Susan Crawford, formerly a Dane County judge, was elected to her first 10-year term on the bench in April.
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U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany said both the U.S. and Canada need to change forest management practices to harvest more trees and adopt modern technologies that “can detect fire very early on” and help suppress them.
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Watch the entire episode of Here & Now for July 25.
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently unveiled a package of new initiatives, pilot programs and regulatory changes to the long-haul trucking industry.
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In June, a jury found the 34-year-old Milwaukee man guilty on all counts.
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Ingredients Slice the widest part of a round watermelon in half. Lay the flat side down on a cutting board and cut a 1-inch thick slice from each half. Cut […]
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From left, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Kentucky Gov. Tony Evers said Democratic governors need to respond "in kind" to GOP mid-decade redistricting that's intended to protect the Republican House majority. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.)
MADISON — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and other Democratic governors said responding “in kind” to Republican mid-decade redistricting is necessary at a Friday Democratic Governors Association press conference.
Kelly said she thinks courts would rule that redrawn maps from Republicans and Democrats are unconstitutional. If Republicans take this path, however, Democratic governors must also pursue mid-decade redistricting to “protect the American people,” she said.
“It’s incumbent upon Democratic governors, if they have the opportunity, to respond in-kind,” Kelly said. “Things are bad enough in Washington right now. What it would look like if there’s even a greater majority that this President controls — God help the United States of America.”
Kelly and other Democratic governors were in Madison for the DGA’s summer policy conference.
Discussion over redistricting ahead of midterm elections started in Texas, where President Donald Trump’s political team pressured state leaders to redraw its map to gain more seats in the U.S. House and help Republicans maintain their congressional majority in 2026. Trump said a “very simple redrawing” of the state’s maps could help pick up five seats.
Redistricting, the process of redrawing state legislative and congressional district boundaries, typically happens every ten years after the U.S. Census.
Other Republican-led states, including Florida and Ohio, also said they would look at redrawing their maps mid-decade.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was not at the press conference, was the first Democrat to float the idea of gerrymandering the Democratic state to have fewer Republican seats in response. Democrats in New York and Maryland have also been looking for a path to gain additional seats in their states as well.
None of the governors at the press conference said they would pursue that route but said they supported those that had a path to use it. Kelly joked that she “could” do mid-decade redistricting. “But what would I do? I’d just give them another Republican.”
Evers said the blatant direction from Trump to pursue redistricting is a “constant threat to our democracy.”
“I’m really pissed frankly, and we’re going to do whatever we can do to stop this,” Evers said, adding that Wisconsin would not be changing its maps. He said the state has already worked hard to “get fair maps.”
The Republican-led Legislature and Evers adopted new maps for the state Legislature in 2024 following a state Supreme Court ruling. Some have been calling for new Congressional maps, though those efforts have so far been rejected by the state Supreme Court.
Wisconsin’s current congressional maps were drawn in 2022 by Evers and selected by the state Supreme Court with a conservative majority at the time. Democrats and their allies filed a new challenge to the maps in Dane County Circuit Court in July, arguing they are unconstitutional because they’re anti-competitive. Republicans currently represent six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts.
“Because of those fair [state legislative] maps that we had, we were able to pass a relatively bipartisan budget, and it was a good budget, and so, in my heart of hearts, this is where we have to be, but… when you have a gun up against your head, you gotta do something,” Evers said.
“This move is unconstitutional. It’s again breaking the system. It’s, again, meant to game the system,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said. “Democrats are expected to have the decorum — we’re expected to protect the institutions, we’re expected to follow the rules on this.”
The times call for a different approach, however, he argued.
“We’re not playing with a normal administration,” Walz said. “We’re playing with one that has thrown all the rules out of there… I think it is incumbent upon states that have the capacity or the ability to make sure that we are responding in kind.”
The Democratic governors also warned about the potential effects of Republicans’ federal reconciliation package. Kelly, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, said government systems and programs being cut are not set up for states to operate on their own.
“They were set up with the federal government as a very robust partner, and without them being a partner, there is no way that any of our states will be able to pick up the tail,” Kelly said. “The best we could do is perhaps mitigate the pain, but even that will be difficult.”
