Furloughed federal workers stand in line for hours ahead of a special food distribution by the Capital Area Food Bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries on Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

HYATTSVILLE, Maryland — Ginette Young lined up with hundreds of furloughed federal workers ahead of a special food bank distribution on Tuesday in a suburb just outside the District of Columbia.

“I’m here because I’ve had no paycheck for the last two weeks, and a short paycheck for the two weeks prior. I’ve had to cover bills, and my credit cards have been paying my medical and doctor’s appointments. So I just need to restock the pantry a little bit, just to help get us over the hump,” said Young, a 61-year-old auditor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Young, a District resident, was among hundreds of furloughed federal workers hoping to get pantry staples and fresh produce at the event sponsored by the Capital Area Food Bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville.

Food security took center stage in the shutdown debate this week as hundreds of thousands of furloughed government workers faced another missed paycheck and 42 million recipients of federal food assistance were told they will stop receiving benefits Saturday.

The Trump administration has said it will not tap emergency funds at the USDA to extend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, despite loud cries from advocates and Democrats who say it’s perfectly legal for officials to use the rainy day money.

“The longer the shutdown continues, distributions like this will end up being truly a lifeline for so many,” said Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank. 

“And I worry that we’re just going to see double, triple the numbers of people, both federal government furloughed workers, as well as those who are expecting SNAP benefits and being surprised Saturday morning when they don’t have it,” Muthiah said.

Food bank staff anticipated about 150 households would show up at its first distribution event for federal workers earlier in October. The organization had to quickly double its figures, Muthiah said. 

At Tuesday’s event, the food bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries brought enough to serve 400 households. Add a complete stop to food assistance to low-income families, and the region’s hunger needs will skyrocket, Muthiah said.

“In our entire region, there are about 400,000 SNAP recipients, and on average, they receive about $330 in SNAP benefits for a family of two people a month. And so if that were to be disrupted at the cost of a meal in our region, that’s about 80 meals vanishing from the tables of SNAP recipients across our region,” Muthiah said. 

“So we are ramping up, purchasing more food to be able to distribute through our partners into the community.” 

Kale, collard greens handed out

Tracy Bryce, 59, of District Heights, Maryland, unloaded kale and collard greens from the back of a U-Haul truck as hundreds of federal workers, with employment IDs in hand, waited for the noon distribution to open.

Bryce, a retired U.S. Marshal of 34 years, now volunteers with No Limits Outreach Ministries.

“I’ve been where they are,” Bryce said.

Byron Ford, 34, of Hyattsville, sat for hours in a chair he brought that morning, as temperatures hovered in the high 40s. 

“I’m just here today trying to get some food, just trying to provide healthy food for the family,” said Ford, who has two children ages 4 and 7.

“We’re fortunate that we have things like this to provide for people who aren’t receiving a paycheck. So we’re fortunate, we’re still blessed.”

A civilian employee who works in finance for the Department of the Navy, Ford is also worried about family members who receive SNAP benefits.

“We’re just spending our savings and trying to help,” he said.

Young said she remembers what it was like to need SNAP several decades ago.

“I was, you know, trying to work and go to college at the same time, and I had my kid, so yeah, I had SNAP for a little while. It’s meant to help people until they get on their feet,” she said.

A furloughed government project manager who did not want to provide her full name for fear of losing her job, said “being a political pawn is hard.”

“They (lawmakers) get the chance to go home in the middle of all this and not finish with the appropriations, not continue to walk through conversations, because they are choosing to dishonor the position that the people put them in and still get paid while their people suffer,” she said.

Grocers, retailers worry over SNAP cutoff

Retailers and grocers, already bracing for losses when Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” SNAP cuts take effect, are also urging lawmakers to reopen the government.

“We urge Congress to move forward now on a path that reopens the government and ensures families relying on SNAP can access their November benefits without interruption or delay,” Jennifer Hatcher, The Food Industry Association’s chief public policy officer, said in a statement Oct. 21.

The already planned SNAP cuts are slated to cost food retailers hundreds of millions of dollars, industry groups warned. 

Food retailers estimate up-front costs of forthcoming new SNAP requirements signed into law by President Donald Trump in July will cost convenience stores roughly $1 billion, supermarkets just over $305 million, supercenters such as Walmart an estimated $215.5 million and small-format stores about $11.8 million, according to an impact analysis last month by The Food Industry Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores and the National Grocers Association.

Ed Bolen, director of SNAP State Strategies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said retailers could face “very drastic” losses if SNAP is also completely stopped Nov. 1.

“Just imagine a 100% cut for a month or so,” said Bolen, of the left-leaning think tank.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union sent a letter to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins Monday requesting the agency spend contingency funding to extend SNAP benefits beyond next week.

“Rising costs at the grocery store already threaten household budgets, especially for low-income families. An interruption in food assistance will only make matters worse, and workers in meatpacking, food processing, and grocery could see a reduction in hours and wages if SNAP dollars aren’t available to be spent in their stores or on their products,” wrote Milton Jones, president of the union that, according to the organization, represents roughly 1.2 million workers.

The U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats urged Republican leaders Wednesday to pass a bill to extend critical food assistance for the most vulnerable Americans during the ongoing government shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats would support a standalone bill introduced by GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. And New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján attempted to pass by unanimous consent his bill to fund two major nutrition assistance programs.

“Let’s end this hunger crisis before it begins,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. 

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune objected to Luján’s proposal, and the government shutdown entered its fifth week with lawmakers of both parties showing no signs of the agreement needed to reopen the government in time to avoid putting 42 million people at risk of losing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits Saturday.

Beneficiaries of SNAP, which covers low-income people, children and those with disabilities, are supposed to receive payments Nov. 1. But the shutdown and the Trump administration’s contention it cannot release contingency funding to cover the cost of November benefits mean many will go without.

Democrats held several press conferences Wednesday, the shutdown’s 29th day, raising concerns about the loss of SNAP benefits and slamming the U.S. Department of Agriculture for not tapping into its multi-year contingency fund to approve food assistance for November. 

The move has caused states to scramble to provide aid, strained local food banks and has resulted in a lawsuit from dozens of state officials this week to force the agency to release funds for SNAP.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, urged Thune, a South Dakota Republican, to bring Hawley’s bill to the Senate for a floor vote. The bill would fund SNAP amid the funding lapse. 

Thune declines to bring standalone bills

But Thune has rejected considering bills that fund single programs during the shutdown. He has instead pushed for Democrats to approve a House-passed GOP measure to temporarily reopen the government.

“We’re not going to pick winners and losers,” he said after objecting to Lujan’s bill.”It’s time to fund everybody who’s experiencing the pain from this shutdown.”

Thune said on the Senate floor that he will only call another vote on the House-passed GOP stopgap measure if Senate Democrats “tell me they have enough votes to fund the government.”

The Senate this week, for the 13th time, failed to reach the 60-vote threshold to move forward on a measure to extend government funding through Nov. 21. 

Democrats have voted against the short-term funding bill in an effort to spark negotiations on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Republicans have said those talks can begin when the government is funded. 

Open enrollment for the ACA marketplace starts Nov. 1 in most states. Democrats have predicted that when people start getting their quotes for health insurance and seeing significantly higher prices for out-of-pocket premiums, it will force Republicans to negotiate on tax credits. 

“We are days away from a health care crisis,” Schumer said.  

Shutdown to become ‘very real’

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a morning press conference the government shutdown “gets very real” Saturday when the federal government will no longer pay out SNAP benefits. 

“You’re talking about tens of millions of Americans at risk of going hungry, if the Senate Democrats continue this gambit,” Johnson said. 

The Louisiana Republican, who voted against the stopgap spending bill that ended the 2018-2019 shutdown, repeatedly urged rank-and-file Democratic senators to “do the right thing.”

“I think Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are irredeemable at this point,” Johnson said, referring to the top Democrats in both chambers. “I’ve given up on the leadership. So we’re trying to appeal to a handful of moderates or centrists who care more about the American people and will put the people’s interest over their own and do the right thing in the Senate.”

Johnson also disparaged a lawsuit filed by Democratic attorneys general that asked a federal judge to require funding for SNAP be paid out during the government shutdown. 

“Instead of taking a simple vote to fund the government, which Senate Democrats have now had more than a dozen opportunities to do, Democrat attorneys general are suing the federal government to try to compel SNAP benefits to flow, despite the government being closed and despite the fact that there is no money to do that,” Johnson said.

Freeze on SNAP contingency fund questioned

Luján held up a printed out copy of USDA’s Sept. 30 shutdown contingency plan during an early afternoon press conference, saying the agency’s refusal to tap into its emergency funds for SNAP recipients was nonsensical.

He slammed the agency for removing its own contingency plan from its website, which verifies that in case of a funding lapse, USDA would use its roughly $6 billion in contingency funds to cover SNAP benefits during a government shutdown.

“This is the bulls–t, taking these plans down to try to lie to the American people and justify why it’s okay for people to go hungry,” Luján said. 

Luján’s bill that he tried to get approval through unanimous consent, would have funded SNAP during a government shutdown as well as the USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

Senate Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, said that Democrats are ready to support Lujan’s bill or Hawley’s bill. She added that she and several other Democrats plan to co-sponsor Hawley’s bill. So far, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont is the only Democrat to co-sponsor the bill.

The 10 Senate Republicans who have co-sponsored Hawley’s bill include Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted of Ohio, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and John Cornyn of Texas. 

Colorado Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse argued during a midday press conference that Trump administration officials have “made a conscious and deliberate choice to suspend SNAP benefits.”

“It is outrageous that the Trump administration can come up with $40 billion to bail out Argentina and refuses to spend the money that Congress has appropriated to feed hungry families in America,” Neguse said. 

House Agriculture Committee ranking member Angie Craig, D-Minn., said the law regarding SNAP’s contingency fund “is clear and unambiguous” and that Trump’s “actions display a pattern of callous disregard for America’s hungry seniors, children and veterans.”

Craig said the USDA should use the contingency fund to pay most of the November benefits. The department should then use some of the $23 billion in another account referred to as Section 32 to cover the rest of the cost, Craig said. 

Craig also pushed back against criticisms of SNAP, saying it provides about ​​$6.20 a day for food.

“This does not come close to covering even one trip to the grocery store a month for most American families, especially as this administration has started a trade war that is driving up costs for everyone in our country,” Craig said. “So this is exactly the point.”

