As the United States of America marks its 250th anniversary this year, the relationship between the states and the federal government is approaching a breaking point.

Led by a bellicose president, the executive branch has moved to dominate states, resulting in more than a year of escalating confrontations between the two levels of government.

President Donald Trump has worked quickly: In the first year of his second term, he surged thousands of immigration enforcement agents into a resistant Minneapolis and other cities, with fatal results. He seized control of the National Guard in some states against the will of governors.

His administration is trying to force states to turn over sensitive data on millions of voters ahead of the midterms. And it is blocking states from receiving, and distributing to their residents, billions of federal dollars for child care, public health, housing and a host of other congressionally approved programs.

Political parties have swung in and out of power in Washington for centuries, and recent administrations have increasingly clashed with states run by the other party. This time is different, dozens of sources in and around government told Stateline.

Trump and a coterie of loyal aides have set out to remake the nation in the president’s image. Along the way, retribution and raw power have become the administration’s primary tools to bend recalcitrant states to its will. Grants are pulled, armed force deployed, disaster aid withheld.

The states have repeatedly gone to court, asking the federal judiciary to rein in the executive branch. They have also started testing the bounds of their own authority, such as moving to restrict the actions of federal immigration enforcement agents.

The past year has led to a period of sustained state and federal conflict without parallel in modern U.S. history. The consequences for Americans over time will prove enormous, shaping the very nature of our government.

“This kind of battle between the federal government and the states, we’ve just never seen that before and it makes no sense,” said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who was elected as a Republican but later helped co-found the centrist Forward Party.

Tensions between the states and the central government are as old as the nation itself. Alexander Hamilton famously favored a strong central government, while James Madison offered the Bill of Rights — including what became the 10th Amendment, which reserves for the states and the people those powers not delegated to the federal government.

But current strains are testing the bedrock principles of federalism, the uniquely American system created by the framers of the Constitution of power sharing between Washington, D.C., and the states.

Ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding on July 4, Stateline is exploring how the Trump era is transforming the relationship between the states and the federal government. This article is the first in an occasional series, The 50 vs. The One, that will examine the current fraught moment and what evolving — and often deteriorating — state-federal ties mean for the country, now and in the future.

In interviews and public remarks, current and former elected officials at all levels of government, as well as experts on American government, have described the country as approaching a pivot point. Trump’s second term could mark a defining moment for American federalism, one that will be studied in history books alongside Reconstruction, the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement.

The United States will either continue to adhere to the principles of federalism, they say, or it will take a significant step toward a more powerful central government that sidelines the states.

“We are in a period of challenged federalism,” said Lisa Parshall, a federalism researcher and political science professor at Daemen University near Buffalo, New York. “The fact that we’re here talking about federalism tells you something about the current state of American politics.”

Dramatic changes in a year

Fears of diminishing state authority have animated state officials over the past year. Republican lawmakers in Utah have invested in federalism education and expanded a group to assess state-federal boundaries, for instance.

In July, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, both Democrats, publicly abandoned the nonpartisan National Governors Association, in part because they said the organization was not doing enough to protect states’ rights.

States are “laboratories of democracy,” Kelly said during an interview in February, using a classic civics textbook description. States have traditionally operated with relative freedom to pursue their own agendas and solutions to the challenges they face. In turn, states learn from one another.

“That’s been the beauty of it,” Kelly said. “If that’s to go away, if the federal government were — and they are, at this point — undermining states’ authority and responsibility, I think you end up slowing down the entire country.”

In the same way the three branches of government — the legislative, the executive and the judicial — provide checks and balances on one another, federalism imposes a state check on federal power. The U.S. Constitution, which went into effect in 1789, ensured states would command broad power over local commerce, policing, elections and other matters within their borders.

But Trump has at times raised doubt about whether he will always follow the Constitution and has claimed that he can ignore some of its requirements.

Last spring, Trump replied “I don’t know” when asked whether he needed to uphold the U.S. Constitution in the context of due process for immigrants. In 2022, he said massive election fraud allows parts of the Constitution to be terminated. And after his 2020 election defeat, he urged then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the results, even though the vice president has no constitutional authority to do so.

In February, Trump asserted that “states are just an agent of the federal government” as he called to “nationalize” elections. Under the Constitution, the responsibility of running elections belongs to the states.

Trump’s critics fault the Republican-controlled Congress for failing to challenge his sweeping assertions of executive power. His administration’s efforts to withhold from states billions in dollars appropriated by Congress, for instance, have spurred relatively little outrage among GOP lawmakers.

“What I think we’re seeing now is a whole different system of crushing state and local government,” said U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat who has been in Congress since 2005. “And bowing down to a new system where we are almost living in a one-person government.”

In response to questions from Stateline, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement: “The Trump Administration faithfully upholds our Constitution and the immortalized American principles of federalism, the rule of law, and the separation of powers.”

Trump and his allies have cast the president as a heroic figure capable of smashing through the machinery of government to achieve results on behalf of his voters and at the expense of his enemies. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed … I am your retribution,” he said in 2023.

He has at times taken steps that his supporters argue empower states, including effectively gutting the U.S. Department of Education, which Republicans have long accused of federal overreach. His appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court during his first term helped cement a conservative majority that in 2022 returned the issue of abortion access to the states.

In a statement, the Republican Governors Association told Stateline the current administration trusts governors to run their own states.

“By cutting government bureaucracy and unnecessary red-tape, President Trump is empowering governors to make decisions that best serve their individual states,” wrote Kollin Crompton, an RGA spokesperson.

Scrambled identities

The U.S. Constitution has been gradually amended in ways that have limited state power, most importantly through amendments that abolished slavery, required states to treat their citizens equally under the law, and prohibited states from denying suffrage on the basis of race and sex.

The federal government has also expanded its reach through legislation. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s imposed new economic regulations and created a federal social welfare apparatus that touches nearly every American.

Over time, Democrats broadly came to be seen as the party more comfortable with an active federal government and Republicans as the party seeking a more restrained Washington.

But the Trump era has scrambled those identities.

Trump has shown less respect for traditional conservative ideology, such as limited government and a general deference to the authority of states. Instead, he has taken a maximalist approach to executive power.

His actions have placed Democratic state officials in a position of advancing limits on the federal government, whether through lawsuits or legislation. And they have put Republican supporters of the president at odds with decades of conservative rhetoric.

“I do think that progressives are seeing that federalism — there’s a reason it’s in our constitutional order and it isn’t just something that’s left for conservatives,” said Sean Beienburg, an associate professor at Arizona State University who researches federalism and constitutional law.

In Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, Trump deployed federalized National Guard troops onto city streets before courts held him back and he withdrew. For a time, active-duty Marines also patrolled Los Angeles, an extraordinary use of the military for domestic purposes.

