Participants joined the No Kings rally in Fargo, North Dakota, on June 14, 2025. (Photo by Erin Hemme Froslie/North Dakota Monitor)

WASHINGTON — More than 2,600 nonviolent demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s administration are slated Saturday as part of No Kings day.

The second No Kings day, following another in June, is in response to what a broad coalition of liberal advocacy and labor organizations say is “the increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration, which they have doubled down on since June.”  

Organizers expect millions of Americans to join in peaceful events in Washington, D.C., across the country and internationally. Locations are pinpointed on a map on the organization’s website.

“No Kings is back,” said Eunic Epstein-Ortiz, a national spokesperson, at a press conference Thursday. “And over the past few months, thousands of people have organized once again in their communities, on the ground locally, volunteering to bring their neighbors, families and friends together to say, unequivocally, we have no kings. Together, they’re the ones making this Saturday’s mobilization the largest single-day protest in modern history.”

Among the states:

• In Utah, Salt Lake City’s No Kings protest organizers canceled the march portion of the event and are instead holding a longer demonstration at the state Capitol, according to the Utah News Dispatch.
• In Maine, at least 30 No Kings events are set to be held, per the Maine Morning Star.
• In Nevada, demonstrators in downtown Las Vegas will again be confined to sidewalks, the Nevada Current reports, citing high permit costs.
• In Kentucky, nearly 30 No Kings protests are popping up in the Bluegrass State, according to the Kentucky Lantern.
• Ten No Kings protests are planned in North Dakota, according to the North Dakota Monitor.
• In Arkansas, the Arkansas Advocate reports that the protests in more than a dozen cities come as the potential for severe weather ratchets up at the same time the events are scheduled.

Shutdown, Trump crackdown since June protests

The demonstrations build off the No Kings protests in June, which coincided with Trump’s massive military parade on his 79th birthday.

Four months later, the federal government is mired in an ongoing shutdown that began Oct. 1 with no clear end in sight. The administration has also cracked down on U.S. cities, deploying National Guard troops and partaking in sweeping immigration raids. 

Leading voices from labor and advocacy groups that are part of the broad No Kings coalition amplified their message ahead of the planned protests during the Thursday press conference, underscoring a peaceful day of action on Saturday. 

“We’re going to vigorously exercise our democratic rights peacefully and nonviolently, and against this tyrannical threat of Donald Trump and his administration, we are going to protect American democracy,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen.

House speaker criticizes No Kings day 

National leaders from the coalition also pushed back against U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s depiction of the demonstrations as the “hate America rally.”

The Louisiana Republican claimed on Fox News Oct. 10 that “it’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people — they’re all coming out,” adding: “Some of the House Democrats are selling T-shirts for the event, and it’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally because they can’t face their rabid base.”

Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, said “there is nothing more American than saying that we don’t have kings and exercising our right to peaceful protest,” adding: “America doesn’t have kings. That’s our entire point.” 

Greenberg said: “I also want to be clear: it is ridiculous, it’s also sinister, because it is part of a broader effort to create a permission structure to crack down on organized opposition and peaceful dissent in this country. 

“They are sending the National Guard into American cities, they are terrorizing our immigrant friends and neighbors with their secret police, they are prosecuting political opponents, and now they are trying to smear millions of Americans who are coming out to protest so that they can justify a crackdown on peaceful dissent.” 

Katie Bethell, executive director of MoveOn, said “let’s be crystal clear about who is peacefully taking the streets on Saturday — it’s teachers, federal workers, nurses, families, our neighbors and our friends. 

“All of our leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, should listen to what these patriotic Americans have to say,” Bethell said. 

“The millions of people protesting are centered around a fierce love of our country, a country that we believe is worth fighting for,” she said. “This is the reality across cities and towns, large and small, rural and suburban, in red areas, blue areas — millions of us are peacefully coming together on Saturday to send a clear and unmistakable message: The power belongs to the people.”

In other states: 

• The Ohio Capital Journal noted dozens of No Kings protests set to take place in the Buckeye State.
• About 40 No Kings protests are planned in Indiana, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
• Rhode Island is expected to see at least 10 No Kings protests, according to the Rhode Island Current.
• More than 100 communities across Michigan plan to hold No Kings rallies, the Michigan Advance reports.
• In Arizona — where more than 60 No Kings protests are anticipated — high turnout is expected even in the state’s rural Republican strongholds, according to the Arizona Mirror. 

A shopper who receives SNAP benefits slides an EBT card at a checkout counter in a Washington, D.C., grocery store in December 2024. (Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture)

WASHINGTON — As the federal government shutdown extends to day 17, and with congressional leaders nowhere near negotiating, state officials are beginning to raise concerns of potential cuts to nutrition assistance benefits that feed millions if the government isn’t reopened. 

Minnesota has already halted new enrollments in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. And officials in Kansas, New Hampshire and New Mexico have warned their residents could miss their food assistance payments for November. 

More than 42 million Americans rely on the program, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture administers. The federal government funds nearly all the program benefits, with states administering the program.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins warned Thursday that SNAP will run out of funds in two weeks if Congress fails to strike a deal and end the government shutdown.

“You’re talking about millions and millions of vulnerable families of hungry families that are not going to have access to these programs because of this shutdown,” she said outside the White House Thursday. 

USDA could not be reached for comment Friday. 

USDA has directed regional SNAP directors to stop working on benefits for November, according to an Oct. 10 letter obtained by Politico, written by the program’s acting associate administrator, Ronald Ward. 