Shutdown projected to hurt economy

Because of the ramifications for federal programs like SNAP and delayed paychecks for federal workers, the ongoing shutdown is expected to have a negative impact on the economy, according to an analysis the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Wednesday.

Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote in an eight-page letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, that the funding lapse “will delay federal spending and have a negative effect on the economy that will mostly, but not entirely, reverse once the shutdown ends.”

The federal government spent $33 billion less than it would have during the first four weeks of the shutdown. The funding lapse lasting for six weeks would result in a $54 billion drop in outlays and if it goes on for eight weeks, it would lead the federal government to put $74 billion less into the economy. 

“Those amounts include delayed spending for employee compensation, goods and services, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” Swagel wrote. “CBO expects that when appropriations resume, the spending that did not occur during the shutdown will be made up.”

Swagel cautioned that the projections “are subject to considerable uncertainty. 

“The effects of the shutdown will depend on decisions made by the Administration throughout the shutdown, including decisions about which executive branch activities continue and which are halted.”

Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin have announced food drives and are blaming Republicans for looming cuts in federal food assistance. (Getty Images)

With the expected loss of federal food assistance funding starting Saturday, Democratic state lawmakers are mounting a series of food drives as part of their campaign to draw attention to their argument that Republicans are to blame.

Wisconsin’s FoodShare program will stop receiving its monthly payments from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, starting Nov. 1.

The Trump administration has blocked further SNAP funding as a result of the federal shutdown that began Oct. 1, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture has $6 billion in reserves. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general and governors, including in Wisconsin, has sued the administration over the refusal to tap the reserve fund.  

In Milwaukee County, Sen. Chris Larson and state Rep. Christine Sinicki, both Milwaukee Democrats, scheduled a news conference and food drive for Thursday morning at a food pantry in Cudahy, a suburb just south of the city.

Across the state, Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) are holding a news conference and food drive Thursday morning in Eau Claire in conjunction with local nonprofits there.

Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) are holding a press conference and food drive on Thursday afternoon at a La Crosse food bank, joined by local advocates. 

The aim is “to highlight the disastrous effects of the shutdown on Wisconsinites and discuss how our community can step up to support the most vulnerable among us in their time of need,” Billings’ office stated in announcing the event.

Johnson has also scheduled an event  and food drive Friday with Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) at a Viroqua food pantry with Vernon County advocates.

In Appleton, the Democratic Party of Outagamie County and state Senate hopeful Emily Tseffos have organized a two-week food drive that began Monday, Oct. 27 and will run through Nov. 8. That drive will supply pantries across the Fox Valley, according to the group.

“The fact that the government remains shut down while people right here are about to go hungry didn’t sit right with me,” Tseffos said in a statement. “So a group of friends and I got together to see what we could do.”

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The Waupun Correctional Institution, the oldest prison in Wisconsin built in the 1850s, sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood (Photo | Wisconsin Examiner)

The State of Wisconsin Building Commission on Tuesday approved releasing $15 million to prepare preliminary plans and a design report for major changes to Wisconsin’s prison system requested by Gov. Tony Evers. Wisconsin prisons have long been criticized for aging facilities, overcrowding and deaths. 

Republican lawmakers on the commission complained that Evers has not incorporated their ideas in his plan, but the commission ultimately voted unanimously to release the money to pay for the first step in the process of realizing it. 

At a press conference before the Building Commission meeting, Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) said Republican lawmakers’ goal is “to ensure we have the information needed” for informed decisions about facility upgrades, prison capacity and responsibly closing the Green Bay Correctional Institution. 

Money for the planning will come from the state budget, which included the $15 million released by the commission Tuesday.

Under the project, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections would be able to close the Green Bay Correctional Institution, the department’s request to the commission states. Upgrades would be made to infrastructure at five other facilities, including the troubled Waupun Correctional Institution. 

The aging Waupun and Green Bay prisons have generated a public outcry over living conditions, as well as the deaths of several people incarcerated at Waupun and criminal charges filed last year against Waupun staff. 

Republicans criticize Evers’ approach

“Currently, [the Department of Corrections] is in a world of hurt,” Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said at the Republicans’ press conference. She cited overcrowding at men’s and women’s facilities, facility infrastructure problems and the death of Lincoln Hills youth counselor Corey Proulx last year. 

Felzskowski referenced the prison proposal Evers put out in February and said he never reached out to the Legislature. 

“The Republicans in this building have plans, proposals that we’ve been working on for a long time, that we could’ve worked with the governor in a bipartisan fashion,” Felzskowski said.

Sen. André Jacque (R-New Franken) said that “what we have before us is, unfortunately, not a serious proposal.”

“…We look at a scenario where the governor says, ‘My way or the highway,’ when we know he’s not going to be in the governor’s mansion come 2027,” Jacque said, saying “it’s unfortunately a plan doomed to failure unless some additional steps are taken.”

Jacque attempted to add projects to the original motion: expansion of Taycheedah Correctional Institution, expansion of medium and minimum security beds at Jackson Correctional Institution and closure of Green Bay Correctional Institution by Dec. 31, 2029. But his motion failed with four members in favor and four opposed.

“Let’s just get something goddamn done here, please,” Evers said during the commission meeting. “…We got to fix the system, and we have an opportunity now.” In a statement, Felzkowski said she is cautiously optimistic following the building commission meeting and looks forward to “having productive conversations to move Wisconsin’s corrections system in the right direction.” 

What’s in the plan?

Under the project, the Waupun prison would become a medium security prison, and it would have upgraded housing units and  enhanced vocational programming. Gov. Tony Evers said he wants to revamp the prison into a “state-of-the-art ‘vocational village.’” 

The troubled Lincoln Hills School, which has remained open as a juvenile facility long after a deadline for closure has passed, would be converted to a 500-bed men’s medium security facility. 

Medium-security Stanley Correctional Institution, which is northeast of Eau Claire, would switch to maximum security, while John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun would become a women’s facility. Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center in northeast Wisconsin would receive housing expansion and kitchen replacement that would increase its capacity. 

The request to the commission included an anticipated budget and schedule, which put the total cost at $325 million and final completion in January 2031.  By releasing the planning money that had been included in the state budget, the eight-member commission, chaired by the governor and comprised of legislators from both parties, took the first step in the process. But Republicans and Evers continue to disagree on next steps. Evers promised Tuesday to include legislators in discussions throughout the process.

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

Wisconsin state lawmakers said a pair of bipartisan bills would help to fill existing gaps in aid after a disaster and get businesses and families back on their feet at a public hearing in the Senate Natural Resources, Veteran and Military Affairs committee Tuesday.

SB 558 would create a grant program under the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs for people and businesses that are adversely affected by a disaster that is the subject of a state of emergency declared by the governor on or after January 1, 2025. 

A second bill, SB 557, would provide funding for the grant program, including an initial $10 million meant for individuals and another $20 million meant for businesses.

The record-breaking thousand-year storm that hit Wisconsin in August led to flooding and damage across the eastern parts of the state. President Donald Trump approved $29.8 million in federal relief funding in September to provide individual support for flood damage victims in Milwaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties. Other counties that sustained damage, including Door, Grant and Ozaukee, were not included in the federal assistance.

Rep. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown) told the committee that many residents and businesses in those counties were left without a safety net without the federal assistance. 

“It isn’t about creating a new bureaucracy, it is about ensuring that help doesn’t stop at the county line,” Knodl added. “When a disaster strikes, Wisconsin should be able to stand on its own two feet, helping our families and small businesses.”

The bills received a public hearing just days after the Trump administration denied additional disaster assistance aid to repair parks, government buildings and other public infrastructure in Door, Grant, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties. 

Knodl said the legislation would ensure that Wisconsin can act “when Washington cannot or will not.” 

The bills are coauthored by Knodl and Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) and have bipartisan support from Sens. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay), Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) and Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) as well as Reps. Paul Melotik (R-Grafton), Bob Donovan, Travis Tranel, Jim Piwowarczyk, Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa), Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) and Rob Kreibich (R-New Richmond).

Knodl said the bill would be especially helpful in filling the gaps for businesses. 

“Currently, small businesses have no grant options available to them, only loans. Loans can help, but for many small employers already reeling from physical and economic damage, more debt isn’t really a viable solution,” Knodl said. “These businesses are the backbone of our local economies, and when they can’t reopen, it affects not just the owners, but their employees, their customers, and really the entire fabric of the community.”

Susan Quam, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, told lawmakers that many restaurants sustained large amounts of damage during the floods. She said one of the association’s  members had over $200,000 in losses just from being at the Wisconsin State Fair. She said that didn’t include losses sustained at their brick and mortar location in Wauwatosa.

“Business insurance that will cover natural disasters is becoming increasingly harder and more expensive for all businesses. We know that many of our members who are in historic buildings, especially those with landmark status, are finding it even more difficult to secure decent coverage for these kinds of disasters. As it becomes riskier to be in business, these types of grants can mean the difference between a business recovering or staying closed for good with substantial personal losses for their owners,” Quam said. “It’s imperative that these types of programs exist.” 

Businesses would be eligible for up to $50,000 for eligible disaster-related expenses incurred to  fix or replace damaged property as well as payroll assistance, working capital and business operating expenses. 

Individuals would be eligible for grants of up to $25,000 for the eligible disaster-related expenses to fix or replace personal property damaged by a disaster, home repair conducted by a contractor approved by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and temporary housing assistance.

Grant applicants would need to provide the agency with receipts for expenses, apply within 90 days after the governor declares an emergency or within 90 days after the date on which the bill becomes law and sign an affidavit committing to return money to the agency if it is duplicated by insurance money or another source of disaster-related assistance that is not a loan awarded directly by the federal government. The DMA would need to process applications within 14 days. 

The state grants would only be available if the president of the United States has declared a major disaster to exist in this state and federal aid is made available to individuals and businesses.

Knodl said they aren’t looking to appropriate funds on a regular basis, but that funding could be sought in the case of disaster. Under the bill, DMA would have the ability to request supplemental funding from the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee if the agency determines it needs additional funding.

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An emergency room nurse tends to a patient at Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital in Texas. States, counties and nonprofits are striving to continue their work to close racial health disparity gaps but are struggling amid a loss of federal dollars. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Racial health disparities may widen as states, universities and nonprofits grapple with federal funding cuts to programs that were aimed at filling gaps in care, public health experts say.

As part of its federal restructuring and crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, the Trump administration has been shuttering federal offices and rescinding grants dedicated to addressing worse health care access and outcomes for racial minorities.

