Until three years ago, Madison ordinances barred youth under age 17 from streets between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. on school nights and 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. on weekend nights. Exceptions included going to and from work and school activities.
The Madison City Council voted 13-5 to repeal the ordinance. At the time, the Madison Police Department had issued just three tickets for curfew violations across several years and said teens usually went home when told about the curfew.
But police are again considering options like a curfew or age restrictions following large fights on State Street after the annual Mifflin Street Block Party. Police recovered two guns after breaking up the fights.
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A Sheboygan Falls woman is poised to test a new federal ruling reopening the door for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees to seek release on bond.
An Ohio-based federal appeals court ruled Monday against the Trump administration policy requiring mandatory detention for most ICE detainees, the latest blow to a rule adopted last summer amid an escalating nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown.
Detainees “should have a forum to explain that their backgrounds and connections to their communities justify release on bond while they undergo their removal proceedings,” 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Eric Clay wrote in the panel’s majority decision. Denying bond hearings, he added, amounts to a violation of their due process rights.
The court’s ruling sent Wisconsin immigration attorneys scrambling to file bond motions for their clients detained in Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky — all under the 6th Circuit. Among those now able to seek bond: Elvira Benitez Suarez, currently detained at the Campbell County Detention Center in northern Kentucky.
She fled an abusive household in Mexico at 15, crossing the border with a younger sibling and settling in the Midwest. Though she remained undocumented for decades, she had no run-ins with law enforcement or immigration authorities until a GPS error on a family road trip through Michigan in July 2025 led her across the Canadian border.
The incident landed her in an Ohio immigration detention facility for six months. In her absence, her two adult daughters — both U.S. citizens — took in their school-age siblings.
A major shift in federal immigration court policy last year left Benitez unable to post bond.
Since 1996, federal law has required immigration authorities to detain — without bond — anyone found crossing the U.S. border without authorization. Prior administrations applied that rule relatively narrowly, meaning immigrants arrested in the interior of the U.S. could often seek a bond hearing in immigration court.
The Trump administration cast that precedent aside in July 2025, when ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a new interpretation subjecting anyone in deportation proceedings to mandatory detention without the possibility of bond. The Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of judges who set the rules for the federal immigration court system, signed off on the interpretation in September.
The board has more frequently sided with the Department of Homeland Security than immigrants facing deportation for at least a decade, but the distribution of decisions is more lopsided than ever: The body has favored DHS’s position in more than 90% of decisions issued since President Trump returned to office last year, a recent NPR analysis found.
The rule change triggered an ongoing legal battle over the validity of the Trump administration’s interpretation; more than 400 federal district court judges have ruled against the White House’s position, while roughly 50 have backed the new policy. Judges in Wisconsin’s Western District Court have uniformly ruled against the mandatory detention rule, while those in Wisconsin’s Eastern District are divided.
Federal appellate courts are also split: Aside from the 6th Circuit’s Monday decision, the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled against the mandatory detention policy, whereas the Louisiana-based 5th Circuit and the Missouri-based 8th Circuit have sided with the Trump administration.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Illinois and with jurisdiction over Wisconsin, remains divided.
With bond off the table, thousands of immigrants in ICE custody have turned to a backup option: habeas corpus petitions, filed in federal district courts — administered separately from the federal immigration court system — to challenge their detention.
When a federal district court approves a habeas petition, the court generally orders an immigration court judge to hold a bond hearing.
Benitez’s first habeas petition produced a more unusual victory: Judge Richard Drucker of the Cleveland immigration court, citing the emotional toll on her younger children, canceled her deportation and set her on the path to legal residency, though a delayed background check added more than a month to Benitez’s initial stay in a detention facility.
Elvira Benitez is shown at a birthday party. (Courtesy of Crystal Aguilar)
Released in late December, Benitez reunited with her family in Wisconsin while DHS appealed Drucker’s order. She continued attending mandatory check-ins at the agency’s field office in downtown Milwaukee, where ICE agents re-arrested her on March 10. After a stop at an ICE detention facility outside Chicago, the agency transferred Benitez to Campbell County, where nearly two dozen immigrants detained in Wisconsin have spent time within the last year.
Marc Christopher, a Milwaukee immigration attorney who represented Benitez during her first detention, told Wisconsin Watch in March that no statute required DHS to detain her while awaiting the outcome of its appeal. Her arrest, Christopher wrote, served “no legitimate public safety purpose.”
“It separates a mother from her vulnerable U.S. citizen children despite a federal immigration judge already recognizing the extreme hardship her removal would cause them,” he added.
Following the March arrest, an ICE spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch that “being in detention is a choice,” arguing that Benitez could leave custody by agreeing to self-deport.
Benitez’s new Ohio-based attorney filed a habeas petition on her behalf with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in March. Judge Chad Meredith, a Trump appointee, joined the court’s bench last fall. He has received more than 80 habeas cases involving immigrants in ICE custody since his confirmation, most of which are still active; he has yet to side with an immigrant detainee, but he has denied a half-dozen habeas petitions outright.
The 6th Circuit’s latest ruling could give Benitez a shorter route out of custody. Christopher filed a bond motion for Benitez “the minute (the ruling) came out,” he told Wisconsin Watch. “Given the unusual circumstances of her case,” Christopher added, he plans to ask Meredith to order a bond hearing on a short turnaround, rather than waiting more than a week. DHS can appeal bond decisions.
Christopher isn’t alone in his haste. Aissa Olivarez, an attorney with the Madison-based Community Immigration Law Center, filed a bond motion for another client held at the Campbell County Detention Center just after the news broke — a first since the Board of Immigration Appeals approved the mandatory detention rule last September.
“We are now working to identify other people who have reached out in the past,” she added, “to see who might be eligible for bond now.”
Olivarez and other immigration attorneys are still awaiting a decision from the 7th Circuit; the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion requesting expedited oral argument on Monday.
The issue may reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s up to the justices whether they want to take the case,” Christopher said, “but traditionally on cases involving immigration, cases where there’s been a clear circuit split, and where it affects literally tens of thousands of people, I think it’s going to be near the top of the issues they want to resolve.”
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Mississippi River conservation groups are among a broad coalition urging the federal government to take action against nitrate contamination in drinking water, which they say has reached “crisis levels” and is a public health emergency.
Nitrate, which forms when nitrogen-rich sources combine with oxygen, has long been found in the country’s surface waters and groundwater, where it can end up in people’s drinking water. Consuming water with elevated levels of nitrate is linked to birth defects, thyroid problems and some cancers.
Agricultural fertilizer and manure are the most common sources of nitrogen to groundwater, with septic systems and lawn fertilizers also contributing. An April analysis from the Environmental Working Group found that about 18% of the U.S. population from 2021 to 2023 used drinking water from community systems with 3 milligrams per liter (mg/L) or more of nitrate, the threshold at which the Environmental Protection Agency says indicates contamination.
Advocates say nitrate contamination has struggled to capture public attention but is costly and hazardous to those it affects.
A May 5 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the EPA was signed by 80-plus groups, about a third of which are located in or focused on the Mississippi River basin. It calls on the agencies to “immediately identify and eliminate sources of nitrate pollution in drinking water and provide funds to communities to reduce nitrate to safe levels.”
The letter cites a recent report from the Iowa Environmental Council and the Harkin Institute at Drake University in Des Moines that found high nitrate levels in drinking water, as well as the presence of pesticides and forever chemicals, are linked to rising cancer rates in Iowa. Intensive farming across the state, including corn, soy and hogs, is the dominant source of nitrate pollution, the report notes.
“We understand these are long-term problems,” said Tyler Lobdell, senior attorney at Food & Water Watch, which spearheaded the letter. “The longer we wait to address root causes, the more difficult, and more expensive (it is), and the more harm is caused in the long run.”
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment on the letter. A spokesperson for the EPA said it is beginning the next round of review of national drinking water regulations, last published in 2024.
Too much nitrogen taints drinking water, hurts river ecosystem
Nitrate contamination is a widespread problem across the country, especially in the Corn Belt, but actions to address it have been slow-going.
Groups in multiple states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, have previously petitioned the EPA to take emergency action on nitrate problems in specific regions. Lobdell said the agency has either ignored or given an insufficient response to those petitions, dating back several years and multiple presidential administrations.
Under former President Joe Biden, the EPA restarted an assessment — which had been suspended during the first Trump administration — of the impacts of nitrate on human health. Environmental advocates had hoped that it could lead to an adjustment of the national standard for nitrate in drinking water, which currently sits at 10 mg/L, because some research shows impacts to human health below that level. Little progress has been made on the assessment.
Beyond human health impacts, too much nitrogen in surface water can drive excessive algae growth, causing harm to fish and other aquatic life. It’s one culprit, in addition to phosphorus, in the creation of the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” an area of low oxygen that spans thousands of square miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Kelly McGinnis, executive director of the environmental advocacy organization One Mississippi, a signatory on the letter, said that humans aren’t separate from the environment and that addressing nitrate contamination would have positive impacts on both.
She said she hopes the letter catches the attention of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has pledged to “Make America Healthy Again” and has shown interest in reducing toxins in people’s diets.
“We felt the urgency right now to take advantage of the new research (from Iowa) to say, ‘Hey, this is something you guys need to be addressing,'” McGinnis said.
The spokesperson for the EPA said the agency is “committed to Making America Healthy Again by taking real, tangible steps to evaluate risks of nitrates in drinking water while following the law and gold standard science.”
After months of negotiation, Gov. Tony Evers and Republican leaders in the Legislature said Monday they’ve reached a deal that would spend down the state’s budget surplus on tax relief and education.
The roughly $1.9 billion deal, which is expected to go before lawmakers for a vote this week, includes $850 million in direct payments to taxpayers and the elimination of state income tax for overtime pay and tipped earnings. It would also boost spending on K-12 education by $600 million.
That school funding figure is split between general school aid and increasing the state’s special education reimbursement rate, which has been a point of contention from Evers’ team since the passage last summer of the two-year state budget. Since that time, higher-than-expected costs of special education lowered the total amount received by school districts from the state.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Evers touted the deal as a win for schools, with compromises for Republican tax priorities.
“Money for schools is obviously the most important thing for me,” Evers said. “We’re in a position to actually compromise and have Republicans and Democrats — at least at the leadership level — getting something done.”
That comment alludes to some fracturing within the parties themselves, with several lawmakers putting out immediate statements condemning the deal. But Evers expressed confidence that a majority of lawmakers would vote to approve the plan.
In separate statements, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said the deal would put the state’s surplus toward tax relief.
