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.
Green Bay will host the NFL draft from April 24-26. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Green Bay-area legislators say the city and state are prepared for the “once-in-a-generation” tourism coming to the region when the NFL draft starts in the city Thursday.
Green Bay is accustomed to hosting at least eight Packers home games each year, but the draft is expected to bring up to four times as many people to the city as a typical game, according to state Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard). Hotels are booked as far south as Milwaukee and as far west as Wausau, he said, and with that comes additional strain on local resources.
“We heard early on that public safety led by the city of Green Bay had real concerns at the ballooning costs at having this event policed,” state Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) said. “So they were inviting the county, the state, other officers from outside of the region to come help with the draft, given that we wanted to make sure it was an incredibly safe event in our incredibly safe community. But you know, we want to be aware of things like human trafficking, other challenges, potentially debaucherous behavior, and that footprint between the downtown and Lambeau Field would require more public safety officials, including EMS services, than we even had on hand.”
In the last biennial budget, state lawmakers set aside $2 million to support the draft and in his budget proposal this year, Gov. Tony Evers requested $1 million to assist the city with additional expenses. While the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee rejected Evers’ proposal, Steffen and Rep. Ben Franklin (R-De Pere) have requested $1.25 million in the budget to reimburse public safety departments in Green Bay, Brown County and Ashwaubenon for the added costs incurred in planning for and managing the hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Steffen told the Wisconsin Examiner his proposal is better because it is specifically carved out for police and fire departments but that the additional $1.25 million — funded out of the state’s nearly $5 billion budget surplus — will help local officials manage the event while still making it a net benefit for the state. He said he anticipates the draft generating $4.5 million in sales tax revenue for the state.
“So this is still a net financial winner for the state, but having the county, city and village shoulder all those expenses on the property taxpayers for this statewide benefiting event doesn’t seem appropriate,” Steffen said.
Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City have all hosted the NFL draft in recent years, but despite the event’s success in other midwestern cities, both Rivera-Wagner and Steffen say Green Bay’s status as the smallest city in the country to be the home of a major professional sports team makes the event here unique.
“I think a lot of people are going to be coming because of the unique nature of Lambeau Field and Green Bay in professional sports,” Steffen said. “There is nothing like it anywhere else in the nation in terms of an experience.”
Last year, business owners in the Milwaukee area were left frustrated after the city hosted the Republican National Convention because of its muted benefit to local businesses. Rivera-Wagner, who worked as chief of staff for Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich prior to his election to the Legislature, said the city met with officials from Detroit and Kansas City to learn how to make sure the draft benefits the city at large and not just the area around Lambeau Field.
“You have to be purposeful to make these large-scale events impact the larger community, because, in and of themselves, if they’re overly contained, they cannot necessarily have the impact that you might anticipate,” he said.
The city has set up a series of events in its downtown area, including a kringle making competition, a 5k run and an early opening of the city’s normal downtown farmer’s market before its typical May start. These events, according to Rivera-Wagner, are meant to engage locals and visitors while not causing the event to cast such a large footprint that people trying to avoid the crowds can’t do so.
“We took those lessons to heart and created this entire downtown experience based on the feedback that we learned from Kansas City and Detroit about celebrating our community, making sure this event isn’t just for outsiders, that is also for the residents of our community and make sure that economic footprint is as big, as broad as possible without interfering with the people who want to opt out,” he said.
Steffen said that even though people visit Green Bay from elsewhere each home-game Sunday during football season, they often fly in and out quickly. But because the draft is a three-day event — with lots of down time before a fan’s team makes its pick each round — the draft gives Green Bay a better opportunity to show itself off.
“Because this is a multi-day event where the majority of the activity is in the afternoon and evening, there’s going to be lots of opportunity in the early parts of each day for people to experience the rest of Green Bay,” he said. “And so we have free transportation arranged throughout the city, from the various hotels to the draft experience, as well as to places like our vibrant downtown areas and our state renowned amusement park Bay Beach. So these are things that I think we’ll be taking advantage of at a level that far exceeds a typical Packer game.”
Voters cast their ballot in a polling place just blocks from the state Capitol in Madison, Wis. | Photo by Henry Redman
The Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) heard testimony Monday on a proposed set of rules to guide the conduct of election observers.
Over the last few elections, the observation process of elections has become more popular — and more polarizing — as Republicans have grown increasingly skeptical of the election process since President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential contest.
The rule, proposed by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), provides more detail for what observers are allowed to do and where they are allowed to position themselves at polling places, and lays out the process for how an unruly observer can be removed. The rule’s final text was created with input from an advisory committee consisting of representatives of major and minor political parties, election clerks, disability rights groups and right-wing election conspiracy groups.
The two most recent WEC chairs, Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, and Don Millis, a Republican, opened the testimony with each saying they have individual quibbles about the rule but the final text is the result of two years of consensus building and that legislators shouldn’t reject the rule because it isn’t perfect.
Millis said that the current statute guiding election observers is vague and this rule is the best chance of clarifying regulations to protect the rights of voters and observers because passing new legislation into law is challenging under the state’s divided government, with Republicans in control of the Legislature and a Democratic governor.
“In the end, we can debate about whether the rule provides enough latitude or protection for observers, I agree,” Millis said. “I don’t agree with everything in the rule, but I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. 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. Now certainly the Legislature could come up with an improved observer statute through legislation, but of course, that has to be signed into law. And there’s the rub.”
Earlier this year, Republicans in the Assembly voted against an emergency rule that was broadly identical to the permanent rule being considered on Monday. In the hearing, Rep. Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee) complained that legislators were not involved earlier in the rulemaking process.
“I feel a little bit like you didn’t even try here,” Neylon said. “You didn’t even try to do legislation. You’re choosing a rule and then telling us, ‘We can’t even work with you guys. This is what we got to do.’ And I find that a little bit insulting.”
Despite the inclusion of election skeptics on the advisory committee process, much of the testimony in the more than three-hour hearing came from election conspiracy theorists who oppose the rule’s adoption. One opponent of the bill said there needed to be observers at Wisconsin’s central count location for tabulating election results because the internet routers that transmit the results are manufactured by the “Chinese Communist party.”
