An Eau Claire County farm. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Seven western Wisconsin Republican lawmakers did not appear at an event hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls Friday as farmers from the area said they were concerned about the effect that President Donald Trump’s first month in office is having on their livelihoods. 

Madison-area U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth), state Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire) and state Reps. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) were in attendance. 

U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden, state Reps. Rob Sommerfeld (R-Bloomer), Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi) and Clint Moses (R-Mondovi) and state Sens. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) were all invited but did not attend or send a staff member. 

“All four of us want you to know that there are people in elected office who want to fight for you,” Phelps said. “Because I think there’s a lot of fear that comes from the fact that we’re seeing a lot of noise and action from the people who aren’t and some of the people that didn’t show up to this. So I hope that you will also ask questions of them when you get a chance.” 

Multiple times during the town hall, Pocan joked that Van Orden was “on vacation.” 

Emerson, whose district was recently redrawn to include many of the rural areas east of Eau Claire, told the Wisconsin Examiner she had just been at an event held by the Chippewa County Economic Development Corporation where a Van Orden staff member did attend, so she didn’t understand why they couldn’t hear about how Trump’s policies are harming local farmers. 

“I get that a member of Congress can’t be at every meeting all the time, all throughout their district,” Emerson said. With 19 counties in the 3rd District, “it’s a big area. But I hope that they’re hearing the stories of farmers and farm-adjacent businesses, even if they weren’t here. There’s something different to sit in this room and look out at all the farmers, and when one person’s talking, seeing the tears in everybody else’s eyes, and it wasn’t just the female farmers that were crying, the big tough guys, and I think that talks about how vulnerable they are right now, how scary it is for some of these folks.”

Carolyn Kaiser, a resident of the nearby town of Wheaton, said she’s never seen her congressional representative, Van Orden, out in the community. Despite Van Orden’s position on the House agriculture committee, Kaiser said her town needs help managing nitrates in the local water supply and financial support to rebuild crumbling rural roads that make it more difficult for farmers to transport their products.

“When people don’t come, it’s unfortunate,” Kaiser said. 

Emmet Fisher, who runs a small dairy farm in Hager City, said during the town hall that he was struggling with the freeze that’s been put on federal spending, which affected grants he was set to receive through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Fisher told the Examiner his farm has participated in a USDA program to encourage better conservation practices on farms and that money has been frozen. He was also set to receive a rural energy assistance grant that would help him install solar panels on the farm — money that has also been held up.

The result, he said, is that he’s facing increased uncertainty in an already uncertain business.

“We get all our income from our farm, young family, young kids, a mortgage on the farm, and so, you know, things are kind of tight, and so we try to take advantage of anything that we can,” he said. “[The] uncertainty seems really unnecessary and unfortunate, and it’s very stressful. You know, basically, we have no idea what we should be planning for. The reality is just that in farming already, you can only plan for so much when the weather and ecology and biology matter so much, and now to have all of these other unknowns, it makes planning pretty much impossible.”

A number of crop farmers at the event said the looming threat of Trump imposing tariffs on Canadian imports is alarming because a large majority of potash — a nutrient mix used to fertilize crops — used in the United States comes from Canada. Les Danielson, a cash crop and dairy farmer in Cadott, said the tariffs are set to go into effect during planting season.

“How do you offer a price to a farmer? Is it gonna be $400 a ton, or is it gonna be $500 a ton?” he asked. “I’m not even thinking about the fall. I’m just thinking about the spring and the uncertainty. This isn’t cuts to the federal budget, this is just plain chaos and uncertainty that really benefits no one. And I know it’s kind of cool to think we’re just playing this big game of chicken. Everybody’s gonna blink. But when you’re a co-op, or when you’re a farmer trying to figure out how much you can buy, it’s not fine.”

A recent report by the University of Illinois found that a 25% tariff on Canadian imports — the amount proposed by Trump to go into effect in March — would increase fertilizer costs by $100 per ton for farmers.

Throughout the event, speakers said they were concerned that Trump’s efforts to deport workers who are in the United States without authorization  could destroy the local farm labor force, that cuts to programs such as SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) could cause kids to go hungry and prevent farmers from finding markets to sell their products, that cuts to Medicaid could take coverage away from a population of farmers that is aging and relies on government health insurance and that because of all the disruption, an already simmering mental health crisis in Wisconsin’s agricultural community — in rural parts of the state that have seen clinics and hospitals close or consolidate — could come to a boil.

“Rural families, we tend to really need BadgerCare. We need Medicaid. We need those programs, too,” Pam Goodman, a public health nurse and daughter of a farmer, said. “So if you’re talking about the loss of your farming income, that you’re not going to have cash flow, you’re already experiencing significant concerns and issues, and we need the state resources. We need those federal resources. I’ve got families that from young to old, are experiencing significant health issues. We’re not going to be able to go to the hospital. We’re not going to go to the clinic. We already traveled really long distances. We’re talking about the health of all of us, and that is, for me, from my perspective as a nurse, one of my biggest concerns, because it’s all very interrelated.”

Near the end of the event, Phelps said it’s important for farmers in the area to continue sharing how they’re being hurt by Trump’s actions, because that’s how they build political pressure.

“Who benefits from all the chaos and confusion and cuts? Nobody, roughly, but not literally, nobody,” he said. “Because I just want to point out that dividing people and making people confused and uncertain and vulnerable is Donald Trump’s strategy to consolidate his political power.”

“And the people that can withstand the types of cuts that we’re seeing are the people so wealthy that they can withstand them. So they’re in Donald Trump’s orbit, basically,” Phelps said, adding  that there are far more people who will be adversely affected by Trump’s policies than there are people who will benefit.

“And you know that we all do have differences with our neighbors, but we also have a lot of similarities with them, and being in that massive group of people that do not benefit from this kind of chaos and confusion is a pretty big similarity,” he continued. “And so hopefully these types of spaces where we’re sharing our stories and hearing from each other will help us build the kind of community that will result in the kind of political power that really does fight back against it.”

Milwaukee's Hoan Bridge looking out toward Lake Michigan. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Kayakers on Wisconsin’s Lake Superior coastline rely on data collected by buoys operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to determine if conditions are safe enough for a weekend paddle or if the swells and wind could spell danger on a lake famous for wrecking much larger watercraft. 

Surfers in Sheboygan use buoys on Lake Michigan to figure out if the city is living up to its name as the “Malibu of the Midwest” on a given day. Anglers on the shores and on the ice all over the lakes rely on the buoy data to track fish populations.

Freighters sailing from Duluth, Minnesota and Superior use NOAA data to track weather patterns and ice coverage. 

Wisconsin’s maritime economy provides nearly 50,000 jobs and nearly $3 billion to the state’s gross domestic product, according to a 2024 NOAA report, but in the first month of the administration of President Donald Trump, the agency is being threatened. 

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences, UW-Madison’s Sea Grant and UW Extension’s National Estuarine Research Reserve use funds through NOAA grant programs to study the state’s two Great Lakes. 

Faculty at universities across the state receive NOAA money to study weather forecasting, severe droughts and precipitation on the Pacific Ocean. NOAA helps the state Department of Administration manage more than 1,000 miles of coastline and funds local efforts to control erosion and prevent flooding. A previous NOAA project worked with the state’s Native American tribes to study manoomin, also known as wild rice, to help maintain the plant that is sacred to the tribes and plays an important ecological role. 

All of that research could be at risk if cuts are made at NOAA. 

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — named for an internet meme of a shiba inu (a breed of Japanese hunting dog) first made popular more than a decade ago — has set its sights on NOAA. In early February, staffers with DOGE entered NOAA’s offices seeking access to its IT system, the Guardian reported. A week later, the outlet reported that scientists at the agency would need to gain approval from a Trump appointee before communicating with foreign nationals. The agency has been asked to identify climate change-related grant projects.

To run the agency, Trump has nominated Neil Jacobs as NOAA administrator. Jacobs was cited for misconduct after he and other officials put pressure on NOAA scientists to alter forecasts about 2019’s Hurricane Dorian in a scandal that became known as “Sharpiegate.” Trump has also nominated Taylor Jordan as the assistant Secretary of Commerce overseeing NOAA. Jordan previously worked as a lobbyist for private weather forecasting agencies that would benefit from the dismantling of NOAA — which runs the National Weather Service. 

A suggested Trump administration plan for NOAA was laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint. The plan calls for NOAA to “be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,” because it has “become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” 

Sara Hudson, the city of Ashland’s director of parks and recreation, says the community is dependent on Lake Superior year round and funding from NOAA helps the city manage its coastline. She says the city has about $1.2 million in grant funding that could be affected by cuts at NOAA. The city’s total 2024-25 budget is about $2.4 million. 

“With the funding that Ashland has, we really don’t have a lot of access to be able to do coastal resiliency or coastal management projects,” she says. “So we rely on grants to be able to do extra.” Among the affected projects, she says, could be  coastal resiliency projects that help maintain public access to a waterfront trail along Lake Superior, projects to help improve water quality including the Bay City Creek project and work on invasive species and promoting native species within public lands.

Even if Trump and Musk are trying to erase climate change research from NOAA’s mandate, the effect of a warming climate could have dire consequences for Ashland’s lake-based economy, according to Hudson. Hundreds of businesses on Lake Superior can’t survive if the tourism season ends in the fall. 

“For a community that relies on winter and every year sees less winter, economically it could be devastating,” Hudson says. “We need to have tourism 12 months out of the year. And if our winters go away, that really, that’s going to be a pivot to us. But our winter … that’s the only way our businesses can stay alive here.” 

The Great Lakes provide drinking water for about 40 million people across the United States and Canada. Organizations like the National Estuarine Research Reserve are funded by NOAA to help make sure that water is healthy. 

“We’re doing things like tracking algae blooms and changes in water quality that are really important for tourism and fishing and drinking water,” Deanna Erickson, the research reserve’s director, says. “On Lake Superior we’re working in rural communities on flood emergencies and emergency management and coastal erosion; 70% of the reserve’s operational funding comes through NOAA, and that’s matched with state funds. So in Superior, Wisconsin, that’s, you know, a pretty big economic impact here we have about a million dollars in funding for our operations.”

