Wisconsin voters line up outside of a Milwaukee polling place on Nov. 5, 2024. Wisconsin (Andy Manis | Getty Images)

Democrats are euphoric about Tuesday’s elections, in which voters across the country delivered a resounding rebuke to Republicans and President Donald Trump. “The Democratic Party is back!” Ken Martin, Democratic National Committee chair, declared in a post-election press call with other national party leaders. 

Democratic wins in governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey, the mayoral race in New York City, state Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, even a historic victory that broke the Republican supermajority in the Mississippi legislature, along with a bevy of downballot victories in historically Republican districts, showed voters have had enough of the misery inflicted by the MAGA right.

In a scene familiar to Wisconsinites, Pennsylvania voters beat back an effort by a MAGA billionaire to buy their state supreme court. “People don’t want corporate control of the courts,” Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale said of the millions wasted on that race by TikTok billionaire Jeff Yass — a repeat of Elon Musk’s failed bid to buy a friendly majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 

The results are a concrete sign that there is a political price associated with the chaos Trump and his GOP enablers have unleashed, sending federal agents to terrorize American cities, driving up health care costs and inflicting unnecessary suffering and hunger on Americans during the longest government shutdown in history.

Young men, Black and Latino voters, working-class people — all the demographic groups that abandoned Democrats in 2024 returned in droves on Tuesday. As the Democrats celebrated their wins, they also seemed to concede that they were benefitting from the mess Republicans have made of governing. People are hurting, their outlook is grim, and they are in the mood to throw out the party in power after just six months.

Democrats need to form an aggressive, unified opposition to champion the will of those voters and not just take their support for granted. And Republicans had better re-examine their unwavering loyalty to Trump.

So far, in Wisconsin, Republican members of Congress have not signaled that they care about the catastrophic effects of Trump’s policies on their constituents.

In an interview with “UpFront” on WISN 12 News on Sunday, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden wouldn’t say if he supports extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, even as Wisconsinites are receiving the news that without the subsidies their premiums are set to skyrocket by 45% to 800% depending on where in the state they live.

Van Orden, who supports a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, repeatedly declared on “UpFront” that he “won’t be held hostage” by Democrats who have made preventing a huge spike in health care costs for people who buy insurance on the ACA marketplace — more than 310,000 of them in Wisconsin — a condition of their votes to reopen the government. Nor has he been willing to say whether he supports or opposes the Trump administration’s decision to withhold food assistance from 700,000 Wisconsinites during the shutdown.

U.S. Rep Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor, also supports repealing the Affordable Care Act and this month called on Republicans to “hold firm” against extending ACA tax credits, repeating the lie that Democrats are shutting down the government because they want to give health care to “illegal aliens.”

U.S. Rep Bryan Steil told “UpFront” that the Trump administration is in “a very difficult position” as it makes the decision to fire thousands of federal workers during the shutdown. He also claimed he might support extending ACA subsidies, but only after the shutdown ends, and if there are “significant changes to that program to root out waste, fraud and abuse.” 

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, took the opportunity, as health care subsidies lapse and insurance premiums spike, to hold a hearing Thursday on the “harms” caused by extending health care coverage to millions of Americans through the Affordable Care Act.

Is it any wonder that voters are not thrilled with how the party that holds complete control in Washington is governing?

What’s significant about Tuesday’s election is that it puts everyone on notice that voters will push back.

Over and over, during the Democrats’ Wednesday press conference, various national leaders eagerly declared that theirs is the party of “affordability.” But Martin acknowledged that his party had lost touch with working class voters worried about making ends meet. He said Democrats “didn’t focus on that anxiety enough over the years.” and that they have to “give working class people the sense that we’re fighting for them.”

It doesn’t take a political genius to see the vulnerability in the wretched excesses of the Trump administration, which is forcing children to go hungry while throwing a lavish “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago and building a massive, gilded ballroom at the White House.

If nothing else, Democrats are the populist alternative by default. But there also seems to be a sincere effort underway to build a democratic resistance that will fight for most Americans against the MAGA oligarchs who are liquidating civil society and sucking up the common wealth of the nation to enrich themselves.

Martin and the other Dems on the Wednesday call trumpeted the importance of state-level politics. “The path back to building Democratic power runs through state legislatures,” declared Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, adding, “the center of gravity has moved to the states.” 

Martin agreed. “I believe this party has ignored building power at the state level for too long,” he said. “We cannot just build federal power.” 

The stars of this new strategy are Democratic governors — the most popular Democratic politicians in America, according to the panel, which made a passing mention of the importance of the 2026 Wisconsin governor’s race. Certainly Virginia Democrats, who won back both the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, gave hope to Wisconsin Dems who are hoping to do the same.

But how much the national party will engage in Wisconsin and who will emerge from a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls in the first open election for governor here in 15 years is very much up in the air. 

On Thursday, at a gubernatorial candidate forum covered by Baylor Spears, candidates were asked to name the greatest threat to Wisconsin’s economy. Few had a simple, appealing answer that connected to most voters’ most immediate concerns — skyrocketing prices, a shredding safety net and the disappearing prospect of shared prosperity. 

Tuesday’s elections showed that we still have a democracy, that voters have a say in how the government is run, and that they won’t put up with an endless cycle of abuse.

That should embolden everyone who is shocked and appalled by what is happening to our country — including those Wisconsin Republicans who have so far been afraid to criticize Trump, as well as the Democrats who need to point the way to a better future.

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A cancer patient’s medical bills are spread on a kitchen table in a home in Salem, Va., in this 2011 file photo. A new Trump administration rule would override more than a dozen state laws that shield consumers’ credit reports from medical debt. (Photo by Don Petersen/Associated Press)

A new Trump administration rule issued late last month would override state laws that prevent consumers’ credit reports from including medical debt, potentially weakening financial protections for millions of Americans.

In recent years, more than a dozen states have taken steps to keep medical debt from hurting residents’ credit scores, passing laws with bipartisan support. But new guidance from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau repeals a Biden-era rule that allowed states to impose their own bans. The Trump administration has interpreted the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act to say that it overrides state laws around reporting debt to credit bureaus.

American consumers had at least $220 billion in unpaid medical bills in 2024, according to an analysis from research nonprofit KFF. About 6% of American adults, or 14 million people, owe more than $1,000 in medical debt.

“Medical debt is a tremendous weight keeping so many families from financial security, and, unlike most other forms of debt, it’s not a choice,” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said last month in a statement announcing that a new state program had wiped out more than $6.5 billion in medical debt for more than 25 million North Carolinians.

People rarely plan to take on debt from medical care, as they do when they borrow money to buy a house or car. A one-time or short-term expense such as a single hospital stay causes about two-thirds of all medical debt, according to a 2022 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report.

And even though most Americans have health insurance, many get stuck with unexpected medical bills because their policies have high deductibles or don’t fully cover some treatments, procedures or drugs. People in worse health and those living with a disability are more likely to report medical debt, as are middle-aged adults, Black Americans, and people with low and middle incomes, according to KFF.

In the past two years, a dozen states have passed laws forbidding medical debt from appearing on credit reports, bringing the total number of states with such laws to 14: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

Another five states — Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Nevada and Utah — limit how and when medical debt can appear on credit reports, according to the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.

Republican and Democratic legislators in other states, including Michigan, Ohio and South Dakota, have introduced similar bills this year.

Now the new state laws face an uncertain future. In January, while Biden was still in office,  the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule prohibiting credit reporting agencies from reporting medical debt in certain circumstances. Credit bureaus and credit unions sued to stop the rule. The incoming Trump administration agreed with the plaintiffs and declined to defend the rule in court, so a federal judge blocked it.

Maine state Sen. Donna Bailey, a Democrat, said in a September statement that Maine’s new law barring medical debt from appearing on consumer reports was even more important in light of the demise of the federal rule.

“Although Americans no longer have the federal protection, Mainers will continue to have protection here in our state,” she said in September. “When we go to the hospital for medical care, especially for emergencies, any debt that we take on should not hold us back from buying a car, renting a home or taking out a loan.”

But the Trump administration’s latest order would render state laws such as Maine’s moot.

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

Deysi Camacho shops at the Feeding South Florida food pantry on Oct. 27, 2025 in Pembroke Park, Florida. Feeding South Florida was preparing for a possible surge in demand as SNAP benefits were delayed and reduced due to the government shutdown. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  Senate Democrats left their Thursday caucus lunch tight-lipped as an agreement to end the government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history at 37 days, remained elusive.

Republicans have floated a deal that includes the reinstatement of federal workers laid off by President Donald Trump, but no votes were scheduled on a spending bill as of late Thursday afternoon. There was some speculation senators could work through the weekend.

The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said negotiations are still underway. But she said as part of a deal, she supported the rehiring of the thousands of federal workers the Trump administration fired in its Reductions in Force, or RIFs, during the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

“Those who were RIF’d during the shutdown should be recalled,” she said. “We’re still negotiating that language.”

Emboldened by this week’s Election Day victories, where Democrats swept major local and state races, Senate Democrats are seeking to use that momentum as leverage to get Republicans to also agree to a health care deal to end the government shutdown.

While Democrats have pushed to extend tax credits for health care, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday that the best he can offer is a vote on extending those subsidies, which expire this year. 

The coming expiration has resulted in millions of people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace receiving notices of a drastic spike in premium costs.

“I can’t speak for the House, and obviously I can’t guarantee an outcome here, and they know that,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said. “I think the clear path forward here, with regard to the ACA issue, is they get a vote, and we open up the government, and we head down to the White House and sit down with the president and talk about it.”

Democrats that represent states with a high population of federal employees, such as Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, are also seeking to strike a deal on RIFs. A federal judge blocked those Reductions in Force last month.

Kaine told reporters Wednesday that those negotiations are occurring with the White House.

“It is an item that is being discussed with the president, with the White House,” Kaine said.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has stressed that unless there is a commitment from House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump to extend health care tax credits, Democrats should not agree to pass a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government. 

In session next week?

Senators are still scheduled to leave Capitol Hill late Thursday and be out next week on recess for the Veterans Day holiday.

But a couple Senate Republicans said late Thursday afternoon that lawmakers might stay in Washington, D.C. into Friday or later.

“I think they’re trying to work towards a vote tomorrow, maybe through the weekend. I’m pro-through the weekend,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in an interview following a GOP lunch meeting.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., likened the situation to a “goat rodeo,” which is a hyperbolic phrase to refer to a disaster.

“We’re probably going to have a vote tomorrow, and then we will get on, and then we will know where we are, and we’ll know whether the Democrats are serious or not,” Kennedy said, adding that he was unsure exactly what they were voting on.

Democrats quiet about any deal

Following their Thursday caucus lunch, Democrats did not seem closer to an internal agreement on how to move forward with resolving the government shutdown as they left their huddle. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats had a “very good, productive meeting.”

One of the top negotiators for Democrats on finding a deal, New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, declined to comment.

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman threw his hands up as he left the room.

“I don’t know how productive it was,” Fetterman, who has voted with Republicans to move legislation to reopen the government, said. 

Some Democrats said they were unified, such as New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim, Michigan’s Gary Peters and Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, a top appropriator. 

Peters did not specify what issue Democrats were unified on. 

“I don’t want to get into that, but it was an encouraging caucus (meeting) because there’s a great deal of unity as we came out,” he said.