The shake-up has caused some state agencies and nonprofits to pause programs and some groups and universities to apply for foundation grants instead.

Hundreds of grants have been terminated for state, local and territorial health departments as well as nonprofits and universities, many of which addressed health equity across rural, low-income and communities of color.

The nation’s racial health disparities were laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus killed Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people at higher rates than white people. The police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 also fueled a racial reckoning across the nation, prompting efforts by states, universities, health systems and the federal government to address racial health disparities.

Those approaches ranged from targeted vaccine campaigns and efforts to enroll more people of color in clinical trials to corrections of diagnostic tests that relied on inaccurate information about race and biology.

Communities of color have long had less access to health care, increased exposure to environmental pollutants and higher rates of certain chronic illnesses and cancer deaths. They also have more diabetes-related amputations because of a lack of access to care. And specific genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease, disproportionately affect Black people.

“COVID revealed the impact of health disparities to individual health — as well as how not addressing these disparities undermines the health system for everyone,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Now, many of the programs trying to address health disparities are being rolled back.

As a result, health policy experts, clinicians and researchers fear those disparities will widen as states, universities and nonprofits grapple with lost federal dollars while the administration continues to limit federal funding for DEI programs. In July, the U.S. Department of Justice released guidance saying such initiatives should not receive federal funding, alleging they are “discriminatory.”

Entities that receive federal funds “must ensure that their programs and activities comply with federal law and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or other protected characteristics—no matter the program’s labels, objectives, or intentions,” the news release said.

Several state and local health officials were reluctant to speak with Stateline on the record about how the federal administration’s DEI crackdown has left them in a bind, fearing retaliation or targeting by the federal government. The White House did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment.

“My concern about what the administration is doing is that they are, in effect, making these disparities worse,” Benjamin said. “Everybody’s health is not the same. … It’s important to know that the disparities are really profound.”

Benjamin added that the cumulative effect of disparities means more late-stage disease — costing both patients and health systems more.

“There’s a trope or misunderstanding out there that DEI is a ‘woke’-related agenda. DEI is not a ‘woke’ agenda. DEI is an American agenda, because it’s really one that is the same thing as ‘rising tides lift all boats,’” said Brandon Wilson, senior director of Health Innovation and Public Health at Community Catalyst, a health equity advocacy organization. “When you cut [resources] off, you’re actually disproportionately impacting those who are already impacted.”

‘Increasing need’

The administration canceled billions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Many of the grants helped recipients create solutions tailored to their communities’ needs and strengths.

At least three dozen state, local and territorial health departments have had pandemic-era grants that addressed health equity terminated. While originally focused on COVID-19, agencies have since used that grant money for other public health efforts: testing and contact tracing for a wide range of diseases, better data reporting, and community partnerships that address social and environmental effects on health.

The money was part of a $2.2 billion national health equity initiative that aimed to address vulnerabilities and protect those communities ahead of the next outbreak.

The Department of Health and Human Services told media such cancellations were due to the pandemic emergency ending in 2023.

At NIH, the administration terminated more than 5,400 NIH research grants, although about 2,800 were reinstated. Canceled grants included research toward illnesses like HIV and AIDS, which disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic people as well as gay and transgender people.

The Trump administration has also gutted federal offices dedicated to fighting disparities, including the Offices of Minority Health under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Department of Health and Human Services.

At the state level, the Arkansas Department of Health recently shut down its own minority health-focused office. Ashley Whitlow, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement that it “relies on federal grant funding to support a variety of public health programs.”

“The recent reduction in program staff reflects the Arkansas Department of Health’s ongoing efforts to operate more efficiently with the resources available. Despite these changes, ADH remains fully committed to serving communities across the state,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Maryland’s Department of Health said its minority health office is funded through state general funds and not directly impacted by the federal cuts.

The nation has seen a spike in congenital syphilis cases, which disproportionately occur among Black and Indigenous families.

“Regardless of whether you’re at the highest risk, any outbreak that’s not controlled can spread widely and broadly, and you can see that that’s what’s happening with measles,” said Dr. Julie Morita, former executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former health commissioner Chicago Department of Public Health.

But states likely can’t replace all the lost federal dollars.

“You’ve got declining capacity, and increasing need — which is a formula for problems,” said Richard Frank, director of the Brookings Institution Center on Health Policy.

“It’s impossible to make all that up with state and local dollars,” he continued. “You’re going to see programs that serve real people getting pulled back.”

Frank and Wilson also expressed concern about the Medicaid changes included in the broad tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July. The law is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $911 billion over the next decade, largely because new work requirements will push people off the rolls. Data shows the majority of Medicaid enrollees already work, and experts say many will be kicked off the rolls due to difficulties in states’ reporting processes. Black and Hispanic people are disproportionately represented on the Medicaid rolls.

OB-GYN Dr. Versha Pleasant, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan, directs the Cancer Genetics and Breast Health Clinic at Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital. She treats patients at high risk for breast and ovarian cancers. Black women have an almost 40% higher risk of death from breast cancer than white women.

“That, to me, is unacceptable,” she said, adding that such disparities speak to the need for ongoing programs to “provide everyone with a fair chance at leading a long and healthy life.”

“If we don’t make a special effort to save the most vulnerable lives … where does that leave us?” she continued. “The changes that we’re seeing are only going to magnify preexisting challenges.”

Data and dollars

Dr. Sarah Rudman, acting public health officer at the Santa Clara County Public Health Department in California, and others have told Stateline that federal officials are informing health agencies that race and ethnicity data are no longer required to be reported.

“We are being asked to change the way we collect our own data here and report it,” Rudman said, adding that her county is going to continue collecting data to “understand who is here, who’s experiencing what health outcome and what they need.”

Many families, in the shadow of the county’s Silicon Valley, still struggle with poverty — more than 27,000 children suffer food insecurity, United Way Bay Area says.

“It is sometimes surprising and striking to people to understand how much poverty and other types of vulnerability are hidden among the more visible wealth of Silicon Valley, and that’s where we’ve dedicated our resources,” Rudman said.

“It’s hard to even imagine what my colleagues in smaller areas of California or in other parts of the country are experiencing,” she added about lower-income counties. “We are feeling extremely strained and already in our second round of layoffs, knowing that many more are likely. So I think that the hits are going to be that much more significant in areas who have less resources than we do.”

Federal officials also canceled the county’s $5.7 million grant to address COVID-19-related disparities, used to shore up vulnerable communities ahead of the next disease outbreak, natural disaster or heat wave, Rudman said. The money helped the county conduct basic laboratory testing and vaccine outreach for a wide range of diseases, not just COVID-19.

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

The USDA has announced it will stop providing nutrition assistance on Nov. 1. Milwaukee officials and nonprofits are organizing a food drive to try to meet residents' needs. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Local officials and community organizations are uniting to provide families with food and basic necessities during the government shutdown. City and county governments together with  the Milwaukee Public School District, the Milwaukee Bucks and faith groups are organizing a food drive with Feeding America Western Wisconsin and Nourish MKE. The drive will begin immediately and continue until FoodShare benefits are restored. 

On Nov. 1, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are expected to end amidst a government shutdown in Washington D.C.. Across the nation, there are over 42 million Americans who depend on the federal food assistance program. 

“The federal government shutdown needs to end,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson. “This is not an abstract issue. It’s about whether families can afford to eat. While Washington debates, Milwaukee is stepping up. We’re coming together to keep each other fed, safe and cared for. That’s who we are as a city.” 

Food drive  donations will be accepted locations across the city including:

• Milwaukee City Hall (200 E. Wells St)
• Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. 9th St)
• Zeidler Municipal Building (841 N. Broadway)
• Marcia P. Coggs Health & Human Services Center (1230 W. Cherry St)
• Hillview (1615 S. 22nd Street)
• Fiserv Forum (1111 Vel R. Phillips Avenue)
• All Milwaukee public schools 
• All Milwaukee library branches
• The Mason Temple Church (6058 N. 35th St)

“Food insecurity affects physical health, mental health and stability to entire households,” said Shakita LaGrant-McClain, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. “I encourage everyone to consider donating to your local food pantry. This is a time where the community really needs to come together.”

Democrats have insisted that any resolution to continue funding the federal government must include renewing Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies which are set to expire soon, causing health costs to skyrocket across the country, including for 310,000 Wisconsinites, many of whom will see their insurance payments rise by between 45 and 800%.  Milwaukee and surrounding counties  are also still reeling from the denial of FEMA disaster assistance to help repair damage left behind by the historic floods in August. 

“Milwaukee County is strong and resilient, but the health and wellbeing of our residents and families should never be casualties of political fights in Washington,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. “Until this federal shutdown ends, we will do what we always do: look out for our neighbors and step up to help in times of need. I’m grateful to all our community partners to encourage every resident who is able to join us in caring for our community.” 

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President Donald Trump attends inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump sought to remove his status as the only felon to be elected president by appealing his conviction on 34 New York state charges just before midnight Tuesday, arguing, in part, that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling giving the president broad immunity invalidated the conviction.

In a 96-page appeal nearly 18 months after his state court conviction that he falsified business records by disguising hush money payments over an alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels as legitimate legal payments, Trump’s attorneys recited a list of complaints over his prosecution.  

Among those complaints were that New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, targeted the then-former president, and that the presiding Democratic judge created at least the appearance of partiality, the appeal said.

“This is the most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history,” the lengthy brief began. “After years of fruitless investigation into decade-old, baseless allegations — and under immense political pressure to criminally charge President Donald J. Trump for something — New York’s district attorney manufactured felony charges against a once-former and now-sitting President of the United States.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment on the appeal Tuesday. 

Hush money

The case centered on payments Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, made to Daniels in the run up to the 2016 election. Trump wanted to keep her from telling the tabloid National Enquirer about a tryst she said she had with the married Trump years earlier. 

After Trump won the White House, his private business reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, according to the 2023 indictment.

Federal prosecutors had explored whether the payment to Daniels could have violated campaign finance laws. Cohen paid Daniels to keep her from publicizing her account during Trump’s 2016 race against Hillary Clinton. 

They ultimately declined to bring charges.

Trump’s appeal this week said New York prosecutors impermissibly depended on campaign finance violations to charge him with felony business record falsification. 

To be charged as a felony, the business records must be falsified in service of another crime, but Trump argued Monday those allegations could not have been charged because federal law preempts state law.

The New York law also requires prosecutors to show the defendant had “intent to defraud” to win a conviction for falsifying business records. Bragg and his team did not do that at trial, Trump’s attorneys said.