Wisconsin’s election results are tabulated at the local and county levels, not by the state, and while unofficial results get sent over the internet, official results are determined using the physical tapes obtained from the voting machines.
Former state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who was one of the Legislature’s most prominent election deniers, complained that when she has tried to observe voting in the past, she’s been denied access because limited seats are taken up by people “playing Candy Crush all day.”
Brandtjen also talked about Janet Angus, a Green Bay woman who was charged with disorderly conduct after berating a woman who was attempting to return her husband’s absentee ballot during the April 2022 election. Angus, the Wisconsin Examiner reported, was involved in a Republican effort to influence the Green Bay mayoral election through a lawsuit against the city’s use of audio recording equipment in its security system.
Brandtjen also objected to the rule’s provisions that treat members of the news media differently than observers — mostly by allowing them to take videos and photos inside polling places. Brandtjen said she found that “distasteful.” Jacobs explained that allowing the public to learn about the voting process through the media is important and allowing reporters to do their jobs is necessary.
“We balanced the First Amendment right of the press with the limitations we’re putting on observers, and we felt that was a reasonable accommodation,” Jacobs said.
Elections commissioner Robert Spindell, a Republican, voted against the rule’s passage when the commission considered it and testified against its passage on Monday. Spindell said he was against the rule because it doesn’t allow observers to record video or audio at polling places, which he said would allow clerks to remove observers from polling sites without the observers being able to protect themselves.
Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) said that as members of the committee were talking about large portions of the public being skeptical of election results, it was “beyond the pale” that Spindell would be testifying to the committee because of his involvement in the fake electors scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Honestly, when members of this committee are talking about people still being concerned about election integrity, and we have somebody testifying who was a part of trying to overturn the 2020, election, I mean, if ever there was an unreliable witness on anything, I feel that that person is sitting in front of us today in this committee,” Snodgrass said.
Blind figure of Justice holding scales | Getty Images Creative
U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson announced Friday that they’d renewed their agreement establishing the Wisconsin Federal Nominating Commission to provide recommendations for Congress on nominations for U.S. attorneys and federal judgeships.
There are currently vacancies for U.S. attorneys in both the eastern and western districts of the state and U.S. Circuit Court Judge Diane Sykes announced she will take senior status, a form of semi-retirement, on Oct. 1, which will require the senators to offer potential nominees for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The commitment to the nominating commission comes as President Donald Trump and Republicans attack the federal judiciary over decisions by judges across the country to limit the president’s authority.
Both senators said they were confident the commission will find people who can work impartially.
“I am proud to work with Senator Johnson this Congress to select qualified, impartial candidates to serve our state and faithfully apply the law,” Baldwin said in a statement. “I have full confidence our bipartisan nominating commission will do its job well of rigorously vetting and selecting candidates with the character, expertise, and experience required to fairly deliver justice for our constituents.”
In his statement, Johnson said the nominating commission must concentrate “on finding individuals who will apply the law and not alter it to fit their ideological or policy preferences.”
But late last month, Johnson said he supported an effort from U.S. House Republicans, supported by Wisconsin’s GOP representatives, that would limit the ability of federal district judges to impose nationwide injunctions on executive actions. Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the judiciary was “overstepping its constitutional bounds” by declaring Trump’s actions unconstitutional.
“They’ve got to discipline, they’ve got to put some guardrails around this,” Johnson said. “This is getting completely out of control.”
Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell arrives at Milwaukee Central Count with Sen. Ron Johnson (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) Chair Ann Jacobs said at a meeting Thursday that the body is still investigating how the City of Madison lost nearly 200 ballots during the 2024 presidential election.
The city of Madison announced in late December that 193 unprocessed absentee ballots had been found in the weeks following the election. The discovered ballots weren’t enough to sway the results of any contests, but WEC began an investigation into the error to determine what caused it and how similar mistakes can be prevented in future elections.
On Thursday, Jacobs said that she and Republican commissioner Don Millis had already taken depositions of former Madison city clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl and members of her staff but that there was more work to be done and depositions to conduct with employees of Madison and Dane County. She added that those other interviews were delayed until after the April 1 election.
Witzel-Behl, who had already been on administrative leave during the spring elections, resigned from her position as Madison city clerk earlier this week after nearly two decades in the role during which time she oversaw more than 60 elections.
Jacobs said the investigation has already highlighted ways the state can improve its absentee ballot processes.
“On a positive note, I do think the information we’re learning from the work we’ve done so far will help inform some best practices for tracking absentee ballots, making sure all absentee ballots are counted timely, and as we move to amend our manuals and update them … I really do think that what we’ve learned is going to help us do a better job there on some of that absentee ballot processing,” she said.
After the update on the investigation, Republican commissioner Robert Spindell began remarks that devolved into a shouting match with Jacobs.
Spindell began by noting how long Witzel-Behl had been the Madison clerk.
“I think it’s fine that we’re doing this investigation of the city of Madison, or the misplacement of some [193] ballots and then not properly following through when they were found,” he said. “But I do want to commend the Madison clerk for her 20-plus years service.”
Spindell then transitioned into what he said he believes is a “more serious problem” — some Milwaukee polling places running out of ballots during the April 1 election. On Election Day earlier this month, seven polling sites ran out of ballots, causing city officials to scramble to replenish supplies. The delay caused long lines to form at some polls.
City election officials said they generally determine how many ballots to print and distribute to poll locations by assessing voter turnout in previous similar elections. But this year Wisconsin and Milwaukee broke turnout records for a spring election.
A former member of the Milwaukee Elections Commission who previously sparked controversy when he celebrated and took credit for the low turnout among Black voters in the 2022 midterm elections, Spindell has often been extremely critical of the administration of Milwaukee’s elections.
Republicans have often attacked Milwaukee’s election administration, resulting in frequent, baseless accusations that the city’s election results are fraudulent.
Before Spindell could finish his statement, Jacobs banged her gavel, saying she was ruling his comment out of order, but Spindell just got louder and continued.
Wisconsin open meetings law requires that if a government body such as the elections commission is going to discuss an issue at a meeting, it must have been properly listed on the meeting’s announced agenda.
