One thing we pride ourselves on at Wisconsin Watch is responding to tips from the public about the real problems affecting people’s lives.

That’s how Hallie Claflin’s story about rural homelessness began.

On Oct. 6, Eric Zieroth emailed us with this message: “Local homeless family unable to even use public showers that are maintained by the city government in a community that there’s no help for them in.”

Hallie and photographer Joe Timmerman made the four-hour trek from Madison to Shell Lake to learn more about Eric’s story. As the editor, one thing I emphasized was that telling the story of Eric and his daughter spending last winter in their car as they struggled with health issues, low-wage work and unaffordable housing was only the beginning of a broader story about rural homelessness.

Less than a week after Hallie was the first to report on Wisconsin’s homeless population rising above 5,000 for the first time since 2017 (despite a decline in Milwaukee), national news outlets first reported on an 18% increase in homelessness nationwide. The affordability crisis is hitting home for many in Wisconsin, and though we’ve made strides to improve housing in Milwaukee, rural areas are suffering. Many of these areas are represented by the Republicans who control the Legislature and are in position to steer resources to their communities.

Throughout the upcoming legislative budget session, Hallie will be covering how issues like rural homelessness are addressed, if at all. We’ll continue to put a human face on the problems facing society and hold politicians accountable for finding solutions.

You can help by sending us tips using this form. Or if you have a question about how state government works (or doesn’t work!), you can send it to us here.

Thanks to the dozens of people who have reached out to us in recent months. We can’t necessarily report on every tip, but we do review each one. We’re working on our system to follow up with people who submit tips we’re not well positioned to investigate — to explain why. To prioritize our resources, we focus on stories most likely to resonate with readers and improve lives. 

We appreciate hearing from people who trust us with their story or ideas, even when they don’t immediately result in coverage. 

After looking into rural homelessness, we saw that it checked multiple boxes for a Wisconsin Watch story.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

How a tip helped us understand rural homelessness in Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

For the first time in nearly two decades, the Wisconsin Senate doesn’t have a dedicated election committee — at least, not in name — even though Democrats and Republicans have multiple legislative priorities for election administration in the coming legislative session.

That doesn’t mean election-related proposals will languish in some legislative limbo. It does mean, however, that they’re likely not all going to a single committee for hearings and formal votes, which typically take place before the full chamber hears and votes on a measure.

“Given the broad range of topics included under the general ‘elections’ category, bills will be referred to committee on a case-by-case basis,” said Cameil Bowler, a spokesperson for Republican Senate President Mary Felzkowski, who’s in charge of referring bills to committees.

Rep. Scott Krug, formerly the chair and currently the vice chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, said the Senate’s opting out of a designated election committee was “not my favorite idea.” 

He said that he’d prefer election legislation going to just one committee, but added that he’ll deal with the Senate dynamic the best that he can.

In every legislative session since 2009, there has been a Senate committee formally dedicated to elections, though some of them also incorporated urban affairs, ethics, utilities, and rural issues. Last session, election bills went to a Senate committee that oversaw elections along with two other policy areas: shared revenue and consumer protection. 

This time, it’s not so clear which Senate committee election bills will go to. Could it be the Government Operations, Labor, and Economic Development committee? Transportation and Local Government? Or Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs? 

Republican Senate leaders either wouldn’t say or didn’t appear to know Monday which committees might generally handle election legislation. 

The first election-related legislation, which would enshrine the state’s photo ID requirement for voters in the constitution, got referred to the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety committee, whose chair wrote the proposal. That constitutional amendment proposal was the first legislation to get a public hearing  in the two-year session. After approval in the Senate, it would head to the Assembly for a public hearing and then likely pass in the majority-GOP chamber before heading to voters on the April 1 ballot, along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. 

Sen. Mark Spreitzer, a Democrat on the government operations committee who has long worked on election administration issues, said he was surprised there was no designated Senate election committee.

“Right now, it is not clear where appointments to the Wisconsin Elections Commission or critical election bills will be sent,” he said. “There is important work to be done to improve our electoral systems with reforms like Monday processing of absentee ballots to speed up election night returns. The people of Wisconsin deserve to know where that work will be done.”

He also questioned why the voter ID measure was moving through the Legislature so soon, especially “if Republicans don’t think election topics matter enough to have a committee.”

For its part, the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association appeared willing to deal with the change. Janesville Clerk Lorena Stottler, who’s a co-chair of the clerks association’s legislative committee, said the group tracks election bills in other ways besides keeping up with a single legislative committee. 

Republican senators didn’t say much about their decision to forgo a formal election committee.

Brian Radday, a spokesperson for GOP Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, didn’t explain why there wasn’t any specific election committee. Bowler, Felzkowski’s spokesperson, didn’t say to which specific committees certain election legislation would go, adding that Felzkowski doesn’t create committees. 

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin Senate won’t have a dedicated election committee is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature are moving quickly to place a measure on the April ballot to enshrine the state’s already strict voter ID requirement into the state constitution.

The move would make it more difficult for Democrats to soften the 14-year-old law or overturn the requirement in court. Other states have taken similar steps in recent years to put voter ID requirements in the constitution. Voters approved it in Mississippi in 2011 and North Carolina voters in 2018, while Minnesota voters rejected it in 2012.

The voter ID constitutional amendment is the first proposal being considered by the Wisconsin Legislature this year. The session began Monday, there was a public hearing Tuesday, and the Senate was approved it Wednesday. The Assembly was expected to give final approval next week.

Democrats on Tuesday accused Republicans of rushing to enshrine a requirement that they argue makes it more difficult to vote.

“I’m irritated,” Democratic Sen. LaTonya Johnson said at the hearing Tuesday, held less than 24 hours after lawmakers were sworn into office. “There are definitely more important issues than this.”

Johnson noted that the proposal was coming three weeks after a school shooting about 6 miles from the state Capitol but was taking precedence over gun control measures. A student shot and killed a fellow student and teacher before killing herself.

Constitutional amendments must pass the Legislature in two consecutive sessions and then be approved by voters before taking effect. The Legislature passed the voter ID proposal last session and must approve it again by Jan. 21 to get it on the April ballot for voter approval.

Control of the state Supreme Court also hangs in the balance in that April election. The race for an open seat will determine whether liberals maintain control for at least the next three years. The Democratic-backed candidate, Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, was the lead attorney in a 2011 lawsuit challenging the voter ID law.

Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard, lead sponsor of the measure, said Tuesday that he was “not willing to risk” the law being struck down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

There are no pending legal challenges to voter ID, even though the state Supreme Court has sided with Democrats in other major cases, including throwing out Republican-drawn legislative maps and overturning a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes.

“We can be sure that a new lawsuit challenging its constitutionality is coming,” Wanggaard said.

Enshrining the requirement in the constitution would make it more difficult for a future Legislature controlled by Democrats to change than a state law.

Democrats who have long opposed voter ID also picked up seats in the Legislature in November under newly enacted maps more friendly to them and are hoping to regain majority control of at least the state Senate in two years.

The possibility of Democrats regaining majority control has led Republicans to enact a number of constitutional amendments to protect laws they have passed.

Republicans put five constitutional amendments before voters last year, the most in a single year since 1982, and four more could be on the ballot in the next two years.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has proposed giving voters the ability to place constitutional amendments and other proposals on the ballot, going around the Legislature. Republican leaders signaled that would be rejected.

Polls have shown wide public support for a voter ID law, despite opposition from Democrats and advocates who say it makes it harder for people to vote, especially older people and those without an ID.

Even if the amendment is approved, lawmakers could still decide what types of photo IDs are acceptable. Voters without a photo ID could still cast a provisional ballot, as they can now. The ballot is counted if the voter returns later with a photo ID.

Wisconsin enacted its law in 2011, one of the first actions Republicans took after they gained majority control from Democrats after the 2010 election.

Wisconsin is one of nine states where voters must present a photo ID to cast a ballot, the strictest requirement in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A total of 36 states have laws requiring or requesting that voters show some sort of identification at the polls, according to NCSL.

Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been challenged in whole or in part numerous times since it was enacted, but the requirement has survived.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Republicans pushing to make voter ID a constitutional requirement is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Green-blue waves crashed against the rocks on a partly cloudy day last August. The white sails of a passing boat flapped in the wind. The wrecked Hetty Taylor schooner remained sunken beneath these Lake Michigan waters. 

And at the base of the Sheboygan Breakwater Lighthouse, Robert Devroy III cast his line. 

Fishing and hunting are two of Devroy’s favorite things about Wisconsin, where there’s “never a dull moment,” he said. He and his family highly value the outdoor recreation Wisconsin has to offer, whether dirt bike races or long days by the lake. 

Born and raised in Green Bay, Devroy, a Marine Corps veteran, works days as a maintenance technician at Salm Partners, a sausage and hot dog manufacturer in Denmark, Wis. He works occasional nights as a stagehand at Green Bay’s Epic Event Center, where he enjoys attending concerts. That explained the Eric Church T-shirt he sported while waiting for a gullible walleye or muskie to take his bait.

His other job is at home, parenting two daughters and two sons. He’s also attending a technical college. But Devroy’s life hasn’t always been so balanced.

As the Edgewater Generating Station’s smokestacks reflected in his blue sunglasses, he spoke about how “some really hard times” shaped who he is today. That included spending five years in prison for “something stupid.”

“I knew I needed to change, to not continue to go down that path and continue to hurt the people that were around me and that I loved,” Devroy said. “My wife is a big key in where I’m at today, to drive me to be the man that I want to be.” 

She was always there when he left prison, and he realized he needed to do more to take care of his young family.

“If I would’ve continued going down that path that I was living in, that would have never happened,” Devroy said. “I would have been in and out of prison and not going anywhere, not being a successful person in our society.”

But now? “The sky’s the limit,” Devroy said.

Devroy said he’s proud of his career — working on with electrical and mechanical issues, which he entered after embarking on a non-traditional journey. 

He didn’t initially graduate from high school but ultimately gained his high school equivalency degree. Devroy is now in his third year of a maintenance technician program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, which includes apprenticeship opportunities. After working on industrial equipment much of his life, he said the program helped him grow into his current position as maintenance supervisor at Salm, where he has worked for a decade. 

“There’s a new challenge every day,” he said. “This path I’ve chosen, it’s endless.” 

Balancing school with two jobs and family duties isn’t always easy, but he’s excited to contemplate his future. Perhaps he’ll even pursue a master’s degree as a journeyman maintenance technician, he said. But for the moment, he was focused on hooking “anything that wants to eat a worm.” 

“When I find time to myself, this is what I do right here,” Devroy said, gazing out at the lake. “Listen to music and enjoy Mother Nature.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Robert Devroy III discovers fulfillment in work and family is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to let voters repeal and create state laws without legislative involvement met opposition on Monday from Republican leaders of the Legislature, who signaled that the idea is likely to be rejected for a second time.

Evers’ plan comes the same day the Legislature kicked off its two-year session. Republicans remain in control, but their majority is at its narrowest since they took over in 2011.

That means the dynamic between the Legislature and Evers, entering his seventh year as governor, will largely remain as it has been. Republicans must approve anything Evers wants to get done.

Still, the Democratic Evers is reviving a plan to weaken the powers of the Legislature that Republicans already previously rejected.

Evers said on Friday that the state budget he plans to unveil next month will include a mandate that legislators take up a constitutional amendment allowing voters to petition for ballot proposals to repeal state statutes and create new ones. Evers made a similar proposal in 2022 for voters to repeal the state’s 1849 abortion ban, but Republicans killed the plan.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos rejected the idea.

“It appears that Tony Evers’ single agenda item for the next session to is take power away from the elected members of the Legislature,” Vos told The Associated Press. “If that’s his focus, it’s going to make it awfully hard to find consensus.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said in a statement that Evers should focus on cutting taxes and scaling back the size of government.

Republicans hold a 54-45 advantage in the Assembly and an 18-15 majority in the Senate in the two-year session that started Monday.

There are six new state senators, all Democrats. Nearly a third of the Assembly — 31 lawmakers — are newly elected. Of them, 23 are Democrats. Those new lawmakers make up the majority of the 45-member Democratic caucus.

