The Wisconsin Ethics Commission confirmed in an email that online records reach back to 2008, though Hoffman only began donating to the state party in 2019. Wisconsin passed legislation in 2015 that allowed unlimited contributions to state parties.
State online campaign finance records show Hoffman’s name twice; he has profiles under different addresses.
Hoffman’s combined donations place him far above the second-highest donor, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, whose donations total about $5.9 million.
Hoffman’s name appeared hundreds of times in the latest release of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Hoffman apologized in 2019 for his role in rehabbing Epstein’s image.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
If we care about addressing alcohol addiction in Wisconsin, we must start thinking about it as a public health issue. Alcohol use is deeply embedded in Wisconsin’s history and has maintained its prevalence through the socialization and normalization of drinking culture.
Rather than focusing on an individual’s capacity to remain sober in a state known for its beer-battered you-name-its, pub crawls, wine walks, and pedal taverns, we need to shift our focus toward making our communities more welcoming spaces for sobriety.
To consider something a public health issue, it must pose a physical or mental health risk to populations rather than just individuals.
Alcohol use is a highly socialized activity and has been embraced by Wisconsin since its inception, due largely to its population of German immigrants in the 1800s. German-founded breweries laid the economic groundwork in Wisconsin’s early years, supporting farmers, employing families, fostering community and generating profit. With a culture that has prospered from the industrial, financial and social aspects of brewing throughout the years, it is no wonder that Wisconsin carries on this tradition.
In a state where drinking runs generations-deep, so do the health effects, and addressing a widespread issue calls for widespread changes.
Alcohol addiction must be considered a community risk rather than an individual’s shortcoming. The majority of Wisconsinites, more than six in 10 adults, reported consuming alcohol within the past month, and nearly 20% reported binge drinking. In 2024, alcohol-related hospitalizations in Wisconsin reached their highest number since 2015. Reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more than 3,450 Wisconsinites die from excessive drinking each year.
Wisconsin is the only U.S. state in which every county has reported engaging in excessive alcohol consumption among at least 23% of its adult population. We are also home to 10 out of 20 of the “drunkest cities in America” as reported by 24/7 Wall St.last year.
The average number of alcoholic beverages consumed throughout Wisconsin has decreased in recent years, but people are consuming more ethanol over the same time span. This means people are tending to consume drinks with higher alcohol content. As the data illustrates, this is a statewide concern, not a private matter.
We can make our communities easier places to be sober, not only in the interest of addiction recovery, but for the sake of promoting community well-being. On a structural level, this looks like advocating for greater access to recovery facilities and services. It also looks like supporting and sustaining local third spaces that are sober-friendly.
Want to be part of the solution? Then consider hosting alcohol-free gatherings, socializing at a café or a mocktail lounge and welcoming conversations about your choice to do so. Setting the bar starts with us, and this time, it’s not a bar with alcohol.
Kayla Doege is a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Master of Social Work program. She lives in Neosho and has spent five years working in youth mental health and substance use intervention.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
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The federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit rewards companies for hiring people who often struggle to get jobs.
Lawmakers are currently in the process of reauthorizing the $2 billion tax credit, which has been around since 1996.
Proponents of it argue that it helps people get jobs and get off government assistance.
However, a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Southern California found that the credit fails to increase hiring or pay for workers.
Furthermore, large businesses disproportionately use it.
A new study of Wisconsin data finds what some researchers and policy wonks have long suspected: The $2 billion Work Opportunity Tax Credit doesn’t work.
Congress created the credit in 1996 as it overhauled the country’s welfare system. It rewards companies for hiring people who often struggle to get jobs, including some people who receive government aid, have disabilities or felony convictions or have been out of work for a long time. Employers can typically claim up to 40% of the wages paid to qualifying workers, with a maximum credit of $2,400.
The credit subsidizes around 4% of all new hires, according to 2022 federal data cited in the study. Overwhelmingly, they’re low-wage, short-term jobs at large employers, including major retailers and temporary staffing agencies, researchers have found.
Researchers have wondered for decades whether the credit pays off, but most states don’t offer the kind of records that would answer that question. Wisconsin does.
Thanks to an unusual collaboration between the state government and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers can track the earnings and employment status of participants in certain social safety net programs.
In a 2025 working paper, researchers from UW-Madison and the University of Southern California studied two decades of records of Wisconsinites who received food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the most common way an employee qualifies for the tax credit. Researchers compared SNAP recipients who were eligible for the credit with similar recipients who weren’t.
Their findings were unequivocal.
“We find that these subsidies do not increase hiring or earnings among eligible groups,” the authors wrote. In fact, they said, their findings rule out even so much as a 0.2 percentage point effect on hiring.
They estimate 97% of the hiring subsidized by the tax credit would have happened anyway, a phenomenon known as “windfall wastage.” It’s possible, they wrote, that every one of the subsidized jobs falls into that category.
The companies that take advantage of the credit are disproportionately large. In Wisconsin, they found, half of the subsidies go to just 48 businesses. Nationally, they estimate the credit costs more than $2 billion a year.
“Without reform, the program will continue as a costly transfer to firms with little benefit to the populations it is meant to support,” the researchers wrote.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers wants to increase the credit, which expired in December.
In November, legislators introduced a bill to extend the credit and expand eligibility to older SNAP recipients and spouses of military service members. The legislation would increase the amount companies can receive and automatically raise the credit amount with inflation.
In a statement, co-author Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., called the credit “a proven tool” that serves workers and employers. “WOTC is a bipartisan, commonsense approach that every Member of Congress should champion,” Smucker said.
Neither Smucker nor co-author Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., responded to a request for comment.
Troubleshooting the tax credit
So why doesn’t the Work Opportunity Tax Credit work? The authors think one important reason is that hiring managers often don’t know which job applicants qualify.
To receive the credit, employers must certify that they knew the applicant was eligible on or before the day they hired the person. Researchers surveyed 170 companies that use the credit. Less than 1 in 5 screened for eligibility on job applications. At companies that do collect this information, it might stay in the human resources office, never reaching the person who decides who to hire.
That may well be intentional, said UW-Madison economist Corina Mommaerts, one of the authors of the study. Federal and state law bars employers from considering certain factors in hiring decisions. That includes age and, in some cases, criminal record. There are ways to screen applicants without violating such laws, Mommaerts said, “but you can see why employers might still be very concerned.”
In addition, she said, some job applicants may hesitate to tell a prospective employer that they’re eligible. People with felony convictions, for example, may prefer not to draw attention to their criminal records. In the last two years, Wisconsin authorities certified the hires of just over 3,000 people with a felony conviction as qualifying for the credit.
“The concern is that there might be this stigmatizing effect,” Mommaerts said, explaining that some employers try to minimize that by asking applicants to review all the WOTC eligibility categories and indicate whether any apply to them.
Melissa Riccio, director of inclusive hiring at the national re-entry nonprofit Center for Employment Opportunities, is an expert on that stigma. It’s her job to convince employers that hiring a formerly incarcerated person may not be as risky as they imagine.
Asked about the tax credit, she said such policies won’t singlehandedly make the kind of change she’s looking for, in part because many employers may see them as more work than they’re worth.
“You would never hear any of us say that it would be a bad thing,” Riccio said. “But I don’t think that that alone is enough to move the needle in encouraging employers to make a change in their hiring practices.”
Some policy experts say the new study proves that the temporary tax credit shouldn’t come back.
Until now, there was little evidence on how well the Work Opportunity Tax Credit works, said Jen Doleac, executive vice president of criminal justice at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures, who researches strategies to reduce recidivism and help formerly incarcerated people get jobs. She and former colleague George Callas penned an October op-ed in Tax Notes calling the credit “completely ineffective.”
“The evidence is clear: The WOTC does not serve its stated purpose and is a waste of taxpayer dollars,” they wrote. “Encouraging the hiring of workers from disadvantaged groups is a worthy goal. We must devote scarce public resources to solutions that actually achieve it.”
Lobbyists hail a proven, bipartisan tool
Initially authorized for just one year, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit has stuck around far longer — in part because of a powerful lobby. Major backers include payroll processing companies, temp agencies and groups representing the hospitality and retail industries.
In 2022, a variety of industry groups seeking “solutions to the U.S. labor shortage” joined forces to form the Critical Labor Coalition. One of the coalition’s top priorities: lobbying for WOTC. The group spent $60,000 on lobbying last year, according to watchdog Open Secrets.
“Members of the Critical Labor Coalition — representing restaurants, retail, hotel and lodging, construction, food manufacturing, and other sectors — consistently affirm that strengthening and reauthorizing WOTC is essential both to their industries and to addressing the nation’s ongoing labor shortage,” Critical Labor Coalition Executive Director Misty Chally said in an email.
Asked about the new Wisconsin study, Chally questioned its “narrow” focus on SNAP recipients. She said her group places “greater confidence” in a 2025 study commissioned by multinational talent management company Allegis Group. The authors of that study estimate renewing WOTC would subsidize 131,000 jobs, but they note it’s not clear how many of those jobs would have existed regardless.
“The exact impact of WOTC on net new job creation is uncertain … While some studies find that WOTC leads to meaningful employment gains among eligible groups, a significant share of the cost may stem from subsidizing hires that would have occurred anyway,” Allegis Group wrote. For their analysis, they assume more than 85% of those jobs would have existed without the credit.
Why has WOTC stuck around?
Sarah Hamersma has been worried about WOTC for more than 20 years.
In the early 2000s, she was an economics graduate student at UW-Madison interested in programs designed to reduce poverty and help people work. She wanted to study the much larger Earned Income Tax Credit. Her adviser suggested she instead examine the smaller, newer and unstudied Work Opportunity Tax Credit.
At the time, the credit was just 4 years old and limited to people who received cash welfare assistance. She asked state officials for access to the data. What she found matched what Mommaerts and her colleagues found decades later. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, which gives money directly to low-income workers — and which studies show increases employment and boosts incomes — this tax credit seemed to just boost employers’ bottom lines.
“They’re not passing it along to the workers in the form of higher wages. They’re just sort of being like, ‘Awesome, I got more money,’” Hamersma said.
She wanted to do similar analyses on other places, but she couldn’t find any other states willing to share their data. Now an economist at Syracuse University, she researches programs like Medicaid and SNAP.
“I started studying other programs that seem to make more of a difference … but I always come back to this,” Hamersma said.
From time to time, reporters contact her to ask about it. Lawmakers, not so much.
“I still wait for them to someday call me and say, ‘What should we do, Sarah? Should we reauthorize this?’ Congress has never called,” Hamersma said.
She’s sure legislators didn’t read her research. But she hopes they might read the new study, and that it might sway them.
“They’ve checked every angle you could possibly check, and the program is not working,” Hamersma said, calling it an “ironclad case.”
The new research was enough to convince Elena Spatoulas Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who saw the authors present their findings at a conference. “That really changed my mind about how we think about the credit,” said Patel, who co-authored a December op-ed calling for an end to WOTC.
But Congress has reauthorized the credit each time it lapsed before, and it will likely do so again this year, Patel said. It’s not just that there’s so much industry power behind the credit (“a classic case of lobbying versus good tax policy”), she said — it’s also that lawmakers like the idea of it.
