Wisconsin candidates now have a path to get off the ballot besides dying, thanks to a proposal Gov. Tony Evers signed into law on Friday.
The proposal was triggered by 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s failed attempt to withdraw from the ballot in a bid to boost President Donald Trump’s candidacy. The case made its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which rejected Kennedy’s argument after a lower court ruled that death was the only way for nominees to drop off the ballot.
Under the measure that Evers, a Democrat, signed into law, candidates can now get off the ballot as long as they file to withdraw at least seven business days before the Wisconsin Elections Commission certifies candidates ahead of the August and November elections and pay processing fees to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The measure doesn’t apply to the February and April elections.
Many county clerks had opposed an earlier version of the legislation because the originally proposed deadline to drop out would have disrupted tight timelines to prepare, print and send off ballots on time. That deadline would have allowed candidates to get off the ballot any time before the election commission certified candidates’ names.
To address those concerns, Rep. David Steffen, the Republican author of the measure, amended the proposal to require candidates to let the commission know at least seven business days ahead of time. The law also would charge anybody impersonating a candidate to get off the ballot with a felony.
The measure passed the Assembly with a voice vote. It passed the Senate 19-14, with just two Democratic votes in favor.
Steffen called the new law a win for Wisconsin voters, adding in a statement that it will “reduce unnecessary voter confusion.”
Clerks say they can adjust to ballot law
The new law won’t change operations much, said Wood County Clerk Trent Miner, a Republican in a county of about 74,000. Miner’s office programs and prepares the county’s ballots, which he said would make readjusting the ballots easier.
La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer, a Democrat, said a candidate dropping out at the last minute would still lead to extra hours of work since ballots are generally ready to be printed by then. But Dankmeyer added that it’s still doable and won’t stress her out. She said the new deadline is far better than the originally proposed one.
The Wisconsin law prohibiting withdrawal in cases besides death stood out nationwide as unusually strict. The state used to allow nominees to drop off the ballot if they declined to run, but it changed the policy in 1977 to the one that was active until Evers signed the new law last week.
Many other states allow nominees to drop off the ballot between 60 and 85 days before an election. Some states require polling places to have notices clarifying candidates’ withdrawal if they drop out after ballots are already printed.
His lawyers requested that clerks cover up his name on the ballot with stickers, a proposal that clerks said could lead to tabulator jams and disenfranchised voters. Kennedy still received 17,740 votes, or about 0.5% of the vote. Trump won the state by a little less than a percentage point.
All too often, secrecy and confidentiality carry the day in proceedings of state and local government.
In one recent case, the name “Microsoft” on a state Public Service Commission filing was redacted – blocked from public view – along with pages and pages of other information. The redactions served no purpose, as the company’s role in the former Racine County site formerly known as Foxconn had been announced publicly in 2024 by then-President Joe Biden and widely reported.
PSC statutes indicate that utilities can keep only certain items from the public and for very discrete reasons – for instance, to protect competitive information or trade secrets. But in practice, secrecy is extended to a wide range of records.
This is something I encountered in my reporting on utilities for the Green Bay Press-Gazette and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the late 1990s to 2017. And the number of confidential filings continued to be a concern in my current role at the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, the consumer advocate watchdog for utility customers.
Tom Content (Provided photo)
The problem is more urgent now, in an era of rapidly rising costs for utility customers and proposals for the building of huge, energy-gulping data centers now being proposed throughout the state. The stakes are getting higher.
Wisconsin’s utility system is undergoing a rapid-fire and massive transformation, arguably the biggest since the advent of widespread use of air conditioning 75 years ago, or even since Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla were lighting cities for the first time using electricity.
Two such data center projects in eastern Wisconsin – Microsoft in Racine and OpenAI Oracle Vantage in Port Washington – would use as much power by themselves as all of We Energies customers used last year. You read that right: Two such data center projects in eastern Wisconsin – Microsoft in Racine and OpenAI Oracle Vantage in Port Washington – would use as much power by themselves as all of We Energies customers used last year. You read that right: These two centers combined would require as much electricity as all 1.1 million industrial, commercial and residential customers used last year, including the entire cities of Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Port Washington, Waukesha and Appleton.
So it’s no wonder there’s more attention being placed, here and across the country, on the decisions being made by the three PSC commissioners in Madison and their counterparts across the country. This is especially true given that a new Marquette Law School poll found that a majority of state residents, Democrats and Republicans alike, believe that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits.
In the case of the Port Washington data center, city leaders signed a development agreement that contains a very broad definition of “confidential information” and then binds the city to assist the data center developer in defending any lawsuit seeking to release anything it considers confidential.
Recently, the nonprofit law center Midwest Environmental Advocates had to sue the city of Racine to get water records for the Microsoft development. Peg Scheaffer, the group’s spokesperson, said “it’s more important than ever that technology companies like Microsoft be transparent about the environmental impacts these huge data centers will have.”
Fortunately, Wisconsin’s PSC is paying heed to these concerns. At a training session for the energy legal community in Madison earlier this year, the PSC put utilities and their law firms on notice that the agency will be taking a closer look at confidential filings and scrutinizing more closely the requests filed by utilities to keep information from public view.
That transparency initiative is overdue, and welcome.
Local and state government leaders enticed by the lure of economic development should take heed. Going forward, let us err on the side of more transparency, not less.
The planet continues to warm due to human activity; bouts of cold weather don’t change this.
Satellites around the world measure temperatures at different places throughout the year. These are averaged to calculate annual global temperatures.
The past ten years (2015-2024) have been the ten hottest since modern record-keeping began in 1850, and 2024 was the all-time hottest. The last time Earth had a colder-than-average year was 1976.
Weather refers to meteorological conditions — heat, humidity, precipitation, etc. — in a given moment, while climate represents patterns of weather over time.
Cold snaps still occur, but they’re becoming less common as Earth warms from human emissions of heat-trapping gases.
This fact brief was originally published by Skeptical Science on November 2, 2025, and was authored by Sue Bin Park. Skeptical Science is a member of the Gigafact network.
Nine states, including Wisconsin, have no law specifying whether minors can obtain contraceptives without parental consent.
However, Wisconsin residents under age 18 can get birth control independently.
Clinics receiving federal Title X family planning funds cannot require parental consent.
One state of Wisconsin program offers free contraceptives to low-income minors without notifying parents.
And Wisconsin law requires that foster children receive confidential family planning services.
The lack of a law means some providers “may require parental consent out of an abundance of caution,” said Marquette University law professor Lisa Mazzie.
Parents might be notified by their health insurers if their children get contraception using insurance.
In the latest national survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, 32% of high school students reported ever having sex, down from 47% in 2013; 52% used a condom during their last sexual intercourse; 33% used hormonal birth control.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Jack Daly, who was convicted and senttoprison last year after pleadingguilty to defrauding thousands of conservative political donors out of money — including a scheme claiming to draft former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke to run for the U.S. Senate — has emerged from federal custody to quietly re-establish himself as a top Republican Party campaign fundraiser.
A NOTUS investigation found that dozens of federal-level Republican political committees — including the Republican National Committee, numerous congressional committees and campaign operations tied to President Donald Trump — have together spent nearly $18 million on digital fundraising, donor lists and other services from Daly’s latest political consulting firm, Better Mousetrap Digital, according to Virgin Islands corporatefilings and Federal Election Commission records.
Daly established Better Mousetrap Digital in September 2023, around the time he surrendered his North Carolina law license, accepted notice of disbarment and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and lying to the Federal Election Commission.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Daly “targeted vulnerable victims, including a woman with Alzheimer’s and elderly veterans.” A judge in December 2023 sentenced Daly to four months in prison, a $20,000 fine and nearly $70,000 in restitution payments.
Federal Bureau of Prisons records indicate Daly exited federal custody in June 2024. He is scheduled to remain under supervised release until mid-2026 and is currently petitioning a federal court to vacate his conviction.
Daly, through his attorney, Brandon Sample, declined to answer a series of questions from NOTUS about his legal history, experiences in prison and Better Mousetrap Digital’s operations and business model. Daly likewise declined to comment about whether Better Mousetrap Digital clients are aware of his legal situation and whether he’s ever lost business because of it.
But when asked by NOTUS about their contracts with Daly’s Better Mousetrap Digital for fundraising and data services, several Republican political committees said they will stop, or have stopped, working with the firm.
