Every year Wisconsin Watch produces some of the best investigative journalism in Wisconsin, and this year was no exception. We exposed a judge abusing his power to benefit a coworker, revealed how AI is helping the state catch illegal manure spreading, catalogued every book ban request in all 421 school districts and found state prisons hiring doctors with disciplinary histories.

But what made this year particularly special was the introduction of the Forward newsletter. Each week the Wisconsin Watch state team produces shorter stories about what we expect to be the big news and trends in the days, weeks and months ahead. It’s something our local media partners asked for and our state team reporters delivered.

As the year winds down, we gave each state team reporter the assignment of picking a favorite story written by another member of the team (Secret Santa style!). Here were their picks:

Conservative talk radio continues to be a powerful political tool in Wisconsin

To some, radio is a source of entertainment and information from a bygone era. They’re mistaken. Hallie Claflin’s deeply reported, authoritative story illustrates the immense and continuing influence of talk radio — especially conservative talk radio — in Wisconsin politics. The rise of former Gov. Scott Walker, the toppling of a Democratic mayor in Wausau and the deaths of certain bills in the Legislature can all be tied, at least in part, to advocacy or opposition from conservative talk radio hosts. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s most powerful Republican, makes regular appearances on broadcasts and described talk radio as being “as powerful as it’s ever been.” This story is worth your time as you look ahead to 2025.

— Jack Kelly

Why we investigated Wisconsin Pastor Matthew Trewhella

Phoebe Petrovic’s profile of militant, anti-abortion Pastor Matthew Trewhella, her first investigation as Wisconsin’s first ProPublica local reporting network fellow, was an engaging read. But I especially liked the companion piece she wrote. It’s a reader service to do this kind of story when we do a large takeout on a person or subject unfamiliar to most readers. It also might drive readers to the main story when they learn more about why we did it. It puts the readers behind the scenes a bit and has the potential to make readers feel more connected to Wisconsin Watch.

— Tom Kertscher

Here are some claims you might hear during tonight’s presidential debate — and the facts

Tom Kertscher does an amazing job with all of his fact briefs, but my favorite has to be a compilation that fact-checked presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump right before their September debate. Over the past few races, presidential campaigns have been full of misinformation. Debates are a vital time to show the reality of candidates and their beliefs. Tom’s story made sure people could accurately judge the claims both candidates were making. I learned about many new and important topics across party lines like Trump’s for-profit college, Harris’ claim about tracking miscarriages and accurate deportation statistics.

— Khushboo Rathore

DataWatch: Wisconsin incarcerates more people than its prisons were designed to hold

Khushboo Rathore’s DataWatch report detailing that the state’s prison population was at nearly 130% capacity stood out as one of my favorite pieces this year. Not only did this short story shed light on severe deficiencies in Wisconsin’s prison system, it also presented the findings in a digestible format that helped readers understand overcrowding in prisons through striking data. It’s one thing to report that Wisconsin prisons are overwhelmed, and it’s another to have the numbers that show it. This piece has the power to reshape future conversations about statewide prison reform, which is what our work here at Wisconsin Watch is all about! 

— Hallie Claflin

Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear high-profile abortion rights case, draft order shows

Jack Kelly has some of the best sourcing this newsroom has ever seen. He’s such an affable people-person, and it enables him to get coffee with anyone and everyone and build legitimate relationships that result in wild scoops, like this one. It’s a testament to his brilliance as a reporter.

— Phoebe Petrovic

Forward: Our picks for favorite politics stories of the year is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser | official portrait

The United States and Wisconsin flags will be flown at half-staff on Saturday to honor former state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, Gov. Tony Evers announced Friday. 

Prosser died on Dec. 1 after a fight with cancer. The former justice spent most of his career working in government, starting in the 1970s when he worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice and then as a staff member for U.S. Rep. Harold Froehlich (R-Appleton). 

Prosser also served in the state Assembly, including terms as speaker and minority leader, before being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1998. He served on the court for 18 years and retired in 2016. 

“Justice Prosser devoted his career to public service, from working for a congressman and his local community to serving as a legislator and his nearly two decades as a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice,” Evers said in a statement. “His career was unique — he did a little bit of everything — and he spent much of his life seeking new and more impactful ways that he could make a difference in our state. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family, friends, staff, and former colleagues as they mourn his passing.”

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

Yes.

Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.

The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.

The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.

Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.

However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.

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

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Council: 2011 Wisconsin Act 10
• Dane County Circuit Court: Decision and order in Case No. 2023CV3152
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: Bridging the Pension Gap
• PolitiFact Wisconsin: Scott Walker says union reform law that brought massive protests has saved taxpayers $3 billion
• Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: Back to the Past: The Fiscal Threat of Reversing Act 10 for Local Governments
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10?
• Jeffrey Mandell: Email 12/11/24

Has Wisconsin’s Act 10 union law saved taxpayers billions of dollars? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley has been selected to receive an award from the Milwaukee chapter of the Federalist Society for her “work on behalf of” the right-wing legal group’s “legal principles.” 

The chapter’s website shows that Bradley received the Judge Rudolph T. Randa Award at an event Thursday afternoon in Milwaukee. 

“Each year, the Milwaukee Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society presents the Judge Rudolph T. Randa Award to an individual whose work on behalf of the rule of law and the legal principles our Society exists to uphold is as unquestioned as it is longstanding,” the website states. 

Bradley is also on the chapter’s board of advisors. The Federalist Society aims to promote right-wing legal ideology and has successfully worked to get its members installed as judges on the local, state and federal levels. 

Over the last year, Bradley has been one of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s most outspoken critics of the body’s liberal majority — regularly accusing the four left-leaning judges of acting on behalf of the Democratic Party. 

“It’s clear that Justice Rebecca Bradley is receiving this award because the Federalist Society believes she uses her position on court to advance their political and policy agenda instead of working for us,” Lucy Ripp, Communications Director of A Better Wisconsin Together, said.

Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election next spring already had high stakes, with majority control on the line. But a judge’s ruling this week restoring collective bargaining rights to roughly 200,000 teachers and other public workers in the state further intensifies the contest.

The liberal-controlled court has already delivered a major win to Democrats by striking down Republican-drawn legislative maps. Pending cases backed by liberals seek to protect abortion access in the state and kneecap Republican attempts to oust the state’s nonpartisan elections leader.

Now, the court could be poised to notch another seismic win for Democrats, public teachers and government workers by restoring the collective bargaining rights they lost 13 years ago in a fight that decimated unions, sparked massive protests and emboldened Republicans who later restricted rights for private-sector unions.

Liberals gained the majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years following a 2023 election that had deep involvement from the Republican and Democratic parties, broke turnout records and shattered the national record for spending on a court race.

Abortion took center stage in that race. Now, it appears that union rights could be a major issue in the 2025 contest to replace a retiring liberal justice.

“You can make the argument that this race is more important than the race for the Legislature or the governor,” said Rick Esenberg, president of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said Wednesday. “I don’t think you can understate the importance of this race to the voters, no matter which side of the political divide you are on.”

The April 1 election will pit Brad Schimel, a Republican judge who supports President-elect Donald Trump and served as Wisconsin’s attorney general from 2015 until 2019, against Susan Crawford, a liberal judge whose former law firm represented teachers in a lawsuit that sought to overturn the anti-collective bargaining law.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, upheld the law known as Act 10 in 2014.

Crawford’s past attempt to overturn Act 10 raises questions about whether she could rule objectively on it, Schimel said in a statement to The Associated Press. His campaign on Monday branded Crawford as a “radical” and said she would be a “pawn” of the Democratic Party if elected.

Schimel, when he was attorney general, said he would defend Act 10 and opposed having its restrictions applied to police and firefighter unions, which were exempt from the law.

Treating public safety workers differently from others makes the law unconstitutional, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost ruled Monday. He sided with teachers and restored collective bargaining rights, a decision affecting about 200,000 workers in the state, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

The Republican-controlled Legislature promptly appealed.

Crawford’s former law firm is not involved in the current case.

Crawford didn’t directly address a question from the AP about whether she would recuse herself from any case involving Act 10. But her campaign spokesperson, Sam Roecker, said Crawford “will make a decision at that time about whether she can be fair and impartial, based on the particular facts and parties.”