The legislation, ” signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, made major changes to the federal Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Trump and Republicans in Congress are “trying to gut programs that Wisconsin families count on,” Evers said. “They’re willing to break our constitutional system to make that happen.”
The megabill is just one tool, he suggested. “Whether it’s the Republican budget or the continued illegal action to fire Wisconsin workers, strip funds away from our state, damage public education, we have to fight.”
A memo released this week by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that the exact effects of the federal reconciliation law on Medicaid and FoodShare in Wisconsin are uncertain, but will likely result in fewer enrollees.
Currently, about one in five Wisconsin residents rely on Medicaid for health care coverage.
“The full impact of the Act’s Medicaid provisions on the state’s MA enrollment and costs remains uncertain,” the fiscal bureau memo states. “This is partly because some of the details of implementation requirements will depend upon forthcoming federal guidance, but also because the eligibility and enrollment requirements are new for the program and so little is known about their actual effects.”
Starting in January 2027, childless adults will be required to complete 80 hours per month of paid work, school, employment training or community service per month to maintain their Medicaid eligibility. There are about 184,000 childless adults currently enrolled in Wisconsin. DHS estimates that 63,000 Wisconsinites will be at high risk of losing their coverage.
The LFB memo said that enrollment will likely drop due to the work requirement provisions.
“Enrollment reductions could occur either because of the additional complexity of the application process or because the work requirements cause some individuals to increase their earnings to above the eligibility threshold. The magnitude of the program disenrollment, and associated reduction in [Medicaid] benefits costs, is uncertain,” the memo states.
The governors warned that hospitals still face a difficult environment under the federal law.
“Our rural hospitals in particular are extremely at risk,” Kelly of Kansas said. “We’ve already closed 10 of them in those 10 years and many more are on the brink, and this reconciliation bill is going to throw them over the edge.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said 35 hospitals are at risk in his state, making it the state with the most hospitals at risk in the nation.
“Donald Trump’s big ugly bill is the single worst, most devastating piece of legislation that I have seen in my lifetime. It is a direct attack on rural America,” Beshear said.
Three hospitals in Wisconsin have been identified as at risk of closure.
Costs for the SNAP program will increase in Wisconsin as the law reduces the federal share of the program — known as FoodShare in Wisconsin — from 50% to 25%. This will leave states responsible for 75% of the costs, a change that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services estimates will require an additional $51 million annually from the state.
The FoodShare program currently helps nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites access food, and nearly 90,000 Wisconsinites will be at risk of losing their benefits due to the new federal provisions, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee echoed concerns over the ability of the state to pick up the gaps left by federal cuts in social programs.
“We’re not going to be able to absorb in funding what’s coming our way,” McKee said. “The taxpayers are going to pay for it in our states or the benefits are going to get reduced.”
The law extends work requirements for SNAP recipients from the current top age of 54 to age 64. It narrows the work requirement exemption for caregivers and parents by changing the definition of “dependent child” from under 18 years of age to under 14, meaning that parents of 15- to 17-year-olds could now be required to have employment in return for their SNAP benefits.
It provides an exception from work requirements for a married person responsible for a child under age 14 and residing with someone who complies with the work requirements. It also exempts individuals who are eligible for the Indian Health Services.
“While Wisconsin just passed a Wisconsin budget that invests in our kids, cuts taxes for working families and supports our rural hospitals, Trump and Congressional Republicans are moving in just the opposite way,” Evers said. “Democratic governors aren’t going to just sit idly and watch it happen. When Trump tried to strip hospital funding, we moved real quickly to protect $1.5 billion dollars in health care funding for Wisconsin. When they threaten our schools, we stand up and fight back. When they attack programs that matter to working families, we find ways to fill the gaps.”
“Republican governors fall in line behind Trump’s agenda. Democratic governors are standing up for the people that we serve,” Evers said before mentioning 2026 elections. He said Wisconsinites will “make a choice about the future of our state when they elect our next governor. They’re going to choose a leader who will work together and expand health care, support working families and build an economy that works for everybody.”
Evers announced on July 24 that he would not be running for a third term in office, setting up the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010.
“I know that [Evers’] leadership is not going to end just because the title might, and that he is going to be out there fighting for what he believes in moving into the future,” said Kentucky Gov Andy Beshear, who won’t be able to run for another term in 2027 due to term limits.
