The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, April 9, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

States led by Democrats should resist the temptation to conduct their own mid-decade redistricting in response to Republicans in the Texas Legislature moving to redraw U.S. House lines before the 2026 elections, officials with the nonpartisan election integrity group Common Cause said on a press call Tuesday.

While blasting Texas Republicans’ effort to remake congressional districts in the middle of a decade — instead of after the decennial census, as is typical — the officials said the creation of  nonpartisan redistricting commissions that take the job out of politicians’ hands was a better policy than joining a redistricting arms race.

Common Cause, a national organization with several state chapters, is often aligned with progressive causes, but advocates for fair redistricting regardless of party.

Emily Eby French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, said election infrastructure should be neutral, arguing against the suggestion from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats that blue states pursue mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage.

“Our election infrastructure is not supposed to have a thumb on the scale for either side,” French said.

“In Texas, conservatives press their thumbs so hard on the scale that it feels impossible to overcome,” she continued. “Maybe a quick fix would be to have Democrats press their thumbs on their own scales. But then it’s just rigged elections across America. The real solution is for Democrats to help us lift the Republican thumb off of the Texas scale and every other scale in America until we reach free and fair elections for everyone.”

Russia Chavis Cardenas, the deputy director for Common Cause California, added that Newsom should not “fight fire with fire.” Partisan redistricting processes inherently disadvantage communities of color, she said.

California’s independent redistricting commission, made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four nonpartisan members, is the “gold standard … (an) independent and community-led process,” Dan Vicuna, senior policy director for voting and fair representation at Common Cause’s national office, said.

The state should not sacrifice that model for short-term political gain, he said.

Texas redistricting

Republicans held a 220-215 advantage in the U.S. House following the 2024 elections. Those elections happened on district maps drawn after the 2020 census.

The GOP House majority was helped in part by Texas’ 2020 district map, which produced Republican wins in nearly two-thirds of the state’s districts.

Civil rights groups sued over the new lines, claiming that some districts discriminated against Black and Latino voters.

Texas Republicans resisted calls to redraw the lines, but the U.S. Justice Department this month sent a letter urging state leaders to reconsider.

The letter “was sloppily and transparently creating a pretext for Texas legislators to redraw the state’s gerrymandered congressional map and somehow gerrymander it even more in favor of Republicans,” Vicuna said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump quickly dissolved that pretext, putting the issue in nakedly political terms on a call with Texas Republicans. Trump said the state’s lines should be redrawn to create five additional U.S. House seats, the Texas Tribune reported. A president’s party typically loses congressional seats during midterm elections.

Following the letter, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called a special session to address redistricting, among other things.

Dem states respond

In addition to Newsom, leaders in the Democratic strongholds of New York and Illinois are considering retaliating by initiating their own mid-decade redistricting processes, according to a New York Times report.

Other prominent national Democrats are calling for the party to be more aggressive in redistricting.

U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego wrote on X last week that Democrats should break some heavily Democratic majority-minority districts to help win more seats.

In follow-up posts responding to replies, Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, wrote that Democrats should gerrymander districts in their favor.

“It’s bad when everyone does it,” the first-term senator and former House member wrote about gerrymandering. “But Dems should not unilaterally disarm till GOP does.”

Gallego’s post was retweeted by Jessica Post, a campaign strategist who previously led Democrats’ state legislative campaign arm. But the party’s current establishment is largely not commenting.

A July 23 memo to Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee contributors from Heather Williams, who succeeded Post as the group’s president, mentioned the Texas redistricting, but said it only raised the stakes for statehouse races in the next three election cycles in advance of 2030 redistricting.

“Today, as Donald Trump and his allies in the states are openly pushing to draw new, gerrymandered seats in Texas to protect the GOP’s meager House majority leading up to 2026, it’s clear this is just a preview of what’s to come,” Williams wrote. “The 2030 redistricting fight has already begun.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm for House Democrats, did not respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday.

Vicuna, with Common Cause, urged reporters not to see redistricting not as a partisan conflict, but as an issue of voter representation.

“This familiar framing that makes redistricting entirely about a political fight between parties is also kind of the problem,” he said. “This is ultimately about fair representation for communities, getting to have a say, being at the table when decisions are made about whether they can have fair representation. And I think that’s what we’re really talking about here, not just the food fight between the parties.”

Emil Bove, President Donald Trump's nominee to be a judge for the 3rd Circuit, testifies during his Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing on June 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday night confirmed President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, Emil Bove, to a lifetime position on the federal appeals bench, in the face of whistleblower allegations and criticism from former judges and advocates.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine broke with their party and joined all Democrats in a 50-49 vote to oppose Bove’s confirmation to the U.S. Appeals Court for the 3rd Circuit, which handles cases for Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Bove, 44, currently holds the position of principal associate deputy attorney general at the U.S. Justice Department. Trump initially appointed Bove as acting attorney general at the start of the president’s second term.

The former federal prosecutor and private defense attorney faced numerous accusations of misconduct throughout his confirmation process.

Democrats walked out of a July 17 committee vote to advance Bove’s nomination, largely protesting the GOP-led panel’s refusal to hear further testimony from a whistleblower who alleged Bove suggested defying a federal court order.

Longtime Justice Department senior official Erez Reuveni, who served in the first Trump administration, blew the whistle on Bove for a March 14 meeting during which he allegedly suggested subordinates tell the federal courts “f— you” if a judge ordered a halt to Trump’s deportation flights to El Salvador. A second whistleblower corroborated the alleged comment, according to a CNN report Sunday.

Senate Democrats, former judges and advocates also voiced concern over Bove’s alleged unethical behavior, including questions about his role as a top Justice official in the dismissal of federal bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams and in the firing of prosecutors who worked on cases probing the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Bove has denied any wrongdoing.

Critics also pointed to a trail of allegations from Bove’s former colleagues in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York that he created a hostile work environment, as first reported by Politico in February.

‘Unfair accusations and abuse’

On Monday, the Washington Post reported that a third whistleblower had come forward, this time alleging the top Justice Department office misled the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in testimony regarding the dropped charges against Adams.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the committee tasked with vetting judicial nominees, said on the floor ahead of the vote that Democrats “grossly mischaracterized” allegations against Bove.

“I have serious concerns with how my Democratic colleagues have conducted themselves — the vicious rhetoric, unfair accusations and abuse directed at Mr. Bove,” the Iowa Republican said.

Grassley said he asked Bove to put in writing his response to the latest whistleblower accusations.

“In his letter, Mr. Bovey flatly denies the allegations that he misled the committee,” Grassley said.

In the seven-page letter made public by Grassley Tuesday evening, Bove dismissed the accusations as a “partisan smear campaign” and a “sham.”

“I understand that a lifetime appointment to a federal court of appeals is a serious matter. I welcome serious scrutiny of my record and my service to this country. My record includes 32 appeals, 13 trials, nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor, clerkships in federal trial and appellate courts, successfully defending the President of the United States, and helping lead the Department of Justice,” Bove wrote.

“Principled evaluation of that record, separated from the raw political warfare by Democrats that has tainted this process, confirms that I will be a fearless, independent judge committed to justice and the rule of law,” he continued.

‘So wrong, so unusual’

Senate Democrats railed against the nomination Tuesday.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said ahead of the vote the allegations against Bove “were not minor episodes of prosecutorial misconduct.”

“What we’re about to do is so wrong, so unusual, that even if these remarks will have no effect whatsoever, I feel obliged to come to the floor,” the Rhode Island lawmaker said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, wrote in a social media post that “Three credible whistleblowers have come forward with serious allegations against Emil Bove, a Trump judicial nominee. Republicans are ignoring them and rushing to confirm Bove anyway.”

“They’re afraid of the truth… and Donald Trump’s wrath. Shameful,” Durbin, of Illinois, continued.

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon by the Not Above the Law Coalition, the organization’s leaders said Bove is “unfit for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.”

“His record of misconduct and disdain for the rule of law is a direct threat to judicial independence and Americans’ rights and freedoms. Any senator who votes to confirm Bove is making clear that their loyalty lies with Donald Trump, not the people they serve or the Constitution they swore to uphold,” the statement continued from the coalition’s co-chairs, including Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen; Praveen Fernandes, vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center; Kelsey Herbert, campaign director at MoveOn; and Brett Edkins, managing director for policy and political affairs at Stand Up America.

Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on June 25, 2025. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday.

Monarez — whom the Senate confirmed on a party-line vote, 51-47 — will now be responsible for the national public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Atlanta-based agency has faced backlash as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pursues a vaccine-skeptical agenda.

GOP Sens. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Dan Sullivan of Alaska did not vote.

Monarez was the acting director of the CDC between January and March. She previously served as the deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which is part of HHS.

Monarez, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, will be the first person without a medical degree to hold the title since 1953.

The White House originally selected former Florida U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon to lead the CDC but withdrew the nomination in March.

Monarez’s confirmation followed a procedural vote earlier Tuesday that saw her advance, 52-47, along party lines.

Kennedy continues to face scrutiny after he fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, in June and named eight new members — a number of whom are viewed as skeptical of vaccines.

Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, launched an investigation alongside seven Democratic members of the committee Tuesday regarding Kennedy’s firings and replacements within the critical vaccine panel.

“By removing all 17 of ACIP’s members and replacing them with eight individuals handpicked to advance your anti-vaccine agenda, you have put decades of non-partisan, science-backed work — and, as a result, Americans’ lives — at risk,” the senators wrote in a letter to Kennedy.

Those seven Democratic committee members include Sens. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Andy Kim of New Jersey and Tim Kaine of Virginia. 

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, center, announces his agency's plans for deregulation from an Indianapolis trucking facility on Tuesday, July 29, 2025. At left is Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and at right is Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita.  (Photo by Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency submitted a proposal Tuesday to rescind a 2009 finding that has provided the foundation for the agency’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, drawing strong opposition from Democrats and climate groups.

Administrator Lee Zeldin said the EPA would scrap what is known as its endangerment finding, established under President Barack Obama. The determination called climate change a danger to human health and therefore gave the EPA power to regulate the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from cars and trucks.

The finding provided the framework for numerous EPA regulations, including a 2024 rule requiring increasingly strict tailpipe emissions standards.

But Zeldin, who announced the proposal during an appearance in Indianapolis, said that framework created uncertainty for auto manufacturers and buyers and hurt the wider economy.

President Donald Trump’s EPA would eliminate the finding, he said.

“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” Zeldin said in a written statement. Under Obama and President Joe Biden, the agency “twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”

The announcement touched off outrage from congressional Democrats and groups that advocate for strong action to curb the climate crisis.