Among them: the Republican National Committee, which has paid Better Mousetrap Digital more than $1 million since September 2023. This includes payments as recently as last month, on Sept. 17 and Sept. 30, totaling nearly $15,000 for a “list acquisition,” according to FEC records.
“Services from this vendor originated more than two years ago under a previous leadership team, and currently the RNC does not have an ongoing business relationship with them,” RNC Communications Director Zach Parkinson told NOTUS. “The RNC runs one of the largest digital fundraising operations in the conservative ecosystem, which regularly works with a wide range of outside vendors for services. All RNC activities are conducted in full compliance with the law.”
The Mullin Victory Fund — a joint fundraising committee composed of Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s Oklahoma campaign committee, the senator’s Boots Political Action Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — has spent about $66,000 with Better Mousetrap Digital since September 2023, FEC records indicate.
The Mullin committee’s most recent payment to Daly’s firm came last month, on Sept. 30 — $4,969 for “list rental fees,” per FEC records.
“We were not aware of this, and will not use them moving forward,” Mullin’s campaign committee said in a statement to NOTUS when asked if it was aware of Daly’s legal history.
Meanwhile, the reelection campaign of Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican of Wyoming, has spent about $122,000 on “fundraising fees” with Better Mousetrap Digital since 2023, including more than 30 transactions this summer and autumn, according to FEC records through September.
When asked why it works with Daly’s company, Hageman’s campaign told NOTUS that “we have advised all vendors to cease any sub-vendor relationships with the referenced company.”
The 1776 Project PAC has paid Better Mousetrap Digital about $151,000 since September 2023, with its most recent payment coming on June 30, for “fundraising consulting agency fees” totaling about $111,000, according to the most recently available FEC records.
“The 1776 PAC has never spoken to Jack Daly,” PAC spokesperson Mitchell P. Jackson said. “He was a digital vendor that worked for a vendor, who we no longer work with. In other words, Daly was a vendor of a vendor that we no longer use.”
NOTUS attempted to contact more than three dozen other Republican political committees about their payments to Better Mousetrap Digital, which range from the low four figures to well into seven figures.
The federal-level committees of the Republican Party of Florida and West Virginia Republican Party acknowledged NOTUS’ inquiries but provided no answers to requests. The Republican state party committees in Arizona, California, Iowa, Minnesota and Texas, which also do business with Better Mousetrap Digital, did not respond to repeated messages.
Nor did several of Better Mousetrap Digital’s most lucrative federal clients, including the NRSC (more than $5.2 million in spending since September 2023), Trump National Committee JFC (nearly $3.6 million in spending) and the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee (nearly $1 million).
Congressional reelection committees that have recently used Better Mousetrap Digital and that did not respond to requests for comment include those of Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. The campaigns of Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Cory Mills, Byron Donalds, Jimmy Patronis and Kat Cammack of Florida also did not respond, nor did those of Reps. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Ronny Jackson of Texas.
Better Mousetrap Digital also does some state-level political business. In New Jersey, for example, state campaign finance records indicate Republican political committee Elect Common Sense has spent more than $155,000 with Better Mousetrap Digital, mostly on “fundraising fees.” Kitchen Table Conservatives, a New Jersey super PAC in part led by former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway that’s supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli ahead of next week’s election, has spent more than $7,000.
On his LinkedIn page, Daly describes himself as a “prominent and prolific digital fundraiser for more than one thousand clients (GOP candidates/committees and conservative/MAGA causes)” and a “leading digital fundraiser for President Trump & Congressional Republicans.”
Better Mousetrap Digital describes itself as the “premier digital fundraising consulting firm for Republicans. With decades of experience spanning from state house campaigns to the White House, we bring unparalleled expertise and dedication to our clients.”
On its website, the firm advertises Donald Trump for President, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the RNC as clients, alongside the committees’ logos.
Prosecutors accused Daly and fellow attorney Nathanael Pendley of raising more than $1.6 million for a political committee, known as Draft PAC, that promised to convince Clarke, the former Milwaukee County sheriff, to run for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin ahead of the 2018 midterm election.
Clarke, who did not respond to requests for comment for this article, never ran for the Senate and maintained he never had intentions to do so, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Daly was operating a “scam PAC.” Federal prosecutors said Daly and Pendley kept fundraising anyway, in part for their personal benefit, and lied about their activities to federal officials.
In a letter to NOTUS, Sample — Daly’s attorney, who leads the Washington, D.C.-based Criminal Center LLC law firm — wrote that “a guilty plea is an admission only to the essential elements of the charged offense, and nothing more.”
While Daly “respects the freedom of the press,” Daly “will not tolerate the publication of any material that misrepresents the narrow scope of his plea, repeats as fact the government’s unproven and rejected allegations, or otherwise defames him,” Sample wrote.
Sample also emailed a copy of the transcript of Daly’s Dec. 15, 2025, sentencing hearing before U.S. District Court Judge J.P. Stadtmueller, with several passages highlighted.
Among them is a statement from Daly’s former attorney, Matthew Dean Krueger, that Daly’s crime is “a very limited offense.”
Krueger also told the court that “the government suggests that the defendants put each of these prospective donors at risk. No, it is the other way around. It’s the donor that put themselves at risk by subscribing or submitting a contribution.”
Daly is now in the midst of a monthslong court proceeding in which he is fighting to have his conviction vacated.
In a Sept. 30 request for an evidentiary hearing, Sample argues in a filing with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin that Daly received “substantively incorrect advice” from his previous attorneys and was in “profound turmoil over his plea” — and therefore unable to make a “knowing and intelligent decision during the critical window when his right to withdraw that plea was absolute.”
In his 2023 plea agreement, Daly “acknowledges, understands and agrees that he is, in fact, guilty of the offense” of which he was charged. “The defendant admits that these facts are true and correct and establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
At Daly’s December 2023 sentencing hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Knight argued that “Mr. Daly has pled guilty to a year-long criminal conspiracy to lie to the FEC and to defraud donors. So the idea that somehow it’s inaccurate to suggest that there’s a multi-year course of criminal conduct, that’s literally the offense of conviction. That is beyond dispute at this point, and any suggestion to the contrary should just be flatly rejected.”
Election Day 2026 is now 365 days away. Over the next year Wisconsin voters will cast their ballots in a number of races that will set the future direction of the Badger State.
Voters will see candidates — and campaign ads — in 2026 for races from the governor’s office to the Capitol’s legislative chambers to the halls of Congress. Many of the top statewide races feature open seats, which will mean new faces in offices following next year’s elections.
There is much on the line. Will Republicans retake control of the governor’s office? Will Democrats win a majority in either chamber of the Legislature? Will the liberal majority grow on the Wisconsin Supreme Court?
Here are five election storylines Wisconsin Watch is following as the state heads into 2026.
Another Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Before next November, Wisconsin has another Supreme Court race in April.
Appeals Court judges Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor are running for the seat currently held by Justice Rebecca Bradley, who announced in August she would not run for another 10-year term on the court. While it’s still possible for other candidates to enter for February primary contests, signs point to Lazar and Taylor as the likely contestants.
The candidates are political polar opposites, even as Wisconsin’s judicial races remain “nonpartisan” in name only. Lazar is a conservative former Waukesha County Circuit Court judge, who served as an assistant attorney general during former Gov. Scott Walker’s administration and defended key policies in court, including the administration’s voter ID laws. Taylor, a former policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, served as a Democrat in the Assembly before Democratic Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020. She ran unopposed for an appellate seat in 2023.
But, unlike the 2024 and 2025 Supreme Court elections, the race between Lazar and Taylor is not for a majority on the court. That makes it less likely to draw record spending than previous years, said David Julseth, a data analyst with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Still, Taylor has already raised more than $500,000 in the first half of the year, according to campaign finance reports. The financial position for Lazar, who announced her candidacy in early October, will become clearer after fundraising reports are filed in January.
Will Democrats flip the Senate? Will Republicans maintain the Assembly majority?
Republicans have controlled both the Assembly and the Senate since 2011. But while the GOP held onto majorities in both chambers in 2024, Democrats flipped 14 Senate and Assembly seats last year to further chip away at Republican control.
The party breakdown in the Legislature this session is 18-15 in the Senate and 54-45 in the Assembly.