So far, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez has announced her campaign, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is planning on entering the race and other Democrats are still mulling a decision. There will likely be a crowded Democratic primary. Two Republicans have officially launched their campaigns for governor, while U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has been teasing a run.
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A sign for the Public Broadcasting Service is seen on its building headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced Friday that it will be shutting down.
The announcement came just one day after a major Senate appropriations bill omitted funding for the nonprofit that funds public media and a week after President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that yanked $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for CPB.
CPB, which Congress authorized in 1967, provides funds for National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and hundreds of local stations across the United States. President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans have criticized NPR and PBS of left-leaning bias, an accusation the public media organizations have rejected.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB, said in a statement Friday.
“CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care,” Harrison said.
She added that “public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country.”
CPB said employees were notified Friday that the majority of staff positions “will conclude with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025,” and a small transition team will stay through January 2026.
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill for fiscal year 2026, which did not include any CPB funding.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the panel, expressed her disappointment over the lack of a CPB allocation in the bill during a committee markup.
“It is a shameful reality and now communities across the country will suffer the consequences as over 1,500 stations lose critical funding,” Murray said.
In a win for the Trump administration, Congress passed a rescissions package in July that clawed back $9 billion in previously approved spending for public broadcasting and foreign aid, including $1.1 billion for CPB.
Trump signed the measure into law just days later.
A container ship arrives at the Port of Oakland on Aug. 1, 2025 in Oakland, California. President Donald Trump announced that his Aug. 1 deadline for trade deals will not be extended and sweeping tariffs will be imposed on certain countries beginning that day. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump pushed ahead with his promise to raise tariffs on foreign goods by Aug. 1, signing an order late Thursday increasing import taxes on products from nearly every U.S. trading partner.
Trump’s directive, and new data on weaker job growth, sent markets tumbling Friday.
The president imposed a 15% base tariff on products imported from nearly three dozen nations across five continents, plus the 27 trading nations that comprise the European Union. Trump slapped higher rates on select other countries, ranging from 18% on goods from Nicaragua to 30% on South Africa and 50% on Brazil.
The White House hailed the “reciprocal” tariffs as “a necessary and powerful tool to put America First after many years of unsustainable trade deficits that threaten our economy and national security,” according to a press release accompanying the executive order.
Trump describes the tariffs as “reciprocal” because they are his response to countries that have trade deficits with the U.S. — meaning that country sells more products to the U.S. than it buys.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called the new rates “historic.”
“Over the past few months, the President’s tariff program and the ensuing ‘Trump Round’ of trade negotiations have accomplished what the World Trade Organization and multilateral negotiations have not been able to achieve at scale: expansive new market access for U.S. exporters, increased tariffs to defend critical American industries, and trillions of new manufacturing investments and purchases of goods that will create great American jobs and help reassert American leadership in key strategic sectors,” Greer said in a statement Wednesday.
The tariff announcement, combined with a weaker-than-expected jobs report Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, caused sell-offs Friday from the three major U.S. stock indexes, according to financial media reports.
Trump fumed Friday afternoon about report adjustments that significantly decreased jobs numbers for May and June, even calling for the commissioner for labor statistics to be fired.
Trump made history earlier this year when he became the first president to trigger tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The move sparked legal challenges from small businesses and Democratic-led states, and the plaintiffs faced the Trump administration Thursday in federal appeals court.
Tariffs are taxes on imported products that U.S. companies and other buyers pay to the U.S. government.
Trump announced staggering tariffs under an emergency declaration on April 2, what he referred to as “Liberation Day,” but delayed the new import taxes after global markets plummeted in response to the shock announcement.
Trump also separately announced Thursday a 35% levy on imported products from Canada that fall outside the bounds of an already established trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Trump continued a 25% tariff on certain Mexican goods, but paused any rate increases to allow for 90 days of negotiations, according to media reports. The U.S. is continuing negotiations with China, whose products face a base import tax rate of 30%.
Marc Noland, executive vice president and director of studies for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Trump’s latest tariff rates are “unfortunate.”
“It will contribute to higher prices and slower growth here in the United States,” Noland said, adding there’s “a question about how sustainable they are legally here in the U.S.”
