Wisconsinites have grown accustomed to multimillion dollar, record-shattering, nationally scrutinized state Supreme Court races.
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The village of Winter in Sawyer County witnessed the state’s highest heat index of 111 degrees Fahrenheit during a heat wave late last month.
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People under the age of 21 will no longer be able to buy hemp-derived THC products in Milwaukee, under an ordinance passed by the city's Common Council on Tuesday.
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A new slate of incentives and a film office will soon be supporting TV and movie projects here in Wisconsin.
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In one of her last public conversations, Young spoke with WPR’s Robin Washington on “Morning Edition” from hospice care in April, touching just briefly on her very full life.
The post Remembering Wisconsin activist and artist Kym Young, in her own words appeared first on WPR.
An independent Milwaukee music venue's plan to make its building more accessible for people with disabilities got a boost this week with an unexpected donation from musician Jack White.
The post A small Milwaukee concert venue gets surprise donation from musician Jack White appeared first on WPR.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers raised about $760,000 during the first six months of 2025, well shy of the nearly $5.3 million he raised during the same period in his reelection bid four years ago.
The post As he weighs reelection bid, Tony Evers’ fundraising lags millions behind his last run for office appeared first on WPR.
Changing tariffs and shifting trade negotiation deadlines has created challenges for Wisconsin companies importing and exporting goods.
The post How latest Trump administration tariffs and trade disputes are affecting commerce in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.
The 2025 NFL draft in Green Bay had a statewide economic impact of more than $104 million, beating pre-draft projections, according to new data from the local visitors bureau.
The post Economic impact of NFL draft in Green Bay soars past pre-event projections appeared first on WPR.
A federal appeals court sided with a woman who accused a former Badger football star of sexual assault, overturning a lower court's dismissal of her lawsuit against UW-Madison.
The post Appeals court rules against UW-Madison, in favor of woman who accused football player of sexual assault appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin State Capitol (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
With the fields for the 2026 elections still shaping up, incumbents and candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and governor’s office turned in their campaign finance reports over the last week.
Gov. Tony Evers, who has not yet announced whether he will run for a third term, reported raising $757,214 this year with just over $2 million on hand at the end of June. In comparison, Evers had raised $5 million during the first six months of 2021 before going on to beat Republican businessman Tim Michels in November 2022. Evers said he would make a decision about running following the completion of the state budget, which he signed earlier this month. He has said he expects to announce a decision any day.
Whitefish Bay manufacturer and former Navy SEAL Bill Berrien, who entered the GOP primary for governor last week, hasn’t had to submit campaign fundraising information yet, but he told WISN-12 that he expected to raise “just shy of $1 million” in the first week of his campaign.
Berrien’s “Never Out of the Fight” PAC, which he launched in April to help further conservative causes and to help Republican candidates win elections, reported raising nearly $1.2 million in its first few months.
The majority of the PAC’s total comes from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who each contributed $500,000.
The New York-based twins are co-founders of Gemini, a cryptocurrency platform that they launched in 2014. They are well known for suing Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, claiming that he stole their idea when he started Facebook. Both twins were portrayed by actor Armie Hammer in 2010 in the movie The Social Network.
Berrien’s campaign has already started spending 13 months ahead of the primary, announcing a $400,000 ad buy this week. Berrien is seeking to align himself with President Donald Trump, despite not supporting him during the 2024 presidential primary.
“I got into the race for governor because I believe we need a leader to shake up Madison the same way President Trump has shaken up Washington,” Berrien said in a statement about the ad buy. “I’ll use my experience as a former Navy SEAL and Wisconsin manufacturer to turn our state around from the weak leadership we’ve experienced under Tony Evers and put Wisconsin families first.”
Republican Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, who was the first candidate in the race, raised $424,143 during his first two months. He thanked his supporters in a statement, saying that the numbers show that there is a “huge appetite for a new generation of common sense leadership in Wisconsin — one that reforms state government” and “puts taxpayers first.”
Ahead of the November gubernatorial election, Wisconsin will have another April election for the state Supreme Court. The balance of the Court, which currently has a 4-3 liberal majority, will not be at stake as conservative Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley is up for reelection.
While the state Supreme Court race is still eight months away, Bradley reported no fundraising activity this month, creating uncertainty about whether she’ll run.