Roecker said Schimel’s immediate condemnation of the court’s ruling Monday “shows he has already prejudged this case.” Schimel didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether he would recuse himself from any case involving Act 10.

The appeal of Monday’s ruling striking down Act 10 would typically first be heard by a state appeals court — a process that could take months. But the public workers who sued could ask the state Supreme Court to take the case directly, which would make it possible for a ruling before the new justice is seated in August.

Crawford has been endorsed by the state teachers union, which was gutted after Act 10 became law, as well as the Wisconsin Democratic Party and all four of the current liberal justices on the court. In addition to suing to overturn the anti-union law, Crawford also previously represented Planned Parenthood in a case to expand Wisconsin abortion access.

Christina Brey, spokesperson for the statewide teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said she couldn’t speculate about whether Crawford would hear a case challenging Act 10.

Brey said Crawford won the union’s endorsement because “we believe she is going to be the most dedicated and most impartial, constitution-believing judge to put on the Supreme Court.”

Schimel is endorsed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, all five of the state’s Republican congressmen, the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, and a host of law enforcement agencies and officials, including 50 county sheriffs.

If Crawford wins, liberal control of the court would be locked up until at least 2028, the next time a liberal justice is up for election.

Candidates have until Jan. 1 to enter the April 1 race. The winner will serve a 10-year term.

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

Union rights take center stage in high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race 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.

Getty Images

The news that a Dane County judge struck down key parts of Act 10 — former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s signature anti-union law — prompted Walker to comment on X: “Collective bargaining is not a right. It is an expensive entitlement.” 

That’s the kind of message that helped make Walker a national Republican star back in 2011. The billionaire Koch brothers supported him and his pioneering approach to politics — turning neighbor against neighbor by weaponizing the resentment of working class people and training it on teachers and other public employees whose union membership afforded them health care and retirement benefits. Walker memorably called his approach “divide and conquer.” That philosophy is at the heart of Judge Jacob Frost’s decision, which found that Act 10’s divisive carve-out for “public safety” employees (i.e. Republican-voting cops) is unconstitutional. 

Walker started by pitting private sector workers against public employees. The next step, he promised his billionaire backer Diane Hendricks, would be to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state, smashing unions across the board.

Walker made good on that promise and signed the right-to-work law that undercut private sector unions. And he certainly succeeded in dividing Wisconsin, ushering in a toxic style of politics that set the stage for Donald Trump and nationwide polarization.

But Walker’s war on organized labor is out of tune with the populism of today’s Trump-dominated Republican party, which courted union support in the recent election. It’s also out of step with public opinion. A September Gallup poll found near record-high approval of labor unions with 70% of Americans saying they approved of unions, compared with 48% approval in 2009. 

In embracing Act 10 and Walker’s dubious legacy, Wisconsin Republicans are marching to a different beat than the rest of the country. 

“Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $16 billion,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declared in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our arguments on appeal.”

Other Republicans have made even bigger claims about the “savings” that came out of teachers’ paychecks and benefits. But over time, it has become clear who the real beneficiaries of those savings were. The Kochs and Hendricks didn’t support Walker because they thought he would do wonderful things for working class voters. They backed him because they wanted to squeeze workers and enrich themselves.

Act 10, and the other measures passed by the Wisconsin Legislature in its wake, including right-to-work and prohibitions on local governments from increasing wages and improving working conditions in city and county contracts, hurt Wisconsin workers and the state economy. 

“The changes, labor leaders and experts say, have caused flattened real wages for construction workers, higher pay for their bosses and local governments stuck offering wages that make it difficult to hire contractors — and hard for those workers to make a living,” Wisconsin Watch reported. 

A study by the Economic Policy Institute compared the economies of states with strong collective bargaining laws with so-called “right-to-work” states from 2011 to 2018. “Those ‘right-to-work’ states see slower economic growth, lower wages, higher consumer debt levels, worse health outcomes and lower levels of civic participation,” one of the study’s authors, Frank Manzo, told Wisconsin Watch.

On top of all that, Walker’s oft-repeated promise to create 250,000 new jobs in his first term was a bust. He made it just over halfway to that goal, according to a “gold standard” report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the end of his second term, Walker still hadn’t reached the 250,000 jobs number. Instead, when he left office, Wisconsin ranked 34th in the nation for private sector job growth, according to the BLS. Walker’s 10.3% growth rate fell far behind the national growth rate of 17.1%. And Wisconsin public schools have never recovered from Walker’s savage budget cuts.

There has been a lot of talk since the 2024 election about how Democrats have lost touch with working class voters, allowing the Trump-led Republican Party to capture disaffected working people who are suspicious that politicians don’t really care about them or represent their interests.

The Act 10 fight, which will be front and center in Wisconsin’s spring state Supreme Court race, reverses that dynamic. Democrats in Wisconsin have been fighting all along for better wages and working conditions for working class people, and Republicans have been outspoken in their opposition to workers’ rights.

Walker’s war on workers prompted historic protests in Wisconsin back in 2011, bringing together teachers, firefighters, police, prison guards, snowplow drivers and tens of thousands of citizens from across Wisconsin to protest at the Capitol. Democrats in the state Legislature fled to Illinois to temporarily deprive Republicans of the quorum needed to pass the law. Walker dismissed the protesters as “union bosses” and agitators brought in from “out of state.” But anyone who was there could tell you the crowd was made up of lots and lots of regular Wisconsinites outraged that the governor had made hardworking people his target.

The uprising in Wisconsin inspired other pro-democracy protests around the globe. Egyptian activists ordered pizza from Ian’s Pizza downtown for the protesters at the Capitol.

Still, in the short term, the protests failed. A grassroots recall effort against Walker fell short, and he went on to be reelected to a second term. But the tide has been turning steadily ever since. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated Walker in 2018. Evers’ reelection by a larger margin in 2022 was one of 7 out of 10 statewide races Democrats have won since 2019. In one of those races, the Democratic-backed Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz beat her conservative rival by more than 10 points, flipping the ideological balance on the court and setting up the demise of Republican gerrymandering and, potentially, a final judgment against Act 10.

Today, as Democrats reel from their losses in the recent national elections, Wisconsin offers an example of a state where the fight over workers’ rights is at the center of politics. The Act 10 battle makes it clear which side each party is on. That’s good news for Democrats. For Walker’s brand of Republicanism, not so much.

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

Yes.

Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford was among attorneys who sued seeking to overturn Act 10, a 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions.

The law spurred mass protests for weeks in Madison.

At the time, Crawford said the law violated Wisconsin’s Constitution and was “aimed at crippling public employee unions.”

In 2014, the state Supreme Court upheld Act 10, calling collective bargaining “a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation.”  

Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, Crawford’s conservative challenger in the April 1, 2025, election, made the claim about Crawford Dec. 1, 2024. Crawford is a Dane County judge.

On Dec. 2, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost struck down Act 10 in a lawsuit in which Crawford is not listed as an attorney. 

An appeal notice was filed the same day. Appeals are likely to reach the Supreme Court, which has a 4-3 liberal majority.

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

Sources

• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2011CV003774 Madison Teachers Inc et al vs. Scott Walker et al
• Associated Press: Protesters leave Wis. Capitol on judge’s orders
• PBS Wisconsin: Crawford, Prof. Esenberg on Collective Bargaining Lawsuit
• Wisconsin Supreme Court: Case 2012AP2067
• Associated Press: Wisconsin unions score win as Dane County judge strikes down Act 10
• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2023CV003152 Abbotsford Education Association et al vs. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission et al

Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser | official portrait

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and Assembly Speaker David Prosser died Sunday at 81 after a months-long battle with cancer. 

After graduating from law school in 1968, Prosser spent most of his career working in government, in all three branches. 

The Appleton native worked as a staff member of then-U.S. Rep. Harold Froehlich, as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, and as the Outagamie County district attorney for two years before being elected to the Assembly in 1979. 

He served in the Assembly for nearly 20 years, serving as Speaker of the chamber and as minority leader. In 1996 he left the Legislature to run for U.S. Congress, losing his race for the state’s 8th Congressional District to Democrat Jay Johnson. 

After that loss, Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson appointed Prosser to the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission. 

In a statement, Thompson said Prosser dedicated his life to public service. 

