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Demonstrators protest outside the immigration processing and detention facility this month in Broadview, Ill. President Donald Trump wants to deploy Texas National Guard members to the Chicago area but has been blocked by federal courts. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
As President Donald Trump prepares to send National Guard troops — from either Oregon, California or possibly Texas — into Portland, Oregon, entrepreneur Sarah Shaoul watches with deep concern.
A three-decade resident of the Portland area, Shaoul leads a coalition of roughly 100 local small businesses, including many dependent on foot traffic. Armed troops could spook customers and, she fears, trigger a crisis where none exists.
“I don’t want this to be a political conversation but, I mean, the fact you bring people from other states who maybe have different politics — I think it shows an administration that’s trying to pit people against other people,” Shaoul said.
Trump’s campaign to send the National Guard into Democratic-leaning cities he describes as crime-ridden has so far reached Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago and Portland. He has federalized — taken command of — hundreds of active-duty guard members to staff the deployments.
But in the two most recent attempted deployments to Portland and the Chicago area, the Trump administration has turned to out-of-state National Guard troops, the part-time soldiers who often respond to natural disasters.
National guards are usually under the control of state governors, with state funds paying for their work. But sometimes the troops can be called into federal service at federal expense and placed under the president’s control.
In addition to federalizing some members of the Oregon and Illinois National Guard within those states, the president sent 200 Texas National Guard troops to the Chicago area and plans to send California National Guard members to Portland. A Pentagon memo has also raised the possibility of sending some Texas troops to Portland.
Presidents who have federalized National Guard forces in the past, even against a governor’s will, have done so in response to a crisis in the troops’ home state. That happened to enforce school desegregation in Arkansas in 1957 and Alabama in 1963.
But the decision to send one state’s National Guard troops into a different state without the receiving governor’s consent is both extraordinary and unprecedented, experts on national security law told Stateline.
It’s really like ... a little bit like invading another country.
– Claire Finkelstein, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania
The cross-border deployments evoke concerns stretching back to the country’s infancy, when the Federalist Papers in 1787-1788 grappled with the possibility that states could take military action against one another. While the recent cross-state deployments have all included troops under Trump’s command, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump ordering his state’s National Guard to Chicago.
The troop movements raise questions of state sovereignty and how far the president can go in using the militia of one state to exercise power in another. At stake is Trump’s ability to effectively repurpose military forces for domestic use in line with an August executive order that called for the creation of a National Guard “quick reaction force” that could rapidly deploy nationwide.
“It’s really like … a little bit like invading another country,” said Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania who studies military ethics and national security law.
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to proceed with the Chicago-area deployment, which is currently blocked in federal court. On Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the deployment in Portland to move forward, overruling a district court judge, but additional appeals are expected.
The deployments come as Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to expand his ability to use the military for law enforcement. Presidents are generally prohibited from deploying the military domestically, but the Insurrection Act, which dates back to 1792, could be used to bypass restrictions and potentially allow National Guard members to make immigration-related arrests.
For now, Trump has federalized National Guard members under a federal law known as Title 10, which allows the president to take command of National Guard members in response to invasion, rebellions against the United States and whenever the president is unable to execute federal laws with “regular forces.”
He has characterized illegal immigration as an invasion and sought to station National Guard members outside of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, facilities and other federal property.
While Chicago and Portland fight Trump’s moves in court, other cities are bracing for the arrival of troops in anticipation that the deployments will continue to expand. Washington state went so far as to enact a new law earlier this year intended to prevent out-of-state National Guard members from deploying in Washington. The new state law doesn’t pertain to federalized troops, however, only to those that might be sent by another governor.
“I’m incredibly concerned but not necessarily surprised by the president’s method of operation, that there seems to be a theme of fear, intimidation, bullying without a clear plan,” Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said in an interview with Stateline.
Harrell, who is running for reelection to the nonpartisan office in November, said Seattle officials are monitoring what’s happening in other cities. Any deployment of guard members — whether they were from Washington or elsewhere — would be concerning, he said.
“At the end of the day, they would be following orders with some level of military precision, so my concern isn’t so much out-of-state or in-state. I just oppose any kind of deployment.”
Whether the out-of-state status of National Guard members matters legally is up for debate. Experts in national security law are split over whether sending federalized troops across state lines poses constitutional and legal problems, even as they broadly agree the move is provocative.
Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the left-leaning Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, doubts the cross-state deployment of federalized troops is itself a legal issue.
Still, he criticized the decision to send in out-of-state National Guard and, speaking about Chicago, called the underlying deployment unlawful and unjustified. In ordering troops to Illinois, Nunn said, Trump was abusing his presidential power, regardless of the servicemembers’ home state.
“It is unnecessarily inflammatory,” Nunn said of that choice. “It is, I think, insulting to say we’re going to send the National Guard from one state into another.”
Democrats, especially in cities and states targeted by Trump, condemn the deployments as an abuse of presidential power, regardless of where the troops are from. Republicans have largely supported or stayed silent about Trump’s moves, though Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who chairs the National Governors Association, has criticized the sending of Texas troops to Illinois.
Abbott wrote on social media in early October that he had “fully authorized” Trump to call up 400 Texas National Guard members. Abbott’s office didn’t respond to Stateline’s questions.
“You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” Abbott wrote on X.