“Considering the operational issues and constraints that exist in automated systems, and in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are forced to direct States to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to State EBT vendors until further notice,” Ward wrote. “This includes on-going SNAP benefits and daily files.” 

USDA has already shuffled more than $300 million in tariff revenue into the agency’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, through the rest of the month. 

The shutdown started Oct. 1 after Congress failed to find a bipartisan path forward on a stopgap spending bill. 

Senate Democrats have pushed for negotiations to extend the enhanced tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

Republicans have insisted on passing the House’s version of the stopgap funding bill that does not address insurance premiums.

Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton leaves federal court after pleading not guilty to charges of mishandling classified material on Oct. 17, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Bolton was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton pleaded not guilty in Maryland federal court Friday to eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.

He was released from custody on personal recognizance bond, meaning he did not have to post bail but did have to surrender his passport and pledge not to leave the country. 

The next hearing was scheduled for Nov. 21.

In a statement shortly after an indictment against him was returned Thursday, Bolton said the prosecution was engineered by President Donald Trump in retaliation for criticism the longtime national security official had leveled against his one-time boss.

Bolton said the material he used for his 2020 book on his time as Trump’s national security advisor had been cleared for publication, and that he made the FBI aware of a 2021 hack of his private email.

During President Joe Biden’s four years in office, reviews of his case did not result in indictment, he continued. But federal law enforcement during Trump’s second presidency has sought to prosecute individuals opposed to the president, he said.

“These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct,” the statement said. “Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom. I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power.”

Bolton was formally charged Friday with the 18-count indictment that accused him of transcribing handwritten notes containing classified information onto a word processor and sharing the material in the form of “diary” entries with two family members who were not cleared to receive classified information.

Bolton’s is the third indictment federal officials have secured in recent weeks against high-profile Trump critics. 

Former FBI Director James Comey was charged with lying to Congress following a major fallout in a Virginia federal prosecutor’s office that was widely reported to be over career staff refusing to proceed in the case against Comey.

New York Attorney General Leticia James was also indicted for charges related to a mortgage application.

Like Bolton, both Comey and James have proclaimed their innocence and said they were being persecuted as Trump critics.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's secretary designee, Amy Pechacek, right, with Gov. Tony Evers at a 2023 DWD event held at the Plumbers Local 75 training center in Madison. Pechacek held a news conference online Thursday where she spoke about the impact of the federal government shutdown on DWD and the state. (Photo courtesy of DWD)

As the federal shutdown drags on, Wisconsin is likely to feel the impact — in employment, in agriculture and in the safety net for workers, according to the state’s labor secretary.

“Right now, we have the ability to continue to operate and our goal is to not disrupt our current workforce programs or state workforce,” said Amy Pechacek, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, during an online news conference Thursday.

Governments in some other states have started to reduce their workforces, Pechacek said. Wisconsin is holding off on filling vacancies and taking other steps “to try and preserve all of the funding we can so that we don’t have programmatic or employment disruptions,” Pechacek said.

Nevertheless, 75% of the DWD’s $500 million annual budget — three out of every four dollars — comes from the federal government, she said.

The remaining 25% that comes from the state isn’t “just one big pot,” Pechacek added, but funds specific programs. For example, the state workers compensation program, which covers treatment costs and lost income for people injured on the job, is entirely state funded. That includes the cost of administering the program.

But job support services — local job centers, career counseling, unemployment insurance administration, state apprenticeship programs, and the division of vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities — are “all tied to federally funded programs,” Pechacek said.

“We need the federal government to come together, come up with a funding mechanism and continue to support their obligations to all the states and to all the people to ensure that we can move forward with the economic health and prosperity that we have enjoyed without this chaotic massive interruption,” she said. “The longer this goes, the continued adverse and exponentially worse impacts to our workforce will compound.”

Pechacek’s virtual news conference Thursday took the place of DWD’s monthly report on Wisconsin employment data. The usual reports draw on the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys that poll employers on the number of jobs they have and poll households to calculate the unemployment rate.

The data BLS compiles and analyzes is one of the casualties of the shutdown, Pechacek said, hampering employers, job seekers, nonprofits, economic development agencies and governments.

All of them rely on BLS data “to guide fiscal decision making, determine whether to open or expand their businesses, determine if they’re going to hire or lay off, figure out how to allocate resources, and understand really how best to train their current workforce,” Pechacek said. Without that information, “employers are putting off important decisions, essentially fumbling around in the dark until Congress can get around to turning back the lights on.”

Unemployment claims can serve as one indicator, and Scott Hodek, section chief in the DWD Office of Economic Advisors, said the department is looking at other data sources to fill in some of the missing information. Those sources include various private sector organizations as well as the regional federal reserve banks.

“But really it’s pretty difficult to get an accurate picture of what’s happening,” Hodek said. “It will get more difficult as time goes on.”

Another federal report on inflation is expected to be released soon, even with the shutdown, because the findings are used to calculate annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, Hodek said.

That report will also figure into the deliberations of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee when it meets at the end of October to decide whether to cut interest rates. The Fed’s dual mission includes keeping inflation as close to 2% as possible while encouraging maximum employment.

“That becomes very difficult to do if you don’t have any of that data to make those decisions,” Hodek said.

Looking at the coming months, Pechacek said, the process of applying for H-2A agriculture visas is on hold. The visas enable about 3,000 migrant workers to come in annually to work in specific seasonal agricultural operations, including planting, harvesting and food processing, she said.

