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The state’s most devoted Democrats are scheduled to gather in Madison this weekend for the party’s annual convention where the seven-way race for the Democratic nomination for governor is likely to take center stage. 

Democratic caucus and county party leaders told Wisconsin Watch they are hopeful the convention could be a clarifying moment in the primary campaign on who has enough support to make it to the August primary. None of the main contenders dropped out ahead of last week’s filing deadline, so seven names will appear on the Aug. 11 Democratic primary ballot.

When Democrats convene at the Monona Terrace Convention Center on Saturday, there will be less than 45 days until early voting starts in late July.

“If their message does not ring true to the delegates at the convention, they better listen to the applause because people will be honest with them,” said Susan Chandler, the 1st Congressional District chair and vice chair of the Walworth County Democrats. “Everybody who goes to the convention is a highly engaged Democrat, and for every one of those highly engaged, we all know 10 people who are not. We’re bringing a lot of background to that convention and critically listening to these candidates.” 

After Democratic Gov. Tony Evers decided not to run for a third term, seven Democratic candidates submitted the signatures to make the ballot. They include former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Secretary Missy Hughes, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and Madison Sen. Kelda Roys. 

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans have coalesced around U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who received the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s endorsement at their annual convention in May and was endorsed by President Donald Trump in January. Tiffany has just one primary opponent, Andy Manske, a 27-year-old medical service technician.

“We want to know who is best situated to make bold sweeping change here in Wisconsin to provide a better life for Wisconsinites, and who is best situated to beat Tom Tiffany in a head-to-head,” said Brett Timmerman, the chair of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party. “I think that people are going to the convention looking for somebody to stand out in a meaningful way to deliver that message of why they think they are the best person to carry the torch forward.”

The closest comparison to this year’s field is the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary when 10 candidates ran for the opportunity to unseat then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Two dropped out in June before the primary that year. 

Evers, who had statewide election experience as the superintendent of public instruction, won the Democratic primary that year with 42% of the vote and later defeated Walker in the general election. Evers didn’t win a majority of primary voters, but his closest opponent only mustered 16.4% of the vote. 

A large primary, like the one in 2018, forces candidates to explain why voters should support their campaign, said Martha Laning, who served as the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin during the 2018 election cycle.

At the 2018 state Democratic convention, the candidates all had the opportunity to make a three-minute pitch to party die-hards on what they would do for Wisconsin, Laning said. A spokesperson for the state party said all seven of the Democrats who made the ballot will also have a chance to speak this weekend. 

“I think it’s great to put all of the candidates up there and to just let people know what their options are,” Laning said. “Again, any of them will be better than Tom Tiffany, so the more people talking about how they would do things and how they would improve people’s lives in Wisconsin is a good thing for us.”

Negativity and consolidation

It’s been a quiet primary among the slew of Democratic candidates over the last six months, with few events that set the campaigns apart. Hong led the field with 14% in the most recent Marquette University Law School Poll in March. The poll also found that 65% of voters were undecided on who to vote for in the primary.

It’s worth watching if the convention is a place where candidates take negative swipes at each other with the August primary on the horizon, said Anthony Chergosky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. 

“This has been a remarkably chill campaign, and I’m wondering if we’re going to see things heat up a little bit,” Chergosky said. 

Hints of discord are emerging in the primary. Hughes last month was the only candidate to publicly support the failed $1.8 billion bipartisan surplus deal negotiated between Evers and Republican legislative leaders. After the deal failed in the Senate, Hughes posted unnamed criticism of “certain self-serving Democratic candidates for governor who would rather boost their own personal political ambitions than serve our kids and taxpayers.” 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week reported that Hong was sued in May by Capital One for nearly $30,000 in credit card debt, which her campaign said had already been paid. Hong in a video posted on social media said the story showed her “opponents are scrambling.” 

“They are scared of what we’ve built, our platform that’s resonating with working class people all across the state who feel left behind, our organizing infrastructure that’s being built stronger every day,” Hong said. “They want to pull me off track and how dare they.” 

The convention could also serve as a milestone for consolidation in the race in the coming weeks, Chergosky said. A fractured field means one of the candidates could win with just 30% of the vote, but the math changes if someone drops out, he noted. 

For Gloria Hochstein, the chair of the party’s Rural Caucus, the circumstances of a large field of candidates make her wish ranked-choice voting was an option for this primary.

“The problem is that there are some really good people running, and the thoughtful voter is really going to have to decide where his or her vote should be,” Hochstein said. 

But the convention could “turn the tide” for some candidates who might drop out if they see they don’t have the statewide reach among the party’s most faithful, she said. 

“I think that’s the realization, some of the candidates, I hope they come to sooner rather than later,” Hochstein said.

The Democratic field for Wisconsin governor has been static for months. That could all change this week. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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New federal dollars could extend the life of one of Wisconsin’s remaining coal power plants.

The Trump administration plans to spend $425 million to support operations at 13 coal plants in 10 states, arguing the move will help meet rising electricity demand and preserve thousands of jobs tied to the ailing coal industry. The White House will do so by invoking the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law that gives the president broad authority to accelerate American industrial output at times of crisis.

Some of that funding could go to Madison-based utility Alliant Energy, which told Wisconsin Watch that it applied for a $19 million grant to extend the life of coal-powered units it owns at the Columbia Energy Center near Portage in central Wisconsin. The utility previously planned to retire the plant’s coal units before the end of the decade. 

President Donald Trump announced the action from the Oval Office Thursday, highlighting  that the coal plants set to benefit are all in states he won during the 2024 election.

 “Wisconsin put you over the edge,” U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., interjected, standing among the gaggle of Republican lawmakers and Cabinet officials behind the president. 

“Our action will allow these facilities to invest in upgrades that will extend their operational lives for decades into the future, reinforce the reliability of our electrical grid … and keep electricity prices low for the American people,” Trump said, adding that the move may also bolster the nation’s artificial intelligence boom.  

The administration will also distribute $200 million in Department of Energy grants to reopen a coal plant in Maryland and build the first new coal plants in the U.S. in over a decade: one in Alaska and another in West Virginia.

The Trump administration has already intervened to block the retirement of coal plants in Michigan, Indiana and elsewhere. But the White House did not pair those earlier orders with funding to support ongoing operations, so ratepayers across most of the Midwest — including in Wisconsin — will pick up the bill for those extensions.

Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board (CUB) and other Midwestern ratepayer advocacy groups have since filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging federal orders blocking the closure of the Michigan and Indiana plants. The costs of extending aging coal plants’ operations “are adding to an affordability challenge customers are already experiencing in Wisconsin and nearby states,” said CUB Wisconsin Executive Director Tom Content.

Alliant has already pushed back the retirement dates for its coal-powered generators at the Columbia Energy Center and Edgewater Energy Center in Sheboygan. The company initially pledged to shut down the last coal generator at the Columbia plant by 2024; Alliant did not clarify the new expected life span of the plant. 

The Edgewater plant is slated to transition to natural gas generation by 2029.

Coal generation accounts for a declining share of Wisconsin’s and the Midwest’s overall energy mix. Natural gas surpassed coal as the state’s primary fuel for generating electricity in 2022.

Wisconsin ratepayers owe at least $1 billion to pay off debts tied to retired coal plants, including We Energies’ now-shuttered Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Kenosha County.

Extending operations at Alliant’s remaining coal plants could reduce the amount ratepayers will still owe when those facilities eventually close. 

Wisconsin clean energy advocates reacted with alarm to the White House’s doubling down on coal generation. 

“Burning coal in Wisconsin releases a long list of toxic chemicals and heavy metals, both into the air and water,” said Clean Wisconsin spokesperson Amy Barrilleaux. “No one in Wisconsin is asking for more mercury, arsenic, lead or soot. But we will be getting all of it, especially as the Trump administration dismantles pollution safeguards at coal plants, insisting more power is needed for the ‘AI data center revolution.’”

“It’s also important to note that burning coal is one of the most expensive ways to produce energy in Wisconsin — far more expensive than wind and solar farms, which are the cheapest,” she added. “So Wisconsinites will have higher energy costs and will be paying for the health costs, the longer we burn coal in this state.”

Alliant has scaled up investments in renewable energy generation in recent years, buoyed in part by clean energy tax credits extended by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The U.S. Department of Energy also agreed to back $3 billion in loans supporting Alliant’s wind generation and battery storage buildouts in the final days of the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has since largely reversed Biden-era tax incentives for renewable energy development. In its 2025 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alliant noted that the termination of clean energy tax credits could “adversely impact” the company’s finances. 

The company did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the status of Department of Energy financing for its wind and battery storage projects.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued Thursday that clean energy tax incentives created a false impression of the viability of renewable energy sources. Wind energy developers, he said, “weren’t trying to generate electricity. They’re just trying to generate tax credits.”

“Energy shouldn’t need subsidy,” Trump responded.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 5, 2026 to include information from Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin

Wisconsin power plant could benefit from Trump’s $425 million coal push is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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This story was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin still allows 16- and 17-year-olds to marry with parental consent even though they aren’t legally adults.
• The number of child marriages has gone down significantly over the past 30 years, but there are still a couple dozen per year.
• A Democratic bill that would ban the practice hasn’t moved out of committees controlled by Republicans, who say the current law respects parental rights.
• Whether the bill passes next session will likely depend on who controls the Legislature after the November election.

Last month deep red Oklahoma became the 17th state to ban child marriage — the practice of allowing minors, typically 16- and 17-year-olds, to marry with parental consent.

“Oklahoma has a responsibility to protect children and make sure they have the opportunity to reach adulthood before making decisions that will shape the rest of their lives,” Republican state Rep. Nicole Miller said in a press release.

Most states that have banned child marriage to date are led by Democrats. Wisconsin, where Republicans control the Legislature, is not following their lead.

In Wisconsin 16- and 17-year-olds can still be married with written parental permission submitted to a county clerk along with a standard marriage license. Between 2015 and 2024, 297 minors were married in Wisconsin, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Notably, these teenagers can be married not just to other minors, but also to adults. State law also provides an exception to its rules on statutory rape: Sexual relations between an adult and a teenager are not a crime as long as they are married.

“These are marriages between a minor woman and an older man,” said state Rep. Ann Roe, D-Janesville, a co-author of recent legislation to ban the practice. “The behavior outside of marriage would be a felony. … Using this old law that’s still on the books that allows for child marriage is incredibly disturbing and incredibly dangerous for young women.”

In the 2025-26 legislative session, Roe joined Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, in his yearslong campaign to end child marriage in Wisconsin. Each time, the legislation has died in committee. It has never received a public hearing, much less reached a floor vote. Republican leadership has refused to move it, saying the proposed law infringes on the rights of parents to decide what’s best for their children.

Incremental changes

The rules for child marriage in Wisconsin have changed throughout history. The 1849 Wisconsin statutes set the minimum marital age for males at 18, and 15 for females. Males under the age of 21 and girls under the age of 18 still needed parental consent. By 1959, the minimum age for females was raised to 16. The law was amended again in 1971 to allow all men 18 or older to marry without parental consent, and girls under 18 but at least 16 to marry with parental consent.

A change to the law in 1959 allowed a man under 18 to obtain permission from a judge to be married if it would prevent a child he fathered from being born out of wedlock. That allowance was quickly repealed in 1961.

The distinction between sexes was eliminated in 1975, and no changes have happened since.

In 2018, as the #MeToo movement against powerful, abusive men was gaining momentum, Delaware and New Jersey became the first states to ban child marriage. Fifteen more states have since followed suit, including Minnesota and Michigan. Bans on child marriage have been introduced multiple times since 2019 in Wisconsin.

Numbers decline, but not to zero

Statistics paint a picture of how this practice has declined over time in the state.

According to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 27 minors were married in Wisconsin in 2024: eight 16-year-olds and 19 17-year-olds. That figure represents a steep drop from a peak of 421 child marriages in 1995.

Between 2010 and 2022, the vast majority of minors who married did so with adult spouses. From 2017 through 2019, every single minor who married in Wisconsin did so with an adult.

And from 1995 through 2013 (the last year for which gender data is available) girls made up the overwhelming majority of minors who married. In 2013, 23 16-year-old girls married, compared to just two boys the same age. Among 17-year-olds that year, the ratio was 39 girls to eight boys.

According to advocacy group Unchained At Last, those numbers are consistent with nationwide trends. The vast majority of minors married in the country are girls. Most of those girls married an adult male with the man on average being four years older.

“One of the things we wanted to look at is that, you know, is this young love? Is this two teenagers getting married?” Spreitzer said. “The answer seems to be primarily no. Primarily this is men over the age of 18, marrying girls under the age of 18. So that really heightened the concern.”

The law also includes a surprising twist: You can get married under 18, but you can’t get divorced.

Current law gives some provisions for minors to get an annulment, but there is no explicit statutory right for a married minor to file for divorce. Spreitzer and Roe’s proposed legislation would allow any minors married before their proposal takes effect to get a divorce.

