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If someone had walked past the storage of the neuroscience lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May, they might have heard quiet sobbing.

It was Uma Chatterjee, a doctoral student, having a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder flare-up triggered by the pressure of disappearing research funding.

Since January, core funding from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health has faced deep cuts. The administration of President Donald Trump has cut more than $4 billion from the National Institutes of Health and $970 million from the National Science Foundation, affecting more than 7,000 grants, according to Grant Witness, a database tracked by scientists. Although a federal judge ordered the NIH to reinstate some funding, Scott Delaney, a co-founder of Grant Witness, said that “most grants that have been terminated are still terminated. They haven’t come back, and they likely won’t.”

Among the programs being targeted are those designed to expand access to science for underrepresented groups — including people with disabilities, who account for one in four adults in the U.S.

In 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration issued an executive order that prioritized their inclusion in the federal workforce. But the Trump administration has mounted a broad attack on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives, leaving some early career scientists with disabilities increasingly uncertain about their place in a field where they have long faced systemic barriers.

Chatterjee studies the biology and treatment of OCD, a neuropsychiatric disorder that affected an estimated 1.2% of U.S. adults last year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Her lab was awarded a five-year NIH grant expected to provide annual funding, but a few months ago the amount was reduced without explanation, according to Chatterjee. Now the lab is struggling to pay its staff, she said.

Disability researcher harmed

Chatterjee is not the only early career disabled scholar affected. Soli Guzman, a Mount Holyoke College graduate with multiple chronic and neurological conditions, had plans to continue research in protein biochemistry through a program that places underrepresented recent graduates in labs across the country — but those plans were upended by funding cuts.

In April, the NIH ended funding for the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program, forcing colleges nationwide to halt applications. About 50 campus-based programs were affected when DEI initiatives came under political attack, according to John Shacka, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who chairs a group of PREP program directors. After two lawsuits — one brought by Massachusetts and a coalition of states, the other by public health groups and others — challenged the cuts, a federal judge ordered the grants restored. But last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court lacked jurisdiction, although it left in place the finding that NIH’s process was unlawful. Meanwhile, roughly half of PREP programs remain without support, according to Shacka.

When PREP was first suspended, Guzman had just finished submitting 27 applications to local programs across the country. “The ground was ripped out from under me,” they said. “I’m a planner. I always have a backup. But suddenly, Plan A and Plan B were both gone. I was devastated.”

In April, Guzman received an offer from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Because of funding delays, the university could not place them with a principal investigator until early August. At that point, the lab required them to commit within 10 days.

They turned it down.

They also faced financial and logistical hurdles: the challenge of finding affordable housing, the difficulty of quickly finding a roommate, and the need to pay out of pocket for repairs to a car that lacked proper heating. As a person with disabilities, moving would also have meant establishing a new network of care providers. “My health is at its best since 2020, and I didn’t want to change how good my health is,” they said. “If I got sick, I was stuck.”

NSF grantmaking has also stalled. Tara Lepore, a postdoctoral researcher at Western Michigan University and a grant reviewer, said NSF had paused most review activity for months. While the agency’s grantmaking process has recently resumed, many grants that were already awarded were revoked, something they had never seen before.

Lepore, who lives with multiple disabilities, studies equity in STEM education, or science, technology, engineering and math education. The NSF proposal that they submitted would have funded undergraduate and doctoral students to build collaborations between STEM instructors and neurodiverse students. In June, they heard that while the NSF grant was deemed “highly competitive,” it would not be funded because it did not align with the  administration’s priorities.

“It has all the words that the administration doesn’t like in it,” Lepore said.

In February, NPR reported that the NSF had begun using a keyword filter, flagging terms such as “diverse” and “underrepresented” to screen applications, aligning with new restrictions on DEI content.

Lepore’s project centers on “STEM,” “education” and “equity.”

Capital & Main contacted the NSF and the NIH to ask whether the cuts will affect initiatives designed to expand disabled people’s access to the workforce, education and other areas of public life.

Cassandra Eichner, a spokesperson for the NSF, pointed Capital & Main to a statement made by Sethuraman Panchanathan, the NSF’s director, in April, in which he said that the agency’s investments “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”

An email from the NIH press team said: “NIH and [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] are taking actions to prioritize research” that directly affects “the health of all Americans. We will leave no stone unturned in [our] mission to Make America Healthy Again.”

The New York Times reported in February that the NSF had indefinitely postponed an engineering workshop aimed at workforce inclusion for people with autism and other neurocognitive differences in the workforce.

Funding cuts worsen longstanding systematic bias

Guzman’s path to becoming a scientist has been marked by significant health challenges. In college, they developed long COVID-19 and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, leaving them mostly bedridden. They were later diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Despite holding student leadership roles and completing three research projects, their chronic health issues affected their grade point average, which stood at 3.4.

“Disabled people are the only minority group anyone can join at any point in their life — but we’re treated like a problem,” they said. “I’ve even been told not to mention my disability in job applications because, in this political climate, it’s too risky. ”

Chatterjee, who studies biomedical science, shared that view. While she was in college, her health nearly derailed her studies. She graduated with a 1.83 grade point average and had to pursue a master’s degree before applying to doctoral programs. She said lab work remains one of the least accessible academic environments for disabled scientists.

“Our work is dependent on rigid protocols, timing and animal models. There’s almost no room for flexibility,” Chatterjee said. “In theory, there should be systems to help — accommodations, people to back you up — but in practice, the culture is incredibly toxic. People brag about working 80, 100 hours a week, skipping holidays, never taking time off. I fought tooth and nail to get here.”

And it’s not just about inclusion or justice. Chatterjee said she believes the Trump administration’s assault on accessibility represents a loss of potential.

Guzman, who is working in a lab focused on disability-related research, echoed this view. They pointed to the Norris Lab at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Regenerative Medicine & Cell Biology in Charleston, South Carolina, which studies Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and said that many in the lab live with the condition themselves. To Guzman, this is a clear example of how lived experience can drive empathy and innovation. “We’re often more flexible and empathetic because of our own experiences,” they said. “That makes a difference not just in what gets studied, but in how labs are run and how students are supported.”

Yet scientists who bring their perspective remain scarce. According to the National Science Foundation, only about 10% of STEM Ph.D. recipients reported having a disability.

“A lot of diversity fellowships end up going to people who are marginalized but still fit the mold of being ‘high-performing,’” Chaterjee said. “Disabled researchers who need real accommodations are often left out, because the system still measures worth by productivity instead of equity.”

Copyright 2025 Capital & Main. Credit and a link to the original story at Capital & Main are required when republishing.

Capital & Main is an award-winning nonprofit publication whose mission is to educate the public on matters of importance such as economic inequality, climate change, health care, threats to democracy, hate and extremism and immigration.

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The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Oct. 8, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday following a four-day weekend, but neither Republicans nor Democrats appeared ready to work toward ending the government shutdown following another failed vote to advance a short-term funding bill. 

President Donald Trump and administration officials also didn’t seem inclined toward compromise anytime soon, if ever, previewing more spending cuts and layoffs as soon as this week. 

“We are closing up programs that are Democratic programs that we wanted to close up or that we never wanted to happen and now we’re closing them up and we’re not going to let them come back,” Trump said. “We’re not closing up Republican programs because we think they work.”

Trump said his administration will release a list of projects it’s cancelled or plans to eliminate funding for on Friday — another step that’s unlikely to bring about the type of bipartisanship and goodwill needed to end the shutdown. 

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget posted on social media it will try to alleviate some of the repercussions of the funding lapse and reduce the size of government while waiting for at least five more Senate Democrats to break ranks to advance a stopgap spending bill. 

“OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence,” agency staff wrote. “Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait.” 

RIFs refers to Reductions in Force, the technical term for layoffs. The administration announced Friday it sent notices to employees at several departments, including Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Treasury telling them they would soon not have jobs.

Labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers filed a lawsuit to block the layoffs from taking effect. The judge overseeing that case scheduled a Wednesday hearing to listen to arguments before deciding whether to grant a temporary restraining order. 

Back pay in question

The Trump administration has made several moves during the shutdown that are not typically taken during prolonged funding lapses.

Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought have indicated they may not provide back pay to furloughed federal workers after the shutdown ends, which is required by a 2019 law. And they have sought to cancel funding approved by Congress for projects in sections of the country that vote for Democrats. 

The Pentagon is also reprogramming money to provide pay for active duty military members this week, despite Congress not taking action on that issue.

The Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of government during the shutdown are widely seen as an effort to pressure Democrats to vote for the stopgap spending bill, but they haven’t had any measurable effect so far. 

Another failed Senate vote

The Senate deadlocked for an eighth time Tuesday evening on the House-passed funding bill that would last through Nov. 21. The vote was 49-45. The bill needs at least 60 senators to advance under the chamber’s rules. 

Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance their bill. Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who has been voting to advance the bill, didn’t vote. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Trump said during his afternoon event he wanted Democrats to sign something to reopen government, though it wasn’t clear what he meant since lawmakers in the Senate vote by giving a thumbs up or down. 

“This was a position that’s being forced upon us by Democrats and all they have to do is just sign a piece of paper saying we’re going to keep it going the way it is,” Trump said. “You know, it’s nothing. It shouldn’t even be an argument. They’ve signed it many times before.”

No strategy

During a morning press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would not change his approach or negotiate with Democrats on a stopgap measure. 

“I don’t have any strategy,” the Louisiana Republican said. “The strategy is to do the right and obvious thing and keep the government moving for the people.”

Johnson has kept the House out of session since late September but has been holding daily press conferences with members of his leadership team to criticize Democrats and press them to advance the short-term funding bill. 

GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, said starting Tuesday an additional 400,000 civilian federal workers would receive partial paychecks due to the government shutdown. Those federal employees work at the departments of Education and Interior, as well as the National Science Foundation. 

“This will be the last paycheck that these federal workers receive until Democrats grow a spine and reopen the federal government,” she said. 

Last week, 700,000 civilian federal workers received about 70% of their usual paycheck, due to the shutdown. Those employees work for the Executive Office of the President, Health and Human Services, Department of Veterans Affairs, civilians at the Defense Department, NASA, General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management, among others.

Active duty military members were set to miss their first paycheck Wednesday until the Pentagon shifted $8 billion in research funds to pay the troops on time. 

U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee Chairman Gus Papathanasiou released a statement Tuesday that the thousands of officers who protect members of Congress missed a full paycheck Friday. 

“The longer the shutdown drags on, the harder it becomes for my officers,” Papathanasiou wrote. “Banks and landlords do not give my officers a pass because we are in a shutdown — they still expect to be paid. 

“Unfortunately, Congress and the Administration are not in active negotiations, and everyone is waiting for the other side to blink. That is not how we are going to end this shutdown, and the sooner they start talking, the quicker we can end this thing.”

Maryland, Virginia Dems rally

Seeking to pressure the Trump administration to negotiate, Democratic lawmakers who represent Maryland and Virginia, where many federal workers live, held a rally outside the Office of Management and Budget in the morning.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner rebuked GOP leaders, including OMB Director Vought, for using federal workers as “political pawns” and “trading chips in some political debate.”

He said that when an agreement is brokered to reopen government, the Trump administration must adhere to it and not illegally withhold or cancel funds approved by Congress, which holds the power of the purse. 

“We’ll get the government reopened, but we have to make sure that when a deal is struck, it is kept,” Warner said. “Russ Vought at the OMB cannot pick and choose which federal programs to fund after Congress and the president have come together.”

Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks sought to encourage Republicans to negotiate with Democrats to extend the enhanced tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

“The Republicans would prefer to shut down the government than to ensure your family has affordable health care,” Alsobrooks said. “It is more than shameful, it is immoral and it is the kind of immorality that will hurt our country for generations to come.”

Democrats in Congress insisted before the shutdown began and for the 14 days it’s been ongoing that they will not vote to advance the short-term government funding bill without a bipartisan agreement on the expiring subsidies. 

GOP leaders have said they will negotiate on that issue, but only after Democrats advance the stopgap spending bill through the Senate.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries argued during an afternoon press conference that Republicans need Democratic votes in the Senate to advance the stopgap funding bill and should try to negotiate a deal.

“We need them to abandon their failed ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” the New York Democrat said. “If Democratic votes are needed to reopen the government, which is the case, then this has to be a bipartisan discussion to find a bipartisan resolution to reopen the government.”

Smith and Wesson handguns are displayed during the 2015 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Nashville, Tenn. A new report found Wisconsin gun deaths have increased since 2002. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Jenevia Blanks’ young cousin was killed by gun violence, Blanks wrote in personal testimony included in a report released Tuesday that analyzes gun deaths in Wisconsin. 

“I want to keep sending a message to legislators that this violence is an epidemic, and something has to be done,” said Blanks, who volunteers with the advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “It’s not acceptable that we keep having so many lives cut short by gun violence.”

Firearms claimed the lives of 762 Wisconsinites in 2023, according to a report from the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) Educational Fund and the Violence Policy Center. This included suicides, homicides and other firearm deaths. 

The total number marks a decline from the 830 deaths reported for 2022 and the 793 deaths reported for 2021. The report also says that rates of overall suicide and firearm suicide in Wisconsin are similar to national rates, while homicide and firearm homicide rates are lower in Wisconsin than in the nation. 

However, overall rates of firearm suicides and firearm homicides have increased in Wisconsin since 2002. Since 2020, firearm deaths have reportedly outpaced motor vehicle deaths in Wisconsin. 

“One death from gun violence is too many,” Nick Matuszewski, associate executive director of the WAVE Educational Fund, said in a statement. “But 762 deaths is a disgrace and an urgent call to take the kind of actions that have been proven to save lives.” 

The 762 deaths include 502 firearm suicides and 236 firearm homicides. The report includes findings related to sex, age, race and ethnicity and rural and urban areas. 