DWD is required to verify that there is a worker shortage in the occupations to be covered, and the U.S. Department of Labor must certify the state’s verification report before the federal government issues the visas, she said, but the federal certification of the state’s report is on hold because of the shutdown.

December and January are the months when the most requests come in for H-2A visas, Pechacek said, so if the shutdown continues for too long, the agricultural employers depending on those workers would be unable to get the needed certification.

Pechacek said the department is also watching to see how many federal employees file for unemployment insurance.

There are about 18,000 federal employees in Wisconsin, and DWD has estimated that 8,000 might be affected by the shutdown. By comparison, she said, one of the largest layoffs in Wisconsin took place in 2018 when a larger retailer shut down, laying off 2,200 employees.

So far, however, there have been just 30 initial claims from federal workers, Pechacek said.

If federal workers who file unemployment claims get back pay when they return to work, however, they’ll have to repay the unemployment insurance fund.

Pechacek noted that President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently fire federal workers in the shutdown as well as to withhold back pay for furloughed federal workers who return to work. Between uncertainty about those threats and court rulings that have blocked some mass federal layoffs, however, “it is really an ongoing situation,” she added.

Pechacek several times criticized Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress for the shutdown.

“The president and congressional Republicans have shut down our nation’s government trying to force massive health care cuts and cost increases to the nation’s working and middle class families and we are in a stalemate,” she said.

“We really need our federal government to return to work so they can restore some predictability and reliability to our economy and continue to be the partner that we need to ensure the economic health and prosperity of Wisconsin workers.”

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The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary are set to run out of funding in the next few days, a new development in the ongoing government shutdown that will likely reverberate throughout much of the country. 

The Supreme Court, which is in the middle of its fall term and slated to hear oral arguments for the next several months, will run out of funding Saturday, according to a statement from public information officer Patricia McCabe.

“At that point, if new appropriated funds do not become available, the Court will make changes in its operations to comply with the Anti Deficiency Act,” McCabe wrote. “The Supreme Court will continue to conduct essential work such as hearing oral arguments, issuing orders and opinions, processing case filings, and providing police and building support needed for those operations.”

The building, she added, will be closed to the public but remain open for official business.

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court told States Newsroom in late September that it planned to “rely on permanent funds not subject to annual approval, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of annual appropriations.”

U.S. federal courts will run out of funding “to sustain full, paid operations” Monday due to the ongoing government shutdown, though they “will maintain limited operations necessary to perform the Judiciary’s constitutional functions,” according to an announcement released Friday.

“Federal judges will continue to serve, in accordance with the Constitution, but court staff may only perform certain excepted activities permitted under the Anti-Deficiency Act,” the U.S. Courts statement said.

The shutdown began on Oct. 1 after Congress was unable to find a bipartisan path forward on a stopgap spending bill. The U.S. Courts said at the time they would be able to use “court fee balances and other funds not dependent on a new appropriation” to keep up and running through Friday.

The new announcement from the courts said that several activities are excepted and can legally continue during the funding lapse. Those include anything necessary “for the safety of human life and protection of property, and activities otherwise authorized by federal law. 

“Excepted work will be performed without pay during the funding lapse. Staff members not performing excepted work will be placed on furlough.”

The statement said that each individual court throughout the federal system will make its own decision about how active cases will proceed during the shutdown. 

“Anyone with Judiciary business should direct questions to the appropriate clerk of court’s office, probation and pretrial supervision office, or federal defender organization, or consult their websites,” the announcement read. 

People summoned for federal jury duty will still need to report as instructed, since that program “is funded by money not affected by the appropriations lapse and will continue to operate.”

The online case management and electronic filing system, known as PACER, will keep operating despite the shutdown’s impact on the courts. 

An empty high school classroom. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released its 2025-26 general school aid data this week, showing that 71% of public school districts will receive less general school aid this year, while over $350 million in general aid will be diverted to voucher schools.

Each year DPI is required by state law to release the certified aid figures by Oct. 15. The data for the 2025-26 school year shows that of 421 districts, 111 — or 26% — will receive more aid, while 301 districts — or 71% — will receive less. The numbers replace those from the estimate released in July, which had shown a projected 65% of schools would receive less aid. 

DPI noted in a release that the state’s total general aid remained flat this year at $5.58 billion. The Republican-led Legislature decided during the recent state budget process not to provide additional general aid to public school districts.

The distribution of general aid funds is determined by a formula that considers property valuation, student enrollment and shared costs. When school districts lose state aid, they do not lose school revenue authority, meaning many school districts will be left to decide whether to increase local property taxes to make up the difference or make more budget cuts. 

Democratic lawmakers, who have repeatedly called for increasing general school aid, blamed their Republican colleagues for the numbers during a virtual press conference Thursday morning.

Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) said that data “provided a harsh reality check for school districts that their state Legislature, specifically the Republican-controlled state Legislature, which they have controlled for 30 out of the last 32 years, does not view them as a priority.” 

“When Democrats win a majority in the state Senate, our schools will not have to fear this Oct.15 date,” Smith said, adding that Democrats are “committed to investing in the future of Wisconsin children and re-establishing our state as one of the leaders in K-12 education as it once was.”

“This system that our state has been forced to adopt is not sustainable,” Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D- Whitefish Bay) said. In lieu of state funding, school districts in Wisconsin have turned to raising property taxes through referendum, which must be approved by voters, in order to meet their financial obligations, including paying staff salaries, purchasing educational materials and building costs.

After the state budget was signed, some school leaders warned that the trend of relying on property taxes would continue without a state general aid increase. 

