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In the Wisconsin Senate’s last floor session of 2025, lawmakers debated and voted on bills that appear destined for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ veto pen. 

One of the bills, which passed the Republican-led Assembly in September and is on its way to Evers’ desk, would prohibit public funds from being used to provide health care to undocumented immigrants. Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, the bill’s Senate author, argued it would protect Wisconsin taxpayers, citing Democratic states like Illinois where enrollment and costs of a health care program for noncitizens far exceeded initial estimates. 

But several Senate Democrats lambasted the proposal as a “heartless” attempt by GOP lawmakers to gain political points with their base with 2026 elections around the corner. Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, hinted at its likely future in the governor’s office. 

“It’s going to be vetoed,” Carpenter said. 

Plenty of bills in the nearly eight years of Wisconsin’s split government have passed through the Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate before receiving a veto from the governor. Evers vetoed a record 126 bills during the 2021-22 legislative session ahead of his reelection campaign and 72 bills during the 2023-24 session. The governor has vetoed 15 bills so far in 2025, not including partial vetoes in the state budget, according to a Wisconsin Watch review of veto messages. The number is certain to rise, though whether it will approach the record is far from clear.

A few Senate Democrats seeking higher office in 2026 said some recent legislation that is unlikely to make it past Evers, from a repeal of the creative veto that raises school revenue limits for the next 400 years to a bill exempting certain procedures from the definition of abortion, looks like political messaging opportunities to ding Democrats. They anticipate more of those proposals to come up next year. 

“For the last eight years we’ve had divided government, but we’ve had a heavily gerrymandered Legislature,” said Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, who is among at least seven candidates running for governor in 2026 and voted against those bills on the floor. “For Republicans in the Legislature, there has been no cost and everything to gain from pursuing the most radical and extreme proposals in their party.” 

Evers is not seeking a third term as governor in 2026 and is entering the final year of his current term, which no longer makes him vulnerable to political fallout from vetoing bills. But legislative Democrats, particularly in the Senate where the party hopes to win the majority in 2026, can be forced into difficult decisions in their chambers where Republicans control which bills get votes on the Senate and Assembly floors. 

“It was all this political gamesmanship of trying to get points towards their own base and/or put me or others, not just me, into a position to have to make that tough vote,” said Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, of the bill banning public dollars spent on health care for undocumented immigrants. Smith, who is seeking reelection in his western Wisconsin district next year, holds the main Senate seat Republicans are targeting in 2026. He voted against the bill.

Smith said the immigration bill saw “a lot of discussion” in the Senate Democratic Caucus ahead of the floor session on Nov. 18, particularly on where Smith would vote given the attention on his seat. The bill passed the chamber on a vote of 21-12 with Democratic support from Sen. Sarah Keyeski, D-Lodi; Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska; and Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay, who are not up for reelection next year but represent more conservative parts of the state. 

“Many people thought the easy vote would be to just vote with the Republicans because it’s not going to be signed,” Smith said. “But I’ve still got to go back and explain it to my voters.” 

A spokesperson for Majority Leader Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about how Senate Republicans consider what bills advance to the Senate floor. Neither did a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

In a social media post after the Senate session, Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, listed “all the things WI Senate Democrats voted against,” which included “prohibiting illegal aliens from getting taxpayer-funded healthcare.” 

Scott Kelly, Wanggaard’s chief of staff, said a potential veto or putting Democrats on the record on certain issues largely doesn’t influence the legislation their office pursues.

“Our job is to pass bills that we think are good ideas that should be law,” Kelly said. “Whether other people support or veto them is not my issue. The fact that Democrats think this is a political ‘gotcha,’ well, that just shows they know it’s an idea that the public supports.”

Not all of the bills on the Senate floor on Nov. 18 seemed aimed at election messaging. The chamber unanimously approved a bill to extend tax credits for businesses that hire a third party to build workforce housing or establish a child care program. In October, senators voted 32-1 to pass a bipartisan bill requiring insurance companies to cover cancer screenings for women with dense breast tissue who are at an increased risk of breast cancer. The Republican-authored bill has yet to move in the Assembly despite bipartisan support from lawmakers there as well.

Assembly Democrats last week criticized Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, for blocking a vote on Senate Bill 23, a bipartisan bill to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to new Wisconsin moms. Assembly Minority Leader Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, in a press conference at the Capitol called the move “pathetic.”

But health care is a top issue for Democratic voters and less so for Republicans, according to the Marquette University Law School Poll conducted in October. Illegal immigration and border security are the top issue for Republican voters in Wisconsin. About 75% of GOP voters said they were “very concerned” about the issue heading into 2026, though only 16% of Democrats and 31% of immigrants said the same.  

Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said political messaging votes can have impacts on elections, especially in what will be some of the close Senate races in 2026.

“It’s kind of a messaging opportunity, not really a policymaking opportunity. It’s also maybe a way for Republicans to let off some steam,” Burden said. “They have divisions within their own caucuses. They have disagreements between the Republicans in the Assembly, Republicans in the Senate. They can never seem to get on the same page with a lot of these things, and there are often a few members who are holding up bills. So, when they can find agreement and push something through in both chambers and get near unanimous support from their caucuses, that’s a victory in itself and maybe helps build some morale or solidarity within the party.”

Here’s why Wisconsin Republican lawmakers pass bills they know Gov. Tony Evers will veto is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• ICE records list more than 130 arrests at county jails in Wisconsin between January and July 2025. Nearly 40% were awaiting a ruling in their first criminal case. 

• While defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence.

• That leaves defendants without their day in court, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail paid by family and friends.

Stacey Murillo Martinez arrived at the Fond du Lac County courthouse in June to pay a $1,500 cash bond for her husband, Miguel Murillo Martinez, as he sat in jail facing drunken driving, bail jumping and firearms charges. 

Scraping the funds together was no small feat. Stacey lives on a fixed income, so Miguel’s boss chipped in. She expected the court to eventually return the $1,500. Bond is meant to serve as collateral to incentivize defendants to show up for their court dates, as she believed Miguel would. 

She did not know U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would wait inside the Fond du Lac County Jail later that day to take Miguel, an immigrant from Honduras, into their custody. 

Five months later, Miguel still sits in an ICE facility near Terre Haute, Indiana. His detention caused him to miss a court date in September, prompting the Fond du Lac County judge to issue a bench warrant for his arrest. 

“They didn’t tell me, ‘You’re guilty’ or ‘You’re not guilty,’ ” he said, his voice muffled and distorted by the facility’s phone system. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Stacey said in early November, referring to the fate of her husband and the bail money – three times the monthly rent for the couple’s double-wide in a Fond du Lac manufactured home park. 

ICE records list more than 130 arrests at county jails in Wisconsin between January and July 2025. Nearly 40% were awaiting a ruling in their first criminal case.

While defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence to the court. As ICE ramps up its enforcement efforts nationwide, Wisconsin courts are increasingly left with loose ends: defendants without their day in court, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail paid by family, friends and employers.

“If I get out, I’m going back to my house, and then I have to appear in county court,” Miguel said. 

Miguel is not the only recent example: ICE picked up his nephew, Junior Murillo, at the Fond du Lac County Jail in October as he faced charges for disorderly conduct and domestic abuse.

The Fond du Lac County Jail has transferred 10 people into ICE custody this year, Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt said. His county is among 15 Wisconsin local governments to have signed agreements with ICE to assist in identifying and apprehending unauthorized immigrants. These are often called 287(g) agreements, referencing the section of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act authorizing the program. 

Fond du Lac is also among the more than two dozen Wisconsin counties participating in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, through which the Department of Justice partially reimburses incarceration costs for agencies that share data on unauthorized immigrants in their custody. Fond du Lac County received nearly $25,000 through the program in fiscal year 2024, according to Waldschmidt.

Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney said ICE has been “very easy for us to communicate and work with,” and his prosecutors inform judges if a defendant is arrested in the courthouse. Waldschmidt noted that while his office communicates with prosecutors about inmates in county custody with ICE holds, it lacks a written policy requiring them to notify prosecutors of handoffs to ICE. 

Criminal and immigration courts collide

Wisconsin courts do not consistently track whether a defendant has entered ICE custody, but multiple Wisconsin defense attorneys told Wisconsin Watch that immigration authorities frequently arrest defendants shortly after they post bail. 

“The judge will issue a $500 cash bond, somebody in the family will post it before I’m able to tell them, ‘please don’t,’ and the client will get transferred into immigration custody, where they’re really not able to make the appearance in circuit court,” said Kate Drury, a Waupaca-based criminal defense and immigration attorney.

In rare cases, prosecutors work with ICE to extradite defendants from detention centers in other states – or, even rarer, from other countries. Doing so is complicated and expensive, especially for smaller counties.

Toney said his office can’t justify expenses for bringing any out-of-state defendant back to prosecute lower-level cases, such as driving without a license. 

