The Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Liberal members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court said they were “shocked” at the ramifications of the right-wing Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty’s arguments against a grant program meant to help prevent minority students from dropping out of technical college. 

The Court on Wednesday held oral arguments in a case that began in a 2021 lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court. The suit alleges that the state’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant program, administered by the Higher Education Aids Board, unlawfully discriminates based on race. 

The program, established in the 1980s, provides small-dollar grants to Black, Native American and Hispanic students, as well as Southeast Asians who came to the U.S. from Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam after 1975. On average, members of these groups drop out of school or fail to graduate at substantially higher rates than their peers, the state has argued. 

The program has been a frequent target of Wisconsin Republicans in recent years — especially after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended the legality of affirmative action in college admissions. 

The Wisconsin Examiner previously reported that money through the program has largely been used to assist Black students at Milwaukee Area Technical College. 

In a decision last year, the 2nd District Court of Appeals sided with WILL and the taxpayers it is representing, declaring the program unconstitutional. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul appealed the decision and in November the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. 

WILL attorney Luke Berg argued Wednesday that any program that targets specific racial groups is unconstitutional — regardless of whether those groups face statistical disparities. 

“I think the worst form of discrimination is discrimination under the law, when the law treats individuals differently based on their race,” Berg said. “I’m not asking the Court to ignore that there are disparities in statistics, and I think we should all be concerned about that. But there are poor white students, there are poor Asian students, there are poor Afghani students, there are poor Palestinian students, there are poor Egyptian students.” 

“It cannot have explicit race discrimination under the law,” he continued later. “It can target racially neutral criteria like poverty, and it can solve those disparities indirectly. Give the scholarship to every student that needs it. If there are more poor Black students, more of them will get that scholarship.”

Several of the Court’s left-leaning justices pushed back on Berg’s comments, questioning how ignoring race-based statistical gaps achieves the 14th Amendment’s promise of equal protection. Justice Jill Karofsky told him, “your argument basically asks us to stick our heads in the sand.” 

Justice Rebecca Dallet noted that in Wisconsin, Black mothers and babies face much higher rates of health issues and under Berg’s legal construction, the state couldn’t do anything to specifically target that problem. 

“If the purpose is to help Black babies live who are not living at the same rate as white babies. How would they do that without mentioning the word Black?” Dallet said.

Berg responded that the state could pass a program that applies to “all babies” because “there are some white babies in the world who might need that program, too, and so you would make the program available to all.” 

“That is shocking, and if that’s what our U.S. Supreme Court wants to say, that is shocking, but I don’t think that that’s what they said in SFFA,” Dallet responded. 

Charlotte Gibson, the Department of Justice attorney arguing on behalf of the HEAB, called the appeals court’s decision “radical” saying that it went further than the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to end affirmative action. 

“The court of appeals decision was radical,” Gibson said. “I’m not aware of any court in the country that has come up with a ban this categorical that would impact things like medical research that’s targeted a particular racial group that’s suffering from specific health outcomes. But … that’s exactly what the rule of law they’re looking for would do.”

Berg opened his arguments to the Court saying he believed the justices should dismiss the case and accept the appeals court’s decision. He argued that if the Court sides with the state, an appeal will immediately be filed in federal court. 

“If this court reverses, either on standing or the merits, the next thing that will happen is someone will file this case in federal court, us or somebody else,” Berg said. “It may be a race to the courthouse, because this is, like I said, the lowest of low hanging fruit in terms of federal claims … So what will happen is the taxpayers will pay for this court’s time. The taxpayers will pay for their time to litigate the case again for three to four years. The taxpayers will pay the time [of] federal district court counsel.”

Justices Susan Crawford, Janet Protasiewicz and Dallet objected, saying they took his comments as a “threat.” 

“That is such an inappropriate argument. It is so inappropriate and disrespectful to the state and their program that they are here to argue in front of us, it’s basically a threat to us,” Dallet said.

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SUPREME COSTS: This is a follow-up to a series of articles about how Wisconsin chooses its judges. Read the rest of the series here.

Click here to read highlights from the story

• There have been two Appeals Court races since 2020 that cost more than $1 million, both in District 2, which covers counties in southeast Wisconsin outside of Milwaukee.

• This year was shaping up to be another costly race, but one of the candidates filed improper paperwork and was kicked off the ballot.

• The increased spending by outside groups and political parties is part of the same trend that has fueled record spending on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals may be the least visible layer of the state judiciary.

Almost all of its work is behind the scenes. It doesn’t conduct the dramatic trials that can grab headlines in circuit courts. Its rulings in high-stakes cases are usually appealed to the state Supreme Court — if those cases don’t bypass the appellate court altogether. 

But Wisconsin’s intermediate court does have one thing in common with the high court: increasingly expensive campaigns.

In recent years, spending on two Court of Appeals campaigns in the Waukesha-based District 2 exceeded the million-dollar mark — far short of the national record $144.5 million spent on the 2025 Supreme Court race, yet almost certainly unprecedented for Wisconsin appellate elections.

Now another seat is open in that same district, with the upcoming retirement of Presiding Judge Lisa Neubauer, the lone liberal among the district’s four jurists.

The race to replace Neubauer effectively ended Jan. 13, when the Wisconsin Elections Commission disqualified candidate Christine Hansen, an administrative law judge for the state Department of Corrections. Barring a write-in campaign, attorney Anthony LoCoco — known for his work with the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and Institute for Reforming Government — will be unopposed in the officially nonpartisan April 7 election. 

Hansen’s husband notarized her declaration of candidacy, which is against state law. On the recommendation of its staff, the bipartisan commission voted 5-1 to block her from the ballot. 

Before Hansen was knocked out of the race, LoCoco was gearing up for a contest that could have reached the previous spending heights of 2021 and 2022. He raised $209,603 by Dec. 31, his campaign finance report shows.

That’s four times as much as fellow conservative Maria Lazar raised by this point in her successful 2022 bid for another seat in the same district — and even more than Lazar raised last year in her current campaign for Supreme Court.

Of the 10 candidates in five contested Court of Appeals elections in the last decade, only Neubauer posted a bigger total on a January report: $231,264 for a 2020 reelection race that followed her narrow loss for Supreme Court in 2019.

In comparison, Hansen raised $50,000, all from her own pocket.

Lazar is facing liberal District 4 Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor in the Supreme Court race to succeed conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, who is not seeking reelection. If Lazar wins, conservatives would retain their three-justice minority on the seven-member high court — but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers could name a liberal to replace Lazar in District 2, maintaining its current 3-1 conservative-liberal split.

That district has become Wisconsin’s top appellate court battleground. Statewide, 44 of 53 appellate races were uncontested from 2008 through 2025, along with all three this spring. But five of the nine contested races were in District 2, and total spending in four of those contests topped half a million dollars each, including the two million-dollar campaigns. Spending was under $300,000 in the other five races, including one in which the two candidates spent less than $25,000 total.

Like the Supreme Court, the rising cost of some appellate court campaigns appears to be part of a nationwide trend, and for some of the same reasons: growing involvement of political parties and special interests, driven by hot-button issues and national polarization and fueled by Wisconsin’s narrow ideological divide and lax campaign finance laws.

But it also reflects a dynamic in which each of the four Court of Appeals districts has evolved into liberal or conservative turf, triggering a challenge whenever a governor fills a vacancy with a judge from the other side.

Quiet but powerful

The Court of Appeals didn’t exist for Wisconsin’s first 130 years. Until 1978, all appeals from trial courts went directly to the state Supreme Court, unlike the three-level federal system. Eight sparsely populated states still don’t have appellate courts.

Now, after a 1977 state constitutional amendment created the Court of Appeals, 16 appeals judges are elected for six-year terms, on a staggered schedule. Five judges sit in Madison-based District 4 — which covers 24 central and western counties and originally heard virtually all challenges to state laws — with four each in District 1 (consisting of Milwaukee County only) and District 2 (covering the other 12 counties in southeastern and east-central Wisconsin) and just three in the 35-county northern District 3, based in Wausau.

Those judges work in three-member panels for about three-quarters of their cases. Single judges handle the least complex appeals, such as small claims, misdemeanors and violations of traffic laws or municipal ordinances.

Contributing to the court’s low profile, appellate judges hear oral arguments in only about 1% of cases. More often, the judges focus on attorneys’ written briefs and lower court trial transcripts.

But in its quiet way, the Court of Appeals holds the final word on nearly all everyday cases. In 2024, civil litigants and criminal defendants filed 2,529 appeals in the appellate courts. They appealed 561 of the appellate judges’ decisions to the Supreme Court. However, the high court agreed to hear just 17 appeals, typically only those posing significant constitutional questions. In another six cases, the justices allowed the parties to bypass the appellate court altogether. That means more than 99% of cases appealed from circuit courts ended at the Court of Appeals.

With so few cases going to the high court, the stakes are rising in appellate court elections, former Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske said.

A bench divided

Running in nonpartisan elections, many Court of Appeals candidates were traditionally not viewed as liberal or conservative. But that has changed in recent years, mirroring the highly public divisions on the Supreme Court.

Of the 16 current Court of Appeals judges, eight were appointed to the appellate or circuit bench by Democratic governors, ran for the Supreme Court as liberals or ran for or won partisan office as Democrats. Another six were either former GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s appointees, ran for the appeals court as conservatives or held partisan office as Republicans.

Retiring Chief Judge Maxine White and Deputy Chief Judge Joe Donald were appointed to Milwaukee County Circuit Court by former GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson and to the District 2 bench by Evers, while District 4 Judge Jennifer Nashold held appointed offices under both Walker and former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. However, all are considered liberals. That means  all judges in Districts 1 and 4 are liberals, while conservatives hold all District 3 seats. Only District 2 is ideologically split.

That distribution reflects the political composition of the districts, former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly said. All District 2 counties voted for Republicans in the 2024 presidential and 2022 gubernatorial elections, but liberals carried Kenosha and Winnebago counties in the last two Supreme Court races, plus Racine County in 2025.

While the divide among District 2 judges isn’t new, it didn’t initially draw political attention. After Doyle appointed Neubauer to fill a vacancy in 2008, ideology didn’t play a major role in her campaign for a full term later that year. She won that $641,259 contest against attorney William Gleisner, then was unopposed for reelection in 2014. 

It was only after Neubauer ran a liberal Supreme Court campaign against conservative District 2 colleague Brian Hagedorn in 2019 that she became a target of the right. She fended off a 2020 challenge from conservative Waukesha County Judge Paul Bugenhagen Jr. in a $589,037 campaign.

Challenges to another Democratic governor’s appointees soon followed. In 2021, Shelley Grogan, a Bradley aide and Muskego municipal judge, attacked her opponent, then-incumbent Jeff Davis, as a liberal appointed by Evers in 2019 — even though Davis had strong Republican ties and was endorsed by conservative Justice Annette Ziegler and former conservative justices Patience Roggensack and David Prosser. 

Grogan — who was backed by Walker, Bradley, Kelly and Republican billionaires Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein and Diane Hendricks — defeated Davis in a $1.56 million campaign. Although the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign doesn’t track appellate court campaign spending the way it does Supreme Court races, the 2021 District 2 contest was likely the state’s most expensive. 

In 2022, Lazar took down then-incumbent Lori Kornblum, who had been appointed by Evers earlier that year, in a $1.05 million contest.  

Conversely, former Democratic Assembly candidate Sara Geenen scored a 2023 victory in a $299,717 District 1 campaign to unseat then-incumbent William Brash, a 2015 Walker appointee who had been unopposed for a full term in 2017. Geenen won by 37 percentage points, the widest margin of victory in the last nine contested races.

Originally positioning himself to challenge Neubauer, LoCoco’s campaign website leaves no doubt where he stands. On his homepage, he labels himself “a proven conservative fighter who will keep our communities safe and the bureaucracy out of our lives.” Elsewhere, he rails against “activist judges who have … given in to woke ideology,” and he blames “progressive politics” for “putting our kids and families in danger.”

LoCoco is endorsed by an array of Republican politicians — including Walker and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, now running for attorney general — and conservative jurists, including Bradley, Ziegler, Kelly, Lazar, Grogan and District 2 Judge Mark Gundrum. LoCoco’s top donors include former GOP Senate candidate Eric Hovde and the Uihleins.