Oregon Democratic Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who challenged the deployment of the National Guard in his state, said the fight underscores why lawsuits matter in checking Trump’s power.

“People should be shocked that Oregon has filed 55 lawsuits,” Rayfield said in an interview earlier this year. “Their mind should be blown. But their mind should be equally blown at how often we’re winning these cases.”

The Trump administration has won seven court decisions — and lost 58 — so far, according to a New York Times litigation tracker.

Democratic state lawmakers have also searched for ways to restrict federal immigration agents. In California, Democratic Assemblymember Alex Lee has proposed prohibiting state tax breaks for Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors — a move that could carry national implications because of the size of the state’s economy.

“We also, now, are reasserting what the role of the states and the federal government are,” Lee said.

But among Republicans, Trump has successfully maintained his grip. Many conservative state leaders have supported the president’s most controversial moves, even those criticized as federal overreach.

During President Joe Biden’s term, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was a staunch proponent of state autonomy and repeatedly challenged the federal government on regulatory issues and its deployment of a state’s National Guard. But Abbott has supported Trump’s expansion of federal powers, going so far as to authorize the deployment of the Texas National Guard to aid immigration enforcement in Illinois and Oregon.

Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, the previous governor of West Virginia, said federalism remains “alive and well” under Trump. He said he was worried about the nation’s trajectory before coming to Washington in 2025.

“We’ve had to change things,” he said. “There’s new things that are going on that no question they’re disrupting folks on the other side of the aisle.”

Still, other Republicans have pushed back on the administration’s escalating hostility toward liberal states.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt sharply criticized the deployment of the National Guard, saying “Oklahomans would lose their mind” if a Democratic-controlled state sent troops to his state during Biden’s presidency. He has warned that the expanding power and spending of the federal government is dangerous no matter which party controls Washington.

“When we have this powerful of a federal government, it should be frightening for everyone,” Stitt said during a February event at The Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C.

‘States created the Constitution’

As the reach of the federal government ballooned over generations, Democratic and Republican presidents have used federal funding to wield more influence over state and local governments.

Federal dollars account for an increasingly large percentage of state revenues, rising from 22% in 1989 to 36% in 2023, according to Pew, which analyzed census and federal economic data. States received more than $1 trillion in federal grants that year.

Over the years, that largesse has encouraged states to pursue policy agendas favored by the current party in power at the federal level.

But Trump has weaponized federal funds in unprecedented ways, experts say. Bypassing Congress and despite numerous court losses, the White House has held up funding for higher education, transit, housing and infrastructure — particularly for states that displease him.

The administration’s attempts to terminate funding for the $16 billion Gateway rail tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey remain entangled in a lawsuit. New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill said the White House has caused millions in cost overruns and delays, in what she characterized as the most urgent and consequential infrastructure project in the country.

In February, Politico reported Trump told congressional leaders he would release funding for the project in exchange for renaming Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia and Penn Station in New York City in his honor.

Parshall, of Daemen University, noted that more state leaders of both parties are pushing to reassert state-federal boundaries — whether in the areas of agriculture or the future of artificial intelligence.

“Federalism scholars are seeing this as a potentially pivotal moment in federal-state relationships,” she said.

Last August, elected leaders gathered at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston, where in 1773 colonists hurled chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in protest of Great Britain’s King George III. At the conference, lawmakers grumbled about a federal government increasingly sidelining states. That organization, representing more than 7,000 state and territory legislators, has consistently urged the Trump administration to respect states’ inherent authority.

In December, a bipartisan group of more than 40 lawmakers from 30 states gathered to discuss federalism issues, unanimously approving a declaration on the importance of states’ ability to legislate independently. That document noted that the Constitution did not create the states, “but rather the states created the Constitution, ratifying a framework in which we would both govern collectively and independently.”

New Hampshire state House Speaker Sherman Packard, a Republican, said state-federal tensions have been mounting for decades. He noted that the major tax and spending law the president signed last summer — often called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — both cut federal funding to states and saddled them with new costs and administrative work. But it’s just the latest example of what he views as a federal government overstepping its bounds.

“And it’s getting more and more prolific that they’re taking on and doing things that most of us feel is inappropriate,” Packard said. “If we don’t fix this, we’re going to lose state sovereignty altogether. And that’s just not the way it was set up.”

Reporter David Lightman contributed to this story. Stateline reporters Jonathan Shorman and Kevin Hardy can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org and khardy@stateline.org.

A coalition of 21 state and local governments filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of a 2024 rule that established limits for toxic air pollutants.

The regulation, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, limits emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants. It covers pollutants including mercury, arsenic, lead and other toxic metals, as well as acid gases.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency updated the rule in 2024, which proponents of the rule said followed significant upgrades in pollution control technologies. But President Donald Trump’s administration repealed that updated standard last month. 

EPA said in a statement last month that it was repealing the rule “to ensure affordable, dependable energy for American families” and that it expected $670 million in regulatory compliance costs savings from lower costs of transportation, heating, utilities, farming and manufacturing, and more reliable energy. 

The coalition of states and local governments argues that the rollback is unlawful, saying the federal agency has failed to provide a reasoned basis for it or consider the new technologies. 

The states taking part in the lawsuit are Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia, New York City, Chicago and Harris County, Texas, also joined.

“Here, we have the Trump Administration once again acting recklessly and without good reason in rolling back important emissions standards that help mitigate the potentially disastrous health effects of toxic air pollutants associated with power plants like mercury and arsenic,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Democrat, said in a statement. 

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

A coalition of 22 states told a federal court that the Trump administration appears to have violated a court order that limited the types of health data that could be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings.

Back in December, a court allowed ICE to pull some basic information from Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program that primarily covers people with low incomes, to help the agency find people who are in the country illegally.

That ruling was a partial win for the administration in a lawsuit in which the 22 states and the District of Columbia had sued to block information sharing between ICE and Medicaid.

But the court also placed restrictions on ICE, saying it could only pull basic data such as addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and citizenship or immigration status. And the ruling barred ICE from collecting information on lawful permanent residents or citizens.

Advocates warned that even the sharing of that partial information would prompt immigrants, including those in the country legally, to forgo health coverage for fear that enrolling in Medicaid could make them or their family members easier for ICE to find.

Now, in a new filing, the states say the Trump administration appears to have ignored the court’s order limiting what information ICE is allowed to have. They claim the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicaid, has admitted to sharing with ICE “a large and complex” set of data on Medicaid recipients, even though the court said the data of citizens and lawful permanent residents is off limits.

The states claim the federal government hasn’t clarified how it determines who is “lawfully present,” nor has it confirmed whether it’s filtering out protected individuals from the data it gives to ICE.

The states are asking the court to formally bar the sharing of protected health care information for people lawfully residing in the United States. They’re also asking the court to confirm that “lawfully residing” includes noncitizens who have legal status, such as refugees and asylees. And they want the court to allow the states to examine the data that’s been shared with ICE so far, and how it has been used.