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is similarly reluctant to spend thousands to extradite defendants from faraway detention facilities. “If it’s a misdemeanor retail theft (charge), let’s say, and the person is in California, that extradition cost may be $5,000,” he said. “We’re probably not going to spend $5,000 or bring that person back.”

Ozanne’s office did, however, successfully fight for custody of a Honduran woman accused of killing two teenagers while driving drunk on Highway I-90 north of Madison in July. ICE detained Noelia Saray Martinez Avila, 30, after her attorney posted a $250,000 bond to release her from the Dane County jail in August. Martinez Avila is scheduled to appear in Dane County court in December.

Defendants in ICE custody can sometimes appear for Wisconsin court hearings via video call, though some attorneys report struggling to schedule those from immigration detention centers. 

“Jails and private prisons that operate immigration detention facilities aren’t super focused or motivated in helping defendants make their scheduled court appearances,” Drury said.

When a defendant misses a court date, Toney’s office typically requests a bench warrant and moves to schedule a bail forfeiture hearing — regardless of whether ICE detention caused the absence, he said. 

Making exceptions for ICE detainees would mean “treating somebody differently because of their immigration status,” Toney said. Still, attorneys in his office can exercise their own discretion when deciding whether to seek a warrant or bail forfeiture, he added. The prosecutor responsible for Junior Murillo’s case, for instance, did not request that the court forfeit his bail after his ICE arrest.

Ozanne argued against forfeiting defendants’ bail if they miss a court date while in ICE custody. 

“It wasn’t their unwillingness to show up” that prevented them from appearing in court, he said, adding that his office would be willing to return bail money to whomever posted it on the defendant’s behalf.

“The problem is that we don’t necessarily know” whether a person is in custody, Ozanne added. While he, like Toney, has reported no difficulties communicating with ICE, the agency doesn’t proactively inform his office when it arrests immigrants with active cases in Dane County. 

ICE did not respond to emailed questions from Wisconsin Watch.

Mindy Nolan, a Milwaukee-based attorney who specializes in the interaction between criminal cases and immigration status, said judges generally issue warrants for defendants in ICE custody to keep their criminal cases alive if ICE releases them or they return to the country after deportation. 

“Over the years, what I’ve heard from judges is (that) if the person is present in the United States in the future, they could be picked up on the state court warrant,” she said.

Hearings without defendants

Wisconsin law gives courts at least 30 days to decide whether to forfeit a defendant’s bail. 

“The default assumption seems to be that the immigrant could appear and the statute places the burden on the defendant to prove that it was impossible for them to appear,” Drury said. “But how does the defendant meet that burden when they’re being held in immigration custody, transferred all over the country, potentially transferred outside the United States?”

Wisconsin courts have held more than 2,700 bail forfeiture hearings thus far in 2025, though the state’s count does not provide details on the reasons for defendants’ absence. If the defendant misses the hearing, the defendant’s attorney or those who paid the bail can challenge the forfeiture by demonstrating that the absence was unavoidable. 

On a Friday morning in late October, a Racine County judge issued a half-dozen bail forfeiture orders in just minutes. The court had scheduled a translator for most of the cases, and she sat alone at the defense table, occasionally scanning the room in case any defendants slipped in at the last minute.

“The problem is getting someone at the bond forfeiture hearings to assert those arguments on behalf of clients,” Drury said. Public defenders are often stretched thin, and family members may be unaware of upcoming hearings. Court records indicate Miguel Murillo lacks a defense attorney assigned to his case in Fond du Lac, leaving only Stacey to argue against bail forfeiture. 

Such hearings tend to be more substantial when attorneys are present, boosting the likelihood of bail money being returned. 

Miguel Murillo’s case does not involve an alleged victim, meaning forfeited bail would go to Fond du Lac County. Court costs typically exceed the value of forfeited bail, Toney said. 

When cases involve alleged victims, Wisconsin law requires that courts use forfeited bail for victim restitution – even without a conviction.

What’s missing are judicial findings that the defendant is responsible for the alleged actions and caused suffering to the victim, Drury said. 

“Without a conviction, I don’t understand how you maintain that policy and the presumption of innocence, which is such an important constitutional cornerstone of this country.”

Immigration arrests often throw a wrench in the gears of the criminal justice system, Ozanne said. 

“It’s most problematic for us when the person hasn’t gone through their due process,” he said. “We have victims… who don’t really get the benefit of the process or have the ability to communicate with the courts about what they think should happen.”

“In a sense,” he added, “that person has a get-out-of-jail-free card.” 