Lawmakers have said they are hopeful the slimmer GOP majorities will lead to more compromise, but on this issue they don’t appear to be willing to go along with what Evers wants.

Wisconsin is one of 24 states that do not provide a way for people to reject or enact statutes outside of the legislative process, according to Ballotpedia.

Evers said Republicans have been ignoring the will of the people by refusing to legalize marijuana, repeal the abortion ban, implement gun control measures and increase funding for public schools. Instead, he said, the GOP has been enacting policy through constitutional amendments, denying voters a voice.

“Republican lawmakers are going to continue to try to legislate by constitutional amendment,” Evers said. “Then they should give Wisconsinites the same opportunity that 26 other states have.”

Constitutional amendments must pass two consecutive legislative sessions and a statewide referendum to take effect. The governor plays no role in the process.

Republicans have asked voters to approve seven amendments since 2010, according to data from the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative. Voters ratified three in 2024 alone, including two in April to restrict use of private money in election administration and one in November that prohibits foreign nationals from voting. Republicans could put another amendment to voters in April’s elections that would cement voter identification requirements.

Gun control advocates planned to be in the Capitol on Monday shortly before the session kicks off to press lawmakers to take action following a shooting by a 15-year-old student on Dec. 16 at a Madison private school that left a teacher and student dead and two other students severely injured. The shooter killed herself.

Evers called a special session in 2019 in an attempt to pass gun control measures, including requiring universal background checks, but Republicans took no action.

Evers also called a special legislative session in September 2022 to approve a constitutional amendment similar to his latest proposal. He promoted it as a way to repeal the abortion ban and ensure abortion remained legal in Wisconsin after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Republicans convened and ending the special session in less than 30 seconds.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to let voters repeal and create state laws gets GOP resistance is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

While 2024 may have stolen the show as a pivotal election year, the excitement doesn’t end in 2025. That’s right, it’s a state budget year!

Major funding decisions for health care, public schools and universities, the environment, roads and more will be made in the 2025-27 biennial budget. Not only that — a politically divided Legislature and governor must reach an agreement on spending, which totaled nearly $100 billion in the last two-year budget.

Wisconsin Watch will break it down here in our new series: Budget Bites.

This series will regularly appear in Forward, our Monday morning newsletter. We are excited to provide updates on what’s happening with the state budget as it makes its way through the Legislature. Our reporters will also cover key budget items like public education, child care and housing, and we will be looking to hear from those most affected by these issues. 

State agencies have already submitted their funding requests, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has finished hosting budget listening sessions across the state. His executive budget proposal will make its debut on Feb. 18. The Republican-controlled Legislature will then review it and make significant changes before Evers signs a final budget bill into law, typically within a few days of the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.

Wisconsin ended its 2024 fiscal year with a more-than-expected $4.6 billion budget surplus. Republicans want to reduce the surplus by passing income tax cuts before the budget debate begins, while Democrats are urging more funding for things like K-12 education. 

We will be watching the battle over public education funding, which constitutes a third of the state’s general fund budget. Wisconsin held a record number of school referendums this year. Districts, public officials, local taxpayers and public school advocates are speaking out, calling for increases in state aid after approving $4.4 billion in property tax hikes so their local schools can continue to cover operating costs, as well as large projects. 

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have told Wisconsin Watch that voters aren’t happy about having to increase their own property taxes. But Republican lawmakers have stood their ground in support of private school vouchers and have criticized state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly’s $4 billion ask for public school funding in the upcoming budget. The state Supreme Court will decide whether an Evers veto in the previous budget that guaranteed $325 per pupil annual revenue limit increases for 400 years will stand, which could influence the debate. 

Another topic we’re monitoring is child care. A Wisconsin Department of Children and Families child care survey found last year that almost 60% of providers in Wisconsin have unused classroom capacity due to staff shortages. Providers report that if they were able to operate at full capacity, they could accept up to 33,000 more children. The state is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to DCF. 

In 2023, the powerful Joint Finance Committee, which will review and likely rewrite most of Evers’ budget proposal, voted to end funding for the Child Care Counts program — a pandemic-era subsidy program. 

Homelessness is also a growing problem all across Wisconsin, especially in rural areas. It can be largely attributed to rising housing costs following the pandemic and a lack of affordable housing units. Annual homeless counts conducted in January show that the state’s homeless population has increased every year since 2021.

Evers’ previous attempts to fund emergency shelter and housing grants, case management services and workforce housing grants in the state budget have been nixed by Republican lawmakers.

There are likely more battles coming over higher education funding after last year’s restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion hiring. Wisconsin remains an outlier on Medicaid expansion, particularly postpartum coverage. Transportation funding continues to be a challenge as more fuel-efficient vehicles use a system built around the gas tax. Republicans have signaled opposition to the land stewardship program after the Supreme Court limited the finance committee’s power to block purchases. And the state prison system has been plagued by understaffing, inmate deaths, alleged corruption and a problematic juvenile facility.

That’s just a small taste of what’s coming in the budget this year.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Here’s what we’re watching for in this year’s Wisconsin budget debate is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin is hurtling toward another nationally watched, pivotal state Supreme Court election.

The April 1 race has two possible outcomes: a guaranteed liberal majority until 2028 or a 3-3 split with Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative-leaning swing vote, again wielding outsized influence.

Longtime Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring after 30 years on the high court. She has anchored the court’s liberal majority for the past two years after serving for decades without being in a clear-cut majority.

The contest seems poised to pit Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge endorsed by the court’s four current liberal members, against former Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Republican who now serves as a Waukesha County judge. If Crawford wins, liberals will lock in their majority for at least three more years, with chances to expand it in 2026 and 2027, when Justice Rebecca Bradley and Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, both conservatives, will be up for reelection. 

Outside groups are already mobilizing to boost their candidates in the ostensibly nonpartisan race. In November, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin endorsed Crawford, boasting that the Madison judge “will always protect Wisconsinites’ core freedoms.” Meanwhile, conservative groups, like Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin, have come out for Schimel, saying he’s the candidate “who will restore balance and reestablish trust in our state’s highest court.” 

So what will voters get from either outcome? The court’s recent terms provide clues.

Liberal majority moving slowly

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is at the center of state politics. For the past two years, Justices Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz and Walsh Bradley — who collectively make up the court’s liberal majority — have flexed their influence and remade Wisconsin’s political landscape.

Two cases in particular stand out. In the first, the liberal majority threw out the state’s Republican-gerrymandered voting maps, breaking a GOP vice grip on the Legislature. As a result Democrats picked up 14 seats in the Assembly and state Senate in a good Republican year nationwide. In the other, the liberal bloc expanded voting access, reversing a conservative-authored decision from just two years earlier that banned the use of unstaffed absentee ballot drop boxes.

But in other cases, the liberal justices have proceeded more cautiously than their allies would have hoped. They didn’t rule that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution, instead tossing the skewed maps on a technicality. The majority also declined to redraw Wisconsin’s congressional districts, despite being prompted by a Democratic-aligned law firm. They rejected another case asking them to boot Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein from November’s ballot, and in a fourth case, they allowed a long-shot challenger to Joe Biden on the primary ballot despite objections from other Democrats.

In fact, of the court’s paltry 14 decisions last term, only four cases were settled 4-3 along ideological lines, and that includes the legislative maps and ballot drop box cases. In the third, the court’s liberal majority ruled that the Catholic Charities Bureau did not qualify for a religious exemption from contributing to Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system. In the fourth, they ruled a Door County village could use eminent domain to seize a sliver of land from a business owner to build a sidewalk.

In other cases, they built consensus with their conservative colleagues.

In one political case, Gov. Tony Evers challenged a law giving the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee the ability to veto certain conservation projects, arguing it was a separation of powers violation. The four liberal justices, Hagedorn and Bradley agreed. 

“Maintaining the separation of powers between the branches is essential for the preservation of liberty and a government accountable to the people,” the justices declared in a Rebecca Bradley-authored opinion.

In another case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling rejecting an effort from an Ashland County mother to have her partner, whom she is not married to, adopt her child. In another Rebecca Bradley-authored opinion, the justices relied on a literal reading of a state statute requiring a stepparent to be married to a child’s parent in order to be eligible to adopt the child.

While constitutional claims weren’t considered, a concurring opinion from Dallet suggests the liberals could be open to broad interpretations of the Wisconsin Constitution.

The Wisconsin “constitution was written independently of the United States Constitution and we must interpret it as such, based on its own language and our state’s unique identity,” Dallet wrote. 

The state constitution states: “All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That clause is at the crux of a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin seeking affirmation the Wisconsin Constitution protects abortion access. The high court has not yet scheduled that case for oral arguments.

Hagedorn wields powerful swing vote

If Schimel triumphs on April 1, the court will revert to being conservative-leaning, with Hagedorn, who is the swingiest member of the court, wielding immense influence.

Consider the three court terms prior to the liberals taking the majority from 2020 to 2023. During those three terms, the court settled 61 cases 4-3. Hagedorn was among the four-justice majority in 50 of them, or 82% of all 4-3 cases. The next closest justice was Karofsky, who appeared in the 4-3 majority 36 times.

During that same period, Hagedorn sided with his conservative or liberal colleagues in an equal number of 4-3 cases, voting with each bloc 24 times.

His impact was even more profound in political cases: Among the 16 political cases settled 4-3 during those terms, he was in the majority in all but one case.

Where Hagedorn lands in certain cases isn’t always predictable. In a lawsuit Donald Trump filed  to tip the 2020 election results in his favor, Hagedorn joined his three liberal colleagues, holding that Trump took too long to file his claims.

On legislative redistricting Hagedorn initially joined his conservative colleagues in endorsing a “least-change” approach to drawing new maps after the 2020 Census, ensuring previously Republican gerrymandered maps would continue. But then he sided with his liberal colleagues in selecting maps drawn by Evers. When the U.S. Supreme Court rejected those maps because of potential Voting Rights Act violations, he returned to the conservative bloc and implemented maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Hagedorn’s swings also happen in non-political cases. In a criminal case from June 2023, Hagedorn, writing for his conservative colleagues, held that a Marshfield man’s Fourth Amendment rights weren’t violated during a traffic stop. In that case a police officer pulled over Quaheem Moore for speeding. After smelling “raw marijuana,” she and another officer removed him from his car and conducted a search, finding other drugs and ultimately arresting Moore. The court held the officers had probable cause to believe Moore had committed a crime, over the objections of their liberal colleagues.

A few years later, in the case of a drunk driver who wasn’t demonstrating any signs of impairment, Hagedorn joined the four liberal justices and Bradley in a 6-1 decision holding the driver’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated. The court determined the Plymouth police officer who arrested Michael Wiskowski after he fell asleep in a McDonald’s drive-thru committed an unconstitutional search when he tested his sobriety and ultimately arrested him. The court determined the officer didn’t have probable cause Wiskowski had committed a crime.

Hagedorn’s willingness to work with both ideological blocs has drawn criticism from other conservatives. After Hagedorn sided with the liberal justices in one 2020 case, Republican former state Rep. Adam Jarchow tweeted that “conservatives have been snookered” by the justice. The justice rebutted that, saying in 2020 he “will apply the law as written, without fear or favor, in every case before me.”

In April 2022, former Justice Daniel Kelly — who has twice failed to win a 10-year term after being appointed to the bench — declared Hagedorn to be “supremely unreliable in his commitment to following what the law says.”

Hagedorn is up for re-election in 2029.

Political discord empowers court

The April 1 election will represent the first time in decades — if ever — voters will have the opportunity to assess the performance of a liberal majority on the court.

A major theme ahead of the 2023 election was that a Protasiewicz victory would give liberals a majority for the first time in 15 years. But that assertion was misleading, according to Alan Ball, a Marquette University history professor who closely tracks the court.

Between the 2004-05 and 2007-08 court terms, there were three reliably conservative justices — David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Jon Wilcox, who was replaced in 2007 by Ziegler — and three reliably liberal justices — Shirley Abrahamson, Ann Walsh Bradley and Louis Butler. Justice Patrick Crooks was a swing vote. In non-unanimous decisions during that period, he sided with the liberals 44% of the time and with the conservatives in 48% of cases, according to an analysis from Ball.