LoCoco’s approach differs from that of most judicial candidates, who traditionally have tried to play down their ideological leanings, regardless of who has endorsed or donated to them, particularly in the lower courts. Only in recent years have Supreme Court candidates publicly stated their views on controversial issues like abortion, public employee collective bargaining rights and legislative redistricting. Campaign websites for Lazar and Taylor portray them as independent and impartial.

Following the money

However, state and local arms of the two major parties have been increasingly involved in recent Court of Appeals races, although their spending started years later and at a much lower level than in Supreme Court races. 

District 2 accounted for all three of the races with Republican cash: $34,054 to Grogan, $19,140 to Bugenhagen and $10,856 to Lazar. It was also home to three of the five contests with Democratic money: $189,272 to Davis, $66,777 to Kornblum and $14,146 to Neubauer. Democrats gave another $14,126 combined to Geenen and losing 2021 District 3 candidate Rick Cveykus.

All told, the parties have spent $348,372 on appellate races since 2020, with Democrats outspending Republicans more than 4 to 1. The combined $223,326 of party spending in the 2021 Grogan-Davis race was the most for any Court of Appeals campaign.   

District 2 was also the focus of another relatively new development in appellate elections: independent spending by special interests that advertise separately from candidates’ campaigns, though at much lower levels than in Supreme Court races. Lazar was backed by $250,000 in outside spending by Fair Courts America — funded by Richard Uihlein to back conservative judicial candidates — and Grogan benefited from $56,173 spent by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national organization. 

The Uihlein group spent more than Lazar’s own campaign, the only time that has happened in a Court of Appeals race. Together, the $306,173 in independent expenditures by conservative groups was more than 27 times the combined total of $11,134 that liberal groups spent in support of Davis, Neubauer and former Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard, who won a District 4 seat in 2010.    

Nationally, million-dollar campaigns for intermediate appellate courts remain uncommon,  according to Douglas Keith, deputy director of the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The Brennan Center compiles campaign spending figures for state Supreme Court races but not lower court contests.

However, Wisconsin’s top two Court of Appeals campaigns weren’t the country’s most expensive. In 2004, a Georgia candidate reportedly spent more than $3 million of his own money on a losing bid for an appellate judgeship. And 2023 spending by four candidates seeking two Pennsylvania appellate court seats totaled more than $2.6 million.

As with Supreme Court campaigns, wealthy individuals can donate heavily to influence lower court contests, Keith noted. Before billionaire Elon Musk spent $55.9 million on Wisconsin’s 2025 high court election, he gave a total of $3 million to two political action committees active in multiple 2024 Texas judicial races.  

For now, most appellate court campaigns are “still very much under the radar,” Keith said. But that could change “as we’re seeing greater recognition of just how important these courts are,” he added.

A Wisconsin Appeals Court election was shaping up to break records until a candidate got kicked off the ballot is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A cascade effect appears to be pushing more students of color to Wisconsin’s four-year public universities.

The post How end of affirmative action is affecting Black and Hispanic enrollment at Wisconsin colleges appeared first on WPR.

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In 2022, a student-led voting advocacy organization sued in Dane County to clarify which parts of a witness’ address must appear on an absentee ballot envelope. What was accepted differed from city to city. 

The 4th District Court of Appeals, in an opinion written by Judge Chris Taylor, affirmed a lower court ruling that a witness only needs to provide an address where that person can “be communicated with.” The Legislature, which had appealed, argued a precise, multipart address is necessary to prevent election fraud. 

“The legislature could have required such specificity for the absentee ballot witness address requirement when it initially adopted the witness address requirement in 1966 or in subsequent modifications of the absentee voting statutes,” wrote Taylor, a liberal candidate running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April.

Taylor’s campaign shared that decision as a prime example of the kind of justice she would be on the high court. The campaign for her opponent, conservative appeals court Judge Maria Lazar, shared that exact same decision as a prime example of why Taylor shouldn’t be on the high court.

As Wisconsinites head to the polls in just two months to elect another state Supreme Court justice, Wisconsin Watch asked the Lazar and Taylor campaigns separately to provide examples of rulings in past cases that show how they might serve as a justice and decisions from their opponents that warrant criticism. 

That both campaigns shared the otherwise mundane witness address case speaks to the deep ideological divide that persists in the state judiciary. Campaigns can point to the outcomes of politically charged cases, such as those related to voting rights, gun rights or abortion, as a way to point voters to what their views are, legal experts said.

“To me, those are very subtle signals as to their constituency that the impact of this decision, one way or another, is consistent with your views,” said Janine Geske, who served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1993 to 1998. 

A spokesperson for Taylor’s campaign said the case demonstrates how Taylor protected Democratic rights and “fairly” and “impartially” applies the law. 

“This decision balanced protecting each Wisconsinite’s right to vote with establishing a fair, uniform procedure for our local clerks,” Taylor campaign spokesman Sam Roecker said. “As indicative of the strength of this decision, no party involved in the case appealed Judge Taylor’s decision.” 

Lazar’s campaign said Taylor failed to consider the intent of the Legislature. 

“Judge Taylor’s opinion, on the merits, indicates how far an activist judge who legislates from the bench will go to alter procedures for election integrity,” Lazar campaign spokesman Nathan Conrad said of the witness address case. “Every common sense citizen in Wisconsin knows that an address consists of a street name, number and municipality.” 

Other significant cases from the judges

The other judicial rulings the candidates’ campaigns shared with Wisconsin Watch also showcase the candidates’ contrasting judicial philosophies.

Lazar’s campaign pointed to her opinions that show her being tough on crime and supportive of Second Amendment rights. One was a Waukesha County case where she ruled that a man who pleaded guilty to child enticement and mental harm could not withdraw his guilty plea. In the other case she ruled that the city of Delafield could not deny an operating permit for a shooting range. 

In addition to the voting rights case, Taylor’s campaign highlighted rulings that favored utility consumers and reproductive health. In one decision the court determined the Public Service Commission did not follow proper rulemaking procedures when it prohibited activities companies use to incentivize lower energy use. In the other opinion Taylor wrote that a woman could continue seeking legal action against a physician she claimed did not inform her of a recommendation to another doctor to remove her ovaries during a colon surgery. The Wisconsin Supreme Court last May affirmed that decision with Justice Brian Hagedorn joining the liberal justices in the majority.

The different political focuses between the candidates is no surprise given their different professional and political paths prior to their time on the bench. Lazar, a conservative, was an assistant attorney general under Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen before her election to the Waukesha County Circuit Court in 2015. Taylor worked as a policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and served five terms as a Democrat in the Assembly before Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020.

The judicial rulings they highlighted as reflecting poorly on their opponent are nothing like those featured in the multimillion-dollar Supreme Court campaigns of recent years, when both sides sought to paint the other as lax on crime and public safety. 

While there are still two months to go, it’s possible the race will stay muted because the stakes are different with no Supreme Court majority on the line, said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Neither outcome will change liberal control of the court, though because the winner will replace retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, it could extend guaranteed liberal control until at least 2030.

The quiet nature of the race is “bizarre” given the increasingly political direction Wisconsin Supreme Court elections have gone in the past, Schweber said.

“There is not invective. There is not screaming accusations,” Schweber said. “This may all change over the course of the election, but at least at the moment, we’re not seeing over-the-top ads making hysterical accusations, and it appears that at least part of the reason for that might be that neither campaign can find anything particularly embarrassing that the opposing candidate has done.” 

Some criticisms from each campaign are still there and could grow stronger as Election Day nears. In a recent social media post seeking campaign contributions, Lazar’s campaign described Taylor not as a judge, but a “radical left-wing legislator.” Taylor’s campaign in a post following the release of January campaign finance reports described Lazar as “our extreme opponent.” 

Lazar and Taylor will face each other in a March 25 debate hosted by WISN-TV at the Lubar Center at Marquette University’s Law School. 

Which cases did the campaigns share?

Taylor’s campaign shared the following cases with Wisconsin Watch as examples of how Taylor would serve as a justice: 

• Midwest Renewable Energy Association v. Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (the utility case). (Read the opinion here.) 
• Rise Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (the absentee ballot case). (Read the opinion here.)
• Melissa A. Hubbard v. Carol J. Neuman, M.D. (the ovary removal case). (Read the opinion here.)

The campaign criticized a 2024 appellate opinion written by Lazar that contradicted a ruling from another appeals court branch on whether a conservative group questioning the 2020 election results could access health information about individuals who were judged incapable of voting. Lazar and another judge on the 2nd District Court of Appeals released an opinion that said the group had a right to the information after the 4th District’s opposite ruling was published as precedent.

The opinion shows Lazar “is an extremist who uses our courts to protect special interests and push her right-wing agenda,” Roecker said. 

“Lazar completely ignored recent precedent that private voter data could not be released to the public,” Roecker said. “That should alarm anyone who believes in protecting our democracy and fair elections.” 

Lazar’s campaign in response to that criticism said the dual appeals court opinions were about “issues of procedure” when two districts disagree. The 2nd District revised the opinion at the request of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which then accepted the case, Conrad said. It is scheduled for oral arguments before the high court in April. 

Lazar’s campaign shared the following cases as examples of how Lazar would serve as a justice: 

• Saybrook Tax Exemptors, LLC. v. Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, et. al.: Lazar concluded that certain agreements and documents between a financial company and the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe about plans for a casino were void. (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Scherer: Lazar ruled that law enforcement’s seizure of a man’s cellphone that possessed child pornography was too broad and violated his privacy rights, despite the “egregious” potential crime. (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Flores (the child enticement case). (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Heinz: Lazar denied a request to modify the sentence of a woman who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she was charged with first-degree reckless homicide. (Read the decision here.)
• Hartland Sportsman Club v. City of Delafield (the gun range case). (Read the decision here.)
• Pewaukee Land County, LLC. v. Soo Line Railroad: Lazar ruled that a company could not claim ownership of property in Pewaukee that belonged to the Canadian Pacific railroad, but did not block the company’s current use of the property. (Read the decision here.)
• Craig, et. al. v. Village of West Bend: Lazar dismissed a case about the transfer of cemetery property that already had been decided in an earlier case. (Read the decision here.) 

Lazar’s campaign shared two cases as criticism of Taylor’s judicial opinions:

• Rise Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (the absentee ballot case). (Read the opinion here.)
• State v. Kruckenberg Anderson: In an opinion written by Taylor, the 4th District Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that suppressed certain statements a teenager made to law enforcement prior to being charged with killing his newborn child. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a petition to review the case in 2024. (Read the Court of Appeals opinion here.)

Judicial philosophies clash as both Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates point to same case to highlight their fitness for the high court 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's Supreme Court candidates have different opinions about the role state courts should in disputes involving federal immigration agents.

The post Supreme Court candidates differ on state courts’ role in federal immigration disputes appeared first on WPR.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook leaves the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 21, 2026 in Washington, D.C, after the court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Cook. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court justices across the political spectrum appeared skeptical of President Donald Trump’s swift, informal dismissal of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, and his effort to influence the independent central bank that governs monetary policy in the United States.

The oral arguments Wednesday drew a high-profile appearance in the courtroom of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — now a target of a Department of Justice investigation. For months prior to the federal probe, Trump has threatened to fire Powell if the chair did not quickly lower interest rates.

For two hours, the justices heard arguments over whether Cook could remain on the board, as a lower court ruled, while litigation continues examining if Trump violated a “for cause” removal statute when he fired her over social media in late August. 

Trump alleged in an Aug. 25 letter posted to his Truth Social platform that Cook committed financial fraud by lying on mortgage loan documents. Trump declared he had “sufficient cause” to remove Cook based on alleged “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter.”

Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president can only remove board governors “for cause” — as designed by Congress in an effort to preserve the central bank’s independence. 

Trump claims his removals of members of independent government agencies are not reviewable by the courts.

Cook has denied any wrongdoing and challenged the president, the board and Powell, essentially arguing in court that an “unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications,” submitted prior to her Senate confirmation, does not amount to cause for removal. Cook also argued that Trump denied her due process in not giving her notice or a chance to respond to his allegations.

Cook, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, has continued to perform her board duties, without interference from Powell.