Months in ICE detention 

Miguel Murillo left Honduras a decade ago, initially settling in Houston. While in Texas, he says he survived a shooting and sought, but never obtained, a U-visa, which provides temporary legal status to victims of certain crimes. 

The shooting prompted him to head north to Wisconsin, where he found construction work and married Stacey, a lifelong Wisconsinite. Court records mark occasional run-ins with law enforcement and misdemeanors over the last five years, culminating in the April 2025 charges that preceded his ICE arrest. 

Stacey, who is receiving treatment for breast cancer, relied on her husband to keep their household afloat. In his absence, she said, “I have to beg, plead, and borrow to get any assistance.” 

“Right now, as I go through this situation… there’s no one to take care of her,” Miguel told Wisconsin Watch. The couple hope that argument will sway a Chicago immigration court judge to release him from ICE custody. The court held its final hearing on his order of removal case in late October, Stacey said, but has yet to issue a ruling.

Junior’s case progressed far more quickly. After his arrest in October, he spent just over a week in ICE custody before immigration authorities put him on a plane to Honduras. 

Miguel, on the other hand, has spent roughly five months in various ICE detention facilities. He was scheduled to appear by video in Fond du Lac County court Thursday morning. He never joined the call. 

“I don’t know what happened,” he wrote to Wisconsin Watch afterwards. “I was waiting and (facility staff) didn’t call me.”

Stacey couldn’t attend the hearing for health reasons, and Miguel has yet to secure an attorney for his Fond du Lac case. Court records do not indicate whether the prosecutor requested forfeiture of his $1,500 bail.

Courts left with loose ends when ICE detains criminal defendants is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The agricultural industry is feeling the strain from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, and Republican lawmakers are certainly hearing about it back home.

What elected officials will do about farmers’ frustrations is much less clear — an indication that relief could be far away.

“Members are beginning to talk about it, but it doesn’t feel as though a particular solution is coming into focus yet, and clearly the White House is going to be the most important player in these conversations,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee.

Ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in agricultural centers, from California to Wisconsin to New York, have increased pressure on members of Congress to provide fixes for farmers who say they are facing labor shortages.

In Wisconsin, for example, a 2023 University of Wisconsin study found that 70% of labor on the state’s dairy farms was done by undocumented workers. Many of those farmers have turned to existing temporary visas — like the H-2A visa, a seasonal agricultural visa — to staff their farms. The Trump administration moved to strip back labor protections for farmers hiring workers on the visa earlier this year, in an effort to streamline H-2A visas.

But those visas are inherently limited for year-round work, like at dairy farms.

The program is also associated with high costs and a slow-moving bureaucracy. Democrats and immigrant advocates said the administration’s move put workers at risk of abuse and exploitation. Approximately 17% of agricultural workers have an H-2A visa.

There are currently several proposed reforms floating around the Capitol.

A bipartisan bill introduced in May by Reps. Dan Newhouse and Zoe Lofgren proposes streamlining the H-2A visa process and providing visas for year-round agricultural employers.

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden has proposed legislation that would allow undocumented farmworkers to gain legal employment status, as long as they haven’t committed a crime. Both immigrants and their employers would be required to acknowledge the worker’s status and pay a fine.

“We got to understand, at this point these people are our neighbors. Our kids go to school together, and they’re part of our communities,” Van Orden said. “I don’t want these people having to hide underneath a trailer when immigration shows up.”

Van Orden’s bill has no co-sponsors.

Lawmakers formed a task force in 2023 to consider possible reforms to the H-2A visa program and improve the industry’s reliable labor shortage.

The Republican-majority House Committee on Agriculture has readied a bill that largely follows task force recommendations — which include proposals to streamline administrative paperwork, expedite application review by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and change the wage system — to overhaul the H-2A program.

Committee chair Rep. Glenn Thompson said the bill is awaiting “technical assistance” from the Department of Labor. That final step had been delayed by shutdown furloughs, he said. The Department of Labor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We’re very close to introducing a very strong, I’ll call it a tripartisan bill, because that includes Republicans, Democrats and individuals from the industry,” Thompson said.

The bill draft is expected to be ready for public review by early January.

Rep. Salud Carbajal, a Democrat on the agriculture committee, however, says he hasn’t heard from his Republican colleagues or the White House on the issue.

“There’s been no communication from my colleagues on the other side and from this administration,” he said.

Republicans say the White House is engaged on the issue. Thompson told NOTUS that he’s been in “frequent discussions” with the White House and the Department of Agriculture about immigrant farmworkers.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who also sits on the House Agriculture Committee, said the White House is “in the mood here to engage” on farmworker visas.

