew also found that 29% of Americans (including atheists) said they are not religiously affiliated, up from 16% in 2007. The largest affiliation was Christian — 62%, down from 78%.

PRRI: 5% atheist (8% in Wisconsin). 

AP-NORC: 7% atheist. 7% agnostic (believe God’s existence is unknown). 16% “nothing in particular.” Overall, 79% professed belief in God or a higher power, including 4% of atheists.

Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents part of eastern Wisconsin, said Oct. 13 that over 18% of Americans are atheists. His office didn’t reply to comment requests.

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

Sources

• Pew Research Center: Religious identity
• Pew Research Center: 8 facts about atheists
• American Atheists: What is Atheism?
• Pew Research Center: Religious and spiritual beliefs
• Pew Research Center: Email
• PRRI: Atheist identification
• Associated Press: Highlights from AP-NORC poll about the religiously unaffiliated in the US

Are 1 in 5 Americans atheists? 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.

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A new Republican bill that would exempt certain life-saving medical procedures from falling under the definition of “abortion” is drawing criticism from medical professionals despite being described by its authors as an attempt to protect reproductive health care.

Under the bill, introduced on Friday, medical procedures “designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant woman and not designed or intended to kill the unborn child” would not fall under Wisconsin’s abortion definition. They would also not be subject to state laws prohibiting funding for “abortion-related activities” and Wisconsin’s ban on abortion past 20 weeks.

The bill, authored by Rep. Joy Goeben, R-Hobart, and Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, specifically exempts early inductions or cesarean sections performed in cases of ectopic, anembryonic or molar pregnancies from being considered abortion so long as the physician conducting them makes “reasonable medical efforts” to save both parent and unborn child from harm.

Moreover, the bill would change the definition of “unborn child” in Wisconsin statute from “a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive” to “a human being from the time of fertilization until birth.”

OBGYN Carley Zeal, a representative for the Wisconsin Medical Society and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said “unborn child” is not a medically recognized term because doctors don’t confer personhood to a fertilized egg or fetus. Legal expert Howard Schweber told Wisconsin Watch he doesn’t expect changing the definition of “unborn child” to begin at fertilization will have a meaningful impact.

Abortion as a political issue hits deep in the heart of Wisconsin, where Marquette Law School polls since 2020 show 64% of all voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Democrats have campaigned in support of eliminating restrictions on abortion, while Republicans, who in 2015 passed the state’s current ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy, have sought to increase restrictions on, penalize or ban abortion completely.  

The bill follows multiple successive changes to Wisconsin’s abortion law since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and returned the issue of abortion to individual states — leaving Wisconsin scrambling to put together a consistent abortion policy.

The new GOP bill also seems to nod toward several high-profile national incidents of patients dying from being denied reproductive care in states with restrictive abortion bans, even when the bans include exceptions for abortion care if a patient’s life is in danger. 

One  National Institutes of Health study found that after Texas’s abortion ban was passed, maternal morbidity during the gestational period doubled from the time before the law despite it having a medical emergency clause.

Goeben and Quinn stated in a memorandum that their bill seeks to “counter misinformation spread by bad actors” about doctors not performing needed medical care for fear of being criminalized under abortion statutes. Goeben told Wisconsin Watch she consulted with physicians about the bill and believes it will reassure them of their ability to provide this care.

“A doctor may at all times, no matter where the state is at on the abortion issue, feel very confident in providing the health care that women need in these very challenging situations that women face,” Goeben said.

Medical and legal experts weigh in

Both Zeal and Sheboygan OBGYN Leslie Abitz, a member of both the state medical society, the Committee to Protect Healthcare and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said they oppose the bill. 

They argue it is an attempt by the Wisconsin Legislature to use “emotionally charged, ideologically driven, non-medical terms” to “interfere with the patient-physician relationship” in medical care.

“The stated goal of the bill — to distinguish between medical procedures from abortion — is misleading because it suggests that abortion care is not an essential part of comprehensive health care,” Abitz said. 

“A woman is putting her health and her life at risk every time she chooses to carry a pregnancy, and so she shouldn’t be mandated to put her life at risk.”

Schweber views the bill differently. While a clause in Wisconsin’s 20-week abortion ban statutes already exempts abortions performed for the “life or health of the mother,” he believes Goeben and Quinn’s bill could make hospitals and insurance companies more comfortable with authorizing lifesaving reproductive health care procedures.

“Insurance companies and hospitals or doctors, in order to err on the side of safety, will tell the doctors not to perform a procedure that is medically needed and, in fact, properly legal,” Schweber said. “(This) law is trying to prevent a chilling effect on legal medical procedures.”

Though the bill is not yet formally introduced, the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit composed of physicians, nurses and public health practitioners specializing in abortion and contraception science, opposes it.

“The narrative that exceptions to an abortion ban — or redefining what abortion care is — can mitigate the harm of restrictive policies is based in ideology, not evidence,” Executive Director Amanda Dennis said in a statement.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has not yet taken a position on the bill, but told Wisconsin Watch that state medical emergency clauses “do not offer adequate protection for the myriad (of) pregnancy complications people experience, resulting in substantial harm to patients” in the case of an abortion ban.

Political reaction to the bill

Prominent Democratic lawmakers, such as gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, have criticized the proposed bill as part of a series of moves by anti-abortion politicians to distance themselves from the “deadly” consequences of abortion bans. 

“The way that you protect people from legal jeopardy is by not criminalizing health care,” Roys said. “Goeben’s bill just shows how deadly and dangerous criminalizing abortion bans are. It’s an acknowledgement of the truth, which is that abortion bans kill women.”

Goeben said she is surprised by the opposition because her bill on its own does not introduce any additional penalties to abortion.

“These are the issues that the other side of the aisle has talked about, saying, ‘oh, the poor women that can’t get health care!’” Goeben said. “So I thought honestly that this would be supported by everybody, if we are really concerned about the health care of women.”

She said she would also be open to discussing amendments to the bill, which would include exemptions for abortions performed because of other medical complications such as preeclampsia or maternal sepsis.

Anti-abortion organizations Wisconsin Right to Life, Pro-Life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Wisconsin Family Action have endorsed the proposal. 

A similar bill by Quinn prior to the Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidating Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban in July died in the Senate last year. Even if the new bill is to pass through the Legislature, Gov. Tony Evers plans to veto it, spokesperson Britt Cudaback told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Looming gubernatorial, attorney general and legislative races in 2026 could decide the future of abortion laws and enforcement in the state. New legislative maps and a national midterm environment that historically has favored the party out of power in the White House gives Democrats their best chance to win control of the Legislature since 2010. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the GOP frontrunner for governor, previously supported a bill planning to ban abortion after six weeks, though he has rolled back that position in recent media appearances and deleted all mention of abortion from his website.

Schweber said Wisconsin’s newly liberal majority Supreme Court will decide the future of abortion in the state. The justices must answer the cases being brought to them on whether the  state constitution guarantees a right to an abortion.

“Just because the U.S. Constitution does not secure a right to abortion does not mean that Wisconsin or Ohio or Texas constitutionally doesn’t have that right,” he said. “Each state supreme court now has to decide this profound question.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an incorrect description of the Society of Family Planning and to include additional background for Zeal and Abitz.

Medical experts criticize Republican bill that would exclude life-saving medical procedures from ‘abortion’ definition 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.

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The median price of a home in Wisconsin rose nearly 120% over the past decade, from $155,000 to $337,000 according to data from the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

But median Wisconsin incomes have increased only about 50% in that time period, illustrating just one of the reasons why voters and politicians are increasingly concerned about a housing affordability crisis.

Past bipartisan efforts at the Capitol have worked to address these issues. In 2023, the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers dedicated more than $500 million in the biennial budget toward several loan programs at the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority aimed at creating new affordable housing, rehabilitating homes and transitioning space in commercial buildings. 

But state lawmakers and both Democratic and Republican candidates for governor in 2026 are seeking more ways to address Wisconsin’s housing challenges. 