“We’re sending (the surplus) back to help families with the pressure of increasing costs, reward hard work, and to continue investing in schools to help stabilize rising property taxes,” said Vos.
Evers’ office said that the direct payment checks, which would total $600 per married couple or $300 per individual, would be mailed out by November. Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback called that provision a central priority for Senate Republicans during negotiations. The governor’s office says 3 million people are expected to receive those checks, for a total cost to the state of about $850 million.
“This deal will provide immediate relief with $600 in surplus refund payments and provide permanent property and income tax relief for Wisconsin families,” said LeMahieu in his statement.
While the state Legislature has adjourned for the year, both the Senate and Assembly would need to pass this deal for it to become law. That means that a special session of the Legislature will be called. According to the governor’s office, that path will be expedited, with the Legislature’s budget committee expected to move it forward on Tuesday, and the full Legislature set to debate it as early as Wednesday.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention this weekend in the Wisconsin Dells has a heavyweight figure looming over the conversation, and it’s not the professional wrestling executive turned Cabinet official giving the keynote address.
President Donald Trump demonstrated last week how he still has a chokehold over state-level GOP politics, helping oust five Indiana Senate incumbents who defied his call to gerrymander that state’s congressional districts to help Republicans in the November election.
“He still has a very strong influence on the voting population,” said Jack Hoogendyk, the chair of the Republican Party of Marathon County. “I think what Republicans like about Donald Trump is that he’s not afraid to say what he believes. He doesn’t back down. He just calls all the shots and then he follows through on what he says. I think it’s a good lesson for really any politician regardless of their party.”
Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 42% among registered voters in Wisconsin, but among Republicans it’s 84%. That’s despite Trump’s cataclysmic drag on the party going back to the 2018 midterms, when Democrats won all statewide offices and have since claimed five of seven seats on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Ahead of the upcoming state convention, where Education Secretary Linda McMahon will be the featured speaker, Wisconsin Watch talked with four county Republican chairs about how Trump remains a significant factor in their communities ahead of November. It will be up to them to turn out Trump voters in a year when the president’s name is not on the ballot in Wisconsin, they said.
“The conflict with Iran, the issues going on overseas, the affordability, these are huge issues. People have to remember that there’s an entire Cabinet of people and departments that are working on so many other things. So just because these big issues are taking up much of the news cycle, that doesn’t mean that the rest of the work is stopped,” said Hilario Deleon, the chair of the Milwaukee County Republican Party. “The Department of Agriculture, the Department of HHS, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, all these different groups are working in conjunction with the vision that the president ran on, and ultimately, he is getting the job done.”
Republican Party of Milwaukee County Chairman Hilario Deleon, left, stands on the convention floor during the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention on May 17, 2025, at the Central Wisconsin Convention & Expo Center in Rothschild, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Chad Kinsella, an associate professor of political science at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, said the lessons from Indiana primary results can differ for states where election margins are far narrower than deep red Indiana. Trump won that state in 2024 by nearly 20 percentage points, while eking out a less than 1-point win in Wisconsin.
But there’s no question the influence Trump has over Republican voters, Kinsella said.
“He is the 1,200-pound elephant in the room,” he said. “President is … was, and will be for the foreseeable future what … a lot of what people will think about as they vote.”
Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney also has no primary opponents as he seeks a rematch against Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul.
“The good thing for us, I think, is we don’t have a contested primary right now for those two top seats. I think that’s very helpful to us,” said Stephanie Soucek, the chair of the Republican Party of Door County. “I think we’ll be able to unify a lot sooner than we typically would be and I think that benefits us. I think just focusing on Wisconsin and what those races are about for our state, I think that will help us.”
Turning out Trump voters
Among self-identified Republican voters in Wisconsin, 40% strongly approve of the job Trump is doing, according to the Marquette University Law School Poll. That’s down from 54% a year ago. County party chairs told Wisconsin Watch that Republicans need to motivate those die-hard fans to participate in elections in a year when Trump is not on the ballot.
“I think we need to find a way to tap into the people who strongly support him, that vote for him,” Soucek said. “And then they need to understand just the importance of electing people that will support his agenda.”
Jerry Helmer, the chair of the Republican Party of Sauk County, agreed that it’s up to county parties to educate voters in their community about Republican candidates beyond Trump. Sauk County Republicans have worked on boosting education and party membership through holding regular Saturday coffee and conservative conversation gatherings at the county party’s office inside an old bank building in Rock Springs, Helmer said.
“We truly feel that there are a lot more Republicans in Wisconsin than show up to vote,” Helmer said. “It was very obvious during the Trump election this last time, they did show up. Part of the problem was education. I worked the polls and I talked to many other people who worked the polls, and so many people only voted for Donald Trump and didn’t vote down ballot.”
The results renewed calls for Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Brian Schimming’s ouster as executive committee members told reporters they signed nondisclosure agreements that banned them from sharing closed-door party discussions about the party’s leadership.
Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming addresses attendees during the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention on May 17, 2025, at the Central Wisconsin Convention & Expo Center in Rothschild, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
WisPolitics reported Friday that the state party canceled an executive committee meeting on May 12 that members sought to discuss “potential action regarding employment issues and board management.”
Neither Schimming nor a spokesperson for the Republican Party of Wisconsin responded to multiple requests for an interview with Schimming for this story.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The 2026 U.S. Farm Bill reclassifies the definition of intoxicating hemp and is expected to lead to the closure of businesses selling delta-9 THC and hemp-derived products as soon as November.
Currently, Wisconsin hemp dispensaries can sell products with up to 0.3% of delta-9 THC by weight, under a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill. Current law doesn’t have any restrictions on hemp-derived products, such as delta-8, THCP or delta-10. The 0.4 milligram limit is far stricter.
The new rule goes into effect Nov. 12, 2026.
According to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, the hemp industry closure could impact 3,500 jobs and reduce economic input by $700 million. Wisconsin has 470 federally licensed hemp growers.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin regulators on Thursday approved a one-off contract between Alliant Energy and the Meta subsidiary building a data center campus in Beaver Dam, but with a major caveat: Alliant must return with a standardized plan to power future data centers — and shield other customers from resulting costs.
The agreement bears little resemblance to the model We Energies proposed for its hyperscale data center customers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. That model covers all future We Energies data center customers and was approved last month with major modifications by the three-member Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC).
Both the PSC and ratepayer advocates expressed reservations about allowing Alliant to proceed without a standardized payment structure for data center customers. Negotiating contracts one-by-one, Commission Chair Summer Strand argued, would undermine the public’s interest in transparency and consistency.
Strand and fellow commissioners Kristy Nieto and Marcus Hawkins approved a modified version of the agreement, acknowledging that the Beaver Dam campus will open in 2027 with or without a tailored contract with Alliant. Sending the utility back to the drawing board for another year, they reasoned, could expose other customers to greater financial risk. The commissioners directed Alliant to propose a standardized payment structure for large data center customers similar to the We Energies arrangement approved last month.
Wisconsin Power and Light, an Alliant subsidiary, filed its case with the PSC last spring, months before Meta joined state and local officials in announcig its Beaver Dam data center campus.
The Beaver Dam facility, the first of its kind in Alliant’s Wisconsin service territory, is smaller than the soon-to-open Microsoft and Vantage data centers. Meta projects the facility will use 220 megawatts at peak, less than half the projected use of the Mount Pleasant and Port Washington campuses. But even that comparatively modest demand would be six to eight times the current peak for all of Beaver Dam.
In testimony to the PSC in November, Rebecca Valcq, Alliant’s assistant vice president for regulatory affairs and data center services, said the Beaver Dam campus would benefit other customers by “making more efficient use of existing infrastructure” and “spreading fixed costs” across a larger base. She also urged commissioners to consider the data center’s projected $2.1 million in annual local, state and federal tax revenue, among other economic benefits.
Alliant is a founding member of the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which promotes the state as a destination for data center developers.
Unlike We Energies, Alliant says it does not expect to immediately build new power plants to serve the Beaver Dam campus. Instead, Meta would purchase electricity from the same generators as the rest of Alliant’s customers. Hawkins noted on Thursday that even if the new data center doesn’t immediately require new generators, it might change the retirement timelines for Alliant’s existing power plants.
Contract negotiated in secret
The utility negotiated its contract with Meta behind closed doors. When it approached the PSC, it asked for approval without changes and requested extensive redactions, hiding many contract terms from the public. Alliant argued that the contract’s specific terms, and the surrounding secrecy, were needed to “attract and accommodate” Meta — and to compete with other states or utility territories courting data center development.
The redactions spurred pushback from ratepayer advocates and the PSC itself, which made more details of the contract available as the case progressed. In Thursday’s hearing, Strand drew parallels with the nondisclosure agreements some data center developers seek from local governments in Wisconsin, including Meta in Beaver Dam, which Wisconsin Watch first reported on in January.
“For some of these new private sector, big tech data center customers that are used to operating confidentially, coming into our state or coming into this process might be a shock to the system,” Strand said. “There is still this black-box approach that includes nondisclosure agreements, heavily redacted filings, corporate pseudonyms and negotiations shrouded in secrecy… This lack of transparency is hurting, not helping.”
The nonprofit law center Midwest Environmental Advocates in December sued the PSC to obtain unredacted documents from the Alliant case. That lawsuit is ongoing.
PSC adds protections, warns of gaps
Alliant proposed some protections for itself and non-data center customers. It set a floor for Alliant’s revenues from Meta, protecting the utility in a scenario in which the data center uses less electricity than initially anticipated.
That minimum covers the cost of building transmission lines to serve the data center. The American Transmission Company, the largest transmission operator in Wisconsin, is currently building a $200 million line to plug in the Beaver Dam campus.
Construction unfolds at the 350-plus-acre Beaver Dam Commerce Park, the site of a Meta data center, Jan. 20, 2026, in Beaver Dam, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Alliant also proposed requiring Meta to reimburse the utility for the costs of transmission infrastructure if the tech giant backs out of the Beaver Dam project before the new line is complete — and requiring Meta to put up collateral in case its credit rating falls.
The PSC agreed with those terms and added further protections, including requiring Alliant to regularly report on the costs of serving the Beaver Dam campus and leaving the door open for the commission to adjust the cost-sharing to shield other customers from unanticipated expenses.
Commissioners identified some ratepayer protections beyond what it has authority to require. The transmission buildout needed to serve data centers is largely outside of PSC jurisdiction. Much of that authority instead rests with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees transmission utilities nationwide, and the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), a nonprofit that manages much of the Midwest’s electrical grid.
