Major declines in sales were reported in France, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland.
However, Tesla sales have rebounded in countries like Norway, Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
The EV leader is facing increased competition from Chinese brands in Europe.
Tesla will release its first-quarter sales figures later today, but before that happens, we already have some key sales data from several countries across Europe. It does not paint a pretty picture for the electric automaker that’s been struggling since Elon Musk became President Donald Trump’s right-hand man in the Oval Office.
According to the latest data, Tesla sold 3,157 new vehicles in France this March, a sharp 36.83% drop compared to the same time last year. It’s even worse in Sweden, where sales plummeted by 63.9% to just 911 units. Denmark saw a 65.5% decline (down to 595 cars), while the Netherlands reported a 61% drop, with 1,536 Teslas sold.
These figures are important because the all-new Model Y has been available in most European markets since February 21, but it doesn’t appear to have reversed Tesla’s fortunes, at least not yet. Sales may start to climb once the public becomes more familiar with the new Model Y and get the opportunity to see it in the flesh.
Tesla is doing a little better in Norway. While the 2,211 models sold locally in March was down 1% from March last year, it was up significantly from January and February, when 1,606 Teslas found new homes. The Model Y was easily Norway’s best-selling new car in March, shifting 1,822 units, compared to the Nissan Ariya in second with 569 units sold.
Similarly, Tesla’s fortunes are also changing for the better in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, with sales climbing by 34.3%, 2.1%, and 51.3%, respectively, as reported by Reuters. Despite these gains, weak figures from January and February still mean quarterly sales are down in all three markets from Q1 2024.
Of course, it’s not just Musk’s involvement in US and European politics that has diminished the sentiment in the brand among some shoppers. In Europe, a growing number of Chinese car manufacturers are entering the market with competitively priced vehicles, despite tariffs placed against them.
Minutes later Tuesday night, the conservative-backed Brad Schimel took the stage at his watch party to acknowledge the loss. Angry yells broke out. One woman began to chant about his opponent: “Cheater.”
Schimel didn’t hesitate. “No,” he responded. “You’ve got to accept the results.” Later, he returned to the stage with his classic rock cover band to jam on his bass.
In any other American era, Schimel’s concession wouldn’t be considered unusual – except maybe the guitar part. But it stands out at a time when the nation’s politics have opened a fissure between those who trust election results and those who don’t.
“It shouldn’t be super laudable,” said Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward. “But given where we are and given what we’ve seen over the past few years nationwide and in Wisconsin, it is laudable.”
Schimel’s concession of that very same court to a liberal majority, though in line with what generations of candidates have done in the past, was not a given in today’s divisive atmosphere.
Onstage, as his supporters yelled, Schimel shook his head and left no uncertainty he’d lost — a result that would become even clearer later in the night as Crawford’s lead grew to around 10 percentage points.
“The numbers aren’t going to — aren’t going to turn around,” he told the crowd. “They’re too bad, and we’re not going to pull this off.”
By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud.
Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they’ve dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat.
Last fall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde spent days sowing doubt in the results after he lost a Senate race to Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He conceded nearly two weeks after Election Day, saying he did not want to “add to political strife through a contentious recount” even as he raised debunked election conspiracies.
In a 2024 state Supreme Court race in North Carolina, two recounts have affirmed Democrat Allison Riggs narrowly won the election, but her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, is still seeking to reverse the outcome by having ballots thrown out.
Trump also has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the results were confirmed through multiple recounts, reviews and audits. His close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, has also spread a flurry of unfounded claims about voter fraud involving noncitizens.
Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $21 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he personally paid three voters $1 million each for signing a petition to boost turnout. He had said the race was central to the “future of America and Western civilization.”
But after the results came in, he said he “expected to lose” and touted the successful passage of a voter ID amendment in Wisconsin’s Constitution. Trump, who had endorsed Schimel, didn’t post about the loss but used his Truth Social platform to celebrate the voter ID win.
An assessment: ‘That’s democracy’
Not all Republicans watching the race were in a magnanimous mood as they processed the results. Peter Bernegger, the head of an election integrity organization who has brought numerous lawsuits against Wisconsin election clerks and offices, raised the specter that an “algorithm” was behind Crawford’s win. InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reacted to the results on X, saying, “Election fraud should be investigated.”
But at Schimel’s watch party, several supporters applauded his high road.
“He was all class,” said Russell Jones, a 51-year-old attorney. “That’s how you lose.”
Adam Manka, of the La Crosse County Republican Party, said he worries about how a liberal court could redraw the state’s congressional districts. “But you can’t exactly change it,” Manka said, calling Schimel “very graceful” in his defeat. “This is democracy.”
Crawford, in an interview Wednesday, said Schimel’s phone call was “the way elections should conclude” and said she would have done the same thing if she had lost.
The moment is a good example for future candidates, said Ari Mittleman, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Keep Our Republic, which aims to rebuild trust and confidence in elections. He compared elections to a Green Bay Packers football game: “We know who won, we know who lost.” He said he thinks Schimel, a lifelong Wisconsin resident, understands that.
“It’s transparent, and we accept the final score,” Mittleman said. “That’s democracy.”
Schimel and his band, performing for a thinning crowd Tuesday night, took the loss in stride.
“Can you ask them at the bar to get me a Coors Light please?” Schimel said between songs. “Put it on my tab.”
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.
Official proof of three things — identity, age and citizenship or qualifying immigration status — is required to obtain a Social Security number.
For U.S.-born adults, required documents include a U.S. birth certificate or a U.S. passport, though most U.S.-born citizens are issued a Social Security number at birth.
Noncitizens can apply if they have U.S. permission to work in the U.S. or permanent resident status (U.S.-issued green card). Less common are nonworking immigrants, such as those issued a student visa, who need a Social Security number.
“Merely showing a bill or a school ID is not sufficient,” Kathleen Romig, a former senior adviser at the Social Security Administration, told Wisconsin Watch.
Elon Musk claimed March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that “basically, you can show … a medical bill and a school ID and get a Social Security number.”
Trump administration officials did not reply to emails seeking comment.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland speaks at a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Maryland late Tuesday ordered federal agencies across 19 states and the District of Columbia to reinstate thousands of probationary workers who were fired as part of White House adviser Elon Musk’s government-slashing agenda.
U.S. Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued the preliminary injunction mandating 20 federal departments and agencies rehire the new or recently promoted employees whose duty stations or residences prior to termination were in the following states:
Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
The lawsuit is among dozens brought against President Donald Trump’s second administration over deep cuts to the federal workforce and funding, sweeping arrestsanddeportations of immigrants, Musk’s access to Americans’ sensitive data, and press access in the White House.
Trump and Musk have repeatedly criticized federal judges who have ruled unfavorably, even calling for their impeachment.
Republicans have assumed the mantle on the issue, criticizing wide-reaching injunctions from U.S. district courts.
“Although our Founders saw an important role for the judiciary, they didn’t design a system that made judges national policymakers,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, said in his opening statement at a hearing Wednesday.
The Democratic attorneys general who brought the lawsuit against the federal agencies had requested a nationwide injunction, arguing the mass firings were illegal and harmed states financially, but Bredar only applied the order to the plaintiffs’ jurisdictions.
Bredar has previously issued a temporary emergency order mandating agencies reinstate employment for all 24,418 fired probationary workers, according to government figures, but expressed reluctance at a March 26 hearing to extend his order nationwide. The breakdown of fired probationary employees by state is unclear and the total number could be from the states involved in the lawsuit or other states or both.
Departments and agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit must now return the probationary workers’ jobs to status quo by 2 p.m. Eastern on April 8, Bredar ordered. The agencies also “shall not conduct any future reductions in force (“RIFs”) — whether formally labeled as such or not” involving the affected probationary employees unless the process follows the law, Bredar wrote.
The enjoined defendants include:
The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The order will remain in place while the case is pending.
The states allege the mass firings led by Trump and Musk harmed them because the federal government did not provide the legally required advance notice that gives states time to prepare “rapid response activities” — including unemployment and social services — ahead of an influx of unemployed residents.
Bredar highlighted in a memorandum opinion accompanying his order Tuesday that 31 states did not join the lawsuit, writing that nationwide injunctions are required in “rare” instances, and that “this case is not one of them.”
“The Court’s injunction is not national in scope because it is possible to substantially stop the harms inflicted on the states that did sue without extending judicial authority over those that didn’t,” Bredar wrote.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford thanks supporters after winning the race Tuesday for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday, solidifying liberal control of the body until 2028 and marking a sharp rebuke by the state’s voters of the policies of President Donald Trump and the financial might of his most prominent adviser, Elon Musk.
Crawford rode massive turnout in Dane and Milwaukee counties and outperformed Kamala Harris’ effort last year in a number of other parts of the state to defeat her opponent, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by about 10 points.
The former chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle who represented liberal groups such as Planned Parenthood and the Madison teacher’s union as a private practice attorney said during the campaign that she would look out for the rights of all Wisconsinites on the Supreme Court while repeatedly criticizing Schimel for his eagerness to show his support for Trump, his record as attorney general and the outside assistance his campaign got from Musk.