Republicans oppose ban based on parental rights

Spreitzer and Roe’s legislation would prohibit marriage under 18 in all circumstances. More than a dozen states have passed similar outright bans over the years.

The Wisconsin effort was once bipartisan. Republican Reps. Ken Skowronski, R-Franklin, and Chuck Wichgers, R-Muskego, were co-sponsors of the bill as recently as 2020. That support has since evaporated.

In February 2024, former state Rep. John Macco, R-Ledgeview, sent a 2:59 a.m. reply-all email to fellow legislators linking the child marriage ban with restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors — a conflation that bill authors and advocates rejected.

“If you’re really serious about protecting minors I’ll add an amendment to also protect them from sex altering drugs and surgery and then cosponsor with you,” Macco’s email read.

Wichgers declined to comment on his previous support.

For a bill to pass into law, identical versions must pass the Assembly and Senate. After a bill is introduced, leadership in both chambers refers their respective versions to a relevant committee where it may receive a hearing and vote. If a committee chair never schedules a bill hearing, it can wallow until the legislative session ends.

During the most recent legislative session, the Senate and Assembly child marriage bills sat in committees led by state Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and state Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston. The bills died without a committee hearing, just like in past sessions.

Kapenga said he sees no reason to act.

“I cannot recall one constituent phone call or interaction where this issue has come up. I don’t have a problem with the current law that allows a 16- and 17-year-old to marry in the state of Wisconsin as long as there is consent from the parent or guardian. Parents know what’s best for their child — not the government,” he said.

Kapenga’s staff confirmed he has not received constituent contacts opposing child marriage, but other Wisconsin legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, have been contacted, according to public records.

Kapenga invoked a broader political philosophy to explain his position. “Frankly, we’ve seen an erosion of parents’ rights over the years by those on the left who believe that it’s the job of government to parent children,” he said. “Given the very low numbers of minors impacted, I do not believe this warrants the passage of this legislation.”

Cathy Myers, a spokesperson for Zonta of Janesville, a women’s advocacy group that worked with Spreitzer on the bill, said the decline in child marriage over time doesn’t justify ignoring the issue.

“We believe this is a pretty easy issue to wrap your head around,” she said. “One child married is one too many.” 

Snyder didn’t respond to a request for comment. Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, deferred to Kapenga’s comments. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, did not respond to requests for comment.

Advocates say they hear from supportive Republicans

Spreitzer and Roe said they have heard privately from Republican colleagues who agree

with the goal of ending child marriage, but will not say so publicly.

“I think there are many people across the aisle on several different issues, this being one of them …they nod their heads, they look at me, they’re like, ‘We get it, this is an issue,'” Roe said. “And I think when hopefully they feel less obligated to fall into lockstep with their current leadership, I think that offers us an opportunity to have better conversations and figure out how we can work together.”

Spreitzer said he hopes that some of the Republicans who believe in banning child marriage “would start moving that conversation forward within their own party. That’s how we build progress.”

Myers said her organization heard from supportive Republicans during a lobby day at the Capitol this year.

“Several legislators said they didn’t know that children could be married until we met with them,” Myers said. “However, several also said that until they get the green light from their leadership, the bill would not get to the floor and would not become law.”

Child marriage has long-term consequences

Advocates say the consequences for girls are lasting. Roe described a possible trajectory: a teenage girl, newly married to an older man, denied the normal social activities of a 16-year-old and cut off from educational and career opportunities.

“The intentions of that older man are not to establish more freedoms for this young woman,” Roe said. “This is a form of potentially trafficking. This is a form of dominance. That’s just not healthy.”

Studies have linked child marriage among girls to poor mental health outcomes, diminished educational opportunity and higher rates of poverty.

Lauren Papp, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of human development and family studies who studies intimate relationships and family dynamics, said adolescence is the wrong time to make a permanent legal commitment to another person — not because teenagers are incapable, but because they are still becoming who they will be.

Papp disagreed that parental consent provides a safeguard because parents may not be privy to all of the relationship dynamics. She, Roe and Spreitzer all noted there can be an imbalance in power dynamics between a child spouse and an older partner who is legally an adult.

“That is certainly just an extra layer of dependence on others,” she said. “There’s a whole host of ways that the younger person could be disadvantaged.”

Child marriage with parental consent is still legal in Wisconsin. Republicans have blocked Democratic efforts to change that. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Most older adults want to stay in their homes as they age. But owning a home is getting more expensive as property taxes surge. 

Wisconsin homeowners last December saw the largest school property tax increase in more than three decades, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

Property tax increases disproportionately affect older adults who rely on fixed incomes through pensions, savings and Social Security.

At a Northwoods Senior Breakfast this spring in Merrill, one group of attendees asked: How can older adults get help paying property taxes? Wisconsin Watch passed that question along to three experts: 

• Nicole Heckman, vice president of financial wellbeing at AARP Foundation.
• Bekki Schmitt, director of Milwaukee’s Aging and Disabilities Resource Center.
• Jenny Fasula, executive director of the Foundation for Rural Housing.

Here’s what we learned: 

Where to start

The AARP Foundation offers an online tool to check eligibility for available assistance programs. Eligibility for assistance is often broader than people assume, Heckman said.

Aging and disability resource centers, or ADRCs, can provide information about local assistance programs and other savings opportunities. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services lists ADRCs by county online. 

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s website lists the latest information on property tax assistance programs and eligibility requirements. Municipalities may also offer local aid. 

People can also seek help from the Foundation for Rural Housing. 

Statewide options

“There are no great options for people who get behind on property taxes,” Fasula said. She wants to see the state expand assistance. Here are four existing Wisconsin programs to help offset or delay high property tax bills.

• Homestead credit: This tax credit helps low-income homeowners and renters. People can get help claiming the credit through Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites or AARP Foundation tax assistance programs. Inflation has reduced the value of the credit in recent years, as Wisconsin Watch has reported.

• School property tax credit: Homeowners and renters can claim this nonrefundable tax credit along with the Homestead credit through their income tax return. 

• Property tax deferral loan program: Homeowners 65 and older can delay paying property taxes through the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. Borrowers repay the loan, plus interest, once the home is sold or transfers ownership.

• Lottery and gaming credit: Eligible homeowners can apply online or through their county treasurer to receive a credit toward their property tax bills.

Need help paying property taxes? Here’s where older Wisconsinites can find assistance is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A dozen Wisconsin state lawmakers are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject a utility coalition’s request to pause competition for major electrical transmission projects in the Midwest.

The lawmakers — eight Assembly Republicans and four Senate Republicans — argued in a letter to the commission that competition for electrical transmission is a net positive for ratepayers, who stand to benefit from lower costs and increased innovation. That outcome, lawmakers wrote, “is even more urgent today given the rising issue of customer affordability.”

The utilities requesting a pause dispute whether competition truly lowers final costs for customers, but that argument is secondary to their primary concern: Powering the Midwest’s data center boom will require vast electrical transmission upgrades, and major regional utilities argue that competition only slows down projects needed to bring data centers online before international competitors overtake the U.S. in the artificial intelligence race.

Among the utilities behind the request are Xcel Energy, owner of Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin, and American Transmission Company (ATC), Wisconsin’s largest electrical transmission operator. 

The state lawmakers cast the utilities’ request as the latest stage of a long-standing fight over transmission market competition — one that has unfolded in the Assembly over the last five years.

Data center boom intensifies transmission competition

Ratepayer advocacy groups successfully lobbied FERC, which oversees utilities nationwide, to introduce competitive bidding for regional transmission projects in 2011, arguing that the previous model — allowing local monopolies to build all projects planned within their territories — all but guaranteed inflated costs. 

The shift triggered a nationwide gold rush for transmission projects. Regulators pre-approve developers’ “return on equity,” or profit on each dollar invested, for transmission construction, so winning a project means picking up a reliable revenue stream. 

Dozens of developers have since bid on transmission projects planned by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the nonprofit that manages the wholesale electricity market for much of the Midwest. MISO has approved more than $32 billion in new transmission projects since 2022 — projects largely planned before the region’s data center boom reached full swing.

The rush to win projects has placed well-established local utilities like ATC in competition with powerful national utilities venturing outside of their traditional territory, international developers venturing into the U.S. market, and startups backed by private equity firms. 

As data center developers rapidly scale up Midwest operations, the pace of transmission upgrades could become a choke point.

In March, MISO reversed its decision to award substations in Fond du Lac, Ozaukee and Sheboygan counties to private-equity-backed startup Viridon, instead handing the projects to ATC. 

ATC’s initial bid was more expensive than Viridon’s, but the company successfully argued it alone could build the substations in time to serve the nearby Vantage data center campus in Port Washington. Viridon had not yet secured Public Service Commission permission to  operate in Wisconsin — a hurdle ATC does not face.

MISO initially aimed to complete the substations by 2033; the Port Washington data center plans to come online in early 2028. Though ATC emerged victorious, it told FERC that the 15-month delay between MISO’s initial approval of the substations and the reversal was “completely unnecessary.”

Utilities say competition slows projects needed for AI growth

In the utility coalition’s initial request to FERC, it cast competition-related delays as a national security threat. 

“These projects — expressways for power — are as critical to meeting today’s challenges as the Eisenhower interstate highway system was to prevailing in the Cold War,” the utilities argued in their initial filing. “China has devoted itself to overtaking America as the world’s AI leader and is just months behind.”

The utility coalition proposed two options: Allow MISO, along with the grid operator for parts of the Great Plains and Southwest, to exempt transmission projects from competitive bidding on a case-by-case basis or suspend competition entirely for the next five years — “when our country must begin building the infrastructure that will decide which nation wins the AI race,” the utilities wrote.

Ratepayer advocacy groups immediately pushed back. Paul Cicio, chair of the nationwide Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition, called the request “tone deaf.”

“Suspending competition for five years,” he wrote in a press release, “would expose consumers in these regions to unchecked cost escalation for years, guaranteeing higher utility bills.” 

In a protest filed with FERC in late May, Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board pointed to the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line in southern Wisconsin as an example: The 102-mile project was not subject to competitive bidding, and construction costs came in roughly 40% over budget by the time ATC, Dairyland Power Cooperative and ITC Midwest completed the line in fall 2024. 

Opponents of the utilities’ request recognize that the data center boom complicates the playing field for transmission competition. 

“Timelines are looking different than the industry is used to,” said Caitlin Marquis, managing director of Advanced Energy United, a trade group representing an array of clean energy and energy efficiency industries. “Transmission competition has been facing curveballs and challenges since it was introduced,” she added. Many challenges result from lobbying by incumbent utilities, and data centers’ speedy construction cycles are only the latest addition.

Her organization opposes the utilities’ request, arguing that incumbent utilities have a long track record of delaying non-competitive transmission projects — and that regulators should streamline the bidding process rather than forego competition entirely. 

But utilities argue competitive bidding has yet to prove its worth. While MISO generally favors lower-cost bids, an ATC spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch, “evidence of a low bid is not evidence of cost savings.” 

Bid prices often do not match the final project cost, they added, and substantial overruns are common, even on projects with competitive bidding.

Federal fight echoes years of debate in Wisconsin

As regional grid operators introduced competitive bidding for transmission projects a decade ago, utilities turned to state legislatures for right-of-first-refusal, or ROFR, laws.

Those laws give local utilities first dibs on transmission projects within their territories, including those planned by regional grid operators like MISO. 

Michigan and Minnesota adopted such policies; Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down a ROFR law in 2023.

Utilities have backed similar proposals in Wisconsin each year since 2021, including a 2025 bill introduced by outgoing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

Those proposals would have “insulat(ed) incumbents from market discipline” and left ratepayers holding the bag, the Wisconsin lawmakers argued to FERC. 

“Having failed repeatedly to persuade the Wisconsin Legislature,” they continued, “the same incumbent entities are now pursuing an end-run at FERC.”

ATC maintains that options before FERC would “not operate as a substitute” for a ROFR law, “even temporarily.”

The utilities don’t stand alone before FERC. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a union representing the tradespeople who build and maintain transmission lines, also backs the request to pause competition.

Editor’s note: This story was updated June 4, 2026 to include comments from Caitlin Marquis, managing director of Advanced Energy United.

Wisconsin lawmakers oppose utility push to pause competition for power line projects is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Elvira Benitez Suarez stepped out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office in downtown Milwaukee on Monday to cheers from a crowd of supporters — her first time leaving the building without handcuffs.

The 51-year-old Sheboygan Falls woman left U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last week on bond; her daughter picked her up outside the northern Kentucky detention facility where she had spent the previous two months. 

“I didn’t see daylight for 17 days, so I was very, very heartened and excited that I saw my family,” she said. 

The Monday morning check-in in Milwaukee was her first interaction with immigration authorities since returning to Wisconsin. She arrived with her family, attorney and two members of the Milwaukee Common Council in tow. 

Nearly a dozen other immigrants wove through the crowd to line up behind Benitez for their own check-ins; some picked up contact information from her attorney while they waited to enter the building. 