Multiple bills passed through the Assembly in early October, from a proposal with a financial mechanism to ease the costs of infrastructure for building homes to another creating a grant program for converting multifamily housing into condominiums. 

Several of the proposals received public hearings in the Senate’s Committee on Insurance, Housing, Rural Issues and Forestry last week and lawmakers could vote on them in the coming weeks.

What bills are in the Legislature? 

The housing bills making their way through the Legislature touch on multiple avenues to boost the state’s supply of affordable housing. 

One set of proposals creates a residential tax increment district, which can ease the costs of housing infrastructure on developers and lower the initial price of starter homes.

“We’re not talking about subsidized housing, we’re talking about affordable housing … the housing stock that was built just a generation or two ago,” Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, said at a September press conference. “We’re talking about small ranch homes, bungalow homes, some of those homes built without garages or alleyways or detached garages.”

Another set of bills would establish a condo conversion reimbursement program administered by WHEDA. Legislation would provide $50,000 per parcel to convert multifamily properties to condominiums, according to the bills. The dollars would be funded through up to $10 million from a WHEDA housing rehabilitation loan program created in 2023. 

Other legislative proposals include requiring cities to allow accessory dwelling units on residential land with a single family home. But Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, expressed concerns over a prohibition on short-term rentals for accessory dwelling units.

Assembly Democrats in early October argued some of the Republican proposals fall short. An amendment offered by Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, would have allowed housing cooperatives to participate in the condo conversion program. It failed after Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, raised concerns about the renovation costs of housing co-ops, which Nass referred to as “communes,” while he disparaged Clancy, a Democratic Socialist, as a “communist.”

“I will be voting for this… but it is so disappointing to have to do that because we had something better in front of us,” Clancy said.

What are candidates for governor proposing? 

The candidate field for Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial race is not yet finalized, but housing affordability is a priority for many of the candidates who responded to questions from Wisconsin Watch. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany told Wisconsin Watch he wants to lower housing costs through freezing property taxes and cutting government regulations. Tiffany additionally said he wants to explore how to steer the state’s housing affordability programs to focus on homeownership rather than renting. 

“We need a red tape reset that cuts regulations and lowers costs while keeping safety a priority,” Tiffany said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch. 

A campaign spokesperson for Republican Josh Schoemann said the Washington county executive would bring county programs statewide. The Heart and Homestead Earned Downpayment Incentive program helped Washington County residents with down payment loans on homes under $420,000, which could be repaid through volunteering or charitable donations. Another program, Next Generation Housing, brought together developers and local government leaders to encourage development of smaller starter homes in Washington County below $420,000.

Democratic candidates said their housing plans focused on local engagement and encouraging different financial and zoning reforms to boost affordable housing construction in Wisconsin. 

A campaign spokesperson for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said Crowley would gather local leaders in rural, urban and suburban communities to find housing solutions that fit their communities. Crowley has done this with partners to build affordable housing throughout Milwaukee County, the spokesperson said.

Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, said in a statement that as governor she would use a combination of tax incentives, zoning reform and public bank-backed construction financing stabilization to make it easier to build affordable housing. She said she would also encourage home ownership models such as community land trusts and limited-equity co-ops.

Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said she would direct more dollars to existing affordable housing programs to speed up the time it takes for developers to get necessary funding. Roys said she wants changes to zoning laws to allow types of housing that works for certain neighborhoods around the state, such as accessory dwelling units or higher density housing in transit and commercial corridors. Additionally, Roys said she would encourage more market-rate housing development and expand support systems such as housing vouchers to help ease costs of buying a home. 

Crowley, Hong and Roys all expressed interest in a Right to Counsel program that would provide free legal representation for tenants at risk of eviction. 

A campaign spokesperson for Missy Hughes, the former head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said Hughes will share a more “comprehensive vision” of her housing plan over the course of the campaign. 

Beer vendor Ryan Strnad said he would be open to increasing subsidies for lower-income housing across the state. 

Notable

Watch your mail if you’re a disabled worker. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development began sending notices to 13,000 disabled workers who might be eligible for past unemployment benefits they were previously denied. 

Several legislative committees meet at the Capitol this week. Here are a few worth watching: 

• Assembly Committee on Agriculture: The committee on Tuesday will hold a public hearing on Assembly Bill 30, which would entirely prevent a foreign adversary from acquiring agriculture or forestry land in Wisconsin. The bill follows a national trend of states that are passing stricter prohibitions on who can purchase farmland. Current state law prohibits foreign adversaries from holding more than 640 acres for purposes tied to agriculture or forestry. 
• Senate Committee on Health: Lawmakers will hear public testimony during its meeting Wednesday on Senate Bill 534, a Republican-led bill to legalize medical mairjuana and create a regulation office for patients and caregivers tied to the Department of Health Services. 
• Assembly Committee on Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency: Lawmakers will hold an informational hearing following a Cap Times report that 200 cases of teacher sexual misconduct and grooming cases were shielded from the public between 2018 and 2023.

Wisconsin faces a housing affordability crisis. Here’s how lawmakers and candidates for governor plan to address it. 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.

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Angel Perez, 65, has been fishing the waters of Milwaukee for more than 25 years. Everyday during his breaks from work at the Harley-Davidson Museum, he comes down to his fishing spot underneath the Sixth Street Viaduct and casts away. One day, Perez caught seven bluegills in the Menomonee River. Perez says that everyone needs to have something to help them relax, and for him, it’s fishing.

Perez said he was introduced to fishing early in his life by several mentors while growing up in the Wrigleyville neighborhood in Chicago. Now, Perez hopes to be a mentor for kids in Milwaukee, and that’s why in 2026 he plans on starting a camp called Urban Fishing with Angel.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Hooked on the city: Milwaukee’s Angel Perez finds solace in urban fishing 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.

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A version of this story was originally published by WPR.

Thousands of protesters across the state joined the second wave of nationwide “No Kings” protests on Saturday.

The protests were held in cities and rural communities in all parts of Wisconsin. Protesters said they hoped to bring attention to what they call an authoritarian power grab by President Donald Trump.

In Milwaukee, crowds at Cathedral Square Park chanted and marched. Many held signs making fun of the president; some wore costumes — a frog suit, an inflatable Cookie Monster — joining a trend that began during protests of immigration raids in Portland, Oregon. There were many American flags, upright and upside down, along with flags of other nations.

Chad Bowman, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community or Mohican Nation, donned a ceremonial ribbon shirt and part of his dancing regalia. Bowman says he is proud to be an American. 

“I’m Native, and I believe in this country,” Bowman said. “I believe in democracy, and Trump and his cronies are ruining it.”

A Milwaukee protester wearing an inflatable unicorn costume and swinging an American flag said she dressed that way “because it’s ridiculous to suggest that we’re criminals, or illegal or terrorists.” She said her name was Mary but declined to give her full name, fearing retaliation for her participation in the protests. She said she has family members who are federal employees who are not working due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.

“They can’t stand not being able to do what they are … passionate about doing for the American people,” she said.

In Madison, thousands marched from McPike Park on their way to the state Capitol. Many carried American flags as a marching band played.

Joe Myatt of Janesville carried a sign bearing a quote from Thomas Jefferson. He said he’s concerned about the “shift towards authoritarianism” in the U.S. and around the world.

“Basically, Trump’s trying to consolidate as much force into the office of the presidency and he’s violating the Constitution by doing it,” Myatt said. 

Parto Shahidi of Madison said she showed up at the protest to support freedom and democracy. Shahidi said those rights are the reason she came to the U.S. from Iran 30 years ago.

“I became a U.S. citizen just for that,” she said. “And if I want to lose it, I will go back home — there is no freedom there.”

And as in Milwaukee, many protesters posed for photos in inflatable get-ups. That included multiple people dressed as frogs, and Leo Thull of McFarland, who wore a hot dog suit.