SCOTUS immunity ruling

Trump’s attorneys also said the trial court admitted evidence that should have been protected by presidential immunity, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that established broad protections for sitting presidents.

The Supreme Court opinion said the president was not only protected from criminal charges based on official actions, but that any official action could not be used as evidence to prove an allegation that centered on an unofficial act.

The prosecution did include some official acts Trump took while in office, his lawyers said.

Prosecutors examined Hope Hicks, a former Trump White House communications director, Trump’s statements on social media, communications with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions — which Trump denies took place — and the president’s general work habits while in office. 

Those examples should all be considered official actions that are immune from being used in a criminal case, Trump’s attorneys wrote.

Lack of recusal broached

Trump’s attorneys also argued Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial, should have recused himself.

Merchan donated a total of $25 to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and to a political action committee called “Stop Republicans.” 

The nominal contributions violated a “clear bar on sitting judges making political contributions,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

His daughter also worked for a political organization that opposed Trump in 2020, the brief noted.

Trump had asked Merchan to recuse himself during the trial phase, but the judge declined. Trump’s attorneys said Monday that was a “clear ground for reversal” of the conviction.

“In the face of all these undisputed and damaging facts, Justice Merchan’s refusal to recuse created, at the very least, ‘the appearance of bias,’” they wrote.

Elected felon 

Whatever problems arose from Trump’s prosecution in New York, it had the political effect of elevating his stagnant comeback campaign.

At the nadir of his popularity following his 2020 election loss and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, several credible challengers entered the Republican presidential field for the 2024 cycle and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis led in some early polls.

But four criminal prosecutions, of which the New York hush money case was the first, had the effect of galvanizing Republicans and other voters who believed the former president was the victim of a political prosecution, and he easily won the GOP nomination. 

The prosecutions played out amid the 2024 campaign, and a New York jury convicted Trump of 34 felony counts on May 30, making him the first former president to be convicted of a felony.

He won that November’s election and became the first felon to be elected president. 

He successfully delayed sentencing until after the 2024 election. Merchan imposed a sentence of unconditional discharge on Jan. 10, 2025, allowing Trump to avoid prison time. 

A barista prepares a coffee drink. (Nazar Abbas Photography via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Five Republican U.S. senators joined Democrats Tuesday to terminate President Donald Trump’s national emergency that triggered steep tariffs on goods from Brazil.

The vote came ahead of a major case before the Supreme Court that could decide whether many of the president’s tariffs violate the Constitution.

Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, supported a joint resolution in a 52-48 vote.

The measure’s passage in the Senate marks a shift from a previous effort in April, when Senate Republicans blocked a resolution to terminate Trump’s emergency tariffs on Canada. Murkowski, Collins and Paul also supported that measure.

The resolution is not likely to see a vote in the Republican-controlled U.S. House, meaning it is not likely to become law.

Coffee canister in the Senate

Senate Democrats forced Tuesday’s floor vote just days after they filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to find Trump’s unprecedented tariffs, triggered under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, unconstitutional. Murkowski was the lone Republican to join the brief.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., spoke on the floor ahead of the vote with a canister of Maxwell House coffee beside him. 

Kaine said Trump’s tariffs on Brazilian goods are an “abuse of presidential power that people are feeling every time they walk down a grocery store aisle to buy coffee for their families, to buy ground beef for their families.”

“No president, Democrat or Republican, should be able to declare a national emergency justifying the imposition of 50% tariffs because a friend of theirs is being prosecuted for breaking the law in another country,” he said.

Kaine used a decades-old law that allows the minority party to force a vote to terminate a national emergency.

Trump declared a national emergency and imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports on July 30 after accusing Brazil’s government of “politically persecuting” its former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup to remain in power in 2022.

‘No taxation without representation’

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who cosponsored Kaine’s bill, said on the floor ahead of the vote Trump is using his emergency powers “to tax us without our consent.”

“I, for one, still believe in the principle of no taxation without representation, and will vote to terminate this contrived emergency and end these unconstitutional import taxes,” Paul said.

The vote to reverse Trump’s tariffs on Brazilian products was the first of three bipartisan resolutions this week protesting the administration’s emergency tariffs.

Kentucky’s senior senator and former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive.”

“The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule. And no cross-eyed reading of Reagan will reveal otherwise. This week, I will vote in favor of resolutions to end emergency tariff authorities,” McConnell said, referring to Trump’s decision to add another 10% tariff on Canadian goods. That came after the Ontario province ran an anti-tariff ad featuring the words of President Ronald Reagan.

Trump tariffs defended

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, criticized the joint resolution as “counterproductive to the progress already made by President Trump.”

“The president’s historic trade negotiations are bearing fruit. President Trump already announced new deals, trade deals with major trading partners, including, most recently, Cambodia and Malaysia. Other such announcements may still be forthcoming. I urge other trading partners to reach similar trading deals,” Crapo, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, said on the floor ahead of the vote.

Both tariffs and climate change are to blame for the recent spike in coffee prices, reports the Los Angeles Times.

A sign with a notice of closure is seen pinned on the fence to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 12, 2025. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON —  The Trump administration cannot carry out layoffs that it announced after the government shutdown began Oct. 1 and is barred from issuing any new layoff notices under a court order issued Tuesday. 

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said at the end of an hour-long hearing in the Northern District of California she granted the preliminary injunction because the reductions in force are unlawful and “intended for the purpose of political retribution.”

Illston referenced a social media post by President Donald Trump that said, “I can’t believe the radical left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

Michael Velchik, a Justice Department attorney representing the government, argued against the judge issuing a preliminary injunction. 

Velchik said statements from Trump and other administration officials were an expression of policy differences with Democrats and were not evidence of attempted political retribution. 

The hearing was the latest step in a lawsuit filed in late September. In the month since, attorneys for labor unions have contended the Trump administration’s actions violate federal law, while lawyers for the government have said it’s well within the scope of their authority. 

Illston, who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, granted a temporary restraining order in mid-October that she clarified and expanded days later amid a misunderstanding within the administration about its impact.

Some layoffs planned pre-shutdown, government says

Illston said during Tuesday’s hearing that she’s likely to schedule an evidentiary hearing over claims that some layoff notices that have gone out during the shutdown were planned before it began, and shouldn’t be subject to any court orders in this lawsuit. 

Danielle Leonard, an attorney representing the labor unions that brought the case, said she believed that type of hearing could help all involved “get to the heart of” the disagreement. 

Leonard requested the preliminary injunction cover employees at the Interior Department, Commerce Department’s patent office and the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights from layoffs until after the judge scheduled that evidentiary hearing. 

Illston didn’t respond directly to that proposal, but said she planned to release a written version of the preliminary injunction she issued from the bench as soon as Tuesday. 

Illston said the injunction didn’t apply to employees at the Small Business Administration who received layoff notices in late September, before the shutdown began. 

Velchik contended that layoff notices issued since the shutdown began were well within the administration’s authority, saying the country does not “have a fossilized executive branch where we cannot reduce the size.”

Velchik also told the judge that efforts to lay off federal employees during the shutdown were “the right thing to do, morally. And it’s the democratic thing to do.” 

Bananas and cereals at a grocery store in Fairfax, Virginia, on March 3, 2011. (USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.)

A coalition of Democratic state officials sued the Trump administration Tuesday, asking a federal judge to force the release of food assistance funds for 42 million people that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said cannot be paid during the ongoing government shutdown.

Attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors launched the suit days before benefits are expected to be cut off for low-income Americans enrolled in the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, on Nov. 1. 

Despite holding $6 billion in a reserve fund, USDA said last week it would not process November SNAP benefits without fiscal 2026 funding approved by Congress.

The USDA’s refusal to provide November benefits runs contrary to precedent from other recent shutdowns, and even the department’s own Sept. 30 contingency plan that said the contingency fund would be used to continue benefits through the shutdown. 

The administration has also shuffled some other money to provide funding for certain programs, but not SNAP.

The Democratic officials said those factors made the decision arbitrary and capricious, a violation of federal administrative law, and asked a federal court in Massachusetts to order the USDA’s move unlawful and block the administration from putting it in place.

“It is an abuse of discretion for Defendants to decline to use available appropriations, including the SNAP contingency reserve, to fund benefits for the mandatory SNAP entitlement program,” they wrote.

SNAP benefits typically cost the federal government about $9 billion per month, meaning the contingency fund could cover about two-thirds of November’s benefits.

The department could cover a full month by dipping into another USDA nutrition assistance program that holds about $23 billion, the state officials said. Part of that fund was used to cover a shortfall in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children earlier this month.

The attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin brought the suit, along with Democratic Govs. Laura Kelly of Kansas, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Shutdown politics

In an emailed statement, a USDA spokesperson did not address the lawsuit, which came from state officials, and instead blamed the shutdown on U.S. Senate Democrats.

“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” the spokesperson wrote. “Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”

SNAP, which the federal government funds and states administer, is one of the high-profile programs affected by the government shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate funds for the fiscal year that began that date.

Congressional Republicans have tried to pass a stopgap measure to reopen the government, but Democrats have successfully blocked that bill as they demand Congress address the expiration of health care premiums for coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

In a Tuesday afternoon letter, 19 Republican attorneys general called on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to support the Republican stopgap to prevent an interruption to SNAP benefits.

The letter, led by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, called SNAP “one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent hunger in America.”

“You have the power to prevent a crisis that is entirely avoidable,” the letter said. “A clean resolution is not a political concession; it is the responsible thing to do. … Refusing to do so now is not leadership; it’s leverage at the expense of the most vulnerable.

In addition to Yost, the letter was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.   

Benefits delayed already in some states

Because of processing times required to add money to SNAP recipients’ electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, cards, benefits for November may already be delayed in some states.

The suit says California’s EBT vendor, the private company contracted to load monthly benefits onto individuals’ EBT cards, requires about a week to process those transfers.

“So, in order to ensure recipients received their November 2025 benefits on time, California would have had to send its issuance files to its vendor by October 23, 2025,” the suit said. “Each day after October 23 that California does not send its issuance files to its vendor will result in November benefits being delayed another day.”

Additionally, because most states use one of two EBT vendors, there’s a strong possibility the vendors will be overwhelmed by the workload “from all their client-states at essentially the same time” once benefits are unfrozen, the state officials said. 

So even if USDA immediately released funding, there would be a lag before they appeared on EBT cards, they said.

