An Assembly Republican is using the authority of the Elon Musk-inspired GOAT Committee to investigate the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives of local governments across the state before the committee has even met.

Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, the committee’s vice chair, has sent information requests to local governments across the state, many of them in Democratic communities, according to copies of the requests obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Fitchburg, Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Manitowoc, Oshkosh, Racine and Sun Prairie all received requests from the GOAT Committee — which stands for government operations, accountability and transparency. According to eight requests obtained by Wisconsin Watch, Sortwell sent them on Feb. 20.

The requests state that GOAT “has been charged with undertaking a review of county use of taxpayer dollars for positions, policies, and activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Sortwell’s emails ask for “documentation” from January 2019 to the present relating to the following items:

• DEI-related grants the communities may have received.
• the communities’ “adopted/enacted” DEI policies. 
• any DEI training programs the communities might be involved with.
• the titles and salaries of employees with DEI-related positions. 
• and the “estimated associated costs” of DEI-related policies and trainings.

Officials for Fitchburg, Manitowoc, Oshkosh and Racine told Wisconsin Watch their respective cities plan to treat and fulfill Sortewll’s request like any other public records request they receive.

Sortwell did not respond to questions for Wisconsin Watch about his information requests and the committee’s work.

The committee is new to the Assembly this legislative session. It is inspired by the so-called federal Department of Government Efficiency — which has bulldozed through federal agencies in the early days of the second Trump administration — and is similarly named after a pop culture meme (GOAT is shorthand for greatest of all time; DOGE is named after a meme turned cryptocurrency).

The committee’s chair, Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, recently told Wisconsin Watch the body was created “to identify opportunities to increase state government efficiency and to decrease spending.” Nedweski did not respond to questions about the committee’s work for this story.

The move to investigate DEI policies was made without the knowledge of the committee’s Democratic members, according to a Tuesday letter the three lawmakers sent to Nedweski, a copy of which was obtained by Wisconsin Watch.

“One member sending a request implying the participation of the entirety of the Committee’s membership violates the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation you have shared with us as your intent for the Committee,” Reps. Mike Bare, Francesca Hong and Angelina Cruz wrote. “Empowering one Committee member to act in the interest of an entire Committee’s membership without their prior knowledge or consent is a dangerous precedent.”

The three Democrats also questioned the committee’s authority to seek the information. Sortwell’s request cites a little-known statute that states “departments, officers and employees of Wisconsin state government, and the governing bodies of the political subdivisions of this state, shall assist legislative committees in the completion of their tasks.” “Political subdivisions” include counties, cities, villages and towns.

“They shall provide legislative committees with ready access to any books, records or other information relating to such tasks,” the law continues.

But, the Democratic lawmakers argue, the committee “does not have any discernible ‘task’ before it.” They noted the committee has not met and no bills have been referred to it.

“The committee has nothing but a name,” Bare told Wisconsin Watch in an interview. “That’s all we know about it.”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said GOP lawmakers are searching for “grants that are going to local governments that have requirements in them that add extra cost or extra burden that we could look to say we’re not going to allow that to happen.”

Lawmakers are requesting information from local governments because Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has not granted GOP legislators access to state agencies, Vos said.

The speaker added that the goal is “to make sure that whatever we are rooting out for waste, fraud and abuse, we have data to be able to utilize, and it’s just hard to get from an administration that’s uncooperative.”

Vos also rejected Democrats’ concerns that Sortwell is operating without notifying his colleagues first.

“It’s pretty normal to do fact gathering before you have a hearing,” Vos said. “I don’t know why anybody would be concerned. I am the subject of open requests at least weekly. It’s not always the (most fun) part of your job, but it’s part of what makes Wisconsin’s government open.”

Numerous counties have also received communication from the GOAT Committee, according to a legal memo crafted for the Wisconsin Counties Association, though the exact number was not clear at the time of publication.

The memo questions whether the committee’s requests were submitted to the correct bodies of government and outlines concerns that responding to the request for five years of information “may involve a significant undertaking requiring expenditure of county staff resources.”

“There are concerns surrounding the validity of the request and a county’s legal obligation to respond,” the memo states, adding “we understand there may be legitimate concerns the GOAT Committee is attempting to address.”

Bare expressed concerns GOP lawmakers would try to hold up resources for local governments unless they cut back on DEI initiatives, which was a piece of a larger deal in 2023 that reworked how the state sends aid to local governments.

Part of that bill allowed the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, both of which were facing financial headwinds, to increase the sales tax in their jurisdictions to raise additional revenue. But the legislation also mandated that both Milwaukee governments “may not use moneys raised by levying taxes for funding any position for which the principal duties consist of promoting individuals on the basis of their race, color, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation.”