Crawford’s victory marks the third straight Supreme Court election for Wisconsin’s liberals and maintains the 4-3 liberal majority that has been in place since Justice Janet Protasiewicz was elected in 2023. Crawford will replace retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
Since gaining control of the Court, the new liberal majority has ruled that the state’s previous legislative maps were unconstitutional, ending the partisan gerrymander that had locked in Republican control of the Legislature for more than a decade, and accepted cases that will decide the rights of Wisconsinites to have an abortion. The Court is also likely to consider a challenge to Wisconsin’s 2011 law stripping most union rights from public employees within the next year or two.
“I’m here tonight because I’ve spent my life fighting to do what’s right,” Crawford said after the race was called for her. “That’s why I got into this race, to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all.”
Schimel said he got into the race because he was opposed to the “partisanship” of the liberal controlled Court but his effort to nationalize the race and show his support for Trump proved unsuccessful against a backlash to the second Trump term and voters’ distrust of Musk, who offered cash incentives for people who got out the vote for Schimel.
Tuesday’s election was the first statewide race in the country since Trump won the presidency last fall. Trump narrowly won Wisconsin and in counties across the state, Schimel failed to match the president’s vote total. In La Crosse County, Crawford performed 11 points better than Harris did last year and Schimel didn’t even match Trump’s vote share in his home of Waukesha County.
Schimel ran nearly even with former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, who lost to Protasiewicz in the 2023 race. Wisconsin’s conservatives have now lost the past three Supreme Court elections by double digits.
The 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race set the record for the most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history, topping the $100 million mark. While Crawford received support from liberal billionaires including George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Musk dwarfed all other contributors, dumping more than $20 million into the race.
Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel delivers his concession speech in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Musk’s money helped blanket the state’s airwaves with attack ads against Crawford’s record as a judge, often criticizing sentences she gave to people convicted of sexual violence. A Musk-associated PAC also hired people to knock on thousands of doors in an effort to turn out Trump’s base of Wisconsin voters, who have often sat out non-presidential elections. America PAC, a political action committee associated with Musk, paid door knockers $25 an hour, offered voters cash if they filled out a petition against “activist judges” and gave two people $1 million checks at a rally on Sunday.
“But I’ve got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin,” Crawford said. “And we won.”
In a concession speech delivered shortly before 9:30 p.m., Schimel told supporters they “didn’t leave anything on the field,” and when a few began to complain said “no, we’ve gotta accept this.”
“The numbers aren’t going to turn around. Too bad. We’re not going to pull this off,” he said. “So thank you guys. From the bottom of my heart. God bless you. God bless the state of Wisconsin. God bless America. You will rise again. We’ll get up to fight another day, it just wasn’t our day.”
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin, harnessing voters’ alarm at the actions Musk has been leading from his federal DOGE office to cut government programs and fire thousands of public employees, held People v. Musk town halls across the state where residents said they were worried about the effect those cuts would have on services they rely on like Medicaid, Social Security, veteran’s benefits and education funding.
Gov. Tony Evers said that Wisconsin “felt the weight of America” in this election, which proved Wisconsinites “will not be bought.”
“This election was about the resilience of the Wisconsin and American values that define and unite us,” Evers said. “This election was about doing what’s best for our kids, protecting constitutional checks and balances, reaffirming our faith in the courts and the judiciary, and defending against attacks on the basic rights, freedoms, and institutions we hold dear. But above all, this election was as much about who Wisconsinites believe we can be as it was about the country we believe we must be.”
Democrats and Crawford accused Musk of trying to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court, partially to influence a lawsuit his company, Tesla, has filed challenging a Wisconsin law that prohibits car manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. Musk said he was focused on the race because the Court could decide the constitutionality of the state’s congressional maps, which currently favor Republicans and help the party hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the victory party, Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler compared the effort against Musk and Trump to Gov. Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette’s fight against the oligarchs of the early 20th century, adding that Republicans’ association with Musk will be an “anchor.”
“I think what Susan Crawford did by making clear that Elon Musk was the real opponent in this race, what voters did by responding to Elon Musk, it made clear that Elon Musk is politically toxic, and he is a massive anchor that will drag Republicans from the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “And that’s a message that I hope Republicans in Washington hear as fast as possible. Not only will they lose, but they will deserve to lose resoundingly and they will be swept out of power in a wave of outrage across the nation.”
On the campaign trail, Crawford sought to tie Schimel to Musk — she called her opponent “Elon Schimel” at the only debate between the two candidates — while portraying herself as the less partisan candidate. Throughout the nominally non-partisan race, both candidates lobbed accusations of extreme political views at the other.
With Crawford’s victory and the retention of the Court’s liberal majority, the body is expected to rule on cases that ask if Wisconsin’s Constitution grants women the right to access an abortion, the legality of the Republican-authored law that restricts the collective bargaining rights of most public employees, how Wisconsin’s industries should be regulated for pollution and the legality of the state’s congressional maps.
Heather Williams, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement that Democrats were offering a better vision for the country than the one promised by Schimel, Trump and Musk.
“Despite Republicans’ best efforts to buy this seat, Wisconsin voters showed up for their values and future,” Williams said. “While Trump dismantles programs that taxpayers have earned, support, and are counting on, voters across the country are turning to state Democrats who are delivering on promises to lower costs and expand opportunities.”
This story was updated Wednesday morning with current vote totals.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks to reporters following a weekly Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans hope to approve a budget resolution this week that would clear the way for Congress to enact an extension of expiring tax law as well as sweeping cuts to federal spending later this year.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday the chamber will likely vote on the House-passed budget resolution later this week, after completing the vote-a-rama, where lawmakers vote on dozens of amendments, typically into the early morning hours.
“Republicans continue to have very productive conversations on how to achieve our agenda and working with President Trump on making sure that we are rebuilding our military, unleashing American energy dominance, making sure there isn’t a four-and-a-half trillion tax increase on the American people at the end of this year and obviously securing our border,” Thune said.
The House and Senate must vote to adopt the same budget resolution with matching instructions before they can use the complicated reconciliation process to move legislation through Congress on their own. The process allows the majority party to avoid the Senate filibuster that requires 60 votes for most legislation.
One ‘big, beautiful bill’
GOP lawmakers in the two chambers have been at odds for months over whether to move their core legislative goals in two bills or one package.
The final, adopted budget resolution would set up Republicans to hold floor votes on one “big, beautiful bill,” as President Donald Trump has described it, later this year, if GOP leaders can keep nearly all of their members on board with the final product.
Republicans hold unified control of Congress and the White House, but voters didn’t give the party especially wide margins.
The GOP holds 218 seats in the 435-member House amid absences, though it could pick up two more members following special elections in Florida on Tuesday. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate.
Any changes to tax law, energy policy or spending cuts will need support from nearly every GOP lawmaker in Congress, including centrists, who barely won election in swing districts, and far-right members, who are more likely to lose to a primary challenger claiming they’re not conservative enough.
The House-passed resolution includes reconciliation instructions that would allow Congress later this year to extend the 2017 tax cuts and a range of other GOP policy priorities that could not survive the 60-vote threshold.
Democratic amendments
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that Democrats plan to put up amendments during budget debate that will showcase how the eventual bill could impact Americans.
“We have had many good discussions, including today. And you are going to find us focused relentlessly on what … Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican Senate and House are doing to the American people,” Schumer said. “They’re taking away benefits that they desperately need.”
The Senate adopted just two amendments during its last vote-a-rama in February, one from Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and one from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee.
Democrats put forward numerous amendments but were unable to get any adopted.
Tesla vehicles in D.C. were vandalized with Elon Musk and anti-government graffiti.
Messages included sarcastic pro-Musk slogans caught clearly by Sentry Mode cams.
Washington police may pursue hate crime charges tied to political bias against Teslas.
It’s no secret that Tesla has become something of a cultural lightning rod, whether for its tech, its CEO, or the political baggage that now seems welded to its aluminum panels. And in the current climate, even scratching a Tesla could apparently land you in serious legal territory, at least in Washington, D.C., where the politics are as tangled as the city’s traffic circles.
Elon Musk and Tesla have grown so closely associated with the Trump-era political ecosystem that some officials in the nation’s capital are reportedly considering whether vandalism against the brand could be prosecuted as a hate crime. D.C. has long been a Democratic stronghold, but Mayor Muriel Bowser appears to be making moves in response to mounting pressure from the Trump administration, particularly after Trump’s recent threat to assert control over the District.
Last week, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police issued a press release announcing they are searching for two suspects who allegedly defaced Tesla vehicles in the district. According to the authorities, they “wrote political hate speech on to the victims’ Tesla vehicles then fled the scene.” The exterior cameras of the cars caught clear images of both suspects, although they were wearing sunglasses.