Travelers move through Salt Lake International Airport in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Tuesday failed for the 13th time to advance a stopgap spending bill that would fund the government until Nov. 21 and end the nearly one-month government shutdown.

Tuesday was also the day when air traffic controllers, who are working without pay, missed their first full paychecks. The FlightAware delays tracker reported 7,404 delays within, into or out of the United States on Monday and 161 cancellations within the U.S. A temporary ground stop was issued at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday morning due to staffing issues.

In the nation’s capital, the 54-45 vote was nearly identical to the previous 12 votes, as Republicans and Democrats stuck to their positions. The legislation needed at least 60 votes to advance, under the Senate’s legislative filibuster. 

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance the legislation. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Vance defends SNAP cutoff

Democrats are under increasing pressure to pass the House-passed GOP stopgap measure, with 42 million Americans at risk of losing food assistance for November, many federal workers beginning to miss their paychecks and one of the largest unions representing federal workers calling for an end to the government shutdown, now at day 28. 

Amid the government shutdown, the Trump administration has moved to lay off federal workers, and a federal judge is holding a Tuesday hearing to consider a preliminary injunction to block the mass Reductions in Force, or RIFs.

As President Donald Trump continues his overseas travel throughout Asia meeting with foreign leaders, Vice President JD Vance joined Senate Republicans during their Tuesday caucus lunch meeting. 

Vance defended USDA’s decision to not tap into its contingency fund provided by Congress to continue food assistance benefits amid a funding lapse.

“We’re exploring all options,” Vance said. 

Congress provided USDA with the multi-year contingency fund, which totals about $6 billion — short of the roughly $9 billion needed to cover a full month of SNAP benefits. USDA would have to reshuffle funds to provide November payments. 

“We are trying as much as possible to ensure that critical food benefits get paid,” Vance said. 

A coalition of Democratic state officials Tuesday sued the Trump administration and urged a federal judge to force the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release SNAP benefits for 42 million people.

Vance called on five Democrats to join Senate Republicans in approving a short-term funding bill.

“If the Democrats just opened up the government, then we wouldn’t have to play this game where … we’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the budget,” Vance said. 

Democrats have continued to vote against the House’s GOP short-term spending bill to draw attention to and force negotiations on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. Republicans maintain the government must reopen before they begin any talks.

Votes possible on SNAP funding

Republicans are also weighing whether to pass a stand-alone bill by GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley to approve funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. 

Ten Senate Republicans have joined to sponsor the bill, including Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins of Maine. One Democratic senator also cosponsored the bill, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats would also introduce their own separate bill to provide funding for not only SNAP, but for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

During a Tuesday press conference, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., did not seem receptive to scheduling a Senate vote on a stand-alone bill to address SNAP. 

“I mean, this piecemeal approach where you do one off here, one off there, to make it seem more politically palatable to somebody…that is just a wrong way to do this,” Thune said. 

Instead, he argued that Democrats should just support the stopgap spending bill. 

Another critical deadline is approaching. Active-duty military members will miss their paychecks by Friday if the government is still in a funding lapse. The Trump administration already reprogrammed $8 billion earlier this month from multi-year research funds from the Defense Department in order to pay the troops. 

However, Vance said the Trump administration expects to be able to pay troops this Friday, although the vice president didn’t detail where those funds would come from.

Before Tuesday morning’s vote, Thune said Democrats should listen to calls for an end to the shutdown from the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, labor union, which typically aligns with Democrats. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, also cited the call from AFGE, telling Democrats “you have an off-ramp,” during a Tuesday press conference.

“The largest unions are saying, ‘Please do this,’” Johnson said. “You can claim that as cover and say that you had to do it.”

Last week, there were dueling bills from both parties related to paying federal workers amid the shutdown, but those efforts failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to move forward.

The end of the 2019 government shutdown, which lasted 35 days, was in part due to shortages of air traffic controllers that upended air travel across the country and forced lawmakers to strike a deal. 

Schumer critical of administration shutdown decisions

During a Tuesday press conference, Schumer slammed the Trump administration for refusing to tap into its contingency fund for SNAP.

“The money is there,” the New York Democrat said. “The hungry people, the hungry children, the hungry veterans, the hungry elderly, could be fed, but Trump’s using them as hostages.”

Of the 42 million people on SNAP, roughly 40% are children 17 and younger. 

He also criticized Trump for traveling abroad and for his administration’s priority to demolish the East Wing of the White House for a ballroom. 

“His number one priority is his ballroom,” Schumer said. “When people are suffering, what kind of president is this?” 

Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) will challenge Senate Assistant Minority Leader Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) in 2026 for Senate District 31. James at press conference in April and Smith at a press conference in September. (Photos by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) will challenge Senate Assistant Minority Leader Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) in 2026 for Senate District 31, a key district that will help determine control of the Wisconsin Senate. 

All of Wisconsin’s odd-numbered Senate seats — 17 out of 33 — will be in play in 2026, the first election in those districts since they were redrawn as part of new voting maps adopted in 2024. The maps already shook up the Senate in 2024, when Democrats gained five additional even-numbered seats, cutting the Republican majority from 22 seats to 18.

Next year, Republicans will be competing to hold onto their majority as Democrats have launched an effort to flip the entire body. The last time Democrats held a majority in the Legislature was during the 2009 legislative session. 

Democrats will need to win at least two additional seats and hold all their current seats to win the majority. Most of the seats, including SD 5, SD 17 and SD 21, are currently held by Republicans. 

SD 31, which represents the entirety of Eau Claire County and parts of Dunn, Trempealeau and Chippewa counties, is the one district that Democrats have tagged as a seat to protect.

Smith seeks reelection

Smith, the second top Democrat in the Senate, is the incumbent of SD 31 and he announced his intention to seek reelection earlier this year. He was first elected to the Senate in 2018. He told the Wisconsin Examiner that the prospect of flipping the Senate is one of the reasons he is  running again.

“I see the opportunity is right in front of me where I think we’re going to reach a point where we’re in the majority, and I’m going to have to be able to carry that voice into our state Legislature,” Smith told the Examiner.

Smith said he has introduced over 130 bills in his time in office and only one of those has gotten a public hearing.

“The public should have the ability to hear all sides and all ideas,” Smith said, adding that he believes that would happen under Democratic control.

Among the priorities he listed in the next session are boosting state funding for Wisconsin public schools, ensuring that private schools that receive public funding are held accountable and increasing access to health care. 

“It shouldn’t matter whether you’re working or not working, everyone should be able to access the same level of care in any hospital, in any clinic, in not only our state, but in our country,” Smith said. 

Smith’s Republican challenger, Jesse James, announced his plans to seek reelection earlier this month.

James says he’s ‘ready to come home’

When James was elected to the Senate in 2022, he lived in Altoona, which sits outside Eau Claire and was part of Senate District 23. Under the new maps, however, Altoona was drawn into SD 31, so James said he decided to “uproot” his life to Thorp to finish out the rest of his four-year term. 

In his campaign announcement for 2026, James said he is “ready to come home.”

“Being 40 minutes away sucks,” James told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview. The Republican senator said he is still helping take care of things at his family and home in Altoona as well as helping take care of his father who is sick. 

James, who comes from a law enforcement background and has continued working as a part-time police officer while in office, said he loves what he does in the Legislature and wants to continue the work. Prior to the Senate, James served in the Assembly for two terms. Mental health services, substance use prevention and  public safety are among his top priorities. 

At the start of his current term, he proposed the Senate form a committee focused on mental health, substance abuse prevention, children and families, which he now chairs. He said he had 27 bills signed in his first two years and has spent the majority of his time seeking to advance legislation in those three areas, including for expanding postpartum Medicaid access — a bill that is currently held up by members of his own party  — as well as an effort to establish psychiatric residential treatment facilities in Wisconsin.

“I’m coming home. I’m in a prime seat where I chair the committee that I do, everything that I fought for up to this point motivates me, and I’m going to continue that work record,” James said. “I’m going to continue the performance level that I’m at and continue working for the people… It’s going to be an uphill battle. I’m OK with that. I’ve been through uphill battles my whole life, and I’m willing to take on challenges.”

With majority at stake, competitive race ahead 

There’s about a year before Wisconsin’s 2026 November general elections, leaving plenty of time for a campaign. Both candidates said they are prepared for a tough race, especially with the Senate majority at stake.

“I’m always for competition,” James said about challenging his Democratic colleague. 

“This is going to be a huge seat. It’s going to be a battle, and everything we know right now it’s going to be interesting with midterms because… they don’t always bode well,” James added. “Come this midterm election, we’ll know where things are if I win, and we’ll know where things are if Jeff wins.” 

According to an analysis by John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University, the current 31st Senate district has a slight Democratic lean. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the area by 2.2 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election and Sen. Tammy Baldwin won it by 4.7 percentage points in the 2024 Senate race.

According to data compiled by the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and shared with the Examiner, the district’s Democratic lean goes back further than the recent elections. In 2014, the district voted for Mary Burke, who lost statewide to former Gov. Scott Walker, and in 2016, it chose Hilary Clinton by a 51-point margin as President Donald Trump won the state. 

James said when he decided to run for reelection some people questioned why he was running in a district that is “kind of a lost cause,” though in his mind, he views the race as a 50-50 prospect.

“It’s going to be ugly, and I cannot wait to see what ads come out,” James said, adding that he doesn’t plan to “go negative” during his campaign. “I want to talk about me. I’m not going to talk about Jeff. Jeff can do his thing. I’m going to do mine.”

While James is a popular legislator who has generally sought to avoid polarizing partisanship, Smith sees his entry into the race as part of a larger partisan plan. 

“The bottom line about Republicans somehow convincing Sen. James that he should run for this district is simply because they also understand one thing, and that is, whoever wins this district is going to be in the majority,” Smith said. He added that this “isn’t about Jesse James and it isn’t about Jeff Smith. It’s about the state of Wisconsin, and who actually is going to govern and lead Wisconsin to a better future, and I really believe that we as a Democratic Party are in the best position to be able to do that.”

Smith is accustomed to running in tough races, he added. 

Smith won a second term to the Senate in 2022 to represent SD 31, defeating his Republican challenger by 697 votes. In 2018, Smith defeated his Republican opponent with 51% of the vote.

Smith also served in the Assembly for two terms from 2007 to 2011. He was ousted from his seat in 2010 by Republican Warren Petryk. 

Smith said he will take the same approach to this race that he has always taken, knocking doors and talking to people where they are. In the past he has been known for setting up shop in his truck, putting up a sign encouraging people to stop and talk to him.