“I am not going to let you keep going,” Jacobs said. “I’m going to talk over you until you stop. You must stop. You are out of order, and I will eject you from this meeting. Do you understand the words I am saying? They are simple. You are out of order. The City of Milwaukee is not on this agenda. You do not get to hijack the agenda. You are not the chair. When you are chair you get to put things on the agenda, it’s not on the agenda.”
Even though most of what he said was inaudible, Spindell ended by saying “I’ve said what I needed to say.”
During the meeting, the commission also approved the design for a mailer that will be sent to voters who haven’t voted in four years to ask if they still live at the addresses listed in their voter registrations and informing them they risk having their registrations deactivated. The commissioners also received an update on an audit to determine if any people currently serving felony sentences voted in recent elections and moved forward an administrative rule that would keep the home addresses of judicial candidates off public elections paperwork.
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) speaks about how advocates can convince Republicans to fund the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program at the Great Lakes Audubon Society's 2025 advocacy day. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) said Wednesday the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program is “on life support,” adding that some of his Republican colleagues give it a 20% chance of being extended in this year’s budget debate before its expiration next year.
Kurtz, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Karen Hyun spoke Wednesday to a gathering of members of local Audubon Society chapters and staff of Audubon Great Lakes ahead of the organization’s advocacy day to lobby legislators to support conservation funding.
The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program was established in 1989 to help preserve local natural environments. Throughout its history, the program has enjoyed mostly bipartisan support as it has provided grants through the DNR to help local governments and nonprofits fund the acquisition, restoration and maintenance of public land, parks and wildlife habitats.
In recent years, the program has become a flashpoint in the fight over the boundary between the executive and legislative branches of state government. Until a decision by the state Supreme Court last year, any member of the Legislature’s powerful Joint Committee on Finance had the authority to hold up a project funded through the stewardship program by placing an anonymous hold on that spending.
The Court’s decision entirely removed the Legislature’s oversight of the program, a change that further turned Republicans against its continued existence.
“We could make that process better, where it was not just one individual not liking something and being able to kill a project. I agree with that,” Kurtz said. “When the court case came in and basically took that entire process away, that was not good either, because there was no oversight. And I understand some of you believe whatever the DNR does is fine. That’s great. Some of my colleagues don’t believe that.”
Especially in the northern part of the state, Republicans have objected to stewardship funds being used to conserve land that then gets taken off of local property tax rolls — taking money away from already struggling small local governments. In other cases, Republicans have complained that proposals for projects under the grants rely too heavily on the state funds without the local governments providing enough of their own money.
In his proposed 2025-26 budget, Gov. Tony Evers has requested the stewardship program be increased from its current funding of $33 million per year to $100 million per year for 10 years.
Kurtz said he’s working on a bill that would return some oversight authority over the program to the Legislature without the anonymous objection provision. He added, though, that if the Audubon members went to Republicans Wednesday saying, “‘It’s the governor’s budget or nothing,’ you already lost.”
“I don’t need you to do that, because, I’m being very sincere, I’m trying to keep this alive, and if you go over there [saying that], there’s a good chance it’ll die,” he said. “So don’t do that. Let them, especially when you’re meeting with my colleagues, ask them what [their] concerns are. ‘Why don’t you like this? What is it about the program that we can do better so we can have another day to make sure we protect all our wonderful birds and animals.’”
Habush Sinykin noted that 93% of Wisconsinites support the program and said that in her purple district covering Milwaukee’s northwest suburbs, the stewardship program is hugely popular. She said the anonymous hold of a project in the district drew the ire of community members of both parties.
“There’s a lot of understanding at the legislative level that in these uncertain times, with these newer maps, that our state representatives and senators, including those on the Joint Finance Committee, have to be wary and strategic about issues like this that are bipartisan,” she said. “They’re actually non-partisan. They are successful community building issues. So I think that’s a little bit where your leverage is to lean in hard. How popular these are.”
Aside from the stewardship program, the society members lobbying in the Capitol Wednesday were pushing for the state to increase protections for wetlands and grasslands, advance sustainable practices in the state’s agriculture and forestry industries and grow renewable energy production.
On Wednesday morning, the administration of President Donald Trump announced a proposed rule that would rescind habitat protections for endangered species across the country.
Marnie Urso, Audubon Great Lakes’ senior director of policy, said that with the federal government retreating from conservation efforts, state level efforts have become more important.
“With that uncertainty, this kind of work is even more important, for state lawmakers to be on the path to conserving our natural resources,” Urso said. “The Knowles Nelson project program is bipartisan. It always has been a permanent foundation. So we know it has wide, widespread bipartisan support.”
Urso said leaning into that popularity could help advance the group’s priorities.
“Even Trump voters like the Knowles Nelson Conservation Fund,” she said. “So we’re confident that by coming and talking, telling our story and getting to understand what’s important to our lawmakers, we can inform those decisions. And now it’s more important than ever to have state conservation programs continue.”
Voters cast their ballot in a polling place just blocks from the state Capitol in Madison, Wis. | Photo by Henry Redman
The Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) heard testimony Monday on a proposed set of rules to guide the conduct of election observers.
Over the last few elections, the observation process of elections has become more popular — and more polarizing — as Republicans have grown increasingly skeptical of the election process since President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential contest.
The rule, proposed by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), provides more detail for what observers are allowed to do and where they are allowed to position themselves at polling places, and lays out the process for how an unruly observer can be removed. The rule’s final text was created with input from an advisory committee consisting of representatives of major and minor political parties, election clerks, disability rights groups and right-wing election conspiracy groups.
The two most recent WEC chairs, Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, and Don Millis, a Republican, opened the testimony with each saying they have individual quibbles about the rule but the final text is the result of two years of consensus building and that legislators shouldn’t reject the rule because it isn’t perfect.
Millis said that the current statute guiding election observers is vague and this rule is the best chance of clarifying regulations to protect the rights of voters and observers because passing new legislation into law is challenging under the state’s divided government, with Republicans in control of the Legislature and a Democratic governor.
“In the end, we can debate about whether the rule provides enough latitude or protection for observers, I agree,” Millis said. “I don’t agree with everything in the rule, but I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. 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. Now certainly the Legislature could come up with an improved observer statute through legislation, but of course, that has to be signed into law. And there’s the rub.”