Alito questions ‘hurried manner’ of firing

During lengthy questioning of U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what the risk would be in allowing Cook to remain in her job while the administration made its case to the lower courts.

“The question is: What is the harm of allowing that injunction to remain, because she’s in office now and would just continue?” Brown asked.

Sauer, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, said the administration asserts “grievous, irreparable injury to the public perception, to the Federal Reserve, of allowing her to stay in office.”

“Do you have evidence related to the public perception, or is this just the president’s view?” Jackson, a Biden appointee, pressed back.

Sauer said the evidence regarding Cook’s two separate mortgage applications was contained in Trump’s “dismissal order,” referring to the letter posted on social media. 

Moments later, Brown asked if Cook was “given the opportunity in some sort of formal proceeding to contest that evidence or explain it?”

“Not a formal proceeding. She was given an opportunity in public,” Sauer said.

“In the world? Like she was supposed to post about it, and that was the opportunity to be heard that you’re saying was afforded to her?” Brown asked.

“Yes,” Sauer replied.

Justice Samuel Alito, one of the high court’s most conservative members, asked Sauer why the removal had to be handled “in such a hurried manner.”

“You began by laying out what you claim to be the factual basis for the for-cause removal, but no court has ever explored those facts. Are the mortgage applications even in the record in this case?” asked Alito, who was appointed to the court under President George W. Bush.

“I know that the text of the social media post that screenshots the mortgage applications is in the record. I don’t recall if the paperwork itself was in the record,” Sauer said.

Federal Reserve independence

Over several minutes of back-and-forth, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Sauer on the importance of the Federal Reserve’s independence.

“Let’s talk about the real world downstream effects of this. Because if this were set as a precedent, it seems to me — just thinking big picture, what goes around, comes around — all the current president’s appointees would likely be removed for cause on Jan. 20, 2029, if there’s a Democratic president, or Jan. 20, 2033,” argued Kavanaugh, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

“We’re really at, at will removal. So what are we doing here?” he asked.

“I can’t predict what future presidents may or may not do,” Sauer replied.

“Well, history is a pretty good guide. Once these tools are unleashed, they are used by both sides, and usually more the second time around,” Kavanaugh said.

Kavanaugh later challenged Cook’s lawyer, Paul Clement, over whether his argument was “tilting the balance too far the other direction from where the solicitor general is.”

Clement responded, “This is a situation where Congress, political animals, one and all, knew better than anyone that the short-term temptations to lower interest rates and have easy money was a disaster in the long term, but was going to be irresistible. 

“And so they tied their own hands by taking the Fed out of the appropriations process, and they tied the president’s hands,” the Alexandria, Virginia-based attorney said. 

In a statement following arguments, Cook said the case is “about whether the Federal Reserve will set key interest rates guided by evidence and independent judgment or will succumb to political pressure.”

“Research and experience show that Federal Reserve independence is essential to fulfilling the congressional mandate of price stability and maximum employment. That is why Congress chose to insulate the Federal Reserve from political threats, while holding it accountable for delivering on that mandate. For as long as I serve at the Federal Reserve, I will uphold the principle of political independence in service to the American people,” Cook continued in the statement.

Regulating interest rates — to cool inflation or stimulate the economy — is one tool the central bank uses to accomplish its dual mandate on employment and price stability.

Subpoena issued

The arguments occurred just a dozen days after Powell received a federal grand jury subpoena as part of a Department of Justice probe into allegations that he lied to Congress about multi-year renovation costs to the central bank’s District of Columbia headquarters.

The revelation of a federal investigation of Powell ignited sharp criticism, even from some Republicans. 

Powell alleged in a rare video statement that the administration’s “unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”

He continued, “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

Trump first nominated Powell in 2017 to head the Federal Reserve, for a four-year term that began in February 2018. Biden reappointed him in 2021, and Powell received overwhelming support in an 80-19 Senate confirmation vote.

Wednesday’s arguments also came less than two months after the Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump’s firing of another member of an independent federal agency, Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

Craig Stingley listens during a Milwaukee County court hearing. Stingley spent years fighting for justice after the death of his son Corey. | Taylor Glascock for ProPublica

This story was originally published by ProPublica

A judge in Milwaukee brought a 13-year quest for justice by a grieving father to a close on Thursday, accepting a plea deal for two men charged criminally for their role in the killing of his teenaged son.

Robert W. Beringer and Jesse R. Cole pleaded guilty to felony murder under a deferred prosecution agreement that allows them to avoid jail time yet publicly stand accountable for their actions leading to the 2012 death of Corey Stingley. The men helped restrain the 16-year-old inside a convenience store after an attempted shoplifting incident involving $12 worth of alcohol.

“What happened to Corey Stingley should have never happened. His death was unnecessary, brutal and devastating,” Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the judge in a letter filed with the court.

Both of Stingley’s parents spoke directly to the judge in an hourlong hearing in a courtroom filled with family members, community activists, spiritual leaders and some of the teen’s former classmates.

“Corey was my baby. A mother is not supposed to bury her child,” Alicia Stingley told the judge. She spoke of the grace of forgiveness, and after the hearing she hugged Beringer. The Stingleys’ surviving son, Cameron, shook both men’s hands.

The agreement requires Cole and Beringer to make a one-time $500 donation each to a charitable organization of the Stingley family’s choosing in honor of Corey. After six months, if the two men comply with the terms and do not commit any crimes, the prosecution will dismiss the case, according to documents filed with the court.

ProPublica, in a 2023 story, reexamined the incident, the legal presumptions, the background of the men and Stingley’s father’s relentless legal campaign to bring the men into court. The three men previously had defended their actions as justified and necessary to deal with an emergency as they held Stingley while waiting for police to arrive.

Ozanne, who was appointed in 2022 to review the case, recommended the agreement after the two men and the Stingley family engaged in an extensive restorative justice process, in which they sat face to face, under the supervision of a retired judge, and shared their thoughts and feelings. Ozanne said in the letter that the process “appears to have been healing for all involved.”

From the bench, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello said she found the agreement to be fair and just and commended the work of all the parties to come to a resolution.

“Maybe this is the spark that makes other people see similarities in each other and not differences,” she said. “Maybe this is the spark that makes them think about restorative justice and how do we come together. And maybe this is part of the spark that decreases the violence in our community and leads us to finding the paths to have those circles to sit down and have the dialogue and to have that conversation. So maybe there’s some good that comes out of it.”

Craig Stingley, Corey’s father, said during the hearing that his 13-year struggle “has turned into triumph.”

Earlier, the Stingley family filed a statement with the court affirming its support for the agreement and the restorative justice process.

“We sought not vengeance, but acknowledgement — of Corey’s life, his humanity, and the depth of our loss,” it states. “We believe this agreement honors Corey’s memory and offers a model of how people can come together, even after profound harm, to seek understanding and healing.”

The family remembered Stingley as a “vibrant, loving son, brother, and friend” and found that the restorative dialogues brought “truth, understanding, and a measure of healing that the traditional court process could not.”

Jonathan LaVoy, Cole’s attorney, told reporters after the hearing: “This has been a long 13 years. He’s been under investigation with multiple reviews over that time. I think everyone is just so happy that this day has come, that there’s been some finality to this whole situation.”

In a joint written statement provided to the court, Beringer and Cole said they came to recognize “the profound ripple effects” of the incident and their connection to Stingley’s death. They expressed sorrow that Stingley’s “time on this earth ended far too soon.”

The proceeding followed years of work by Craig Stingley to force the justice system to view his son as a crime victim whose life was unlawfully cut short by Beringer, Cole and another store patron, Mario Laumann, who died in 2022.

Prosecutors at the time declined to charge anyone, saying the men did not intend to kill Corey Stingley when they tackled him and pinned him to the floor of VJ’s Food Mart, in West Allis, Wisconsin. They were detaining him for police after the youth attempted to steal bottles of Smirnoff Ice. In surveillance video, Laumann can be seen holding Stingley in a chokehold while the other two men aided in restraining him. A witness told police Laumann was “squeezing the hell” out of the teenager.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office found that Stingley died of a brain injury due to asphyxiation after a “violent struggle with multiple individuals.” It ruled the death a homicide.

Under Wisconsin law, the charge of felony murder is brought in cases in which someone dies during the commission of another alleged crime — in this case false imprisonment.

Ozanne wrote to the court that his analysis found that “there is no doubt Cole, Beringer and Laumann caused Corey Stingley’s death.”

All three men, he wrote, restrained Stingley “intentionally and without his consent” and without legal authority to “arrest” him. “Simply put, Corey, a teenager, was tackled and restrained to the ground by three grown men because they suspected him of shoplifting,” Ozanne wrote. “They killed him while piled on top of his body awaiting the police.”

But he noted that there is no evidence that Beringer or Cole knew that Stingley was in medical distress during the incident. He described their hold on him as “rudimentary detention techniques.”

It was Laumann, Ozanne concluded, who “strangled Corey Stingley to death.” Ozanne wrote that surveillance video shows Laumann’s arm for several minutes across Stingley’s neck “as he fades out of consciousness.”

If Laumann were still alive, Ozanne said in court, prosecutors likely would have been seeking a lengthy prison term for him.

Stingley died the same year as Trayvon Martin, a Black Florida teen shot to death by a neighborhood volunteer watchman, who was acquitted in 2013. Martin’s case drew national attention and led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement. But Stingley’s death after being restrained by three white men did not garner widespread notice outside Wisconsin.

Over the years, Craig Stingley unsuccessfully advocated for the men to face charges. Two prosecutors reviewed the case, but nothing came of it.

He then discovered an obscure “John Doe” statute, dating back to Wisconsin’s territorial days, that allows a private citizen to ask a judge to consider whether a crime has been committed and, if so, by whom when a district attorney can’t or won’t do so.

Stingley filed such a petition in late 2020. That led to the appointment of Ozanne as a special prosecutor to review the matter yet again. In 2024, Ozanne informed the Stingley family that his office had found evidence of a crime but that a guilty verdict was not assured for the remaining two men.

That set in motion an effort to achieve healing and accountability through a restorative justice process. Restorative justice programs bring together survivors and offenders for conversations, led by trained facilitators, to work toward understanding and healing and how best to make amends. Last year, Stingley and members of his family met on separate occasions with both Cole and Beringer through the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, part of the law school at Milwaukee’s Marquette University.

The discussions led to the deferred prosecution agreement.

In an interview, Anthony Neff, a longtime friend of Craig Stingley’s, recalled seeing Corey Stingley in a hospital bed, attached to tubes and a ventilator in his final days. Corey Stingley had been a running back on his high school football team. Everyone in the program showed up for the funeral, Neff said.

“Coaches. The ball boys. The cheerleaders. I mean, they’re all standing in solidarity with Craig and the family,” he said.

In the years since, he and other golfing buddies of Craig Stingley’s have provided emotional support in his quest. Neff called it “a lesson in civics, a master lesson in civics.”

Federal agents stage at a front gate as Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig of Minnesota attempt to enter the regional ICE headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on Jan. 10, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb Wednesday probed whether the Trump administration has violated her court order, after Minnesota lawmakers said they were denied an oversight visit to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility following a deadly shooting by an immigration officer in Minneapolis. 

Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison of Minnesota said they were denied entry to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis last weekend. 

An attorney representing the lawmakers, Christine L. Coogle, asked Cobb to make it clear to the Trump administration that her stay order is in place. 

Last month, Cobb issued a temporary block on a policy by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that required seven days notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits at ICE facilities.

Cobb found Noem violated a 2019 appropriations law, referred to as Section 527, that allows for unannounced oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants. 

“If the government is using 527 funds to exclude members of Congress from (ICE) facilities, that does run afoul of my order,” Cobb said during Wednesday’s hearing.

Dems eye DHS funding 

As the Trump administration has carried out an aggressive immigration campaign, and with Democrats the minority party in both chambers of Congress, unannounced oversight visits to ICE facilities are one of the few tools Democrats can use. The other way they could try to counter the enforcement push is through appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security.

For example, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is made up of nearly 100 Democrats, vowed on Tuesday to vote against any DHS appropriations bill unless major changes are made at ICE regarding immigration enforcement.

Separately, Democrats on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Noem. One count is connected to the denial of oversight visits. 