“A while back, the president acknowledged in a speech that we got to up the game on having more and simpler processes for having farm workers available. I know we feel that in California with our specialty crops,” LaMalfa said.

Trump in June suggested that farms would get a pass in the deportation crackdown — a statement that senior administration officials seemed to disagree with.

Immigration advocates haven’t been happy with the administration’s visa policy changes thus far.

Alexandra Sossa, the chief executive officer with the Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, said that her organization is “not in favor” of the H-2A visa program, which it associates with “human labor trafficking and labor exploitation.”

And now, with the ongoing immigration raids, she says, farmworkers who are brought to the country under the visa program fear deportation, and those who are considering coming under the program are apprehensive about doing so.

“We are talking about workers who wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning and start working at 5 a.m. and end working around 9 to 10 p.m., Monday to Sunday. So that’s not easy to find, and it’s a difficult job to do. The consequences on the economy are reflected when you go to the grocery store to buy food,” Sossa said.

Democrats, meanwhile, are calling for larger immigration reform to address the dangerous working conditions that the H-2A program has led to, while also giving a bigger pathway to work.

“When people are exploited, we’ve got to crack down on that,” Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat on the House Committee on Agriculture, said about the concerns regarding H-2A visas. “But I just think the climate that’s been created by this administration makes it difficult for some Republicans to even want to talk about the issue.”

“I hear from farmers all the time about concerns that their labor force will disappear, or that they can’t count on workers,” McGovern said.

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Farmers are feeling the squeeze from Trump’s mass deportations. Congress isn’t close to a fix. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A Nov. 14 conference at UW-Madison debated the merits of bringing fusion voting back to Wisconsin (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Dozens of political scientists, election experts and members of the public gathered in a UW-Madison conference room Friday to debate whether returning to a 19th century election process could empower voters and help turn back the United States’ slide toward authoritarianism. 

The event centered around fusion voting, which is the practice of allowing more than one political party to nominate the same candidate on a ballot. Currently used in Connecticut and New York, the fusion voting system means the candidates on the left can appear on the ballot under both the Democratic Party and the smaller Working Families Party while candidates on the right appear for the Republican Party and the Conservative Party. 

In theory this can give the minor parties enough influence to push for policy changes. A minor party that can swing 4% of a vote total can move the needle. 

Throughout the 1800s, fusion voting was the norm across the country — the Republican Party itself was formed in Wisconsin as a fusion party by voters who felt that the major parties at the time, the Democrats and Whigs, weren’t doing enough to end slavery. Eventually, the two major parties worked together to get the practice banned in most of the country.

Often, minor fusion parties are further from the ideological center than the major parties, but a lawsuit is currently pending in Wisconsin from a group called United Wisconsin aiming to create a fusion party that connects moderate voters who don’t feel like they’re represented by the modern Democrats or Republicans. The effort is being helmed by former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz and former Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney. The group is represented in the lawsuit by the voting rights focused firm Law Forward. 

Lawsuits to reinstate fusion voting are also pending in New Jersey and Kansas. 

Lilliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, said during the conference that the two party system and primary election process have polarized the country’s politics and made our’ “sense of winning or losing” more “existential.”

Looming over the discussions, but without being explicitly mentioned very often, was the Trump administration’s anti-democratic actions — including denying the outcome of the 2020 election, supporting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and pardoning Wisconsin’s fake electors —  and the threat of authoritarianism. The debate Friday was often an exchange over how fusion voting fits into broader systemic reforms and if it can be used in tandem with proposals including proportional representation, multi-member congressional districts, ranked choice voting, gerrymandering prohibitions, filibuster reform and others. 

“It makes it possible for people who want to organize and who want to create and claim their own political power, to do so in an effective way,” Beau Tremitiere, an attorney from the non-profit Protect Democracy, said. They’re exactly right. “People are deeply dissatisfied with the system. There’s a lot of energy to do something better and fusion makes that easier.”

Fusion advocates said the system allows politics to be more dynamic. People’s political beliefs don’t always fit neatly in a party system that encourages big tents and the necessity of coalition management in those big tents means that parties aren’t encouraged to distance themselves from their most extreme members. 

“Politics is a complex, dynamic system that is always changing,” said Lee Drutman, who studies political reform at the think tank New America. “And the key is, how do you keep it from spiraling out of control? How do you keep it from a self-reinforcing tumult? And if you have a party system problem, which we do, you need a party system solution.”