In the Chicago area and in Portland, the Trump administration wants the National Guard outside ICE facilities where small protests have taken place in recent weeks. Dozens of people have been arrested in Portland since June, but there’s been no sign of widespread violence. A Stateline analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and federal crime data found that Trump’s National Guard deployments have not, with a single exception, targeted the nation’s most violent cities.
For weeks federal courts have kept National Guard troops off the streets of Portland and the Chicago area as legal challenges play out, but that could be changing. The Trump administration on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area. If the court sides with the administration, the decision could clear the way for additional deployments elsewhere.
In the Friday filing to the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote: “This case presents what has become a disturbing and recurring pattern: Federal officers are attempting to enforce federal immigration law in an urban area containing significant numbers of illegal aliens. The federal agents’ efforts are met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law.”
The U.S. Department of Defense didn’t directly answer questions from Stateline about whether further cross-state deployments are planned, saying only that it doesn’t speculate on future operations.
U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut wrote in an order blocking deployment of the National Guard in Portland that a handful of documented episodes of protesters clashing with federal law enforcement during September were “inexcusable,” but added that “they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”
But on Monday, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump had “lawfully exercised his statutory authority” to deploy Oregon National Guard servicemembers to Portland. Lawyers for Oregon and Portland are seeking a review by the full appeals court, a move that would put the case in front of 11 appellate judges.
Shaoul, the Portland business leader, said the presence of troops would itself risk creating “drama” at the expense of taxpayers.
“Tell me how that’s helping anybody to go in and intimidate a bunch of people who are dressed up in friggin’ costumes, playing music,” Shaoul said. “I mean, if nothing else illustrates what a joke this is, that should tell you right there.”
Top Republicans have long telegraphed their desire to use the National Guard to aid immigration enforcement.
In December, before Trump took office, 26 GOP governors — at the time, every Republican governor except Vermont’s Phil Scott — signed a statement promising to provide their national guards to help.
Since Trump’s inauguration, at least 11 Republican governors have ordered National Guard members to help ICE, typically by providing logistical support. At least four states — Florida, Louisiana, Texas and West Virginia — have entered into federal agreements that allow ICE to delegate some immigration enforcement duties, potentially including arrests, to National Guard members.
Trump’s decision to federalize National Guard members goes further, placing troops under the president’s command. The cross-state deployments represent the next step in testing his authority to command guard members.
Finkelstein, the national security law professor, said sending one state’s National Guard into another state raises serious legal issues under the 10th Amendment. The amendment reserves for the states or the people powers not specifically granted to the federal government — the idea at the core of federalism.
A president and governor may reasonably disagree about whether federalization is necessary to help their state, Finkelstein said, but “even that fig leaf” isn’t available when troops are sent to another state. California gets nothing out of the deployment of its National Guard to Oregon, she said. And unless it’s California’s governor — rather than the president — making the choice to deploy guard members elsewhere, it’s a “very real problem” that undermines state autonomy, she said.
Washington state Rep. Jim Walsh, who chairs the Washington State Republican Party, has been monitoring the attempted deployment in Portland, as well as the possibility of a deployment to Seattle. He said Trump has broad discretion under federal law to federalize National Guard members.
Still, Walsh said federalizing the National Guard gives him pause and is something that a hypothetical president — “leave this one out of the equation” — might overuse. But he argued state and local leadership in cities where the National Guard has been deployed have brought the situation on themselves by allowing a breakdown in law and order.
Asked about cross-state deployments, Walsh largely dismissed any legal concerns.
“I guess they would know the area better,” Walsh said of troops deployed in their home state. “But this is kind of a specious argument. … The president, whoever he or she is, can federalize National Guard units.”
Walsh said he doesn’t see a situation at the moment that would necessitate a Guard deployment within Washington state.
But Seattle isn’t taking any chances.
Harrell, the Seattle mayor, signed two executive orders in October, one that pushes back on the practice of federal agents making immigration arrests while wearing masks, and another that seeks to maintain control over local law enforcement resources if the National Guard is deployed in the city.
“I’m critically concerned about what can occur as a reaction,” Harrell said. “That’s exactly what Trump’s goal is, to raise tension and create chaos and to use blue cities as scapegoats.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the year, 1957, that President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized National Guard troops to enforce desegregation in Arkansas. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Advocates gather outside the Hippodrome Theater in Richmond, Virginia, this summer to protest Medicaid cuts. Medicaid covers nearly two-thirds of Black babies’ births in the U.S., federal data shows, and congressional cuts to the program are already limiting reproductive health care in Black and low-income communities. (Photo by Bert Shepherd/Courtesy of Protect Our Care PAC)
At least 90% of Black people surveyed for a new poll said Medicaid is important to them or their families, and more than half either have public insurance or a family member who relies on the program.
“Medicaid is critical for so many things with regards to making sure that we’re healthy and addressing health disparities. By losing it or weakening it, it is just going to disproportionately harm our communities,” said Regina Davis Moss, the president and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.
Davis Moss’ organization commissioned the 10-state poll, which includes views from California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Nonpartisan research firm PerryUndem conducted the survey between May and June and interviewed 500 Black adults in each state.
The findings, shared exclusively with States Newsroom, show a significant number of Black people who want children are not yet planning to have them due to cost and health care concerns.