Earlier this year, Republicans in the Assembly voted against an emergency rule that was broadly identical to the permanent rule being considered on Monday. In the hearing, Rep. Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee) complained that legislators were not involved earlier in the rulemaking process.
“I feel a little bit like you didn’t even try here,” Neylon said. “You didn’t even try to do legislation. You’re choosing a rule and then telling us, ‘We can’t even work with you guys. This is what we got to do.’ And I find that a little bit insulting.”
Despite the inclusion of election skeptics on the advisory committee process, much of the testimony in the more than three-hour hearing came from election conspiracy theorists who oppose the rule’s adoption. One opponent of the bill said there needed to be observers at Wisconsin’s central count location for tabulating election results because the internet routers that transmit the results are manufactured by the “Chinese Communist party.”
Wisconsin’s election results are tabulated at the local and county levels, not by the state, and while unofficial results get sent over the internet, official results are determined using the physical tapes obtained from the voting machines.
Former state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who was one of the Legislature’s most prominent election deniers, complained that when she has tried to observe voting in the past, she’s been denied access because limited seats are taken up by people “playing Candy Crush all day.”
Brandtjen also talked about Janet Angus, a Green Bay woman who was charged with disorderly conduct after berating a woman who was attempting to return her husband’s absentee ballot during the April 2022 election. Angus, the Wisconsin Examiner reported, was involved in a Republican effort to influence the Green Bay mayoral election through a lawsuit against the city’s use of audio recording equipment in its security system.
Brandtjen also objected to the rule’s provisions that treat members of the news media differently than observers — mostly by allowing them to take videos and photos inside polling places. Brandtjen said she found that “distasteful.” Jacobs explained that allowing the public to learn about the voting process through the media is important and allowing reporters to do their jobs is necessary.
“We balanced the First Amendment right of the press with the limitations we’re putting on observers, and we felt that was a reasonable accommodation,” Jacobs said.
Elections commissioner Robert Spindell, a Republican, voted against the rule’s passage when the commission considered it and testified against its passage on Monday. Spindell said he was against the rule because it doesn’t allow observers to record video or audio at polling places, which he said would allow clerks to remove observers from polling sites without the observers being able to protect themselves.
Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) said that as members of the committee were talking about large portions of the public being skeptical of election results, it was “beyond the pale” that Spindell would be testifying to the committee because of his involvement in the fake electors scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Honestly, when members of this committee are talking about people still being concerned about election integrity, and we have somebody testifying who was a part of trying to overturn the 2020, election, I mean, if ever there was an unreliable witness on anything, I feel that that person is sitting in front of us today in this committee,” Snodgrass said.
Blind figure of Justice holding scales | Getty Images Creative
U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson announced Friday that they’d renewed their agreement establishing the Wisconsin Federal Nominating Commission to provide recommendations for Congress on nominations for U.S. attorneys and federal judgeships.
There are currently vacancies for U.S. attorneys in both the eastern and western districts of the state and U.S. Circuit Court Judge Diane Sykes announced she will take senior status, a form of semi-retirement, on Oct. 1, which will require the senators to offer potential nominees for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The commitment to the nominating commission comes as President Donald Trump and Republicans attack the federal judiciary over decisions by judges across the country to limit the president’s authority.
Both senators said they were confident the commission will find people who can work impartially.
“I am proud to work with Senator Johnson this Congress to select qualified, impartial candidates to serve our state and faithfully apply the law,” Baldwin said in a statement. “I have full confidence our bipartisan nominating commission will do its job well of rigorously vetting and selecting candidates with the character, expertise, and experience required to fairly deliver justice for our constituents.”
In his statement, Johnson said the nominating commission must concentrate “on finding individuals who will apply the law and not alter it to fit their ideological or policy preferences.”
But late last month, Johnson said he supported an effort from U.S. House Republicans, supported by Wisconsin’s GOP representatives, that would limit the ability of federal district judges to impose nationwide injunctions on executive actions. Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the judiciary was “overstepping its constitutional bounds” by declaring Trump’s actions unconstitutional.
“They’ve got to discipline, they’ve got to put some guardrails around this,” Johnson said. “This is getting completely out of control.”
Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell arrives at Milwaukee Central Count with Sen. Ron Johnson (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) Chair Ann Jacobs said at a meeting Thursday that the body is still investigating how the City of Madison lost nearly 200 ballots during the 2024 presidential election.
The city of Madison announced in late December that 193 unprocessed absentee ballots had been found in the weeks following the election. The discovered ballots weren’t enough to sway the results of any contests, but WEC began an investigation into the error to determine what caused it and how similar mistakes can be prevented in future elections.
On Thursday, Jacobs said that she and Republican commissioner Don Millis had already taken depositions of former Madison city clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl and members of her staff but that there was more work to be done and depositions to conduct with employees of Madison and Dane County. She added that those other interviews were delayed until after the April 1 election.
Witzel-Behl, who had already been on administrative leave during the spring elections, resigned from her position as Madison city clerk earlier this week after nearly two decades in the role during which time she oversaw more than 60 elections.
Jacobs said the investigation has already highlighted ways the state can improve its absentee ballot processes.
“On a positive note, I do think the information we’re learning from the work we’ve done so far will help inform some best practices for tracking absentee ballots, making sure all absentee ballots are counted timely, and as we move to amend our manuals and update them … I really do think that what we’ve learned is going to help us do a better job there on some of that absentee ballot processing,” she said.
After the update on the investigation, Republican commissioner Robert Spindell began remarks that devolved into a shouting match with Jacobs.
Spindell began by noting how long Witzel-Behl had been the Madison clerk.
“I think it’s fine that we’re doing this investigation of the city of Madison, or the misplacement of some [193] ballots and then not properly following through when they were found,” he said. “But I do want to commend the Madison clerk for her 20-plus years service.”
Spindell then transitioned into what he said he believes is a “more serious problem” — some Milwaukee polling places running out of ballots during the April 1 election. On Election Day earlier this month, seven polling sites ran out of ballots, causing city officials to scramble to replenish supplies. The delay caused long lines to form at some polls.
City election officials said they generally determine how many ballots to print and distribute to poll locations by assessing voter turnout in previous similar elections. But this year Wisconsin and Milwaukee broke turnout records for a spring election.