Benitez’s time in Kentucky was her second stint in ICE custody in the past year. Benitez, who emigrated from Mexico as a teenager and lived without legal status for over three decades, first landed in detention after a wrong turn on a family road trip took her across the Canadian border in July 2025. U.S. immigration authorities arrested her when she reentered the country. Benitez had no prior interactions with law enforcement or the federal immigration court system. 

In her absence, Benitez’s two adult daughters, both U.S.-born, took in their school-age siblings and helped manage their parents’ painting and cleaning business. 

A federal district court judge in Ohio ruled last fall that Benitez is eligible for a green card, citing — among other factors — the hardships her children experienced in her absence. After waiting a month for immigration authorities to complete her background check, Benitez returned to Wisconsin in December, only to be arrested again during a check-in at the Milwaukee DHS office in March while the agency appealed the judge’s ruling. 

“We checked in, everything went fine, and we were actually walking out the door when they stopped us,” recalled her attorney, Marc Christopher. 

After stops in Chicago and Indianapolis, Benitez landed in a cell at the Campbell County Detention Center, a northern Kentucky jail that contracts with ICE to hold immigrants facing deportation proceedings. Benitez recounted finding fellow Wisconsinites in her unit; nearly two dozen other immigrants detained in Wisconsin have passed through Campbell County within the last year.

But a recent decision by an Ohio-based federal appeals court opened a door for Benitez to again return to Wisconsin. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that a year-old Trump administration policy requiring detention for most immigrants in deportation proceedings amounts to a violation of due process rights, joining federal appellate courts in New York and Georgia. Appellate courts in Louisiana and Missouri have sided with the Trump administration, and the appellate court based in Chicago remains divided on the issue.

The 6th Circuit holds jurisdiction over Kentucky, and its ruling allowed Benitez to file a bond motion in immigration court — an option once available to most immigrant detainees that largely vanished after the Trump administration introduced its mandatory detention policy last year. An immigration court judge in Memphis granted her bond motion on May 21, setting her bond amount at the minimum allowed under court rules: $1,500.

As a condition of her bond, Benitez will continue checking in at the Milwaukee DHS office.

Benitez’s Monday morning check-in was brief and straightforward. Like other immigrants granted bond, she was directed by immigration officers to download a tracking app that will prompt her to take a photograph of her face once a week to compare against booking photos.

DHS is still appealing last year’s ruling that set Benitez on track to secure legal permanent residency. That appeal, currently in the hands of the federal Board of Immigration Appeals, is still pending. 

“I would never put anything past the Board of Immigration Appeals,” Christopher said during a press conference on Monday, alluding to the board’s recent tendency to side with the Trump administration on immigration court rule changes. Nevertheless, Christopher added that he believes Benitez’s case is strong enough to defy the odds.

Benitez herself is still recovering. “I can’t sleep,” she said, recounting the grim details of her latest stint in custody — fellow detainees whose pregnancies ended in miscarriages, late-night bus trips with erratic drivers and no seat belts, and harassment from nonimmigrant inmates with whom she shared a cell in Kentucky. Benitez noted that she is in contact with the families of several fellow detainees who remain in Kentucky.

Her eldest daughter, Crystal Aguilar, also needs time to bounce back. In her mother’s absence, “my life was on hold,” she said. A return to normality still seems far away, she added.

Freed on bond, Sheboygan Falls woman returns to Milwaukee immigration office amid legal limbo is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court is scheduled to hear from members of the public this week on a request to require judges to recuse themselves if past donations to or support of their judicial campaign could affect their impartiality in a case.

But it appears unlikely changes to the court’s recusal rules will happen right away. 

In letters to the court over the last month, some legal organizations and research groups have argued that the justices should reject the proposal, including the five retired circuit court judges from Dane, Milwaukee and Monroe counties who proposed the changes in the first place. 

Instead, the former judges, representatives of Law Forward, the Wisconsin Association for Justice and directors of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggest the Wisconsin Supreme Court should establish an advisory committee to study what process would work best in Wisconsin. 

The groups said the proposed rule changes before the court on Thursday stem from valid concerns about an impartial judiciary, but could have unintended consequences, such as chilling speech of attorneys who want to participate in elections. 

“Having solid judicial recusal standards is very important, and so it seems that the best way to move forward is to pull together a variety of different perspectives to come up with the best solution,” said Rachel Snyder, policy counsel for Law Forward. “More brain power and more thoughtful consideration … could produce a better workable recusal standard that meets the goals of ensuring confidence in the judiciary and ensuring that conflicts are addressed when they need to be, without going too far in the other direction, and chilling speech that we wouldn’t want chilled or opening the door to recusal being something that can then be weaponized.” 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to hold an open conference following the public comment period Thursday morning at the Capitol in Madison to decide next steps, a spokesperson said. The high court could vote on the proposal, decide to form an advisory committee or make other related decisions, the spokesperson said. 

Opting for further study would keep the current rules in place ahead of the next state Supreme Court election in 2027. Two candidates already launched campaigns for the April election after Justice Annette Ziegler in March said she would not seek another term on the bench. 

Snyder said it’s understandable some people want changes sooner rather than later, but expediency should not supersede reaching the best policy. In the meantime, judges can still voluntarily recuse themselves, she said. 

“If we’re going to do it, we should try to get it right to the best of our ability,” Snyder said. 

Former Dane County Judge Richard Niess, one of the retired judges who petitioned for the change, said the group had not considered a study committee as a possibility, but thought it was a “terrific” suggestion. To balance concerns about timing for a study, Niess said his colleagues asked the justices to put a deadline on when an advisory committee would share any recommendations. 

“We were delighted to receive the responses that we did, all of them, because it was precisely the type of discussion that we want to have, and we want to have it in public, so that whatever is decided upon by the Supreme Court, the public will know what the reasoning is,” Niess said. 

Current rules written by business lobby

The debate is part of a decades-long battle over what to do about increasing spending in Wisconsin’s nonpartisan, but increasingly political state Supreme Court races. 

“Broadly the question of recusal is important because it gets to the sort of core feature of our judiciary, which is the right to a fair and impartial tribunal,” said Derek Clinger, senior counsel and director of partnerships for the State Democracy Research Initiative, who has studied judicial recusals in and outside of Wisconsin. “That kind of independence and fairness is what gives the courts legitimacy, and so just the fact that the court is considering this shows that they’re taking this issue quite seriously.” 

It’s also significant that the court is debating recusal rules given the history of the issue in Wisconsin over the last 15 years, Clinger said. 

The rules were crafted after record spending in the 2007 and 2008 Wisconsin Supreme Court elections led to conservative control of the court. State Supreme Court election spending has exploded since then as liberals gained control. The 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race drew $144.5 million in spending, topping Wisconsin’s 2023 race as the most expensive high court election in U.S. history. 

The former conservative-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2010 adopted the existing rules drafted by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association. The rules state judges do not have to recuse from a case because a party or an attorney donated to their political campaigns. WMC did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about whether the rules should change.  

The conservative-majority court in 2017 also rejected a petition from 54 retired judges who sought tighter recusal rules. 

Nearly a decade later, the five former circuit court judges submitted their petition in January and were granted a hearing in early April. In a memo tied to their petition, the former judges noted that since the 2010 rules were adopted, “the amount of money contributed to Supreme Court elections, and even to some of the state circuit court elections, has exploded.” 

“It is not a stretch to conclude some cause and effect relationship,” they wrote.

Niess said he recalled ongoing debates around recusals with Chief Justice Jill Karofsky and Justice Susan Crawford while they were all on the Dane County Circuit Court. 

“We were just kind of shaking our heads about how did we get to this point,” Niess recalled. “And since … these two individuals have joined as justices, it seemed the perfect time for us to just serve up a petition to get a discussion going.” 

At a WisPolitics event in October, Karofsky committed to holding a public hearing about establishing a recusal rule for the court. 

“We need to bring people into the Supreme Court hearing room and we need to hear about what kind of rule and what kind of parameters on a rule people think that we should have,” Karofsky said at the time.

Wisconsin Supreme Court revisits recusal rules amid debate over money and impartiality is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsin officials launched a teacher apprenticeship program in 2024, offering students an alternative route to the profession. 
• But the program’s future is unclear. 
• Leaders are struggling to find students who are interested in joining the program and public school districts to sponsor them.

Matthew Jacobson found his calling in middle school history class.

As a sixth grader at St. John Vianney Catholic School in Brookfield, he voluntarily completed additional research projects and jumped at the chance to present to his classmates. He never saw the extra assignments as work — he was having fun. When Jacobson’s teacher told him he’d make a great educator himself, he set his sights on the profession. In high school, he participated in Elmbrook School District’s future teachers program and planned to enroll in university for his teaching degree. 

But life had other plans. Several weeks before his high school graduation, Jacobson was forced to move out on his own. He picked up a cooking job to “pay the bills and survive.” The gig didn’t leave extra money or time for college. 

“I didn’t really know how to get back into college and go meet my dream,” Jacobson said. 

Two years later, he heard about a novel apprenticeship program, where future teachers earn money working in schools as they obtain their education and certifications. 

“I was like, ‘That’s my way back in,’” he said. 

State officials launched the program in 2024 to ease the educator shortage by offering students an alternative route to the profession — one where they don’t have to put their careers on pause while racking up student debt. Jacobson is one of the first eight teacher apprentices. 

Today, Jacobson has returned to Elmbrook to serve as a classroom aide. In two years, he’ll have the proper training for the district to hire him as an elementary or middle school teacher.

But as participants reach the program’s halfway point, its future beyond this initial “pilot” phase is unclear — raising questions about whether apprenticeships will become a viable solution to Wisconsin’s struggle to find and keep educators. 

While the route has been life-changing for students like Jacobson, program leaders are having trouble enticing school districts to take on more apprentices. Enrollment has ground to a halt; the two technical colleges involved don’t have any new students signed up to begin in the fall. 

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development officials say whether the program continues or grows depends on if districts get on board and sponsor trainees to join up. But district leaders say a major hurdle is the cost — a key appeal of an apprenticeship is the employer paying them for the time they spend learning, but many public schools are already strapped for cash. Some want more funding tied to the program. 

“(It’s) stalling a little bit,” said Trent Sorensen, a Fox Valley Technical College dean. “We don’t have any (students) coming in for the fall. … There’s plenty of time, but it’s not taking off like it did in other states, and it’s simply because of the funding.”

A new way to train teachers

Wisconsin schools struggle to find enough teachers needed to lead classrooms — a problem largely fueled by poor retention and new workers moving to other states after graduating.

In 2024, Congress came through with some assistance: $570,000 in federal funds earmarked for establishing a teacher apprenticeship program in Wisconsin. 

Officials from DWD, the Department of Public Instruction, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and two universities teamed up to debut the pilot in January 2024. They praised the “earn-while-you-learn” approach to establishing a pipeline of workers: Districts could guarantee they’d have future teachers, while also filling lower-skilled jobs in the meantime. 

Typically, aspiring teachers work a shorter classroom internship while studying for their bachelor’s degree and then complete a semester of student teaching after graduating. The apprenticeship is “taking that entire approach and flipping it on its head,” said Nick Abbott, senior program and policy analyst at the Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards — creating a potentially more accessible path to the profession. 

“Traditional educator preparation programs can be expensive, as they often require unpaid student teaching, which might not be feasible for low-income students, nontraditional students, or individuals looking to change careers,” Gov. Tony Evers said when the program launched. “The new teacher apprenticeship pilot program will help address issues in turnover and retention, reduce barriers, and encourage young people to enter the field.”

Apprenticeships are becoming more common in Wisconsin in fields ranging from plumbing to nursing. Participation has hit record highs for the last four years. These gigs are far more common for hands-on jobs in the skilled trades than fields like education and health care, but that’s changing with initiatives like the teacher apprenticeship program.

Here’s how it works: A school district hires an apprentice, who enrolls at Fox Valley Technical College or Waukesha County Technical College for two years to complete a Foundations of Teacher Education associate’s degree. When finished, the student transfers to Lakeland University or the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at Rock County to finish a bachelor’s degree.

Throughout those roughly four years of schooling, the apprentice works inside the classroom as an assistant for 32 hours each week and spends eight hours a week learning at college. The school district the person works for pays an hourly wage for those 40 total hours. When apprentices finish the training, they’re qualified to work as a classroom teacher.

“Nothing prepares you for doing this job, other than doing the job,” Jacobson said. “Being at a school working with kids is easily 10 times more important than any of the classes I’ve taken, and I get way better experience and much more value out of just doing it and learning through failure.” 

As a way of incentivizing the program during its infancy, the eight students get half of their tuition costs reimbursed with federal grant funds. 

Four districts participate in the pilot: Wauwatosa, Greendale, Elmbrook and Appleton. The districts are not required to pay for the remainder of the apprentice’s tuition — Elmbrook, a relatively wealthy district, was the only one that did. 