Results were released just as several Planned Parenthood clinics that served Black patients with low incomes closed after a law took effect blocking certain reproductive health clinics affiliated with abortion providers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements until July 2026.
Louisiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, which never offered abortions in their decades of service, closed on Sept. 30. Sixty percent of the Baton Rouge and New Orleans patients were Black and most have Medicaid insurance, States Newsroom reported. One of two Planned Parenthood locations in Memphis, where more than 60% of the population is Black, temporarily closed its doors during the first week of October due to Medicaid cuts, Tennessee Lookout reported.
“Proximity is important, and the fact that these clinics have to close means that individuals needing their services will go without,” said Danielle Atkinson, executive director of Mothering Justice, a national advocacy group based in Michigan.
Four Planned Parenthood clinics closed in her state this spring after the Trump administration cut millions of Title X family-planning funding, Michigan Advance reported.
“They’ll go without STI testing. They’ll go without cancer screening. They’ll go without counseling,” Atkinson said.
The ban on Medicaid for some reproductive health providers was part of a larger reconciliation package that is also set to slash nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid more broadly over the next decade.
“Medicaid is a lifeline for Black women, girls and gender-expansive people,” Davis Moss said. The state and federal program covers nearly two-thirds of Black births, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and almost half of all births nationwide.
Maternal health advocates are bracing for the impact of Medicaid cuts on labor and delivery units, which have already been closing at a rapid pace over the last 10 years, especially in rural communities. A maternity ward in northeast Georgia, one of the states included in the poll, will close at the end of the month partially due to Medicaid cuts, Georgia Recorder reported in September.
Findings from the In Our Own Voice poll also show that Black people of reproductive age — 18 to 44 in this case — want children but are not planning to have them, citing high costs of living.
California had the biggest disparity of 28 percentage points: 56% want children but only 28% plan to have them.
“I believe some of the reasons they said are not new issues that we are grappling with, but it’s deeply concerning because they are being exacerbated in this current administration,” Davis Moss said.
At least 69% of Black people polled in each of the 10 states said they worry about being able to take care of children or more children than they already have, while at least 67% cited housing costs and 57% pointed to child care expenses.
“In a lot of these states, the cost of child care is more expensive than a year of tuition, which is such a barrier for people to be able to: one, go into the workforce, two, have that early intervention and early education that really sets their children up for success, and three, give individuals and families the opportunity to go and explore careers and learning opportunities,” Atkinson said.
Abortion restrictions played a factor in family planning, too, though in smaller numbers. At least 45% said they don’t want children because they or their loved one could die from pregnancy, while 43% worry about miscarriage care and 30% said abortion bans are stopping them from growing their families.
Three of the states included in the poll — Florida, Georgia and North Carolina — have abortion bans stricter than 20 weeks. Voters in California, Michigan and Ohio approved reproductive rights amendments in recent years that secured the right to an abortion up to fetal viability, while Nevada and Virginia may have similar safeguards in place after the midterms.
A majority of voters in each of the 10 states say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and at least 78% say Black women should make the decisions about pregnancy that’s best for them.
Overall, at least half of Black adults polled are struggling with economic security. Black women of reproductive age were more likely to expect less safety and security throughout the rest of Republican President Donald Trump’s second term than Black men.
“We’re getting ready to celebrate our 250 years, and all the things that we have fought for and all these things that we have gained in terms of civil rights and human rights, they are under threat like never before,” Davis Moss said.
This story was originally produced by News From The States, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Women gather outside a Goodwill store inside the Elmwood Correctional Facility in 2024 in Milpitas, Calif. A Council on Criminal Justice report warns that criminal justice policies are failing to address the unique needs of women, from arrest to incarceration. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
A new report from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice warns that policies and practices across the nation’s criminal justice systems are failing to address the distinct factors that drive women into the system — and in doing so, are harming families and undermining public safety.
The report, which was released early this month, calls on states and local communities to reconsider how they respond to women at the earliest stages of criminal justice involvement — from arrest and pretrial detention to charging and sentencing — and to focus more on prevention, treatment and family stability.
“Women are no less responsible for their actions than men, and should be held accountable,” said Stephanie Akhter, the director of the council’s Women’s Justice Commission.
“If we really want to stop crime and put people on a path to success, then we need to take an individualized approach and craft responses that are fair and in service of those goals,” Akhter told Stateline.
The report outlined four major policy recommendations: prioritizing alternatives to arrest, basing pretrial detention decisions on public safety and flight risk, considering women’s unique circumstances during charging and sentencing, and prohibiting sexual contact between law enforcement officers and people in custody.
The authors also urged state and local leaders to invest in research and data collection to better understand women’s experiences in the justice system and the factors that may contribute to criminal behavior, including domestic violence, economic instability, substance use and mental illness.
“We need to know more about what’s bringing them into the system,” Akhter said.
The report comes as new federal data shows the female prison population is growing faster than the male population. The female state prison population increased about 5% nationwide between 2022 and 2023, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Most states saw gains of fewer than 100 women, with Texas being the only state where the number of incarcerated women rose by more than 500.
Roughly 58% of women incarcerated in state prisons were parents of minor children in 2016, compared with 46% of men, according to a 2021 Bureau of Justice Statistics research brief.