“And it’s particularly unfortunate, because I’m looking at the entire list of countries and see that the countries with the highest rates are the countries that are in the worst shape — Laos gets 40%, Syria got 41%, Myanmar gets 40%. It’s the poorest, most desperate countries that are getting hit with the highest tariffs. So it’s bad for us and it’s bad for the world,” Noland told States Newsroom in an interview Friday.
The 15% rate on imports from dozens of countries mirrors the deals Trump announced in recent weeks with Japan, South Korea and European Union — though many details remain unknown.
“There are real questions about what exactly did anybody agree to,” Noland said. “And you know this, these don’t have the force of law that a treaty negotiated and passed by our Congress and somebody else’s national legislature have like, say, the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which, as we see, was unilaterally abrogated.”
Trade and industry advocates have also reacted to the new tariffs.
Gary Shapiro, CEO and vice chair of the Consumer Technology Association, issued a statement Thursday saying Trump’s new rates “highlight the uncertainty American innovators face in today’s trade environment.”
“CTA continues to urge the Administration and Congress to pursue a predictable, forward-looking trade agenda rooted in fairness and collaboration with trusted partners,” said Shapiro, whose organization hosts the annual CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. “American innovation thrives when markets are open, trade rules are clear, and businesses are free to focus on creating jobs and bringing groundbreaking technologies to market.”
The National Foreign Trade Council warned that “Whatever progress that’s ultimately achieved as part of these new trade deals will come at the steep price of significant U.S. tariff increases and the erosion of trust with America’s key partners.”
The statement Thursday from the industry group’s president, Jake Colvin, continued: “Institutionalizing the highest U.S. duties since the Great Depression, coupled with ongoing uncertainty, will ultimately make American businesses less competitive globally and consumers worse off while harming relationships with close geopolitical allies and trading partners.”
First District U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) holds an in-person listening session at Elkhorn High School in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, Thursday evening July 31, 2025. (Copyright Mark Hertzberg/for Racine County Eye)
ELKHORN — At a raucous listening session in a high school auditorium Thursday evening, U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) defended the immigration and tariff policies of President Donald Trump and the Republican budget reconciliation law that Trump signed on July 4.
From the roars of the crowd, critics of the congressman appeared to account for the majority of the group that filled nearly two-thirds of the 600-seat Elkhorn High School auditorium. But there were also recurring cheers, shouts and applause at key moments from a smaller coterie of supporters in the room.
Steil represents the 1st District in Congress, which covers Southeastern Wisconsin from Janesville and Beloit east to Racine and Kenosha on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Over the last several months, Republican members of Congress have been counseled not to hold in-person events with constituents after publicity about angry crowds turning up at some GOP town halls.
Steil’s constituents have been protesting weekly outside his office in Racine for months, calling on him to hold an in-person meeting rather than telephone ones.
Taking the stage shortly after 5 p.m. and lasting for about 80 minutes there, Steil stuck with a cheerful, breezy tone. He treated the loud, impassioned and often angry audience cries as mostly a difference of opinion.
When an audience member asked Steil how he might take a stand against other congressional Republicans “who lie to the American public and malign the dignity of 70 million people on Medicaid by suggesting that they are lazy,” Steil lamented the tone of political discourse and vowed not to denigrate anyone. Then he turned the subject back to the boisterous auditorium.
“I’d say the overall majority of people here want to learn and understand my perspective, want to hear the question,” he said. “And then there’s a small group of people that are challenging.”
It was left to the moderator of the session, Janesville radio host Tim Bremel, to lecture the crowd to refrain from shouting over Steil’s answers during a Q&A period.
During one interruption, the radio host scolded, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will never get questions if we can’t keep the auditorium quiet. And please do the person who asked the question the respect of allowing his question to be answered.”
Steil kicked off the session with the Pledge of Allegiance, inviting the audience to join him. They did so, some shouting the final words “and justice for all” with vehemence.
He followed with a short talk offering “just kind of an overview of where we’re at in this country to get ourselves back on track” — words that prompted more angry taunts.
Steil said that the nation’s spending is about “$1.8 trillion more than on the revenue side,” a comment that prompted scattered shouts scoffing at “tax breaks.”