“With this action, Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin are putting massive corporate polluters in the driver’s seat at EPA and it will be everyday Americans who pay the price – with their health, their energy bills, their jobs, their homes, and even with their lives,” House Energy and Commerce ranking Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey wrote in a statement.

“The only winners from this proposal are corporate polluters who will be allowed to dump unlimited pollution into our communities without any consequences.”

EPA denies it has authority

In a Tuesday notice in the Federal Register, the EPA said it would rescind all greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles, consistent with its opinion that the endangerment finding was unlawful.

“The EPA no longer believes that we have the statutory authority and record basis required to maintain this novel and transformative regulatory program,” the agency said.

Supreme Court cases in recent years, including a decision that limited the EPA’s power to regulate power plants and a decision that denied federal agencies were due deference in drafting regulations, indicated the endangerment finding overstepped, the EPA said in a news release.

Repealing the finding would increase consumer choice, lower prices for goods delivered by truck and save $54 billion annually in associated taxes, the EPA said.

The agency will accept public comments on the proposal until Sept. 21.

Health and economic impact

Despite the Trump EPA’s assertion that the move would save money for Americans, climate groups said the opposite was true, and that the finding would hurt access to alternative energy sources. 

“The reason (Trump) is doing this is not scientific,” former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in an interview with States Newsroom. “It’s just his slavish devotion to his billionaire friends in the oil and gas industry that he wants to help, and destroy the ability of Americans to get clean and cheap — I want to emphasize cheap — electricity. This is not just a health issue. It’s a financial health issue, basically denying Americans the ability to get the most reasonably priced electricity in America.”

Inslee, a Democrat who sought his party’s presidential nomination in 2020 on a platform that emphasized climate issues, is a national spokesperson and executive with the advocacy group Climate Power.

“It’s a reckless move that will make Americans less safe and hurt our economy by slowing the growth of affordable clean energy and fueling the heat waves, storms, floods, and wildfires that threaten people’s homes and communities,” U.S. House Natural Resources ranking Democrat Jared Huffman, of California, said in a statement.

Democrats and environmental groups also argued the scientific evidence clearly showed greenhouse gas emissions were harmful.

“You can’t with a straight face argue that pollution is not endangering human health,” Inslee said. “Look at the deaths that are piling up. Flash floods and heat domes, asthma and cardiovascular events. This stuff is bad for human health. I don’t know how you can make the argument otherwise.”

Lawsuits ahead

Legal challenges from Democratic attorney generals are almost certainly imminent, Inslee said Tuesday afternoon.

“If a lawsuit hasn’t been filed yet, I’ll have to call (Washington Attorney General) Nick Brown and tell him to hurry up,” he said. “It’s been a couple hours now.”

In a statement, Brown said he would “consider all options if EPA continues down this cynical path. We won’t stand by as our children’s future is sacrificed to appease fossil fuel interests.”

U.S. Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velazquez, both New York Democrats, speak to the media opposite the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building, where they unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facilities to observe on June 8, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The massive tax and spending cuts package signed into law by President Donald Trump earlier this month will affect not only Latinos using federal safety net programs but also those living in communities vulnerable to environmental pollution, Democrats and advocates said during a Tuesday virtual press conference.

The president’s domestic policy agenda bill that congressional Republicans passed without Democrats’ approval, through a process known as reconciliation, made permanent the 2017 tax cuts and provided billions of dollars for immigration enforcement by cutting funds for clean energy, environmental justice grants, food assistance and Medicaid, a health care insurance program for low-income people.

The bill will add $3.394 trillion to deficits during the next decade and lead 10 million people to lose access to health insurance, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Adriano Espaillat, Democrat of New York, said the bill passed through reconciliation reduces spending on “Medicaid dramatically and (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) dramatically.”

He said Democrats in their messaging should focus on the changes coming for Medicaid and how the cuts will impact people across the United States. Republicans’ numerous changes to health programs, predominantly Medicaid, will reduce federal spending during the next decade by $1.058 trillion.

“It’s really a conversation about life and death, because if you’re on Medicaid and now they’re cutting your benefits, the treatment that you receive to save your life could be in jeopardy,” Espaillat said. 

Rural hospitals and Latinos

Rep. Raul Ruiz, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said the cuts to Medicaid are “devastating,” especially to hospitals in rural communities.

“First, what hospitals will do is they will close services that aren’t the money-making services for a hospital, like pediatrics, labor delivery and mental health, and then beyond that, they’ll eventually just close their hospital,” said the California Democrat, a former emergency room doctor.

“This is devastating because usually these rural hospitals serve a high Latino population, medically underserved, resource-poor areas,” Ruiz said. “If you have a medical emergency and you don’t have a local emergency department or hospital to go to, chances of your survivability during an emergency greatly drops.”

Antonieta Cádiz, the executive director of Climate Power En Acción, said that most of those effects, such as new reporting requirements for Medicaid patients that could result in people losing coverage, won’t be felt until after the midterm elections in 2026, when those changes go into effect.

Climate Power En Acción is an arm of the clean energy advocacy group Climate Power that focuses on reaching out to Latinos about the impacts of climate change.

$170 billion for immigration crackdown

Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said the bill will also affect Latino communities because of its more than $170 billion increase for immigration enforcement.

She said Democrats should lean into immigration policy and push back against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown and plans for mass deportations.

“Democrats need to take this opportunity and need to be able to bring people in to share in their vision of what a functional immigration system is,” she said. “It is very frustrating that we are not seeing again, more Democrats really leaning in on this issue.”

Espaillat acknowledged that Democrats’ communication strategy on immigration “has been one of our weaknesses.”

“We at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have done a good job at first, exposing the inequities and irregularities and discriminatory practices of immigration to the degree that now we’re seeing,” he said.

“In addition to that, I think it’s important that we message on Medicaid …  SNAP, and then, of course, environmental justice is one that’s also a real path for which we are working on having a very structured and disciplined message,” Espaillat continued.

Higher energy bills

Cádiz said the bill Republicans passed will lead to a loss of clean energy jobs and it also lessens incentives for energy efficient appliances, which will lead to higher energy bills for Latinos. Compared to the average U.S. family, Latino households pay roughly 20% more in energy costs, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

“It guts clean energy programs crucial for savings amid rising heat and energy demand, leaving us with higher bills,” she said of the bill. “This is a direct attack on Latino families, workers and every person struggling with rising costs to meet essential needs.”

She added that environmental justice grants totaling $300 million were eliminated, while roughly 15 million Latinos live in communities with high levels of air pollution.

Espaillat said that the cuts to clean energy programs provided by the Biden administration’s massive climate and clean energy bill, which also passed through the process of reconciliation but under Democratic control, benefited local communities.

“Now there’s going to be a major disinvestment for these programs,” he said. 

 

A medical worker prepares to vaccinate people at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic in a rural Delta community in April 2021 in Leland, Miss. The Mississippi State Department of Health, like other state health departments, is concerned about the potential loss of federal funding. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Between 2016 and 2022, as congenital syphilis cases rose nationally and especially in the South, Mississippi saw a one thousand percent increase — from 10 to 110 — in the number of newborn babies who were hospitalized after contracting the disease, known to cause developmental issues, intellectual disabilities, and even death.

So in 2023, the state Department of Health mandated that all medical practitioners screen for the disease in pregnant mothers, and it has been running advertisements to spread awareness.

Annual congenital syphilis cases in Mississippi rose from 62 in 2021 to 132 in 2023, according to state data. The number fell to 114 last year. There have been 33 cases so far this year.

That work won’t stop despite potential budget cuts, Dr. Daniel Edney, Mississippi’s state health officer, said in an interview. “We’re going to keep doing what we have to do, you know, to keep it under control.”

State by state, public health departments take a similar approach: They monitor, treat and try to stem preventable diseases, alongside their host of other duties. But in the coming year, health department officials — with their agencies already strapped for cash — fear they’ll find it much more difficult to do their jobs.

President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 would cut the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget by more than half, from $9.3 billion to $4.2 billion. The proposal serves as a wish list from the administration, a blueprint for the Republican-controlled Congress as it works through upcoming spending legislation.

If lawmakers hew to Trump’s vision, then state and county public health departments would be hit hard. States contribute to their own health departments, but a lot of them rely heavily on federal funding.

And around half of local public health department funding comes from federal sources, primarily the CDC, as noted in a 2022 report from the National Association of County & City Health Officials.

Medicaid cuts are likely to worsen mental health care in rural America

“The federal government provides a lot of funding, but the actual implementation of public health programs happens at the state and local level,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at KFF, a health policy research group. “Each state has its own approach, in many ways, to how public health programs are overseen, how they’re funded, how they are implemented.”

In announcing his department’s share of the proposed budget, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Trump’s goals align with “new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”

But many local health leaders point to the longtime mission of state public health departments in preventing the spread of disease.

“Local public health is on the front lines preventing communicable disease, operating programs to prevent chronic disease, ensuring our septic and well water systems are safe,” said Dr. Kelly Kimple, acting director of North Carolina’s Division of Public Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I’m very concerned,” Kimple said, “especially given the magnitude of funding that we’re talking about, as we can’t keep doing more with less.”

Clawing back COVID-era grants

Other federal budget cuts also have states worried.

Many state public health departments grew alarmed when the Trump administration announced in March that it would be clawing back $11.4 billion in COVID-era funding for grants that were slated to extend into 2026.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia sued. A federal district court in Rhode Island temporarily blocked the cuts, and the case remains tied up in court.

The court’s preliminary injunction may not protect temporary staff or contractors, though. Public health departments have been laying off staff, cutting lab capacity and reducing immunization clinics, said Dr. Susan Kansagra, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Historically, public health departments receive funding in “boom and bust” cycles, meaning they tend to get more federal support during emergencies, said Michaud, of KFF. But “since the Great Recession of 2008, there was a general decline in public health support funding until the COVID pandemic.”

For example, KHN and The Associated Press reported that between 2010 and 2019, spending on state public health departments declined by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments fell by 18%.

Nationally, syphilis cases reached historic lows in the 2000s, thanks to robust prevention efforts and education from public health officials. By 2022, however, cases reached their highest numbers nationally since the 1950s.

“In the wake of the COVID emergency, you’ve seen a sort of backlash to what people had been calling the overreach of public health and imposing vaccination requirements and lockdowns and other public health measures,” Michaud told Stateline.