Eric Peace, vice president of the Ohio-based Lake Carriers Association, says that cuts to NOAA could have drastic effects on Great Lakes shipping because the data collected by the agency is crucial to navigating the lakes safely.

“On Lake Michigan, those buoys are critical to navigation safety, because what they do is provide real time data on wind, waves, current water temperatures, etc,” he says. “And our captains use those extensively to avoid storms and to find places to transit and leave.” 

Further north on Lake Superior, real-time reports on water conditions are crucial because of how dangerous the lake can get.

“I was stationed on a buoy tender in Alaska, and I’d take the 30-footers that you get up there over the 10-footers you get on Lake Superior, because they’re so close together here,” says Peace, who spent more than 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard. “They’re all wind-driven, and they’re dangerous. Couple that with icing and everything else, you have a recipe for disaster.”

The DOGE mandate for NOAA scientists to stop communicating with foreign nationals could have a significant impact on Great Lakes shipping because the agency coordinates with the Coast Guard and a Canadian agency to track ice conditions on the Great Lakes. 

“That is one area that would be detrimental,” Peace says. “We wouldn’t have that ice forecasting from the Canadians. We would have to assume control of that completely for our own sake.”

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin recently introduced a bipartisan bill with a group of senators from seven other Great Lakes states to increase funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The initiative involves 12 federal agencies, including NOAA, to keep the lakes clean. In a statement, Baldwin said she’d work to fight against any efforts that would harm Wisconsin’s Great Lakes. 

“Republicans are slashing support for our veterans, cancer research, and now, they are coming after resources that keep our Great Lakes clean and open for business — all to find room in the budget to give their billionaire friends a tax break,” she said. “Wisconsin communities, farmers, and businesses rely on our Great Lakes, and I’ll stand up to any efforts that will hurt them and their way of life.”

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford addresses voters at a campaign event in Oregon on Feb. 7. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

On Friday, Feb. 7, dozens of Dane County progressive voters, anxious about the first weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, crowded into Oregon’s Kickback Cafe to see Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford make her campaign pitch. 

Looking for something tangible to do as President Donald Trump and billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk work to dismantle pieces of the federal government, deport thousands of undocumented immigrants and roll back protections for minority groups, voters like Diane Olsen and Anne Hecht of Fitchburg said they were supporting Crawford’s campaign because they want to see the retention of a liberal majority on the state’s highest court that upholds “fairness and honesty, adherence to the law,” Olsen said. 

“I feel strongly she’d represent things that are positive,” Olsen continued.

Wisconsin’s April 1 Supreme Court election will be one of the first statewide elections in the country since Trump’s win in November. The race for an open seat being vacated by retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley will determine the ideological balance of the Court and provide the first test of the voting public’s mood early in the Trump administration. Crawford, a former prosecutor for the state Department of Justice and a current judge on the Dane County Circuit Court, is going up against Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general and now a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge. 

Like the race in 2023 when the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz secured a liberal majority on the body, the 2025 race has already drawn national attention, as well as millions of dollars in campaign contributions and outside spending

On Monday, Crawford announced she had raised $4.4 million in the most recent reporting period, bringing her total fundraising to $7.3 million since she entered the race last summer. The Schimel campaign announced it had raised $2.7 million during the most recent reporting period and a total of $5 million since he entered the race. But in Oregon, Crawford supporters were wary of the support Schimel has received on social media from Musk and the potential for his money to swing a close race.

With about seven weeks until Election Day, the race is beginning to become more contentious. Schimel’s campaign has released an ad that blames Crawford for the failed prosecution of a convicted rapist in 2001. Crawford says she wasn’t the attorney who made the mistake and has complained that the Schimel campaign used artificial intelligence to doctor a photo of her — making her scowl when the original photo showed her smiling. 

The campaign has filed an ethics complaint against Schimel over the ad because of a state law enacted last year that requires a disclosure if AI is used in a political ad. 

Recently, after Schimel was reported to have said he’d been having to make repeat trips to Menard’s to buy knee pads for all the begging he’s had to do to raise campaign funds, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign filed a complaint against him with the state judicial commission, alleging that those direct pleas for money violate the judicial code. 

Meanwhile, Crawford has released ads warning about Schimel’s previous anti-abortion stances, stating that if elected, he would help conservatives ban abortion in Wisconsin. 

Next term, the Court is likely to decide major cases on abortion, labor rights and environmental regulations. It could also take up the constitutionality of the state’s congressional maps. 

“These races do have big consequences,” Crawford said in an interview. “They affect the fundamental rights and freedoms, personal freedoms, of everybody in Wisconsin, there should be a lot of attention on them. I think that part of it is positive, in a way that people understand that this third branch of government is really important and will affect their lives.” 

For the second consecutive Supreme Court race, abortion is a driving issue among Wisconsin voters. The Court heard arguments late last year in a case that could overturn the state’s 1849 law that has been interpreted as banning  abortion but the issue could still be contested in future cases.

Schimel, who has accused Crawford of being a “political weapon” for the Democratic Party, has previously said he doesn’t see a problem with the 1849 abortion law and received support from a number of anti-abortion groups. While Crawford — who accuses Schimel of pre-judging the case — previously represented Planned Parenthood in court and has said she believes the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. 

“Schimel has openly said that he believes that law should be enforced,” Crawford said. “So he is the one who is openly taking a position on the outcome of that case. Again, I don’t think it’s because he has delved into the filings of the parties and read the briefs or sat through the oral arguments or talked to any other justice on the court about it.”

The Court has also recently moved toward accepting a case that could overturn parts of Act 10, the controversial law enacted by Gov. Scott Walker that ended collective bargaining rights for most public employees. Crawford previously represented a group of teachers suing to overturn the law and has been endorsed by a number of labor unions. (Last week, the Court released a ruling saying it would not bypass the state’s appellate court to take the Act 10 case.)

“When I seek and accept endorsements from any group, I make it really clear that this is not a quid pro quo,” Crawford said. “I am not promising anything. I am not taking a position on any of their, you know, pet cases or causes that they might be trying to get from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and so they have to accept the fact that, you know, I’m going to be fair and impartial and call the cases like I see them based on the full record at the time. And that’s again, in contrast to what we’ve seen my opponent doing, which is to openly announce how he would decide Act 10, or how he would decide the 1849 abortion law case.”

Late last year, when a Dane County judge struck down parts of Act 10, Schimel said in a statement the decision was “the latest instance of the Left using the justice system to satisfy their donors and dismantle laws they don’t like.” 

The Court has also recently taken up cases on the authority of state government to enforce environmental laws as Wisconsin tries to clean up harmful chemical contamination in its water. When Schimel was attorney general, enforcement of environmental laws dropped precipitously and Wisconsin joined other states in opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to cut coal emissions to fight carbon emissions and global warming; the EPA’s stricter federal air emissions standards on ozone pollution; and its expansion of authority over water regulations, the Appleton Post Crescent reported in 2016. Crawford has been endorsed by Wisconsin Conservation Voters. 

Meanwhile, both candidates, who have experience as prosecutors, have tried to claim the title of tougher on crime. 

At the cafe event, Crawford touted her experience as a prosecutor, saying that helping to take care of her sister with disabilities as a child pushed her to choose a career protecting people.

“As a prosecutor, I always worked really hard to make sure that people who committed terrible crimes were held accountable, held in prison,” she said, “that crime victims’ rights were protected in the process, our communities were kept safe and that justice was done. That was the bottom line, the most important thing.”

Schimel has won the endorsement of most of the state’s county sheriffs — including some with controversial positions on a number of issues. 

Crawford has repeatedly criticized Schimel for the state DOJ’s backlog of untested sexual assault kits that existed when he was attorney general. 

In Oregon, Crawford was joined by Justice Jill Karofsky, who identified herself as one of the few people in Wisconsin who has worked closely with both candidates. Karofsky, who ran the DOJ’s office of crime victim services while Schimel was attorney general and sat on the Dane County bench with Crawford, said the rape kit backlog persisted because Schimel refused to ask the Republican-controlled Legislature for more money to hire more lab staff. 

“He doesn’t belong within 100 miles of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” Karofsky said. 

Crawford told the Examiner that she believes her experience as a prosecutor will be helpful when reviewing cases on the Supreme Court. 

“As a prosecutor, you have really a lot of power, and it has to be exercised very carefully, judiciously in determining what the charges are at the outset of the case,” she said. “I think, for me now as a judge —  and certainly …  on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — [its important] to just have that understanding that the case is a result of decision-making by an individual prosecutor. Sometimes they get it right; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they’ve got the evidence there to prove their case and sometimes they don’t. But just to recognize that those are human decisions that get made, because I’ve been there, and I think it’s an important perspective for any justice to understand that some prosecutor had to make a decision.” 

Over the last term, under the current 4-3 liberal majority, the Court heard far fewer cases than in previous years, issuing decisions in just 14 cases. That decline in caseload from 45 decisions in the 2022-23 term included a drop in the number of criminal cases it weighed in on. Of the six justices that Crawford or Schimel will be joining on the Court, most of them worked as prosecutors at some point during their career. 

Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison, said it’s not that informative for a Supreme Court candidate to talk about being tough on crime. 

“It’s a traditional thing for a judicial candidate to do, to play up their alliance with police and law enforcement, and to emphasize their strict attitude about law breaking, and having a reputation for being tough on people who break the law,” Burden told the Examiner. “But it’s kind of a strange thing for Supreme Court candidates to do, because the state Supreme Court doesn’t have a lot to do with criminal cases. They aren’t prosecuting or hearing cases of people accused of everyday crimes. They tend to deal with bigger constitutional issues about structure of government and contracts and some controversial matters, you know, election laws and those kinds of things. So I suppose candidates feel obligated to do it, but it’s not very informative about actually how they would behave as justices.” 

Crawford said that if elected to the Court, she’d work to “give everybody a fair shake” while Schimel would seek to implement his political agenda. 

“I want you to know that I have stood up in courtrooms and fought for all of you and all of your fundamental rights and freedoms. It’s an important part of my history as a lawyer,” she said. “I give everybody a fair shake in my courtroom. I want everybody to know that when I sit down behind the bench, I’m standing up for Wisconsin families and Wisconsin values, and that’s what kind of justice I’m going to be on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.”