WAVE reports that in 2023, suicides took up a larger percentage of firearms deaths in rural Wisconsin (88.5%) than in urban Wisconsin (58.2%). 

According to the report, guns were used in 54.6% of suicides and 83.1% of homicides in Wisconsin.

Black residents of Wisconsin were 40 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than white residents. The report states that an annual study by the Violence Policy Center found that Wisconsin had the fourth highest rate of Black homicide victimization in the nation in 2023. 

In 2023, 8,441 firearms were recovered in Wisconsin and traced, according to WAVE, most of which were handguns. The report found that 84.9% of firearms recovered in Wisconsin originated in the state.

The study was released the day before the Emergency Gun Violence Summit, which will take place Wednesday in Milwaukee. 

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UW-Milwaukee offers its own tuition promise program which covers up to four years of tuition and segregated fees for students from families earning less than $62,000 per year. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Democratic lawmakers are proposing a package of higher education bills to help address affordability for students by investing in a statewide tuition promise program and to support faculty and staff members by reversing Walker-era collective bargaining and tenure policies. 

Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), the ranking member on the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee, said Democratic lawmakers are looking for ways to ensure Wisconsin’s higher education system is strong and accessible to “anybody who has the talent and the work ethic to want to pursue something.” 

“That’s part of our American dream, is that no matter where you start out in life, you’ve got an opportunity to do better and to gain knowledge and training,” Emerson said. 

Emerson said Democratic lawmakers hope the bills can kickstart discussions about policy changes that could be made. She noted that Republican lawmakers have often stripped proposals from the budget, saying that policy should be passed through individual bills outside of the budget process.

“We’re putting some of these bills back out now and saying, let’s have the policy discussion,” Emerson said. “If you’re not willing to have that during the budget, let’s have the discussion now.” 

Emerson said the first pair of bills that lawmakers unveiled at a press conference last week seek to specifically help with the affordability of higher education. 

“A lot of us heard loud and clear last election that pocketbook issues are really what are leading people right now,” Emerson said, adding that it’s part of the reason she supported the recent state budget. “But it wasn’t a perfect budget, and so we thought, how can we make this a little bit better?”

One bill, coauthored by Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Rep. Brienne Brown (D-Whitewater), would implement a statewide “tuition promise” program, allowing first-time, in-state students from households with an adjusted gross income of $71,000 or less to have their tuition covered at any UW school, other than UW-Madison. Under the bill, the state would dedicate nearly $40 million towards the program. 

The program would function as “last-dollar, gap funding” meaning it would fill in the rest of the tuition costs after all federal and state grants and scholarships are calculated.

According to The Hechinger Report , as of 2024, 37 states offered a statewide promise program. 

UW-Madison already offers “Bucky’s Tuition Promise,” which launched in 2018 and is funded with private gifts and other institutional resources, not state tax dollars. The program guarantees four years of tuition and segregated fees for any incoming freshman from Wisconsin whose family’s annual household adjusted gross income is $65,000 or less. 

Recent studies have found the tuition promise program increased enrollment among accepted students at UW-Madison and increased retention rates. 

UW-Milwaukee also offers its own program which covers up to four years of tuition and segregated fees for students from families earning less than $62,000 per year. 

The UW system also has a version of the program that recently relaunched in 2025 after the system secured private funding. The Wisconsin Tuition Promise first launched in 2023, but was ended in 2024 after Republican lawmakers declined to fund the program. 

Another bill by Dassler-Alfheim and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland) would invest $10 million in the UW system for student retention and talent development efforts. 

At the press conference last week, Dassler-Alfheim said the bills are essential for supporting the state’s workforce.  

“If our workforce is the engine that runs our economy, then our Universities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical Colleges are the gasoline that power that engine as our baby boomers retire in droves. We have workforce shortages in every category. We have all struggled to schedule a doctor’s appointment, a plumber, an accountant, or even a cleaning at the dentist,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “The purpose of these two bills is to help qualified students access the higher education needed to advance themselves and to fulfill the promise to Wisconsin employers to develop the workforce necessary to maintain and grow Wisconsin’s economy.”

Democratic lawmakers also circulated bill drafts meant to help support staff and faculty at UW system campuses. 

One would again allow most UW system employees, faculty and academic staff to collectively bargain over wages, hours, and conditions of employment. UW employees were stripped of that ability under the Walker-era law Act 10. 

Another bill would reverse changes made in the 2015 state budget that eliminated language in state statute that protected tenure. Lawmakers said in 2015 that the changes were necessary to give the UW system flexibility to deal with budget cuts, though faculty members said then that the changes were an attack on tenure. 

Emerson said it is getting harder to recruit people to work at the universities in the state and that some of the changes could help. 

“If we’re making these big changes about how universities are dealt with, staff and faculty need to have a seat at the table for having these conversations and having a seat at the table in meaningful ways where their concerns are addressed too,” Emerson said. 

Emerson noted that in recent years Republican lawmakers have pushed through proposals and deals that triggered pushback from faculty members. 

The most recent budget deal negotiated between lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers included new work load requirements for UW faculty, mandating that they teach a minimum of 24 credits per academic year, or four 3-credit courses, starting in Sept. 2026. The requirement has garnered concerned reactions from faculty, some of who have said it could be difficult to balance teaching and research demands.

In 2023, Republican lawmakers negotiated with UW leaders to secure concessions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in exchange for staff pay raises and money for buildings. The deal garnered a lot of pushback from staff and students at the time.

“You know, the workload requirements that came through the budget, or the DEI deal that happened last session, none of those would have happened if we had collective bargaining in place,” Emerson said. “Those are two things that when you have people who don’t work in an industry trying to put working parameters around that industry, it falls flat.”

Bills likely won’t advance in Republican Legislature

The Democratic proposals will face a difficult road in the Republican-led Legislature. Emerson said the likelihood for a public hearing on the Democratic bills is “slim to none.”

However, Emerson said Democratic lawmakers plan to take the ideas to people in the state other ways. She and some of her Democratic colleagues will be on the UW-Stevens Point campus this week to start a tour of campuses around the state. 

Emerson said the purpose is to have as many conversations with staff, faculty and students as possible. 

“If we’re not going to have a hearing in Madison on it, we are ready to take this around to other campuses and other parts of the state and have the conversation on the college campuses,” Emerson said. “I want to hear what matters to the students. I want to hear what, you know, the career people need their students to have to get jobs. I want to hear from the business people in these communities.”

Emerson said part of the goal is to also start laying the foundation for if Democrats win more legislative power in 2026. 

“It’s always good when you’re making policy about something that you’re talking to the people that this is going to impact, so this is what we’re really hoping to do — work out all the kinks, and dust everything off, and, hopefully, have a little bit more governing power coming up in the next session, and be able to really hit the ground running with some of these bills,” Emerson said.

Emerson said Democratic lawmakers’ approach is focused on figuring out how the state can make higher education available for “anybody no matter their zip code, no matter their income level,” and she expressed skepticism the Republican bills will do that. 

“A lot of the bills that I see coming from my Republican colleagues about higher education tend to either be punitive — one person said one thing on one campus, therefore we have to make sure nobody ever says that again and getting into these free speech pieces — or they’re doing things in a way that tells me that they haven’t been on a college campus for a really long time,” Emerson said.

The Senate Universities and Technical Colleges Committee is scheduled to have a public hearing on eight Republican-authored higher education-related bills Wednesday. 

One bill, coauthored by Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) and Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), would place caps on annual tuition hikes. It was proposed in reaction to the 5% tuition increase that was approved after the recent state budget was completed. The increase was the third annual hike in a row. UW President Jay Rothman and UW regents had said the tuition increases would be necessary if the system didn’t secure enough funding from the state. 

In a memo about the bill, the Republican lawmakers said the Legislature needed to “implement a common sense law placing controls on these types of skyrocketing tuition increases” and that a cap on tuition increases would provide families with “the predictability required to budget for college expenses into the future.” Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) has also argued that the bill is about “protecting affordability.” 

Under the bill, the UW Board of Regents would be prohibited from increasing undergraduate tuition by more than the consumer price index increase in a given year.

Emerson said she didn’t think the bill would have the intended effect of helping students and families afford school. She noted some of the effects seen during the decade-long tuition freeze implemented under the Walker administration. 

UW leaders said at the time that the freeze was unsustainable as it limited campuses ability to maintain its program and course offerings and wages for staff and faculty. 

“Students couldn’t get the classes that they needed… so people would sometimes have to go for an extra year to get all of the classes that they needed to complete their degree. It ended up costing people more because they had to stay in longer to get the one last requirement that they needed for their degree,” Emerson said. “It’s a good messaging point to say we’re gonna not increase [tuition] by a certain amount, but I don’t think that that has the end result that they’re thinking it does.”

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The roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine is topped with a green roof planted with sedum and covered with solar panels. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

The news that $130 million in already-committed clean-energy funding for Wisconsin is on the chopping block is not abstract politics. It pulls real tools out of Wisconsin homes, schools, farms, and shop floors — right as our state is building momentum. The result is simple: higher bills, fewer choices, and lost jobs.

In a purple state like ours, climate action has succeeded because it’s kitchen-table common sense. It lowers costs, creates good local jobs, and protects the air and water families depend on. Our playbook is pragmatic — align smart policy with market innovation, center justice, and let businesses, workers, tribes and frontline communities lead together. Clawing back funds mid-stream breaks that compact and injects uncertainty just when we need reliability and speed.

What’s at stake here and now

Across Wisconsin, 82 clean-energy projects are moving forward: EV-charging corridors that support tourism and commerce from Superior to Kenosha; solar on schools and farms that cuts operating costs and keeps dollars local; grid upgrades that reduce outages for households and manufacturers. Clean energy already supports more than 71,000 Wisconsin jobs, with manufacturers, contractors and building trades poised to add tens of thousands more if the rules stay steady.

This is not coastal hype — it’s Menomonee Valley and the Fox Valley. Companies like Ingeteam in Milwaukee build components that power wind and EV projects nationwide. Give our manufacturers clear, predictable rules and Wisconsin will keep making core parts of the transition -— batteries, solar panels, wind components, EV chargers, and smart-grid equipment -— right here at home.

Schools and local governments are also using direct-pay to put solar on rooftops, electrify buses, and cut fuel and maintenance. Green Homeowners United and similar groups are helping thousands of households -— including many lower-income homeowners of color — tap rebates that reduce bills and carbon at the same time. These are the practical tools that stretch tight budgets and improve health outcomes in neighborhoods that have carried the burden the longest.

The real cost of policy whiplash

Rolling back incentives is a hidden tax on working families — up to $400 more a year on energy without the savings tools people are using now. With AI and data centers accelerating demand, the cheapest, fastest reliability gains come from efficiency, storage, and renewables. Cut those tools and we invite more price volatility and more outage risk — exactly what Wisconsin manufacturers, hospitals and farms can’t afford.

The “Big, Broken Bill” passed in Washington goes further, weakening EPA pollution standards and letting big polluters sidestep responsibility. That doesn’t eliminate costs; it shifts them to families in the form of asthma, missed school days and medical bills. It’s not fiscal conservatism to socialize pollution costs while privatizing short-term profits.

And for farmers, whose energy and conservation projects were finally penciling out with IRA tools, canceling support mid-contract leaves family farms holding the bag after planning in good faith. That’s not how you build durable rural economies.

Momentum that continues even if funds are cut

Here’s the other half of the story: Wisconsin’s transition won’t stop because some programs are attacked. Market forces, including  the declining cost of renewables and storage, efficiency that pays for itself and corporate and municipal sustainability commitments, continue to drive projects. Public-private partnerships, rural co-ops, tribal governments, school districts and village halls are working together to reduce risk, share data, and scale what works. That coalition will keep moving.

But let’s be clear: Clawbacks and moving goalposts slow us down and raise costs. They strand planning, freeze hiring and deter investment — especially in manufacturing corridors that depend on multi-year production schedules. If Congress wants to improve programs, fine. Just don’t pull the rug out mid-project.

Purple-state practicality: Results over rhetoric

Wisconsin’s approach is neither red nor blue; it’s results-based:

• Lower bills and stronger reliability through weatherization, heat pumps, rooftop and community solar and batteries that keep homes and Main Street businesses running during heat waves and deep freezes.
• Good local jobs in design, construction, electrical, HVAC, machining and advanced manufacturing.
• Cleaner air from electrified school buses and efficient buildings, health benefits that show up in fewer sick days and lower costs.
• Fairness by ensuring benefits land first where burdens have been heaviest.

We’ve also learned to say no when it matters and yes to better options. When a $2 billion methane gas plant was proposed, business and civic leaders asked basic questions: Is this the least-cost, least-risk path for ratepayers? Would it lock us into volatile fuel prices just as renewables, storage, demand response and efficiency are scaling? Pushing for a cleaner, more affordable portfolio wasn’t ideology. It was risk management.

A constructive path forward

• Keep the tools that help Wisconsin build here, hire here, and save here. Don’t rip away commitments families, schools, farms and manufacturers are already using.
• Provide certainty so manufacturers can invest in people and equipment. Certainty is economic development.
• Target affordability and reliability: Expand programs that lower bills, reduce outages, and prioritize investments in communities that have waited the longest for cleaner air and safer housing.
• Let locals lead: Support direct-pay and streamlined approvals for schools, municipalities, tribes and rural co-ops to deploy projects faster and cheaper.

Wisconsin has the talent, the supply chains — more than 350 in-state clean-energy companies — and the tradition of stewardship to lead the clean-energy economy. If we stay focused on trust, collaboration and measurable results, Wisconsin’s green momentum will outpace politics.

Don’t make Wisconsinites pay more to get less. Let’s build it here, power it here and prosper here.