“I know how to do this. I’ve done it before, over and over, and it is nothing new to me to have to run a difficult race,” Smith said. “I’m a great believer… go to the people, don’t make them come to you.” 

Hospital access key issue

In a statement after James’ campaign announcement, Smith said the Republican senator would need to explain himself to voters. 

“After years of toeing the line for Republican leadership, botching the hospital closure funding, dropping the ball on PFAS funding and failing to deliver results — voters in the 31st District know all too well how these failures have affected their lives,” Smith said. 

Two hospitals, HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital, closed abruptly last year due to financial difficulties, leaving a big swath of the Chippewa Valley with diminished access to health care. Wisconsin policymakers sought to help provide funding to help the area, but lawmakers refused to release the funds after Gov. Tony Evers exercised a partial veto on a related bill.

Asked about Smith’s statement on his candidacy, James pushed back.

“I’m not going to talk about the hospital funding. It’s dead. It’s over. The $15 million went back into the GPR [General Purpose Revenue],” James said. He added that he’s helped secure other investments in the area since. 

One bill, coauthored by James, to set up the legislative framework for Rogers Behavioral Health to establish a behavioral health hospital in Chippewa Falls passed the Assembly in September and the Senate in October. James also helped secure $1 million for Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, so it can re-open the former L.E. Phillips Libertas Treatment Center in Chippewa Falls.

James said securing the funds are his biggest wins for the Chippewa Valley, especially given the recent closures.

“It’s a start, and I still think that there’s more — I already have ideas for next session, that if I come back, or when I come back, I’ll be able to work on so that we’re already starting to look at the future and improving what we can for our rural areas, primarily, especially up north, with mental health and substance abuse prevention,” James said.

For his part, Smith said that he believes there needs to be more accountability for hospitals, noting that the ones in Chippewa Falls were being managed by an Illinois-based health care system and they closed “because they just weren’t bringing in enough money…That shouldn’t be the reason that people lose access to health care because someone can’t make enough money off them.” 

“It’s been a real struggle up there, and has become at the forefront of what my office is dealing with these days,” Smith said.

When it comes to funding for cleaning up PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, in the water supply, James said he hasn’t been involved in drafting or negotiating on the bill to make use of $125 million set aside to combat them. “I will call Jeff out on this,” James said. “He’s the assistant minority leader, and he’s part of leadership to where he could be part of these discussions, so why not use that leadership position as far as having the discussions about PFAs and stuff?” 

James also noted that he recently helped author a bipartisan bill that would require the state Department of Natural Resources to warn county and tribal health departments when an exceedance of state groundwater standards is discovered.

“We want clean, safe drinking water. That’s why I worked with Jill Billings [the Democratic Assembly representative from La Crosse]… The PFAS funding and stuff that’s all political. I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t like to be political,” James said. “My work record shows I like to get things done. I’ve gotten things done to better people’s lives. I will continue to work on things bipartisan.”

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Canned foods on grocery store shelves. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

WASHINGTON — The stakes of the ongoing government shutdown rose Monday as the U.S. Department of Agriculture doubled down on its position that food benefits for November could not be paid and a union for federal workers implored lawmakers to pass a stopgap measure.

As the government shutdown entered day 27, President Donald Trump’s administration sought to add pressure on U.S. Senate Democrats to approve the House Republicans’ stopgap government funding bill by refusing to use USDA resources to stretch critical food assistance benefits to the most vulnerable Americans. 

USDA confirmed over the weekend it will not follow its own contingency plan — which the department has removed from its website — to tap into its multi-year contingency fund to cover food assistance for more than 42 million people for November. 

The department also pinned a fiery message to its website blaming Democrats for the lapse in benefits and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Democrats to approve a stopgap funding measure to restore food assistance.

Democrats have voted against the GOP short-term spending bill to draw attention to and force negotiations on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” according to the banner across USDA’s website. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 1. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The banner falsely indicated that Democrats’ sole goal was to provide health insurance to immigrants in the country without legal authorization and transgender patients.

Reversal on SNAP contingency

But the move represents a reversal from the administration’s own policy, laid out in a Sept. 30 contingency plan on the eve of the shutdown that States Newsroom reported Friday. 

The plan detailed how the agency would use the contingency fund provided by Congress to continue benefits. The fund holds roughly $6 billion, about two-thirds of a month of SNAP benefits, meaning USDA would still have to reshuffle an additional $3 billion to cover the remainder for November.

Hundreds of Democratic lawmakers, and the top Senate Republican appropriator, Susan Collins of Maine, have pressed USDA to use its contingency fund. 

Democrats, such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, have also criticized the Trump administration for refusing to use its resources, despite the contradiction in its own Sept. 30 contingency plan and its shuffling of funds for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

“We know that Trump has the resources to continue SNAP and other programs like WIC,” Booker said. “Weaponizing food assistance is, simply put, a new and disgusting low.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed that sentiment in a floor speech Monday.

“The administration is making an intentional choice not to fund SNAP this weekend,” the New York Democrat said. “The emergency funding is there. The administration is just choosing not to use it.”

USDA did not respond to a request for comment Monday. 

Millions of vulnerable people, such those who have low incomes or are living with disabilities, rely on SNAP. About 40% of SNAP recipients are children 17 and younger.   

Union calls for stopgap

Another form of pressure on Democrats arrived Monday with the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers, calling for lawmakers to strike a deal to reopen the government.  

As the shutdown nears a month, most of the roughly 2 million civilian federal workers have already missed paychecks. 

The AFGE is typically more politically aligned with Democrats and had held off on publicly weighing in in favor of a stopgap until Monday when Everett Kelley, the union’s president, called for Congress to end the government shutdown and pass a continuing resolution to resume funding.

“Because when the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren’t looking for partisan spin,” Kelley said in the statement. “They’re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they’re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.” 

Johnson added that he hopes the recent statement from the union representing 800,000 federal workers pushes Senate Democrats to approve the House’s stopgap.

“They understand the reality of this,” he said. 

Johnson defends USDA move

Johnson defended USDA’s decision not to use its contingency fund for SNAP during a morning press conference.

USDA has argued that those funds can only be used for natural disasters or similar emergencies. 

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, agreed with that reasoning.

“It certainly looks legitimate to me,” he said. “The contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now. The reason is because it’s a finite source of funds. It was appropriated by Congress, and if they transfer funds from these other sources, it pulls it away immediately from school meals and infant formula. So … it’s a trade off.” 

USDA earlier this month reshuffled funds to several nutrition programs, including WIC,  the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. 

States scrambling

States are demanding answers about why USDA has paused SNAP benefits. On Friday, 23 state attorneys general sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and questioned the legal basis for the agency to pause benefits for SNAP.

In the face of disappearing federal funds, states may choose to spend more on food assistance,  

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said Monday she would “fast-track” $30 million in state emergency food assistance to supplement SNAP benefits.

Johnson said that if Senate Democrats are worried about SNAP benefits not being available for November, they should pass the House’s stopgap government funding bill. 

“The best way for SNAP benefits to be paid on time is for the Democrats to end their shutdown, and that could happen right now, if they would show some spine,” Johnson said. 

Children playing with colorful wooden building blocks. (Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — Funding for scores of Head Start programs hung in the balance as the government shutdown continued Monday without an end in sight. 

Unless a deal is reached to end the ongoing funding lapse that began Oct. 1, more than 65,000 children in 140 local Head Start programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico will not get their federal grant funding come Nov. 1, according to the National Head Start Association. The federal government spent about $12.3 billion on the program in fiscal 2025.

Community programs that receive Head Start funding have different start dates for when their grants are available. 

Head Start helps fund roughly 1,600 community programs that served more than 790,000 children during the 2023-2024 program year. 

The program is managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the employees in that agency who would disburse those awards are currently furloughed because of the shutdown.

Six programs serving 6,525 children did not receive a grant award Oct. 1 and are already tapping into outside resources and local funds to stay afloat. If the shutdown continues past Friday, another 134 programs that serve 58,627 children will lose federal grant funding. 

Head Start provides early childhood education, nutritious meals, health screenings and other support services to low-income families. 

It is a discretionary program and subject to congressional approval each year, making it particularly vulnerable to the government shutdown. 

“There’s just so much instability … that this is causing,” Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the advocacy group the National Head Start Association, told States Newsroom. “And while we’re hopeful and we’re going to be doing everything we possibly can to try to minimize the impact directly on children and families, there is going to be a long-term impact, no matter what, that is felt.” 

Shutdown standoff

The shutdown began Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year, when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs. 

Democrats have voted against bills that would temporarily reopen the government as they ask Republicans to negotiate a fix to expiring tax credits for health insurance premiums purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Republicans have refused to negotiate while the government is shut down, leading to an ongoing stalemate.

In a statement Monday, Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for HHS, blamed the impending lack of funds on Democrats. 

“More than 58,000 children are on course to lose access to Head Start funding and programs on November 1 due solely to the Democrat-led government shutdown,” she wrote.

Hilliard added that “the Trump Administration is committed to reopening the government for the American people.”

‘Collateral damage’ 

Sheridan criticized the political landscape that will likely lead to a lack of funding.

“I can’t stress enough — this is purely due to politics,” Sheridan said. “This has nothing to do with Head Start not being an effective program or people in Congress and the administration not supporting Head Start.” 

He pointed to the “strong bipartisan support” the program has received since its launch in 1965. 

“This is just us being collateral damage in a bigger fight that is going to be hurting working families and children,” Sheridan added. 

Sheridan noted that “when programs don’t have access to federal resources, generally speaking, they can try, depending on the size of the program, to stay open for a certain period of time, but they’re going to be basically using other funds, and then would be reimbursing those costs down the road, kind of like an accounting maneuver, to be able to keep their programs running.” 

He added: “That’s why we’re seeing so many programs either close or have to consider closures or things of that kind and why … we are just urging Congress and the administration to stop having children and families be the collateral damage of a political fight.”

Consequences for local Head Start programs

For programs that have to shut down because of the loss of federal funding, Sheridan pointed to several impacts.

Children would lose access to healthy meals and other resources. Families would be without affordable child care options, forcing some to quit their jobs or reduce their work hours. Community members could see economic ripple effects if staff who work in Head Start programs lose their paychecks or their jobs. 

“We also have community partners that we rely on for services, and they rely on us for business — small businesses, contractors, vendors, other small businesses, things like that — but they rely on their Head Start contracts, and if we can’t pay the bills, they’re not going to be able to count on us for what they need as well,” he said. 