“A man of deep conviction and intense loyalty to our way of life, David knew without citizen service, there was no real democracy and that to avoid the slings and arrows of public life was to surrender one’s convictions,” Thompson said. “He never did.”

Thompson appointed Prosser to the state Supreme Court in 1998. 

In 2011, Prosser held onto his seat, winning a tightly contested election against  JoAnne Kloppenburg by 0.5% of the vote. Prosser’s victory to coincided with a sharp right turn in the state’s politics, with Republicans controlling all three branches of state government. That period also marked a sharp increase in partisanship among the Court’s justices. 

In 2011, as the justices debated the Court’s decision on Republican’s Act 10 bill to limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Prosser of putting his hands around her throat in a “chokehold.” The state’s Judicial Commission filed ethics charges against Prosser, but the case petered out after most of the justices said they couldn’t weigh in on its conclusions because they had witnessed the event. 

Shortly before his retirement from the Court in 2016, the Court’s conservative majority renamed the state’s law library after him. 

“Justice Prosser was the quintessential public servant who enjoyed a respected career (spanning more than 40 years) in the service of others. His exemplary service in all three branches of government demonstrated his unparalleled versatility and dedication to the public good,” Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler said in a statement. “On the bench, Justice Prosser brought a keen intellect and deep sense of fairness to every case, leaving an indelible mark on Wisconsin jurisprudence. He was well known for digging into the books and conducting exhaustive research, often ‘burning the midnight oil’ in the law library. Justice Prosser possessed a critical understanding of, and allegiance to, the rule of law.”

The Court’s now-liberal majority renamed the library after Lavinia Goodell, Wisconsin’s first woman lawyer, in June. 

Earlier this year, Prosser was one of the retired former justices from whom Assembly Speaker Robin Vos sought advice as Republicans called for the impeachment of Justice Janet Protasiewicz. In a statement, Vos said Prosser was a “mentor” and celebrated his career of public service. 

“Dave had a great sense of humor and was always quick to offer advice that was filled with great ideas and common-sense solutions,” Vos said. “He was well-regarded and well-respected by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. A man of wisdom, Dave listened first, was thoughtful and independent-minded in his decisions. He gained the trust of his colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats. Dave leaves a legacy of service to the state that won’t be matched.”

Wisconsin politics were shaken up this year with the signing of new legislative maps that ended over a decade of extreme and effective Republican gerrymandering.

It was the first time in Wisconsin history a Legislature and a governor of different parties agreed on legislative redistricting, the Legislative Reference Bureau told Wisconsin Watch.

In a good Republican year across the country, Wisconsin Democrats flipped 14 seats in the Legislature — largely because of those new maps. It wasn’t enough to win a majority in the Assembly or the Senate, but the resulting 54-45 and 18-15 splits better reflect Wisconsin’s swing-state status.

Wisconsin’s congressional maps were not redrawn. Republicans kept six of the state’s eight congressional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The state’s current congressional maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and approved by the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2022. The last time a governor of one party and a Legislature of another agreed on congressional maps was in 1991.

Evers’ maps were slightly more favorable to Democrats than the previous decade’s maps, but they didn’t change that much because the court established a “least change” rule when deciding which maps it would approve. That meant they would largely conform to the Republican maps that had been in place since 2011.

In March, the now-liberal high court denied a request to reconsider the state’s congressional maps before this year’s elections without stating a reason. Evers had asked for changes to the congressional maps soon after he signed the new legislative maps into law in February. Those maps were approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Elias Law Group filed a motion in January asking the court to revise the congressional boundaries ahead of the 2024 election. The Democratic law firm argued that new maps were justified after the court abandoned the “least change” approach when deciding on the legislative map challenge last year. In that case, the state Supreme Court said it would no longer favor maps that present minimal changes to existing boundaries.

Democrats argued that Evers’ congressional boundaries drawn in 2022 were decided under the “least change” restrictions later thrown out by the court in the legislative redistricting case.

Republicans pushed back, arguing that newly elected liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz prejudged the case during her 2023 campaign. They requested she recuse herself from the case. But Protasiewicz said she decided not to vote on the motion to reconsider the congressional maps because she wasn’t on the court when the underlying case was decided.

Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Brian Schimming in a statement called the court’s decision “the demise of Governor Evers’ latest attempt to throw out his own hand-drawn congressional maps.”

Republicans have retained control of six of Wisconsin’s eight House seats, with Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore safely controlling the two districts that cover Madison and Milwaukee. In comparison, Democrats held five of the eight seats in 2010 — the year before Republicans redrew the maps.

The 1st and 3rd districts are currently the only competitive congressional districts in Wisconsin, represented by Republican Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden respectively. Steil won his race this month with 54% of the vote, and Van Orden won with 51.4% of the vote.

Conservative Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Bradley in their concurrence wrote the new majority’s “reckless abandonment of settled legal precedent” in the legislative redistricting case “incentivizes litigants to bring politically divisive cases to this court regardless of their legal merit.”

Representatives of Elias Law Group did not respond to Wisconsin Watch when asked if they anticipate another legal challenge to the congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“I remain very interested between now and 2030 in trying to find a way to get the court to … tell us whether partisan gerrymandering violates the Wisconsin Constitution. I believe it does,” Jeff Mandell, founder of the liberal legal group Law Forward, told Wisconsin Watch. “I believe the court will say it does when we present the right case.”

But Mandell said nothing has been drafted, and his group won’t bring a case to the Supreme Court unless it has “got the goods.”

Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.

Why were state legislative districts redrawn for 2024, but congressional districts remain unchanged? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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

Yes.

Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford has opposed the state’s voter identification law.

The 2011 law requires proof of identification to vote. Because of court challenges, it didn’t take effect until 2016.

Crawford was one of three lawyers in a 2011 lawsuit challenging the requirement, which the Supreme Court rejected.

In 2016, Crawford said the law would be “acceptable” if voters could sign an affidavit swearing to their identity rather than providing proof of identification.

In 2018, she called the law “draconian.”

A University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated the law prevented 4,000-11,000 Milwaukee and Dane county residents from voting in the 2016 presidential election.

The University of California, Berkeley, reported in 2023 that many studies found voter ID laws have little to no impact on voter turnout nationally, while others indicate “a disproportionate negative impact” on minority groups.

Crawford, a Dane County judge, is running April 1, 2025, against conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.

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

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Council: 2011 Wisconsin Act 23
• University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalsm: Wisconsin’s voter ID controversy: What you need to know
• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2011CV004669 League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network Inc et al vs. Scott Walker et al
• Justia: League of Women Voters of Wis. Educ. Network, Inc. v. Walker

Has Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford opposed Wisconsin’s voter ID law? 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.

Michael Gableman in Dane County Circuit Court on Thursday, June 23 | Screenshot via Wisconsin Eye

The Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) filed a disciplinary complaint against former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman on Tuesday. In 10 counts, the complaint alleges Gableman violated numerous provisions of the Wisconsin Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys during and after his much-maligned investigation of the 2020 election. 

Among the allegations, Gableman is accused of failing to “provide competent representation” and to “abstain from all offensive personality” and of violating attorney-client privilege. 

The OLR investigation into Gableman was initiated after a grievance was filed by voting rights focused firm Law Forward. In a statement, Law Forward president Jeff Mandell said the organization would continue to hold people accountable for undermining faith in the state’s election system. 

“Gableman misused taxpayer funds, promoted baseless conspiracy theories, and engaged in improper intimidation tactics; his efforts undermined the integrity of our electoral system,” Mandell said. “Law Forward is committed to ensuring accountability for those who undermine the public’s trust in our elections, and we will continue to pursue legal action to hold others who impugn elections responsible for their actions, ensuring that they face consequences for any misconduct that threatens the freedom to vote. Our work is far from finished, and we are dedicated to securing a future where elections remain fair, transparent, and free from interference.” 

The first two counts against Gableman involve statements and actions he took after filing subpoenas against the mayors and city clerks of the cities of Green Bay and Madison. The complaint alleges that Gableman mischaracterized discussions he had with the lawyers for both cities, communicated with Green Bay’s city attorney when the city had obtained outside counsel in the matter, lied to Green Bay city officials about the work of his investigation and mischaracterized those actions when he filed a petition with a Waukesha County Circuit Court attempting to have the mayors of both cities arrested for not complying with his subpoenas. 