State leaders also hope the apprenticeships might help with teacher retention. Teachers will start with four years of classroom management experience already under their belt, far more than usual. Plus, other teachers mentor them on the job. That essentially eliminates the difficult experience of being a first-year teacher, said Appleton Area School District Chief Human Resources Officer Julie King. 

“Managing a classroom and the curriculum and all the demands of the job is very overwhelming after having maybe 18 weeks of student teaching experience,” King said. “To learn alongside a professional that has been in the career, knows all the ins and outs, has skill sets and strategies to work with students – to have that benefit of working alongside somebody like that for four years, you’re much, much better prepared.”

Given these promises, teacher apprenticeships have recently exploded nationwide — 45 states have brought programs online in the last few years. They vary widely in their funding approaches and in the costs to districts and students. States have often looked to Tennessee, the country’s first program, as a standout model. The state’s program, launched in 2020, now helps fund 600 new teacher trainees annually at no cost to the apprentices.

Enticing schools a challenge

In his Foundations of Reading class last fall, Jacobson learned about phonological and phonemic awareness, or the ability to recognize distinct parts of a word — a key skill for learning how to read. Using what he learned, he started running his own reading support group for students needing extra help. 

“The second you learn something, I don’t have to wait two years before I actually apply that knowledge to my job,” Jacobson said. “No, I’m applying it that same day or the next day, which then makes it stick a lot more.”

The program gets high marks from trainees and schools. So why aren’t more signing up?

Money. Both school districts and apprentices are struggling to afford it. 

The four districts that already have apprentices are waiting until their current students graduate to decide whether to add more, Abbott said. 

“I want to stress that the apprenticeship model itself remains available to all school employers in the state who wish to adopt it,” Abbott said. “It comes down to finding partners.”

But getting more of Wisconsin’s 400-plus districts to bite has been difficult. 

Sorensen, the Fox Valley Tech dean, said the college isn’t seeing interest from districts because many are contending with too-tight budgets. School leaders have long argued the state’s funding system hasn’t kept up with rising costs, which, as Wisconsin Watch recently reported, has resulted in a recent wave of school closures, layoffs and budget cuts. 

That’s made it hard for districts to pay for the hours when trainees are in college, and not working in the classroom. 

“It’s challenging for school districts to be able to build in that release time. We did hear that, and that’s really understandable,” said Dena Constantineau, Waukesha County Tech’s associate dean of education and human services. “I mean, they really rely on their people, and so they need them in the classroom.”

Even with the discount from the federal grant, tuition can be costly. For example, the average annual tuition costs at least $5,900 for the technical college portion and about $6,000 for UW-Whitewater at Rock County. That means the leftover cost to apprentices could still be upwards of $12,000. 

Plus, the federal funds that helped launch the pilot run out next March, so there could be even less tuition assistance for future apprentices.  

The Appleton Area School District would love to put more students into the program, “if there was funding” to entice participants, King said. The district couldn’t afford to give students more tuition assistance, which hampered participation. 

“The unknown for us moving forward is there is no state funding. If there’s other opportunities for that tuition relief for the individual, that’s really what entices people to engage in that program,” King said.

“The question on the future really is, ‘Where is the funding and the structures going to be in the future to make sure that it’s a viable option moving forward?’” King said. “‘That it reduces the financial barrier? That it’s accessible?’” 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

An apprenticeship aiming to ease Wisconsin’s teacher shortage is ‘stalling.’ Will it catch on? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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When I started working at Wisconsin Watch nearly two years ago, the 2024 election was quickly approaching. In my role as the sole staff photojournalist, I began collaborating with my colleagues deeply reporting investigations and explainers that held power to account and explored solutions to the biggest issues facing our state: health and welfare, government, education and employment, agriculture and the environment and justice and safety. 

As my colleagues followed timely news hooks for their election coverage through breaking news and investigations, I wanted to spend more time with the people behind the headlines. That planted the seeds for Public Square, a series of profiles exploring the lives of voters from across the state — not just recording who they planned to vote for but understanding why and documenting the daily experiences that shaped their decisions. 

Soon after I began working on the original series of voter profiles, we realized this project was about far more than a single election and would require more time, care and energy to give each story the attention it deserved. At the time — and still today — I was thinking a lot about how politically divided this country and Wisconsin can feel while also hearing about the decline of third spaces: public places beyond work and home where people gather and build community. As more of our lives moved online, those spaces seemed to shrink or be forgotten.

Public Square became a direct response to those questions about where people can still find connections, regardless of political identity. As I traveled across the state, we introduced readers to their neighbors and invited them to suggest who we should talk to next. As the series grew, we aimed to highlight the roles people play in their communities, explore the issues shaping their lives and pair those stories with portraits. 

I photographed this project on medium-format film using a 1950s-era Yashica-D camera that produced square images — an approach that slowed the portrait process and helped me connect with each person I photographed. Pairing these images with the concept of meeting people where they gather and build community inspired the project’s name. 

Over the last two years, this project has come to reflect Wisconsin Watch’s evolving mission: using journalism to help make Wisconsin communities stronger, more informed and more connected. As we report on the issues shaping people’s lives, we hope our work not only holds power to account but also helps people feel seen, better understand their neighbors and engage more deeply in civic life.

On Saturday, June 6, Wisconsin Watch will host a free, live outdoor exhibition and community conversation in Green Bay’s St. James Park. Large-format photography prints from Public Square will be displayed throughout the park alongside excerpts from reporting that provide context and insight into each story. I’ll moderate a panel discussion featuring local residents highlighted in the project’s images, with a Q&A to follow. Attendees will receive a free zine, and the installation will remain in the public park for three weeks following the event. You can sign up here. 

If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll attend and spend some time reflecting on how you connect with your own communities. I’m excited to see you there.

Wisconsin Watch to bring Public Square photography exhibit to Green Bay is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsin’s women’s prisons are 78% over capacity compared to its men’s facilities, which are 30% over capacity. 
• The issue isn’t new, but despite decades of overcrowding, the system is approaching a record number of prisoners. 
• Wisconsin Watch created a tracker that shows how the population of each prison has changed over time and how far it is above that facility’s design capacity.

As Wisconsin’s prison population nears a record high, the state’s already-full prisons are getting even more crowded — especially for women. The state’s three women’s prisons collectively house 18 women for every 10 they were designed for, making them the most crowded of all state facilities.

One reason: While growth in the women’s prison population has far outpaced growth in the men’s system, Wisconsin prison officials shrank the facilities that housed them — to make more space for men.

Now, to make room for women, prison officials have set up beds in gyms and offices.

“They just cram us in wherever they can, it’s sad,” wrote Sarah Buckingham, who is currently incarcerated at Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center, a minimum-security facility in Racine County that now houses more than twice as many people as it was designed for.

Across the system, the rising number of prisoners and a shortage of staff have strained resources. Prisoners often wait months or years for limited spots in treatment, education and work programs, the very programs designed to prepare them for release. That, advocates say, could mean people wait longer to get out, or even end up returning to prison — making facilities even more crowded.

A new data tool from Wisconsin Watch allows anyone to track the population of the system and of each facility for free. The dashboard, which shows weekly population and capacity counts going back to 2006, updates automatically when prison officials post the latest figures. 

The data makes it clear: Overcrowding is not new. Wisconsin’s prisons have held thousands more people than intended for at least the last 20 years. The population dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic but is now heading toward an all-time high. More than 23,600 people are in state custody, according to the latest figures available from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. That’s about 200 shy of the record 23,826 set in 2019.

The dashboard can’t show how the trends could soon change. In April, Gov. Tony Evers announced the state would soon commute prison sentences for the first time in 25 years, though it’s not yet clear how many people may be eligible or how long the process will take.

Women’s prisons are the most crowded

Female prisoners bear the brunt of the state’s overcrowding predicament. While the state’s male facilities are about 30% over capacity in total, its female facilities are 78% over capacity. That’s according to the department’s latest data, which shows population and capacity as of May 22. 

Taycheedah Correctional Institution, the state’s only maximum-security women’s prison, is designed to house 653. On May 22, it housed 1,039. 

Prison officials have raised alarms about conditions at Taycheedah for at least a decade. 

“The increased population at TCI has detrimental effects on the prison,” they wrote in a 2016 budget request, when the population was 873. Crowded conditions could cause security problems, they wrote, as each correctional officer must supervise more prisoners. They also noted the steep competition for access to programs for treatment or training. 

“There is also decreased programming availability to inmates, and programming has been shown to help reduce recidivism,” the authors wrote.

Since then, the facility has added nearly 170 women. 

“(Taycheedah) has already undergone conversions to turn spaces into living areas that were not originally meant to be used as living areas due to a problem with overcrowding,” said Daniel Cromwell, an administrator for the state’s corrections department, in an April court filing.

Wisconsin Watch heard from six currently incarcerated women who watched the women’s prison population balloon. They described sharing already overcrowded bathrooms with more women and competing for treatment and employment resources. 

Department of Corrections spokesperson Beth Hardtke confirmed that beds have previously been set up in the gym at Taycheedah but said no one is living in the gym now. Taycheedah staff are currently converting a “former property room” into a dormitory to house 20 women, Hardtke said.

The issue isn’t isolated to Taycheedah. The Milwaukee Women’s Center is at 255% capacity. Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional is now at 219% of its capacity.

Fifteen years ago, the state’s women’s prisons had nearly enough space, not just because there were fewer prisoners, but because there was a fourth women’s minimum-security prison. John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun, designed for 186 prisoners, housed women from 2000 to 2011, when it was converted into a men’s minimum-security prison. 

The move dropped the capacity of the women’s system — just as the number of female prisoners spiked. In the 15 years since, the women’s prison population has grown nearly 29%, more than four times as fast as the men’s population.  

Now, state officials are making plans to turn Burke back into a women’s prison, part of a $500 million prison reorganization Gov. Tony Evers proposed last year.

Overcrowding limits education, training 

Overcrowding doesn’t just mean getting an extra roommate or waiting longer for a shower. It also means prisons need extra staff — staff they often struggle to find. In 2023, prison officials locked down Waupun — canceling programs and confining prisoners to their cells for the better part of several months — because they didn’t have enough officers to conduct normal operations, Wisconsin Watch reporting revealed.

While the staffing shortage has eased since, the system is still short about 620 full-time correctional officers and sergeants, the latest DOC figures show. 

Those shortages can mean prison programs get cut or canceled, said Shannon Ross, founder and executive director of the Milwaukee-based nonprofit The Community, which helps incarcerated people pursue education and develop as leaders.

“If you have too many people to watch per staff member, now, ‘Oh, we can’t have classes tonight because we need to have more people over here watching more people that are incarcerated,’” Ross said. 

Ross, who earned a bachelor’s degree while serving a 17-year sentence in Wisconsin prisons, said when prisons are packed and money is tight, prison officials scale back vocational training and higher education to focus on the basics: food, housing, security, court-ordered programming and services prisons are legally required to provide.

“Anything beyond that is going to become superfluous,” he said. That’s a problem, he said, because more than 90% of Wisconsin’s prisoners will one day be released. “Who do we want them to be?”

How we got here

Wisconsin isn’t the only state struggling to find room for all its prisoners. Across the country, prison populations spiked in the 1980s and 1990s as states adopted harsher punishments and “truth-in-sentencing” legislation. The latter requires most prisoners to spend their full sentence behind bars, without the possibility of parole. 

Suddenly the flow of people out of prison slowed, while as many as ever flowed in. Lots also flowed back, returning to prison for allegedly violating the terms of their release.

In Wisconsin, the prison population peaked in August 2019 at 23,826, then dropped sharply beginning in March 2020 as courts shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In just over a year, the number of people in prison fell by nearly 20% to 19,381, the lowest figure in the last two decades. 

As the state’s courts reopened, they began working through a backlog of cases — and sending more people to prison. In a 2023 report, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said that if the prison population continued growing as fast as it was, it would set a record of 24,800 by July 2025. 

The authors predicted that wouldn’t happen, and they were right. 

“While recent growth patterns have been sizable, it is likely that the updated growth rate is too high to continue for the duration of the 2023-25 biennium, and that the recent rapid growth is likely temporary,” the authors wrote, noting that “at some point, the courts will catch up and prison populations will level out and grow at a slower rate.”

Still, the numbers have kept rising, and the growth has gotten faster, not slower. In the last year, that growth has been fueled entirely by a surge in women prisoners: While the male population fell slightly between May 2025 and May 2026, the female population rose by more than 4%.

What’s the solution?

Policymakers and prisoner advocates disagree about the answer to Wisconsin’s crowded prisons. 

In the major revamp he proposed last year, Gov. Evers called for, among other things:

• Closing the nearly 130-year-old Green Bay Correctional Institution.
• Transforming Waupun Correctional Institution into a “vocational village.” 
• Converting the troubled Lincoln Hills School from a juvenile prison to an adult prison.
• Converting Burke into a women’s prison.
• Expanding a program that allows some people incarcerated for nonviolent crimes to qualify for early release by completing treatment for substance use. 