Vandalism, But Make It Political
Unlike some incidents elsewhere in the country, the Teslas weren’t torched, overturned, or otherwise wrecked. The damage was cosmetic, limited to what amounts to political graffiti. What’s perhaps the strangest thing about the whole situation is that much of the “hate speech” graffiti on the cars wasn’t even that dramatic.
According to Politico, which reviewed police reports, several sarcastic messages were left on the Teslas. These included statements like “Let’s do away with the administrative state! Buy a tesla!” while another said, “Go Doge I support Musk killing the dept of education.”
Another read, “I like what Musk is doing,” while one stated, “I Love Musk and hate the Fed Gov.t.” Possibly the most provocative was: “Ask me about my support of Nazis.” It’s a grab bag of chaotic energy, part satire, part performance art, part political Rorschach test.
Washington D.C. is one of just a few jurisdictions that describe “political affiliation,” with race, sex, and religion as categories of bias, meaning locals cannot discriminate against someone for being a Democrat or Republican. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t shun someone for their opinion.
“I would have a hard time seeing how anti-Elon Musk graffiti would constitute political affiliation discrimination,” Arizona State University law professor Michael Selmi said. “The real issue is there’s very little case law interpreting political affiliation in D.C. or in the few other jurisdictions that include it.”
Anyone who scrawls a swastika on a Tesla has obviously committed a hate crime https://t.co/EJFkYxDHrV
A new fire in Rome is the latest in a series of incidents targeting Tesla around the world.
High temperatures from the blaze damaged 17 EVs, and the surrounding structure.
No injuries were reported, and local authorities are currently investigating the cause of the fire.
A suspicious fire that tore through a Tesla dealership in Rome early Monday morning has left behind a scorched mess of metal and plenty of questions. At least 17 fully electric vehicles were destroyed in the blaze, marking the latest in a string of troubling incidents involving Tesla facilities around the globe.
The incident arrives amid growing backlash against Elon Musk, raising suspicions that this wasn’t just some random electrical mishap. While the exact cause remains under investigation, authorities have not ruled out arson. Fortunately, no one was injured, as the dealership was closed at the time of the fire. Still, the loss is significant, not just in property, but in what it might signal.
According to local media, emergency services were alerted around 4 a.m. on Monday, March 31. Police have since questioned the dealership’s owners and are combing through CCTV footage, Reuters reports.
The fire broke out at the Tesla store located at 48 Via Serracapriola in Rome. Drone footage shared by the YouTube channel Local Team shows the parking lot littered with charred vehicle shells. At least 16 Teslas appear to have suffered irreparable damage.
These cars were reportedly prepped and ready for delivery to customers. Furthermore, the shed covering them was also damaged by the intense heat, though the Tesla dealership’s main building seems to have escaped the worst of it.
A Brand Under Fire—Literally
The timing is hard to ignore. Just two days before the fire, the so-called “Tesla Takedown” movement organized protests outside more than 200 Tesla dealerships across Europe and North America. Most gatherings remained peaceful, but a handful of them escalated into vandalism—and now, possibly worse.
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - MARCH 30: Demonstrators protest outside the KI Convention Center before the start of a town hall meeting with Elon Musk on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The town hall was held ahead of the state’s high-profile Supreme Court election between Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel, who has been financially backed by Musk and endorsed by President Donald Trump, and Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Days before Wisconsinites go to the polls to decide which candidate will win an open seat on the state Supreme Court, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, gave oversized $1 million checks to two Wisconsin voters.
Appearing on stage in front of more than 1,000 people and wearing a cheesehead hat, Musk, who has spent more than $20 million supporting the candidacy of conservative-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, gave out the money at a rally in Green Bay Sunday night. From the stage, Musk said the race, which will decide the ideological balance of the Court, could “affect the entire destiny of humanity.”
Aside from the two checks he gave out on Sunday, America PAC, the political action committee Musk has used to funnel money into the race, offered Wisconsin voters $100 each to fill out a petition against “activist judges” and provide contact information. Musk’s money has also been used to hire people from out-of-state to knock on doors on behalf of Schimel and blanket the state in ads. The group has also sent texts to voters in an effort to recruit canvassers that offer $20 for each person they get to vote.
Democrats and Schimel’s opponent, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, have accused Musk of trying to buy a seat on the Court, pointing out that Musk’s company, Tesla, is currently fighting a lawsuit against the state of Wisconsin over its law that prevents car manufacturers from selling directly to consumers.
Musk said the $1 million giveaway was a strategy to get attention on the race.
“We need to get attention,” he said. “Somewhat inevitably, when I do these things, it causes the legacy media to kind of lose their minds.”
Wisconsin state law includes provisions that make it illegal to offer people money in exchange for voting. In an initial post on his social media site, X, Musk said that the winners of the money would need to prove they had voted. He later deleted that post and updated the contest so that people only had to complete the America PAC petition.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to block the giveaway, alleging that it violated state law against election bribery. Judges at the circuit, appellate and Supreme Court levels declined to step in.
Musk’s involvement in the race has become one of the campaign’s major issues as voters are about to head to the polls. The state Democratic party has held People v. Musk town halls across the state as liberals worry about Musk’s involvement in the election and his DOGE agency’s work to cut funds at a variety of federal agencies.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
Ten years ago, when Wisconsin lawmakers approved a bill to allow unlimited spending in state elections, only one Republican voted no.
“I just thought big money was an evil, a curse on our politics,” former state Sen. Robert Cowles said recently of his 2015 decision to buck his party.
As Wisconsin voters head to the polls this week to choose a new state Supreme Court justice, Cowles stands by his assessment. Voters have been hit with a barrage of attack ads from special interest groups, and record-setting sums of money have been spent to sway residents. What’s more, Cowles said, there’s been little discussion of major issues. The candidates debated only once.
“I definitely think that that piece of legislation made things worse,” Cowles said in an interview. “Our public discourse is basically who can inflame things in the most clever way with some terrible TV ad that’s probably not even true.”
More than $80 million has been funneled into the race as of March 25, according to two groups that have been tracking spending in the contest — the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy group that follows judicial races, and the news outlet WisPolitics. That surpasses the previous costliest judicial race in the country’s history, approximately $56 million spent two years ago on the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.
Money is pouring into this swing state election so fast and so many ads have been reserved that political observers now believe the current race is likely to reach $100 million by Tuesday, which is Election Day.
“People are thoroughly disgusted, I think, across the political spectrum with just the sheer amount of money being spent on a spring Supreme Court election in Wisconsin,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, which has long advocated for campaign finance reform.
But the elected officials who could revamp the campaign finance system on both sides of the aisle or create pressure for change have been largely silent. No bills introduced this session. No press conferences from legislators. The Senate no longer even has a designated elections committee.
The current election pits former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, now a circuit court judge in conservative-leaning Waukesha County, against Susan Crawford, a judge in Dane County, the state’s liberal bastion.
Though the race technically is nonpartisan, the Democratic Party, including former President Barack Obama, has endorsed Crawford; the party has received financial support from liberal billionaire George Soros. On the other side, President Donald Trump posted a message on his social media platform on March 21 urging his supporters to vote for Schimel, and much of Schimel’s money comes from political organizations tied to Elon Musk.
The stakes are high. Whoever wins will determine the ideological bent of the seven-member court just two years after Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the court and swung it to the liberals. With Protasiewicz on the court, the majority struck down state legislative maps, which had been drawn to favor Republicans, and reinstated the use of drop boxes to collect absentee ballots.
A Schimel victory could resurrect those and other voting issues, as well as determine whether women in the state will continue to be able to access abortion.
Two pro-Schimel groups linked to Musk — America PAC and Building America’s Future — had disclosed spending about $17 million, as of March 25. Musk himself donated $3 million this year to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In the final stretch of the campaign, news reports revealed that Musk’s America PAC plans to give Wisconsin voters $100 to sign petitions rejecting the actions of “activist judges.”
That has raised concerns among some election watchdog groups, which have been exploring whether the offer from Musk amounts to an illegal inducement to get people to vote.
On Wednesday night, Musk went further, announcing on X a $1 million award to a Green Bay voter he identified only as “Scott A” for “supporting our petition against activist judges in Wisconsin!” Musk promised to hand out other million-dollar prizes before the election.
Musk has a personal interest in the direction of the Wisconsin courts. His electric car company, Tesla Inc., is suing the state over a law requiring manufacturers to sell automobiles through independent dealerships. Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment about his involvement in the race.
Also on Schimel’s side: billionaires Diane Hendricks and Richard Uihlein and Americans for Prosperity, a dark-money group founded by billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother David. Americans for Prosperity has reported spending about $3 million, primarily for digital ads, canvassing, mailers and door hangers.
A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund, a union-supported electioneering group, has ponied up over $6 million to advance Crawford. In other big outlays, Soros has given $2 million to the state Democratic Party, while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another billionaire, gave $1.5 million. And California venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, donated $250,000.
In Wisconsin, political parties can steer unlimited amounts to candidates.
State Sen. Jeff Smith, a Democrat and a minority leader, called the spending frenzy “obscene.”