“Seeing America slowly descend into fascism is terrifying,” he said. “But with fascists like these, I feel like the greatest power we have is to be more ridiculous than they are. That’s why I’m dressed up as a hot dog today.”

Donna Miazga of Waunakee carried a sign that said “They blame immigrants so you won’t blame billionaires.”

She said she’s been disturbed to by “Gestapo”-like images of arrests by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who “take people without due process.”

“I feel like it’s just about splitting us in two and fostering hate toward people who are even the slightest bit different,” Miazga said of the Trump’s approach to immigration.

The last major nationwide No Kings protest was in June, when as many as 5 million people took to the streets, including thousands in Milwaukee and an estimated 15,000 in Madison.

As in the case of earlier protests, communities throughout the state hosted demonstrations and marches. National organizers boasted that more than 2,700 events are planned nationwide, including in Wisconsin from Superior to Kenosha.

In Appleton, hundreds lined the streets of downtown. Organizers said nearly 1,000 people attended in the Door County community of Juddville. In the Wausau area, as many as 1,000 protesters lined Rib Mountain Drive. Protesters demonstrated in Janesville, Spooner, Waupaca and Rhinelander, among dozens of other locations.

In Rice Lake, which has a population of about 9,000, more than 700 people attended a rally, said organizer Mark Sherman — including some in frog, unicorn, shark and fairy costumes.

“We had a fun, peaceful, beautiful rally on a beautiful day,” said Sherman, 76, of Rice Lake.

He noted that he and a fellow Rice Lake organizer are both veterans, and said they were moved to get involved because of the oath they took to defend the U.S. Constitution.

Organizers of the rallies include labor unions, local Democratic Party chapters and aligned advocacy groups. The national organizers say the goal of the protests is to build a nonviolent movement to “remind the world America has no kings and the power belongs to the people.”

Republican leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson have called the events “hate America rallies.” On social media, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden called the event “Election Denier Fest 2025.”

Editor’s note: WPR’s Rob Mentzer contributed to this story.

Wisconsinites protest Trump administration at ‘No Kings’ rallies — with signs and unicorn suits 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.

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“You look familiar,” state Rep. Lee Snodgrass recalled a customer saying while she was bartending at a restaurant in her district.

“Well, I’m probably your state representative,” she replied.

Snodgrass, a Democrat from Appleton, is one among many of her colleagues to also work a job outside the state Capitol.

After the state budget passes in the summer of odd-numbered years, and with campaign season many months away, the pace in Madison usually slows until the fall. Lawmakers will dial up their side gigs in the meantime.

Some own businesses, rental properties or maintain law licenses. For example, state Rep. Ryan Clancy, a Democrat from Milwaukee, is a gig driver; state Rep. Travis Tranel, a Republican from Cuba City, owns a dairy farm; and state Sen. Sarah Keyeski, a Democrat from Lodi, is a professional counselor and operates a private practice.

State Rep. Shae Sortwell, a Republican from northeastern Wisconsin, sits behind a big wheel most Fridays.

“I think they find it a little bit amusing that a politician or whatever is driving the freight trucks,” Sortwell said of his employer. But “it’s been fun.”

He left a full-time factory job when he was elected to the Assembly in 2018, he said, but after a few years of working solely as a legislator, the married father of six began looking for more work to earn some extra cash. Having another job also “gives you better perspective when dealing with policy decisions,” Sortwell wrote in an email.

Sortwell had experience operating larger vehicles from his time in the military, so he now steers a rig the size of a U-Haul for a small company in Green Bay. He typically works one 12-hour shift on Fridays but grabs extra hours in the summer, around Christmas and during hunting season, he said.

The position has helped him stay mindful of where Republicans are in 2025, he said.

“We picked up a lot of plumbers and steam fitters and carpenters and former union Democrats,” Sortwell said of the 2024 election. “I think that is certainly a perspective that we want to make sure is not lost. And I do find myself at times having to remind colleagues that, ‘Hey, don’t forget, this is actually affecting regular working class folks.’”

A ‘full-time lite’ legislature

Wisconsin’s statehouse is one step down from being considered full-time by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Wisconsin lawmakers are not as busy as those in higher-population states that have longer sessions and larger districts.

In Wisconsin, state senators and representatives will earn a salary of about $61,000 in 2025. State legislators can also claim a per diem allowance for cash spent on food and lodging when they travel to Madison. The median household income in Wisconsin is about $78,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The statehouses in Illinois, Ohio and Alaska are in the same “full-time lite” category as Wisconsin. But Illinois lawmakers’ base salary in 2024 was about $90,000. In Ohio, it was about $70,000, and about $84,000 in Alaska.

“People assume our salaries are much higher than they are,” said Snodgrass. “To be able to make ends meet, maybe have a tiny bit extra, in this economy, it really does take having another job.”

When she’s not doing the people’s work in Madison, Snodgrass is a part-time bartender and server at a restaurant on the Fox River. Snodgrass, who is single and has two adult chidren, lives in Appleton and was first elected in 2020. She started picking up hours at the restaurant last year when she found herself needing a little more cash.

“To be honest, they raised my rent,” Snodgrass said. 

The gardening, bartending legislator

Snodgrass has a background in professional communications. She didn’t tend bar or wait tables in her twenties. Now she usually picks up weekend shifts at the restaurant. 

In the spring, you can also find her moving tomato flats and ringing out customers at the garden center in Appleton’sNorthside True Value. Between both jobs, she’s learned never to serve white wine in a warm glass and that the Latin name for Black-eyed Susan is Rudbeckia hirta.

“It demystifies who I am,” Snodgrass said about her other jobs. “When I’m there, I really do forget. I take off that hat.”

There were times in May when she’d spend eight hours at the garden center, pick up a couple shifts behind the bar and attend her legislative meetings during the regular work week.

It was a “juggling act,” she said. 

After the legislature passes the state budget, it’s “adult field trip time,” Snodgrass said. She schedules meetings and tours with organizations in her district with a goal of learning more about her community.

Snodgrass tries to leave politics at the door, but sometimes customers or coworkers recognize her. Once at the garden center, an employee who works for the hardware store approached her. She knew he wasn’t a Democrat, she explained.

“I hear you’re a politician,” he said.

“I just said, ‘You know, I don’t like to talk politics in front of the plants, it’s not good for their growth.’ He started laughing,” she said. 

“The people that come into the garden center, the people that come into the restaurant, their politics may not be the same as mine,” Snodgrass continued. “But it’s a really good thing for me to interact with them and have casual conversation and just learn what’s top of mind for them.”

‘Tethered to reality’

Sortwell believes the Assembly’s Republican Caucus represents a breadth of experience. Snodgrass, however, acknowledged that the compensation of state representatives virtually ensures that only a select few can afford to run for office.

“We are never going to be able to recruit a real variety of people and working-class people to do this job if we don’t find a way to make it affordable” for people to support themselves, she said. 

Many of her colleagues, Snodgrass said, have a spouse or partner with a lucrative profession.

There are also dozens of business owners, multiple attorneys and a handful of realtors between the state Assembly and state Senate, according to a review by The Badger Project. Dozens more do not list any other employment on their bios.

State Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) runs a land development business that builds single-family homes in Brown County. He also secures book deals and speaker engagements as the business manager for Immaculée Ilibagiza, an American author and motivational speaker from Rwanda.  

“I’ve been able to manage that effectively for a decade, and I’ve had two or more jobs for almost my entire life, so it feels very normal for me,” Steffen said. “I think it’s something that benefits, not detracts from my ability and output as a legislator.”

He understands the issues of small business owners personally, he said. And when he’s in the business mindset, the political hat comes off. 

“I’m just a normal small business owner in those times,” Steffen said. “And I like that.”

The list goes on. 

State Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) — yes, that’s his real name — is the director of operations for Papa John’s Pizza in Wisconsin. State Rep. Karen Hurd (D-Withee) is a nutritionist, and state Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) is a chiropractor. State Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) helps large companies prepare their taxes. State Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) is an interim police chief in Chippewa County. State Rep. Chanz Green (R-Grand View) owns a northwoods tavern.