New Noem policy after Renee Good killing

One day after federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, Noem issued a new memo for members of Congress who want to conduct oversight visits at ICE facilities. 

She required a seven-day notice, nearly identical to the policy that initially prompted the suit from Democrats last year.

Noem argued in her new policy that because those federal ICE facilities are using funds through the spending and tax cuts package, and not the DHS appropriations bill, they are therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits by members of Congress. 

In an emergency request, Democrats argued the funds DHS is using apply under Section 527, and DHS is violating Cobb’s stay.

Cobb said on Wednesday she could not make a determination if her order was violated until she can get a clear answer from the Trump administration as to the source of the funds. She directed Department of Justice lawyers to determine what it is.

Funding stream question

In court filings, DOJ argued the facilities are funded through the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed and signed into law last year, and that DHS does not need to comply with Section 527.

The OBBBA, passed through a congressional process called reconciliation, is allowed to adjust federal spending even though it is not an appropriations law.

Coogle said until OBBAA, the only funding for ICE came from appropriations, and argued the two funding streams can’t be separated. She said the Trump administration is trying to “make a game here” with appropriations law.

“Appropriations are not a game. They are the law,” Coogle said.  

The House Democrats who sued include Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

Demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, as justices heard two cases on state bans of trans athletes. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared likely Tuesday to keep in place laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

The outcomes from the nation’s highest court expected later this year could have sweeping implications for transgender rights more broadly as President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to roll back those rights have extended far beyond athletics. 

In lengthy, back-to-back oral arguments, justices heard two cases — Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. — which both deal with whether those states’ bans violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  

The West Virginia case also calls into question whether its prohibition on transgender athletes participating in women’s and girls’ sports violates the  federal civil rights law barring sex-based discrimination in education programs known as Title IX. 

Rulings in lower courts have halted the two states from implementing the bans, to varying extents, leading GOP attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia to ask the Supreme Court to step in. 

Idaho and West Virginia represent just two of the nearly 30 states with laws banning transgender students’ participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank. 

During oral arguments in the Idaho case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he sees the growth of women’s and girls’ sports as one of the country’s great successes over the past half-century. 

He noted that some states, the federal government, the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee “think that allowing transgender women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success and will create unfairness.” 

He added that “for the individual girl who does not make the team, or doesn’t get on the stand for the medal, or doesn’t make all league, there’s a harm there, and I think we can’t sweep that aside.” 

Kavanaugh is part of the court’s conservative wing, whose members outnumber liberals 6-3.

Title IX debated

Kavanaugh’s comment seemingly endorsed West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams’ framing of the issue, as a protection of women and girl athletes. 

Williams told the justices that “maintaining separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams ensures that girls can safely and fairly compete in school sports.” 

He argued that Title IX “permits sex-separated teams,” and “it does so because biological sex matters in athletics in ways both obvious and undeniable.” 

Joshua Block, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, argued on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender athlete at the forefront of the West Virginia case.

Block said that though West Virginia “argues that to protect these opportunities for cisgender girls, it has to deny them” to Pepper-Jackson, “Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect everyone, and if the evidence shows there are no relevant physiological differences between B.P.J. and other girls, then there’s no basis to exclude her.”

Idaho case

Idaho’s solicitor general, Alan Hurst, argued that “gender identity does not matter in sports, and that’s why Idaho’s law does not classify on the basis of gender identity.” 

Hurst said the law “treats all males equally and all females equally, regardless of identity.” 

Kathleen Hartnett, an attorney with Cooley LLP, represented Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student in Idaho who wanted to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University but would have been barred from doing so under the Idaho law because she is transgender.

A federal court in Idaho halted the law from taking effect in 2020. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023 but adjusted the scope of it in 2024 to only apply to Hecox, not other athletes.

Hartnett said the law ignored that trans girls who take medication to block testosterone do not have an inherent physical advantage in sports.

“Circulating testosterone after puberty is the main determinant of sex-based biological advantage that (the Idaho law) sought to address,” she said.

Hecox “has mitigated that advantage because she has suppressed her testosterone for over a year and taken estrogen,” Hartnett said.

The Idaho law, Hartnett said, “thus fails heightened scrutiny as applied to Lindsay and transgender women like her who have no sex-based biological advantage as compared to birth sex females.” 

Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to drop the case. Though a federal judge in Idaho rejected that attempt in October, the Supreme Court deferred the request until after oral arguments and could ultimately dismiss her case in the coming months. 

Issue actively debated

Earlier landmark rulings involving transgender rights came up before the court Tuesday — including United States v. Skrmetti in 2025 and Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020. 

In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s prohibition on gender-affirming care for minors.

The court held in Bostock v. Clayton County that LGBTQ+ employees are protected from employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Kavanaugh suggested the wide-ranging landscape of laws on the issue throughout the country meant the court should tread carefully in meddling in state laws.

“Given that half the states are allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point — just the role of this court — jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still, as you say, uncertainty and debate?” he asked Hartnett.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken steps at the federal level to prohibit trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports teams aligning with their gender identity, including the president signing an executive order in February 2025 that banned such participation. 

He also signed executive orders regarding transgender people including orders that make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids and aim to bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military.

Becky Pepper-Jackson attends the Lambda Legal Liberty Awards on June 8, 2023 in New York City. Her mother sued on her behalf over West Virginia's law barring trans athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams in public schools and colleges. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Lambda Legal )

WASHINGTON — A pair of blockbuster cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court could carry far-reaching implications for transgender rights, even as the Trump administration during the past year has rolled out a broad anti-trans agenda targeting everything from sports to military service.

The court on Jan. 13 will hear challenges to laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. Both cases center on whether the laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The West Virginia case before the Supreme Court also questions whether the state’s law violates Title IX — a landmark federal civil rights law that bars schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination. 

Lower court rulings have temporarily blocked the states from implementing the bans, to varying extents, and Republican attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia have asked the Supreme Court to intervene. 

“We know we have an uphill fight, and our hope is certainly that we prevail,” Joshua Block, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT & HIV Project, who will be presenting oral arguments in the West Virginia case, said at a Jan. 8 ACLU press briefing. 

“But we also hope that regardless of what happens, this case isn’t successfully used as a tool to undermine the rights of transgender folks more generally in areas far beyond just athletics.” 

The outcome of the oral arguments before a court dominated 6-3 by conservative justices will be closely watched. Nearly 30 states have laws that ban trans students’ participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank.

Idaho case  

The justices are taking up both cases in one day. First will be Little v. Hecox, which contests a 2020 Idaho law that categorically bans trans athletes from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams. 

Lindsay Hecox sued over the ban in 2020, just months before the law was set to take effect. 

Though Hecox wanted to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University, the Idaho law — the first of its kind in the nation — would have prevented her from doing so because she is transgender. 

A federal court in Idaho halted the law from taking effect later that year. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023 but later adjusted the scope of it in 2024 to only apply to Hecox, not other athletes. 

Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2024.

Since that time, Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to drop the case. 

An Idaho federal judge in October rejected that attempt, but the Supreme Court deferred the request until after oral argument — meaning justices could still dismiss the case.

“The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether Idaho can preserve women’s sports based on biological sex, or must female be redefined based on gender identity,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said at a Jan. 8 press briefing ahead of the oral arguments.

“I think Idaho is just trying to protect fairness, safety and equal protection for girls and women in sports,” Labrador said at the briefing alongside West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, hosted by the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.  

West Virginia case

After the Idaho case, the justices will hear arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which centers on a 2021 Mountain State law that also bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams. 

McCuskey argued that his state’s law “supports and bolsters the original intent and the continuing intent and purpose of Title IX.” 

McCuskey said the law complies with the Equal Protection Clause because it “treats all biological males and all biological females identically” and “doesn’t ban anyone from playing sports.” 

Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was 11 at the time, wanted to try out for the girls’ cross-country team when starting middle school, but would have been prevented from doing so under the West Virginia law because she is transgender. 

Her mother sued on her behalf in 2021.

A federal appeals court in 2024 barred West Virginia from enforcing the ban, prompting the state to ask the nation’s highest court to intervene.  

White House, Congress zero in on trans athletes

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps at the federal level to prohibit trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports teams aligning with their gender identity. 

Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 that banned such participation and made it the policy of the United States to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

The NCAA promptly changed its policy to comply with the order, limiting “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.” 

In late 2024, prior to the policy shift, NCAA President Charlie Baker told Congress that of the more than half-million total athletes in NCAA schools, he knew of fewer than 10 who were transgender. 

The GOP-led House passed a measure in January 2025 that would bar transgender students from participating on women’s school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. 

But Senate Democrats in March blocked an attempt at imposing such a ban and codifying Trump’s executive order. 

Forty-eight GOP members of Congress argued in a September amicus brief supporting Idaho and West Virginia that “if allowed to stand, the interpretation of the lower courts will unsettle the very promises that Congress made to generations of young women and men through Title IX.” 

On the flip side, 130 congressional Democrats stood behind the two transgender athletes in a November amicus brief, noting that “categorical bans preventing transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity impose significant harm on all children — especially girls.” 

The group argued that such bans “do not meet the standards this Court has put in place to assess discrimination based on sex — whether as a matter of Title IX or under the Equal Protection Clause.” 

Trump’s broader anti-trans agenda has extended beyond athletic participation in the nearly one year since he took office. 

He signed executive orders that: make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female;” restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids; and aim to bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military. 

‘Textbook discrimination’ 

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has noted that there has been “considerable disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that trans students’ sports participation “has been a non-issue.”

In a statement ahead of oral arguments, HRC’s senior director of legal policy Cathryn Oakley said “every child, no matter their background, race, or gender, should have access to a quality education where they can feel safe to learn and grow — and for many kids that involves being a part of a school sports team.”

Oakley added that “to deny transgender kids the chance to participate in school sports alongside their peers simply because of who they are is textbook discrimination — and it’s unconstitutional.” 

Wisconsin State Flag | Getty Images Creative

This week marked the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, demanding that then-Vice President Pence overturn the will of the people. Efforts to impose accountability for those responsible and those involved have largely ended — except in Wisconsin. This means that Wisconsin has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to re-assert the rule of law, to ensure justice, and to bolster the foundations on which American democracy has been built over the past 250 years.

As we assess the state of our democracy in light of this somber anniversary, let’s start with the bad news: 

• The U.S. Supreme Court derailed efforts by states to enforce the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against insurrectionists serving in federal office, and then it invented an ahistorical and jaw-droppingly broad doctrine of presidential immunity to derail criminal prosecutions of Trump in state and federal courts alike. 
• Federal prosecutions of the violent mob in the Capitol were upended by Trump’s Department of Justice, and Trump issued sweeping federal pardons to every individual connected with Jan. 6, effectively encouraging them to keep it up. 
• State prosecutions of the fraudulent electors — those who executed an unprecedented effort to overturn the 2020 election by submitting to Congress (and other officials) paperwork that falsely declared Trump to have won seven key states that he in fact lost and thereby laying the groundwork for the Jan. 6 rioters to violently demand Pence validate their efforts — have faltered, often for reasons unrelated to the merits of those actions. 

But here in Wisconsin there are still grounds for hope. Hope that bad actors who deliberately took aim at our democracy will be held accountable. Hope that our institutions will stand up and protect our democracy from further meddling by those most directly responsible. And hope that those institutions will act promptly to prevent further damage. Every Wisconsinite should be watching the following accountability efforts — and urging our elected officials to use their authority to advance the rule of law and protect our democracy. 

First, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will soon determine the appropriate sanction for Michael Gableman’s ethical transgressions as he spearheaded a sham “investigation” of the 2020 election. Gableman, who once served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, accepted this job despite his own assessment that he did not understand how elections work in Wisconsin. He wasted taxpayer funds, undermined government transparency laws, dealt dishonestly with his clients and the public, lied to and insulted courts, and tried to jail the elected mayors of Green Bay and Madison. In March 2023, Law Forward filed an omnibus ethics grievance, documenting Gableman’s myriad breaches of the ethics rules that bind all Wisconsin attorneys. Last summer, Gableman stipulated that he had no viable defense of his conduct and agreed with the Office of Lawyer Regulation to jointly recommend his law license be suspended for three years. (He is now trying to wriggle out of accountability by serially pushing justice after justice to recuse.) 