“Perhaps the Butler years came to appear liberal in retrospect because conservative dominance of the court grew so pronounced during the ensuing decade,” Ball wrote in a blog post the day after the 2023 election, pointing to the additions of Justice Michael Gableman, Rebecca Bradley and Daniel Kelly to the court.

In April, voters will decide what direction the court will shift as more and more issues land before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving it even more influence than the already powerful institution has had in previous terms, legal experts told Wisconsin Watch.

“The court is powerful, to a large degree, as a byproduct of the fact that the more traditionally political branches aren’t playing well with each other right now,” said Chad Oldfather, a professor at Marquette University Law School. “In America, all questions tend to become legal questions eventually, and that process probably gets accelerated in times like this.”

The state Supreme Court’s influence in recent years has been most profound on checking the power of the Legislature, University of Wisconsin Law School professor Robert Yablon said.

“Over the past decade or more, I think you can make the case that it’s the Legislature that was the most powerful branch (of government),” he told Wisconsin Watch in an interview.

But now the court has pushed back on the Legislature’s power, he said, and it may view its rulings as a way to restore balance among the three branches of government.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Another pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court election offers two familiar outcomes is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Vacancies for community corrections staff in Milwaukee County, including probation and parole officers, have nearly tripled since before the pandemic, Wisconsin Department of Corrections data shows. 

Some people are worried that fewer officers will make it harder to stabilize their lives after incarceration. 

“With fewer agents, it can affect the way individuals can participate in programs while in the community and … in the right path to have sustained and continued success,” said Wilfredo Diaz, who is incarcerated at Stanley Correctional Institution.

Gaps in essential services

“The biggest effect is less service to people who need it the most,” said Peggy West-Schroder, former executive director of FREE, a statewide organization that addresses the needs of women and girls who are incarcerated, formerly incarcerated or otherwise affected by the criminal justice system. 

Community corrections staff monitor people on parole, probation and extended supervision – with the goal of enhancing public safety and reducing the likelihood the person will reoffend, according to the Department of Corrections. 

Those under supervision are supposed to be monitored for compliance with standard supervision rules concerning their activities and whereabouts. Depending on the type of conviction, such as sex crimes, there are additional supervision rules. 

Community corrections staff focus on connecting a person to housing, employment and job training resources, among other resources, according to the Department of Corrections. 

This is consistent with the needs of people who are leaving incarceration. Housing and employment are two of the most common needs among those who are reentering, said Conor Williams, who serves as facilitator of the Milwaukee Reentry Council.

Another major need for people post-incarceration is substance abuse treatment, and community corrections staff can help connect people to such resources as well. 

According to a report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, 72% of people on supervision in Wisconsin in 2022 had a “substantial need” for some kind of substance abuse treatment. 

Unfilled positions

Around March 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the percentage of vacancies among security staff and correctional officers inside prisons began to increase, according to data from the Department of Corrections.  

While staffing levels for security positions within prisons have rebounded since the pandemic, the shortage of community-based staff continues. 

At the start of the pandemic, the percentage of unfilled community corrections staff serving Milwaukee County was just over 11%, according to Department of Corrections data. By the end of October, it shot up to more than 29% – the highest of any other correctional region in the state, DOC data also shows.

At the same time, the county has the highest number of individuals who require supervision, noted Rep. Darrin Madison,  D-Milwaukee, who serves on the state’s Assembly Committee on Corrections.  

At the end of August, there were just about 13,000 individuals in the county who were under some form of supervision, correctional data also shows.  

The Department of Corrections did not respond to several requests for comment about vacancy rates among community corrections staff.  

Unmet needs

“I think a lot of people are just falling through the cracks, honestly,” said Juliann Bliefnick, administrative coordinator for FREE, who also is under supervision.

Bliefnick moved to a different part of Wisconsin in 2018 because she was not able to get her needs met in Milwaukee, she said.

The continued rise in unfilled community corrections positions has made the situation worse, Bliefnick said.

“I know people who have been on probation for three years and had seven different agents in those three years,” she said. “You can’t even get anything done when there’s that much turnover.”

West-Schroder and Bliefnick said there is a much higher risk of people being reincarcerated when they do not get the support they need. 

Over 30% of people released from prison in 2020 were reincarcerated in Wisconsin within three years of release, according to publicly available correctional data.

Solutions

Lawmakers and advocates are offering their ideas for attracting more supervision staff. 

“We must raise the wages and restore labor rights of community corrections staff in order to fill positions and retain workers for longer,” said Madison. 

For the latest state budget, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers requested more money to do just this. 

The final budget included a new base pay and pay progression for probation and parole officers.

In October 2023, base pay for new probation and parole staff went from $21.21 to $22.06 per hour. In June, it increased again, to $22.51 per hour. 

So far, the pay changes have not resulted in a decrease in the number of unfilled community corrections positions.

West-Schroder has a different idea. 

“We have talked to DOC (Department of Corrections) several times about implementing in-house peer support services, understanding that officers can’t take on huge caseloads while providing these resources,” she said. “Let people who have been in this position before provide support … .” 

“A tag team approach if you will,” she added.

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

Staff shortages in Milwaukee County create less support for people after incarceration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Denny Tubbs loves his new job as a community health worker, connecting people who have been incarcerated to various resources. 

However, it is challenging.  

“You always have to do your own research and make sure everything applies for the person and is helpful,” he said. 

Tubbs, who works for a local hospital in the Milwaukee area, does not want to waste people’s time. Having left incarceration himself, he knows what it feels like to go from one place to another, trying to put all the post-incarceration pieces together.  

A new website, which launched in November, aims to make the process easier by providing clear, accurate information about resources most often needed by people leaving incarceration. 

‘Comprehensive and logical’

The website is an extension of the Home to Stay monthly resource fair for people who have left incarceration, or who are “reentering” the community after incarceration. 

In the same spirit as the resource fair, a major function of the site is to provide a one-stop shop where people reentering can go for information, support and resources, said Adam Procell, who coordinates the resource fair and has been developing the site. 

The site groups resources by type, such as legal, food, housing and clothing, and can be filtered further by county. 

“It will be helpful to have reentry resources organized in this comprehensive and logical way,” said Conor Williams, who facilitates the Milwaukee Reentry Council, which coordinates reentry resources on a county level.

Tubbs said that the most common thing people ask him about is employment. 

“Anyone that’s getting home from prison, they’ll have a resource directory to go get help wherever they are,” said Shannon Ross, who worked with Procell on the site and is the executive director of The Community, a Milwaukee nonprofit that creates content for and about people who have been incarcerated. 

Additional features

The site also includes information about activities, events and success stories.  

“The success stories are powerful testimonies from peers and should help to foster hope,” said Williams. 

The site will have content for the wider community of people impacted by the criminal justice system as well, including crime survivor resources and systemic reform efforts, said Ross. 

Ross and Procell also are developing an app to mirror the website, which would include even more features. 

“Let’s say you get out and you have ‘driver’s license’ as one of your needs that’s listed. If you’re walking past the DMV, you’ll get a text that says, ‘look to your left’ or ‘in 15 feet, you’ll see one,’” said Procell. 

Ross and Procell collaborate with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections on reentry-related efforts, so another goal is to have departmental staff share the site with people who are incarcerated and reentering.

Less work, more help

After using the site for the first time, Tubbs immediately saw its value. 

“The website eliminates just having to go to Google, searching and typing in something and then going to that,” Tubbs said.  

“Now, you go to one website that brings to you all that information, everything you need.” 

It’s also easy enough for anyone to use – not just reentry professionals but people themselves who need the resources, Tubbs said. 

While it took several years to get the site up and running, that doesn’t mean it’s a complicated idea, Procell emphasized.  

“It’s shocking we haven’t had this yet,” he said. “To me, it’s not rocket science.”

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

One-stop digital shop launches for people leaving incarceration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Shereen Siewert, publisher of the Wausau Pilot and Review, has been breathing easier these days. In September, a Wisconsin appeals court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of state Sen. Cory Tomczyk’s defamation lawsuit against Siewert, the nonprofit newsroom she founded in 2017 and one of its reporters.

The ruling, which Tomczyk did not appeal, ended a three-year legal nightmare that began after the Pilot and Review reported that Tomczyk, before joining the Legislature, “was widely overheard” calling a 13-year-old boy a “fag” at a Marathon County board meeting about a surprisingly contentious resolution affirming community inclusivity. Tomczyk denied using the slur and accused the news outlet of having “smeared” his reputation.

Although the Pilot and Review prevailed, the lawsuit took a severe financial and emotional toll, including some $200,000 in legal bills, lost donors and sponsors and the trauma of fearing bankruptcy while Siewert was caring for her dying sister and mother.

“I had serious conversations with my son about selling him my home if I couldn’t pay my legal bills,” says Siewert, noting that she was personally named in the suit. “I woke up in a panic thinking — I’m 56 years old and am about to lose everything.” 

The case drives home the need for what are sometimes called anti-SLAPP laws; the acronym stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation. While 34 states and the District of Columbia have enacted such laws to protect media and individuals from frivolous defamation lawsuits, Wisconsin has not. 

“We are starkly aware that any reporter and any news organization in Wisconsin can be sued at any time for anything,” Siewert says. “Every time we write a story, we’re putting our livelihood on the line.”

Bills introduced last year by Democrats would have allowed Wisconsin judges to quickly dismiss SLAPP suits and require plaintiffs to pay the defendants’ legal fees. The state’s GOP-controlled Legislature did not even give them a hearing. But 2025 offers lawmakers a fresh opportunity to pass anti-SLAPP legislation. 

Under the current standard set for defamation of public figures, a news outlet must show “actual malice” in publishing the information in question — either knowing it to be false or with “reckless disregard” as to its veracity. The Pilot and Review argued, and both a trial court judge and three-member appeals court panel unanimously agreed, that Tomczyk, as a local businessman who publicly opposed a resolution to declare Wausau a “Community for All,” qualified as a public figure and had failed to prove “actual malice.” 

Indeed, the record showed that the Pilot and Review took appropriate steps to affirm the accuracy of its reporting. Three people swore they heard him use the slur, which he acknowledged using on other occasions. (Tomczyk did not respond to requests for comment for this column.)

The two lead Democrats behind last year’s anti-SLAPP bills — Sen. Melissa Agard of Madison and Rep. Jimmy Anderson of Fitchburg — aren’t returning this session. 

But Rep. Alex Joers, D-Middleton, expects his colleagues will revive the legislation in 2025 and hopes slimmer partisan margins will encourage more compromise than in the past. The Assembly’s unanimous passage last year of a bill to protect student media from censorship showed Republicans and Democrats can find common ground on press protections. (The bill, however, died in the Senate.)

The benefits of an anti-SLAPP law would extend beyond newsrooms. Joers, who worked for Agard before joining the Legislature, recalled Agard researching the issue after learning that companies were suing people who left negative reviews on Yelp. Anti-SLAPP laws in other states — including Republican-led Texas and Tennessee — have protected residents from expensive lawsuits. 

“This could happen to anybody,” Joers said.

It should happen to no one.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Council member Jim Malewitz is managing editor of Wisconsin Watch.

Your Right to Know: Protect the press against frivolous lawsuits is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously authorized an investigation Thursday into Madison’s mishandling of nearly 200 absentee ballots that were never counted from the November 2024 election.

It’s the first such investigation that the bipartisan commission has authorized since becoming an agency in 2016. The review will allow the agency to probe whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated the law or abused her discretion.

Ahead of the vote, Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs told Votebeat that her priority wasn’t “punishment” but to figure out “what on earth went wrong here.”

“Our lack of knowledge, information that wasn’t given to us in a timely fashion, I think we need to do something more formal,” Jacobs said at the meeting.

The late discovery that 193 absentee ballots from voters in the state capital weren’t counted appears to have resulted from mistakes at two polling locations and the lack of a comprehensive system for poll workers to track whether they’ve counted every absentee ballot. 