“There’s no reason why campaigns should cost as much as they do,” he said.
Asked for comment about the vast amount of money in the race, Crawford told ProPublica: “I’m grateful for the historic outpouring of grassroots support across Wisconsin from folks who don’t want Elon Musk controlling our Supreme Court.”
Schimel’s campaign called Crawford a “hypocrite,” saying she “is playing the victim while receiving more money than any judicial candidate in American history thanks to George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and JB Pritzker funneling money to her campaign.”
Quizzed Monday by a TV reporter on whether he would recuse himself if the Tesla case got to the state’s high court, Schimel did not commit, saying: “I’ll do the same thing I do in every case. I will examine whether I can truly hear that case objectively.”
A decade after Wisconsin opened the floodgates to unlimited money in campaigns in 2015, some good government activists are wondering if the state has reached a tipping point. Is there any amount, they ask, at which the state’s political leaders can be persuaded to impose controls?
“I honestly believe that folks have their eyes open around the money in a way that they have not previously,” Nick Ramos, executive director of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks campaign spending, told reporters during a briefing on spending in the race.
A loosely organized group of campaign reformers is beginning to lay the groundwork for change. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign recently called a Zoom meeting that included representatives of public interest groups inside and outside of Wisconsin, dark-money researchers and an election security expert.
They were looking for ways to champion reform during the current legislative session. In particular, they are studying and considering what models make sense and may be achievable, including greater disclosure requirements, public financing and restricting candidates from coordinating with dark-money groups on issue ads.
But Republicans say that the spending is a natural byproduct of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which equated campaign spending with free speech and opened the spigots for big-money races.
“For the most part, we don’t really, as Republicans, want to see the brakes on free speech,” said Ken Brown, past chair of the GOP Party of Racine, a city south of Milwaukee. Noting he was not speaking for the party, Brown said he does not favor spending limits. “I believe in the First Amendment. It is what it is. I believe the Citizens United decision was correct.”
Asked to comment on the current system of unlimited money, Anika Rickard, a spokesperson for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, did not answer the question but instead criticized Crawford and her funders.
Post-reform bill opened floodgates
At one point, Wisconsin was seen as providing a roadmap for reform. In 2009, the state passed the Impartial Justice Act. The legislation, enacted with bipartisan support, provided for public financing of state Supreme Court races, so candidates could run without turning to special interests for money.
The push for the measure came after increased spending by outside special interests and the candidates in two state Supreme Court races: the 2007 election that cost an estimated $5.8 million and the 2008 contest that neared $6 million, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Candidates who agreed in 2009 to public financing and spending limits received grants of up to $400,000 for the race. The money came from the Democracy Trust Fund, which was supported by a $2 income tax check-off.
“Reformers win a fight to clean up court races,” the headline on an editorial in The Capital Times read at the time.
But the law was in place for only one election, in April 2011. Both candidates in the court’s general election that year agreed to take public funding, and incumbent Justice David Prosser, a conservative, narrowly won reelection. Then Republicans eliminated funding for the measure that summer. Instead, the money was earmarked to implement a stringent voter ID law.
By 2015, GOP leaders had completely overhauled the state’s campaign finance law, with Democrats in the Assembly refusing to even vote on the measure in protest.
“This Republican bill opens the floodgates to unlimited spending by billionaires, by big corporations and by monied, special interests to influence our elections,” Rep. Lisa Subeck, a Democrat, said in the floor debate.
Wisconsin is no longer cited as a model. Activists point to other states, including Arizona, Oregon and Rhode Island. Arizona and Oregon established disclosure measures to trace the flow of dark money, requiring campaign spenders to reveal the original source of donations. Rhode Island required ads to name not only the sponsor but the organization’s top donors so voters can better access the message and its credibility.
Amid skepticism that Wisconsin will rein in campaign spending, there may be some reason for optimism.
A year ago, a proposed joint resolution in Wisconsin’s Legislature bemoaned Citizens United and the spending it had unleashed. The resolution noted that “this spending has the potential to drown out speech rights for all citizens, narrow debate, weaken federalism and self-governance in the states, and increase the risk of systemic corruption.”
The resolution called for a constitutional amendment clarifying that “states may regulate the spending of money to influence federal elections.”
And though it never came to a vote, 17 members of the Legislature signed on to it, a dozen of them Republicans. Eight of them are still in the Legislature, including Sen. Van Wanggaard, who voted for the 2015 bill weakening Wisconsin’s campaign finance rules.
Wanggaard did not respond to a request for comment. But an aide expressed surprise — and disbelief — seeing the lawmaker’s name on the resolution.
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White House Senior Advisor to the President, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk arrives for a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on March 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. Musk is scheduled to meet with Republican lawmakers to coordinate his ongoing federal government cost cutting plan. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
While the role and actions of the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency remain somewhat murky, data privacy experts have been tracking the group’s moves and documenting potential violations of federal privacy protections.
Before President Donald Trump took office in January, he characterized DOGE as an advisory body, saying it would “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” in partnership with the White House and Office of Management and Budget in order to eliminate fraud and waste from government spending.
But on Inauguration day, Trump’s executive order establishing the group said Musk would have “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems.”
In the nine weeks since its formation, DOGE has been able to access sensitive information from the Treasury Department payment system, information about the headcount and budget of an intelligence agency and Americans’ Social Security numbers, health information and other demographic data. Musk and department staffers are also using artificial intelligence in their analysis of department cuts.
Though the Trump administration has not provided transparency around what the collected data is being used for, several federal agencies have laid off tens of thousands of workers, under the direction of DOGE, in the past two months. Thousands have been cut from the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Education, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Treasury this month.
Frank Torres, senior AI and privacy adviser for The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology, which researches the intersection of civil rights and technology, said his organization partnered with the Center for Democracy and Technology, which researches and works with legislators on tech topics, to sort out what DOGE was doing. The organizations published a resource sheet documenting DOGE’s actions, the data privacy violations they are concerned about and the lawsuits that several federal agencies have filed over DOGE’s actions.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Torres said. “I mean, there are processes and procedures and protections in place that are put in place for a reason, and it doesn’t appear that DOGE is following any of that, which is alarming.”
The organizations outlined potential violations of federal privacy protections, like the Privacy Act of 1974, which prohibits the disclosure of information without written consent, and substantive due process under the Fifth Amendment, which protects privacy from government interference.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields would not say if DOGE planned to provide more insight into its plans for the data it is accessing.
“Waste, fraud and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long,” Fields told States Newsroom in an emailed statement. “It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it. DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on.”
The lack of transparency concerns U.S. Reps. Gerald E. Connolly, (D-Virginia) and Jamie Raskin, (D-Maryland), who filed a Freedom of Information Act request this month requesting DOGE provide clear answers about its operations.
The request asks for details on who is in charge at DOGE, the scope of its authority to close federal agencies and lay off federal employees, the extent of its access to sensitive government sensitive databases and for Musk to outline how collected data may benefit his own companies and his foreign customers. They also questioned the feeding of sensitive information into AI systems, which DOGE touted last month.
“DOGE employees, including teenage and twenty-something computer programmers from Mr. Musk’s own companies, have been unleashed on the government’s most sensitive databases — from those containing national security and classified information to those containing the personal financial information of all Americans to those containing the trade secrets and sensitive commercial data of Mr. Musk’s competitors,” the representatives wrote in the request.
Most Americans have indeed submitted data to the federal government which can now be accessed by DOGE, said Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology — whether it be via a tax filing, student loan or Social Security. Laird said the two organizations see huge security concerns with how DOGE is collecting data and what it may be doing with the information. In the first few weeks of its existence, a coder discovered that anyone could access the database that posted updates to the DOGE.gov website.
“We’re talking about Social Security numbers, we’re talking about income, we’re talking about, you know, major life events, like whether you had a baby or got married,” Laird said. “We’re talking about if you’ve ever filed bankruptcy — like very sensitive stuff, and we’re talking about it for tens of millions of people.”
With that level of sensitive information, the business need should justify the level of risk, Laird said.
DOGE’s use of AI to comb through and categorize Americans’ data is concerning to Laird and Torres, as AI algorithms can produce inaccurate responses, pose security risks themselves and can have biases that lead to discrimination against marginalized groups.
While Torres, Laird and their teams plan to continue tracking DOGE’s actions and their potential privacy violations, they published the first resource sheet to start bringing awareness to the information that is already at risk. The data collection they’ve seen so far in an effort to cut federal spending is concerning, but both said they fear Americans’ data could end up being used in ways we don’t yet know about.
“The government has a wealth of data on all of us, and I would say data that’s probably very valuable on the open market,” Torres said. “It’s almost like a dossier on us from birth to death.”
Musk fired back at critics in an interview with Fox News published Thursday.
“They’ll say what we’re doing is somehow unconstitutional or illegal or whatever,” he said. “We’re like, ‘Well, which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?’ And they can’t point to any.”
A reader asked: Was Elon Musk’s endorsement of Brad Schimel a violation of lobbying laws because of Musk’s status as a federal employee?