Bradley told WisPolitics in April that she would run for another term, saying she wanted to “ensure that there is a voice for the Constitution and for the rule of law to preserve that in the state of Wisconsin.” However, since then speculation has risen that she may change her mind. A report from conservative talk radio host Mark Belling in June said it was unlikely she would run.
Spending in the nominally nonpartisan races has skyrocketed in recent years, breaking all records in April. Spring statewide elections in Wisconsin have been increasingly tough for conservatives over the last several years. The last three consecutive Supreme Court races were won by the liberal candidate by double-digit margins.
Appeals court judge and former Democratic state Assembly lawmaker Chris Taylor launched her campaign for the Supreme Court in May. She reported raising $583,933 in the first weeks of her campaign. The total comes from nearly 4,800 contributions, including from people in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.
At this point in her campaign in 2024, Justice-elect Susan Crawford had raised $460,000.
Taylor’s campaign manager Ashley Franz said in a statement that the fundraising numbers show that Wisconsinites want to reinforce the current liberal majority on the Court.
“Judge Taylor’s broad base of support reflects her commitment to serving all Wisconsinites and ensuring our courts remain fair and independent,” Franz said.
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A “no trespassing” sign outside of Northwest ICE Processing Center, also known as Northwest Detention Center. (Photo by Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)
WASHINGTON — Immigration advocacy groups sued the Trump administration Wednesday for dismissing cases in immigration courts in order to place immigrants in expedited removal for swift deportations without judicial review.
As the White House aims to achieve its goals of deporting 1 million immigrants without permanent legal status by the end of the year and a 3,000 arrests-per-day quota for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, immigrants showing up to court appearances have been arrested or detained.
President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to reshape immigration court, which is overseen by the Department of Justice, through mass firings of judges hired during President Joe Biden’s term and pressuring judges to clear the nearly 4 million case backlog.
The suit was brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by immigration legal and advocacy groups the National Immigrant Justice Center, Democracy Forward, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Services and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The suit is a proposed class action representing 12 immigrants who filed asylum claims or other types of relief and had their cases dismissed and placed in expedited removal, subjecting them to a fast-track deportation.
The individual plaintiffs, who all have pseudonyms in the court documents, had their asylum cases dismissed and were arrested and placed in detention centers far from their homes.
One plaintiff, E.C., fled Cuba after he was arrested and raped after he opposed that country’s government. He came to the U.S. in 2022 and applied for asylum and appeared for an immigration hearing in Miami.
At his hearing, DHS attorneys moved to dismiss his case “without notice and without articulating any reasoning whatsoever” and when he tried to leave the court, ICE arrested and detained him, according to the suit.
E.C. is currently detained in Tacoma, Washington, “thousands of miles from his family, including his U.S. citizen wife,” according to the suit.
The groups argue new policies from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice are unlawful.
Those policies include the approval of civil arrests in immigration court, instructing ICE prosecutors to dismiss cases without following proper procedure, instructing ICE agents to put immigrants who have been in the country for more than two years in expedited removal and pursuing expedited removal when removal cases are ongoing.
“(DHS) has now adopted the policy that it will arrest a noncitizen and place them in expedited removal even if the immigration judge does not immediately grant dismissal or if the noncitizen reserves appeal of the dismissal—either of which means that the full removal proceedings are not over,” according to the suit. “In plain terms, DHS is disregarding both immigration judges who permit noncitizens an opportunity to oppose dismissal and the pendency of an appeal of the dismissal decision.”
The Trump administration has expanded the use of expedited removal, meaning that any immigrant without legal status who’s been in the U.S. for less than two years can be swiftly deported without appearing before an immigration judge.
“DHS and DOJ have implemented their new campaign of courthouse arrests through coordinated policies designed to strip noncitizens of their rights … exposing them to immediate arrest and expedited removal,” according to the suit.
The impact has been “severe,” according to the suit.
“Noncitizens, including most of the Individual Plaintiffs here, have been abruptly ripped from their families, lives, homes, and jobs for appearing in immigration court, a step required to enable them to proceed with their applications for permission to remain in this country,” according to the suit.
The suit details the plaintiffs’ circumstances.
