(The Center Square) – The unemployment rates in 11 of 13 Wisconsin metropolitan areas and 19 of the state’s 35 largest cities decreased month over month in March.
(The Center Square) – A trio of Wisconsin Republican lawmakers are pushing a pair of nuclear power initiatives that include spending a combined $2.25 million.
Ever wondered why you can’t just go to a store and buy a new car? Why must you haggle at a dealership?
You can find the reason in state law. In Wisconsin, auto manufacturers are prohibited from selling directly to consumers. Instead, they must sell their vehicles to dealerships, which then sell them to the public.
The state’s nearly 35-year-old, explicit ban on direct sales has ignited an ongoing legal dispute between the state and Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla.
But Wisconsin isn’t an outlier.
Seventeen states bar direct sales, while 18 states allow them, according to a 2020-2021 report from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Laws in the remaining states fall somewhere in the middle of this balance.
The Wisconsin law at the center of the Tesla dispute says “A factory shall not, directly or indirectly, hold an ownership interest in or operate or control a motor vehicle dealership in this state.”
Industry and legislative history
The Wisconsin State Legislature enacted the factory store rule in 1993 after the Wisconsin Automobile & Truck Dealers Association lobbied to expand protections for car dealers, said Madeline Kasper, an analyst with the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, in an email.
But restrictions on manufacturers operating auto dealerships in Wisconsin date back to the mid-20th century and were first enacted to protect dealerships from having to compete with auto manufacturers, Kasper said.
The practice of selling new vehicles through dealerships began as the auto industry expanded in the early 20th century. Manufacturers partnered with independent dealers so they could prioritize and invest in the production of cars rather than their distribution.
Before states intervened on behalf of dealerships, manufacturers could force dealers to accept cars regardless of whether the dealer wanted them and could terminate contracts with dealerships for no reason, wrote Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan who teaches legislation and regulation, in a 2016 paper.
Prohibiting manufacturers from selling directly to consumers was meant to limit manufacturers’ ability to unfairly compete by selling the same types of cars sold by the dealer, Crane said.
Tesla has attacked the current interpretation of the factory store rule, noting that Tesla can’t compete with dealerships because dealerships don’t sell Tesla products.
“That rationale is completely inapplicable to non-franchising manufacturers, like Tesla, who have no franchisees they could possibly exploit,” the company wrote in its court filings.
The suit may end up before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which made Musk’s heavy involvement in the recent election for an open seat on the court — he unsuccessfully spent about $20 million trying to get the right-leaning candidate elected — eye-raising.
The state-imposed limits on direct sales began to loosen in 2014, two years after Tesla debuted its second car, Crane explained in another paper.
Looser restrictions on sales are essential for electric vehicles to compete with the better-established auto companies, and the traditional dealership model is ill-suited to their sale and service, Crane argues.
New car dealerships’ contribution to state tax revenue isn’t insignificant, however.
The tax revenue from the sale of vehicles both new and traded-in as well as parts, accessories and repairs at new car dealerships in Wisconsin was nearly $600 million in 2024, according to the Department of Revenue. This accounted for nearly 8% of the state’s $7.6 billion in total sales tax revenue last year.
Tesla and Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, Tesla operates two galleries in Madison and Milwaukee, but neither can sell vehicles or even discuss pricing or promotions. Wisconsin residents who wish to purchase a Tesla must do so online or visit a neighboring state that doesn’t impose direct sales restrictions.
In December, Tesla requested dealer licenses in Dane and Milwaukee counties, hoping to convert its two gallery locations to dealerships.
When a state agency rejected the requests, the company filed suit on Jan. 15 in Outagamie County Circuit Court, raising questions of judge shopping.
The company said that it is a licensed motor vehicle dealer in 30 states and Washington, D.C., and that Wisconsin residents purchased between 3,000 and 4,000 of its vehicles last year.
The company prioritizes direct sales, saying that the model is better for its consumers, who, the company says, prefer its uniform prices and “middleman-free experience.”
After initially filing in Outagamie County, where no Tesla showroom exists, the court transferred the case to Milwaukee County in March, according to online records.