Together the changes would reduce the state’s prison capacity by 700. The plan drew criticism from Republican lawmakers, who pointed to the state’s crowded prisons as a sign that the state needs more space in its prisons, not less.

State Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said the answer is “right-sizing” the number of prisoners by “adding additional beds, reducing overcrowding and making facilities safer for not only our inmates, but for our staff,” Wisconsin Public Radio reported. 

In October, the State of Wisconsin Building Commission released $15 million to plan for Evers’ proposed changes. 

Ross of The Community calls that proposal a “marginal improvement.”

“It’s not getting us the level of change that everybody would need to see and want to see … You’ve got to get past marginal improvements at some point to really have something different,” Ross said. “Otherwise, it’s just a different version of the exact same problem every year we’re facing.”

One way to do that, he said, is to repeal truth-in-sentencing laws to reduce the number of people behind bars.

“Stop having a system in which people cannot get back out if they’re ready,” Ross said.

That, like other major prison changes, would require legislative action. But lawmakers in the Republican majority have stymied reform for years, Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said. 

“Gov. Evers has repeatedly worked to comprehensively reform our state’s justice system and corrections statutes to save taxpayers and reduce overcrowding, invest in evidence-based alternatives to incarceration, and improve public safety in our communities while reducing the likelihood that someone may reoffend once they have completed their sentence,” Cudaback said in an email. 

But Evers can’t make those changes unilaterally, Cudaback said, and lawmakers in the Republican majority have “refused nearly every effort to address these challenges over the last nearly eight years.”

In April, with nine months left in office, Evers announced he would use one of the few tools available for single-handedly easing overcrowding: commutations. It’s the first time in 25 years that incarcerated people in Wisconsin can request to have their sentence shortened. 

Advocates across the state are still trying to determine how many of Wisconsin’s nearly 24,000 prisoners may be eligible, and they’re working to help as many eligible people as possible apply. 

The first meeting of the Commutation Advisory Board will take place in June, and the first commutations will be issued some time after that. With Gov. Evers leaving office in January, it will be up to the next governor to decide whether the process continues.

Wisconsin Watch reporter Addie Costello contributed to this report.

Wisconsin’s prison population is heading toward a record high. Track the trend here. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Dane County ended a four-year program that distributed pipes and smoking supplies to reduce overdose deaths and disease transmission among people who use drugs.
• Public health officials said the program increased visits from people seeking overdose reversal medication, fentanyl test strips and other harm reduction resources.
• County officials halted the program in March after questions arose about whether distributing pipes violated Wisconsin paraphernalia law.
• People who relied on the free supplies say they may now buy pipes elsewhere, use makeshift devices or inject drugs they previously smoked.

Dane County has ended an initiative to prevent overdose deaths by giving out pipes. 

Four years ago, public health officials started giving people pipes and other supplies to reduce health risks associated with smoking drugs. 

The program was part of the department’s broader efforts to reduce harms of drug use. For decades, syringe service programs across the country have provided harm reduction supplies to people who inject drugs. Though controversial, these programs reduce hospitalizations and overdose deaths while increasing participation in drug treatment.

But in recent years people have increasingly smoked drugs rather than injecting them. Adapting to that trend, harm reduction providers, including Public Health Madison and Dane County, began offering smoking supplies.

The pipe handouts worked. More people visited health officials to receive overdose reversal medication and other resources to prevent drug-related illnesses and injuries. 

But the program was likely illegal under Wisconsin law, which allows injection supplies, not smoking materials. 

Staff stopped offering smoking supplies in March. Spokesperson Morgan Finke cited a need to re-evaluate the program after the risk of COVID-19 transmission from shared pipes sharply declined and federal guidance on harm reduction shifted.

The department still offers injection supplies and other harm reduction items not intended for smoking.

“While syringes are classified as disease prevention materials under state law, smoking supplies have less clear protections,” Finke wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

Halting the distribution of smoking supplies is already having an impact.  

People who previously received pipes from the health office said they will buy similar supplies at smoke shops and gas stations, use makeshift pipes made from foil and soda cans or inject drugs they would have smoked, according to records and interviews obtained by Wisconsin Watch. 

Others said they would likely stop visiting public health altogether. 

Why did health officials hand out pipes?

Wisconsin opioid overdose deaths hit a record high in 2022, topping 1,450.

Officials found more evidence of smoking than injecting at fatal overdose scenes across the U.S. in 2022, a shift from years prior, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Although it still carries overdose risks, evidence shows smoking instead of injecting reduces the spread of diseases like hepatitis, HIV and bacterial infections and abscesses. It may also lower overdose risks. Regular access to new pipes can reduce how often people share pipes or use broken and unsafe materials, according to a national research study that included 2024 survey data from Public Health Madison and Dane County.

Public Health Madison and Dane County offered evidence-based resources to prevent disease and overdoses, including sterile needles, fentanyl test strips and overdose reversal medication. But the office primarily served people who inject drugs, the department’s medical director, Dr. Jonathan Temte, wrote in a 2022 letter explaining why the office would start ordering smoking supplies.

“People who use drugs by means other than injection have no reason to visit,” Temte wrote.

Temte is a family medicine physician and University of Wisconsin-Madison associate dean of public health and community engagement. He advises the health department on a limited basis.

When staff asked Temte to approve adding smoking supplies to the department’s syringe service programs, they told him Wisconsin law allowed it, Temte recalled. He focused on whether medical evidence supported the initiative. 

Health research overwhelmingly supports harm reduction, he said.

Adding smoking supplies addressed two major issues: Health officials needed to get life-saving resources to people who smoked drugs. And without access to safer smoking supplies, people were more likely to share pipes or use materials that cause cuts, burns and infections.

Monthly visits jumped nearly 30% once department offices began regularly offering filters, mouthpieces and two kinds of pipes.

Even with increased visits, the department distributed 3.7% fewer syringes between 2021 and 2023.

But despite the public health benefits, Wisconsin paraphernalia laws criminalizes smoking materials.

A woman visited a public health office and asked for a pipe in early April. When she found the office no longer distributed them, she asked for syringes, according to emails obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Staff asked if she would inject the drugs she usually smokes. She said yes. Without a pipe she would dissolve powdered drugs in water and inject them.

Why did the program end? 

The city-county agency was likely the state’s only syringe service provider that publicized pipes online, according to a 211 list of syringe service programs.

While reporting a feature highlighting the seemingly unique initiative, Wisconsin Watch emailed Madison City Attorney Michael Haas on March 23 to ask how the department could legally distribute pipes. 

The email was forwarded to public health staff, records obtained by Wisconsin Watch show. The public health agency redacted correspondence related to the email, citing attorney client privilege. 

The next day, a public health supervisor instructed a staff member to remove smoking supplies from an internal tracking system. By the end of the week the department’s website no longer mentioned safer smoking supplies.

Wisconsin’s paraphernalia law bans equipment used, designed or intended for inhaling a controlled substance. Possessing paraphernalia carries a penalty up to a $500 fine and 30 days in jail. 

Dane County lowered local penalties for drug paraphernalia citations in 2023. County sheriffs and local police have continued to fine and charge people for possessing smoking materials similar to those health officials distributed.

Madison police cited paraphernalia possession in around 350 arrests in 2025, department records show.

“Public health programs must follow federal, state and local law,” Finke told Wisconsin Watch. “While we continue to evaluate disease transmissions within the community and evolving guidance from federal agencies, we have currently removed smoking supplies from our offerings.”

But the medical evidence supporting the service has not changed “one iota,” Temte said. “It’s just one more (example) of the politicization of public health.” 

The smoking supply rollback came as harm reduction lost support from federal leaders.

The Biden administration spent millions on harm reduction efforts but prohibited spending grant dollars on pipes after reporting on the potential distribution of safer smoking kits went viral and drew criticism.

The Trump administration announced in 2025 a “clear shift away from harm reduction and practices that facilitate illicit drug use and are incompatible with Federal laws.”

Federal health leaders wrote in April that federal dollars cannot be used to buy “drug paraphernalia or supplies that promote or facilitate drug use” including pipes, injection supplies and fentanyl test strips.

The city-county’s harm reduction program focuses on reducing overdose deaths and preventing disease transmission, Finke said. 

“We will continue to engage with and educate policy makers to ensure that federal and state policy evolves consistent(ly) alongside the growing evidence base supporting effective substance use prevention and harm reduction strategies.” 

Opioid overdoses have dramatically declined since 2023, but overdose deaths involving stimulants have increased. People who smoke stimulants, like methamphetamine and cocaine, are at a growing risk for overdose, said Giavana Margo, Wisconsin program manager for Vital Strategies, a national nonprofit working to reduce overdose deaths.

“There’s a lot to be celebrated, and we’re still losing way too many lives to overdose,” Margo said.

What happens now?

Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and 15 other states allow syringe service programs to distribute pipes, according to a comprehensive review of paraphernalia laws. 

Wisconsin’s paraphernalia laws only exempt smoking supplies associated with tobacco consumption. 

But Wisconsinites can still buy pipes typically used to smoke illegal drugs, several advocates and people using drugs told Wisconsin Watch. Gas stations, local shops and online sellers advertise the glassware as tobacco products, decorations or household items.

Standing outside the department’s East Madison location in late-April a woman who identified herself as Ashley said she received pipes from the office for years. Without the free pipes, people will buy them at nearby stores for around $8 or “improvise” makeshift supplies, the 39-year-old said.

She visited public health for pipes whenever one broke, usually about twice a month. Staff asked whether she had enough fentanyl test strips and wanted to help her “stay as safe as possible,” she said. She can still go to the office to get things like condoms, bandages, injection supplies and tampons. 

“It helps when you’re homeless like I am,” she said. 

Most people who received harm reduction supplies from health officials in 2024 left with fentanyl test strips and overdose reversal medication, a survey of more than 250 program participants shows. Respondents reported feeling safer and no longer needing to steal smoking supplies after the visits.

Still, a quarter of respondents said they weren’t sure or would likely stop visiting the offices if smoking supplies vanished.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story included captions that misidentified the source of screenshots from a harm reduction pamphlet. The pamphlet was produced in response to a public records request submitted to Public Health Madison and Dane County.

Dane County ends safer smoking program that conflicted with Wisconsin law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Los Angeles International Airport customs officers took Everlee Wihongi aside for questioning in April. Her family hasn’t seen her since.

Wihongi, a longtime resident of Hortonville, Wisconsin, was passing through Los Angeles during a return trip from her native New Zealand. The 37-year-old green card holder had made the same trip at least a half-dozen times, even after pleading no contest to a felony marijuana possession charge in Fond du Lac County in her mid-20s. 

But with the White House’s nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown in full swing, customs officers took a new approach to the felony on her record. After a few uneasy hours in a secluded screening room, Wihongi left the airport in shackles en route to an immigration detention center in a desert valley northeast of Los Angeles.

Wihongi is one of hundreds of legal permanent residents federal immigration authorities have detained since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, often while they passed through airports and other ports of entry. Most — like Wihongi — had prior criminal convictions.

Those convictions generally make immigrants “inadmissible,” meaning they cannot freely re-enter the U.S.

Customs officers have “a lot of discretion at the port of entry” when deciding whether to allow green card holders with convictions like Wihongi’s to re-enter the country, Madison-based immigration attorney Aissa Olivarez said. “They have given none lately.”

“Possessing a green card is a privilege, not a right,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch. “Our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused,” the spokesperson added, and to detain legal permanent residents while they await a decision in their removal case. 

The sharp increase in arrests of green card holders doesn’t stem from a policy change, but immigration attorneys say cases like Wihongi’s are yet another sign that federal immigration authorities are reshuffling their priorities.

Old conviction is grounds for detention

Wihongi has held a green card since childhood, when her father’s career as a locomotive engineer brought the family to northeast Wisconsin. “As the years went by, it was just cheaper to renew (her) green card,” her mother, Betty Wihongi, recalled.

Her 2014 conviction was not grounds for deportation, said Marc Christopher, a Milwaukee immigration attorney representing Wihongi. “She can remain here and become a U.S. citizen,” he said, “but once she crosses the border, she’s governed by the rules of admissibility.”

But family vacations to New Zealand passed without incident over the decade following Wihongi’s conviction. “Normally, they will just look at, look at your passport, look at your green card, you know, ask you, where you’ve been?” her mother said. “And usually it’s like two, three minutes, not even that.” 

“I just don’t think they made an issue of it” in the past, Christopher added. “They weren’t going to detain her for two to three months,” he said, in part because detaining and prosecuting a green card holder is an expensive undertaking. As of May 2025, DHS reported that the average cost to arrest, detain and deport an immigrant was roughly $17,000, though costs vary widely from case to case.