Wisconsin precedent is clear that, where a lawyer is charged with multiple ethical breaches, the proper sanction is determined by adding the sanctions for each breach together. The Court should apply established law, which demands revoking Gableman’s law license. Then the Office of Lawyer Regulation and the Court should act on our requests to hold Andrew Hitt (chairman of the Wisconsin fraudulent electors) and Jim Troupis (chief Wisconsin counsel to Trump’s 2020 campaign and ringleader of the fraudulent-elector scheme) accountable as well.

Second, the primary architects of the fraudulent-elector scheme, detailed in records  obtained through Law Forward’s groundbreaking civil suit, are also facing criminal prosecution in Dane County. Attorney General Josh Kaul’s case is narrowly focused only on three lawyers — two who were based here in Wisconsin, and one working for the Trump campaign in DC — who conceived and designed the scheme to overturn Wisconsin’s results and then convinced six other states to follow suit. Troupis, who himself was appointed to the Wisconsin bench by former-Gov. Scott Walker as a reward for his key role in the 2011 partisan gerrymander, has gone to great lengths to slow down this prosecution, which Kaul initiated in June 2024. He filed nine separate motions to dismiss the case. He accused the judge hearing preliminary motions of misconduct and insisted that the entire Dane County bench should be recused. And now he has appealed the denial of his misconduct allegations. This case, since assigned to a different Dane County judge, will proceed, and it is the best hope anywhere in the country to achieve accountability for the fraudulent-elector scheme. 

Third, on behalf of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and two individual voters, Law Forward is suing Elon Musk and two advocacy organizations he controls for their brazen scheme of million-dollar giveaways to influence the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. This case is about ensuring that Wisconsin elections are decided by Wisconsin voters, not by out-of-state efforts to buy the results they want for us. We’re waiting for the trial court to decide preliminary motions, but, with another Wisconsin Supreme Court election imminently approaching, there is urgency to clarify that Wisconsin law forbids the shenanigans we saw last year, which contributed to the most expensive judicial race in American history. 

Beginning in 2011, Wisconsin became the country’s primary testing ground for the most radical anti-democratic ideas. From Act 10 to one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country, from subverting the separation of powers and steamrolling local control over local issues to hobbling the regulatory state and starving our public schools, Wisconsin’s gerrymandered Legislature adopted idea after idea hostile to democracy. With the end of the nation’s most extreme and durable partisan gerrymander in 2023 and a change in the makeup of the state Supreme Court, however, the tide in Wisconsin has ebbed somewhat. 

Now, improbably, Wisconsin is the place that democracy can best hold the line. We can create accountability for those who have abused power, have undermined elections, and have diminished the ideals and institutions of our self-government. That, in conjunction with Law Forward’s broad docket of work to defend free elections and to strengthen our democracy, sustains my hope.

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Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the Milwaukee Federal Courthouse on May 15, 2025. Judge Dugan appeared in federal court to answer charges that she helped Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant, elude federal arrest while he was making an appearance in her courtroom on April 18. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan is resigning after she was convicted last month of a felony for helping a man avoid immigration enforcement agents in the county courthouse. 

Dugan submitted her letter of resignation to Gov. Tony Evers on Saturday, writing that serving as a judge has been “the honor of my life.” 

“Behind the bench, I have presided over thousands and thousands of cases — with a commitment to treat all persons with dignity and respect, to act justly, deliberatively, and consistently, and to maintain a courtroom with the decorum and safety the public deserves,” Dugan wrote.

Dugan was convicted last month of felony obstruction of justice following a four-day federal trial. The split jury also found she was not guilty of a related misdemeanor. 

The case against her stemmed from an incident at the courthouse April 18 in which she directed an immigrant appearing before her who was in the U.S. without legal authorization through a side door out of her courtroom while federal agents waited in the hallway outside to arrest him. Agents later apprehended the man outside the building. 

Since her April arrest, Dugan’s case has drawn national political attention as an illustration of the Trump administration’s efforts to increase immigration enforcement in ways that many critics say are heavy handed.  

Following the verdict, Wisconsin Republicans demanded that Dugan resign immediately, citing state law that forbids anyone who has been convicted of a felony from serving as a judge. She has been suspended from duty since her arrest. 

Dugan has not yet been sentenced and her legal team has signaled they’ll make a broad and lengthy appeal effort. But Dugan wrote in her letter that the people of Milwaukee County need a permanent judge on the bench. 

“I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary,” Dugan wrote. “I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary. However, the Wisconsin citizens that I cherish deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee County Branch 31 rather than have the fate of that Court rest in a partisan fight in the state Legislature.”

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It’s a new year in Wisconsin, and an election one, too. There are many state government and politics storylines we plan to follow at Wisconsin Watch in 2026 from major policy debates to races that could determine the future of the state. 

But we value accountability here, including for ourselves. Before we dive into predictions for the year ahead, we want to look back at what our state team thought might happen in 2025.

Here’s what we predicted and what actually happened. 

2025 prediction: The Wisconsin Supreme Court will expand abortion rights.

Outcome: True.

The court in a 4-3 July ruling struck down Wisconsin’s 1849 near-total abortion ban, determining that later state laws regulating the procedure enacted after the ban superseded it. 

There are still restrictions on when someone can receive an abortion, including a ban on the procedure 20 weeks after fertilization and a 24-hour waiting period and ultrasound before an abortion is performed. President Donald Trump’s big bill signed in July has also threatened Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin that offer abortions. A federal appeals court in December paused a lower court ruling and allowed the Trump administration to continue enforcing that part of the law.

2025 prediction: Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the Republican-controlled Legislature will again strike a deal to increase funding for public education and private voucher schools, similar to the compromise they made in 2023.

Outcome: Mixed.

Evers and the Republican-controlled Legislature did reach an agreement on K-12 education funding during the budget process, approving a $500 million boost for special education funding. But this wasn’t like 2023, when conservatives secured significant funding increases for private voucher schools.

General school aid was kept at the same level as previous years. The Department of Public Instruction in October said, because of that decision, 71% of school districts will receive less general aid during the current school year. Private voucher school funding increased based on past per pupil funding adjustments. As a result of revenue limits going up $325 a year for the next 400 years (no change there from Evers’ creative veto in 2023) and general aid staying flat, property taxes increased significantly. 

2025 prediction: The state Supreme Court election will set another spending record.

Outcome: Nailed it!

Total spending for the 2025 state Supreme Court race between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative Brad Schimel hit $144.5 million, shattering the record set in 2023. The spending in last year’s race broke records even without a $30.3 million giveaway from tech billionaire Elon Musk to conservative voters in the state.

As Larry Sandler recently reported for Wisconsin Watch, it was another year demonstrating how expensive and highly political Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court elections have become over the years. 

2025 prediction: Ben Wikler will be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Outcome: Swing and a miss!

Former Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee in February. Wikler was the runner-up in the contest. 

Following the DNC chair race, Wikler announced in April he would not seek reelection as chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Devin Remiker took on the leadership role following the state party’s convention in June. 

It’s not clear what’s next for Wikler. He announced in October he would not seek the Democratic nomination for governor. 

Wisconsin Watch predictions for 2026

There is a lot on the line this year, especially with several key elections on ballots in the spring and fall. Here are storylines we expect to follow in 2026.

2026 prediction: The Wisconsin Supreme Court election will NOT set a new spending record.

The big factor here is that the outcome of the April race won’t determine who controls the majority of the court, which lowers the stakes compared to elections in 2023 and 2025. The contest is expected to be a race between Appeals Court judges Chris Taylor, a liberal, and Maria Lazar, a conservative. 

A clearer picture of the fundraising for the 2026 race will appear after campaign finance reports are released this month. Lazar entered the race in October, so her campaign fundraising since then is not yet available. 

Taylor, who announced her campaign in May, reported raising more than $584,000 as of July. Following the August announcement that conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley would not seek reelection, a spokesperson for Taylor’s campaign said it had raised more than $1 million.

2026 prediction: Data centers will continue to be a major subject of public interest in Wisconsin as public outcry causes the Public Service Commission to delay approvals of new power plant projects.

Public protests against data centers punctuated the 2025 news cycle as tech giants saw pushback in communities where they sought to build. The Marquette University Law School poll conducted in October shows a majority of Wisconsin voters across the state believe the costs of data centers outweigh their benefits. 

The public opposition to data centers and rising utility bill costs will lead to closer scrutiny of power plant projects, which the Public Service Commission is set to review this year.

2026 prediction: In the governor’s race, Republicans will focus on rising property taxes. Democrats will focus on rising health care costs. But the ultimate X factor will be the public mood about what’s happening at the federal level — just as it was in 2018. 

Already in December, Republicans have slammed Evers’ 2023 creative veto that increases public school funding for the next 400 years as a centuries-long property tax increase. Democrats have condemned Republicans for not voting to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expired at the end of December.

Federal issues and public opinion about Trump will ultimately be what sways voters to one party or the other. During the 2018 governor’s race between Evers and then-Gov. Scott Walker, health care was a key issue with Walker authorizing a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act and Evers calling to expand BadgerCare. But as we’ve noted before, the public is turning against public education in favor of lower taxes, which could keep Republicans in Wisconsin from suffering major swings the party has seen in other states in 2025 off-year elections.

2026 prediction: Democrats will flip at least one chamber of the Legislature for the first time in nearly two decades (not counting that short-lived Senate flip after the 2012 recall elections).

New legislative maps being used for the first time in state Senate races and midterm elections favoring the opposite political party from the one in the White House are signs it could be a good year for Democrats to secure at least one chamber of the Legislature — if not both. 

The more likely of the two is the Senate, where Republicans hold an 18-15 majority. Democrats need to flip at least two Republican seats and hold onto the Eau Claire area seat held by Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, to win the majority. The party is targeting GOP districts currently held by Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine; Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield; and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, where new maps have yet to be tested. Kamala Harris won those three districts, and Democrats running in other states in 2025 have made double-digit gains.

The Assembly, where Republicans hold a 54-45 majority, could also be in play, but Democrats need to flip five Republican-held Assembly seats. Of the 12 Assembly districts in 2024 decided within less than 5 percentage points, five were won by Republicans. Assembly Democrats would need to flip those five seats and hold onto the other seven close districts from 2024 to win the majority. 

Democrats already flipped 10 seats under the new legislative maps in 2024 during a year when Trump’s name atop ballots gave a boost to Republicans. If Democrats see big wins across the country, there could be down-ballot momentum to flip the Assembly. 

2026 prediction: Fundraising by candidates for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District will exceed 2024, especially as that seat draws national attention in the Republican fight to keep the U.S. House majority.

Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden defeated Democrat Rebecca Cooke by less than 3 percentage points in 2024. Van Orden raised nearly $7.7 million and Cooke brought in nearly $6.4 million during the 2024 cycle, outraising all other Wisconsin congressional candidates at the time, according to Open Secrets. 

The 2026 race for the 3rd District is likely to be a rematch between Van Orden and Cooke, who have already raised millions for the 2026 cycle. As of late September, Van Orden reported bringing in about $3.4 million and Cooke nearly $3 million. National attention on who wins the U.S. House majority will also bring more money into the race. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put the 3rd District on a list of “offensive targets” for 2026.

Here are 5 Wisconsin political predictions for 2026 (and a review of our 2025 predictions) 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.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia stands outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt with his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, left, and Lydia Walther-Rodriguez with CASA, after a federal judge ruled earlier this month he was allowed to remain free. (File photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

A federal judge in Tennessee is ordering federal prosecutors to turn over some documents to lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia as they try to show his indictment on human smuggling charges was the product of vindictive prosecution.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw’s nine-page ruling — issued under seal Dec. 3, but unsealed at noon Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Nashville — said a “subset” of more than 3,000 government documents he reviewed appear to undercut the government’s defense against vindictive prosecution.

“Specifically, the government’s documents may contradict its prior representations that the decision to prosecute was made locally and that there were no outside influences,” Crenshaw wrote.

The order is a partial victory for Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran native who lives in Maryland, where he was stopped by immigration agents in March and deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. His removal came without due process and despite an earlier court order that prohibited  immigration officials from deporting Abrego Garcia to his home country, for fear of violence.