The latest national FBI data shows a similar trend in arrests: Women accounted for 27% of all adult arrests in 2024, nearly double their 14% share in 1980, according to the council’s report. The share of violent offense arrests among women also has steadily risen, from 11% in 1986 to 21% in 2024.
A separate report from the council’s Women’s Justice Commission examined how communities respond to women in crisis. The authors found that some crisis intervention systems are not designed to meet women’s specific needs, and that more research is needed to understand women’s experiences and long-term outcomes.
Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
An excavator works to clear rubble Oct. 23, 2025 after the East Wing of the White House was demolished. The demolition is part of President Donald Trump's plan to build a ballroom on the eastern side of the White House. (Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Workers this week demolished the East Wing of the White House, originally built in 1942, to make room for construction of a ballroom that President Donald Trump had said wouldn’t impact the building.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the roughly $300 million project during a Thursday briefing, saying it is the next in a long line of additions and renovations to the campus that have taken place throughout the country’s history.
“Just trust the process,” Leavitt said. “This is going to be a magnificent addition to the White House for many years to come and it’s not costing the taxpayers anything.”
The project is being fully financed by Trump and several private donors, including Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Comcast Corporation, Google, Lockheed Martin, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Union Pacific Railroad, investors Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, among others.
Trump said later in the day that he plans to allocate “millions of dollars” to the ballroom and has spent his own money on other White House projects, including floors and lighting in the Palm Room.
“I spent millions of dollars on this building, taking care of it,” he said. “It was not properly maintained and now it’s starting to gleam like it should. It should really gleam.”
Photos from The Associated Press appeared to show the ballroom demolition, which was first reported Monday, complete.
Leavitt said tearing down the East Wing did not need approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, according to a legal opinion from that organization, an executive-branch agency responsible for managing federal construction projects in and around Washington, D.C.
“Their general counsel has said when it comes to phase one of this project, the tearing down of the current East Wing structure, a submission is not required legally for that,” Leavitt said. “Only for vertical construction will a submission be required and that’s a legal opinion from them and we are following that legal opinion.”
Trump said in late July that construction of the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building” and ballparked the price at $200 million.
“It will be near it but not touching it. And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” Trump said at the time. “It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”
Leavitt, when pressed Thursday why the president didn’t tell Americans he would need to demolish the entire East Wing, said designs were modified throughout the process.
“The plans changed when the president heard counsel from the architects and the construction companies, who said that in order for this East Wing to be modern and beautiful for many, many years to come, for it to be a truly strong and stable structure, this phase one that we’re now in was necessary,” Leavitt said.
She didn’t offer an explanation for why the price had increased by $100 million, repeatedly saying no taxpayer money would go toward the ballroom.
Leavitt declined to say whether the project will include upgrades to the bunker that sits below the East Wing, known as the president’s emergency operations center, citing security concerns.
“Like any security enhancements that are made on the White House grounds, those will be made and maintained by the United States Secret Service,” she said.
Trump is also deciding what exactly to name the new ballroom, though Leavitt declined to detail what he’s considering.
“There will be an official name,” she said. “I will let the president announce that once he firmly decides on it.”
Trump is not currently considering any other major construction or renovation projects on the White House grounds, though Leavitt didn’t rule out that could happen during the remainder of his term, which will last until Jan. 20, 2029.
“Not to my knowledge, no,” Leavitt said. “But he is a builder at heart, clearly. And so his heart and his mind is always churning about how to improve things here on the White House grounds. But at this point in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president’s main priority.”
The nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation sent a letter earlier this week urging an immediate halt to demolition of the East Wing “until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes, including consultation and review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, and to invite comment from the public.”
President and CEO Carol Quillen wrote the 90,000-square-foot ballroom could easily dwarf the 55,000-square-foot White House.
“As we approach the 250th Anniversary of our country’s founding, the preservation of historic places that represent our nation’s history has never been more relevant or important,” Quillen wrote. “We urge you to take into account the deep reverence that all Americans hold for this iconic place, and to initiate the review process that can ensure the preservation of the historic White House for future generations.”
The National Capital Planning Commission could not be reached for comment Thursday since it is closed due to the ongoing government shutdown. The Commission of Fine Arts did not immediately return a request for comment.
The White House Historical Association writes on its website that the East Wing was constructed in 1942 “to house additional staff and offices, reflecting the growing complexity of the federal government during World War II.”
“The East Wing’s construction was highly controversial due to its timing during wartime,” the website states. “Congressional Republicans labeled the expenditure as wasteful, with some accusing (President Franklin D.) Roosevelt of using the project to bolster his presidency’s image. The secretive nature of the construction, tied to military purposes, further fueled suspicions. However, the East Wing’s utility in supporting the modern presidency eventually quieted critics.”
Michael Gableman | Up Front screen shot
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Susan Crawford issued an order Thursday recusing herself from former Justice Michael Gableman’s disciplinary case with the state Office of Lawyer Regulation.
Gableman faces a suspension of his law license for his conduct during his widely derided review of the 2020 presidential election. The Supreme Court is responsible for delivering the length of his suspension and determining any monetary penalties he’s responsible for paying.
Crawford’s recusal comes after Gableman had filed a motion requesting that she not participate in the case because of comments she made about him on the campaign trail earlier this year. However, Crawford isn’t recusing at Gableman’s request.