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

Both campaigns for Wisconsin Supreme Court have been fueled by cash provided by billionaire donors through the state Democratic and Republican parties, according to recently filed campaign finance reports. 

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, received $2 million from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin after donations to the party from billionaire George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B.Pritzker. Soros gave $1 million to the party and Pritzker gave $500,000. 

Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, a former Republican state attorney general, received $1.675 million from the state Republican party after Illinois billionaire Liz Uihlein donated $975,000 and Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks gave $850,000 to the party. 

State law allows party committees to make unlimited contributions to candidates. The maximum donation allowed for individuals to Supreme Court candidates is $20,000. 

The race for an open seat on the Court to replace the retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley will decide the ideological swing of the body. Two years ago, when Justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated former Justice Dan Kelly to secure a majority for the Court’s liberals, the race set spending records. 

Schimel has joked on the campaign trail about making repeat trips to Menard’s to buy knee pads because of all the begging for money he’s had to do — comments that drew an ethics complaint from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign for violating state judicial code, which prevents judicial candidates from directly asking for money. 

In total, Crawford raised nearly $4.5 million during the reporting period between Jan. 1 and Feb. 3, giving her a total of more than $7.7 million raised since she entered the race last year. She ended the reporting period with $3.1 million in the bank. 

Schimel raised $2.7 million during the reporting period and ended it with $2.4 million cash on hand. 

Crawford received eight maximum donations of $20,000 including one from Colorado billionaire Pat Stryker. Just more than $1 million in her donations came from out-of-state. 

Schimel received four maximum donations, including one from Hendricks. He also received donations from three Republican members of Congress, including $18,000 from Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany, $18,000 from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and $15,000 from Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz. He raised $66,614 from out-of-state donors. 

A courtroom and a judge's gavel. (Getty Images creative)

A pair of Republican legislators have introduced a proposal that would allow the parties in lawsuits against state officials filed in Wisconsin’s largest, and most Democratic, counties to have the venue changed to another county court. Critics of the proposal say it amounts to an attempt to gerrymander the court system. 

The legislation from Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) is currently circulating for co-sponsorship. Under the “Court Fairness Bill,” if a lawsuit against certain government officials is filed in a county with a first or second class city — the designation given to cities with more than 39,500 residents — any party to the lawsuit can request a venue change to a different circuit court. The second court would be chosen randomly and no further venue changes would be allowed. 

Steffen told the Wisconsin Examiner that the bill was designed to allow Republicans to move lawsuits out of Dane County court because they believe they don’t “get a fair shake” when arguing in front of judges elected by the state’s most Democratic voting county. Current law doesn’t require lawsuits against the state government to be filed in Madison, but because most state government offices are in the capital city, many of those lawsuits are heard in the Dane County Circuit Court. 

“If you are a liberal entity or individual, you increase your chance of success substantially by filing that case in the Dane County Circuit,” Steffen said. “That type of judge shopping should not only be discouraged but prevented when possible, and so I don’t believe that that is the way our Founding Fathers, both at the national or state level, envisioned courts to work where individuals or organizations are making decisions where they file based on the chance of it being a more favorable outcome.” 

Steffen added that he thinks the number of lawsuits filed against state government would decrease if people thought they might be heard by judges outside of Dane County. 

“So by providing an option for either party to request a random selection to another circuit, we increase the public’s perception and support of the decision that is made, and we decrease the number of frivolous and politically motivated lawsuits and decisions,” he said. 

Current law already allows parties to a lawsuit to change the venue at the appellate level. Wisconsin is divided into four appeals court districts. If a case is heard at the circuit court level in Dane County, its appeal would generally be heard in the District IV Court of Appeals, which covers 24 counties across most of southwestern and central Wisconsin. In 2011, Republicans enacted a law that allows a party in a lawsuit to request that an appeal be heard in a different district. 

Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the voting rights focused firm Law Forward, told the Examiner the proposal is an attempt to disenfranchise voters in cities that Republicans don’t like because of the people they elect to be judges. 

“It’s a further attempt to gerrymander the courts,” he said. “The gerrymandered Legislature has already gerrymandered the appellate courts and now it’s trying to gerrymander the circuit courts. It is anti-democratic. It is anti-rule of law, it is inappropriate, it is inefficient, and there’s no good reason for it, and here, fascinatingly, they only want it to apply to lawsuits that are filed in counties that have cities of the first or second class. So they’re really just targeting counties that have larger populations or that they don’t like. It’s a very weird thing.” 

While the proposal would allow venue changes in Milwaukee County and more than a dozen counties with second class cities, Steffen said it’s targeted at Dane County because he believes Republicans lose 90-95% of their cases there. 

“There is no place other than downtown Madison that has a 91% concentration of a party,” he said. 

Mandell said Steffen is exaggerating how poorly conservative causes do in Dane County court and there’s no requirement right now that lawsuits against the state be filed there. Wisconsin’s judges are elected for a reason, Mandell said, and this bill would nullify the choices of hundreds of thousands of Dane County voters.

“We have elected judges in Wisconsin, and one of the theories is that we do that because our judges are responsive to and come from the community,” he said. “So if I have an issue with the way that a local election official, or any other local official is doing something in my local area, part of the reason to bring the suit where I live is because the judge knows and understands the conditions of my local area. To then send it someplace completely different is truly bizarre.”

He added that if someone were trying to sue their member of Congress, the proposal would allow that suit to get moved to another side of the state where there is less knowledge about that representative and the community that elected them. 

“You are looking to the court to give you relief, but you are probably also looking for other people who are constituents of your member of Congress to know about this and be able to follow the case,” he said. “But now the venue is going to be randomly reassigned, and it could be assigned well outside of the congressional district. The judge is no longer a constituent or doesn’t know as much about the member of Congress and the local media no longer has the same kind of access. The whole thing is just really, really bizarre.” 

Experts also say there are a number of logistical concerns with the proposal. 

Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of UW-Madison’s State Democracy Research Initiative, said because of Wisconsin’s political geography, the proposal wouldn’t make things even. Moving a case out of Dane County doesn’t give a 50-50 shot at landing that case in a conservative or liberal county because a higher number of Wisconsin’s 72 counties lean conservative. 

“If the concern is to try to level the playing field and have a more diverse kind of set of circuit court judges deciding these important cases that are brought against state or federal officials, or whatever it might be, then actually, it’s going to swing in the opposite direction,” she said. “It’s not going to be more level. It’s going to be likely more conservative judges deciding these cases.”

She added that a similar bill authored by Republicans in Kentucky was struck down by that state’s Supreme Court. Steffen said he’s not concerned about that happening here if the bill were passed — though it’s unlikely it would be signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

Plus, Grossi Wilde said, because Dane County has been the venue for many of these cases for so long, there’s a level of expertise and institutional knowledge in cases involving complex areas of state law such as elections. 

“Sometimes it’s more about expertise … these are judges that are familiar with these claims and are able to sort of manage them more efficiently,” she said, adding that  “Dane County Circuit Court has built up that bench, has built up this sort of expertise, because they’re used to managing these type of cases.” 

Sending cases out around the state to judges who deal with many issues and are not particularly familiar with certain areas of the law —  “whether it be … civil, criminal, family, juvenile, probate … [or]  complicated or constitutional claims” could burden courts and cause them not to work as well, she said.

Steffen said he hadn’t nailed down the details of how the new venue would be randomly selected, but suggested drawing cards or names out of a hat.

But Mandell questioned what would happen if a case was filed in Milwaukee County and the name drawn out of the hat was far-away Bayfield County. 

“It’s highly inefficient,” he said.  “I mean … every time the court wants to hold a hearing, everybody might have to, you know, schlep all the way to Bayfield. For what purpose?”

The deadline for lawmakers to sign on to the bill as co-sponsors is Feb. 18.

In September 2023, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin state senate voted to oust Meagan Wolfe as the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Wolfe was the target of false conspiracy theories about illegal voting during the 2020 election, but she has refused to step down. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

In a unanimous decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe is allowed to stay in her job and that the six-member commission did not have a duty to replace her when her four-year term expired in July 2023. 

After Wolfe’s term expired, three WEC commissioners abstained from a vote to re-appoint her as administrator. State law requires  the appointment of a WEC administrator to be approved by a majority of the six members, so without those three votes, she was not actually nominated for a second term and was instead kept in the role as a holdover appointee. 

Republicans in the state Senate, who had increasingly become hostile to Wolfe as false claims about the 2020 presidential election continued to hold sway among a number of senators, voted to fire Wolfe anyway. The commission immediately filed a lawsuit against the Senate, arguing that Wolfe could stay in her job. 

Before the Wolfe lawsuit, Republican senators had played a crucial role in creating the precedent that allowed her to stay at WEC as a holdover. Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu had worked with Frederick Prehn, a former appointee of Gov. Scott Walker to the state Natural Resources Board, who had remained in his role for more than a year past his term’s expiration in order to retain Republican control of the body and keep an appointee of Gov. Tony Evers from taking her seat. 

Attorney General Josh Kaul sued, and a divided state Supreme Court found that Prehn was legally allowed to stay in his job as long as the Senate didn’t vote to confirm his replacement. 

While the parties in the Wolfe lawsuit did not seek to overturn the Prehn decision, Republican lawmakers in their defense argued against the precedent they themselves had set. 

On Friday, the Court ruled in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Annette Ziegler that under state statute and the Prehn precedent, “WEC does not have a duty to appoint a new administrator to replace Wolfe simply because her term has ended.”

“We’re pleased that the Supreme Court unanimously found in favor of the Commission’s position,” Wolfe said in a statement issued Friday. “And I’m excited to continue to work with elections officials around the state as we prepare for the Feb. 18 Spring Primary and the April 1 Spring Election.”

24AP351 Mandate

While the Court unanimously decided in favor of Wolfe, the justices continued to fight about the Prehn decision in dueling concurring opinions. 

In a concurrence written by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley and joined by liberal Justices Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky, Bradley wrote that Friday’s decision “should not be taken as an endorsement of the Prehn court’s reasoning.” 

She added that the confusion over the Wolfe re-appointment is exactly what Dallet’s dissent in the Prehn decision predicted — chaos. 

