A Dane County judge who struck down the controversial Republican law known as Act 10 has put his ruling on hold, while Republican lawmakers appeal the order.
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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:
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
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
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
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
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.
The Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a new religious rights case over whether a Catholic charitable organization must pay Wisconsin’s unemployment tax.
The justices will review a divided state Supreme Court ruling that refused to grant an exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau, based in Superior, Wisconsin. The state court ruled that the work of Catholic Charities and four related organizations is primarily not religious, although it found that the motivation to help older, disabled and low-income people stems from Catholic teachings.
The case probably will be argued in the spring.
The Supreme Court in recent years has issued an unbroken string of decisions siding with churches and religious plaintiffs in disputes with states.
Lawyers for the Wisconsin groups argued to the court that the decision violates religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment. They also said the court should step in to resolve conflicting rulings by several top state courts on the same issue.
“Wisconsin is trying to make sure no good deed goes unpunished. Penalizing Catholic Charities for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike is ridiculous and wrong,” Eric Rassbach, the lead lawyer for Catholic Charities at the Supreme Court, said in a statement.
Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul had urged the high court to stay out of the case, arguing that much of the groups’ funding comes from state and local governments, and the joint federal and state Medicaid program.
Employees don’t have to be Catholic and “people receiving services from these organizations receive no religious training or orientation,” Kaul wrote.
Catholic Charities has paid the unemployment tax since 1972, he wrote.
Wisconsin exempts church-controlled organizations from the tax if they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.” The state high court ruled that both the motivations and the activities have to be religious for organizations to avoid paying the tax.
A group of religious scholars, backing Catholic Charities, told the court that “the case involves governmental interference with religious liberty” that warrants the justices’ intervention.
Catholic, Islamic, Lutheran, Jewish and Mormon organizations also filed briefs in support of Catholic Charities.
At the state Supreme Court, the Freedom from Religion Foundation argued that a ruling for Catholic Charities would extend to religiously affiliated hospitals and some colleges across Wisconsin, potentially taking their employees out of the state unemployment insurance system.
Catholic Charities in Superior manages nonprofit organizations that run more than 60 programs designed to help older or disabled people, children with special needs, low-income families, and people suffering from disasters, regardless of their religion, according to court documents.
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.
U.S. Supreme Court to hear Catholic Charities plea to avoid Wisconsin unemployment tax 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 Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a new religious rights case over whether a Catholic charitable organization must pay Wisconsin's employment tax.
The post Supreme Court will hear Catholic charitable group’s plea to be free from Wisconsin unemployment tax appeared first on WPR.
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.”
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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.
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.
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.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Wisconsin parents who wanted to challenge a school district’s guidance for supporting transgender students.
The justices, acting in a case from Eau Claire, left in place an appellate ruling dismissing the parents’ lawsuit.
Three justices, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, would have heard the case. That’s one short of what is needed for full review by the Supreme Court.
Parents with children in Eau Claire public schools argued in a lawsuit that the school district’s policy violates constitutional protections for parental rights and religious freedom.
Sixteen Republican-led states had urged the court to take up the parents’ case.
Lower courts had found that the parents lacked the legal right, or standing. Among other reasons, the courts said no parent presented evidence that the policy affected them or their children.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals included two judges Republican Donald Trump appointed during his first term.
But Alito described the case as presenting “a question of great and growing national importance,” whether public school districts violate parents’ rights when they encourage students to transition or assist in the process without parental consent or knowledge.
“Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support” encourages transgender students to reach out to staff members with concerns and instructs employees to be careful who they talk to about a student’s gender identity, since not all students are “out” to their families.
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.
US Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin parents’ challenge to school guidance for transgender students 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.
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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.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide whether Republican lawmakers violated the state Constitution by temporarily blocking an agency's conversion therapy ban over the past four years.
The post Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider GOP blockade of conversion therapy ban appeared first on WPR.
Transgender rights opponents and a supporter rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments in a case on transgender health rights on December 4, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in US v. Skrmetti, a case about Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming care for minors and if it violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
A conservative U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to side with Tennessee Wednesday in upholding the state’s ban on gender affirming care for minors, a case likely to set legal precedent on equal protection for transgender children.
A decision from the court isn’t expected until June 2025, but Republican-appointed justices such as Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh tipped their hands on how they would rule during three hours of oral arguments in Washington, D.C.
They were countered by the court’s liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who are outnumbered 6-3.
Conservative justices appeared leery of creating a protected class, but Jackson, for instance, indicated the law clearly discriminates on the basis of sex. Jackson used the Loving v. Virginia case that allowed racially integrated marriages to show that similar arguments were made against those types of unions some 50 years ago.
Three families with transgender children and Memphis Dr. Susan Lacy sued the state, then the federal government intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs who are challenging Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy to allow minors to make a sex transition.
Thomas, for instance, asked the federal government’s attorney why the case would be a matter of age classification, as opposed to sex. Alito and Kavanaugh raised questions about the United Kingdom and European countries dialing back support for gender affirming care.
In addition, Roberts said the court is “not the best situated to address issues” such as gender affirming care and should allow legislatures to make those types of decisions.
Tennessee lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1 in 2023 following an uproar over reports by a right-wing radio commentator that Vanderbilt University Medical Center was performing surgeries and administering puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children. Vanderbilt said it wasn’t performing surgical procedures when the issue erupted.
Gov. Bill Lee says Tennessee has a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty,” and in blocking treatments “that might encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU Tennessee, Lambda Legal and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld filed suit against Tennessee, claiming the equal protection rights of transgender children were violated. The law was struck down in U.S. District Court, but that decision was overturned by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Tennessee’s legal strategy is based on the premise that the 2023 law prohibiting puberty blockers and hormone therapy for young people is based on “medical purposes,” not a child’s sex.