At a polling site in Ward 56, just west of downtown, Witzel-Behl said election workers didn’t open two large carrier envelopes — used to transport absentee ballots from city offices to neighborhood polling places for counting — that contained a total of 125 ballots. At another site in the Regent neighborhood, poll workers at Ward 65 didn’t open an envelope carrying 68 absentee ballots, including one ballot that should have instead been sent to a different polling place for counting.

It’s unclear whether the uncounted ballots were checked in when they were sorted at the Madison clerk’s office. If they had been, a discrepancy between the number of recorded voters and ballots would likely have been apparent on Election Day. 

The city’s election results were certified without any acknowledgment of the 193 missing ballots. Some of the missing ballots were discovered on Nov. 12, as the county canvass was still going on, though most weren’t found until nearly a month after Election Day.

When the initial batch was discovered on Nov. 12, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat, “Staff was under the impression that it was too late for these ballots to be counted, unless we had a recount.”

The oversight wasn’t reported to the commission until Dec. 18, about six weeks after the Nov. 5 election and after the commission had already certified the results. Madison officials outside the clerk’s office, including the city attorney and the mayor’s office, didn’t know about the error until the commission told City Attorney Mike Haas about it on Dec. 19.

“There’s been zero transparency on this,” Jacobs said.

Witzel-Behl said she was largely out of the office on vacation during that period and “was not aware of the magnitude of this situation.” 

Last week, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat that she still doesn’t know why the three carrier envelopes containing 193 absentee ballots were overlooked on Election Day.

“My issue is not with the magnitude,” GOP Commissioner Don Millis said. “While the magnitude is significant, the issue is why was this not determined or caught by the time of either the local canvass or county canvass.”

“My assumption,” he continued, “is either there was a failure to follow procedures, or our procedures aren’t good and we have to correct them.”

Marge Bostelmann, a Republican commissioner and former clerk, said the WEC can provide guidance to prevent similar mistakes, but she said, “unless we find out how it happened, I don’t know that we can give that guidance.”

Jacobs pointed out the spring primary elections are scheduled for Feb. 18, adding urgency to the investigation.

“We have about six weeks until our next election, so the more information we can learn about what went wrong — even if we’re only able to send out a quickie clerks memo saying, ‘Hey, there’s a step here. Don’t forget about it,’ as we work on more formal guidance — I think we want to do that,” Jacobs said.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin Elections Commission launches investigation into uncounted Madison ballots is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Attempts to implement a red flag gun control measure in Wisconsin have been rebuffed several times in recent years, but some legislators hope the results of November’s election can change that. 

“When the political dynamic shifts in the Legislature, we have a better shot at not only introducing the (red flag) legislation but giving it a fair public hearing,” said Dora Drake, current state representative and senator-elect. “The people of Wisconsin overwhelmingly support red flag laws.”

Red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders, allow judges to issue court orders to temporarily restrict access to guns by individuals who could pose a threat to themselves or others.

A red flag resolution was last introduced in Wisconsin in July 2023 but was shelved along with other resolutions in April.

In an interview before the election, Drake said she was hopeful that Democrats, who overwhelmingly support red flag laws, would assume a majority control in the Wisconsin Assembly.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, when the Wisconsin Legislature returns, Republicans will be in charge but have the narrowest majority since 2011, when they took control.

A push for stronger gun control laws

Drake said Wisconsin Republican lawmakers have not done enough when it comes to gun control measures. As a result, she said, people are at risk.

“As Democrats, we just want common sense laws on gun control, and that doesn’t mean we’re trying to take away someone’s Second Amendment rights,” she said. “People are tired of life being unnecessarily taken away.”

Jacob Taylor, communications director for Sen. LaTonya Johnson, said he thinks Gov. Tony Evers will once again include Extreme Risk Protection Orders policy in his biennial budget proposal. If Republicans remove it, he said, it will be reintroduced by Johnson and other legislators.

Red flag “legislation will remain a priority for Senator Johnson and other Democrats committed to reducing gun violence in our state,” Taylor said.

Twenty-one other states, including neighboring states Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, have already enacted red flag measures.

In March, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center, which provides training and technical assistance to law enforcement, judges, social service providers and others on how to implement red flag laws.

Gun laws don’t address core issues, opponents say

Nik Clark, founder and chairman of Wisconsin Carry Inc., a group that advocates for Second Amendment protections, said his organization is against red flag laws for a number of reasons.

Specifically, he doesn’t believe the laws will reduce crime.

“Ninety-five percent of crime is committed by people who are already felons and not even allowed to have a gun,” Clark said.

He said red flag laws and other gun control measures such as universal background checks are attempts by the government to weaken due processes for gun owners, making it easier for their weapons to be unlawfully seized.

He said taking away people’s rights to legally bear arms won’t make communities safer.

“If someone is willing to harm someone else, they don’t care about any laws,” Clark said. “We spend so much time on trying to prevent things, and we need to spend more time on preparedness to address them.”

What do Extreme Risk Protection Order laws do?

Nick Matuszewski is the director of policy and program at WAVE Educational Fund, Wisconsin’s oldest anti-violence advocacy group.

He said Extreme Risk Protection Order laws add a layer of protection for communities by improving the system in which a gun can be removed from people in crisis or are looking to harm themselves or others.

These laws “can be applied in cases where family members and other folks in the community are able to notice that there are dangers,” Matuszewski said. 

He said red flag laws are known to reduce firearm suicides and can help prevent mass shootings.

“Unfortunately, there are too many folks in the state legislature . . . beholden to the gun lobby and are unwilling to enact a gun policy that infringes upon that relationship,” Matuszewski said.

What happens next?

Now that the dust has mostly settled from Election Day and Republicans still control the Assembly and Senate, will anything change?

Drake said lawmakers need to work together to move the needle in the right direction when it comes to preventing gun violence.

“We’ve already experienced so much trauma in our own communities, but there are things we can do to be preventative and intervene before more lives are lost, like implementing red flag laws,” she said. 

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

Will Wisconsin enact a red flag gun control law? The results of the recent election may not help is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Jerry Boardman doesn’t remember exactly when he started collecting acorns in the fall.

But the thousands upon thousands of them he gathers to share with people working to improve habitat along the Mississippi River makes the 81-year-old resident of De Soto, Wisconsin, a small village between La Crosse and Prairie du Chien, a pretty big deal.

“It’s like a myth or a legend,” Andy Meier, a forester for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who receives a portion of Boardman’s bounty, said of the integral role it plays in his work. “It just has always been that way.”

In reality, Boardman began collecting around the time that the need for acorns — a nut that contains the seed that grows oak trees — was growing critical. For the past few decades, the trees that grow in the Mississippi River floodplain, known as floodplain forests, have been struggling. Although they’re named for their ability to withstand the river’s seasonal flooding, they’ve recently been overwhelmed by higher water and longer-lasting floods.

Overall, forest cover along the stretch of the river from Minnesota down to Clinton, Iowa, decreased by roughly 6% between 1989 and 2010, according to a 2022 report on ecological trends on the upper Mississippi. In the years since, losses in some places have neared 20% — and were particularly acute following a massive flood event in 2019. 

What exactly is driving the excess water isn’t fully fleshed out, but climate change and changes in land use that cause water to run off the landscape faster are likely factors.

The result is mass stretches of dead trees that can no longer perform their functions of providing wildlife habitat, sucking up pollutants that would otherwise run downriver and slowing water during floods.  

Floodplain forests in the lower section of the river are also diminished. The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, which stretches from where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet, in Cairo, Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico was once almost entirely forest. Today, about 30% of that land is treed.  

Government agencies and various nonprofits are attempting to reverse the forestland decline by planting new trees, and volunteers like Boardman are key to the effort. 

Local is best

Reno Bottoms, a sprawling wetland habitat on the river near Boardman’s hometown of De Soto, is one place where tree die-off has been extensive. Boardman, who has been a commercial fisherman, hunter and trapper on the river for most of his life, called the change in forest cover in recent years “shocking.” To combat it, he puts in about 100 hours a year between August and October gathering acorns from the floodplain in De Soto, Prairie du Chien and La Crosse. 

To maximize his time, Boardman uses a contraption not unlike ones used to pick up tennis balls to scoop up the acorns. One small variety, though, requires one to “get down on your hiney or your knees” to pick them up, he said. For those, he relies on a little grunt work.

The idea is that if the trees that produced the acorns were successful enough at warding off flood damage to drop seeds, those seeds might be similarly resilient if replanted.

Boardman looks for acorns from the bur oak, pin oak and swamp white oak, the latter of which is particularly well suited to the floodplain forest. And the numbers he puts up are impressive — last year, he collected about 130,000; this year, 65,000.

He splits up the total to give to the Army Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which have foresters planting trees to restore floodplain habitat.

“Pretty much everything that Jerry collects, in one way or another, will return to the river,” said Meier, the corps forester.

Last fall, for example, between 20,000 and 30,000 of Boardman’s swamp white oak acorns were scattered near McGregor Lake, a river backwater near Prairie du Chien where the corps is piloting an effort to protect trees from flood inundation by raising the forest floor a few inches.

This spring, Meier said, he was “blown away” by the approximately 1,000 seedlings that had taken root there and begun to sprout.

Having access to Boardman’s acorns is important because it gives the corps the chance to experiment with direct seeding, instead of buying young trees and planting them. Direct seeding is both cheaper and more likely to result in a viable tree because the seed is local.

“When we have an opportunity to get something we know came from the river, we know that it’s adapted to growing there,” Meier said.

Not every community has a Boardman, though, and many organizations doing reforestation work have to shell out for seed or look for options from further afield. 

For example, M&C Forest Seeds, based in Clarendon, Arkansas, pays seed collectors cash for acorns and then re-sells sorted seed to government agencies or nonprofits. M&C contracts with collectors to gather acorns at particular latitudes along the river, which they then market to replanting efforts at similar geographic locations. 

Living Lands and Waters, an Illinois-based environmental organization, uses nurseries to cultivate oaks from the region and distributes more than 150,000 trees annually in three-gallon pots to volunteers or individuals. 

Little by little, through the efforts of various government agencies and nonprofits, it all ends up in the ground. 

For instance, since 2007, Living Lands and Waters has planted more than 2 million trees along waterways in the Mississippi River Basin. The Nature Conservancy, using U.S. Department of Agriculture and other program funds, has reforested about a million acres across Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas in the last 30 years. Much of that acreage was on low-lying farmland prone to flooding that had once been forest.

Volunteers key to planting efforts

Whether collecting seeds or planting them, volunteers like Boardman are key to making the work happen. 

Ev Wick, a fifth grade teacher at De Soto’s Prairie View Elementary, has taken his students out for an acorn-gathering day with Boardman for the past several years. Boardman scouts the best trees ahead of time, Wick said, then the kids get to work. They can pick up between 5,000 and 6,000 in a day, propelled by friendly competitions to see who can collect the most or fill their bucket quickest.

They’re interested when Boardman tells them all the acorns they collect will eventually be planted on the islands they see in the river, Wick said. 

Last October, Living Lands and Water brought together people from groups like the Clean River Advisory Council and the Rock Island County Soil and Water Conservation District to plant oak trees near the Quad Cities. Volunteers planted 85 oak trees in a park by the Mississippi River in Illinois City, Illinois. This event helped restore forests but also provided opportunities for people to learn and connect with nature.

“We get individuals that may have never planted a tree before but want to come out because it sounds like a cool, fun thing,” said Dan Breidenstein, vice president of Living Lands and Water. “Not only did they learn how to plant a tree, but they also learned about these different species that we were doing. Every time they visit that area or drive past that building, they’re connected to the area around them, and that tree’s not going anywhere.” 

Organizers are particularly tickled when young people show up.

“My favorite part of today is being outside and in the environment because I don’t go outside much,” said Brooklyn Wilson, a high school junior who volunteered at the October event. “The most important thing to understand is that as a community we need to be able to come together and help and pick up and do what we need to do to better our environment and neighborhoods.” 

Perhaps some of the young volunteers will follow in Boardman’s footsteps. 