“Due to the Legislature’s failure to fund our schools, Wisconsin already has one of the highest property tax rates in the country, and if our communities continue to be forced to referendum, those tax rates will continue to rise, making our state even more expensive than it already is. Wisconsin residents are depending on their elected officials to rein in the skyrocketing costs of living in our state,” Habush-Sinykin said. “Yet, the Republican-controlled Legislature has no problem forcing their constituents to suffer under continuously rising property taxes.”

Viroqua School Board President Angie Lawrence said during the press conference that the system is bolstering inequity in Wisconsin schools. 

“The school districts and areas of high poverty are generally failing when trying to pass a referendum and the wealthy districts generally are passing their referendum when going to their communities… Is this who we really want to be?” Lawrence asked. “Don’t you think that our tax dollars should be supporting every student equally so that each student has a path to academic excellence, and we shouldn’t have to go to referendum in order to provide a high quality education for our students?”

School voucher programs grow

Alongside funding for public schools, the DPI also released data on the costs of the state’s school voucher programs, which use taxpayer dollars to cover the cost of tuition for students who attend private and charter schools.

The estimated annual cost for the state’s voucher programs in the 2025-26 school year overall is about $700.7 million.

According to the DPI data, $357.5 million will be reduced from general school aid to go towards private voucher schools in 2025-26. This includes $260.9 million for the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, $44.4 million for the Racine Parental Choice Program and $52.2 million for the Special Needs Scholarship Program. 

The rest of the $700.7 million going toward voucher schools will come from the state’s general purpose revenue to fund students in the Milwaukee voucher program as well as for students in the Racine voucher program who enrolled before the 2015-16 school year. The Milwaukee program is estimated to cost $336 million.

Enrollment in all four of the state’s school choice programs rose by 2,349 students in the 2025-26 school year, reaching a high of 60,972 students. 

The Milwaukee program grew by 235 students, the Racine program shrank by 14 students, the statewide program grew by 1,814 students and the special needs program grew by 419 students. 

Organizations that support school voucher programs had mixed reactions — celebrating the growth, but also cautioning that it was modest compared to previous years.

“Lawmakers in Madison should continue to prioritize protecting these private-school options for all students,” said Carol Shires, vice president of operations for School Choice Wisconsin. “This milestone validates the strong support from Wisconsin’s political leaders for strengthening the financial foundation of parental choice programs.”

School Choice Wisconsin, the largest school choice lobbying group in the state, also noted in its press release that the growth comes as an enrollment cap on the statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program is set to expire in the 2026-27 school year. 

“[The caps coming off] will allow more families – including those now on waiting lists – to benefit from the nation’s longest-standing program committed to educational freedom,” School Choice Wisconsin said.

Caps on school voucher program participation, which limits the percentage of students in a district who can participate, have been increasing by 1% per year since 2017 and reached 10% of a school district’s enrollment in the 2025-26 school year. When the nation’s first school voucher program launched in Milwaukee in 1990, enrollment was limited to no more than 1% of the Milwaukee Public Schools student population. When the statewide program launched in 2013, enrollment was limited to just 500 students and no more than 1% of a district’s enrollment. 

According to the Institute for Reforming Government, a conservative think tank, this year’s numbers represent stable growth for the Milwaukee, special needs and independent charter school programs, but the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program had its lowest growth since 2017-2018.

Quinton Klabon, the organization’s senior research director, urged supporters of school choice to not be complacent. 

“Informing parents, expanding high-quality schools, and protecting schools from hostile red tape are high priorities. Otherwise, the baby bust will close choice schools,” Klabon said in a statement.

The total number of schools participating in the statewide program has risen from 403 schools in 2024-25 to 415 schools in 2025-26.

Republicans have introduced some legislation this year to support enrollment in voucher programs. AB 460 from Rep. Cindi Duchow (R-Delafield) would change state law to ensure that siblings of a student who participated in a voucher program would be eligible for enrollment. AB 415, coauthored by Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) would prohibit DPI from requiring documents to verify a student’s residence unless their residence has changed from a previous verification. 

Democratic lawmakers and public education stakeholders expressed concerns about what the school voucher enrollment numbers will mean for the state’s public schools.

Lawrence of Viroqua called attention to the amount of money going to the Academy of Excellence, a Milwaukee virtual private school that has been criticized for misusing public funds and for blurring the line between homeschooling and voucher schools. Students who are homeschooled in Wisconsin aren’t supposed to receive public funding under state law.

“The Academy of Excellence is not excellent,” Lawrence said. “It is not meeting the requirements of high standards of public education, and yet it received over $40 million in tax dollars from the state of Wisconsin [in the 2024-25 school year]… They are funding families that choose to homeschool without the cost of bricks and mortar, or the transparency of how they’re spending the tax dollars they receive. If our state wants to make improvements in education for our students, let’s put our money where our mouth is and spend our tax dollars to improve public education so we can provide the highest academic outcomes for each child.” 

The Academy of Excellence is estimated to receive over $50 million in 2025-26 from the state with over 4,000 students enrolled. Those enrollment numbers include students in various voucher programs throughout the state — 808 students from the Milwaukee program, 200 from the Racine program, 3,340 from the statewide program and 63 who are enrolled in the special needs program.

Democratic lawmakers in recent months have introduced an array of bills aimed at limiting voucher school programs and increasing transparency surrounding the costs. 

This week Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) is circulating draft legislation that would bar virtual schools from being able to participate in the voucher program. 

Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) has introduced AB 307, which would eliminate the sunset on the voucher program caps, leaving them at 10% into the future, and AB 496, which would require an annual verification of the income of voucher students’ families. (Currently, there is an income cap to enroll in the programs of 220% for the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program and 300% for the Milwaukee and Racine programs. If a student is continuing in a program or was on a waiting list, they are not required to meet income limits.) Lawmakers have also proposed legislation to disclose voucher costs on property tax bills across the state.

Habush-Sinykin said on the call that the voucher program caps coming off is a “crisis” facing the state’s education system. However, she said advancing bills that would change the state’s trajectory will likely take new leadership in the Senate and Assembly. 

“It’s really up to all of us to explain how important it is to have a change in the legislative leadership so that we can have bills… like keeping caps on vouchers, etc., be heard and voted on,” Habush Sinykin said.

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South Central Federation of Labor President Kevin Gundlach addresses a rally in support of Group Health workers seeking union representation on Monday, Oct. 13. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

A stalemate between Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin and employees who have been seeking union representation for the last 10 months shows little sign of breaking soon.

At a mass meeting Monday at the Alliant Center in Madison, members of Group Health, sometimes called GHC for short, passed a motion directing the co-op to voluntarily recognize the union as the employees originally petitioned in December — covering three departments and a series of health care professionals.

The motion set a deadline of Friday, Oct. 17. Marty Anderson, Group Health’s chief strategy and business development officer, said Thursday that action on all the motions would likely be deferred, probably until November.

“We communicated clearly ahead of the meeting that all motions are advisory in nature,” Anderson said. “Any deadlines that would be in any of the motions would also be advisory in nature.”

Monday’s mass meeting was the first of its kind for Group Health members to ask questions of the co-op administration and express their opinions about the union drive. About 172 people attended, according to a Group Health spokesperson. Group Health has more than 50,000 Class A and Founding members — the two groups that were considered eligible to attend, according to the co-op.

In the spring, a volunteer committee met with the board to argue in favor of recognizing the union. 

People attending the Monday meeting described the crowd as strongly supportive of the union, and the voice votes in favor of recognizing the union and other motions favored by union supporters were unanimous, according to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin. 

Growing dissatisfaction 

At a rally outside the Alliant Center before the meeting, South Central Labor Federation President Kevin Gundlach, a Group Health member, charged that the co-op “has lost its way” in its response to the union organizing drive.

“We want GHC to listen to the workers,” Gundlach said. “And these workers know, and it says on my shirt here” — he pointed to his chest — “it’s better in a union.”

Group Health has rejected charges that it’s trying to thwart the union drive, contending that it simply wants health care employees in all departments to take part in the union representation vote — not just those from departments and job classifications that were included in the original union petition.

Union supporters say that claim is disingenuous and a ploy to “dilute the vote,” in the words of several workers interviewed — racking up votes against the union from employees in departments that don’t have the same concerns.

Anderson denied the charge. “We don’t know” what the votes will be, he said.

According to workers involved in the union drive, the Group Health union campaign grew out of increasing dissatisfaction in specific co-op departments with working conditions and what they contend was a lack of input into the co-op’s practices.

“I feel like we can improve the patient care that we provide through unionization and through increased involvement in decision-making,” Dr. Nisha Rajagopalan, a family physician who has worked at Group Health for 22 years, said Thursday.

Pay practices, employee turnover and a voice at the table are all reasons employees have cited for supporting the union.

“GHC leadership stopped collaborating with us and despite our many patient care concerns and our many meeting requests,” said Julie Vander Werff, a physician assistant, the lead speaker at the Monday rally.

Who should be in the union?

Complicating the organizing campaign is the conflict over exactly who among Group Health’s workers should be included in the union.

Union supporters involved in the organizing drive originally proposed that the union represent a bargaining unit of about 220 people. They were doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nursing staff in three departments: primary care, urgent care and dermatology. Their petition also included physical therapists, occupational therapists and health educators.

The petition was filed Dec. 12, 2024. Group Health filed a brief asserting that the unit the employees sought “was an inappropriate unit,” said Anderson, the Group Health executive.

To resolve the differences, a National Labor Relations Board staffer held a meeting on Dec. 30 in Madison, where he moved between separate rooms, one housing Group Health executives and the co-op’s lawyer, the other housing SEIU Wisconsin staff and Group Health employees leading the union drive.

The NLRB staffer suggested to the union group that they narrow their petition to a single clinic, Group Health employees wrote in a letter to the Group Health board of directors Feb. 10, 2025. Hoping to get an agreement, they took the suggestion.

Group Health opposed the single-clinic unit, however. In subsequent hearings the co-op management’s lawyer argued the vote should include all direct care employees, including in departments that weren’t part of the union’s original petition.

After reviewing briefs from both sides, the NLRB regional director in Minneapolis who heard the case ruled that the single clinic unit that the union had proposed would not be an appropriate bargaining unit. The decision issued by Regional Director Jennifer Hadsall stated that the unit proposed by the employer, Group Health, was appropriate and set an election among all the co-op’s health care employees.

SEIU Wisconsin, however, moved to block the election. A raft of pending unfair labor practice charges against the employer could scare employees from voting for the union, SEIU charged. Hadsall agreed to block the vote until the charges are resolved.  

As a result, the vote is on hold. The NLRB investigation of the charges is on hold as well, because of the federal government shutdown.

Shared concerns, conflicting concerns

In her order, Hadsall also included a footnote that states she did not address the unit that the employees had originally asked for because it had not been formally litigated.

“We had always argued that we are a clinically integrated organization,” Anderson said. “Our staff floats between various parts of the organization and different clinics. And the bargaining unit was established [consisting of] all of our clinical sites and all of our direct care employees.”