We’ll get to that question in a second, but we also wondered about the answer to a related question: Are the cash giveaways from Musk’s America PAC ahead of the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election legal?
Musk, the centibillionaire tech CEO turned efficiency czar for President Donald Trump, has dominated the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in recent weeks. Musk and affiliated groups have poured cash into the race between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative candidate Brad Schimel, which will determine ideological control of the high court and could have national ramifications.
America PAC and Building America’s Future, two groups that are funded by Musk, have spent more than $16.7 million on advertising and voter mobilization efforts meant to aid Schimel’s candidacy. Musk has also donated $3 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which can transfer the money to Schimel’s campaign.
Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, is offering registered Wisconsin voters $100 if they sign a petition opposing “activist judges.”
“Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas,” the petition reads. “By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”
Participants can also get $100 for referring another petition signer.
Late on Wednesday the super PAC announced that “Scott A.” from Green Bay had been selected to win $1 million after filling out the petition. That mirrors a move America PAC deployed in last year’s presidential race.
It’s less clear whether America PAC’s “special offer” violates Wisconsin’s election bribery statute, according to Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative.
(1m) Any person who does any of the following violates this chapter:
a. Offers, gives, lends or promises to give or lend, or endeavors to procure, anything of value, or any office or employment or any privilege or immunity to, or for, any elector, or to or for any other person, in order to induce any elector to:
i. Go to or refrain from going to the polls.
ii. Vote or refrain from voting.
iii.Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular person.
iv. Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular referendum; or on account of any elector having done any of the above.
The $100 reward for signing the petition “definitely falls into a gray area because (America PAC) is paying people to sign the petition,” Godar said. “The question is whether the payment is being given in order to induce anyone to vote or refrain from voting.”
“These payments kind of walk an uncertain line on whether they are amounting to that or not,” Godar added.
Godar also noted that you have to be a registered Wisconsin voter to receive the payment, “so it does seem like it is inducing people to register to vote.” That violates federal law for federal elections, she said, but “federal law doesn’t apply to this election because there aren’t any federal offices on the ballot.”
“Under the state law, that’s not specifically one of the listed prohibitions,” Godar said. “It’s definitely in a gray area and sort of walks the line.”
Elon Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, that he would incentivize voting in Wisconsin with $1 million checks. The post appears to have been taken down. An X user asked the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok, whether Musk’s plan was election fraud. The bot responded that the plan likely violates Wisconsin election law.
Late on Thursday, Musk announced he would “give a talk in Wisconsin” in a social media post that has since been taken down.
“Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election,” he wrote. “I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.”
An AI chatbot on Musk’s own social media site flagged the activity in the post as potentially illegal. “Though aimed at boosting participation, this could be seen as election bribery,” the AI profile @grok replied to someone asking if the post was legal.
In a follow-up email, Godar said giving “the payment for voting instead of for signing the petition much more clearly violates Wisconsin law.”
On Friday afternoon, Musk posted again: “To clarify a previous post, entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges.”
“I will also hand over checks for a million dollars to 2 people to be spokesmen for the petition,” he wrote.
UPDATE (March 31, 2025, 9:00 a.m.): On Friday afternoon, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit to bar Musk and America PAC from promoting the “million-dollar gifts.” The suit also sought to prohibit Musk and America PAC “from making any payments to Wisconsin electors to vote.” The case was randomly assigned to Crawford, who immediately recused, and then reassigned to Columbia County Circuit Court Judge W. Andrew Voigt. Voigt declined to hear the petition prior to Sunday’s event, so Kaul went to the Court of Appeals and subsequently the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Both turned down his request to stop Musk from giving away two $1 million checks, which he did on Sunday evening.
Violating the statute is a Class I felony, which can carry a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment of up to three-and-a-half years, or both.
A county district attorney or the Wisconsin attorney general would be responsible for filing criminal charges for violations of the statute, Godar said. It’s also possible someone could try to bring a civil claim to have a judge halt the payments. So far that hasn’t happened.
Now back to our reader question about Musk’s political activities as a federal employee.
Musk, in his role as a “special government employee” leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is bound by the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting “political activity while you’re on duty, while you’re in the workplace, and the use of your official position to influence the outcome of an election,” said Delaney Marsco, the director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
But special government employees like Musk are only bound by the Hatch Act while they’re on duty representing the federal government, Marsco said, so the world’s wealthiest man “is allowed to engage in political activity that might otherwise be prohibited as long as he’s not on duty when he’s doing it.”
The Hatch Act is intended to “maintain a federal workforce that is free from partisan political influence or coercion,” according to a memo from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.
'Which shall rule — wealth or man; which shall lead — money or intellect?' asked a former Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice | Getty Images Creative
Does it matter to Wisconsin voters that Elon Musk is trying to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court? Maybe not to “Scott A.” as Musk called him, the Green Bay voter to whom Musk gave $1 million as part of his campaign to reward Wisconsinites who sign a petition against “activist judges,” while at the same time handing over their personal data to Musk. Scott A.’s haul is one-fifth the size of Musk’s $20 million investment in campaign ads and door-knocking to support his preferred candidate, Brad Schimel.
And Musk’s $20 million spending spree accounts for about one-fifth of the total, record-breaking $100 million that makes the April 1 contest the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.
The race is a test of many things: Whether Musk, serving as unelected and unpopular co-president to Donald Trump, is a political asset or a liability; whether the new liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court will endure; whether the highest bidder is destined to win state court races even as the ad war becomes a blitzkrieg; whether three months into the Trump administration, amid mass firings, the dismantling of federal agencies and voter unease about the destruction of their health care and retirement security, Wisconsin might be the place where things begin to turn around.
The money pouring into the Supreme Court race is obscene and a bad sign for the health of democracy regardless of next week’s outcome. But the sickness didn’t flare up overnight. It has been getting steadily worse for almost two decades.
Schimel makes the claim that he is running to restore the Court’s “impartiality,” motivated by his disgust at how “political” the Court’s new liberal majority has become. In truth, the politicization of the Court goes back almost two decades and Schimel, a highly partisan Republican, is an unlikely candidate to take us back to pre-partisan times. On the other side, Susan Crawford is backed by the Democrats and big out of state donors including George Soros. In a recent debate she conceded that the public has an interest in ethics rules that would require judges to recuse themselves from cases involving their donors, but the current rules don’t require that. Neither candidate has promised to recuse from such cases.
The turning point that led us to the current moment came in 2008. That was the year disgraced former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman defeated incumbent Justice Louis Butler in a dirty campaign that broke all previous spending records. The race cost $6 million — at the time, an astounding sum.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, Gableman’s biggest-spending supporter, paid for ads calling Butler “Loophole Louie” and accusing him of being soft on crime. Gableman himself ran a disgusting ad that placed Butler’s face next to the mugshot of a convicted rapist. Both men were Black. The ad misleadingly claimed that Butler “found a loophole” and let the man out of prison “to molest another child.” In fact, Butler was not the judge in the case. As a public defender assigned to defend his client, he lost in court and his client was imprisoned, then later reoffended after he was released, having served his full sentence.
Gableman went on to help destroy ethics rules on the Court, refusing to recuse himself from cases involving WMC, which had spent more than $2 million to help elect him. He played a key role in passing the current ethics rule allowing justices to decide for themselves whether to recuse in cases involving their big-money campaign contributors.
Gableman embarrassed supporters, including Dodge County District Attorney Steven Bauer, who publicly withdrew his support during the campaign because of the attack ad. Tellingly, after he left the Court, Gableman disappeared, never landing a job at a law firm or in public service. His brief return to the limelight, as Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’s chief investigator of nonexistent voter fraud, featured Gableman threatening to jail the mayors of Democratic cities and wasting more than a million taxpayer dollars on a farcical investigation that ended when Vos fired him.
But the damage done by Gableman and the people who poured money into electing him endures.
The 2025 Supreme Court race, which is on track to double the cost of the last record-breaking election in 2023, is 15 times as costly as Gableman’s expensive and shamefully politicized campaign.
Ads featuring scary crime stories are still a major feature of Supreme Court races, sponsored by people who know and don’t care that tough-on-crime issues aren’t coming before the Court. Instead, the ads are paid for by ideological groups, political parties and corporations interested in favorable treatment — like Musk, who has a current lawsuit in Wisconsin seeking to overturn a state law blocking him from opening Tesla dealerships here.
Back in 1873, Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Ryan worried about the rise of the robber barons, their accumulation of vast personal wealth and with it political power. Speaking at the University of Wisconsin Law School, he posed the question: “Which shall rule — wealth or man; which shall lead — money or intellect; who shall fill public stations — educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?”
We are well on our way to becoming a nation of feudal serfs to Elon Musk. The liquidation of government agencies and institutions that serve the public interest are a giant step in that direction. The Wisconsin Supreme Court election will take us further down that road, or move us in the opposite direction. But until we do something about the arms race in campaign spending, Ryan’s vision of government by “educated and patriotic free men (and women)” will be increasingly out of reach.