As for Boardman, the chance to donate acorns or otherwise help out is a no-brainer.

“That river has given me so much,” he said. “I’ve just got to give back all I can give.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Disclosure: The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, The Nature Conservancy and the Clean River Advisory Council receive funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

Volunteers collect and plant acorns along Mississippi River to save struggling forests is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch journalists this year crisscrossed the state — from urban Madison and Milwaukee to rural Grant and Iron counties — to tell the stories that mattered to residents. They chronicled high-stakes elections, tragedies, environmental challenges and issues affecting families’ quality of life. 

None of those stories would have resonated without the visual journalism our staff and freelance photographers produced. We begin every major reporting effort by considering how to best communicate it visually. That means accurately capturing the scene and emotions associated with the story — and more broadly allowing people to see themselves and their neighbors in our work. 

Here are some of the most memorable images we captured in 2024.

Here are the most memorable images we captured in 2024 is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

On Election Day in Madison, nearly 200 absentee ballots slipped through the cracks. They weren’t processed or counted. Most of them weren’t even discovered until almost a month later. 

And nobody seems to know exactly how the oversight occurred. Some city officials are questioning why it took so long for the error to come to light. It’s a mystery that the dozens of voters in the state capital would certainly like to see solved.

The critical disenfranchisement of 193 Madison voters on Nov. 5 resulted from mistakes at two different polling locations and the lack of a comprehensive system for poll workers to track whether they’ve counted every absentee ballot

At a polling site in Ward 56, just west of downtown, election officials didn’t open two large carrier envelopes, used to transport absentee ballots, that contained a total of 125 ballots, Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said. At another site in a neighborhood slightly further west called Regent, poll workers at Ward 65 didn’t open another carrier envelope, carrying 68 absentee ballots, including one that should have been sent to a different polling place.

Normally, Witzel-Behl said, poll workers at each location “triple check” that all absentee votes have been processed before running results on the tabulator.

“We do not know why these carrier envelopes were overlooked at the polls on Election Day,” she said.

The oversight became public seven weeks after the election. Until just over a week ago, neither the Wisconsin Elections Commission nor the Madison mayor’s office knew about it.

On Dec. 26, Madison’s mayor and clerk outlined in separate statements how the ballots made it to two polling places but were somehow left unopened. 

“While the discovery of these unprocessed absentee ballots did not impact the results of any election or referendum, a discrepancy of this magnitude is unacceptable,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. “This oversight is a significant departure from the high standard our residents expect and must be addressed and avoided in future elections.”  

The statements left significant questions unanswered: Exactly how and when did the ballots go missing? Who was responsible for the error? Why was the news coming out over seven weeks after Election Day?

Rhodes-Conway, for one, made clear the long delay wasn’t on her account.

“Unfortunately, Clerk’s Office staff were apparently aware of the oversight for some time and the Mayor’s Office was not notified of the unprocessed ballots until December 20,” she said in a statement.

In fact, Witzel-Behl didn’t alert the mayor’s office first about the missing ballots. The clerk’s office told the Wisconsin Elections Commission about it on Dec. 18. The agency then relayed the news to the city attorney, who told the mayor’s office about it.

The commission found out about the missing ballots through a process that clerks must follow if there’s a discrepancy at the polls between the number of voters and number of ballots. The clerk’s office told the commission about the discrepancy two days before the deadline for reconciling those numbers, Witzel-Behl said. Prior to that, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat she was largely out of office.

“I personally was trying to burn through vacation time after the election, and was not aware of the magnitude of this situation,” she said. “In retrospect, I should have just cut back to standard work weeks after the election.”

Madison has decentralized absentee processing

Unlike some of Wisconsin’s bigger cities, where all absentee ballots are processed and counted at a single location, in Madison absentee ballots are sent to the polling sites corresponding to where the voters would cast in-person ballots. At those sites, poll workers typically process the absentee ballot envelopes, containing witness and voter information, before counting the ballots.

Workers at each polling location have a process for checking which voters submitted absentee ballots. They typically use an orange highlighter to mark names of voters in a poll book of city residents who were issued an absentee ballot, Witzel-Behl said, and a pink highlighter to mark those who returned their ballots. Each polling place has documents outlining the number of ballots that were returned to be counted as of the Sunday prior to Election Day, she said.

Each absentee carrier envelope has a unique identification number on the seal closing it for security reasons. Madison polling sites didn’t receive a list of seal numbers for each carrier envelope that was transported to them, but the clerk’s office stated they would provide such a list in the future. There was only a handwritten log of the seal numbers in the clerk’s office.

Despite the two polling places having a large number of absentee ballots outstanding on Election Day, the missing votes weren’t discovered until after the Municipal Board of Canvassers met on Nov. 8 to certify the election, Witzel-Behl said.

By the time one batch of uncounted ballots was discovered on Nov. 12, she said, “Staff was under the impression that it was too late for these ballots to be counted, unless we had a recount.”

Madison voters cast over 174,000 ballots in the November election. 

What we know about the missing ballots

There weren’t any apparent issues with sorting or delivering the correct ballots to the polling location near downtown. But at some point after Election Day, Witzel-Behl said, an hourly employee noticed there were a lot of outstanding absentee ballots.

On Dec. 3, she said, the employee looked through materials returned from that polling location on Election Day, she said. The employee found two sealed carrier envelopes containing absentee ballots. They contained 125 unprocessed ballots.

The 68 ballots at the Regent neighborhood polling site, including the one ballot sorted and delivered to the wrong station, were contained in a sealed carrier envelope of absentee ballots. 

It’s not entirely clear where that carrier envelope was throughout Election Day, but election workers later discovered it inside of a chamber of a vote tabulating machine where ballots typically go after they’re counted. Madison election officials often use that compartment to transport absentee ballots to polling sites.

At the end of the night, poll workers put secure ballot bags and other materials into the tabulators, Witzel-Behl said. 

Madison clerk, mayor vow to prevent future oversights 

In its letter to the election commission, the clerk’s office outlined its plans to “debrief these incidents and implement better processes” to make sure all absentee carrier envelopes are accounted for and processed on Election Day.

Rhodes-Conway also said she plans to conduct a review of the city’s election policies. Additionally, she said, the city will send letters to the affected voters to notify them of the error and apologize.

“My office is committed to taking whatever corrective action is necessary to maintain a high standard of election integrity in Madison, and to provide ongoing transparency into that process,” she said.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Nearly 200 Madison ballots went uncounted. Officials don’t know exactly how. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Jay Dee Nichols stamped and packed stiff willow branches between maple wood posts, with muffled crunches.

At 63, the semi-retired handyman from the Wisconsin city of Black River Falls has trapped beavers before. But he’s never heard of a mock beaver dam — much less constructed one.

“It gives you an appreciation for what beavers do,” Nichols said over the shrill beeping of a skid loader. A scratch on his forearm oozed blood, drying into a scarlet smudge.

“They’re one of the hardest-working animals out there, I guess.”

Nichols’ muck boots sloshed in a pool of water that already was forming behind the freshly constructed beaver dam analog, or BDA. The semi-porous wooden structures are often installed across streams to redirect water or capture sediment.

Nichols and three other workers were as busy as beavers for a week in October constructing 12 of them in a forested wetland. 

It’s all part of Jim Hoffman’s latest project.

The BDAs span an unnamed, man-made channel that drains overflow from a reservoir on Hoffman’s cranberry farm, north of Alma Center in Jackson County. The water runs into South Fork Halls Creek, a trout stream where actual beavers have taken up residence.

Hoffman, 60, hopes the BDAs, which could pool up to 1.7 acre-feet of water during floods, improve water quality, stabilize eroded stream banks and enhance wildlife habitat. Most of all, he seeks to trailblaze a path through the state’s onerous dam-permitting process so other Wisconsin landowners can follow in his footsteps.

“There’s a lot of different streams and tributaries that could benefit from this,” Hoffman said.

As average Wisconsin temperatures and precipitation increase in response to climate change, scientists, environmentalists and regulators point to the promise of nature-based solutions. 

Enter the beaver.

North America’s largest rodent is infamous for wood munching. Where they chew, wetlands often follow. The natural sponges filter water and offer flood protection.

The U.S. once was home to 60 million to 400 million beavers, which inhabited a range extending from the northern Mexican deserts to the Arctic tundra. But European and American settlers hunted them to near extinction.

As their population dwindled and agriculture and urban development expanded, wetlands disappeared. Wisconsin, like the rest of the country, lost roughly half since the late 1700s.

Without maintenance from nature’s “ecosystem engineers,” many of the nation’s once multi-threaded streams also became single-channeled and incised — disconnected from their floodplains. When this happens, water tables sink, water temperature increases and plants die. If torrential floodwaters funnel through the simple stream systems, they flush out wildlife and wood.

Nature can repair itself, but the process of restoring stream complexity can take millennia. Mock beaver dams can jump-start the process, reducing the timing to mere decades.

They also can slow the flow of runoff and allow watersheds to store more water. Hoffman sees their potential to limit flooding in Wisconsin, potentially saving taxpayer dollars and creating wildlife habitat.

Watershed councils, conservation districts, Indigenous tribes, and state and federal natural resources agencies frequently deploy them in the American West. But their use in Wisconsin, a state with a historically tempestuous relationship with beavers, is novel. Many regulators believe the critters’ dams harm trout, and the state’s fisheries and forestry divisions contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to wipe out beavers that live on designated streams.

Fewer than a dozen permitted projects that incorporate BDAs or similar wooden structures have been built in Wisconsin to date. The Department of Natural Resources recently approved two on trout stream tributaries, signaling an openness to test their potential despite concerns from fisheries managers. Construction is underway in other Mississippi River basin states too, including Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri.

Wisconsin regulators generally treat BDAs as dams that impound water, making for an arduous and expensive permitting process. 

Hoffman spent more than a year and $20,000 to obtain his permit. He is the CEO of a vast Wisconsin construction company and has a running joke.

“The one thing you never do is call the DNR and ask them, ‘Do I need a permit for this?’” he said.

What are beaver dam analogs? 

A healthy streamscape requires space for water to slowly meander. That requires messy wood obstructions like fallen trees and debris-filled logjams.

Much like real beaver dams, the analogs obstruct water and disperse the flow across a wider area. Water pools above and below the dams, and upstream surface height increases.

Sediment accumulates behind the obstructions, sometimes transforming an upstream pool into a wetland and eventually a meadow. But nature’s randomness means beaver dams or analogs can fail.

BDAs are not in themselves a solution, experts say, but tools that initiate natural processes that mend degraded waterscapes. 

While their popularity increased in the 2000s, historic drawings indicate that small wicker and log dams were constructed as early as the 19th century to “correct” streams in France.

Construction these days hasn’t changed much, with workers pounding posts directly into a streambed and weaving willow or juniper branches between them. Gaps can be plugged with sediment. The analogs, which are biodegradable and transient, function well when constructed in sequence like natural beaver dam complexes. Proponents hope that using natural materials and hand labor reduces building costs, enabling more miles of restoration.

When human and beaver engineers meet

When Hoffman installed his cranberry marshes more than 20 years ago, a developer taught him an important marketing lesson: christen the business after the resource you are destroying. The developer named his housing division Fox Ridge. Hoffman, in turn, called his cranberry operation Goose Landing.

Yet, in Hoffman’s case, he didn’t necessarily displace geese. Hundreds occupy his reservoir on a given day, leaving droppings that serve as free fertilizer.

The 1,000-acre property serves as a laboratory of earthworks and a wildlife cornucopia. 

Hoffman, a Stanford engineer by training, returned to Wisconsin from San Francisco Bay in 1989 and joined the road construction business his great-grandfather started more than seven decades prior, before the United States had an organized highway system.

After starting the cranberry operation, Hoffman mined frac sand, then obtained his commercial fish farming license. Now, he’s stocked the former mining pits — since filled with water — with an angler’s dream: walleye, hybrid muskie, perch, crappie, bluegill and bass.

Hoffman sped past one of the ponds in his Ford Bronco, pointing out the artificial islands he created. To add vegetation, he grabbed trees by their rootballs and shoved them into the virgin soil.