He defended the expansion in the budget reconciliation law of work requirements for SNAP food aid, saying the change followed a model that Wisconsin had already instituted for the program in the 1990s.
When he switched to immigration and a graph that Steil said showed “the dramatic drop, the decrease that we have seen in border apprehensions,” a cry of “We are all immigrants!” came up from several rows of seats.
Nine minutes in, Steil made a pitch for his office’s constituent services, then appealed for restraint from the crowd.
“The more civil we are with each other — there’s people that have different views in here, we heard applause and boos on the border security issue, we’ve heard it a couple of times,” he said. “We have people on all sides, it’s great, that’s what makes us so great.”
The questions that followed came from members of the audience who filled out forms at tables in the school lobby.
Bremel told the crowd that the questioners would be chosen at random. Some greeted that claim with loud skeptical scoffs. Over the course of the hour, however, the vast majority of people who were chosen asked questions sharply critical of Steil, Trump, the Republican congressional majority, or all three.
Criticizing Trump’s tariffs, Tom Burke asked Steil “what dire economic circumstances” justified the president’s executive orders to impose them.
“What we need to do is make sure that we’re having other countries treat the United States fairly,” Steil replied, adding that the U.S. should “work collectively with our allies to address the real culprit, which is China.”
Burke wasn’t satisfied with the answer. U.S. allies, “seem to be alienated beyond belief,” he told Steil, adding that until he got a satisfactory answer to his question about their rationale, “I’m going to be totally opposed to these tariffs — period.”
Specifying that her question was about “not politics, but morality,” Jean Henderson of Elkhorn told Steil, “What I see happening to our immigrant population embarrasses me, terrifies me.”
Henderson criticized the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel, their faces hidden by masks, against immigrants “who are doing the right thing by going to the immigration office,” only to be taken into custody. “It is a trap,” she said. “Why is this happening and why aren’t you stopping it?”
Steil began in reply, “What I view is the moral hazard created by the Biden administration…,” prompting a roar of disapproval from the crowd, then a shout of “Joe Biden sucks!” from someone perhaps more sympathetic to the congressman.
The rest of Steil’s response was largely drowned out.
When it was her turn at the microphone, Kelly Neuens connected the experiences of her grandparents and great aunt and great uncle, who were held in U.S. internment camps during World War II as U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, to the conditions in the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent some immigrants taken into custody.
“President Trump said, ‘Homegrowns are next’ when he was speaking to the El Salvador president,” Neuens told Steil. “My worry is that we are repeating history here.”
In his answer, which was repeatedly interrupted, Steil described the World War II internment as “one of the more darker chapters of American history,” then added, “As we look at the engagement that law enforcement is doing now against immigrants who are in the country illegally, I don’t see the exact parallel.”
Another questioner asked Steil to explain “why you support Linda McMahon and defunding the Department of Education?”
Congress, Steil said, is still “analyzing what the spending will be for the upcoming fiscal year.” He added that the department “has burdened a lot of our local school districts with unnecessary red tape” in the course of distributing funds to the states. “I think what we will see as we negotiate this going forward is a way to make sure that those funds are there” for local schools, he said.
When it was her turn to ask a question, Sharna Ahern of Fontana thanked Steil and his staff “for answering all the contacts I’ve made with you over the years.”
She enumerated a wide range of concerns she has had — about the Department of Education, about the treatment of immigrants, “about the rule of law and civil rights” — and then turned her focus on the environment.
“Extreme weather conditions are happening more frequently as we experience them,” she told Steil. “The EPA is deregulating the standards that are in place to fight climate change, to protect the citizens. Where do you stand on this issue? And how can you be an advocate for us to initiate legislation to restore our safeguards?”
Steil praised Wisconsin as “one of the most beautiful states in the country” and asserted that “making sure that we’re protecting our air and water and soil is absolutely essential.” He said that on the issue of climate change, “what we need to be doing is focused on addressing that global aspect. But again, make sure other countries are doing their fair share of it.”
The crowd largely jeered at the response. When another audience member asked about Trump’s executive orders rolling back Biden administration measures to address climate change, Steil said that action was necessary to “correct … the overreach in the previous administration.”