“Unless and until something better is offered, it’s probably easier to renew the credit than to let it expire,” Patel said. “But again, it’s sort of ignoring the point, which is that we are spending taxpayer dollars on this by offering this credit, and it really isn’t helping employment.”
Exactly what the alternative might be is “the million-dollar question,” Patel said. Policy experts say options could include supporting evidence-backed job training programs or expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“If you’re trying to reduce poverty, putting money in the hands of working people is a great way to do it, which is what the Earned Income Tax Credit does … Those low-income working families get more money to spend on the things they need, and we kind of cut out the middleman of the employer altogether,” Hamersma said.
Still, Hamersma doesn’t think Congress will follow her advice anytime soon.
“This is my cynical take: It’s kind of the perfect program because it benefits corporations, which Republicans historically like, and it seems like it’s supposed to be for poor people, which Democrats historically like,” Hamersma said.
“The facts are kind of irrelevant, the facts where nobody gets helped — it doesn’t quite make it to the top.”
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
But some positive news is emerging in Wisconsin: State legislation is advancing that would make it harder to use the courts to silence people speaking on matters of public concern — whether they’re journalists or private citizens — by draining their time and resources.
About 14 months ago, I wrote about how Wisconsin is particularly vulnerable to these kinds of lawsuits, one of just 11 states without legislation to shield residents from them. Our friends at the Wausau Pilot & Review felt the consequences firsthand, spending $200,000 to defend themselves against a since-dismissed defamation lawsuit.
There was little momentum for anti-SLAPP legislation when I wrote the column. But that has since changed.
Lawmakers last year introduced bills that would create a clearer process for quickly dismissing SLAPP suits and require defendants’ legal fees to be paid by plaintiffs who bring meritless claims: AB 701/SB 666, introduced by Republican Reps. Jim Piwowarczyk and Sen. Eric Wimberger, with a suite of co-sponsors, including Democratic Reps. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez and Randy Udell.
The Assembly passed AB 701 last month with unanimous consent — a rare show of bipartisan agreement. The legislation still requires Senate passage before reaching Gov. Tony Evers’ desk.
If it makes it to the finish line before the Senate wraps up for the year, its impact would extend well beyond newsrooms. Everyday people face SLAPP risks, too. People in other states have been sued for leaving negative reviews online.
As a fiercely independent newsroom, Wisconsin Watch doesn’t typically opine on specific policies; we assemble information on matters of public concern so residents can form their own views through their own value systems. But free expression is fundamental to what we do — and fundamental to a functioning democracy.
That’s why Wisconsin Watch is joining other newsrooms and free speech advocates in urging the Senate to enact protections against frivolous lawsuits.
Have thoughts about this legislation or this moment for free speech in Wisconsin and the U.S.? I’d love to hear from you. Reach me at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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In most states, career and technical education programs have received increasing bipartisan support and financial investments. That includes lawmakers creating funding flows in several states that previously lacked them.
But Wisconsin hasn’t done the same, despite efforts from some state leaders.
As a result, access to these courses is uneven across the state, and the programs rely on federal funds many school leaders say are insufficient.
Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly said she’ll continue to press the Legislature to fund career and technical education programs in the next budget cycle.
As Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly traversed the state last month to visit classrooms, she saw students harvesting and selling farm-fresh food, managing coffee shops and learning in wood shops, among other hands-on training.
Through career and technical education programs, high school students can take unconventional classes like these that train them for in-demand jobs.The classes are popular among students, and schools want to offer more of them.
“Kids’ imaginations and their talents completely jump to life when they’re immersed in these settings and in these classrooms,” Underly said.
But whether students can access classes like these largely depends on if their school district can cobble together the funding. That’s because Wisconsin is one of just five states that don’t dedicate state funding to public schools for career and technical education programs.
In most states, programs teaching students hands-on job skills have secured increasing bipartisan support and financial investments in recent years, with lawmakers creating funding flows in states that previously lacked them.
Wisconsin hasn’t done the same, leaving access to career and technical education uneven across the state. The programs rely mainly on federal funds many school leaders call insufficient.
During Wisconsin’s most recent budget process, Underly requested $45 million for schools to spend on career and technical education. But as other issues took precedence, lawmakers rejected that proposal, likely leaving schools without guaranteed state funding for at least another two years.
Senior Thor Tuura, 17, shows Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly a project he worked on as part of Northwestern High School’s career and technical education program on Feb. 25, 2026. Wisconsin gets $25.5 million in federal funds for career and technical education, $8.3 million of which is appropriated to high school programs. (Erica Dischino for Wisconsin Watch)
“I want to make sure that every kid has these opportunities, and if we were to have dedicated state funding, we can make sure that they do,” Underly said. “Otherwise, we’re just leaving it up to districts. And sometimes whether a district can pass a referendum or not is going to be the difference of if they offer these programs.”
Schools and state education leaders say the federal funding schools get right now falls short of covering these programs, which are often pricey and require high-tech tools and teachers with field experience.
To make up the difference, schools often rely on piecemeal funding such as grants and donations, or ask voters to approve tax increases to fund new programs. The state has offered more piecemeal grants in recent years, but those funds are unpredictable.
“Career and technical education programs are among the most effective tools we have to keep students engaged, prepare young people for good-paying jobs, and address Wisconsin’s ongoing workforce shortage … Wisconsin employers are already facing serious labor shortages, and failing to invest in our workforce pipeline only makes that problem worse,” state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee, a member of the Joint Finance Committee, wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin an outlier
Early hands-on job training for students has emerged as a popular solution for nationwide skilled worker shortages.
States passed 90 policies bolstering high school career and technical education in 2024, illustrating its increasing political support.
Advance CTE, a nonprofit representing state career and technical education leaders, reported in 2023 that state funding for high school programs was increasing, while Wisconsin was among a handful of states with no such funding formula.
Technology and engineering teacher Laurence Charlier checks in with his students on Feb. 25, 2026, at Northwestern High School in Maple, Wis. Wisconsin lawmakers created “incentive grants” to help fund career and technical education programs statewide, bumping the allocation to $8 million in the 2023-25 biennial budget. (Erica Dischino for Wisconsin Watch)
States have since continued to increase funding, and at least one — Nebraska — has created a funding formula.
Underly made her $45 million request during the 2025-27 biennial budget process. Gov. Tony Evers then suggested a pared-down version – dedicating $10 million – which was scrubbed by the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee and not included in the final bill.
Underly believes lawmakers rejected her request due to widespread pressure to boost funding for the special education services schools are legally required to provide.
“I do think, though, that our Legislature values these programs,” Underly said. “They’re very proud of the programs that they have in their school districts, but it’s one of those things where it’s just, ‘What’s the most pressing need right now?’”
Students in Northwestern High School’s career and technical education program built signage for their sports stadium, seen on Feb. 25, 2026, in Maple, Wis. Advocates for career and technical education say reliable sources of state funding expand access, offer stability and allow programs to be flexible as workforce needs change. (Erica Dischino for Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin Watch asked all 16 lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee why these funds were not included in the budget. Just three responded. Two Democratic lawmakers pointed to the lack of bipartisan communication during the budget process, making it impossible to know why the funding didn’t make the cut.
“There is no discussion. It is not like we’re having a Mr. Smith goes to Washington, kind of a debate,” said state Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison. “There’s no WisconsinEye footage where I can point to them, where Democrats say, ‘Well, we should do this,’ and Republicans say, ‘Well, actually, we don’t want to do that.’”
Continuing the status quo?
The number of Wisconsin students enrolled in career and technical education courses has remained stagnant over the past few years, the most recent state data shows.
Roughly 64% of Wisconsin high schoolers have taken one of these classes, while just 25% have taken more than one career-focused course.
Certified nursing assistant students speak with Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly during a tour of Northwestern High School’s career and technical education program on Feb. 25, 2026, in Maple, Wis. (Erica Dischino for Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin gets $25.5 million in federal funds for career and technical education, $8.3 million of which is appropriated to high school programs. Schools have used these funds to “keep the lights on,” said Sara Baird, the Department of Public Instruction’s career and technical education section director. In fact, 23 states give more in state dollars than they receive in federal funds, said Laura Maldonado, senior research associate for Advance CTE.
In the meantime, Wisconsin has allocated career and technical education grant money to schools. Rather than directly funding programs, the funds are “incentive grants,” meaning they give schools money after students graduate from a career and technical education program and earn a certification in a high-need industry. In the 2023-25 biennium, lawmakers bumped the pot from $6.5 million to $8 million, where it stayed in the 2025-27 budget.
In a response to Wisconsin Watch’s request for an interview, Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, didn’t say why the committee denied the request for career and technical education funding. He pointed to the incentive grants as proof the Legislature “has consistently supported career and technical education by investing in workforce focused programs.”
Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s superintendent of public instruction, visits with students from Northwestern High School’s Tiger Manufacturing and Metals shop on Feb. 25, 2026, in Maple, Wis. (Erica Dischino for Wisconsin Watch)
Advance CTE advocates for states to have dedicated funding because it expands access to more students, lends stability and allows flexibility as workforce needs change, according to Maldonado.
“You’re trying to keep up with that labor market demand, and oftentimes it’s harder to do that with the federal funding,” Maldonado said. “You want to have that more flexible state funding source to be able to adjust that. So I think the main thing is that (federal funding) is often insufficient.”
In December, Wisconsin Watch reported on an Appleton technical charter school that struggles to manage high program costs and secure donations to stay afloat. The school received state grant funding to open, but a decade later, after those initial funds dried up, staff must chase down donations from local businesses.
Underly, whose term ends in July 2029, said she’ll continue to press for the creation of a state funding mechanism in the next budget cycle.
“If it was up to me … It wouldn’t be $45 million, it would be a lot more,” Underly said.
When this legislative session began, Wisconsin Senate leaders made the unusual decision not to create a committee dedicated to election policy for the first time in nearly two decades. That choice has had a measurable consequence: The Senate has taken up far fewer election bills than the Assembly, and several measures that cleared the lower chamber are now stalled with no clear path forward.
Of the 19 election bills that Votebeat has tracked this legislative session, 18 have gotten at least a public committee hearing in the Assembly, compared with nine in the Senate. Fourteen of those bills passed the Assembly, compared with six in the Senate.
Even in a session when the Senate has generally moved more slowly than the Assembly on many issues — as of Feb. 25, the Assembly had passed 439 bills since the start of the current two-year session, while the Senate passed 276 — the disparity is especially stark on elections.
Both chambers’ election activity is down compared to last session. With a dedicated election committee in the Senate, about 30 election bills received a committee hearing, compared with about 45 in the Assembly. Republicans have controlled both chambers for more than a decade.
“The lack of the dedicated committee has definitely changed things,” said Sen. Mark Spreitzer, a Democratic member of the local government and government operations committees. Without a clear Republican point person on election policy in the Senate, he said, the chamber is allowing the Assembly to drive most of the legislative action.
Some of the bills that have moved through the Assembly but haven’t passed the Senate include proposals to expand early voting hours and to bring the state in line with a 2022 federal law regarding the timing of casting electoral votes and certifying election results in presidential elections, designed to prevent the kind of post-election chaos that President Donald Trump and his allies sowed after the 2020 election.
“The lack of the dedicated committee has definitely changed things,” says Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, who is shown in a Senate session, June 7, 2023, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Clerks have told Votebeat that some of the stalled bills would significantly improve their efficiency — including an omnibus proposal to create a system tracking voters adjudicated incompetent and also send voters text notifications on the status of their absentee ballots, said Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat. That proposal passed through the Assembly in November, but hasn’t been heard in the Senate.