This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
Anjan Roy was studying with friends at Missouri State University when he got an email that turned his world upside down. His legal status as an international student had been terminated, and he was suddenly at risk for deportation.
“I was in literal shock, like, what the hell is this?” said Roy, a graduate student in computer science from Bangladesh.
At first, he avoided going out in public, skipping classes and mostly keeping his phone turned off. A court ruling in his favor led to his status being restored this week, and he has returned to his apartment, but he is still asking his roommates to screen visitors.
More than a thousand international students have faced similar disruptions in recent weeks, with their academic careers — and their lives in the U.S. — thrown into doubt in a widespread crackdown by the Trump administration. Some have found a measure of success in court, with federal judges around the country issuing orders to restore students’ legal status at least temporarily.
In addition to the case filed in Atlanta, where Roy is among 133 plaintiffs, judges have issued temporary restraining orders in states including New Hampshire, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. Judges have denied similar requests in some other cases, saying it was not clear the loss of status would cause irreparable harm.
International students challenge grounds for their status revocation
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting counter to national interests, including some who protested Israel’s war in Gaza and those who face criminal charges. But many affected students said they have been involved only in minor infractions, or it’s unclear altogether why they were targeted.
The attorney for Roy and his fellow plaintiffs, Charles Kuck, argued the government did not have legal grounds to terminate the students’ status.
He speculated in court last week the government is trying to encourage these students to self-deport, saying “the pressure on these students is overwhelming.” He said some asked him if it was safe to leave their homes to get food, and others worried they wouldn’t receive a degree after years of work or feared their chances of a career in the U.S. were shot.
“I think the hope is they’ll just leave,” Kuck said. “The reality is these kids are invested.”
An attorney for the government, R. David Powell, argued the students did not suffer significant harm because they could transfer their academic credits or find jobs in another country.
At least 1,190 students at 183 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records. The AP is working to confirm reports of hundreds more students who are caught up in the crackdown.
In a lawsuit filed Monday by four people on student visas at the University of Iowa, attorneys detail the “mental and financial suffering” they’ve experienced. One graduate student, from India, “cannot sleep and is having difficulty breathing and eating,” the lawsuit reads. He has stopped going to school, doing research or working as a teaching assistant. Another student, a Chinese undergraduate who expected to graduate this December, said his revoked status has caused his depression to worsen to the point that his doctor increased his medication dosage. The student, the lawsuit says, has not left his apartment out of fear of detention.
Tiny infractions made students targets for the crackdown
Roy, 23, began his academic career at Missouri State in August 2024 as an undergraduate computer science student. He was active in the chess club and a fraternity and has a broad circle of friends. After graduating in December, he began work on a master’s degree in January and expects to finish in May 2026.
When Roy received the university’s April 10 email on his status termination, one of his friends offered to skip class to go with him to the school’s international services office, even though they had a quiz in 45 minutes. The staff there said a database check showed his student status had been terminated, but they didn’t know why.
Roy said his only brush with the law came in 2021, when he was questioned by campus security after someone called in a dispute at a university housing building. But he said an officer determined there was no evidence of any crime and no charges were filed.
Roy also got an email from the U.S. embassy in Bangladesh telling him his visa had been revoked and that he could be detained at any time. It warned that if he was deported, he could be sent to a country other than his own. Roy thought about leaving the U.S. but decided to stay after talking to a lawyer.
Anxious about being in his own apartment, Roy went to stay with his second cousin and her husband nearby.
“They were scared someone was going to pick me up from the street and take me somewhere that they wouldn’t even know,” Roy said.
He mostly stayed inside, turned off his phone unless he needed to use it, and avoided internet browsers that track user data through cookies. His professors were understanding when he told them he wouldn’t be able to come to classes for a while, he said.
New doubts about students’ future in the US
After the judge’s order Friday, he moved back to his apartment. He learned Tuesday his status had been restored, and he plans to return to class. But he’s still nervous. He asked his two roommates, both international students, to let him know before they open the door if someone they don’t know knocks.
The judge’s restoration of his legal status is temporary. Another hearing scheduled for Thursday will determine whether he keeps that status while the litigation continues.