The third count alleges that Gableman made false statements in his testimony to the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections when he accused officials at the Wisconsin Elections Commission, as well as the mayors of Green Bay and Madison, of “hiring high-priced lawyers” to conduct an “organized cover-up.”

Gableman – Complaint

“Gableman did not characterize his assertions as opinions,” the complaint states. “He presented them as objective, proven facts. His assertions were public accusations of improper, possibly unlawful activity by Mayors Rhodes-Conway and Genrich. Gableman had no tangible, verifiable, objective, persuasive evidence to support his assertions. Gableman’s accusations caused serious reputational damage to the public officials involved. He publicly sought to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay, despite all they and their attorneys had done to comply with Gableman’s subpoenas.” 

The fourth through seventh counts against Gableman involve actions and statements he made during open records litigation involving his investigation by the public interest organization American Oversight. 

Those counts allege that Gableman’s statements while on the witness stand, in open court during a recess and to the news media after a hearing about his investigation’s failure to provide records constituted demeaning statements about a judge and opposing counsel and displayed a “lack of competence” in following the state’s open records and records retention laws by destroying records and failing to comply with American Oversight’s records requests. 

Count eight alleges that Gableman used his contract with the Wisconsin Assembly and Speaker Robin Vos to pursue his own interests, including by stating multiple times he had to “pressure” Vos into continuing the investigation that dragged on for months after it was supposed to end. 

The complaint states that Gableman was paid a total of $117,395.95 during the investigation and the Assembly paid $2,344,808.94 for the investigation, including $1,816,932.26 for hiring outside counsel in multiple instances of  litigation initiated during the review. 

“Before signing the contract, Gableman did not tell Vos that he did not agree with the objectives Vos had outlined, the time frame for submitting the final report, or the compensation to be paid to him,” the complaint states. “Gableman also did not tell Vos that he intended to enlist public support to pressure Vos to change the objectives of the investigation, increase the budget, or expand the time frame.” 

The ninth count in the complaint alleges that by supporting a failed effort to recall Vos, and making various public statements at rallies and in the media about his discussions with Vos and Vos’ staff, Gableman violated his duty of confidentiality with his client, the Assembly. 

The final count alleges that Gableman lied in an affidavit to the OLR submitted during its investigation into his conduct. Gableman stated in the affidavit that at no time during his investigation was he “engaged in the practice of law.” However the complaint includes excerpts from a number of the agreements he signed with the Assembly that served as contracts for “legal services,” lists the instances during the investigation in which he gave legal advice to the Assembly and the times he made court filings as an attorney during the investigation. 

The complaint states that he made “multiple demonstrably false statements” in the affidavit in which he was attempting to show he had not violated the state code of conduct, itself a violation of the code. 

OLR complaints are heard by the state Supreme Court. The office said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Judicial regulators filed a complaint Tuesday against a former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who spread election conspiracy theories and was hired by Republicans to lead an investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, accusing him of violating multiple rules of conduct.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation’s 10-count complaint accuses former Justice Michael Gableman of violations that could result in a variety of sanctions, including possibly losing his law license. The complaint does not make a specific recommendation regarding what sanction the Wisconsin Supreme Court should apply.

Gableman did not immediately return text messages seeking comment.

The complaint stems from Gableman’s work investigating allegations of fraud and abuse related to the 2020 election that Trump narrowly lost in Wisconsin. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had hired him to lead the inquiry. Gableman found no evidence of widespread fraud during his investigation, drew bipartisan derision and cost taxpayers more than $2.3 million.

Vos said in 2021 when he hired Gableman that he was “supremely confident” in his abilities. But when he fired Gableman in August 2022, Vos called him an “embarrassment.” Gableman this year helped backers of Trump who were attempting to recall Vos from office. Two of their efforts failed to gather enough valid signatures to force a vote.

Vos in 2022 said Gableman should lose his law license over his conduct during the election probe. Vos did not return a message Tuesday seeking comment.

In his seven-month inquiry, Gableman was sued over his response to open records requests and subpoenas and countersued. He was ridiculed for scant expense records, criticized for sending confusing emails and making rudimentary errors in his filings and called out for meeting with conspiracy theorists.

The complaint accuses Gableman of making false statements, disrupting a court hearing, questioning a judge’s integrity, making derogatory remarks about opposing counsel, violating open records law and revealing information about representing Vos during the investigation while Gableman was promoting a failed effort to recall Vos from office.

Among the complaint’s allegations:

— Gableman filed writs in Waukesha County Circuit Court in an attempt to force Madison and Green Bay’s mayors to submit to depositions without telling the court that his office had agreed depositions wouldn’t be needed because the two cities had turned over election documents Gableman requested.

— He falsely accused Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe and officials in five Wisconsin cities of trying to cover up how election grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life were used during testimony to the Assembly elections committee. The CTCL is a liberal group backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

— Gableman violated attorney ethics rules by publicly discussing private conversations with Vos related to the investigation. The complaint cites two videos Gableman appeared in where he supported the recall effort against Vos. The videos were shown at a program organized by Trump supporter Mike Lindell.

— Gableman practiced law while working on the investigation despite his claim to the contrary. He gave legal advice in his election report, represented his office as an attorney in legal filings in Waukesha County and signed a contract with Vos saying he would work as legal counsel.

— Gableman’s office destroyed public records that liberal group American Oversight had requested.

— During a hearing before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington on whether the records were inadvertently destroyed, Gableman accused Remington from the witness stand of railroading him into jail and acting as an advocate for American Oversight. Gableman also was captured on a microphone while the court was in recess making sarcastic comments about Remington and American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg’s ability to do her job without Remington’s help.

Remington ultimately found Gableman in contempt of court for not complying with open records laws. The judge forwarded the contempt order to the OLR.

Attorneys from the liberal law firm Law Forward also requested sanctions against Gableman in 2023. They alleged that Gableman “has embraced conspiracy theories, spread lies, rejected facts, impugned the character of people he perceives to be his adversaries, and abused the legal process.”

Gableman was a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 2008 to 2018 and joined with the conservative majority in several major rulings, including one that upheld the state law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers. The court is now controlled 4-3 by liberal justices, including one who was elected to fill the seat vacated by Gableman.

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

Wisconsin regulators file complaint against former Justice Michael Gableman, who led 2020 election probe is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday morning in a lawsuit over Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) Administrator Meagan Wolfe’s ability to remain in her post. 

Several times during the arguments, justices and attorneys described the situation as “absurd” and “bizarre” as the Court is being asked to deal with the ramifications of a divided state government that has frequently deadlocked over executive appointments to boards and commissions and the Republican-held Senate’s confirmation of those appointees. 

Two years ago, the Court, at the time controlled by a conservative majority, ruled that Frederick Prehn, a Republican appointee to the state’s Natural Resources Board, did not have to leave his post at the end of his term — even though Democratic Gov. Tony Evers had nominated his replacement. 

The Court found that until the Senate — whose GOP leaders were collaborating with Prehn to remain in the seat in an effort to influence policy decisions over wolf hunting and water quality — confirmed his replacement, state law allowed Prehn to remain on the board as a holdover. 

In the summer of 2023, Wolfe’s initial four-year term as WEC administrator expired and Senate Republicans, influenced by the three previous years of constant Republican attacks on the state’s election administration, said they would not confirm her to a second term. 

The three Democrats on the commission, in an effort to shield Wolfe from the Senate, abstained from a vote to reappoint her while the three Republicans on the commission voted to nominate her again. State law requires a majority of the six member body to vote in favor of an administrator’s nomination, however, meaning the nomination wasn’t officially advanced to the Senate for a vote. 

But the Senate acted anyway, voting against Wolfe’s appointment. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul immediately filed a lawsuit arguing that under the precedent Republicans set in the Prehn decision, Wolfe is able to remain in her position as a holdover. 

At the circuit court level, Republicans admitted that the Senate vote to remove Wolfe was “symbolic.” But after a Dane County judge ruled in Wolfe’s favor, the GOP leaders appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. 

While neither side in the Wolfe case argued for overturning the Prehn precedent, the arguments put Republicans in the position of arguing against principles they had themselves fought for in the earlier case — only this time in front of a Court held by a liberal majority. 