MISO awarded the transmission line project that will serve the Beaver Dam data center to ATC, which spreads construction costs across all its Wisconsin customers, most of whom are outside Alliant’s territory. While Alliant’s new contract requires Meta to pay a minimum transmission fee to shield other Alliant customers from unexpected costs, those protections don’t extend to customers of other utilities using ATC’s transmission lines.
Alliant’s customers will also pick up “tens of millions of dollars” in transmission costs tied to data centers in other Wisconsin electrical utility territories, Hawkins said. “Whether or not that is appropriate — or something that we are being open-eyed about — is a concern of mine,” he added.
Commissioners on Thursday urged Alliant to begin discussions with ATC on a fairer method for distributing costs — one of the few options within commission authority.
The commission directed Alliant to produce a standardized plan before making agreements with new data center customers.
The PSC is aware that more data centers could come to Alliant’s turf.
“Evidence indicates there are 12 other potential data centers in this utility’s territory that are potentially in the works,” Nieto said. Given that future, she added, Alliant must “establish clear rates, terms and protections and provide transparency, regulatory clarity and public accountability as required when serving loads capable of reshaping a utility’s entire system.”
Ratepayer groups say PSC sent clear message
Ratepayer advocates welcomed Thursday’s decision while emphasizing the importance of the directive to outline a standardized payment structure for future data centers.
“While the PSC approved Alliant’s contract, with modifications, for Meta’s Beaver Dam data center, the Commissioners recognized that continued one-off, bilateral contract negotiations are not sufficiently protective of Wisconsin families and small businesses,” Brett Korte, a staff attorney with Clean Wisconsin, said in a press release.
“Today’s PSC decision requiring Alliant to develop a tariff for future data centers will result in a consistent, transparent framework that helps protect the public interest.”
Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Tom Content echoed commissioners’ hopes that Alliant and other electrical utilities will reach an agreement with ATC to protect non-data center customers from transmission-related cost shifts.
“We’re calling on ATC to protect customers across Wisconsin and Michigan to make sure people who aren’t even (customers of) these utilities aren’t on the hook,” he told Wisconsin Watch.
Alliant raised no immediate objections to the PSC’s changes.
“Protecting our customers while allowing communities to grow is central to our commitment at Alliant Energy, and that’s exactly what this contract is designed to do,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement on Thursday afternoon. “It maintains reliability, supports meaningful local economic benefits, and delivers benefits that help keep rates stable for all customers.”
In a quarterly earnings call last week, the company announced plans for a 370-megawatt electric service agreement with a data center customer in Iowa. Unlike Wisconsin’s PSC, Iowa’s utility regulator has been more open to one-off contracts between utilities and data centers.
By removing that option for Alliant’s future arrangements with data center customers, Content said, the PSC’s latest ruling could set a new standard for other utilities in the state.
“They’re sending a message,” he added. “None of this individual contract stuff.”
The Wisconsin Elections Commission is facing criticism from local officials and a lawsuit filed Wednesday after it ordered Madison not to count 23 absentee ballots that arrived late to the polls in the state’s recent Supreme Court race, a delay city officials say was caused by election administrator error. City officials also say the commission initially offered little guidance but later faulted them for making the wrong decision.
As Madison officials discussed what to do with the late-arriving ballots the day after Election Day, Madison City Attorney Mike Haas reached out to Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe for advice. Wolfe sent the relevant statute the following day and told Madison officials to “decide, within their statutory discretion” whether the 23 ballots should be counted. Madison decided to count them.
Three weeks later, WEC’s commissioners decided Madison made the wrong choice, ordering them to remove the 23 affected ballots from the count. The commissioners didn’t mince words. Chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said Madison committed an “absurd error,” and GOP commissioner Don Millis called it an “epic failure.”
The dispute has exposed a breakdown between state and local election officials with consequences beyond the 23 ballots at issue. Madison officials say they followed guidance from the commission when they chose to count the votes, only to be publicly rebuked and overruled weeks later. Now, a lawsuit argues that not counting the votes would disenfranchise voters whose ballots were delayed by election officials — and local clerks warn the episode could make them less likely to act decisively when problems arise in future elections.
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, a Democrat, said the turnaround from the commission was puzzling and could demoralize clerks.
“Why would anybody ask WEC for an opinion about how to handle a situation?” he said. “Here they are attacking clerks for having to make a decision because they couldn’t get advice.”
Wolfe said that the agency was limited in how much advice it can provide for local election officials, but said the commission remains “dedicated to supporting their efforts within the scope of our administrative role.”
Lawsuit alleges removing the 23 votes would be unconstitutional
The liberal law firm Law Forward’s lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court alleges that the commission illegally ordered Madison not to count 23 absentee ballots that arrived at the polls after 8 p.m.
The group says the two voters it’s representing — Margaret and Robert Honig — along with the other voters, would be unconstitutionally disenfranchised “through no fault of their own” and asks the court to strike down the WEC order not to count the ballots.
The lawsuit references several past rulings in the state as establishing a precedent that voters can’t be deprived of their constitutional voting rights due to election officials’ errors.
This is the second recent Law Forward lawsuit involving Madison’s failure to count ballots due to administrative error. The legal group sued the city for disenfranchising 193 voters in the 2024 presidential election for a separate series of failures.
It remains unclear why there was such a delay between the ballots’ arrival at the elections office and their delivery to the precincts for counting. State law requires they be “delivered to the polling place no later than 8 p.m.” in order to be tallied.
Dane County authorized a separate lawsuit on Tuesday, and then filed it Wednesday early evening, as county election officials said they want clarity in the future on whether late-arriving ballots can count if they were only delayed because of election official error.
That same day, Madison complied with WEC’s demand to remove the ballots from the count, but instead of removing the specific ballots at issue, the city selected 20 ballots at random and removed those. Called a “drawdown,” the controversial practice was necessary because poll workers apparently failed to follow Madison Clerk Lydia McComas’ instructions to clearly mark the late-arriving ballots so they could be identified if necessary. Only three were appropriately marked.
Officials criticize the election commission for lack of direction
Local election officials say the Wisconsin Elections Commission has become less willing to provide clear guidance in difficult situations — a practice that commissioners and staff say reflects the limits of the agency’s role.
Haas, the Madison city attorney, has firsthand experience on the commission: He preceded Wolfe as the commission’s administrator. Her initial response to the city’s request for advice on how to handle the late-arriving ballots — which provided little direction — was in line with the commission’s tendency in recent years to “intentionally avoid giving definitive responses to specific questions,” Haas wrote in a May 6 letter to the commission obtained by Votebeat.
“This has caused local clerks and their legal counsel to feel frustrated that the WEC is abdicating its responsibility under the Statutes to administer the election laws and provide guidance and advice to local election officials,” he continued.
Haas also questioned why Wolfe’s response and the commissioners’ eventual order were so out of step with one another. The city relied on Wolfe’s initial guidance, Haas said, only to have the commission “contradict its Administrator without even an acknowledgment of her guidance.”
That dynamic, he added, discourages local election officials from being transparent with the agency and damages the commission’s credibility.
He also said that the commissioners were contradicting themselves. In its investigation into the 193 ballots that went missing in Madison until several days after the November 2024 election, the commission concluded that the missing ballots never arrived at the polling places but still could have been counted.
Haas said it was “difficult to sustain” the commission’s conclusions that “a municipality should count ballots that are discovered in the Clerk’s Office days after the election but not ballots that were delivered minutes after the 8:00 p.m. deadline.”
To McDonell, the Democratic Dane County clerk, the commission’s “real reticence to give advice” is undermining election officials’ trust in the state election agency.
McDonell said that in the past he used to get specific advice from the commission, but now “we get a game of ‘gotcha’ instead.”
In a statement, Wolfe told Votebeat that the commission provides guidance to clerks when the issues are clear. But when state law is ambiguous or unprecedented situations arise, she said, “it’s been our long-established policy to direct clerks to their respective legal counsel for interpretation.”
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has six commissioners, three Democrats and three Republicans. Decisions must be made by a majority of the commission, needing at minimum a 4-2 vote. Although Wolfe — whose role as administrator is nonpartisan — is often referred to as Wisconsin’s top election official, she does not have a vote.
Wolfe added that the commission can exercise its authority to issue determinations on election matters and that it’s her role to adhere to those directives, “even when I don’t always agree with those decisions.”
Jacobs, the commission chair, said the commission provides clerks plenty of help, from designing election manuals and creating administrative rules to adjudicating administrative complaints.
“We are doing everything we can to provide guidance to clerks on how to do things right,” she said. “We are not their 1-800-GET-HELP number for individual clerks’ every single legal need.”
One of the other reasons the commission can’t provide specific legal advice, Jacobs said, is that the commission acts as a judicial body that could ultimately evaluate whether election officials comply with the law.
“If you’ve got a court case, a personal injury lawsuit on a car accident, you don’t get to call the judge up and say, ‘Hey, am I doing this right?’” she said. “It cannot be our job to do their jobs for them.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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Wisconsin leads the nation in reported fall deaths among older adults, with more than 1,800 in 2024.
The reasons aren’t fully clear but may include how local officials report deaths, graying demographics and Wisconsin’s culture of alcohol use.
Many falls can be prevented — and Wisconsin is a leader in that work.
Programs from ballroom dancing to parkour help older adults build strength, balance and confidence.
About a dozen gray-haired adults line the playground fence at Madison’s Warner Park. Standing on narrow wood planks, they balance on the balls of their feet.
“Calves are burning, woo!” someone yells. The class stops to shake out their legs. Participants, most in their 60s or 70s, step back onto the boards and lift their heels off the ground — one of several movements in the class to help build muscle to prevent falls and practice parkour.
Alice Morehouse, 70, hits the playground’s blue, rubber surface. She shifts her weight to her left side and pushes herself up onto her toes. An instructor reminds everyone to flatten their hands — a tip Morehouse already picked up during two years in Parkour for Seniors classes.
She drops to the ground and confidently springs back up twice more.
“When I first started, I went home, drank a cup of coffee and took a nap,” Morehouse tells a classmate. “Now I only need the coffee.”
Sitting on a swing, holding two Jenga blocks in the form of a “T,” Morehouse says she has tried other workout classes. But parkour is “way, way more fun,” she adds while pushing off the ground.
Anne Cook, left, practices a balancing exercise with Kathy Reinhard during a parkour class at Warner Park on April 23, 2026, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin has the nation’s highest reported death rate from falls among older adults, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. More than 1,800 older Wisconsinites died from falls in 2024.
It’s not clear why Wisconsin stands out. Without firm evidence, experts point to several possible factors, including how local officials report deaths, graying demographics and Wisconsin’s culture of alcohol use.
But one thing is certain: Many falls can be prevented.