In contrast, attorneys for the plaintiffs said Senate Bill 1 created a blanket ban on gender affirming care based entirely on a minor’s desire to change sexes. They pointed out children suffering from gender dysphoria could be prone to suicide if they don’t receive puberty blockers or hormone treatments that enable them to start the transition toward a sex different from their birth sex.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the Supreme Court should give the matter “heightened scrutiny,” or a closer examination, because it involves discrimination against transgender children rather than review it under standard “rational basis,” which is typically used when a law doesn’t involve a constitutional right.
Elizabeth Prelogar, solicitor general for the Department of Justice, told the justices the state of West Virginia enacted a law that set up requirements for undergoing gender affirming care, whereas Tennessee passed a blanket ban affecting children seeking to transition to another sex.
Justice Kagan made the point that the law is based on “transgender status” and not sex alone. She also said Tennessee appears to want to “conform to sex stereotypes.”
Kavanaugh stuck with the argument that some transgender people want to switch back to their original sex when they get older but are physically unable to make the change.
“How do we as a court choose which set of risks is more serious when we constitutionalize?” Kavanaugh said.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.
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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.
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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.
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.
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 voters line up outside of a Milwaukee polling place on Nov. 5, 2024. Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde is one of the Republican politicians who sowed doubt about the integrity of this year’s election. (Andy Manis | Getty Images)
President-elect Donald Trump may have quieted his lies about widespread voter fraud after his win earlier this month, but the impact of his effort to cast doubt on the integrity of American elections lingers on.
Although this post-election period has been markedly calmer than the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, there were isolated flare-ups of Republican candidates borrowing a page from Trump’s playbook to claim that unsatisfactory election results were illegitimate.
In Wisconsin, Republican U.S. Senate challenger Eric Hovde spread unsubstantiated rumors about “last-minute” absentee ballots in Milwaukee that he said flipped the outcome of the race. Though he conceded to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin nearly two weeks after the election, his rhetoric helped stoke a spike in online conspiracy theories. The Milwaukee Election Commission disputed his claims, saying they “lack any merit.”
In North Carolina, Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters last week he feared that the vote-counting process for a state Supreme Court seat was rigged for Democrats. Karen Brinson Bell, the head of the State Board of Elections, skewered Berger for his comments, saying they could inspire violence.
And in Arizona, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, who has spent two years disputing her defeat in the 2022 governor’s race, hasn’t acknowledged her Senate loss. While she thanked her supporters in a video posted to X, the platform formerly called Twitter, she stopped short of conceding to Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Republicans’ disinformation campaigns have caused Americans’ confidence in elections to plummet and exposed local election officials to threats and harassment, and some observers worry about a return of the GOP’s destructive rhetoric the next time they lose.
“We have to turn this rhetoric down,” said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy for Common Cause, a voting rights group. “There cannot be this continued attack on this institution.”
Still, many politicians who either denied the 2020 election results or criticized their local voting processes won election. In Arizona, for example, voters chose state Rep. Justin Heap, a Republican, to lead the election office in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and the largest jurisdiction in the critical swing state. Heap ran on a “voter confidence” platform and suggested at a Trump rally that Maricopa’s election office is a “national laughingstock.”
Trump tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice. Bondi, a Republican, served as an attorney for Trump while he disputed the results in 2020. She could use her position as U.S. attorney general to prosecute election officials involved in that election, as Trump promised in an X post in September.
While the rhetoric around stolen elections has been somewhat muted among the GOP ranks since Trump’s victory, conservatives attempted to flip the “election denial” script on Democrats in at least one race.
We have to turn this rhetoric down.
– Jay Young, Common Cause's senior director of voting and democracy
In Pennsylvania, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey refused to concede defeat until last Thursday, two weeks after The Associated Press called the race for Republican challenger David McCormick. Casey lost by fewer than 16,000 votes, less than half a percentage point.
Casey said he wanted to see the results of an automatic recount and various court cases filed on his behalf, but Republicans jumped on his refusal to bow out quickly.
Last week, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who resisted pressure from Trump in 2020 to “find” votes after he lost the state, lambasted Casey for not conceding the Senate race.
“Election denialism needs to end, now,” Raffensperger wrote in a statement. “We are a country of laws and principles, not of men and personalities. Do your job! Follow the law. Accept election results or lose your country.”
Even as Republicans mostly toned down their rhetoric this year, some left-wing social media accounts repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that Starlink, the internet provider owned by billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk, changed vote counts.
Those posts, however, aren’t comparable to GOP election denialism, according to the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, which fights strategic misinformation.
“While the claims are similar, the rumoring dynamics on the left are markedly different due to the lack of endorsement or amplification by left-leaning influencers, candidates, or party elites,” the center posted last week.
Young, of Common Cause, said it’s clear that election disinformation of any kind has a devastating impact on the local officials tasked with administering the vote.
Threats to election workers continued even after Election Day. Bomb threats were called into election offices in California, Minnesota, Oregon and other states, forcing evacuations as workers were tallying ballots.
But this was just a slice of the onslaught many officials faced over the past four years. Local election officials need the resources to beef up the way they fight disinformation and physical attacks, Young said.
“We should be doing better by them,” he said.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
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.
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.
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.
Wisconsin court regulators have filed a complaint against former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for false statements made during his 2020 election investigation.
The post Court regulators call for sanctions against Michael Gableman for election investigation appeared first on WPR.
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 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.
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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.
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