It “informs us and keeps us very closely tethered to reality,” Steffen said. 

Sortwell echoed the sentiment: “It’s an important perspective that people who are representing the people of Wisconsin … are still employed and still feeling the same pressure in the job market that every other Wisconsinite is feeling. I actually think it brings strength to the Legislature.”

Her “number one priority is obviously the legislature,” Snodgrass said. But at other moments, it’s simply time to start “pouring wine.”

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

An Uber driver, a dairy farmer and a therapist walk into the Capitol: Many Wisconsin lawmakers have side gigs 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.

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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from Bridge Michigan, sign up for a free Bridge Michigan newsletter here.

Western religions say it worked once. Now, some are exploring a Noah’s Ark strategy to save whitefish from collapse in lakes Michigan and Huron.

Once abundant in these lakes, stocks have plunged so sharply that scientists fear entire bloodlines could vanish within years. With no cure in sight for the mussel invasion that has made the big lakes so unlivable, some want to move whitefish to inland lakes or ponds, where they would live as refugees until conditions improve.

“We need to make sure that, 20 years from now, if the lake is ready again, we can return the descendants of fish that came from here,” said Jason Smith, a scientist with the Bay Mills Indian Community who is winning some early interest in his “genetic rescue” strategy.

Modeled in part on a successful pond stocking program in the Upper Peninsula, the idea echoes a global trend. As human-caused harms push millions of Earth’s species to the brink, interventions that once may have seemed far-fetched are becoming routine.

“We’re going to see more of this,” said Gregory Kaebick, a senior research scholar at the Hastings Center for Bioethics, a nonprofit think tank based in Garrison, New York.

“The extinctions right now are almost entirely due to human intervention in the first place. So there’s a sense that if we’ve caused the problem, then we ought to be contributing to trying to fix it.”

The pond rescue idea is just one among many to save whitefish, none of which are sure bets. But there’s evidence it could work: For several years, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians has reported success raising small numbers of whitefish in ponds, then releasing them into lakes when they are larger.

“It’s more hands-off and the fish are exposed to the environment,” said Rusty Aikens, the tribe’s fisheries enhancement coordinator.

Expanding upon that methodology to keep the fish in ponds indefinitely would require millions of dollars and coordination among the tribal, state and federal agencies that co-manage the Great Lakes fishery.

But the idea speaks to desperation to prevent a loss that would not only corrode a key piece of Great Lakes culture but ripple through the food web and regional fishing economy.

“We think of Atikameg as the canary in the coal mine,” said Smith, using the Anishinaabe word for whitefish. “They’re the ones struggling first, but we would be foolish to think they’re the only ones.”

Whitefish in exile

Whitefish are endangered by tiny quagga and zebra mussels, natives of Eastern Europe that came to the Great Lakes in freighters and were first spotted here in 1989. They now blanket the bottom of four out of five Great Lakes, siphoning nutrients and plankton and leaving behind crystal-clear water with barely anything for whitefish to eat.

Scientists are searching for a solution, but a breakthrough could be decades away, and the effort is poorly funded compared to other Great Lakes threats.

Though whitefish remain stable in Saginaw Bay, lower Green Bay and Lake Superior, scientists fear the mussels could eventually harm those fish, too. Even if not, shrinking a deep gene pool down to a few smaller populations creates a risk of lost fitness and inbreeding. And tribes leading the whitefish rescue effort say it’s about more than ecology.

The fish are kin, deserving protection in exchange for the millenia they have spent sustaining human diets.

“If they’re extirpated, or if they’re diminished such that we don’t have access to them, we’d be lesser as a community,” said Doug Craven, natural resources director for the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians.

Advocates of pond-rearing view it as a cheaper, more humane and more promising alternative to raising fish in hatcheries, where they are often packed into concrete raceways or plastic tanks that require lots of electricity and constant monitoring.

Studies also show that fish raised in these tightly controlled environments have less knack for surviving in the wild.

For the past five years, the Sault Tribe has been raising small numbers of whitefish in ponds near Sault Ste. Marie (225,000 this year) until they are several months old, at which point they’re trucked to the north shore of lakes Huron and Michigan. It’s a workaround, meant to protect them from the zooplankton shortage that kills hatchlings in the Great Lakes.

Unlike hatchery-raised fish, these fish must learn to feed themselves, steer clear of predators and deal with changing weather and other variables. The mortality rate in ponds is higher than in hatcheries. But Aikens said that’s not necessarily a bad thing:

“The ones that do make it to this point? They’re fitter,” he said as Sault Tribe scientists netted the 3-inch fingerlings in preparation for transport to Lake Huron.

The trouble is, the stocking program is tiny. And it will take years to know if it’s working. Young whitefish disappear into the deep water and typically aren’t seen again until they return ashore to spawn years later.

“There’s a lot of hurdles they need to overcome between now and then,” Aikens said.

So from Smith’s perspective, there’s a need for a backup plan.

Encouraged by the promise of pond-rearing, he began talking with U.S. Forest Service officials last year about finding some ponds in the Hiawatha National Forest where whitefish could hunker down indefinitely, perhaps for multiple generations, until the mussel invasion subsides.

“Time is of the essence to see if there’s consensus that we should do this or some other preservation measure,” Smith said. “It’s not simple, it’s not inexpensive, but it might be really important.”

Officials with the Little Traverse Bay Band are open to partnering on such a project, while state regulators and The Nature Conservancy have also shown some interest.

One barrier to more coordinated action: There is no comprehensive rehabilitation plan for whitefish, unlike lake trout and sturgeon. Tribal, state and federal experts have begun discussing whether it’s time to write one, said Steve Lenart, a fish biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

“I don’t think anybody’s thinking that it’s not a pretty urgent topic,” Lenart said, but “coordination and collaboration — those things take time.”

Get used to it

If circumventing species loss by moving fish to a whole new environment sounds radical, get used to it.

Human forces including habitat loss, climate change and the spread of invasive species are pushing nature to the brink, forcing emergency rescues and heartbreaking decisions about what not to save.

Life on Earth is vanishing at a rate unmatched in human history, with some 28% of species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature at risk. In Michigan, state officials have designated 407 species as threatened or endangered.

“We are in an extinction crisis, no question about it,” said Budhan Pukazhenthi, a scientist with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. “But the challenge is also, what can we do to either slow it down or to completely stop it?”

Groups like his have cloned endangered animals. Governments are freezing animals’ tissue samples “just in case” and establishing massive seed libraries like the “doomsday vault” on the island of Spitsbergen, Norway. Zoos around the globe — including in Michigan — are breeding and releasing rare animals into the wild.

Still, it won’t be feasible to save everything. Some officials have begun using a framework known as Resist, Accept Direct to help them decide when and how to intervene.

“We know these systems are changing,” said Abigail Lynch, a scientist with the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center. “We can either acknowledge these difficult issues now and make more informed decisions, or we can ignore them and let those decisions be made for us.”

Time is running short for many of the lower lakes’ whitefish. In some areas, almost no hatchlings have survived to adulthood for nearly two decades. Most whitefish left in those waters are grandparents that will soon die of old age.

In Little Traverse Bay, the average whitefish caught in fishing nets is more than 20 years old. It’s growing difficult to even catch enough fish for experiments that aim to save this genetically distinct population.

Smith knows some might see the pond rescue idea as extreme. But to him, risking the fish’s disappearance from the lower lakes is far moreso. Money, time, uncertainty about whether it will work — he sees those all as worthwhile sacrifices to save an icon of the Great Lakes.

With one caveat:

“If we do it, does that absolutely obligate us to bust our ass to fix the lakes?” he said. “One-hundred percent.”

Time running out for Great Lakes whitefish. Can ponds become their Noah’s Ark? 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.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Derek Williams, 51, has been spending a lot of time thinking about certain numbers.