Wisconsinites are national leaders in fall prevention work. A local nonprofit trains people across the country to provide an evidence-based course, Stepping On, recommended by the CDC. Oshkosh health care providers started a “Mugs-for-Rugs” event to get older adults to trade hazardous throw rugs for free local coffee. Madison area advocates and experts developed a network of balance-enhancing classes, including ballroom dancing and parkour.
Still, the number of fall-related EMS calls in Wisconsin increased between 2023 and 2024, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Falls made up more than 20% of 911-related ambulance runs in 2024.
Stepping On is offered in 43 Wisconsin counties, including Dane. Madison residents can also access a wide range of additional classes. Still, falls remain a leading cause of injury deaths in the county.
To change those numbers, advocates say they need to reach more older adults. But that costs money. Attempts to dedicate state dollars toward fall prevention failed in the Legislature.
Parkour for Seniors grew popular enough this year to add a Thursday morning class. Morehouse has gained confidence since joining.
“I’m no longer afraid to fall because I know I’m going to do it, and I know how,” she says. “And I’m much, much stronger.”
Her favorite part of the class is watching participants have fun.
Kathy Reinhard, right, lifts her leg while participating in a parkour class at Warner Park on April 23, 2026, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
She stands in a circle with the others, stretching.
“Have we talked about grapefruit in our armpits yet?” asks Shelby Copeland, a parkour instructor and former “American Ninja Warrior” contestant.
The group looks confused before Copeland explains the warmup. She tells everyone in the circle to pretend they placed two grapefruits inside their armpits. “See if you can juice them using just your shoulders,” she instructs the group.
“What do we do with the juice?” someone asks.
“Citrus deodorant!” another attendee jokes.
‘Every senior should take this class’
“How’s everybody doing with their exercises?” facilitator Marcy DeGreef asks the Stepping On participants.
“I’m thinking about it,” 89-year-old Gary Geller responds after a brief pause.
“We work together on that,” adds Jim Jenkins, 79.
The small group of older adults laugh before reviewing exercises that reduce fall risk. Heel-toe walks help with balance. Knee lifts build strength. They can easily do these at home. TV commercial breaks are long enough to finish several sit-to-stands, someone says. Another attendee says she practices side steps while waiting for hot cocoa to heat in the microwave.
It’s the last of seven weekly classes. They’ll return to the Jewish Social Services building in three months to check in. Before they leave, DeGreef runs through some of what they learned: Vitamin D supplements can help with bone health; trained professionals should install grab bars in the bathroom; they should clean shower mats regularly so they don’t lose their stick; proper footwear is a must. The attendees should talk with their doctors and pharmacists about how their medications affect balance. They should also consider regular bone density screenings and get their vision checked.
A participant in a Parkour for Seniors class at Warner Park, April 23, 2026, in Madison, Wis. The class aims to build balance and coordination to prevent falls. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Older adults stand on wooden planks to build strength and improve balance, April 23, 2026, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
“We just had our eye exam,” Geller says. “They went from 20/20 in my right eye to 20/40 to 20/25.”
“He’s getting better instead of worser,” his wife Denny quipped.
As the review wraps up, Geller offers an endorsement: “Every senior should take this class.”
Stepping On reduces falls by more than 30%, says Jill Renken, executive director of the nonprofit Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging, which licenses the program and helps distribute its curriculum nationwide.
But expanding the class and other prevention efforts in Wisconsin requires more funding to train instructors and run awareness campaigns that reach more participants, Renken says.
Earlier this year, Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston, and Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, introduced bills to set aside money for the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging and community emergency medical initiatives.
The Assembly unanimously approved Snyder’s proposals in February, but they stalled in the Senate — failing to reach Gov. Tony Evers’ desk before lawmakers wrapped up work for the year.
Snyder says the proposals died due to Senate Republicans’ concerns about funding, including $600,000 for community EMS and $400,000 for fall prevention across the 2025-26 and 2026-27 fiscal years. Neither James nor Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, responded to questions from Wisconsin Watch about the failure of the bills.
Snyder plans to bring the proposal back next session, which starts in 2027. That’s if he’s reelected later this year.
“I’m hoping that next session we can actually get a substantial amount of money for fall prevention,” he says.
Barb Brown, second from left, and Shelby Copeland, second from right, instruct a group of participants during a Parkour for Seniors class at Warner Park on April 23, 2026, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
An antidote to loneliness
For Jim Jenkins, the class has already prevented a fall.
The day before the final class, he noticed a raised edge in the floor while leaving a restaurant. Paying close attention to his surroundings, he climbed over it.
“Six weeks ago, I probably would have just blundered through there and on down,” he says.
The classes have helped him avoid injury and loneliness, Jenkins says. His wife died more than a year ago, and he now lives alone. Stepping On gave him a social outlet, he says. He plans to take as many classes as he can.
“I wish I was going to be seeing everybody every week,” Jenkins says as the class wrapped up its final spring meeting.
He and others exchanged emails to plan extra outings.
Where to find fall resources
The nonprofit Safe Communities works to reduce injury-related deaths, like falls, in Dane County and keeps a list of fall prevention resources on its website and hosts community events focused on fall prevention.
The Madison School and Community Recreation program guide lists classes — like Parkour for Seniors —- that help people build fall resiliency. People can register online or get assistance by calling 608-204-3000.
AgeBetter provides free home safety assessments for older adults in Dane County. Elsewhere in Wisconsin, residents can ask their Aging and Disability Resource Center about local home safety resources.
Fallsfreewi.org lists schedules and locations for Stepping On across the state.
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Falls are the leading cause of injury death for people over 65 years old across the country, and more than 1,800 older Wisconsinites died from them in 2024, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
But fall injuries don’t have to be so common.
Wisconsin Watch talked with local experts and attended three Madison-area classes designed to improve balance and prevent fall injuries: Stepping On, Parkour for Seniors and Ballroom Basics for Balance.
Here’s what we learned.
Practicing balance can be fun
Children walk on curbs and twirl on purpose. But as people get taller, heavier and older they often stop practicing movements that help with balance, said Susan Frikken, a physical therapist and co-creator of Ballroom Basics for Balance.
The class uses music and different dance genres to teach people to improve balance. Students often waltz on their tip toes, turn during tangos and switch from lead to follower to challenge their minds during salsa.
The nonprofit Safe Communities outlines its “Keys to Better Balance” on its website, including the balance exercises used during ballroom dancing and movements people can do at home.
Throw away the throw rug
Loose rugs and cluttered walkways increase fall risk. Small home improvements like taping down rugs, installing grab bars and adding bright tape to stairs can significantly improve safety, according to the AARP.
AgeBetter Today provides free home safety assessments for older adults in Dane County. Elsewhere in Wisconsin, residents can ask their Aging and Disability Resource Center about local home safety resources.
Talk about falls
Stepping On is a multi-week fall prevention course that has been shown to reduce falls by more than 30%. Wisconsin residents can find a statewide list of classes through the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging.
Attendees at a recent class in Madison reviewed the importance of regular eye exams.
Marcy DeGreef, who facilitated the class, suggested discussing fall risk with health care providers. It’s important for people to understand how the medication they are taking might impact balance, she explained.
The Madison School and Community Recreation program guide lists classes — like Parkour for Seniors —- that help people build fall resiliency. People can register online or get assistance by calling 608-204-3000.
It’s boom times for Wisconsin’s congressional delegation: Most members have seen their personal wealth substantially rise since arriving on Capitol Hill, according to a NOTUS analysis of congressional financial disclosures.
That surge in their financial portfolios is primarily driven by real estate, retirement accounts and, in one case, a well-placed billboard, NOTUS’ analysis indicates. In all, five of Wisconsin’s 10 delegation members reported median net worths of more than $1 million in 2024, the most recent year covered by federal disclosures.
Overall, the Wisconsin delegation is much wealthier than the average Wisconsinite, who has a median net worth of about $76,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s median net worth nearly tripled in recent years, from $24 million in 2010, when he was first elected to the Senate, to $64.9 million in 2024.
One of the assets driving the uptick in Johnson’s median net worth is an industrial building he and his wife own in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The property was worth between $1 million and $5 million in 2010. In 2024, Johnson valued it at between $5 million and $25 million, according to his latest financial disclosure.
In a decidedly political twist, part of Johnson’s wealth is tied up with his own reelection campaign committee. Federal Election Commission records indicate Johnson’s campaign owes Johnson more than $8 million from personal loans he’s made to the committee. In his 2024 personal financial disclosure, Johnson lists these loans as assets, valuing them between $5 million and $25 million.
Johnson’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Therein lies a major challenge in pinpointing lawmakers’ net worths: They are only required to publicly disclose the value of their assets and liabilities in broad ranges. So if an asset increased from $4.9 million to $5.1 million, it grew 4%, but the category range (going from $1-$5 million to $5-$25 million) would have increased 400%.
Lawmakers also aren’t required to disclose the value of several assets including personal property, vehicles or their personal residence, although they do have to declare the value of their mortgage as a liability along with other debts including credit card balances and student loans.
To best estimate lawmakers’ wealth, NOTUS calculated the median of their minimum net worth — minimum total assets minus maximum liabilities — and maximum net worth — maximum total assets minus minimum liabilities.
Johnson is hardly alone among Wisconsin lawmakers whose personal wealth has grown substantially while they earn a $174,000 annual salary.
Among the others: Republican Reps. Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil, Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Tiffany, as well as Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan.
Steil, elected to Congress in 2018, and Grothman, elected in 2014, have both become millionaires since they entered Congress.
Grothman’s median net worth has more than doubled, from $885,000 in 2014 to more than $2.2 million in 2024. Several accounts Grothman disclosed owning in 2014, including state retirement accounts and two individual retirement accounts, steadily increased in value. And the value of a condominium he owns in West Bend, Wisconsin, greatly increased, from a reported minimum value of $15,001 in 2014 to $100,001 in 2024, according to his financialdisclosures. The condominium could be worth as much as $250,000, according to Grothman’s latest disclosure.
Grothman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Steil’s median net worth more than doubled from 2018 to 2024, from $812,000 in 2018 to nearly $1.9 million in 2024, according to his financial disclosures. Several of Steil’s brokerage and retirement accounts jumped in value, including Vanguard Target Retirement, Mid Cap Growth Index Fund and Strategic Equity Investor accounts. He also added a Vanguard U.S. Growth Fund account worth between $250,001 and $500,000 that’s now among his largest assets.
Steil’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Fitzgerald’s median net worth increased from $3.5 million in 2021, his first year in the House, to $6.3 million in 2024. His financial disclosure report from 2020, the year he was elected, is blank and has not been amended.