But several speakers at the conference also laid out the limits and downsides of fusion voting. It’s not a major structural reform. Fusion parties are usually further from the ideological center, so if the goal is a more moderate politics, it’s not clear fusion will deliver that. Members of the Green Party expressed concern that fusion enables a patronage system of political favor trading. 

Overall though, the conference often returned to the idea that the country is in a democracy crisis and experimentation is a good thing in the effort to turn it around. 

“I’m supportive of experimentation,” Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame, said. “It seems to me, we should see more real world experiments.”

Schultz, who was in the Legislature from 1983 to 2015, said he’s trying to establish a fusion party in Wisconsin to get more “humanity” in the state’s politics. 

“Why fusion voting? Why does it matter? Because of agency, the fact that suddenly people get a chance to sit at the table, to be a part of the discussions that matter to them,” he said. “Yes, fusion voting is not the be- and end-all political reform, but it is, in my opinion, an essential part of our future if we’re going to get back to having a healthy democracy.”

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Wisconsin municipalities and school districts, which rely on taxpayer dollars to fund their services, are running into rising frustration from the residents who pay those costs.

The frustration comes as more local governments are turning to wheel taxes to fund transportation-related services as costs of construction materials rise and local leaders say the Legislature over the years has constrained ways municipalities can raise additional revenues. Nearly half of Wisconsin residents are paying a wheel tax in 2025, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

The number of Wisconsin school districts turning to taxpayers to support referendums has also grown in recent years with the state seeing more than 200 ballot questions in 2024, 148 of which were operating referendums. Ninety-four districts sought referendums in elections this year, the most in an odd-numbered election year since 2007, the Policy Forum noted earlier this year. 

But Wisconsin taxpayers’ support for funding revenue needs of local governments and school districts appears to be waning as residents grapple with their own rising costs from energy bills to health care payments.

The Marquette University Law School Poll conducted in October showed 56% of voters found lowering property taxes to be more important than funding public education, a number that has gradually grown in the last two years. Between 2015 and 2022 more voters supported funding public schools over lowering property taxes. Additionally, 57% of Wisconsin voters in October said they would be more likely to vote against a school referendum when, just four months earlier, 52% of voters said they would support one. 

The public discontent with government taxes and fees aligns with a longtime Republican strategy to reduce the size and reach of government. Similar frustration with the role of government in the wake of the Great Recession swept Republicans into power in Wisconsin in 2010, and they’ve kept control of the Legislature since then.

Heading into the next cycle, Republican lawmakers are promoting bills that seek to limit when taxpayers can be asked for more funding.

One bill from Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, would require referendums for local governments that want to establish a wheel tax and mandate the municipalities and counties with existing wheel taxes to go to referendum to keep their fees in place. Hutton, who is up for reelection in 2026, holds perhaps the most vulnerable of three Republican Senate seats that Democrats are targeting in elections next year. 

A resident brought the idea for the wheel tax bill to Hutton’s office as New Berlin and Elm Grove considered implementing their own vehicle registration fees earlier this year, his chief of staff said in an email to Wisconsin Watch. The New Berlin Common Council officially rejected the option to pursue a wheel tax in July. 

“Some may argue that these are not make or break amounts of money, and that certainly may be the case,” Hutton said during an October hearing on the Assembly companion to his bill. “But every cost adds up to many citizens in these communities, especially those families who are living paycheck to paycheck.” 

Hutton’s bill is scheduled for a public hearing Wednesday, just a week after the Eau Claire City Council voted to raise the city’s wheel tax from $24 to $50. Eau Claire residents will pay $80 between city and county fees with the new increase, which is currently higher than Milwaukee where city residents pay $60 in wheel taxes split between the city and county. 

The vehicle registration fee increase will give the city of Eau Claire an additional $1.2 million, which the city’s finance director told councilors was necessary for a balanced budget without making other cuts. 

“If we didn’t have the wheel tax available, we would have to make very significant cuts,” Stephanie Hirsch, Eau Claire’s city manager, told Wisconsin Watch. “We can’t really touch our public safety departments because of state laws that require us to maintain spending and service maintenance of effort laws, so it would be coming from those public works functions or the other nonmandated services that we provide like operating a very popular outdoor pool or maintaining parks.” 

But Eau Claire residents opposed to the proposal said it was wrong to approve a wheel tax increase as costs are rising for food, health care, energy and more. 

“Another fee increase, especially on something as basic as the ability to drive to work, drive to school or appointments, should be completely off the table right now,” said Elizabeth Willier, who told the council she organized resident petitions against doubling the wheel tax through conservative group Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin.