Instead, Crawford wrote, she is stepping aside from weighing in on the case because part of the allegations against Gableman are his actions during an open records lawsuit against him in the circuit court of Dane County Judge Frank Remington. Crawford, formerly a judge in that circuit, said that because of her proximity to Remington’s court, she learned facts about that case that are not considered part of the official record in the disciplinary matter.
“I believe it is likely I was exposed to information and impressions related to Attorney Gableman’s conduct and demeanor in the circuit court that fall outside of the record before this court,” she wrote. “Because I may have been exposed to factual allegations beyond those Attorney Gableman has chosen not to contest, I may have ‘personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.’”
Because she recused herself for another reason, Crawford dismissed Gableman’s request as moot.
Gableman had also requested the recusal of Justice Rebecca Dallet, arguing that comments she made about his judicial record when she announced her campaign for the Court in 2017 meant she couldn’t impartially assess his case. In an order, Dallet denied the request, writing that her comments about him in 2017 have nothing to do with how she assesses actions he took in 2021.
“Although Gableman tries to characterize my comments as reflecting a view of ‘Gableman’s moral turpitude,’ and his ‘professional judgment and character,’ no objective reasonable observer would understand them as such,” she wrote. “Simply put, I expressed my disagreement with Gableman’s actions as a candidate and justice between 2008 and 2018. That disagreement is irrelevant to whether he engaged in attorney misconduct in 2021 and 2022, and whether I can impartially adjudicate claims that he did so now.”
With Crawford recusing, the Court is divided 3-3 between liberals and conservatives — though conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn has previously sided with the Court’s liberals in cases relating to the 2020 presidential election.
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Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., talks to a reporter in the basement of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Senate Thursday failed to advance a Republican measure and rejected unanimous agreements on two related bills from Democrats that would have paid federal employees and contractors who have continued to work amid the government shutdown, which entered day 23.
The stalemate constituted the latest example of how dug in to their arguments both parties are as the shutdown that began Oct. 1 drags out, as well as the heightened political tensions in the upper chamber when it comes to striking a deal to resume government funding.
Most federal employees will miss their first full paycheck on Friday or early next week. More than 42 million Americans, some 40% under the age of 17, are also at risk of delayed food assistance if Congress doesn’t address a funding shortfall expected by Nov. 1 in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Senate Democrats Wednesday sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins over concerns that the agency has warned states to hold off on processing SNAP benefits. They contended the agency has the resources to keep payments flowing.
“We were deeply disturbed to hear that the USDA has instructed states to stop processing SNAP benefits for November and were surprised by your recent comments that the program will ‘run out of money in two weeks,’” according to the letter. “In fact, the USDA has several tools available which would enable SNAP benefits to be paid through or close to the end of November.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill Wednesday to continue SNAP funding through the shutdown. During Thursday’s briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration would “absolutely support” the legislation.
In the Senate, a measure from Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson on a 54-45 vote did not reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance in the chamber. Its failure means that federal employees who have continued to work will not be paid until the shutdown ends.
Democratic senators who agreed to the measure included Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota changed his vote in order to reconsider the measure.
“I don’t think it makes sense to hold these federal workers hostage,” Warnock told States Newsroom in an interview on his vote Thursday. “If I could have a path to give some of these folks relief while fighting for health care, that’s what I decided to do.”
A separate measure from Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also failed to move forward after Johnson objected. Van Hollen requested unanimous consent to approve his bill that would have also protected federal workers from mass Reductions in Force, or RIFs, that President Donald Trump has attempted during the shutdown.
A second Democratic bill, from Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., was narrower, only including pay for federal workers. But when he requested unanimous approval for his measure, it was also blocked by Johnson.
Senators then left Capitol Hill for the weekend. On Wednesday, the Senate took a failed 12th vote to provide the federal government and its services with flat funding through Nov. 21.
Senate Republicans have pressed Senate Democrats to approve the GOP-written stopgap measure. But Democrats have maintained that they will not support the House measure because it does not extend tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.
Van Hollen argued his bill would protect workers from the president’s targeting of certain federal agencies and programs.
“We certainly shouldn’t set up a system where the president of the United States gets to decide what agencies to shut down, what they can open, who to pay and who not to pay, who to punish and who not to punish,” Van Hollen said on the Senate floor before asking for unanimous consent to move the bill forward.
Johnson objected to including Van Hollen’s provision to ban federal worker layoffs during a shutdown. President Donald Trump’s efforts to lay off thousands of federal workers during the shutdown have been on hold since last week, after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that was later expanded.
However, Johnson said he was willing to add into his own bill the provision from Van Hollen to pay furloughed workers.
“I’m more than happy to sit down with you. Maybe we should do that later today,” Van Hollen told Johnson during their debate on the floor.
Shortly after, Peters introduced a near-mirror version of Van Hollen’s bill, except that his measure would not prohibit layoffs — essentially what Johnson told Van Hollen he would agree to.
“We all say we agree on this, so let’s just pass this bill now,” the Michigan Democrat said before asking for unanimous consent to advance the legislation.
Johnson also objected to that proposal.
“It only solves a problem temporarily. We’re going to be right back in the same position,” Johnson said in an interview with States Newsroom about why he rejected Peters’ proposal.
Johnson said he talked with Peters and Van Hollen after the vote and “we’ll be talking beyond this.”