A spokesperson for Fitzgerald did not return a request for comment.
Fitzgerald’s wealth spike is primarily driven by real estate investments. The minimum disclosed value of his Wisconsin farm increased from $500,001 to $1 million over those three years, and he disclosed a property in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 2024 that’s worth at least $250,001. He also disclosed a Big Horn, Montana, property worth between $1 million and $5 million, although the property’s value range did not change between 2021 and 2024.
Tiffany’s median net worth ticked up slightly from $230,000 in 2020 to $296,000 in 2024, according to his latest disclosure.
Some of his income comes from on high: He owns a billboard in Oneida, Wisconsin, worth between $1,001 and $15,000 that consistently generates between $5,000 and $15,000 each year, according to his disclosures.
Tiffany’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Pocan’s median net worth has also risen, from $541,000 in 2012 to $778,000 in 2024.
Most of his net worth comes from Budget Signs & Specialties, a printing company Pocan fully owns. It sells custom signs, awards and apparel, as well as campaign materials to Wisconsin Democratic candidates, and is valued between $500,001 and $1 million. It was valued between $250,001 and $500,000 in 2012.
Political candidates and committees have paid Pocan’s Budget Signs & Specialties more than $1.2 million since 2004, according to FEC data. That includes about $12,700 so far during the 2026 election cycle, with $7,600 collectively coming from Pocan’s own congressional campaign committee and the committee of Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Baldwin’s campaign committees and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin are among Pocan’s biggest political customers over the last 22 years, FEC filings indicate.
The state Democratic Party has paid Pocan’s company more than $500,000 for materials such as yard signs and T-shirts since 2008. Committees for Baldwin’s House and Senate campaigns have collectively spent $171,000 since 2004.
In addition, Pocan’s campaign committee has paid his business more than $91,000 for printing and copying services and signs since 2018, according to FEC filings.
Pocan’s office declined to comment on the congressman’s net worth increase and business.
Baldwin’s median net worth has dipped slightly from $623,000 in 2012 to $588,000 in 2024, according to her financialdisclosures.
Baldwin’s office said in a statement that the Wisconsin Democrat has “no knowledge of where her assets are invested or the composition of her portfolio” and communicates with her trustee through the Senate Ethics Committee.
One of the delegation’s wealthiest members is also its newest.
Republican Rep. Tony Wied, whose median net worth is nearly $10.1 million, arrived in Washington in 2024 after selling his chain of dinosaur-themed gas stations and convenience stores.
Wied holds between $50,000 and $100,000 in Black Hills Corp., an electric and gas utility in the West, and at least $250,000 in companies that produce tractors, trucks and automotive parts, including an investment in the Canadian National Railway.
That’s notable because Wied sits on the House Agriculture Committee and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where he serves on the subcommittee for rural development, energy and supply chains. These committees have oversight jurisdiction for the industries in which Wied personally invests.
Wied reports his stock trades each month to the House Ethics Committee in compliance with current law and guidelines, spokesperson Aidan Strongreen said.
“Congressman Wied’s investments are managed solely through an independent financial adviser, and he has no role in any of their decisions,” Strongreen said.
Only two members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation have net worths below the Wisconsin household median, according to a NOTUS analysis of their annual financial disclosures: Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden and Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore.
Van Orden’s median net worth is -$88,000, while Moore’s is also in the red, at -$75,000, according to their most recent financial disclosures.
On her most recent disclosure, Moore reported no assets. She disclosed a mortgage balance on her home in the range of $50,000 to $100,000. Lawmakers are not required to publicly disclose the value of their personal residence, and most do not.
Moore’s net worth has dropped almost $100,000 from $24,000 in 2008, according to her disclosure.
Van Orden does have some assets, primarily a Navy Mutual Whole Life policy valued between $50,001 and $100,000, his disclosure shows. But his overall net worth is pulled down by a mortgage and a “revolving charge account,” a category that includes credit cards and home equity and personal credit lines.
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
Housing instability for young adults in Milwaukee is a growing problem. Looking for solutions, young adults, residents and leaders gathered at Wellpoint Care Network in late April to discuss systemic gaps and realities young adults face with renting and homeownership.
“Homeownership is a privilege when it shouldn’t be,” Tamia Abney, youth-coordinated entry liaison at Pathfinders, said.
The convening challenged members to think of possible solutions to the young adult housing crisis.
Basic needs aren’t being met
A 2024 Wisconsin Policy Forum study revealed that half of Milwaukee renters are using at least 30% of their income to keep a roof over their heads.
Joe Peterangelo, research director at Wisconsin Policy Forum, shares information from a study that found home prices are outpacing incomes in Wisconsin. (Courtesy of Wellpoint Care Network)
In 2024, the average monthly rent in Milwaukee was $1,177. Workers in common jobs like fast food, retail, nursing assistants and other occupations earn between $28,000 and $44,000 a year and can only afford approximately $720 to $1,100 in rent, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
“Those are important jobs that make up most of our society,” Abney said. “The income isn’t meeting the needs to pay for their living.”
During the convening at Wellpoint Care Network, Mayor Cavalier Johnson said there are young people who have decent jobs and still struggle with affordable housing.
“When you make that first good job out of college and make a certain dollar amount, everybody thinks you have it when that’s not the case,” Johnson said. “I lived it, too.”
Milwaukee housing shortage
One reason for the high rent prices in Milwaukee is that the number of people needing homes is growing faster than the number of housing units available.
According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, Milwaukee’s households increased by 17,335 between 2010 and 2024, but only 11,038 housing units were available, leaving an underproduction of 6,297 units.
“There’s a shortage for low-income families because somebody else has already snatched it away from them,” said Carl Mueller, founder and chairman of Mueller Communications.
The mayor, who declared 2026 the year of housing in Milwaukee, said the city is working to increase housing supply so rent can become cheaper and change how tax dollars are being used to support young professionals.
“We still invest in affordable housing, but what we’ve done now is open it up to make investments in workforce housing, so young professionals don’t end up in situations where they’re spending 30% of their income, too,” Johnson said.
Mueller and other community members suggested the city build developments similar to NeuVue and ThriveOn King, which bring housing and community resources together.
Community members have breakout sessions about how housing instability can impact younger adults and families. (Courtesy of Wellpoint Care Network)
Additional challenges
Another reason for the local housing shortage is that residential projects take the longest to get approved.
According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the median time it takes for a Milwaukee building project to go from zoning to final building permit approval is 145 days, but for residential projects it takes about 224 days.
Johnson said when he came into office, he challenged the City of Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services to speed up the permit process.
“I think if we had been more aggressive and if we had cut more red tape over the years, then a lot of the development that’s happening in some of the surrounding communities would have happened in the city,” Johnson said.
Johnson added that Milwaukee’s zoning policies need to be updated so more properties can be built.
“We haven’t had a whole-scale zoning policy since John Norquist was mayor,” he said.
A need for a better quality of living
Al Smith, chief operating officer at Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity, said youths, families and young adults are living in places with high rent prices but are experiencing poor conditions – lead issues and infestations among them.
“Some are paying up to $1,500 a month for places they don’t want to live in, but it was the only option they were left with,” Smith said. “We need a better quality of housing stock.”
Iasia Sawyer, 21, a member of the Wisconsin Youth Advisory Council and participant of the Youth Transitioning to Adulthood program, said she’s already in her second apartment and has faced ongoing challenges with her landlord over mold and pipes.
Smith said more young adults and families in stable housing would bring an increase in graduation rates and other benefits.
“When I think about education or even kids having to switch schools constantly, there’s no stability in that,” he said.
Johnson recalled how traumatizing it felt when he had to attend six Milwaukee Public Schools throughout his childhood because of housing instability.
“As mayor, I’m working to make sure that more kids in Milwaukee have the stability that I didn’t have growing up,” Johnson said. “It’s not just about housing support; you guys are also providing the foundation for everything else in life.”
Homeownership can be attainable for young adults
Smith said he found it disheartening to know there are some who have no desire to become a homeowner.
“If you’ve seen multiple generations of your family that were only renters and never owned a home, they don’t think homeownership is a possibility for them,” he said.
He said the best way to encourage young adults into homeownership is through community support to address credit, bankruptcies and other barriers so they can make the adjustments to become eligible to buy a home.
Smith said Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity is teaching individuals how to financially prepare for homeownership.
According to Smith, it takes about $275,000 for the organization to build a home, and families who participate in the program only pay about $150,000 for their first mortgage. The program provides additional financial support to help keep monthly payments affordable.
“You’ll also get the benefit of building wealth and equity into that,” Smith said.
Sawyer said she wants young people navigating adulthood to know that although finding stable and quality housing is a challenge, it can be attainable.
“There are people who are ready to give up because they don’t have the right support around them for their situation,” she said. “Now it’s about moving forward.”
Rebecca Cooke, a Democrat running for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, did political consultation for Kirk Bangstad during his bid for Congress in 2016.
Bangstad, now the owner of Minocqua Brewing Co., ran a short campaign in 2015 against then-U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, currently the secretary of transportation under President Donald Trump.
According to Federal Election Commission reports, Bangstad paid Cooke and her consulting company, Cooke Strategy, about $12,300 for her services.
Cooke listed Bangstad’s campaign on her company’s now-deactivated website, according to the WayBack Machine website.
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Fidelity bonds protect businesses if an employee steals or commits fraud.
The state issues the bonds, and research shows they’re one of the most effective ways to persuade employers to hire people with criminal records.
But Wisconsin issues few fidelity bonds.
Experts are divided on the issue, with some saying the free insurance can’t hurt and might help.
Others say it doesn’t address all the concerns employers have or educate them about the benefits of giving people with criminal records a second chance.
For every 10 people released from Wisconsin’s prisons, just seven find jobs within two years — even as the state’s ongoing worker shortage leaves many employers scrambling to find the help they need.
The struggle isn’t unique to Wisconsin. Formerly incarcerated people nationwide are far more likely to be unemployed than the general population. One reason: Though people with criminal records often outperform their colleagues, many employers worry they’ll be unreliable or even dangerous.
That’s why, 60 years ago, the U.S. government began insuring employers against that risk, for free.
The Federal Bonding Program, established in 1966, offers “fidelity bonds” to reimburse businesses for losses if the covered employee steals or commits fraud.
Recent research suggests these bonds are one of the most effective ways the government can persuade employers to give jobs to people with criminal records. Those jobs have ripple effects. Families become more financially stable, communities become safer — as people with jobs are less likely to commit new crimes — and taxpayers save money as fewer people return to prison.