John Imes is co-founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative and village president of Shorewood Hills. He will speak Oct. 22 on the American Sustainable Business Network national panel “Purple State, Green Momentum” — how Wisconsin’s pragmatic climate playbook lowers bills, creates good local jobs, and protects our air and water.

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The river flowing through Wauwatosa's Hart Park overflowing with flood water. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Over $80 million in federal relief funds have gone to Milwaukee County residents and businesses impacted by the historic flooding in August. Local officials are urging residents to tap into the funds, with just one month left to apply for federal aid. Thousands of Milwaukee County residents were affected by the floods, which blanketed streets and parks in flood water and debris after a record-breaking thousand-year storm. 

“Federal assistance is a crucial resource to help our residents repair their homes, recover from flood damage, and take a major step toward normalcy,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a statement. “But to unlock this funding you must apply. I know the process can feel overwhelming, representatives from our federal partners are available throughout Milwaukee County at Disaster Recovery Centers and Disaster Survivor Assistance locations to help you every step of the way. With only one month left to apply, I strongly urge everyone affected by the flood to start the application today. Don’t wait until the last minute.”

The deadline to apply for federal aid is Nov. 12, with residents able to apply at DisasterAssistance.gov, or by phone at 800-621-3362. Residents are also encouraged to visit one of the disaster recovery centers at the West Allis Senior Center (7001 W National Ave), or the Milwaukee recovery center at McNair Elementary School (4950 N. 24th St). A recovery center that had been located at the Wauwatosa City Hall closed Friday Oct. 10, after assisting more than 500 residents with Federal Emergency Management Agency applications over its two and a half weeks of operation, according to a press release. 

In the month since federal assistance became available, FEMA has distributed nearly $92 million to flood survivors statewide. Of that, just over $82 million has gone to 15,666 Milwaukee County residents. Additionally, the U.S. Small Business Administration has approved $10.2 million in disaster loans to Milwaukee County homeowners, renters and business owners. 

FEMA has also continued providing flood relief through the government shutdown. A spokesperson from the office of U.S. Rep.  Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) told the Wisconsin Examiner at the onset of the shutdown that FEMA will continue conducting essential duties, including payments to disaster survivors, debris removal, emergency protective measures and salaries for the disaster workforce.

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Relatives and friends of hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal embrace as they learn the news of his release on Oct. 13, 2025, in Ra'anana, Israel. The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has brought an end to the two years of war that followed the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. A condition of the deal was the immediate return of hostages held in Gaza. (Photo by Dima Vazinovich/Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — After just over two years in Hamas captivity, the surviving Israeli hostages were released Monday as President Donald Trump visited Israel and Egypt to celebrate a U.S.-brokered peace deal to end the war in Gaza.

In remarks to Israel’s Knesset, the country’s parliamentary body, Monday afternoon Jerusalem time, Trump hailed “the golden age of Israel and the golden age of the Middle East.”

“Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You’ve won. I mean, you’ve won. Now it’s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East. It’s about time you were able to enjoy the fruits of your labor,” Trump said during remarks that lasted just over an hour.

Israeli military forces, with financial and arms support from the United States, have bombarded the Gaza Strip since Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel from the Palestinian territory on Oct. 7, 2023, killing roughly 1,200 and taking 250 people captive. 

Gaza health officials said Monday the death toll in the small enclave had risen to 67,869 since the conflict began, including roughly 60 in the past 24 hours, according to Palestinian National Authority state-run media.

Hamas returned the remaining living 20 Israeli hostages Monday and committed to returning bodies of deceased hostages as part of the ceasefire agreement. In exchange, Israel released roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

As of Monday, Hamas still had to return the remains of two dozen hostages killed while held captive. The militant group that holds political power in Gaza returned the remains of four hostages to the National Institute for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, CNN reported Monday.

Trump calls for Netanyahu pardon

Many who attended Trump’s Knesset remarks wore red MAGA-style hats bearing the message “Trump the Peace President,” according to journalists who traveled with Trump to Israel.

Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be remembered “far more” for the peace deal than for the fighting. 

Trump notably asked Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Netanyahu, who is under investigation for bribery and fraud.

“Hey, I have an idea. Mr. President, why don’t you give him a pardon?” Trump said, adding, “Cigars and some champagne — who the hell cares?”

Egypt meeting

Trump then traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Monday evening, where roughly 30 world leaders met for a short summit marking the deal between Israel and Hamas — with many details yet to be hammered out.

Among those present was Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority. Video published by The New York Times showed Trump and Abbas chatting and shaking hands. Trump held onto Abbas’ hand while giving a thumbs-up with his other hand for a photo of the pair.

Trump invited Netanyahu, but the prime minister declined “due to time constraints” ahead of an upcoming holiday, according to an announcement posted by his office.

Trump, along with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, signed what the president described as a “document that’s going to spell out a lot of rules and regulations.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for text of the document.

Speaking to reporters as he signed the “historic document” in front of two rows of presidents and prime ministers, Trump marveled at how long it took to achieve the cessation of hostilities and predicted “it’s gonna hold up, too.”

The 20-point peace plan required the release of all living and deceased Israeli hostages, a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces and a reform of the Palestinian government, including completely disarming Hamas of weapons and political power. 

World leaders heaped praise on Trump at Monday’s summit. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the U.S. president is “a man of peace” and that he backed Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to video and reports from journalists at the summit. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi awarded Trump the Nile Collar, his country’s highest state honor.

U.S. leaders react

U.S. Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike praised the freeing of the surviving Israeli hostages.

House Speaker Mike Johnson applauded the “leadership, strength, and fortitude of President Trump.”

“For the first time in 738 days, there are no living Israelis hostages (sic) in the hands of Hamas. In just eight and half months in office, President Trump and his Administration have ensured the safe release and return of all 20 living Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity, putting lasting peace in the Middle East within reach,” the Louisiana Republican said in a statement Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who delivered a scathing rebuke on the Senate floor to Netanyahu’s leadership last year, celebrated the ceasefire deal Monday.

“Today is a wonderful day. Finally, finally, finally, the last living hostages brutally held by Hamas are home, an immense and overwhelming sigh of relief. I commend the enormous advocacy of the tireless hostage families, President Trump, his administration, and all who helped make this moment happen,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a statement.

“Today, we celebrate the return of the hostages — the joyous images of their reuniting with their families — and we solemnly reaffirm our commitment to bringing home all the deceased hostages, including my constituents Omer Neutra and Itay Chen.”

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, an outspoken critic of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, urged the immediate activation of humanitarian aid to the territory, including granting “unfettered access” to the United Nations.

The Vermont senator, who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement that Americans must “grapple with our role in this extremely dark chapter,” highlighting that the U.S. government provided billions in taxpayer dollars to support what he described as “Netanyahu’s barbaric campaign.”

“The vast majority of Americans understand that Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages,” Sanders said. “But most Americans also understand that Israel did not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, killing or wounding almost 237,000 Palestinians — more than 10 percent of Gaza’s population — most of them women, children, and the elderly.”  

A WIC child participant takes a WIC-approved product off the shelf in a grocery store in Seattle in September 2024. (Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is infusing $300 million into a key federal nutrition program to keep it running through October, while a government shutdown continues without an apparent end point. 

USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — known as WIC — has relied on short-term funds amid the shutdown. That has worried advocates as states are left to fill the gaps when the money runs out. 

USDA is transferring $300 million into WIC from its child nutrition programs account, which has long been funded in part by tariff revenue from prior years, according to a congressional aide familiar with the plan. 

The transfer does not require congressional approval and is expected to keep the program afloat through the end of this month. 

A USDA spokesperson said in a statement to States Newsroom that the agency “will utilize tariff revenue to fund WIC for the foreseeable future,” though the spokesperson did not offer any specifics. President Donald Trump’s administration had announced the transfer last week but also did not provide much detail. 

“Our hope is that that money can just get released really swiftly and provide funds to states by next week to prevent further disruptions to WIC,” Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association, told States Newsroom. 

“Full funding for the program is still the priority here, and it’s great to have short-term solutions, but we need the long-term commitment from Congress to continue funding WIC on a bipartisan basis, which it’s done for decades,” added Machell, whose organization serves as the nonprofit advocacy voice and education arm of WIC. 

Dependent on congressional approval

The program serves nearly 7 million people and offers “free healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and referrals to other services,” per USDA.

But as a discretionary program, WIC is subject to congressional approval each year — making it particularly vulnerable to the ongoing funding lapse.

With no funds so far congressionally appropriated for the program in fiscal 2026, which began Oct. 1, WIC has relied on several small pots of money in recent days to keep it running, including USDA’s $150 million contingency fund. States received allocations from that fund.

Leftover money for the program from the prior fiscal year was also reallocated to states last week, and was expected to keep WIC operating for several more days. 

Members of the U.S. Senate were scheduled to vote Tuesday on a stopgap spending bill passed by the House that would reopen the government. But with no deal at hand, it was expected the legislation would again fail to win the support of the 60 senators needed.

Senate rebuffs Trump budget cut for WIC

USDA’s decision to use the tariff revenue came as Trump has sought to slash part of WIC’s funding in his fiscal 2026 budget request, including taking away “more than $1.3 billion in fruit and vegetable benefits from 5.2 million participants,” according to an estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

The full Senate passed its bipartisan bill dealing with Agriculture Department funding, including WIC, back in August. The measure fully funds the program for fiscal 2026 at $8.2 billion and “continues full funding for additional fruit and vegetable benefits,” according to Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats. 

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee’s version of the bill, which passed out of the Republican-controlled panel in June, provides $7.5 billion for WIC, and includes a “10 percent cut in the cash value vouchers for fruits and vegetables for women and children,” according to the panel’s Democrats. 

Kate Scully, deputy director of WIC at the Food Research & Action Center, said “we’re still urging Congress to pass a full-year budget that provides WIC the funding it needs to serve everyone who’s eligible for the program and applies, and that includes keeping benefit levels where they are today.” 

Scully, whose national nonprofit works to reduce poverty-related hunger through research, advocacy and policy solutions, said “families should still utilize their benefits, go to scheduled appointments, but check with their state agency to see if there are any changes.” 

Scully said her organization is “hearing reports of some places closing,” but that might change with the $300 million infusion of funding. “So, certainly check with your state, but don’t not use your benefits or go to your appointments, because WIC should still be operational.” 

Wisconsin Department of Correction Secretary Jared Hoy was one of the keynote speakers at the EXPO gala.

Jared Hoy, Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, offered something the crowd gathered to celebrate Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO)  could relate to – a confession, followed by a commitment to do better.

“I don’t think we’ve done a very good job of engaging with people who are receiving our services, friends and family,” Hoy said in a speech at the EXPO gala Oct. 11 at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison, explaining the reason for conducting Friends and Family Forums between DOC management and the public.

Hoy, one of two keynote speakers during the “EXPOnential” gala, expressed the aim of overcoming challenges confronted by people caught up in the carceral system, including several honorees at the event who had served time in prison, some still on community supervision, including a woman working on becoming a certified peer counselor, a former Iraq war vet and practicing lawyer from Eau Claire, and a newly appointed official for Milwaukee.

EXPO is a non-profit advocacy group in Wisconsin that works to end mass incarceration, dismantle structural discrimination and restore formerly incarcerated people to community life. It’s largely staffed by the formerly incarcerated, including its executive director, Jerome Dillard, who explained the theme of the gala.

The term exponential, he said, is  “not just a gala name, but it’s a map of mercy and it’s an algorithm of potential. An exponent takes a small number and it raises it and turns it into two, into many and sparks into a skyline. And that’s what Wisconsin EXPO is. It’s organizing with formerly incarcerated neighbors to restore rights.”

Marianne Oleson, operations director for EXPO, noted the Beth Israel Center, a conservative synagogue in Madison, was receiving the Ally Organization of the Year recognition for its “shared love” with EXPO’s goals.

“Beth Israel has opened their doors so that we can gather, learn and share our truth with the community, but their generosity extends far beyond the walls of their synagogue,” said Oleson. “They have opened their homes and they have opened their hearts to us. They share their wisdom, compassion, creativity. in so many ways that remind us what true allyship looks like. They give our state residents rides, share the incredible gifts of art, and they bring us homemade lasagna.”

Deandrea “Dee” Hardman received the Woman of the Year recognition. Hardman said before going to prison she had made many bad decisions, living on the streets, surrounded by people who took advantage of her, and burning bridges with people in her life, so that when she left the chaos of her life for prison, she actually felt free.

“Going to prison disrupted my tormented cycle,” she said. “It was the first time I felt like I had an option to choose a different life. I had every opportunity that came my way to grow and change.”

In prison she became a certified welder and participated in work release, and even though she was surrounded by others who didn’t want to change their behavior from the street, she chose differently.

She said being able to reenter society in the EXPO Safe House helped her succeed outside of prison.

“I came home and worked extremely hard, but it was not solely my hard work that got me here — It was my sisters who supported me in the home and everyone who works within the organization,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I was leaving an institution not alone, but with an entire team of people behind me who wanted to help me and have absolutely nothing but the best for me.”

Hardman noted that she had just received her certification to become a peer support specialist and her aim was to share her experience with others to overcome the trauma of addiction and imprisonment.

Man of the Year David Carlson said Expo was one of the first organizations that helped him gain a “foothold” and “get traction in rebuilding my life after re-entry.”

His wife, Alicia Carlson, said her husband was identified by  the number “558672” when he was serving time in prison, but recently he had obtained another number, “1138342,” his state bar license number to practice law in Wisconsin.

“He stepped out of a system that had silenced him and set out on a mission to make people listen, and just as important to make sure that those around him, especially those who’ve been overlooked, blocked out, written off, were seen and heard too,” she said.

Of the two numbers identifying her husband, she said, one reminded him of what it was like to be silenced and the other “gives him a platform to make sure others never are.”