Roy chose the U.S. over other options in Canada and Australia because of the research opportunities and potential for professional connections, and he ultimately wanted to teach at an American university. But now those plans are up in the air.
His parents, back in Dhaka, have been watching the news and are “freaked out,” he said. His father mentioned to him that they have family in Melbourne, Australia, including a cousin who’s an assistant professor at a university there.
AP reporters Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.
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.
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The city and county of Eau Claire recently asked Attorney General Josh Kaul to weigh in on the legality of police officers dropping off homeless people outside their jurisdiction.
Their request for an opinion cited several examples, including the Durand Police Department, which transported a woman in handcuffs to a city homeless shelter that has been over capacity and at risk of reducing beds.
The story includes interviews with the Durand police chief and the mayor of Santa Cruz, California, which recently outlawed the dropping off of homeless people without prior communication and a plan for helping the person find a housing solution.
On Oct. 27, a Durand police officer responded to a suspicious person call. He made contact with a woman who had committed no crimes but had nowhere to stay on a cold night.
She told the officer she was from Fargo, North Dakota, and waiting for a ride, but couldn’t explain how she arrived in Durand.
When that ride didn’t show, the officer asked if she had a credit card, which local hotels require homeless individuals to put down when using a motel voucher to stay overnight. She said she didn’t and didn’t know what to do.
There are no homeless shelters in Durand or Pepin County.
The officer then suggested she go to Sojourner House, a shelter in Eau Claire about 40 minutes away. She agreed to be transported in handcuffs, in accordance with what the officer said was department policy. He called several other shelters in communities outside of Durand, all of which were full for the night. Sojourner House didn’t answer, but he offered the woman a ride there anyway. She asked if the shelter was open.
“It’s hard to say. Once I get you up there, they might not even have a bed for you to go,” the officer told her, according to body cam footage obtained by Wisconsin Watch. “Once you get up there, ask them for resources — see what else is available to you up there.”
The officer dropped her off and left without contacting the shelter staff or Eau Claire city officials.
According to Eau Claire County Corporation Counsel Sharon McIlquham and City Attorney Stephen Nick, the shelter was full, and Eau Claire city police later took the woman to a hospital. She then had a run-in with UW-Eau Claire police for indecent exposure.
“They still found themselves homeless in an unfamiliar community and committed crimes — had to get medical attention,” Nick told Wisconsin Watch, referring to multiple people who have been dropped off in Eau Claire. “So not a good outcome for them or our community.”
But what started as a conflict between local agencies is now a legal question being posed to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul: Should police departments in Wisconsin be allowed to transport someone experiencing homelessness out of their jurisdiction?
Body cam footage obtained by Wisconsin Watch shows a rural police officer trying — and failing — to connect a homeless woman with support services. Reporters Hallie Claflin and Trisha Young discuss what’s happening in the footage and what it illustrates about the specific challenges of addressing rural homelessness.
Nick said the problem has persisted for years in Eau Claire and extends far beyond the three examples cited in his January letter to the attorney general, asking his office to weigh in on the legality of these drop-offs.
“This is the first time we’ve received a communication along these lines, certainly since I’ve been attorney general,” Kaul told reporters at WQOW. “But I can say more broadly, some of the issues raised are ones that I think are true around the state.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said the drop-offs display a need for more rural resources.
The letter pointed to instances of homeless individuals from neighboring counties being dropped off in Eau Claire by other agencies including the Menomonie Police Department and the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office. McIlquham and Nick called it “a practice driven by a lack of good options,” but said the drop-offs are “unlawful at worst and unprofessional at best.”
“None of the individuals we referenced actually received care, and that is the most common outcome from these sort of transports,” Nick said.
Durand Police Chief Stanley Ridgeway said if his department is barred from carrying out these kinds of transports, the city’s human services department would have to pay other agencies or organizations to transport those in need of shelter. He added that rural communities like Durand lack rideshare services, public transportation or homeless shelters.
“In the end, it will increase our cost,” Ridgeway said. “Our hands will be tied.”
A statewide problem
The situation is not unique to Eau Claire. Police chiefs in Waukesha, Green Bay and Appleton told Wisconsin Watch they have dealt with a similar problem.