A former member of the Milwaukee Elections Commission who previously sparked controversy when he celebrated and took credit for the low turnout among Black voters in the 2022 midterm elections, Spindell has often been extremely critical of the administration of Milwaukee’s elections.
Republicans have often attacked Milwaukee’s election administration, resulting in frequent, baseless accusations that the city’s election results are fraudulent.
Before Spindell could finish his statement, Jacobs banged her gavel, saying she was ruling his comment out of order, but Spindell just got louder and continued.
Wisconsin open meetings law requires that if a government body such as the elections commission is going to discuss an issue at a meeting, it must have been properly listed on the meeting’s announced agenda.
“I am not going to let you keep going,” Jacobs said. “I’m going to talk over you until you stop. You must stop. You are out of order, and I will eject you from this meeting. Do you understand the words I am saying? They are simple. You are out of order. The City of Milwaukee is not on this agenda. You do not get to hijack the agenda. You are not the chair. When you are chair you get to put things on the agenda, it’s not on the agenda.”
Even though most of what he said was inaudible, Spindell ended by saying “I’ve said what I needed to say.”
During the meeting, the commission also approved the design for a mailer that will be sent to voters who haven’t voted in four years to ask if they still live at the addresses listed in their voter registrations and informing them they risk having their registrations deactivated. The commissioners also received an update on an audit to determine if any people currently serving felony sentences voted in recent elections and moved forward an administrative rule that would keep the home addresses of judicial candidates off public elections paperwork.
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) speaks about how advocates can convince Republicans to fund the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program at the Great Lakes Audubon Society's 2025 advocacy day. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) said Wednesday the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program is “on life support,” adding that some of his Republican colleagues give it a 20% chance of being extended in this year’s budget debate before its expiration next year.
Kurtz, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Karen Hyun spoke Wednesday to a gathering of members of local Audubon Society chapters and staff of Audubon Great Lakes ahead of the organization’s advocacy day to lobby legislators to support conservation funding.
The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program was established in 1989 to help preserve local natural environments. Throughout its history, the program has enjoyed mostly bipartisan support as it has provided grants through the DNR to help local governments and nonprofits fund the acquisition, restoration and maintenance of public land, parks and wildlife habitats.
In recent years, the program has become a flashpoint in the fight over the boundary between the executive and legislative branches of state government. Until a decision by the state Supreme Court last year, any member of the Legislature’s powerful Joint Committee on Finance had the authority to hold up a project funded through the stewardship program by placing an anonymous hold on that spending.
The Court’s decision entirely removed the Legislature’s oversight of the program, a change that further turned Republicans against its continued existence.
“We could make that process better, where it was not just one individual not liking something and being able to kill a project. I agree with that,” Kurtz said. “When the court case came in and basically took that entire process away, that was not good either, because there was no oversight. And I understand some of you believe whatever the DNR does is fine. That’s great. Some of my colleagues don’t believe that.”
Especially in the northern part of the state, Republicans have objected to stewardship funds being used to conserve land that then gets taken off of local property tax rolls — taking money away from already struggling small local governments. In other cases, Republicans have complained that proposals for projects under the grants rely too heavily on the state funds without the local governments providing enough of their own money.
In his proposed 2025-26 budget, Gov. Tony Evers has requested the stewardship program be increased from its current funding of $33 million per year to $100 million per year for 10 years.
Kurtz said he’s working on a bill that would return some oversight authority over the program to the Legislature without the anonymous objection provision. He added, though, that if the Audubon members went to Republicans Wednesday saying, “‘It’s the governor’s budget or nothing,’ you already lost.”
“I don’t need you to do that, because, I’m being very sincere, I’m trying to keep this alive, and if you go over there [saying that], there’s a good chance it’ll die,” he said. “So don’t do that. Let them, especially when you’re meeting with my colleagues, ask them what [their] concerns are. ‘Why don’t you like this? What is it about the program that we can do better so we can have another day to make sure we protect all our wonderful birds and animals.’”
Habush Sinykin noted that 93% of Wisconsinites support the program and said that in her purple district covering Milwaukee’s northwest suburbs, the stewardship program is hugely popular. She said the anonymous hold of a project in the district drew the ire of community members of both parties.
“There’s a lot of understanding at the legislative level that in these uncertain times, with these newer maps, that our state representatives and senators, including those on the Joint Finance Committee, have to be wary and strategic about issues like this that are bipartisan,” she said. “They’re actually non-partisan. They are successful community building issues. So I think that’s a little bit where your leverage is to lean in hard. How popular these are.”
Aside from the stewardship program, the society members lobbying in the Capitol Wednesday were pushing for the state to increase protections for wetlands and grasslands, advance sustainable practices in the state’s agriculture and forestry industries and grow renewable energy production.
On Wednesday morning, the administration of President Donald Trump announced a proposed rule that would rescind habitat protections for endangered species across the country.
Marnie Urso, Audubon Great Lakes’ senior director of policy, said that with the federal government retreating from conservation efforts, state level efforts have become more important.
“With that uncertainty, this kind of work is even more important, for state lawmakers to be on the path to conserving our natural resources,” Urso said. “The Knowles Nelson project program is bipartisan. It always has been a permanent foundation. So we know it has wide, widespread bipartisan support.”
Urso said leaning into that popularity could help advance the group’s priorities.
“Even Trump voters like the Knowles Nelson Conservation Fund,” she said. “So we’re confident that by coming and talking, telling our story and getting to understand what’s important to our lawmakers, we can inform those decisions. And now it’s more important than ever to have state conservation programs continue.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Aug. 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
The Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections held a public hearing Tuesday morning for Republican-authored bills introduced in response to third-party candidates in last year’s election — one who faced challenges getting on the presidential ballot and the other who wasn’t allowed to get off.
The first bill, authored by Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken), would allow third-party presidential candidates to gain access to Wisconsin’s presidential ballot without their party having any members holding elected office in the state.
Last year, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint arguing the Green Party was not eligible to be on the presidential ballot because state law requires presidential electors nominated in October to be chosen by state officers and legislative candidates.