Carlson described the initiatives  her husband launched since he left prison, including a peer support agency with 80 mentors operating in 30 western Wisconsin counties

Carlson, who is now the Justice Forward Wisconsin Coalition coordinator, noted he was sentenced after serving a second tour in Iraq in the military. While in the Stanley Correctional Facility, he had the opportunity to leave early under the earned release program, but he was a self-described  “hothead” who probably was going to serve his whole sentence until a mentor, a fellow resident, saw his potential.

“Instead of seeing me as a dumb, young hothead, he really took me time to mentor me,” Carlson said. “I think mentorship is a key theme in my life and my success in what I have accomplished.”

The Justice Forward Wisconsin Coalition, he said, is a network of “justice-impacted individuals mentoring each other and advocating for each other.”

He said the work needs to be led by those who have experienced incarceration.

“But if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be by yourself in solitary confinement, if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be a teenager in solitary confinement missing your mom, if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be treated and dehumanized after a visit, strip searched, told to bend over and cough — like, these types of things never go away,” he said. “I’m 10 years out, and it never goes away. I’m a lawyer, and it never goes away… I think that it’s time that individuals that have those experiences lead the way, and that’s what this coalition is about.”

Adam Procell, the new director of Community Wellness and Safety for the City of Milwaukee, a position that aims to prevent and reduce violence through community partnerships, received the Ramiah Whiteside Changemaker recognition.

Procell said on the first day of his new position he went back to the site where 35 years earlier, at age 15, when he was a gang member, he had killed 18-year-old Robert Bruce.

“Day One of my job, I went and started at the scene of my crime because I knew I was going to have to ask others to lean into uncomfortable situations,” said Procell, “So I can’t ask the community to lean into uncomfortability unless I take my two feet to be the most uncomfortable place on the face of this Earth, which is where Robert lost his life.”

Procell said there was much pressure on him to succeed and he admitted that he needed help and encouragement. He said others should also be honest about their struggles, adding that “transformation is never born in isolation – It rises from connections.” 

“It wasn’t punishment that changed me. It was the love and hope that I got when I came into this community that made a huge difference, and it changed me,” Procell said.

Hoy talks about changing the DOC culture

During his keynote speech, Hoy noted that in one of his early training sessions at the DOC, he participated in an exercise for recruits in which they were asked whether they perceived themselves as different from those they would be supervising or the same, and he perceived himself as the same.

“And that always stuck with me, because fundamentally I don’t see myself at all different than any people that are being sentenced to Wisconsin DOC,”  he said. 

Hoy said he was challenged by Procell to talk to those receiving services from the DOC to see how effective those services were.

Hoy said he told his staff that they would sit in a room with members of the community to listen.

“It’s just to hear how our policies, how our decisions, impact the lives of not only the people that we care for, provide services to, but their friends and family, and it’s probably been one of the best things that I’ve done since I started,” he said.

Hoy thought the forums would be opportunities to educate the public as well as providing feedback to the DOC.

“I think we are benefiting more by just being there and listening and understanding that the folks across the table and in those small groups are human beings just like us,” he said. “After the first forum, I sat at a table, after just about everybody left with a warden, and I won’t out him, but he was in tears and talked about how much his decisions impact not just people in our care, but their families and their systems. That is culture change.”

Hoy said recommendations are being generated to change the operation of the DOC, but what is more fundamentally important to him is the department’s culture.

“If we don’t make sure to address the culture and how we treat people, making sure that everything we do is treating people with dignity and respect, it’s not going to matter if we bring the overhead time from 35 days on average down to 20 or whatever it might be,” he said.

He noted that those working in maximum security prisons and restrictive housing settings often experience aggression by residents, including bodily fluids thrown at correctional officers.

“I get a lot of pushback when I say, not letting anybody off the hook for it, but what are the conditions that we are creating that make it OK for a human being to do that to another human being?” He said. “That’s the culture that we have to address, and it’s not everywhere. I’m not up here to completely bash DOC. I mean, I’ll tell it like it is, but there are pockets [needing change].”

Hoy also asked for understanding on the difficulty of making changes in an organization with 10,000 staff, 70,000 in community supervision and over 23,000 incarcerated.

“There’s going to be challenges; there’s going to be gaps,” he said of the DOC. But he asked for understanding for the thousands of people who  work for  DOC “who  “are trying to help change lives.”

National effort

The last keynote speaker of the evening was David Ayala, executive director of the national organization of The Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Families Movement, a network of over 60 organizations.

Ayala talked about the work of EXPO as part of a national movement that centers leadership by the people directly affected by the carceral system, narrative story-telling,  fighting for systemic change and creating infrastructure for reentry.

He stressed the importance of telling success stories like Carlson’s journey to obtaining his law degree.

“We need to lift up stories like that,” he said, “… there are many Davids across this country.”

Ayala encouraged EXPO to work across state lines with similar organizations.

“You’re not alone,” he told the group.  “You are part of a rich, resilient national web — a movement that believes freedom is not just a word, but a living horizon where every person returning home is met with care, dignity, and possibilities.”

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A bill introduced on Monday would grant Devil's Lake State Park the rights to "flourish, evolve, and be clean." (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

To celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly announced a package of bills Monday that would grant rights to Devil’s Lake State Park and reinstitute a law that effectively banned mining. 

The proposal to grant “rights of nature” to Wisconsin’s most popular state park comes just months after a group of Republicans introduced legislation that would prevent local governments in the state from enacting similar legislation. The Milwaukee County Board passed a rights of nature resolution promising to protect the Menominee, Milwaukee and Fox rivers and Lake Michigan. The Green Bay city council is also currently working on a rights of nature resolution. 

Under the bill, Devil’s Lake has the right to “flourish, evolve, and be clean.” The bill gives the state attorney general the authority to enforce the law against people who infringe on the park’s rights and allows anyone to sue or intervene in a lawsuit in the name of the park to enforce the park’s rights. Anyone who infringes on the park’s rights by damaging the environment will be liable to pay damages to restore the park to its previous state. 

In addition to the Devil’s Lake bill, the package includes a joint resolution acknowledging that “nature has inherent rights” and the state of Wisconsin “has a duty to uphold those rights as part of its enduring conservation legacy and its responsibility to future generations.” 

The resolution also states that the Legislature won’t pass laws preventing local rights of nature ordinances.

The Republican bill preempting local rights of nature efforts is “anti-free speech, it’s anti-democratic,” Rep. Vincent Miresse (D-Stevens Point), one of the bills’ co-authors, told the Wisconsin Examiner. “Whereas our bill is, ‘Hey, let’s get this on the docket and actually have a productive conversation, actually bring in stakeholders about what it means to look at nature actually having rights.’”

Miresse said the more symbolic measures passed by local governments are important statements of values, but he wanted the bill to have “teeth.” 

“I would like to move beyond mission and vision statements. I think those are great for guiding principles and taking us in the right direction and keeping our mission and vision top of mind when we are creating and drafting policy at the local level. And I want to make sure they have a right to do that regardless of what the preemption bill would do,” Miresse said. “However, when we were looking at this in terms of crafting policy and changing statute, there would be some teeth here.”

Miresse said the bill is targeted only at Devil’s Lake, rather than all the bodies of water in Wisconsin, because it was simplest to start with a piece of nature that has defined political boundaries already under the state’s control. 

In their preemption bill, Republicans Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) argued that laws granting rights to nature posed a “dangerous shift in legal precedent” that would result in “threatening property rights, stalling development, and burdening the judicial system.”

Democrats counter that granting legal rights to a park or a body of water isn’t much different than granting First Amendment rights to a corporation — which Republicans successfully argued for in court cases such as Citizens United. 

Also announced Monday is a proposal to reinstate Wisconsin’s “prove it first” mining law, which requires that in order to obtain a permit from the Department of Natural Resources, mining companies must prove the mine can be operated for 10 years and be shuttered for 10 years without harmful effects on the local environment. The law was enacted in 1997 until Republicans repealed it in 2017. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, authored the bill to repeal the mining ban when he was in the state Senate. 

This year, a Canadian company has begun exploratory drilling projects in the state, potentially leading to the first operating mines in Wisconsin for the first time in decades. 

Miresse said he wants decisions about mining to consider local environmental health rather than just being about “dollars and cents.”

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Marines assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon congratulate newly promoted Gunnery Sgt. Nathan Cox, platoon sergeant, during a field event at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, on Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Brynn Bouchard/Department of Defense)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to send paychecks to active duty troops this week, despite Congress not passing legislation to allow it during the ongoing shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has refused to bring the House back into session to pass a stand-alone bill to provide pay for troops, welcomed the action during a Monday press conference, though he didn’t comment on whether the administration holds that legal authority.  

“We are so very grateful that President Trump, again showing strong leadership, has stepped up to ensure that our troops are going to be paid on Oct. 15,” Johnson said. 

Congress approved a bill just before the 2013 government shutdown began, titled the Pay Our Military Act, that appropriated funding to ensure on-time paychecks for active duty and reserve troops during that funding lapse. 

A similar bill wasn’t necessary during the 2018-2019 shutdown since Congress had already approved the annual Defense Appropriations bill, one of the dozen full-year government spending bills that are supposed to become law by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. 

Johnson and other Republicans have faced questions for weeks about whether the House would return to pass a similar bill, but he declined. The Louisiana Republican has said repeatedly that if Democrats wanted to ensure troops get paid during the funding lapse, they would pass the stopgap spending bill that remains stalled in the Senate. 

President Donald Trump announced this weekend on social media that in the absence of congressional action, his administration would provide paychecks for military members.

“That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th,” Trump wrote. “We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS.”

A Pentagon spokesperson said Monday the department “has identified approximately $8 billion of unobligated research development testing and evaluation funds (RDTE) from the prior fiscal year that will be used to issue mid-month paychecks to service members in the event the funding lapse continues past Oct. 15. 

“We will provide more information as it becomes available.“

The White House did not immediately respond Monday to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Removes pressure point

Typically during a government shutdown, federal workers are categorized as exempt, meaning they keep working, or are furloughed. All are supposed to receive back pay under a 2019 law that Trump signed, though he is now looking for ways to reinterpret it.

Active duty military members are considered essential to federal operations and keep working during a shutdown, but a missed paycheck for troops has been viewed in the past as a pressure point on lawmakers to negotiate a deal.

Trump’s actions have removed that incentive for Republicans and Democrats to broker some sort of agreement sooner rather than later. 

Wendell Primus, a visiting fellow of economic studies at Brookings, said the administration’s decision to move “this amount of funds between defense accounts is highly illegal. But in many ways, it is not more illegal than all the illegal impoundments that are happening. It also has the effect of lessening the pressure on Congress to end the shutdown.”

Primus worked for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as her senior policy advisor on health and budget issues for nearly two decades. 

Johnson maintained during his press conference that Republican leaders will not negotiate with Democrats on their health care concerns until after the shutdown ends. 

Democratic leaders have said for months that lawmakers must reach an agreement to extend enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace. The credits are set to expire at the end of the year.

Democrats have blocked the House-passed stopgap spending bill, which would fund the federal government through Nov. 21, from advancing until there is a bipartisan agreement on the subsidies. 

Johnson said Democrats chose to sunset those tax credits at the end of this year because they were tied to helping people afford health insurance coverage during the coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, he said, the enhanced tax credits have become “a boondoggle” that caused the cost of health insurance to rise faster than he believes it would have otherwise. 

“It’s a subsidy for insurance companies. When you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices are increased. That’s been the problem,” Johnson said. “So if indeed the subsidy is going to be continued, it needs real reform.” 

Health care overhaul?

Johnson said lawmakers need October and part of November to determine how best to address the expiring tax credits, though he also appeared interested in overhauling other elements of the Affordable Care Act.

“Can we completely repeal and replace Obamacare? Many of us are skeptical about that now because the roots are so deep. It was really sinister, in my view, the way it was created,” Johnson said. “I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”

Johnson, who was a freshman lawmaker in 2017 when Republicans tried to repeal and replace the ACA, said he still has post-traumatic stress disorder from the effort falling apart in the Senate amid opposition from the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican. 

“It was a great frustration of mine and it always has been of President Trump’s, and we know that American health care needs dramatic reform,” he said. “Let’s just state it simply: Obamacare failed the American people.” 

Johnson said any efforts to overhaul the 15-year-old law would take considerable time, but he didn’t preview any of that during his press conference. 

“You can’t just rip it out at the roots and start over,” Johnson said. “It’s a very, very complicated series of measures and steps you have to take to fix it.”

Electric power lines. Clean energy projects, including several that involve improving the efficiency of electric power grids, are at risk of losing federal funding that was promised during the Biden administration. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

More than $130 million in Wisconsin clean energy-related projects are at risk as the Trump administration moves to cut up to $24 billion in projects originally approved by the Biden administration.

The projects are on a list that covers three groups of cuts proposed in May, on Oct. 2 and this past week. The online news outlet Semafor reported the third set of proposed cuts, which alone totals $12 billion, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, and published a link to a list that covers all three groups.

“However, it’s not clear whether, or when, the full list of cancellations will be enacted, or if President Donald Trump is instead looking to use them as leverage in negotiations over the [federal government] shutdown,” Semafor reported.

The Wisconsin grants on the list are a mix of projects that help boost energy efficiency, including supporting the expansion of energy storage battery systems. One potential casualty is more than $1 million to prepare young people to enter apprenticeships in the skilled trades.

Clean energy holds the promise of addressing air pollution and climate change as well as revitalizing the state’s industrial base, said John Imes, director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative (WEI), a nonprofit that advocates policies benefiting the environment and the economy.

“These are all win-win that all of us want regardless of our political affiliation,” Imes told the Wisconsin Examiner. “This is all bottom-line stuff.”

Rolling back projects that enhance cleaner and more efficient use of energy will likely increase the cost of energy, Imes said.

“It means higher electric bills, higher energy bills, fewer choices and lost jobs,” he said. “We’re going to lose momentum.”