Samriddhi Patankar, a 19-year-old undergrad at George Washington University and the daughter of two researchers, attended a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland said Wednesday he will briefly extend his temporary order requiring the Trump administration to reinstate federal jobs for 24,000 fired probationary employees while he considers whether to make it last until the case is decided.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar in the District of Maryland told the plaintiffs and government he will need more details by 10 a.m. Eastern Thursday before he can decide whether the case merits a preliminary injunction to stop all firings and require reinstatements. Such an action would likely last until a final judgment in the case is reached.
The temporary restraining order affecting the fired federal workers expires Thursday night, but Bredar told the parties he expects to extend it briefly while he considers new information.
President Donald Trump and White House adviser Elon Musk began directing agencies in early February to fire tens of thousands of federal workers who were in the first year or two of their positions, or had been recently promoted.
Wednesday’s hearing in Baltimore centered on a lawsuit filed March 6 by Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and the District of Columbia, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
The attorneys general argued the mass firings led by Trump and Musk harmed states because the federal government did not provide the legally required advance notice that gives states time to prepare “rapid response activities” ahead of an influx of unemployed residents.
The states have asked Bredar to issue a preliminary injunction to prohibit the government from conducting any further reductions in force, also referred to as RIFs.
‘Great reluctance’ to grant preliminary injunction
But Bredar had tough questions Wednesday for lawyers representing the states and U.S. Department of Justice.
Bredar asked Virginia Williamson, counsel for the state of Maryland, why he should issue a nationwide preliminary injunction when the “majority of states have not joined this lawsuit.”
“That’s the issue that has to be faced,” he said.
Bredar expressed a preference for a more narrow injunction and ordered Williamson to submit more information within 24 hours that proves the need for a broader request.
“This court has great reluctance to issue a national injunction. You’re going to have to show me it’s essential to remedy harms (for your clients),” he said.
Eric Hamilton, representing the federal government, testified that the states lack standing, and that their argument is “unusual” in that their grievance is lack of warning about the firings — but they seek a remedy of giving employees their jobs back.
Bredar replied that the problem wouldn’t exist if the workers were returned to their status quo of being employed.
“If there’s no fire, there’s no need for the fire department to respond,” he told Hamilton.
Hamilton also argued that burdens placed on the government for having to rehire thousands of employees “are so much greater” than any financial injuries the firings caused for the states.
Bredar snapped back that the firings were “sudden and dramatic.”
“It’s not appropriate to flip that around. If you were worried about that, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I’m not buying that one,” the judge said.
When Bredar asked Hamilton why rehiring employees is precluded as a remedy, Hamilton argued there’s “not much precedent” for federal courts to issue orders to agencies about personnel decisions.
Second judge to order rehiring
Bredar issued a temporary restraining order March 13 immediately reinstating employment for just over 24,000 federal probationary workers across dozens of federal departments and agencies.
Agencies affected by the order included Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to court filings.
Bredar was the second federal judge on that date to order the Trump administration to rehire fired federal workers.
The government has appealed both rulings to their respective circuit courts.
In a status report due to Bredar on March 17, representatives for the federal agencies detailed the “substantial burdens” of rehiring the employees. At the time of the report, the agency heads placed almost 19,000 out of the 24,418 fired on paid administrative leave rather than placing them back on active duty status.
The required courtfilings marked the first time the government had provided a comprehensive list of the federal workforce downsizing that spanned February into March.
The agency representatives submitted updated status reports to Bredar Tuesday, reaffirming that many of the employees remain on paid administrative leave.
‘No secret of their contempt’ for civil service
In their original complaint, the attorneys general argued that Trump and administration officials “have made no secret of their contempt for the roughly 2 million committed professionals who form the federal civil service. Nor have they disguised their plans to terminate vast numbers of civil servants, starting with tens of thousands of probationary employees.”
The firings have subjected communities across the U.S. “to chaos” and will cost the states money in lost tax revenue and social services for unemployed residents, they wrote.
“These costs arise in the administration of programs aimed at providing connections to social services, like health care and food assistance,” they argued.
The government responded that the 19 states and District of Columbia have no standing in the case and ultimately can’t prove irreparable harm. They also maintained that the executive branch has the right to fire probationary employees.
“The action has no hope of success, because third parties cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers, which is governed by a comprehensive statutory scheme that provides an exclusive remedial avenue to challenge adverse personnel actions,” the government argued.
Bredar was appointed to the U.S. District Court bench by former President Barack Obama in 2010 and confirmed by voice vote in the Senate.
Before beginning his legal career in Colorado, Bredar worked as a National Park Service ranger, according to his biography published by the U.S. courts. Bredar worked as a prosecutor in Moffat County, Colorado, then as an assistant U.S. attorney and assistant federal public defender in Denver.
In 1992, he was appointed federal public defender for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. He was appointed a U.S. magistrate judge in 1998.
A Social Security Administration sign on a field office building in San Jose, California, in 2020. (Photo by Michael Vi/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Democrats warned Monday about President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s plans to pare down the Social Security Administration, an agency that pays out benefits to tens of millions of Americans.
Lawmakers, a Social Security recipient and a former commissioner cried foul over the U.S. DOGE Service and administration’s agenda to cut jobs, terminate office leases and change how Americans can contact the agency.
Trump and his top reelection campaign donor are “attacking Social Security through the back door by making it harder and harder for people to collect the benefits they are legally entitled to,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during a virtual press briefing hosted by the Democratic National Committee.
“The world’s richest man may not understand what it means to worry about not getting a monthly Social Security check, but tens of millions of Americans know that fear deep down in their guts,” said Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development.
Just over 73 million Americans received retirement and disability benefits last month, according to the Social Security Administration.
The agency will distribute approximately $1.6 trillion in benefits this year, according to its own data. The program accounts for roughly one-fifth of federal spending.
Musk has a recent history of publicly attacking the agency. He told podcast host Joe Rogan in February that Social Security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Weeks later on Fox Business, Musk said to host Larry Kudlow that Social Security is “the big one to eliminate” when it comes to fraud and spending.
Job cuts, office closures
In early March, Musk’s DOGE announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs from Social Security and close numerous regional offices, according to mediareports.
Despite potential office closures, the administration also plans a policy change that will require recipients to show up in person to verify certain changes to their accounts.
A federal judge Thursday temporarily restrained the Social Security Administration from sharing access to any sensitive files with DOGE.
“I can tell you that democracy is waking up to this very, very real threat that they are coming for Social Security,” former Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley said during the briefing.
O’Malley, also a former governor of Maryland, accused the Trump administration of allowing wait times for the agency’s 1-800 number to skyrocket after he and former President Joe Biden worked to improve the hotline.
“Make no mistake about it, in order to rob Social Security, the co-presidency of Musk and Trump must sour enough Americans against the agency, undermine trust in the agency, and they do that by breaking and debilitating the agency’s ability to provide a high level of customer service,” O’Malley said.
Darlene Jones, a Social Security recipient from Arizona who had to retire early and still cares for an adult child with disabilities, told reporters on the call, “We worked our entire lives to own what we have. President Trump and shadow president Musk have to be stopped before they harm seniors, especially those in rural America.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin said Trump and Musk “sure as hell don’t know how much it costs to make dinner for a week, buy a bag of pet food or catch the bus every day.”
Social Security data shows that among beneficiaries 65 and older, roughly 12% of men and 15% of women rely on Social Security checks for 90% of their total income.
White House says intent to identify waste, fraud
In an emailed statement provided to States Newsroom, the White House brushed off the attacks.
“Any American receiving Social Security benefits will continue to receive them. The sole mission of DOGE is to identify waste, fraud, and abuse only,” according to press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Lee Dudek said in a press release Monday that the agency “is taking several important steps to increase transparency and accountability in order to help others understand our agency’s work and the complexities we navigate.”
Nearly 3,000 employees have either been placed on administrative leave or accepted offers to leave the agency in exchange for a one-time payment of up to $25,000, according to data linked in the press release.
Additionally, the agency plans to terminate 64 leases, saving roughly $4 million in annual rent.
Musk took to his social media platform X to defend the new policy change requiring in-person office visits as a way to avoid fraud.
Confirmation hearing
Trump’s pick to lead the agency, Frank Bisignano of New Jersey, president and CEO of Fiserv, will appear before the Senate Committee on Finance Tuesday.
Warren said she and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, top Democrat on the Finance Committee, co-wrote a letter to Bisignano this weekend to put him “on notice.”
“These new developments leave us deeply concerned that DOGE and the Trump Administration are setting up the SSA for failure — a failure that could cut off Social Security benefits for millions of Americans — and that will then be used to justify a ‘private sector fix,’” Warren and Wyden wrote.
People bag sand in preparation for possible flooding as Tropical Storm Helene, which later became Hurricane Helene, headed toward the state's Gulf Coast on Sept. 25, 2024, in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
A bipartisan pair of Florida U.S. House members introduced a bill Monday to remove the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Department of Homeland Security and elevate it to an independent Cabinet-level agency.