Revised stopgap?

Additionally, a new continuing resolution, or CR, is needed, as the stopgap funding measure would have funded the government until Nov. 21, now just two weeks away. 

The House, which Johnson has kept in recess since September, would also need to be called back to pass a new version of a CR.

As the government shutdown continues, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned this week that if funding is not restored, flights will need to be reduced by 10% in some air spaces due to a shortage of air traffic controllers, who have worked without pay for weeks.

The government shutdown has led to millions of federal workers furloughed or required to work without pay and has created uncertainty for vulnerable people who rely on food assistance and  heating services, as well as stoppages in vital child development and nutrition programs. 

In an effort to force Democrats to vote to reopen the government, the Trump administration has tried to withhold Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits for 42 million people, until a court ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release those benefits. 

Frustrated with the government shutdown, Trump has also tried to pressure Republicans into doing away with the Senate’s filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold, but Thune has resisted those calls. 

Progressives: ‘Do not cave’

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said during a Thursday press conference that he’s “not promising anyone anything” when it comes to a House vote on extending health care tax subsidies.  

Johnson criticized Senate Democrats for wanting a guarantee that the House would also take a vote on extending the ACA taxes.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. 

House progressives said they have one message for Senate Democrats: “Do not cave,” as Rep. Pramila Jayapal put it during a Thursday morning press conference outside the U.S. House.

“Any deal must secure the extension of the ACA tax credits and ensure health care for the American people with agreement from the House, the Senate and the White House, full stop. We have the momentum,” the Washington state Democrat said.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., who publicly confronted Johnson during a press conference Wednesday, said, “We require a deal that actually addresses the health care crisis, not that promises to think about addressing it down the road in two weeks, with concepts of a plan.”

“Sadly, at this point in time, even I say it’s impossible to trust our Republican colleagues to honor their promises and their obligations,” Houlahan said.

April Verette, president of the labor union SEIU, which represents roughly 2 million members, spoke alongside Jayapal and Houlahan and praised Democrats as “courageous.”

“We are determined to say ‘Stick with this fight’ because righteousness, morality is on our side,” Verette said.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in a case over a policy to allow only sex assigned at birth to be used on a passport application. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to continue carrying out, for now, its policy requiring that passports only list a person’s sex assigned at birth.

The nation’s highest court paused a lower court order that temporarily barred the administration from enforcing the policy, codified in an executive order Trump signed in January. 

The executive order made it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female” and called on the State Department to “implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.” 

Under then-President Joe Biden, the State Department allowed people to “select an ‘X’ as their gender marker on their U.S. passport application.”

In the unsigned court order, the majority noted that “displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth — in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”  

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, indicating a 6-3 decision.

Jackson, who authored the dissent, wrote that the court “fails to spill any ink considering the plaintiffs, opting instead to intervene in the Government’s favor without equitable justification, and in a manner that permits harm to be inflicted on the most vulnerable party.” 

“This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification,” she wrote. “Because I cannot acquiesce to this pointless but painful perversion of our equitable discretion, I respectfully dissent.” 

In February, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the administration on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people over the suspension of the Biden-era policy.

A federal judge in Massachusetts in June temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing the policy. The judge had issued an earlier preliminary injunction in April that applied to six of the case’s plaintiffs. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit kept in place the district court’s order in September, prompting the administration to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.  

Patients have their blood pressure checked and other vitals taken at an intake triage at a Remote Area Medical mobile dental and medical clinic on Oct. 07, 2023 in Grundy, Virginia. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — All 50 states have applied for the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program in Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday.

States had from Sept. 15 through Wednesday to apply for the program, which was authorized under the mega tax and spending cut package passed by Republicans and signed into law by President Donald Trump. The fund is intended to offset the budget impacts on rural areas due to sweeping Medicaid cuts. 

However, the temporary fund could only offset a little more than one-third of the package’s estimated $137 billion cut to federal Medicaid spending in rural areas over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF.

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz said the program “moves us from a system that has too often failed rural America to one built on dignity, prevention, and sustainability” in a Thursday statement alongside the announcement. 

Oz said “every state with an approved application will receive funding so it can design what works best for its communities — and CMS will be there providing support every step of the way.”

Each state was asked to “design a plan for transforming its rural health care system” and outline in proposals how they “intend to expand access, enhance quality, and improve outcomes for patients through sustainable, state-driven innovation.” 

The program allocates $25 billion equally to approved states between fiscal years 2026 and 2030. CMS said states meeting the baseline criteria will then “undergo a rigorous, data-driven merit review” for the remaining half of the funds. 

In September, when announcing the application opening, CMS said the remaining half of funds would be administered to approved states based on “individual state metrics and applications that reflect the greatest potential for and scale of impact on the health of rural communities.” 

CMS said approved awardees will be notified by Dec. 31. 

Sen. Adam Schiff of California, left, and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, both Democrats, talk to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A vote to stop President Donald Trump’s deadly strikes on alleged drug-running boats off the coast of Venezuela failed Thursday in the U.S. Senate, nearly mirroring the outcome of a similar war powers vote last month. 

Senate Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky again joined Democrats in a 49-51 vote, just shy of the simple majority needed to advance legislation aimed at halting Trump’s escalating campaign on what his administration describes as “narco-terrorists.”

The joint resolution, brought to the floor by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., directs the “removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”

Paul and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., initially cosponsored the bill, and a dozen more Democratic senators and one independent signed on. 

Schiff’s similar measure failed 48-51 in early October.

Kaine forced Thursday’s vote under the War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam War-era statute that gives Congress a check on the president’s use of the military abroad. 

The death toll from U.S. military strikes has risen to 67 since September, according to CNN. Notably, the Trump administration is relocating the country’s most advanced aircraft carrier from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, joining other Navy resources currently amassed there. 

On Oct. 16, Trump publicly confirmed a New York Times report that he had authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela and told reporters he was “looking at land” for possible further strikes.  

Kaine, Schiff push for war powers vote

“All of this together with the increased pace of strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific suggest that we are on the verge of something that should not happen without a debate and vote in Congress before the American people,” Kaine said on the floor before the vote. 

Kaine and Schiff told reporters Thursday they viewed the White House Office of Legal Counsel opinion authorizing the fatal strike in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean near Venezuela. 

The document, which senators are allowed to read in a classified setting, “makes no effort to claim that there’s a legal rationale for invading a sovereign nation, no effort to claim that it’s about Venezuela, or could be used with respect to Venezuela or any country,” Kaine said.

Schiff characterized the opinion as “broad enough to authorize just about anything.”

Kaine urged Senate Republicans, who received a brief and review of the document earlier this week, to introduce and debate legislation authorizing the administration to continue its military force in the region.

“Anybody in Congress who thinks we ought to be bombing ships in the Caribbean and Pacific, introduce an AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) and have a debate and vote on it,” Kaine said, adding “but don’t just abdicate this power.” 

Hegseth posts video

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted a grainy video online Tuesday of a vessel in flames after a strike, and said the United States targeted the boat in the Eastern Pacific that had been operated by “a Designated Terrorist Organization.” 

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics. The strike was conducted in international waters in the Eastern Pacific.”

“No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike, and two male narco-terrorists — who were aboard the vessel — were killed,” Hegseth wrote on social media.

It’s unlawful for the U.S. military to intentionally kill civilians who are not actively taking part in hostilities against the U.S. 

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, defended the administration’s “decisive actions to protect thousands of Americans from lethal narcotics.” 

“Some Democrat members and members of the media claim that President Trump does not have authority to conduct these strikes. I’ll tell you right now, that is plain wrong,” said Risch, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Risch said he and fellow Senate Republicans have sat through “hours of briefings and analysis by government legal departments and attorneys” regarding the strikes.

Schiff and Kaine told reporters their access to information and briefings has been more limited.

Paul criticizes Trump moves

On the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Paul compared the strikes and buildup in the Caribbean to the U.S. military’s “misguided” intervention in the Middle East.

“We owe it to our service members to only send them into harm’s way when vital American interests are at stake. Who is in charge of Venezuela does not constitute such an interest,” Paul said, alleging the strikes are about regime change in the South American nation ruled by dictator Nicolás Maduro.

  “We overthrew Sadam Hussein thinking Iraq would be transformed into this great Jeffersonian democracy. Instead what occurred was an insurgency that led to some of the most brutal sectarian violence in living memory,” Paul said.

Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 after the Nixon administration secretly bombed Vietnam and Cambodia, killing hundreds of thousands of people. 

People sit in front of windows looking out on the tarmac at Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City on April 3, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps/Utah News Dispatch)

The 40 airports set to see a 10% reduction in flights during the government shutdown nearly matched the list of the nation’s busiest airports, according to a preliminary list seen by States Newsroom, potentially leading to thousands of flight cancellations across the country.

A 10% reduction at the listed airports would mean 3,300 canceled flights per day, according to Airports Council International-North America, the trade group for airports.

The Federal Aviation Administration had not released an official list of airports by early Thursday afternoon, but three sources familiar with the matter provided tables listing the proposed airports.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that the FAA would cut air traffic at 40 major airports starting Friday to help alleviate stress for air traffic controllers who have been working without pay since the federal government shut down on Oct 1.

The airports on the preliminary list are: 

• Anchorage, Alaska
• Atlanta
• Baltimore
• Boston
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• Chicago Midway
• Chicago O’Hare
• Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky
• Dallas/Forth Worth International
• Dallas Love Field
• Denver
• Detroit
• Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, Florida
• Honolulu
• Houston George Bush Intercontinental
• Houston W.P. Hobby
• Indianapolis
• Las Vegas
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Minneapolis/St. Paul
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Newark, New Jersey
• New York LaGuardia International
• New York John F. Kennedy International
• Orlando, Florida
• Oakland, California
• Ontario, California
• Portland, Oregon
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Salt Lake City
• Seattle/Tacoma
• Teterboro, New Jersey
• Tampa, Florida
• Washington, D.C. Reagan National and Dulles International, both in Northern Virginia

Busy Nashville, Raleigh-Durham not on list

While there is significant overlap of the list with the nation’s busiest airports, there are some exceptions. 

The busiest passenger airport not included was in Nashville, Tennessee, the 28th-busiest airport in the country in 2024, according to Airports Council International-North America.

Austin, Texas; St. Louis; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Sacramento, California; New Orleans; Kansas City; and San Jose, California, were also among the 40 busiest airports that will not see reductions Friday.

Memphis, Anchorage and Louisville rank outside the top 40 for passenger traffic, but are the top three for cargo movement.

Oakland and Indianapolis ranked just outside the top 40 for passenger travel. Teterboro’s airport did not rank in the group’s top 50 busiest.

$327 million in daily economic output lost 

A 10% reduction at the listed airports would decrease economic output at airports by about $327 million daily, according to the council.

Because the reductions are to the nation’s busiest airports that serve as hubs for the major airlines, they will also affect airports that aren’t on the list but depend on flights to and from those hubs.

The group’s president and CEO, Kevin M. Burke, said in a statement that the group and its members had adapted to quickly changing conditions during the shutdown, but that they were “reaching a breaking point.”

“The current trajectory is unsustainable,” Burke said. “With the busy holiday season on the horizon, Congress and the administration must come together now to reopen the federal government with a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution, pay federal employees, and restore operational certainty for the millions of air travelers who take to the skies every day.”