Battery power and rural grid upgrade

The two largest Wisconsin projects on the Department of Energy list of targets involve one company, Alliant Energy. They account for more than half of the Wisconsin funds targeted for cancellation.

The projects are being undertaken by Alliant’s Wisconsin Power & Light unit. They include a $50 million grant for upgrading the rural electrical grid and $30 million for a power storage system using a technology based on carbon dioxide this is to be built near Portage, Wisconsin.

“We understand the Administration and Department of Energy (DOE) are working through their budgets and have notified some businesses of changes to grant announcements,” said Cindy Tomlinson, Alliant senior manager for communications, in an email message last week.

“At this time, we have not been made aware of any changes to the announced DOE grants for our Alliant Energy projects,” Tomlinson said. “We are optimistic the value and viability of these projects is clear and that they will remain fully funded. These projects deliver economic and customer benefits.”

The electrical grid upgrade project received a conditional commitment from the energy department in December, but a final award agreement hasn’t been executed, Tomlinson said, and no federal funds have been received or spent.

The federal grants accounted for about one-third of the total planned investment for each project. If the grid upgrade grant is canceled, the project is still expected to go forward, Tomlinson said, “however at a slower, more gradual pace than the fast, concentrated fashion outlined in our grant application.”

Other potentially affected grants include $28.7 million for Johnson Controls, based in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale, to support the company in its expansion of heat pump manufacturing.

The grant’s total value was $33 million at the time it was awarded to the company. According to USAspending.gov, a federal site that tracks the status of federal outlays, the business has received $4.4 million of the total.

Johnson Controls announced the grant in November 2023, part of an investment to scale up heat pump manufacturing at plants in Texas, Kansas and Pennsylvania and increase production by 200%, the company said at the time.

The company did not respond to inquiries Thursday and Friday by email and by telephone about the status of the grant or its planned heat pump manufacturing expansion.

Energy efficiency and innovation

Another Wisconsin recipient with grants on the list that are slated for elimination is Slipstream, a Madison-based nonprofit that provides consulting services on energy efficiency and innovation.

“We’re trying to make our energy systems more efficient and better so everybody’s paying less for energy,” said Scott Hackel, Slipstream’s vice president for research.

Hackel said Slipstream is working with other organizations on the list of targeted projects, and some of those organizations have been notified of grant terminations.

Slipstream also has two direct grants on the list, but has not received any notification that those grants are being terminated, Hackel said.

Slipstream had been awarded $5.2 million for work on equipping buildings with technology that enables them to automatically manage their power demand — reducing the building’s electrical load when demand on the grid is high and amping up the load when broader demand eases.

The organization is in the middle of a project implementing demand management technology in a group of buildings. The information gained from that test could be used to develop incentive programs for building owners to adopt that kind of technology, Hackel said.

If that gets cut off before it’s finished, other buildings in Wisconsin “would not have this example to look to,” he said.

A second grant awarded to the organization, $4 million, is to be used to train inspectors, building designers and others in how to effectively comply with and make the best use of building codes, particularly energy codes.

“Everything we’re doing is trying to make buildings and homes more affordable to live in with lower utility bills,” Hackel said. “If we’re not able to do that, that’s also a cost to people in Wisconsin.”

Two Universities of Wisconsin grants, one for $10 million and the other for $2.9 million, are on the list. Both involve projects to test technology innovations, according to the federal grant information documents.  

‘Electric city’ upgrades and a job-training program

A grant for the city of Kaukauna, Wisconsin, to install battery storage and make related electrical grid upgrades is also on the list. The original grant totaled $3 million, and so far $59,362 has been paid out, according to USAspending.gov, leaving $2.95 million that could be canceled.

The storage system is to bolster Kaukauna’s hydroelectric power generation operation, which dates to 1913 and led to the community’s adoption of “Electric City” as its nickname.

“Collateral damage from the Trump administration’s remarkably poor governance record continues to collect, this time in Kaukauna,” said Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson. “I can’t think of something more insulting than making the electric grid of a place known as ‘Electric City’ less safe or efficient.”

Also on the list is the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, a Milwaukee nonprofit that provides training and certification to prepare people to enter apprenticeships in the skilled trades. WRTP was awarded a $1.5 million grant for training in skills related to transportation electrification. So far $112,470 has been paid out. 

Dan Bukiewicz, head of the Milwaukee Building Trades Council and co-chair of the WRTP board of directors, said that the board hasn’t been notified that its grant might be at risk of being taken away by the Trump administration.

“I won’t say we’re surprised,” however, Bukiewicz said. “They’re just trying to roll back a lot of the green energy and infrastructure [investments]. … It’s trying to make time stand still, and it just won’t if the United States is going to compete globally.”

WRTP students typically come from underserved communities and are the most in need, Bukiewicz said. The program’s training emphasizes job safety, introduces students to the construction industry, equips them with basic skills that an apprenticeship will build on, and acquaints them with how the industry and the technology are changing and where they might find a place that suits them.

If the federal grant is pulled, “these dollars are irreplaceable,” Bukiewicz said. “It’s not just taking money away and eliminating classes. It’s eliminating opportunities and a chance for generational change for people who really need it.”

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Antitrust experts say the new administration’s hands-off approach to tech regulation could gain the president the loyalty of tech executives in the short term, but could hurt the competitiveness of the American tech sector in the long run. (Photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)

Leaders in the tech industry have enjoyed more freedom to make business moves and an overall deregulatory attitude under the Trump administration, but antitrust experts say the administration’s hands-off approach could end up hurting American companies’ ability to innovate and compete on a global scale.

Antitrust laws protect fair competition, ensuring that no one company controls an entire market, price gouges for their products or controls the cost of labor. In the short term, a lax approach to these laws could mean the American people may see more big tech companies merge or acquire smaller competitors. 

In the long-term, it means the already small group of people running the country’s most powerful tech firms would gain even more control of the market, Illinois-based legislative attorney Maaria Mozaffar said.

“Traditionally, innovation in tech is inspired by how we can solve problems. And if there’s fewer people that are not invested in solving problems, but more invested in making profit, the innovation’s intent is going to be different,” Mozaffar said. “We’re going to get a repetition of the same models and the same products that are not actually solving problems, but just a faster way to make money.”

Trump’s approach to the FTC

Though Democrats and Republicans may have had different “philosophies” for antitrust rules in the past, it’s unusual to see wide swings in attitudes from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said New Jersey-based antitrust attorney Nadine Jones. 

The independent regulatory agency, which protects consumer interests and anti-competitive business practices like price-fixing, illegal mergers and monopolization, has historically run with little influence from the president, Jones said, though it technically is housed under the executive branch.  

But recent moves by the Trump administration suggest he wants a much more hands-on approach, Jones said. Before taking office, Trump chose Andrew Ferguson as the FTC chairman, replacing Lina Khan, who fought Big Tech overreach during her tenure. Together with antitrust specialist Mark Meador, the pair have focused on issues of “censorship” by big tech, arguing that tech platforms have unfairly restricted conservative views.

Earlier this year, Trump fired two Democratic commissioners from the FTC, a decision that was recently supported by the Supreme Court, and set a precedent that gives more executive branch control over the independent agency.

And in August, Trump revoked a Biden-era executive order that called for enforcement of antitrust laws to promote more competition within industries and keep companies from monopolizing. 

All of it points to a central theme of deregulation for the tech industry, with a goal of growing the industry with as little government involvement as possible. Trump’s alignments with big tech leaders during the 2024 election were probably the first clue that he’d handle the FTC differently, Jones said. 

“I think if I were to try to read the tea leaves in past administrations, currying favor with the president was of less importance,” Jones said. “The DOJ, antitrust division, the assistant attorney general of the division was who you wanted to curry favor with, or the chair of the FTC. Whether or not you’re smiling nicely with the president was, I think, of less significance, because they typically left these technical areas of law to the experts.”

For California-based tech founder and author Mark Weinstein, The FTC holds a critical role in upholding democracy and free market capitalism. Trump’s attempts to fill the commission with Republicans is a threat to both concepts, he said. 

“It’s concerning, even when he appoints people who are inclined to be strong antitrust enforcers, because they’re still appointed by the president,” Weinstein said. “There’s a quid-pro-quo that’s clearly inferred there.”

Weinstein thinks that before his second term, Trump realized the immense power that information giants like Meta and Apple had in controlling content and shaping public opinion. Deregulatory policies could curry favor with the leaders of Big Tech, and help him control information, Weinstein said.

“If Meta bans him from their platform, then they have all the power,” he said. “And he wants to have all the power.” 

With influence over large tech platforms, Mozaffar said, Trump is more capable of spreading his ideas around diversity, equity and inclusion and past “censorship” of conservatives.

“When you see the tech giants behind Donald Trump, people think it’s just about making them richer,” Mozaffar said. “It’s really [Trump’s] ability to have control over how those tech platforms do their business, as far as content control.”

What does this mean for American tech companies? 

So far, the FTC has been continuing antitrust lawsuits from previous administrations against some tech giants, like Google, which is currently awaiting a decision on a trial alleging it monopolized its search engine, after being found liable in a separate advertising-related trial in 2024.

The commission is also awaiting an outcome on a six-week trial in a case it brought against Meta, parent of Facebook, alleging in 2020 — under direction from the first Trump administration — that the company created a monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Trump-appointed FTC commissioner Meador said at NYU’s Law Forum last month he believes most Americans support the scrutiny into big tech companies. 

“I don’t think this moment is a flash in the pan,” Meador said during the event. “I think that it is growing out of deeper sentiments and concerns about economic fairness and economic regulation and policy at a very broad level. And this is just one manifestation of it. I think that’s a generational thing. I think it’s only going to amplify. So, I don’t think it’s going away.”

But the current Trump administration has only brought one antitrust case against a tech merger, when it sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise from buying Juniper Networks for $14 billion earlier this year.

Trump is likely feeling out his options, Mozaffar said — he could fall in line with more traditional Republican action, aiming to enforce antitrust laws to promote competition. But he could also be using a framework FTC Chair Ferguson outlined, which criticises tech platform’s content moderation rules, as a way to rein in platforms that the GOP has long accused of censoring conservative viewpoints.

Mozaffar said she’s watching how the administration handles both horizontal and vertical mergers. Horizontal mergers, when two similar companies merge to create one company, are likely more familiar to the average American. But vertical mergers, which involve partnerships of companies across several layers of a supply chain, have the potential to have truly expansive power. 

One possible example is a recent $100 billion deal between AI giant OpenAI and computing powerhouse Nvidia. Nvidia’s investment into OpenAI includes the ability to build out its data center capacity and computing chip needs, tying the companies’ growth and success together. The deal immediately raised antitrust concerns. 

“How much control do you have over every piece of the process? To the point where there’s no innovation in product and competition leading up to that final product?” Mozaffar said.  “And then how much are you controlling as far as protecting labor rights and best practices, because you can always cut corners to be able to make sure that the final product serves the profit that it’s supposed to serve.” 

Amid conflicting federal antitrust cases, Jones advised corporate lawyers to pay attention to their state’s antitrust laws, as state attorneys general are some of the biggest enforcers of antitrust law in the country. 

She said although letting tech businesses operate unfettered may meet some of Trump’s short-term goals, a lack of enforcement will ultimately make the United States a less competitive, less innovative place. 

“Antitrust philosophy believes the only way to get genuine benefits for consumers, to get people to race to get to the finish line of your dollars — and you choosing them with your dollars — is to compete with each other,” Jones said.  “And then we, the consumers, enjoy the fruits of those competitions.”

A September 2025 view of Drumgoon Dairy, which Dorothy and Rodney Elliott opened in 2006 near Lake Norden, South Dakota. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

LAKE NORDEN — The names on the list included some of Dorothy Elliott’s best employees: hardworking, reliable, honest.

Most had been working at Drumgoon Dairy for years. Some worked there for nearly two decades, playing a role in the operation’s expansion and success.

But after an audit of the dairy at the end of May by the federal Department of Homeland Security, 38 of those employees are gone.

The department said they each had inaccurate, outdated or incomplete proof of U.S. citizenship or permission to work in the country.

Elliott co-owns the farm near Lake Norden, 5 miles from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s eastern South Dakota home. Elliott asked the affected employees for updated documentation but ultimately had to fire those who weren’t able to adequately resolve the problems with their documents. One person returned home because his visa was expiring, and another quit.

The audit decimated Elliott’s workforce, once more than 50 employees, dropping it to just 16.

Audits at dairy farms under the Trump administration’s escalated immigration enforcement efforts have “created unrest” among workers and owners, Elliott said. It’s made for a tough summer in an industry that was flourishing after decades of support from state government.

Elliott’s remaining employees have been working without breaks, she said. Without a pathway or plan to create a sustainable workforce in agriculture and by “removing everyone working in it,” she worries some agricultural operations will go out of business. She hopes Drumgoon isn’t one of them.

“Basically, we’ve turned off the tap, but we’ve done nothing to create a solution as to how we find employees for the dairy industry,” she said.

Never previously audited

Elliott is required to file I-9 forms with documentation proving her workers’ identity and eligibility to work in the U.S. It puts employers in a difficult position, said Scott VanderWal, president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau, because applicants may present fraudulent documents an employer doesn’t catch. Yet employers could also be sued for mistakenly rejecting valid documents.

“If employers are presented with documentation that looks real and legitimate, they’re obligated to accept it,” VanderWal said. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offers similar guidance, saying employers must accept documentation if it “reasonably appears to be genuine.”

Elliott could use the federal government’s web-based system, E-Verify, that allows employers to confirm their employees’ eligibility to work in the country. But E-Verify is not mandated for new hires in South Dakota, and Elliott said she doesn’t use it because of “unreliable results.” Organizations ranging from the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute to the American Civil Liberties Union have opposed the use of E-Verify, citing reasons including errors that cost people jobs because the system wrongly flagged them. 