Democrat Jared Moskowitz and Republican Byron Donalds filed the bill Monday, with Moskowitz saying divorcing FEMA from the bureaucracy at DHS would lead to better outcomes for disaster preparedness and response.
The agency’s mission requires haste, but its workers are too often bogged down in unrelated DHS work, Moskowitz said.
“By removing FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and restoring its status as an independent, Cabinet-level agency, my bipartisan bill will help cut red tape, improve government efficiency, and save lives,” he said in a Monday statement. “It will also help refocus FEMA on its original mission: as an agency tasked with responding before, during, and after disaster events.”
In a statement issued by Moskowitz’s office, Donalds added DHS had become “overly bureaucratic” and “overly political.”
“When disaster strikes, quick and effective action must be the standard––not the exception,” Donalds said. “It is imperative that FEMA is removed from the bureaucratic labyrinth of DHS and instead is designated to report directly to the President of the United States.”
Law creating agency
FEMA, which coordinates federal disaster relief efforts, was moved to DHS at that department’s 2003 inception after President Jimmy Carter signed the law creating FEMA in 1979.
President Bill Clinton made FEMA a Cabinet-level agency, but President George W. Bush did not renew that status.
Moskowitz, a former state emergency management director under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been a consistent advocate for funding FEMA while also calling for reforms to the agency.
FEMA is a frequent object of criticism from lawmakers of both parties and has often been targeted for overhaul.
Moskowitz, who led a similar bill last year, has argued making the agency independent of contentious issues like immigration, which DHS is primarily responsible for, would free it to better focus on its core mission.
“For an agency that needs to be fast, it can’t function in an agency of 22 others,” Moskowitz said at a March 4 hearing. “They shouldn’t be involved in immigration, but why are they? Because Homeland is using FEMA to run every grant of every agency … within Homeland. Half of FEMA’s personnel now are running grants.”
He has pitched the issue as nonpartisan, saying at the hearing that both red and blue states are subject to natural disasters and need aid from the federal government.
The endorsement of Donalds, a loyal backer of President Donald Trump and the Trump-endorsed candidate to succeed DeSantis as governor in the 2026 election, appears designed to win support from across the House’s vast ideological spectrum.
At odds with DOGE?
Trump, though, may be more inclined to undercut the agency than to promote it.
Since retaking office in January, Trump and influential adviser Elon Musk have aggressively sought to reduce the federal bureaucracy, slashing staff, eliminating directives and – in the case of the Education Department – moving to close an entire department.
Moskowitz became the first Democrat to join the Congressional Department of Government Efficiency Caucus in December, aligning himself with Musk’s mission to make government more efficient. In his announcement, he cited DHS’s hosting of FEMA as an example of an overextended bureaucracy.
For education, Trump said shuttering the federal department would allow states to be more active in policymaking.
Last week, he made a similar move involving FEMA, signing an executive order to enhance the state and local government roles in disaster preparedness.
The order calls for an administration official to recommend “revisions, recissions, and replacements necessary to reformulate the process and metrics for Federal responsibility.”
Billionaire Elon Musk arrives for a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on March 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management and Treasury Department were temporarily barred by a federal judge on Monday from disclosing the “personally identifiable information” of a lawsuit’s plaintiffs and organization members to Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, who issued the preliminary injunction, wrote in her opinion that “no matter how important or urgent the President’s DOGE agenda may be, federal agencies must execute it in accordance with the law” and “that likely did not happen in this case.”
The Maryland federal judge had earlier issued a temporary restraining order in the case, though she declined to include the Treasury Department in that due to a federal judge in New York granting a preliminary injunction that blocked DOGE from accessing that department’s payment systems.
DOGE access
The American Federation of Teachers, as well as a group of labor unions, membership organizations and several U.S. military veterans, filed a lawsuit in February over allegations that the three government entities gave the Department of Government Efficiency access to systems with sensitive and private data, in violation of the Privacy Act.
According to the Justice Department, the 1974 law “establishes a code of fair information practices that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies.”
The Department of Government Efficiency — which is not an actual department — has sought to drastically reduce federal government spending and go after what its staffers see as waste.
“The plaintiffs have shown that Education, OPM, and Treasury likely violated the APA by granting DOGE affiliates sweeping access to their sensitive personal information in defiance of the Privacy Act,” Boardman wrote in her opinion.
She asked both parties to submit a joint status report by close of business on March 31 after meeting to discuss “whether the government intends to file a notice of appeal or whether the Court should enter a scheduling order.”
‘Running roughshod’
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said “Musk’s operatives have been running roughshod over Americans’ privacy, and today the court correctly decided to uphold the firewall between their activities and the personal data of tens of millions of people” in a Monday statement.
Weingarten, who leads one of the country’s largest teachers unions, added that “Musk and DOGE must be held to account, and this preliminary injunction is a significant and important step forward.”
Meanwhile, the Education Department continues to see drastic changes.
Last week, President Donald Trump directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department to the maximum extent that is legally permissible.
The agency also announced that it would be cutting more than 1,300 employees through a “reduction in force” process.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it,” Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement to States Newsroom.
“DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on,” Fields said.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland speaks at a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has begun the process of reinstating tens of thousands of fired federal workers, though most are just being placed on administrative leave as the government cites the “burdens” of rehiring, court filings reviewed by States Newsroom show.
The documents also show, agency by agency, the wide swath of firings that swept across the federal government in February and early March.
A federal judge in Maryland last week ruled the recent terminations of probationary employees were illegal and ordered the administration to reinstate the workers across 18 federal agencies by 1 p.m. Eastern Monday. Nineteen Democratic attorneys general and the District of Columbia sued the administration over the firings.
The mass firings began in early February as part of President Donald Trump’s U.S. DOGE Service cost-cutting agenda. Elon Musk, a White House adviser and top donor to Trump’s reelection, is the face of the temporary DOGE project, though the administration maintains he has no decision-making power.
According to the courtfilings late Monday, the agencies have returned almost 19,000 employees to administrative leave out of the 24,418 fired. The filings provided the most comprehensive list to date of the federal workforce downsizing that spanned February into March.
Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ordered the agencies on Tuesday to provide a progress update by early next week. Bredar was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2010 and confirmed by a Senate voice vote.
The lawsuit was filed March 6 by Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Workers on leave, some ‘until further notice’
Some agencies, like the departments of Commerce and Transportation, indicated that employees would only be on paid administrative leave temporarily until paperwork and other procedures were finished.
Others, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, have given employees paid administrative leave status “until further notice.”
The government argued that reinstating the terminated employees to full duty status “would impose substantial burdens” on the agencies and cause “turmoil for the terminated employees”
“[T]hey would have to be onboarded again, including going through any applicable training, filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, reinstituting applicable security clearance actions, receiving government furnished equipment, and other requisite administrative actions,” according to the filings from several department representatives.
But “nonetheless,” the agency representatives said they began complying with Bredar’s order even as the cancellation of terminations was a “very time and labor intensive process,” wrote Mark D. Green, deputy assistant secretary for human capital, learning and safety at the Department of the Interior.
“The tremendous uncertainty associated with this confusion and these administrative burdens impede supervisors from appropriately managing their workforce. Work schedules and assignments are effectively being tied to hearing and briefing schedules set by the courts. It will be extremely difficult to assign new work to reinstated individuals in light of the uncertainty over their future status,” Green continued in his legal declaration required by Judge Bredar.
The agency representatives also wrote “employees could be subjected to multiple changes in their employment status in a matter of weeks” if an appellate ruling reverses the lower court order.
The Trump administration appealed the district court ruling Friday to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
California judge issues warning
The March 13 temporary restraining order out of Maryland was the second on that date mandating agencies rehire terminated workers. A federal judge in California separately ordered the government to reinstate thousands of employees at six federal agencies.
District Judge William Alsup in the Northern District of California warned in a court filing late Monday that the agencies must comply by fully returning employees to their jobs.
“The Court has read news reports that, in at least one agency, probationary employees are being rehired but then placed on administrative leave en masse. This is not allowed by the preliminary injunction, for it would not restore the services the preliminary injunction intends to restore,” Alsup wrote, requesting a status report Tuesday. Alsup was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1999 and confirmed by a Senate voice vote.
The Trump administration quickly appealed the California ruling last week to the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit.
A three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit Monday ruled 2-1 to deny the Trump administration’s emergency request to block the workers’ reinstatement.
Employees new on the job
Probationary employees were targeted by the Office of Personnel Management on the first day of Trump’s second presidency, according to court documents.
The employees, who are within one or two years of being hired or beginning a new position, have “extremely limited protections against termination,” agency representatives wrote.
The Office of Personnel and Management sent emails Jan. 20 to department heads stating that “agencies should identify all employees on probationary periods” and “should promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency,” according to the court filing.