Prioritizing safety

At a press conference Wednesday, Duffy said the decision was made to keep flying safe. He urged overworked air traffic controllers not to work second jobs, but was “not naive” that many would have to in order to pay their bills.

He said the agency’s decision was made to prevent any accidents that could result from overworked controllers, while assuring the flying public that commercial air travel remained extremely safe.

President Donald Trump was less explicit during an Oval Office appearance Thursday. 

“Fair question,” he said when asked by a reporter if flying remained safe. “Sean Duffy announced they’re cutting in certain areas 10%, and they want to make sure it’s 100% safe. That’s why they’re doing it.”

Dems call for shutdown end

Some Democratic lawmakers, who have blocked a bill to temporarily reopen the government at fiscal 2025 levels in an effort to force Republicans to negotiate an extension to tax credits for insurance purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, renewed those calls in light of the FAA’s decision.

Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport sees a daily average of 60,000 passengers on 750 flights.

She called on Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to negotiate with her party on the expiring health insurance tax credits to reopen the government “so we don’t see the impacts like the ones at MSP.”

“The only path forward is through negotiating, so air traffic in the skies above Minnesota and the country can keep operating safely and at full capacity and our government can finally open up again,” she said.

House Transportation and Infrastructure ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington state called the Duffy move “drastic and unprecedented” and requested the FAA share data that went into the decision. 

He also called for an end to the shutdown to allow air traffic controllers to be paid.

“Shutting down parts of our National Airspace System is a dramatic and unprecedented step that demands more transparency,” he said. “The FAA must immediately share any safety risk assessment and related data that this decision is predicated on with Congress. If we want to resolve issues in the NAS, let us fix health care, open government and pay transportation and aviation safety workers.”

As power-hungry data centers proliferate, states are searching for ways to protect utility customers from the steep costs of upgrading the electrical grid, trying instead to shift the cost to AI-driven tech companies. (Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

A new proposal from a pair of legislative Democrats would institute a number of labor, energy and sustainability requirements on tech companies seeking to build data centers in Wisconsin. 

The proposal from Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) comes as data centers have continued to pop up across the state — largely in southeast Wisconsin — sparking heated local debates about land use, local jobs and the centers’ heavy use of water and electricity. 

There are now 47 data centers in Wisconsin, with more under consideration by local governments. The data centers house computer servers to store information for cloud-based software and, increasingly, to support the expansion of artificial intelligence. 

For local governments, the construction of data centers offers an easy opportunity for property tax revenue from a business that won’t require many local government services. But the servers have high energy and water needs, are often sited on land that has long been used for farming and raise concerns associated with AI. Experts and advocates have been looking for the state government to weigh in more forcefully on how to regulate the centers, the Wisconsin Examiner reported last month. 

So far, the only mentions of data centers in state law are a provision in the 2023-25 state budget which exempts data center construction costs from the sales tax and a law enacted earlier this year to study the growth of nuclear power in the state. 

The proposal from Habush Sinykin and Stroud, announced Thursday, would establish rules beyond current incentives for data center growth. 

“The new legislation being proposed today is about making sure that we have clear, statewide guardrails in place that provide people in communities across Wisconsin with the information and transparency they need to engage in the local decision-making process in an informed, effective manner from the start,” Habush Sinykin, whose district includes a controversial data center project in Port Washington, said in a statement.

Under the proposal, electric companies in the state will be required to submit quarterly reports to the Public Service Commission on the amount of energy being used by data centers in the state. Those reports will be required to include information on the source of the energy and be made public. Water utilities in the state will also be required to publicly report when a single customer will account for more than 25% of the total water usage in the district. 

The data center companies would be required to pay an annual fee to the Department of Administration, which will put that money towards renewable energy programs. Data center buildings would also be required to obtain sustainability certifications. 

The bill would also give data centers an incentive to encourage utility companies to expand clean energy and it would also require the PSC to establish a class of “very large customers” and ensure that normal ratepayers aren’t bearing the increased energy costs caused by the data centers’ growing energy demands. 

“It’s mind-blowing that the only regulations we have on the books are to just incentivize data centers with no expectations for them being good environmental partners with the communities they’re going to be located in,” says Jen Giegerich, the government affairs director at Wisconsin Conservation Voters, which was involved in helping draft the proposal. 

“It’s really important that what this bill does is actually make sure that the data centers are paying their own way,” Giegerich continues. “We’ve just seen energy costs rising, and the fact that we would continue to put costs for energy development for tech giants who are making unheard-of profits, and then expecting Wisconsin ratepayers to pay for that is really a problem. So this bill rectifies that, and I think it’s sorely needed.”

The proposal also includes labor requirements for data center construction. Under the bill, any workers at construction sites for data centers must be paid the local prevailing wage rate or, if the worker is a member of a union, the wage rate in that worker’s collective bargaining agreement. The data center company will have to pay whichever wage is higher. 

To qualify for the sales tax exemptions already available for data centers under current state law, the companies would be required to meet the labor requirements in the bill and source at least 70% of their energy from renewable sources. 

Steve Kwaterski, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council, says data center projects have already been a source of consistent, good paying construction jobs for his members and the bill will go towards ensuring that these jobs support families in the state. 

“We want to make sure that any project that’s as complex as a data center is being done with the most skilled and trained workforce that’s out there,” he says. “That ensures that it’s being done right on time, on budget, and done safely as well.”

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A sign in a convenience store along Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration Thursday to pay roughly $9 billion for a full month of nutrition assistance benefits by the next day.

Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama, said the administration blew its chance to choose to pay only partial benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, when it failed to release funds by a Wednesday deadline.

He said a social media post by President Donald Trump showed the president sought to use hunger for political leverage during the government shutdown, which stretched into day 37 on Thursday.

Earlier, in a Friday oral order that he expanded in a Saturday written order, McConnell had said the government must either pay full benefits by Monday or partial benefits from a contingency fund by Wednesday. 

The government did neither, he said Thursday.

The administration had argued it was impossible to pay the benefits, which go to 42 million Americans, within a few days, saying that the USDA had never calculated partial benefits and that coordinating new payments for SNAP, a federally funded program administered by the states, was difficult. 

The administration quickly appealed the ruling to the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

“Today is a major victory for 42 million people in America. The court could not be more clear – the Trump-Vance administration must stop playing politics with people’s lives by delaying SNAP payments they are obligated to issue,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the coalition challenging the administration.

‘USDA cannot now cry’

But McConnell said the department created the problem, in part by failing to prepare for it far earlier. USDA was obligated to spend from a contingency fund to ensure SNAP benefits flowed into November uninterrupted, he said. 

“USDA did not do so,” he said. “Even when Nov. 1 came, USDA refused to use the congressionally mandated contingency funds. USDA cannot now cry that it cannot get timely payments to beneficiaries for weeks or months because states are not prepared to make partial payments.

“USDA arbitrarily and capriciously created this problem by ignoring the congressionally mandated contingency funds and failing to timely notify the states.”

McConnell also pointed to Trump’s post on Truth Social on Tuesday that indicated he would not authorize payments consistent with the judge’s order until Democrats agreed to his terms to end the government shutdown.

“The day before the compliance was ordered, the president stated his intent to defy the court order when he said, ‘SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens,’” McConnell said Thursday.

Child nutrition funding suggested

The USDA had said it would pay only partial November benefits from a contingency fund holding about $4.5 billion, rather than tap into other money at its disposal, including a $23 billion fund for child nutrition programs.

The coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the administration to pay SNAP benefits for November has argued the court should force USDA to pay full benefits for November. 

In addition to the missed Wednesday deadline, the move violated a fundamental administrative law requiring federal agencies not to make arbitrary and capricious decisions, Kristin Bateman of the Democracy Forward Foundation, which is representing the groups, said Thursday.

The child nutrition program would not need its billions of dollars until June, she said, meaning that transferring funds for SNAP would only actually hurt the child nutrition program if the shutdown persists until then.

“A decision on such a highly unlikely set of events is not reasoned decision-making,” Bateman said. “It’s particularly unreasonable because the defendants have not explained why they would choose to let 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, go hungry now in order to guard against the extreme outside chance that come June, there won’t be enough money to fund child nutrition programs.”

McConnell agreed that invoking the child nutrition fund was “entirely pretextual,” which was demonstrated in part by Trump’s post and other statements by administration officials.

“The defendants’ stated desire to conserve funding for the child nutrition programs is entirely pretextual, given the numerous statements made in recent weeks by the president and his administration officials who admit to withholding full SNAP benefits for political reasons,” he said.

McConnell also noted that the case should be resolved as soon as possible to help provide food to hungry people or “needless suffering will occur.”

‘A state problem’

Tyler Becker, who argued on behalf of the USDA, said the department had done its part by making available to states a table showing how they should allocate partial November benefits for households of differing circumstances.

SNAP is a complex program, requiring coordination between the federal government and all 50 states, each of which has a different system for distributing benefits.

“The government did make the payments, is making the payments to the states,” he said. “That’s all the government does in the SNAP program.”

He added that the government had shown earlier in the case some of the administrative difficulties of paying partial benefits.

In a separate case in Massachusetts federal court, some states said they could process the benefits immediately, while others cannot.

“This is a state problem,” he said.

But McConnell cut him off shortly after, saying the federal government was responsible for ensuring people got their SNAP benefits.

“The problem that the government identified needed to be resolved one way or the other by Wednesday,” he said. “And if it wasn’t resolved by Wednesday, then you had to make the full payments, because that’s the only way we could get money to people immediately and alleviate the irreparable harm, whether you could or couldn’t do anything about that.”

In a Sept. 30 contingency plan about how to proceed during a government shutdown, the USDA itself said it would pay for continuing benefits through the contingency fund, which at the time held $6 billion. The administration later reversed that plan and said it could not tap the contingency fund.

In the Massachusetts case, which was brought by 25 Democratic states and the District of Columbia, the states argued Thursday that confusion stemming from a miscalculation the USDA made in determining November partial benefits was a reason to force the administration to pay for a full month.

USDA corrects miscalculation

The hearing followed a late Wednesday night filing from the USDA correcting an error it made in calculating the amounts beneficiaries would receive under its plan for partial payments. 

The department said it will reduce the largest monthly food assistance payments by about 35% in November, down from a 50% cut the department initially estimated.

USDA miscalculated how to adjust benefit payments for SNAP to account for a lack of full funding during the government shutdown, a department official said in a filing to the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island. 

The formula the government initially used and sent to states Tuesday would have resulted in about a 50% cut to the maximum monthly benefits, and left some households without benefits. 

SNAP pays benefits on a sliding scale depending on the size of a household, the household’s income and other expenses such as housing. By cutting the maximum benefit by one-half, the department would have spent about $3 billion from a SNAP contingency fund instead of the full $4.65 billion in the fund, which is what the court ordered it to spend.

The mixup created confusion for state administrators, the states in the Massachusetts litigation said.

“The fact they have been asked to suddenly shift on a dime yet again as a result of these entirely new tables, causing further chaos and delay, underscores that USDA’s approach here is untenable and unlawful,” the states wrote in a Thursday brief.

The error was first reported to McConnell by the coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the government to pay SNAP benefits this month. 