Vos deployed a similar playbook to target DEI efforts on UW System campuses during the last budget cycle.

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Gov. Tony Evers this week will propose a significant overhaul of Wisconsin’s corrections system, pushing a plan that would close one of the state’s two oldest prisons, renovate the other and convert the state’s youth prison into a facility for adult men. 

The proposal, which totals just shy of $500 million, will be included in the governor’s budget proposal, which he will unveil on Tuesday night. The governor shared details of the plan with reporters Friday morning.

The “domino series of facility changes, improvements and modernization efforts,” as Evers described them, would take place between approval of the budget and 2031. The proposal is the solution to the state’s skyrocketing prison population, Evers said, adding there is “not an alternative to my plan that is safer, faster and cheaper.”

The first step would be building a facility for youth offenders in Dane County, allowing the state to close its current beleaguered juvenile prison complex in Irma, home to Lincoln Hills School for boys and Copper Lake School for girls. The cost would be $130.7 million.

Completing the juvenile Dane County facility would be the latest step in a years-long effort to shutter Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. A similar facility opened in Racine County earlier this month, with another juvenile facility in Milwaukee poised to open next year. With the addition of the Dane County facility, the state would be able to move youth offenders out of Lincoln Hills in early 2029, according to the Evers administration.

The Lincoln County complex would then undergo $9 million in renovations to be converted into a 500-bed, medium-security institution for men.

Another key piece of Evers’ plan would be converting Stanley Correctional Institution into a maximum-security facility for $8.8 million. That would allow the state to renovate Waupun Correctional Institution, the state’s oldest facility, where at times inmates were confined to their cells for months and denied medical care, according to an investigation by Wisconsin Watch and The New York Times. Waupun staff also have faced criminal charges following the deaths of five inmates. 

The estimated $245 million renovation would involve demolishing the prison’s existing cell halls and replacing them with new, medium-security facilities known as a “vocational village” — the first in Wisconsin based on a model used in other states. The facility would be “designed to expand job and workforce training to help make sure folks can be stable, gainfully employed and can positively contribute to our communities when they are released,” Evers said.

Under the plan, the John Burke Correctional Center in Waupun would also be converted to a 300-bed facility for women “with little to no capital cost,” said Jared Hoy, secretary of the Department of Corrections.

Green Bay Correctional Institution, constructed in 1898, would close under the proposal sometime in spring 2029 at a cost of $6.3 million. Many have pushed for the closure of the prison due to overcrowding, poor conditions and staffing issues.

To compensate for the lost beds, the last project in the “domino” series would add 200 beds to Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center in Brown County.

The governor’s budget will guarantee Green Bay staffers a role at another DOC facility to account for the prison’s closure, the Evers administration said. The facility would likely then be sold, the governor told reporters.

In totality, the plan aims to avoid building a new prison in Wisconsin, which the governor’s administration estimates would cost $1.2 billion and take a decade to construct. Evers said Friday that he had not discussed the plan with Republican lawmakers, but implied he was slated to meet with them over the weekend.

The state’s adult institutions were locking up more than 23,000 people as of Feb. 7. That’s more than 5,000 above the design capacity of Wisconsin’s prisons and more than 3,000 above levels four years ago when COVID-19 actions shrunk prisoner ranks.

Justice reform advocates have argued that Wisconsin can’t substantially improve conditions without decarceration, including releasing more inmates and diverting others to programs rather than prisons. 

Other states — some led by Republicans and some by Democrats — have managed to close prisons by adopting rehabilitation-focused reforms that cut thousands from the population. 

The governor is also seeking some policy changes that could trim the population. For example, he wants to expand the capacity of the state’s existing earned release program for nonviolent offenders with less than 48 months remaining on their sentences, allowing more inmates to access vocational training and treatment for substance use disorders.

Evers noted there are 12,000 inmates on a waiting list to access vocational programming, and expanding the earned release program would likely make another 1,000 inmates eligible for the program.

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Forcing county sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials or risk losing state funding. A tax cut for service industry worker cash tips. Banning “foreign adversaries” from owning Wisconsin farmland. The GOAT committee. 

The first few weeks of the Legislature’s new session have been dominated by ideas inspired, at least in part, by President Donald Trump, as Wisconsin Republicans bring ideas pushed in Washington to Madison.

The localization of Trump’s agenda — which helped the president secure a slim but significant victory in November — comes as Republican lawmakers continue to set the legislative agenda in Wisconsin.