“For as long as I can remember, we have struggled with people from outside the Fox Valley coming to this area to utilize this invaluable resource,” Appleton Police Chief Polly Olson said. “We know they … may be given rides by other, outside law enforcement, or they find out through word of mouth about the shelters and resources in this area.”
Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Wisconsin Watch these drop-offs happen occasionally, but he has asked agencies outside the county not to transport people because it strains local resources and makes it difficult for the homeless to return to their city of origin.
Drop-offs are also prevalent in Waukesha, with unhoused individuals coming from surrounding areas like Delafield, Hartland, Chenequa, Pewaukee and New Berlin. But Chief Daniel Thompson said the issue is complicated because the city is a hub for resources such as hospitals, mental health clinics, trauma centers, charitable organizations and shelters.
He said it makes sense that people experiencing homelessness in smaller, rural jurisdictions would come to Waukesha for services because their own communities often don’t have any.
But it’s a problem when other municipalities drop their homeless off in Waukesha simply because they don’t want to deal with them. This is particularly a problem at Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Thompson said.
In December, Wisconsin Watch reported that the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021, following national trends. It rose from 4,861 on a single night in 2023 to 5,037 in 2024. In rural Wisconsin, the increase was 9%, according to the annual homeless count.
Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, every Wisconsin county besides Milwaukee, Dane and Racine collectively contained just 23% of the state’s long-term housing with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness.
‘Only because we have such poor options’
Police departments in Durand and Menomonie quickly responded to the letter sent to the attorney general, emphasizing the transports were voluntary. Police footage from both departments confirms the officers didn’t coerce the individuals, but did suggest the destination. Neither individual knew where Eau Claire was.
“They’re not looking to come here, they’re being asked if they want to come here,” Nick said. “When that’s being done by a uniformed police officer — that changes the circumstances quite a bit in terms of how voluntary that is.”
In the letter, McIlquham and Nick cited another example in which they say a woman who was a frequent source of contact for St. Croix County sheriff’s officers was dropped off at a gas station in Eau Claire without receiving any services. Eau Claire EMS, the county sheriff’s office and the city police department later responded to multiple complaints regarding the individual, who did not have ties to Eau Claire.
St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson described the incident to WEAU as a “courtesy ride.” He did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s interview request.
“I feel bad for Eau Claire that the facilities that we have available to us are in their jurisdiction, so sometimes they have to deal with the aftermath,” said Ridgeway, the Durand police chief. “But it happens a lot. That’s where the services are.”
Ridgeway told Wisconsin Watch the Durand Police Department will continue this practice as long as the attorney general allows it, adding that his department is not responsible for crimes these individuals may commit in Eau Claire. Asked how those individuals get back to where they came from, Ridgeway said that’s “out of our control.”
“These facilities receive funding from the federal government, state government, grants, donations — they’re not just receiving funding from Eau Claire County residents or city of Eau Claire residents,” Ridgeway said. “This is a service for all of western Wisconsin, and we’re going to take advantage of that service whenever we can.”
He defended the decision to drop a woman off in front of a shelter that was either full or not open.
“You might not tonight have a place, but they can tell you what time they open tomorrow so you can be in line to get services,” Ridgeway said. “We’ll continue to call and try to get a bed verified as being available, but if a person wants to be dropped off there, we’ll do so.”
In a March 11 press release, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of La Crosse said it is facing a potential decision to reduce Sojourner House’s operations from year-round to just six months, citing a loss of funding and a shortage of volunteers.
On one night in January, Dale Karls of the Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council told WEAU, Sojourner House, which has a normal capacity of 53, opened overflow spaces and housed 77 people.
Nick said he doesn’t doubt the officers were trying to help these people, “but the message needs to get out that they weren’t helped.” There’s been a growing need for homeless services since the pandemic as temporary services and funding have been rolled back, he said.
In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Evers’ recommendations to spend $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.
The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.
This year, Evers recommended another $24 million for homeless prevention programs in the 2025-27 state budget. Republican lawmakers who control the powerful budget committee vowed to throw out the governor’s budget and start from scratch this spring.