Think tank discovers discrepancy 

An analysis submitted by Sharon Parrott, a former White House budget officer who now leads the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, showed that the table the department submitted to the court and sent to states on Tuesday would fall short of the court’s order to spend the entire contingency fund.

The groups said the department’s error was another reason the court should compel the government to transfer funds to pay out full benefits for November.

“Defendants’ approach means that only around $3 billion—out of the $4.65 billion Defendants have said is available—will be spent on SNAP benefits in November, leaving more than $1.5 billion in contingency funds unspent,” they wrote in a Wednesday brief. “Defendants opted for partial (and delayed) SNAP payments, but even then, did not manage to do that correctly.”

The department said in its filing later Wednesday that it independently discovered its miscalculation and worked to fix it before Parrott’s declaration hit the court docket.

“Defendants realized this error and worked to issue new guidance and tables as soon as it was discovered, not in response to Plaintiffs’ notice filed earlier this evening,” USDA’s brief said.

U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi appeared onstage during the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York Times Square on Sept. 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Annual Summit)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who made history as the first woman to hold the speaker’s gavel, announced Thursday she will retire, ending a 40-year legislative career as one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. 

Her announcement came after Tuesday’s elections. Pelosi had a hand in crafting what was known as Proposition 50  in California to redraw the state’s congressional districts, in response to Republican redistricting efforts in Texas to gain more GOP seats in the House.  

The remap passed, and Democrats swept major state races across the country, including the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey.

In a video posted to social media, Pelosi, 85, thanked her constituents in her San Francisco congressional district. 

“I will not be seeking reelection to Congress,” Pelosi said. “With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year in service as your proud representative.”

Tributes to Pelosi poured in throughout the day.

“She made history as the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives, yes, but in that moment she also altered the way we conceive political power,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. “She made the imaginary real, and for young people who knew no other world, she permanently shifted the boundaries of the possible.”

Documents collected and analyzed by UW-Milwaukee geography Professor Anne Bonds show examples of racial covenants in Milwaukee, one for a residential subdivision and another for a cemetary. (Wisconsin Examiner photo illustration).

“Do you ever wonder why there are Black neighborhoods?” Derek Handley, an associate professor of English, African and African Diaspora and Urban studies at UW-Milwaukee, asks his students. How did Milwaukee County become one of the most segregated counties in the country, and what has that meant for the generations of families who either benefited from that bigotry, or were the targets of it?

On Saturday Handley, alongside fellow UW-Milwaukee professor Anne Bonds, will unveil a new project that deeply examines the historic use of racial housing covenants in Milwaukee. From 1-3 p.m. at the Milwaukee Public Library’s Centennial Hall, the professors will present “Mapping Racism and Resistance,” the culmination of three years of work and reflection by thousands of Milwaukee residents. 

Racial covenants were legal clauses in property records that explicitly prohibited people who were non-white from living within, occupying, owning or even being present on certain properties. The first covenants in Milwaukee popped up  in the city of Wauwatosa in 1911, 10-20 years before neighboring states established similar practices. Covenants in Wauwatosa and the rest of the Milwaukee area pre-date the practice of redlining,  where financial institutions systematically denied mortgages and financial investments to residents from Black and minority neighborhoods, and which began in 1938. 

In fact, the covenants set the stage for later forms of discrimination like redlining. Bonds explained that redlining was “a process that re-enforced and layered upon racial covenants” and that the level of racism in some communities was so strong it motivated entire neighborhoods to send the message to Black, brown and non-Christian people that they were not welcome. 

Covenants became popular during the 1920s and continued into the 1960s, even after multiple Supreme Court rulings rendered them illegal and, in theory, unenforceable. 

Sometimes the covenants were established before houses were even built in an area. Other times neighbors spent time and money in the courts to create covenants in already developed areas. “It cost money,” said Bonds, “it wasn’t cheap to go and then insert these racial covenants into their property records kind of after the fact.” Not only did covenants root themselves in communities which did not yet have Black residents, there were actually more restrictive covenants than there were Black residents of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1960. Milwaukee had a very small population of Black people when covenants arose, Handley said, adding, “there were three times as many covenants as there were Black people.” Bonds stressed that, “None of this is really passive in any way, shape, or form…It’s a very active whites-only kind thing.” 

That history “disrupts the notion that Jim Crow only happened in the South,” Handley told the Wisconsin Examiner. Never before has a map of racial covenants centralized or visualized those records for study. A network of over 6,000 people helped transcribe and analyze 1.9 million images of deeds, wills, court cases, property records and other Milwaukee County documents from 1910-1960. The records needed to be indexed, converted and checked by five different people to verify that they were covenants. Although computer programs helped organize the bulk of the data, human volunteers were needed to sift out false positives and to verify the findings. 

Mapping Racism and Resistance is both a crowdsourcing effort and a reckoning for the community. Not only does it map where the racial covenants were in Milwaukee County, “but more than anything we wanted the project to be about teaching people more, exposing people to more about the mechanisms and the kinds of techniques that were used to segregate cities,” said Bonds. “And it’s really painful to see this language, and jarring…It’s really jarring. It’s one thing to learn about housing discrimination and to say, ‘Yeah, people didn’t want to live by people who were not white.’ It’s another thing to see that language that says, ‘This home can never be occupied by anybody of the colored race.’ And to see that language inserted in a legal document, it’s pretty eye opening.” 

Mary Roberts, one of the project’s volunteer transcribers who helped upload and verify the covenants, was shocked by what she saw. Having grown up in Sheboygan when the community was essentially whites-only before attending UW-Milwaukee, Roberts had a peripheral understanding of Milwaukee’s housing covenants. Now at retirement age, she was drawn to the project out of a desire to get involved in social justice issues in the city. 

“I have to confess, I did not really understand it,” Roberts told the Examiner. “I understood it in the abstract, but it really deepened my understanding in a way that I just don’t know if I can fully explain. You know, reading in black and white these very calculating and cold and indifferent property deeds…It was incredibly eye-opening to me.” Seeing the racial covenants went far beyond any lesson that can be learned in school, Roberts said. “I was born in 1965, so some of the racial covenants I found were like, they were living, breathing documents in my lifetime. So I went into this thinking that it was really more about history, but it is a living history that was really present in my lifetime. And I think that was very surprising to me.” 

A large portion of the covenants reviewed by Roberts were established in Wauwatosa and largely discriminated against Black people. However, she also found covenants from Greenfield, and others which also included Jewish people and other non-Christians including  Armenian people and Asian people. Covenants also existed to the north and east of Wauwatosa, as well as in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park, Sunset Heights and Roosevelt Heights neighborhoods on the South Side near the airport. “A lot of people talk about the way that Milwaukee is surrounded by its predominately white suburbs,” said Bonds. “And certainly when you look at the racial covenants, you can see that pattern playing out, that they surround the city of Milwaukee.” 

Roberts noticed that the covenants seemed to put the racial clauses alongside other restrictions like not being allowed to have livestock, or how close a lot could be to a street or property line. She described the covenants as “this very cold, unemotional, sickening language that really is treating people like farm animals, or like an out-building.” 

“So much of the language really was like, you know, no person of African American descent, no one who’s Armenian, could live at this property ever, unless you were a servant. Some of them even excluded servants from properties…It says that in one spot, and then in the next spot it says you can’t have any farm animals at this property. So it was really equating people to really sub-human status, essentially.” 

The Greenfield covenant Roberts found was created by neighbors who’d formed a homeowners association and signed their names to the record. As she transcribed the records, Roberts found herself thinking of her own life, and how the property she lives on now had been passed down through three generations of her husband’s family. “We could never have built the house that we did if we had not inherited land from his dad,” said Roberts. “So it really hammers home in a way that I think other things don’t, that ability to build generational wealth was really denied to a whole class of people in our community. And that those inequities persist today, because that is how things were back then.” 

The same aspect of the project struck Handley when he and Bonds met the descendants of Zeddie Hyler, the first Black homeowner of Wauwatosa. In 1955 Hyler sought to build a home in Wauwatosa, but had to get a white friend to buy the property before he could begin. Local residents attempted to harass him out of the neighborhood, and even resorted to arson. Hyler’s descendants told the professors that Hyler and his brothers were forced to camp out with shotguns in order to protect the house. Hyler died in 2004, and his home has been designated as a historic place. 

Handley recalled looking online to compare the value of the Hyler family home with the house he’d moved from in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood. “We’re literally talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, so the racial wealth gap is so significant because of housing discrimination,” said Handley. Resisting racist housing practices took bravery and ingenuity. “Black people in Milwaukee knew about it, NAACP was actively fighting against it,” said Handley.

In the early 1940s, NAACP Attorney George Brawley surveyed plats filed in Milwaukee County and found that about 90 percent of the subdivisions in Milwaukee County since 1910 had some type of restrictive covenant which “pledged the owner not to sell or rent to anyone other than Caucasians.” Wilbur and Ardie Clark Halyard, who founded Columbia Savings & Loan Association in 1924, helped give Black people, poor whites and other disadvantaged groups the opportunity to get a loan to buy a house. While other states focused on winning in court, key players in Milwaukee worked on economic efforts to “break into certain neighborhoods, to provide the economic means for Black people to get the support they need to purchase homes, and then try to find pathways into those neighborhoods,” Handley told the Examiner. 

This history of defiance is also something the professors hope the Nov. 8 unveiling of Mapping Racism and Resistance will reveal to people, especially those who may not believe that the housing covenants really played a role in shaping their community, or who doubt that their legacy continues to endure. Hyler’s story particularly shows how far people would go to maintain whites-only communities. Although the covenants became unenforceable after the 1960s, communities like Wauwatosa maintained racist attitudes. In the late 1980s, a whistleblower exposed that Wauwatosa police officers, firefighters and residents were attending annual Martin Luther King Day parties where attendees wore Black face, distributed fliers suggesting hunting Black people instead of deer, and other racist behaviors. 

In late 2020, Mayor Dennis McBride acknowledged that “the Wauwatosa I grew up in was a racist, almost totally white community,” though he denied that it struggles with racism today. Earlier that year, some Wauwatosa residents received letters which stated: “We Whites must stand together. We must keep Wauwatosa free from Blacks and their lack of morals. We must keep Blacks from destroying our property, raping our wives and daughters, and recruiting our children into street gangs. We MUST keep Wauwatosa great. Together we can keep Wauwatosa White! Together we can keep Wauwatosa safe!” The Wauwatosa Police Department said that it didn’t plan to investigate who distributed the letters, and the department focused on surveilling and disrupting Black Lives Matter protesters that summer. 

Wauwatosa didn’t elect its first Black alderman until 2022. The following year, Wauwatosa’s common council voted to request that the state dissolve its housing covenants, which still exist today as invalid clauses of deeds passed to homeowners upon buying certain properties. Other Milwaukee-area suburban communities, like Brookfield, continue to struggle with accepting affordable housing developments and newcomers. 

Bonds cautions against the impulse to erase uncomfortable histories. Most people don’t want to live in a home with racist ownership clauses, Bonds told the Examiner, and “it’s a relic of the past, and something that is obviously really dark.” Yet, Bonds said, “We are wary of erasing the record,” because “removing them today obscures the work that they’ve already done. We can take them out of here now, but it doesn’t mean that they didn’t have an impact. It doesn’t mean that they didn’t do the work that they were set out to do when they were implemented in the first place.” The covenants conferred legal and economic power regardless of whether people who have benefited from them are “able to see it or understand it,” said Bonds.