The statute states that presidential electors must be nominated by each political party’s state officers, holdover state senators and candidates for the state Senate and Assembly. The Democrats argued the Green Party doesn’t have anyone who qualifies, so it couldn’t be on the ballot.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the DNC’s lawsuit against the Green Party. Jill Stein, the party’s nominee for president, received 12,275 votes, about 0.4% of the statewide total.
In his remarks introducing the bill, Sortwell said the effort to exclude the Green Party from the ballot was “an attack upon democracy.”
“No political candidate should be restricted ballot access and discouraged to run because their respective party has not yet won a political office,” Sortwell said. “It’s rather ludicrous on its face, if you consider that a party is not entitled to a monopoly for ballot access and to certain votes. To make the law clear, this legislation protects political third parties from frivolous lawsuits by allowing the chairperson of the party’s state committee to nominate their presidential electors.”
The other bill heard by the committee Tuesday addresses Robert F. Kennedy’s failed effort to get his name off Wisconsin’s presidential ballot after he had dropped out of the race and endorsed President Donald Trump.
Kennedy had filed nomination papers with the Wisconsin Elections Commission that included the signatures of enough voters for him to qualify and be placed on the ballot. Before the Wisconsin Elections Commission met on Aug. 27 to make its final certification of candidates, Kennedy dropped out of the race and wrote a letter to the commission asking to take his name off the ballot.
Under state law, however, candidates who file nomination papers and qualify to run cannot withdraw and must remain on the ballot, unless they die. Kennedy unsuccessfully sued to have his name removed, taking the case all the way from Dane County circuit court to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Once the candidates are certified, county clerks begin printing and mailing absentee ballots, making it much harder to change who is on the ballot.
Under the bill, authored by Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard), qualified independent candidates for president and vice president, and all qualified candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the state Senate and Assembly, governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state treasurer could remove their name from the ballot if they file a sworn statement withdrawing their candidacy before the WEC deadline for certifying candidates.
The bill would also make it a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and a $25,000 fine to file a false statement withdrawing someone’s candidacy for office.
In his testimony, Steffen said California is the only other state that doesn’t allow candidates off the ballot unless they die and that the policy is “unrealistic and somewhat embarrassing.”
“So having such a law probably made sense in the 1800s when death was more of a reality, a regular occurrence, but in current times, it seems appropriate that we develop a mechanism, like all the other states, to allow individuals who, if between the time that they submit their paperwork and the election, that they have some sort of opportunity on their own to pull themselves off the ballot,” he said.
The bill would not apply to candidates for local office. In this year’s spring election, a candidate for Madison Common Council won by a slim margin after dropping out of the race and endorsing her opponent.
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson testified that her only concern is that Steffen’s proposal could limit clerks’ ability to get ballots out on time. She noted that clerks begin designing, preparing and testing their ballots long before the elections commission certifies the candidates.
For the clerks, she said, the WEC certification is the go-ahead that ballots can be printed and mailed. She said their work will be slowed down if they need to wait until the last possible moment to begin that preparation work, because a candidate might drop out.
“Those are really tight time frames, and as absentee ballots keep growing in popularity, we have to print more ballots, and printing ballots takes more time, so if we need that extra time, please don’t take any time away from us,” Tollefson said.
Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in a video promoting the partisan review of the 2020 election. (YouTube | Office of the Special Counsel)
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who led a widely derided review of the 2020 presidential election, searching for evidence for baseless accusations of fraud, will have his law license suspended for three years, according to a stipulated agreement between him and the state Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR).
Law Forward, the progressive voting rights focused firm, filed a grievance against Gableman with the OLR in 2023. The OLR filed a complaint against Gableman in November that alleged, among other counts, that he had failed to “provide competent representation” and to “abstain from all offensive personality” and of violating attorney-client privilege.
The allegations against Gableman stemmed from his treatment of the mayors of Green Bay and Madison, whom he threatened with jail time during his review, false statements he made during testimony to legislative committees, violating the state’s open records laws, breaching his contract with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and, when OLR began investigating him, “making false statements” to the investigators in an affidavit.
As part of the stipulated agreement, Gableman admitted that “he cannot successfully defend against the allegations of misconduct … and agrees that the allegations of the complaint provide an adequate factual basis in the record.”
In a statement, Law Forward’s general counsel Jeff Mandel said that Gableman’s actions “were and continue to be a threat to our democracy and the rule of law.”
“Our justice system can work only if everyone plays by the rules,” Mandell said. “Two years and one month after Law Forward first filed a grievance with the Office of Lawyer Regulation explaining how Gableman’s unethical behavior did lasting damage to the public’s faith in elections, we are glad to see consequences for those who plan and promote overturning the will of the people.”
“Gableman violated his sworn duty to uphold both the U.S. and the Wisconsin constitutions and his obligations as an attorney,” Mandell continued. “He broke more rules than he followed, acting with complete indifference to election law, procedural norms, and the ethical obligations that bind attorneys. With this deal, Gableman stipulates that he misled courts, lied in public meetings, and violated government transparency laws.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley said this week she’ll seek another 10-year term on the Court next year.
Bradley’s announcement came just days after Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by 10 points in the most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history. Crawford’s victory gave the Court’s liberals control of the majority until at least 2028. Bradley told WisPolitics that she will run again to “ensure that there is a voice for the constitution and for the rule of law to preserve that in the state of Wisconsin.”
“I’m concerned for what an extremely radical court is going to do over the next three years, and I will be spending the next several weeks assessing what happened on Tuesday and figuring out a path to achieving a court that is not led by and dominated by the radical left, that gets back to deciding cases under the law and respecting the constitution,” Bradley said.
Liberals have now won four of the last five state Supreme Court elections, all by double digits. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that appeals court judge and former Democratic lawmaker Chris Taylor is considering challenging Bradley in next year’s race.
Schimel and former Justice Dan Kelly have lost the last three Supreme Court elections after arguing that their liberal opponents are partisan ideologues seeking to legislate from the bench.
Bradley was first appointed to the Court by Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 and elected to a full term in 2016. In recent years she’s been one of the Court’s most right-wing justices.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she compared restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of the disease to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and she sided with President Donald Trump in his unsuccessful effort to have the Court throw out the results of the 2020 election.
She has often written in her dissents against Court decisions about her belief that the liberal majority is acting politically and said the Court’s liberals are “pursuing a political agenda.”
