The Wisconsin Assembly voted along party lines Tuesday to pass legislation penalizing counties with sheriff's departments that don't cooperate with ICE, the federal Immigration Customers and Enforcement agency. (Photo via ICE)

Legislation passed the Assembly Tuesday that would claw back state aid from counties where the sheriff doesn’t cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement service (ICE).

The legislation would require sheriffs to check the citizenship status of people being held in jail on felony charges and notify federal immigration enforcement officials if citizenship cannot be verified.

The state Senate, meanwhile, approved a bill that would block a judicial investigation of a police officer involved in the death of a person unless there’s new evidence or evidence that has not been previously addressed in court.

The immigration-related bill, AB 24, passed the Assembly on a straight party-line vote.

In addition to requiring citizenship checks, the bill would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people in jail. Counties would be required to certify annually that they were following the law and would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state if they were not.

Proponents described the measure as enhancing safety.

“We have the opportunity to emulate in many ways the best practices that are already happening across our country,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the bill’s author, said at a news conference before the floor session. “We have seen since [President] Donald Trump took office that we have had a dramatic reduction in the number of illegal crossings that are happening at the southern border.”

Opponents said the bill would divert local law enforcement resources while driving up mistrust and fear among immigrants, regardless of their legal status.

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) said the legislation was “big government” and interferes with local counties’ policy decisions. It also undermines the presumption of innocence for a person charged with a crime, potentially strains resources for local jails, and could lead to holding people “longer than is necessary,” he said.

But he added that those weren’t his top reasons for opposing the bill.

“I’m voting against this because it’s wrong, because this legislation rips people from our communities and families based on the mere accusation of a crime, because our Republicans colleagues’ eagerness to make themselves tools in Trump’s attacks on immigrants, refugees, visitors and those who oppose him is vile,” Clancy said.

On the floor, Vos replied that he agreed with Clancy about the presumption of innocence, and that he also agreed with other lawmakers who said the vast majority of immigrants are not guilty of any crime.

“But I would also say that there is a burden of proof on both sides,” Vos said. “It’s not entirely on just the side of the government to ensure that you follow the law.”

Claiming broad bipartisan support for the measure, Vos said Democratic opposition was “clearly out of step, even with your base.”

Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) responded that  he hasn’t heard constituents ask for the legislation or anything like it.

“They are asking us explicitly to make life tangibly easier for working class Wisconsinites,” he said, “and they have not been asking me to engage in redundant acts of political theater to satisfy the whims of a rogue president engaging in a campaign of intimidation and mass deportation that includes constituents in western Wisconsin.”

Senate approves John Doe exemption

The state Senate voted Tuesday to pass a bill that makes an exemption to the state’s John Doe law for police officers involved in a civilian’s death.

In Wisconsin, if a district attorney chooses not  to file criminal charges,  a judge may hold a hearing — known as a John Doe investigation — on the matter and file a complaint based on the findings of that hearing.

The legislation, SB 25, “simply says, if that case goes before a DA, and then the DA  justifies their actions and they are deemed to be innocent of any wrongdoing … that case is closed and it is in a file never to be seen again,” said the bill’s  author, Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), on the Senate floor.

Hutton said the legislation allows a judicial investigation to proceed, however, “if a new piece of evidence is presented that wasn’t known before, or an unused piece of evidence is found.”

But Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) questioned carving out an exemption to the state’s John Doe law. “This bill does not apply to any other crime in Wisconsin,” she said.

Lawmakers, Drake added, should do more to address “the environment and the situations” that have led to officer-involved deaths. 

Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), said testimony at the bill’s public hearing discussed only two attempts to invoke the John Doe proceeding after a prosecutor declined to file charges in an officer-involved death — and one of them involved former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah, who killed three people in five years.

Allowing for a John Doe investigation in an officer-involved death “protects the public,” Johnson said. “What it does is put a second eye on those cases that deserve a second look.”

The Senate passed the bill 19-13. Two Democrats, Sens. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), voted in favor along with 17 Republicans. Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), who also opposed the bill in committee, joined the remaining Democrats who voted against the measure.

Reversing DPI testing standards: On a vote of 18-14 along party lines, the Senate concurred in an Assembly bill that would reverse a change that the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) made last year to testing standards.

AB 1 would revert the state’s testing standards to what they were in 2019 and link standards to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Republicans voting for the bill said that the DPI change “lowered” standards — a claim DPI and Democrats rejected.

Direct primary care passes — but Democrats object: The Senate also voted 18-14 on party lines to pass SB 4, legislation that would clear the way for health care providers who participate in direct primary care arrangements. Under direct primary care, doctors treat patients who subscribe to their services for a monthly fee as an alternative to health insurance for primary care.

An amendment Democrats offered would have added a list of enumerated civil rights protections for direct primary care patients. That list was in a direct primary care bill in the 2023-24 legislative session that passed the Assembly but stalled in the Senate when two organizations protested language protecting “gender identity.”

After the amendment was rejected, also on a party-line vote, Democrats voted against the final bill.

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