He committed 12 armed robberies in and around Milwaukee 30 years ago. In 1997, the North Side native was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each robbery – a total of 180 years.

In 2023, a Milwaukee County judge cut that sentence in half after Williams stopped an attack of a correctional officer who was being stabbed with a sharpened pen. The reduction in his sentence made Williams eligible for parole. 

But Williams, who was transferred to Sturtevant Transitional Facility from Oakhill Correctional Institution in September, has learned that parole eligibility is not the same as being released. Now, he worries about another number – how many days he will have to wait to go home to his family. 

“I’m seeing a parole process that really has no clear path on what a person’s supposed to do,” Williams said. “They create an ideal, and at every turn it’s another road going left or right.”

Frustrations with the parole process

In Wisconsin, only people who committed their crimes before Dec. 31, 1999, can become eligible for parole. 

Those sentenced for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2000, fall under 1997 Wisconsin Act 283, more commonly known as the Truth-in-Sentencing law. These people must serve the entirety of their prison sentence. 

Those sentenced before Truth-in-Sentencing took effect become eligible for parole after serving one-quarter of their prison sentence or after reaching their mandatory release date, whichever comes first.

Before Williams’ sentence was reduced, he would have been eligible for parole in 2042.  

Since his sentence reduction in 2023, Williams has gone before the Wisconsin Parole Commission twice – in May 2024 and June 2025. 

Both times, the commission said he wasn’t ready for release.

State regulation requires the Parole Commission to consider several factors when deciding whether to grant release: acceptable conduct in prison; completion of required programming; reduction of risk to the public; sufficient time served so release does not depreciate the seriousness of the crime; and an approved release plan.

For both of his parole hearings, the Parole Commission said Williams’ conduct and participation in programming were adequate. 

Yet both times the commission deferred Williams’ parole to be reconsidered at some later date. The commission cited an “unreasonable risk to the public” and said Williams had “not served sufficient time for punishment.”

Williams said he doesn’t understand how the commission arrived at these conclusions, especially after the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the judge who modified his sentence reduction said he had already served enough time. 

“In terms of the armed robberies themselves, we were most acutely concerned with the level of violence,” said Paul Dedinsky, an assistant district attorney for Milwaukee County, during the sentence modification hearing. “I found them to all be extremely serious and necessitating an enormous amount of incarceration, but we believe that end has been met.”

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jack Davila agreed. 

Williams’ frustration with the parole process is not surprising, said Laura Yurs, a Remington legal fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

“Because parole release is discretionary, it is impossible to predict and tends not to operate as a standardized set of steps,” Yurs said. “For example, what is deemed ‘sufficient time for punishment’ can vary widely from person to person – even when the crime of conviction is the same.” 

Parole trends

In recent years, fewer people in Wisconsin are being granted parole, according to Department of Corrections data.

An average of 37 people were granted parole in 2023 and 2024, compared with an average of 144 a year from 2017 to 2022, the data show.  

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31 of 2025, there have been 234 parole hearings for people convicted in Milwaukee County. Out of these, 19 people were granted parole, 201 were deferred and 14 were denied. 

As of Aug. 31, 43 people had been granted parole in Wisconsin in 2025, out of 551 hearings. 

Williams hopes to add his name to the list of people granted parole, but that is still in question. 

‘Not an entitlement’

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Parole Commission said in an email to NNS that a parole is “not an entitlement.” He said all five parole requirements must be met, including reducing the risk someone poses to the public and that a person has served enough time. 

He said risk reduction is determined using several factors, including sustained good conduct, completion of required programming, transition through lower security levels and the approval of their release plan. 

“This requirement is met when the risk to the public upon release is considered not unreasonable,” the spokesperson said.

For time served, the commission spokesperson said the requirement is met “when the amount of time served is sufficient to not diminish the seriousness of the original offense.”

Red tape?

Williams, whose next parole hearing is scheduled for January, disputes the commission’s assessment. Nevertheless, he is trying to follow its guidance leading up to his next hearing.  

Williams said this is easier said than done, given the lack of clarity about parole. 

Williams said he is also worried about being deferred again because of a lack of coordination within the Department of Corrections. 

After his most recent parole hearing in June, commissioners endorsed a transfer for Williams to a less restrictive facility – called a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility – where he would be able to participate in work release. 

Programming and activities at these facilities place an emphasis on life after release and only house people requiring minimum security.

About a month after his June parole hearing, the Program Review Committee at Oakhill could not reach a consensus on whether to transfer Williams, according to paperwork he received from Oakhill staff.  

After learning of the split decision, Rikki Williams, Derek’s wife, raised their concerns to Jason Benzel, director of the Department of Corrections’ Bureau of Offender Classification and Movement.

In an email, Benzel told Rikki to “be patient and allow the process to occur.” 

She then contacted Jared Hoy, secretary of the Department of Corrections.

“I understand your frustration, I really do,” Hoy wrote in an email to Rikki. “If we cut corners for Derek and rush the process, or if I intervene and put my thumb on the scale, that would not be fair to the many, many others who go through a similar process.”

These explanations ring hollow for Rikki.

“Everyone tells us to ‘trust the process,’ ” Rikki said. “What process?” 

Recent progress for Williams

Wayne Olson, the warden at Oakhill, and another Department of Corrections administrator reviewed the Program Review Committee’s split decision on Williams’ transfer. They approved a transfer but not to a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility. 

Instead, on Sept. 16, Williams arrived at Sturtevant Transitional Facility, which houses people requiring minimum or medium security. 

Olson and the DOC administrator chose Sturtevant because it can provide a more “gradual transition” from Oakhill, according to the paperwork.

Off-site employment is available at Sturtevant, the paperwork stated, “at the discretion of the warden,” and requires a “period of monitoring on-site.”

As Williams waits in limbo, he often returns to a particular irony. 

“I made a life-or-death decision in a heartbeat,” he said. “But it’s taken years for anyone to decide what to do with my life.”

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

His 180-year prison sentence was cut after saving a guard’s life. Years later, he’s still waiting to go home. 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

For over 30 years, Ruby Johnson-Harden and her husband fostered Milwaukee youths in need of temporary homes. 

Though fostering is time-consuming and sometimes challenging, Johnson-Harden said she understood the need for children to have a safe place to go and for their parents to get the support they need. 

“It is definitely hard to give children back even when you know the intention is to give them back,” she said. “But you think about it, and there is always another kid that needs somewhere to go.” 

Though the number of children being removed from their homes is decreasing, the foster care system in Milwaukee, and in Wisconsin in general, is under growing strain.

Advocates say the problem isn’t strictly a shortage of foster homes, but a mismatch between the needs of many children entering care and the level of support, training and resources that foster families have to provide what’s needed. 

Few feel equipped enough or are willing to take on teens and children coping with trauma, behavioral health challenges or emotional dysregulation, according to foster care advocates. 

Shortage of proper placements

“In Milwaukee, we have enough foster homes and other placement providers for children. Everybody is placed,” said Jill Collins, ongoing services section manager for the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services. “But we don’t necessarily always have the right match for children.” 

She said that because youths with mental health or behavioral needs are harder to place, some children are placed in group homes or residential care facilities where professionals are better equipped to meet their needs. 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families’ data dashboard, 7,000 children are placed in out-of-home care annually. That includes kinship care, foster care and other residential facilities. 

The Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services reported that at the beginning of 2024 there was an average of 1,743 children in out-of-home care. 

According to the dashboard, the older a child is when entering the system, the less likely it is for the child to be placed in a home. 

In 2024, there was an average of 515 children aged 12 years or older in out-of-home care. Of these older children, 275 (53%) were placed in a family-like setting, 146 (28%) were placed in congregate care, and 94 (18%) were in other care.

Ninety percent of children aged 12 and under were placed in family-like care. 

“I had few teens,” Johnson-Harden said. “Usually they’ve already been through so much that they are kind of set in their ways. It’s harder for them to open up.” 