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
Four county sheriffs in Wisconsin have signed agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent months stating they’ll cooperate with the federal agency on immigration enforcement actions.
Since March, Washington, Waupaca, Winnebago and Wood counties have signed onto ICE’s Warrant Service Officer program, which authorizes sheriff’s deputies to serve immigration warrants against undocumented immigrants in the county jail, according to an updated ICE list of participating agencies across the country.
These four counties have joined eight others that already had existing agreements with the agency prior to the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
In January, Tim Muth, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner these agreements were a method the Trump administration would use to find allies in its effort to deport millions of undocumented people.
“What they do indicate is which are the counties who have already raised their hands and said, ‘we are happy to assist with deporting people from the state,’ and I anticipate that the Trump administration is going to start with that list and say ‘we know who our allies are in this in the state of Wisconsin,’” Muth said. “Let’s see if one: We can get more allies signing these agreements, and, two: For the ones who already have, let’s see what we can do to get them more active in this area.”
Immigrant rights advocates say the pre-existing agreements with ICE were hardly used under President Joe Biden, but under Trump they can be used to deport any undocumented person in the jail, even if they’re there for a low-level offense or before they can defend themselves in court against the charges they’re accused of.
Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature have been pushing for more county sheriffs to participate in these types of programs, authoring a bill that would require counties to verify the citizenship status of people in custody for a felony offense and notify ICE if citizenship cannot be verified. It would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people held in the county jail for a criminal offense.
Under the proposed legislation, counties that don’t comply would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state in the next year.
Wisconsin voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to enshrine the state’s already existing voter ID law into the state Constitution.
The amendment was approved by 25 points. The Associated Press called the election less than 40 minutes after the polls closed.
The Republican-authored referendum does not change the law that was already on the books in the state which requires that voters show an approved ID to register to vote and receive a ballot. Republican legislators said the amendment was necessary to protect the statute from being overturned by the state Supreme Court. In recent years, Republicans in the Legislature have increasingly turned to the constitutional amendment process to shape state law without needing the signature of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Democrats had accused Republicans of including the referendum on the ballot in this election as an effort to boost conservative turnout in the state Supreme Court election.
Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been on the books for more than a decade. During debate over the law, Republican lawmakers discussed its potential to help the party win elections by suppressing the vote of minority and college-aged people who tend to vote for Democrats.
Democrats and voting rights groups said the law amounted to a “poll tax.” A 2017 study found that the law kept 17,000 people from the polls in the 2016 election.
Since its passage, a number of court decisions have adjusted the law, leading the state to ease restrictions and costs for obtaining a photo ID — particularly for people who can’t afford a high cost or don’t have proper documents such as a birth certificate.
Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country have increasingly focused on photo ID requirements for voting since conspiracy theories about election administration emerged following President Donald Trump’s false claims that he was robbed of victory because of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential campaign.
While the law doesn’t change, the approved language of the amendment gives the Legislature the authority to determine what types of ID qualify as valid for voting purposes. Currently, approved IDs include Wisconsin driver’s licenses and state IDs, U.S. passports, military IDs and certain student IDs.
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.
Voters at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center on Madison's East side cast their ballots. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin’s spring election takes place Tuesday, with voters across the state weighing in on the races for state Supreme Court and superintendent of schools, a constitutional amendment and local offices.
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Voters who are already in line to vote when polls close should remain in line and will still be able to cast their ballots. Absentee ballots must be returned by the time polls close and can be returned to a voter’s polling place or municipal clerk’s office. Information on polling places can be found at MyVote.WI.gov.
Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites have already cast their ballots, surpassing the early vote turnout of the 2023 Supreme Court race when 1.8 million people voted. On the Monday before the election that year, more than 409,000 ballots had already been cast. This year, more than 644,000 votes have already been cast, with Dane and Milwaukee counties each seeing the most turnout. More than 100,000 votes have already been cast in both counties.
While the lower turnout of spring elections means results usually come faster than in presidential elections, state law still doesn’t allow election officials to begin processing absentee ballots until polls open on Election Day. Last year, Republicans in the state Senate killed a bill that would have allowed absentee ballots to start being processed on the Monday before the election. This means that especially in Milwaukee, where all absentee ballots are processed and counted at one central count location, results may take longer to come in.
Supreme Court race
The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court is the most consequential on the ballot on Tuesday, with the ideological balance of the body up for grabs. Liberal-backed Dane County Judge Susan Crawford is taking on conservative-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel. The winner will replace retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
Wisconsin is holding the first statewide election in the country since President Donald Trump was elected last November. That opportunity to test the voting public’s mood, and the $20 million that Trump adviser Elon Musk has pumped into the race to support Schimel, has turned the race into a referendum on the first months of the second Trump administration.
Musk appeared at a rally in Green Bay on Sunday night to advocate for Schimel, give $1 million to two attendees and hype up his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been making drastic cuts to federal agencies and programs.
Schimel has said he is running to remove partisanship from the Court and that if elected he would treat Trump like any other litigant in a case. But he also told a group of canvassers associated with Trump-aligned Turning Point USA that he’d be a “support network” for Trump on the Court and, the Washington Post reported, told a group of Republicans in Jefferson County that Trump was “screwed over” by the Court when it ruled against Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Democrats and Crawford’s campaign have accused Musk of attempting to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court. They point to Musk’s current litigation in Wisconsin challenging a state law that prevents Tesla from selling cars directly to consumers. Democrats have held People v. Musk town halls across the state where attendees said they were worried about DOGE’s cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and education.
At the only debate between the two candidates in March, Crawford called her opponent “Elon Schimel.” Crawford has said if elected she’ll be a justice who seeks to protect the rights of all Wisconsinites while Schimel has said he’s running to counter the alleged partisanship of the Court since liberals won a majority in 2023.
The race for Supreme Court has set the record for most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history. The race recently surpassed the $100 million mark, nearly doubling the record set by Wisconsin’s 2023 Supreme Court election when more than $50 million was spent in the race between Justice Janet Protasiewicz and former Justice Dan Kelly.