Growing tax frustration

Citizen anger against government taxes isn’t new. But it seems that taxpayers in Wisconsin have especially become more engaged in government in the years since the coronavirus pandemic, said Paul Rozeski, the director of government and member relations with Wisconsin Property Taxpayers, Inc. 

More people want answers about where their money is going, he said. 

“We have a lot of small business members, and for them, it’s death by 1,000 paper cuts,” Rozeski said. “Clearly, more and more taxpayers are feeling the same way.” 

That public sentiment on referendums increased as 71% of Wisconsin’s school districts learned in October they will receive less general aid for the 2025-26 school year than they did the prior year. State general education aid funding was kept flat in the biennial budget earlier this year.

It could lead districts to make budget cuts, raise property taxes or even turn to voters with referendums to make up those funding gaps. 

“I think that’s not going to slow down,” Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, said last month of school district referendums. “I think we’re going to see even more, sadly.” 

Under current law Wisconsin school districts will receive a $325 per pupil increase each year in how much revenues they can raise from a combination of state aid and property taxes for the next 400 years due to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ creative veto in 2023.

It’s not clear yet how many school districts might seek referendums in 2026. State law gives districts up to 70 days before an election to adopt a resolution for a referendum, a spokesperson said. 

Solutions at the Capitol?

Republican legislative proposals at the Capitol have sought more transparency from school districts that seek additional dollars from taxpayers or more participation from local governments that seek revenues through wheel taxes. Additionally, the Assembly Committee on Education signed off on a series of bills looking to encourage school district consolidation across the state. 

Public hearings were held earlier this session on companion bills that would prohibit recurring operating referendums and limit ballot questions from applying to more than four years. Hutton and Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, also brought forward a proposal to bar school districts from pursuing referendums if they are not in compliance with Department of Public Instruction financial reporting requirements. 

Nedweski during a public hearing in October cited Milwaukee Public Schools as a reason for the bill. Voters passed a $252 million MPS referendum in 2024, but the district had failed to file 2023 state financial reports on time, which led DPI to withhold state funding. 

The likelihood of the Republican proposals receiving Evers’ signature is slim. While Hutton’s Senate bill on wheel tax referendums will receive a public hearing, it’s not clear what appetite other lawmakers will have for the proposal. 

The Assembly Committee on Local Government held a public hearing on the Assembly version of Hutton’s bill in late October, but chair Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville, told Hutton and Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin, that he opposed the proposal.

“If they don’t like a wheel tax, they can replace the board,” Novak said. 

Hirsch in Eau Claire understands that the increased wheel tax may be a hardship for residents with the combination of city and county fees. But requiring a referendum would take away options the city needs, she said. 

“What we really wish would happen is that the state government would give us more local control and more tools,” Hirsch said. “For example, what we wish for most is a local option sales tax. We really don’t like putting all of the weight on property taxes, and we don’t want to charge people the wheel tax. We wish there were other tools in the tool kit.”

As local governments plead for more revenue, Wisconsin voters are souring on more taxes is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• A federal board ruling has paved the way for courts to more easily toss out asylum cases and instead deport applicants, not to their home country, but to a “third country” they barely know.

• The ruling has the potential to affect the cases of thousands of immigrants who entered the asylum process since 2019.

• The Department of Homeland Security is using its extra power inconsistently, moving to send some asylum seekers to third countries while making more traditional motions in other cases. One immigration attorney says it illustrates the “crazy arbitrariness of the system.”

Milwaukee immigration attorney Anthony Locke spent the first weekend in November wrapping his head around the latest ground-shaking rule change for asylum cases. His Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counterpart apparently did the same while pushing to deport one of Locke’s clients.

Locke represents a Nicaraguan asylum seeker arrested in a late September ICE operation in Manitowoc. That client was set to appear before an immigration court judge on Nov. 4 in a hearing Locke hoped would move the man closer to securing his right to remain in the U.S. 

But five days earlier, the Board of Immigration Appeals — a powerful, if relatively obscure Department of Justice tribunal that sets rules for immigration courts — had paved the way for courts to more easily toss out asylum cases and instead deport applicants, not to their home country, but to a “third country” they barely know. 

Just before the Nov. 4 hearing, the DHS attorney motioned to dismiss Locke’s client’s case and deport him to Honduras, through which he had only briefly passed on his trek north. Locke now has until early December to argue that his client could face “persecution or torture” in Honduras. 

“Trying to demonstrate that they’re scared of a place they’ve had minimal contact with,” he said, is akin to proving a negative. 