Agency by agency list
Department and agency representatives detailed the following termination numbers in the Monday filings (not all agencies provided total numbers of probationary employees):
Health and Human Services: 3,248 of its 8,466 probationary workers were placed on administrative leave between Feb. 15 and March 13 (and remain on extended leave); 88 were subsequently fired and placed back on leave as of Monday.
Environmental Protection Agency: 419 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 14 and Feb. 21. “Most” were returned to paid administrative leave Monday. Some who were in “unpaid leave status” were returned to that status.
Energy: 555 were terminated “on or around” Feb. 13 and Feb 14. All 555 were returned Monday to retroactive administrative leave status “that will continue until their badging and IT access are restored, at which time they will be converted to an Active Duty status.”
Commerce: 791 of the agency’s roughly 9,000 probationary employees were terminated up until March 3. Twenty-seven were reinstated soon after, and 764 were placed back on paid administrative leave Monday. The agency plans to move them to full duty status within a week, according to the filing.
Homeland Security: 313 employees were terminated through March 14. With a few exceptions of employees who resigned or declined to return, DHS placed 310 back on paid administrative leave.
Transportation: 788 employees were terminated between Feb. 14 and Feb. 24. DOT informed 775 that they’ve been placed on paid administrative leave until Wednesday. “The Department of Transportation will coordinate the specifics of their return, including the restoration of their government equipment and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card,” according to the filing.
Education: Without providing specific dates, the department terminated 65 of its 108 probationary employees before Judge Bredar’s March 13 order. All have now been placed on paid administrative leave.
Housing and Urban Development: The agency terminated 312 of its 549 probationary employees on Feb. 14. About 299 are being brought back “temporarily” on administrative leave.
Interior: As of Monday night, Interior had reinstated roughly 1,540 of the 1,710 workers fired on Feb. 14.
Labor: 170 were terminated but reinstated before March 7.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: 117 employees were terminated between Feb. 11 and Feb. 13. All were notified Sunday that they “will be immediately placed on administrative leave status while the CFPB continues to act to comply with the TRO and/or employees are to be assigned work by management/supervisors,” according to the filing.
Small Business Administration: 304 of the SBA’s 700 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 11 and Feb. 25. The agency was unable to notify seven employees about reinstatement. Roughly 164 were returned to non-pay intermittent status, while the rest were returned to paid administrative leave.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: 156 of its 261 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 18 and 19; 151 were placed on paid administrative leave as of Monday.
USAID: 270 of the agency’s 295 probationary employees were fired March 7. All have been reinstated to paid administrative leave.
General Services Administration: 366 of its 812 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 13 and March 7. While two declined reinstatement, 364 were placed Monday on paid administrative leave.
Treasury: 7,605 of Treasury’s 16,663 probationary employees were fired between Feb. 19 and March 7. All have been reinstated to paid administrative leave status.
Agriculture: 5,714 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 13 and 17. The department is “working diligently” to restore employees to active duty status, according to the filing. The employees have been returned to paid or unpaid leave as of March 12.
Veterans Affairs: 1,683 of the VA’s roughly 46,000 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 13 to 24. All were placed on paid administrative leave.
USAID ruling
In a separate case against Trump and DOGE’s workforce-slashing agenda, a federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday ruled Musk likely violated the Constitution when orchestrating the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Judge Theodore David Chuang for the U.S. District Court in the District of Maryland demanded Musk and any personnel working for DOGE refrain from any further action related to dismantling USAID.
Chuang also ordered Musk and DOGE to reinstate computer and email access for all current USAID employees and contractors within seven days. Additionally, he ordered Musk and DOGE to strike an agreement within 14 days that would reopen the former USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Musk’s DOGE personnel forced their way into the humanitarian agency’s headquarters in early February ahead of the mass firings.
The shuttering of U.S. humanitarian missions around the world sparked protests in the nation’s capital.
Chuang, an Obama appointee, was approved by the Senate in 2014 in a 53-42 vote.
The White House slammed the court order Tuesday, alleging that “rogue judges are subverting the will of the American people in their attempts to stop President Trump from carrying out his agenda.”
“If these Judges want to force their partisan ideologies across the government, they should run for office themselves. The Trump Administration will appeal this miscarriage of justice and fight back against all activist judges intruding on the separation of powers,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly in an emailed statement.
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement following Trump’s morning social media attack on federal judges, calling for their impeachment.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland speaks at a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo y Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Monday denied the Trump administration’s emergency effort to block the reinstatement of federal employees at six government agencies.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the government’s request to stay a Northern California district court’s March 13 ruling ordering the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs to reinstate thousands of probationary positions.
The newly hired or promoted employees were fired as part of an agenda to slash federal jobs carried out by President Donald Trump and billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk.
“Given that the district court found that the employees were wrongfully terminated and ordered an immediate return to the status quo ante, an administrative stay of the district court’s order would not preserve the status quo. It would do just the opposite — it would disrupt the status quo and turn it on its head,” according to the 9th Circuit order.
Judge Barry G. Silverman, a late 1990s President Bill Clinton appointee, and Judge Ana de Alba, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, issued the order, while Judge Bridget S. Bade, a 2019 Trump appointee, delivered a partial dissent.
The government’s response to the emergency motion is due by Tuesday. Further briefs are due throughout April and May. An appeals hearing has not yet been scheduled.
District judge ruling on firings
The Trump administration appealed the lower court’s decision just hours after Judge William Alsup’s extension of his emergency order directing the agencies to reinstate the positions.
Alsup also set Thursday as a deadline for a list of all terminated employees and an explanation of what federal agencies have done to comply with his order.
The White House decried the decision, saying ”a single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” according to a statement Thursday from press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Unions representing masses of federal employees sued Trump’s Office of Personnel Management and its acting director Charles Ezell in February over the agency’s unilateral directive across the agencies to fire tens of thousands of workers.
The affected agencies within the six departments included the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among several others.
On the same day as the decision out of California, a federal judge in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order mandating 20 federal agencies reinstate fired employees by Monday.
Chainsaw at CPAC
Musk, a senior White House adviser and top donor to Trump’s reelection, is the face of Trump’s workforce downsizing and has not shied away from sharing his plans on his social media platform, X.
He even wielded a chainsaw on stage in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., and yelled to the audience “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.” The chainsaw was gifted to him by Argentina’s strongman President Javier Milei.
The White House has claimed in a court filing in a separate case that Musk has no decision-making power.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order March 14, 2025, imposing dramatic cuts on seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services. (Catherine McQueen/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s move late Friday to dismantle the agency that serves as the primary federal funding source for libraries and museums nationwide prompted questions over the weekend about how the agency can continue to carry out its core work.
After Trump signed an executive order Friday that called for severe reductions in seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services that provided $266.7 million in grants and other awards last year, groups representing museums and libraries across the country called on Trump to reconsider the move and asked Congress to intervene on their behalf.
“By eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Trump administration’s executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted of American institutions and the staff and services they offer,” the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the country, said in a statement over the weekend.
The Friday order, titled “continuing the reduction of the federal bureaucracy,” called for eliminating “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” listed agencies’ functions that aren’t statutorily mandated. It also called for reducing the “performance” of agencies’ mandated functions and “associated personnel” to the legal minimum.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services, which Congress established in 1996, has a mission to “advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.”
The states that received the highest total awards from the agency in 2024 were California at $26.4 million, New York at nearly $20 million, Texas at $15.7 million, Florida at $11.4 million and Illinois at $11.3 million, according to data from the agency.
The order to downsize the agency is part of Trump and billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service’s initiative to slash federal government spending and go after what they deem unnecessary.
“The American people elected President Trump to drain the swamp and end ineffective government programs that empower government without achieving measurable results,” a White House fact sheet accompanying the order read.
The other agencies affected are the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and the Minority Business Development Agency.
Library, museum organizations react
The American Library Association said the order would decimate services such as early literacy development and reading programs, high-speed internet access, employment assistance, homework and research resources and accessible reading materials.
The organization called on Trump to reconsider his “short-sighted” decision and encouraged lawmakers to “visit the libraries that serve their constituents and urge the White House to spare the modest federal funding for America’s libraries.”
EveryLibrary, an organization dedicated to building support for libraries, said in a Saturday statement the group is “extremely concerned” the wording in Trump’s executive order “could result in cuts to the core functions” of the agency.
The organization said the agency’s “statutory obligations to state libraries include federal funding through the Grants to States program, the National Leadership Grant program, and all current contracts, grants, and awards” and that “this core work cannot be disrupted or dismantled by DOGE.”
In a statement shared with States Newsroom on Monday, the American Alliance of Museums, which includes 35,000 museums and museum professionals, said Trump’s effort “threatens the critical roles museums and museum workers play in American society, and puts jobs, education, conservation, and vital community programs at risk.”
“Museums are vital community anchors, serving all Americans including youth, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans,” the statement read. “Museums are not only centers for education and inspiration but also economic engines — creating jobs, driving tourism, and strengthening local economies.”
Neither the Institute of Museum and Library Services nor the White House responded to a request for comment Monday.
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