A fully interactive website planned as part of the project has been delayed due to grant cuts, and Bonds and Handley are also working on a book. Viewers will be able to look up covenants for properties, and get down even to the parcel-level. “I definitely see this as just part of a longer study of trying to understand housing and the availability of housing to all residents of Milwaukee County,” said Bonds. “We really view this as a community project.”  

Roberts says Mapping Racism and Resistance captures an important history for people to see, especially people whose families have lived in communities built on a foundation of covenants and redlining for generations. “It’s important to not look away from that,” said Roberts. “And unless we’re having these tough conversations, I don’t think anything can get better.” Handley agreed, adding, “this is part of Milwaukee’s history, and what we can learn from it, and what we can do moving forward.”

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A hallway in La Follette High School in Madison. (Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Superintendent Jill Underly faced more criticism from lawmakers on Wednesday as the Joint Legislative Audit Committee reviewed the findings of a financial reporting audit and launched an audit of the agency’s licensing procedures.

During the first three hours of the committee hearing, Underly’s absence was a major discussion point for lawmakers on the committee as they reviewed the financial audit. She has also faced criticism for being absent about two weeks ago at the Assembly Government Oversight Accountability and Transparency committee meeting when she was in Indiana to accept an award. 

“This body is extremely disappointed that right now, when we’re going over an audit that probably impacts over $12 billion in what’s spent by our educational legal entities, that Dr. Underly is not joining us,” Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) said, adding that the committee provided details on the meeting weeks in advance.

Wittke said Underly is the only agency head who has not come before the committee when it is discussing an audit. 

“You don’t get the governor out of every hearing, do you?” Superintendent Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy said. “Dr. Underly is an elected official and has dispatched us to manage parts of these duties, and that is why you have me at these, because she does take it very seriously and is staying deeply briefed.” 

“It’s interesting, you say that she’s an elected official, but when I had an audit before us that included the Department of Justice, it appeared that Attorney General [Josh] Kaul could be in front of us and comment on that,” Wittke said. “Constitutionally, she supervises the educational system here, whether elected or not, and… so, I would think that it would be something that she would want to address.”

Wittke quipped that maybe McCarthy should be signing off on the audits instead of Underly. 

Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) said he found it “very concerning” that Underly was not at the hearing to discuss the first audit and her absence is a sign of “cowardice in a leader.” 

“To send the people who work for you in to take heat and not take it yourself would make me have a lack of confidence in my leader. I wouldn’t expect Superintendent Underly to have all the answers. Oftentimes an executive leader does not. They’re managerial… to defer to you to answer is quite different than not being available to be held accountable,” Wimberger said. 

The committee launched the audit into the financial reporting and the agency’s process for reviewing audited financial statements following a financial reporting scandal at the Milwaukee Public Schools last year. 

MPS faced significant criticism from lawmakers especially as the information came to light shortly after the district passed a $252 million operational referendum.

“The problem was recurring and compounding to a point where DPI was having difficulty appropriating funding accurately. That information was hidden from the public until after MPS convinced voters locally to approve a $200 million referendum,” Wimberger said during the hearing. “I’m sure voters would have had a different opinion of whether MPS needed money if they knew the district was so unaware of their internal finances.” 

In accordance with state statute, DPI monitors financial school districts’ financial statements  with a requirement that schools submit annually. Schools must contract with a certified public accounting firm, which submits the audited financial statements to DPI. 

Financial information from public schools and independent charter schools is required to be submitted by Dec. 15, under DPI policies. Voucher schools are required to submit financial information by Oct. 15 each year.

MPS was a recurrent discussion point during the hearing, though the audit found that MPS is not the only district with difficulties submitting documents on time.

Among schools’ 2022-23 audited financial statements, the Legislative Audit Bureau found that 77% were submitted on time and 22% were submitted late. For school districts that submitted on time, the agency took on average 87 days to complete its review of those audited financial statements.

Of those submitted late, 70% were submitted at least 29 days late. 

The audit looked at a sample of 18 school districts that submitted their statements late, finding that the agency contacted those districts 47 days after the Dec. 15, 2023 deadline. 

Milwaukee Public Schools’ audits for that year were submitted on Dec. 20, 2024, about a year after the due date —  the latest among all 421 school districts.

McCarthy said Milwaukee Public Schools had been historically late in turning in the district’s  annual audit, but it typically came with communication about why they were late and a commitment that the district would have the audit submitted in the following weeks. 

“That was not a normal year of being late for them,” McCarthy said of December 2023. 

When the lateness of the school district’s reports came to public attention, DPI said it had been meeting with MPS quarterly since April 2023, monthly since February 2024, weekly starting in March 15 2024 and then daily in May 2024 to get the district to submit its reports. The agency has since placed the district under two corrective action plans and withheld over $50 million from Milwaukee schools. Gov. Tony Evers has also launched separate audits of the district.

Wimberger expressed concern that MPS was given a “two-year grace period.” 

McCarthy said he believed the agency was “pretty strict” with the district. 

“If you consider withholding $51 million to be grace, I’ll call you next time we have a problem,” McCarthy said. 

“We used the tools and authority that we had at our disposal to compel the district through two separate corrective action plans, stood shoulder to shoulder in trying to clean up some of the local aspects of what’s going on, and I think the current superintendent has been deeply engaged in committing resources and staffing to making sure that this does not happen again,” McCarthy said. 

McCarthy said the situation with MPS has been a “long, painful journey that we don’t ever want to repeat with any other district.” 

The legislative audit found that DPI does not have a requirement that agency staff contact schools that haven’t submitted financial statements and audits on time. 

The Legislative Audit Bureau made 22 recommendations to DPI to improve its processes. 

Those recommendations included establishing written policies to require that it contact school districts within one month if their documents aren’t submitted by the deadline and regularly contacting schools until those audits are submitted. It also recommended that the agency establish a written policy that implements a deadline for starting its review of audited financial statements and completing those reviews. 

The audit bureau  made similar recommendations for DPI in overseeing private voucher schools and for the Department of Administration in overseeing the financial information for independent charter schools. 

McCarthy said that the agency is taking the audit bureau’s recommendations into consideration. That includes putting in writing all communication with district administrators and school boards as late reporting occurs.

McCarthy also noted that the agency has launched a school financial transparency dashboard that allows people to “dive in and look at any district” including reviewing records of compliance for reporting. 

“I’m glad you’re moving forward to try and crack the systemic problem, in my opinion, that deceived the public in the passing referendums without understanding the true financial situation of their respective district,” Wimberger said. 

Licensing and sexual misconduct audit

Underly was present during the latter half of Wednesday’s hearing, testifying on the agency’s licensing policies and changes it plans to make, especially  to investigations into educators accused of sexual misconduct and grooming. 

“Where were you this morning?” Wimberger asked.

“I was at the DPI,” Underly replied. Wimberger did not push the point. 

Underly repeated much of her testimony from the Tuesday Senate Education Committee including laying out some of the steps the agency is taking, launching a new webpage with the list of educators who have surrendered their licenses or had them revoked, as well as the changes she wants to see lawmakers work on, including providing additional resources for the agency’s licensing responsibilities and closing the loophole that allows unlicensed teachers to work in private schools.

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted unanimously to launch an audit into DPI’s policies and processes for educational licensure revocation, suspension, restriction and investigation. The audit will look at trends in the DPI’s investigations, its policies and how Wisconsin compares to its midwestern neighbors.

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Advocates who urged the Oregon legislature to increase child care funding in January 2024 hung onesies and other children’s clothes on a tent outside the Capitol in Salem. Officials in Oregon and other states are relying on their own funds to keep Head Start programs afloat during the federal government shutdown. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

With some early childhood education centers already closing their doors because of the federal government shutdown, local leaders are scrambling to find money to keep Head Start programs available to some of the country’s most vulnerable children.

Head Start programs, which serve more than 700,000 low-income children across the country, are almost entirely federally funded. In addition to free preschool, centers provide health screenings, parent resources and meals for children up to 5 years old. But the record-long government shutdown has forced child care centers across the country to close as funding is exhausted.

The closures are creating stark choices for some of the most vulnerable families in society. Migrant farmworkers, for example, who are more likely to be without health insurance and tend not to have any vacation time, are faced with the prospect of missing work, and a paycheck, to care for their children. A network of Head Start programs for migrant farmworkers’ children that operates in states across the South closed its sites on Friday.

To keep Head Start programs operating in her state, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey announced plans to advance $20 million in additional funding for the program. Those grant funds were previously approved to improve and expand the Massachusetts program, which gets about 80% of its funding from the federal government.

In a statement last week, Healey said the state was doing everything it could to support those programs, “but we don’t have the resources to make up for what the federal government owes.”

In Atlanta, private funders made an $8 million loan to keep Georgia’s largest Head Start providers afloat for the coming weeks.

Frank Fernandez, the president and CEO of Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, told CBS News that the measure was only a temporary solution: “Our elected officials must take action to end this shutdown and ensure the long-term sustainability of this critical program,” Fernandez said.

In Washington state, some school systems that operate Head Start programs are using their own funds to keep kids in classrooms, the Seattle Times reported. Still, other operations are cutting back staff and services to make do.

In neighboring Oregon, state officials are working out details of a 60-day deal to use existing funds to keep Head Start going, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported. State officials said Head Start providers must have experienced a delay in federal funds and the state assistance will not exceed the total amount of money awarded to a program by Oregon annually.

“It’s important to note that this is not a loan to Head Start programs and is not ‘backfilling,’” Kate Gonsalves, a spokesperson for the state’s early learning department said in a statement. “These are dual-funded programs so the state dollars are not replacing federal funds but can be drawn down earlier in the cycle.”

Some sites already shuttered

Head Start sites in 18 states have already closed their doors, according to the First Five Years Fund, a nonprofit advocating for quality child care and early childhood education.

The National Head Start Association, a nonprofit representing Head Start programs, said full or partial closures have affected 8,000 children. Nationwide, programs serving 65,000 children hadn’t received their federal funds as of Saturday, according to the group.

In Ohio, seven Head Start programs have exhausted their federal funds. Two have already closed, affecting 600 children and 150 employees. In the coming weeks, the Ohio Head Start Association says the other five will be forced to close their doors, affecting nearly 3,700 Ohio kids.

“Every day the shutdown continues, Ohio children and families are paying the price,” Julie Stone, Executive Director of the association said in a statement. “Head Start isn’t a political issue — it’s a lifeline for working families.”

Farmworkers’ children

Agricultural farmworkers, many of whom travel for seasonal work, have been hit particularly hard.

East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, which runs 43 Head Start centers in multiple states, suspended services on Friday. Around 1,200 children of agricultural farmworkers are without services now, but the number of children served fluctuates by season. The network is funded to serve 3,000 children of farmworkers across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia, and partners with other groups in a few other states.

In Florida, that means more than 800 children of agricultural workers are going without care due to the lapse in federal funding, said John Menditto, chief legal officer of East Coast Migrant Head Start Project. The group has also had to furlough its staff.

About 60% of farmworkers are American citizens or are in the country legally. Head Start is open to all children, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

In rural North Florida, roughly 80 children have been without early education, language and disability therapies, said Leannys Mendoza Gutierrez, the campus director for the migrant Head Start program in rural Jennings, Florida, which cares for babies 6 weeks old to kids up to 5 years old.