Given the absence of a dedicated Senate election committee, Tollefson added, the Assembly has been doing the heavy lifting. But even with ready-made bills, the Senate does not appear to be eager to pass election legislation.
In every legislative session since 2009, there has been a Senate committee formally tasked with covering election legislation. Committee chairs typically serve as the go-to experts on their panels’ subject areas. They consult with lobbying groups, schedule public hearings and set up committee votes — giving them the power to advance or stall legislation.
But when election bills are scattered across multiple committees, there’s no clear point person in the Senate to guide them through the process.
In the absence of a dedicated election committee in this session, several committee leaders declined to explain whether or when the stalled election bills might move. And some voting groups say it has made it harder to know who to consult with in the chamber to discuss election legislation.
At a WisPolitics event in Madison on Feb. 12, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said that the absence of a Senate committee “doesn’t make it hard to pass election bills.” He added that there are “definitely avenues where election bills can run in the Senate,” including the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development and the Senate Committee on Transportation and Local Government.
LeMahieu, a Republican, didn’t respond to Votebeat’s request for comment. Sen. Dan Feyen, the chair of the government operations committee, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. Sen. Cory Tomczyk, who chairs the local government committee, also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But even some of their fellow Republicans are seeing the effects. For example, Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara is the author of two of the bills languishing in the Senate, which would require and fund a certain number of early in-person voting hours in every municipality. Those reforms, she said, are “crucial to restoring confidence in our election process.”
She said in the Assembly, municipalities and clerks are working on a few details before the bills receive a final Senate vote, though both proposals passed the Assembly in November. The proposal to require the in-person hours got a Senate hearing in late January but has seen no activity since, while the bill to fund it hasn’t gotten a hearing at all.
There could still be a late flurry of committee activity. On Feb. 27, the Senate government operations committee approved the proposal to bring the state in line with new federal laws regulating presidential elections. But the next presidential race is two years away, and most of the bills that would affect all elections — not just presidential ones — remain stalled. Another bill to require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to hear complaints against itself was scheduled for a March 3 hearing.
With the legislative session entering its final stretch, though, the stalled bills face increasingly long odds. The last general floor session period of the biennium ends on March 19, and the Assembly is effectively finished for the session. That means the Senate only has a few weeks left to consider election bills that already cleared the lower chamber, and if the Senate modifies any of them, the Assembly is unlikely to return to approve the changes.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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While no hyperscale data centers are operating yet in the state, Wisconsin companies are helping power massive facilities elsewhere by supplying parts and equipment.
Just three Wisconsin companies have already amassed more than $1 billion in data center-related business.
It’s still unclear how much large-scale Wisconsin data centers will ultimately contribute to the state’s economy — and some question their long-term impact.
None of the billion-dollar-plus data centers planned for Wisconsin are yet online, but the nationwide, artificial-intelligence-fueled market is already spurring economic growth in the state.
Wisconsin business leaders say no comprehensive accounting has been done. But just three Wisconsin companies have already amassed more than $1 billion in data center-related business:
Regal Rexnord, a Milwaukee maker of motors, announced in February it had received $735 million in orders from data centers.
Generac, a Waukesha-based manufacturer, told Wisconsin Watch it has a backlog of $400 million in orders for backup generators for data centers. Moreover, Generac announced Feb. 19 it is acquiring a 120-employee Illinois engineering company to help meet data center demand.
Racine-based Modine announced in February 2025 it received $180 million in orders from a new customer for data center cooling systems to be manufactured in Virginia and Mississippi. In addition, the company in November opened a 155,000-square-foot plant in suburban Milwaukee to manufacture the systems.
Many companies don’t publicly report details on data center business they do, so it’s impossible to tally total economic impact in Wisconsin. But there are other examples.
Trane Technologies is manufacturing cooling systems for data centers in La Crosse, where it was founded in 1913, and says data centers are a strong part of its business. In November 2023, Excellerate opened a 385,000-square-foot plant in Little Chute, primarily to manufacture “modular electrical buildings” for data centers. Maysteel, a Washington County manufacturer, opened a data center hub in November 2024 and announced in February it is expanding the operation.
The sheer demand to outfit data centers has meant that some business has trickled down from larger companies to smaller ones.
Modular Power & Data has 90 employees in Dane County and suburban Milwaukee to manufacture electrical distribution products. Chief Operating Officer Erik Thompson told Wisconsin Watch that Modular did $10 million of data center business in 2025 and expects to more than double that in 2026.
That work is “transforming a very small company into what I believe will be a very large Wisconsin manufacturer,” Thompson said. “Without this growth, we’d always be much smaller.”
Employees at Modular Power & Data work on modular power systems in Cudahy, Wis., Feb. 25, 2026. (Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
Copper is shown at Modular Power & Data in Cudahy, Wis., Feb. 25, 2026. It’s used in electrical components that help power data centers. (Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
Because no hyperscale data centers are scheduled to begin operating in Wisconsin until later this year, their ultimate economic impact remains unknown.
Nationally, data centers are known for spurring construction work. That includes companies such as Brownsville-based Michels Corp., a lead contractor on the $15 billion data center under construction in Port Washington, and Waukesha-based Boldt Co. But those jobs are often temporary.
“The standard data center development model — speedy dealmaking and opaque negotiations — delivers short-term construction jobs and revenue, but little durable local economic upside,” the Washington, D.C.- based Brookings think tank concluded in February.
In Wisconsin, data center expenditures are projected to raise the state’s gross domestic product from $354 million in 2024 to $881 million in 2029, according to University of Virginia economist João-Pedro Ferreira, author of a study done for the Joyce Foundation. The data center workforce is expected to triple from 360 to 1,143 jobs, but constitute only 0.09% of the overall labor market.
“The impacts might seem a lot, but they are not,” Ferreira said.
At least $46 billion in hyperscale data centers are under construction or under consideration in Wisconsin. Besides Port Washington, $20 billion worth of data centers are under construction and planned in Mount Pleasant, and a $1 billion facility is being built in Beaver Dam. Proposals are pending in Janesville, Kenosha and Menomonie.
That’s as concerns about impacts on land, water and electricity spur loud opposition to data centers in Wisconsin. On Facebook alone, more than 24,000 people have joined groups to fight hyperscale centers that are proposed or under construction in the state.
But Wisconsin businesses see more growth from AI. In November, a foundation connected with Waukesha County-based Pieper Electric announced a $2 million donation to expand Waukesha County Technical College’s Applied AI Lab.
Dale Kooyenga, CEO of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and a former Republican state lawmaker, said skills being developed for data center construction have value after the facilities are built.
“These men and women building these data centers aren’t building just buildings, they’re building the world’s largest computers,” he said.
A generator for use in a data center manufactured by Waukesha-based Generac is shown at its plant in Oshkosh, Wis. (Courtesy of Generac)
Kooyenga also pushed back on claims that AI will be bad for the economy.
“The concept that robots and technology are out to get your jobs has been a concept in America since 1900. That’s not a new fear,” he said. “But the fact is, is that there will be a different-looking economy and different opportunities.”
AI’s growth is affecting workers unevenly across industries.
It’s reducing employment in the most AI-exposed industries, such as computer systems design, and it’s especially hitting younger workers, according to a new Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas analysis.
But wages in those sectors have continued to grow as AI tools are benefiting veteran workers — those who have gained knowledge from experience.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Seventy-two Wisconsin school districts are going to referendum in April seeking just over $1 billion from taxpayers at a time when voters indicate they are less likely to support increased funding for schools.
A record high 60% of registered voters said reducing property taxes was more important than increasing spending on public schools, according to the recent Marquette University Law School poll conducted in February. Fifty-seven percent of voters in the same poll said they would vote against a school referendum, same as October, but a reversal from six years ago when 57% said they would support one.
The public concern about property taxes creates an especially difficult environment this year for the school districts seeking financial approvals from voters. Sixty-two districts are pursuing operational referendums this spring, according to data from the Department of Public Instruction. Operational questions ask voters to approve whether school districts can increase taxes to pay for things such as educational programs, technology and transportation services.
The rest of the referendums in April would allow districts to borrow money for capital construction projects. Two districts, Howard-Suamico and Sauk Prairie, are asking voters to approve both capital and operational referendums.
Approval rates for districts have declined since 2018, according to research from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. A record number of school districts proposed referendum questions to voters in 2024, but the 70% approval rate was the lowest passage rate for referendums in a midterm or presidential election year since 2014. More than 20% of the districts going to referendum this April are returning to voters after failed referendums in 2025.
In the meantime, debates continue at the Capitol over state funding for public schools. Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders are expected to continue negotiating over how to use the state’s $2.4 billion surplus and what amount should be used to lower property taxes and support public schools. Just last week, a group of Wisconsin parents, four teacher unions and five school districts sued the Legislature arguing it’s failing to fund public schools. The Necedah Area School District, one of the plaintiffs in the case, is asking voters in April to approve a $5.8 million operational referendum across the next four school years.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin school districts continue to battle with the financial impacts of declining enrollments and rising costs as district leaders say state funding they receive has not kept up with inflation. The Appleton Area School District is seeking a $60 million operating referendum spread out over the next four years, which would fund efforts to help students struggling with poverty and mental health issues and plug a $13 million operating deficit that formed over three years of high inflation rates that outpaced available funding, Superintendent Greg Hartjes said.
“Certainly the timing is not good,” Hartjes said of Appleton’s operating referendum. “But it is because of that three years of high inflation that we can’t sustain another year. If we don’t pass a referendum, we are going to cut $13 million from our budget next year. And that’s a lot of services for kids.”
Why a school district goes to referendum
The two main sources of revenue for Wisconsin school districts are state funding and property taxes. In 1993, Wisconsin lawmakers put limits on how much school districts can increase funding from those two revenue sources. State law allows districts to go to referendum to ask voters to exceed the revenue limits with additional property taxes.
“It sometimes gets talked about as if it’s a fluke, or if it necessarily means that something bad is happening. That isn’t always the case,” said Sara Shaw, the deputy research director at the Wisconsin Policy Forum. “You might have an instance where a local community says, ‘Actually we’re fine with this. You tax us more. We have the means to be taxed more and we have the desire to fund education more.’”
School district revenue limits were connected to inflation until 2009, during the Great Recession, when a Democratic-controlled Legislature and Democratic governor chose to decouple them. Since then, as Republicans took control of state government in 2011, state education spending has not kept pace with inflation or the national average, according to the Policy Forum.
In recent years, the lack of inflationary increases to revenue limits and declining school district enrollment are among the main reasons why districts have gone to referendum, said Dan Rossmiller, the executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
“At the same time, your fixed costs, such as transportation, heating, lighting, insurance, health insurance for your employees and the salaries of your employees and the portion you pay toward their retirement are all coming up generally,” Rossmiller said. “So that puts school districts in a bit of a vice.”
The Wisconsin Rapids School District, which is asking voters to support a $19 million operating referendum over the next five years, is one of those examples. The district has an existing five-year operating referendum approved in 2021 that expires this school year, but was boosted by pandemic-related funds that are no longer available. Inflation, rising insurance costs and declining enrollment have put the district in a difficult position, said Wisconsin Rapids Superintendent Ronald Rasmussen.