The Trump administration has not yet responded. The plaintiff states are scheduled to appear in a San Francisco federal court on April 30 for a hearing.

The states involved in the suit are those with Democratic attorneys general: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin.

The court’s orders preventing Medicaid data sharing won’t apply to states not involved in the lawsuit.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday that attempts to restrict mail-in voting, a White House priority certain to face significant legal challenges.

The order directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of voting-age American citizens in each state and share it with state election officials. The order also requires the U.S. Postal Service to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes.

Trump’s order represents a major escalation in his effort to assert presidential control over elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are administered by the states. Trump last year attempted to unilaterally impose a proof of citizenship requirement to vote in federal elections in an executive order that was blocked in federal court.

The move also reflects a long-held focus by Trump and his allies on noncitizen voters. Studies have shown noncitizen voting is extremely rare.

“I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said.

National database of adult citizens

Homeland Security operates the SAVE system, a powerful computer program that can verify citizenship. 

DHS has previously invited states to run their voter rolls through SAVE, which flags voters as potential noncitizens. Some election officials criticize the system, saying it wrongly identifies U.S. citizens as possibly ineligible.

The U.S. Department of Justice as recently as last week denied any efforts to create a national voter registration list. While the executive order does not explicitly mandate the creation of a voter list, it essentially marks an effort by the White House to create a national database of adult U.S. citizens.

The order requires Homeland Security to enable states to routinely supplement or suggest changes to each state’s citizenship list. Federal officials would also be required to allow individuals to access their own records and update or correct them ahead of elections.

Under the executive order, the postmaster general must propose rules to require all outbound ballot mail to be sent in an envelope that includes a barcode for tracking. The order also requires that states must inform the U.S. Postal Service at least 90 days before federal elections whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent through the mail.

“Instead of focusing on lowering the cost of energy, groceries, and health care, Donald Trump is desperately attempting to take over and rig our elections and avoid accountability in November,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement shortly after Trump announced the order. “This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power.”

SAVE America Act

Trump has pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require individuals to produce documents, such as a passport or birth certificate, proving their citizenship in order to register to vote. The U.S. Senate is debating the bill, but it appears unlikely to have enough support to overcome a filibuster.

Trump has repeatedly asked Republicans to add three provisions to the bill, including restrictions on mail-in voting, with exceptions for members of the military, people who are ill and those on vacation. 

The president has also previously promised to advance voting restrictions, with or without Congress. Earlier this month, Trump voted by mail in Florida.

The executive order directs the Justice Department and other federal agencies to withhold federal funds from non-compliant states and localities “where such withholding is authorized by law.” 

Tuesday’s order is certain to face legal challenges. The Constitution gives Congress — not the president by executive order — the power to override state election regulations.

Marc Elias, a prominent voting rights litigator, promised to fight the executive order.

“If Trump signs an unconstitutional Executive Order to take over voting, we will sue,” Elias wrote on social media. “I don’t bluff and I usually win.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Grunters praised the order, saying Trump was restoring voter confidence. “Protecting America’s ballot box isn’t optional – it’s the foundation of our republic,” Grunters said.

DOJ lawsuits against states

The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for copies of their voter rolls that contain sensitive personal information on voters, such as driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers. About a dozen states have voluntarily provided the data, but most are fighting the demands in court.

Three federal judges have so far ruled against the Justice Department. The administration is appealing and in court documents has argued that swift court decisions are necessary to ensure the security and fairness of the midterms.

The Trump administration has said the data is necessary to verify only citizens are registered to vote. Last week, a Justice Department lawyer confirmed in court that voter data would be shared with Homeland Security.

“Some may freak out about this, but honestly, this is hilarious,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former U.S. Department of Justice Voting Section attorney, wrote on social media about the Trump order. 

“It’s clearly unconstitutional, will be blocked immediately, and the only thing it will accomplish is to make liberal lawyers wealthier. He might as well sign an EO banning gravity.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority when he signed an executive order last year that blocked funding from going to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. 

U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss wrote in a 62-page order that while many of the original issues in the case are no longer relevant after Congress rescinded funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the section of the executive order that called on agencies to end “any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS” remains applicable. 

“The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the President disapproves of their ‘left-wing’ coverage of the news,” Moss wrote. 

“Because the First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type, the Court will issue judgment against the federal agency defendants declaring Section 3(a) of the Executive Order is unconstitutional and will issue an injunction barring those defendants from implementing it.”

Moss was nominated to the district court for the District of Columbia by former President Barack Obama in 2014. 

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson implied in a statement that the administration will appeal the court’s decision. 

“This is a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law. NPR and PBS have no right to receive taxpayer funds, and Congress already voted to defund them,” Jackson wrote. “The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

A PBS spokesperson wrote in a statement the organization is “thrilled with today’s decision declaring the executive order unconstitutional.”  

“As we argued, and Judge Moss ruled, the executive order is textbook unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation, in violation of longstanding First Amendment principles,” the spokesperson added. “At PBS, we will continue to do what we’ve always done: serve our mission to educate and inspire all Americans as the nation’s most trusted media institution.” 

A spokesperson for NPR did not return a request for comment.

No effect on congressional defunding

Trump issued the executive order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” in May of last year, leading to two separate lawsuits that were later joined together. 

One was filed by NPR along with three Colorado stations: Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio. The second lawsuit was filed by PBS and Lakeland PBS in Minnesota. 

The NPR lawsuit alleged Trump’s executive order had an “overt retaliatory purpose” and “is unlawful in multiple ways.”

“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” the lawsuit stated. “Lastly, by seeking to deny NPR critical funding with no notice or meaningful process, the Order violates the Constitution’s Due Process Clause.”

The lawsuits were filed before the Trump administration in June asked Congress to eliminate $1.1 billion in previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provided grants to NPR and PBS. 

The Senate voted 51-48 in July to approve the request and the House approved that version of the rescissions bill on a 216-213 vote shortly afterward.

Viewpoint discrimination

Moss wrote in his ruling that the original parts of the lawsuit addressing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were no longer relevant since “CPB no longer exists, and no Court order declaring the Executive Order unlawful as applied to the CPB can afford NPR, PBS, or their member stations any meaningful relief.”

“But that does not end the matter because the Executive Order sweeps beyond the CPB,” he added. “It also directs that all federal agencies refrain from funding NPR and PBS—regardless of the nature of the program or the merits of their applications or requests for funding.”

Moss wrote that while Trump can denounce news organizations as much as he wants, he cannot order government officials to engage in viewpoint discrimination. 

“To be sure, the President is entitled to criticize this or any other reporting, and he can express his own views as he sees fit,” he wrote. “He may not, however, use his governmental power to direct federal agencies to exclude Plaintiffs from receiving federal grants or other funding in retaliation for saying things that he does not like.”