The attention of political watchers is on the Senate where Democratic Campaign Committee communications director Will Karcz said gains in 2024 put the party in a good position to win a majority in 2026.
The Assembly poses more of a challenge. Twelve Assembly seats were won within less than 5 percentage points in 2024. Just five of those races were won by Republicans, so Democrats would have to flip those seats and maintain the seven other close contests from 2024 to win a majority next year. And those five include some of the more moderate Republican members, such as Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville.
The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee is eyeing three districts currently held by Republicans in parts of the state where portions of the new legislative maps will be tested for the first time. They include the 5th District held by Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield; the 17th District held by Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green; and the 21st District held by Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine. Democrats running in those districts include Rep. Robyn Vining in the 5th, Rep. Jenna Jacobson in the 17th and Racine Transit and Mobility Director Trevor Jung in the 21st.
The party is also eyeing the 25th District seat held by Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, as a potentially competitive race.
Democrats would gain a majority in the Senate if the party flips two seats and holds onto District 31 held by Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick. Republican Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, in mid-October announced he plans to run for the District 31 seat. James moved to Thorp after his home in Altoona was drawn out of his seat in the 23rd District, but last month said he planned to “come home.”
Who will be the gubernatorial nominees?
Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial election is the state’s first since 2010 without an incumbent on the ballot. Evers announced in July he would not seek a third term, opening up the field for competitive primaries ahead of the general election next November.
Neither candidate field is set at this point, but two Republicans and seven Democrats already announced gubernatorial campaigns this year. There is still a long stretch of campaigning before Wisconsin voters choose their candidates. The Marquette University Law School Poll released Oct. 29 shows a majority of registered voters haven’t heard enough about the candidates. Additionally, 70% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats have yet to decide on a primary candidate, the poll shows.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann make up the current Republican primary field. Tiffany is positioned as the front-runner largely due to the base of more than 700,000 residents in his congressional district, said Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist and Republican strategist who previously worked for former Gov. Tommy Thompson.
Tiffany and Schoemann are both “consistent conservatives,” and a clean primary between the two candidates could benefit Republicans further into next year, McCoshen said.
“Republicans did a lot of damage to themselves in the 2022 primary and weren’t able to put the whole house back together in time for the general,” McCoshen said. “There are a lot of Republicans who, sadly, did not vote for (2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee) Tim Michels, and we can’t have a repeat of that.”
The Democrats include Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. leader Missy Hughes, former Madison state Rep. Brett Hulsey, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Madison state Sen. Kelda Roys and beer vendor Ryan Strnad.
The unanswered question for Democrats is whether former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes enters the primary contest. Some polls already indicate Barnes, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 and narrowly lost to Sen. Ron Johnson, would be the Democratic front-runner if he enters the race.
The Marquette poll shows none of the Democratic primary candidates has reached double-digit percentage support. Hong had the most support among Democrats at 6% with Rodriguez next at 4%.
Will there be a congressional shake-up in the 3rd District?
All eight of Wisconsin’s congressional districts are up for election in 2026, but the race to watch is the 3rd Congressional District in western Wisconsin currently held by U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden.
Van Orden was elected to the 3rd District in 2022. It had been held by former Democratic Rep. Ron Kind for 26 years before he retired. In his two terms in Congress, Van Orden, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, has garnered a reputation as a polarizing political figure.
“Derrick Van Orden does not have as firm a grip on the district as incumbents do, like Bryan Steil, in their districts,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “He’s a controversial figure. He’s given his opponents a lot of material that could be used against him.”
Van Orden won reelection in 2024 by less than 3 percentage points over Democrat Rebecca Cooke. The 2026 contest will most likely be a rematch between Van Orden and Cooke, a waitress who previously ran a Democratic fundraising company.
In 2024 and 2026, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put the Van Orden-Cooke race on the party’s lists of flippable House seats. National election analysis sites, such as the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, rate Wisconsin’s 3rd District as a toss-up.
Wisconsin voters in the Northwoods will see an open contest in the 7th Congressional District with Tiffany’s exit to run for governor. At least three Republicans have already announced campaigns in the 7th: former 3rd District candidate Jessi Ebben, Ashland attorney Paul Wassgren and Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
That seat is likely safe for Republicans. Tiffany won reelection in 2024 by 27 percentage points.
What will the voter mood be in 2026?
Signs are beginning to emerge as to what mood voters will be in as they head to the polls.
Democrats could benefit from a midterm election year, where Trump is not on the ballot and elections often favor the opposite party of the White House.
Since Trump’s inauguration in January, his administration has garnered headlines for its immigration policies, cuts to federal government agencies and the deployment of the National Guard to Democratic cities, such as Chicago. Opposition to Trump and his policies has led to mass demonstrations across the country this year.
“National politics now is largely a battle between the Trump administration and Democratic governors and attorneys general around the country,” Burden said. “So I think Trump is going to be near the center of the governor’s race.”
Inflation and the cost of living are the top issue for Wisconsin’s registered voters heading into 2026, which could also support Democratic candidates running against Republicans currently in office. The poll found 83% of Democrats, 79% of independents and 54% of Republicans are “very concerned” about inflation. The top concern for Republicans, according to the poll, is illegal immigration and border security, with 75% of Wisconsin GOP respondents saying they are “very concerned” about the issue.
“Inflation stuff is much more of a problem for the Republicans at this point because presidents tend to get blamed for that,” said Charles Franklin, the Marquette poll director. “Across all of our questions that touch on inflation, cost of living, price of groceries, those are some pretty grim numbers if you’re the incumbent party that may be held to account for it. We saw how much that damaged Biden when inflation spiked in the summer of 2022.”
Republicans, though, could benefit from increasing voter concern about property taxes. The Marquette poll shows 56% of voters say reducing property taxes is more important than funding public education — a reversal from responses to that question during the 2018 and 2022 elections that Evers won. And 57% of voters said they would be more likely to vote against a school referendum, a huge swing from just four months ago when 52% said they would support a referendum.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Gov. Tony Evers just made proposed legislation designed to help local EMS — and therefore, the public — the law of the land. The move comes as EMS agencies across the state continue to feel the pressure from rising costs and an increasing number of 911 calls.
“Nobody should ever call for help in an emergency and have to wonder whether help is going to come,” Evers said in a news release. “We must continue to invest in and support Wisconsin’s EMS professionals.”
One provision requires the state’s technical college system to give grants to schools that offer EMS courses. It also provides for educational reimbursements to individual EMS students or the agencies that sponsor them.
“This is a huge step forward for emergency medical services,” wrote Alan DeYoung, executive director of the Wisconsin EMS Association, in a news release. The new law is “removing the financial barriers to entry into EMS and expanding the pipeline of professionals who want to advance their skills and knowledge.”
In another law, Evers signed off on an increase in the maximum reimbursement EMS agencies are allowed to receive when patients are treated but not transported. EMS agencies traditionally get most of their funding from calls involving patient transports and very little from non-transports. The same law removed a disincentive for areas that opt to form joint EMS or fire crews with neighboring communities.
The new legislation is a win for EMS and the communities that are served, DeYoung wrote.
Trouble in Wisconsin EMS industry
“In 10 years, I don’t know where the fire, police and EMS service is going to be.”
Christopher Garrison, Sun Prairie’s fire and EMS chief
So says Christopher Garrison, Sun Prairie’s fire and EMS chief.
Fewer volunteers, more 911 calls and the rising costs of medical care are stressing EMS agencies statewide.
“It’s a vital service,” said Tyler Byrnes of the Wisconsin Policy Forum about EMS. “More people are trying to use it, and the revenue to pay for it is not growing quite as quickly.”
EMS activations in the U.S., which include 911 calls and events like scheduled ambulance transports, increased by about 25% between 2021 and 2023, according to data from the National Emergency Medical Services Information System.
Not addressing funding and staffing challenges may “soon have a real impact on public safety,” according to a report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum published in 2021. Recruitment, difficult for all departments, “is reaching a crisis point for many volunteer and combination departments.”
Alan DeYoung, executive director for the Wisconsin EMS Association
DeYoung, representing the Wisconsin EMS Association, has received reports of some EMS agencies in Wisconsin not responding to as many as 80% of their calls.