“As explained in Justice Dallet’s dissent in Prehn, that case rests on shaky ground,” Ann Walsh Bradley wrote. “The charge of this court is to interpret our statutes with a long view, encouraging stability and the functioning of government in a way that makes sense. At the very least, we should question an interpretation that perpetuates ‘disorder and chaos.’”

But in another concurrence that Ziegler joined, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote that the liberal justices complained about the Prehn precedent while agreeing to its application in the Wolfe case because Prehn was a Republican. 

“If Prehn were as absurd or as dangerous as its dissenters profess, they would not wait for a party to advocate its overruling before stemming the ‘disorder and chaos’ they insisted Prehn would produce,” she wrote. 

“Those justices cannot have it both ways,” Rebecca Bradley continued. “If Prehn’s pronouncement that holdovers do not create vacancies is ‘nonsensical,’ then Wolfe holding over is too. If the rule of law is to govern, the resolution of each case should not depend upon the individual occupying the office.”

She contrasted the role of judges with that of lawyers representing their clients. 

“Advocates are free to switch sides from one case to the next as their clients’ interests warrant, but justices are supposed to declare what the law is, regardless of the impact on their political benefactors or detractors,” she wrote. “It appears the Prehn dissenters once again ‘succumb to the temptation of results at the expense of [their] own legitimacy.’”

In a joint statement, the state Senate’s two top Republicans, LeMahieu and Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said they were “disappointed that the court disagreed with our interpretation of the statute that would have subjected Meagan Wolfe to further legislative oversight.”

They added that “by refusing to reappoint an administrator, three liberal commissioners have decided that Wisconsinites do not get a say in who administers our elections.”

This report has been updated with a comment from the Wisconsin Senate’s Republican leaders.

Cows at a Dunn County dairy farm. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Gov. Tony Evers announced Wednesday that he’s proposing to spend $80 million through the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) in his 2025-27 state budget to support farmers and Wisconsin’s agricultural industry. 

The proposal includes increases in current funding as well as new  programs to increase farm efficiency, connect producers with markets and support conservation efforts. 

“Our farmers, farm families, and producers have been the backbone of our state for generations,” Evers said in a statement. “Whether it’s been supporting the future research and workforce this industry needs to keep up with the demands of the 21st Century, ensuring rural communities have good roads, broadband, and water infrastructure to be successful, or fighting to make sure farmers have the support and mental health resources they need, I’m proud of our work to support Wisconsin farmers and farm families over the past six years. Our next state budget will continue to build upon our efforts to invest in our farmers, producers, and agricultural industries.”

Evers’ proposal includes spending $15 million to relaunch the Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements (PACE) Program, initially created in 2009, to help communities keep agricultural land in the hands of working farms. 

After a study committee worked before this year’s legislative session on addressing crop damage caused by sandhill cranes — a problem estimated to damage more than $1 million of Wisconsin corn each year — Evers proposed spending $3.7 million to reimburse farmers for up to 50% of the cost of purchasing seed treatment that discourages birds from eating the seeds. 

The budget proposal also includes a $30 million appropriation for a program that helps local food banks acquire food from local producers and another $28 million for conservation programs, including $12.7 million for staff in county conservation offices, $10 million for the Soil and Water Resource Management program and an increase of $1 million for the the Producer-Led Watershed Protection Grant Program. 

Also on Wednesday, Evers and DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski announced $1 million in grant awards through the producer-led watershed protection program, which helps farmers find ways they can increase water quality. 

“The producer-led watershed protection grant program is just one of the tools in the toolbox for Wisconsin producers,” Romanski said. “Farmers are stewards of the land and water and understand the importance of innovation on the farm. It is great to see this program and farmer-led groups being supported, and I applaud the Governor’s leadership on increasing the funding for this valuable program.”

A PFAS advisory sign along Starkweather Creek. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday announced a $145 million budget proposal to address PFAS pollution across the state, an amount that more than doubles the money set aside in the last state budget to address the problem. 

In the 2023-25 budget, Evers and lawmakers set aside $125 million in a trust fund to be spent on PFAS remediation, but the governor and Republicans in the Legislature failed to reach an agreement on a bill that would get the money out the door. 

Communities across the state have been affected by water contaminated with PFAS, a family of man-made compounds known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily in the environment. PFAS have been used to manufacture household goods such as non-stick pans, fast food wrappers and certain types of firefighting foam. 

Clean water advocates saw the $125 million appropriation set aside two years ago as a good first step for addressing the problem. Democrats and advocates turned against a bill authored by a group of Green Bay-area Republicans, including Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), because they believed it would allow polluters to receive funds through its innocent landowner grant program and let them off the hook for damage they caused. 

As the debate over that bill took place through much of the last legislative session, residents of communities harmed by PFAS pollution complained that the bill did nothing to address the state’s lack of a standard for the acceptable level of PFAS in groundwater — the source of drinking water for the large portion of residents who use private drinking wells. The state has passed standards for PFAS in surface water and municipal water systems, but a previous effort to set a groundwater standard was halted by Republican appointees on the state Natural Resources Board in 2022.

Another proposed rule from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to set a groundwater standard has stalled because it is estimated to cost more than $10 million to implement. Under a state law known as the REINS Act, any administrative rule with an estimated cost over $10 million must be approved by the full Legislature. 

That proposed rule is set to expire March 12, which would require the DNR to start the years-long rulemaking process over again. On Tuesday, Evers announced he has approved a new rulemaking effort to set a groundwater standard. 

Under Evers’ budget proposal, the $145 million would be used to create a grant program for municipal water systems addressing PFAS pollution, helping private well owners sample and test their wells for the chemicals, research the destruction and disposal of the chemicals, provide grants to local businesses to reduce or eliminate their use of PFAS and provide bottled water to affected communities. The proposal, according to a news release, would also “protect innocent landowners like farmers who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS,” an issue that Wimberger has cited as his motivation for his inclusion of the language that Democrats objected to in his previous bill. 

In a news release, Wimberger responded to Evers’ proposal, saying the governor had finally come around to his view on the innocent landowner provisions while complaining Evers had not provided a counter-proposal to last year’s failed bill.

“It seems Governor Evers has come around to my position and supports my bill that he vetoed last year,” Wimberger said. “His proposals today are an admission of what I’ve been saying for years: we can’t just write the DNR a check for $125 million to fight this problem. We need a strong legal framework to fight PFAS contamination, including language protecting innocent landowners from being treated like polluters. However, I’ve been waiting for months for the Governor to clarify his definition of an ‘innocent landowner,’ and he has refused to respond to my requests. This delay is holding up meaningful solutions to PFAS problems affecting communities across our state. I find myself sitting at the table waiting to have a meaningful conversation on how we can pass a bill to fight PFAS in Wisconsin, and I hope the Governor will join us there soon.”

The language of Evers’ proposal isn’t yet public so it’s unclear how his definition of innocent landowners differs from Wimberger’s bill, but Erik Kanter, government relations director for Clean Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner that exempting farmers who spread PFAS-contaminated biosolids from being held responsible for PFAS pollution was something that had been talked about among lawmakers and interest groups. He added that Clean Wisconsin couldn’t support a PFAS bill unless the innocent landowner definition is narrowed.

Evers said he also wants to expand eligibility for the state’s well compensation grant program, which helps fund the addition of treatment systems or replacement of private wells. The program currently does not apply to private wells used for drinking water. He also said he wants to pass a bill that would exempt the proposed groundwater standard from the REINS Act requirements and prohibit the spreading of biosolids that exceed certain PFAS levels.

“Whether it’s kids in the classroom, families at home, or our farmers and agricultural industries, Wisconsinites’ health and well-being depend on access to clean, safe water,” Evers said in a statement. “Folks should be able to trust that the water coming from their tap is safe, but we know that’s not the case for far too many families and communities. We have a responsibility to ensure Wisconsinites have access to safe, clean drinking water no matter where they live in our state.”

The governor called on lawmakers not to repeat past delays.

“This is an urgent issue, and we cannot afford more years of inaction and obstruction,” Evers said. “I urge Republicans and Democrats to work together to do what’s best for our kids and Wisconsin’s families by investing in critical efforts to improve water quality and get contaminants out of our water in our next state budget.”

Evers’ full budget proposal is set to be released Feb. 18.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn questions an attorney during oral arguments in January 2025. (Screenshot/WisEye)

A Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who helped write Act 10 recused himself Thursday as the high court signaled it was preparing to take up a legal challenge to the 2011 law limiting public employees’ collective bargaining rights.

After a Dane County judge struck down Act 10 in December, the plaintiffs — a teachers union — filed a motion with the state Supreme Court to bypass the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and take up the case directly. 

On Thursday, the Court issued an order related to that motion, granting a request from Republican leaders of the state Legislature to intervene and file a response to the bypass request. The Court set a Feb. 5 deadline for the response. 

Along with Thursday’s order, Justice Brian Hagedorn issued an order recusing himself from taking part in the case. Hagedorn previously served as legal counsel to Republican Gov. Scott Walker and helped draft the bill that became Act 10, then defended it against a federal court challenge. 

In December, a Dane County judge ruled that parts of the law are unconstitutional because it treats similar types of state employees differently. The law retained collective bargaining rights for police officers, but excluded the state Capitol Police officers, conservation wardens and correctional officers. 

“Act 10 as written by the Legislature specifically and narrowly defines ‘public safety employee,’” Judge Jacob Frost wrote. “It is that definition which is unconstitutional.”

In his recusal order Thursday, Hagedorn acknowledged his role in shaping and defending the law. 

“Members of the judiciary take a solemn oath to be independent and impartial,” Hagedorn wrote. “Our duty is to call it straight in every case, with neither partiality nor prejudice toward anyone. The law must guide our decisions — not politics, tribalism, or personal policy views.” 

“After reviewing the filings and the various ethical rules I am sworn to uphold, I have concluded that the law requires me to recuse from this case,” he continued. “The issues raised involve matters for which I provided legal counsel in both the initial crafting and later defense of Act 10, including in a case raising nearly identical claims under the federal constitution.”

Hagedorn also noted that many of the legal arguments in the current challenge are similar to those made in the 2011 federal case. 

Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who had previously said she may recuse herself from an Act 10 case because she participated in protests against the legislation as it was pending, did not participate in the decision to accept the case, but she did not release an order saying she’d recuse herself. 

Both Hagedorn and Protasiewicz had faced calls for recusal in the case. Protasiewicz had also faced threats of impeachment from Republican legislators in a previous case about the state’s legislative maps. 

In his order, Hagedorn warned about the politicization of the recusal process.

“In my view, recusal on this court should be rare — done only when the law requires it,” he wrote. “Going beyond that can create problems. We have seen how recusal can be weaponized by parties seeking a litigation advantage.”

In response to the Court’s order Thursday on the Legislature’s petition to intervene, Justice Rebecca Bradley and Chief Justice Annette Ziegler dissented. 

They, along with Hagedorn, have also dissented in several Supreme Court decisions to bypass lower courts and take up cases after the court’s majority flipped in 2023 from four conservative justices to four liberal ones.

Bradley, writing Thursday’s dissent, pointed out that the state Legislature had asked for a two-week extension to respond to the bypass petition, and was instead given three business days. 

“There is absolutely no reason to deny the Legislature’s request, unless three members of this court wish to fast track yet another politically charged case for the purpose of overturning settled law on an issue already decided by this court eleven years ago,” Bradley wrote.

The dispute over Act 10 is set to play a major role in this April’s Supreme Court election between Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who was state attorney general during Walker’s second term.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany speaks to voters on Jan. 27 at a listening session on the campus of UW-Eau Claire Barron County. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

RICE LAKE — On Monday, as a barrage of executive orders and policy changes from the new Donald Trump administration made headlines, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany criss-crossed his district holding listening sessions with constituents. Despite the sea change in Washington, many residents were focused on local issues outside the frenzy of attention, even as the White House took aim at programs the voters in this deep red part of the state said they rely on. 

At Tiffany’s event in Rice Lake, held on UW-Eau Claire’s Barron County campus, the discussion touched on energy, government health care, COVID-19 interventions and Division III college hockey. 

Dale Seidlitz complained to Tiffany that he and his brother-in-law were struggling with the disability compensation programs offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs and how payment amounts are calculated. 

Seidlitz said he was a helicopter pilot for the Marines and did stints flying Marine One for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He said that he has a lingering hand injury, hearing loss and issues related to exposure to toxic chemicals at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, but the VA won’t provide the full amount of compensation he’s qualified for. 

“It’s this wonky math that they do for compensation that really needs to be overhauled,” Seidlitz said. “It’s not just about me, it’s about all veterans at the VA.” 

Tiffany directed Seidlitz to his staff, saying, “it’s always a priority with veterans.”

Shortly after  Tiffany promised to help his constituent navigate  the VA bureaucracy, the White House Office of Management and Budget released a memo announcing the freezing of all federal financial assistance, including the VA’s disability compensation program. 

The memo immediately drew legal challenges including from Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, on the grounds that the president has no authority to prevent money appropriated by Congress from being spent. A federal district judge ruled Tuesday the Trump administration must wait until at least next week before it can move forward with pausing federal spending on trillions in grants and loans, though she emphasized the short-term administrative stay might not continue after a Feb. 3 hearing.

During Tiffany’s listening session in Rice Lake, Jennifer Jako, director of Barron County’s Aging and Disability Resource Center, told Tiffany that she was concerned about cuts that Republicans and Trump have proposed to Medicaid in order to pay for an extension of the tax cuts signed into law by Trump during his first term. Jako added that she’s heard Congress is considering $2 trillion in cuts. 

Jako said that Medicaid funding makes up about half of her office’s budget and helps the county — where 40% of the population is older than 60 — provide important services to people of every income level. 

“I just want to make sure you are aware that if we’re talking that large of Medicaid cuts, it will probably have some pretty big effects on a lot of those kinds of long-term care services and supports,” she said. 

Tiffany said that the $2 trillion proposal is over a 10-year period, so as part of the annual Medicaid budget would only be $200 billion per year, before pivoting to saying the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, shouldn’t be available to people who are capable of working. 

“Now, if you’re able bodied and you can work, you should not be on a program that’s paid for by you, the taxpayers of the United States,” he said. “We’re all willing to give a hand up, help someone out for a little while, but that shouldn’t be a way of life, and we’re also trying to get at that, because the estimates that I’ve seen is there’s five to 10 million people in America that are able bodied, that should be working and are collecting benefits, including sometimes Medicaid benefits, that really shouldn’t be getting those. And so that’s really what we’re trying to get at, is that those who legitimately deserve the help that we make sure that they get them.” 

Tiffany also said that many of the proposed cuts to Medicaid should be focused on rooting out fraud and abuse in the program, saying that “hundreds of billions of dollars” of taxpayer funds meant to be used for Medicaid are going to “foreign actors that have figured out how to break into the American system. They’re hacking into the system.” 

Among the programs for which the White House has attempted to freeze funding is the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. 

Energy production

On Monday evening, Tiffany held a town hall event in New Richmond to discuss a proposed solar farm in the area and promote his bill which would prevent energy companies from receiving tax subsidies for building a solar installation if it is constructed on working agricultural land. During the Rice Lake event, he also emphasized efforts to increase energy production in Wisconsin and around the country. 

Tiffany, who has taken a personal interest in local land use debates in his district, complained about the Bad River Tribe’s efforts to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 natural gas pipeline, which runs through northern Wisconsin. He also said that he supports easing permitting requirements for all sorts of energy sources, including natural gas and nuclear power plants, because the country needs to produce more energy — although domestic oil and gas production is already at its highest ever levels. 

“If you think climate change is real, nuclear is one of the ways in which we can have that base load power that will fill in the gaps,” he said. “If we’re going to continue to move with the wind and solar and the intermittent sources of power, you’ve got to have something that’s base load, and nothing’s more base load than nuclear.”

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel (second from left) stand next to Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes (second from right), who has been at the center of numerous controversies. (Screenshot)

In a television ad and recent endorsements, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel has touted the support of Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes — a controversial figure whose county board voted 19-1 last year to find it had “no confidence” in him after he was accused of sexually harassing a female job applicant and subordinate.

As the race between Shimel and his opponent, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford, heats up, the two candidates have attempted to claim the other is soft on crime. Schimel, a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge who was previously the state attorney general under Republican Gov. Scott Walker, has in recent days announced endorsements from a number of current and retired sheriffs from across the state. 

Hakes is one of the sheriffs who endorsed Schimel and appeared with the judge in a television ad behind a graphic that states Schimel is “tough on crime.” 

Last February, the Chippewa County Board voted nearly unanimously that it has “no confidence in Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes’ continued leadership” and that the sheriff has “a long history of not being credible.”

An independent investigation into Hakes initiated by the board found that he had sent inappropriate messages to a female job applicant and a subordinate, including a text that shared a “racist ethnically charged meme.” 

“For any leader of a law enforcement agency to make such comments calls into question their professional judgement and ability to enforce the law and treat all persons fairly and lawfully,” a joint statement from County Administrator Randy Scholz and Board Chair Dean Gullickson said. “Moreover, for any leader of a law enforcement agency to suggest that his subordinates engage in such conduct with his implied support and tolerance leaves no doubt as to his inability to effectively manage any law enforcement employee and not expose the County to great risk.”

In the texts, Hakes told a female subordinate that she was the “breast person for the job!” in a conversation about birds and then later sent a meme depicting an Asian man crying with the caption “when the chow mein was on point but you kinda miss your cat.”

Hakes’ term as sheriff runs through 2026 and the board has no ability to remove him from office, which led to the no confidence vote. But in December 2023, the Chippewa County District Attorney put Hakes on the county’s Brady list — a document prosecutors are required to send to defense attorneys naming law enforcement officers “who have had incidents of untruthfulness, criminal convictions, candor issues, or some other type of issue placing their credibility into question.”

Hakes has “misled the public and County Board” multiple times about his work history, according to the board’s statement. 

Because of his inclusion on the Brady list, Hakes is unable to be actively involved in investigations or handle physical evidence. 

Several other sheriffs who have endorsed Schimel have also sparked controversy during their tenures. 

Polk County Sheriff Brent Waak drew attention in 2023 for refusing to enforce a rule from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that banned the use of stabilizing braces on pistols. Waak has previously shared his belief in the constitutional sheriff ideology — which states that county sheriffs have nearly unlimited authority to decide what the law is. 

Schimel was also endorsed by Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling, who drew the praise of election deniers after he called for the arrest of five members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and declined to arrest an election denier who had requested absentee ballots on behalf of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason. 

In his 2018 campaign for attorney general, Schimel ran an ad touting his law enforcement support that included the endorsement of former Taylor County Sheriff Bruce Daniels — who was investigated by the FBI for hacking into a subordinate’s Dropbox account and by the state Department of Justice for pressuring another agency to destroy a report on a traffic accident that involved his son. 

Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson Haley McCoy said in a statement that Schimel touting Hakes’ support shows a lack of judgement. 

“This isn’t the first time that Brad Schimel has struggled with a photo op, but standing with a man censured 19-1 by local elected officials and accused of sexual harassment, conflicts of interest, poor leadership, and violating his oath is a new low — even for an extreme politician like Schimel,” McCoy said. “Brad Schimel has a long record of failing to keep Wisconsinites safe, from giving light sentences to convicted domestic abusers to failing to test more than 6,000 sexual assault kits over two years. It’s clear as day that Wisconsin voters can’t trust Brad Schimel’s judgment or public safety record on the state Supreme Court since he can’t even get this easy call right.”

Schimel’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

(Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Immigrant rights advocates and attorneys are preparing for how Wisconsin’s law enforcement community might assist federal authorities in President Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation efforts — warning that the new administration’s policies could lead to profiling and high levels of data sharing. 

Eight counties in Wisconsin currently have agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the agency’s 287(g) program, which state that the counties will hold undocumented immigrants in jail if ICE requests them to do so. Brown, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Marquette and Sheboygan counties have a memorandum of agreement with ICE under the Warrant Service Officer program and Waukesha County has an agreement with the agency under its jail enforcement program — which allows local deputies to act as immigration enforcement agents and ask questions about inmates’ citizenship status. 