Smallpox, cholera and typhoid

Public health departments and officials go back to the 19th century, when there was a greater emphasis on sanitation efforts to prevent spread of diseases such as smallpox, cholera and typhoid, which were rampant at the time.

By the end of the century, 40 states had established health departments, which to this day are responsible for water sanitation, tracking the spread of disease, administering vaccinations, furnishing health education, providing screenings for infants and some prenatal care for moms at local clinics, offering family planning services, and tracking and treating sexually transmitted infections, among other things.

Kimple pointed to measles as a current example of a disease that’s spreading fast. When North Carolina’s health department detected a case in the state, she said, the department “identified and contacted everyone who might have been exposed, helped people get tested, worked with doctors to make sure they knew how to respond.”

That’s the legacy of local public health, Michaud said.

“The federal government cannot decide, ‘This public health program will happen in this state, but not that state,’ that kind of thing. And cannot declare a national lockdown. The COVID pandemic tested a lot of those boundaries. It really is a state and local responsibility to protect public health. And that’s always been the case, since the beginning of our country,” Michaud said.

“And what we’re seeing now is a complete upheaval of the funding going into public health.”

A major cut in services

Kimple said she’s seen recent progress in her state in the support for funding public health.

“North Carolinians viewed our work as highly important to improving health and well-being in the state, and appreciated the local presence, the reliable information, the role in prevention and efforts to protect, in particular, vulnerable communities,” she said.

Similarly, Edney said that Mississippi state lawmakers were showing more support, despite some setbacks in 2016 and 2017. New federal cuts could throw a wrench in the health department’s economic plans and its ability to reach small communities.

“Now the federal rug is being pulled out from under us,” he said.

Edney said he expects the federal share of his department’s public health funding to fall from its current 65% to around 50%.

Edney said he’s been trying to strengthen Mississippi health department’s longevity by diversifying its revenue streams by, for example, accepting private donations.

The state will not stop doing its “core” work, he said, regardless of federal funding.

“We’re not going to cut back on services at the county health department, because what we do now is all mission critical,” Edney said.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Children, with one of their teachers, at the Waunakee child care center operated by Heather Murray. (Photo courtesy of Heather Murray)

I have owned and operated a child care center for the past 19 years. Not only do I make sure staff and the bills are paid, I clean toilets, clean windows and change diapers.  I have devoted my life to educating and caring for young children. I didn’t go into this profession to line my pockets with money. But everyone in my field deserves a living wage and to know they are supported in their community. My goal is to create a safe and nurturing learning environment for the children who enter my center.  My belief is that their parents have decided to partner with us to make sure their children are getting the best possible environment to learn and grow.  

Creating  this high-quality environment for children has become increasingly hard over the years for child care providers in Wisconsin. Parents can’t pay more and providers need to keep qualified staff and pay them a liveable wage. For my center, wages for employees went up by $4 an hour recently  to keep up with the other businesses in my community.  

I started advocating and organizing around child care and early education right before the latest state  budget cycle. I found  there were some pretty big hurdles to jump over to get our legislators to listen to child care providers.

 I’ve heard legislators tell providers “all you want is money.” I’ve heard them say   “these women just need to learn how to run their business.”  My favorite observation is: “We don’t need child care.  Women should just stay home and take care of their children.”  It wasn’t easy to get anyone at the Capitol to take providers seriously. In the last state budget child care received no funding.  Wisconsin was  one of six states that did not put any state money into child care or early education. Gov. Evers did find a way to support providers with direct payments using federal money, which  helped keep many providers’ doors open throughout the state.  

Meanwhile, advocates and early educators kept coming to hearings,  talking about what we do on a daily basis and how that is important to our communities and the state.

Providers across Wisconsin held Community Conversations and Day Without Childcare events. Many elected officials from both sides of the aisle received tours of centers.  Providers also sent letters to the editor and talked with every type of news outlet that would listen. I am so proud of all the providers who stepped up and continued to push this message that what we do is important and we deserve support. As a result,  ideas at the Capitol started to shift.  

I spoke to legislators from both sides of the aisle. I heard legislators starting to talk about the “child care crisis” and realize that it wasn’t happening just because we didn’t know how to run our businesses. They started to say out loud that parents shouldn’t have to pay 25% of their income for  child care. Legislators who previously wouldn’t have said they supported child care investment said they would try and get something done.

In the end, the new state budget  wasn’t ideal but it did do two things: Direct payments will continue to go to providers for the next year and early education is finally funded with state dollars in the Wisconsin budget.

Does this budget solve everything? No. Does it provide the $330 million Evers sought in direct payments  to providers? No. Did Wisconsin for the first time  put state money into  early education? Yes — including $110 million in direct payments to providers Does it deregulate child care, increasing the number of  infants and toddlers one staff person can care for and allowing 16-year-olds to count as full-time assistants? Yes.

I absolutely do not think deregulation is the answer to the child care crisis. I believe it is harmful to children. I will not be participating in the deregulated infant/toddler program outlined in this budget.  I know I cannot get staff in my center to continue work when I ask them to take care of three more toddlers on their own. A single teacher in this proposed program would take care of seven toddlers ages 18 months and up. Right now that same teacher is expected to care for four toddlers that age. Even though some states have this ratio,  the National Association for the Education of Young Children clearly states best practice is 1:4 for this age group.

I would also not hire a 16-year-old as an assistant teacher to add to my staff. I don’t believe 16-year-olds are ready to handle large groups of small  children and provide the  quality time and interaction they need; 16-year-olds are still children themselves. And since they are in school themselves, they are not that much help with the labor  shortages centers experience all day long.

I’m grateful that Gov. Evers made child care a priority, and that our state finally joined the majority of other states in providing some support for this essential resource in the state budget.

Advocating for policy changes is a constant back and forth. Much of the time you don’t get  what you want. This means that we must go back in two years, to make Wisconsin’s child care support better and  more durable.  Child care advocates have created a strong network and we are not done advocating for the change needed for providers to keep their doors open and for educators to earn a living wage. I believe child care is infrastructure and a public good.  Together with other child care providers, I will continue to advocate and educate our leaders about how a well supported child care system is essential to  our community and our economy.

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President Donald Trump and European Union leaders announced a trade framework over the weekend that will set 15% import taxes on EU goods. (Photo by Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and European Union leaders announced a trade framework over the weekend, just days ahead of Trump’s self-imposed Friday deadline to increase import taxes and his emergency tariffs come under scrutiny in federal appeals court Thursday.

Under the agreement, a 15% tariff will be applied to all products, with some exceptions, coming into the U.S. from the 27 member nations that make up the EU.

The 15% rate will also apply to automobiles, down from the 25% levy on foreign vehicles that Trump ordered in April. Trump’s 50% sectoral tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum will remain unchanged for the EU. The deal exempts certain products, including aircraft, from tariffs altogether.

Tariffs are import taxes paid to the U.S. government by businesses and other buyers that import foreign goods.

“Fifteen percent is not to be underestimated, but it was the best we could get,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters during a press conference Sunday.

Similar to the deal Trump announced with Japan on July 23, the EU has agreed to invest $600 billion in the United States over Trump’s term. The bloc of nations has also agreed to purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy, including liquid natural gas, over the next three years as a way to wean off of Russian fossil fuels.

‘Fundamentally rebalancing’

The White House touted the deal as “fundamentally rebalancing the economic relationship between the world’s two largest economies,” in a press release issued Monday.

The U.S. imported more goods from the EU than it exported by about $235.8 billion in 2024, according to Census data.

Trump had threatened to raise what he describes as “reciprocal” tariffs — tariffs on products outside sectoral categories of steel, aluminum and vehicles —  to 30% by Aug. 1 on products from Europe, Japan and numerous other trading partners.

Trump set the date as the new deadline for his “Liberation Day” tariffs to take effect. The president announced the tariffs in early April and then promptly paused them after markets plummeted around the globe. The episode triggered a trade war with China, during which U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods peaked at 145% before the two parties agreed to negotiate.

Appeals case looms

On what the president described as “Liberation Day” on April 2, Trump heralded a universal 10% tariff on all foreign products, plus staggering additional so-called reciprocal import taxes on countries across the globe that carry trade imbalances with the U.S.

Trump justified the steep duties by declaring trade imbalances a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

In February, Trump became the first president to trigger tariffs under the 1977 emergency powers law when he increased import taxes on Canada, Mexico and China in response to illegal fentanyl smuggling.

The emergency tariffs are at the center of a case that will go before the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit Thursday.

The case stems from two lawsuits, now consolidated, filed by a handful of businesses and a dozen Democratic state attorneys general who argued the president doesn’t have authority to impose tariffs under the emergency law.

The U.S. Court of International Trade struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs as unconstitutional on May 28.

Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among the states that brought the suit.

V.O.S. Selections, a New York-based company that imports wine and spirits from 16 countries, led the business plaintiffs. Others 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.

Upon appeal from the White House, the Federal Circuit allowed Trump’s tariffs to remain in place while the case moved forward.

University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. (Miles Maguire | courtesy of the photographer)

Republican lawmakers are proposing a state law to  limit tuition increases after the University of Wisconsin system approved another tuition hike earlier this month. 

The Board of Regents voted earlier this month to increase tuition by 5% at most UW campuses. UW-Green Bay is the exception with a 4% tuition increase after opting out of an additional 1%. UW-River Falls received a 5.8% increase in tuition to help support student success initiatives. 

According to the UW system, the increase will be an average of about $382. 

The draft bill, coauthored by Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) and Rep. David Murphy (R-Greenville), would prohibit the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents from increasing undergraduate tuition by more than the consumer price index increase in a given year. The authors said the latest increases were “roughly double the increase in the Consumer Price Index over the past year.” 

“Now more than ever, the Legislature must implement a common sense law placing controls on these types of skyrocketing tuition increases,” the lawmakers wrote in a cosponsorship memo. “That’s why we are again introducing legislation to cap tuition and fee increases for in-state Wisconsin undergraduates at levels no higher than the rate of inflation.”

UW spokesperson Mark Pitsch said in a statement responding to the bill that the UW is “among the most affordable across the U.S.” 

“It is critical that we have the flexibility to maintain the quality that students deserve and parents expect,” Pitsch said. 

UW President Jay Rothman proposed the tuition increases earlier this month following the signing of the new state budget, which provided a little over $250 million to the UW system — an amount that fell below the requests the system had said would be necessary to avoid tuition increases. 

“After a decade of a tuition freeze and lagging state aid, we believe we have struck a balance for students and families with this proposal and the recent state investments in the UWs as part of the 2025-27 biennial budget,” Rothman said in a statement at the time.