Program already reeling

Under President Donald Trump’s administration, the program was already experiencing chaos prior to the government shutdown, including reports of delays in accessing approved grant funding, regional office closures and firings at HHS’ Office of Head Start.

That office also told grant recipients in March that it “will not approve the use of federal funding for any training and technical assistance (TTA) or other program expenditures that promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.” 

A federal judge in September temporarily blocked the administration’s directive that aimed to prevent immigrants living in the United States illegally from accessing Head Start programs. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request calls for maintaining Head Start funding at its prior fiscal year level of roughly $12.3 billion.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its annual bill to fund HHS, including Head Start, back in July and provided $12.4 billion for the program, a roughly $85 million increase.

The corresponding panel in the House also approved its bill to fund HHS in September, aligning with the administration’s request of maintaining funding for Head Start at $12.3 billion in fiscal 2026.  

Sheridan pointed out that the program has operated through challenges before, whether natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, or previous government shutdowns. 

“Our programs are absolutely dedicated, hopeful and are working tirelessly to minimize that impact on children and families, but we cannot operate a program on hope and goodwill alone,” he said. “We need Congress and we need the president to come together to keep our classrooms open and also to ensure that Head Start funding can stay in line with the rising costs that we’ve seen over this last year.” 

A Planned Parenthood Clinic in downtown Milwaukee. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is restarting abortion services after a nearly month-long pause due to a federal budget and tax law that threatens to withhold Medicaid funding from organizations that provide abortion services.

The organization paused services on Oct. 1, due to a provision in the federal megabill signed by President Donald Trump that bars Medicaid payments for one year to organizations that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in fiscal year 2023 and primarily engage in family planning services and reproductive health and provide abortions. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin had said the pause was temporary as they explored options for being able to resume. 

The federal Hyde Amendment has prohibited federal funds from being used to pay for most abortion care for nearly five decades, but the new provision, which expires in July 2026, expands that prohibition to cover all Medicaid-covered services at clinics that also provide non-covered abortions. 

“Providing compassionate, high-quality care to our patients has always been our mission — and it always will be,” President and CEO Tanya Atkinson said in a statement. “At a time when politicians are working to take away health care from women and families, we are fighting back with everything we have. We’ve been here before. We’ve stood up to relentless attacks on reproductive health for decades — and we are not backing down now. Our patients deserve nothing less.”

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said that it decided to relinquish its “Essential Community Provider” designation, so it won’t meet the definition of a “prohibited entity” under federal law and won’t be barred from receiving Medicaid funds even while it provides abortion services. 

According to KFF, Essential Community Providers are “safety net clinics and hospitals” that serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved patients. The federal Affordable Care Act requires that Qualified Health Plans available through the federal or state insurance Marketplaces include a “sufficient number and geographic distribution of ECPs, where available, to ensure reasonable and timely access to a broad range of such providers for low-income, medically underserved individuals in the plan’s service area.”

A Sept. 29 court filing from attorneys on behalf of Health and Human Services stated that organizations could continue billing Medicaid by ceasing abortion, or by relinquishing their tax-exempt status, or relinquishing their Essential Community Provider status.

Atkinson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it was unclear what the implications of giving up the ECP status might be, including whether it will affect its financial situation. 

“What we do know is that the vast majority of our patients really rely on BadgerCare as their form of insurance, and our focus is on providing as much care as we possibly can to as many people as we can across the entire state,” Atkinson said.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin  — the largest provider for abortion services in the state — offers abortion services at its clinics in Madison, Milwaukee and Sheboygan.

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President Donald Trump holds up a chart while speaking during an event announcing broad global tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 2, 2025.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — More than 200 Democratic lawmakers and one Republican are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down President Donald Trump’s sweeping global emergency tariffs.

The 207 members of the U.S. House and Senate argued in an amicus brief late Friday that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not authorize the president to unilaterally impose tariffs. The lawmakers urged the justices to agree with a lower court finding that Trump’s wide reaching import taxes triggered under IEEPA violate the Constitution, which grants duty powers to Congress.

“IEEPA contains none of the hallmarks of legislation delegating tariff power to the executive, such as limitations tied to specific products or countries, caps on the amount of tariff increases, procedural safeguards, public input, collaboration with Congress, or time limitations,” the lawmakers wrote. 

“In the five decades since IEEPA’s enactment, no President from either party, until now, has ever invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs.” 

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., ranking members of the Senate committees on Foreign Relations and Finance, led the signatures of 36 members of the upper chamber. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, was the single GOP co-signer on the brief. A majority of House Democrats, 171 in total, also joined.

The lawmakers filed the friend-of-the-court brief ahead of oral arguments scheduled before the Supreme Court next week on the question of whether Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in late August upheld a lower court ruling striking down the administration’s IEEPA tariffs.

The Senate is expected to vote on three bills this week that aim to terminate Trump’s import taxes on products from Canada, Brazil and any other country subject to emergency duties.

Fentanyl, trade deficits as emergencies

Trump began imposing tariffs under IEEPA in February and March on China, Canada and Mexico, declaring these countries responsible for illegal fentanyl smuggling into the U.S. 

The president escalated the emergency tariffs over the following months on goods from around the globe, declaring trade deficits a national emergency. A trade deficit means the U.S. imports more goods from a country than that nation purchases from U.S. suppliers.

Domestic businesses and purchasers now pay the U.S. government anywhere from 10% to 50% in tariffs on most imported products. The government had collected $195 billion this year in customs duties at the end of September, according to a U.S. Treasury monthly statement.

State AGs and businesses launched court challenge

Several private businesses and a dozen states sued Trump over the use of the emergency statute to trigger the steep import taxes.

Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among states, led by Democratic state attorneys general, that brought the suit.

Businesses that sued the Trump administration include the lead plaintiff, V.O.S. Selections, a New York-based company that imports wine and spirits from 16 countries, according to its website. 

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

The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Trump’s tariffs under IEEPA illegal in late May.

Gov. Tony Evers, shown here in a press gaggle in March, said Monday that health insurance rates on the ACA market are set to skyrocket in Wisconsin. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Last updated 10/28/2025, 1:51 p.m. 

The cost for health care coverage purchased on HealthCare.gov in Wisconsin will rise for some insurance policies by anywhere from 45% to 800% for 2026, depending on where a person lives, Gov. Tony Evers announced Monday.

The increased rates will be made worse with the end of enhanced federal subsidies, provided in the form of tax credits, that have lowered insurance costs through the marketplace since 2021, Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) said during a virtual press conference Monday morning. The enhanced subsidies expire at the end of December.

“In 2025, 88% of Wisconsinites [who] enrolled in coverage on HealthCare.gov qualify for tax credits, saving an average of $664 a month,” Evers said. “And without these enhanced tax credits, health care premiums for Wisconsinites are going to skyrocket, period. Many Wisconsinites will see their premiums double, and some of them will see staggering increases.”

HealthCare.gov is the federal insurance marketplace, created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) to improve health insurance access for people without health coverage from an employer or from government programs.

More than 310,000 Wisconsinites purchased health insurance through the marketplace for 2025, according to the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI). HealthCare.gov open enrollment for 2026 starts Nov. 1.  

OCI released a list Monday with examples of rate increases for patients of various ages and under selected scenarios based on age, family size and incomes. The examples compared rate increases across eight counties.

Evers said a statewide average increase wasn’t available “because it’s going to impact lots of people in a lot of different ways.”

The comparisons made by OCI all reflected health plans in the Silver category on HealthCare.gov. Silver plans have a “moderate” deductible and require patients to pay 30% of the cost of care (see sidebar, HealthCare.gov insurance plan categories).

In a few scenarios and locations, rate increases will be lower than 10%. Those are exceptions, however. Most scenarios and locations showed premium increases ranging from more than 30% on up. Some increases were well over 100%, and one example showed an increase of more than 800% in one county.

The comparisons reflect the premium cost after any subsidies are applied. 

The ACA included subsidies on the cost of insurance from the beginning for people with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty guideline.

The enhancements that were put in place in 2021 and expire at the end of December included increases in the subsidies for the original group. They also extended subsidies to people with incomes above 400% of the poverty guideline, to avoid an “eligibility cliff” at those higher incomes. 

In the comparisons, the 2025 premiums include the effect of the enhanced subsidies, while the 2026 premiums reflect the return to the original subsidy formula.

According to OCI’s report 2026 premiums will increase:

• Between 39% in Waukesha County and 85% in Barron County for a 26-year-old with an income of $48,000 (subsidy continues, but reduced).
• Between 16% in Marathon County and 43% in Barron County for a 26-year-old with an income of $65,000 (subsidy ended).
• Between 18% in Brown County and 84% in Barron County for a 40-year-old with an income of $65,000  (subsidy ended).
• Between 132% in Waukesha County and 391% in Barron County for a 60-year-old with an income of $63,383  (subsidy ended).
• Between 221% in Waukesha County and 812% in Barron County for a 60-year-old couple with an income of $85,658  (subsidy ended).
• Between 2% in Waukesha County and 57% in Barron County for a family  of four with a household income of $128,000 (subsidy continues, but reduced).
• Between 102% in both Waukesha and Dane counties and 312% in Barron County for a family of four with a household income of $130,000  (subsidy ended).

In both family examples, the parents are ages 48 and 47 and children ages 8 and 12.

Nationwide, some 22 million Americans will see their premiums double on average, Baldwin said. She cited projections that 4 million Americans “will look at that price tag and decide to drop their insurance altogether because it’s simply too expensive. It’s more than they can afford.”

KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health policy news and analysis organization, reported Oct. 3 that seven out of 10 people nationally who buy health coverage through the federal marketplace said they would not be able to afford insurance without the enhanced subsidies.

Democrats in Congress have named extending the subsidies as one of their conditions for Democratic support of the Republican majority’s legislation to end the current federal shutdown.

In response, GOP leaders in Congress have called on Democratic lawmakers to sign on to their spending bill to restart the government and then negotiate to extend the subsidies.

Baldwin said Democrats won’t accept “a wink and a nod” that the tax credit talks should come after the government reopens. She said she’s heard privately from Republicans in the Senate who agree that Congress should extend the subsidies.

With 78% of Americans, according to one poll, “who believe we need to address this, and many of my Republican colleagues want to do so, then we need to have an agreement to extend the tax credits as we reopen the government,” Baldwin said.