Misha Tseytlin, the attorney for the Senate, argued that the statute that guides the commission’s authority to appoint an administrator creates “an affirmative duty,” and that the commission must nominate a new administrator when the four year term expires. He said that if the law doesn’t require WEC to act, unelected officials can shield the administrator from the elected Senate indefinitely. 

“Whatever level of absurdity one wants to put on the Prehn situation, whether it’s zero or 100, this one’s orders of magnitude more,” Tseytlin said. “There you had a traditional constitutional standoff between the governor and the Senate. They didn’t agree with the appointment, that’s resolved in the holdover. Here we have three, essentially bureaucrats, who have no constitutional status, holding the chief election officer appointment hostage away from the people.” 

But Justice Jill Karofsky questioned if this outcome simply forced the Republicans in the Senate to deal with the consequences of a legal interpretation they previously asked for. 

“You are trying to thread a needle here that has no eye,” Karofsky said. “Six of the seven of us sat in this courtroom two years ago when your client insisted that Fred Prehn should be able to retain his position on the DNR board, even though his term had expired and your client won. This is a case of careful what you wish for, isn’t it? Now the Legislature is here two years later, demanding that Meagan Wolfe must vacate her position.” 

“It seems to me, this has little to do with what the law actually says, and far more to do with who is in these positions,” she continued. “If the Legislature favors someone, they stay. If they don’t, they must go. Does that sound like the rule of law to you?” 

Assistant Attorney General Charlotte Gibson, the Department of Justice lawyer arguing on behalf of Wolfe, said that the statute that gives the commission the authority to appoint administrators does not require it to act when the administrator’s term expires. The administrator, she said, becomes a holdover appointee and serves at the will of the commission, who can fire her at any time. 

“[Wolfe’s] role is not a part-time policymaking position like the [Natural Resources] board people,” Gibson said. “This is an intense, full-time job requiring expertise and experience, and it just doesn’t work if there are frequent changes in personnel and sudden vacancies … but if an administrator is underperforming, the Commission’s right there on the ground with her. They’re going to see that, and regardless of whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, they’re going to coalesce and bring in an administrator who can do the job.”

A lawsuit that could determine whether Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe can keep her job is coming before the state Supreme Court on Monday. The case focuses on the legality of appointees staying on after their terms expire, rather than any matter of her performance as the state’s top election official.

Republicans targeted Wolfe, a nonpartisan appointee, after Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in the 2020 election. Since then, she has endured criticism from Trump supporters for several decisions that the election commission made, as well as for some memos she sent to clerks who run local elections. 

As Wolfe’s term expired in the summer of 2023, the election commission deadlocked on her reappointment. Shortly after, the Republican-controlled state Senate voted to fire her in a move that it later said was only symbolic, but that triggered a protracted fight. 

She and the Wisconsin Elections Commission sued Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, a Republican, who pushed to oust Wolfe following the expiration of her term. The lawsuit also names Senate President Chris Kapenga and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, both Republicans, as defendants.

Wolfe has now spent the last 16 months as a holdover appointment. During much of that time, it wasn’t clear who would be running the commission during the 2024 presidential election. Wolfe stayed in her role despite the pressure from the right, simultaneously becoming one of the most respected — and scrutinized — election officials nationwide.

One day after the presidential election, Wolfe said that she was “completely committed to seeing through this election,” which has yet to be certified. But she didn’t clarify whether she was seeking to stay in her role beyond the fall.

Lawsuit comes after years of scrutiny, legal battles

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is composed of three Democratic and three Republican commissioners. Wolfe, as the administrator, can issue recommendations to the commissioners on guidance they issue to local election officials, but she has no vote. The commissioners are the ones who decide whether to approve them.

Still, Wolfe has been a scapegoat for election conspiracy theorists seeking to blame somebody for Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

After the 2020 presidential election, Wolfe was blamed for a slew of decisions by the commissioners, like letting local officials cure mistakes on absentee ballot envelopes and bypassing a state law that ordinarily requires sending election officials to conduct elections in nursing homes. She was also criticized for issuing a memo about using drop boxes in 2020, two years before the high court banned them. (The court reversed that decision this year under a new liberal majority.) 

Some went further, saying baselessly that Wolfe led a wide-ranging conspiracy to commit fraud to rig the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favor. Late last year, some legislative Republicans tried but failed to impeach Wolfe.

In April, Trump charged that Wolfe “will try to steal another election” if she’s not removed from office. Trump won Wisconsin in the 2024 presidential election.

Commission inaction can ‘undermine trust’

Wolfe’s term expired in July 2023, and the Senate appeared poised to reject her confirmation had she been reappointed. All three Republicans on the commission voted to reappoint Wolfe at the time, which would set her up for a Senate confirmation vote.

But Democratic election commissioners abstained from the vote. They cited a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling stating that appointees can stay in their roles past the expiration of their terms, a decision that Democrats had previously opposed.  

That meant Wolfe wasn’t formally reappointed and therefore not subject to another Senate confirmation proceeding. Senate leaders acknowledged that later, but still took a vote to fire her, leading to the current lawsuit. 

A Dane County judge in January sided with the elections commission argument that Wolfe is a lawful holdover. GOP leaders appealed that decision to an appeals court, and the election commission appealed it to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

“This case is fascinating because the shoes are all on the wrong feet,” said Jeff Mandell, founder of the liberal legal group Law Forward. “And maybe what that shows is that there’s less — maybe on all sides — there’s less of a matter of principle and Constitution than of political convenience.”

Mandell has long pushed back against the false accusations against Wolfe and other election officials in Wisconsin that arose from the 2020 election. Still, he said, “it’s not ideal” for democracy for Wolfe to be in her role past her term.

The debate further demonstrates how both Democrats and Republicans have been relying more on hardball tactics to accomplish their policy goals recently, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison. 

Those tactics escalated as Senate Republicans slow-walked or outright rejected appointments, many of them made by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, to critical roles in state government. 

The various twists in the fight are examples of dysfunction in the appointment processes that can “undermine trust in those processes and in those institutions,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative.

“Whether or not you think that (Wolfe) should continue in her role, I think it is important 

for appointment processes and confirmation processes to happen in the way that they’re supposed to happen,” Godar said.

Under state law, the election commission administrator serves a four-year term. Election commissioners are supposed to appoint a new administrator if the current position is vacant. 

Until the Senate confirms an appointment, the law says, the commission would be overseen by an interim supervisor selected by a majority of commissioners. If the commission doesn’t appoint somebody within 45 days of the vacancy, a legislative committee can appoint an interim administrator.

Republican legislators are pointing to that law now in their attempt to force commissioners to appoint an administrator, saying the current state of play “would allow a partisan minority of WEC to keep in place a holdover administrator indefinitely,” without a process for Senate confirmation.

But some of the Democrats supporting Wolfe say they’re just following the 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling.

“When the law has things you can do, you use the law the way it allows you to use it,” said Ann Jacobs, a Democrat on the election commission. 

The high court’s 2022 ruling about holdovers makes clear that Wolfe can be a holdover, Jacobs said, adding, “if the Legislature wants to change the law, they have every ability to do that.”

“The Legislature has hijacked the appointment process for all appointees, not just WEC, where they don’t act on them, so they try to maintain control over appointees by refusing to either confirm or reject them, and I don’t think that’s good government either,” Jacobs said.

Wisconsin Watch reporter Jack Kelly contributed to this report.

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

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

Wisconsin Supreme Court case could decide fate of state’s top election official 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.

Justice Jill Karofsky appeared immediately opposed to attorney Matthew Thome’s proposed interpretation Wisconsin's 1849 law with regard to abortion. (Screenshot via Wiseye)

Several of the Wisconsin Supreme Court liberal justices appeared opposed to the enforcement of a 174-year old law when it comes to abortion during oral arguments Monday in a high-profile case meant to clarify law in the state.

Wisconsin abortion law has been unsettled since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, sending decisions about abortion legality back to states. Health care providers in Wisconsin immediately ceased providing abortion care due to the state’s 1849 law. Attorney General Josh Kaul and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers filed a lawsuit challenging the statute in June 2022, arguing that it had been superseded by other laws passed by the state, including a ban on abortions after 20 weeks enacted in 2015, and could not be enforced as applied to abortions.