But pro-union employees say there are concrete differences between employees who are in the groups that they had originally included in the union petition and the rest of the Group Health staff — including direct care providers.

“Initially our bargaining unit included employees who were in primary care and urgent care,” said Rajagopalan, the family doctor. “We practice similarly and we share the same concerns. There are other departments within GHC that don’t share the same concerns [and] practice very differently than we do. That’s why our initial bargaining unit is an appropriate unit.”

Pat Raes, president of SEIU Wisconsin and a nurse at UnityPoint-Meriter hospital in Madison, said that throughout her health care career she’s seen many workplaces where only some groups of workers are unionized.

“At the bedside or at the side of the patient, it doesn’t make a difference because the priority is patient care,” Raes said. “It’s not whether you’re unionized or not.”

Addressing the rally before Monday night’s meeting, Steve Rankin said it was “entirely normal” for workers in a single workplace to be represented by different unions or no union depending on their department or position.

“There is no reason that everyone at Group Health has to be in the same union,” said Rankin, who joined Group Health when it was founded in 1976 and has been active in marshalling Group Health patients to support the union effort. “We call on GHC to recognize the bargaining unit chosen by the workers themselves and to commit to bargaining in good faith toward the contract.”

While the board has yet to consider the motion that was passed at Monday night’s meeting, Anderson said Thursday that voluntary recognition was unlikely. 

“We want an NLRB sanctioned and overseen vote,” he said. “That’s always going to be our criteria.”

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Democrats and pro-democracy organizations held a rally Thursday to call for the creation of an independent redistricting commission. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

A group of pro-democracy organizations held a rally, attended by Democratic legislators, Thursday afternoon outside the state Capitol to push for the creation of an independent commission tasked with drawing the state’s legislative maps. 

The renewed push for permanently taking the construction of Wisconsin’s political maps out of the hands of politicians comes amid a national debate about gerrymandering and as the state’s Democrats are outlining what state government will look like if they hold power in all three branches after next year’s midterm elections. 

Across the country, Democrats — who have for years been the party calling for a nonpartisan process for drawing political maps — are weighing the merits of “unilaterally disarming” by putting the drawing of maps in the hands of independent bodies in blue states while Republicans are redrawing maps in red states such as Texas in an explicit effort to hold on to their slim congressional majority. 

Next month, voters in California will weigh in on a referendum asking if the Democrats in control of the state’s government can temporarily bypass the independent map-drawing commission and redraw maps to benefit Democrats as a counter to the Republican effort in Texas. 

State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), a candidate in the Democratic primary for governor, told the Wisconsin Examiner after the Thursday rally that Wisconsin Democrats should push for a permanent resolution to the state’s map debate because a more effective counter to increasing authoritarianism than tit-for-tat congressional gerrymanders is creating systems that allow government to be more responsive to voters’ wishes. 

“Here in Wisconsin, what the people want are permanent fair maps, and that means keeping the decision of redistricting out of politicians’ hands and within a group of nonpartisan folks,” she said. “If we’re going to have representative democracy, that’s what we need. But we also have to remember to be proactive, and that’s why the permanent fair maps matter. And if we’re going to be responsive to an eroding democracy, that’s also how we should be empowering the people …” 

After Thursday’s rally, the advocates — including members of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Fair Maps Wisconsin Coalition — were going into the Capitol to deliver the draft of their plan to legislators. 

Under the plan, the state Department of Administration would be responsible for managing the selection of 18 independent redistricting commission members (15 acting members and three reserve members). 

The membership would be divided evenly between representatives of the two major political parties and unaffiliated. Members would not be allowed to hold other public offices and could not be a family member of a public office holder. Lobbyists and anyone who has donated more than $2,000 to a candidate for office in a year over the previous five years wouldn’t be allowed to sit on the commission. 

After the DOA selects a pool of 240 applicants, the majority and minority leaders of both legislative chambers would be allowed to strike down a certain number of candidates. 

The IRC would be required to hold public hearings while it deliberates on the maps. Approval of final maps would have to come through a two-thirds majority vote that includes votes from members representing the interests of both major parties and the independents. 

The plan includes a provision for members to rank proposed maps if such a “multi-partisan agreement” can’t be reached. 

Any proposed maps from the commission would need to still be approved by the Legislature and governor within 30 days. If maps aren’t approved, the Legislature or governor must provide a written explanation to the commission and the commission would have 15 days to respond or provide new maps. 

The Legislature and governor would have three attempts to approve maps before Aug. 15 of a redistricting year. If maps can’t be codified by then, anyone in the state would have the authority to file a lawsuit with the Wisconsin Supreme Court to adopt a commission-proposed map. 

Democrats said at the rally that they want to make sure the commission is crafted in a way that prevents meddling after the fact from politicians. Redistricting commissions in states such as Iowa and Ohio have been undermined once their proposals were subjected to the political process. 

Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) said Republican legislators like the Iowa-style commission because if they vote down the commission’s proposals three times, the map-drawing authority returns to the Legislature. 

“They figured out the flaw in that model,” he said. “That is why we need a Wisconsin model, a Wisconsin model that works for all of us.”

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(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s top education official has claimed that a story about how her department conducts investigations is inaccurate and demanded a public correction on an article claiming that the Department of Public Instruction has hidden its investigation…

(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin lawmakers are proposing a law that would allow mobile sports wagering across the state through the state’s current tribal operators.

(The Center Square) – A hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday to address concerns about sexual misconduct and grooming in schools.