A series of court battles ended with the U.S. Supreme Court in April ordering Abrego Garcia be returned to the United States. He was finally brought back to the U.S. in June, where he faced new charges of human smuggling, stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where he was let go without a citation.

Abrego Garcia argues that the smuggling charge was concocted years after the fact to punish him for embarrassing the administration in court, and should be thrown out.

The charges of “conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain” and “unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain” are tied to a 2022 traffic stop in Putnam County, Tennessee, where he was pulled over for speeding. There were nine passengers in the back of his car.

Abrego Garcia was not arrested. No ticket was issued.

But three years later, as he was winning his case to be returned to the U.S., federal prosecutors were revisiting that traffic stop. A Homeland Security agent told a federal judge earlier this year that he was told on April 28 of this year to investigate the traffic stop.

Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to the charges, that his attorneys have claimed were filed as retaliation against their client. They claim senior officials in the Justice Department pushed for the indictment, citing television interviews where Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the investigation began after “a judge in Maryland … questioned” the government and accused it of “doing something wrong,” according to Crenshaw’s order.

The government denies involvement by higher-ups, saying the decision to prosecute Abrego Garcia was made solely by Robert McGuire, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Crenshaw’s order includes a timeline of events. In it are several communications between McGuire and D.C.-based U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh that began on April 27, one day before a federal agent was assigned to investigate the 2022 traffic stop.

In an April 30 exchange, Singh writes that Abrego’s case is “a top priority.” McGuire writes “we want the high command looped in.”

In a May 15 email, McGuire writes about the pending indictment.

“Ultimately, I would hope to have ODAG [Office of the Deputy Attorney General] eyes on it as we move towards a decision about whether this matter is going to ultimately be charged,” he wrote, according to Crenshaw’s order.

McGuire adds: “While ultimately, the office’s decision to charge will land on me. I think it makes sense to get the benefit of all of your brains and talent in this process and as we consider this case. I have not received specific direction from ODAG other than I have heard anecdotally that the DAG and PDAG would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later.”

Singh is updated about the indictment over the next week, according to Crenshaw’s timeline.

“These documents show that McGuire did not act alone and to the extent McGuire had input on the decision to prosecute, he shared it with Singh and others,” Crenshaw wrote.

Abrego’s attorneys successfully made a case before Crenshaw that prosecutors had acted vindictively. They sought the release of documents through discovery. Federal prosecutors balked and withheld those documents, citing privilege.

Crenshaw, in his now-unsealed order, said allowing the privilege assertion to trump due process protections would undermine rulings by other federal courts.

“The Court recognizes the government’s assertion of privileges, but Abrego’s due process right to a non-vindictive prosecution outweighs the blanket evidentiary privileges asserted by the government,” Crenshaw wrote. “If the work product, attorney-client, and deliberative process privileges asserted by the government precluded all discovery in the context of a vindictiveness motion, defendants would never be able to answer the question ‘what motivated the government’s prosecution?'”

Democratic and Republican candidates for governor appeared for a joint forum in early November. Shown are, from left, Matt Smith of WISN-12, Francesca Hong, Sara Rodriguez, Kelda Roys, David Crowley and Missy Hughes, all Democrats, and Josh Schoemann, a Republican. Republican Tom Tiffany did not participate. Since that event two more Democrats have entered the contest, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former cabinent member Joel Brennan. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

A popular two-term governor decides to retire, and triggers a flood of prospective replacements. Democrats vow to flip the Republican-majority Legislature. A state Supreme Court race blows the doors off spending records, and another one is waiting in the wings.

Each of those could be considered a big story by itself in Wisconsin, but they’re all part of this year’s single biggest story in government and politics. And that story — that it was a really big year for Wisconsin politics — wasn’t just about 2025: It set the stage for 2026.

The  three-stories-in-one about Wisconsin politics are just the beginning of the news that flooded our pages in 2025. Wisconsin Examiner’s five-person staff published 550 stories in 2025, a total that includes opinion columns by Editor Ruth Conniff, but doesn’t include briefs that also appeared under the bylines of Conniff, Erik Gunn, Isiah Holmes, Henry Redman, Baylor Spears and Criminal Justice Fellows Andrew Kennard and Frank Zufall.

Herewith, then, our list of 10 big stories that the Wisconsin Examiner covered over the course of the last year.

1. Wisconsin politics goes into overdrive

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers put an end to the last Wisconsin governor’s quest for a third term when he defeated Republican Scott Walker in 2018. Midway through his own second term, Evers surprised many by deciding to call it quits when his current  term ends rather than run again.

The decision created the first open race for governor in more than a decade and opened the floodgates, with a bevy of Democrats entering the fray. By contrast, the Republican field was down to two at year’s end, with one early contender dropping out after the entry of Congressman Tom Tiffany.

In the Wisconsin Legislature, Democrats, having narrowed the Republicans’ majority in 2024 thanks to new maps that undid the state’s 15 years of GOP gerrymandering, launched twin efforts to flip both the Assembly and the Senate in 2026. Republicans vowed to maintain their majority in both houses.

The new Senate and Assembly maps were made possible after the 2023 state Supreme Court election flipped the seven-member Court’s ideological majority from conservative to liberal. With the balance of the Court  at stake again after liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley retired in 2025, Democrats went all out, electing Dane County Judge Susan Crawford to the nominally nonpartisan Court and handily overcoming the efforts of billionaire Elon Musk who spent millions  supporting Crawford’s opponent, former state Attorney General Brad Schimel. The contest set both state and national records for campaign spending in a U.S. judicial election, and maintained the one-vote liberal majority. Now supporters of the current Court majority have their eyes on extending that ideological advantage in 2026. 

Chris Taylor, currently a District IV appeals court judge and a former Democratic state representative, is running to succeed sharply conservative Rebecca Bradley. Bradley opted not to seek a new term on the Court, and conservative Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar has announced plans to seek the post.

2. A  bipartisan state budget splits both parties

Evers went into the 2025-27 state budget process with an ambitious list of goals. Lengthy negotiations between the Democratic governor and Republican lawmakers produced a deal. While the final result fell well short of his original vision, Evers claimed victory nevertheless, with gains on paper for child care funding and for public school special education funding.

Both, however, left their strongest advocates disappointed, and by the end of the year, the special education funding did not live up to the promises made when the budget was signed.

3. Public school troubles

The budget’s lack of additional school aid for regular classes was especially upsetting to public school advocates, and was exacerbated by the state’s expanding school choice systems that use tax dollars to pay for private schools and charter schools outside the common public schools. It also underscored the extent to which local communities have been voting to raise their own property taxes to support their school systems.

The defeat of some school referendum requests further accentuated the sense of crisis, while Republican lawmakers called for new restrictions on the referendum process. And in the state’s largest system, Milwaukee Public Schools, an audit called for sweeping changes in response to a range of challenges, from declining enrollments and staff turnover to the continuing pressure of having to fund the parallel voucher and charter systems.

Throughout the year, the state Department of Public Instruction came under intense scrutiny from Republican lawmakers over policies ranging from school performance evaluations to the handling of sexual abuse complaints against school employees.

4. Federal fallout from a new administration

With the inauguration of President Donald Trump to a second term in the White House, the fallout from new federal actions reached Wisconsin in a myriad of ways. The giant legislation to cut taxes (mostly for the wealthy) and spending (much of it for health care) that Trump signed in July was one cause, setting the stage for future cuts to Medicaid and to health care under the Affordable Care Act, while also imposing new restrictions on programs aimed at reducing hunger.

But there were other reductions as well, some coming from the actions of the “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE that Trump authorized, and others from unilateral — and often legally challenged — actions by the administration itself. Clean energy and climate change projects, scientific research, education assistance, help with removing lead from public schools, community service, child care, economic policies, numerous federal agencies and the federal workforce itself along with countless other federal initiatives were swept up in the administration’s first year.

The record-long federal shutdown — when Congress failed to agree on a temporary spending plan and the GOP majority refused to extend extra tax breaks for Affordable Care Act health plans into 2026 — added to the chaos, with a temporary halt to the federal SNAP food assistance program.

Wisconsinites joined people from across the country in the recurring protests that started just weeks into the Trump presidency, culminating in the Oct. 18 “No Kings” rallies from coast to coast that some analysts identified as the largest mass protest ever in the United States.

5. Immigration arrests spark turmoil

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown reverberated in Wisconsin from Inauguration Day. At the start of this term, Editor Ruth Conniff traveled to Mexico, documenting the longstanding relationships Wisconsin farmers have had with migrants who provide 70% of the labor that the state’s dairy industry has relied on.

Republican lawmakers called for cementing the state’s relationship with the newly unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement — ICE — agency , while the Evers administration resisted those calls. Individual counties signed on to assist ICE, sometimes facing opposition, but while Wisconsin was less in the national spotlight than other states, it wasn’t immune to periodic episodes of immigration enforcement.

Visa cancellations caught up students from overseas, and migrant arrests rose across the state. Immigration enforcement officers focused on the Milwaukee County Courthouse in their search for immigrants to take into custody, prompting criticism from advocates who warned the result would drive migrants underground rather than encouraging them to show up for court dates as witnesses, plaintiffs or defendants.

After a four-day trial in December, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was convicted on a felony charge of obstruction but acquitted of a misdemeanor charge of concealing a man who had appeared in her courtroom in April and was targeted by immigration officials. The case had national repercussions as the Trump administration targets judges it sees as opponents to its policies.

6. Environment: Data centers, stewardship and PFAS conflicts

In Wisconsin a statewide — indeed, nationwide — the rush to embrace massive data centers to serve emerging artificial intelligence-based technology sparked widespread debate over water use, electricity demands and power generation.

Meanwhile, a longstanding and widely popular land preservation program — the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship fund — hovered on the verge of collapse as Republican lawmakers demanded the power to veto stewardship decisions after a state Supreme Court ruling in 2024 removed the Legislature from the process.

After a running battle against rerouting an Enbridge oil pipeline, the Army Corps of Engineers approved permits for the project over the strenuous objections of opponents, only to be sued by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

A standoff between the Evers administration and the Legislature’s Republican leaders over how to address PFAS “forever chemicals” was eased by a state Supreme Court ruling allowing the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to apply Wisconsin’s spills law to PFAS contamination, along with a bipartisan bill that would require the DNR to notify local and tribal officials about groundwater PFAS contamination.

7.  Law enforcement: Investigating themselves, surveillance of the public

A lengthy investigation by Isiah Holmes of the Wisconsin Examiner in partnership with Type Investigations documented how the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team, assigned to probe death investigations for people killed by metro Milwaukee police officers, use protocols that grant officers privileges not afforded to the general public.

Among many other issues involving policing and law enforcement in Wisconsin, police surveillance was a recurring matter, with debates arising over facial recognition technology, department interest in expanding phone-tracking resources and increasing attention to how police agencies make use of widespread surveillance cameras.

8. Prison reform struggles

Evers’ budget proposal included a sweeping plan for prison reform, but the  result was more limited, leaving advocates dissatisfied. One concrete element is the start of a project to close the Green Bay Correctional Institution, a longtime objective, but divisions remain between the governor and GOP lawmakers about the details.

9. Voting rights debates revive 2020 election denial

With the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, the conspiracy theories that were amplified after his reelection loss in November 2020 got a new burst of energy. The Wisconsin Elections Commission twice rejected an administration demand for the personal identifying information of Wisconsin voters.

Trump issued a largely symbolic pardon of the Republicans who signed certificates falsely stating he won the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, while a Dane County judge kept alive a criminal case against three men charged with orchestrating the fake elector scheme.

Although bipartisan lawmakers in the Assembly sought common ground over absentee ballot drop boxes and a measure to allow election clerks to begin counting absentee ballots on the Monday before Election Day, their efforts stalled.

10. Flooding and disasters

August flooding in Southeast Wisconsin that followed torrential storms and was centered on the metro Milwaukee area left behind devastation, damaging nearly 2,000 homes and some $34 million worth of public infrastructure.

The Trump administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency approved $30 million in initial relief to support the victims of flood damage, but the administration denied a subsequent request for aid to mitigate future disasters.