So why aren’t Wisconsin employers requesting these bonds? While some states issued hundreds last year, Wisconsin issued just three — even though an estimated 1.4 million Wisconsinites have a criminal record.
Demand in the state is so low that when the federal government in 2019 offered Wisconsin $100,000 to spend on bonds, workforce officials used just $15,000.
To figure out what’s going on, Wisconsin Watch spoke to economists, insurance experts, criminologists and workforce development officials, who ranged from enthusiastic to cynical about bonding.
Some said the coverage limits may be too low to address employers’ worries, or that bonds don’t help when employers are worried about safety or a bad work ethic. Some said employers overestimate the risk of hiring people with criminal records and that education — not insurance — is the solution. But most said offering this free insurance can’t hurt and might help.
In a worker-strapped state, is this insurance program a little-known lifeline or an irrelevant relic?
Bonding basics
Imagine you’re a hiring manager who wants to offer a job to an applicant with a criminal record. If you’re in the same boat as many businesses, your commercial insurance may not cover any theft or other act of dishonesty if the employee in question has a criminal record.
To fill that insurance gap, you contact your state’s bonding coordinator to apply for a six-month, no-deductible fidelity bond that will reimburse you for up to $5,000 in losses. In special circumstances, you can apply for additional coverage of up to $25,000. The state handles the paperwork and the $100 cost.
The program boasts a claim rate of just 1%, meaning businesses in the program seldom report losses. At the end of the six months, you may now be satisfied that your new employee is trustworthy — or you can buy additional coverage.
In Wisconsin, these bonds are the only incentive available to encourage what’s often called “second chance” or “fair chance” hiring.
Formerly incarcerated Wisconsinites more likely to be jobless
About 3 out of 10 people released from Wisconsin prisons in 2023 were not employed within two years.
In comparison, only 3 out of 100 people in Wisconsin’s workforce were unemployed.
Source: Wisconsin Department of Corrections
Formerly incarcerated Wisconsinites more likely to be jobless
About 3 out of 10 people released from Wisconsin prisons in 2023 were not employed within two years.
In comparison, only 3 out of 100 people in Wisconsin’s workforce were unemployed.
Source: Wisconsin Department of Corrections
Formerly incarcerated Wisconsinites more likely to be jobless
About 3 out of 10 people released from Wisconsin prisons in 2023 were not employed within two years.
In comparison, only 3 out of 100 people in Wisconsin’s workforce were unemployed.
Source: Wisconsin Department of Corrections
“It is a unique tool to help a job applicant get and keep a job,” the state’s Department of Workforce Development says on its bonding webpage. “It is like a ‘guarantee’ to the employer that the person hired will be an honest worker.”
The same bonds are also available to other job applicants whose background could make it hard to get or keep a job. That includes people in treatment or recovery for alcohol or drug addictions and people with little or no work history.
In practice, the program is almost exclusively used for people with criminal records, according to program administrator Kevin Kulling.
Wisconsin focuses much of its outreach effort on prisons, making sure people know how to take advantage of the program when they get out. The stakes are high: Of those released in 2023, nearly 1 in 3 were rearrested within a year and 1 in 8 ended up back behind bars.
Recent research backs bonds
Governments have tried a variety of ways to persuade employers to hire people with criminal records.
Nationally, there’s the $2-billion-a-year federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which rewards employers for hiring people with felony convictions. But new research finds the tax credit doesn’t increase pay or hiring for the workers it’s designed to help. It expired in December but could be reinstated.
Meanwhile, a growing number of states have tried to boost job seekers by barring employers from asking about criminal records on job applications. In about a dozen states, public and private employers are subject to such “ban-the-box” measures.
Evidence is mixed. Several studies find these laws reduce hiring for Black and Hispanic men, suggesting that when employers can’t check an applicant’s criminal record, they instead make assumptions based on demographics.
Enter the bond, a policy that predates the others by decades. In 1975, the U.S. Department of Labor commissioned a study of the then-new program. Participating workers reported major salary increases after joining the program, and a majority held on to their bonded job longer than one year.
New evidence supports the program. In a 2023 article, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research teamed up with an online hiring platform to survey businesses. The platform asked users about their willingness to hire people with criminal records and how that might change if the platform offered wage subsidies or insurance coverage.
Researchers found employer willingness to hire someone with a criminal record rose 12% when offered up to $5,000 in crime and safety insurance. It would take an 80% wage subsidy to get the same result.
Mitchell Hoffman, an economics professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, co-authored that study. He said policymakers have often tried to solve these hiring challenges by trying to change the workers, like with training or therapy. This research suggests it’s possible to change employers’ behavior, too.
That matters, he said, because employers hold the cards. “If firms don’t want to employ people with a record, then it’s hard to move them to employment and to good jobs,” Hoffman said.
The findings are welcome news to Jen Doleac, executive vice president of criminal justice at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures and author of the book “The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice.” Doleac, who researches crime and discrimination, was surprised when she first learned about the Federal Bonding Program.
“It’s such a smart idea. Employers say they’re worried about the risk of hiring someone with a record. How do we deal with risk? We provide insurance,” Doleac said. A critic of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, she said the new research shows why bonds are a better bet.
“Insurance just moved the needle more, and much more dollar for dollar,” Doleac said.
Experts divided
Even in states issuing hundreds of bonds a year, that’s just a fraction of those released from prison annually, and a smaller share of all people with criminal convictions.
“The total number of firms nationally that were involved, it seemed like a very small number,” Hoffman said. “There's interesting variation across states, but overall, just not that much usage.”
Just 27 Wisconsin employers participated in the program in the last five years, according to federal records obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Those businesses range from national retailers like Dollar Tree to smaller agricultural businesses like Rine Ridge Farms.
Why haven’t bonds proven more popular? Wisconsin Watch asked more than a dozen Wisconsin businesses and industry groups about their experience with the Federal Bonding Program. Just one responded, and none agreed to answer questions.
Hoffman thinks maybe employers just aren’t that worried, or that the risk they’re worried about isn’t covered by the bonds. They may worry the applicant will be unreliable or even dangerous, despite evidence to the contrary. In a 2021 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, more than 80% of business leaders said second-chance hires perform the same as or better than other employees.
“If someone does something bad to a customer,” Hoffman said, that customer might sue, or customers might take their business elsewhere. Bonds don’t cover that risk. “That is very difficult to quantify. What is the cost of that sort of event?”
Another possibility, Doleac said, is that employers don’t know about the bonds. Some states may be doing more to get the word out than others, but marketing costs money that state workforce departments may not have.
The more likely explanation, she said, is that the process is too cumbersome for employers who are used to buying insurance that covers all their employees. Although job applicants and employers do not have to complete any paperwork to get a bond, employers still need to keep track of the policies that were issued to a specific employee.
“It’s just too inconvenient and too much paperwork to keep track of,” Doleac said. She and her colleagues are exploring whether standard policies could include riders covering these workers, without a separate process or schedule.
Meanwhile, some advocates for formerly incarcerated people worry that the bonds can backfire, making employers worry even more.
Craig Coleman, a case manager for Forward Service Corporation, helps formerly incarcerated Wisconsinites get trained and find work. He doubts bonds will help them.
“You’re saying to your employer, ‘If I steal from you, then you'll be reimbursed,’” Coleman said. “I’m not an HR person, but if I had someone come in with an insurance policy saying, ‘If I steal from you,’ that’s the end of the conversation. I'm not hiring you.”
There, she trained more than 50 other companies on “fair-chance hiring,” teaching them that hiring people with criminal records isn’t risky. Talking about extra insurance policies undermines that message, she said.
“Rather than hiring the person because they’re the best person for the job, but they happen to have a record. Now we’re trying to say, ‘Here’s an insurance policy. Please do it,’” Martin said.
The fact that Wisconsin employers seldom use fidelity bonds might even be a good sign. The state has unusually strong organizations that prepare applicants for work and match them with employers, said Josh Morby, who represents such groups as spokesperson for the Wisconsin Workforce Hub. If those organizations are doing their jobs well, employers will trust their participants — no insurance policy necessary.
“Wisconsin employers are looking for candidates who are screened, prepared and supported so hiring justice-impacted talent becomes a reliable workforce solution, not a risk,” Morby said in an email.
Wisconsin bond use lags
The bonding program’s popularity varies among states, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. In 2025, New Jersey issued 277 bonds, and Washington, D.C., issued 192.
Meanwhile, 12 states didn’t issue any in 2025.
Wisconsin Watch requested interviews with workforce officials in New Jersey, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia to learn why employers there are using more bonds. None responded. A U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson also declined an interview.
One possible explanation for the higher numbers is that those states have higher unemployment rates. But Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was at a historic low in 2018, when the state issued 27 bonds, more than 12 times as many as it did in 2025.
In 2019, Wisconsin workforce officials requested the maximum $100,000 federal grant to buy more bonds. They said they planned to buy 1,000 bonds over four years, plus more with other funds. They estimated more than 5,500 Wisconsinites with criminal records were eligible. The bonds, they said, would help break “the cycle of recidivism.”
But the COVID-19 pandemic — which shuttered businesses and locked down prisons — derailed the state’s plans.
“With the unemployment rate at an increased rate in Wisconsin, many recruitment efforts for employers to use Fidelity Bonds (have) slowed,” officials wrote in each quarterly grant report from April 2020 to February 2021.
When the grant period ended in 2023, Wisconsin had issued just 59 bonds. Officials wrote that, despite their outreach efforts, their bond numbers were “extremely low.”
The bond’s popularity has since further waned. In each of the last two years, Wisconsin issued no more than three bonds. Department spokesperson Haley McCoy attributed that to the state’s tight labor market.
“Given the strong demand to fill vacant positions, employers have not needed the added incentive of fidelity bonds to hire justice-involved employees during this historically strong economic period,” McCoy wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.
Asked whether the Department of Workforce Development plans to make any changes to Wisconsin’s bonding program, McCoy said the bonds are “just one tool in the toolbox that can help a job seeker secure a job.”
“We’ll continue to work with our partners to provide opportunities and prepare job seekers and workers for their next opportunity in Wisconsin,” McCoy wrote.
From a job market ‘hidden force’ to a lever against bias
Meanwhile, Arnold Ventures researchers are trying to figure out how to get more businesses across the country to use federal fidelity bonds or something similar.
Criminal justice director Carson Whitelemons has been studying ways to improve the federal program. But she said just trying to understand how bonding works and how it fits with existing business policies can be “incredibly difficult.”
“Even for business owners who are trying to ask their insurers what is covered and what is not covered, it's not always clear, and often that realm of uncertainty, I think, is what makes employers cautious,” Whitelemons said.