DHS detention records point to a sudden shift in practice after the Trump administration resumed control of immigration enforcement operations last year. Immigration authorities detained an average of at least 100 legal permanent residents each month between January 2025 and February 2026 — five times the monthly average in the final two years of the Biden administration, the only portion of his term for which data is available. 

At least 75% of legal permanent residents detained during the latter half of the Biden administration had prior criminal convictions, compared with at least 66% of those detained since Trump returned to office. 

Only a tiny fraction of detainees’ records from either period list marijuana possession as their most serious criminal charge, though immigration enforcement officers arrested more legal permanent residents with prior marijuana possession convictions in the first year of the Trump administration than in the previous two years combined. 

Wihongi is the second Wisconsin green card holder in ICE custody to join Christopher’s caseload since January 2025. His previous client, also blocked from re-entering the country because of a prior marijuana possession conviction, spent five months in detention before Christopher secured his release. 

Olivarez, the Madison-based immigration attorney, offered another recent example from her own caseload: a legal permanent resident and longtime Milwaukeean detained while returning from his wife’s funeral in Egypt because of a prior felony. That client eventually accepted a deportation order to avoid a lengthy stint in custody.

A stricter standard

The growing cohort of green card holders in ICE custody is still vastly outnumbered by the tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants detained alongside them. 

Federal immigration authorities have arrested more than 400,000 people since January 2025, including roughly 1,700 in Wisconsin. 

Just over half of all immigrants arrested by ICE in Wisconsin during the second Trump administration had prior criminal convictions, as was the case in the latter years of the Biden administration. But the criminal histories of more recent arrestees suggest that the stricter standards that landed Wihongi in custody are reshaping other corners of the immigration enforcement apparatus.

ICE officers in Wisconsin arrested 82 immigrants with prior traffic offense convictions in the first full year after Trump returned to office, up from 19 in the last full year of the Biden administration.

In years past, Christopher said, federal immigration authorities were less inclined to begin removal proceedings solely based on traffic offenses like driving without a license, instead prioritizing immigrants convicted of more serious offenses. 

Immigrants who come into contact with Wisconsin courts after a traffic offense now face a far higher risk of landing in federal custody, Christopher added. 

He attributes the shift in part to dramatic additions to DHS’ budget in the past year and a half. Those funding boosts, including a $170 billion increase last year, lowered the financial barriers that previously made federal immigration prosecutors wary of spending resources on immigrants with lower-priority criminal histories, Christopher argued. 

The U.S. Senate is currently considering an additional $72 billion in new funding for DHS.

Transferred without warning 

Wihongi was the only legal permanent resident in the 46-person cell in Adelanto, California, where she spent her first month in detention, her mother told Wisconsin Watch.

Her visa doesn’t spare her from the unpredictability of the federal immigration detention system. When money disappeared without notice from her commissary account on a Friday in early May, Wihongi called her mother in a panic. “Inmates all know that if that happens to your commissary,” her mother explained, “that means they’re getting ready to transfer you.” 

She resurfaced that Sunday in a detention camp outside El Paso, Texas, reaching her family by phone that evening to recount two mostly sleepless days of travel, including hours spent in shackles. 

Wihongi has since transferred again to a federal contract facility in Eloy, Arizona. An internet outage Thursday pushed her first scheduled court appearance back a week. Meanwhile, Christopher has filed a motion in Fond du Lac County to vacate her 2014 conviction.

Decade-old marijuana conviction prompts ICE detention of Wisconsin green card holder after family trip is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Women and girls find refuge from trafficking inside a nondescript building on Morrow Street in Green Bay.

They can attend support groups, eat a warm meal, take a shower, get new clothes or access community resources. 

But whatever they do, it’s their choice. 

“(Case management) is designed to make sure that every single woman and girl reaches independence. It’s their way. It’s on their terms,” said Carly McClure, operations director for HER Alliance. “We are just here to offer the support needed along that way to help them become the best version of themselves.”

The nonprofit organization formerly known as Awaken has served 251 women and girls since June 2022, according to the organization’s most recent Impact Report. In addition to directly supporting survivors, HER Alliance offers education sessions for the community about the dangers of human trafficking. 

‘Uphill battle’

Trafficking is abuse, McClure said, and the survivors who seek help at HER Alliance make several attempts to leave their situations for good, similar to people in domestic violence situations. 

“The uphill battle that everybody is facing in this position is, first of all, societal stigma,” McClure said. 

In 2025, the organization provided 4,908 units of service. A unit of service, for example, could be a meal, a call to the warmline or a referral to a community resource, among others, McClure said. 

Community members in general tend to think trafficking starts with a stranger kidnapping someone, and while that does happen, it’s not common, McClure said. 

“Trafficking begins with the grooming process. It’s happening to our children online more often than not now, and a trafficker is typically targeting someone that already trusts them,” she said. “So familial trafficking in Wisconsin is one of the highest forms of trafficking that we see.”

The intake process at HER Alliance happens in a quiet, private room with cozy furniture. The conversation is different for every person because needs vary, McClure said. 

Generally, staff ask questions to learn if a person’s basic needs are being met: 

• Do they have safe housing?
• Do they have access to food? Clothing?
• Are they employed?
• Are they in school?

Each person decides what support – if any – the person wants from HER Alliance, McClure said. Staff can connect people to community organizations to meet their specific needs, though local nonprofits also refer people to HER Alliance. 

The Brown County Jail refers many clients. HER Alliance has a full-time outreach case manager who spends most of her time working with women and girls at the jail, McClure said. 

Varying degrees of help

The organization operates what it calls a warmline – a 24/7 phone line staffed by a HER Alliance case manager. An important distinction, McClure said: The warmline is not a crisis line. 

“The warmline is available for people to call if they need (nonemergency) help, or if they’re already in contact with us and have already had an intake (session) – that number is for their use,” she said. 

Some people call the warmline just once, seeking advice or resources. 

Others seek additional help. HER Alliance offers weekly peer-to-peer support groups in a space that looks like a living room. There are couches, comfortable chairs, a TV, plants, a bookshelf and more. 

Clients can schedule one-on-one appointments with a case manager, or drop in during designated hours depending on their needs. 

A small kitchenette with a coffee station, a toaster oven and a refrigerator sits in the back of the building. Volunteers supply meals weekly, and frozen meals are always available. 

Clients can take a shower in one of the facility’s two restrooms, or “shop” a small boutique filled with gently used clothing, outerwear and shoes. Women and girls who complete an intake session and receive services get a punch card to shop the boutique, McClure said. 

“So if they have an interview coming up, or they’re going to school, or they just need new clothes, or they need new shoes, this is available to them throughout the year,” she said. 

Getting involved

Carmen Van Schyndel first learned about HER Alliance in 2024, during a TAT Freedom Drivers Project event co-hosted by her employer, Breakthrough. She remembers walking through an exhibit in a semi-trailer focused on the stories of trafficking survivors and their experiences. 

Prior to that, Van Schyndel thought human trafficking was something that happened in big cities like Chicago, not around Green Bay. 

But the experience “hit home,” she said. 

Van Schyndel spoke with HER Alliance staff at the event and started learning more. She joined the organization’s Advisory Board and later its Board of Directors. She now serves as the board secretary. 

She hopes to one day measure success by seeing the number of people HER Alliance serves decline. That will be a signal that the organization’s education, advocacy and community outreach efforts are making a difference.

“There’s still a need. There are still people that are not getting help who need it,” Van Schyndel said. “We still need to grow, but I think over time, as we really watch those numbers, I hope that those numbers go down, and those will be really good signs we’re making an impact in the community.”

What’s next?

HER Alliance acquired space next to its office in 2025, and it has big plans for it, McClure said. 

The programming area that looks like a living room will move as a result of the expansion, and McClure said they plan to add a full kitchen with an oven – an upgrade from the kitchenette and the toaster oven they currently use. 

“Now we’re kind of waiting on some grants to finish developing this space,” she said. 

Find resources

If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, contact HER Alliance: 

• HER Alliance warmline: (920) 333-1701
• Email HER Alliance through the “Get Help” page on its website.

How to help

Want to raise awareness about human trafficking, volunteer your time or donate to HER Alliance? Here’s how: 

• HER Alliance holds education sessions on human trafficking throughout the year, though they take a break in the summer. Email info@heralliance.org to learn when the sessions will start in the fall, or keep an eye on the HER Alliance events calendar. 
• Volunteer with the organization: Fill out an interest form online. 
• Donate to HER Alliance through its website here. 

This story is part of Community at Work, an ongoing feature series focused on community organizations that make a difference in northeast Wisconsin. Who should we feature next? Email jzvandenhouten@wisconsinwatch.org.

HER Alliance combats human trafficking one person at a time is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One of the quieter truths about journalism is that, despite the stereotype of relentless competition between newsrooms, some of our best work depends on collaboration.

That was on my mind this week after our friends at Bolts — a fellow nonprofit newsroom that covers the nuts and bolts of political power and change — offered us the opportunity to co-publish a deeply reported story examining growing backlash to AI-powered Flock surveillance cameras across Wisconsin.

Bolts editor Daniel Nichanian and I have long discussed ways our organizations might work together, considering how our missions overlap. Both newsrooms aim to help people better understand the systems and decisions shaping their lives. So when Daniel asked about our interest in the story, the answer was obvious: absolutely.

The story reported by Pascal Sabino was strong. We offered a few minor suggestions, shared a photo from our archives and published the piece on Friday with two added photos from WPR photojournalist Angela Major — bringing the reporting to Wisconsin Watch audiences. Early engagement suggests the story is resonating.

What struck me most is how ordinary this kind of partnership has become in nonprofit journalism and even among some for-profits. 

In May alone, Wisconsin Watch collaborated with numerous newsrooms. Isthmus devoted space in its print edition to publish our reporting on preventing deadly falls among older adults. We republished key breaking news coverage from WPR on budget negotiations at the Capitol, freeing our own reporters to dig into the political dynamics behind the collapse of the deal. We also published multiple stories from our partners at Votebeat, including important reporting on renewed Trump administration scrutiny of Wisconsin’s 2020 election administration that has created confusion and fear for voters and election officials. 

At the same time, local and statewide outlets across Wisconsin republished original Wisconsin Watch reporting for their own audiences.

Every collaboration works a little differently. Sometimes it means sharing reporting resources. Sometimes it means sharing expertise or audience reach. But the biggest beneficiary is always the public. These partnerships give readers more vetted, deeply reported information that helps communities stay strong, informed and connected. 

And for that, I am grateful.

We don’t compete. We complete. How collaboration strengthens local news is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Some of the top speakers at the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention in the Wisconsin Dells Saturday included 84-year-old former Gov. Tommy Thompson, 77-year-old U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, 71-year-old U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and 68-year-old U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, now officially the party’s endorsed candidate in this year’s governor’s race. 

As the old guard GOP leaders championed unity and warned of the dangers of “radical” Democrats, some took the stage to remind the party faithful they needed to look to the next generation of voters in Wisconsin to win in November.

“Welcome these young people,” said Waukesha County Republican Party chair Terry Dittrich, pointing to the Wisconsin Young Republicans, Turning Point USA and Americans for Prosperity —  groups that had speaking roles or tables with materials in the hallway outside the convention hall. “They are the future. They’re smart, they’re tech savvy and they just need guidance, and in some cases they need us to just listen to their ideas. …We’re all a bit older, but the bottom line is there’s a really nice fledgling group of young people who want to be involved in this process, and they’re the future.” 

Young people could be the key for Republicans hoping to win back the governor’s office and hang on to the Legislature this fall. Support from young men in particular helped President Donald Trump win in 2024, but that support has softened as the national mood has turned against the party that controls the White House and Congress. 

As Republicans attempt to connect with young people in 2026, they do so without Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA who was assassinated last year during an event on a college campus. Speakers and candidates on Saturday recognized the need to engage with young voters like Kirk did. 

Conservatives are still reeling from Kirk’s death and haven’t found someone like him to connect with young people, said Michael Alfonso, the 26-year-old Trump-endorsed candidate and son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy who is among four Republicans and three Democrats running to replace Tiffany in the 7th Congressional District.

“I think having young voices that are brave enough to step up is going to make a huge difference,” Alfonso said. “Because I don’t think one person could ever fill Charlie’s shoes, but I think maybe a thousand could.” 

A CBS exit poll from the 2024 presidential election shows that while voters under age 30 were overall more likely to vote for former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump made inroads with that age group. In 2020, 60% of under-30 voters favored former President Joe Biden and 39% voted for Trump. In 2024, Harris received 54% of the under-30 vote and Trump won 43%.

A recent Harvard Youth Poll conducted by the university’s Institute of Politics found Democrats leading Republicans 45% to 26% in a generic ballot of registered voters ages 18 to 29. Just 35% of young people surveyed said they will “definitely” vote in this year’s midterm elections, but the Harvard poll found a political enthusiasm gap, with 55% of young Democrats saying they will vote this year compared with 35% of young Republicans and 25% of young independents. 