One known as M.K., appeared in immigration court for her asylum hearing after she came to the U.S. in 2024 from Liberia, fleeing an abusive marriage and after she endured female genital mutilation.
DHS attorneys dismissed “her case without notice and, upon information and belief, without articulating any change in circumstances,” according to the suit.
“M.K. speaks a rare language, and because the interpretation was poor, she did not understand what was happening at the hearing,” according to the suit. “M.K. was arrested by ICE at the courthouse and detained; she was so distressed by what happened that she required hospitalization.”
She is currently detained in Minnesota.
Another asylum seeker, L.H., came to the U.S. in 2022 from Venezuela, fleeing from persecution because of her sexual orientation, according to the suit. At her first immigration hearing in May, DHS moved to dismiss her case and has received an expedited removal notice.
ICE officers arrested L.H. after she had her hearing and she is currently detained in Ohio.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate are calling on the Trump administration to release billions in frozen school funding. (Photo by Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Republican members of the U.S. Senate called on Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought in a letter Wednesday to release the $6.8 billion in funds for K-12 schools that the Trump administration is withholding.
The letter marked a major friction point between President Donald Trump and influential lawmakers in his own party as his administration tests the limits of the executive branch’s authority in clawing back federal dollars Congress has already appropriated. Every state has millions in school funding held up as a result of the freeze.
Wednesday’s letter came after the Supreme Court temporarily cleared the way earlier this week for the administration to carry out mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Department of Education that Trump ordered earlier this year.
Just a day ahead of the July 1 date when these funds are typically disbursed as educators plan for the coming school year, the Education Department informed states that it would be withholding funding for several programs, including before- and after-school programs, migrant education and English-language learning, among other initiatives.
“Withholding these funds will harm students, families, and local economies,” wrote the 10 GOP senators, many of them members of committees that make decisions on spending. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican and chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, led the letter.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the broader Senate Appropriations Committee, also signed onto the letter, along with: Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Boozman of Arkansas, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Jim Justice of West Virginia.
“The decision to withhold this funding is contrary to President Trump’s goal of returning K-12 education to the states,” the senators wrote. “This funding goes directly to states and local school districts, where local leaders decide how this funding is spent, because as we know, local communities know how to best serve students and families.”
States Newsroom has asked the Office of Management and Budget for comment on the letter.
Meanwhile, a slew of congressional Democrats and one independent — 32 senators and 150 House Democrats — urged Vought and Education Secretary Linda McMahon in two letters sent last week to immediately release the funds they say are being withheld “illegally.”
Democratic attorneys general and governors also pushed back on these withheld funds when a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the administration earlier this week.
Birth control pills. A nonprofit group's new scorecard assesses how state policies affect access and availability for contraception. (Getty Images)
For Wisconsinites who care about access to birth control, a new scorecard published Wednesday offers a mix of good and bad news.
On the plus side, Wisconsin’s Medicaid program covers the cost of contraception for people with incomes up to just over 300% of the federal poverty line, according to the Population Reference Bureau. State law also requires insurers to cover the cost of prescription contraceptives.
On the down side, Wisconsin law allows health insurance plans to require a patient co-payment, the Population Reference Bureau reports. And the state also hasn’t enacted legislation that allows more health care professionals to issue birth control prescriptions.
The Population Reference Bureau is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy and research organization that describes its mission as improving people’s health and well-being through policies and practices rooted in scientific evidence.
Wednesday the bureau published its first-ever scorecard assessing contraceptive access for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Reviewing a collection of policies that address affordability, availability and the environment of health care, the scorecard rates each state as protective, restrictive or mixed on contraception access.
“Nearly 35% of Americans or 121 million people currently live in a state that actively restricts access to contraception through their policies,” said Cathryn Streifel, senior program director for the organization, in a briefing for reporters Tuesday. “This patchwork of policies creates a system where reproductive health care access depends on where you live.”
Broad access to contraception “is essential to helping people live with more freedom, health and possibility,” Streifel said — allowing people to have reproductive autonomy, making it possible for them to complete education and join the workforce, and contributing to economic stability. Contraception also reduces the risks for maternal and infant mortality and helps reduce public health costs, she added.