So Elliott evaluates applicants’ documents herself. If their IDs are out of date or if they have a visa and are applying from another farm without returning home, she passes on hiring them. She’s turned people away a dozen times over the years, she said.

Drumgoon was never audited before. In her past dealings with the Department of Homeland Security during nearly two decades of running the dairy, Elliott said, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would merely tell her they were searching for a person and ask for a notification if the person applied for a job. 

This time was different. After an audit, employers are required to terminate unauthorized workers who can’t prove their employability, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. Audits — which are distinct from raids or other immigration enforcement operations — are meant to ensure businesses comply with federal employment laws. 

Elliott does not know where her 38 former employees went. They could be working at other dairies in the U.S. They could have left the country. They could be anywhere.

Because the dairy is near a farm owned by Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, and because Noem was in the state during the month of the audit to receive an honorary degree, South Dakota Searchlight asked the Department of Homeland Security if Noem had a direct role in the audit. The department didn’t respond to the question.

Elliott declined to talk about Noem, saying she recognizes that federal immigration authorities “have a job to do.” 

South Dakota Farmers Union President Doug Sombke called federal dairy audits “stupid,” because they needlessly displace workers. 

“Why the heck can’t we continue to use them there as an intern or apprentice or whatever you want to call it and make it legal? Why is it so important we grab them and call them a criminal? No one wants those jobs,” Sombke said. “I don’t understand why you’d cripple or cause problems for a labor shortage when all you have to do is get them legalized.”

Immigrants hiring immigrants

Elliott’s connection to immigrants isn’t limited to her employees. She was born in the United States but married her husband, Rodney, in Northern Ireland, where they had their children. 

Eliott worked in health care and her husband operated their 140-cow dairy farm in Northern Ireland when a newspaper ad, “Wanted: Dairy farmers in South Dakota,” caught their attention. Moving to America meant fewer regulations, cheaper land, cheaper feed and the ability to grow their business, she said.

The couple used the EB-5 investment-for-visa program to secure backers for their operation, opened the dairy in 2006, paid off the investors within a few years and have been expanding ever since. They started with about 1,500 cows in 2006 and have grown to 6,500.

Elliott’s children got their citizenship shortly after moving to the U.S., and her husband became a citizen about eight years after they moved. That experience helps her empathize with her workers, many of whom are Hispanic. She said everything they’re doing is to support their families back home, even though many aren’t able to see their families for years at a time.

“All they’re guilty of is working and doing a job that isn’t currently being filled by an American,” Elliott said.

Taneeza Islam advocates for immigrants as executive director of South Dakota Voices for Peace. She’s spoken to immigrant workers in other industries who were scared and confused after being terminated due to stricter immigration enforcement. 

“We have two very separate worlds right now: the community that’s impacted and worried about getting detained and deported, and the community that doesn’t know this is happening here,” Islam said.

State recruited dairies

The Elliotts are among many new South Dakotans who’ve helped the dairy industry boom in the last two decades. Then-governor and now-U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican, focused on supporting the industry in the early 2000s, which included efforts to recruit farmers from overseas.

In 2010, South Dakota’s dairy industry had an economic impact of $1.27 billion. By 2023, that had grown to $5.67 billion.

“We’ve achieved our goals we set out for ourselves: build a dairy, milk cows and grow the dairy industry in South Dakota,” Elliott said. “Is it a sustainable goal if there’s nobody to work on these dairies? No. So all the time, money, effort, investment and hard work that has gone into it will be null and void if there isn’t a workforce.”

Sombke, the state Farmers Union president, said the state’s investment in dairy “has been a good thing,” but he isn’t surprised by the recent disruption in the industry.

South Dakota Searchlight requested the number of audits conducted in South Dakota so far in 2025, but a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the department “does not disclose specific data on audits or enforcement actions by state or industry.”

Sombke said dairy audits are “way up” in the state compared to last year. He said nobody should be surprised to find workers at dairies without permission to be in the country. 

“What do you expect? The unemployment rate is less than 2% in the state,” Sombke said. “You’re going to be looking for labor anywhere you can find it.”

Aftermath of an audit

Drumgoon Dairy’s remaining employees have made mistakes because of the long hours they’ve had to cover — like reversing a payloader into a manure pond — or because they’re new to working on the farm.

“Some of them only get one or two days off in a 15-day period,” Elliott said. “But what else do you do? Do you just let cows starve or calves die because there’s no one there to take care of them?”

Some nearby farms sent workers to help at Drumgoon for a couple of days at a time this summer after the audit. Elliott and her husband have spent over $110,000 on recruiters and transportation so far to hire 22 visa workers from Mexico. But the visas come with restrictions on the types of jobs workers can do, so Elliott hired a dozen or so new employees locally, and still wants to hire another 10 to 15 people to replace terminated staff.

Elliott is struggling to find local applicants, which she is required by law to attempt before hiring visa workers. 

“If raising wages even more will bring Americans to work on the farm, we can try it,” Elliott said, “but there is a limit to how high you can raise wages when you don’t get to set the price of milk. Can I afford to pay a milker $25 an hour? At some point, you’d produce milk for more than you’re receiving for it.”

Trump could lead immigration reforms, Thune says

After a panel discussion at the annual Dakotafest agricultural trade show in Mitchell in August, U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, told South Dakota Searchlight that he believes President Donald Trump is interested in legal immigration and work visa reforms.

“If we can find some willing partners in the Democrats, some sort of an immigration policy or a piece of legislation that we could pass is not outside the realm of possibility,” Thune said. “Ultimately, that’s the best long-term solution, and I’ve heard him talk about it.”

Sen. Rounds told Searchlight that as more people are deported and industries are disrupted, “we will get enough support from the administration to begin looking at a legal system again.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, who is running for South Dakota governor next year, said some visa programs should be modified to meet the needs of the dairy industry. Some visas are seasonal programs that require participants to return home after a few months. The programs don’t fit the needs of dairy operations that require workers year-round.

Elliott has broached the issue for years to Thune, Johnson, Rounds and other federal officials.

“All I hear is, ‘I’ll mention that. We’ll talk about that.’ But nothing,” Elliott said. “What we hear is there is absolutely no passion for any kind of change to the status quo.”

Farmers suggest solutions

Lynn Boadwine of Boadwine Farms in Baltic has “run out of gas” trying to advocate for visa and immigration policy changes to support the dairy industry. But he was heartened to hear the congressional delegates’ comments.

“There’s rhetoric, but are you really working on it?” Boadwine said. “I hope they are, because the clock is really ticking on all of these issues and we’re going to start to run out of people.”

Boadwine shared immigration reform ideas with congressional offices but hasn’t heard back on the topic. His hope is to modernize and simplify the H-2A visa program for dairies. His proposal would remove the seasonality requirement and allow workers in the country without legal permission to transition to guest-worker status. Long-term guest workers would have a path toward permanent residency by proving they are law-abiding, hardworking employees.

VanderWal, with the South Dakota Farm Bureau, said he met this spring with Noem in Washington, D.C., in his capacity as vice president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. He urged Noem and the Trump administration to back off on audits in the agricultural industry in hopes that Congress would “fix the system.”

“We wanted to impress upon the administration that if they started removing illegal workers up and down the food chain, from production to processing to transportation to grocery stores to restaurants, we’d see a disaster worse than the pandemic,” VanderWal said.

The administration has since “backed off ag,” VanderWal said, but the consequences linger for producers like the Elliotts and their employees. He said that unless President Trump “gets real forceful and goes after it,” he doesn’t expect Congress to undertake legal immigration reforms.

Economic consequence predicted

At Drumgoon Dairy, Elliott has tried automating aspects of her operation. She and her husband put in 20 robots a few years ago with the expectation they could hire students from nearby Lake Area Technical College’s robotics program to maintain them.

They posted robotics maintenance positions to attract graduates, but the response was deflating.

“To date, no one,” Elliott said.

She plans to remove the robots because the cost of running and servicing them is too expensive. So far, they’ve sold three. If the cost of technology continues to be prohibitive or there aren’t reforms to workforce visa or immigration programs, she said, “I wonder how we will become a sustainable industry.”

Elliott fears there will be consequences and higher prices for milk and other consumer dairy products without action at the federal level. Boadwine agreed.

“If we keep down this road we’ll have no choice but to import more food,” Boadwine said, “and the reason we’d import more is because it’s gotten so much more expensive here because we crippled ourselves.”

Robert Thornton received personalized hospital care for COVID-19 and pneumonia in his Belvidere, Ill., home in 2024 as part of a Medicare in-home care program that expired October 1. (Photo courtesy of OSF Healthcare)

The federal government shutdown is forcing a reckoning for two remote health care programs because they automatically expired Oct. 1.

The telehealth and in-home hospital care programs were both temporary — but increasingly popular — options for Medicare recipients. They allowed doctors and hospitals to bill Medicare for telehealth appointments and in-home visits from nurses to provide care that is generally only available in hospitals.

The shutdown has prevented Congress from extending them.

More than 4 million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services in the first half of the year, according to Brown University’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research.

As of last fall, 366 hospitals had participated in the hospital-at-home program, serving 31,000 patients, according to a federal report. The program, officially called Acute Hospital Care at Home, allows patients who would otherwise be hospitalized to get inpatient care at home with a combination of nurse visits, monitoring equipment and remote doctor visits.

The programs have their roots in the pandemic, when doctors and hospitals wanted to keep patients safe from the risks of travel and hospital stays. Both are for Medicare recipients, generally people over 65 or who are disabled. But since many private insurers follow federal guidelines, some physicians have stopped booking telemedicine appointments for non-Medicare patients, rather than risk a change in insurance coverage.

Alexis Wynn, who is in her mid-30s and covered by private insurance through her employer, tried to switch an in-person doctor appointment in Pennsylvania to a video visit last week. The office told her that “all telemedicine is uncovered by insurance as of Oct. 1” — so she had to cancel the routine appointment.

“It was just a follow-up appointment  to make sure the dosing of my medication was still accurate, nothing that was pertinent to being face-to-face,” Wynn said. Her health insurance company later told her it still covered telehealth visits.

There have been other reports of insurers turning down non-Medicare telehealth appointments, said Alexis Apple, director of federal affairs for the American Telemedicine Association, a trade group.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” Apple said. “I’m not really sure what’s happening, but it’s unfortunate and very scary. There’s so much uncertainty out there now, and we see insurance payers start to pull back.”

Both telehealth and home hospital services can be a lifeline for older people, especially in rural areas, where residents may struggle to travel long distances for health care in person.

“In rural America, it’s often telemedicine or no medicine at all,” said Dr. David Newman, chief medical officer of virtual care at Sanford Health in South Dakota, in a September statement supporting congressional action to make Medicare telehealth permanent. Bipartisan bills that would have allowed telehealth to continue stalled in committee earlier this year in the Senate and House.

There’s an exception for telehealth rural residents — but only if they travel to a brick-and-mortar health care facility to get the remote health care service.

“The patients have to go to a clinic to receive that telehealth visit from a provider in a different location,” Apple said. “It kind of defeats the purpose.”

According to the Brown University report, California had the highest rate of Medicare telehealth usage in the first six months of this year, with 26% of beneficiaries using at least one telehealth appointment, followed by 23% in Massachusetts and 21% in Hawaii.

There’s no reason for non-Medicare insurers to stop covering any telehealth visits during the shutdown, and even most Medicare Advantage programs will continue to cover telehealth, according to Tina Stow, a spokesperson for AHIP, a health industry trade association.

Nevertheless, at least some health care centers are refusing to take new telehealth appointments or are converting existing ones to office visits.

“This is causing a lot of confusion. We are still working with our members who are insurers and providers to get a gauge on what folks are doing — because at this point reports we’ve seen seem to suggest it is company by company, provider by provider,” said Sean Brown, a spokesperson for the Health Leadership Council, representing CEOs of health care firms and insurers.

The hospital-at-home program serves a smaller number of patients but its pause has caused more disruption: The federal government required patients to be discharged from the program or transferred to a brick-and-mortar hospital by Oct.1.

The Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic had 30 patients in the program in Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin — all of whom either had to be released from the program or sent to brick-and-mortar hospitals. One of Mayo’s hospitals in Florida was already over capacity and had no room for transfers, according to reporting by Becker’s Hospital Review.

In Massachusetts, which requires commercial insurers to follow Medicare guidelines, all insured patients had to leave the program. Mass General Brigham, which operates many hospitals in the state, has rejiggered its plans to create more home care without relying on the hospital-at-home program, according to the Becker’s report.

Congress was unable to avert a shutdown by late September, and some individual providers and patients were caught unawares.

Nurses on social media discussed losing home-care jobs or being reassigned overnight when the hospital-at-home program closed Oct. 1. They worried about patients being taken away from children at home, or placed in hallway beds at overcrowded emergency rooms because of the abrupt change.

“Management scheduled a random call this morning with a super vague title. Then drop the bomb on us,” wrote one poster in Texas. “So no job. Perfect!”

In a direct message, the poster, who didn’t want their name used for fear of getting in trouble at their hospital, told Stateline, “This obviously wasn’t ideal for the patients. One of them had four children and now could no longer be home with them. Some didn’t even get to have a bed in the hospital because there were none available and had to stay in the ER in a hallway bed.”

Parkland Health System in Dallas started tapering off its hospital-at-home program in September because of the impending shutdown, and the last patients were discharged from the program by Sept. 30 without returning to the hospital, spokesperson Wendi Hawthorne said.

“We are hopeful that Congress will renew this innovative model of care in the future,” Hawthorne said.

Likewise, OSF Healthcare in Peoria, Illinois, had started to wind down its hospital-at-home program “to avoid needing to return multiple patients to a very crowded facility,” said Jennifer Junis, president of OSF OnCall, which handles home hospital care.