But Democratic legislative leaders are pushing back on that agenda, unlike many of their counterparts at the national level.

“These are not serious proposals,” said Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine. “They are political; they are for the right-wing base. But they are simply not addressing the problems that the people of Wisconsin are facing.”

Immigration crackdown

Last week, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, unveiled legislation to mandate cooperation between Wisconsin law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.

The bill would require “sheriffs to request proof of legal presence status from individuals held in a county jail for an offense punishable as a felony,” according to analysis from the Legislative Reference Bureau. It also compels sheriffs to “comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal department of homeland security regarding individuals held in the county jail for a criminal offense.”

If a sheriff shrugs the law, the sheriff’s county would face a 15% cut in state aid in the following year, according to a draft of the bill. But the bill isn’t about targeting places like Dane and Milwaukee counties — where leaders have pledged not to cooperate with federal authorities — said Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva. “It’s about just ensuring that every county is operating the same and that there isn’t a refuge for these violent criminals.”

While introducing the bill, flanked by two dozen of his GOP colleagues, Bradley said the legislation should garner bipartisan support, pointing to the Laken Riley Act — a similar crackdown on theft and violent crime committed by unauthorized immigrants — that received some Democratic support in Congress. It was the first bill signed into law under the new Trump administration.

“Only far-left extremists in this country believe that someone here illegally that commits a felony should be allowed to stay,” Bradley said.

No tax on tips 

State Sen. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, is one of four Republican lawmakers circulating a bill that would eliminate taxes on cash tips earned by service workers — a proposal Trump heavily touted on the campaign trail. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, later announced support for the policy as well. 

Jacque and a group of bipartisan lawmakers last introduced the bill in 2019, but it never became law. He said it’s heavily favored by those in the hospitality industry.

Trump’s push to enact a similar policy at the federal level made this the ideal time to reintroduce the bill in Wisconsin, Jacque said.

“Having a federal administration that is putting some political capital towards making that part of the equation happen certainly adds a lot of fire to being ready to be aligned at the state level,” Jacque said.

In 2019, the bill, which only would have exempted cash tips from taxation, was estimated to reduce the state’s revenue by nearly $4.7 million annually. A fiscal estimate of the current bill has not yet been released. It would not exempt the majority of tips, which are left on a credit card. 

Banning ‘foreign adversaries’ from owning land

Another state bill introduced by Republicans last month would prevent “foreign adversaries” from “countries of concern” from acquiring forestry and agricultural land in the state. 

The legislation mimics Trump’s campaign promises in January 2023 to ban Chinese nationals from buying farmland and owning other “vital infrastructure,” citing national security concerns. Jacque, an author of the bill, said he wasn’t aware of Trump’s previous support for a similar proposal. 

Jacque introduced similar legislation in 2023 that never became law. He pointed to bipartisan congressional support for similar “foreign adversary” bills introduced at the federal level. It’s a “common-sense concern” that “resonates with the public,” Jacque said. 

GOAT Committee

The Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency Committee is new to the Assembly this legislative session. Like DOGE, the federal Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk, it’s named after a pop culture meme (GOAT is shorthand for greatest of all time; DOGE is named after a meme turned cryptocurrency).

The committee’s chair, Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, said the committee will work “to identify opportunities to increase state government efficiency and to decrease spending.” 

“The people of Wisconsin want to see their hard-earned tax dollars being spent on services that directly affect them, not on the expansion of programs that benefit only select groups of people,” she said in a written response to questions from Wisconsin Watch. “GOAT will investigate ways in which the state can reallocate revenues away from excessive wants and funnel them more into critical needs without increasing spending.”

One motivating factor for her 2022 Assembly run was “to bring my professional experience in process improvement to the public sector because so many glaring inefficiencies in state agencies were exposed during the pandemic,” Nedweski said, noting she wanted to improve “fiscal accountability” for the state long before DOGE was a concept.

The committee was created in response “to an outpouring of demand from the people,” Nedweski said, adding that “DOGE is making fiscal conservatism cool and accessible to more people.”

“The performance of state agencies under the current administration has often been subpar under this administration relative to the tax dollars invested,” she said. “If the (state) agencies are not going to take honest looks in the mirror as to how they can better serve Wisconsinites, GOAT will. Whether or not the Governor chooses to work with us is up to him.”

GOAT serves a different role than the Legislative Audit Bureau, Nedweski said, noting that a “top objective of GOAT is to be responsive to real people facing everyday challenges with state government.” 

While the committee may work with LAB and the Joint Audit Committee, “the function of GOAT will be less technical than Audit and more directly responsive to a wide range of stakeholder concerns,” she said.