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Missouri Capitol Police officers conduct security checks on boxes of petition signatures submitted to force a referendum vote on the state’s new congressional map. State courts in Missouri and other states may decide whether new maps passed this year are used in the 2026 midterm elections. (Photo by Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent)

After Missouri lawmakers passed a gerrymandered congressional map this fall, opponents submitted more than 300,000 signatures seeking to force a statewide vote on whether to overturn the map. But Republican state officials say they will use the map in the meantime.

Missouri courts now appear likely to weigh in.

“If we need to continue to litigate to enforce our constitutional rights, we will,” said Richard von Glahn, a progressive activist who leads People Not Politicians, which is leading the campaign opposing the gerrymandered map.

As some states engage in an extraordinary redraw of congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, state courts may decide the fate of the new maps. President Donald Trump has pushed Republican state lawmakers to gerrymander their states’ congressional maps, prompting Democratic state lawmakers to respond in kind.

Nationwide, state judges are poised to play a pivotal role in adjudicating legal challenges to the maps, which have been drafted to maximize partisan advantage for either Republicans or Democrats, depending on the state. Maps are typically only redrawn once a decade following the census.

While some state courts have long heard map-related lawsuits, the U.S. Supreme Court has all but taken federal courts out of the business of reviewing redrawn maps this year. On Dec. 4, a majority of the court allowed Texas’ new map, which seeks to secure five more U.S. House seats for Republicans, to proceed. A federal lawsuit against California’s new gerrymandered map, drawn to favor Democrats, hasn’t reached the high court.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s brief, unsigned majority decision voiced concern about inserting federal courts into an “active primary campaign,” though Texas’s primary election will occur in March. Critics of the court’s decision have said it effectively forecloses federal challenges to this year’s gerrymanders. The justices could also issue a decision next year that makes it more difficult to challenge maps as racially discriminatory.

State courts are taking center stage after gerrymandering opponents have spent decades encouraging them to play a more active role in policing maps that had been drawn for partisan advantage. Those efforts accelerated after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 limited the power of federal courts to block such maps.

“Basically, every one of the 50 states has something in its constitution that could be used to constrain partisan gerrymandering,” said Samuel Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

State constitutions, which are interpreted by state supreme courts, typically have language that echoes the right to freedom of speech and association found in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Wang said. They also include a right to equal protection under the law, similar to the 14th Amendment.

Some state constitutions guarantee free and fair elections, language that doesn’t appear in the U.S. Constitution. Thirty states have some form of a constitutional requirement for free elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

At least 10 state supreme courts have found that state courts can decide cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering, according to a 2024 review by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

So far this year, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Utah have adopted new congressional maps. New maps also appear possible in Florida, Maryland and Virginia. A handful of other states — Alabama, Louisiana, New York and North Dakota — may have to change their maps depending on the outcome of court cases.

Some of those new or potential maps could face legal obstacles. Florida, New York and Ohio all have state supreme courts that have previously found problems with partisan gerrymanders. Maryland Democrats have so far not moved forward with a gerrymander, in part because of fears of an adverse decision from the state Supreme Court.

Four state supreme courts — including in Missouri — have determined that they cannot review partisan gerrymandering claims, though state courts may still consider challenges on other grounds, such as whether the districts are compact or contiguous.

In Missouri’s case, courts could also clear the way for a referendum vote over the new map, which is intended to force out U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who has represented Kansas City in Congress for the past two decades. Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight congressional districts.

The map already faces a bevy of lawsuits, most notably over whether state officials must count some 103,000 referendum signatures gathered before the governor signed the map into law; at least 106,000 signatures are needed to send the map to voters.

Opponents of the new map have also filed lawsuits asserting the Missouri Constitution prevents redistricting without new census data and that an area of Kansas City was simultaneously placed into two separate congressional districts.

Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ decision this month (relying on an opinion from Missouri Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway) to implement the new congressional map, despite a submitted referendum petition, is expected to become the latest legal flashpoint. Opponents of the map argue it is now paused under state law.

Hoskins spokesperson Rachael Dunn said in a statement to Stateline that local election officials have until late July to verify referendum signatures — months after candidate filing ends March 31 and days before the Aug. 4 primary election. At that point, blocking the new map would be all but impossible, even if map opponents have gathered enough signatures to force a vote.

“Once signatures are all verified, the Secretary will certify the referendum based on constitutionality and verification,” Dunn wrote.

Hanaway’s office didn’t respond to questions.

Breaking out of lockstep

As federal courts limit their review of gerrymandering because of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, some state supreme courts are reluctant to wade into the issue because of a practice called “lockstepping.”

State supreme courts often interpret their state constitutions in line with — or in lockstep with — how the U.S. Supreme Court views similar language in the U.S. Constitution. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to limit partisan gerrymandering, some state supreme courts have also declined to impose limits.

Gerrymandering opponents have used a variety of arguments over the years to try to prod state supreme courts out of lockstep. They have emphasized differences in wording between state constitutions and the federal one, and provisions in state constitutions — such as the free elections requirement — not found in the U.S. Constitution.

Sometimes these arguments work — and sometimes they don’t. The North Carolina Supreme Court in 2022 ruled against partisan gerrymandering. But after two Republicans were elected as justices that fall, the court reversed itself months later.

“Across the country, we have seen advocates turn to state supreme courts, and state courts in general, for state constitutional arguments against gerrymandering or voter suppression more broadly. And it’s been met with mixed success,” said Sharon Brett, a University of Kansas associate professor of law. In 2022 as litigation director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, she unsuccessfully argued a case before the state’s high court challenging Kansas’ congressional map.

In states where legislatures draw congressional maps, some lawmakers argue that state constitutions shouldn’t be interpreted to curb legislative authority over mapmaking. Court-imposed limits amount to violations of the traditional separation of powers, they say, with the judiciary overstepping its authority to interfere in politics.

“We expect them to be nonpartisan. We expect them to be unbiased. We expect them to be fair. We expect them to read the constitution and to protect or at least respect the separation of powers,” said Utah Republican state Rep. Casey Snider, speaking of Utah courts during a floor speech earlier this month.

In Utah, state courts waded through a yearslong legal battle over whether state lawmakers must adopt a non-gerrymandered map. After the Republican-controlled legislature repealed and replaced an independent redistricting process, the Utah Supreme Court last year ruled lawmakers had violated the state constitution.

A Utah district court judge in November then adopted a congressional map that will likely lead next year to the election of a Democrat. The state’s four congressional seats are currently all held by Republicans.

“What we would like is them to redistrict based on population — fairly,” Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, said of state lawmakers.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox called the Utah legislature into special session earlier in December to respond to the judge’s decision. Lawmakers pushed back candidate filing deadlines in hopes that an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court will result in a decision overturning the judge’s adopted map.

They also passed a resolution condemning the judiciary.

Constitutional concerns

As the Indiana legislature weighed a gerrymandered map to boost Republicans this month, some lawmakers were reluctant to constrain state courts. Democrats currently hold two of the state’s nine congressional districts.

The GOP-controlled Indiana Senate voted down the map in a major setback to Trump’s national redistricting push. The vote came after a floor debate where opponents raised concerns about limiting court involvement; the legislation included a provision sending any legal challenge directly to the Indiana Supreme Court, bypassing a jury trial.

Indiana Republican state Sen. Greg Walker said the measure violated the state constitution, which guarantees an “inviolate” right to a jury trial in all civil cases. “In legal terms, ‘inviolate’ has the implication of being sacred, as opposed to being just a piece of the law,” Walker said on the floor.

State Sen. Mike Gaskill, a Republican who sponsored the map, said during a speech that Indiana residents would benefit from a quick process to resolve legal challenges. “Both sides, in any case, want them to be settled quickly so that they don’t cause chaos and interruptions in the elections process,” he said.

If the map had passed, opponents would have likely attacked the measure using a provision of the Indiana Constitution that requires “free and equal” elections.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

 

Members of the Texas National Guard are seen at the Elwood Army Reserve Training Center on Oct. 7, 2025 in Elwood, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump for now has not met the requirements to send National Guard troops to Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday afternoon in a major setback for the president.

The court’s majority rejected the Trump administration’s request to stay, or halt, a lower court’s order barring federalization of National Guard troops to assist federal immigration enforcement officers in Chicago. 

The president is only empowered to federalize National Guard units when the troops are enforcing laws that regular military forces are legally allowed to enforce, the court said in a ruling from its emergency docket that will apply while the merits of the case are argued.

The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, generally prevents the military from participating in civilian law enforcement.

The decision on the eve of a five-day holiday weekend for the federal government appeared to be 6-3, with three conservative justices, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissenting. The ruling represented the first time the high court has weighed in on Trump’s use of the guard in several cities, though other legal fights continue.

The administration had not shown why the situation in Chicago, in which residents have protested aggressive immigration enforcement, should present an exception to the law, the court majority said.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the majority opinion said.

In an emailed statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the ruling would not detract from Trump’s “core agenda.”

“The President promised the American people he would work tirelessly to enforce our immigration laws and protect federal personnel from violent rioters,” Jackson wrote. “He activated the National Guard to protect federal law enforcement officers, and to ensure rioters did not destroy federal buildings and property.”

Protecting federal officers

In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump appointed during his first term, wrote that he agreed with the decision to deny the motion for a stay, but would have done so on narrower grounds.

The majority opinion was overly restrictive and would block the president from using National Guard forces to protect federal property and personnel, Kavanaugh said.

Alito wrote in a dissent, joined by Thomas, that their interpretation of the majority’s order could have far-reaching consequences that undermine the traditional role of the guard.

It would free National Guard members to enforce immigration law, but not to provide protection to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who are assigned that function, Alito wrote. 

“Whatever one may think about the current administration’s enforcement of the immigration laws or the way ICE has conducted its operations, the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted,” Alito wrote. “I therefore respectfully dissent.”

Implications for other cities

The ruling is only in effect while the case, in which Illinois is challenging the administration’s deployment there, proceeds. 

But it marks a rebuke, including from a Trump appointee, of the administration’s strategy of deploying National Guard troops to assist in its aggressive immigration enforcement.

Trump has ordered troops to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, to either counter crime generally or assist federal immigration officials. Governors of Democratic-led states have strenuously pushed back against those deployments. Republican attorneys general have argued their states are harmed by the protests in Chicago and other cities that impede federal ICE officers from doing their jobs.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer in a statement praised the ruling. “Today is a big win for Illinois and American democracy,” he said. “I am glad the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump did not have the authority to deploy the federalized guard in Illinois. This is an important step in curbing the Trump Administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.”

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan leaves the Milwaukee Federal Courthouse on May 15, 2025. Judge Dugan appeared in federal court to answer charges that she helped Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant, elude federal arrest while he was making an appearance in her courtroom on April 18. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Updated at 9:14 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18

After six hours of deliberation, a federal jury found Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but not guilty of misdemeanor concealing a person from federal immigration law enforcement. The high-profile federal trial stemmed from Dugan’s interaction with federal agents who came to her courtroom to arrest a man who was appearing before her on April 18.

“You don’t have to agree with immigration enforcement policy to see this was wrong. You just have to agree the law applies equally to everyone,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Brown Watzka told the jury in closing arguments.

Dugan’s case gained national attention, with her defense attorneys saying in closing arguments that the federal government was trying to make an example of the 66-year-old judge in an effort to “crush” those who try to stand up to federal power. Defense attorney Jason Luczak asked the jury to consider whether they were willing to accept the level of government overreach he and other attorneys argued was exemplified in the case. 

Dugan invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and didn’t testify during the trial. 

During their deliberations, the jurors asked multiple questions of the judge. Among them was whether Dugan needed to know exactly who immigration officers had come to the courthouse to arrest. The question went to the obstruction charge Dugan faced, and U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman decided that in fact Dugan would need to have known the federal agent’s target in order for the obstruction charge to apply. Prosecutors argued vehemently against Adelman’s decision.

Jurors also asked to see the policies of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in regards to serving warrants. 

Later, after another jury question, Adelman advised jurors that Dugan needed to have “sufficient knowledge” of a “pending proceeding,” as defined in statute, in order to obstruct that proceeding. 

Closing arguments

Prosecutors made their closing arguments in the federal trial Thursday, asking jurors to consider what happens when judges decide which laws they want to follow based on their own personal beliefs. Dugan was accused of interfering with federal agents as they tried to make an immigration arrest outside her courtroom, and with helping their target to evade arrest. Jurors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Brown Watzka said in her closing argument, must draw a line, without which “there is only chaos,” and that “chaos is what the rule of law is intended to prevent. 