“We are at a moment where understanding state policy landscapes matters more than ever, because state policies are really shaping the reality of contraceptive access on the ground — especially because the federal protections are crumbling,” Streifel said.
Christine Power, a senior policy advisor with the organization, said the scorecard can help policymakers, advocates and the general public understand where each state stands.
The goal is “to ensure that this contraceptive policy is more transparent and actionable and to highlight both progress and gaps in access across the country,” Power said.
The scorecard rates 16 states and D.C. as protective for contraception access and 16 as restrictive. Wisconsin is one of 18 states with a mixed scorecard.
Wisconsin’s protective policies include the Medicaid coverage for family planning services. In addition, the state requires that hospital emergency rooms provide access to emergency contraception.
Wisconsin’s laws on sex education get a mixed rating. Positive points include requiring medically accurate curricula, not requiring parental consent and not limiting sex ed to abstinence only. On the negative side, school districts are not required to offer sex ed.
The scorecard rates the state’s failure to fully expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as restrictive, along with the failure to expand contraceptive prescription authority to more health providers. A bill that would allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control pills has passed the Wisconsin Assembly and is awaiting a vote in the state Senate.
On several other issues that the scorecard includes, Wisconsin has no policy.
The state doesn’t require insurers to cover an extended supply of contraceptives beyond three months, which increases a state’s score for being protective. Wisconsin also has no policies explicitly allowing minors to independently access contraceptive services or restricting them from doing so.
“Ten states restrict most minors from independently accessing contraceptive services,” said Power. “This policy creates additional hurdles for young people seeking to make informed decisions about their reproductive health, potentially leading to delayed care, unintended pregnancies, and negative long-term health outcomes.”
Wisconsin law is silent on whether health care providers or facilities can refuse to provide contraceptive services on religious or moral grounds. In other states, laws permitting that refusal are rated as restrictive.
The scorecard doesn’t rank the 50 states, but it does single out those with the highest scores for protection as well as those with the most restrictive policy framework.
Washington and California are the two states with the most protective contraception policies, Power said, while Kansas had the lowest score, with a mix of restrictive policies and the absence of any policy.
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National Public Radio headquarters on North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday began debating changes to a bill that will cancel $9 billion in previously approved spending on public broadcasting and foreign aid — but with a deal for grants to some Native American radio stations that may help offset cuts to public media.
The vote-a-rama, which could extend overnight, represents a prime opportunity for Democrats to force GOP senators to vote on each of the proposed rescissions. And while it’s unlikely enough Republicans break with their party to substantially change the bill, key votes will serve as fodder for campaign ads heading into next year’s midterm elections.
The Trump administration sent Congress the rescissions request in early June, allowing the White House budget office to legally freeze funding on the programs in the proposal for 45 days.
The House voted mostly along party lines later that month to send the rescissions bill to the Senate, where Republican leaders have spent weeks addressing concerns raised by their own lawmakers.
At the center of the dispute is how cutting foreign aid for dozens of programs, including those addressing global health and democracy, would affect American influence around the globe.
GOP senators also raised qualms during a hearing about how eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would impact rural communities and emergency alert systems.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides funding for National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and hundreds of local stations throughout the country. In North Dakota, for example, the president of Prairie Public said he anticipates elimination of federal funding would mean a loss of about $2 million for his PBS station over the next two years.
South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds announced Tuesday he’s secured an agreement with White House budget director Russ Vought to move $9.4 million from an account within the Interior Department to at least two dozen Native American radio stations in multiple states.
Those include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to Rounds’ office.
Republican leaders also agreed to keep funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, whole by removing that rescission from the bill. PEPFAR is a global health program to combat HIV/AIDS launched by former President George W. Bush.
But those changes didn’t sway every Republican senator to support the bill. Maine’s Susan Collins, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski voted against moving forward with debate on Tuesday night.
Vice President JD Vance casting a tie-breaking vote was the only reason the proposal advanced to the vote-a-rama, which began early Wednesday afternoon.
Amendment debate kicked off with a proposal from Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons to eliminate the $496 million rescission for international disaster relief funding, which he said “doesn’t just save lives around the world,” but strengthens American global leadership.
Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt argued against preserving full funding for that program, saying “many foreign governments and U.N. agencies have become reliant on U.S. emergency funding, using it to avoid investing in their own disaster preparedness.”