“[Farmworkers] are putting food on our tables, for all of us,” she said. “However, they are not so far receiving services due to this situation that we don’t know when it’s going to end.”

Migrant farmworker families in Gutierrez’s program work in North Florida and South Georgia on watermelon, cucumber, cabbage, pepper, tomato, strawberry and pine straw farms.

Many parents have been forced to skip work and lose pay because they have been unable to find child care alternatives, Gutierrez said. She added that her program steps in to cover pediatrician bills for families that don’t have health insurance. The shutdown has prevented her program from offering such assistance, too, she said.

Many farmworkers don’t have health insurance and already struggle with poverty, making staying home from work difficult. Many also receive food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which has also been affected by the shutdown.

“The shutdown just accentuates everything,” said Amy Liebman of the Migrant Clinicians Network, which works with clinics across the nation that serve migrant workers and their families. “Everyone’s concerned, they’re worried about the families they serve.”

Two other programs, one serving kids in the capital area of Tallahassee and another, Redlands Christian Migrant Association, which serves about 1,700 kids of agricultural workers in Florida, have also suspended services, according to the National Head Start Association.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org

A plane prepares to land at Newark Liberty International Airport. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday the Federal Aviation Administration would restrict air travel in 40 “high-traffic” areas of the country to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers who have been working without a paycheck since Oct. 1. 

The cutbacks will start Friday, Duffy said at an afternoon press conference. 

He and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said they would share more details, including which airports would be affected, Thursday. 

The officials emphasized the measure was proactive to prevent a safety failure, and they said air travel remained extremely safe.

“We’re noticing that there’s additional pressure that’s building in the system,” Duffy said. “Our priority is to make sure that you’re safe.”

Duffy did not specify the locations that will see a reduction in air traffic, but said the decisions were based on data of the locations where such pressure is increasing.

While the administration has so far avoided large-scale travel problems during the government shutdown that began Oct. 1, Duffy and Bedford said they were seeing strain on the air traffic controllers. 

Air traffic controllers are considered exempt federal employees, meaning they must work, but are not paid, during the shutdown. Some are taking second jobs to make ends meet, leading to fatigue, Duffy said. 

Duffy said the restrictions would likely lead to more cancellations, which he said he was “concerned about,” but decided to prioritize safety.

“We had a gut check of, what is our job?” he said. “Is it to make sure there’s minimal delays or minimal cancellations, or is our job to make sure we make the hard decisions to continue to keep the airspace safe? That is our job, is safety.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom looks on during an election night gathering at the California Democrats' headquarters on Nov. 4, 2025 in Sacramento. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democrats’ sweep of the biggest races in Tuesday’s off-year elections, including a California ballot measure to redraw that state’s congressional lines to give the party up to five more seats in the U.S. House, gave the party new confidence heading into the midterm elections next year.

Democrats proclaimed the performances of Govs.-elect Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani showed voters’ rejection of President Donald Trump. 

“The election results were not vague,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday. “They were not unclear. They were a lightning bolt: Trump, America doesn’t like what you’re doing. Change course.”

Republicans won control of the White House and both chambers of Congress one year ago, leaving Democrats without a clear leader or agenda at the national level. 

Tuesday’s results helped clarify for the party that a focus on economic issues was a winning message that Democrats could carry into the midterms.

Those messengers included Sherrill and Spanberger on the one end of the party’s ideological spectrum, and the Democratic Socialist Mamdani on the other. All three shared a campaign message centered on addressing the cost of living.

More remaps 

Effective campaigning may not be the only path Democrats are expected to take as they seek to regain power at the federal level. A wing of the party led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing other Democratic governors to redraw congressional lines to be more favorable to them.

The new California map is likely to be tied up in courts, at least in the short term. California Republicans sued in federal court Wednesday morning to block it. 

Republicans, meanwhile, sought to downplay the importance of elections in largely Democratic areas while attempting to make Mamdani the new face of Democrats nationally.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday there were “no surprises” in the previous day’s elections. 

“What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue,” the Louisiana Republican said. “We all saw that coming, and no one should read too much into last night’s election results — off-year elections are not indicative of what’s to come.” 

The wins in Tuesday’s elections galvanized congressional Democrats to restart negotiations to end the government shutdown on their terms, with Democratic leaders of the House and Senate sending Trump a three-sentence letter “to demand” a meeting to negotiate an end to the longest government shutdown in history.

Control of Congress

Democrats said Wednesday the results showed they were within striking distance of regaining majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Democrats would have to net four seats in the House and the Senate to win control of a respective chamber.

Schumer said Tuesday’s results showed that was possible in the Senate.

“The election showed that Democrats’ control of the Senate is much closer than the people and the prognosticators realize,” Schumer said. “The more Republicans double down on raising costs and bowing down to Trump, the more their Senate majority is at risk.”

Vice President JD Vance was dismissive of Democratic gains Wednesday, saying on social media it was “idiotic to overreact to a couple elections in blue states” and praising Republican organizing efforts.

But Democratic campaign officials said Wednesday that analysis belied wins lower on the ballot, including flipping 13 Virginia House of Delegates seats, half of which Republicans held for decades, and statewide wins for low-profile offices in the key swing states of Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin responded to Vance’s claim during a press call.

“That’s bullsh—,” he said. “We won all over the country in red counties and purple counties and in blue counties. The reality is, is this was a huge rejection of the Trump extremism and an embrace of the hopeful, positive message that Democrats are offering up.”

Martin and other Democrats praised Tuesday’s winners for relentlessly focusing on economic issues, and said Democratic candidates in 2026 would keep that focus.

Redistricting arms race

Newsom, the chief backer of the referendum to temporarily revoke power from the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, told other Democratic governors to take similar measures to enhance the party’s chances of winning a U.S. House majority.

“We need Virginia … we need Maryland … we need our friends in New York and Illinois and Colorado — we need to see other states meet this moment head-on as well,” Newsom said in a fundraising email Wednesday.

Martin characterized the passage of the California referendum, known as Proposition 50, as a reaction to Republican states’ moves to redraw their lines. 

“What happened in Prop 50 was the counterpunch to level the playing field,” Martin said. 

He indicated Democratic states would be happy to leave congressional districts as they are, but said the party would not hesitate to respond to GOP gerrymanders.

“Now, they want to keep doing it? Guess what: This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party,” Martin said. “We will meet you in every single state that you decide to try to steal more seats. We’re going to meet you in other states. We are not going to play with one hand behind our back. We’re not going to roll over. We are going to meet you, fire with fire.” 

Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the U.S. House Republican campaign organization, predicted in a statement that efforts to redraw congressional districts would not allow Democrats to win a majority in that chamber. 

“No matter how Democrats redraw the lines to satisfy Gavin Newsom’s power grab, they can’t redraw their record of failure, and that’s why they will fail to take the House majority,” Hudson said. “Even under this new map, Republicans have clear opportunities to flip seats because Californians are fed up with Democrat chaos. We will continue to compete and win because our candidates are stronger, our message is resonating, and Californians are tired of being ignored.”

Trump zeroes in on filibuster 

At a Wednesday breakfast with GOP senators, Trump had another idea for solidifying GOP power, saying the Senate needs to abolish the filibuster in order to end the shutdown and enact GOP policy while the party is still in the majority. 

Senate rules require at least 60 senators to advance a bill past the filibuster. Republicans’ narrow 53-seat majority has created obstacles in moving forward their agenda — including the House-passed stopgap spending bill to keep the government open that’s now failed more than a dozen times. 

“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump said at the breakfast. “It’s the only way you can do it, and if you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape — we won’t pass any legislation.” 

He added: “We will pass legislation at levels you’ve never seen before, and it’ll be impossible to beat us.” 

In a social media post Tuesday night, Trump said pollsters attributed Republicans’ election losses to his name not being on the ballot along with the ongoing shutdown.

Trump wrote in a separate post earlier Tuesday that “the Democrats are far more likely to win the Midterms, and the next Presidential Election, if we don’t do the Termination of the Filibuster (The Nuclear Option!).” 

GOP senators tepid

However, Trump’s push to do away with the filibuster has garnered little enthusiasm from GOP senators, including Majority Leader John Thune. 

The South Dakota Republican reiterated on Wednesday that “there are not the votes there,” telling reporters that “the main thing we need to be focused on right now, in my view, is get the government opened up again.” 

But some GOP senators appear to be on board with the idea, including Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who said he expressed his support for eliminating the filibuster during the breakfast.

“President Trump made a very convincing case,” Johnson told reporters. “We know the minute Democrats get (a) majority in the Senate, they’re going to get rid of the filibuster.” 

“We better beat them to the punch and act while we can pass legislation for the benefit of the American public,” he added.  

Sen. Jim Justice said that though he’s not in favor of getting rid of the filibuster, he wants to support Trump and would like the shutdown to end. 

“I mean, because you got a lot of people that are really hurting, that’s all there is to it, and if it’s the only option to stop this nonsense, then I would support,” the West Virginia Republican said. 

Sen. John Kennedy remained firm in his position, telling reporters that “the role of the senator is not just to advance good ideas, the role of the senator is to kill bad ideas, and when you’re in the minority — we’re not now, but we could be someday — it’s important to have a filibuster.” 

The Louisiana Republican noted that “we killed a lot of (former) President Biden’s goofy ideas through a filibuster, and someday the shoe will be on the other foot, and that’s why I’ve always supported the filibuster.” 

Republicans lash Democrats to Mamdani

Speaker Johnson and fellow House Republican leaders also sought to tie Mamdani to the Democratic Party. 

Johnson said Mamdani “is truly a committed Marxist, and the results of that race tell you everything you need to know about where the Democrats in their party are headed,” adding that “from the backbench to their leadership, Democrats have fallen in line behind the socialist candidates.” 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana echoed that “when the city of New York elected Zohran Mamdani, he became the new leader of the Democrat(ic) Party.” 

Scalise said that while the Democratic Party “had no problem making the shift to socialism — which they embraced wholeheartedly, led by Hakeem Jeffries and others here — America, mainstream Americans, Blue Dog Democrats across America, have not embraced socialism.” 

House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan said “over the past year, Democrats have wandered around with no plan, no vision and no leader, but today, they finally found their leader — the radical communist mayor(-elect) of New York City, a self-proclaimed communist who wants Americans to pay for global health care.” 

She added: “Well, you wanted it. You got it: A communist who wants the government to own grocery stores and a communist who wants the government to tell you what to do with your hard-earned money.” 

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report 

Afternoon light shines on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service Processing Center in El Centro, California, on May 27, 2022. (Getty photos)

An immigrant advocacy organization and the ACLU of Wisconsin are criticizing the Marathon County Sheriff’s decision to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an agreement that gives county jail staff some immigration enforcement authority. 

ICE records show the county signed an agreement on Tuesday to participate in the ICE 287(g) jail enforcement program. Under the jail enforcement model, county jail staff can question people in the jail about their immigration status and the county can hold non-citizens in jail for up to 48 hours to be picked up by federal agents. 

Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, ICE has been working to significantly expand the program across the country. Marathon is the fifth sheriff’s department in Wisconsin to sign an agreement with ICE this year, increasing the total from nine to 14. The Palmyra police department has also signed an agreement with the agency. 