This is the third consecutive tuition increase since the end of the 10-year tuition freeze — a trend that comes as state funding makes up a smaller portion of the UW system’s budget.

State funding currently makes up about a fifth of the UW’s total revenue. In contrast, state general purpose revenue made up 41.8% of the UW System’s budget in 1984-85. 

Regent Ashok Rai said that even with the state investment, there continues to be a gap between the funding and the UW system’s ability to keep up with inflation and compensation increases for faculty and staff. 

“The proposed tuition rates will ensure that UWs remain affordable compared to our neighboring peers,” Rai said.

According to the UW, its tuition increased just 7.7% from 2015 to 2025 — a rate below the tuition increases for its peers in other states, which had tuition increases ranging from 21.7% to 28.8% over the 10 years.

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Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said the state would provide $11 million in funding if Planned Parenthood loses its lawsuit and federal support. There are 30 clinics in the state that serve 10,000 patients every year. (Photo by Jake Goldstein-Street/Washington State Standard)

Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide are once again protected from a “defunding” provision passed by Congress after a federal judge in Massachusetts granted an emergency request for a new preliminary injunction.

The order from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama, comes one week after an initial injunction blocked only certain clinics from receiving Medicaid funds under the new law. One of the affiliates that filed the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, along with affiliates that did not provide abortion services or that did not bill Medicaid more than $800,000 in fiscal year 2023 were protected, which covered a fraction of the 600 clinics nationwide.

In the weeks since President Donald Trump signed massive budget reconciliation bill H.R. 1 on July 4, the mere threat of cuts has caused clinics to close or restrict services in several states. Two clinics shut their doors in rural areas of Ohio, two closed in the Houston area of Texas, and five closed in California, according to news reports. In California alone, the Medicaid cuts would create a loss of $300 million in funding for the state’s 114 clinics that serve more than 1 million patients per year, according to CalMatters. 

In Washington state, where abortion access is legal and available until fetal viability, Gov. Bob Ferguson announced on July 9 that the state would provide the $11 million in federal funding lost if the lawsuit is unsuccessful. There are 30 Planned Parenthood clinics in Washington that serve 10,000 patients every year, and Medicaid covers about half of them, Washington State Standard reported.

The national group, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the initial decision was disappointing and asked the court to reconsider, which Talwani granted Monday.

Attorneys for the Trump administration appealed the initial injunction on July 23, and told the court they opposed the emergency request for a new injunction.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America and affiliates in Massachusetts and Utah sued just a few days after Congress passed the bill that included the provision the organization said directly targeted their services for Medicaid funding cuts  — a longstanding goal of anti-abortion advocates and many Republican elected officials. Federal Medicaid dollars cannot be used for abortion services except in cases of rape, incest, or certain health conditions.

The clinics rely heavily on Medicaid funding to provide standard reproductive health care at little to no cost, including treatment for sexually transmitted infections, cancer screenings and contraception. Planned Parenthood provides services for about 2 million patients every year, and 64% of clinics are in rural areas or places with health care provider shortages.

In the order, Talwani said the law — part of a sweeping package of tax and spending cuts approved by a party-line vote — unfairly targets Planned Parenthood for punishment without a trial, and violates free speech constitutional rights by preventing the organization from advocating for reproductive health care.

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice have argued Congress was free to target those clinics because “larger providers carry out more abortions and receive more government subsidies,” and said the law is meant to “stop federal subsidies for Big Abortion.” Talwani said those arguments were not persuasive, and that it is unlikely they can justify the defunding as part of a goal to reduce abortion.

“… it is unclear how including only entities that are non-profits and provide medical services in underserved communities is in any way related to reducing abortion. Nor is it clear how withholding Medicaid reimbursements from Planned Parenthood Members who do not provide abortion furthers that end,” Talwani wrote.

Dominique Lee, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, called the ruling a “powerful reminder that patients, not politics, should guide health care.”

Lee said in a statement: “In Massachusetts and beyond, we will keep fighting to ensure everyone can turn to the provider they trust, no matter their insurance or zip code.”

Sheena Scarborough, mother of Sade Robinson, a 19-year-old woman murdered last year, thanked Rep. Shelia Stubbs for her efforts calling attention to the violence Black women and girls face. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

For the third session in a row, State Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison) is calling on Wisconsin lawmakers to create a task force to examine the violence African American women and girls face and develop policy solutions to prevent others from going missing and being murdered.

The bill would establish a 17-member task force to produce a report on the issue. Members would include two Senators, two Assembly representatives and other stakeholders, along with law enforcement representatives and representatives from advocacy or legal organizations, including those that focus on Black women and girls. 

“This is my third time to try and get a critical piece of legislation passed into law,” Stubbs said at a press conference Friday. 

Stubbs, inspired by a similar task force in Minnesota and one focused on Indigenous women in Wisconsin, first introduced the proposal during the 2021-2023 legislative session, but it failed to gain traction. The second iteration of the bill, during the 2023-25 session, passed the Assembly but stalled in the Senate as former Sen. Duey Stroebel initially refused to allow the bill to move forward. It eventually received a public hearing and was approved by a committee but never advanced to a vote on the Senate floor. 

“Can anyone tell me why this critical legislation could not get scheduled? Can you tell these families why their loved one was not important enough to at least get a hearing?” Stubbs asked at the press conference. “It is not fair to these victims and their families that they have to continue to wait for this Legislature to do something.” 

Stubbs said Wisconsin has the “worst disparity in the nation” when it comes to Black women and girls being killed. A 2022 investigation by the Guardian found five Black women and girls were killed each day in the U.S. in 2020. Wisconsin was the worst in the country, with the rate doubling that year. 

Coauthors on the new bill include Rep. Pat Snyder (R-Weston), Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee). 

“I’m demanding that we get an answer,” Stubbs said. “I am demanding that we get justice. How many more victims do we need in this state before we do something?”

Stubbs was joined at the press conference by Sheena Scarborough, mother of 19-year-old Sade Robinson, who was murdered last year.

“The things that we have gone through as a family,” Scarborough said. “They stand behind me knowing exactly what it’s like being a victim of a severe traumatic crime in the worst possible way… We are still dealing with ongoing trauma daily.” 

A jury found Maxwell Anderson guilty last month of murdering and dismembering Robinson, who had gone on a first date with him in 2024. Anderson’s sentencing is this week. 

Scarborough said there wasn’t enough support as she dealt with law enforcement and navigated the criminal justice system for the first time following her daughter’s murder. The lack of support  pushed her to start the Sade’s Voice Foundation, she said. The nonprofit was formed to advocate and provide  support for the families of missing Black women and girls.

“There weren’t many other supports through this time…. It doesn’t matter if you are Republican or Democrat. These are our babies. This was my daughter. She was a granddaughter. She was a sister. She had her whole life ahead of her,” Scarborough said. “The task force is definitely needed.”

The task force would examine several related issues. They include systemic causes of the violence Black women and girls experience, the appropriate methods for tracking and collecting data on violence against Black women and girls, government practices including policing related to investigating and prosecuting crimes against Black women and girls, measures that could reduce violence against them and ways to support victims and their families.

The final report, which would be due by 2027, would need to recommend policies and practices that would be effective in reducing gender violence and increasing the safety of Black women and girls and help victims and communities to heal from violence.

Angela Arrington, the social action coordinator for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., said that  the task force could help address the persistent violence that Black women and girls face. 

“They are more likely to experience homicide, sexual assault and other forms of violence than their white counterparts, and these cases often go unsolved or receive less attention,” Arrington said. “The epidemic of violence is a complex issue with deep-rooted historical and systemic causes requiring comprehensive and coordinated action to address.” 

Attorney General Josh Kaul said lawmakers are needed to establish a task force and that a state investment must be included.

Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers included creating a task force in their budget proposals, but the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee did not include it in the final proposal. 

“People are ready to step up,” Kaul said. “The problem now is not whether there is interest among folks in collaborating and working to identify solutions. What we need is legislative will. We need the legislators and the Senate and the Assembly to pass legislation that will help ensure we have this task force… It’s clear that there is a need not just for action, but for there to be an investment so that we can seriously consider these issues.” 

He alluded to the new budget approved earlier this month that was celebrated as a bipartisan compromise by legislative leaders and Gov. Tony Evers.

“The Legislature was so close to passing legislation that would help us move forward on this issue, but we’ve seen there’s an opportunity for some compromise in this legislative session,” Kaul said. 

The bill includes one position supported with state funding of $80,200 in 2025-26 and $99,500 in 2026-27. 

Kaul said the additional Department of Justice employee would be essential to coordinate the work of the task force, including gathering data that may be needed. 

A similar task force focused on Indigenous women and girls was formed in 2020 by Kaul after legislation failed. Kaul started that task force without state funding by using federal funding from the Violence Against Women Act. He said at the press conference that the agency doesn’t have funding  for a similar pathway for the proposed new task force. 

The 2023 version of the bill did not include funding when it passed the Assembly. 

“This is a really significant issue that takes the investment of time and resources, and I don’t want to see a group come together without having the resources they need to be successful,” Kaul told reporters. “I want to see this done properly and right and that’s what this bill would do.”

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Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

The divestment of staff, science and sustainability programs at USDA isn’t just a budget cut; it could be a direct threat to the nation’s food system. Experts warn of far-reaching consequences: unsafe food for consumers, more invasive and economically damaging pests for farmers, and an agriculture industry forced to adapt to climate change with less scientific insight.

“We might see more farming in the dark, essentially,” said Michal Happ, a climate change and rural community expert at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Investigate Midwest spoke with multiple agricultural experts and more than 30 current and former USDA employees to better understand Rollins’ leadership style, her impact on the department and the profound consequences her administration will have for farmers, rural families and consumers.

What emerged was a picture of a leader who has brought sweeping changes and largely embraced President Trump’s agenda of downsizing the federal government. However, Rollins has also been tasked with managing Trump policies that she has privately rebuked and cuts made before she assumed office.

Trump tapped Rollins to head the massive federal department at a crucial time for American agriculture. Farmers are grappling with changing weather patterns, shifting trade policies, and even internal administration critiques of pesticide use — a report from Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” commission, which Rollins applauded, slammed farms’ pesticide reliance.

Trump has praised Rollins’ performance. In mid-April, as an aside during a press conference, Trump thanked her for lowering egg prices. “Brooke Rollins, secretary of agriculture, did a great job,” he said. During his first term, she maneuvered into his inner circle and, as Politico reported, has quickly become “one of the most powerful conservatives in the country.”