“The issue here is the disinvestment by the state and needed resources regionally,” Nick said. “It’s a law enforcement issue, but only because we have such poor options.”
A California city has outlawed the practice
In 2024, the city of Santa Cruz, California, outlawed the practice of transporting homeless people into the city without authorization. Mayor Fred Keeley told Wisconsin Watch the local ordinance has pressured surrounding communities to ramp up their own resources for the homeless.
The drop-off ban was sparked by an incident last summer when Hanford police drove a homeless woman with a disability nearly 200 miles to Santa Cruz — a city similar in size to Eau Claire — and left her outside a local shelter.
“I know that for decades, other cities in our county bring people and dump them in the city of Santa Cruz,” Keeley said. “Nobody should do this to us because we would never do it to you without a prior conversation.”
Keeley said these drop-offs almost never solve someone’s housing problem and instead shift the responsibility to another city. Santa Cruz is sympathetic to smaller municipalities with limited resources that are willing to coordinate with the city to arrange a transport, Keeley said, but that person should have some community ties.
Keeley said the city’s investments in permanent supportive housing and other programs have reduced the city’s street homelessness by more than 50% in the last two years.
Now, a bill has been introduced in the California Legislature that would ban local law enforcement agencies from transporting homeless individuals to another jurisdiction without first coordinating shelter or long-term housing for them. Keeley said he’s glad the issue is being taken up at the state level.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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A doctor holding T-shaped intrauterine birth control device. (Getty Photos)
WASHINGTON — The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday challenging the Trump administration’s decision to withhold Title X family planning grants.
The 35-page filing alleges the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the reproductive health program with funding approved by Congress, has withheld $65.8 million over disagreements about organizations’ “opposition to racism” and “providing care to undocumented immigrants.”
“The Affected Members and their subrecipients operate hundreds of Title X service sites across these states, which together provide family planning care to hundreds of thousands of low-income patients, many of whom would not otherwise be able to afford such care,” the complaint says.
“Depriving these individuals of the high-quality, essential health care provided by Title X-funded health centers reduces access to (sexually transmitted infection) screening and treatment, cancer screening, and contraception, threatens the health and wellbeing of the individuals who rely on Title X for care, and undermines public health.”
The lawsuit contends California, Hawaiʻi, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Utah have been completely cut off from Title X family planning grants, while Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia have had their access to the funding reduced.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia but hadn’t been assigned to a judge as of Thursday afternoon.
HHS did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Another suit
The lawsuit is the latest filed by organizations and Democratic state attorneys general challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze funding for dozens of programs.
Some, but not all, of the cases are subject to injunctions from district courts that so far have prevented the spending cuts from taking effect while the cases proceed.
The Impoundment Control Act, a 1970s-era law that requires the president to spend the money Congress appropriates, is the subject of many of the disagreements between those filing lawsuits and the Trump administration.
The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association wrote in the lawsuit that it represents nearly 900 members, including state, county and local health departments.
Its members “operate or administer more than 3,000 health centers that provide family planning services to more than 2.2 million patients each year.”
HHS sent letters to some of the association’s members in late March, notifying them that their Title X family planning grant funding was “being temporarily withheld based on possible violations of the terms and conditions set forth in the notice of award,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges HHS’ decision to freeze the funding stems from its members having statements on their websites “indicating support for diversity, equity, and inclusion and opposition to racism, which, HHS claims, ‘suggests’ that the Affected Members are or may be engaged in conduct that violates federal civil rights laws.”
The federal government also chose to withhold the Title X funding over “a single public statement that HHS claims gives it ‘reason to believe’ that some of the Affected Members may be providing care to undocumented immigrants, in violation of Executive Order 14218 ‘Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.’”
The lawsuit says that HHS never actually told any of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association’s members that they had violated federal regulations, executive orders, or the law. The letters from HHS referenced only “possible violations.”
The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to block a lower court’s decision allowing transgender individuals to continue enlisting and serving in the armed forces.
Administration officials are seeking a stay of a broad district court ruling in late March that applied to all troops rather than only to those who challenged President Donald Trump’s executive order in court. The U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling Friday.