The Trump administration’s attempt to block grants from the Department of Education, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies from going to PBS and NPR would have widespread impacts, Moss wrote. 

“It does so, moreover, without regard to whether the federal funds are used to pay for the nationwide interconnection systems, which serve as the technological backbones of public radio and television; to provide safety and security for journalists working in war zones; to support the emergency broadcast system; or to produce or distribute music, children’s or other educational programming, or documentaries,” he wrote. 

Trump administration lawyers, Moss wrote, were unable to “explain why NPR’s purportedly ‘biased’ political reporting means that its production and distribution of programming like ‘Tiny Desk Concerts,’ … runs afoul of the NEA’s authorizing statute.”

A special committee of the Wisconsin Senate approved the release of a report detailing allegations from Republicans that Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and the Department of Justice skirted the law by using funds from out-of-state groups to hire lawyers. 

The report’s release comes as Kaul is set to face re-election in November against Eric Toney, the Republican district attorney of Fond du Lac County. 

Republicans said the report shows Kaul’s willingness to circumvent the law in a way that amounts to the DOJ being “for sale,” while Democrats accused Republicans of making baseless accusations to create political theater in an election year. 

Faced with a limited budget from the GOP-controlled Legislature and increased scrutiny on the DOJ since the enactment of the Republican lame duck laws in 2018, Kaul hired the out-of-state lawyers to assist with the enforcement of the state’s environmental regulations. 

The lawyers were given fellowships to work as special assistant attorneys general through a New York University program tied to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The attorneys were paid by the NYU program and officially classified as volunteers under the state employment system yet given the powers of an assistant attorney general. 

Kaul appeared before the committee in February to give testimony. During that hearing, he said the classification as volunteers had been discussed with and approved by the state’s ethics commission. An ethics complaint against the arrangement has been pending for more than a year. 

In the report, which the oversight committee voted 4-2 along party lines to adopt on Tuesday, the Republicans allege that the arrangement was “not authorized” by Wisconsin statutes, that the DOJ violated state law by not immediately administering the attorneys oaths of office, exposes concerns about the state’s system for adjudicating ethics complaints, opens the state up to influence from outside interests and that the DOJ did not fully cooperate with records requests filed by the committee. 

The report recommends that the DOJ immediately terminate the agreements that facilitated the hiring of the attorneys. It also recommends that the Legislature pass a resolution declaring the hirings unlawful, more strictly manage the processes through which the DOJ is funded and pass legislation that only state employees can conduct prosecutions. Additionally the report states that government attorneys should take their oaths of office before conducting any work for the state and that the state Ethics Commission should be subject to faster timelines for adjudicating complaints.

Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillet) said he’s concerned that allowing arrangements like the one DOJ established with the NYU program means an attorney general from any party can outsource DOJ functions to outside interest groups. 

“If attorney generals, not just Josh Kaul, but if attorney generals are permitted to do this, then the DOJ is for hire. It’s for sale,” Wimberger said. 

At a news conference following the committee meeting, Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) said that the attorneys were “focused solely … on bread and butter environmental issues, keeping out air, our water and our Wisconsin lands safe, and that’s what people want” from the DOJ. 

Habush Sinykin and the other Democrat on the committee, Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), argued that the Republicans were focused on creating political drama out of standard DOJ functions when instead they should have been working to solve problems Wisconsinites care about. 

“What we just heard in there was that definition of political theater, the opposite of what the people of Wisconsin are seeking from our legislators,” Habush Sinykin said. “Which is very much what they want us focusing on, housing affordability, Knowles-Nelson, child care, all those matters which this Legislature and under this Republican majority, we have not gotten to.” 

The Democrats pointed out that last February, Republicans introduced a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the DOJ from using legal services of anyone who is not a state employee. The bill, authored by Wimberger and Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), who is also on the committee, did not even receive a public hearing. 

Instead, the Democrats said, the issue was ignored until the report was released after the Legislature had adjourned for the year. 

“You should have moved it through committee. We should have voted on it on the Senate floor,” Habush Sinykin said during the meeting. “And I wish I could have had that chance, rather than to let it just sit there and go nowhere, and to then call us back for this purpose and to use it as a weapon.”

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Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Chris Taylor has raised four times as much money as her opponent Maria Lazar since February, according to campaign finance reports filed this week. 

In the final reports filed before next week’s election, which cover a period from early-February to mid-March, Taylor raised $2,079,406 while Lazar raised $472,295. 

Taylor has far out-spent her opponent during that period, spending $3.8 million — largely on TV ads. Lazar spent $565,000 with all but $875 spent on digital advertising. 

The money raised still pales in comparison to the massive amounts of money involved in the previous two Wisconsin Supreme Court races when the ideological balance of the Court was at stake. Last year’s election between Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel broke national spending records for a judicial race, largely because of the arms race that was kicked off once Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, who was at the time serving a role in the administration of President Donald Trump — got involved. 

Taylor’s fundraising advantage has persisted throughout the campaign. Since she entered the race last May, she’s raised $5.6 million. Lazar, who entered the race five months later than Taylor in October, has raised about $976,000. 

While both candidates have sought during the campaign to assert that as a Supreme Court justice they won’t be beholden to partisan interests, both Taylor and Lazar’s largest contributors are the Democratic and Republican parties of Wisconsin. 

State law puts a $20,000 limit on campaign contributions from individuals to Supreme Court campaigns, yet political parties are allowed to transfer unlimited amounts to the campaigns. 

In the reporting period, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin contributed $724,000 to Taylor’s campaign while the Republican Party of Wisconsin contributed $96,000 to Lazar’s campaign.

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A three-judge panel on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Democratic voters seeking to redraw Wisconsin’s existing congressional maps. 

The lawsuit, Bothfield v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, was filed last summer arguing that the state’s congressional maps were an illegal partisan gerrymander. All but two of the state’s eight congressional districts are held by Republicans. 

The dismissal marks another failure from Democrats and their allies to redraw the state’s congressional maps, which since 2011 have favored Republican candidates. Since the maps were redrawn in 2011, they have frequently been at the center of the state’s political debate. 

In 2024, the state’s legislative maps, which had locked in GOP control of the state Legislature for nearly 15 years, were tossed out. Since then, attention has been focused on the congressional maps. 

The current congressional maps were instituted in 2022 by the state Supreme Court after the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers were unable to reach an agreement on passing new maps themselves. The Court selected congressional maps that had been proposed by Evers. However, Democrats and anti-gerrymandering advocates have complained that those maps were proposed under the Court’s “least change” mandate, which required that any proposed maps hew as closely as possible to the 2011 maps. 

The Bothfield lawsuit was filed around the same time as a separate lawsuit challenging the congressional maps on the basis that they illegally dampen the competitiveness of the state’s congressional elections. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that both lawsuits should first be considered by panels of three circuit court judges. 