Even if the Senate passed the bill sponsored by Johnson or Van Hollen, it’s unlikely the House, which has been in recess since last month, would return to vote on either measure.
At a Thursday morning press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson argued that Republicans already passed a stopgap measure to pay federal workers and that Senate Democrats should support that legislation.
Johnson said bringing back the House would be a “waste of time,” noting that Democrats would not vote on the Republican proposal.
“If I brought everybody back right now and we voted on a measure to do this, to pay essential workers, it would be spiked in the Senate,” said the Louisiana Republican. “So it would be a waste of our time.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy joined Johnson and House Republicans during their press conference.
He said that flight delays have increased due to staffing shortages.
More than 50,000 TSA agents and more than 13,000 air traffic controllers have continued to work without pay during the government shutdown.
“They’re angry,” Duffy said of air traffic controllers. “I’ve gone to a number of different towers over the course of the last week to 10 days. They’re frustrated.”
Next Tuesday, air traffic controllers will not receive their full paycheck for their work in October, Duffy said.
He added that the agency is already short-staffed — by up to 3,000 air traffic controllers.
“When we have lower staffing, what happens is, you’ll see delays or cancellations,” Duffy said.
The FlightAware tracker said there were 2,132 delays within, into or out of the United States of unspecified length reported by Thursday afternoon, compared to 4,175 on Wednesday, 3,846 on Tuesday and 6,792 on Monday.
A shortage of air traffic controllers helped play a role in ending the 2019 government shutdown, which lasted 35 days, after thousands of commercial flights were ground to a halt.
Michael Gableman in Dane County Circuit Court on Thursday, June 23 | Screenshot via Wisconsin Eye
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman could be forced to pay $48,192 to cover the costs of the state Office of Lawyer Regulation’s investigation into him for his conduct during his widely derided review of the 2020 presidential election.
That review of the election, which did not turn up any proof of wrongdoing, has resulted in 10 counts of misconduct being filed against the former judge. Late last month, he agreed to have his law license suspended for three years because of the charges.
Last week the OLR filed a statement arguing that the case against Gableman should follow Supreme Court precedent, which would mean the costs incurred by the OLR investigator and independent referee overseeing the case should be paid by the lawyer under investigation. The referee issued a recommendation stating that there was no reason the case shouldn’t follow the existing precedent.
Both the responsibility for paying the bill and the ultimate punishment will be decided by the state Supreme Court.
Also last week, Gableman filed a motion in his case last week seeking the recusal of liberal justices Susan Crawford and Rebecca Dallet.
Gableman’s filing notes that Crawford called him a “disgraced election conspiracy theorist” and accused him of leading a “sham” investigation of the 2020 election during her campaign earlier this year.
His filing notes comments Dallet made in 2017 after she had announced her campaign for the Court but before Gableman had decided not to run for another term. Dallet accused Gableman of not recusing himself from cases in which he had a conflict of interest, called his 2008 campaign “one of the most unethical” in state history and said he was a “rubber stamp for his political allies.”
Gableman argues that these comments create the appearance of bias and that the justices shouldn’t weigh in on his punishment. If they were to recuse, the Court’s conservatives would hold a 3-2 majority — though Justice Brian Hagedorn sided with the Court’s liberals in the 2020 election cases it decided.
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U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan speaks with furloughed federal workers on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. Pocan, a Democrat, brought pizza for the group and discussed the current federal shutdown. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
Ellie Lazarcik worked in a few different industry jobs after moving to Madison in 2017. None of them really fit, she says. Then she learned that the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Lab in Madison was hiring.
Coincidentally, she knew of the lab from a visit she made “way back when I was in college, for a wood sculpture class of all things,” Lazarcik said Wednesday.
“Over a decade had passed since then, and I saw a job opening come up in the lab and thought, ‘Why not? That place was really amazing when I visited. They had really cool stuff going on then, and they probably still have really cool stuff going on,’” she recalled.
She applied and got the job.
That was five years ago. Her job title is physical science technician in the lab’s building and fire science program. Her work supports other members of the research team — setting up lab tests, preparing samples and then running them through the testing or analysis process and sorting through the data afterward.
“And I love what I do,” Lazarcik said.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, “there have been a lot of really sort of rapid-fire changes,” she said. “We’re on our toes a lot trying to figure out what we can or can’t pursue in terms of research.”
Still, she has continued to find the job engaging. “We’ve been able to keep doing cool projects,” Lazarcik said. “I’ve been involved in some interesting stuff in the lab — but it has been challenging.”
Since Oct. 1, however, Lazarcik has been furloughed along with hundreds of thousands of federal workers on account of the federal government shutdown.
“This is my first furlough and I’m not particularly enjoying it,” she said. Missing a paycheck is one reason, but it’s not the only one.
“It is pretty uncomfortable not knowing when I will get paid next, when I can go back into the lab and continue working on projects that got stopped abruptly,” Lazarcik said, “It’s stressful.”
Lazarcik is married and her husband “has a job and a paycheck, which definitely helps,” she said. “But going from a two-paycheck household to one has been a pretty stark difference.”
On Wednesday, Lazarcik brought her toddler in his stroller over to the Social Security Administration office on Madison’s far West Side. U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) and members of his staff stopped by a little after noon with boxes of pizza as a token of appreciation for some of the furloughed federal workers.