But it’s not just about bonding. The work is part of a new effort she’s organizing with experts from a variety of fields, trying to understand the biases that can keep people from getting all kinds of coverage and how to fix them.
“(Insurance) is such a powerful lever in terms of what people feel safe or empowered to do, what they feel protected from. This has come up again and again in terms of different issues in the United States, in home ownership and redlining — insurance is often this hidden force, especially in areas where there is stigma or discrimination.”
Hoffman, the HR economist, said if more employers use bonds, that could help dispel misconceptions about people with records.
“Employers … think they’re less productive than they actually are,” Hoffman said. That’s not the problem bonds are designed to solve, but if bonding gets more employers to hire these applicants, the experience may change how they view similar applicants in the future, he said.
Meanwhile, officials from Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections will continue teaching prisoners about these seldom-used bonds and encouraging them to pitch the opportunity to their potential future bosses — for better or worse.
Hongyu Liu is a data investigative reporter for Wisconsin Watch. Email him at hliu@wisconsinwatch.org.
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.
The two most common complaints I hear from people seeking public records are “Why is it taking so long?” and “Why does it cost so much?” Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to mount a successful legal challenge to delays or fees because of the way the state’s laws are worded.
Wisconsin’s Open Records Law imposes no deadline on producing records. All it says is they must be produced “as soon as practicable and without delay.” What does that actually mean? While the state Department of Justice recommends that simple requests receive a response within 10 business days, the DOJ itself doesn’t heed its own advice, often taking months — even years — to fulfill requests.
Courts haven’t given much guidance. They’ve essentially said it’s a reasonableness test that takes into account the size and complexity of the request, the resources of the government agency, and whether they are making a good faith effort to comply. But how long is too long?
Ideally, we’d have a deadline in our law, as some other states do. This may require prioritizing resources properly, which should already be happening. Fulfilling record requests, the law says, is “an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties” of public officials.” And yet I’ve seen agencies with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars who have one person doing this work.
The other common problem with the records law is it allows custodians to charge fees for complying with records requests. Here, I am especially concerned about “location” fees. The government can charge for the “actual, necessary and direct cost” of finding records, typically at the hourly rate of the lowest-paid employee capable of searching. But sometimes this is still a considerable amount, and some custodians even want to charge for employees’ benefits.
Tom Kamenick
This amounts to, essentially, the government getting paid twice for the same work. Our taxes already pay the salary or wage of the employee searching for records. The requester pays them again.
Permitting location fees also incentivizes government agencies to be sloppy in their recordkeeping. The more disorganized their records are, the longer it will take them to find records, so the more money they can collect from requesters. Those high costs also discourage requesters from following through with requests.
For example, I’ve run into police departments that still store their personnel records in paper boxes, so if somebody wants, say, disciplinary records, the department can quote an often prohibitively high price to search each box for disciplinary files. Even if records are stored electronically, they can be hard to retrieve if they are not sensibly organized.
How can we fix these twin problems? If I were in charge (and I’m not), I’d put a strict deadline in the law and eliminate location fees altogether. But realistically, we are unlikely to see either reform.
Perhaps a more practical solution would be to tie the two problems together. Change the law so that custodians can charge location costs only if the records are produced within a strict deadline — perhaps 10 business days.
That compromise would incentivize better, more organized record keeping. Government agencies would now want to keep their records — especially those people frequently request — arranged in ways easy to search and easy to find. It would also incentivize them to devote enough resources to fulfill record requests promptly.
The result? Requesters will get records faster and cheaper, and government agencies might also see a net increase in revenue, as more requesters opt to pay for prompt service rather than walk away.
Pairing these two issues is an idea worth pursuing.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Tom Kamenick, a council member, is the president and founder of the Wisconsin Transparency Project.
In a late-night press conference during the final days of the Assembly session in February, eight Republican lawmakers in some of the chamber’s most closely contested districts made a dramatic announcement.
They told reporters they had persuaded longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to allow essential votes on bills to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for new Wisconsin mothers and to require insurance companies to cover additional screenings for women at increased risk of breast cancer. Vos had opposed the bills, which stalled in the Assembly for months.
Two months after the bills passed the Assembly, the Jobs First Coalition, a political advocacy organization that has backed Republican candidates, released ads lauding the efforts of some of those GOP lawmakers to get the two women’s health bills signed into law. Michelle Litjens Vos, the speaker’s wife and a former state lawmaker, works on fundraising and event planning for the Jobs First Coalition, according to recent tax documents.
The group specifically shared video ads focused on Greenfield state Rep. Bob Donovan, De Pere state Rep. Benjamin Franklin, Dodgeville state Rep. Todd Novak and Weston state Rep. Patrick Snyder. The ads featured clips of their remarks from the February press conference. Those four lawmakers won their districts in 2024 by 1 to 6 percentage points and hold seats the campaign arm of the Assembly Democrats is targeting this fall.
Google’s Ad Transparency Center shows the ads began running April 16 and that the Jobs First Coalition has spent less than $5,000 to run the videos as of May 1.
“Todd never stops fighting for Wisconsin women, standing up to his own party’s leadership to pass the bill expanding postpartum coverage,” a voiceover says on an ad supporting Novak, which encourages viewers to call his office and thank him for “delivering a win for women’s health care.” The ad flashes a headline from the conservative news outlet Wisconsin Right Now calling the eight a “courageous band of Republican legislators.”
Eight Assembly Republicans, many representing closely contested districts, announced earlier this year their support for bills expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage and breast cancer screenings that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had previously blocked. They are, from left, Reps. Dean Kaufert, Benjamin Franklin, Jessie Rodriguez, Patrick Snyder, Todd Novak, Bob Donovan, Shannon Zimmerman and Clint Moses. (WisconsinEye)
An ad centered on Donovan focuses on his support of the breast cancer screening bill and shows photos of him and his wife. At the February press conference, Donovan explained his wife was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
“Detecting cancer early saves lives, that’s why Rep. Bob Donovan never stopped fighting to expand cancer screening for women,” a voiceover says. “And Bob delivered, ensuring women get the additional screening they need.”
The ads, which have been shared as candidates are circulating nomination papers to get on the November ballot, point to an Assembly Republican strategy cognizant of a national mood that has turned on President Donald Trump and the Republican establishment. The bills also highlight a political issue that appeals to female voters, a voting group that Republicans have often struggled with at the national level.
“It makes sense that these candidates would want to differentiate themselves from the Republican Party more broadly, from Trump, from Vos, from really anyone in leadership who might be a drag on their campaigns,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If they can establish a kind of independent identity as a common sense legislator who’s doing things to help real people in real places, that might be enough to carry the day.”
After new legislative maps were signed into law in 2024, Assembly Democrats flipped 10 seats previously held by Republicans during an election year when Trump won the state. Two years later, the Marquette University Law School Poll shows Trump’s job approval among registered voters at 42% and at least eight Assembly Republicans as of May 1 have announced they won’t seek reelection. That includes Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah, who won his seat in 2024 by less than 400 votes.
While there are challenges for Republicans in 2026, getting the two women’s health bills across the finish line could help candidates in some of these close Assembly districts and fend off potential attacks from Democrats, said Snyder, who authored the postpartum Medicaid extension bill.
“I’m worried that so many people think that we are somehow like Trump and the federal government and they just lump us in with all of that. I think a bill like this, to me, would help,” Snyder said in an interview with Wisconsin Watch. “It could actually show, hey, Republicans do care. They do care about health. They do care about the health of women and children.”
In a statement provided to Wisconsin Watch, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, said the bills extending postpartum Medicaid and covering breast cancer screenings were only passed after Democrats “effectively stopped legislative business” in the final days of the Assembly session in February. Lawmakers proposed amendments related to the women’s health legislation on every bill before the Assembly in an effort to force a vote from Republicans.
“These ads are incredibly disingenuous and frankly insulting to the women of Wisconsin, who know better than to trust Republican legislators on women’s health issues,” Neubauer said.
Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston, addresses the audience in his opening remarks during the Republican Party of Wisconsin state convention on May 17, 2025, at the Central Wisconsin Convention & Expo Center in Rothschild, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Rep. Benjamin Franklin, R-De Pere, listens as the Wisconsin Assembly convenes during a floor session Jan. 14, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville, listens to Gov. Tony Evers’ 2025 state budget address Feb. 18, 2025, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Rep. Bob Donovan, R-Greenfield, talks to the media Jan. 24, 2024, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Andy Manis for Wisconsin Watch)
The Jobs First Coalition did not respond to phone calls or emails from Wisconsin Watch with questions about the ads for Donovan, Franklin, Novak and Snyder and if they’ve released any for the other lawmakers who supported the postpartum Medicaid and breast cancer screening bills. In addition to Kaufert, Reps. Jessie Rodriguez, Clint Moses and Shannon Zimmerman were among the eight who advocated for Vos to allow a vote on the bills.
Wisconsin Watch viewed video ads for each of the four candidates on Google’s Ad Transparency Center, but the video about Franklin was later removed. The page where the video was located indicates it was shown in the Green Bay area, which Franklin represents.
Both Snyder and Novak told Wisconsin Watch they heard about the group’s ads supporting them, but had not seen the videos. Novak said he has heard a wave of stories from constituents about their experiences with breast cancer and postpartum health issues after the bills were passed.
“I think that this is a real personal issue to a lot of people, so that’s, I think, what gives me faith in what we did, and I’m glad we finally got it done,” Novak said. “I still would have rather had it done when it was first introduced, but sometimes in that building, it takes a while to move things.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin will likely face limited immediate impact at both the legislative and congressional level from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that narrowed how the Voting Rights Act can be used to challenge political maps. But it may make it easier for people to challenge school board and city council maps in court.
The ruling in Louisiana v. Callais raises the bar for voting rights challenges by requiring stronger evidence that race, rather than political considerations, drove how districts were drawn, and making it easier for states to defend maps on nonracial grounds.
Dan Lennington, the managing vice president and deputy counsel at the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, said the boundaries that could be most easily struck down as a result of the Wednesday ruling are those that were drawn explicitly for racial reasons. Some examples, he said, are the boundaries for Milwaukee city council districts and certain school districts.
Race is a common factor in drawing Milwaukee city council districts, though campaigns to add additional majority-minority districts haven’t always succeeded.
For example, departing Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in December 2021 vetoed a proposed city council map because it didn’t include a third Latino-majority district, only for Mayor Cavalier Johnson to sign that same map several weeks later.
Lennington also pointed to state laws that use race as a factor to determine school district boundaries. One of those laws explicitly mentions “racial composition of the pupils” as a factor for drawing boundaries — a law that he said is now implicated by the Callais decision.