“The district is in a situation now where our expenses exceed our revenue,” Rasmussen said.
But referendums are about compromise, Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, said at a February meeting of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee. It’s also not just schools that are feeling the impacts of inflation, Quinn said.
“There isn’t anybody in their family budget, a local entity unit of government or state government that can afford to keep up with the inflation that we’ve had to endure over the last four to six years,” Quinn said.
What about the 400-year veto?
During the 2023-25 state budget process, Evers used the governor’s veto powers to provide an annual $325 per pupil increase to school district revenue limits for 400 years.
Republicans have repeatedly slammed the veto and advanced proposals seeking to limit the governor’s partial veto powers in the future. In February, the Legislature added to the November ballot a constitutional amendment to prevent the governor from using veto powers to increase taxes or fees. It’s unclear if the proposed language would have affected the 400-year veto because the veto didn’t directly increase taxes or fees. Instead, it gave school districts more discretion to increase property taxes.
School leaders say they’re appreciative of the revenue authority coming from the 400-year veto, but it doesn’t make up for the lack of consistent inflationary increases since 2009. Districts are also still dependent on how the Legislature acts on revenue limits or general state aid.
“The more state aid we get means we get less property taxes,” Rasmussen said. “And this year, the revenue limit changed by $325, but the aid we got from the state that line stayed the same, so the difference was made up by local property taxes.”
Hartjes and Rasmussen said they are approaching frustration about property taxes by trying to inform residents about the basics of school funding, being transparent with potential voters about district finances and breaking down the cost of the referendum on a typical home in their community.
Districts across the state that are going to referendum this spring are holding similar information sessions to answer questions from potential voters and creating webpages for people seeking more information.
It’s not an easy task, especially as the cost of living remains the top issue for Wisconsin voters this year.
“Your price of everything else that you have to buy as a consumer is difficult,” Hartjes said. “And then to ask to have your property taxes raised? We understand the challenge for families.”
The election is April 7. Early voting starts March 24.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Members of an ad hoc Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources committee are urging wildlife regulators to work with a national expert as they finalize recommendations to guide state beaver management policy for the next decade.
Researchers and conservationists serving on the advisory body — which is largely composed of DNR staff and government and tribal representatives — hope that including additional scientific expertise, and even a potential computer-guided aerial beaver dam mapping survey, could assist regulators at a time when climate change is beginning to significantly alter Wisconsin weather patterns and pose widespread ecological risks.
“We’re taking our species out faster than they can recover, and when we are overexploiting our trout, when we’re overexploiting animals, plants, habitats, that’s going to make us lose these species faster,” said University of Minnesota ecohydrology professor Emily Fairfax, who has helped review and fact-check several beaver management plans and recently spoke to the committee. “I don’t think we have time to wait — full stop.”
A shift would transform long-standing beaver policy that frames the critters as a nuisance species.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wildlife services program has removed beavers and their dams in Wisconsin since 1988 under contract with the state, along with local governments, railroad companies and Indigenous tribes.
At least five states across the Mississippi River basin and Great Lakes region contract with the federal wildlife services program for beaver removal, but Wisconsin stands out among states for the quantity of beavers and dams USDA employees clear, the millions of dollars Wisconsin has invested to do so and the state’s justification.
Current trout policy includes killing beavers
USDA killed roughly 23,500 beavers across 42 states in 2024, about 2,700 of which were in Wisconsin, ranking the state among the top five in the nation.
In Wisconsin, the agency focuses on abating transportation hazards, such as flooded roadways. But, perhaps most controversially, about a third of sites where USDA traps beavers are coldwater streams.
Wisconsin currently prioritizes maintaining free-flowing conditions on the state’s prized coldwater streams, partly to appeal to its “customers” and their fishing preferences.
Henry Nehls-Lowe, Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited board secretary, casts his fly-fishing line in Sixmile Branch, a Class 2 trout stream, Oct. 7, 2024, in Grant County, Wis. Federal trappers killed about 2,700 beavers in Wisconsin in 2024. About a third of those were in coldwater streams. Wisconsin prioritizes free-flowing conditions to benefit anglers. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
But the strategy has faced increasing scrutiny, even among anglers, who are divided over the issue. Some beaver advocates say the state agency charged with protecting and enhancing natural resources shouldn’t let commercial interests unduly guide its decisions.
In 2025, the agency trapped and cleared dams in more than 1,550 miles of coldwater streams — roughly the driving distance from Milwaukee to Salt Lake City, Utah. The DNR uses proceeds from annual trout fishing stamp sales to finance the annual undertaking.
At least two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, have employed the USDA for trout stream clearing, but at a significantly reduced scale.
The DNR doesn’t know the impacts of these policies on Wisconsin’s beaver population, as it ceased conducting aerial surveys in 2014. Agency staff, instead, estimate beaver numbers and harvest impacts using trapper surveys and voluntary reporting of annual take. Staff believe the population remains stable statewide or is even growing.
Conservationists are calling on the DNR to systematically survey the state’s beaver population. Without obtaining a reliable count, they say, it’s impossible to devise a science-based management plan. Even if beaver removal continued on trout streams, critics say the state could better estimate the population by having trappers register their beaver take, as the DNR requires for turkey, deer, bobcat and bear harvests.
Meanwhile, an expanding body of research is showcasing beavers’ ecosystem and economic benefits and the drawbacks of removal.
Beaver dams help limit flooding
When beavers remain on the landscape, they create wetlands, which mitigate climate change impacts like drought, wildfires and flooding. Problemsthought to be endemic to the American West are now creeping eastward.
Thunderstorms wreaked havoc in southeastern Wisconsin last summer, bringing more than 14 inches of rain to some parts of Milwaukee within 24 hours on Aug. 9-10. Roughly 2,000 homes sustained major damage or were destroyed in the ensuing floods, and the county now faces more than $22 million in public infrastructure repairs after being twice denied federal disaster assistance.
Beaver dams can dissipate torrents of water when the sky opens — even to the city’s benefit.
Using computer models, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers estimated that the Milwaukee River watershed could accommodate enough beaver colonies to reduce flood water volumes by 14% to 48%.
Wisconsin beaver policy understudied
But scientists face decades of institutional consensus in Wisconsin that beavers degrade stream habitat and threaten wild coldwater fisheries.
DNR fish biologists say that beavers warm water temperatures and plug coldwater streams with silt. When unobstructed, the water bodies, which tend to contain few fish species, flow fast and hard.
“Past studies have identified some positive but mostly negative effects of beavers on trout, and my research builds upon this,” DNR fisheries scientist Matthew Mitro told the beaver management committee. “The option for lethal removal (of) beavers is an important tool that should remain available for resource managers.”
Yet critics charge DNR biologists with managing streams for the primary benefit of one species by trapping out another, justifying the practice using research that hasn’t undergone scientific peer review.
Henry Nehls-Lowe, Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited board secretary, nets a brown trout he caught while fly-fishing in Big Spring Branch, a Class 1 trout stream, Oct. 7, 2024, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
A 2011 academic review of beaver-related research conducted in the Great Lakes region, which predated Mitro’s recent research, found that 72% of claims concerning beavers’ negative impacts are speculative and not backed by data, while the same held true for 49% of positive claims. The negative claims included the idea that beaver dams warm stream temperatures and block trout passage.
DNR biologists often note that academic literature largely has been conducted in the western United States and can’t be directly transplanted to Wisconsin’s comparatively flat landscape.
That is all the more reason to get off our haunches and wade into beaver ponds, Fairfax said.
“We have to follow that up by collecting our own data sets,” she said. “We have to publish them in peer-reviewed journals and get that scientific stamp of approval.”
Beaver trapping and natural predation are distinct from targeted eradication, Fairfax noted. The former can be sustainable, while stream-wide depopulation and dam removal can damage entire ecosystems.
It’s also possible that stream clearing prevents beavers from moving to parts of Wisconsin where they are wanted or where they could thrive with fewer conflicts.
Federal government assesses Wisconsin’s beaver dealings
The DNR beaver management plan’s update coincides with a new USDA environmental assessment of the potential impacts of its beaver and dam removal in Wisconsin.
A conservation organization founded by beaver management committee member Bob Boucher announced its intent to sue the federal agency to compel it to update its previous assessment, published more than a decade ago. Then Boucher threatened to sue the DNR after it wouldn’t release a draft of the new one, currently under review.
The 2013 assessment determined that USDA’s involvement in clearing streams and conflict areas did not significantly impact the beaver population. It estimated wildlife managers would only trap about 2,000 beavers annually, but the agency exceeded that figure within a few years.
The USDA recommends staying the course, using lethal and nonlethal methods. When analyzing alternatives, the agency concluded that other wildlife managers would continue trapping with or without federal involvement.
The USDA allocates some funding for the installation of flow control devices that can reduce the footprint of beaver ponds by lowering water levels. But nearly all beaver conflict sites the USDA handles in Wisconsin are managed through trapping. Levelers do have limited effectiveness in settings like high-flow streams or infrastructure-heavy floodplains.
A tree impacted by beaver activity, Oct. 25, 2024, in Alma Center, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wildlife managers say that they need flexibility because no two beaver sites are identical.
“We’re not against beaver complexes,” DNR fisheries biologist Bradd Sims told committee members. “We’re not against ecosystem diversity, and I don’t know why people try to paint us that way. We’re an open-minded bureau that’s open to different management styles.”
Trout and beaver proponents do agree that climate change poses an existential threat to biodiversity. While the former group might view beavers as harmful to coldwater streams, the latter see their potential as a partner in creating resilient landscapes that accommodate not only fish, but also frogs, turtles, bugs, bats, birds and humans.
The committee’s next meeting is March 18 in Rothschild, Wisconsin. Ultimately, DNR staff will rewrite the current plan, release a draft for public comment and discussion at open houses, and present a revised document to the state’s natural resources board for ratification.
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. Sign up for Wisconsin Watch’s newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
The city of Madison on Monday appealed a ruling that allows it to be sued for monetary damages for disenfranchising nearly 200 voters in the 2024 election, arguing the decision would unrealistically require “error-free elections” and expose municipalities across the state to liability for mistakes.
The appeal comes after Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Conway’s Feb. 9 ruling that Madison could face potential financial liability for disenfranchising 193 voters whose absentee ballots were unintentionally left uncounted. Notably, the city did not specifically contest the judge’s rejection in that ruling of its earlier argument that absentee voting is merely a “privilege” under state law — a claim that would have shielded it from damages.
Instead, the appeal centers on who has the authority to enforce election laws and whether voters can sue for negligence. The city argues that such complaints must go first to the Wisconsin Elections Commission and asks higher courts to revisit a landmark 1866 case that allowed damages against election officials who deprive citizens of the right to vote.
“It is not difficult to imagine how the circuit court’s ruling may be perceived as an opportunity by partisan actors to influence the election,” attorneys for the city, former Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl and Deputy Clerk Jim Verbick wrote in the filing.
A permanent path to sue for damages over accidental election errors without going first through the commission could “chill the willingness of individuals to volunteer to assist with elections, and the willingness of voters to participate in the political process,” they wrote.