The other pending lawsuit is expected to go to trial in 2027. 

While the lawsuits against the maps have worked through the legal system, open government advocates and some Democrats have continued to call for changes to Wisconsin law that would take the power of map drawing out of the hands of lawmakers and ban partisan gerrymandering. 

Earlier this month, Evers signed an executive order calling the Legislature into a special session to pass a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gerrymandering.

After the panel’s decision, Republicans and their allies celebrated the ruling as a win for GOP chances in the state’s elections this fall. Republicans in several other states across the country have redrawn their congressional maps over the last year in an effort to protect the GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Retaliatory gerrymandering in Democratic states including California has attempted to tilt the playing field back in Democrats’ favor.

“This is a significant win for Republicans and a yet another blow to desperate Democrats who wanted to reshape the electoral landscape,” Zach Bannon, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement. “By keeping Wisconsin’s current district lines in place for 2026, Republicans are in a strong position to build on our momentum to retain and grow our House majority.”

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Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican bills Tuesday that would have placed new prohibitions in state statute related to transgender children, including banning them from sports teams that align with their gender identity, barring them from choosing the name and pronouns used for them in school and from accessing gender affirming medical care. 

Evers said in a statement that the legislation “stirs harmful rhetoric, negatively affects Wisconsinites’ and kids’ mental health, emboldens anti-LGBTQ harassment, bullying, and violence, and threatens the safety and dignity of LGBTQ Wisconsinites, especially our trans and nonbinary kids.”

A 2024 survey by The Trevor Project found that 91% of LGBTQ+ young people in Wisconsin said that recent politics negatively impacted their well-being. 

AB 100  and AB 102 would have barred transgender girls in K-12 schools and transgender women at Wisconsin’s higher education institutions from participating on sports teams and using locker rooms that align with their gender identity.

AB 103 would have required that school districts adopt policies requiring consent from  students’ parents or guardians before using  names or pronouns that differ from their birth certificates.

AB 104 would have prohibited health care professionals from providing medical gender affirming care for those under 18.

SB 405 would have created a civil cause of action against health care providers who perform gender transition procedures on someone under the age of 18 if they claim to be injured.

Republican lawmakers had pushed the bills to Evers’ desk, arguing they would protect Wisconsin students and ensure parents are informed of what’s happening in schools. They did so despite hourslong public hearings where many parents, students and advocates spoke in opposition to the bills and previous promises by Evers to block “any bill making Wisconsin less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming for LGBTQ people and kids.” 

Evers vetoed the bills on International Transgender Day of Visibility while surrounded by advocates for LGBTQ kids and their families as well as other community members.

“Especially in the wake of continued attacks against LGBTQ communities, particularly targeting the trans community, our work to fight this hatred and bigotry is more important than ever,” Evers said in his statement. “I’m proud to stand with LGBTQ kids and Wisconsinites today and every day.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been about 500 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced throughout the country so far in 2026. 

The federal government has continued to target transgender Americans in the start of President Donald Trump’s second year of his second term and as Wisconsin Republicans running for office are seeking to bring the issue to the forefront of their campaigns. Earlier this month, the administration launched an investigation into the New Richmond School District for its policies that allow students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Moms for Liberty, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Michael Alfonso, a Republican candidate for the open 8th Congressional District seat and son-in-law of Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy, have been criticizing the school district online for weeks.

In his veto messages, Evers said the bills did not comport with “our Wisconsin values.” 

“We teach our kids to treat each other with kindness, respect, empathy and compassion — and we expect adults to lead by example. LGBTQ Wisconsinites and Americans should be able to be safe, be treated with dignity and respect, and be welcomed and accepted for who they are without fear of violence, harassment or persecution,” Evers said. “While the federal government and other states across this country may give way to anti-LGBTQ hate, here in Wisconsin, we will continue to decline to do the same.” 

Abigail Swetz, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, thanked Evers in a statement for rejecting the bills and supporting transgender kids. 

“These bills were always about more than health care or the makeup of a sports team or the use of pronouns in a classroom  — they were about excluding trans people from public life, and we cannot allow that, especially when our trans community is being attacked by so many levels of government,” Swetz said.

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WASHINGTON — The White House defended skyrocketing gas prices Tuesday as a “short-term disruption” during the ongoing war in Iran, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the administration will not “foreclose any option” in the conflict, including boots on the ground.

Briefing publicly for the first time since March 19, Hegseth said it will be “the president’s determination alone” when the war objectives are complete and the “upcoming days will be decisive.” Hegseth also said the administration’s negotiations with Iran are “ongoing, they’re active, and, I think, gaining strength.”

Five weeks in, the war continues to rock economies across the globe and at home, where the national average for gasoline hit $4 a gallon for the first time in four years, according to data from AAA.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement saying that “When Operation Epic Fury is complete, gas prices will plummet back to the multi-year lows American drivers enjoyed before these short-term disruptions.” 

President Donald Trump, she said, “remains committed to fully unleashing American energy dominance, lowering costs, and putting more money back in the pockets of hardworking American families.”

Shortly after the White House issued its statement, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, posted a link on X to a CNN article about soaring U.S. gas prices, writing “Sad, but this is what happens when your leaders put others ahead of hard-working and ordinary Americans.”

Blockade drives up global prices

Iran’s blockade on U.S. and allied ships at the Strait of Hormuz, a major passage for petroleum and liquid natural gas, has wreaked havoc on global energy markets. As of Tuesday at 12:45 p.m. Eastern, Brent crude oil, the international standard, was trading just over $119 a barrel.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 cargo vessels and oil tankers, along with roughly 20,000 crew, remain stuck in the Persian Gulf, according to the United Nations and open source data, including MarineTraffic. 

Trump claimed during a Cabinet meeting Thursday that Iran has agreed to allow eight to 10 Pakistani oil tankers through. On Sunday, the president said 20. 

According to the Joint Maritime Information Center, only four large tankers transmitting location data had crossed the Hormuz Strait on Friday and Saturday. 

US troops

Hegseth said the White House will not rule out any options, including ground operations, but declined to provide detail at the Pentagon briefing.

“You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do, or what you are not willing to do — to include boots on the ground. Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are. So if we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the president of the United States and this department, or maybe we don’t have to use them at all. Maybe negotiations work,” Hegseth said. 

Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One that negotiations with Iran are happening “directly and indirectly” and are “very good.”

“We’re doing extremely well,” the president said. “But you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them, and then we always have to blow ‘em up.”

Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran’s energy infrastructure, and has set a self-imposed deadline of April 6 to do so if Iran doesn’t meet his demands.

On Monday night, the president posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, a video of a U.S. strike on an ammunition depot in Iran’s central province of Isfahan. 

Spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Esmaeil Baqaei denied any talks with the United States, according to Iranian state media Tasmin New Agency.