“By applying to participate in the 287(g) program, the Marathon County Sheriff is offering to have his department be turned into an arm of ICE’s deportation machine,” the ACLU of Wisconsin said in a statement. “The 287(g) program is notorious for leading to racial profiling, unconstitutional policing, and wrongful detention of US citizens — and it makes communities less safe. People are less likely to seek help and report crime when their local law enforcement is seen as a partner with ICE, and going to the authorities could mean that they, a family member or a friend could be deported.”

Aside from 287(g), the Dodge County sheriff’s office has a contract with the federal government to hold federal detainees at the county jail. That agreement includes holding migrants on behalf of ICE and sometimes transporting them to and from out-of-state facilities such as the controversial ICE processing center in Broadview, Ill. 

Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant advocacy group, said the sheriff, Chad Billeb, should have engaged with the community before deciding to sign the agreement. 

“Sheriff Chad Billeb, as an elected official, should not have signed this agreement without engaging the community and local leaders in a transparent, democratic process that ensures accountability and information sharing. There is still time to do so and reverse course,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the organization’s executive director.

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Victor Schwartz, founder and president of VOS Selections, spoke to reporters outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. Schwartz, a New York-based wine and spirits importer of 40 years, was the lead plaintiff in the case against President Donald Trump's sweeping emergency tariffs. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court during lengthy arguments Wednesday weighed whether President Donald Trump violated the Constitution when he became the first U.S. president to impose sweeping global tariffs under an economic emergency powers statute usually reserved to combat rare and unusual threats.

Justices in both the conservative 6-3 majority and liberal minority questioned the sweeping presidential power the administration is claiming under IEEPA, including Chief Justice John Roberts. Questions about how Trump officials interpret the statute and view its limits, or lack thereof, revealed their skepticism.

Members of the president’s Cabinet, members of Congress and even comedian John Mulaney packed into the high court for the first major case of Trump’s second term to be fully argued before the justices. 

Tariffs are the centerpiece of Trump’s foreign policy, and he credits them in his recent negotiations to reach several unfinalized trade framework agreements with the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and China, among other nations.

For nearly three hours the justices poked and prodded at the language of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA, a 1970s-era sanctions law that Trump has invoked since January in a series of emergency declarations and proclamations triggering import taxes on goods from nearly every country.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer. 

Not far down the crowded rows were U.S. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Mulaney sat a few rows from the back, and was reportedly there to support former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who argued Wednesday on behalf of several private small businesses who sued Trump over the tariffs. Katyal, who served under President Barack Obama and hosts the “COURTSIDE” podcast, has collaborated with Mulaney on his show.

Small business owners ‘footing the bill’

The case centered on whether the president has unilateral authority to impose tariffs under IEEPA. 

Trump became the first president to ever invoke import taxes under the 1977 emergency powers law, which has traditionally used sanctions to control economic transactions of hostile groups and individuals. For example, IEEPA was first invoked during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and later used to freeze assets of terrorist groups after 9/11. In all, presidents have declared 77 national emergencies under the statute.

Small business owners who challenged Trump’s usage of the law argued the president doesn’t have the authority to tax them, and that the policy is upending their livelihoods. 

Since Trump declared emergencies around fentanyl smuggling and imbalanced trade relationships, U.S. businesses have been paying anywhere from 10% to upwards of 50% on imports, depending on country of origin.

“It’s American businesses like mine and American consumers that are footing the bill for the billions of dollars collected,” Victor Schwartz, founder and president of the family-owned wine and spirits importer VOS Selections and lead plaintiff, said outside the courthouse following arguments.

Small businesses and Democratic state attorneys general led the charge in the two separate cases, consolidated before the Supreme Court. They allege Trump usurped taxing power, which belongs to Congress as outlined in Article I of the Constitution.

Schwartz’s fellow plaintiffs included a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.

Among the state officials who also joined the suit were state attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon.

Two Illinois-based toy makers that primarily manufacture products in Asia filed a separate challenge.

Solicitor general argues ‘power to tariff’

The Trump administration argues tariffs are a necessary tool to achieve economic and national security goals. Officials claim the president’s power to impose duties under IEEPA is spelled out in the statute’s language authorizing the president to “regulate” importation and exportation during times of an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

“One of the most natural applications of that is the power to tariff,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer — the former Missouri solicitor general — said in response to questioning by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

“So when Congress confers the power to regulate imports, it is, naturally, conferring the power to tariff,” Sauer continued.

Chief Justice Roberts asked Sauer to clarify the “major power” he claimed was granted in the statute.

“The exercise of the power is to impose tariffs, right? And the statute doesn’t use the word tariffs?” Roberts said.

“But it uses the words ‘regulate importations,’ and historically, a core, central application of that, a big piece of that, has always been to tariff,” Sauer answered, speaking at a quick and excited pace.

Many emergencies

Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer why a president would ever use any of the other specific and constraint-bound tariff powers delegated by Congress if IEEPA “gives the president the opportunity to blow past those limits.”

“Because if you look at Title 19 (of the U.S. Code), which is loaded with tariffs and duties of various kinds, all of them have real constraints on them. They are, you know, you can’t go over X percent, or it can’t last more than one year. And of course, the way you interpret this statute, it has none of those constraints,” Kagan said.

Sauer responded that IEEPA “has its own constraints.”

“The president has to make a formal declaration of a national emergency, which subjects him to particularly intensive oversight by Congress, repeated natural lapsing, repeated review reports and so forth,” he said.

Kagan swiftly interjected: “I mean, you yourself think that the declaration of emergency is unreviewable, and even if it’s not unreviewable, it is, of course, the kind of determination that this Court would grant considerable deference to the president on, so that doesn’t seem like much of a constraint.”

“And in fact, you know, we’ve had cases recently which deal with the president’s emergency powers, and it turns out we’re in emergencies, about everything all the time, about like half the world,” Kagan said, to laughter in the courtroom.

Trump has petitioned the high court numerous times in 2025, putting cases regarding mass layoffs and immigration on the justices’ unofficial shadow docket, which bypasses a full argument process.

Trump comfort with tariffs

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked why of the nearly 70 emergencies declared under IEEPA in past decades, none of them have invoked tariffs as a solution.

“Why do you think Presidents, Clinton, Bush, Obama, have not used IEEPA to impose tariffs? Because there have been trade disputes, certainly President Bush, steel imports and the like. Why do you think IEEPA has not been used?” Kavanaugh asked.

Sauer answered: “When you go through them one at a time, which we had our team do, it’s really hard to find one when you look at that emergency, you say, ‘Oh, tariffs is the natural tool you would use to address that emergency.’”

There are also “political reasons,” Sauer added. “I think that it’s no question that President Trump is by far the most comfortable with the tariffs as a tool, both economic and foreign policy, than many of others.”

Fentanyl smuggling targeted

Trump began imposing tariffs under IEEPA through a series of executive orders and proclamations in February and March on products from China, Canada and Mexico, declaring these countries responsible for illegal fentanyl smuggling into the United States.

The president escalated the emergency tariffs over the following months on goods from around the globe, declaring trade imbalances a national emergency. In addition to a baseline 10% global tariff, Trump specifically targeted countries that export more goods to the U.S. than they import from U.S. suppliers.

As recently as late August, Trump imposed an extra 25% tariff on goods imported from India, bringing the total tariffs on Indian products to 50%, because of the country’s usage of Russian oil. 

In early August, Trump slapped a 40% tax on all Brazilian goods after he disagreed with the country’s prosecution of its former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup to remain in power in 2022.

Speaking to reporters following the arguments, Bessent said he thought the case “went very well.” 

“I think the solicitor general has made a very powerful case,” he said.

When asked whether the administration was crafting plans for what to do if the Supreme Court invalidates Trump’s emergency tariffs, he replied, “We’re not going to discuss that now.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters during a news conference on Nov. 5, 2025 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Following major Democratic wins in local and state elections across the country on Election Day, top Democratic congressional leaders pushed for a meeting with the president to end the federal government shutdown, which on Wednesday became the longest in U.S. history at day 36.

“The election results ought to send a much-needed bolt of lightning to Donald Trump that he should meet with us to end this crisis, his shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “It’s time to hold a bipartisan meeting. The takeaway from last night was simply unmistakable.” 

Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, sent a Wednesday letter to President Donald Trump, calling for a bipartisan meeting at the White House to end the government shutdown and to address the spike in individual health care premiums.

“Last night, Republicans felt political repercussions,” Schumer said after Tuesday’s Election Day wins for Democrats. They included passage of a redistricting measure in California to offset partisan gerrymandering by GOP states, governorships in New Jersey and Virginia and local races across the country.

For more than a month, Democrats have voted against approving the House-passed GOP stopgap spending measure over concerns that health care tax subsidies will expire at the end of the year. As open enrollment begins, people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are seeing a drastic increase in premium costs. 

Sanders pushes back on dealmaking

Schumer did not detail what kind of deal Democrats would accept, but said any negotiation “must address the health care needs of the American people.”

However, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said that Democrats should not accept any agreement with the GOP unless there is a commitment from House Speaker Mike Johnson and the president to pass legislation to extend those tax credits.

“Bottom line is, we need to be successful in protecting the health care of the American people, and if it’s just a piece of legislation that passes the Senate … so what? Where does it go? Then it becomes just a meaningless gesture,” Sanders said. 

Republicans have maintained that they will only have a discussion on health care after Democrats agree to resume government funding. 

This week, the Senate failed for the 14th time to pass a stopgap spending measure that would fund the government until Nov. 21. 

Lawmakers have acknowledged that a new stopgap spending bill will need to be extended past the Nov. 21 deadline, but have not come to an agreement on a new deadline.

Thune plays down Democratic victories

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday that he was skeptical the government shutdown played into major wins for Democrats across the country. 

“The shutdown doesn’t benefit anyone,” he said.

The South Dakota Republican noted the shutdown may have played a role in suburban Virginia, where a large share of federal workers live and are furloughed due to the government shutdown.

“In Northern Virginia, that has a lot of federal workers, so it certainly could have been a factor in the elections,” Thune said. “But I think it’s hard to draw conclusions.”

But Thune said he’s focused on ending the government shutdown, and hopes progress can continue to be made before senators are scheduled to be out next week for recess due to the Veterans Day holiday. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy this week warned that if the shutdown continues into next week, it could lead to certain airspace needing to be closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers who have continued to work amid the shutdown.

Trump, in a social media post, blamed two factors for Republicans not performing well on Tuesday: his absence from the ballot, and the government shutdown.

“I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor, and they say that I wasn’t on the ballot was the biggest factor,” Trump said during a Wednesday press conference.

Withholding SNAP benefits

As the government shutdown has continued, the Trump administration has tried to get Senate Democrats to agree to the stopgap spending measure by directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not tap into its contingency fund to provide food assistance to 42 million people.

Two federal courts found that the Trump administration acted unlawfully in holding back those Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, and USDA agreed that it would partially release SNAP benefits. 

Trump earlier this week wrote on his social media platform that SNAP benefits would only be released when Democrats vote to reopen the government, a move that would likely violate the two court orders.

“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!,” he wrote.

However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt seemed to walk back that statement on Tuesday, arguing that the president’s social media post did not refer to the court order, but to future SNAP payments.