Former Gov. Scott Walker, who turned 43 the day he was first elected in 2010 and now runs the conservative group Young America’s Foundation, encouraged the mostly middle-aged and older crowd to reach out to young people and build enthusiasm as the country prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Walker noted many of the Founding Fathers were younger than 40 when they signed the document. 

“I tell you all those stories here this afternoon, not for a history lesson, although I love history, but to remind you and to remind those that we work with and serve with and live next to that you’re never too old or too young to fight for freedom,” Walker said on Saturday. 

The Republican Party of Wisconsin plans to visit college campuses across Wisconsin and tap campus resources to reach young voters and make the case for conservative candidates, state party chair Brian Schimming said. It’s important for Republicans to connect with young people early, when they’re more likely to stick with a political party throughout their lives, Schimming said. 

“We’re going to have a very active presence on the campuses and our coalition groups, who do campuses as well, AFP, Turning Point, all the other groups,” Schimming said. “We are not leaving the campuses alone.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who faces a nationally watched tight reelection race for the 3rd Congressional District this November, said Wisconsin Republicans should take young people seriously and engage them with facts about Republican priorities. He noted a lot of people in Saturday’s crowd had white hair matching his beard.

“I didn’t bleach this, so we got to make sure that we have more people with your color hair than mine,” he told reporters on Saturday.

He noted his youngest child is 27.

“These are the young people that were locked in their homes. They were forced to wear masks, they were forced to get an injection that they didn’t agree with or they would not be able to go to college. They were told if they write something wrong on the internet that they would be banned from everything,” Van Orden said. “They saw their hero, Charlie Kirk, assassinated live on television, so the younger generation is completely motivated because they want freedom and they look at the Republican Party as the party of freedom.” 

Tiffany emphasizes affordability as top issue

In the Wisconsin governor’s race, Republicans young and old have rallied around Tiffany as their best chance to retake the governor’s mansion. Wisconsin College Republicans endorsed Tiffany in September, before the party coalesced around his candidacy in late January after the Trump endorsement.

It’s Tiffany’s vision on affordability, from freezing property taxes to lowering utility costs, that has resonated with young Republicans and should connect with young voters across Wisconsin this fall, said Kyle Schroeder, the 29-year-old chair of Wisconsin Young Republicans, who spoke on stage at the convention Saturday.

“Even though that is a broad stance for everyone, it resonates so much with the younger generation,” Schroeder said about affordability. “We’re starting families and we are trying to plant our roots in a community post-college. We have great universities around Wisconsin. Whether we want people staying here in Wisconsin or moving to another state, we need to attract those workers and young workers, too.” 

Tiffany is about a decade older than the oldest top Democratic gubernatorial candidates. The current top-polling candidates, Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, are in their late 30s. Tiffany joined the state Assembly in the 2010 Republican wave that now risks losing legislative control for the first time in 16 years.

Tiffany told reporters Saturday he believes young people are pessimistic about economic opportunities in Wisconsin during Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ eight years in office, but emphasizing affordability will help him make inroads with young voters. 

“I want them to be optimistic about Wisconsin, and how you do that is you make the state more affordable,” Tiffany said. “We reduce property taxes, then freeze them. We reduce utility rates.” 

Emily Stuckey, a Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson, described Tiffany in a statement Saturday as the “GOP’s most expensive choice for governor.”

“From his unfettered commitment to Washington Republicans’ MAGA agenda that drives up healthcare premiums and guts coverage, to his support for tariffs that devastate farmers and policies that continue to drive gas and grocery prices higher by the day,” Stuckey said. “The Republican Party of Wisconsin endorsed a candidate who is ready and willing to squeeze every last dollar he can out of working Wisconsinites.”

At annual convention, Wisconsin GOP’s old guard urges party to engage young voters is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu struck a compromise to spend $1.8 billion in surplus state funds on tax rebates, special education funding and lower property taxes. The state Senate rejected the proposal Wednesday night.

• The rejection leaves the money on the table for the next governor and Legislature to use in the next biennial budget, raising the stakes for who wins the November election.

• Lead Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and several of the Democratic contenders slammed the proposal, though Democrat Missy Hughes criticized her opponents for opposing it.

A bipartisan deal struck between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders to spend $1.8 billion of Wisconsin’s projected budget surplus failed in the Senate late Wednesday night after days of criticism that put both Evers and GOP leaders at odds with members of their own parties. 

The fallout has become a blame game over who is responsible for the deal’s failure:

• Republicans blamed Democrats for not being willing to provide assistance to Wisconsinites.
• Senate Democrats blamed Republicans and Evers for not involving them in negotiations and described the bill as “reckless” and “irresponsible” spending. 
• Several Assembly Democrats criticized the deal for not providing long-term structural changes to education funding or property taxes.
• Evers blamed both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the likely GOP gubernatorial nominee in the governor’s race.
• Tiffany called the proposal a “backroom relief deal” that “fails to deliver lasting relief to Wisconsin taxpayers.” 
• The Democratic gubernatorial candidates split on whether the bill was a good idea. 

The underlying reason for all of the statements, social media posts and comments debating the surplus spending is that future control of the Capitol hangs in the balance come November, said Anthony Chergosky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. 

“It’s very interesting that this agreement was struck by three politicians who will not be in office this time next year, when the upcoming budget process is taking place,” Chergosky said. “There are a lot of people involved in the politics of this agreement who will be around potentially and are kind of wondering about the wisdom of three lame-duck members of state government striking a significant deal that will have potential ripple effects, whether they be positive or negative.” 

Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who are not seeking reelection this year, announced the deal on Monday. It followed months of negotiations that began after state leaders learned of the projected surplus in January. The nearly $2.4 billion surplus far exceeded projections made last year as lawmakers crafted the state’s 2025-27 budget. 

The deal would have directed over $300 million to Wisconsin school districts through special education reimbursement, another $300 million for school districts to lower property taxes and $870 million through income tax rebates for those who filed state income taxes in 2024. It also would have permanently eliminated state income taxes on tips and overtime wages, which Evers vetoed in Republican-led bills in April. 

Here are a few lessons we learned from the failed surplus deal debate. 

Democrats are increasingly splitting with Evers 

Not too long ago, legislative Democrats had to be ready to defend Evers’ vetoes from Republican overrides. 

This week, all 15 Senate Democrats and 32 in the Assembly broke with the two-term governor on the surplus deal. Ten Assembly Democrats, including several running in close districts this fall, voted with Republicans to pass the bill in the Assembly. 

In statements and comments, many looped Evers in with Vos and LeMahieu as lame-duck elected officials leaving the Capitol in the coming months. 

“This is a completely reckless proposal stitched together in a backroom deal by three people who will not be running around and won’t be here when the consequences of a multibillion-dollar deficit comes home to roost,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said ahead of the Senate vote. “It’s simply something I can’t support.”

Even the majority of the seven top Democratic candidates for governor criticized the deal. Only Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., directly supported the surplus spending plan. 

“@GovEvers bargain with the GOP is bad for Wisconsin,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, said in a social media post this week explaining her no vote. “This backroom deal is a payday loan taken out at the expense of our children, our infrastructure, our economy, and our future.”

Evers this week did not hesitate to return criticism to the lawmakers of his party. He told CBS58 that Democrats calling the bill irresponsible was “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

“Wisconsin’s kids and schools aren’t going to get the investments they desperately need this year because Tom Tiffany and a few Republican and Democratic lawmakers chose to blow up a bipartisan plan to invest in our K-12 schools, lower property taxes, and help working families afford rising costs, all because they’d rather do what’s best for the next election than what’s right for the people of our state,” Evers said in a statement immediately after the Senate vote. “So many Wisconsinites feel left behind, frustrated, and disillusioned by politics these days because they think a lot of politicians in the Capitol are only here to serve themselves. And, today, they’re right.” 

Strange bedfellows on good governance

For nearly eight years, Republican lawmakers have frequently sparred with Evers both in the Capitol and the courts.

The debate over the surplus deal saw legislative Republicans defending Evers against criticism from Democratic lawmakers. Several thanked Evers for being willing to compromise and work with Republicans. 

“You’re going to hear from my Democratic colleagues that they want to save the money because they want to invest it in growing the size of government. That’s what they’re going to say, even though they might not use those words, we know the truth. We want to give it back. Some Democrats want to keep it,” Vos said on the Assembly floor. “Luckily, Tony Evers isn’t one of those. He actually had the ability to say, let’s compromise, let’s each give, let’s find a consensus, because the people of Wisconsin expect us to do better than to just stand up and shake our fist.” 

On the other hand, many Democratic lawmakers urged caution against approving the spending for the projected surplus when there are economic uncertainties at the federal level.

Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, who is running for governor, said she was “shocked” to agree with Tiffany and state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, a hard-line fiscal conservative, in their criticism of the deal. 

“This is a deal that does not help us fix the significant long-term structural problems we have, namely the way we have robbed our children of their futures in defunding public education,” she said during the Joint Finance Committee meeting Tuesday. 

Nass, who is not seeking reelection, was one of three Republicans who sided with Senate Democrats on Wednesday in opposing the deal. Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, also voted against it.  

Nass asked Senate Republicans to reject the proposal for concerns about financial stability. 

“I’ve enjoyed standing up for we, the people, especially financially, as I’m doing this evening, and until my final day, I will vote in a way that financially protects those I represent,” Nass said during Wednesday night’s Senate floor debate. “What we’re doing now is mortgaging our future and our children’s future, to some extent, for the temporary convenience of the present. And the only way that can stop is for us to resist it and to vote no.” 

The surplus as an election issue

Legislative inaction on the surplus likely means the next governor and whoever holds majorities in the Assembly and the Senate in January will control how that money is or is not spent. 

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, told reporters on Thursday that future election criticism about the deal’s failure should be directed at Republicans. 

“Republicans are in the majority, and they failed to get this bill out of the state Senate with their own members,” she said. “That’s something that they’re going to have to answer for, as well as, of course, 16 years of failing to address these issues and creating an affordability crisis.”

Tiffany said if he is elected governor, the surplus funds will “be returned to taxpayers where they belong.”

It’s possible, for the slew of candidates running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, that this is a turning point in what has otherwise been a quiet campaign so far, Chergosky said. 

“This might be the thing that gives the nomination race a little kick in the pants or a little nudge to start getting moving because we are seeing some daylight between the candidates,” Chergosky said. 

For example, Hughes, the lone Democratic gubernatorial candidate who directly supported the deal, in a social media post on Thursday criticized Tiffany but slammed, without naming names, “certain self-serving Democratic candidates for governor who would rather boost their own personal political ambitions than serve our kids and taxpayers.”

“Imagine if those candidates had acted like the leaders they profess to be. Imagine if they had paused before sending press releases and Twitter threads and jumping to name calling. Imagine if they had set aside their bruised egos and leaned in,” Hughes said. “Ultimately, they could still have voted no or opposed the bill, but they never even gave it due diligence. That’s not leadership, that’s gamesmanship. These Democratic candidates exposed themselves for lacking the maturity and responsibility a governor must have if they are to move our entire state forward.” 

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes said the deal delivered “meaningful dollars” to schools, but did not fix the state’s “broken system” to help working people. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary under Evers, criticized the deal negotiations for not being done in public. 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said “a one-year property tax break is not a long-term affordability plan.” 

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez called the deal “a compromise that’s far from perfect.”

Wisconsin’s $1.8 billion budget deal collapses, exposing rifts within both parties is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service won 12 awards on Friday as part of the Milwaukee Press Club Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism, including six first-place gold prizes for stories on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, shuttered power plants, a detained immigrant, police misconduct and a Milwaukee high school barbershop.

In the online reporting category, state reporter Tom Kertscher took home two gold prizes for his profile of former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and for a story with reporter Paul Kiefer on coal power plants ratepayers continue to pay for years after they stop producing electricity.

Freelance reporter Larry Sandler and data reporter Hongyu Liu won a gold award in the best online explanatory story or series for their three-part series “Supreme Costs,” which examined how Wisconsin became the first state to feature nine-figure spending on a high court election.

Intergenerational reporter Chesnie Wardell earned the gold award in the writing category best short soft feature story for her report about a barbershop at Rufus King International High School.

Pathways to success reporter Natalie Yahr along with Cap Times reporter Erin McGroarty won a gold award in the writing category for their story on Miguel Jerez Robles, a Cuban asylum seeker whom ICE arrested after a routine immigration hearing. Yahr and pathways to success reporter Miranda Dunlap won a bronze award in the online category for best long hard feature story for their report on high schools offering more college courses.

Photojournalist Jonathan Aguilar received silver and bronze awards for his photography in the best photo essay and best feature photo categories. His images captured an urban angler and a Dia de los Muertos celebration. Photojournalist Joe Timmerman won a silver award in the best feature photo category for his portrait of an anonymous transgender teenager.