“I like to change my environment,” he said. “I’m an earthmover by character — by business.”

Hoffman’s efforts to “rewild” his land led him to plant turnip and radish plots for deer along with oak trees to recreate a piece of Wisconsin’s historical savannas. He’s replaced row crops with prairie grass and intends to install an osprey nesting box on one of his ponds — even if it means the birds of prey eat his fish.

Mock beaver dams are Hoffman’s latest push.

His interest in them blossomed after he helped a Nordic skiing buddy release an orphan beaver on his property. They constructed a lodge for the two-year-old rodent, tucking in a stuffed teddy bear to keep it company.

“Well, it instantly swam into the pond, and that was the last we saw it,” Hoffman said.

In a section of forest far from the cranberry marshes, the drainage ditch turns into what appears to be a natural stream, which cuts through steep banks.

On both sides lies what resembles a 3- to 4-foot-tall effigy mound running perpendicular across the creek bed. Hoffman wonders if beavers were the original architects.

“It might be hundreds of years old,” he said. “I’m hoping the beavers come back here and say, ‘Well, we almost got a dam built!’”

Mock beaver dams used out West 

Science backs Hoffman’s belief in the restoration power of beaver dam analogs. In one of the first major studies, researchers evaluated their trout impacts and potential to reverse stream incision.

Bridge Creek, a high-desert watershed in north-central Oregon, bore the signs of livestock overgrazing and beaver removal. Following severe storms, the main channel gradually disconnected from the landscape’s floodplain — conditions that persisted even 20 years after cattle stopped chomping on surrounding vegetation.

The researchers monitored conditions before and after installing more than 130 BDAs in Bridge Creek. They compared those sections of creek to areas that lacked BDAs — some that beavers called home and others they did not.

Prior to the study, Bridge Creek contained some beaver dams, but they frequently blew out during major floods. Sediment didn’t have time to accumulate and reconnect the channel to the landscape.

But the BDAs acted as reinforcements. 

Beaver dams in the study area increased more than sevenfold within the first eight years after the scientists added them.

In the BDA sections, land inundated with water increased by 228% and side channels increased by a whopping 1,216%, considerably more than the Bridge Creek sections that lacked them.

As the analogs rehydrated the aquifer, vegetation increased. Groundwater killed off scrubby plants, such as sagebrush, and water-loving willow trees took root.

Could mock beaver dams block or fry fish? 

The impact of beavers on fish remains a hot topic in Wisconsin. For some, it’s axiomatic that beaver dams block trout passage — a belief with a long history.

But that wasn’t a problem at Bridge Creek.

The researchers tagged about 100,000 juvenile trout, enabling antennas to detect fish movement at specific stream locations. They surveyed the stream for more than a decade.

The scientists determined that the installation of mock beaver dams increased the survival, density and reproduction of juvenile trout. They detected no changes to upstream migration in the tagged trout despite the massive increase in human and beaver-made dams. Several spawners passed through upwards of 200 during their migration.

Other studies conducted in California concluded trout easily cross BDAs, either by jumping or swimming up side passages.

Another objection to beaver dams stems from the belief they invariably increase stream temperature: Beaver ponds increase a stream’s surface area, which is warmed by the sun.

But at Bridge Creek, water temperature remained constant or decreased, even during summer. The researchers suggested that pooled water upstream of the dams percolated into the ground, forcing cool groundwater to upwell downstream and mix with that on the surface. An offset to the sun.

The complexes affected temperatures in other ways. 

On one hand, they buffered water temperatures. Stream temperatures periodically fluctuate with day-night cycles and across seasons, but the mock beaver dams compressed the rises and falls. On the other hand, the complexes created variety, filled with warm and cold spots, offering fish a buffet to choose from.

Some studies have documented downstream warming from the analogs. And others from the upper Midwest have documented increased temperatures below natural beaver dam complexes and in beaver ponds, but academics have questioned the research’s scientific rigor.

Nick Bouwes, a Utah State University faculty member who worked on the Bridge Creek study and co-authored a manual that many consider the BDA bible, agrees that the structures could block fish or raise water temperatures in certain ecosystems in his native Wisconsin.

But until there is solid evidence, he said, ultimately those remain assumptions that should be studied.

“It makes you wonder what fish did 3- or 400 years ago when there was an order of magnitude more beaver and an order of magnitude more fish in these systems,” Bouwes said.

Upholding the public trust

In September, Mike Engel, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, oversaw the installation of beaver dam analogs at Briggs Wetland near Beloit, Wisconsin.

The workshop brought together ecologists, consultants, resource managers and regulators from local, state and federal agencies, most of whom dipped their toes into BDA waters for the first time.

Although passionate about such tools, Engel says beavers and BDAs aren’t a panacea for all degraded wetlands or a warming climate.

“There’s certainly people who will grab a hold of the cute, fuzzy critter and like the idea,” Engel said, standing atop a beaver dam that formed a network of ponds adjacent to the Briggs property. “But I think more people will be interested in managing the amount of water they have — whether they need more or they need less due to climate change.”

In other words, what would a well-functioning watershed look like, and what tools and techniques can achieve those ends? The case for mock beaver dams depends on the setting.

“Out West, they have miles and miles and miles of public land,” said Thomas Nedland, who conducts wetland and waterway permitting with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

If the BDAs fail, “all the water that’s backed up ends up going into the woods or the floodplain” without risk to infrastructure, he said. 

“That’s not quite the setting we have here in Wisconsin.”

Such projects might lead to conflicts with property owners, especially if beavers move in and enlarge the structures. They might swamp adjacent corn fields or flood a road or backyard.

Wisconsin’s public trust doctrine also requires regulators to consider the public’s access to natural resources when making permitting decisions. The Department of Natural Resources may impose requirements to maintain the rights to boat, swim and fish, even on artificial ditches that are considered navigable waterways.

Hoffman’s project rang alarm bells for the local county conservationist, who fears the BDAs will attract beavers to the area, leaving floods and unfishable streams in their wake.

Getting the dam permit 

State regulators must consider many factors in considering a beaver dam analog.

Throwing some sticks across a streambed is relatively simple, but several Wisconsin installations have relied upon consultants, federal workers or nonprofit organizations to navigate permitting.

“They’re really important devices. They have a lot of functionality. They’re very simple and inexpensive to install,” said Hoffman’s contractor, Clay Frazer, a restoration ecologist. 

“And they’re way too complicated to permit right now for the average person.”

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources required Hoffman to conduct hydrologic modeling and topographic surveying before regulators approved his BDAs, which stand roughly 3 feet high.

To satisfy regulators that the analog wouldn’t overturn when water pooled behind it, he had to load test the wooden posts.

Joel Pennycamp, a Hoffman Construction Company employee, strapped a scale around the top of one. Hoffman stood on the streambank holding onto the end of a neon orange string that stretched across the BDA. When Pennycamp tugged, each post could move no more than an inch. 

Analog proponents say the rigid requirements to build transient structures unnecessarily increase costs and dampen enthusiasm to use nature-based solutions for landscape repair. A potentially laborious permitting process also misses the broader point that process-based riverscape restoration is unpredictable.

“You don’t have to be an engineer. You don’t have to be able to operate large machinery. You’re not going to completely redesign a stream to what you think it should be,” Bouwes said. “Let the stream figure it out.”

One permitting difficulty stems from, in several instances, the state’s classification of the porous structures as dams. Regulators and applicants debate a principle point: Does a mock beaver dam actually impound water or, as researchers say, merely slow or delay it? State employees say they lack latitude to interpret because BDAs, plain and simple, fit the legal definition.

“I often hear back from applicants and they’re like, ‘Well, it’s not very big,’ or, ‘It’s not intended to be there for long,’ or whatever,” said Uriah Monday, a state dam safety engineer. “But they always acknowledge that they need that pool of water to create the energy it’s going to take to do whatever they’re trying to achieve.”

For instance, he said, a raised pool of water is necessary to saturate wetlands, carve stream meanders and trap sediment upstream.

Hoffman’s stream tributary may be artificial, but the state still considers its waters navigable and thus protected. Normally, when dams obstruct public passage, the Department of Natural Resources requires the posting of a portage route. 

For now, the agency isn’t requiring it, but Hoffman hopes to run with the idea.

“So I’m having some signs made up for the beavers in case they get confused when they’re swimming upstream and hit the dam,” he said, grinning widely.

The department also has authorized BDAs through a streamlined general permitting process. Hoffman’s mock beaver dams, however, did not meet the criteria to qualify.

“I don’t blame the DNR for it,” he said. “It’s just that they don’t have a system to accommodate our request.” 

Kyle Magyera, who performs government outreach with the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, believes regulators should carve out exceptions from the dam rules. 

Monday thinks the existing permitting system can work, as it already has, and will ease as the department learns more about the structures. That will include monitoring at Briggs Wetland and Goose Landing.

“We’re actually hopeful too,” Nedland said. “If there’s an efficient, cost-effective way for people to do these kinds of projects in a much easier way that results in less disturbance to the landscape, like boy, that’s a win.”

BDA permitting challenges are not unique to Wisconsin. Even the Bridge Creek researchers were unable to conduct a follow-up round of restoration due to regulatory hurdles.

“It seems like every state, you have to go through the growing pains of getting people familiar with these approaches,” Bouwes said. “When they see what we’re actually doing — we’re throwing sticks in the stream to slow the water down — they become a lot more comfortable with it.”

Balancing human and beaver needs

By mid-afternoon at Hoffman’s farm, evidence of the day’s construction littered the ground adjacent to the channel where the BDAs stood: empty plastic Powerade bottles, gasoline cans, a chainsaw.

Before getting off work for the day, Nichols and Pennycamp loaded it onto a utility vehicle. Hoffman, meanwhile, browsed through a printout of his state-issued permit, reviewing the details through reading glasses he perched across his nose.

“‘The water is a cool-cold headwater. The proposed dam will not result in significant adverse effects on this resource upon compliance with the conditions in the order,’” he read aloud. “In other words, don’t flood too much, don’t warm the water up too much. Okay, well we’ll debate that later.”

He flipped the page.

The beavers living at Hoffman’s farm are dispersing across the property. One colony chewed down some of his pines and aspens and plugged a culvert, expanding the shoreline as part of a project Hoffman didn’t plan.

It doesn’t bother him because he has more trees to spare and wants to live among the rodents, but he doesn’t begrudge beaver-bothered people. The critters create profound impacts.

Humans and beavers share a common drive to engineer their environment to live. 

“We’ve got to find a way to balance the different needs of each species,” Hoffman said. “You know, us included.”

Why is he doing all this? Permitting, pounding, portage-routing. Really, why bother?

Hoffman’s campaign is more than just a new permitting process. It’s an exhortation to the state to reconsider its treatment of beavers. If he can show that mock beaver dams don’t heat the water or block fish, perhaps the state will stop removing beavers and their dams from trout streams.

“We’re going to hopefully show to them that the beavers in the ecosystem are actually beneficial,” Hoffman said.

Going through the trouble is simply part of a kindred ecosystem engineer’s balancing act.

This story was produced in partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network, of which Wisconsin Watch is a member. It was also reported with support from the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems. Sign up for Wisconsin Watch’s newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

An ecosystem engineer’s vision: mock beaver dams to restore Wisconsin wetlands is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin may be known for its cheese, but it’s also home to 10 of the 20 drunkest cities in America, according to a 2024 report from 24/7 Wall St. 2023 data from America’s Health Rankings also showed that Wisconsin had some of the highest levels of heavy, excessive and binge drinking in the United States. A previous DataWatch about Wisconsin health looks at these topics in more depth.

Data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provides a deeper look at what Wisconsin residents are drinking and how much. Its latest report, released in May 2024, provided data on consumption of various types of alcohol from 1970 to 2022. 

Among Wisconsin’s legal drinking age population, the consumption of beer decreased by 20% from 2012 to 2022, an analysis of that data shows. The average person 21 or older drank about 29.5 gallons of beer in 2022, which is equivalent to about 316 standard drinks. The NIAAA defines a standard drink as the amount of alcoholic beverage it takes to drink 0.6 fluid ounces of ethanol, the “active ingredient” in alcohol. For beer, this is about 12 fluid ounces.