Rollins has said her mission is to be the voice of farmers in Trump’s cabinet. She appears to have pull with the president, but questions remain about her influence over decisions affecting the USDA and its staff.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, appeared to wield significant control over department operations, at least until recently. It influenced everything from policy language to which USDA offices remain open, according to court records and Rollins’ hearing testimony.

In a statement to Investigate Midwest, the USDA rejected any characterization that Rollins was not solely responsible for department actions.

“The claims you cite are absurd and without merit,” it said. “Secretary Rollins was appointed by President Trump to lead the Department and to insinuate that anyone other than the Constitutionally directed cabinet officer is making the decisions at USDA is unwarranted.”

She’s also been sandwiched between Trump’s signature policy, an extreme stance on immigration, and the reality of agriculture’s labor force.

“We might see more farming in the dark, essentially.”

Michal Happ, a climate change and rural community expert at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Because of immigration raids, some farms’ labor pools have been depleted, and, already, some fields have not been harvested. Farmers have pleaded for relief. In early June, Rollins pushed Trump to pause enforcement on farms, The New York Times reported. After the news broke, Rollins proclaimed she was in lockstep with Trump.

Raids on farms resumed days later, but Trump recently expressed support for giving farmers discretion over undocumented workers.

“Brooke Rollins brought it up, and she said, ‘So, we have a little problem. The farmers are losing a lot of people,’ and we figured it out, and we have some great stuff being written,” he said during a July 4 speech.

On July 8, Rollins said undocumented farmworkers would receive “no amnesty.”

Farming is inherently risky. Making a living depends on good weather and profitable markets. Farmers try to limit variables, but Rollins’ first months have added disorder into the food system, said Mike Lavender, a policy expert for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

“All of it is this theme of creating needless uncertainty and confusion amongst people who are trying to do the exact opposite in order to be successful in their livelihoods, support their families and ultimately support their communities,” he said.

The USDA did not directly answer questions about Rollins’ tenure, and, in a statement, it said she was cleaning up a mess left by her predecessor, Tom Vilsack.

“Secretary Rollins is working to reorient USDA to put Farmers First and be more effective and efficient at serving the American people,” the department said. “President Biden and Secretary Vilsack left USDA in complete disarray, including hiring thousands of employees with no sustainable way to pay them.”

In congressional hearings, Rollins said the USDA, which has lost more than 15,000 employees, has enough staff to fulfill its mission. Trump’s desire to make new deals with trading partners — which is causing confusion and financial anxiety for farmers — will create stability for agricultural producers, Rollins has said.

“I do believe, with every fiber of my being, that this era of unlimited or unprecedented prosperity for the ag community is just around the corner,” Rollins told Congress in June. “I’m just really, really sure of that.”

Rollins has painted the present as being “strikingly similar” to the time of the American Revolution, a period she often invokes in speeches. She has also cast her leadership in Biblical terms, citing Romans 13:12, saying she wears an “armor of light” in her current position.

“There is just a lot of darkness — not with this White House or my current boss, President Trump, or our cabinet, but the government in general,” Rollins told Decision Magazine, a religious publication, during an interview last month.

The USDA did not answer when asked if Rollins views rank-and-file employees as part of the “darkness.” But her management of employees varies drastically from her two predecessors, Vilsack and Sonny Perdue, Trump’s first agriculture secretary.

Perdue was a veterinarian and, as governor of Georgia, had led a large bureaucracy, experience that translated into running a complex federal department in a “thoughtful, analytical way,” said Kevin Shea, a USDA employee for 45 years under Republican and Democrat administrations.

“The first Trump administration at USDA was run very professionally,” Shea said. Now, however, “the USDA political leadership seems to be particularly scornful of its career workforce.”

For instance, very little information filters down to employees. Leadership has not effectively communicated what it wants, so it’s been a “gradual process of learning what is and is not OK,” said Ethan Roberts, president of AFGE Local 3247, a union representing government employees, and a nine-year USDA employee.

Agency staff used to plan months or years ahead, but that’s difficult now because they don’t know if they’ll still have jobs or if the office will exist, said one current employee who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Her two predecessors regularly sent department-wide emails that communicated their goals and priorities, current and former employees said. Rollins seems to have a different audience in mind.

“She just posts on X what she’s doing,” said Laura Dodson, the vice president of AFGE Local 3403 and a longtime USDA employee. X, the social media company owned by Musk, requires an account to view posts. “It just seems everything’s coming from DOGE and whatever the White House is saying about federal employees.”

The first Trump administration also instituted funding freezes and reduced staff, including relocating USDA offices out of Washington, D.C. One of the affected agencies was the Economic Research Service, which provides insights into markets the industry relies on.

In 2019, Dodson and her colleagues were called into a conference room. If their job description was called, they would remain where they had established their lives. The others, the vast majority, would be relocated to Kansas City, Missouri. Employees started crying.

Despite that episode from Trump’s first term, Dodson said, the tone of his second stint is markedly different as DOGE, overseen by Musk until May, has wantonly carved up federal agencies.

“They still maintained a veneer of respectability. They were trying to do this for the greater good,” she said about the USDA under Perdue. “Now, with people like Elon Musk, it’s clear this is not the pursuit of efficiency. It’s the pursuit of cruelty.”

For instance, school nutrition researchers were told to flag any studies that included the word “class” — an attempt to discover funding for diversity, equity and inclusion, a Trump target, said one employee who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Another time, DOGE’s main liaison to the USDA, Gavin Kliger, requested that the word “tracking” be added to the list of words to flag in grants that could be terminated, according to an email included in a lawsuit.

“Tracking the exact carbon output of soybean yields does not provide a direct benefit to farmers,” he reasoned in an email to staff, “and we can reallocate that funding in a way that more directly benefits farmers.”

Kliger’s LinkedIn resume does not show any experience in agriculture. He graduated from the University of California-Berkeley in 2020 and has worked exclusively for tech and artificial intelligence companies. He has helped slash staff and funding at other agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

It’s unclear how he came to this understanding about carbon tracking.

Carbon is essential to soil health, producing higher yields. Knowing how much carbon is escaping their soil can help farmers adopt better soil management techniques. This not only helps farmers grow more efficiently but helps keep the plant from warming. Soy industry groups have expressed the importance of tracking carbon footprints.

Also, under a Biden-era rule, measuring carbon output helps put money directly in farmers’ pockets — they can sell their output on carbon offset markets.

Despite this misguided reasoning, Kliger appears to have had considerable influence at the USDA.

In the same email, he said he wanted to surpass DOGE’s goal of cutting $120 million in climate-focused grants by a certain date. “I spoke with the Secretary tonight who was supportive of these initiatives – working on getting a memo formalized for her signature in parallel,” he wrote.

Kliger did not respond to requests for comment to his USDA email address. The USDA did not respond when asked about the email or how much influence Kliger had.

“All decisions made at the USDA are at the direction of secretary Rollins to best fulfil (sic) president trumps (sic) agenda,” the department said.

Kliger appears to have moved on. The USDA said his access to the National Finance Center, which manages employee payroll, has been “deactivated due to lack of use. … We would refer you to” the Small Business Administration.

While voices with no agricultural experience have been elevated, those with expertise — USDA employees — have been pushed aside and silenced, current and former employees said.

One skirmish between DOGE and the USDA’s rank-and-file has involved the Trump administration’s return-to-office policies. Some Republican leaders and Musk have claimed that allowing employees to work remotely is a waste.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced remote work for staffers at the Farm Service Agency, which helps farmers access federal funding. As the year progressed, Perdue, the agriculture secretary at the time, considered calling workers back to the office.

However, an internal study found that employees had actually been more efficient, said Charles Dodson, a 30-year FSA veteran who retired late last year.

Despite that, Trump ordered remote workers back to offices when he retook the presidency. At the same time, DOGE began canceling leases of local offices around the country.

At a May hearing, members of Congress accused Rollins of being unaware that local FSA offices were being closed. Rollins did not deny the accusation. Then at a June hearing, she said the General Services Administration, a DOGE target, was behind the closures. (Some offices have since reopened.)

On the ground, the situation has caused confusion and consternation for USDA employees.

When one employee reported to a new office, they were told they weren’t on the list of transfers. How could they follow the order to report to an office if they weren’t allowed in? Another USDA employee, a researcher, was ordered to report to a Forest Service trailer in the woods. And another employee, according to NPR, was told to report to a shed where a boat was stored.

The USDA has also intimidated its workforce, current and former employees said.

According to Roberts, the department veteran and union representative, USDA scientists have been instructed to deflect questions from university researchers — their frequent collaborators — about the agency’s internal affairs.

“They’re being told to say those things for fear it looks like the USDA is silencing them,” he said, “which they are.”

Surveillance also has increased. While the government has used software to monitor employee emails for years, the Trump administration has altered it to detect emails sent to a personal or college account. As part of a leak investigation, one staffer was placed on administrative leave after emailing their personal account, even though it did not contain the leaked material officials were looking for.

The USDA did not respond to a question about the leak investigation.

Some employees have responded by doing only what is asked of them, not going above and beyond. Dodson, the retiree, recounted what a current staffer told him: “I’m afraid to do anything else. I just want to survive and not get fired.”

The lack of staff is a major obstacle, Shea said.

“There couldn’t be a worse time to lower our guard,” he said. “APHIS cannot do its job with that level of personnel. It simply cannot do it. I’ve never been more concerned about the agency’s ability to carry out its mission going forward.”

The USDA has implemented a hiring freeze, but in April it exempted APHIS. The agency has posted job listings online.

“Secretary Rollins will not compromise the critical work of the Department,” the USDA said. The exempted positions “carry out functions that are critical to the safety and security of the American people, our national forests, the inspection and safety of the Nation’s agriculture and food supply system.”

Another challenge Rollins has faced is trade, the lifeblood of U.S. agriculture.

When Trump returned to office, he generated chaos in the agricultural markets by starting a trade war and implementing higher tariffs. In response, Rollins has embarked on a global tour to establish new trade partners.

She has announced a few “Make Agriculture Great Again trade wins.” She recently proclaimed that Namibia, an African country, agreed to accept frozen poultry from the U.S. The Biden administration had opened the market after allaying the country’s concerns about bird flu. Also, she declared Costa Rica accepting U.S. dairy a win for Trump. An industry trade group said the “win has been several years in the making.”

Rollins has said repeatedly that the agricultural trade deficit — the U.S. imports more products from overseas than it exports — is bad for the country. The tariffs were intended to address the deficit, but the narrative hit a snag in early June.