Madison asks court to revisit landmark voting case
Much of Madison’s appeal asks the court to revisit a key finding in the landmark 1866 case that secured the extension of the franchise to Black Wisconsinites, Gillespie v. Palmer. In that case, the court held that state law allows plaintiffs to sue election officials for damages if they “negligently deprive citizens of the right to vote.”
The case arose after Ezekiel Gillespie, a Black man, was turned away from the polls in 1865. While voters had ratified a measure extending the franchise to Black residents 16 years earlier, it went largely unenforced, as state officials still disputed whether the change was valid. Gillespie sued, and courts ultimately ruled in his favor, concluding in 1866 that Black Wisconsinites had been wrongfully disenfranchised for 17 years.
Although Gillespie was intentionally barred from voting, the court’s ruling established negligence — not just intentional misconduct — as a basis for disenfranchised voters to seek damages. The Dane County Circuit Court relied on that broader standard in allowing the Madison lawsuit to proceed.
Madison officials in their latest appeal argue the lower court misapplied the precedent. In their view, Gillespie was about protecting the right to cast a ballot — a right that they say isn’t disputed in this case. No election official in Madison denied that the 193 Madison voters had a right to vote, they wrote. Rather, they contend, the voters’ ballots were unintentionally left uncounted after being cast.
If Gillespie is extended under these circumstances, the defendants argue, Wisconsin would be the first state to allow “any voter whose ballot is accidentally uncounted a right to sue for monetary damages,” a premise that they say requires immediate review by higher courts given the impending 2026 midterms.
They also contend the 1866 ruling predates Wisconsin’s modern election system, and relying on “such an archaic interpretation of Constitutional rights in Wisconsin is grossly in error and requires intervention before the case proceeds further.”
Madison’s filing “seeks to erode the protections” guaranteed in Gillespie, said Scott Thompson, staff attorney for Law Forward, which filed the case. “This argument follows the city’s failed attempt to throw out this case by arguing that the right to vote does not protect absentee voters from disenfranchisement. The right to vote has value, and the voters the city of Madison disenfranchised look forward to having their day in court.”
Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, clarified that a court wouldn’t need to overturn the historic Black voting rights case entirely to rule that it doesn’t apply in the lawsuit against Madison.
“You could potentially read that case in a more narrow way, as applying only to intentional deprivation of the right to vote, as opposed to negligence and deprivation,” she said, adding that it’s likely that only a higher court could reinterpret Gillespie in such a way.
Law Forward’s response to Madison’s appeal is due on March 9. Then the Madison-based District 4 Court of Appeals is expected to determine whether the appeal may move forward.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
In Wisconsin, unlike in nearly every other state, first-offense drunken driving is not a crime.
Wisconsin treats a standard first-offense operating while intoxicated as a civil violation.
Punishment includes a fine of $150-$300 and driver’s license revocation for six to nine months.
Subsequent OWI offenses generally are crimes, but there is an exception.
If a second offense occurs more than 10 years after the first, first-offense penalties apply.
Otherwise, second and third offenses are misdemeanors. Jail time is five days to six months for a second offense and 45 days to one year for a third offense.
Fourth and subsequent offenses are felonies punishable by jail or prison time.
New Jersey treats first-offense OWI as a traffic violation, but up to 30 days in jail can be imposed.
In New Hampshire, first-offense is a misdemeanor, but no jail time can be imposed.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
A federal lawsuit filed Feb. 23 by the legal nonprofit group Protect Democracy alleges the Department of Homeland Security used facial recognition technology unlawfully to track legal observers and label them domestic terrorists.
In Milwaukee County, law enforcement representatives are addressing facial recognition technology-related fears from residents. They’re concerned about a potential collaboration with a company called Biometrica, which provides access to facial recognition search results.
In August, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball signed an “agreement of intent” to enter into a contract with Biometrica, said James Burnett, director of public affairs and community engagement and acting chief of staff at the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office.
“But the contract is still considered to be in draft form – not fully signed, executed or valid – and has to proceed, like any other proposed contract, through the county’s statutory signing process,” Burnett said.
There currently are no services or technology being provided by Biometrica, and Biometrica does not have access to any sheriff’s office data, Burnett said.
County Supervisor Sky Capriolo, member of the county’s Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services Committee, said she and residents have serious concerns.
“It warrants more consideration, education and discussion,” Capriolo said. “I certainly am not ready to green-light a contract.”
Capriolo said she’s waiting to hear whether the contract will go to her committee again.
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman took a different step and banned the use of facial technology by his department in early February.
On Feb. 24, Norman announced the suspension of MPD officer Josue Ayala for the improper use of a different tracking tool, the Flock camera system, to track a dating partner and a former partner.
“I am extremely disappointed to learn about the incident and expect all members, sworn and civilian, to demonstrate the highest ethical standards in the performance of their duties,” said Norman in a statement.
Ayala was charged by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office with one count of attempted misconduct in public office. Norman said he immediately directed MPD to create additional auditing mechanisms.
Concerns remain high
Social justice and civil rights advocates have expressed grave concerns about the use of the technology by both agencies, citing evidence of inaccuracies, racial bias and privacy violations.
Facial recognition technology uses artificial intelligence to identify someone by comparing a photo of an unknown face to some database of images of known faces, said Katie Kinsey at the Feb. 5 Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission meeting during a presentation by the NYU Policing Project.
The image databases can include mug shot collections, driver’s license records or images found on the internet, Kinsey said.
Facial recognition technology and local law enforcement
In spring, MPD acknowledged it used outside agencies’ licenses for facial recognition search results for two to three years without a written department policy.
The department also announced it was considering an agreement with Biometrica – an agreement that would have provided access to facial recognition technology to the department in exchange for approximately 2.5 million Milwaukee County Jail booking photos.
This proposal prompted months of public pushback before the announcement by Norman in February that the department would no longer pursue the technology.
ACLU preaches vigilance
The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin welcomed Norman’s announcement but also expressed concerns about MPD’s past decision making.
It is “extremely concerning that MPD secretly used FRT (facial recognition technology) searches for years without any standard operating procedure – or any written guidelines – in place,” an ACLU spokesperson said in an email to NNS.
The organization is urging Milwaukee residents to remain vigilant.
“Countless Milwaukee residents and community leaders have engaged in thoughtful community education, spent hours upon hours in public meetings and contacted their local elected officials to voice their unequivocal opposition to the use of (facial recognition technology), and they will still be watching,” the spokesperson said.
The MPD spokesperson told NNS the department could revisit the issue in the future when a policy is in place that aligns with both public safety benefit and public concerns.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
In other words, Wisconsin voters won’t see Hong on the ballot until late summer.
A Marquette University Law School poll – published the same day as the misleading post – found 11% of Wisconsin voters said they plan to vote for Hong in the primary, compared to 10% for Mandela Barnes. A majority of voters, 65%, were undecided.
Polls do not determine election outcomes, and there is no guarantee that Hong will maintain that lead over the next six months.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
I have visited many after-school and summer programs across Wisconsin, from large urban sites to small rural schools, and what I’ve seen has stayed with me. I’ve watched students immersed in creative writing, acting and robotics. I’ve observed staff working one-on-one with kids navigating intense emotional challenges. And I’ve seen the smiles on middle schoolers’ faces as they reconnect with trusted mentors at the end of the school day. These programs are not “extras”; they provide crucial support to kids, families and entire communities.
The access gap
And yet, for far too many Wisconsin families, these opportunities remain out of reach. According to the latest America After 3PMreport, nearly 275,000 Wisconsin children who would participate in after-school programs are not enrolled because none are available. Four in five children who could benefit from these supports are missing out. Parents cite cost, lack of transportation and a simple lack of local programming as the biggest barriers.
The benefits are clear
The impact of these programs is undeniable. Parents overwhelmingly rate their children’s after-school programs as excellent or very good, reporting that they keep kids safe, build social skills and support mental wellness. Research in Wisconsin shows that students who participate in extracurricular activities are less likely to report anxiety or depression and more likely to feel a sense of belonging.
Out-of-school-time programs often provide the space for deep, long-term mentoring, a powerful protective factor in a young person’s life. While teachers are often stretched thin during the academic day, out-of-school-time staff can focus on the relational side of development.
The cost of instability
When funding is unstable, it undermines the very connections that make these programs transformative. Recently, a Boys & Girls Club director shared the human cost of budget constraints: They were forced to reduce a veteran staff member to part-time. This didn’t just trim a budget; it severed a multi-year mentorship. When that bond was broken, several youths stopped attending entirely.
Wisconsin lags behind national trends
Across the country, after-school and summer programs are increasingly viewed as essential to youth development. Twenty-seven states provide dedicated state funding for these programs; Wisconsin provides none. States as different as Alabama and Texas recognize that federal funding alone is not enough. So do our Midwestern neighbors.
Public support for these programs is strong and bipartisan. Families across Wisconsin want safe, enriching opportunities for their children. With a significant budget surplus, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to invest in its future.
State leaders should view out-of-school programming as a foundation for safety, mental health and long-term economic opportunity. We have the resources; now we need the will. By committing to consistent state funding, we can ensure that every young person in Wisconsin has a place to belong when the school bell rings.
Daniel Gage is a consultant with the Afterschool Alliance and Wisconsin Out of School Time Alliance, focusing on advocacy and outreach. He co-founded the Wisconsin Partnership for Children and Youth, a coalition that promotes after-school and summer programs as vital for healthy youth development and future citizenship.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
This story was originally published on Investigate Midwest.
Lisa Lawler wasn’t surprised when diagnosed with breast cancer in 2025. Her mother had breast cancer and died in 2016. It seemed like cancer had become a common diagnosis for many of her neighbors and friends.
“With how many people seem to get cancer in our community, you just assume you will get it,” said Lawler, who lives in rural Hardin County, Iowa. “But no one really talks about what’s causing it.”
After 10 rounds of radiation and a surgery to remove the tumor, Lawler’s cancer was in remission. Last year, she took a test to determine if her cancer was likely genetic, meaning a high chance of recurrence, which could lead her to have her entire breast removed.
She was surprised by the results.
“The genetic test they ran for me was one that covered 81 genes that are typically related to breast cancer,” Lawler said. “After the test, they told me my cancer is likely not genetic, but likely environmental, based on these 81 genes.
“Your next thought is, then what’s in the environment that caused my cancer?”
Increasingly, pesticides are being blamed for rising cancer rates across America’s agricultural communities.
Hardin County, home to around 800 farms, has a pesticide use rate more than four times the national average and a cancer rate among the highest in the state.
Most of the 500 counties with the highest pesticide use per square mile are located in the Midwest. Sixty percent of those counties also had cancer rates higher than the national average of 460 cases per 100,000 people, according to an analysis of data from both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Cancer Institute.
This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship.
Last year, Investigate Midwest, in partnership with the University of Missouri, investigated the link between agrichemicals and cancer in Missouri, finding that many were rural communities that already lacked access to health care.
Investigate Midwest expanded on that coverage by analyzing data across the country, along with interviewing more than 100 farmers, environmentalists, lawmakers and scientists as part of a partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. The result was the picture of a nation at a crossroads in dealing with this public health crisis that has not just been ignored by state and federal health officials, but aided.
This story was also supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
“Cancer is everywhere and it’s an experience that is unfortunately all too common,” said Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs at the Iowa Environmental Council, a Des Moines-based nonprofit that has been studying the state’s growing cancer rate.