The amendment was not adopted following a 49-50 vote with Collins, McConnell and Murkowski voting with Democrats to strike the funding cut.
Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto tried unsuccessfully to block any cancellation to Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding that would hinder public safety.
“For years public broadcasting has been essential to keeping Americans informed during severe weather and environment threats and broader public safety situations,” Cortez Masto said. “Let me give you an example from my home state.
“As the Davis wildfire raged in northern Nevada last summer the local CBS affiliate lost their transmitter in the fire. But thanks to public broadcasting services, CBS was able to air their local newscast and keep Nevadans informed about evacuations, the path of the fire and safety measures.”
Schmitt opposed the provision saying it isn’t necessary to ensure emergency alerts. The attempt to send the bill back to committee failed following a 48-51 vote, with Collins and Murkowski voting in support.
In a brief interview before voting began, New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker said the rescissions package undermined what was supposed to be a bipartisan budget and appropriations process.
He also objected to Congress giving away its constitutional authority for spending decisions.
“The reason why this is an assault, in my opinion, on the Constitution right now is because the powers of the Article I branch of government really are the budget, and we should be doing things together,” he said. “To rescind money that was approved in a bipartisan way undermines that spirit and that work.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who said he planned to support the bill, also raised objections to the process.
“I’m trying to have a positive view about how this rescission is going to be implemented,” he told reporters outside the Senate chamber. “It’s not near as prescriptive as I would like for it to be, but if they misstep, it’ll definitely influence my posture for future recissions.”
Jacob Fischler and Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy greets members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee before the panel’s hearing on the White House fiscal 2026 budget request for the Transportation Department on July 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged patience Wednesday from Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who asked about a backlog of approved grants the department has yet to pay out to state and local governments.
Duffy, in his first appearance before the panel, said former President Joe Biden’s Transportation Department approved an unprecedented 3,200 grants between Election Day 2024 and President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Duffy told the panel his department was working to send out the remaining 1,300 grants, but that the task would take time.
He added that his hope was to complete the review by late summer or early fall.
“We have been left 3,200 grants — that is a historic number — from the last administration,” he said in response to a question from ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington. “I know you all want your grants, but I don’t think everyone recognizes the workload that was left to us.”
Duffy also promoted the inclusion in Republicans’ budget reconciliation law of $12.5 billion to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system, calling it a “down payment” on a $31.5 billion need. He called on Congress to fund the remaining $19 billion.
The air traffic control system has been targeted for reforms and technical upgrades for years. Renewed urgency on the issue came this year after a deadly crash near Washington Reagan National Airport in Northern Virginia during Duffy’s first full day on the job.
Larsen pressed Duffy on the delayed grants, and several members of both parties also asked about the status of grants to projects in their districts.
“I urge you to get on with the review of the remainder of these grants, because we’re leaving construction jobs on the table without these grants going out the door,” Larsen said. “Holding up these grants stalls badly needed job training, construction investments, and we need to get them going on that.”
Duffy said the department processed more grants in the first three months of the year than previous administrations had during the same period, but acknowledged that members of Congress and state transportation departments still wanted faster movement.
“I know that’s not enough for everybody,” he said. “Everyone wants their grants right now, and so we are working diligently to do that as quickly as possible.”
But some Democrats also complained about seven grants that had been canceled outright. Six of the seven were in Democratic states, California Democrat John Garamendi said. The seventh was a grant to the University of New Orleans, he said.
The projects appeared to be targeted because their titles included words related to diversity, equity and inclusion, Garamendi said.
Duffy said those grants departed from what the department’s priorities should be, such as decreasing the 40,000 traffic deaths per year.
“The racial stuff, as opposed to keeping people safe, that’s my drive,” Duffy said.
Duffy noted many members of the panel did not vote for the reconciliation law that extended 2017 tax cuts while slashing spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance programs. No Democrats voted for the law.
But he said he thought everyone on the committee would have supported the $12.5 billion for air traffic control.
Chairman Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, praised the provision.
“This funding will allow the administration to immediately get to work to replace critical telecommunications infrastructure and radar systems, invest in runway safety and airport surveillance projects and replace antiquated air traffic control facilities,” Graves said.