It was after 6 p.m. when Bremel called for the final question.
A few minutes earlier, someone had shouted a question about “children starving in Gaza,” and the woman whose turn it was asked Steil to address that topic as well as to defend the SNAP cuts.
“I can do them both,” Steil said. He started with SNAP, reiterating his earlier assertion that Wisconsin would not be affected by the program’s changes to work requirements because of policies the state had in place already.
Turning to Gaza, Steil said, “To me the easy answer to address this crisis is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages. Release them. Israel was unfairly, unjustly attacked.”
His comments gave rise to another brief demonstration, punctuated by repeated chants of “60,000 people are dead!”
By the time the chanting ended, Steil had left the stage.
The photos accompanying this report are not available for republishing except by agreement with photographer Mark Hertzberg.
A health care provider bandages a child after giving a vaccination shot. (Photo by Scott Housely/CDC)
A pair of Wisconsin Republicans want to increase awareness of the state’s vaccine exemptions by requiring waiver forms be given to parents with the health forms they receive from schools and child care center providers.
Coauthors of the bill Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls) and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) said in a cosponsorship memo that there is a “lack of transparency” around the exemptions that “can create confusion and unnecessary barriers for parents” and “increase administrative burden on schools when immunization documentation is incomplete or delayed.”
Wisconsin law requires children in elementary, middle, junior or senior high school, a child care center, or a nursery school to get vaccinated for various diseases based on their grade or age. The vaccine and booster schedule covers mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis, poliomyelitis and tetanus.
Wisconsin allows parents to get the requirement waived if they submit a written statement objecting for reasons including health, religious or personal conviction.
Lawmakers noted that the bill would not change current requirements for vaccines. The bill would require schools, child care centers and nursery schools to create a process to present a vaccine waiver form with each health-related form it requires before a student can be enrolled.
“Many parents are unaware of this right or are unclear about how to obtain that waiver and feel pressured to make medical decisions for their children that they otherwise would not have,” Brill said in a statement. “This bill ensures that schools make parents aware of the rights already afforded them by Wisconsin law and include information about the waiver from the vaccine requirement and a procedure for presenting it in any required pre-enrollment health-related forms.”
The proposal comes as Wisconsin’s vaccination rates have not caught up with pre-pandemic levels. According to a 2024 U.S. Centers for Disease Control report, Wisconsin is falling behind other states in childhood immunizations for illnesses including polio, pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus, and measles, mumps and rubella.
The decline in vaccine rates is partially to blame for diseases, including measles and pertussis, increasing across the country, according to health officials.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 86.4% of students met the minimum immunization requirements during the 2024-25 school year — a 2.8 percentage-point decrease from the prior year. The agency also reports that 6.7% of students had a waiver for one or more immunizations, representing a 0.6 percentage-point increase from last year, though the number of students waiving all vaccines fell to 1.3%.
Amid falling rates, DHS officials have ramped up efforts to encourage vaccinations to help improve effectiveness.
Wisconsin has one of the lowest measles vaccination rates in the country, with only Alaska falling below it. One dose of the MMR vaccine, which fights measles, provides approximately 93% protection, while two doses are about 97% effective.
As measles vaccine rates have fallen, cases of the highly contagious disease have hit the highest level in 33 years, according to the CDC with 1,288 cases this year. More than 150 people have been hospitalized from measles, and three people have died this year. No cases have been reported in Wisconsin so far, but its neighboring states, including Illinois and Minnesota, have had cases.
The lawmakers’ efforts to increase awareness of vaccine exceptions comes amid a national wave of skepticism to vaccination, including from U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is a leading and prominent vaccine skeptic and was appointed by President Donald Trump this year.
Brill thanked Kennedy for his work on his “Make America Health Again” agenda in her statement about the bill.
Cabral-Guevara, a board certified family nurse practitioner, has supported legislation that would loosen vaccine requirements before including a 2024 bill that would have allowed immunization exemptions at higher education institutions without documentation.
The bill passed the Senate and Assembly, but was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, who said in a veto message that he objected to “the Wisconsin State Legislature’s efforts to micromanage decisions to respond to public health incidents and restrict existing tools available to higher education institutions to keep students, faculty, staff safe and healthy on their campuses.”
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