Over the same time period, Wisconsin drinkers consumed 32% more spirits. NIAAA defines a spirit as an alcoholic drink with about 40% alcohol content. The 2022 average was 4.33 gallons per person, equivalent to around 370 standard drinks. A standard drink of spirits is about 1.5 fluid ounces and for wine is generally five fluid ounces. Wine drinking increased by 4% to an average of 3.42 gallons per person, which is about 88 standard drinks.

While the increase in spirits may seem small, the higher ethanol content means people are consuming significantly more “active” alcohol. In 2022, the average strength of ethanol consumed by a person 21 or over across all alcohol was 9.5%. In 2012, the strength was 7.9%.

While total consumption of alcoholic beverages dropped by about 13% between 2012 and 2022, there was a 4% increase in ethanol consumption. Alcoholic beverage consumption averaged about 37.3 gallons per person in 2022. The average ethanol consumption was about 3.55 gallons – roughly equivalent to 760 standard drinks in a year. That averages out to a little over two drinks each day. According to the NIAAA, the daily recommended limit of alcohol is two drinks for men and one drink for women.

Research from the National Cancer Institute indicates that daily alcohol consumption is linked to increased cancer risks across the human body. The National Institutes of Health also reported that long-term alcohol use can increase risk factors for over 200 diseases. It also writes that “no amount of alcohol is ‘safe’ or beneficial for your health.”

DataWatch: Wisconsin residents of legal drinking age consumed 35+ gallons of alcohol a person in 2022 is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

The definition of mass shootings varies, but research has found the U.S. has the most.

Reasons include high gun ownership, “cultural factors like individualism and fame-seeking, sensationalized media coverage, and gaps in mental health care and law enforcement,” said James Densley of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center.

According to two peer-reviewed studies:

U.S. mass shootings accounted for 73% of all incidents and 62% of all fatalities in developed countries from 1998–2019.

That study’s author wrote in February there were 109 U.S. mass shootings from 2000-2022 and 35 in comparable countries. The U.S. accounted for 33% of the population of the 36 countries, but 76% of the incidents and 70% of victim fatalities.

The U.S. had 30.8% of all mass shooters from 1966–2012, despite having less than 5% of the world’s population.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan made the U.S. claim after a mass school shooting Dec. 16 in Madison, Wisconsin, which he represents.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Global mass shootings: comparing the United States against developed and developing countries
• James Densley, Violence Prevention Project Research Center deputy director Email, Dec. 19, 2024
• Dom Salvia Show Mark Pocan interview
• Rockefeller Institute of Government Public Mass Shootings Around the World: Prevalence, Context, and Prevention
• Econ Journal Watch The Importance of Analyzing Public Mass Shooters Separately from Other Attackers When Estimating the Prevalence of Their Behavior Worldwide
• Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director, Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium Email, Dec. 20, 2024
• CNN How US gun culture stacks up with the world
• Washington Post Fact Checker Does the U.S. lead the world in mass shootings?
• USA Today Fact check: Comparison of school shootings in the US, other countries uses old data

Does the US have more mass shootings per person than any other nation? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Last winter, Eric Zieroth dressed in as many layers as he could and stayed beneath a down blanket each night. He learned it was the best way to keep warm while living in his car in far northwestern Wisconsin. 

During those cold months, he and his then-20-year-old daughter Christina Hubbell had to wake, start the vehicle and blast the heat a few times a night before shutting it off again. 

For over a year, the pair regularly parked their PT Cruiser — a car older than Hubbell that Zieroth, 47, called “a shoebox on wheels” — in a corner spot at a public boat landing on Long Lake. The lot is less than a mile from the rural city of Shell Lake, with a population of less than 1,400.

Down a dirt road and tucked into the woods, they slept at the secluded launch to stay out of the way in the town where they spent most of their lives. Now, because they are homeless, they have been ostracized for showering, parking and sleeping in public places.

Washburn County has no homeless shelters, and they don’t have family to stay with. Hubbell’s mom and Zieroth divorced in 2022. The following year, when Hubbell was 19, her mom told her to start paying rent or leave. 

Hubbell’s job at a Dollar General in Shell Lake — their only source of income — keeps them from relocating to a shelter in another county. They are on a waitlist for a low-income housing unit. 

Zieroth is awaiting a surgery that will allow him to get back to work. With no way to heal or keep the wound clean, he said he couldn’t get the operation while living in his car. If it weren’t for his daughter, the former mechanic said he might have considered committing a crime and getting booked into jail instead of spending another winter in the vehicle. 

“There’s no way I could do it again,” Zieroth said. “I had to figure out something else this year.”

In rural Wisconsin, homelessness is often hidden behind a veil of individuals and families who are couch surfing and sleeping in their vehicles instead of sleeping on city streets or camping out in parks. Resources are few and far between, shelters are always full, and funding can be a significant challenge at the local, state and federal level.

After falling for years, the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021. This past year it rose again from 4,861 in 2023 to 5,037. In the “balance” of the state — all 69 counties outside Milwaukee, Racine and Dane — the homeless population increased from 2,938 individuals in 2023 to 3,201 in 2024, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the region’s continuum of care organization, which conducts homeless counts each year.

Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, these mostly rural counties collectively contain just 23% of the state’s supportive housing units — long-term housing models with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness. But providing long-term housing and services on top of shelter is an expensive, labor-intensive task for small, rural providers with limited funding.

According to the Department of Public Instruction’s latest data, 18,455 students experienced homelessness during the 2022-23 school year — a number that has increased each year since 2020. Some 11,000 of these students reside in districts outside of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Green Bay.

The annual data collected on homelessness are an undercount, especially in rural areas, said Mary Frances Kenion, vice president of training and technical assistance at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. That means less funding for already disadvantaged smaller communities. 

“Where there’s more concentration of people, that’s always going to drive funding, because we have block grant funding that is directly tied to the census,” Kenion told Wisconsin Watch. 

Despite rural communities having fewer nonprofits than urban ones, shelters and housing assistance programs are leading the way to address the expanse of homelessness in rural Wisconsin. 

“Funding and access to resources is a challenge … but there are some really bright spots in rural communities, because they are doing more with less,” Kenion said. “We’re seeing a ton of innovation and resilience just by virtue of them being positioned to do more with less.” 

But shelter directors and anti-poverty advocates face many hurdles when it comes to funding, resources and support.

Rural shelter providers across the state identified several solutions to the problem: Cutting out county governments as the middleman for state reimbursements, increasing the availability of new rental units, consolidating multiple definitions of homelessness, more consistent and proportional state funding, and assistance with case management are just a few.

Point-in-time counts, federal funding and HUD 

The annual “point-in-time” (PIT) homeless counts are collected by continuum of care organizations across the country on a single night during the last week of January. Wisconsin has four designated organizations with three covering Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties and one for the other 69 counties. 

The counts are submitted to Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for consideration and funding determinations. They are meant to include those living in temporary shelters, as well as unsheltered people living on the street, but do not include people in other sheltered situations. Those living in cars are often missed. 

“They’re typically either in their car or they’re on somebody’s couch,” said Jenny Fasula, executive director of Wisconsin’s Foundation for Rural Housing. “People on the couches don’t count in your PIT counts because they’re ‘housed.’ People in cars in rural areas — I don’t even know where you’d find them, except maybe a Walmart parking lot.”

Since 2009, HUD — the main federal agency that handles homelessness — has targeted permanent supportive housing programs with long-term, sustainable services like case management for federal funding. The national shift from temporary housing programs reflects a widely adopted “housing first” approach — that the security of a permanent shelter is the first, necessary step before people can address the root causes of their homelessness. 

“Temporary housing programs shifted their gears towards that other type of service so they could continue to operate and get funding to operate,” Wisconsin Policy Forum researcher Donald Cramer told Wisconsin Watch. 

While permanent housing programs effectively lowered Wisconsin’s homeless population in both rural and urban areas before the pandemic, the shift hasn’t been easy for rural shelters that are strapped for cash and resources.

“As a shelter, when you have 50 people, it’s impossible to have the funding to hire case managers that are really involved and able to really assist people,” said Michael Hall, a former Waupaca County shelter worker and director of Impact Wisconsin — a nonprofit providing housing and recovery services in a six-county rural region. 

“We’re small,” said Adam Schnabel, vice president of a homeless shelter in Taylor County, adding that without more staff, the shelter can’t have someone in charge of post-departure case management to make sure people stay in housing.

“We’re trying to find volunteer case managers,” said Kimberly Fitzgerald, interim director of the Rusk County Lighthouse shelter. “People to volunteer their time, to work for free, to do case management. Good luck with that.” 

Restrictions on federal funding and multiple definitions of homelessness are another barrier for rural homeless providers, said Millie Rounsville, CEO of Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency. 

The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines homelessness specifically for youth as minor children who “lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” But HUD defines homelessness in multiple categories: 1) an individual or family who is immediately homeless and without shelter and 2) those at imminent risk of homelessness. Consolidating these definitions is key, according to Rounsville. 

Homeless children and families in the rural region surrounding Superior tend to be doubled up in some kind of housing, Rounsville said. While they often meet the McKinney-Vento definition of homeless, they are considered category two homeless under HUD’s definitions. 

But in order to qualify for HUD-funded Rapid Rehousing programs, individuals must fall under category one.

“The funding needs to be flexible,” Rounsville said. “We can’t assume that every community across the country has the same need.”

To provide permanent supportive housing and receive funding, shelters and nonprofits also have to serve and document chronically homeless populations. According to HUD, that means a member of the household has to have a documented disability. Providers like Rounsville are additionally required to provide third-party verification that someone has been category one homeless for a year or more.

“If you were in a larger city where you have a lot of shelters or street outreach, that third-party verification would be a lot easier than when you’re in a rural community,” Rounsville said.

It’s a housing issue

Rural Wisconsin is lacking affordable, habitable homes.

“When you layer the limited footprint of service providers in a rural community, packed with a housing supply that is already insufficient and continuing to shrink, that creates a perfect storm for rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness,” Kenion said. 

Providers in Rusk County, Taylor County, Bayfield County and Waupaca County said that without low-income options and available rental units, they often can’t get people into permanent housing.

“As fast as units open up, they get filled,” Fitzgerald said. “In Ladysmith specifically, there are next to no rental units. So even if somebody did get approved for the housing program, where are we going to put them?”

Among affordability and shortage issues, rural areas are also home to the state’s aging housing stock. 

“The housing stock is very old,” Fasula said. “So now you have higher energy bills. And the rent may be lower, but your energy bill is twice as much.” 

Her work at the Foundation for Rural Housing provides one-time emergency rental assistance to prevent evictions and homelessness across the state. 

“People stereotype them to think ‘Oh, we have these programs because people don’t know how to manage their money.’ It’s not that,” Fasula said. “These are folks that come in that just have a crisis. … They don’t have anything to fall back on. Any little hiccup is a big impact for them financially.”

The foundation is partially funded by the state’s critical assistance grant program, which is awarded to just one eligible agency in Wisconsin. Fasula said the foundation still relies on many private funding sources.

While working to eventually afford an apartment in Shell Lake, Hubbell is making $13.50 an hour at the Dollar General, but only scheduled to work 20 hours a week. The living wage calculation for one adult in Washburn County is $19.45 an hour working 40 hours a week, according to the MIT living wage calculator.

“Homelessness is a housing issue. It’s a symptom of an economy and policies that aren’t working,” Kenion said. “Yes, housing costs tend to be lower in rural communities, but so do wages.”

State funding 

In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ recommendations to spend some $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.

The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.

The state funds two main grants for homeless shelters and housing annually. The State Shelter Subsidy Grant (SSSG) receives around $1.6 million per year, and the Housing Assistance Program receives $900,000.

But for small shelters like Taylor House — the only homeless shelter in rural Taylor County — Schnabel says the funding is “pennies.” The facility has a continuous waitlist. 