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Overshadowed by the state Supreme Court race, the Feb. 18 primary for Wisconsin’s top education official could significantly affect the future of K-12 schools but lacks a candidate with a traditionally conservative background — despite Republican sentiment that voters are trending rightward on education issues.

Three candidates are jostling to be state superintendent of public instruction. Incumbent Jill Underly, who was elected in a landslide four years ago, is seeking a second term in the job. She faces two challengers: Jeff Wright, superintendent of the Sauk Prairie School District, and Brittany Kinser, an education consultant from Milwaukee. The top two vote getters on Feb. 18 will advance to the April 1 general election. 

The superintendent leads the state Department of Public Instruction, serving as Wisconsin’s top education official. A constitutional officer, the superintendent has uniquely broad authority: Wisconsin is the only state that elects its top education official but lacks a state board of education, according to the conservative Badger Institute. That means whoever leads the department “reports to nobody except the voters every four years.”

Underly drew fire after DPI last summer changed the threshold for what is considered proficient performance on state tests. Republican lawmakers and her opponents accused her of “lowering” standards. She stood by the changes in an interview, arguing they better reflect what students are learning in Wisconsin classrooms. 

Underly has the backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and wants to continue being “the number one advocate for public education in Wisconsin,” she said. To do so, she said she’ll continue to “set the standard” on issues like funding — DPI requested a $4 billion boost in state aid in the state’s next budget — because “this is what our public schools need.” 

The state also needs a seasoned leader to grapple with the wave of changes coming out of Washington, Underly argued. “Do (voters) want somebody who has been proven to be able to manage this work?” she said. “Or do they want somebody to come in (that) has no idea what they’re doing and have to build a team and then meanwhile we’re getting bombarded with all these actions from the federal government?”

“I think that there’s something to be said for a strong incumbent and continuity,” Underly said.

Unusually, she faces a challenger from both sides.

Wright, who hails from battleground Sauk County and has twice run for the state Assembly as a Democrat, is stressing his ability to work with both parties. The political action committee of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, has recommended supporting Wright, though it has stopped short of a full endorsement. “I don’t have a political establishment with me,” he told CBS58. “But I have a lot of the state’s educators with me.” 

Wright’s campaign didn’t respond to multiple requests to schedule an interview for this story.

Kinser, meanwhile, is touting her support for school choice programs as she tacks to the right. She has worked as a special education teacher in Chicago during the early 2000s and the principal of a public charter school in Milwaukee and, until January 2024, served as CEO of Milwaukee education nonprofit City Forward Collective. 

She has previously called herself a “Blue Dog Democrat” and donated to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s 2024 reelection campaign. But last week, she described herself on “The Benjamin Yount Show” as a moderate. “It shouldn’t matter what party we’re in,” she said. “We need to be focusing on teaching our kids how to read, write and do math.” Kinser’s campaign also did not make her available for an interview.

But how can the race lack a clear conservative candidate in 2025 — especially as Republicans feel like voters are trending toward them on education issues? 

The simplest explanation: the stakes of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, one conservative education reform advocate told Wisconsin Watch.

Recruiting a high-quality candidate to run for statewide office without guarantees of financial support is challenging, said the advocate, who works closely with policymakers and was granted anonymity to offer a candid evaluation of the race. And with the outcome of the court race determining ideological control of the court, Republican donors are focusing their resources elsewhere.

More clear-cut conservative-aligned candidates, like Deb Kerr in 2021 and Lowell Holtz in 2017, have been on the ballot in past cycles. But just because the race lacks a prototypical conservative doesn’t mean conservatives are giving up on it. 

Kinser herself has been running to the right as the campaign has picked up. She addressed Republican Party chapters throughout the state and, more recently, on at least two occasions spoke at events alongside conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel. That could help give her the political base she needs to advance from the primary, the advocate said. 

“If you’re talking about a three-person primary and there’s two lanes, and Underly and Wright are basically fighting over one of the lanes and the other lane is wide open, it makes sense to me to go talk to as many people as you can,” the advocate added.

And just because Kinser isn’t a traditional conservative candidate doesn’t mean she can’t appeal to conservatives, said CJ Szafir, CEO of the Institute for Reforming Government, a conservative think tank. He added that she “is right on all the issues and she’s aligned with conservatives and the conservative base.

“I don’t think there’s any real daylight between what conservatives want in the DPI and what Brittany wants to do at the DPI,” he said. “Brittany’s the one candidate that … is very focused on being pro-child, focused on the core issues and how to overhaul the DPI to better address the concerns of parents.”