That initial payment would be insufficient to the total need of the system, Duffy said.
“We are going to need more money from the Congress than this $12.5 billion,” he said. “We will need more to do it. No offense to anybody, but the way Congress spends money, we’re talking $31.5 billion to do the full project. And my hope is that we’ll have an additional conversation about how we can do that. And I think time is of the essence.”
Democrats said they wanted to restore funding, provided in the bipartisan 2021 infrastructure law, for electric vehicle, or EV, chargers.
Republicans said that money could be better spent on other priorities, such as dedicated parking spaces for truckers, an issue raised by Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas. Crawford, a former chair of the panel’s Highways and Transit Subcommittee, applauded the department’s recent move to redirect $275 million for truck parking.
“Our nation was not and is still not at a point where rapid rollouts of charging infrastructure is a pressing issue,” Crawford said. “In contrast, our trucking industry is certainly not in a position where transitioning to electrification is a priority, but we do need parking.”
Duffy told the panel that the Biden administration’s rules for building EV charging were part of the reason why relatively few electric vehicle chargers had been built. He told Wisconsin Republican Tony Wied and New Hampshire Democrat Chris Pappas that the previous administration’s requirements regarding social justice and climate requirements in contracts delayed construction.
“There were so many rules about how the money could be spent, and it was polluted with ideas of the DEI and all the green work, which made it really challenging for states to build,” he said.
Duffy, a former House member from Wisconsin, said he would carry out laws passed by Congress, including funding for EV charging, even though he disagreed with it. But he also said he supported Trump’s attempt to revoke funding.
Pappas told Duffy his state was ready for the new guidelines.
“We’re ready to put shovels in the ground in New Hampshire,” Pappas said.
A Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition yard sign posted in 2020. The coalition has begun a new round of work advocating for an independent, nonpartisan system of drawing Wisconsin's legislative maps. (Photo by Tony Webster/Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition)
With court-ordered maps that have made more Wisconsin legislative races competitive for both political parties, pro-democracy advocates are turning back to a longstanding objective: a permanent change in how the maps are drawn.
Instead of state lawmakers who are currently in charge, political reform groups are organizing to move the task to a new, independent commission that would draw Assembly and Senate districts every 10 years, following the new U.S. census, in ways that reflect Wisconsin’s close political divide.
“Our goal is to have a more accountable legislative body,” says Iuscely Flores, organizing director for the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition.
A change will require an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution, which currently assigns the task of drawing legislative districts to the Wisconsin Legislature.
Until 2011, the state’s redistricting process generally went well for nearly half a century, according to Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin. The Legislature was closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. Regardless of the governor’s party, the other party usually had a slim majority in either the Senate or the Assembly.
“It was split control,” says Heck. “Redistricting was usually incumbent protection, but it wasn’t particularly partisan.”
The 2010 election in Wisconsin changed that, with Republicans for the first time in a half-century getting control of the governor’s mansion and both houses of the Legislature.
In 2011 the lawmakers drew what became widely recognized as one of the most gerrymandered legislative maps in the country. “They picked the most partisan maps they could,” says Heck.
The 2012 election showed the impact: Wisconsin voters reelected Democratic President Barack Obama to a second term and sent another Democrat, Tammy Baldwin, to the U.S. Senate. And 51% of the votes for the Wisconsin Assembly were for Democratic candidates. Yet Republicans won 60 of the 99 seats in the lower house.
In the years that followed, Common Cause, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the League of Women Voters all took up the cause of putting redistricting in the hands of an independent body, arguing that a group of citizens drawn from across the political spectrum could more accurately reflect the state’s true political makeup.
While the idea gained public support, it got the cold shoulder from the Legislature’s majority.
Then came the maps drawn after the 2020 census, approved in 2022 following a legal battle that was settled by the conservative majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Those maps further solidified a lopsided balance between the parties in the Legislature.
In 2023, voters flipped the Court’s balance from conservative and aligned with the Republican party (although the justices are officially nonpartisan) to a majority elected with the support of the Democratic Party. For reform advocates, the switch presented a new opportunity, and the focus turned to a lawsuit challenging how the 2022 maps were drawn.