“We are a lost people up north, here in the rural areas,” Schnabel said. “I feel like there’s so much focus and so many monetary resources provided to Dane and Milwaukee counties.” 

The north central Wisconsin shelter with a 17-person capacity received $10,000 from SSSG this year, Schnabel said. That’s around $588 per person. But four emergency shelters in Milwaukee with a combined capacity of around 392 received $400,000 from the $1.6 million grant total — $1,020 per person.

“It’s not just local individuals we’re serving,” Schnabel said. “We’re serving individuals from Milwaukee County, Dane County, Fox River Valley, Chippewa. They’re coming from all over because those homeless shelters are either at capacity or their waitlist is too long.”

The state’s Recovery Voucher Grant Program awarded $760,000 to grantees in 2024 to provide housing to those experiencing homelessness and struggling with opioid use disorders. Half of these funds went to three providers in Dane, Milwaukee and Waukesha counties. 

Another state resource is the Homeless Case Management Services (HCMS) grant program, which distributes up to 10 $50,000 grants per year to shelters and programs that meet eligibility requirements.

Shelter directors like Fitzgerald said the state’s reliance on grant funding to address homelessness and housing needs isn’t sustainable for small providers. While helpful, these pots of money quickly run out, and many of them don’t cover operating costs or wages. 

“A lot of these funding sources, it’s like a first come first serve basis, so there isn’t money necessarily allocated to cover our expenses,” Fitzgerald said. “When the funding runs out, we’re SOL.” 

The Lighthouse is the only homeless shelter in Rusk County. Many surrounding shelters are also full, and some counties don’t have shelters at all, leaving people with limited options. 

“As fast as we empty out, we fill up. So it’s kind of a revolving door,” Fitzgerald said. “Our first priority is to serve Rusk County residents, but we’re in the business of helping, so I don’t turn people away.” 

Small shelters face county-level hurdles 

Some shelter workers and advocates say in rural Wisconsin, homelessness is addressed only to the extent that their local governments and administrations are willing to acknowledge the issue and get involved.

“A lot of these people go unnoticed, unchecked in the system, and there just aren’t any county services, especially in our community, that are there to help individuals that are struggling,” Hall said. “We, with a lot of duct tape and a shoestring, hold it down.” 

Providers in several rural counties noted that there aren’t any shelters that are owned or operated in any capacity by local governments. In most cases, Washburn County Social Services can only direct homeless residents like Zieroth and Hubbell to the Lakeland Family Resource Center, which provided them with a list of shelters too far out of their reach.

“We don’t have the extra gas or a decent enough vehicle to go too far from Shell Lake,” Zieroth said.

The Ashland Community Shelter is the only shelter in a four-county rural area. The city applied for the federal grant funds that allowed Rounsville’s agency to acquire the shelter, but she noted that if it hadn’t taken that step, there wouldn’t be a shelter in Ashland today. 

“You still need that county government saying, ‘Hey, we have a program, we need funding,’” Cramer said. “If your county is not looking to deal with homelessness, then they’re probably not asking for that funding either.”

Hall and Schnabel said local governments need to be more involved in their work, whether that be providing a county employee to serve as a shelter director, or simply making better use of the few resources they have.

Schnabel added that small shelters often cannot pay their directors a decent wage, resulting in frequent staff turnover. Taylor House has had four directors in the last 18 months, he said. The inconsistency leaves “a bad taste” in the mouth of those reviewing their grant applications.

According to Hall, some counties are much more willing than others to utilize Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) — a state program aimed at addressing substance abuse and mental health needs. The program allows counties to contract employees and case managers at local shelters who provide services such as skills development and peer support. If the notes are done properly, the county can bill those expenses back to the state through BadgerCare. 

But despite those being reimbursable expenses, some county officials either don’t know how or are unwilling to engage in the program, Hall said. 

“The tool is there, it just needs to be utilized,” he said. “Because of their unwillingness to try something, it oftentimes ends up having to tell people ‘no,’ and we’re moving them to another county.”

He added that allowing local shelters that serve those covered under BadgerCare to bill the state directly for these services instead of relying on the county to initiate it “would solve the problem tomorrow.”

Hall also noted that county governments can use their opioid settlement funds to provide housing and shelter to those with eligible needs, yet some have instead spent it on other things. 

Waupaca County, for example, told Wisconsin Watch it has spent nearly $100,000 in opioid settlement funds on awareness campaigns, training, a counselor position and equipment that helps local police quickly identify narcotics in the field.

Grant funding is often allocated to regional “parent” organizations, like a Salvation Army, which then distribute the money to local nonprofits and shelters. But Schnabel said the state must force the hand of counties that “choose not to see homelessness.” 

“By requiring that these funds go through the county to be disbursed to the homeless shelter, it forces the county to have a relationship and have skin in the game with the shelters,” he said. 

Another challenge is that some small communities like Ashland reject homeless shelters, assuming they will bring negative footprints.

“There’s going to be needles, the neighborhood houses are going to be robbed, children are going to be ran over on the highway,” Rounsville said. “There’s all kinds of things that came up when we were doing the change of use for this hotel to become a shelter. It was something that not everybody wanted to see in the community.” 

The small city of Clintonville approved an ordinance last winter enforcing a 60-day limit on local hotel stays in a six-month period, citing drug concerns, disorderly conduct and disturbances. Many homeless individuals in the area are put up in those hotels. 

“We’re trying to figure out, what are we going to do with those 50 people this winter when the police departments come through and say they have to get out,” Hall said. 

Studies estimate that every year, someone experiencing chronic homelessness costs a community $30,000 to $50,000, according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Yet for each person who is homeless, permanent supportive housing costs communities $20,000 per year.

“These are our neighbors in any community, and when they are no longer homeless and they are thriving, they reinvest that into the economy, into the community, into the neighborhood,” Kenion said.

While often doing more with less, local nonprofits are still the ones that are built to do this work, Hall said.

“There is no solution. There is no algorithm to get us to an answer,” Schnabel said. “But what we know is that there needs to be a place that they can go to be safe, and have warm, secure housing until they can get back on their feet.”

Shunned by their community

In June, Zieroth and Hubbell pulled their car into a Shell Lake gas station parking lot to sleep, shortly before a police officer was called and arrived to tell them they were trespassing and had to leave. 

In August, the father and daughter stopped at the Shell Lake ATV Campground to use the public showers, when a campground employee entered and demanded that Zieroth get his daughter and leave. The employee called Shell Lake police, who escorted him off the property. 

A resident living next to the boat launch where they stayed eventually took issue with them parking their car at the public lot. In October, Hubbell said the homeowner stormed into the Dollar General while she was working and told her they couldn’t sleep there anymore, threatening to call the police.

And one night after finding a group fishing at the boat launch, the pair decided to drive to another public landing in Burnett County where they parked and slept. Still under their blankets, they woke the next morning to a DNR officer and county sheriff’s deputy approaching, asking about Zieroth’s “drug of choice.” According to Wisconsin Court System records, Zieroth served time in prison for burglary as a 21-year-old, but has never faced drug-related charges.

They were told to leave. 

“They just did not want us in this area. We’re less than a mile from where we grew up, and from where she went to school and graduated,” Zieroth said, pointing to his daughter. “I’ve made my life here … everything points to ‘get out.’”

While still homeless, the pair were fortunate enough to find a temporary place to stay as the weather gets colder — a small room in the unfinished basement of an acquaintance who didn’t want to see them living out of their car. They are joined by their dog Bella, who Zieroth won’t abandon after she woke him the night his camper caught fire in 2022, allowing him to escape and likely saving his life. 

Zieroth and Hubbell have an old bed, a recliner and a bathroom for now. But their most cherished comfort is that the room is heated — something they don’t take for granted after a winter spent in their car. 

With a roof over their heads, Zieroth hopes to finally get the surgery he needs, but he’s unsure of how long they can stay. 

They insist on paying the homeowners $50 a week — all they can afford — for letting them stay in the basement. Zieroth uses his skills as a mechanic to fix things around the property, and Hubbell picks items up for them at the Dollar General whenever she can.

Once healed, he wants to get back to work and acquire a property of his own, but his first priority is his daughter. After getting on her feet, Hubbell hopes to go to cosmetology school in Rice Lake.

“She has her whole life ahead of her and experience has taught me that some real bad beginnings get really good endings, and she deserves a good one,” Zieroth said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Wisconsin’s rural homelessness crisis and the fight to do ‘more with less’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The future may not have been written yet, but as it unfolds in 2025, Wisconsin Watch’s statehouse team will be on the lookout for stories that expose societal problems, explore solutions, explain the decisions that affect your daily life and hold the powerful to account.

Here are four storylines we predict we’ll be following in the new year:

1. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will expand abortion rights.

There are two abortion-related cases at the Wisconsin Supreme Court right now. One questions whether or not an 1849 law has been “impliedly repealed” by subsequent abortion laws and whether it even applies to consensual abortions. The other asks the justices to declare that access to abortion is a right protected by the state constitution. I’m guessing they will.

In another recent but unrelated case, Justice Rebecca Dallet suggested the court should broadly interpret the Wisconsin Constitution. “There are several compelling reasons why we should read Article I, Section 1 (of the state constitution) as providing broader protections for individual liberties than the Fourteenth Amendment (of the U.S. constitution),” she wrote. Article I, Section 1 of the state constitution states, in part, that all “people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That’s the exact provision Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin relies on in arguing abortion access is protected by the constitution. Seems noteworthy.

— Jack Kelly

2. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the Republican-controlled Legislature will again strike a deal to increase funding for public education and private voucher schools, similar to the compromise they made in 2023. 

Wisconsin held a record number of public school referendums this year. School districts, public officials, local taxpayers and public education advocates are speaking out, calling for increases in state aid after approving $4.4 billion in property tax hikes so their local schools can continue to cover operating costs, as well as large projects. After speaking with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers about this issue during the 2024 election cycle, many of them agreed that voters aren’t happy when they have to increase their own property taxes. Assuming Republicans are feeling the pressure to increase funding for public schools, K-12 spending could be on track to become one of the most significant budget items in 2025. 

But Republican lawmakers have also stood their ground in support of school choice and have criticized state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly’s $4 billion ask for public school funding in the upcoming budget. If Republicans do agree to per-pupil funding increases, it likely won’t match the amount Evers asks for. In turn, Republicans will likely demand an increase for the voucher system as well.

— Hallie Claflin

3. The state Supreme Court election will set another spending record.

The last time Donald Trump won the presidency, Democrats were so shell-shocked they didn’t field a candidate to challenge conservative Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler’s re-election bid. Then in January 2018 Democrat Patty Schachtner won a special state Senate election in rural northwestern Wisconsin, signaling a Democratic wave was building. Rebecca Dallet’s Supreme Court win in April of that year affirmed the wave. It also heralded a leftward swing of the state Supreme Court culminating with Janet Protasiewicz’s win in April 2023, an election that shattered national spending records for a state Supreme Court election.

Whether Dane County Judge Susan Crawford can continue the liberal winning streak or former Attorney General Brad Schimel can channel Trump’s winning vibes is far from certain. But April’s high court contest is a must-win for Republicans, so expect the $51 million record from 2023 to fall. A Crawford win would guarantee liberal control through 2028. A Schimel win would set up another pivotal election in 2026.

— Matthew DeFour

4. Ben Wikler will be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Democrats have been doing a lot of soul searching since their setbacks in November. While they haven’t reached a consensus on how to move their party forward — and they likely won’t anytime soon — they will need an effective communicator as their leader while they regroup. Wikler, who is a powerhouse fundraiser, is about as media-savvy as it comes. Whether it’s catering to a national audience on cable news, firing up the base on liberal podcasts like “Pod Save America” or speaking about local issues with local reporters like me, Wikler always stays on message. In a time when Democrats need to convince voters that they are looking out for their best interests, staying on message would be a valuable quality in a leader. That, combined with a track record of building strong party infrastructure at the state level and, most importantly, winning, makes him a standout among the declared candidates. We’ll find out his fate Feb. 1.

— Jack Kelly

Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.

State budget, Supreme Court race top next year’s political calendar is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.