When an agency can’t respond, ambulances stationed farther away usually take the call. It stresses the system and can slow response times for everyone.
A lot of it has to do with volunteers, who have historically made up the bulk of EMS staffing. About 65% of Wisconsin EMS agencies, many of them rural, still employ volunteers, according to a report from the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health.
Volunteers have subsidized the taxpayers for years, DeYoung said. But declining volunteer rates mean something has to give.
That probably means higher taxes to pay for professional EMS responders, or worse EMS service than you used to get, experts say.
The “biggest issue” is the availability of volunteer and part-time staff, Garrison said. It’s a generational difference, he continued. Younger generations simply place a higher premium on work-life balance and family.
The job is demanding and intense, and the schooling required for paramedics is “ridiculous,” he continued. “We see death every day. It’s hard on people.”
Ideas exist to relieve some pressure.
Some of them include charging repeat 911 users a “utilization fee,” promoting EMS as a profitable career with benefits and paying volunteers.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
As uncertainty surrounds Wisconsin’s SNAP program, also known as FoodShare, some community members are finding ways to support others in their time of need.
Wisconsin’s FoodShare program serves more than 700,000 Wisconsin residents. FoodShare is funded through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. SNAP benefits across the country are at risk during the government shutdown.
After the Trump administration said it planned to to freeze payments to SNAP on Nov. 1, two federal judges on Friday ruled the administration must draw from contingency funds to keep aid flowing during the shutdown.
But those rulings may be appealed and benefits may be delayed.
Here are some things you can do if you live in Milwaukee and want to support anyone who might become impacted by FoodShare delays.
What you should know
The Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee is in a position to provide resources to those impacted, according to Reno Wright, advocacy director for the nonprofit.
“We do know that November payments are going to be delayed, but that eventually they will have access to those November benefits,” he said.
People can go to HungerTaskForce.org and access the “Get Help” page, and from there they will be able to find the nearest meal site or food pantry to them and their families, Wright said.
You can also follow the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ FoodShare update page.
What’s being done
Food drive
The city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Public Schools and other partners launched a citywide food drive to help residents impacted by the federal shutdown and a pause of FoodShare benefits.
Collaboration to support food pantries
Feeding America of Eastern Wisconsin and Nourish MKE are collaborating with the groups to collect nonperishable food and monetary donations to support Milwaukee food pantries.
Metcalfe Park Community Bridges has been organizing around food needs and access through advocacy and opening community fridges.
To keep up with or support Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, you can follow the group’s Facebook page.
Advocacy efforts
The Hunger Task Force’s Voices Against Hunger is encouraging people to urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, into helping.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the authority and the resources to prevent an interruption in benefits by using SNAP contingency funds, transferring funds from other departments and issuing clear guidance to state agencies. The tools to make sure families do not go hungry during this holiday season are available, and what is needed now is immediate administrative action and political will,” an email blast from the group stated.
Wright said the Hunger Task Force’s Voices Against Hunger is a statewide platform where information is sent out to let people know about things that are going on at the state and federal level, including federal nutrition programs like FoodShare.
“We are all deeply concerned about the millions of families who will be impacted by the possible delays in SNAP benefits,” she said. “In times like these, community becomes crucial.”
Sisson’s tips on how you can help your neighbors:
Reach out to your local food bank to see if it is accepting donations of time, food or money. All are going to be crucial.
Share your favorite low-cost meal plans and recipes.
Share a simple list of free hot meal sites, pantry hours and community fridges in your city. Keep it updated and easy to reshare.
Stock and restock community fridges and neighborhood pantry boxes.
If you own or manage a business, create a pantry shelf or offer shift meals and grocery stipends.
Others advocates said you can:
Keep up with your neighbors and help where you can.
Offer rides to pick up food for those in need.
Volunteer at your neighborhood food pantries.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Wisconsin became the 36th state to limit cellphones and other electronic devices in school Friday when its Democratic governor signed a bill requiring districts to prohibit phone use during class time.
The measure passed with bipartisan support, though some Democrats in the Legislature said controlling gun violence should be a higher priority than banning cellphones.
In signing the bill, Gov. Tony Evers said he believes that decisions like this should be made at the local level, but “my promise to the people of Wisconsin is to always do what’s best for our kids, and that obligation weighs heavily on me in considering this bill.”
Evers said he was “deeply concerned” about the impacts of cellphone and social media use on young people. He said cellphones could be “a major distraction from learning, a source of bullying, and a barrier to our kids’ important work of just being a kid.”
This school year alone, new restrictions on phone use in schools went into effect in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The push to limit cellphone use has been rapid. Florida was the first state to pass such a law, in 2023.
Both Democrats and Republicans have taken up the cause, reflecting a growing consensus that phones are bad for kids’ mental health and take their focus away from learning, even as some researchers say the issue is less clear-cut.
Most school districts in Wisconsin had already restricted cellphone use in the classroom, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report. The bill passed by the Legislature on Oct. 14 would require school districts to enact policies prohibiting the use of cellphones during instructional time.
Of the 36 states that restrict cellphones in school, phones are banned throughout the school day in 18 states and the District of Columbia, although Georgia and Florida impose “bell-to-bell” bans only from kindergarten through eighth grade. Another seven states ban them during class time, but not between classes or during lunch. Still others, particularly those with traditions of local school control, mandate only a cellphone policy, believing districts will take the hint and sharply restrict phone access.
Under the Wisconsin bill, all public schools are required to adopt a policy prohibiting the use of cellphones during instructional time by July 1. There would be exceptions including for use during an emergency or perceived threat; to manage a student’s health care; if use of the phone is allowed under the student’s individualized education program; or if written by a teacher for educational purposes.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to pay for SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using emergency reserve funds during the government shutdown.
The judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island gave the administration leeway on whether to fund the program partially or in full for November. That also brings uncertainty about how things will unfold and will delay payments for many beneficiaries whose cards would normally be recharged early in the month.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net — and it costs about $8 billion per month nationally.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture committee that oversees the food aid program, said Friday’s rulings from judges nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama confirm what Democrats have been saying: “The administration is choosing not to feed Americans in need, despite knowing that it is legally required to do so.”
Judges agree at least one fund must go toward SNAP
Democratic state attorneys general or governors from 25 states, as well as the District of Columbia, challenged the plan to pause the program, contending that the administration has a legal obligation to keep it running in their jurisdictions.
The administration said it wasn’t allowed to use a contingency fund of about $5 billion for the program, which reversed a USDA plan from before the shutdown that said money would be tapped to keep SNAP running. The Democratic officials argued that not only could that money be used, but that it must be. They also said a separate fund with around $23 billion is available for the cause.
In Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell ruled from the bench in a case filed by cities and nonprofits that the program must be funded using at least the contingency funds, and he asked for an update on progress by Monday.
Along with ordering the federal government to use emergency reserves to backfill SNAP benefits, McConnell ruled that all previous work requirement waivers must continue to be honored. The USDA during the shutdown has terminated existing waivers that exempted work requirements for older adults, veterans and others.
There were similar elements in the Boston case, where U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled in a written opinion that the USDA has to pay for SNAP, calling the suspension “unlawful.” She ordered the federal government to advise the court by Monday as to whether they will use the emergency reserve funds to provide reduced SNAP benefits for November or fully fund the program “using both contingency funds and additional available funds.
“Defendants’ suspension of SNAP payments was based on the erroneous conclusion that the Contingency Funds could not be used to ensure continuation of SNAP payments,” she wrote. “This court has now clarified that Defendants are required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program.”
For many, benefits will still be delayed after the ruling
No matter how the rulings came down, the benefits for millions of people will be delayed in November because the process of loading cards can take a week or more in many states.
The administration did not immediately say whether it would appeal the rulings.
States, food banks and SNAP recipients have been bracing for an abrupt shift in how low-income people can get groceries. Advocates and beneficiaries say halting the food aid would force people to choose between buying groceries and paying other bills.
The majority of states have announced more or expedited funding for food banks or novel ways to load at least some benefits onto the SNAP debit cards.
Across the U.S., advocates who had been sounding the alarm for weeks about the pending SNAP benefits cut off let out a small sigh of relief on Friday as the rulings came down, while acknowledging the win is temporary and possibly not complete.
“Thousands of nonprofit food banks, pantries and other organizations across the country can avoid the impossible burden that would have resulted if SNAP benefits had been halted,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the plaintiffs in the Rhode Island case.