“The president doesn’t want to tap into this (contingency) fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to,” Leavitt said.

Cleveland “Cleve” Francis, a UPS driver who retired this year, in Louisville, Kentucky. Trade and transportation jobs saw most of the gains in a new jobs report. (Photo courtesy of UPS)

The United States gained 42,000 jobs in October, the first increase since July as measured by ADP, a private payroll processing company and the only source of jobs estimates during the government shutdown, as federal jobs reports have been paused.

ADP’s report, released Wednesday, showed job increases mostly in West Coast states, which gained 37,000 jobs between September and October, and continued job losses on the East Coast. The New York area, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, lost 20,000 jobs while coastal states from Delaware to Florida lost 8,000 jobs.

Most of the job increases were in trade and transportation, which includes stores, wholesale and shipping jobs. In that sector, there were 47,000 new jobs for the month.

Those industries added jobs despite uncertainty over tariffs, said Guy Berger, a labor economist and senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, a labor market think tank based in Philadelphia. But Berger said it’s unclear whether the job gains will be long lasting or will disappear in new rounds of high tariffs on consumer goods.

“They’re feeling headwinds but they’re very ping-pongy, It’s like, ‘Who knows what the next bit of news will be or how you’re going to have to adjust your supply?’” Berger said.

“In years past this would have been considered quite weak, but the number was positive at least,” Berger said. “Because immigration flows have been squeezed during the current administration and maybe have even gone negative at this point, we don’t need a lot of jobs each month to keep the labor market on an even keel.”

The ADP report is based on weekly payroll data for 26 million private-sector employees. It does not include an estimate of the unemployment rate, unlike the suspended federal report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It also does not break down the statistics by race or gender.

Last month’s job gains were concentrated in large businesses with more than 500 employees, which gained 70,000 jobs for the month, while jobs dropped overall for small and medium-size businesses, according to the report.

The median annual pay growth was 4.5% for those in the same jobs and 6.7% for those in new jobs, the same as September and little changed for more than a year, the report said, indicating that “shifts in supply and demand are balanced.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

“It's been deeply disappointing to see attempts to turn this serious issue into yet another partisan political sideshow. Our kids deserve better than that. Wisconsin families deserve better than that,” Underly said at a press conference. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

State Superintendent Jill Underly said allegations of mishandled sexual misconduct and grooming by teachers have been turned into a “partisan political sideshow” as she announced that her agency is launching a database to list the names of teachers  who have surrendered  their licenses or had them revoked. She also laid out other actions that could be taken to improve the current system for responding to allegations.

It was the first time that Underly spoke to the public in person since the publication of a CapTimes report that found there were over 200 investigations into teacher licenses due to allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming from 2018 to 2023. The investigation led to an outcry from lawmakers, who said they want action to ensure students are safe. 

Underly was absent from the first informational hearing on the subject held in the Assembly Government Oversight, Accountability and Transparency (GOAT) committee about two weeks ago. She was out of state to accept an award from her alma mater Indiana University. 

Underly told reporters at a press conference ahead of the hearing Tuesday in the Senate Education Committee that she was interested in “protecting Wisconsin’s children” whether they are in public, private or charter schools and she called on policymakers to work towards solutions and stay away from “finger pointing” and “political theater.” 

“It’s been deeply disappointing to see attempts to turn this serious issue into yet another partisan political sideshow. Our kids deserve better than that. Wisconsin families deserve better than that,” Underly said. “But we won’t be distracted or deterred, and our focus remains exactly where it belongs on protecting kids.” 

Underly’s comments come after U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, who stood alongside state Republican lawmakers, suggested during a press conference that Gov. Tony Evers needed to “call on Jill Underly to either do her job or step aside” and connected the issue of sexual misconduct and grooming to “indoctrination” through liberal curriculum in schools. Washington County Executive and gubernatorial hopeful Josh Schoemann outright called for Underly’s resignation. 

Underly told reporters that calls for her resignation are “preposterous.” 

Underly said she will also attend the Joint Audit Committee hearing on Wednesday where lawmakers plan to launch an audit into the educational licensure revocation, suspension, restriction and investigation at DPI. 

During both the press conference and the committee hearing, Underly rejected claims that the agency is shielding information from the public, but said there is more work that can be done to strengthen the agency and the state’s current processes.

“The department does not cover up misconduct. We do not shield information from the public. We do not ignore allegations. We do everything in our power to remove those who harm children from classrooms, and we do it urgently and decisively,” Underly said. “Unfortunately, some have chosen to use this deeply sensitive issue to score political points and that doesn’t protect children. It distracts from real solutions.”

Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown), who chairs the Senate Education Committee, opened the Senate hearing by saying that the response by DPI, including Underly’s absence from the GOAT committee hearing, was “disturbing” to him.

“The bottom line is kids’ safety needs to be the No. 1 priority, full stop, and I believe that’s what we hope to investigate today and look into how we can help make this a better situation for our kids,” Jagler said. 

Underly said there are several “practical” and “achievable” steps her agency is taking and Wisconsin policymakers could take to bolster safety for students.

Defining grooming 

One of the top steps that Underly identified is for the state to define “grooming” in state law. She said that the agency already investigates and pursues license revocations for teachers accused of grooming students for sexual exploitation and for predatory behavior, but clarifying a definition could help ensure consistency. 

“Grooming and predatory behaviors are not just school issues. They are societal issues that happen in every corner of our communities, and that’s why we need to do more as a state to prevent, identify and address these behaviors wherever they occur,” Underly said. “Without stronger laws and clear definitions, the referrals we receive can be inconsistent. Wisconsin urgently needs to clarify grooming and define it as a crime so that law enforcement can act swiftly and consistently, no matter where it happens.”

A bill, coauthored by Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp), would define “grooming” in state statute and make it a felony to engage in grooming a child for sexual activity.

Underly said she welcomes conversations about the bill.

Under the bill, “grooming” would be defined as “a course of conduct, pattern of behavior, or series of acts with the intention to condition, seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a child for the purpose of engaging in sexual intercourse or sexual contact, or for the purpose of producing, distributing, or possessing depictions of the child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” 

It also lists examples of behavior that would constitute grooming including verbal comments or conversations of a sexual nature directed at a child; inappropriate or sexualized physical contact; written, electronic and communication over text and social media to lure or entice a child; promising gifts, privileges, or special attention to lower a child’s inhibitions or create emotional dependence; and acts intended to isolate a child from family or peers. 

The authors of the bill said in a memo that the bill builds on the state laws on grooming that exist in Florida, Texas, Ohio and Illinois. 

A person convicted of a grooming charge would be guilty of a Class G felony, that would increase to a Class F felony if the person is in a position of trust or authority, and to a Class E felony if the child has a disability and to a Class D felony if the violation involves two or more children. A convicted person would also need to register as a sex offender.

Other agency and legislative steps

Lawmakers on the committee also asked about the number of staff dedicated to investigating allegations. 

Underly said they have 1.5 employees working on license investigations and those employees have access to the agency’s team of attorneys. 

Jagler asked whether that was sufficient. 

Underly said it would be helpful to have more resources, though she emphasized that providing subpoena power to the agency would help speed investigations along. 

“We need to strengthen our investigations today. The DPI lacks subpoena power during investigations, meaning we rely on voluntary cooperation of witnesses, district officials, and others to gather critical information,” Underly said. “Even limited authority would allow us to gather evidence more efficiently and act faster to protect kids.” 

Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy noted during the hearing that the agency can become involved in any stage of the process of dealing with allegations, but it is not typically the primary investigator in cases. 

“Most of the time, we are being notified by law enforcement, by county child welfare, by a district who has subsequently said, ‘Hey, we have a teacher who is being investigated by law enforcement or there’s a scenario over here.’

The agency’s role focuses on investigating whether an educator’s license should be removed or whether they should seek a voluntary surrender from someone under investigation. During investigations, McCarthy said the agency typically relies on gathering credible information from law enforcement, school districts, local partners and others. He said even if there isn’t information readily available to be shared with the agency they are still working to “go after these people.” 

“What’s happening with the 1.5 staff is, they’re often following up, saying, ‘Hey, sheriff’s department, have you completed this? Hey, school district, are you done with this particular investigation.’ Without subpoena power, we’re doing that in a voluntary fashion with them. Sometimes they tell us to pound sand, and we have to wait and we have to wait and wait and wait. Sometimes we get tired of waiting and actually, just move into a voluntary surrender or revocation action, but it would be way better for the system if we weren’t always way delayed in the back seat of this entire process so that we could take swifter action.”

Underly said the agency is also working on a statewide code of conduct, which will soon be published for public comment through administrative rules and will serve as a guide for school boards developing policies on professional boundaries. 

DPI has a model policy on its website for school districts, but it isn’t mandatory. 

“That’s something you all would have to talk about as to whether you want that to be more than just recommended on the website,” said Jennifer Kammerud, who serves as DPI’s educator licensing director.

Another step, Underly said, includes the launch of a new online database to allow the public to view licenses that have been revoked or surrendered. She said the new tool will create more transparency by expanding on the current teacher license lookup tool. 

Currently, the public can see the status of a teacher’s  license on the primary database, a teacher’s name is required to check a license status. The new database lists names of individuals in alphabetical order who have voluntarily surrendered or had their licenses revoked. 

McCarthy said it would be a little while before the website is updated with information about the reasoning behind license revocation or surrender because the information is not electronic yet. He said DPI must locate individual revocation orders and will add the information as it is gathered.

In addition, Underly said that the state needs to modernize the licensing system used for educators, but the agency needs resources to get it done. She said that allowing DPI to keep 10% of licensing fees, which is currently diverted away from the agency, would allow investments in licensing improvements and investigations. 

The agency also requested $600,000 in the most recent state budget process to modernize its online background checks and licensing platform, but that was rejected by the Republican-led Legislature. 

During the hearing Republican lawmakers questioned why Underly hadn’t come specifically to them with her requests. (During the most recent budget process, the Joint Finance Committee, which typically hosts agency heads to explain their budget requests, declined to invite Underly or DPI to make a presentation.)

“Obviously, I’ll never tell you how to do your job, Superintendent, but you mentioned requesting for funding — how [Joint Finance Committee] has never asked you to come talk to them. I guess in my experience [Department of Safety and Professional Standards] Sec. Dan [Hereth] was in my office asking and explaining those things,” said Sen. Romaine Quinn (R-Birchwood), who is a member of the Joint Finance Committee. “I would just say no one is going to ask you to come in and ask for more money.” 

Underly also said the state needs to close loopholes for private schools. Educators employed at private schools in Wisconsin are not required to hold a DPI license, meaning staff at those schools fall outside of the agency’s investigative authority. The agency is only able to investigate and keep individuals out of schools via the licensure system.

Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) emphasized that he wanted discussions about improving the process to cover students in public, private and other schools. 

“I would hope that as we focus our attention on what is happening in the public domain, and what information is publicly available and was pulled off of a public website, and then publicly reported, that we don’t pretend that because things are private and happening in private schools and behind closed doors that the 125,000 students who are in classrooms where there is not a required licensure and where there is not required reporting and where information is not public, that we pretend that there are not problems that exist there,” Larson said. 

At one point during the committee hearing, Larson asked his colleagues whether they would want to work to help close the loophole. Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) nodded.

“It’s a dangerous loophole and we need to close it,” Underly said.

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