DeShanda Williams-Clark, chief program officer at Pathfinders, works with many young people who are already a part of the child welfare system. 

“They’ll come in if they don’t feel safe in their placements,” Williams-Clark said. 

She said the young people Pathfinders serves can have a number of nuanced concerns that can fall through the cracks. Some are experiencing homelessness or are survivors of trafficking and exploitation, she said. 

“(The youths) have given feedback and say, well, I don’t feel safe being at my group home because my group home is publicly listed,” she said. “Or we’ve had children say, ‘I know this family is receiving a check for me because they’re reporting that I have worse behaviors or that I need medication.’ ”  

What’s being done

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families is working to reduce the number of children in out-of-home care through its Putting Families First initiative. 

The initiative focuses on keeping families together by supporting them in-home with resources and services. In situations where families can’t stay together, the initiative emphasizes relying on people already in the child’s or children’s network before resorting to foster care. 

As a result of this approach, there has been a decline in the number of children who are removed from their homes and taken into foster care, said Emily Erickson, director of the Bureau of Permanence and Out-of-Home Care at the agency.

“We have been focusing on solutions that are community-based, that can support parents in healing and growing while they continue to parent their children in their homes safely,” Erickson said. 

She said the program utilizes a mix of formal and informal support networks to help provide safety but allows children to stay in their homes because research shows a lasting negative impact once relationships are severed. 

Additionally, DCF funds the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness program for youths who have aged out of foster care. 

According to Williams-Clark, the program not only helps young people who have aged out of the child welfare system find housing, but it also supports them through the entire process. 

The program gives young people a choice regarding independent living, she said. 

“Then we give them wraparound care and support by making sure they have access to socially integrate into the communities that they want to live in, helping them to set goals for education and their academics, getting them connected to income and employment programs, and then just really working on those life skills,” Williams-Clark said.

How you can help

Advocates suggest several ways you can help. 

One way is to consider fostering. 

“The need is great. Especially for teens and siblings,” said Jane Halpin, a recruitment consultant with Community Care Resources, a private foster care agency.

She said it can become difficult because it’s time-consuming, but you won’t be alone. Community Care Resources offers around-the-clock support to those who foster through the agency. 

Williams-Clark said people need more education around fostering to help destigmatize the work of the child welfare system. 

Wisconsin Department of Children and Families officials suggested being a support system for family and friends who may be in need and considering specialized training to become a foster parent who can care for older youths or children with higher needs. 

They also encourage local organizations, churches and individuals to support foster families and children, not just through financial means but also by offering practical help and emotional support. They also encourage the use of community resources to support families before involving the child welfare system, to minimize trauma.

Johnson-Harden said the rewards of fostering are immense. 

“Fostering kids, to me, is about the joy of showing up for children in your community,” she said. “It’s about supporting a family and doing your best to lessen any trauma they’ve already experienced.” 

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Fewer children are in foster care, but finding homes remains a challenge 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Devin Remiker, the 33-year-old new chair of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party, has a plan to win it all in 2026, when voters will elect a new governor, state legislators, a state Supreme Court justice, and potentially flip seats crucial to Democrats’ efforts to retake the House.

The job is “about building a bulwark against a hostile administration that seems intent on subverting democracy,” he told NOTUS. “That really places in me an immense sense of responsibility to help make sure that we can be that bulwark ahead of 2028.”

Remiker is one of 24 chairs of Democratic state parties elected since the party lost the presidency, Senate and most governor’s races in November. While that turnover for party chairs is not unusual, it leaves Democrats’ fresh-faced state leadership to chart the party’s new course at a time of unprecedented political upheaval. As the chair of one of the most fiercely competitive states on the map, Remiker has a significant role to play in that future.

“Devin matches what I would argue we need in a chair,” said Jane Kleeb, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, an organization within the Democratic National Committee that represents state parties.

Kleeb said professionalism and optimism are the “key characteristics” the party has sought in new chairs, in addition to exceptional fundraising skills and the ability to persuade donors that the party is making structural changes to win as far out as 2028.

Remiker is taking over the chair position from Ben Wikler, who grew the party’s fundraising into eight-digit territory each election cycle. Wikler created new virtual volunteer opportunities and expanded the party’s existing neighbor-to-neighbor organizing teams into a year-round campaign apparatus, Wikler said. When Wikler assumed the post in 2019, Remiker was a political director, later moving up to executive director before working as a senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ campaign in Wisconsin, according to the party site.

“Even if you’re taking the baton from a well-qualified chair who built up an incredible infrastructure like Ben Wikler … even that is daunting,” Kleeb said.

Remiker told NOTUS his job is to continue growing the bread and butter of Wisconsin Democrats’ campaigning.

“The core of the party’s work in Wisconsin is year-round organizing, both in traditional organizing — knocking on doors, getting neighbors to talk to neighbors about the issues that impact them most — but also year-round communications infrastructure,” he said. “Right now, where our party has the most room to grow is in communicating with folks in new, innovative ways that meet voters where they’re at.”

Remiker is working on ways to tailor the party’s messaging to voters in each of the state’s 72 counties — work that’s overseen by a new director for the all-county strategy, he said. Remiker is also looking to change how the party communicates with voters by putting more resources into relational organizing and social media outreach.

He emphasized getting the party’s message to rural voters by sending canvassers to parades, farmers markets and other public events that can help the Democrats build a community presence across the state and save time walking up long rural driveways.

“What we uniquely have here in Wisconsin is a foundation to build upon, and that’s really how I view my role coming into this job,” Remiker said. “I’m here to, yes, fix or tweak what wasn’t working or wasn’t working the best, but to really build upon the foundation” set by Wikler and Martha Laning, Wikler’s predecessor who expanded the party’s voter outreach.

That plan echoes what Wikler envisions for his successor.

“A lot of people are coming into these roles with a mandate for change. In Wisconsin, Devin’s mandate is to learn everything about what can be improved but it’s also really to keep building things that we know have had a huge effect that helped Tammy Baldwin win in 2024,” Wikler said.

Remiker’s approach could make inroads in rural Wisconsin, which overwhelmingly voted Republican in 2024. Wisconsin Democrats lost to President Donald Trump by less than a percentage point, but reelected Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

The party followed that up in April by holding onto a liberal majority in the state Supreme Court — a race that drew over $53 million in spending by conservative groups and led Elon Musk to host a $1 million sweepstakes for voters. Remiker led the Democrats’ “People v. Musk” campaign in the months before his election as chair and will now preside over the party as a redistricting lawsuit winds its way through the state’s courts, a case that could help the Democrats flip seats if decided in time to redraw maps before the midterm elections.

The Wisconsin Democrats’ full-force organizing for candidates up and down the ballot in all corners of the state has been something of a blueprint for other state parties. Newly minted Democratic chairs of swing states told NOTUS they are working toward the year-round operation at the center of Wisconsin’s successful program.

Eugene DePasquale, the chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party who was elected last month, praised Wisconsin Democrats’ use of data to “help drive” strategy and their development of campaign infrastructure to last beyond any one cycle.

“What we’ve done in Pennsylvania is like Groundhog Day all over again, which is you build up an infrastructure, win or lose the campaign, then it goes away, then you start up again next summer,” he said. “I want to hopefully build with the team we’re putting together an infrastructure that lasts, where we’re basically going year-round.”

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

New Wisconsin Dems chair says he’s ‘building a bulwark’ against the Trump administration 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.

Reading Time: 12 minutes

Note: This article contains descriptions of sexual misconduct and grooming behavior toward children.

This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Click here to read highlights from the story

• The state Department of Public Instruction investigated more than 200 Wisconsin teachers, aides, substitutes and administrators from 2018 to 2023 who were accused of sexual misconduct or grooming behaviors toward students — information previously unknown to the public.  

• The department is dedicating scant resources to investigate educator misconduct, raising questions about the quality of its oversight and protection of children. 

• Licensing officials also allow educators under investigation to forfeit their credentials in exchange for avoiding in-depth probes.