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Democrats on Saturday will gather just outside Washington to take an early step in their journey out of the political wilderness: electing their party’s next national chair.

Among the candidates vying to lead the Democratic National Committee is Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler, who has served as chair of the state Democratic Party since 2019. His fiercest competition to lead the national Democratic Party comes from Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. The three have sparred in recent days over who is leading the race to secure a majority of votes from the DNC’s 448 voting members.

Wikler’s camp declined Monday morning to share an updated whip count with Wisconsin Watch. As of Friday afternoon, he said 151 voting DNC members were backing his bid. The Martin and O’Malley camps did not respond to questions about updated whip counts, but Martin said last week he had the backing of 200 members. Both Wikler and O’Malley questioned that number, with a Wikler spokesperson calling it “inflated.”

The first candidate to secure 225 votes on Saturday will serve as Democrats’ next national chair. If no candidate reaches that threshold during the first round of voting, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated, and members will cast another ballot, repeating the process until a chair is selected.

Wikler’s time as head of the state party has been, by most standards, a success. Capitalizing on the anti-Trump momentum of the 2018 midterms, Democrats have won eight of 11 statewide races since Wikler took over — including the 2020 presidential race and the 2022 gubernatorial election. The state Democratic Party was also instrumental in winning a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has remade Wisconsin’s political landscape. 

But there have been setbacks: U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson got reelected in an otherwise positive year for Democrats in 2022, and Donald Trump carried the state last year, helping return him to the White House.

Wikler maintains he’s the right person to lead the party, and he says Democrats need to make their party more transparent, change the way they communicate with voters and return to being focused on addressing the needs of working people.

“(Democrats) don’t talk the talk in a way that shows people that they’re fighting the fight,” Wikler said last week during an introspective moment at a candidate forum hosted by the Texas Democratic Party. “And that’s where we need to change.”

A shift in the landscape

Republicans and Democrats alike in Wisconsin said that if Wikler is tapped to lead the national party it will change the political landscape in Wisconsin.

“I know politics. And I love politics. And he is a very good politician,” Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson said of Wikler. “The Democrat Party could do a hell of a lot worse going with somebody else than Ben Wikler.”

In fact, Thompson, who congratulated Wikler on his success as state party chair, seems keen on having the Democratic leader move on from his current post.

“I want to contribute to him!” he joked about Wikler while speaking with reporters.

Brian Schimming, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, also acknowledged that Wikler “is a talented guy.” But he was quick to point out that Wisconsin Democrats came up short on key goals in November. Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t carry the state, U.S. Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil are still in Congress, and Republicans still control the Legislature, Schimming noted. Their only success, the GOP chair claimed, was getting Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin reelected.

“Whether it’s Ben or anybody else, that party has a lot of issues,” Schimming said of Democrats. “So they are going to need a lot of people to step up, not just their chair, to fix what’s wrong with that party right now.”

While Democratic leaders acknowledge that Wikler moving on to the national party would be a loss for their efforts in Wisconsin, they said it’s time for the national party to choose a leader from a state that has a history of deciding elections.

Wikler helped Wisconsin Democrats crawl out of the political hole they found themselves in in the 2010s, said Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, which gives him experience the national party could lean on.

“He’s been very invested in the Legislature, (we’ve) spoken often about our strategy and how to win, and he was involved even in calling candidates and helping recruit people,” Neubauer said. “So it’s, of course, going to be a loss for us, but we’re certainly very supportive of his run for DNC chair.”

Wisconsin Democrats have built out infrastructure that will last beyond Wikler’s time as chair, Neubauer added, pointing to year-round organizing efforts that will persist regardless of who is state party chair.

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Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler could soon lead national Democratic Party is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday afternoon, focusing on so-called “America First” policies.

Among Trump’s top priorities is a pledge to deport millions of people living in the United States without legal status. Trump’s team has prepared a stack of executive orders to sign in short order, with a heavy emphasis on immigration policy.

But some leaders in in Democratic Wisconsin communities say they won’t play ball with the federal government when it comes to residents living in the United States without legal status.

“Dane County will continue to be strong, we will continue to be compassionate, and we will support one another,” Dane County Executive Melissa Agard told reporters last week, adding that county agencies will continue to deliver services to all residents.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne agreed, saying “no matter who you are or where you come from, my office is committed to helping make Dane County a safe and welcoming place for all.”

“Increased fear of mass deportation has already inhibited some members of our most vulnerable populations from reporting their victimization to law enforcement,” he added. “This reality perpetuates a cycle of violence and criminality that have a chilling effect on our entire community.”