Tim Muth, a senior staff attorney with the Wisconsin ACLU who has researched how local law enforcement interacts with ICE, says these agreements weren’t used very much under the administration of President Joe Biden but now under Trump, it gives federal authorities a good sense of which departments will be allies in a mass deportation effort. 

“What they do indicate is which are the counties who have already raised their hands and said, ‘we are happy to assist with deporting people from the state,’ and I anticipate that the Trump administration is going to start with that list and say ‘we know who our allies are in this in the state of Wisconsin,’” Muth says. “Let’s see if one: We can get more allies signing these agreements, and, two: For the ones who already have, let’s see what we can do to get them more active in this area.” 

Luca Fagundes, an immigration attorney based in Green Bay, says that under Biden, ICE generally only picked up undocumented immigrants in the Brown County jail if they’d committed serious infractions. Fagundes anticipates that ICE — as it did in the first Trump administration — will use the agreement with the sheriff to send people to deportation proceedings for low-level offenses such as driving without a license or other minor traffic violations.

“If history is precedent, I believe the administration will place detainers on anyone they can, regardless of how minor the offense committed by the individual,” Fagundes says, adding that he doesn’t think local law enforcement should aggressively support ICE efforts in a county that Trump won with just 53% of the vote. 

“Certainly there are concerns that law enforcement will cooperate with more aggressive ICE efforts,” he says. “I have these concerns, and I believe the community also shares these concerns. I personally hope that law enforcement in this area continue to exercise their own level of discretion on who to detain. Given the political leanings or lack thereof of Brown County, I don’t believe a mandate has been established with regards to the incoming administration’s immigration policies.” 

Aside from the eight counties with formal agreements with ICE, dozens of other county sheriffs in Wisconsin are Republicans and likely share Trump’s opinions on immigration. Muth says a big concern is these counties forging informal relationships with ICE that amount to letting the agency know whenever a foreign national is held in a county jail. 

This practice, he says, has historically been common in Walworth County, resulting in a higher per capita number of immigrants removed from the county than anywhere else in the state. 

“Basically every day they would send a list to ICE of every foreign national who had been booked into the jail,” Muth says. “So I think we’re going to see more of that kind of informal information sharing. And then I think the other thing is, even though immigration enforcement is not a state matter, it’s a federal matter, we’ll probably see more local law enforcement, the county level and local municipal level, asking people, what’s their immigration status?”

Muth says the ACLU, community organizations and churches have been working on extensive know-your-rights campaigns in recent months to inform people of what their rights are if they’re stopped by law enforcement and asked these sorts of questions. 

“And our advice is always, you know, you shouldn’t speak to law enforcement without your attorney, and ask for counsel,” he says. “Very often people, especially people from marginalized communities, don’t know that they can refuse to answer questions like, ‘what’s your immigration status?’ And I expect we’re going to see local law enforcement, especially in more conservative counties, asking those questions, even though it is unrelated to enforcing any state of Wisconsin criminal statute.”

But, he adds that many rural sheriffs will be in a bind. They can support Trump and assist ICE in aggressive deportation efforts but that could come with political backlash from an important local voter base — farmers who rely on undocumented labor. 

“I think there are some counties where the local farms are very dependent on undocumented farm workers where the sheriffs recognize that they don’t want to harm the local agricultural community,” he says. 

In the state’s more liberal communities, local officials have promised to do what they can to thwart local ICE efforts. At a news conference last week, Dane County Executive Melissa Agard and District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said the county would continue to offer the area’s immigrant community assistance through programs in the human services department and that the DA would never ask for the immigration status of a victim or witness in a criminal prosecution. 

The Dane County sheriff’s department has also said it would not assist ICE and wants to maintain its relationship with the immigrant community so they report crimes when they happen. But the county has also continued to participate in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), which provides grants to reimburse local governments for the cost of detaining noncitizens. 

Participation in the program involves regularly sending federal authorities a list of all noncitizens who were held in the jail and convicted of at least two misdemeanors or one felony. Shortly after current Sheriff Kalvin Barrett took office in 2022, the Dane County Board assessed the county’s participation in the program and decided to continue the county’s involvement. 

Elise Schaffer, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, says the board decided to continue because the reimbursement is based on historical data, not who is currently in the jail. She says the county hasn’t even finished sending all of the 2023 data to the Department of Justice office that operates the program and passes the information along to ICE. 

Muth says that in many ways Dane County and Madison have policies that he believes are good for the local immigrant community, but that even Milwaukee County, with its tight budget, hasn’t accepted this money. 

“The Milwaukee County sheriff’s budget is certainly really tight,” he says. “They’re really suffering, but they don’t pursue that money, which I commend them for. I think in general, other than pursuing this SCAAP funding, I think Dane County and the current sheriff and the Madison police department have a good set of policies that we applaud them for. But ICE’s mass deportation plan ultimately will be necessarily data driven, right? And Dane County has been feeding them data for years.”

A PFAS advisory sign along Starkweather Creek. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that could upend the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) authority to enforce the state’s decades old spills law, which allows the agency to hold companies and property owners responsible for toxic contamination. 

The case was initially brought by a Waukesha County-based leather cleaning company and joined by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state’s largest business lobby. The arguments came just months before the election for an open seat on the Court that could again flip the body’s ideological makeup. In the 2023 state Supreme Court race, WMC spent more than $5 million airing ads in support of Republican-backed former Justice Dan Kelly. 

Leather Rich sued the DNR after the agency found it responsible for PFAS contamination on its property. PFAS, a family of man-made chemical compounds known as “forever chemicals” do not break down easily in the body or the environment and have been connected to serious health problems. 

For years, PFAS were used for a variety of commercial and industrial purposes, including non-stick pans, fast food wrappers and firefighting foams. In recent years, state and federal governments have been attempting to crack down on PFAS contamination but in Wisconsin, water supplies across the state have been found to be contaminated. 

The lawsuit argues that the DNR can’t use the spills law to force Leather Rich to clean up the contamination because the agency never promulgated an administrative rule declaring that PFAS chemicals count as hazardous materials under the spills law. In 2022, a Waukesha County judge agreed, finding that the agency lacked the authority to regulate the chemicals. 

Last year, a conservative-controlled Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court decision. 

During the oral arguments Tuesday, Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Colin Roth said that if the Court upheld the lower court decision, it would “fundamentally rewrite the spills law.” 

The law was written not to include a comprehensive list of materials the Legislature considered hazardous. Instead the law defines hazardous materials and leaves the rest open-ended, which the DNR has taken for the past 40 years to mean it can decide which materials are subject to regulation. The lawsuit argues the agency would need to create administrative rules with a list of specific  materials to be regulated as  hazardous, which Roth argued would cause serious harm to the state’s environment and the executive branch’s ability to perform its function. 

“The spills law has worked so well for decades precisely because the Legislature broadly defined the hazardous substances that dischargers must report and clean up,” he said. “Respondents insist that DNR must ignore this harmful PFAs discharge, and indeed many other kinds of harmful discharges, because no administrative rule lists all hazardous substances covered by the spills.” 

Roth said upending the spills law wouldn’t make the contamination go away, it would remain in the environment until the DNR can complete the rulemaking process and it would  “seriously weaken the entire executive branch’s core power to interpret and execute the law. Virtually all statutes require interpretation before agencies can administer them. If agencies cannot administer laws like this one without rulemaking, executive branch activity would grind to a halt.” 

He added that the spills law must be left open-ended because of the nature of scientific progress. He noted that numerous times throughout the history of the law, research has found that materials regularly used by industry have been found to be harmful and then regulated under the spills law and said that the agency must be able to respond to “a new set of facts.” 

“Time and time again, this happens under the spills law, science evolves,” he said. “People understand the contaminants that were used as part of ordinary commercial activity pose a threat to human health. This is how the spills law has worked for 50 years.”

Lucas Vebber, the attorney for WMC, argued that the agency wouldn’t need to promulgate rules delineating every possible hazardous material, but instead create a rule that gives a set of “objective criteria” under which a material can be declared hazardous. 

Vebber argued that it’s unfair to regulate businesses by allowing them to use a certain material for decades, then suddenly declaring the same material hazardous and subjecting those businesses to enforcement action from the agency. He added that businesses need clarity and the rulemaking process would create that.

“So at what point do people know, or are they supposed to know, that those substances become hazardous?” Vebber asked. “The Department has said that if a tanker truck of milk spills, it is certainly a hazardous substance discharge. But today, [opposing counsel] said, If you drop a gallon of milk, it’s not a hazardous substance discharge. So somewhere in the middle there, it becomes a hazardous substance discharge.” 

Justice Rebecca Dallet asked how the government would ever function if it had to pass a rule for each possible situation. 

“Each individual case is different,” she said. “Every fact situation is different. What if they spill five gallons? What if they spill 10? What if they spill 20? What about almond milk? What about oat milk? Isn’t that exactly why we have enforcement actions? Isn’t that exactly why we have the ability to interpret that the executive has to be able to apply the law? That’s called applying the law to the facts.” 

Justice Janet Protasiewicz noted that under the current administrative rulemaking process (which is currently being challenged in a separate lawsuit in which the Court will hear arguments Thursday) the Legislature has the authority to veto rules proposed by executive agencies and the possibility of a legislative veto could add even more uncertainty to the process, making it even harder for businesses to know what the rules are. 

Roth concluded his argument by pointing to a separate state statute which requires that any proposed administrative rule with an estimated compliance cost greater than $10 million be approved by the Legislature in a separate piece of legislation. He said any spills law rules would certainly exceed that threshold and questioned if it would make sense for the Court to require the Legislature to pass a separate bill in order for the executive branch to enforce a law it passed decades ago. 

“We’re in a situation where not only must the agency promulgate a rule defining hazardous substances, but the Legislature would have to pass another bill authorizing that rule,” he said. “So what do we have? We have a spill law that can’t be implemented until another statute is passed, amending it.”

Activists marched from the Capitol to the DNR Monday to demand the agency rescind its permit for Enbridge Line 5. | Photo courtesy Ian Phillips

A group of about 50 activists occupied the lobby of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Monday to protest the agency’s approval of a permit to construct a 41-mile reroute of Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline through northern Wisconsin.