About 18,000 federal employees live in Wisconsin, and about 8,000 are expected to be out of work currently due to the shutdown, the state labor secretary, Amy Pechacek, said at a virtual news conference on Thursday, Oct. 18.
“We’re seeing you and we very much appreciate what you’re doing,” Pocan told the group of just over a dozen federal employees who turned out. “We understand the sacrifice you and your families are making.”
Even before the shutdown, the Trump administration fired about 200,000 federal workers, Pocan said.
“These actions are illegal,” he said, but added that they are likely to drive some people out of the federal workforce. “We’re going to lose a lot of good, qualified people with experience.”
Pocan said communication in Washington, D.C., between the Republican majority in both the House and the Senate and Democrats has been at a standstill.
“I’d prefer we were there now, negotiating to get things done. But we’re not,” Pocan told the group. “We’re seeing a lot of things happen this session that aren’t normal.”
In September the Republicans sought to pass a continuing resolution on spending that if enacted would have averted the shutdown. A majority voted for the measure in the House, but in the U.S. Senate there were not enough votes to clear the 60 needed to advance most bills in the upper chamber.
Democratic support is necessary to meet that threshold, but Democratic lawmakers argued that in return for their votes they should have an opportunity to have some input into the continuing resolution.
Their demands have included extending enhanced subsidies for health insurance premiums sold through the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace and reversing cuts to Medicaid that Republicans included in their big tax cut and spending cut bill enacted in July.
In previous spending standoffs, Pocan said, leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress have been able to hash out agreements, usually avoiding a shutdown altogether or else managing to resolve one before it drags on.
“This time, though, so much has changed,” Pocan said.
A bipartisan deal failed in December after Trump and Elon Musk opposed it. Congress managed to approve another stopgap spending bill two days later that carried the federal government to March 2025.
“Then we had to start over in March,” Pocan said. That measure was unpopular with Democrats, he said, but enough Senate Democrats voted for it to pass, funding the federal government through Sept. 30.
“And immediately we saw recissions — illegal again — and more illegal actions by the Trump administration taking funds away,” Pocan said. That history over the last 10 months has made Democrats wary of a deal that doesn’t address their priorities, he added.
Lazarcik hopes Congress acts soon to pass legislation that ends the shutdown. In the meantime, she gets by, tapping into savings, “looking at where you can squeeze a little bit tighter,” and skimping on putting aside funds for retirement — “which is really hard.”
Not everyone understands, however.
“I hear a lot of people talk about, ‘Oh, man, that must be cool.’ It’s really not,” she said. “It’s pretty stressful having to try to plan when you can’t know when your next paycheck is coming.”
She is grateful for a support network of close friends and family members. “[They] do understand furlough is not just some crazy vacation you get to go on,” Lazarcik said.
The forest products lab has had a strong feeling of community that Lazarcik has always enjoyed. That has persisted during furlough, “even in this time when we’re not all going to the same building every day.”
Coworkers have stayed connected, reaching out to each other to meet up, talk and “de-stress,” Lazarcik said. “Even though we’re not all working on a regular schedule and we’re not getting paychecks, we still are supporting each other, and that’s been really great.”
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Halle Berry calls for Wisconsin lawmakers to advance a bill related to menopause education as Rep. Robyn Vining and Sen. Dianne Hesselbein watch. (Photo courtesy of Vining's office)
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) and Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) brought in a big name — award-winning actress Halle Berry — this week to help them call for better education on perimenopause and menopause.
Berry, who wasn’t able to be at the hearing in real time, has become an advocate nationally for raising awareness of menopause and advocating for changes. She joined the Wisconsin bill authors at a virtual press conference on Tuesday afternoon, and her testimony was played at a Senate Health Committee public hearing Wednesday. The committee also took testimony Wednesday on bills to help with falls prevention among older Wisconsinites and on medical marijuana.
“This is not a political issue — I promise you, it’s not. It is a human rights issue,” Berry said.
Menopause is the period of time usually in middle age when a woman has not had her period for 12 consecutive months. Perimenopause is the period of time when hormone levels fluctuate and decline and a woman begins transitioning into menopause. It typically lasts between 4 years and 10 or more years.
Women can reach menopause at different ages, but often women reach it between 45 and 55. Symptoms typically begin during perimenopause.
During the hearing, Vining listed part of a long list of symptoms that women can experience when they hit perimenopause and menopause.
“Wisconsin women deserve to know what is happening to their bodies. Wisconsin women deserve to access to information that can help explain symptoms like increased anxiety and depression, brain fog, frozen shoulder, concerns about increases in cholesterol, decreases in bone density, sleeplessness, night sweats, increased sensitivity and pain in joints, vertigo, gut issues, loss of libido, the unusual exhaustion, confusing dryness, hot flashes, and more,” Vining said. “Many women say, ‘I don’t feel like myself’ and they deserve to know why that is and what they can do about it.”
Berry said her experience started with “excruciating” pain in her vagina and her OB-GYN telling her that it was herpes “and probably one of the worst cases” he had seen.
“I had just started dating a new guy, one year into a wonderful new relationship, and [my doctor] said, ‘Well, go have a talk with this guy [because] you have herpes.’”