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office will also continue its current practices, spokesperson Elise Schaffer told reporters. For example, the office does not provide “proactive communication” to federal immigration authorities nor does it inform U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if deputies encounter someone without legal status while working in the field or if they’ve taken them into custody.

In Milwaukee, Mayor Cavalier Johnson “wants all residents, irrespective of immigration status, to be appropriately respected,” his spokesperson, Jeff Fleming, told Wisconsin Watch. “The mayor has expressed his opposition to the rhetoric and hostility directed toward immigrants.”

ICE is seeking to move its current Milwaukee facility from downtown to the city’s northwest side, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reported last week, but has so far been met with significant community pushback.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman did not directly respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch. Instead, a spokesperson pointed to the department’s standard operating procedures relating to immigration enforcement.

“Enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws is the responsibility of the federal government,” the policy states. “Accordingly, the Milwaukee Police Department does not unilaterally undertake immigration-related investigations and does not routinely inquire into the immigration status of persons encountered during police operations.”

“A person’s right to file a police report, participate in police-community activities, or otherwise benefit from police services is not contingent upon their immigration status,” it continues, while noting the department may cooperate with federal authorities in certain special cases.

Police officers in the city of Green Bay are also not in the business of keeping tabs on someone’s immigration status, Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Wisconsin Watch in an interview.

“There aren’t very many situations where someone’s immigration status is really relevant to any of the work that we’re doing,” Davis said, adding: “My priority is the safety and the well-being of whoever happens to be in the city of Green Bay at any given time.”

The exact number of people living in Wisconsin without legal status is hard to determine, Wisconsin Watch reported last week, but some groups, like the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, have estimated there to be about 70,000 such people in the state. 

Workers without legal status are particularly critical to the state’s dairy industry, according to a 2023 UW-Madison School for Workers survey. “More than 10,000 undocumented” workers perform around 70% of the labor on Wisconsin’s dairy farms, the report found, and without them “the whole dairy industry would collapse overnight,” the researchers concluded.

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This week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases that present two questions at the core of an ongoing struggle between some of the most powerful forces in the state.

​In the first, the seven justices will hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that could hamper the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ ability to enforce the state’s “Spills Law.” Enacted in 1978, the law requires people or companies discharging a hazardous substance “to restore the environment to the extent practicable and minimize the harmful effects from the discharge to the air, lands or waters of this state.”

The lawsuit, which the court will hear on Tuesday morning, was filed by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s powerful business lobby, in 2021. It argued that the DNR could not require people to test for so-called “forever chemicals” contamination — and require remediation if they’re present — because the agency hadn’t gone through the formal process of designating the chemicals, known as PFAS, as “hazardous substances.” A circuit court judge and the conservative District 2 Court of Appeals agreed, so the state appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The law enables the DNR to enforce the cleanup of any substance posing a risk due to concentration, quantity and toxicity: In the wrong setting, even spilled milk poses a risk. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a family of man-made chemicals used in nonstick cookware and firefighting foam, have been linked to serious health conditions in humans.

The agency maintains that a court loss would strip its authority to compel polluters to clean up chemicals and provide emergency water under the Spills Law, cutting off residents on PFAS-contaminated French Island who have been receiving water since 2021.

This case is notable for more than just the potential environmental implications. It could also put WMC, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in state politics, at odds with the court’s liberal majority just as a potential majority-shifting court campaign gets underway. 

In 2023, WMC spent $5.6 million on the race boosting conservative former Justice Daniel Kelly in his failed bid against now-Justice Janet Protasiewicz. That figure made it the third biggest spender in the race — behind Protasieicz’s campaign and liberal group A Better Wisconsin Together — with the lobbying group outspending even Kelly’s campaign.

Wisconsin Watch will be keeping tabs on how the court’s liberal justices approach this case. Will they leave the lower court ruling in place? Rule against WMC, but only offer the DNR a narrow victory? Something else? A holding in favor of the DNR could draw the ire of WMC and the state’s business community — just as Wisconsin embarks on six straight springs of Wisconsin Supreme Court elections. Keep in mind that a 2005 environmental case involving lead manufacturers helped spur the modern era of expensive, politicized Wisconsin court races.

The second case, which the justices will hear on Thursday morning, is a continuation of a July 6-1 ruling blocking the Legislature’s Republican-controlled budget committee from “vetoing” certain conservation projects. In an opinion authored by conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, the court declared that the committee’s review of certain projects was a separation of powers violation. 

The court initially only heard one of three issues raised by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the lawsuit. But now, it will consider another: Whether or not the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules has the authority to strike down rules created by state agencies and professional boards. 