Later Monday in Milwaukee, Evers held a round table with business owners, advocates and lawmakers to discuss the HealthCare.gov rate increases.

“If you’re seeing these jumps in 26-year-olds, across the board, I don’t know how we afford this,” said Dan Jacobs, owner of the Milwaukee restaurant DanDan. Jacobs said about two-thirds of his employees have health insurance, most of them probably purchasing it through the marketplace.

His business subsidized the insurance premiums that full-time employees and managers bought through HealthCare.gov for 2025, he said, but with the premium increases, reported Monday, “we’re not going to be able to afford to do that,” Jacobs told Evers.

Kara Pitt-D’Andrea, who operates a nonprofit child care facility in Milwaukee with about 25 employees, told Evers,  “100% of us are on the ACA or Medicaid.” 

She called health coverage a moral imperative rather than an act of charity. “To say to people, ‘We refuse to come to the table to create a sustainable option for you’ is the equivalent of saying, ‘You are unimportant in the game of business that we are playing,’” Pitt-D’Andrea said.

 

Interior of a modern data center. Interior of a modern data center. (Stock photo by Imaginima/Getty Images)

The efforts of some of the largest companies in the world, including Microsoft, Meta, Oracle and OpenAI, to develop data centers in communities across Wisconsin have sparked heated local debates among residents, government officials and even comedians. 

Those debates have often been over the data centers’ use of water and electricity, the net impact of local government deals with big corporations, the value of handing over large tracts of land for big warehouse-like buildings and the secrecy in which the plans are often shrouded. 

Data centers, buildings that house computer servers to store information for cloud-based software and, increasingly, to support the expansion of artificial intelligence, are becoming more and more prevalent in the Upper Midwest, according to the Minneapolis branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve. 

While Wisconsin still lags behind its neighbors, the state is now home to 47 data centers with more on the horizon. As communities across the state weigh the merits of accepting data center development, critics and proponents say the state needs more than the current, piecemeal local approach. 

In Port Washington, a Milwaukee suburb on the shore of Lake Michigan, the local government has supported a proposal from tech giants Open AI and Oracle to develop an AI-focused data center on 2,000 acres of farmland in the community. That project is moving forward despite local backlash. 

In Mount Pleasant, a village in Racine County where state and local officials have been trying to salvage a failed Foxconn development, Microsoft has spent billions of dollars for the construction of two data centers in the community. 

But in nearby Caledonia, Microsoft was forced to back off a planned development after backlash from local residents led to the denial of a requested zoning change. 

Overwhelmingly, the largest complaints about data centers are the electricity and water usage. A recent Bloomberg News report found that the construction of data centers has caused electric bills in nearby communities to surge because of the high energy needs of the centers. A recent report from Clean Wisconsin found that just the data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington will use enough electricity to power 4.3 million homes. 

Many data centers need to use water to cycle through their cooling systems, which are necessary because computer equipment can’t be allowed to overheat. While proponents of data centers have downplayed the amount of water required to run the cooling systems, critics point to the water use associated with the increase in electricity demand. Wisconsin’s existing power plants use a high amount of water.

These demands on water have become especially fraught as the data centers have become increasingly concentrated in southeast Wisconsin, where residents are very protective of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes watershed. 

Melissa Scanlan, the director of UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, says Wisconsin’s failure to address data centers comprehensively could quickly put an overly burdensome strain on the state’s utilities.

“There should be a state level review of all of the potential proposals, so that the state can assess the impact on electricity generation and water supply,” Scanlan says. “Doing it in a piecemeal way, where you’ve got local governments deciding about hosting, but then utilities that are committed to supplying the electricity and water, is going to very quickly bump up against the realities of our ability to generate electricity in a responsible way.”

Robin Palm, a certified urban planner who lives in Milwaukee, says he’s largely supportive of data centers because they provide local governments with a consistent source of property tax revenue without requiring many city services. 

“A data center is extremely low services, they’re not going to have kids that need to go to school,” he says. “They are not going to have homeowners that are going to make demands at the village board, and they’re not going to have police calls because of crime or anything like that. So it’s a really low services, high value land use.”

He says the current approach of leaving these decisions up to local officials and zoning boards has pointed the public’s skepticism in the wrong direction. The local officials, he says, are making an easy economic development calculation when the real blame for the confusion should go to the state Public Service Commission and power companies — which have failed to support the expansion of renewable energy in the state. 

Palm points to Iowa, which has far more data centers than Wisconsin and gets more than 60% of its power supply from wind. 

“[Iowa is] getting cheap electricity. They use a lot more per capita than a lot of other states, and they’re way far ahead of us in data centers, and it’s mostly renewable,” he says. “I can’t see anything to complain about that situation. So it seems to me that the obvious culprit, I think, on our side, is the PSC and We Energies. There is something in that mechanism that’s basically screwing us.” 

Warning about a ‘data center stampede’

Late last month, state Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said that a “data center stampede” has started in Wisconsin and that state officials need to develop some sort of statewide plan for how to manage it. 

“We must develop a statewide plan for data centers that prioritizes the needs of our neighbors and its impact on the environment and our communities before the profit margins of private utilities and big tech companies,” he said in a statement. “If we don’t, the data center stampede will likely continue unabated, and in its wake may very well be a Wisconsin we no longer recognize — one that has abandoned its tradition of protecting our air, water, and land for future generations.”

Richard Heinemann, an attorney for Madison-based law firm Boardman Clark, says state lawmakers have already made a policy statement affirming their desire for the construction of data centers. In the 2023-25 state budget, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a provision was included to give a sales tax rebate on the “development, construction, renovation, expansion, replacement, repair, or operation” of data centers. 

Heinemann also points to two bills signed into law by Evers earlier this year to advance the development of nuclear energy in the state. That legislation was introduced specifically to respond to the increased energy demands of data centers.

“Wisconsin must be prepared to meet soaring energy demands that will be driven by the development of data centers and other energy-intensive economic development,” the co-sponsorship memo states. 

But Heinemann says he believes local officials and residents already have the necessary tools to weigh in on data center development. 

“We already have procedural mechanisms in place to try to address some of these issues,” says Heinemann, who recently wrote an article about local government’s authority to intervene in Public Service Commission considerations of utility expansion. “I’m not saying every issue, but some of the important ones that people have looked at or pointed to. So I don’t know what sort of new legislation one could propose that would address these issues in some more comprehensive way, or in a way that would just provide some due process.” 

Hovering over the whole debate is the secrecy with which big tech companies have operated while working to build data centers. The corporations responsible for development are often hidden behind obscure LLCs and have a record across the country of trying to get local governments to sign non-disclosure agreements (though it’s unlikely such an agreement could stand up to Wisconsin’s open records laws). A group of environmental organizations recently had to file a lawsuit to force the city of Racine to disclose how much water it was estimating it would be providing to the Microsoft site in Mount Pleasant. 

Heinemann says these debates would go more smoothly if the companies worked in the open with communities. 

“Data centers themselves have an obligation to make sure that they’re doing the outreach necessary when they work to site a facility in a locality,” he says. “It behooves them to do that work of trying to address the needs of the locality.” 

Heinemann says says the state Public Service Commission, Department of Natural Resources and local communities through their zoning authority already have the resources they need to regulate data centers

“Each project is complicated. It does require a lot of infrastructure,” Heinemann adds. “There are a lot of potential benefits to communities, but there are also impacts on the communities, those can be addressed, and there are legal procedures and agencies whose job it is to do that.”

Children from the KU Kids Deanwood Child Care Center complete a mural celebrating the launch of a local child tax credit in 2021 in Washington, D.C. New research suggests cities could significantly reduce childhood poverty by creating their own child tax credit programs. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Community Change)

Child tax credits are becoming more popular across the country, with more than a dozen states offering them as financial relief toward the cost of raising kids.

But new research suggests cities could significantly reduce child poverty by offering child tax credit programs of their own.

An analysis by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University and the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that municipal programs could move the needle with relatively small amounts of money: offering $1,000 or less per year to low- and middle-income families could cut child poverty rates by 25% in several cities.  

Researchers say this sort of new assistance would not only boost household finances, but also likely create more demand for local businesses, stabilize housing markets and increase local tax revenue.

The study focused on 14 cities: Baltimore; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Jacksonville, Florida; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New York; Oakland, California; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Seattle; and the District of Columbia. The analysis found that most of those cities could make significant gains by spending less than 15% of municipal revenues on new child credit programs. 

In Minneapolis, for example, researchers said a new program that cost less than $30 million per year would cut the city’s poverty levels by half when accounting for existing state and federal credits. (The mayor there has recommended spending about $2.03 billion in the 2026 fiscal year budget.) 

The prospect of creating new tax credit programs would likely pose financial and logistical challenges. Cities already are juggling many other priorities including public safety and housing affordability, while at the same time facing what some experts have characterized as a “fiscal crisis” from growing climate change costs, federal funding cuts and declining downtown activity.

Some cities, including Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, have city income taxes that could incorporate a child tax credit. But, the research noted, cities without that tax managed to distribute pandemic recovery funds through basic income programs. That experience shows cities could create their own standalone applications, leverage IRS data-sharing agreements or  work with third-party administrators.

“So you could use a similar sort of outreach approach, which wouldn’t necessarily be as comprehensive or systematic as a city that already has its own income tax system in place, but it’s a potential option,” said Ryan Vinh, an author of the study and a research analyst at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy. 

State interest in creating or expanding child tax credits boomed after the pandemic-era expansion of the federal child tax credit delivered cash directly to millions. That move quickly lifted millions of children out of poverty, researchers found. But the expanded tax credit expired in 2021 — leading to a doubling in the nation’s childhood poverty rate in 2022.

Advocates favor refundable tax credits that provide money directly to families. While parents must still file tax returns to receive the benefit, refundable credits give parents funds even if they earn too little to owe income tax, providing financial relief for groceries, medical care or rent. 

This year, several conservative-led states explored new child tax credit programs, though proposals offering the biggest benefits to families fizzled in Indiana and Ohio. So far, no city has implemented its own credit. 

While many cities and states are facing tight budget constraints, Vinh said a reduction in federal support will likely put more pressure on local governments to tackle challenges like poverty. The federal government has slashed funding for safety net programs including Medicaid and the nation’s largest food assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

“A lot of these things will either lead to the erosion of benefits over time, a loss of benefits, or kind of a decline in what families are able to receive,” Vinh said. “We don’t fully know the number yet, but we do know that child poverty will most likely increase as these program restrictions increase.” 

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