The outcome of that lawsuit in 2024 produced maps that more closely reflected the narrow partisan divide in the states. In the 2024 elections, Democrats picked up four state Senate seats, erasing a GOP supermajority, and added 14 seats in the Assembly.
While those maps were closer to fair, however, a larger problem remains, reform groups argue: the Wisconsin Constitution gives the lawmakers the ultimate power to draw their districts in ways that preserve their political advantage.
The process for amending the state constitution requires lawmakers to vote on a proposal in two successive legislative sessions, then for voters to endorse the amendment in a statewide referendum. That means a little more than four years must pass before the change could be instituted.
Flores says the coalition is keeping an eye on that timeline, with plans to engage lawmakers from both parties next year in order to get legislation introduced and passed.
“We have to fix this permanently — that is what we are now focused on,” says Penny Bernard Schaber, leader for the Fair Maps Coalition’s team in the 8th Congressional District. “We want to put both parties on notice that we need to fix what we are doing.”
Even as the maps lawsuit was underway, advocates for bigger change were continuing to meet and organize, Flores says. And after the Court ruling and the adoption of the new, fairer maps, the work for an independent redistricting body kicked into higher gear.
An ad hoc committee on redistricting reform met monthly and later more often over the last year, with participants drilling down into alternatives for structuring independent redistricting bodies.
“We were able to really study how independent redistricting commissions in other states really worked,” Flores says.
“We looked at every single state that has an independent commission,” says Debra Cronmiller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. There were conversations with academics and other groups that draw legislative maps.
“We tried to glean from all of that information what would work best for Wisconsin,” Cronmiller said.
The Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition has drawn up a draft for how a Wisconsin commission might work, but Flores emphasizes that it’s still a work in progress.
The coalition has begun a series of community hearings to engage the public, explain the concept and refine the details. Hearings were held in the Milwaukee North Shore suburbs in June and in Dodgeville on July 12.
On Wednesday evening, there will be a hearing in Green Bay at the Brown County Central Library starting at 5:30 p.m. On Thursday one is scheduled for Wausau, and more meetings are planned through the summer and into the fall.
“We’re trying to get community input,” Flores says. “There are questions we still don’t know the answers to, and we’re learning so much — it’s been an amazing, citizen-led process that I don’t think I’ve seen before.”
The groups and individuals working on the project are considering “how to make sure that the commission accurately reflects and represents the people of Wisconsin — how to make sure that we incorporate people from different political backgrounds, different ethnicities,” Flores adds. “We’re trying to be what Wisconsin looks like.”
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Donald Trump signs the tax- and spending-cut meg-abill on July 4. A new Democratic Party website uses key talking points from Donald Trump's 2024 campaign against the president and his policies. (Photo by Alex Brandon - Pool/Getty Images)
Aiming to use President Donald Trump’s signature policies against him, Democrats unveiled a website Wednesday that depicts their purported costs to taxpayers in each state.
The TrumpTax.com website draws on projections from the Congressional Budget Office and other sources as it advances the argument that the mega-bill passed by Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate and signed into law by Trump on July 4 “takes money out of working people’s pockets to give handouts to the rich.”
The campaign combines the impact of Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff declarations with the mega-bill to derive a so-called “Trump Tax,” generating state-by-state calculations for the data.
“The Trump Tax will explode the deficit by $3.3 trillion — leading to higher inflation, higher energy bills, and higher grocery and prescription drug costs,” the website states — pinpointing specific messages about consumer pocketbook issues that were key talking points during Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
The site lists all 50 U.S. states with a drop-down list of bullet points for each.
In Wisconsin, the campaign projects 276,000 people will lose health insurance over the next decade. The number is calculated from changes to the Medicaid program that have been projected to cut some recipients off from the state-federal health insurance plan for the poor, along with the end of premium subsidies for low or moderate income households that purchase health insurance from the Affordable Care Act online marketplace.
It projects 49,000 Wisconsinites could lose food assistance through SNAP, the federal nutrition program and pegs the cost to Wisconsin businesses to date of Trump administration tariff policies at more than $900 million, citing calculations published in Axios.
“The Trump Tax is the largest redistribution of wealth and the largest cut to health care in Wisconsin history,” Democratic National Committee Chair Kenneth Martin said in a statement with the unveiling of the website.
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