JCRAR is a 10-member committee that, under state law, currently has the ability to block administrative rules proposed and promulgated by executive branch agencies. For example, in 2023, the committee voted 6-4 along partisan lines to lift a ban on conversion therapy in Wisconsin. The ban was implemented in 2020 by a state board that supervises licensed therapists, counselors and social workers in Wisconsin. The board deemed conversion therapy to be unprofessional conduct for those professions.

Attorneys representing the governor argued the committee’s ability to throw out rules is unconstitutional, once again arguing it represents legislative overreach and is a separation of powers violation.

The case presents yet another opportunity for the court to play the role of power broker. Will it bless the committee’s current practice? Will it rule in favor of the governor, expanding his policymaking ability while curbing the authority of the Legislature? We’re looking for these answers, while also keeping tabs on whether or not it seems the justices will once again be able to reach consensus, as they did in their 6-1 ruling over the summer.

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

Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear cases on ‘Spills Law’ enforcement, legislative power is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liberal majority moving slowly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hagedorn wields powerful swing vote

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hagedorn is up for re-election in 2029.

Political discord empowers court

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will expand abortion rights.

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

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

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

— Jack Kelly

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

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

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

— Hallie Claflin

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

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

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

— Matthew DeFour

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

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

— Jack Kelly

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

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

Every year Wisconsin Watch produces some of the best investigative journalism in Wisconsin, and this year was no exception. We exposed a judge abusing his power to benefit a coworker, revealed how AI is helping the state catch illegal manure spreading, catalogued every book ban request in all 421 school districts and found state prisons hiring doctors with disciplinary histories.

But what made this year particularly special was the introduction of the Forward newsletter. Each week the Wisconsin Watch state team produces shorter stories about what we expect to be the big news and trends in the days, weeks and months ahead. It’s something our local media partners asked for and our state team reporters delivered.

As the year winds down, we gave each state team reporter the assignment of picking a favorite story written by another member of the team (Secret Santa style!). Here were their picks:

Conservative talk radio continues to be a powerful political tool in Wisconsin

To some, radio is a source of entertainment and information from a bygone era. They’re mistaken. Hallie Claflin’s deeply reported, authoritative story illustrates the immense and continuing influence of talk radio — especially conservative talk radio — in Wisconsin politics. The rise of former Gov. Scott Walker, the toppling of a Democratic mayor in Wausau and the deaths of certain bills in the Legislature can all be tied, at least in part, to advocacy or opposition from conservative talk radio hosts. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s most powerful Republican, makes regular appearances on broadcasts and described talk radio as being “as powerful as it’s ever been.” This story is worth your time as you look ahead to 2025.

— Jack Kelly

Why we investigated Wisconsin Pastor Matthew Trewhella

Phoebe Petrovic’s profile of militant, anti-abortion Pastor Matthew Trewhella, her first investigation as Wisconsin’s first ProPublica local reporting network fellow, was an engaging read. But I especially liked the companion piece she wrote. It’s a reader service to do this kind of story when we do a large takeout on a person or subject unfamiliar to most readers. It also might drive readers to the main story when they learn more about why we did it. It puts the readers behind the scenes a bit and has the potential to make readers feel more connected to Wisconsin Watch.

— Tom Kertscher

Here are some claims you might hear during tonight’s presidential debate — and the facts

Tom Kertscher does an amazing job with all of his fact briefs, but my favorite has to be a compilation that fact-checked presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump right before their September debate. Over the past few races, presidential campaigns have been full of misinformation. Debates are a vital time to show the reality of candidates and their beliefs. Tom’s story made sure people could accurately judge the claims both candidates were making. I learned about many new and important topics across party lines like Trump’s for-profit college, Harris’ claim about tracking miscarriages and accurate deportation statistics.

— Khushboo Rathore

DataWatch: Wisconsin incarcerates more people than its prisons were designed to hold

Khushboo Rathore’s DataWatch report detailing that the state’s prison population was at nearly 130% capacity stood out as one of my favorite pieces this year. Not only did this short story shed light on severe deficiencies in Wisconsin’s prison system, it also presented the findings in a digestible format that helped readers understand overcrowding in prisons through striking data. It’s one thing to report that Wisconsin prisons are overwhelmed, and it’s another to have the numbers that show it. This piece has the power to reshape future conversations about statewide prison reform, which is what our work here at Wisconsin Watch is all about! 

— Hallie Claflin

Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear high-profile abortion rights case, draft order shows

Jack Kelly has some of the best sourcing this newsroom has ever seen. He’s such an affable people-person, and it enables him to get coffee with anyone and everyone and build legitimate relationships that result in wild scoops, like this one. It’s a testament to his brilliance as a reporter.