(The Center Square) – Some students in Wisconsin will soon see different grades on their report cards, and there are some worries that those grades may not be enough.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Derek Williams, 51, has been spending a lot of time thinking about certain numbers.

He committed 12 armed robberies in and around Milwaukee 30 years ago. In 1997, the North Side native was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each robbery – a total of 180 years.

In 2023, a Milwaukee County judge cut that sentence in half after Williams stopped an attack of a correctional officer who was being stabbed with a sharpened pen. The reduction in his sentence made Williams eligible for parole. 

But Williams, who was transferred to Sturtevant Transitional Facility from Oakhill Correctional Institution in September, has learned that parole eligibility is not the same as being released. Now, he worries about another number – how many days he will have to wait to go home to his family. 

“I’m seeing a parole process that really has no clear path on what a person’s supposed to do,” Williams said. “They create an ideal, and at every turn it’s another road going left or right.”

Frustrations with the parole process

In Wisconsin, only people who committed their crimes before Dec. 31, 1999, can become eligible for parole. 

Those sentenced for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2000, fall under 1997 Wisconsin Act 283, more commonly known as the Truth-in-Sentencing law. These people must serve the entirety of their prison sentence. 

Those sentenced before Truth-in-Sentencing took effect become eligible for parole after serving one-quarter of their prison sentence or after reaching their mandatory release date, whichever comes first.

Before Williams’ sentence was reduced, he would have been eligible for parole in 2042.  

Since his sentence reduction in 2023, Williams has gone before the Wisconsin Parole Commission twice – in May 2024 and June 2025. 

Both times, the commission said he wasn’t ready for release.

State regulation requires the Parole Commission to consider several factors when deciding whether to grant release: acceptable conduct in prison; completion of required programming; reduction of risk to the public; sufficient time served so release does not depreciate the seriousness of the crime; and an approved release plan.

For both of his parole hearings, the Parole Commission said Williams’ conduct and participation in programming were adequate. 

Yet both times the commission deferred Williams’ parole to be reconsidered at some later date. The commission cited an “unreasonable risk to the public” and said Williams had “not served sufficient time for punishment.”

Williams said he doesn’t understand how the commission arrived at these conclusions, especially after the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the judge who modified his sentence reduction said he had already served enough time. 

“In terms of the armed robberies themselves, we were most acutely concerned with the level of violence,” said Paul Dedinsky, an assistant district attorney for Milwaukee County, during the sentence modification hearing. “I found them to all be extremely serious and necessitating an enormous amount of incarceration, but we believe that end has been met.”

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jack Davila agreed. 

Williams’ frustration with the parole process is not surprising, said Laura Yurs, a Remington legal fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

“Because parole release is discretionary, it is impossible to predict and tends not to operate as a standardized set of steps,” Yurs said. “For example, what is deemed ‘sufficient time for punishment’ can vary widely from person to person – even when the crime of conviction is the same.” 

Parole trends

In recent years, fewer people in Wisconsin are being granted parole, according to Department of Corrections data.

An average of 37 people were granted parole in 2023 and 2024, compared with an average of 144 a year from 2017 to 2022, the data show.  

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31 of 2025, there have been 234 parole hearings for people convicted in Milwaukee County. Out of these, 19 people were granted parole, 201 were deferred and 14 were denied. 

As of Aug. 31, 43 people had been granted parole in Wisconsin in 2025, out of 551 hearings. 

Williams hopes to add his name to the list of people granted parole, but that is still in question. 

‘Not an entitlement’

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Parole Commission said in an email to NNS that a parole is “not an entitlement.” He said all five parole requirements must be met, including reducing the risk someone poses to the public and that a person has served enough time. 

He said risk reduction is determined using several factors, including sustained good conduct, completion of required programming, transition through lower security levels and the approval of their release plan. 

“This requirement is met when the risk to the public upon release is considered not unreasonable,” the spokesperson said.

For time served, the commission spokesperson said the requirement is met “when the amount of time served is sufficient to not diminish the seriousness of the original offense.”

Red tape?

Williams, whose next parole hearing is scheduled for January, disputes the commission’s assessment. Nevertheless, he is trying to follow its guidance leading up to his next hearing.  

Williams said this is easier said than done, given the lack of clarity about parole. 

Williams said he is also worried about being deferred again because of a lack of coordination within the Department of Corrections. 

After his most recent parole hearing in June, commissioners endorsed a transfer for Williams to a less restrictive facility – called a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility – where he would be able to participate in work release. 

Programming and activities at these facilities place an emphasis on life after release and only house people requiring minimum security.

About a month after his June parole hearing, the Program Review Committee at Oakhill could not reach a consensus on whether to transfer Williams, according to paperwork he received from Oakhill staff.  

After learning of the split decision, Rikki Williams, Derek’s wife, raised their concerns to Jason Benzel, director of the Department of Corrections’ Bureau of Offender Classification and Movement.

In an email, Benzel told Rikki to “be patient and allow the process to occur.” 

She then contacted Jared Hoy, secretary of the Department of Corrections.

“I understand your frustration, I really do,” Hoy wrote in an email to Rikki. “If we cut corners for Derek and rush the process, or if I intervene and put my thumb on the scale, that would not be fair to the many, many others who go through a similar process.”

These explanations ring hollow for Rikki.

“Everyone tells us to ‘trust the process,’ ” Rikki said. “What process?” 

Recent progress for Williams

Wayne Olson, the warden at Oakhill, and another Department of Corrections administrator reviewed the Program Review Committee’s split decision on Williams’ transfer. They approved a transfer but not to a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility. 