Berry said she and her partner both got tested and found that neither of them had herpes. She said that when she went back to her doctor, he said that he didn’t know what was wrong with her. She saw another doctor, when she started experiencing dry mouth, who suggested she might have had an autoimmune disorder. She saw the first doctor again when she started experiencing dry eyes.
It was then that he reluctantly told her she was experiencing menopause.
“Why couldn’t you just say that to me? You’re my health care provider. You’re my doctor,” Berry said she asked her OB-GYN. “He said, ‘because my patients don’t want to hear they’re in menopause. It scares them. They think they’re getting old.’”
“I have real life examples of how more education would have saved me almost four years of self-exploration and self-diagnoses,” Berry said. “I would have loved to have gotten this information from my health care providers.”
Lack of education about menopause is connected to stigma, she said.
Hesselbein and Vining are lead authors on a bill meant to help women in Wisconsin get the information that they need.
SB 356 would require the Department of Health Services to partner with health care providers, including obstetricians and gynecologists, community health centers and hospitals, to educate women on symptoms and other issues surrounding perimenopause and menopause. The bill is bipartisan with Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevera (R-Appleton) as a cosponsor.
Under the bill, DHS would also be required to create digital and physical informational materials to be distributed to women who are or are soon to experience perimenopause and menopause.
The authors said it was discussions with their friends and shared experiences that led them to introduce the bill.
“We’re all talking about the same thing right now,” Hesselbein said. “[Halle Berry is] having this problem with all the resources she has, and as a state employee with my health insurance, I also ran into some obstacles where people weren’t giving me the correct information. …How many other women in the state of Wisconsin are going through this?”
Hesselbein said a big moment for her was when she was dealing with “frozen shoulder” — a condition that causes pain, stiffness and limited range of motion in the shoulder joint and is common during perimenopause.
“I didn’t know what it was, and I thought it’s not related to menopause,” Hesselbein said. “They gave me a cortisone shot, which was really great because it released the frozen shoulder, and I had [physical therapy] after that… I talked to friends about it, they’re like, ‘oh, yeah, I’ve had that too.’”
Hesselbein said the bill is based on a similar model adopted in Pennsylvania.
“It is my hope that we can pass this bill so that we can get Wisconsin women the help they deserve and in the process of doing so that we can destigmatize honest and forthright conversations and discussions about menopause and perimenopause,” Vining said.
Rep. Rick Gundrum (R-Slinger) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) are seeking to cut down on the number of falls that Wisconsin residents are experiencing through a state grant to raise awareness for prevention.
“If passed, the impact that this bill would have on Wisconsin’s older population is significant,” Gundrum said during the public hearing. “Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death and hospitalization for seniors. According to the CDC, Wisconsin has the highest fall death rate among older adults in the country.”
According to a recent Department of Health Services report, emergency medical services responded to 35,564 more falls-related calls in 2024 when compared to 2019 — an increase of nearly 10,000 a year or 7.4% a year since 2019.
Speculation on why the state’s high fall death rate includes Wisconsin’s cold weather, the amount of alcohol that is consumed in the state and that the state may be better at reporting death-related falls.
SB 410 would provide $900,000 across 2025-26 and 2026-27 to the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging, a nonprofit that oversees the Falls Free Wisconsin Coalition. The coalition is responsible for a statewide initiative to reduce older adult falls and works to raise awareness; curate and share best practices in falls prevention; gather and report falls data; and address policy and systems changes. The state funds provided under the bill would be used by the organization to support falls prevention awareness and initiatives.
A legislative council staffer told lawmakers in response to a question that the bill in its current form is “really a broad charge to the Institute for Healthy Aging for how they’d want to spend the money in the category of falls.”
“I think it would kind of remain to be seen exactly how, what initiatives they’ve spent the money on,” the staffer said. “The bill gives the Institute broad latitude to figure out how to use the money.”
Jill Renken, executive director of the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging, told the committee that she has seen the benefits of programs through her own mother, who had started falling in her home after she retired. She said that she encouraged her mother to take a class at the local aging and disability resource center, which she said can reduce falls by 31%.
“I noticed that she was applying what she learned… She was doing her exercises. She talked with her pharmacist about her medications. My dad made some home safety modifications in the home,” Renken said. “I’m so excited that she has not fallen. It’s been over two years.”
Renken said the organization for the last decade has worked to diversify funding, but there isn’t enough to sustain their activity.
“State investment is critical in order to maintain the stability of the programs, to maintain the services that we offer and also to grow the program so we can make a much more significant impact in our communities,” Renken said. “We want more older adults to be able to have access to these programs and services. We want to increase awareness so that people know what these services exist.”
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Public comments are open now through November 3 for Emerald Bluffs Solar Park, a 225 Megawatt (MW) solar project. If approved, the solar project will be located in Juneau County and is planned for completion in the latter half of 2027. Projects like this have a wide range of local and statewide benefits. Show your support for this project and tell the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) why you support the approval of a vital solar project in Wisconsin!
You can use some of the listed benefits below to help you craft your message. You can also review RENEW’s public comment here – RENEW Wisconsin’s Public Comment
Submit your comments today and tell the PSC you support the approval of Emerald Bluffs Solar. Feel free to use some of the bullet points above to craft your own unique message.
The post Action Alert: Submit Comments in Support of Emerald Bluffs appeared first on RENEW Wisconsin.
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