— Phoebe Petrovic

Forward: Our picks for favorite politics stories of the year is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Two lawyers and a former Trump campaign aide are scheduled to make their initial appearances in court Thursday, each facing 11 felony charges for their roles in a scheme that generated documents falsely claiming Donald Trump won Wisconsin’s 2020 election.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul in June initially charged Michael Roman and attorneys Jim Troupis and Kenneth Chesebro with “uttering as genuine a forged writing or object,” a felony that can result in up to a $10,000 fine and imprisonment of up to 6 years. The charges stem from their efforts to craft a slate of false electors for Donald Trump in 2020 after he narrowly lost Wisconsin and other key swing states to Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, the state Department of Justice added 10 additional charges for each defendant, arguing Chesebro, Roman and Troupis defrauded the 10 Republicans who falsely posed as electors for Trump. All 10 new charges are felonies and they can each result in up to  a $10,000 fine and imprisonment of up to 6 years.

The defendants are set to appear in Dane County Circuit Court almost four years to the day after a group of Republicans met at the State Capitol in Madison to create the documents.

Trump appears to have avoided legal consequences for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, largely due to his election victory last month. Thursday’s hearing offers a reminder that others involved in the plot are still being prosecuted.

Kaul’s office declined to answer a question about why he believes it’s important to continue the prosecutions into 2025. But Kaul spokesperson Gillian Drummond reiterated that the Department of Justice’s approach “has been focused on following the facts where they lead and making decisions based on the facts, the law and the best interests of justice.”

The case’s original 47-page criminal complaint details how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman helped craft a “Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Wisconsin” that falsely said Trump won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes at the time — tactics replicated in six other swing states. The complaint also outlines efforts to deliver the paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

A majority of the 10 Republicans who acted as the false Trump electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures would be sent to Washington, according to new details in Tuesday’s amended complaint. A majority of the false electors also said they did not consent to their signatures being presented as Wisconsin’s electoral votes without a court ruling handing the state to Trump.

Chesebro and Roman have faced charges in Georgia, where Chesebro is seeking to invalidate an earlier deal in which he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

Of the trio charged in Wisconsin, Troupis is the only one who has filed motions to dismiss ahead of Thursday’s hearing.

One motion, which was filed before the additional charges were handed down, argues the DOJ failed to allege a criminal offense. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court just two hours before the alternative electors met ruled against Trump’s efforts to throw out more than 220,000 Dane and Milwaukee county votes and to reverse his loss. But an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was still in the works, Troupis’ motion notes. The Republican electors cast their illegitimate ballots for Trump, the motion adds, as Troupis worked to protect his client’s rights in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Wisconsin’s election results.

“That practice of having both sets of electors meet and vote during an on-going legal challenge or recount is over a century old,” Troupis argues in his brief. He points to the 1876 presidential election, when three states sent competing slates of electors to Washington, and the 1960 race, when Hawaii featured competing electors due to an ongoing recount that eventually flipped three electoral votes from Richard Nixon to John F. Kennedy. Historians have identified key differences between those cases and 2020.

“Having the Republican electors meet and cast their ballot was not criminal or even untoward and the ballot was not a forgery,” Troupis argues.

A separate motion argues the criminal complaint omits information that pokes holes in the DOJ’s allegations. 

Troupis’ attorney points to a 2022 memo from the DOJ solicited by the Wisconsin Elections Commission as it investigated a complaint filed against the Trump electors. 

That complaint argued the Trump electors “met in a concerted effort to ensure that they would be mistaken, as a result of their deliberate forgery and fraud, for Wisconsin’s legitimate Presidential Electors.” But the DOJ concluded in its memo that the “record does not support this allegation” and that the Trump electors even before the Dec. 14 meeting “publicly stated, including in court pleadings, that they were meeting to preserve legal options while litigation was pending.” 

Troupis’ legal team claims that conclusion — omitted from the criminal complaint —shows “it was proper and necessary for the alternate electors to meet and vote on December 14.” 

In another motion, Troupis argues election-related prosecutions can unfold only if the elections commission determines probable cause and refers the case to a county district attorney — not the attorney general. 

Troupis’ legal team argues his motions to dismiss must be heard before Troupis makes his initial appearance. Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Hyland declined on Friday to hear the motions before the initial appearance.

Trump could not pardon his former aides upon his return to office. Presidential pardon power extends only to federal offenses. These are state charges. 

The hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m at the Dane County Courthouse.

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

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

UPDATE: New charges filed in 2020 ‘fake electors’ scheme is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.