After Shawn Umland took a group of his students on a field trip to Florida, licensing regulators at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction started investigating him. The inquiry followed a media report alleging Umland touched the tops of a student’s breasts during the trip while applying sunburn treatment in a hotel room, the agency’s records show. 

That was in 2019. Umland had previously been disciplined in 2005 for his behavior in a hotel room with a female student on a school trip, according to the department’s records. 

Umland, who worked at Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua, resigned in lieu of being fired. But he kept his Wisconsin teaching license. Officials at the Department of Public Instruction concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to revoke it, citing inconsistencies in witness statements. 

Michael Igl similarly resigned from the White Lake School District in northern Wisconsin but kept his license in exchange for taking a course on maintaining appropriate boundaries. The Department of Public Instruction opened an inquiry into allegations that he made sexual comments to students, communicated with students inappropriately on social media and gave them rides home unsupervised, department records show. 

Michael Hanson kept his license after he resigned from teaching in the Baraboo School District. School administrators concluded Hanson “did not recognize appropriate student-teacher boundaries and his behavior with two students constituted grooming,” licensing regulators wrote in their case notes. 

The notes say Hanson texted female students “excessively” and often visited their homes unannounced, to the point one student considered a restraining order against him. Again, officials at the Department of Public Instruction cited insufficient evidence to revoke Hanson’s teaching license. 

A yearlong investigation by the Cap Times found the state Department of Public Instruction investigated more than 200 Wisconsin teachers, aides, substitutes and administrators from 2018 to 2023 who were accused of sexual misconduct or grooming behaviors toward students — information previously unknown to the public.  

The department’s internal records show these allegations included educators sexually assaulting students, soliciting nude photos from children or initiating sexual relationships immediately after students graduated.  

Licensing officials also investigated educators accused of grooming behaviors like flirting with children, spending non-school time alone and isolated with students, or invading students’ personal space by rubbing their shoulders, thighs and lower backs. 

Child sexual abuse prevention advocates and researchers say these behaviors have lasting psychological effects on children, making it harder for them to succeed in school and have healthy relationships. The Cap Times interviewed seven academics and advocates about how the Department of Public Instruction investigates and documents educator misconduct. Each said the department’s practices are inadequately protecting students. 

“They need to change. That’s insufficient. That’s not going to keep kids safe,” said Charol Shakeshaft, who authored one of the most comprehensive reviews of teacher sexual misconduct for the U.S. Department of Education. 

Best estimates show one in 10 students experiences sexual misconduct from educators during their K-12 schooling, according to that federal report. In Wisconsin, that rate would amount to more than 93,000 school children. 

Sexual misconduct is a spectrum of physical, verbal and electronic behaviors that don’t belong in schools, according to Shakeshaft, a distinguished professor emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is also under contract with the Department of Public Instruction, serving as an expert witness in the agency’s grooming investigations.

Grooming, as Shakeshaft defines it, specifically consists of crossing boundaries to develop trust between the educator and student through gifts, attention, desensitization to touch in ways that appear harmless, as well as discussion of sexual or sensitive topics. 

The Cap Times found at least 44% of the Department of Public Instruction’s over 450 educator license investigations since 2018 have involved sexual misconduct or grooming allegations — a number researchers and advocates say is likely an undercount of these cases. 

“That’s what they’ve investigated. That doesn’t even take into account the full scope of prevalence,” said Shiwali Patel, an attorney with the National Women’s Law Center who focuses on gender and sexual harassment in schools. 

The Cap Times investigation also found: 

• The Department of Public Instruction is dedicating scant resources to investigate educator misconduct, raising questions about the quality of its oversight and protection of children. 
• The department, run by State Superintendent Jill Underly, relies on a rudimentary system to track its investigations, obscuring the scale of misconduct for policymakers and the public.  
• Licensing officials also allow educators under investigation to forfeit their credentials in exchange for avoiding in-depth probes.  
• Unlike a different agency that regulates hundreds of other state-licensed professionals — like nurses and accountants — the Department of Public Instruction doesn’t tell the public why an educator lost their license. Advocates say this lack of transparency makes it easier for educator misconduct to avoid detection and happen again. 
• Out of 461 teachers the state investigated from 2018 to 2023 for all forms of misconduct, 207 kept their credentials and could continue working in schools with children. 

Department of Public Instruction spokesperson Chris Bucher said the agency is always looking for ways to improve and that license misconduct investigations are critical to the safety of children. However, the agency is limited in funding and staffing because state lawmakers consistently cut their operating budget, he said. 

In the current two-year state budget, lawmakers approved a 10% annual reduction, a cut of about $1.3 million, to the department’s general operations from previous funding levels. 

“We do as much as we can with the resources and tools and authority that we have,” Bucher said. “That is an area of need.” 

Underly declined requests for an interview. Discussing the Department of Public Instruction’s investigations would create a “conflict of interest” since Underly oversees educator licenses, Bucher said. 

As state superintendent, Underly is Wisconsin’s highest ranking education official. Voters first elected her to office in 2021 and re-elected her in April to another four-year term. 

Ben Jones, the department’s former head of educator misconduct investigations, also declined requests for an interview, citing attorney-client privilege. Jones ran the department’s Office of Legal Services as the chief legal counsel for six years and left in July after Gov. Tony Evers appointed him to a Dane County judgeship. The department’s new head of legal services is Kyle Olsen, who took over in August.  

Umland, the Minocqua teacher, continues to work in education. He is the president of the Lakeland Union High School Board of Education. It’s unclear whether Igl is still working in education or has left the profession. Hanson has since stopped teaching and works at a private biochemical company in the Madison area. 

Umland didn’t respond to a request for an interview or written questions. In their case notes, licensing officials wrote he “generally denied the allegations.”  

Hanson told the Cap Times that during Baraboo’s investigation, school administrators weaved “a narrative that fit, in my opinion, what they wanted to see and what the parents wanted to see.” He said he resigned from his teaching position because the investigation harmed his reputation and he felt burned out from teaching.  

Igl was unable to be reached by social media, email or phone. In a letter to Department of Public Instruction investigators at the time, he said he “would never consider having inappropriate communication” with a student and resigned feeling he had no other option despite denying the allegations.  

Police also investigated Umland and Igl, according to Department of Public Instruction records, although the state’s online court records indicate neither was criminally charged. Hanson was not criminally charged either. 

Madison East graduate: ‘I stopped going to school’  

Students who are sexually abused, harassed and groomed by teachers, principals or coaches often experience lasting psychological and physiological harm, said Shakeshaft, who authored the book “Organizational Betrayal” on how schools enable sexual misconduct. 

“We see then long-term a sort of maladjustment in the world: drug and alcohol abuse, (self) cutting, failure to have the confidence to go forward and go for new jobs and speak out,” Shakeshaft said.  

The trauma affects children’s ability to succeed in school as well, said Jetta Bernier, executive director of the prevention advocacy group Enough Abuse.  

“Their learning is more difficult. They’re involved in more remedial classes. Their graduation rates are less,” she said.  

Lauren Engle and Sydney Marz each described wanting to avoid school and a deep distrust of teachers and school administrators after experiencing educator sexual misconduct. 

“I stopped going to school, and if I did go to school, I did not go into class,” Engle said. “I went to the student services, and I sat there for the entire day. It was so terrible to be around people who either knew or thought they knew and wanted to know more.” 

Both attended the Madison Metropolitan School District and were students of East High School teacher David Kruchten starting in 2016. Throughout their four years at East, Engle and Marz said they went on multiple overnight field trips with Kruchten.  

Kruchten pleaded guilty in 2021 to federal charges of attempting to produce child sexual abuse material. He had placed surreptitious recording devices in students’ hotel bathrooms and sleeping areas while on school trips, according to federal prosecutors.  

“I was just focused on obviously the criminal case and whatnot, and feeling like a shell of a human being basically and just really weird all the time,” Marz said. “I had a hard time focusing. I was always very stressed out, but also very disengaged.” 