Several members of the group tried to enter further into the building and one activist was arrested and put in jail, according to a news release from the coalition of indigenous and environmental groups who planned the protest. Two others were warned they’d be arrested if they tried to enter the building again.

For years, the Bad River band of Lake Superior Chippewa have fought against the pipeline, 12 miles of which crosses the tribe’s reservation, raising concerns about the pipeline’s effect on local water and the broader effects that fossil fuels have on the environment.

After declining to renew the easement that allowed the pipeline to cut across their land, the tribe sued in federal court to have it removed. In 2022 a judge ruled that Enbridge was trespassing and would have to reroute the pipeline. 

The tribe is opposed to the proposed route for the new pipeline because it would be directly upstream of the reservation.

Late last year, the DNR granted a crucial permit approval for the relocation just days after another of Enbridge’s pipelines, Line 6, was found to have leaked more than 69,000 gallons of oil in the Jefferson County town of Oakland.

On Monday, the group of activists marched from the state Capitol to the DNR offices to deliver a letter demanding that the agency revoke its permit approval and support the decommissioning and removal of Line 5.

“Enbridge Line 5 abets mayhem all around the world: deforestation and water pollution in Alberta, where companies scrape tar out of sand; oil spills across Wisconsin and Michigan; and the global heating equivalent of detonating hundreds of atomic bombs in the atmosphere every single day,” Greg Mikkelson, an organizer with the Cross Border Organizing Working Group, said in a statement. “The proposed expansion of this pipeline would lock in dependence on this disaster-genic source of energy for decades to come. Meanwhile, Wisconsinites consume virtually none of the oil or gas carried in Line 5. Shame on the DNR for approving the expansion, even while covering up a brand-new spill from Line 6, another Enbridge pipeline in Wisconsin.”

Cows at a Dunn County dairy farm. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

A Polk County judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, challenging an ordinance enacted by the town of Eureka regulating how factory farms, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), operate. 

Under the ordinance, CAFOs must establish plans for how they will deal with manure disposal, air pollution, road use and other effects of a large farm’s operations, before being allowed to open or expand within the town. Similar ordinances have been passed in eight towns and three counties — including the Pierce County town of Maiden Rock, which passed its ordinance last month. 

While many of the state’s largest factory farms operate on the eastern side of the state in and around Kewaunee County, communities across western Wisconsin have been fighting the expansion of farming operations in the Driftless Region because of the effect CAFOs can have on smaller farms in the community, water quality and the environment. 

“WMC’s lawsuit against Eureka is part of a three-prong strategy by this industry with one goal — no regulation,” Lisa Doerr, a Polk County farmer who helped develop Eureka’s ordinance, said in a statement. “They use lawsuits to intimidate local officials who pass legal ordinances. At the same time, they have a lawsuit challenging any state authority. Finally, their Madison lobbyists are pushing state legislators to ban all local control.”

WMC has filed a number of lawsuits in recent years challenging state authority to protect water quality. A lawsuit filed by the group in Calumet County challenged the state Department of Natural Resources’ authority to require CAFOs to obtain permits regulating their effect on local water supplies. A circuit court judge ruled against that effort last year; the ruling is pending in the state Court of Appeals. 

Next week, the state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case from WMC challenging the DNR’s ability to use the state’s toxic spills law to force polluters to clean up PFAS contamination.

The family of Kenneth Taylor says the city of Black River Falls and its police department brushed off their concerns when he was reported missing and in the years since his death. (Graphic by Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner, Photos courtesy of City of Black River Falls, U.S. Geological Survey, Joy Taylor)

On the night of Sept. 9, 2022, 20-year-old Kenneth Taylor called his aunt, Cheyenne Taylor, asking if she could drive three hours south from Hayward to Black River Falls to pick him up — something she says happened regularly. 

Cheyenne’s boyfriend answered the phone and he said they could come down to get him in the morning from the motel where he was staying. Kenneth, a member of the St. Croix Chippewa tribe, had spent the night hanging out with his girlfriend, who told police they’d been drinking. That night, he posted on Facebook asking for help with his depression.

The couple left Hayward around 8 a.m. but, Cheyenne says, as they got on I-94 near Eau Claire, she got a “sick feeling” in her stomach because her nephew wasn’t answering his phone. 

Cheyenne spent much of the day driving the unfamiliar streets of Black River Falls looking for him. Soon, other members of the family got involved in the search. 

During the first day Kenneth was missing, multiple family members turned to the police for help. But Cheyenne and Kenneth’s stepmother, Joy Taylor, say they were told by an officer that “maybe he didn’t want to be found,” and that as an adult he had the right to choose to disappear.

As the family got more desperate, a police report notes that officers weren’t concerned. 

“Kenneth was not entered as missing due to there being little to no evidence to support that he was in immediate danger to himself at that point in time,” the report, filed by Black River Falls Police Officer Charles Smart, states. 

Eventually, the family turned to resources offered by the state’s missing and murdered indigenous people (MMIP) task force. With that help, Kenneth was finally officially reported missing and search and rescue teams were on the ground in Black River Falls by the morning of Sept. 11 — two days after his aunt last heard from him. 

Around 4:30 p.m. on the same day the search began, Kenneth was found dead, hanging from a tree by his backpack strap in a small patch of woods in Black River Falls. 

For family members and advocates for missing and murdered indigenous people, the official response in Kenneth’s case once he went missing and during the investigation into his death exemplify the ways in which a bureaucratic system dismisses the concerns of Native American families even as Wisconsin works to improve its response to these types of cases. 

“Families are in a process of grief, taking care of their loved ones, in a state of traumatic shock, they are navigating through a system that is not being supportive of their needs,” says Rene Ann Goodrich, a Bad River tribal member who serves on the Wisconsin MMIW Task Force.

In the years since Kenneth’s death, his family has tried to process the grief and trauma while continuing to search for answers about what happened — without much help from local officials. 

Several members of the family remain unconvinced that Kenneth’s death was a suicide, saying they believe there was “foul play” involved. Other family members believe the coroner wasn’t entirely thorough in her assessment of the scene where his body was found. They also have questions about the results of the autopsy, which was conducted by a lab in Minnesota. Aside from their questions about the conclusions made in Kenneth’s case, family members told the Wisconsin Examiner they feel as if they’ve been “brushed off” by city officials. 

Contemporaneous notes taken by MMIP advocates and complaints filed by family members alleging their rights as victims have been violated highlight the family’s numerous unsuccessful attempts to speak with Black River Falls officials. The state Department of Justice dismissed the family’s complaints against the city because Kenneth’s death was ruled a suicide and therefore his relatives do not qualify as crime victims. 

“Throughout the death of my son, Black River Falls Police Department has shown little regard for what happened to my son based on the investigation and unwillingness to speak with the family,” Kenneth Taylor Sr. wrote in a 2023 letter to the Wisconsin Crime Victims’ Rights Board. “[We] have tried constantly to get answers and meetings. There are many discrepancies in the information the family has received from involved agencies.” 

According to several members of the Taylor family, they were told by multiple Black River Falls law enforcement and city officials that they’d been advised by the city attorney not to speak with them. 

“No one would ever talk to us,” Joy Taylor says. “They would cancel the appointments. I even went as far as calling the mayor, and he stated that no one was going to talk to me about this case, that they have been advised not to talk to anyone. Why, on a suicide case, would you not talk to someone if it was so cut and dried? Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”

Black River Falls officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story. 

Goodrich, who still has questions about her own daughter’s death, says it’s difficult for families when their relative’s cause of death is identified as a suicide or overdose because from law enforcement’s perspective, that ends the case. Yet families still have questions about what led up to their loved one’s death. 

“Families need to feel that they are included and at that table in the investigative process, and right now they are not feeling that support,” Goodrich says. “It doesn’t help assure families that justice will be served when they’re told ‘Well, we can’t talk to you anymore, we can’t share any more information with you, you’re going to have to talk to the county attorney.’ That is closing conversations and the door to families as they are sharing their valid concerns and information. Families really don’t need that type of grief as they’re trying to navigate the system and make sense of what happened. This contributes to and creates more trauma.”

Goodrich adds that what will help state and local governments in Wisconsin better handle MMIP cases is the creation of a new statewide office to help train local law enforcement and coordinate investigations.

Kristen Welch, a member of Wisconsin’s Task Force for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women who worked with the Taylor family, says the government response to Kenneth’s case fits a pattern. 

“It’s a patterned response. So what they experienced, like the delay in filing the initial report, is very common,” Welch says, adding that some of that treatment stems from bias against Native Americans but also from a lack of training and standardized practices across law enforcement agencies. “[This] sort of really rude treatment, those are all common responses for family members that are just trying to get case information. I don’t know why they feel that that’s OK, and they could really solve a lot of their own problems if they just sat down with this family, answered questions and shared the case information with them. I think a lot of the frustration would have been put to ease, but it again, is a training and protocol issue within their departments.”

Welch says that in hearings on MMIP issues that have been held across the state and country, this was a common theme. 

“That was like the common pattern — treatment of response — and at the federal level too,” she says. “So that was from Alaska all the way to the Midwest. We held hearings, and you heard the same story from our family members, the mistreatment and just lack of compassion and respect for families who are going through an incredible trauma and carry that, and just want someone to show them a little compassion.”

In the years since Kenneth’s death, the family had used the tree where he was found as a makeshift memorial, bringing food, flowers and tobacco to the site. But this year, the whole area was clear cut, adding to the family’s distress. 

“It was like where his soul left his body pretty much,” Kenneth’s aunt, Cheyenne, says. “And then they went and cut it down. Why?”

But Cheyenne says she’s trying to keep moving forward for her own children, while trying to remember how cheerful and outgoing Kenneth was and how much he loved his kids — one of whom never got to meet him. 

“It took me this long to finally accept that he’s gone and he’s not coming back,” she says. “He was always there for me, just like I was for him. And there was nothing in this world I would never do for him. And he knew it.”

Dr. Karen Hyun will be the next secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. (Office of Gov. Tony Evers)

Gov. Tony Evers announced Monday that Dr. Karen Hyun will be appointed as the next Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Hyun currently serves as chief of staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

The DNR secretary position has been unfilled for more than a year after the resignation of former Secretary Adam Payne in October 2023. In a news release, Evers said that Hyun’s career working on environmental issues makes her “a great asset.” 