Former reporter Mario Koran’s work on Milwaukee County’s Brady list, which lists law enforcement officers who have been dishonest, won two awards for best investigative story or series, a silver award in writing and a gold award in video. The project was a collaboration among Wisconsin Watch, TMJ4 and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Former intern Margaret Shreiner won a silver award in the online category for best investigative story or series for her report on a mother who couldn’t get a public defender after 10,000 calls to lawyers. The Press Club hands out awards in both professional and student categories. Shreiner won the award in the professional category while interning as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee NNS win 12 Milwaukee Press Club awards is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Oshkosh resident Nikolas DeGroot started Groundfloor Democracy after seeking an informal place where community members could gather to discuss politics and local issues. 

• Run entirely by volunteers, Groundfloor Democracy hosts Politics in the Park events several times per month. 

• Organizers focus on fostering respectful discussions in person, which they say helps people connect with their neighbors and find what they have in common. 

• However, it’s been a struggle to attract participants to their gatherings. 

• The group plans to become a nonprofit organization and hopes to eventually host events in more Wisconsin cities.

On a late April evening, in an Oshkosh park bordering the shores of Lake Winnebago, Nikolas DeGroot and Elaine Koch arranged four fabric lawn chairs in a circle. They unfolded a small table and used it to prop up posterboard reading “POLITICS IN THE PARK” in bubble letters. Then they sat down and waited for curious passersby to notice. 

During a time when Americans are increasingly polarized and politics can feel too tense a topic to broach in conversation, Oshkosh resident DeGroot wants to inspire his neighbors to tackle the topic head on — and handle disagreements thoughtfully. 

“There’s a disconnect in the way that we relate to one another, on many different levels. I think that the internet has kind of become the public commons, and it does it really badly,” DeGroot said. “We all know it’s terrible. We all hate it, and yet that’s still like the place where the most discussion is happening.”

The antidote, he thinks, is simple: bring conversation about shared issues back in the flesh, in a public place neighbors frequent, and make sure it stays respectful. 

That’s the gist of “Politics in the Park,” an event series where DeGroot and several helpers invite people to have civil conversations about politics and local issues at a public park. Through this, he hopes his neighbors can learn to connect again and chip away at the polarization driving people away from each other. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, getting people to take part in the initiative has proven difficult. Still in its infancy, the twice-weekly events this spring mark the series’ second year. Turnout has been sparse — typically, a handful of people stop by each event. The group, dubbed Groundfloor Democracy, hosted about 10 attendees at once at its peak. 

But the conversations they’ve had have been encouraging, and they hope it’ll catch on soon. 

“I want people to see that there is a big difference between debate and just regular conversation, and that we can get back to conversation,” said Emmy Carrick, who helps put on the events. “We want people to take away that regular conversation without yelling, without debate, without cameras — it’s possible.”

‘We’ll pull up some chairs, and we’ll just see’

As a political science student at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, DeGroot was eager to attend political and academic events on campus. But when he looked around the room at donors, university administrators, professors or students required to be present for a class, he felt out of place. 

“As somebody who comes from a working-class background, I don’t see any people like me at events like this,” said DeGroot, who works two part-time jobs.  

He started looking for other community organizations he’d be more aligned with. But he didn’t see any addressing his biggest concern: “How do we get people off of their devices and speaking in person again?” 

He decided to take matters into his own hands. 

“I was taking my son to the park every day after school anyway, for like two hours. So I was like, … ‘We’ll just set up a sign, we’ll pull up some chairs, and we’ll just see. We’ll just see what happens,’” he said. 

He made Facebook posts to tell people when he was going to be outside and wanted to facilitate conversation. He let people talk about what was on their minds. A few visitors came the first couple times, but they sometimes struggled with what to discuss. 

He started asking questions to guide discussion: 

“If you could change one thing about your government (local, state or federal), what would it be?”

“What’s something you think we could fix if we just talked about it more honestly?”

“What’s one thing you’d like politicians to stop doing?”

“What gives you hope when it comes to politics or your community?”

“What do you think people get wrong about folks who vote differently than them?”

Meanwhile, DeGroot posted a callout for people to help him with the endeavor. Four board members now help him organize events, post on social media and try to grow Groundfloor Democracy’s turnout. 

That includes Carrick, who discovered the project while surfing Reddit. She wanted to get involved because she feels like “we’ve never been more disconnected from our neighbors.”

“I like the premise of it because it was just something so low-stakes,” Carrick said. “With how polarized things are, it feels like any political conversation that you have is very high-stakes. I liked that this was just informal and welcoming.” 

By the end of last spring, they’d had enough turnout to feel encouraged to continue. This year, the events are guided by a one-word prompt, such as “local,” “education” or “justice.” They ask participants what topics the words bring to mind and let attendees steer the conversation.

Continuing the conversation

Carrick’s favorite Politics in the Park event took place on an early April evening, when about 10 people attended. Two teens on their way to the bus stopped briefly to learn about the initiative. Another man wanted to discuss the Trump administration’s policies — an exchange that ended with him and Koch praying together. 

“Nobody ever said whether they were a Democrat or Republican. We just talked,” Carrick said. “That was so refreshing to me. We didn’t talk about parties at all. We just talked about us and our lives and local issues and more of what brought us together.”

While discussion at the events has stayed civil to date, conversations about politics can often slide off the rails. 

Their goal isn’t to avoid debate, but to encourage handling disagreements respectfully. For that reason, DeGroot took a 40-hour mediation training at the Winnebago Conflict Resolution Center to learn how to handle and dissolve conflict. 

“A big part of that training was getting from the thing that somebody is saying to the underlying feeling that’s connected to what they’re saying,” DeGroot said. “It’s just trying to get to that little crumb at the center of like, why does this person feel so strongly about this particular thing?”

If needed, he will intervene to help the person see how those “big feelings” at the root of their argument overlap with the values of the people sitting with them, to help them see the similarities they share. Though he’s prepared, he hasn’t yet needed to interrupt a conversation.

Since it is a nonpartisan organization, DeGroot and other members are careful not to advocate for specific candidates, parties or policy positions. That’ll become especially important as they look to become an official nonprofit. The federal government prohibits these types of organizations from engaging in political campaign activity. 

As time goes on, they also want to grow the initiative by hosting conversations in more Wisconsin cities or partnering with other local civic organizations. 

They also want to find ways to raise funds — right now, everyone who helps out is a volunteer. 

Mostly, though, they want more people to come talk about politics with them in the park. 

“We can’t delete social media from the world, heal our nation’s politics overnight or anything like that,” Carrick said. “But we can set up some lawn chairs in a park and have a couple neighbors come out and just chat and get to know each other more.”

Learn about Groundfloor Democracy’s upcoming events here.

These Oshkosh residents want you to log off and talk politics — in real life is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Update, May 21, 2026:

An immigration court judge in Tennessee granted a $1,500 bond for Elvira Benitez Suarez on Thursday morning. Benitez will remain in custody at the Campbell County Detention Center during the 30-day window in which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorneys can file an appeal.

Thursday’s bond hearing came just over a week after the Ohio-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Trump administration’s year-old policy requiring mandatory detention for most immigrants facing removal. Benitez’s attorney, Milwaukee-based Marc Christopher, told Wisconsin Watch that the short turnaround reflected agreement among Benitez’s legal team, a federal district court judge and DHS itself that her case merited speedy consideration.

Original story, May 12, 2026:

A Sheboygan Falls woman is poised to test a new federal ruling reopening the door for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees to seek release on bond. 

An Ohio-based federal appeals court ruled Monday against the Trump administration policy requiring mandatory detention for most ICE detainees, the latest blow to a rule adopted last summer amid an escalating nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown.  

Detainees “should have a forum to explain that their backgrounds and connections to their communities justify release on bond while they undergo their removal proceedings,” 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Eric Clay wrote in the panel’s majority decision. Denying bond hearings, he added, amounts to a violation of their due process rights. 

The court’s ruling sent Wisconsin immigration attorneys scrambling to file bond motions for their clients detained in Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky — all under the 6th Circuit. Among those now able to seek bond: Elvira Benitez Suarez, currently detained at the Campbell County Detention Center in northern Kentucky.

Benitez, 51, has now spent two stints in ICE detention, as Wisconsin Watch has reported. 

She fled an abusive household in Mexico at 15, crossing the border with a younger sibling and settling in the Midwest. Though she remained undocumented for decades, she had no run-ins with law enforcement or immigration authorities until a GPS error on a family road trip through Michigan in July 2025 led her across the Canadian border.

The incident landed her in an Ohio immigration detention facility for six months. In her absence, her two adult daughters — both U.S. citizens — took in their school-age siblings.

A major shift in federal immigration court policy last year left Benitez unable to post bond.

Since 1996, federal law has required immigration authorities to detain — without bond — anyone found crossing the U.S. border without authorization. Prior administrations applied that rule relatively narrowly, meaning immigrants arrested in the interior of the U.S. could often seek a bond hearing in immigration court.

The Trump administration cast that precedent aside in July 2025, when ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a new interpretation subjecting anyone in deportation proceedings to mandatory detention without the possibility of bond. The Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of judges who set the rules for the federal immigration court system, signed off on the interpretation in September. 

The board has more frequently sided with the Department of Homeland Security than immigrants facing deportation for at least a decade, but the distribution of decisions is more lopsided than ever: The body has favored DHS’s position in more than 90% of decisions issued since President Trump returned to office last year, a recent NPR analysis found.

The rule change triggered an ongoing legal battle over the validity of the Trump administration’s interpretation; more than 400 federal district court judges have ruled against the White House’s position, while roughly 50 have backed the new policy. Judges in Wisconsin’s Western District Court have uniformly ruled against the mandatory detention rule, while those in Wisconsin’s Eastern District are divided.

Federal appellate courts are also split: Aside from the 6th Circuit’s Monday decision, the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled against the mandatory detention policy, whereas the Louisiana-based 5th Circuit and the Missouri-based 8th Circuit have sided with the Trump administration. 

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Illinois and with jurisdiction over Wisconsin, remains divided.

With bond off the table, thousands of immigrants in ICE custody have turned to a backup option: habeas corpus petitions, filed in federal district courts — administered separately from the federal immigration court system — to challenge their detention.

Federal district courts have received tens of thousands of habeas petitions in the past year, including more than 70 in Wisconsin’s Western and Eastern District Courts combined. 

When a federal district court approves a habeas petition, the court generally orders an immigration court judge to hold a bond hearing.

Benitez’s first habeas petition produced a more unusual victory: Judge Richard Drucker of the Cleveland immigration court, citing the emotional toll on her younger children, canceled her deportation and set her on the path to legal residency, though a delayed background check added more than a month to Benitez’s initial stay in a detention facility.

Released in late December, Benitez reunited with her family in Wisconsin while DHS appealed Drucker’s order. She continued attending mandatory check-ins at the agency’s field office in downtown Milwaukee, where ICE agents re-arrested her on March 10. After a stop at an ICE detention facility outside Chicago, the agency transferred Benitez to Campbell County, where nearly two dozen immigrants detained in Wisconsin have spent time within the last year.

Marc Christopher, a Milwaukee immigration attorney who represented Benitez during her first detention, told Wisconsin Watch in March that no statute required DHS to detain her while awaiting the outcome of its appeal. Her arrest, Christopher wrote, served “no legitimate public safety purpose.”

“It separates a mother from her vulnerable U.S. citizen children despite a federal immigration judge already recognizing the extreme hardship her removal would cause them,” he added.

Following the March arrest, an ICE spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch that “being in detention is a choice,” arguing that Benitez could leave custody by agreeing to self-deport.

Benitez’s new Ohio-based attorney filed a habeas petition on her behalf with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in March. Judge Chad Meredith, a Trump appointee, joined the court’s bench last fall. He has received more than 80 habeas cases involving immigrants in ICE custody since his confirmation, most of which are still active; he has yet to side with an immigrant detainee, but he has denied a half-dozen habeas petitions outright. 

The 6th Circuit’s latest ruling could give Benitez a shorter route out of custody. Christopher filed a bond motion for Benitez “the minute (the ruling) came out,” he told Wisconsin Watch. “Given the unusual circumstances of her case,” Christopher added, he plans to ask Meredith to order a bond hearing on a short turnaround, rather than waiting more than a week. DHS can appeal bond decisions.

Christopher isn’t alone in his haste. Aissa Olivarez, an attorney with the Madison-based Community Immigration Law Center, filed a bond motion for another client held at the Campbell County Detention Center just after the news broke — a first since the Board of Immigration Appeals approved the mandatory detention rule last September. 

“We are now working to identify other people who have reached out in the past,” she added, “to see who might be eligible for bond now.”

Olivarez and other immigration attorneys are still awaiting a decision from the 7th Circuit; the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion requesting expedited oral argument  on Monday. 

The issue may reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s up to the justices whether they want to take the case,” Christopher said, “but traditionally on cases involving immigration, cases where there’s been a clear circuit split, and where it affects literally tens of thousands of people, I think it’s going to be near the top of the issues they want to resolve.”

Sheboygan Falls mother granted bond in challenge to ICE detention rule is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.