Politico reported the USDA had delayed a regularly scheduled report because it showed Trump’s tariffs could exacerbate the trade deficit. Days later, Rollins defended the delay. “I want to be sure every piece of research we move out is the best, the best-cited, etc.,” she told Congress. (The hearing was about a week after news broke that the MAHA report, which Rollins supported, cited nonexistent studies.)

Perhaps the most pressing issue facing Rollins is helping the agriculture industry as it grapples with climate change, which is altering how farmers grow food and commodities. Rollins, however, has denied the planet is warming.

Her husband is an executive at an oil and gas company, and in a 2018 speech, she said “research of CO2 being a pollutant is just not valid,” according to Inside Climate News. More recently, she led the America First Policy Institute, which pushes Trump’s agenda. She employed another Trump loyalist, Carla Sands, who once said the idea of climate change is “Marxism to control humanity,” according to Politico.

In January, before Rollins was sworn in, USDA employees were directed to “unpublish any landing pages (on the USDA’s website) focused on climate change,” according to court records. Research involving climate change has also been effectively banned, current employees said. If studies include words such as “climate,” “clean energy,” “sustainable construction” or dozens of others, the research will not be funded.

Climate change is having profound effects on agriculture. For instance, the Corn Belt — considered the prime region for growing the valuable commodity used in everything from soft drinks to gasoline — is inching northward. In decades, instead of Iowa and Illinois, Minnesota and the Dakotas could be America’s breadbasket, researchers have predicted.

More recent research shows that, as the world keeps warming and farming gets harder, U.S. corn production could fall by 40% by century’s end.

If the USDA ignores climate issues, farmers could be struggling alone, said Happ, of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

“They want to adapt to what’s going on,” he said. “They want to still have their land there and steward it for the next generation or two. Without those resources, they’re going to just have to figure it out on their own.”

The USDA did not respond when asked about Rollins’ household’s financial stake in fossil fuels. At a congressional hearing, Rollins agreed with a representative who said sound policy follows sound science. The USDA did not respond when asked why the USDA was not following climate change science.

The USDA has forced out 98 of 167 food safety scientists at the Agricultural Research Service, a department arm that studies how to prevent deadly pathogens, such as E. coli or Salmonella, from entering the food supply.

Foodborne illnesses could become more prevalent because the work the scientists were doing will likely just end, said Roberts, the union representative who works for the Agricultural Research Service.

“Who knows what we’ve lost? What discoveries or products that were going to be invented that we’ll just never see?” Roberts said. “We’ll be stuck with the tools we have now.”

A robust food safety system, with research and vigilant monitoring, is necessary to help prevent foodborne illnesses, which not only can hospitalize consumers but also have long-lasting health consequences, said Barbara Kowalcyk, a longtime food safety researcher who is now at George Washington University. In a 2013 study, Kowalcyk and her colleagues showed foodborne infections could lead to, among other conditions, chronic kidney disease, arthritis and cognitive deficits.

An example of science and government oversight working in concert to save lives stems from a deadly outbreak in the 1990s, she said. After eating undercooked hamburgers at Jack in the Box, more than 700 people fell ill and four children died.

The scandal put the USDA’s food safety system under an intense microscope, and the department changed how it protected America’s meat supply. Instead of eyeing and smelling a carcass, the USDA began testing for pathogens, a monumental task to implement.

The original testing procedure was first developed in the 1960s and refined over the decades. Since the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service began using the system — named Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point — cases of foodborne illness from beef have declined dramatically.

“Lots of effort went into that,” Kowalcyk said. “We don’t see the same level of outbreaks in ground beef that we used to.”

Rollins plans on altering the USDA’s, and the country’s, future through her actions. Cutting funding to farmers, axing scientists, instilling fear in remaining employees — it’s about changing the country’s course.

“It isn’t just about the next four years,” she told Breitbart in May. “It’s about the next 250 years.”

But it could all backfire on farmers, rural communities and consumers, said Lavender, with the national sustainable agriculture coalition.

“The draining of expertise at USDA,” he said, “whether that’s scientific expertise or just expertise of people who have been there for a period of time and have built up knowledge —  it will ultimately come home to roost.”

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This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To republish, go to the original and consult the Investigate Midwest republishing guidelines.

The library at the Green Bay Correctional Institution. Wisconsin Books to Prisoners and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections plan a second test of having books sent to incarcerated people. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Department of Corrections)

The nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners told the Wisconsin Examiner that another pilot project involving the nonprofit and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections will take place in the next six to eight weeks. 

The collaborations between the nonprofit and the department might lead to the books project being permitted to send used books to people incarcerated in prisons across the state. 

The department said last year that it could no longer accept used books from anyone, including the nonprofit. The DOC cited concerns about drug smuggling and alleged that some book shipments tested positive for drugs. This led to scrutiny of the department’s rationale for the used book ban. 

“We have hundreds of requests for books that haven’t been fulfilled since the only-new-books policy was established,” Camy Matthay of Wisconsin Books to Prisoners said over email. 

In an August 2024 email to the books project, a DOC official said the concern was not with the nonprofit but with people who would impersonate it. 

In late June, the books project organizers said they were able to send used and new books to Oakhill Correctional Institution in a pilot program. The books were added to the library collection, making them available for checkout by those who requested them. 

DOC communications director Beth Hardtke said the pilot program was designed to allow the DOC to test and refine its screening process for donated reading materials to ensure safety. 

Hardtke said that between 2019 and 2023, 20 incarcerated people died of drug overdoses in DOC facilities, while none have died of drug overdoses in 2024 or so far in 2025. She also cited a study about harmful effects that can occur when incarcerated people are exposed to drug-soaked paper strips. 

“The goal is to eventually allow WBTP to send reading materials to individuals at any DOC facility — safely,” Hardtke said in late June. 

Hardtke said at the time that starting July 1, WBTP would be able to send requested materials directly to individuals at Oakhill instead of the library.

Instead, the DOC has asked for a second pilot, Matthay said. For that, the books project will send books to a library at a second prison, Redgranite Correctional Institution. Matthay said this pilot will take place in the next six to eight weeks. 

“Should our books pass inspection without issues at prison number two, WBTP hopes to return to fulfilling our mission, i.e., sending books directly to prisoners who request books from us,” Matthay said. 

She said the group is not likely to return to sending books to prisoners directly before September. 

Matthay said that per the DOC’s request, the group will no longer fulfill requests for specific titles. Instead, prisoners are asked to request books by subject matter or genre. 

She said the group provides tracking numbers that will validate the source of the books, and that the nonprofit will also include embossed receipts. 

According to Wisconsin Books to Prisoners, in August 2024, the group asked the DOC if the organization could resolve the concerns about impersonation by providing a postal service tracking number for every package of books it ships. 

Hardtke said the department recognizes the importance of education and books as part of rehabilitation and maintains libraries at all institutions, offers books on electronic tablets and has educational partnerships with the University of Wisconsin System and the state’s technical colleges. 

Critics have raised questions about the quality of the selection on the tablets and whether the quality of the libraries varies by institution. 

Matthay said that when boxes of books have been returned to the nonprofit over the years, the cause was confusion in the mailrooms. 

In late June, the nonprofit said that many of the packages of new books sent to prisoners had been returned to the group. Sending new books to prisoners is not banned by the DOC. 

“We think this problem will resolve itself,” Matthay said, as the DOC establishes better lines of communication between the agency’s headquarters and the institutions that take in the books. 

“The DOC understands that this will improve security for WBTP as well as the DOC,” Matthay said. She added that “it is also understood that when these pilots are completed and if we get a greenlight, that the new policy — whatever that may be — needs to be clearly communicated to all employees (and prisoners too) to avoid confusion.”

This report was updated Monday 8/28/2025 with new information on the timeline for the start of the next pilot and the confirmation that it will involve Redgranite Correctional Institution. 

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Multiple ambulances and police vehicles respond to a shooting at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Mich., in June. Homicides fell 17% in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s latest crime trends report. (Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images)

Amid recent political rhetoric about rising crime and violence in American cities, a new analysis shows that violent crime has continued to decline this year.

Homicides and several other serious offenses, including gun assaults and carjackings, dropped during the first half of 2025 across 42 U.S. cities, continuing a downward trend that began in 2022, according to a new crime trends report released Thursday by the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.

Homicides fell 17% in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, among the 30 cities that reported homicide data, according to the report.

During that same period, five cities saw increases in homicide — ranging from 6% in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to 39% in Little Rock, Arkansas.

While the report’s authors say the continued drop in violent crime — especially homicides — is encouraging, they note that much of the decline stems from a few major cities with historically high rates, such as Baltimore and St. Louis.

More than half of the cities studied have higher homicide rates than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, though, the analysis found that there were 14% fewer homicides during the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2019.

The authors say more research is needed before crediting any specific policy or practice for the continued drop in violent crime.

The group’s findings come as President Donald Trump continues to amplify concerns about crime, at times citing misleading statistics and narratives.

In a Truth Social post earlier this week, Trump claimed that cashless bail — a practice that allows people charged with a crime to be released pretrial without paying money, unless a judge deems them a threat to public safety — were fueling a national crime surge and endangering law enforcement.

He wrote: “Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!”

Some research suggests that setting money bail isn’t effective in ensuring court appearances or improving public safety. Opponents of ending cash bail often raise concerns that released suspects might commit new, potentially more serious crimes. While that is possible in individual cases, studies show that eliminating cash bail does not lead to a widespread increase in crime.

The Truth Social post also marked a sharp shift from Trump’s remarks during a June roundtable with the Fraternal Order of Police, where he claimed the national murder rate had “plummeted by 28%” since he took office — a figure that overstates the decline and overlooks the fact that murder rates began falling well before he returned to office.

According to data consulting firm AH Datalytics, which manages the Real-Time Crime Index — a free tool that collects crime data from more than 400 law enforcement agencies nationwide — the number of homicides between January and May 2025 was 20.3% lower than the same period in 2024.

Similarly, data released in May by the Major Cities Chiefs Association showed that homicides fell roughly 20% in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the first three months of the prior year. The group’s data is based on a survey of 68 major metropolitan police departments nationwide.

Researchers at the Council on Criminal Justice note in their report that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason for the drop in homicides, but they note that fewer people appear to be exposed to high-risk situations, such as robberies.

Most major crimes fell in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period last year, according to the council’s report.