Calling immigration enforcement a “polarizing issue” nationwide, prosecutors said that Dugan was not on trial for her personal beliefs, but because she “stepped outside of the law.” As they flashed slides and footage to the jury, the prosecution heavily featured statements from Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Kristela Cervera, who accompanied Dugan into the hallway at the courthouse to confront the agents. Cervera testified against Dugan saying, “judges shouldn’t be helping defendants evade arrest,” a quote prosecutors highlighted to the jury. 

Dugan knew that the agents had a warrant, prosecutors argued, yet concealed Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the immigrant they were there to arrest. Dugan’s obstruction of the agents was completed the moment she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney, Mercedes de la Rosa, to a non-public door to exit her courtroom, the prosecution asserted. Flores-Ruiz exited into the same hallway where agents were waiting for him, and they arrested him shortly afterwards outside the courthouse. But “it simply does not matter what happened next,” prosecutors said. 

Although de la Rosa, whom prosecutors described as “naive and inexperienced,” took the door to the public hallway where agents were waiting, they told the jury Dugan intended for Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to use a staircase to exit on the fifth floor. To buttress their argument, prosecutors played courtroom audio that captured Dugan talking with court reporter Joan Butz and saying “down the stairs” as well as Dugan saying, “I’ll do it…I’ll take the heat,” and Butz responding, “I’d rather get in trouble.” 

Prosecutors argued that had Flores-Ruiz taken the stairs instead of going out into the hallway, that the agents “would have never found” the Mexican-born man, who was in the country without legal authorization. Repeatedly, prosecutors said that no one should ever “second guess” the decisions of ICE agents and law enforcement. 

Dugan was described as “stern” and “angrily pointing” in the hallway, rounding up nearly the entire arrest team and telling them to go to the chief judge’s office. Cervera led the agents to the office, testifying that she felt “abandoned” by Dugan and  “roped into” Dugan’s plan. “No one is above the law,” the prosecution stressed.

Attorney Jason Luczak, delivering the closing  for Dugan’s defense, tried to poke holes in the prosecution’s narrative. “This is a very important case; this is a very unprecedented trial,” Luczak said. “Make no mistake…the government is trying to make an example” out of Dugan, he said. He added that the jury had the power to check what he described as “overreach” by the federal government. 

Luczak stressed that prior to the second Trump administration, ICE arrests had never occurred at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. When the arrests began in late March, individuals had been reportedly arrested in elevators and before attending family court, actions which should have been reported up the agency’s chain of command but weren’t, he said. “They’re not even following their own policies,” Luczak said. “This caused concerns, legitimate concerns, among the judges.” 

The jury was asked to consider whether they really believe that Dugan would put her career at risk for Flores-Ruiz. “This case is riddled with doubts,” said Luczak, stressing that the jury could only convict if they find Dugan guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. “There are consequences on rubber-stamping what the government wants you to rubber-stamp,” he said.

Jurors were reminded of the many emails sent by various judges asking for a policy, sharing stories of having people detained during court, and the slew of questions they had about how the county courthouse could respond. Chief Judge Carl Ashley had released a statement saying that ICE presence at the courthouse discouraged participation in the justice process and eroded trust in the courts’ integrity. 

Luczak also cast doubt on Cervera’s testimony. Jurors were played mute security camera video and asked to decide whether they believe Cervera that Dugan told the agents three times that they needed a judicial warrant, something that didn’t appear to happen in the video. “Judge Cervera is wrong,” said Luczak. “I don’t know if she’s lying, but I could think of some reasons why.” Cervera, the attorney argued, was trying to save herself by throwing Dugan under the bus. “You’re either a friend or an enemy of the government,” he said, asking the jury to consider why prosecutors relied on her statements so heavily. 

When Dugan spoke with the agents, Luczak said, “she’s not being confrontational, she’s being a judge.” He also highlighted that agents contradicted themselves in testimony and in the interviews they gave to FBI agents after the incident. Luczak pointed out that the agents never ran down the hallway to the elevators, as they’d implied. The audio evidence provided by prosecutors had also been taken from multiple microphones and put into one file, and was not audible in many areas, Luczak told the jury, adding, “I don’t think you can see this as very good evidence at all.” 

“If you don’t trust the evidence that the government is putting forward, it’s just another reasonable doubt,” Luczak said. Dugan never concealed Flores-Ruiz from the agents, who never entered her court to keep eyes on him, he said, adding that she never told de la Rosa to take the stairs. Luczak highlighted that prosecutors showed the jury video of the hall, with the filmer going down the stairs and not into the hallway, the opposite of what actually occurred. He called the government’s downplaying of concerns around ICE “tone deaf,” and questioned why Cervera herself texted her sister to warn her about sweeping arrests coming to the courthouse if she, too, didn’t have concerns.

“Justice is not what the government is seeking today,” Luczak. “They’re just wrong.” He told the jury to rely on Dugan’s emails to determine her state of mind, including one where she wrote: “We are in some uncharted waters with some very serious and even potential tragic community interests at risk in the balance.” 

The jury was given instructions by Adelman, and began deliberations shortly after 2 p.m. At around 3:45 p.m., the jury sent out a question to the judge. Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Brad Schimel, who lost a bid for the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this year, made an appearance in the gallery as Adelman read the question from jurors about whether they were allowed to see ICE policies, which were included among the exhibits. 

Defense calls former Mayor Barrett as character witness

As witness testimony in the trial against Dugan concluded Thursday morning, Milwaukee County judges and public defenders spoke about the confusion and questions they faced when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began arresting people at the county courthouse. Former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was also called to the stand as a character witness, testifying that he’s  known Dugan for over 50 years since they were in high school together. 

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judges Katie Kegel and Laura Gramling-Perez testified for the defense about emails local judges sent each other, asking for guidance and sharing stories about having people “snatched” out of their courtrooms and seeing ICE agents sitting in cars outside the court. 

One judge chimed in on the chain, “does this mean that Milwaukee County is cooperating with ICE?” Milwaukee County does not cooperate with ICE detainer requests in the jail. The Milwaukee Police Department also has its own policies limiting cooperation with ICE.

Judges air concerns about courthouse arrests

In one of her emails, Gramling-Perez strongly urged the creation of a policy on courthouse arrests by ICE. Under such a policy, she testified, ICE agents would be required to check in with the chief judge before conducting any enforcement. When the arrest team arrived the morning of April 18, they checked in with security who notified their supervisors at the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office. Security initially believed the agents would need to be escorted by the sheriff’s office, but a sergeant told them that wouldn’t be necessary. 

Gramling-Perez reviewed emails on the stand that said “the historic protocols are now shifting quickly,” and explaining  that although state and local law enforcement have conducted arrests around the court in the past, those activities were always guided by clear policies or practices which were respected by law enforcement. “The ICE detentions are a different animal,” one email stated.

Prosecutors repeatedly attempted to get Gramling-Perez to say that ICE arrests were allowed in public hallways, per the “key takeaways” that she outlined in her email to Dugan and other judges. Gramling-Perez, however, didn’t budge. When prosecutors showed her images of documents they claimed were part of her presentation, she said she’d never seen them before. When they pressed her to say that ICE arrests could happen in public hallways, she countered that her emailed explanations were not all inclusive, that she is not an expert on the matter, but that even public hallway arrests have their limits. 

Gramling-Perez testified that although discussion of a policy had begun, no policy had yet been established by the chief judge. 

Attorney Maura Gingerich, a public defender, was also called to the stand as a defense witness. Gingerich testified wearing a black suit with a black mask she said she wore for health reasons — attire similar to what she wore on April 18, when security cameras captured her photographing the plain-clothes ICE, FBI, DEA, and Border Patrol task force members in the courthouse hallway. Gingerich testified that she took photographs of the agents to send to her supervisor, so that the chief judge would be notified that the agents had returned and could offer guidance. 

“I think that it was very stressful to see what I thought were a number of law enforcement on the sixth floor without uniform,” Gingerich testified, noting she had already gone to another courtroom when Dugan approached the agents. One of the prosecutors  suggested  Gingerich followed the agents to another courtroom and was cooperating with Dugan,  saying, “I know what you guys were trying to do,” but Gingrich denied that characterization. Gingrich said she never saw Dugan that morning. 

Barrett calls Dugan ‘extremely honest’; Dugan invokes the Fifth Amendment

Former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett testified as a character witness for Dugan, saying he has known her and the Dugan family for half a century. They first met when they attended the same high school.

Barrett described Dugan as very active in the community, an enthusiastic participant in community organizations and in  her church. “I think that she is extremely honest and I know that she will tell you exactly how she feels,” Barrett testified, adding that he feels that Dugan is a good person. 

The defense rested its case ahead of a lunch break. Dugan invoked her Fifth Amendment rights not to testify. Defense attorney Steven Biskupic noted on the record that he objected  to draft instructions the judge gave the jury, after Adleman chose jury instructions crafted by the prosecution instead of the defense.

Dugan faces up to five years in prison and a $350,000 fine for the felony conviction, but as a nonviolent offender with a record of service to her community is unlikely to be sentenced to time behind bars. Her sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

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Earlier this month Wisconsin Watch published Supreme Costs, a three-part series by freelancer Larry Sandler explaining why our state’s Supreme Court elections are so expensive and what can be done about it. The series included graphics from data reporter Hongyu Liu highlighting how astronomical the $144.5 million spent on the 2025 race was compared with past elections.

Last week we published a condensed version of the nearly 11,000-word series for those who are into the whole brevity thing. The short version clocked in at about 2,600 words.

Today we’re condensing the story even further with a short video of Larry explaining the key points of his series. The video was created by Wisconsin Watch video producer Trisha Young.

Whether you want to dive deep into a subject, peruse the highlights or only have five minutes to spare, Wisconsin Watch has a story for you.

Watch: Why Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are breaking national records 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.

Voters walk to a polling place at a school gym in New Orleans. Republicans could gain scores of state legislative seats if the U.S. Supreme Court weakens a federal voting rights law, a new analysis finds. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Republicans could gain nearly 200 state legislative seats across the South if the U.S. Supreme Court guts a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, a new analysis finds.

The bulk of the gains would be concentrated in 10 GOP-controlled state legislatures in Southern states, according to the analysis, produced by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, in partnership with Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters.

The analysis, featured in a report released by the groups on Monday, underscores the alarm among progressives over the potential consequences of the Supreme Court’s looming decision in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais. While the case centers on the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional map, the effects of the decision could extend into statehouses across the country.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to severely weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 civil rights law that bans racial discrimination in voting access. Section 2 restricts racial gerrymandering, and until now has limited the power of lawmakers to draw districts that dilute the voting power of racial minority voters.

A sweeping decision by the court could give state lawmakers a freer hand to draw congressional and state legislative districts that dilute the power of minority voters — as well as districts for local governments, such as county commissions, city councils and school boards. The justices held oral arguments in October; a decision could come at any time.

At the state legislative level, a court ruling that strikes down Section 2 could lead to Democrats losing about 191 seats, according to the analysis, which examined how state legislative districts could be redrawn if Section 2 is no longer in place. Most of those seats are currently held by Black lawmakers in districts where minority voters make up a majority of residents.

“What that is doing is providing a fatal blow to Black representation in the South,” Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said in an interview.

The total number of state legislative districts in 10 Southern states where Black or Hispanic voters comprise a majority could fall from 342 to 202. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Some Republican states argue that courts have interpreted Section 2’s protections too broadly and in the process wrongly restrained the ability of lawmakers to draw favorable maps.

Alabama and 13 other GOP states said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court earlier this year that Section 2 has been turned into “the proverbial golden hammer, wielded by plaintiffs and courts in a never-ending search for a nail.”

If the Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act, it’s unclear whether state legislatures would pursue mid-decade redraws of state legislative districts. Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years following the census.

At the federal level, a previous analysis by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund projected Republicans could draw an additional 19 U.S. House seats if Section 2 protections were removed.

While a few states have passed new congressional maps already this year, those efforts have proven highly controversial. Some states, such as Indiana and Kansas, have abandoned or rejected them for now.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.