Access ceased for 15 months until a Dane County judge ruled in December 2023 that the law applies to feticide, not abortion, allowing providers to resume services. Sheboygan District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a defendant in the case, appealed the decision to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Kaul also wanted a review of the decision from the Court. Milwaukee County DA John T. Chisholm and Dane County DA Ismael Ozanne are also defendants in the case, but both oppose enforcing the law.

The pre-Civil War Wisconsin statute states that any person “other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a Class H felony” and that any person who “intentionally destroys the life of an unborn quick child” is guilty of a Class E felony. It specifies that “unborn child” is defined as “a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive. It includes no exceptions for rape or incest or specific medical complications. The only exception for the law is the life of a mother.

Urmanski’s attorney, Matthew Thome, defended the enforcement of the statute Monday morning, saying lawmakers never repealed it. Republican lawmakers have proposed updates to the 1849 law in the last two years, including a 14-week abortion ban, but the proposals have failed to become law.

“Policymakers have not repealed it. Indeed, they have expressly declined to do so at multiple opportunities and until they do, it can be enforced,” Thome said.  

He argued that the question over whether Wisconsinites would be “better served” by a different law is not for the Court to decide. 

Justice Jill Karofsky appeared immediately opposed to Thome’s proposed interpretation of the law. 

“Just to be clear, a 12-year-old girl, who was sexually assaulted by her father, and as a result became pregnant under your interpretation [of the law], she would be forced to carry her pregnancy to term, correct?” Karofsky asked. 

“Under the policy choice the Legislature made…, that would be correct,” Thome said. 

“So in that case, a child would be forced to deliver a baby,” Karofsky said. 

Karofsky pushed the point, asking about the consequences of a victim of sexual assault seeking an abortion under the law if it were enforceable.  

“How about a woman who is a college freshman here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison? If she is sexually assaulted and it’s charged as a third degree sexual assault… that would be intercourse without consent. If she became pregnant, as a result of the sexual assault, it would be illegal for her to obtain an abortion?” Karofsky said. 

“Correct, it would be illegal for a doctor to provide an abortion to her in the state of Wisconsin,” Thome said.

“If her assaulter is charged…, he would be facing a 10-year maximum imprisonment because that would be a Class G felony,” Karofsky said. “In that case, the penalty for aborting, after a sexual assault, would be more severe than the penalty for the sexual assault.” 

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that since the Dobbs decision more than 64,000 pregnancies have been cause by rape in states with abortion bans.

“I fear what you are asking this Court to do is to sign the death warrants of women and children and pregnant people in this state because under your interpretation they could all be denied life-saving medical care while the medical professionals who are charged with taking care of them are forced to sit idly by,” Karofsky said. “This is the world gone mad.”

Justices also asked about the web of laws passed in the state, and appeared to disagree with Thome’s argument that the 1849 law completely negates them.

“We have statute after statute that you are somehow asking us to just absolutely ignore in your interpretation,” Justice Rebecca Dallet said. “We have a statute that talks about when an abortion can be performed and that’s after 20 weeks. We have a 24-hour waiting period. We have informed consent provisions. We have a ban on what they label to be partial birth abortion.” 

Dallet asked Thome how he reconciles the 1849 statute with the later statute passed in 2015 that prohibits abortion after 20 weeks and the other laws related to abortion. 

“I fit those things together… because that statute doesn’t say you can have an abortion,” Thome said. 

Justice Brian Hagedorn appeared to agree that the 1849 law applies to abortion, and said later laws don’t negate it. 

“It’s a matter of straight reasonable statutory interpretation,” Hagedorn said. “The law’s still there. It’s still there. The judiciary doesn’t get to edit laws. The judiciary doesn’t get to rewrite them. We didn’t delete it. We prevented its enforcement now, it’s still there.”

Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Hannah Jurss, who represented Kaul, argued that there was an “implied repeal” of the 1849 law, when lawmakers passed other statutes regulating abortion access in the state. 

“The standard implied repeal rule is it’s the earlier law that falls and there’s nothing in the text of the Wisconsin statutes… that would say disregard all of that, and instead in the event of Roe being overturned go back to 940.04, and we know state Legislatures knew how to do this because… a number of states enacted trigger bans,” Jurss said. “Wisconsin did not.” 

Kaul said at a press conference following the arguments that the Legislature should take up some of the other laws related to abortion access in the state, no matter the outcome of the lawsuit. 

“There are now relatively narrow majorities for Republicans in the state Legislature,” Kaul said. The Assembly is now a 54-45 Republican majority, while the Senate is an 18-15 Republican majority. “It is very clear that Wisconsinites overwhelmingly support having safe access to abortion in the state. For those legislators in these districts that are very moderate, where those districts could go either way, I think we ought to ask those folks, do they support some common sense changes that will protect access to abortion care in Wisconsin.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a second lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin against Urmanski, which asks the Court to find that the state Constitution’s right to equal protection grants a right to receive an abortion and a doctor’s right to provide one.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday will hear oral arguments in a high-profile case that could, at least partially, determine the future of abortion rights in the state.

The case was filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers in the days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022. It challenges the state’s 1849 abortion ban, which was believed for almost 18 months to ban most abortions in Wisconsin. 

The case is perhaps the most high-profile litigation to reach the state Supreme Court since a redistricting case that resulted in the court’s now-liberal majority throwing out Republican-gerrymandered legislative districts. New districts implemented after that decision resulted last week in 10 additional Assembly seats and four additional state Senate seats for Democrats, though Republicans maintain majorities in both houses.

The arguments will focus on two issues: First, whether the 1849 law applies to consensual abortions. Second, whether the 1849 ban was “impliedly repealed” when the Legislature passed additional laws — while Roe was in effect — regulating abortion after fetal viability. 

A Dane County judge ruled in late 2023 that the 1849 statute applied to feticide, not consensual abortions. That decision was appealed, resulting in Monday’s high court hearing.

Attorneys for Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, who is one of the prosecutors named in the case and has said he would prosecute violations of the 1849 law, argued in briefs submitted to the court that Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schlipper’s interpretation of the law was incorrect.

They argued the “plain meaning (of the law) prohibits consensual abortion.” The statute, in part, provides: “Any person, other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a Class H felony.”

Accordingly, attorneys for Urmanski argued, the law should apply to consensual abortions for three reasons.

• “First, a doctor who performs an abortion is a person other than the mother of an unborn child,” they wrote.
• “Second, ‘unborn child’ is defined in (the statute) as ‘a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive.’”
• “Finally, a consensual abortion involves the intentional destruction of the life of the unborn child,” Urmanski’s lawyers continued.

“There really should be no dispute that a consensual abortion falls within the scope of the prohibition of (the 1849 ban),” they argued.

Lawyers for Urmanski also argued that the 1849 law was not repealed because it does not conflict with more recent abortion statutes and those laws did not “clearly indicate a legislative intent to repeal (the 1849 law).”

Attorneys for the state Department of Justice — and the district court’s ruling — relied heavily on a 1994 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision. In that case, a man was charged under a portion of the 1849 law “for destroying the life of his unborn quick child by violently assaulting his wife five days prior to her anticipated delivery date.” The man argued the statute applied to abortion, not feticide, but the state Supreme Court disagreed.

In that case, the court concluded that at least portions of the 19th-century law “is not an abortion statute. It makes no mention of an abortive type procedure. Rather, it proscribes the intentional criminal act of feticide: the intentional destruction of an unborn quick child presumably without the consent of the mother.”

“It is a feticide statute only,” the court wrote.

The precedent established in the 1994 case means the 1849 law cannot be applied to consensual abortions, attorneys for the state argued.

On the issue of whether the ban was “impliedly repealed,” the state points to two other cases, both from 1971. A “later-enacted law impliedly repeals an earlier law where an ‘irreconcilable’ conflict exists between the two laws — where the later-enacted statute ‘contains provisions so contrary to or irreconcilable with those of the earlier law that only one of the two statutes can stand in force,’” attorneys from DOJ argued, citing one of the two cases.

Additionally, a law is implied repealed “by the enactment of subsequent comprehensive legislation establishing elaborate inclusions and exclusions of the persons, things and relationships ordinarily associated with the subject,” the attorneys wrote, citing the second case.