There were only three patients in the program Sept. 30, all of whom were ready to be discharged without returning to the hospital, Junis said. Since the program’s start in 2020, it has helped 980 patients with home care through OSF’s Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria.

“It is unfortunate that we will not be able to benefit by treating qualifying patients at home, where they are most comfortable and recover faster,” Junis said. “Our digital hospital program has allowed us to free up beds for our sickest patients who need them most.”

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

In an aerial view, a container ship arrives at the Port of Oakland on Aug. 1, 2025 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump threatened to add a 100% tariff rate on Chinese goods Friday, saying in a social media post he was responding to export controls from the world’s second-largest economy.

“China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Control on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The United States would respond with the 100% tariff on Chinese goods, also starting Nov. 1, he said. The tariffs would be stacked onto existing tariffs his administration has imposed on the country, he said.

Trump added that he would impose his own export controls “on any and all critical software.”

“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” he wrote.

Trump left open the possibility of scrapping or adjusting the additional tariffs before November, saying in the Oval Office late Friday that “We’re gonna have to see what happens.”

“That’s why I made it Nov. 1,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

He told reporters he has not canceled a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at an international economic conference in South Korea this week, but raised some doubt that the meeting would take place.

“I don’t know that we’re going to have it,” he said. “But I’m going to be there regardless, so I would assume we might have it.”

Tariffs a main part of Trump policy

Trump has used tariffs, taxes paid by the importer of foreign goods, as the central tool of his trade policy, applying broad tariffs on U.S. allies and adversaries alike, with a particular focus on China.

The two countries imposed escalating trade barriers on one another since Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs in early April. The U.S. tariff rate for Chinese goods peaked at 145% before the two sides negotiated an end to the trade war. 

Chinese goods still see a base tariff rate of 30%.

Trump invoked emergency authority to raise tariffs on China, arguing that the tariffs were a putative measure for China’s inability to control fentanyl supplies flowing into the U.S., but federal courts are still deciding the legality of that move.

Rallygoers hold a sign that reads “Free Kilmar” during a rally Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland seemed inclined to order the release of  Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention after oral arguments in court Friday, a potentially major development in the high-profile case.

After a more than six-hour hearing, District Judge Paula Xinis said a witness provided by the Justice Department showed little evidence that the Trump administration made an effort to remove Abrego Garcia to the southern African nation of Eswatini, and knew nothing about Abrego Garcia agreeing to be removed to Costa Rica. 

The witness tapped by the Department of Justice was John Schultz, a deputy assistant director who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations.

After hearing from him, Xinis said keeping Abrego Garcia detained indefinitely would likely be unconstitutional. She said she would issue an order soon.

Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant whose wrongful deportation from Maryland put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, is currently detained in Pennsylvania. 

His attorneys have argued the Trump administration is using detention to punish Abrego Garcia because officials are not trying to remove him, even after Abrego Garcia agreed to be deported to Costa Rica.

‘Three strikes, you’re out’

Xinis expressed her frustration with Department of Justice attorneys for not providing a witness who would give clear answers on how immigration officials were handling the removal of Abrego Garcia. 

“We’re getting to the three strikes, you’re out,” Xinis said. 

Andrew J. Rossman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, argued that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making no plans to immediately remove him, he should be released from detention. 

He also argued that since March, when the Trump administration erroneously deported Abrego Garcia to a mega-prison in El Salvador, to the present, Abrego Garcia has been “in continuous containment” way past the six-month limit set by the Supreme Court regarding the detention of immigrants.

“The real aim of the government… is punitive, which is just to keep him incarcerated,” Rossman said. “It’s an overtly political purpose.”

Rossman told Xinis that he has not received an answer from the federal government as to why they will not remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, after he agreed to that proposal in August.

Xinis asked DOJ attorney Drew Ensign why Abrego Garcia hasn’t been removed to Costa Rica.

Ensign said that it was not clear to the government until Friday that Abrego Garcia had agreed to be removed to Costa Rica, because Abrego Garcia had previously expressed fear of being sent there. 

Abrego Garcia changed his position after Costa Rica assured him he would be given refugee status.

“That is a new development that I will report back to people,” Ensign said.

Supreme Court ruling

A 2001 Supreme Court ruling does not allow for immigrants to be detained longer than six months if the federal government is making no efforts to remove them. 

After 90 days without efforts to deport an immigrant, a challenge can be made because detaining that person any longer than a maximum of 180 days, or six months, would likely be unconstitutional, the high court found in Zadvydas v. Davis. 

Earlier this week, Xinis seemed likely to order Abrego Garcia’s release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, where he has remained since late August. 

Xinis, who also ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garica to the United States after she found his removal to El Salvador unlawful, is overseeing his habeas corpus petition, which challenges his detention.

Protesters rally outside the courthouse

Ahead of the hearing, dozens of supporters from the immigrant advocacy group CASA gathered in front of the District Court for the District of Maryland, chanting, “Somos todos Kilmar,” or, “We are all Kilmar.” 

Rallygoers also chanted “What do we want? Justice!” “When do we want it? Now!” 

Some also held signs urging the Trump administration to free Abrego Garcia.

Two Maryland state legislators, Dels. Nicole Williams and Bernice Mireku-North, both Democrats, joined the rally.

Williams sponsored legislation during this year’s General Assembly session to prohibit local police from entering into certain agreements with ICE. On the last day of the legislative session in April, lawmakers passed a watered-down version of a bill that does not include the ban, the biggest loss for Maryland immigration advocates this year.

“We are going to be working on legislation with regards to masking by law enforcement officers,” Williams said. “We need to start treating everyone, I don’t care where you’re from, in a humane and decent way. And that’s what we’re going to be fighting for every single day until Kilmar is free and Kilmar comes home. So stop using Kilmar for your own political gain. Bring Kilmar home.”

White House involvement

Schultz, the DOJ witness, revealed that the White House had direct involvement in picking Uganda as a potential third country of removal for ICE’s deportation of Abrego Garcia. 

The move was unusual because the State Department typically coordinates third-country removals for the Department of Homeland Security.

Schultz said the Homeland Security Council, which operates within the White House, notified ICE of Uganda as a third country of removal. The Homeland Security Council works with the National Security Council of the White House. 

While Uganda is no longer a third country of removal for Abrego Garcia, ICE is trying to now remove him to Eswatini. 

Schultz said Eswatini has not agreed to take Abrego Garcia, but discussions, which he said started on Wednesday, are underway. 

“The discussions are continuing,” Schultz said. 

Schultz said he is not aware if ICE has not made any efforts to determine if Abrego Garcia would face persecution or be tortured or confined in Eswatini, or be removed a second time to El Salvador.  

Eswatini has previously agreed to accept third-country removals from the U.S. and the two countries have a memorandum of understanding, he added.

Ghana another potential destination

Schultz said that ICE has also identified the west African country of Ghana as a potential nation for Abrego Garica’s removal. Schultz said once a third country has agreed to accept Abrego Garica, he could be removed by ICE within 72 hours.

However, Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, wrote on social media that the country will not accept Abrego Garcia. 

“This has been directly and unambiguously conveyed to US authorities,” he wrote. “In my interactions with US officials, I made clear that our understanding to accept a limited number of non-criminal West Africans, purely on the grounds of African solidarity and humanitarian principles would not be expanded.”

Schultz said that ICE “prematurely” sent a notice of removal to Abrego Garcia with Ghana as the designation.

The Costa Rica alternative

One of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, Sascha Rand, grilled Schultz about why DHS would not remove him to Costa Rica, despite Abrego Garcia agreeing to go.

Schultz said he was unaware of the letter from Costa Rica’s government saying it would accept Abrego Garcia.

Another attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said that the Trump administration offered to remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica in August if he were to plead guilty to criminal charges in a federal case in Tennessee. 

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his criminal case in Nashville said in court filings that the Trump administration is trying to get him to plead guilty to human smuggling charges by promising to remove him to Costa Rica if he does so, and threatening to deport him to Uganda if he refuses. 

Rand asked Schultz if anyone from DHS was in contact with Costa Rica.

Schultz said he was unaware if there were conversations between the federal government and Costa Rica about removing him there. 

Rossman said based on Schultz’s testimony, it was clear the Trump administration was “holding hostage passage to Costa Rica.”

“They aren’t presently intending to remove him,” he said. “They have spun the globe and picked various (African) countries… to fail on purpose.”

William J. Ford of Maryland Matters contributed to this report.

Protesters rally outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal employees, a step not taken during previous government shutdowns and one that could significantly reshape the size and scope of government. 

White House budget director Russ Vought posted on social media mid-day that Reductions in Force, the technical name for layoffs, had started.

“The RIFs have begun,” Vought wrote.  

Vought didn’t share any other details on social media and a budget office spokesperson only said that the layoffs would be “substantial” after States Newsroom asked for information about how many federal workers and which departments would be impacted. 

The Trump administration outlined its current layoff plans later in the day in a filing required in a federal court case brought by labor unions.

• Commerce: 315 employees
• Education: 466 employees
• Energy: 187 employees
• Health and Human Services: between 1,100 and 1,200 employees
• Housing and Urban Development: 442 employees
• Homeland Security: 176 employees
• Treasury: 1,446 employees

The Environmental Protection Agency has sent 20 to 30 employees “intent to RIF” notices, though officials have “not made a final decision as to whether or when to issue RIF notices” to those employees, according to the court filing. 

Other federal agencies are considering whether to implement layoffs, but the court filing says “those assessments remain under deliberation and are not final.”

A ‘bloated bureaucracy’

Earlier in the day, spokespeople for the Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Treasury departments said some of their employees will be affected by layoffs, including at DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. 

“RIFs will be occurring at CISA. During the last administration CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering,” a DHS spokesperson said. “This is part of getting CISA back on mission.” 

Andrew Nixon, communications director at HHS, said “employees across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown. 

“HHS under the Biden administration became a bloated bureaucracy, growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%,” Nixon wrote. “All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions. HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

The Education and Treasury Department spokespeople didn’t provide any additional details. 

The government shutdown began on Oct. 1 after Congress failed to pass a short-term spending bill and is expected to continue at least into next week, with the Senate not scheduled to return until Tuesday.

Unions react

Labor unions that represent federal workers indicated they plan to let the judicial system determine whether the layoffs are legal.

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement that it “is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country.”

“In AFGE’s 93 years of existence under several presidential administrations – including during Trump’s first term – no president has ever decided to fire thousands of furloughed workers during a government shutdown,” Kelley wrote. “AFGE is currently challenging President Trump’s illegal, unprecedented, abuse of power and we will not stop fighting until every reduction-in-force notice is rescinded.”

AFGE represents about 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, more commonly known as the AFL-CIO, posted on social media that “America’s unions will see you in court.”

Several labor unions — including AFGE; AFL-CIO; and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — filed a lawsuit in late September in the Northern District of California challenging the legality of any layoffs during a shutdown and later asking the judge for a temporary restraining order. 

Judge Susan Illston gave the Trump administration until the end of Friday to provide details of any planned or in-progress Reductions in Force, “including the earliest date that those RIF notices will go out.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, released a statement opposing “Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown caused by Senator Schumer.”  

“Regardless of whether federal employees have been working without pay or have been furloughed, their work is incredibly important to serving the public,” Collins wrote. “Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country.”

Layoffs, funding cuts, loss of back pay threatened

President Donald Trump has signaled for the last couple weeks that if Democrats didn’t help Republicans advance the stopgap funding bill in the Senate, he would take action. 

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” Trump said Tuesday. “If this keeps going on it’ll be substantial and a lot of those jobs will never come back.”

Trump said Thursday that he would cut funding approved by Congress for programs he believes are supported by or generally benefit Democrats, but he didn’t provide any more details during a Cabinet meeting. 

Trump has also floated the idea of not providing back pay for furloughed federal employees, though he hasn’t made any firm determinations about whether he may try to reinterpret a 2019 law that guarantees back pay for all federal workers after a shutdown ends. 

The Congressional Budget Office estimated before the shutdown began that some 750,000 federal employees would be furloughed. Others have continued working but without pay.

Thune blames ‘far-left activist base’ for shutdown

Vought’s announcement came just as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrapped up a joint press conference on Capitol Hill, where they called on Democrats to vote to reopen the government. 

“We have a majority of United States senators — 55 out of 100 senators are voting to open up the government,” Thune said. “We need five bold, courageous Democrats with a backbone who are willing to take on their far-left activist base and join us in passing this.”

Thune largely rejected the idea floated by some Republican lawmakers that the chamber should get rid of the 60-vote threshold for advancing major legislation, which has so far blocked the House-passed stopgap spending bill from moving toward final passage. 

“There are folks out there that think that is the way we ought to do things around here, simple majority,” Thune said. “But I can tell you that the filibuster through the years has been something that has been a bulwark against a lot of bad things happening to the country.”

Thune added the legislative filibuster, which is different from the talking filibuster that most people are familiar with, is necessary to protect the rights of the minority political party and give it a voice in running the government. 

Johnson nixes vote again on military pay

Johnson, R-La., remained consistent during an earlier press conference that he will not bring the House back into session to vote on a bill to ensure on-time pay for military members during the shutdown. He’s repeatedly said the best way to avoid delayed paychecks for federal workers is for Democrats to advance the House-passed stopgap spending bill. 

The stalemate over government funding largely revolves around whether congressional leaders will be able to find bipartisan compromise and enact legislation to extend enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Democrats argue lawmakers need to broker an agreement now, before open enrollment begins on Nov. 1. Republican leaders contend they’re willing to talk after the government reopens, but they haven’t provided any commitments and have been tight-lipped about what they’d be willing to consider. 

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a morning press conference before the layoff announcement that Republicans must compromise on health care. 

“What we’ve said to our Republican colleagues is we have to address the health care crisis that they’ve created decisively — that means legislatively and that means right now,” Jeffries said.