Up to 3,500 U.S. Marines and sailors arrived in the region Saturday, according to U.S. Central Command. The U.S. now reportedly has roughly 50,000 troops in the region — that’s 10,000 up from the usually 40,000 or so peacetime members of the armed forces stationed there. 

Ghalibaf said Sunday an American ground offensive would result in “severe punishment,” according to state media.  

More than 300,000 American troops were in the region during the U.S. ground invasion of Iraq, according to historical data archived by the Council on Foreign Relations.

On Monday morning with a couple of strokes of his pen, Gov. Tony Evers signed an increase in Wisconsin’s workers compensation into law and repurposed $250,000 per year in state funds that have been going unused for years.

The second action would not have been possible, however, if there hadn’t been another measure — one that had actually died before reaching him.

Three bills in all were involved in the complex maneuver.

The first is AB 651 — a bill that updates Wisconsin’s workers compensation system. With that legislation, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, workers comp will cover post-traumatic stress syndrome in emergency medical responders, EMS providers and volunteer and part-time firefighters.

The measure had long been sought on behalf of those first responders.

“Community heroes who have given so much of themselves and need healing because of their service deserve our support, and I am excited to see this critical care extended to those to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude,” said Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken), who championed the legislation.

The same bill has a number of other provisions, including an increase in weekly compensation rates for injured workers and an expansion in access to supplemental benefits for workers whose on-the-job injuries have left them permanently and totally disabled.

Previously those supplemental benefits were only available to workers disabled before Jan. 1, 2003. The new measure covers workers disabled between that date and Jan. 1, 2020.

The new law is the product of a longstanding joint labor-management council that advises lawmakers on the state’s workers compensation system

“Today, we’re proving that we’re more committed to that legacy than ever, and I want to thank all the bipartisan partners for their support and advocacy to come to good faith agreements and get this done,” Evers said in a statement.

Partial veto and a bill that died

On the second bill Evers signed, he used his partial veto power to free up $250,000 per year in money that goes to the Department of Workforce Development. 

That was made possible because of the third bill — AB 652, a revision of Wisconsin unemployment insurance law — which his office threatened to veto, and which didn’t even make it out of the Legislature.

Like the workers comp bill, the unemployment insurance bill  was the product of a joint labor-management advisory council.

The bill would have raised the top weekly jobless pay benefit by $25 a week, to $390, the first increase in a decade. 

But that was coupled with a number of provisions that Evers and Democrats opposed, including  a penalty for unemployed workers who receive federal Social Security Disability Income. The penalty would have cut their jobless pay by 50% of the value of their federal disability income.

The bipartisan unity in favor of the workers comp bill contrasted with deep division on the unemployment insurance bill. 

“The workers comp bill came out very clean, we had no issues with it,” state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) said Monday.

But drafts of the unemployment insurance (UI) bill raised alarm among Democrats “weeks before we got the UI bill,” Sinicki said. “We could not support actually reducing payments to those living with disabilities.” 

Rebellion over the jobless pay bill

Since 2013, Wisconsin SSDI recipients have been disqualified from getting unemployment compensation entirely. A federal judge ruled in 2024 that the restriction violated federal laws, and in 2025 ordered DWD to stop enforcing the provision.

Under a court order, DWD has now started paying back SSDI recipients who were denied jobless pay under the 2013 law.

AB 652 not only reduced those benefits, it also contained a number of provisions erecting new barriers to jobless pay, some of which Evers had previously vetoed in bills passed with only Republican support in the state Legislature.

One of those was a requirement for DWD to undertake specific “identity-proofing” measures for jobless pay applicants to prevent fraud.

Unemployment insurance lawyer Victor Forberger wrote in a blog post July 14 that the identity-proofing provision “does nothing” that DWD wasn’t already doing.

Evers’ communications director confirmed the governor’s intention to veto the measure after it passed an Assembly committee on a party-line vote in January.

The unemployment insurance bill passed the full Assembly on a party-line vote Jan. 20. It subsequently failed to make it to the Senate floor and died as a result.

Redirecting funds

That’s where the third bill comes in — AB 650. 

The bill includes funding for the workers comp program administration. Republicans added  funding for the identity-proofing measures that were in the unemployment bill. 

Separating funding for new policies from the bills that lay out those policies has become a regular GOP practice, in order to try to prevent Evers from using his partial veto to change policy. (In Wisconsin the governor can only use his partial veto on spending legislation.) 

But this time, the action gave Evers an opening. 

Because the unemployment bill had failed — but funding for one of its provisions remained in the separate bill — Evers was able to scratch out language allocating funding for the failed policy and repurpose the additional $250,000 per year the Republicans had intended for identify proofing.

To fund the identity-proofing provision, legislators had  proposed a revision in an existing budget appropriation that authorizes $250,000 a year for DWD to pay for substance abuse treatment.

Under a law enacted in 2015, under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, employers can report to DWD if a prospective new hire fails a drug test. The law disqualifies the person who flunks from receiving unemployment compensation — but also states that the individual can remain eligible by entering substance abuse treatment.

DWD is to pay for the treatment using the $250,000 that the Legislature appropriates each year.

Haley McCoy, the DWD communications director, said Monday that the provision is rarely used, and employers haven’t submitted any reports on job applicants who flunked drug tests since 2021.

In AB 650, GOP lawmakers expanded the use of DWD’s annual drug treatment appropriation, allowing the money also to be used for “costs related to identity proofing under s. 108.14 (10m) for which federal funding is unavailable.”

A funding provision with nothing to fund

The funding bill passed both houses of the Legislature unanimously. But by the time it got to Evers, the unemployment insurance bill and its identity proofing provision were dead.

On Monday, Evers pulled out his veto pen and scratched out references to “identity proofing” in the funding bill. He also crossed out additional words, turning the phrase about how the drug treatment money is to be used into “costs for which federal funding is unavailable.”

The rewritten bill became 2025 Act 144.

In Evers’ veto message, he noted that the language applying to “identity proofing” was “a reference to a statute which does not exist” and added that DWD already has tools to verify identity and prevent fraud. The department “conducts a variety of anti-fraud activities,” he wrote.

The partial veto, he wrote, gives DWD “new flexibility to access state funding in an appropriation that purports to improve the unemployment insurance system by drug testing claimants; in fact, this funding has gone unspent for several years, and drug testing only serves to create barriers for claimants to access necessary benefits in times of economic hardship.”

Evers’ veto message said the department will be able to use the “modest amount” of additional money “when the federal government fails to support state unemployment administration sufficiently.”

The veto message didn’t specify how the funds would be deployed, but the press release from the governor’s office announcing his action on the workers comp and the funding bills discussed at length the Evers administration’s project to upgrade Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system — for which the Trump administration has terminated $29 million in previously awarded federal grants.