Agrichemicals have helped America become a crop-producing power, increasing yields of commodity crops — such as corn and soybeans — used for food, fuel and animal feed.
Sprayed from airplanes, drones, tractors and handheld devices, these chemicals can drift through the air or run off into nearby rivers and streams.
And for decades, some farmers and pesticide users have developed neurological and respiratory issues. Thousands of lawsuits have alleged that pesticides and the companies that make them were to blame.
Pesticide manufacturers often rejected those claims while sometimes concealing research by their own employees that raised similar concerns. These companies — such as Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and BASF — have also spent millions to lobby federal and state lawmakers for laws that would limit their legal liability and continue to allow them to sell agrichemicals.
“This is one of the most transparently reviewed products ever,” said Jessica Christiansen, the head of crop science communications for Bayer, speaking about her company’s production of Roundup, a glyphosate-based pesticide. “This product is so well studied … been on the market for over 50 years with thousands and thousands of studies. There is no linkage to cancer, there just isn’t.”
Under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture have also hired dozens of former pesticide executives and lobbyists, some of whom have already pushed for deregulation of their industry. The Department of Health and Human Services has also altered its own reports to downplay the harm of pesticides.
Two states — North Dakota and Georgia — recently passed laws limiting their residents’ ability to sue pesticide companies, and at least a dozen other states will consider similar laws in the coming months.
“We’ve gotten to a point in the U.S. … where we’ve stopped treating pesticides as if they are dangerous tools,” said Rob Faux, who manages a small Iowa farm and has advocated against pesticide liability shield laws. “Instead, these companies tell these stories that these pesticides are completely safe and we are encouraged to use them anytime. We’ve been convinced that we must use them or we are not going to have enough food to eat.”
In Iowa, a state with heavy pesticide use — 53 million pounds last year — and the nation’s second-highest cancer rate, doctors and health officials have been sounding an alarm for years.
The state has become ground zero in the fight to limit the impact of pesticides on health and the environment. Farmers have gathered at the state Capitol to advocate for increased laws and funding to address the rising cancer rate. That advocacy likely helped defeat a bill last year that would have protected pesticide makers from some lawsuits.
I call myself a Republican, but this is not about politics; this is about money, about the almighty dollar.”
— Bill Billings, a resident of Red Oak, Iowa, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2024
“I believe the groups wanting this (bill) to go through didn’t expect any substantial resistance, but there was enough resistance,” said Faux, who also works for the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, a nonprofit advocating for less agrichemical use.
The Iowa bill was strongly opposed by environmental and health organizations, which have traditionally been left-leaning. But there was also strong opposition from many conservative residents and farmers.
“I call myself a Republican, but this is not about politics; this is about money, about the almighty dollar,” said Bill Billings, a resident of Red Oak, Iowa, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2024.
Initially, doctors told Billings, then 61, he would likely be dead in a matter of months after discovering lymphoma in his lungs. A health enthusiast and hospital administrator, Billings had been a regular user of Roundup, the popular Bayer pesticide used on farms and residential properties.
“The cancer specialist said, very directly, (my) cancer is a result of being exposed to chemicals,” Billings said. “In my records, it literally says that I have cancer as a result of exposure to Roundup and agrochemicals.”
Billings was prescribed a five-drug regimen, along with chemotherapy. In September, he was declared cancer-free.
Last year, he hired a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Bayer.
“The irony is … Bayer Pharmaceuticals makes one of the drugs that treated my cancer,” Billings said. “It’s disturbing to find out you are in this financial circle — not only as a consumer, but as a patient.”
Bill Billings in Red Oak, Iowa, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Geoff Johnson for Investigate Midwest)
The home of Bill Billings in Red Oak, Iowa, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Geoff Johnson for Investigate Midwest)
Surrounding neighborhood in Red Oak, Iowa, photographed Jan. 21, 2026. (Photos by Geoff Johnson for Investigate Midwest)
Research increasingly links pesticides to growing cancer risk
Cancer is a complex disease and can be caused by numerous environmental and genetic factors. Some links have been clear — such as smoking and lung cancer — while other forms can be impossible to trace back to an original cause.
But scientific research linking pesticides with certain types of cancers has been growing.
“Our findings show that the impact of pesticide use on cancer incidence may rival that of smoking,” scientists wrote in a 2024 study, which was published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society.
The study linked pesticides to prostate, lung, pancreas and colon cancers. Pesticides have also been associated with lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease, the study claimed.
Many doctors in agricultural communities say the link with pesticides is hard to deny.
“Iowa has a super high rate (of cancer) and when you look at all of our modifiable risk factors … tobacco, obesity, too many calories, highly processed foods, lack of physical activity, alcohol consumption, getting vaccinated for HPV, sun exposure, and so on, Iowa doesn’t really stand out dramatically at any of those,” said Dr. Richard Deming, medical director at MercyOne Cancer Center in Des Moines. “But one thing that distinguishes Iowa from other states is our environmental exposure to agricultural chemicals.”
Deming and other health experts also point to Iowa’s high radon levels, a naturally occurring radioactive gas produced by uranium and radium.
The state also has high levels of fertilizer-derived nitrate in its water, which has been associated with increased cancer risk.
“But we use tons of ag chemicals that make it quite likely that the volume of these chemicals is contributing to what we’re seeing in Iowa in terms of the increased incidence of cancer,” Deming said.
A direct correlation can be difficult to determine, as cancer development times can range from months to decades. Overlaying cancer rates onto a map, however, highlights the nation’s top crop and vegetable growing regions, where pesticide use is highest.
The Midwestern states of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri — leading corn-growing states — had the highest rates, while rates were also high in California and Florida, high fruit-growing states.
Lawler, who developed breast cancer in Hardin County, grew up on her family’s 400-acre farm, where her father grew corn and used 2,4-D, a pesticide made by Dow Chemicals. She and her siblings moved out of state after high school, but Lawler returned in 2010.
Pesticides have become indispensable in farming, Lawler acknowledged, but she wishes more people would ask questions about the risks.
“We change products all the time when we learn about the health impacts,” Lawler said.
These family photos show Lisa Lawler with her mother and siblings over the years. Lawler was recently diagnosed with breast cancer; her mother later died after a cancer diagnosis. The family believes years of farm pesticide and herbicide exposure may have contributed. (All photos courtesy of Lisa Lawler)
As lawsuits mount, Bayer pushes state laws to limit liability
In early 2022, Rodrigo Santos had just been promoted to the head of Bayer’s crop sciences division, a prestigious position within the German-based chemical company. But a global pandemic, climate change and a pending war in Ukraine were disrupting the global production and sale of crops — a direct hit to the company’s pesticide sales.
“The global food system is in crisis,” Santos wrote in a column for the World Economic Forum, going on to say that the world needed to grow more food without a significant increase in the amount of land devoted to crops.
But beyond the pandemic and war, another crisis presented an existential threat to one of the company’s top-selling products. Roundup, the glyphosate-based weed killer produced by Monsanto, which Bayer bought in 2018, had been blamed for causing cancer in thousands of lawsuits.
Since purchasing Missouri-based Monsanto, Bayer’s stock price has dropped more than 90% over five years.
In recent years, Bayer executives, including Santos, openly discussed discontinuing glyphosate production. We are “evaluating all the alternatives that we have for the business,” Santos told investors last year when asked about a possible sale of its Roundup division.
But while Bayer publicly said it was reconsidering its glyphosate business, a review of lobbying disclosure statements, campaign finance records, state legislative records and other documents reveals the world’s largest pesticide company remains committed to expanding its sales.
Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the EPA regulates the warning labels on pesticide products. While state-level lawsuits have claimed that federal labeling is insufficient, pesticide companies, including Bayer, have argued that federal regulations should trump state laws.
Bayer, along with other corporate agriculture groups, has pushed for bills in more than a dozen states that would codify the view that federal labeling regulations are sufficient warning, effectively voiding state-level lawsuits.
Christiansen, the head of crop science communications for Bayer, disputed that these laws will stop lawsuits and said courts have yet to begin interpreting those that have passed.
“Folks can still sue a company, and they should if there’s a problem,” Christiansen said. “But the litigation industry has a lot to lose with these (bills) that are out there.”
Founded by Bayer, the Modern Ag Alliance has lobbied for these bills and promoted opinion articles downplaying the health impacts of pesticides.
“If farmers lose access to crop protection products because of misguided ideological agendas, U.S. agriculture would be upended, potentially forcing many family farms to shut down and driving up food costs for every American,” said Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, executive director of the Modern Ag Alliance.
The Modern Ag Alliance has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on state lobbying since 2024.
Most of the bills came up short in 2025, but Georgia and North Dakota passed liability shields that will complicate local lawsuits.
Georgia’s Senate Bill 144, which took effect Jan. 1, received some bipartisan support but was mostly approved by the Republican majority and opposed by Democrats.
Similar bills have been filed in at least 10 states for this year’s legislative sessions.
In 2024, the Iowa bill was passed by the state Senate with a 30-to-19 vote. Ahead of a vote in the House last year, farmer and environmental groups lobbied against the bill.
The session ended without the House taking up a vote. The bill could return in 2026, but Faux, the Iowa farmer, said he also worries about it being “snuck into” another bill or budget agreement.
“I don’t think we can just assume this fight is over,” Faux said.
In other states, backlash seemed to stop liability shield bills before they got started.
In Oklahoma, Rep. Dell Kerbs, a Shawnee Republican, authored a pesticide liability shield bill he said was meant to end “frivolous” lawsuits against pesticide makers.
“What’s happened in our country is we have … judges that have decided they need to be in the labeling business,” Kerbs said when introducing his bill at a Feb. 11, 2025, hearing of the House agriculture committee.
State Rep. Ty Burns, another Republican, asked Kerbs why he chose to author the bill.
“I was first approached by Bayer,” Kerbs responded.
“But this is a labeling bill; it is not an immunity bill. It is just clarifying on EPA labeling regulations,” Kerbs added. “There is nothing that prevents a lawsuit from any single person. This is not giving a free pass to kill people. This simply is saying that a frivolous lawsuit to potentially pad the pocket of somebody who was not reading the label is not a justification to add that to a label through a state district court.”
But when Burns asked Kerbs about opposition to the bill, especially from many farmers, Kerbs denied receiving any complaints.
“That is hard to believe,” Burns told Kerbs, “because I have been bombarded.”
The bill was never presented to the House for a vote.
After early promises, MAHA walks back pesticide oversight
While liability shield laws have been largely advanced by Republican lawmakers, the push to further regulate pesticides has transcended partisan lines.
Both left-leaning environmental groups and conservative health movements, which have targeted agrichemicals and some vaccines, have called for reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been a longtime critic of pesticides. In a May 2025 report, his Make America Healthy Again commission linked pesticide overuse to children’s health issues, which drew praise from both political camps.
George Kimbrell, co-executive director of the Center for Food Safety, which has advocated for stronger pesticide regulations, called the initial report a “baby step” forward and said he was encouraged after decades of inaction by the federal government.
“Going back my entire career, 20-plus years now of doing this work, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, they have been beholden to and done the wishes of the pesticide industry,” Kimbrell told Investigate Midwest last year. “So, this is a unique moment where … there’s a chance that there could be some positive change in terms of responsible oversight for these toxins.”