Monday’s arguments mark the first of two high-profile abortion cases the court will hear this term. The second, filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, asks the court to declare that abortion access is a right protected by the state constitution.

The court has not scheduled oral arguments in the second case.

Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.

Wisconsin Supreme Court takes up challenge to 1849 abortion law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said Friday that the Department of Justice is prepared to “defend” the rights of Wisconsinites. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

In the wake of former President Donald Trump winning a second term this week, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said Friday that the Department of Justice is prepared to “defend” the rights of Wisconsinites.

Kaul didn’t specify what that would look like, however, and said it would depend on what actions Trump takes once he enters office. 

Kaul joins Democratic state leaders from across the country, including in Washington State and Illinois, in announcing how they will handle the potential policy changes that could come from the new Trump administration. Kaul said that the justice department would continue to continue to work with other attorneys general to confront challenges that arise. On the state level, he said the department will advocate for necessary funding for the Office of School Safety, state crime labs and for victim service programs that are facing severe federal budget cuts across the state and country. 

“We have been tested in this office… If the new administration infringes upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or attempts to use our system of justice as a tool for vengeance, we will act,” Kaul said. “We will act to protect the best interests of the people of the state of Wisconsin, we’ll act to uphold equal justice under the law.” 

Kaul said future actions will depend on the path the new administration takes. He said that he hopes Trump administration officials will try to find common ground and work across the aisle. 

Kaul said it’s “notable” Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, and said he would veto a national abortion ban and wouldn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act. Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation document that was described as a blueprint for the next Republican administration.

The attorney general said  there are “justified concerns” the administration will take another path, however. 

“Folks are worried about what the future holds for women’s ability to make their own reproductive health care decisions, about access to affordable health care more broadly, and about whether people may be targeted by the new administration based on their identity, their speech and their viewpoints, or simply doing their jobs as an election worker or a reporter,” Kaul said. “Those kinds of actions are wrong and we are committed at the Department of Justice to standing up against them.” 

Doesn’t provide ‘false hope’ on abortion

Kaul said his department continues to defend abortion access while it remains in the hands of states. After being blocked for more than a year following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, access to abortion for pregnancies up to 20 weeks was restored Sept, 18, 2023 by a court order. In a case brought by Kaul challenging the state’s 1849 law, which had been interpreted as an abortion ban, a Dane County judge ruled the law did not broadly apply to abortion. 

On Monday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case,that asks if the state’s 1849 law actually bans abortion and whether the state Constitution protects abortion. 

While Trump has said he would not sign legislation banning abortion nationwide and Republicans in congress have denied any intention to enact such a ban. But reproductive rights advocates have pointed to provisions in the Project 2025 document calling for a blanket national ban. 

Depending on how such a law is written, Kaul warned that there might not be a path under current law to protect abortion access. 

“The passage of a federal abortion ban would have enormous consequences for abortion access in Wisconsin and in other states where there currently is access,” he said. “I don’t want to give people false hope that if there is a federal abortion ban passed that there’s likely to be a successful legal challenge. On the contrary, if Congress does pass a ban, people are looking at having their access to safe and legal abortion taken away.” 

On potential for National Guard being used for deportations

Asked about Trump’s comments during the campaign that he would use the National Guard to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, Kaul said that he thinks the “idea of having a National Guard from one state going into another state is not something that… I think most governors of either party want to see.” Only governors can activate the National Guard, but one of Trump’s top policy architects, Stephen Miller, has said that sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states whose governors refuse to participate. 

“We are one nation and following an election, we should try to come together, find common ground and figure out how we can make progress — not divide people state by state based on National Guards,” Kaul said. 

It remains to be seen, however,  “what rhetoric from the campaign translates into policy actions,” he said. 

“There are a lot of different issues that were raised in the campaign, and I think we could see very different approaches taken by this Administration,” Kaul said. He also noted that there has been some pushback from Republican lawmakers on the promises, pointing to comments from Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson that mass deportations were not realistic and that deportation actions should target only those who have committed crimes.

Trump said Thursday, however, that it isn’t “a matter of price tag” and there is “no choice” when it comes to his deportation plans.

Aware of racist texts

Kaul was asked about a wave of racist texts instructing people to report to the “nearest plantation” have been sent nationwide, including to a Milwaukee woman, following the election. 

Kaul said the department was aware of the messages and called them “completely unacceptable.” 

“Anybody making racist statements, bigoted statements and text messages is something we cannot tolerate,” Kaul said. “I encourage anybody who has information about those texts to contact local law enforcement.

Aiming to provide schools ongoing, predictable funding increases, Gov. Tony Evers struck two digits and a dash from the years to extend the annual increases through 2425. Evers signed the 2023-25 budget bill with 51 partial vetoes on July 5, 2023. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that challenges Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that extended school revenue increases for 400 years and questions the limits of expansive power.

The lawsuit challenging the partial veto was brought by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state’s largest business lobby group, and two Wisconsin taxpayers, Jeffery A. LeMieux, a retired professor, and David T. DeValk, a Fox Valley substitute teacher. 

The case centers on a partial veto that Evers exercised in the 2023-25 budget. Lawmakers included a $325 increase to schools’ revenue limits for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years in the budget when it was sent to Evers. Aiming to provide schools ongoing, predictable funding increases, Evers struck two digits and a dash from the years to extend the annual increases through 2425.

Scott Rosenow, an attorney for WMC, argued that the Court should strike down Evers’ veto. 

“This 400-year veto approaches the absurd and this partial veto power is corrosive to democracy,” Rosenow said, referencing the brief submitted to the court by Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School legal scholar.

Briffault argued in the brief that allowing veto “creativity” would “further depart from the Constitution’s text, history and structure and its core democratic commitments” and would make Wisconsin an outlier among states with partial veto powers. 

Rosenow argued that the veto exceeded the partial veto power established under the state Constitution and created a new word.  

“The governor here did not merely delete text. He selectively struck words, digits and a dash to create a new word, so what he did was not like a digit veto that reduces an appropriation by striking a single digit, he created a new word and a new 400-year duration that wasn’t there,” Rosenow said. 

Wisconsin has had one of the broadest partial veto powers in the country, though it has been curtailed over the years by constitutional amendments and rulings by the state Supreme Court.

The ‘Vanna White’ veto, which was used by former Gov. Tommy Thompson to strike individual letters to create new words, was eliminated in 1990 by a constitutional amendment. The Legislative Reference Bureau defines this type of veto as striking “phrases, digits, letters, and word fragments so as to create new words, sentences, and dollar amounts.” The language approved by the constitutional amendment stated: “In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill.” 

Some of the justices appeared skeptical about the argument that Rosenow was making, saying that the amendments advanced by lawmakers and adopted by voters didn’t specify digits.

“Equally absurd to me is your argument that a letter is a number or vice versa, that a number is a letter…. A fourth grader or dare I say a four-year-old knows the difference between letters and numbers,” Justice Ann Walsh Bradley said. “My response is almost visceral that I don’t care how many fancy words or legal theories you put behind it to make it sound like its erudite four is not a letter of the alphabet.” 

Evers’ attorney, Colin Roth, argued that while the veto did extend the date by a significant amount of time, it didn’t violate any previous cases decided by the Court and that it led to “complete and workable law,” a requirement of partial vetoes established under previous case law.

Justices expressed concerns about whether the power continues to be too broad. 

“I think that there is concern that now, we’ve got this 402-year veto. It does feel like the sky’s the limit, and perhaps today, we are at that fork in the road, and… we’re trying to think, like, should we today in 2024 start to look at this differently?” Justice Jill Karofsky said.

Roth argued, however, that lawmakers have tools to address the limits of the governor’s ability to shape law, including by passing constitutional amendments and writing legislation in different ways. 

“To the extent, your honors do have substantive concerns about the scope of the veto power, those can be addressed in multiple ways. One, a constitutional amendment, it’s not impossible. It’s happened twice. Both times the Legislature has put it to a vote, it’s passed,” Roth said. A second constitutional amendment adopted in 2008 banned the “Frankenstein” veto, where governors would create new sentences by combining parts of two or more sentences. “There’s one in the hopper right now… that would expressly ban this kind of veto.”

Republican lawmakers, who support the lawsuit, were furious about the partial veto, and in response unsuccessfully attempted to override the veto and started the process of passing a constitutional amendment that would limit the power further by prohibiting vetoes that would increase taxes or fees.