The possibility of reduced benefits also means uncertainty
Cynthia Kirkhart, CEO of Facing Hunger Food Bank in Huntington, West Virginia, said her organization and the pantries it serves in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia will keep their extra hours this weekend, knowing that the people whose benefits usually arrive at the start of the month won’t see them.
“What we know, unless the administration is magical, is nothing is going to happen tomorrow,” she said.
Kristle Johnson, a 32-year-old full-time nursing student and mother of three in Florida, is concerned about the possibility of reduced benefits.
Despite buying meat in bulk, careful meal planning and not buying junk food, she said, her $994 a month benefit doesn’t buy a full month’s groceries.
“Now I have to deal with someone who wants to get rid of everything I have to keep my family afloat until I can better myself,” Johnson said of Trump.
The ruling doesn’t resolve partisan tussles
At a Washington news conference earlier Friday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department runs SNAP, said the contingency funds in question would not cover the cost of the program for long. Speaking at a press conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol, she blamed Democrats for conducting a “disgusting dereliction of duty” by refusing to end their Senate filibuster as they hold out for an extension of health care funds.
A push this week to continue SNAP funding during the shutdown failed in Congress.
To qualify for SNAP in 2025, a family of four’s net income after certain expenses can’t exceed the federal poverty line, which is about $31,000 per year. Last year, SNAP provided assistance to 41 million people, nearly two-thirds of whom were families with children.
“The court’s ruling protects millions of families, seniors, and veterans from being used as leverage in a political fight and upholds the principle that no one in America should go hungry,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said of the Rhode Island decision.
As Democrats across the country devise ways to match Republican redistricting efforts, a long-standing battle over congressional maps has been quietly progressing in one of the nation’s most competitive swing states.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is taking up two gerrymandering lawsuits challenging the state’s congressional maps after years of back-and-forth litigation on the issue. Over the summer, it appeared redistricting efforts would go nowhere before the midterms; the state’s high court in June rejected similar lawsuits.
But liberal groups have found new ways to challenge the maps that the state Supreme Court appears open to considering. This time, plaintiffs are requesting the court appoint a three-judge panel to hear their partisan gerrymandering case, and a new group has stepped into the fray with a lawsuit that argues a novel anticompetitive gerrymandering claim.
The jury is still out on whether those rulings will come in time for 2026.
“Could they be? Yes. Will they be? That’s hard to say,” said Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice.
Some developments in the cases in October indicate that the gerrymandering fight in Wisconsin is far from over.
The justices have allowed Wisconsin’s six Republican congressmen to join the cases as defendants. The congressmen are now looking to force two of the court’s liberal justices, Janet Protasiewicz and Susan Crawford, to recuse themselves from the cases. Both justices were endorsedby the Democratic Party of Wisconsin; Protasiewicz criticized the maps on the campaign trail, and Crawford’s donors billed her as a justice who could help Democrats flip seats.
Some are unsure why the Republican congressmen are entering the fight now, months after the liberal groups filed the new cases.
“They took their time to even seek intervention, and now they’re seeking recusal, and now they’re trying to hold up the appointment process. I’m sure their goal is to try to throw sand in the gears of this litigation,” said Abha Khanna, a plaintiff attorney in Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, the partisan gerrymandering case requesting that the courts appoint a three-judge panel to review the maps.
The offices and campaigns of the six Republican congressmen did not respond to requests for comment.
Khanna said her team filed the lawsuit with enough time to potentially redraw the maps, despite the congressmen’s recent actions.
“There certainly is time to affect the 2026 elections,” she said.
This lawsuit lays out a more familiar partisan gerrymandering argument, in which lawyers say Wisconsin’s congressional maps discriminate against Democratic voters. Six of the state’s eight House seats are filled by Republicans, even though statewide elections have been close partisan races. Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin — a Republican and Democrat, respectively — won their most recent statewide elections by a percentage point or less, while Gov. Tony Evers kept his office by more than 3 percentage points in 2022 (Evers will not be seeking reelection in 2026).
The plaintiffs believe they ultimately have a strong case because the state’s high court ruled in 2023 that the “least change” principle — which dictated the 2021 maps to be drawn “consistent with existing boundaries” of the 2011 maps — should no longer be used as primary criteria in redistricting. The state legislative maps were changed. But the federal district maps were not.
In effect, the maps that were proposed by Evers in 2021 continued on the legacy of Republican gerrymandering, Khanna said. The lawsuit, filed in July, requests the appointment of a three-judge panel to hear the case, after the state Supreme Court in June rejected the plaintiffs’ petition.
“It’s a judicially created metric that violates the principles of the (Wisconsin) constitution,” Khanna said. “This can be decided without any fact-finding at all. The court can decide it as a matter of law, and then we can proceed quickly to a remedial map.”
Not everyone involved is so optimistic that this will be resolved quickly. Jeff Mandell, a plaintiff attorney in the redistricting lawsuit alleging that the maps are illegally too favorable to incumbents — a new argument that hasn’t been tested in the state — said it is “exceedingly unlikely” that new maps could be drawn in time for the midterm elections. Primary candidates must file their nomination papers to the elections commission by June 1, 2026. The final district lines must be in place by spring for candidates to circulate their papers among the right voters.
“If we don’t have maps by the end of March or so, it’s very, very difficult to run the election next November,” Mandell said.
Even if the Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that the current maps are unconstitutional, the most likely scenario would punt the task of redrawing to partisan officeholders, he added — a process that could hinder easy consensus and potentially draw out the timeline for months.
Mandell’s lawsuit is arguably facing a bigger hurdle as it attempts to make the case that the districts are drawn in a way that makes it extremely difficult for challengers to have a real chance.
The exception is Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, where Rep. Derrick Van Orden has won by fewer-than-four-point margins and is currently facing three challengers, including the well-funded Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who lost to him in 2024.
The median margin of victory in Wisconsin’s remaining congressional districts is about 29 percentage points, according to a NOTUS review.
“Thirty points is not something you can overcome by having a really good candidate, it’s not something you can overcome by having a great campaign plan and executing it flawlessly, it’s not something you can overcome when there’s a swing election,” Mandell said.
The next months will prove whether the incumbent argument is convincing to Wisconsin’s justices, who have heard their share of redistricting cases.
This story was produced andoriginally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
As a 19-year-old election worker in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Lydia McComas discovered how meaningful it was to help voters navigate the process. Less than a decade later, she’s the city clerk in Madison, Wisconsin, overseeing one of the most scrutinized election offices in the state and working to rebuild trust after last year’s ballot mishandling scandal.
Between those two points, McComas followed an unusually direct path: a college internship supporting elections planning, then a full-time job in a county elections office along with a graduate program in election administration.
She’s part of an emerging generation of officials who set out early and very intentionally, through internships and university training, to make a career out of election work. Driving this movement toward professionalized election administration are veterans of the field who recognize the need to replace retiring clerks and have spent years creating a stronger, more sustainable pipeline.
Together they are transforming a profession once dominated by civic-minded volunteers and on-the-job learners.
“I’d love for more young people to get involved with election administration and explore it as a future career,” McComas told Votebeat in an interview.
For now, McComas is an outlier in Wisconsin: At 28, she’s among the youngest to hold a municipal clerk position — and one of the few who pursued the election profession, on purpose, from the outset. Nearly 80% of the state’s chief election officials are over 50, and fewer than half have a college degree or higher, according to the Elections & Voting Information Center.
Her rise comes amid historic turnover that highlights the urgency of developing the pipeline of election officials: Between 2020 and 2024, more than 700 of Wisconsin’s municipal clerks left their posts, the highest churn in the nation.
The new generation is fully aware that the job has changed since many of those veteran clerks started, said EVIC research director Paul Manson, with their work under closer public examination and intense political pressure.
McComas’ expertise will be tested
McComas’ new role is about more than elections — she’ll take meeting minutes, process licenses and handle business registrations, among other duties. But her expertise is connecting with voters, the media and community partners and explaining complex election procedures in layman’s terms.
That expertise will be tested immediately in Madison, where trust in the city’s election office is still mending after last year’s controversy over 193 missing ballots. The fallout — investigations, a civil lawsuit, and the suspension and resignation of longtime clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl — left voters demanding transparency.