The government contends its policy does not discriminate against an entire class of people, but rather finds a diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria to be disqualifying. Gender dysphoria is recognized by medical professionals as distress caused by an incongruence between a person’s gender identity and their sex at birth.
In its application to the Supreme Court Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice argued it’s likely to succeed in the case because the newly adopted policy does not differ widely from those in place under former secretaries of defense.
“The policy was based in part on the findings of a panel of experts convened during the first Trump Administration, which found that service by individuals with gender dysphoria was contrary to ‘military effectiveness and lethality,’” wrote John Sauer, Trump’s solicitor general.
Sauer also argued the district court’s universal order violated the power of the president.
Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 27, asserting the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued the new policy a month later, reversing former President Joe Biden’s order allowing service members to transition and serve openly under their preferred gender identity.
Trump’s order immediately drew court challenges, including a separate case now in the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
A Department of Justice attorney arguing before the D.C. Circuit Tuesday alerted the judges that the administration would “imminently” appeal the 9th Circuit decision to the Supreme Court.
Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Foundation, who are representing plaintiffs in the 9th Circuit case, released a statement in response Tuesday asserting, “Transgender service members have been openly serving our country with honor and distinction for almost a decade and have met and are meeting every neutral service-based standard.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the invitation to stay the district court’s injunction so that they can impose their discriminatory ban while the litigation proceeds,” the statement said.
The administration’s emergency application to the high court Thursday is just the latest in the administration’s whack-a-mole battle against lower federal court rulings that have blocked White House actions, particularly on immigration.
Fort McCoy | Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner
The commander of Fort McCoy, a military base near Sparta, Wisconsin, has been suspended after a controversy over the base not displaying portraits of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In a statement, the U.S. Army said that Col. Sheyla Baez Ramirez had been suspended as garrison commander at Fort McCoy.
The statement said that the suspension “is not related to any misconduct,” though the base drew recent criticism for not displaying pictures of Trump and Hegseth, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. On X, formerly known as Twitter, the Department of Defense posted a picture showing Trump’s portrait missing from a leadership wall and Hegseth’s turned so only the back of the picture was visible. The post declared: “Regarding the Ft. McCoy Chain of Command wall controversy…. WE FIXED IT! Also, an investigation has begun to figure out exactly what happened.”
Spokespeople from the Department of Defense and Fort McCoy’s 88th Readiness Division declined to comment, but told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Ramirez has “not been relieved of command.” A subsequent statement on the U.S. Army’s website said that neither Ramirez nor anyone else on the fort’s leadership team had directed the removal of the portraits. After Ramirez was suspended, Hegseth shared a post on X mentioning the commander’s suspension.
Voting booths set up at Madison, Wisconsin's Hawthorne Library on Election Day 2022. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) deadlocked Thursday on whether to object to a proposed administrative rule that would guide the conduct of election observers at polling places.
The 5-5 vote moves the rule one step closer to going into effect because if the committee doesn’t take any action, it will be returned to the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to be implemented.
Even though the rule was written by WEC with input from an advisory committee that included members of right-wing election conspiracy groups, election skeptics opposed the rule’s passage at a number of public hearings.
At a hearing on Monday, 2020 election deniers — including former state Rep. Janel Brandtjen — testified in opposition to the rule because they believed it didn’t do enough to protect the rights of election observers. Lawmakers on the committee, including its co-chair, Rep. Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee), complained that the rule was written without enough input from legislators.
Despite that opposition, Rep. Kevin Petersen (R-Waupaca) joined with the committee’s four Democrats, Sens. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) and Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and Reps. Margaret Arney (D-Wauwatosa) and Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) to vote against the motion objecting to the rule’s passage.
In Monday’s hearing, election commissioner Don Millis said the rule gives the state the best chance to clarify how election observers should conduct themselves while protecting the rights of voters.
“I don’t agree with everything in the rule, but I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” he said. “Without this rule, municipal clerks have wide ranging authorities to manage polling places as they see fit. There’s no reasonable argument that observers are better off without this rule.”
While Thursday’s vote is a step toward implementation, the rule is still in the committee until May 11, according to the office of the committee’s other co-chair, Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater). The committee could vote on the issue again before then.
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