“If a plaintiff comes to us and says that they live in a district that’s been racially gerrymandered, we would take a very close look at that case,” he said.
Less likely impact on legislative and congressional level
There likely won’t be much impact in Wisconsin at the congressional district level because there’s just one majority-minority district in the state, UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said ahead of the ruling. The 4th Congressional District, represented by Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, comprises much of Milwaukee and the surrounding suburbs in Milwaukee County.
Even if Section 2 of the VRA did not apply, he said, the district would likely stay much the same given the general principle of keeping communities intact.
A decision like the one handed down, he said, “would open the door if line drawers wanted to break up that county or city in some way, but I think it would probably be challenged on other grounds.”
Challenges to Wisconsin’s congressional maps have often had more to do with partisan than racial line-drawing. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said he wasn’t surprised by the federal decision but reiterated his call for new congressional maps, which he said unfairly gave Republicans a 6-2 seat advantage in a swing state.
But two recent court decisions in Wisconsin rejected challenges to the state’s congressional maps on the basis that they constitute an unconstitutional “anti-competitive” gerrymander. Those rulings focused not on race, but on whether courts can take up claims based on partisan advantage.
Doug Poland, co-founder of the liberal law firm Law Forward, said this ruling could empower lawmakers to pursue partisan goals while making racial challenges harder to prove.
But because of Wisconsin’s demographics — a largely white state, with the most significant minority populations concentrated around the Milwaukee area — the state has run into Section 2 challenges far less often than southern states, he said.
“As a practical matter, this decision doesn’t have a big impact on Wisconsin at the moment,” he said. “That could change.”
There’s more at play among state legislative districts, Burden said. The state has nine majority-minority legislative districts, where a single minority group makes up over half of the population: seven in the Assembly and two in the Senate. Two other districts — one in each chamber — are minority influence districts, where combined minority populations make up a majority.
Democrats in Wisconsin have generally steered clear of breaking up minority districts to avoid violating the VRA, Burden said, but packing minority voters in one district sometimes costs them adjacent districts where they might have been competitive if the minority population was more evenly distributed. For that reason, there’s a history of Republicans supporting majority-minority districts in the state.
But while Evers argued this addition was necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act, it drew criticism from both sides of the aisle. A Black Democratic legislator criticized the move as diluting Black voices, while Republicans appealed the maps to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with the GOP and ordered the Wisconsin Supreme Court to select a different map.
If any of the districts are found to be out of compliance with the U.S. Constitution under the ruling via some additional challenge, Burden said, Wisconsin may draw new districts sooner than later.
“I don’t know who that advantages,” he said. “It probably depends who’s drawing the lines.”
Lennington also pointed out President Donald Trump’s success with Black and Latino voters relative to past GOP candidates, adding that splitting majority-minority legislative districts wouldn’t necessarily give either party an advantage here.
What he did predict, though, is that splitting such districts “might polarize us even more” if they were replaced with districts drawn on partisan as opposed to racial lines.
“It just might make the red more red and the blue more blue,” he said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday overruled controversial ballot-counting decisions in Mequon and Madison, ordering the cities to revise final tallies in their Wisconsin Supreme Court election results.
Madison counted 23 late-arriving ballots that the commission voted should not have been included, while Mequon threw out five ballots the commission said should have been counted. The commission voted 6-0 to investigate both city clerks’ offices and ordered changes to the counts — voting 5-1 to require Madison and Dane County to exclude the 23 ballots and 6-0 to require Mequon and Ozaukee County to count the five.
The deadline for the state to certify the election is May 15, but some commissioners acknowledged the likelihood that lawsuits over the decisions could come before then.
In Madison, poll workers on Election Day counted 23 absentee ballots that arrived at four polling places after 8 p.m. Tuesday, despite a state law requiring that absentee ballots be “delivered to the polling place no later than 8 p.m.” in order to be tallied.
There was some debate ahead of the Madison vote because Commission Chair Ann Jacobs and Commissioner Mark Thomsen, both Democrats, said they felt uncomfortable disenfranchising the 23 voters. But Jacobs said she was following the law in ordering Madison to redo its count, adding that she hoped “those voters will perhaps appeal this decision.”
“We’re going to disenfranchise 23 people,” said Thomsen, the lone no vote. “I don’t think the law requires us to do that.”
Voting in favor, Don Millis, a Republican commissioner, said the commission is bound by state law not to count those ballots.
“There has to be some accountability,” he added, “for the failure to get these ballots to the polling places in a timely manner.”
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, a Democrat, told Votebeat that he’s considering suing over the agency’s order. McDonell previously voted to count the late-arriving ballots during the county’s canvass.
“It’s disappointing that the Wisconsin Election Commission’s directive is to reject ballots that were properly cast by voters,” Madison Clerk Lydia McComas said in a statement.
This marks the second significant error from the Madison clerk’s office in recent elections. In 2024, officials didn’t count 193 ballots that arrived at the city well ahead of Election Day, leading to investigations and a lawsuit.
Mequon redo comes amid confusion over clerk’s standard
The decision to investigate Mequon came after City Clerk Caroline Fochs decided not to count five ballots under an unusually strict standard for the witness address field on absentee ballot envelopes. Commissioners and staff found that decision to be an abuse of discretion.
For years, Fochs has used a standard contrary to the commission’s guidance, which is to consider a witness address valid if it includes a street name, number and municipality.
Instead, if a witness lists a municipality that shares a name with another elsewhere in the country and does not include a ZIP code or state — even though the absentee envelope doesn’t call for them — Fochs told Votebeat she does not count the ballot. If the municipality name is unique, she will count it without a ZIP code or state.
In this latest election, those municipalities were Baltimore, Fox Point, Verona and Houston.
“The idea that someone would Google to find out whether or not there’s multiple Veronas in the United States, but not Google the witness’s address to confirm where they were located just strikes me as an odd choice, and contrary to the applicable law,” Jacobs said.
A Votebeat review of Mequon ballots rejected since 2024 found that Fochs in some cases appeared to have misapplied her own standard — rejecting ballots from municipalities that didn’t share a name with any other city, like Chicago and Fox Point.
Fochs and her city attorney have defended the city’s standard as a proper use of discretion despite coming under fire for it. Fochs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Speaking with Votebeat after the votes, Millis said that although mistakes happen from time to time, clerks need to understand that there can be consequences for errors “if you don’t follow the law and take reasonable efforts to make sure that all ballots are counted.”
Pointing out that he was a Republican commissioner, Millis said he also has a partisan interest in making sure votes in Mequon, a traditionally GOP city, are counted.
“We shouldn’t be doing things to make it difficult for anyone to vote, but here, from just even a partisan standpoint, on average, it’s hurting Republicans more than Democrats.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Isaac Solis knows all too well how taking a pill bought off the street can lead to tragedy.
His son Isaac Solis Jr., known as “Bubba,” died in 2019 after taking what he thought was the prescription drug Percocet.
Instead, it was a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can kill in trace amounts.
Isaac Solis’ son Bubba died in 2019 after taking a fake Percocet laced with fentanyl. (Courtesy of Isaac Solis)
Since then, he’s been on a mission to help prevent others from losing loved ones through his “One Pill Kills” awareness campaign.
His message is being amplified in time for Fentanyl Awareness Day, observed nationally on April 29, through three billboards that feature his son. The billboards direct residents to the 1pillkills.org website and social media pages and include the message: Together We Will Save Lives.
“It’s about spreading awareness obviously that even one pill can kill you, one line can kill you,” Solis said. “If one family sees it and reaches out to their loved one and one life is saved, that’s our goal.”
Two of the billboards can be seen off of Interstate 94 in Milwaukee near West Becher and South Fourth streets, and the other is a north/south display on South 27th Street and West Morgan Avenue. The billboard near West Becher will be up for eight weeks and the one on West Morgan for four.
Solis’s campaign has utilized several billboards over the years to increase community awareness on fentanyl.
The message on the first billboard, he said, was very aggressive.
“Our grief was a bit more raw at that time,” Solis said.
Another billboard featured photos of individuals who lost their lives to fentanyl.
“Eight families put their angels up there,” he said.
Drop in overdose deaths
Fentanyl has fueled the opioid epidemic nationally and a rise in overdose deaths.
The drug had devastating impacts on Milwaukee County, which experienced multiple years of record high drug overdose deaths in the 2010s and 2020s. Those totals peaked at 674 in 2022 and 667 in 2023, according to data from the Milwaukee County Overdose Dashboard. Most of the deaths were caused by fentanyl alone or in combination with other substances.
Since then, the number of fatal overdoses has fallen. Last year 387 died, with 236 of those cases involving fentanyl.
County Executive David Crowley credits increased funding for opioid prevention and collaboration for the decrease.
“Thanks to the investment of opioid settlement dollars, increased access to free harm reduction supplies, and efforts to eliminate the stigma surrounding substance use disorder, fewer people are dying of overdose, which means more opportunities for treatment, recovery and a path forward,” Crowley said in a statement.
A OnePillKills billboard is on display next to I-94 near the intersection of South 4th and West Becher streets in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Fentanyl still a major problem
While Solis said the drop in fatal overdoses is great, it’s also concerning.
“The troublesome part is we don’t know what amount of people are addicted to fentanyl and using it daily,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to do.The closer we get to zero deaths, the better.”
He said fentanyl products continue to evolve and get more potent, and it can be in powder or liquid form, and even in vapes.
“It can be hidden in something but you can have no idea what,” Solis said. “There’s always a threat of it being in any type of drug.”
Working together
Like Crowley, Solis credits collaboration for the progress made in addressing the opioid epidemic. He partners regularly with Team HAVOC, a grassroots South Side group.
Rafael Mercado, founder of Team HAVOC, said Solis’ story and “One Pill Kills” message are having an impact.
“He does a lot to bring awareness by way of billboards, social media and pop-ups,” Mercado said. “He has lost a son to this, so he knows firsthand the pain and suffering a family goes through and the ripple effect of addiction on a family.”
Solis also partners with Samad’s House, a Milwaukee-based sober living home and behavioral health clinic dedicated to supporting women. He said he’s working with Tahira Malik, founder and chief operating officer of Samad’s House, to help organize a Walk for Lives event on July 11. Walk for Lives is a nationwide movement to raise awareness about those who died from fentanyl.
Solis said he wishes he could do even more but knows that ending the fentanyl crisis won’t happen quickly.
“The problem didn’t happen overnight,” he said. “It’s not gonna be any one group, not any one solution. Together we will save lives.”
Isaac Solis Jr., who died in 2019, had a passion for working on cars. (Courtesy of Isaac Solis)
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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