“There’s pressure to make sure that everything works well, that the public trusts us,” McComas said. She knows the climb will be steep. Most of the staff who weathered that turbulent year remain, seasoned administrators now adapting to greater public scrutiny.
The glare of attention on Madison, she said, mirrors the national reality for election administrators everywhere — their jobs are increasingly under the spotlight of polarization and doubt.
“Last year was really tough, and next year is tough,” McComas said, noting the four statewide elections ahead in 2026.
An early start in the workings of elections
People take different paths into election administration. Milwaukee’s chief election official, Paulina Gutiérrez, came from public safety and legislative work, while Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jeffreys was the mayor’s chief of staff. Others arrive from outside government — teachers, bankers or longtime poll workers who worked their way up.
McComas’ journey into this world started early. As a kid in Minneapolis, she tagged along with her parents to the polls, filling out mock ballots and proudly wearing an “I will vote” sticker. She also joined them knocking on doors for get-out-the-vote drives. Those formative experiences led her to study political science at the University of Minnesota, volunteer on campaigns and intern for U.S. Sen. Al Franken.
Her time on campaigns confirmed that the partisan side of politics wasn’t for her. “I was used to talking to people regardless of their party,” McComas said. “Working for candidates and not doing that just felt wrong.”
Her first job in elections was a college internship with Hennepin County in 2017, supporting the election department on planning, updating training manuals and legislative priorities. McComas was struck by the precision required in running elections and wanted to devote her career to it, she said.
After graduating, she joined Hennepin County Elections full time, first as a general election administrator and then specializing in voter engagement for a jurisdiction of 700,000 voters in and around Minneapolis. She helped voters get registered and answered questions about voting during a pandemic.
She also oversaw compliance with election laws and developed training for poll workers.
Meanwhile, she pursued a graduate certificate in election administration from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
She was hired in Madison in August.
A new era for training for election officials
Academic programs like the one McComas followed, focusing on elections as a career path, are more common today, but still rare at most universities, where public affairs education focuses more on city management, emergency planning and public health, said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer at the National Association of Election Officials and a longtime election administration educator.
The ones that exist are growing: The University of Minnesota’s election program had just over 50 enrollees in 2017. In 2025, there were over 200. In addition to the Humphrey School, Auburn University offers a graduate certificate in election administration, and Northern Arizona University now provides an undergraduate program.
Meanwhile, 43 states, including Wisconsin, have other types of programs to train local election officials, a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis found. Wisconsin is also among the 22 states offering training specific to new election officials. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Arizona Fellows program places students in county election offices, boosting interest in election work and helping offices engage younger, more diverse voters.
Patrick, who has taught at the Humphrey School since 2016, sees an urgent need to formalize the field and promote it to youth because so many older clerks are retiring.
“It’s just not on anyone’s radar as an option,” Patrick said, “and I think that that’s part of the work we need to do as a profession, which is particularly challenging in this environment, because now people are aware of election administration for all the wrong reasons.”
Formalizing the pipeline might be even harder for Wisconsin, where most municipal clerks work part time, and most who work full time spend much of the year working on things besides elections.
McComas said that both Madison and Hennepin County try to do local outreach to universities and have interns to promote election administration as a career path.
Still, she finds herself explaining to many people that running elections is a full-time job, not just a poll-working gig for several days a year.
McComas says she’s prepared for challenge in Madison
In Madison, McComas said her first goal is to rebuild trust.
She plans to draw on her voter engagement background to make that happen. Under interim clerk Mike Haas, the city overhauled many of the systems that failed in the 2024 election, but those improvements, she said, went largely unnoticed because there wasn’t a strong communications plan.
“Next year,” she said, “we will be able to show the public that we are transparent and that we are answering any questions.”
Although her career doesn’t go back decades, McComas said her experience has prepared her for this moment. Her graduate certificate program gave her a broader perspective, she said, and helped reaffirm her commitment to the role.
Beyond school, McComas said the work — and the people she met in Hennepin County — sparked a lasting passion for election administration. Surrounded by colleagues who shared her dedication and curiosity, she found a community she wanted to be part of for the long haul.
“I knew I wanted to devote my career to that work,” she said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Reading Time: 4minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
ICE agents arrested roughly 75 immigrants at or near its Milwaukee office between January and July of this year, mostly those without a past criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge.
The arrests of one Venezuelan couple reflect an apparent shift in ICE’s interpretation of protections for asylum seekers. Officers are now detaining even immigrants who don’t have removal cases in immigration court.
A Venezuelan couple arrested Oct. 23 during a routine check-in at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s downtown Milwaukee office are attempting to continue their asylum cases while detained — one in ICE’s Dodge County detention facility and the other in a Kentucky facility.
The arrests reflect an apparent shift in ICE’s interpretation of protections for asylum seekers, posing new risks for those waiting for immigration officials to hear their cases.
Diego Ugarte-Arenas and Dailin Pacheco-Acosta fled Venezuela in 2021, crossing the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, by November of that year and encountering border patrol officers, according to an ICE spokesperson. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have made the same journey in the last decade, of whom at least 5,000 have settled in Wisconsin.
Milwaukee immigration attorney Ben Crouse, who took on the couple’s case after they were detained, told Wisconsin Watch that border patrol officers initially provided Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta with notices to appear in immigration court. Critically, those notices didn’t provide a date or time for their future hearing, preventing the immigration court system from opening removal cases against them.
“There was a lag time between the Supreme Court saying they had to have times and dates on the notice to appear and DHS actually communicating with (the Department of) Justice to put things on calendars,” Crouse noted.
The couple then made their way to Wisconsin and filed for asylum, a legal protection from deportation for immigrants fleeing persecution. Their joint application cited their involvement in the political opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as grounds for asylum, Crouse said.
Immigrants can take two paths to claim asylum in the U.S.
Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta filed for “affirmative” asylum, managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and generally open only to those without removal cases before an immigration court. Without complete notices to appear, Crouse noted, the couple’s cases had not yet reached the court, opening the door to this pathway.
Immigrants with open removal cases apply for “defensive” asylum with an immigration court judge.
At least 100 immigrants with Wisconsin addresses have entered the defensive asylum process between January 2020 and August of this year, court records show. Most came from Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela. Between 2019 and 2024, immigration court judges in Chicago — the court with jurisdiction over most Wisconsin cases — denied roughly 40% of asylum petitions, according to data collected by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Under the Biden administration, immigration authorities began correcting incomplete notices to appear, enabling them to move asylum applications from the affirmative process to the defensive process. That swap rarely landed asylum seekers in detention, Crouse said.
Ugarte-Arenas’ and Pacheco-Acosta’s arrests are part of a broader shift in ICE’s attitude toward asylum. Multiple Milwaukee-area immigration attorneys say the agency is now detaining immigrants after terminating their affirmative asylum case.
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions about its new approach.
“ICE does not ‘randomly’ arrest illegal aliens,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Being in the United States illegal (sic) is a violation of federal law. All aliens who remain in the U.S. without a lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal.”
Navigating the asylum process from ICE detention is logistically difficult, Crouse noted. Scheduling a brief phone call can take days, he said, and attorneys must rely on faraway sheriffs’ offices to ferry paperwork to and from their clients.
“Tiny little things take days to fix,” he added.
ICE’s shifting approach to asylum is not limited to affirmative cases.
In recent months, the agency has also begun filing motions to dismiss the immigration court cases of defensive asylum seekers, said Milwaukee immigration attorney Marc Christopher. Once the immigrants’ cases are dismissed, ICE can place them in “expedited removal” proceedings — a fast-moving process that does not require a hearing.
In some cases, Christopher said, “they dismiss a case in court and ICE is waiting right outside. Or they wait until they come to a check-in and arrest them there.”
ICE agents arrested roughly 75 immigrants at or near its Milwaukee office between January and July of this year, more than at any other Wisconsin site listed in agency arrest records during the period. Most of those arrested at the office, including Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta, had neither a past criminal conviction nor a pending criminal charge.
The Milwaukee office also includes a “holding room” in which an average of six people were detained at a time as of June, according to Vera Institute of Justice data.
Reading Time: 4minutesListen: An online database that tracks billion-dollar weather disasters throughout the United States is back. The Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk’s Héctor Alejandro Arzate reports.