Corporate agriculture groups heavily criticized the report, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and CropLife America, a national organization representing many large agrichemical companies, including Bayer, Corteva Agriscience and Syngenta.
Many of those groups and companies had been large financial backers of Trump. But Kennedy downplayed any concerns that the president would avoid taking a hard position against pesticide companies because of that support.
“I’ve met every president since my uncle was president, and I’ve never seen a president (like Trump), Democrat or Republican, that is willing to stand up to industry when it’s the right thing to do,” Kennedy said at a May 22, 2025, MAHA commission meeting as the president sat smiling to his right.
Three months later, Kennedy’s MAHA commission published its final report, which contained no calls to further regulate pesticides. In fact, it called for the federal government to work with large agrichemical companies to ensure public “awareness and confidence” in the EPA’s current pesticide regulations.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment from Kennedy.
Many of the groups that expressed optimism over the initial report were outraged over the change.
“This report is … a clear sign that Big Ag, Bayer, and the pesticide industry are firmly embedded in the White House,” said David Murphy, the founder of United We Eat and a former finance director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign.
The Trump administration has employed several pesticide executives, researchers and lobbyists at the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Kyle Kunker, who was a registered lobbyist for the American Soybean Association, an organization that has advocated for the legal liability shield laws at the state level, was hired last year to oversee pesticide policy at the EPA.
Three weeks later, the EPA recommended expanded use of dicamba-based herbicides, which federal courts had previously restricted. The EPA proposal was closely aligned with the position of the American Soybean Association.
In 2025, the EPA also hired Nancy Beck and Lynn Ann Dekleva, both of whom worked with the American Chemistry Council.
Last month, a coalition of MAHA supporters called for the removal of Lee Zeldin, administrator of the EPA.
Recent EPA decisions around pesticides “will inevitably lead to higher rates of chronic disease, greater medical costs, and tremendous strain on our healthcare system,” the group stated in a petition circulating online.
Several prominent MAHA influencers have joined the petition, posting anti-pesticide messages on social media under handles such as The Glyphosate Girl and the Food Babe. “The EPA is acting like the Everyone Poisoned Agency,” wrote Kelly Ryerson, on her Glyphosate Girl Instagram feed.
As the EPA advances pesticide use, the Trump administration has also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that federal labeling laws invalidate state-level lawsuits.
“After careful scientific review and an assessment of hundreds of thousands of public comments, EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings,” Trump’s solicitor general wrote in an amicus brief with the Supreme Court.
However, one of the studies the EPA has often cited in claiming pesticides are safe was recently retracted due to concerns about its authorship and potential conflicts of interest.
The report, published in 2000 by the scientific journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, claimed Roundup “does not pose a health risk to humans.” The report has been the foundation for numerous other studies, court cases and policy decisions.
The journal retracted the study last year, noting that court cases had revealed that Monsanto employees had contributed to the study. “This lack of transparency raises serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors of this article and the academic integrity of the carcinogenicity studies presented,” the retraction stated.
“This is just one example of how the current process of certifying these chemicals is broken in the U.S.,” said Colleen Fowle, water program director at the Iowa Environmental Council. “At the very least, we’re hoping that this (retraction) eliminates this specific research article from being cited in the future and concentrates more on independent peer-reviewed research as our basis to determine the safety of glyphosate.”
Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit online at www.investigatemidwest.org
Rep. Derrick Van Orden stands out among vulnerable House Republicans: He has not softened his rhetoric on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics, despite public outcry over the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.
The Wisconsin Republican, whose seat is one of Democrats’ targets in the 2026 midterms, supported an investigation into Alex Pretti’s killing, but said his “support for federal law enforcement” would remain “unwavering.”
Van Orden told NOTUS he is holding firm in his support for the Trump administration’s deportation efforts because of the crime committed by unauthorized immigrants.
He cited a video posted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week alongside the caption, “American citizens raped and murdered by those who have no right to be in our country.”
“That’s why I back ICE,” Van Orden said. “Watch that video, and then you would never ask me that question again.”
“If you can look at that thing and see all these people that have been brutally murdered and the families that have been destroyed because of these criminal, illegal aliens, and you’re willing to turn your back to it, that means you have an alternative purpose or an alternative objective,” Van Orden said.
Van Orden’s hard-line position in support of the president’s mass deportation agenda in one of this year’s most competitive races will test the Trump agenda in the very part of the country that helped secure the president a second term in the White House.
His district includes the farmland and exurbs of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, spanning Wisconsin’s border with Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Van Orden won by a margin of 2.8 percentage points in 2024. Trump won the district by more than 7 percentage points. In a midterm cycle that favors Democrats, and at a time voters are losing trust in Republicans’ immigration agenda, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as a “toss up.”
“We’re not a border state. It’s not something that was on the agenda prior to Trump. And obviously, people like Derrick Van Orden have taken the most extreme possible positions on an issue that I’m not sure was top of mind for most Wisconsin voters,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative political commentator and Wisconsin resident.
Van Orden has shown his MAGA bona fides through issues like immigration and trade, where he has defended the president’s actions.
He followed the administration’s lead, expressing support for body cameras on immigration officers, a reform that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she would implement after Pretti was killed. Democrats want to standardize that policy in a DHS funding bill.
“It allows good cops to be good cops, and it holds police officers that may not be doing what they should do accountable publicly,” Van Orden said. “And that makes the force better, that makes the American population trust law enforcement more.”
He said he will await the results of a full investigation into Pretti’s death, but has laid the blame for the rise of political violence squarely with Democrats, as many in the administration and Trump’s circle have done.
“This is unfortunately true for many Democrats. They’re willing to put those American lives, throw them into the garbage can for political power, which means they have no business being in power,” Van Orden said.
There are issues where Van Orden has broken with the conservative mainstream. In January, he voted to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies to prevent coverage loss, though he is opposed to the program. He has advocated for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which he used as a child, though he voted for cuts to the program in the budget reconciliation bill.
Faced with a frustrated agricultural industry, Van Orden introduced a bill to create a path to temporary worker status for immigrant agricultural workers who self-deport and pay a fine. Wisconsin farms employ a large immigrant labor force.
“He has this interesting dichotomy of picking some of those softer issues that might appeal to independents and some others, versus his very strong pro-Trump issues where, obviously that’s going to settle well with the MAGA voters and the pro-Trump Republicans,” said independent political strategist Brandon Scholz, who formerly ran the Wisconsin Republican Party.
In contrast, other House Republicans facing heated reelection bids this year have moderated their positions on immigration enforcement, calling for a reassessment of the country’s immigration policy.
“Congress and the president need to embrace a new comprehensive national immigration policy that acknowledges Americans’ many legitimate concerns about how the government has conducted immigration policy,” Rep. Mike Lawler wrote for The New York Times.
Van Orden declined to comment on other Democratic demands for DHS reforms, which include a ban on masks and identification requirements for immigration agents, until the party funds the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and the U.S. Coast Guard.
It is these nonimmigration agencies within DHS that Van Orden’s constituents are affected by during the partial government shutdown, which has left some without paychecks and blocked others from receiving their boating licenses to go out on the district’s many lakes, he said.
That message may work with his constituents, Scholz said. While Republican voters in Wisconsin may be concerned about immigration, the issue has not historically been top of mind for them.
“There are other issues for them that may be more critical to making a decision on what they’re going to do, i.e. economic issues,” Scholz said.
This story was produced andoriginally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
Inside the mostly empty town hall in the town of Wausau on County Road Z last week, a handful of voters cast ballots in wooden booths for a school board race. The biggest question on the minds of local election officials wasn’t who would win — it was who would run elections next year.
After two clerks left within a year, longtime town supervisor Sharon Hunter stepped in because no one else would. Hunter’s term ends in April 2027. Nomination papers for a potential successor are due in January 2027, but local officials still don’t know who comes next.
“Sharon’s not going to do 29 years,” Deputy Clerk Amy Meyer said, referring to the long tenure of the clerk who resigned in late 2024, setting off the cascade of brief replacements.
Hunter, 72, laughed. “I’d be over 100 years old,” she said. “I don’t think you want me here with my walker.”
Hunter’s decision to step up in a town of 2,200 may seem insignificant. But Wisconsin’s election system — one of the most decentralized in the country — depends on people like her. The state requires each of its 1,850 municipalities to run its own elections. That means hundreds of local clerks are needed to keep the system running. By contrast, Texas, a state with nearly five times Wisconsin’s population, relies on county-level election offices and has about one-sixth as many local election officials.
That structure leaves Wisconsin unusually dependent on small-town clerks. Between 2020 and 2024, more than 700 municipal clerks here left their posts, the highest turnover by raw numbers in the nation. As rural communities age and fewer residents are willing or able to take on an increasingly complex job, replacing them has become harder — raising questions about how long the state’s hyper-local model can hold.
The system can absorb one vacancy. It strains under dozens. Elections get stitched together, paperwork piles up, and the quiet machinery of local government — licenses, payroll, meeting notices — shifts its weight onto whoever is left.
The town of Wausau municipal building is pictured Feb. 17, 2026. The town has had three clerks in the past year and struggled to keep the position filled until Sharon Hunter stepped in, giving up her vote as town supervisor. (Alexander Shur / Votebeat)
Meyer, 55, understands why people don’t want the job — she doesn’t want it either. Like her mother, she has worked elections in town for much of her adult life. She considered becoming clerk, but it wasn’t the right time. She doesn’t want residents coming to her house with ballots or questions, as they once did under the longtime clerk.
“There comes a point in the day where I want to turn my phone off,” Meyer said from the town hall, situated at the center of loosely stitched county roads dotted with ranch homes and small farms, some of them no longer in operation. “I don’t want to hear that your garbage didn’t get picked up, or your neighbor’s dog is barking,” she said. “I just don’t.”
In a small town, the clerk is often the first call for everything from election deadlines to everyday complaints — and the learning curve is steep.
“It’s going to take you practically the first year to learn everything,” Meyer said. “Now, we have somebody new in it, and we have spent half the term relearning.”
Older residents have long filled these roles, but clerks say the job has grown more demanding, with little added support. It is often thankless work for modest pay. In Wausau, the clerk earns about $27,000 a year with no benefits.
Even so, many residents remain committed to keeping elections at the town level. Hunter said preserving local control was her biggest reason for stepping in, though she has not decided whether to seek another term.
“But we do need to have someone coming after me,” she said. “Because I am old.”
In an aging town, succession is unclear
The rural town of Wausau sits just east of the city of Wausau, a community of about 40,000 that began as a logging town in the 1830s and now centers on manufacturing and a burgeoning ginseng farming industry. As the city has grown, the town has increasingly become a bedroom community, as its lower property taxes attract commuters. A handful of farms remain, but the town is less agricultural than it once was.
Its population is slowly growing — and steadily aging. That’s because retirees also make up a large and growing share of the town’s residents. Its median age has climbed by roughly a decade since 2000 and now hovers around 50 — a decade older than the statewide average. The town still must run elections, issue licenses and post meeting notices. What’s less certain is who will do it.
Here, as in many communities nationwide, the responsibility will likely fall to older residents. Nationally, nearly 70% of chief election officials are 50 or older, according to the Elections & Voting Information Center. In Wisconsin, that share climbs to almost 80%, with the oldest officials concentrated in the smallest jurisdictions.