Motor vehicle thefts dropped by 25%, while reported gun assaults fell 21%. Robberies, residential and non-residential burglaries, shoplifting, and aggravated and sexual assaults also saw double-digit declines

Drug offenses held steady, while domestic violence reports rose slightly — by about 3%. Carjackings declined 24% and larcenies were down 5%.

Compared with the first half of 2019, before the pandemic and nationwide reckoning over racial justice and policing, overall homicides are down 14%, robberies by 30%, and sexual assaults by 28%.

Still, more than 60% of the cities in the council’s study sample report homicide rates that remain above 2019 levels.

Motor vehicle theft remains the only crime tracked in the report that is still elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels — up 25% since 2019 — although it has declined sharply since 2023.

The council also released another analysis on the lethality of violent crime, showing that while violent incidents have decreased, the share of violence that ends in death has increased significantly. In 1994, there were 2 homicides per 1,000 assaults and about 16 per 1,000 robberies. By 2020, those figures rose to 7.2 and 55.8, respectively.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Heavy traffic moves along Interstate-395 on Nov. 22, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a proposal to scrap a years-old finding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten the environment and public health, a move that former agency officials say would gut the EPA’s authority to reduce emissions and is sure to end up in the courts.

The EPA sent a draft proposal to the White House late last month calling for scrapping what’s referred to as the endangerment finding on top of vehicle emissions standards for certain cars and trucks. The White House Office of Management and Budget could finish reviewing the draft on Monday and some expect an announcement on the issue the last week of July, Joe Goffman, a former assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an interview.

Former EPA officials say such a move would gut the agency’s own power to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which have been widely found to cause global warming.

“It’ll be the most decisive step taken to make the agency totally irrelevant, which then will become an excuse to just get rid of it,” Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA administrator from 2001 to 2003 under President George W. Bush, said in a phone interview.

Whitman said she thinks “the long-term goal of all of this is to ensure that the agency can’t do regulations.”

‘Suffocating its own authority’

The EPA finalized what it is known as the endangerment finding in late 2009. It said that greenhouse gases are a threat to both the environment and public health and that emissions from vehicles pollute the air with greenhouse gases. The finding is what obligates the EPA to address greenhouse gas emissions, Goffman said.

“Essentially what the EPA is doing is suffocating its own authority under the Clean Air Act…to establish programs and rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Goffman, who worked at the EPA during the administrations of Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

“They’re making it impossible to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” in a deliberate fashion, he said.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced back in March that the agency was going to reconsider the finding.

Its proposal — which was submitted to the executive branch’s Office of Management and Budget on June 30 — will be shared for public comment following interagency review and after Zeldin has signed it, an EPA spokesperson said Thursday in an email.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Court fight ahead

The Trump administration’s moves to scrap the finding and vehicle emissions standards are its latest plays to dial back U.S. climate policy and efforts to fight climate change.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans scaled back support for renewable energy projects and other climate policies in the budget reconciliation bill signed into law July 4.

Trump also signed executive orders during his first days back in office to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement again and to aid fossil fuel production.

The EPA said the endangerment finding went beyond the agency’s statutory authority under the Clean Air Act, according to a summary of part of the proposal that was sent to the White House.

The Clean Air Act “does not authorize the EPA to prescribe emission standards to address global climate change concerns,” an executive summary of the proposal sent to the White House states, according to an excerpt obtained by States Newsroom.

Because of that, the agency is proposing rescinding “the Administrator’s findings that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles and engines contribute to air pollution which may endanger public health or welfare,” it said.

The agency in its proposal also raises a key 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA that determined the EPA is allowed to regulate greenhouse gases as part of the Clean Air Act because they pollute the air.

The EPA argued that the decision doesn’t support how the agency has carried out the Clean Air Act. On top of that, the agency says that the “EPA unreasonably analyzed the scientific record” and that “developments cast significant doubt on the reliability of the findings.”

Similar to numerous other executive actions taken by the Trump administration, Whitman and Goffman said they expect this latest move will end up in the courts.

“This is the beginning of a long, long saga,” Goffman said.

From left, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley will look to run for governor in the 2026 Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez announced her campaign Friday and Attorney General Josh Kaul declined to comment on his plans. (Photos by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Less than 24 hours after Gov. Tony Evers announced he wouldn’t run for another term in office, the field for the Democratic primary for governor is beginning to take shape as Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez launched  her campaign Friday morning while other potential candidates are still considering. 

Evers’ video announcing that he would retire because of his family ended months of speculation about a potential third term and triggered the start of the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010. 

The Republican field is still shaping up, with Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and Whitefish Bay manufacturer Bill Berrien have officially announced. Other potential candidates include U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and businessmen Eric Hovde and Tim Michels, both of whom have recently lost statewide campaigns. 

The first Democrat in the race, Rodriguez in her campaign launch video took aim both at Republicans in Washington and at the GOP majority in the Legislature. 

“We’ve got a maniac in the White House. His tariffs are killing our farmers and his policies are hurting our kids,” Rodriguez said of President Donald Trump. “Our [state] Legislature refuses to expand Medicaid, even though 41 other states have done it. I mean Arkansas expanded Medicaid. Arkansas, but not Wisconsin. I’ll get it done.” 

Rodriguez was elected lieutenant governor in 2022, when Evers won his second term. She succeeded former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson that year. 

“I’ve been an ER nurse, a public health expert and a small business owner. I’m used to being on my feet and getting right to the point,” Rodriguez said in her video. “I have an announcement: I’m running for governor.” 

“I know what you’re thinking, you don’t have the time for the rest of this video,” Rodriguez said. “Look, I get it I’m a busy parent too, so here’s what you should know: I’ve got two kids that are way too embarrassed to be in this video, a dog named Chico and I met my husband salsa dancing – all true. My parents were Wisconsin dairy farmers. My dad served during Vietnam and fixed telephones at Wisconsin Bell. Mom was a union member who helped kids with special needs.”

Rodriguez got degrees in neuroscience and nursing before working as a nurse in an emergency room in Baltimore. She has also worked for the Centers for Disease Control and has served as vice president for several health care-related businesses, including at Advocate Aurora Health from 2017-2020.

Rodriguez said in the video that entering politics wasn’t part of her plan, but seeing “a broken system” she decided to run for the Assembly. She flipped a Republican seat that covered parts of Milwaukee and Waukesha in 2020 by 735 votes, and served for one term before making her run for lieutenant governor in 2021. After winning the Democratic primary, she joined Evers on the ticket. 

The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association quickly endorsed Rodriguez Friday.

Rodriguez noted that control of the state Legislature is also at stake in 2026, with Democrats having the chance under new, fairer maps adopted in 2024 to win control. The last time there was a Democratic trifecta in Wisconsin was in the 2009-2010 session. 

“Look, we’ve got a real shot at flipping the state Legislature, and with a Democratic governor we can finally expand Medicaid and boost our health care workforce. We can strengthen our farms and unions and small businesses, fund our public schools and give teachers the raise they’ve earned. That’s the right path, and it’s what you and your family deserve,” Rodriguez said. “I can’t wait to earn your vote.”

Other Democrats on whether they’ll run

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a statement Friday morning that he cares about the future direction of Wisconsin and that “I will be taking steps toward entering the race for Governor,” in the coming weeks. 

“The stakes are simply too high to sit on the sidelines,” Crowley said. “Governor Evers has laid a strong foundation. I believe it’s our responsibility to build on that progress — and I look forward to engaging in that conversation with the people of Wisconsin.” 

Crowley, 33, was elected to the county’s top office in 2020, the first African American and the youngest person to serve in the position. During his time in the job, Crowley has been a staunch  advocate for the state’s largest county, including helping secure a sales tax increase for Milwaukee. He also previously served for two terms in the state Assembly.

Asked whether she plans to run, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) told the Wisconsin Examiner Friday she is “giving it really serious consideration.” Roys came in third in the 2018 primary that nominated Evers.

“This is going to be a wide open primary,” Roys said. “I don’t think anybody has a strong advantage in it, and I think the stakes are incredibly high.” 

Roys said she thought Evers has “given more than anyone could ask to this state” and has earned the right to do whatever he wants. She said, however, that Democrats shouldn’t rely on old tactics in 2026 and that people want a candidate who will inspire them.

“Tony Evers has been a beloved governor of this state, and so I think he would have certainly been able to win a third term if that’s what he wanted to do,” Roys said. “At the same time, I think that there is a real hunger in the party and in the country generally, to see the next generation of leaders getting a chance, and we have a very strong bench in Wisconsin.”

Roys also ran for the U.S. House in 2012, losing in the primary for the 2nd District to U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan. 

Roys said that there is a lot at stake in the 2026 race. The country is at an “incredibly dangerous moment” with the Republican control in Washington, D.C., she said, and Wisconsin Democrats could have a “incredible opportunity” to deliver on an array of issues at the state level, including funding public education, supporting Wisconsin’s public universities and technical colleges, expanding access to health care, addressing the high cost of housing and child care, and protecting peoples’ rights and freedoms. 

For the last five years, Roys has served in the state Senate, including as a member of the Joint Finance Committee, and has been a strong advocate for funding child care and reproductive rights. 

Recalling her time in the Assembly from 2009-2013, including the last session when Democrats held a trifecta, Roys said Democrats didn’t accomplish enough.

“I’m determined to make sure that we do not blow this opportunity,” Roys said. “I think we need strong leadership from our next Democratic governor to make sure that we deliver for people in this state.” 

Roys said she is considering many factors in deciding whether to join the race, including whether she would be the right person for the position, her recent experience and her family, including their security.

Whether she runs or not, Roys said she will work across the state to help Democrats flip both houses. She isn’t up for reelection this year and Democrats have set a goal of winning control of the Senate and Assembly for the first time in over 15 years. 

“My hope is that all the candidates who are considering a run for governor are prioritizing flipping the Legislature,” Roys said. During Evers’ two terms with a Republican majority in both houses, “He wrote great budgets. They threw them in the garbage,” she said. “He wanted to pass a lot of great legislation that Democrats offered in the Legislature, and he could hardly sign many into law, because he was busy with that veto pen.” 

Attorney General Josh Kaul, who would likely be a top candidate if he runs, declined to tell reporters about his plans Friday, saying that it is important to reflect on Evers’ service and “the significance of where we’ve come in the last six and a half years.” 

“I don’t have any announcement today,” Kaul said. “I think in the next several weeks, you’ll hear from a number of people as to where they stand.” 