Energy projects canceled

Trump’s action to block funding for projects in the states has drawn objections from Democrats.

Thirty-seven Democrats sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright Thursday rebuking the administration for “unlawfully cancelling $8 billion in federal investments in 223 energy projects.”

“For the 21 states with impacted projects, your cancellations will mean thousands of lost jobs for Americans, many of whom had every reason to rely on the stability of their jobs before these cancellations and all of whom will face uncertain job markets in our increasingly slowing economy,” they wrote.

The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons of Delaware, Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer of New York, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith of Minnesota, Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California, Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch of Vermont and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

 Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

The Trump administration has tapped conservative groups to lead an initiative promoting civics education. (Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — A slew of conservative groups will lead a new coalition to spur civics education and push the subject in a more patriotic direction, the U.S. Education Department announced last month, raising alarms for some traditional civics and education groups that were not included in the initiative.

The America First Policy Institute, a think tank with close ties to the president, is organizing and coordinating the America 250 Civics Education Coalition made up of more than 40 national and state-based groups, including prominent conservative advocacy organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA.

The vast majority of the groups in the coalition promote a vision of U.S. identity that downplays historical wrongs associated with race and gender and projects the country as an exceptional force for good. Many are well-known conservative groups that have promoted President Donald Trump’s political agenda.

The coalition lacks many of the more traditional civics education groups who say their nonpartisanship is a fundamental element of civics education, leading to concerns from those groups.

“Our organization serves students in every state and over 80% of counties,” said Shawn Healy, the chief policy and advocacy officer at iCivics, a group that promotes public support for civics education. “You can’t do that if your curriculum is shaded red or blue — it has to be fiercely nonpartisan.”

The coalition will have nothing to do with school curricula, a department official said last month, acknowledging that the agency legally cannot dictate what schools teach. And it will not receive any federal funding from the department, the official added.

But the agency has taken other steps that appear designed to steer curricula in a more partisan direction.

The same day the coalition launched, the department announced it would be prioritizing “patriotic education” when it comes to discretionary grants. The agency said patriotic education “presents American history in a way that is accurate, honest, and inspiring.”

Earlier in September, the department said it would invest more than $160 million in American history and civics grants — a $137 million increase in the funds Congress previously approved.

Civics as cultural battleground

Civics — a branch of social studies that focuses on rights and obligations of citizenship and the basic mechanics of government — has been a bipartisan priority, though it’s become a hot-button issue within education culture wars regarding how and what is taught as America grapples with its complicated history. 

Many on the political right, including Trump, have long bristled at how that history is taught. Going back to his first presidency, Trump has sought to exert control over the subject.

After retaking office in January, he reestablished the 1776 Commission — an advisory committee meant “to promote patriotic education.”

“Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains,” notes the executive order first establishing the commission during his first term. 

The commission released a 41-page report in January 2021 that drew criticism from historians and educators, including the American Historical Association.

In a statement signed by 47 other organizations, the association wrote that the report makes “an apparent attempt to reject recent efforts to understand the multiple ways the institution of slavery shaped our nation’s history.” 

Trump formed the commission after The New York Times published the 1619 Project, which aimed to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” 

Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA sign up 

In its September announcement, the department said the coalition “is dedicated to renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation.” 

The coalition will include more than 100 events and programs across the country over the next year as part of the administration’s celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary. 

The coalition is set to feature a 50-state “Trail to Independence Tour,” a “Fundamental Liberties College Speaker Series” as well as “Patriotic K-12 Teacher Summits and Toolboxes” aimed at supporting “patriotic teaching nationwide.” 

The America 250 Civics Education Coalition includes right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation — the architect of the sweeping conservative policy agenda known as Project 2025 — as is America First Legal, a conservative advocacy group founded by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. 

Turning Point USA, co-founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September, is also part of the initiative. PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that has drawn questions among researchers and scholars regarding the accuracy of its content, was also listed as a member of the coalition.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon was the chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute between her roles in the first and second Trump administrations. She had to sign an ethics waiver to participate in the coalition, according to the department official, who did not provide further details on what exactly this entailed. 

‘News to us’

While conservative political organizations were made part of the coalition, leading civics education groups were not even aware of it before its public launch.

“Certainly, it was news to us about this coalition being formed,” Healy, of iCivics, said.

Healy added that his group encourages the America 250 Civics Education Coalition “to be more pluralistic in orientation” and that the organization is “eager” to have a conversation with the coalition about what they’re doing.

iCivics, a nonpartisan organization founded in 2009 by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, launched CivxNow. The latter group describes itself as the country’s “largest cross-partisan coalition working to prioritize civic education in the United States.”

CivxNow’s nearly 400 members comprise a broad swath of mainstream civics education groups. 

“It’s our fundamental belief, both as an organization and as a coalition, that civic education has to be fiercely nonpartisan and nonideological,” Healy said. 

But only one group — Constituting America — is a member of both CivxNow and the America 250 Civics Education Coalition. 

Momentum for civics

iCivics and others in the civics education field said the added attention the initiative brings to the subject will be positive.

The coalition “provides an opportunity for everyone interested in civic education and patriotic education to do something right now,” said Donna Phillips, the president and CEO of the nonpartisan Center for Civic Education, pointing to “decades where there hasn’t been enough, or any, attention to civic education.” 

Phillips, whose organization is a member of CivxNow, said she hopes “the civic education field more widely can benefit from the momentum behind the need for this and that we can all find a place within this momentum and this moment.” 

Hans Zeiger, president of the nonpartisan Jack Miller Center, described the administration’s initiative as the “latest development in what we take to be a growing movement for civics in the country.” 

Zeiger, whose organization aims to empower college professors to work on civics education and is a member of CivxNow, said his group is “very interested in growing the national civics movement, and glad that there are people all across the political spectrum getting involved in the push for civic education.”

“It is always a good thing to have national dialogue on civics education,” the National Council for the Social Studies said in a statement. 

The council, part of CivxNow, added that they “strive for balanced conversations that will continue to elevate high quality social studies standards.” 

Teachers unions criticize coalition  

The two major teachers unions, which are politically aligned with Democrats, blasted the coalition as unserious, and noted the lack of traditional civics groups.

“We have decades of research on what works in civic education,” Mary Kusler, senior director at the National Education Association’s Center for Advocacy, said in a statement to States Newsroom. “The proposal they are peddling lacks the rigor and respect our students deserve — which is evident by the lack of any respected civics or civil rights organizations as signers.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement the 250th anniversary of the nation should have been “an opportunity for parents, teachers, historians and students to learn, celebrate, critique and think critically about our democracy.”

“Instead, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the America 250 Civics Education Coalition rushed to create programming based on a single Trump-approved, ideological narrative, excluding the very people who know our history best: civics teachers and historians,” she said.

A man closes the entrance to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on Oct. 3 in Baltimore because of the federal government shutdown. States are currently covering costs of some federal programs, but it’s unclear whether they will be repaid once the government reopens. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

States are doing what they generally do during a federal government shutdown: continuing to operate programs serving some of the neediest people.

That means schools are still serving federally subsidized meals and states are distributing funding for the federal food stamp program. For now.

If the shutdown drags on and federal dollars run out, states can only keep programs going for so long. States may choose to pay for some services themselves so residents keep their benefits.

But this time, state leaders have new worries about getting reimbursed for federal costs once the federal spending impasse is resolved. That’s traditionally been the practice following a shutdown, but the Trump administration’s record of pulling funding and targeting Democratic-led states has some officials worried about what comes after the shutdown.

Many states already struggled to balance their own budgets this year. And some fear going without federal reimbursement for shutdown costs could force states to make painful cuts to their own budget priorities.

Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, said the administration has not made good on its word to states in recent months — freezing some congressionally approved funding and cutting already awarded grants. So it’s likewise unclear whether the federal government will follow previous practice and reimburse states for covering shutdown costs of crucial federal programs such as food assistance.

“I think everything is a risk with this administration. … We in the states are kind of left holding the bag yet again as the federal government tries to sort out what it wants to be when it grows up,” he told Stateline.

Nevada entered the shutdown with more than $1.2 billion in reserves. Last week, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office said in a statement that state funds would be adequate to cover “a short period of time with minimal disruption to services.”

But the governor’s office said a shutdown of more than 30 days would cause more significant challenges for the state.

Lombardo’s office did not respond to Stateline’s questions. But last week, it released a three-page document on the shutdown, saying it expected the federal government to reimburse states once the budget stalemate is resolved.

“As D.C. works through its issues, our administration will continue to support Nevadans in any way we can throughout this unnecessary federal government shutdown,” Lombardo said in the statement.

While mandatory programs such as Medicaid and Social Security continue to send funds to beneficiaries during the shutdown, funding for other safety net programs such as food assistance are more uncertain. The federal government told states there were enough funds for the food stamp program to cover October benefits, though the special food program for women, infants and children may run out of money sooner.

By furloughing workers and halting federal spending, the shutdown could cost the national economy $15 billion per week, President Donald Trump’s economic advisers estimated.

The White House says a prolonged shutdown will affect the economies of every state by reducing employment, federal benefits and consumer spending. White House estimates say this could cost Michigan $361 million per week in lost economic output, for example, while Florida could lose $911 million each week.

‘Fend for themselves’

Some federal services are shuttered during a shutdown: The Environmental Protection Agency has ceased many research, permitting and enforcement efforts, and official jobs data is no longer being released. Federal funds for other programs, including food assistance, are expected to last through the end of the month. But states can elect to spend their own funds on these programs, which were previously authorized by Congress and state legislatures.

Before the shutdown, states were stockpiling reserve funding. The National Association of State Budget Officers reported most state budgets this year maintained or increased rainy day funds. At the same time, state and local governments are borrowing record amounts: As much as $600 billion in municipal bonds is projected to be issued by the end of 2025.

“So states and localities are kind of getting the message they really need to fend for themselves much more than they ever had,” said William Glasgall, public finance adviser at the Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit that works to support public sector workers.

Since January, the Trump administration has stripped states and cities of billions of dollars that Congress approved for education, infrastructure and energy projects. Glasgall said that record leaves states with legitimate concerns about getting repaid for their shutdown-related expenses — a prospect that would likely spark even more lawsuits from Democratic-led states.

“They’ve already, before the shutdown, started rolling back federal funding, and I don’t see any reason why they would stop now,” he said. “The recissions that have been announced are pretty harsh, and it’s money we’re expecting and not getting.”

The last shutdown, which lasted five weeks during Trump’s first term, delayed billions in federal spending and reduced gross domestic product — the value of all goods and services produced — by $11 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019. Experts say states were repaid for costs they incurred providing federal services during that shutdown.

In Minnesota, State Budget Director Ahna Minge said staff have been studying previous shutdowns. But at a news conference with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz last week, she characterized this shutdown as “unpredictable.”

“The current federal administration may not follow the historic playbook,” she said.

Walz said farmers would be among the first hit as the federal Farm Service Agency has ceased operations in the middle of the state’s harvest season. Among other duties, that agency works on disaster assistance and processes loans during harvest to protect farmers against commodity price fluctuations.

Minge said Minnesota officials think programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children have enough existing federal funds to operate through October. But she said the state budget cannot backfill all the commitments made by federal programs.

“What we know is that the longer a shutdown lasts, the greater the impact to state programs and services,” she said.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, has pledged to use state dollars to keep WIC afloat if needed, The Associated Press reported. And Colorado lawmakers set aside $7.5 million just before the shutdown to keep WIC running.

Already under strain

In Maryland, the shutdown is compounding the economic instability from Trump’s ongoing efforts to shrink the number of federal employees, agencies and spending.

With more than 160,000 federal employees, Maryland’s economy relies heavily on the federal workforce. The Trump administration has said it may deny back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers, despite a law he signed in 2019 guaranteeing such back pay.

Chief Deputy Comptroller Andrew Schaufele told lawmakers last week that a shutdown could cost the state $700,000 per day in lost tax revenue.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore pledged to continue funding some federal programs, but said the state would not tap into its rainy day funds to do so.

“We’re going to continually evaluate how long we can go,” he said at a news conference.

As for getting repaid, Moore spokesperson David Turner told Stateline that the state had received no indication that the federal government would deviate from past practice, “but we are monitoring closely.”

This fiscal uncertainty hits states as they are already struggling to respond to the strain of federal agency layoffs and cuts in the major tax and spending law Trump signed this summer. The law slashed billions in social service funding and created costly new bureaucratic burdens for states, which administer Medicaid and food assistance programs.

“There’s no way, really at this point, to sort of assess with any level of confidence what’s going to happen when you also have these massive layoffs that were going on pre-shutdown,” said Lisa Parshall, a professor of political science at Daemen University in New York. “There’s just a real sense from states and localities — and I think rightly so — that that kind of reliability of the federal government is now in question.”

It may not be a question of whether states are reimbursed for their shutdown expenses, but which states are reimbursed, Parshall said. The Trump administration has publicly targeted funding of liberal-led states and cities over policy disagreements, raising the possibility it could do something similar with the shutdown.

“Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, you know, you could argue,” she said. “But it’s definitely a thing that seems to be adding to this level of uncertainty — this shutdown feels different.”

In California, officials just closed a nearly $12 billion shortfall when negotiating the budget that was approved in June. The budget deficit is expected to grow to more than $17 billion next year, said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the State of California Department of Finance, which advises the governor and state agencies on budget issues.

“There isn’t a long-term, open-ended line of credit available if this drags out,” he said of the federal government shutdown.

The depth of reserve funds available varies by federally funded program, he said. CalFresh, California’s name for its Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, has enough funds to cover food stamp benefits for this month, but anything beyond that is uncertain.

“If the duration of this is in the matter of days, it will be an inconvenience, but should not pose a massive problem,” he said. “However, if it does drag out for an extended period of time, then clearly it’s going to be a problem.”

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