Justice Brian Hagedorn, referring to the partial veto power, said that legal scholars “think it’s crazy because it is crazy.”

“We allow governors to unilaterally create law that has not been proposed to them at all. It is a mess of this court’s making, and our body of cases is inconsistent,” Hagedorn said. “We have a choice to either green light governors unilaterally creating policy in an even more expansive way than we’ve done before or whether we are going to begin to take steps… and begin to rein [it] in.”

Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Wednesday that Gov. Tony Evers’ creative use of his expansive veto power in an attempt to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years appeared to be “extreme” and “crazy” but questioned whether and how it should be reined in.

“It does feel like the sky is the limit, the stratosphere is the limit,” Justice Jill Karofsky said during oral arguments, referring to the governor’s veto powers. “Perhaps today we are at the fork in the road … I think we’re trying to think should we, today in 2024, start to look at this differently.”

The case, supported by the Republican-controlled Legislature, is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long fight over just how broad Wisconsin’s governor’s partial veto powers should be. The issue has crossed party lines, with Republicans and Democrats pushing for more limitations on the governor’s veto over the years.

In this case, Evers made the veto in question in 2023. His partial veto increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and instead vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.

“The veto here approaches the absurd and exceeds any reasonable understanding of legislative or voter intent in adopting the partial veto or subsequent limits,” attorneys for legal scholar Richard Briffault, of Columbia Law School, said in a filing with the court ahead of arguments.

That argument was cited throughout the oral arguments by justices and Scott Rosenow, attorney for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Litigation Center, which handles lawsuits for the state’s largest business lobbying group and brought the case.

The court should strike down Evers’ partial veto and declare that the state constitution forbids the governor from striking digits to create a new year or to remove language to create a longer duration than the one approved by the Legislature, Rosenow argued.

Finding otherwise would give governors unlimited power to alter numbers in a budget bill, Rosenow argued.

Justices appeared to agree that limits were needed, but they grappled with where to draw the line.

When legal scholars and others look at what Wisconsin courts have allowed relative to partial vetoes, “they think it’s crazy because it is crazy,” said Justice Brian Hagedorn. “We allow governors to unilaterally create law that has not been proposed to them at all. It is a mess of this court’s making.”

The initial reaction from anyone would be that a 400-year veto is “extreme,” said Justice Rebecca Dallet, but the question is whether it’s within the governor’s authority to use the partial veto to extend the duration of dates.

“The governor is becoming the most powerful person in the state, arguably, to just make the law whatever he declares,” said Justice Rebecca Bradley.

Evers, his attorney Colin Roth argued Wednesday, was simply using a longstanding partial veto process that is allowed under the law.

The court, controlled 4-3 by liberals, will issue a written ruling in the coming months.

Wisconsin’s partial veto power was created by a 1930 constitutional amendment, but it’s been weakened over the years, including in reaction to vetoes made by former governors, both Republicans and Democrats.

Voters adopted constitutional amendments in 1990 and 2008 that removed the ability to strike individual letters to make new words — the “Vanna White” veto — and the power to eliminate words and numbers in two or more sentences to create a new sentence — the “Frankenstein” veto.

The lawsuit before the court on Wednesday contends that Evers’ partial veto is barred under the 1990 constitutional amendment prohibiting the “Vanna White” veto, named for the co-host of the game show “Wheel of Fortune” who flips letters to reveal word phrases.

But Evers argued that the “Vanna White” veto ban applies only to striking individual letters to create new words, not vetoing digits to create new numbers.

Reshaping state budgets through the partial veto is a longstanding act of gamesmanship in Wisconsin between the governor and Legislature as lawmakers try to craft bills in a way that is largely immune from creative vetoes.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, undid three of Evers’ partial vetoes in 2020, but a majority of justices did not issue clear guidance on what was allowed. Two justices did say that partial vetoes can’t be used to create new policies.

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

Wisconsin Supreme Court grapples with Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year veto, calling it ‘crazy’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging Gov. Tony Evers’ last-minute budget maneuver increasing funding for Wisconsin school districts for the next 400 years.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The state’s most recent budget included a provision increasing the revenue limit for school districts by $325 per pupil for “the 2023-24 school year and the 2024-25 school year.” Using his partial veto authority, Evers changed the line to read, “for 2023-2425.”

He did so by striking a handful of characters: “121.905 (3) (c) 9. For the limit for the 2023-24 school year and the 2024–25 school year, add $325 to the result under par. (b).”

The revenue limit controls the amount of funding school districts can raise through a combination of state aid and local property taxes. Evers’ veto allows school districts in the state to collectively increase revenue by almost $270 million each year, allowing an already record increase to be duplicated every year for four centuries.

Evers’ veto-authored provision, by the time it expired in 2425, would add $130,650 per pupil to a district’s revenue limit, according to a Cap Times analysis. The revenue limit for Madison schools in 2022-23, for example, was $14,254 per pupil.

Evers’ move, which garnered national attention, was condemned by GOP leaders. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said a week after the change that Wisconsin Republicans were preparing to sue over the increase. In April, their allies at the WMC Litigation Center, a 501(c)(3) affiliate of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s powerful business lobby, filed an original action with the state Supreme Court.

The court agreed to hear the case in June, teeing up Wednesday’s hearing.

Filed on behalf of two Wisconsin residents, the lawsuit argues Evers’ partial veto was unconstitutional for two reasons.

“First, Wisconsin’s governor may approve an appropriation bill ‘in part,’ but Gov. Evers’s 402-year increase of the school-district revenue limit is not ‘part’ of the legislatively approved two-year increase,” attorneys wrote in a brief with the court.

Rather, attorneys for WMC argued that since the 400-year increase was not included in the budget, but instead created by the governor, it runs afoul of the state constitution’s provision allowing governors to approve, but not create, budget bills “in whole or in part.”

“Second, in 1990, Wisconsin voters amended our state constitution to prohibit the so-called ‘Vanna White’ or ‘pick-a-letter’ veto,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in their brief. “(Evers’ veto) is a Vanna White veto.”

A Vanna White veto — named for the “Wheel of Fortune” star — is when a governor uses partial veto authority to strike “phrases, digits, letters, and word fragments” in order to “create new words, sentences, and dollar amounts,” according to a report from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

The constitutionality of Vanna White vetoes was tested in the 1980s after then-Gov. Tommy Thompson employed them to make changes to the budget bill in 1987. Miffed by Thompson’s actions, the Democratic leaders of the Legislature filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court. The high court upheld the vetoes, finding “the governor may, in the exercise of his partial veto authority over appropriation bills, veto individual words, letters and digits, and also may reduce appropriations by striking digits, as long as what remains after veto is a complete, entire, and workable law.”

A few weeks after the ruling, the Democratic-controlled Legislature held an extraordinary session to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing Vanna White vetoes, which was eventually approved by a wide margin in a 1990 referendum, according to LRB. The amendment included the following language in the state constitution: “In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill.”

Attorneys for Evers, meanwhile, argued in legal briefs that he did nothing wrong.

Precedent established in the Thompson case “merely requires the governor’s vetoes to leave behind a complete and workable law,” they wrote.

“The partial vetoes at issue undeniably yield such a law, and so they are valid,” attorneys for Evers continued.

The governor also said he did not violate the amendment banning Vanna White vetoes.

“The vetoes at issue comply with this provision because they deleted digits, not letters,” his attorneys wrote. They noted the amendment bars a governor from “rejecting individual letters in the words” but doesn’t say anything about digits.

“Because this Court’s precedent and the amendment’s history confirms the common-sense understanding that ‘digits’ are not ‘letters,’ Petitioners’ challenge … also fails,” attorneys for the governor argued.

Some independent legal experts, though, are skeptical of Evers’ position. In an amicus brief filed with the court, Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor and expert on state and local government, said Evers’ veto flies in the face of the constitutional requirement of bicameralism and presentment.

“The partial veto power was designed to restore balance in (the legislative) process — not to subvert it by giving the governor capacious unilateral lawmaking authority,” he wrote.

We’re watching to see if the court’s liberal majority, which has so far been friendly to Evers, will once again rule in his favor, or instead rein in one of his key budget victories.

Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.

Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear challenge to governor on school funding 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.