Kaul was first elected to the statewide position in 2018 and won a second term in 2022 in a close race against Eric Toney, a Republican prosecutor from Fond du Lac County. Since Trump took office for his second term, Kaul has joined several multistate lawsuits to push back on some of the federal government’s actions, including the withholding of funding

Other potential candidates include Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

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The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's order blocking President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order from going into effect nationwide, despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court striking down another nationwide ruling. (Photo by Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  A federal appeals court dealt a setback for President Donald Trump’s offensive to end birthright citizenship, even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the lower courts to avoid overly broad immigration rulings. The decision likely sets the stage for the high court to again hear arguments related to the constitutional right for babies born on U.S. soil.

Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a 2-1 decision late Wednesday declaring Trump’s policy unconstitutional. The ruling upheld a lower court’s nationwide injunction against the controversial order.

The original complaint was brought by Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon over the economic hardship states would bear if birthright citizenship was stripped from the Constitution.

Writing the majority opinion, Judge Ronald M. Gould affirmed the district court rightly made its ruling nationwide, despite the recent Supreme Court decision.

“The district court below concluded that a universal preliminary injunction is necessary to provide the States with complete relief,” Gould wrote. “We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief.”

An injunction covering only the states that challenged the order would be impractical because migrants covered by the order would inevitably move between states, Gould, who was appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, continued, explaining that states would then need to overhaul verification for numerous social safety net programs.

“For that reason, the States would suffer the same irreparable harms under a geographically-limited injunction as they would without an injunction,” he wrote.

Judge Michael D. Hawkins, also a Clinton appointee, joined the majority opinion.

In a dissent, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, appointed to the bench by Trump in 2019, wrote that courts must be “vigilant in enforcing the limits of our jurisdiction and our power to order relief. Otherwise, we risk entangling ourselves in contentious issues not properly before us and overstepping our bounds.”

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond for comment.

Supreme Court ruling

The decision comes less than two weeks after a district judge in New Hampshire issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s policy to end birthright citizenship and granted a class certification to infants who would be affected by the order.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of immigrants whose babies would be affected by the order shortly after the Supreme Court narrowed lower courts’ abilities to impose nationwide orders.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued the 6-3 decision on June 27 after the justices reviewed three cases consolidated into one that brought together plaintiffs from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia and the county and city of San Francisco also joined.

The justices ruled that Trump’s directive to end birthright citizenship can go into effect within 30 days of their ruling in all non-plaintiff states.

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., in a file photo from November 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Friday it’ll soon release billions in Education Department funding that has been frozen for weeks, delaying disbursements to K-12 schools throughout the country.

The funding — which goes toward migrant education, English-language learning and other programs — was supposed to go out before July 1, but the administration informed schools just one day before that it was instead holding onto $6.8 billion while staff conducted a review. Members of both parties in Congress objected to the move.

The Education Department released $1.3 billion for before- and after-school programs as well as summer programs in mid-July, but the rest of the funding remained stalled.

Madi Biedermann, a Department of Education spokesperson, wrote in an email to States Newsroom that the White House budget office “has completed its review” of the remaining accounts and “has directed the Department to release all formula funds.”

The administration will begin sending that money to school districts next week, Biedermann wrote.

Appropriators cheer

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote in a statement the “funds are essential to the operation of Maine’s public schools, supporting everything from classroom instruction to adult education.”

“I am pleased that following outreach from my colleagues and me, the Administration has agreed to release these highly-anticipated resources,” Collins wrote. “I will continue working to ensure that education funds are delivered without delay so that schools have adequate time to plan their finances for the upcoming school year, allowing students to arrive back to class this fall to properly-funded schools.”

Collins and nine other Republican senators wrote a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought earlier this month asking him to “faithfully implement” the spending law Congress approved in March.

“The decision to withhold this funding is contrary to President (Donald) Trump’s goal of returning K-12 education to the states,” the GOP senators wrote. “This funding goes directly to states and local school districts, where local leaders decide how this funding is spent, because as we know, local communities know how to best serve students and families.

“Withholding this funding denies states and communities the opportunity to pursue localized initiatives to support students and their families.”

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Education Department, wrote in a statement released Friday she was glad to see the funding unfrozen.

“The programs are ones that enjoy longstanding, bipartisan support like after-school and summer programs that provide learning and enrichment opportunities for school aged children, which also enables their parents to work and contribute to local economies, and programs to support adult learners working to gain employment skills, earn workforce certifications, or transition into postsecondary education,” Capito wrote. “That’s why it’s important we continue to protect and support these programs.”

Michael M. Bell, shown here in a promotional video for a documentary project about his son's death, is asking the Kenosha County district attorney to take a new look at the police shooting that killed his son. (Screenshot/via Michael Bell Facebook page. Used with permission)

The father of Michael E. Bell is asking the new Kenosha County district attorney to open a new investigation of Bell’s 2004 death at the hands of Kenosha police.

In a letter sent this week that arrived at the prosecutor’s office Thursday, Russell Beckman, a retired Kenosha Police Department detective, has asked the DA, Xavier Solis, to meet with Beckman and Bell’s father, Michael M. Bell.

Beckman has been working with the elder Bell for more than a decade to analyze the events on the night of the fatal shooting and challenge the official police account of the incident.

Their research has turned up “credible and well documented issues with the integrity of the investigation,” Beckman wrote. “There are multiple indications of a cover up of the true circumstances of the death by high level Kenosha police and government officials.”

The letter comes after a change in the administration in the DA’s office, and after years of conflict that Bell and Beckman have had with the previous DA, Michael Graveley.

After Graveley opposed an independent investigation of the case — and made claims about some of the evidence that Bell and Beckman disputed — they unsuccessfully sought legal sanctions against Graveley through the state Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Graveley, who served as DA for two terms, did not run for reelection in November 2024. His successor on the Democratic ticket, Carli McNeill, a veteran prosecutor in the DA’s office, lost to Solis, who ran as a Republican.

Michael E. Bell was fatally shot during a confrontation with police in the driveway of the home where he was living on Nov. 9, 2004. A Kenosha Police Department internal investigation exonerated all the officers involved within two days.

Officer Albert Gonzales shot the younger Bell at point-blank range after another officer at the scene shouted that he believed Bell had grabbed his gun.

The elder Bell sued the city, ultimately winning a settlement of $1.75 million in 2010. He subsequently campaigned for a state law requiring that police hand over investigations of deaths in their custody to another agency. The law was enacted in 2014.

Since the settlement of his lawsuit, Bell, with the assistance of Beckman and various technical consultants, has highlighted eyewitness testimony as well as physical evidence that contradict key details in the police department’s account of the events.

Because of those discrepancies, Bell and Beckman contend that the officer who thought his gun had been grabbed was mistaken, and that Gonzales was in a position to realize as much but fired his gun too hastily.

Gonzales, who ran unsuccessfully for sheriff in 2022 and has self-published his own account of the incident, has stood by the official police account.

In his letter to Solis, Beckman wrote, “I feel compelled to state that it is my belief that the actual shooting death of Mr. Bell’s son was legally justified, despite my concerns that it was not necessary.”

Nevertheless, Beckman charged in the letter, Kenosha police and city officials were responsible for “criminal acts committed to conceal the true circumstances of the death. I submit that this cover up started immediately after the shooting and continues to this day.”

Along with the letter, Beckman submitted a 95-page document outlining discrepancies and details that he and Bell have compiled to support their argument against the Kenosha Police Department description of the shooting and their claims of a willful coverup.

One discrepancy that Bell and Beckman found involves where various officers were standing during the confrontation in which Bell’s son was shot.

While the Kenosha Police account placed Gonzales on Bell’s son’s left side, with his gun pointing away from the house, eyewitness testimony and the medical examiner’s report indicated that Gonzales was on the young man’s right side, and his gun pointed toward the house.

That is a key difference that could demonstrate that the other officer who thought his gun was being taken was mistaken, Bell and Beckman contend.

“My son was being accused of trying to violently disarm an officer, and that he was the cause of his own death, according to the Kenosha PD,” Bell said Thursday.

“And that’s not the case. It was an accident,” he added, referring to the shooting. “But instead of coming back and saying it was an accident, they lied about it, and they discredit my son, and they discredit our family, and they discredited the law enforcement system. And so those things are really important to me.”

After Bell retrieved a sample of siding from the house several years later that included an indentation possibly from a bullet, he repeatedly sought the fatal bullet from the city of Kenosha, hoping to compare it to the indentation and support his and Beckman’s scenario of the incident.

As part of that campaign, Bell offered to donate $200,000 to charity and to indemnify the city in return for the bullet. City officials repeatedly rejected his appeal.

This past November, according to Bell and Beckman, they obtained records showing that an officer had signed out the bullet from the evidence material in 2007.

The officer did not document his reasons for doing so and did not disclose he had done so during a deposition in Bell’s lawsuit against the city that was underway at the time, they state in the appendix to the letter to Solis.  

“That’s really a new finding,” Bell told the Wisconsin Examiner, raising additional questions about the police handling of the incident.

The Wisconsin Examiner contacted Solis by email and left a voicemail message Thursday seeking comment on his initial reaction to the letter. The DA has not yet responded.

Bell has begun working with a documentary filmmaker interested in producing a film about his case. He posted a promotional video for the project on Facebook Thursday and later on YouTube as well. 

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Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that bars payments from university boosters and some other private-sector donors to college athletes.

The NCAA changed its rules in 2021 to allow athletes to profit from their own name, image and likeness, or NIL. A White House fact sheet Thursday said third-party payments from boosters and other private donors “created a chaotic environment that threatens the financial and structural viability of college athletics.”

“Waves of recent litigation against collegiate athletics governing rules have eliminated limits on athlete compensation, pay-for-play recruiting inducements, and transfers between universities, unleashing a sea change that threatens the viability of college sports,” the order said.

A patchwork of laws exists across states, with no federal NIL law in place. A federal judge in June approved the terms of a nearly $2.8 billion antitrust settlement, which paved the way for schools to directly pay athletes.

“While changes providing some increased benefits and flexibility to student-athletes were overdue and should be maintained, the inability to maintain reasonable rules and guardrails is a mortal threat to most college sports,” the executive order said. 

According to the White House fact sheet, the order’s prohibition of “third-party, pay-for-play payments” does not apply to “legitimate, fair-market-value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, such as for a brand endorsement.”

The order also seeks to preserve and expand “opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports” and calls on the secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the “status” of college-athletes.

A day before the order, two U.S. House panels advanced a measure that would set a national framework for college athletes’ compensation and bar them from being recognized as employees.

That bill, the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act, or ‘‘SCORE Act,” was approved in the House Energy and Commerce and Education and Workforce committees, which both have jurisdiction.