Instead, on Sept. 16, Williams arrived at Sturtevant Transitional Facility, which houses people requiring minimum or medium security. 

Olson and the DOC administrator chose Sturtevant because it can provide a more “gradual transition” from Oakhill, according to the paperwork.

Off-site employment is available at Sturtevant, the paperwork stated, “at the discretion of the warden,” and requires a “period of monitoring on-site.”

As Williams waits in limbo, he often returns to a particular irony. 

“I made a life-or-death decision in a heartbeat,” he said. “But it’s taken years for anyone to decide what to do with my life.”

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

His 180-year prison sentence was cut after saving a guard’s life. Years later, he’s still waiting to go home. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

For over 30 years, Ruby Johnson-Harden and her husband fostered Milwaukee youths in need of temporary homes. 

Though fostering is time-consuming and sometimes challenging, Johnson-Harden said she understood the need for children to have a safe place to go and for their parents to get the support they need. 

“It is definitely hard to give children back even when you know the intention is to give them back,” she said. “But you think about it, and there is always another kid that needs somewhere to go.” 

Though the number of children being removed from their homes is decreasing, the foster care system in Milwaukee, and in Wisconsin in general, is under growing strain.

Advocates say the problem isn’t strictly a shortage of foster homes, but a mismatch between the needs of many children entering care and the level of support, training and resources that foster families have to provide what’s needed. 

Few feel equipped enough or are willing to take on teens and children coping with trauma, behavioral health challenges or emotional dysregulation, according to foster care advocates. 

Shortage of proper placements

“In Milwaukee, we have enough foster homes and other placement providers for children. Everybody is placed,” said Jill Collins, ongoing services section manager for the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services. “But we don’t necessarily always have the right match for children.” 

She said that because youths with mental health or behavioral needs are harder to place, some children are placed in group homes or residential care facilities where professionals are better equipped to meet their needs. 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families’ data dashboard, 7,000 children are placed in out-of-home care annually. That includes kinship care, foster care and other residential facilities. 

The Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services reported that at the beginning of 2024 there was an average of 1,743 children in out-of-home care. 

According to the dashboard, the older a child is when entering the system, the less likely it is for the child to be placed in a home. 

In 2024, there was an average of 515 children aged 12 years or older in out-of-home care. Of these older children, 275 (53%) were placed in a family-like setting, 146 (28%) were placed in congregate care, and 94 (18%) were in other care.

Ninety percent of children aged 12 and under were placed in family-like care. 

“I had few teens,” Johnson-Harden said. “Usually they’ve already been through so much that they are kind of set in their ways. It’s harder for them to open up.” 

DeShanda Williams-Clark, chief program officer at Pathfinders, works with many young people who are already a part of the child welfare system. 

“They’ll come in if they don’t feel safe in their placements,” Williams-Clark said. 

She said the young people Pathfinders serves can have a number of nuanced concerns that can fall through the cracks. Some are experiencing homelessness or are survivors of trafficking and exploitation, she said. 

“(The youths) have given feedback and say, well, I don’t feel safe being at my group home because my group home is publicly listed,” she said. “Or we’ve had children say, ‘I know this family is receiving a check for me because they’re reporting that I have worse behaviors or that I need medication.’ ”  

What’s being done

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families is working to reduce the number of children in out-of-home care through its Putting Families First initiative. 

The initiative focuses on keeping families together by supporting them in-home with resources and services. In situations where families can’t stay together, the initiative emphasizes relying on people already in the child’s or children’s network before resorting to foster care. 

As a result of this approach, there has been a decline in the number of children who are removed from their homes and taken into foster care, said Emily Erickson, director of the Bureau of Permanence and Out-of-Home Care at the agency.

“We have been focusing on solutions that are community-based, that can support parents in healing and growing while they continue to parent their children in their homes safely,” Erickson said. 

She said the program utilizes a mix of formal and informal support networks to help provide safety but allows children to stay in their homes because research shows a lasting negative impact once relationships are severed. 

Additionally, DCF funds the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness program for youths who have aged out of foster care. 

According to Williams-Clark, the program not only helps young people who have aged out of the child welfare system find housing, but it also supports them through the entire process. 

The program gives young people a choice regarding independent living, she said. 

“Then we give them wraparound care and support by making sure they have access to socially integrate into the communities that they want to live in, helping them to set goals for education and their academics, getting them connected to income and employment programs, and then just really working on those life skills,” Williams-Clark said.

How you can help

Advocates suggest several ways you can help. 

One way is to consider fostering. 

“The need is great. Especially for teens and siblings,” said Jane Halpin, a recruitment consultant with Community Care Resources, a private foster care agency.

She said it can become difficult because it’s time-consuming, but you won’t be alone. Community Care Resources offers around-the-clock support to those who foster through the agency. 

Williams-Clark said people need more education around fostering to help destigmatize the work of the child welfare system. 

Wisconsin Department of Children and Families officials suggested being a support system for family and friends who may be in need and considering specialized training to become a foster parent who can care for older youths or children with higher needs. 

They also encourage local organizations, churches and individuals to support foster families and children, not just through financial means but also by offering practical help and emotional support. They also encourage the use of community resources to support families before involving the child welfare system, to minimize trauma.

Johnson-Harden said the rewards of fostering are immense. 

“Fostering kids, to me, is about the joy of showing up for children in your community,” she said. “It’s about supporting a family and doing your best to lessen any trauma they’ve already experienced.” 

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Fewer children are in foster care, but finding homes remains a challenge 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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