After months of uncertainty over its future, an online resource for tracking the financial cost of weather and climate disasters throughout the United States has been revived.
The U.S. Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database was previously managed by a team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Since 1980, the program has been responsible for analyzing wildfires, tornadoes, winter storms, and other disasters that cause at least $1 billion in damage. But it was retired in May, one among several NOAA products and services to get shuttered by President Donald Trump’s administration this year.
Now, a nonprofit called Climate Central, which communicates climate change science and solutions, has hired the scientist who led the project at NOAA, Adam Smith, and has taken on the responsibility of compiling and releasing the latest data.
In the first six months of 2025, there were 14 disasters with damages costing just over $101 billion in total. Many of them occurred throughout the Mississippi River Basin — states like Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee were among the hardest hit by severe storms and tornadoes, which caused just over $40 billion in damage.
Wisconsin saw $1.1 billion in severe storm damage in early 2025 — part of the more than $5 billion in such damage since 2021.
The January wildfires in Los Angeles resulted in approximately $60 billion in damages, making it the most expensive wildfire on record.
California’s January wildfires — the most expensive on record — are estimated to have done about $60 billion in damage. But many other states also saw damages from natural disasters in the billions of dollars. (Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk)
Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central, said the Climate Central staff brought back the database because they “were hearing from every single sector how important this data is for decision-making and understanding areas that are increasingly at risk for billion-dollar disasters.”
Among those who have typically relied on the database are policymakers, researchers and local communities. It’s especially important for planning disaster relief and emergency management efforts “because they can focus resources on areas that are seeing big trends in the number of billion-dollars disasters,” Labe said.
Bryan Koon, the president and chief executive officer of the consulting firm Innovative Emergency Management, said the analysis is helpful. His company works with government agencies and other organizations to help with disaster preparedness, response and recovery.
“These kinds of data sets are very important in the broad scope, at least from my perspective, for trend analysis,” Koon said.
In states like Missouri, for example, he said his company and other interest groups can analyze previous billion-dollar disaster data on tornadoes and their frequency over the past decade or two. That information can be used to inform how insurance companies write their policy, how buildings are designed and how notification systems are structured.
“I want to make sure that we, as a nation, wrap our arms around as much information about these things as we can so that we communicate the threat of future disasters for Americans,” Koon said.
The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative — a cooperative of more than 100 communities between Minnesota and Louisiana — pushed the Trump administration to keep the database open, according to the cooperative’s executive director, Colin Wellenkamp.
“It was a critical database that showed us where costs associated with disasters were most impactful. What sectors of the economy were hit the hardest by a disaster? Whether it be intense heat, flooding, drought, forest fire, named storm event, or otherwise,” Wellenkamp said.
From a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, said Wellenkamp, the database can tell cities, counties and states how to spend resources on mitigation to avoid incurring similar costs from future disasters. But industries like manufacturing, construction and agriculture also want to see the data, he said. That’s because the database’s financial impact analysis includes physical damage to commercial and residential property, losses associated with business interruption and crop destruction, damage to electrical infrastructure, and more.
Other stakeholders that see the value of the database are both the insurance and re-insurance industries.
Franklin Nutter is the president of the Reinsurance Association of America, one of the largest trade groups in the country. The goal of reinsurance is to provide insurance for the insurance companies, stabilizing the industry and playing a role in “the financial management of natural disaster losses,” according to the RAA’s website.
“It’s like an iceberg: the public is made aware of the impact of extreme weather by seeing the graphics (the tip of the iceberg) but most commercial users value the underlying data (the body of the iceberg),” said Nutter by email.
While the billion-dollar disaster data is valuable to various financial stakeholders, Nutter said he believes its greatest value comes from providing “public awareness of the increasing extreme weather risk.”
There are many factors that come together to make a billion-dollar disaster — such as weather, infrastructure, population, and location. Labe said that the number of events has been increasing since 1980.
“It’s very likely that 2025 will not be the costliest year on record when we look at the statistics, but it definitely falls into this long-term increasing trend,” he said.
Climate Central is not the only organization trying to pick up the pieces of a resource that was shut down by the federal government or is at risk.
But Wellenkamp said that there aren’t many states that can afford the response and recovery efforts from a billion-dollar disaster.
“These (initiatives) are not meant to be permanent solutions,” Wellenkamp said. “These are not meant to replace federal capacity. They are meant to put our cities in a relatively secure position until the federal questions are answered. And the sooner that those answers come, the better.”
For many, the answers will require data.
“Just because the federal government decided they’re not going to do it anymore doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” Koon said.
Update (Oct. 31, 2025): A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to tap into its reserves to partially pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of funding on Saturday.
U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell heard oral arguments Friday in a case brought by various cities and nonprofits. After the hearing, the judge ruled from the bench that the Department of Agriculture “must distribute contingency money timely or as soon as possible for the Nov. 1 payments to be made,” The New York Times reported.
“There is no doubt — and it is beyond argument — that irreparable harm will begin to occur, if it hasn’t already occurred in the terror it has caused some people about the availability of funding for food for their family,” McConnell said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “That irreparable harm will occur if this injunction does not pass and if SNAP benefits are not paid consistent with the mandate from Congress.”
The Department of Agriculture initially said it planned to use the more than $5 billion in contingency funds that are legally intended “for use only in such amounts and at such times as may become necessary to carry out program operations” to cover SNAP benefits. However, the Trump administration later changed course, claiming it was illegal to use that money for SNAP, and quietly deleting the initial guidance from USDA’s website.
Despite the ruling, it’s likely that the 42 million people who rely on SNAP will miss at least part of their benefits, because the process of distributing the funds did not begin as early as usual due to the shutdown.
Update (Oct. 31, 2025): U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued an order Friday declaring that the Trump administration’s “suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful.” This case was brought by a coalition of Democratic states that filed a lawsuit Tuesday, arguing that the government’s decision to not use contingency funds was “contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.”
A bipartisan coalition of state officials, including Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, sued the Department of Agriculture on Tuesday to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program partially funded through November.
In a press release obtained by NOTUS ahead of the lawsuit being filed, New York Attorney General Letitia James argued the administration is unlawfully allowing SNAP to run out of funding when it has “access to billions of dollars in contingency funds that Congress specifically appropriated to keep benefits flowing during funding lapses.”
The coalition of state officials, which includes attorneys general and governors, filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Massachusetts. They are asking for a court to immediately intervene to keep funding, which is set to run out at the end of the month, flowing. The program is facing the possibility of its first-ever pause in funding because of the government shutdown.
“Millions of Americans, including children, seniors, and veterans, are on the verge of losing access to the food assistance they rely upon,” Kaul said. “No one should have to go hungry because of dysfunction in our federal government.”
Politico first reported that dozens of Democratic attorneys general and governors were considering legal action. The coalition includes officials from New York, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and California.
Nevada’s and Vermont’s attorneys general are part of the lawsuit, the only states listed that have Republican governors. In all, more than 24 states and the District of Columbia are involved.
“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments,” a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.
In a memo Axios reported last week, the Department of Agriculture took the position that it would not tap into contingency funds and also argued that states that picked up the tab in the meantime could not be legally reimbursed.
The coalition of state officials is asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order mandating USDA to use all of the “available contingency funds toward November SNAP benefits for all plaintiff states.”
It’s one of several steps state officials are trying to take to preserve SNAP benefits, which nearly 42 million people across the country rely on. Outside of legal action, state officials have sought to tap emergency funding in their own states — though some have protested the lack of assurance that the federal government will reimburse their states and have argued that it’s the federal government’s responsibility.
“You’ve seen other local papers close and their communities really don’t have anything,” said Bob Van Enkenvoort, the school district’s communications coordinator and the paper’s editor. “So the district sees this as a valuable community service.”
It’s the (unfortunately rare) kind of story that shines a light on people making a real difference in their community by connecting with their neighbors. And it began by listening to readers like you.
Before I was hired last summer, our team conducted listening sessions, surveys and interviews with people across northeast Wisconsin to hear what kind of news they want as we prepare to tell more stories in the region. In one of those interviews, a director at the Pulaski Chamber of Commerce mentioned that Pulaski High School’s newspaper is the only source of consistent local news in the area.