While the race has been nationalized, the winner will hold a deciding vote in cases that could decide how Wisconsin’s congressional maps are drawn, how pollution is regulated, the collective bargaining rights of the state’s workers and if Wisconsin women have the right to access an abortion.
Superintendent of Schools
Also on the ballot on Tuesday is the race for superintendent of schools. The race is between incumbent Jill Underly, supported by the state Democratic party, and Brittany Kinser, an education consultant who’s been backed by the state Republican Party.
The two candidates appeared together at just one virtual forum, with Underly declining to attend a number of proposed events. Kinser has criticized Underly’s effort to change the standards used to assess student progress and advocated for more support for the state’s “school choice” programs including taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.
Underly is endorsed by the state’s teachers union and says she will defend public schools against privatization efforts by school choice advocates such as Kinser.
Voter ID amendment
Voters will also weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment to codify the state’s voter ID law. The Republican-authored proposal would require that voters provide a photo ID to register to vote, which is already the law. Republicans say the amendment is necessary to prevent the state Supreme Court from striking down the voter ID requirement. Republicans have increasingly used the constitutional amendment process in recent years as a way to shape state law, avoiding Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ veto.
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.
The Wisconsin Capitol on spring election day, April 7, 2020. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Election administration experts say that President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to require that people prove their U.S. citizenship to register to vote is unlikely to survive legal challenges, but even if it did, it would not apply to Wisconsin’s April 1 election.
On Tuesday, Trump signed the order that purports to pull federal funding from the Election Assistance Commission for states that do not require that voters prove their U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. The order also attempts to give Elon Musk’s DOGE access to states’ voter registration lists and gives the Department of Homeland Security the authority to verify the citizenship status of voters and make the prosecution of non-citizen voting a priority at the Department of Justice. The order also demands that election administrators use paper ballots or paper ballot trails.
In recent years, Trump and Republicans have become increasingly focused on alleged non-citizen voting. Since Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, Republicans in Congress have worked to pass the SAVE Act, which contains similar provisions to the Trump order. Last year in Wisconsin, voters approved a Republican-authored constitutional amendment to prevent non-citizens from voting in local, state or federal elections — despite it already being against the law for non-citizens to vote.
Voting rights advocates have frequently cautioned that the provisions included in the Trump order and the SAVE act would potentially disenfranchise millions of married American women who have a different last name on their current ID than on proof of citizenship documents like a birth certificate. Estimates say this could prevent more than 69 million women from voting.
“Let’s keep it real: this order is not about protecting elections; it is about making it harder for voters — particularly women voters — to participate in them,” Celina Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of the League of Women Voters of the United States, said in a statement. “This executive order is an assault on our republic and a dangerous attempt to silence American voters. The President continues to overstep his authority and brazenly disregard settled law in this country. To be very clear — the League of Women Voters is prepared to fight back and defend our democracy.”
Trump issued the order just one week before Wisconsin’s April 1 election and days after he endorsed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel in the race for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
“President Donald Trump’s sudden, overbroad and sweeping executive order issued yesterday, just one week before Wisconsin’s nationally important and closely watched State Supreme Court election on April 1st is likely unconstitutional and destined to be rejected by federal and state courts and the U.S. Congress in part or completely,” Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin said after the order’s release. Heck also sent out a press release telling Wisconsin voters that the order does not apply to the April 1 election.
Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, wrote on social media that there are a number of reasons why the order won’t apply to the election next week. The order only applies to federal elections and there are no federal offices on the ballot — only elections for state and local offices. And the order is not set to go into effect for 30 days, long after April 1.
Jacobs also said that the order focuses on provisions on the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA). Also known as the “Motor voter” law, the NVRA requires most states to offer people the ability to register to vote at state motor vehicle agencies, by mail or at certain state or local offices. The law also requires states to maintain up-to-date voter registration lists.
Wisconsin is one of six states that is exempt from the NVRA because it allows people to register to vote in-person at the polls on Election Day, so, Jacobs said, any provisions of the Trump order purporting to use the authority of the NVRA aren’t applicable to Wisconsin. Jacobs also pointed out that Wisconsin is prohibited from even using an NVRA-specific voter registration form because of a Waukesha County court ruling against its use.
Jacobs added that Wisconsin already uses paper ballots or paper voting trails to keep a record of every ballot cast in the state.
“It is disappointing that the federal government is attempting to make people worry about voting this close to an important election,” Jacobs wrote. “I hope this is not a ham-fisted attempt to shore up a failing bid for the [Wisconsin Supreme Court] by the candidate currently behind in the polls.”
Supreme Court candidates Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel debate at Marquette Law School Wednesday evening, March 12. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
The race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court continues to draw record-breaking campaign donations, with both candidates receiving contributions from billionaires and out-of-state donors.
With less than a week left in the race that will decide the ideological balance of the Court between Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, observers believe the total amount raised will reach $100 million by Election Day on April 1. That amount makes the race the most expensive state court election in U.S.history and far surpasses Wisconsin’s record of $56 million, which was set when Justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated former Justice Dan Kelly in the 2023 race.
On Monday, the Crawford campaign announced that it had raised $17 million since early February and $24 million since she entered the race last summer.
Full campaign finance reports of the reporting period are not yet available, but late contribution reports filed on Monday show Crawford’s campaign received more than $1.2 million in just the last few days, including more than $600,000 of in-kind donations from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
The report also shows a number of contributions to Crawford of more than $1,000 from donors across the state and the U.S., including a $5,000 donation from the actor Kevin Bacon and $1,000 from former state Department of Revenue Secretary Peter Barca.
Schimel’s late-filing report showed he received about $1.2 million from the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
State law puts a $20,000 limit on individuals’ donations to a judicial campaign, however both candidates are benefiting from a workaround that allows unlimited donations to both political parties, which can in turn transfer unlimited amounts of cash to the campaigns.
Schimel’s campaign has also received $13 million in outside support from a political action committee associated with Elon Musk. Musk has been an outspoken supporter of Schimel, and Musk’s America PAC, which he used to back President Trump during the 2024 election, has offered Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition opposing “activist judges” and has sent staff to knock on doors in Wisconsin. Schimel was also endorsed by President Donald Trump over the weekend. WisPolitics reported last week that Musk had also given $2 million to the state Republican party, the largest contribution ever recorded to the state GOP.
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