“He could have just cut that funding out completely,” Sinicki said Monday. “But the way he did it, I thought, was really creative by giving the department some flexibility with it.”

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In December, Gabriel Lugo gave testimony to a state Assembly committee about his time in prison before he was exonerated of the crime for which he served more than a decade. He’d been serving his sentence in the Waupun Correctional Institution when his conviction was finally overturned. 

In a statement read by an attorney, Lugo said some correctional officers treated him as less than human and that prison lockdowns severely restricted his movement and made it hard for his family members to visit him. 

Living conditions at Waupun generated headlines in 2023 and 2024 about unsanitary facilities and lack of medical care. Lugo finally got out of prison in 2023, when he was exonerated of the crime he’d been convicted of in 2009. 

Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) wrote in a column in December that Lugo is her constituent and his case prompted her to co-author a reform bill with Wanggaard and Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee). Under the amended Assembly bill, wrongly convicted people who were released after Jan. 1, 2015 — like Lugo — and had already received compensation would have been able to petition for more money. But the bill did not pass the Legislature before its session ended this month.

On Friday, Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), chair of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, who announced his retirement earlier this month, expressed frustration in a newsletter about the bill not passing the Legislature despite multiple attempts. He said that “people move the goalposts and come up with new (and baseless) reasons for not supporting it.”

While lawmakers in committees in both chambers voted to advance wrongful conviction compensation bills, neither chamber brought the issue up for a vote. 

It was not the first time the effort had failed. Bills that aimed to boost compensation for wrongly convicted people did not pass in 2016, 2017 or 2020.

“The failure to get this common-sense bill done has been frustrating,” Wanggaard said.

In testimony, Wanggaard called the Senate’s measure a “long-overdue bill” that would update an outdated law.

The proposed reform measure aimed to provide an eligible wrongly convicted person with $50,000 per year of imprisonment, up to a maximum of $1 million. The bill would also allow a person released on the basis of a claim of innocence to petition the court for an order directing the Department of Corrections to create a transition-to-release plan.

Currently, the Wisconsin Claims Board decides whether a person meets the standards for compensation for wrongful imprisonment. The evidence of the person’s innocence must be “clear and convincing,” and the person must not have contributed to bring about their conviction and imprisonment. The board’s five members come from the Department of Justice, the Department of Administration, the Office of the Governor, the Wisconsin Senate and the Wisconsin Assembly. 

The claims board can award $5,000 per year of imprisonment but with a total cap of $25,000, and it has also awarded attorney fees. The board can recommend a higher award to the Legislature. According to Rodriguez, since 1990, seven people have received recommendations for compensation above the $25,000 cap.

Wanggaard’s chief of staff, Scott Kelly, said in an emailed statement to the Examiner, “I don’t know what the price of someone’s freedom is, taking away their family, their support system, their job. But Senator Wanggaard knows it’s not $5,000 a year, with a maximum of $25,000.”

The board awarded Lugo the full $25,000 allowed under the law, as well as about $77,000 in attorney fees. The board recommended that the Legislature award Lugo an additional $750,000. The vote was 3-2, with Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) and Rep. Alex Dallman (R-Markesan) dissenting.

The Wisconsin Innocence Project, the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Board of Governors and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference have given testimony supportive of increasing compensation for wrongly convicted people. Christopher Lau of the Wisconsin Innocence Project testified that the project has helped exonerate more than 30 people, and that many clients struggle to re-enter society. Last year, the Examiner reported on the struggles that exonerated brothers Robert and David Bintz have experienced after leaving prison in 2024.

“After years of wrongful imprisonment, our clients leave prison without savings, without employment, and often, without a place to call home,” Lau said. They also leave with medical ailments and emotional trauma, he said. 

Rodriguez’s office said that an amendment to the Assembly bill followed discussions with Assembly lawmakers to address concerns she had heard from them and from the Department of Administration. But Rodriguez said it became clear that more discussions were needed as the legislative session wound down.

Rodriguez is optimistic that the bill can pass in the next session, she told the Wisconsin Examiner. She thinks “we can get to the finish line with enough time to work out any issues” when the Legislature reconvenes, and “finally update this process.” 

Correction: This piece has been updated to reflect that Lugo gave his testimony in December, not January

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(The Center Square) – A three-judge panel ruled Tuesday that it cannot overturn the state’s congressional maps because it lacks the authority to do so.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin special committee is advising Attorney General Josh Kaul’s use of special assistant attorney generals paid for with private funds.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five bills he called anti-LGBTQ bills including bills that would require high school and public college athletic teams to declare if they are for coed, male or female athletes and have…

(The Center Square) – Anyone who wants to collect signatures for political candidates in Wisconsin must now live in Wisconsin.

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Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service invites community members to submit opinion pieces of 500-800 words on topics of interest to central city Milwaukee. To send a submission for consideration, please email info@milwaukeenns.org. The views expressed are solely those of the authors.

There is a kind of pain that does not wait its turn. It crashes into your life, rearranges everything you thought you understood about safety, justice and faith, and then expects you to keep going.

This is not just about grief. This is about trauma and grief, intertwined, unfolding in real time in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities.

I know this kind of pain intimately.

My brother Sam

My siblings were my first friends. My brother Sam was my twin in every way that mattered. We shared a bunk bed, childhood routines and milestones. We grew up side by side, experiencing life in sync in a way only siblings that close can understand.

He was part of my beginning.

And then, suddenly, he was gone. 

NNS wrote about it here. 

My brother was taken in a violent and publicly misunderstood way. While the investigation unfolded over months, narratives spread in hours. His life was debated in real time. People stepped into the roles of judge, jury and executioner before the facts had even begun to surface.

What I experienced was not just grief, but the added trauma of watching my brother’s humanity be debated and misrepresented in real time.

And then there is the part people do not talk about enough.

Reliving our tragedy

His death was broadcast and circulated repeatedly, forcing our family to relive a moment we were already struggling to survive. And even after the headlines fade, the process continues. 

Legal cases, policy discussions, public commentary. Each step pulls you back into the trauma.

It follows you. In the news. In conversations. In the things you used to enjoy.

This is what navigating trauma and grief looks like in real time. It is not a single moment. It is ongoing.

I am a grown woman, well into my 40s, and nothing prepared me for this. And still, in the middle of that devastation, I was expected to show up to work, to function, to perform.

Three days

That is what we give people to grieve.

Three days to process a lifetime of connection. Three days to make arrangements, gather family and return as if something that significant can be contained and concluded.

Three days is not enough for natural loss.

So it is certainly not enough for loss that is sudden, violent or intentional.

And this is not exclusive to murder.

Trauma lives in all loss. Illness. Old age. Accidents. The loss of a child. Some loss we may anticipate, but none of it prepares us.

Yet the expectation remains the same: return to normal.

We have built systems that understand the need to bond with life, but not the need to grieve its loss. We offer time to welcome a child into the world, but minimal time to process losing one.