Our “pathways to success” reporters want to talk to Wisconsin high school teachers who a) have taught dual enrollment courses or b) want to, but lack the proper training. We want to hear about the draws or drawbacks of teaching these classes. If you know someone who fits the bill, email mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org or nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Joe and I spent several months learning how Pulaski News has become a trusted fixture of the community and a workforce development tool, which included several visits to the classroom the paper runs out of and a trip to Pulaski’s local museum.
We have reason to believe the final product resonated — as of Monday afternoon, people spent nearly 10,000 minutes with it, and over 80 accounts have shared the story on Instagram.
Listening to our readers in this way has helped me better understand the northeast region. As time goes on, you’ll continue to see more stories from this part of the state. So consider this an invitation to keep the ideas and feedback coming. What stories should be told? We’re listening. Email me at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org, or fill out my form.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
“I just hope that we’re able to help someone get through the grief process because it is a journey,” Allen said.
Her son, Amareon Allen, was shot and killed in 2021.
Processing loss and moving forward
Gathered outside on a warm morning in late September, boot camp participants received small envelopes and carefully opened them.
Butterflies emerged.
Each butterfly moved at its own pace, some eagerly taking off while others clung to the envelopes, grass, clothing or hands of the people releasing them.
The activitysymbolizes the act of releasing lost loved ones but also overcoming challenges, according to Kimber.
When Kimber lost her son, Maurice Grimes Jr., to gun violence in 2019 and went through a divorce, she said she felt angryand like she had nothing to live for.
“I found healing in spaces where I could connect with people that experienced some of the grief that I did,” Kimber said.
Trying to stay strong
Monette Harmon, a funeral director apprentice and certified death doula with Neka’s Funeral & Cremation Services, speaks during a mock funeral held as part of the Grinding & Grieving Bootcamp. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
The boot camp combines the sharing of personal experiences with speeches and resources about mourning and financial planning.
“I’m here to turn my tragedy into triumph and to be around other people that’s going through something,” Kamid Everett said.
Everett’s 14-year-old son, Bryant Triplett, was shot and killed in December 2024 at North 21st Street and West Concordia Avenue in Milwaukee while she was already recovering from her mother’s death from lung cancer.
She said she tries to stay strong for her family, but things like the back-to-school season and trying Bryant’s favorite food, sushi, remind her of him.
“He didn’t get a chance to leave his mark on the world,” she said.
Techniques and tools for navigating grief
During the boot camp, participants used art therapy techniques to express their emotions, including coloring a mask to reflect how the outside world sees them versus how they actually felt inside.
Rochell Wallace, one of the event’s speakers, colors a jack-o’-lantern drawing as part of the art therapy activities at the Grinding & Grieving Bootcamp. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
Some of the speakers created affirmations or “I” statements to comfort and empower the audience.
Monette Harmon, a funeral director apprentice and certified death doula with Neka’s Funeral & Cremation Services, led a mock funeral in front of a casket adorned with flowers, candles and photos.
She reminded attendees they had the right to grieve, to rest and practice self-care and to not lie about their feelings.
“People can’t help you if you can’t be honest,” she said.
Daniel Harris, a gospel and rap artist, wrote a bookabout griefand askedparticipants to record audio on their phones as they repeated messages like “I am a storm survivor” after him.
“There’s going to be times when you’re going to need words of encouragement when no one is around,” he said.
Everett said Harris’ message of surviving the storms of grief resonated with her.
“His whole message was just everything to me because you got to keep going, and then people don’t know what you’ve been through because we always try to hide what we’ve been through,” Everett said.
Monette Harmon, a certified death doula, speaks to attendees about her own experiences with grief at the Grinding & Grieving Bootcamp at The Missing Peace Community Collective in Milwaukee. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
The organizations plan to continue to provide grief services and offer their own events.
Babett Reed, executive director of The Missing Peace Community Collective, said she hopes to open a rage room in the space. She thinks the community needs more events like the boot camp.
“Every month, we need to have a place where we can go and be healed and be able to talk to someone,” Reed said.
Butterfly’s Sacred Journey offers resources and events using art therapy, books and journals to support grieving children.
The Amareon Allen Foundation’s Next Chapter Resource Hub & Healing Circle meets from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. every fourth Saturday of the month at rotating locations. It also hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas givebacks for families impacted by gun violence.
Studies have identified a caregiver shortfall in the U.S., and higher immigration has been empirically linked to alleviating this.
Adults 65 and over made up 18% of the U.S. population in 2024, up from 12% in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Estimates suggest that this will rise to 23% in 2060. These increases mean an increased demand for caregiving.
Caregiving is often performed by immigrants. One study published in the American Journal of Health Economics finds that immigration increases nurse hours in nursing homes and leads to an improvement in the outcomes of residents. Another study by Tara Watson (Brookings), Kristin Butcher (Wellesley), and Kelsey Moran (MIT) estimated that a 10 percentage point rise in the share of the population that is foreign-born decreases the percentage of the elderly living in a care facility by 29%. This is due to a greater availability of home care.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
This fact brief was originally published by Econofact on October 27, 2025, and was authored by Gabriel Vinocur. Econofact is a member of the Gigafact network.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ sweeping plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s aging prison system, which includes closing a prison built in the 1800s, moved forward Tuesday with bipartisan support despite complaints from Republican lawmakers that their concerns weren’t being addressed.
The bipartisan state building commission unanimously approved spending $15 million to proceed with planning for the Evers proposal. Republicans objected, saying his plan was “doomed to failure,” but they voted for it in the hopes it could be changed later.
Evers voiced frustration with Republicans who said they weren’t part of development of the plan.
“We’ve got to get this damned thing done, that’s the bottom line,” he said.
Republicans have opposed parts of the plan that would reduce the overall capacity of the state prison system by 700 beds and increase the number of offenders who could be released on supervision. The GOP-led Legislature called for closing the troubled prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers vetoed that provision earlier this year, saying it couldn’t be done without getting behind his entire plan.
The building commission’s approval on Tuesday for spending the $15 million in planning money starts that process.
Republican members of the building commission complained that Evers was plowing ahead without considering other ideas or concerns from GOP lawmakers. Republican state Sen. Andre Jacqué objected to reducing the number of beds in the prison system that he said is currently “dangerously unsafe.”
He called it a plan “doomed to failure” and “not a serious proposal.”
“I feel like we’ve decided to plow ahead without the opportunity for compromise,” Jacqué said. “We’re merely asking that any ideas from our side of the aisle have the option of being considered.”
A GOP proposal to expand the scope of the plan was rejected after the commission, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, deadlocked.
Evers said any Republican who wanted to be involved in the process going forward could be. Republicans said ahead of the vote that they were not included in discussions that led to the current proposal.
“Those other options will be discussed,” Evers said.
Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said that approval of the planning money was needed to keep the momentum going for closing the Green Bay prison, which Republicans support.
The entire plan, once fully enacted, would take six years to complete and cost an estimated $500 million. Building a new prison, as Republicans had called for, would cost about $1 billion. Evers is not seeking a third term next year, so it would be up to the next governor to either continue with his plan or go in a different direction.
The multitiered proposal starts with finally closing the troubled Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake juvenile correctional facilities in northern Wisconsin and building a new one near Madison at the site of a current minimum-security prison. The Lincoln Hills campus would then be converted into a medium security adult prison. The prison in Green Bay, built in 1898, would be closed.
The plan also proposes that the state’s oldest prison, which was built in Waupun in 1851, be converted from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security center focused on vocational training. The Stanley Correctional Center would be converted from a medium- to a maximum-security prison and the prison in Hobart would be expanded to add 200 minimum-security beds.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Affordable Care Act premiums, expected to skyrocket in 2026 unless enhanced subsidies are extended, have increased about 118% since coverage for individuals began in 2014.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., made the three-times claim Oct. 21, as the federal government shutdown continued.
To end the shutdown, Democrats want to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which made more people eligible. They expire Dec. 31.
Without enhanced subsidies, Wisconsinites could see 2026 premium increases of up to 800%, according to the state.
The average monthly premium for a benchmark Obamacare plan was $273 in 2014; it is expected to be at least $596 in 2026.
Premiums, initially so low that insurers lost money, jumped in 2017, stayed stable since 2018 but are expected to rise more than 18% in 2026, KFF Obamacare program director Cynthia Cox said.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Login