“Dr. Hyun’s extensive science background and expertise working in fish and wildlife, shoreline restoration, and coastal management and resilience will make her a great asset to the Department of Natural Resources and to our administration,” Evers said. “Having spent most of her career working in environmental policy, Dr. Hyun brings a wealth of experience navigating many of the issues the department is charged with managing every day, and I’m so excited for her to get started.”

Hyun, who lives in Madison, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Earth Systems from Stanford University before getting her doctorate from the University of Rhode Island in marine science. 

Before joining NOAA, the federal agency that forecasts weather and tracks oceanic and atmospheric conditions — including on the Great Lakes — Hyun worked at the National Audubon Society as director of water and coastal policy before becoming the vice president of coastal conservation in 2018. 

She started her career in 2009 working as a staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee. She then worked in the administration of former President Barack Obama as senior policy advisor to the secretary of Commerce and deputy assistant secretary of fish, wildlife, and parks at the Department of the Interior in 2015. 

“I’m honored to accept this appointment from Gov. Evers to lead the DNR,” Hyun said. “Wisconsin is known for its abundance of natural resources, wildlife, and outdoor recreation opportunities, and I have spent much of my life dedicated to understanding, conserving, and promoting the natural resources and spaces that we all know and love. I look forward to working alongside the dedicated DNR staff to ensure that Wisconsin’s ecosystems, wildlife, natural spaces, and resources remain accessible, safe, and available for generations of Wisconsinites to come.”

Hyun’s appointment is effective Jan. 27.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes delivers updates about the Dec. 16, 2024 school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison's east side. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Just days after he was thrust into the national spotlight following the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School that killed two people, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes was announced as the new chief of the Seattle Police Department. 

Barnes’ acceptance of the job in Seattle comes as the Madison police are still investigating the shooting on Monday and the motives behind the 15-year-old girl’s attack. Authorities have discovered that the girl was in contact with a 20-year-old California man who was planning his own attack on a government building. 

Since the shooting, Barnes has been an outspoken critic of hardening the defenses of community schools. At his first press conference after the shooting, he was asked if the school had metal detectors and responded that schools shouldn’t have such measures installed. 

“I’m not aware that the school had metal detectors, nor should schools have metal detectors,” he said. “It’s a school. It’s a safe space.”

Prior to the shooting, Barnes had been named a finalist for the Seattle job. 

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell noted in a statement that Barnes has successfully brought crime down in Madison and promised to continue to work to combat gun violence.

“Earlier this week, under tragic circumstances, the nation received its introduction to Chief Shon Barnes. We all saw firsthand what our team has known since we began this recruitment process — that Chief Barnes possesses the impressive leadership capabilities, compassionate approach, and dedication to effective police work needed to continue moving our Police Department forward,” Harrell said. “I’ve spoken with Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway to express my condolences and support as they process this week’s tragedy and to share my continued commitment to fighting for solutions to the gun violence epidemic that impacts every corner of our country through our shared work with the U.S. Conference of Mayors.”

Barnes took over as chief in Madison in early 2021 as the city responded to an increase in violent crime and the protests against police violence that occurred across the country in 2020. During his tenure, Barnes has overseen the department’s effort to equip officers with body cameras. 

He was also named a finalist for the chief jobs in Chicago and San Jose, California, despite telling Isthmus in 2021 that he was committed to Madison “for the long haul.” 

Rhodes-Conway said in a statement that Barnes’ collaborative approach was important to the establishment of Dane County’s Public Health Violence Prevention Unit and the Madison Fire Department’s CARES program, noting that the city is “safer and more resilient” because of his work. 

“I would like to congratulate Chief Shon Barnes on his new opportunity in Seattle and thank him for his service to Madison,” Rhodes-Conway said. “The Chief has been a steady, forward-thinking leader throughout his tenure and he will be greatly missed.”

She also commended his work this week responding to the school shooting.

“The tragedy this week has been all-consuming, and we still have much healing to do as a community,” she said. “I’m grateful that the Madison Police Department responded to this unthinkable crisis with the utmost professionalism and compassion. Chief Barnes was at the center of coordinating local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies during an unprecedented moment. He did so admirably.”

The Madison Police and Fire Commission is responsible for finding Barnes’ replacement. Rhodes-Conway said in the coming weeks the commission will outline a search plan and during the recruitment process an interim chief will be named.

Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski and state Treasurer John Lieber present a large check to educators to represent the $70 million disbursement from the Common School Fund to public school libraries across state. (Courtesy of Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski)

Wisconsin school libraries and media resources will receive a record $70 million in funding from the Board of Commissioners of Public Land, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski announced Thursday. 

The agency’s contribution from the Common School Fund breaks the record for largest ever provided, which was set last year when the BCPL provided $65 million from the fund. 

“I’m proud of our record-breaking distribution. It comes at a time when schools are being asked to do more with less, and our strategic investments and collaborative efforts are making a difference to ensure that every student—no matter where they live—has access to the books, technology, and tools they need to succeed,” Godlewski said in a statement.

The BCPL manages state trust funds created as Wisconsin sold off millions of acres of land granted to the state government in the 19th century. The agency also manages timber sales for 77,000 acres of land still under state control. 

The Common School Fund is the “only dedicated funding source for many of Wisconsin’s public school libraries,” according to a news release. The amount of funds provided to school libraries through the fund has substantially increased in recent years. In 2020, libraries received $38.2 million through the fund. 

“Today’s milestone reflects the dedication of our team and the strategic investments we’ve made to ensure the fund continues to grow for future generations,” Godlewski said. “We’ve diversified hundreds of millions of dollars to include Wisconsin-based venture funds that support new and growing businesses. This is a win-win for our state: the Common School Fund bolsters Wisconsin’s economy, and the financial returns directly support our schools and libraries, reinforcing our commitment to educational excellence and opportunity.”

At an event in Brown Deer Thursday afternoon, Godlewski, state Treasurer John Leiber and educators celebrated the learning resources the money will be able to provide. 

“Without the support from the common school funds, many school libraries would not have the necessary resources to stay up-to-date and provide the digital resources necessary for our students’ continued learning. The BCPL work ensures that these schools are not left behind, and that all students in Wisconsin, no matter their background, have access to the educational opportunities they deserve,” said Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association President Jennifer Griffith.

Funds disbursed through the BCPL have been criticized in recent years because the land provided to the state by the federal government in the 1800s was taken from the state’s Native American tribes. 

In February, data collected by the non-profit media outlet Grist showed that funds disbursed through the BCPL’s Normal School Fund to the state’s public universities came from profits made from land taken largely from the Ojibwe tribe, the Wisconsin Examiner reported.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes delivers updates about the Dec. 16, 2024 school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison's east side. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

This story was updated on Monday at 9:39 p.m.

Three people are dead and another six are in the hospital after a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison’s east side Monday morning. The shooter, who was a student at the school, is among the dead, according to Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes.

Two of the injured victims, both students, remain in critical condition while the other four have non-life threatening injuries, Barnes said at a mid-afternoon press conference. 

Barnes identified the shooter at a Monday night press conference as Natalie Rupnow, 15, who went by the name “Samantha,” and said she appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Gov. Tony Evers issued a statement decrying the shootings and announced he would order flags to fly half-staff across the state through Sunday, Dec. 22.

“As a father, a grandfather, and as governor, it is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up and go to school one morning and never come home. This should never happen, and I will never accept this as a foregone reality or stop working to change it,” Evers said.

“Today my focus is on supporting these families and kids and the Abundant Life community, and the state stands ready to support them and the efforts of local law enforcement through what will undoubtedly be difficult days ahead.”

Police responded to the shooting at the K-12 private school shortly before 11 a.m., Barnes said. While clearing the building, officers found the person they believe to be responsible already dead, along with the other two people who were killed, one a teacher and the other a student. No officers fired their weapons during the incident.

Police searched a home on Madison’s North Side late Monday afternoon and evening and said the search was in connection with the shooting.

The shooter used a handgun, Barnes said. Her family was cooperating in the investigation, but there was no immediate information about what the individual’s motives may have been.

“You ask me about why, but I don’t know why, and I felt like if we did know why, we could stop these things from happening,” Barnes said.

In a statement, President Joe Biden called the shooting “shocking and unconscionable” and urged Congress to enact “Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” 

Biden was briefed earlier Monday about the shooting according to the White House press pool. 

At an earlier news conference, Barnes lamented the incident and its impact on the school and the community. 

“​​I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas, every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever,” Barnes said. “These types of trauma don’t just go away. We need to figure out how to piece together what exactly happened right now. My heart is heavy for my community. My heart is heavy for Madison. We have to come together as a community and figure out what happened here and make sure that it doesn’t happen at any other place that should be a refuge for students in our community.”

Families of students showed up at the school before noon and at mid-afternoon were still lined up in their cars down Buckeye Road on Madison’s East Side waiting to be reunited with their children. Officials said they would not release information about the victims until families had been notified. 

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway emphasized the community-wide impact of the incident.

“This is a whole of government response,” Rhodes-Conway said. “It is not just police and fire. It is not just the city of Madison, and we have folks from all around the country, we have folks from multiple agencies engaged in both the initial immediate response and the ongoing support.”

She and Dane County Executive Melissa Agard emphasized the importance and availability of mental health assistance to anyone who may have been touched by the incident.

“If anyone needs mental health support as a result of this incident and the coverage of it, I encourage them to reach out” via the 9-8-8 emergency mental health line, which takes calls and text messages, Rhodes-Conway said. “It is incredibly important that we take care of our community in this very difficult time.”

“To all of those who are grieving in our community, please know that you’re not alone,” Agard said. “Dane County stands with you. We’re here to support you in any way possible — please reach out and ask for help.”

Barnes said he has been in contact with officials at the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI. 

Although the Madison Police Department had earlier reported five deaths in the shooting, spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said that was based on information from the hospital where the victims were taken. Hospital personnel later updated the number of deaths to three people, she said. 

This story has been updated with new information from the Madison police as well as city and Dane County officials.