One poll worker, knitting pink yarn during a lull between voters, said at 71 she was too old to take on the clerk’s job. She had encouraged a younger neighbor to consider it, she said, but the woman had just given birth.
Wausau’s shift reflects a broader reality in rural Wisconsin: The state built a system that depends on hundreds of small-town clerks and their deputies — a structure rooted in an era when farms were multigenerational, churches were full, and civic roles widely shared. That foundation is thinning. About a quarter of Wisconsin’s farms closed between 2002 and 2022, and churches are aging and shrinking. Volunteer fire departments and other local services report persistent staffing shortages.
There is no sweeping rural exodus. Rural counties are mostly growing, largely because retirees are staying or moving in. Wisconsin’s population is projected to age most rapidly in its rural communities, according to UW-Madison’s Applied Population Lab.
Voter check-in materials sit on a table during a school board election that affected only part of the town of Wausau. Turnout remained slow throughout the day. (Alexander Shur / Votebeat)
Originally from nearby Birnamwood, Hunter moved to the town of Wausau in the 1970s and has worked in public service ever since. For four decades, she wrote federal grants and helped low-income youth map out their futures through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Her entry into town government came by accident. Upset over a town decision to pave the ends of some residents’ driveways, but not hers or her neighbors’, she ran for town treasurer. What began as frustration became a career: She spent 10 years as treasurer and two decades as a supervisor.
Her path shifted again after the former town clerk, Cindy Worden, retired after 30 years on the job. Supervisors appointed a replacement, but she left after two weeks because of a terminal cancer diagnosis. The next clerk resigned within months, overwhelmed by balancing the duties with a full-time job and raising a family.
As the town searched for a clerk, Hunter and fellow supervisor Steve Buntin, a retired auto mechanic, filled in. Supervisors listed the job on Facebook and the town website. Potential candidates declined. Some didn’t want the scrutiny of elections, and others resisted the administrative grind.
At one point, county officials offered to step in to run elections and charge about $1,000 per election. That was Hunter’s turning point, though stepping into the role meant giving up her vote on the town board — a sacrifice she did not take lightly.
“After you start, you kind of get hooked,” Hunter said. The residents might be “ornery most of the time,” but helping them navigate difficult choices is public service. “It’s in your blood.”
She can return to being a supervisor if someone else steps up as clerk, but, as Buntin put it, “nobody seems to be knocking down the door.”
Last April, the town asked voters to allow clerks to be appointed rather than elected, which would have permitted hiring someone from outside town limits. The referendum failed narrowly. A new state law has since made it easier for small municipalities to switch to appointments, but the town has yet to make the jump.
“You still have to have somebody come forward who wants to be a clerk,” Meyer said. “Just because the state law changed doesn’t make it all that easy.”
Clerks are hard to recruit, and harder to retain
Wausau sits in Marathon County, home to about 130,000 people. To run elections for that population, the county depends on roughly 60 municipal clerks — one in each city, village and town — layered beneath its elected county clerk. In most similarly sized counties elsewhere, such as St. Joseph County, Indiana, or Frederick County, Maryland, a single county office oversees elections for everyone.
There’s little appetite to abandon Wisconsin’s structure. Local clerks argue decentralization limits errors and keeps elections in familiar hands. But filling dozens of posts — and keeping them filled — is no easy task. Of the 13 new municipal clerks who have taken office in Marathon County since the April 2025 election, including Hunter, four resigned within months, County Clerk Kim Trueblood said. Since then, a fifth clerk — in the city of Wausau — has also stepped down.
Trueblood attributes part of the churn to recruitment practices that understate the job. Town and village chairs often approach potential clerks by describing the work as little more than taking meeting minutes.
“Then they get into a job, and it’s the elections, it’s all of the financial reporting, the liquor licenses, everything that they have to do — it’s just overwhelming,” she said. “And people who work a full-time job and have families, I don’t know how they do it.”
The pay rarely offsets the demands. In the town of Wausau, the clerk makes $27,628 per year plus a $1,000 mileage stipend, with no benefits. The job can require 10 to 20 hours a week — and far more around elections — covering everything from meeting notices and licenses to payroll and ballot administration.
Other municipalities in Marathon County pay far less. Kelley Blume, the clerk in the town of Marathon who’s also a deputy clerk for the county, earned just over $10,000 for her town role in 2025. During election seasons, she said, the hours stretch late into the night.
When she was first approached for the job about 10 years ago, she said town officials told her it would only be a couple of hours per week.
“It’s not a couple hours,” she said. “I feel bad for all of these new clerks that think it’s going to be easy.”
She is considering stepping down. The added responsibilities have grown heavier each year, she said, and she wants to spend more time with her children and grandchildren.
Waiting for the next name on the ballot
Hunter says she stepped in to preserve something she believes is worth protecting: the idea that elections should be run by people who know the roads and the names on the ballot, who know which farm sits beyond the bend and which houses were built last year. To her, local government isn’t an abstraction. It’s a neighbor answering the phone.
“I do feel local government is critical, and I would hate to see that be taken away from the residents,” Hunter said. “It’s important they have a voice, and it starts at their local government.”
She knows the structure is imperfect, but pride in local control runs deep here, even as the pool of residents willing to shoulder the work grows thinner. Ultimately, she said, the town may have to bend. Communities could share clerks or other services, even if that means loosening borders that have long felt fixed.
She’ll decide later this year whether to run again. If she doesn’t, she said, the town may take another vote on hiring clerks outside of town limits. In the meantime, she has no regrets about stepping up — even if nobody in town seems ready to follow her lead.
“It’s my civic duty,” she said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Wisconsin Watch has a new partner in the fight for facts.
Ahead of another pivotal election year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin Watch are teaming up to produce more Fact Briefs, 150-word answers to yes/no questions based on claims made in the infosphere.
Wisconsin Watch has partnered with Gigafact since 2022 to produce more than 600 bite-sized fact checks. We’re part of a network of 18 nonprofit newsrooms across the country working to equip the public with accurate information to inform civic discussion.
The Journal Sentinel, part of the USA Today Network and the largest newsroom in Wisconsin, was an early adopter of PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking nonprofit founded in 2007.
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Wisconsin doesn’t have more registered voters than the adult population.
The claim, recently recirculated by President Donald Trump, combines two voter lists to misrepresent the number of active, eligible voters in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s adult population is around 4.8 million, according to Jan. 1 estimates from the state Demographic Services Center.
The state has 4.6 million inactive voters on a separate list. Voters move to the inactive list if they die, move to a new state or are convicted of a felony, for example.
Adding those two numbers produces a total of 8.2 million, more than the state’s total population.
State law requires an inactive list for record-keeping purposes. Plus, it helps clerks prevent fraud by catching someone registering under a dead person’s name, for example.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
When the Social Development Commission stopped running its anti-poverty programs and services in 2024, it left many employees and contractors unpaid for completed work.
Nearly two years later, some have received a partial payment, while others are still waiting.
Deja Allen, a former housing intake specialist for SDC, is owed $2,518.09 in gross wages, according to her wage claim.
She said she was out of work for eight months and the unpaid wages affected her tremendously as she figured out how to pay her rent and bills.
“I am thankful for my family being able to assist me while I looked for other employment,” Allen said.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state’s Department of Workforce Development that claims SDC owed nearly $360,000 in back wages and benefits to former employees.
Sarah Woods, former youth and family services staff, was laid off when the agency paused services in April 2024. She filed a wage claim with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which informed her that she is owed $4,756.
Woods said she last received an update from the state in May 2025, when a representative said SDC would not have more information until the legal process is completed.
Department of Justice attorney Michael D. Morris said at a status conference last month that William Sulton, SDC’s former legal counsel, is still working behind the scenes with him on reaching a resolution and requested additional time. The next status conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on March 26.
A spokesperson for the Department of Workforce Development said the department isn’t able to provide additional details on the lawsuit’s status or outcomes while litigation continues.
Jorge Franco, interim CEO of SDC and chair of the SDC board, said that paying employees and contractors what they’re owed remains a major priority for SDC. He advised former employees to follow the legal process closely.
“It’ll be upon the attorneys for the claimant to determine what and how they proceed through next steps,” he said.
Contractors still owed
In his more than 40 years providing weatherization services in the Milwaukee area, Jaime Hurtado said SDC had one of the best and most robust weatherization divisions.
Hurtado is the owner and president of Insulation Technologies Inc., or Intec, and worked with SDC for more than 20 years.
Jaime Hurtado, owner and president of Insulation Technologies Inc., said his company is still owed $112,500 for work completed for SDC. Hurtado poses for a photograph in front of an apartment complex that his company is helping to complete on Feb. 5, 2026. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
SDC received funding for the work through Wisconsin’s Weatherization Assistance Program. The Wisconsin Department of Administration suspended SDC’s participation in the program in March 2024 and began a forensic accounting after it reported a misallocation of funds.
“They had built a professional, top-tier delivery service, a program to deliver these services in weatherization for people who need it the most,” Hurtado said. “It’s a heartbreak to see that go out of existence.”
Franco has said the department refused to reimburse SDC for nearly $490,000 in weatherization work and let it continue accumulating expenses before shutting down the program.
Intec and two other contractors, Affordable Heating and Air Conditioning Inc. and DMJ Services LLC, otherwise known as Action Heating & Cooling, sued SDC on claims that it failed to pay for weatherization work completed under contract in 2023 and 2024.
A judge granted the contractors a money judgment of $186,517.03 plus statutory costs and interest in October. About $112,500 of that would go to Intec, but it hasn’t been collected yet.
Jon Yakish, owner of Micro Analytical Inc., said his asbestos-testing laboratory has not been paid for 90% of the contracts it had with SDC before it closed.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” he said, estimating the remaining unpaid work cost around $2,300. “And I know there’s other people out there where it was a much bigger deal, so it’s hard for me to complain.”
Loss of work
More than the missing payments, Yakish and Hurtado’s businesses have felt the sustained impact of losing a loyal customer.
Intec continues to perform work in the state’s weatherization program, Hurtado said, but at a reduced level. He said other providers have brought in a smaller volume of business than SDC.
“We just move our attention to other parts of the market,” Hurtado said.
Yakish said Micro Analytical also hasn’t received the same amount of business it had from SDC from the other organizations that have taken over the weatherization program services in Milwaukee.
“We don’t want to rely on the government, but it is a baseline of work that’s always going on, that kind of, in a way, helps us be recession-proof,” Yakish said.
Moving on
Hurtado said the lawsuit was the only way to secure Intec’s rights to collect the money that it’s owed, though he acknowledged that SDC owes other lenders and suppliers.
“Who knows if they’ll have enough money to pay our balance, but at least we’ll be in the list,” he said.
The $112,500 amount is about 25% of the total amount Intec was owed from SDC, Hurtado said. He said the state worked with other weatherization service agencies to pay Intec the other 75%, which helped the company.
“Thank God we’re diversified enough, and we’re a strong company,” he said.
Yakish said he submitted invoices and data on work performed at the state’s request in order to get paid, and a few contracts were paid. He became frustrated after the companies that had taken over SDC’s weatherization contracts kept asking for the same information.
“I kind of told them, ‘Look, I’m throwing my hands up. This is the last time I’m doing this,’” he said. “So I don’t know if they took that as I was unwilling to work with them or whatever, but it just seemed really clear that nothing was actually going to happen.”
Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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