What kind of system measures productivity with more care than it measures pain?

We earn more time off to rest from work than we are given to recover from loss.

And it forces a deeper question:

How pro-life are we, really?

Because what we see does not reflect a culture that values life in a meaningful way. We see cruelty in comment sections, judgment attached to loss and a detachment that forgets every headline represents a real person and a real family.

Cycle of trauma continues

Trauma does not end when the news cycle moves on.

It lives in the people who are still here.

It lives in individuals carrying invisible weight, in people one moment, one word, one interaction away from the edge.

And when that trauma goes unprocessed, we see the consequences.

People snap.

And then we ask children and teenagers to be resilient in environments where even adults are barely holding it together.

We expect them to focus, to behave, to perform, while ignoring a critical truth: Their brains are not fully developed. They do not yet have the tools to process trauma and grief at this level.

So when we see emotional outbursts, withdrawal, defiance or risky behavior, we rush to label it.

But what if what we are witnessing is not defiance but distress?

What if something has gone wrong emotionally, mentally, developmentally, and no one has stopped long enough to ask why?

And it may not always be loss. It could be trauma in all its forms.

When trauma goes unaddressed, it does not disappear. It shows up.

This is not a failure of character. This is the impact of unprocessed trauma and grief.

Hard questions and a simple truth

So we have to ask:

Who decided that three days was enough? Enough for who? Enough for what kind of loss?

Why are people forced to prove how close they were to someone in order to be granted the space to grieve?

What about chosen family? Do they matter less?

How do we expect people to return to life carrying something that has not even begun to settle?

Have we truly gone so far to the dark side that we no longer have compassion for people who have lost loved ones, regardless of how they left this place?

How do we continue to call ourselves compassionate while enforcing timelines on pain?

Because the truth is simple.

Three days ain’t enough.

---

Angelique Sharpe, known in the community as “MsLadyInc,” works at the intersection of broken systems and resilient people. She lifts their voice and helps organize solutions. You can visit her website here.

Opinion: 3 days ain’t enough. Grief, trauma and the expectation to perform 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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People cannot avoid death, but they often avoid talking about it. That’s why many people don’t receive as much — or any — hospice care they qualify for, experts say. 

“There’s a real taboo in society that hospice equals death,” said Alisa Gerke, the board chair of Wisconsin Hospice and Palliative Care Collaborative and executive director at Unity Hospice and Palliative Care, a nonprofit provider that serves 14 northeast Wisconsin counties.

The goal of hospice isn’t to speed up the dying process; it’s to make people more comfortable — treating the symptoms of an illness instead of trying to cure it. 

Once families enroll in hospice, Gerke said, they often ask: “How come nobody told us about this sooner?”

When to talk about hospice

Don’t wait for your provider to bring up hospice.

Patients and providers often wait for the other person to bring hospice up, said Angela Novas, an advanced certified hospice and palliative care nurse and consultant at the nonprofit Hospice Foundation of America. Let providers know that’s something you might be interested in. 

Patients or their loved ones can also reach out to hospice providers directly and ask for an eligibility assessment, Novas said.

The basic requirements for adults to receive hospice care under Medicare include:

• Verification from two physicians that a patient has a life expectancy of six months or less. 
• A patient’s willingness to pursue treatments to provide comfort instead of treatments aimed at extending life expectancy. 

Clearing up misunderstandings about hospice

Some people may have misperceptions about hospice. Here is what it is not: 

• A place. Instead, it’s a model of care, Gerke said. While some providers may run facilities, hospice care can be provided at home and in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospitals and other settings.
• Constant nursing care. Hospice is meant to supplement care from family or facility caregivers, Novas said. But providers should be readily accessible for questions and concerns.
• Stopped if someone lives longer than six months. Instead, providers work to re-certify that someone is still likely to die within the next six months, Gerke said. Patients are no longer eligible for hospice if their life expectancy unexpectedly improves.
• Permanent. Patients can decide to stop hospice and try curative treatment. If their outlook doesn’t improve, they can return to hospice, Gerke said. They can also freely switch providers.

So what’s palliative care?

Palliative care is a philosophy and medical speciality focused on alleviating suffering, according to Dr. Sara Johnson, a palliative care physician and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health professor.

Hospice is a form of palliative care for people at the end of life. But people with a serious illness can access palliative care earlier in their diagnosis and while receiving curative treatments.

Palliative care services are becoming more accessible, Johnson said. 

Palliative care specialists add a layer of support for patients and their families, Johnson said.

There is no harm in asking a provider about palliative care options, Johnson said. “If you’re thinking about it, just ask.”

How to find the right provider

Ask local providers for hospice care recommendations, Novas said. But don’t be afraid to shop around. Experts recommend asking these questions before choosing a provider:

1. How long have you served this area, and where are your staff located? 
   
   “Having staff that know that community, live in that community, are a part of that community is huge,” Gerke said.
   
   
2. What is your response time?
   
   A patient’s condition can quickly change, making it important to know how quickly staff will answer calls or arrive in those cases.
   
   
3. What is your relationship with nearby providers?
   
   If you know you want to use a particular nursing home, hospital or physician, it helps to know whether hospice providers have relationships and contracts with them.

4. What grief support do you offer?
   
   Medicare requires hospice companies to provide families with bereavement services. But the level of those services can range widely.
   
   
5. What is your Medicare rating?
   
   Medicare.gov offers a hospice look-up tool with quality care ratings. The federal agency provides comparative ratings based on family surveys and metrics like nursing visits in patients’ last days before death.

6. Are you for-profit or nonprofit?
   
   Private equity and publicly traded companies are increasingly taking hold of the hospice industry. Those providers have been associated with lower quality of care, according to a Cornell University study.
   
   For-profits face expectations around financial performance and typically have obligations to shareholders, Gerke said.
   
   But a nonprofit status does not guarantee better care, Novas said. People should prioritize whether a provider fits their specific needs.

7. What services do your volunteers provide?
   
   Medicare requires hospice providers to have a volunteer program. Do volunteers play games with patients? Provide pet therapy? Read to people? Some volunteer programs are more robust than others, Novas said.

8. What medications do you not cover?
   
   Not all medications and supplies are covered under the Medicare hospice benefit, Novas said. It’s important to know what you might have to pay for out-of-pocket or with other health coverage.

More resources on what to ask providers and know about hospice can be found through the Hospice Foundation of America’s website.

What to know about hospice and palliative care in Wisconsin 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.

Ralph Gianoli was found dead inside his Kenosha home in September of 1977.

The post Kenosha police make arrest in unsolved homicide case from 1977 appeared first on WPR.

With a "hell no," Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five bills Tuesday that would have restricted transgender access to health care and team sports.

The post As other Democrats moderate stances, Evers vetoes 5 transgender bills appeared first on WPR.