Even if an educator’s conduct never escalates to sexual contact, boundary violations like spending time alone together outside of school, gift-giving and hand-holding are harmful to students, Shakeshaft said. These types of behaviors make students easier targets for exploitation. 

“They’re already groomed that this is normal behavior. This is OK,” she said. 

No consistent tracking, short on details 

Sexual misconduct and grooming by teachers is sometimes called education’s best-kept secret, a moniker Shakeshaft said rings true. A failure to track educators who abuse, harass and groom children allows it to go unchecked, she said. 

In Wisconsin, the state Department of Public Instruction is responsible for teacher licenses but doesn’t track data on how many educators have been investigated following allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming. 

Obtaining that information “would require a good deal of manual work to fulfill,” said Bucher, the department spokesperson. 

The lack of information makes it harder to stop sexual misconduct from happening again, said Billie-Jo Grant, a researcher and the CEO of McGrath Training Solutions, which provides instruction on educator misconduct prevention.  

“When we don’t have numbers for how often something is happening, it’s very difficult for the public and for legislators to understand the magnitude of the problem and to allocate funding and resources to solve the problem,” Grant said. 

The Department of Public Instruction routinely gathers and publishes data on other potential signs of student harm, such as how often students are chronically absent, experience homelessness or feel unsafe at school — but not the frequency of educator misconduct. 

Under Wisconsin open records laws, the Cap Times obtained and reviewed a Google spreadsheet used by the Department of Public Instruction to track its more than 450 misconduct investigations from 2018 through 2023. The Cap Times also obtained the department’s case notes showing summaries of misconduct allegations, investigation practices and outcomes from probes spanning 2019 through part of 2022. 

Over 204 of the investigations involved allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming, a Cap Times analysis of the records found. Another 158 investigations involved allegations of physical assault, drug use or discriminatory comments, among other unethical behavior. 

In almost a fifth of the total cases, the nature of the misconduct allegations is unclear from the records. The spreadsheet and case notes either lack enough detail or contain none at all to categorize. 

Parents would likely be outraged to learn the department isn’t more consistently tracking this information, said Charles Hobson, a professor at Indiana University Northwest and a board member of the advocacy group Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct & Exploitation.  

“It’s appalling to me that these kinds of things continue to happen and that otherwise good people turn their back on this issue. I just, I don’t understand it,” Hobson said. 

Bucher said investigators attempted to “modernize our review process and use emerging technology” by implementing case tracking software from 2015 to 2018. But the department stopped using it. 

“The software did not work as well as we hoped and was expensive,” Bucher said. 

The current spreadsheet has worked well to serve the department’s investigation purposes, Bucher said. He did not specify any plans to change or update to a more comprehensive software. 

Over 100 investigations a year for two DPI employees 

The Department of Public Instruction faces challenges while investigating educator sexual misconduct and grooming, Bucher said. The state needs to ensure sensitivity toward victims while it deals with limited information in redacted police reports, reluctant witnesses, delays in reporting incidents and a lack of clear intent behind alleged inappropriate behavior, he said. 

The department has one full-time and one part-time investigator, which Bucher said isn’t enough staff to handle the 113 investigations opened on average each year. That figure includes misconduct investigations and additional background screenings for license applicants. Both employees also have other job duties outside of license investigations, Bucher said. 

Grant, the misconduct prevention trainer, called the department’s staffing levels “woefully inadequate” given the caseload size.  

“Doing an investigation requires time,” Grant said. “That means interviewing multiple parties and witnesses, and gathering information, and writing a report on how you know what you know, to know if you should (revoke) that license.” 

Bucher said one of the department’s investigations has contributed to a criminal case that put an abuser behind bars, underscoring the importance of their work. He blamed state lawmakers for underfunding the department rather than pointing to Underly or other agency leaders, who oversee how state funding is used internally. 

“The Legislature has consistently cut DPI agency operations instead of funding more staff to work on things such as educator misconduct investigations,” Bucher said.  

In Underly’s most recent state budget request, she sought over $600,000 for modernizing the agency’s online background checks and licensing platform.  

The proposal was rejected by lawmakers. 

Underly requested no additional funding specifically for educator misconduct investigations. 

Surrendering licenses to avoid investigation 

Glenn Buelow and Paul J. Mleziva are among more than 80 Wisconsin educators since 2018 who have given up their teaching licenses after the Department of Public Instruction opened investigations into allegations they had engaged in sexual misconduct or grooming. 

The department’s case notes show a colleague reported they caught Buelow “making out” with a student. Investigators wrote that Buelow also admitted to sending inappropriate images to the student, such as a meme saying, “Elmo loves anal.” 

Licensing investigators wrote Mleziva sent sexual text messages to a student and told her after she graduated that “he wanted to have a sexual relationship,” according to Department of Public Instruction records.  

In both of these investigations, the educators resigned from their jobs and voluntarily surrendered their teaching licenses. Mleziva denied any wrongdoing to licensing investigators, while Buelow did not respond to the department’s investigation notice.  

Buelow worked for the Racine Unified School District until 2019 and Mleziva for the Two Rivers Public School District until 2020. Neither was criminally charged. 

Reached by phone Sept. 24 for comment on the Department of Public Instruction’s investigation, Buelow confirmed he had kissed a Racine student while he was a teacher, but said the student started the interaction.  

“It was taken totally out of context and it was not initiated by me,” he said.   

Also reached by phone, Mleziva said Sept. 24 that his messages with a Two Rivers student were “borderline at best” when asked if the messages were sexual in nature. Mleziva said the student misinterpreted his conversation after she graduated and that it wasn’t about initiating a sexual relationship.  

Voluntary license surrender is the most common way Wisconsin educators lose their teaching credentials across all types of misconduct, including physical assault, financial impropriety and criminal convictions, the Cap Times found.  

Department of Public Instruction investigators offer every educator the ability to surrender their teaching credentials at the start of a case to “resolve the matter,” Bucher said. Educators are also given other opportunities throughout the process.  

State investigators have written in some case notes that “no meaningful DPI investigation” happened because the educator surrendered their credentials. 

When licenses are forfeited, the department closes the investigation without an official finding of wrongdoing. On the Department of Public Instruction’s website showing the status of an educator’s license, no information is provided on why the credential was surrendered.  

Not publishing the circumstances of a surrendered license contributes to a culture of secrecy around educator grooming and sexual misconduct, said Hobson, the Indiana professor. 

“The harassers know that system inside and out. They know that it’s not reported. They know how to game the system,” he said.  

Making the information publicly available is important in case the former educator tries to work with children again, Grant added. 

“You only need a license to teach, but you can serve in other roles in a school or a youth-serving organization and not require a license,” Grant said. “By having information publicly about why your license was … revoked, it can help to deter youth-serving organizations from hiring someone that has a history of misconduct.” 

Bernier, the advocate with Enough Abuse, said public accountability is needed for educators who lose their credentials for misconduct. Officials at the Department of Public Instruction have to make a choice, she said. 

“They can either protect those who would abuse our children, or they can protect the children. But they can’t do both,” Bernier said.  

For hundreds of other state-licensed professions, disciplinary histories are published online by the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services. Misconduct records for doctors, accountants, manicurists and others are more publicly accessible than similar records for teachers.  

“I think that to kind of single out teachers and to not require that information to be available, especially given that they’re surrounded by kids and the high prevalence of … sexual misconduct, I mean that is concerning,” said Patel, the attorney.  

The Department of Public Instruction has tried to make the information available in the past but its licensing software isn’t equipped for that purpose, Bucher said. The agency would need new software, which would require funding.   

Hobson, an educator himself, said the fundamental mission of teachers is to safeguard the children under their care from harm. Despite that duty, educator sexual misconduct and grooming continues to happen.  

“My God, this is a flawed system, and it’s not protecting our children,” Hobson said.  

Hundreds of Wisconsin teacher misconduct cases shielded from public 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.