If the judge sides with DHS, the Nicaraguan man will be sent to Honduras without an opportunity to make his case for remaining in the U.S.

“I am, quite frankly, not too hopeful, and I’ve had to be quite honest with my client about that,” Locke said. “This is so sudden, so jarring, and it has such an immense impact.”

The full impact of the appeals board ruling remains to be seen, but it has the potential to affect the cases of thousands of immigrants who entered the asylum process since President Donald Trump’s first administration in 2019 began establishing “safe third country” agreements, starting with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. 

U.S. law for decades guaranteed anyone physically present in the U.S. the right to seek asylum, but the agreements allowed the U.S. to instead send asylum seekers to third countries to seek legal status there. 

While Joe Biden suspended most third country agreements during his presidency, Trump, upon returning to office in January, revived them as a means to limit asylum applications and facilitate deportations. The list of countries willing to accept the deportees is still growing, though not all have signed formal “safe third country” agreements.

The Board of Immigration Appeals overhauled the process of sending an asylum seeker to a third country. Its ruling allows DHS to send asylum seekers to countries through which they did not pass en route to the U.S. It also requires immigration courts to consider whether asylum seekers can be sent to a third country before hearing their cases for remaining in the U.S., creating the proving-a-negative scenario Locke described. 

The ruling may not impact those who filed for asylum before third country agreements were forged. 

DHS did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s request for comment.

Locke’s client entered the U.S. in 2022, requesting asylum on the grounds that his protests against Nicaragua’s ruling party made him a target for persecution. The man entered the country through a Biden-era “parole” program that allowed some immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to live and work in the U.S. for two years, Locke said. Roughly a third of new arrivals to Wisconsin who entered the immigration court system since 2020 came from Nicaragua, though not all secured parole. 

The Trump administration ended the parole program earlier this year, claiming that the roughly 500,000 immigrants who entered the country through the program had not been properly vetted and that participants limited opportunities for domestic workers.

Locke’s client landed in the immigration court system in September after his arrest in Manitowoc. He is currently in custody in the Dodge County jail — one of a growing number of local detention facilities in Wisconsin housing ICE detainees. 

One of his fellow detainees, Diego Ugarte-Arenas, faces a similar predicament. The 31-year-old from Venezuela entered the U.S. in 2021 alongside his wife, Dailin Pacheco-Acosta. The couple filed for asylum upon reaching Wisconsin, citing their involvement in opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Pacheco-Acosta found work as a nanny in Madison, and Ugarte-Arenas found a restaurant job. 

ICE last month arrested the couple during a routine check-in at DHS’ field office in downtown Milwaukee, forcing them to argue their asylum case in the immigration court system. Ugarte-Arenas remains in Dodge County, while his wife sits in a county jail in northern Kentucky. Another recent Board of Immigration Appeals decision limits their ability to post bond and continue their case while reunited in Wisconsin. 

The couple appeared in court for the first time on Nov. 12, both via video call. Though separated by hundreds of miles, the cinderblock walls behind them made their settings look almost identical. 

As they waited for their case to reach the top of the queue, the couple watched the court field-test the new rule on third-country deportations as the DHS attorney motioned to send another asylum seeker to an unnamed third country. But when Judge Eva Saltzman called their case, the DHS attorney did not make the same motion.

“When you move this quickly and have this volume of cases, not every case gets treated the same,” said Ben Crouse, an attorney representing the couple. The inconsistency, Crouse said, reflects the “crazy arbitrariness of the system.” 

After scheduling a follow-up hearing, Saltzman allowed the couple to speak to one another for the first time since their arrest. 

“Everything will be OK, you hear me?” Ugarte-Arenas said through tears. 

Saltzman moved on to the next case.

‘So sudden, so jarring’: Immigration ruling streamlines deportations to countries asylum seekers barely know is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A Republican lawmaker’s plan to regulate drop boxes and give Wisconsin’s clerks more time to process absentee ballots ran into obstacles last week, including skepticism from fellow Republicans and a rival GOP bill to ban drop boxes entirely. 

The cool reception for Rep. Scott Krug’s ideas, especially to let clerks process ballots on the Monday before an election, underscores the GOP’s persistent internal divide over election policy in Wisconsin, with advocates of reforms long sought by election officials of both parties running into distrust fueled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Last week, the resistance appeared strong enough to stall or complicate efforts by Republicans who aim to address clerks’ needs and craft workable policy that can gain Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ support.

That split was on full display at a Nov. 4 hearing of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, chaired by Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin.

Krug, a former committee chair who championed the draft bill to regulate drop boxes, argued that his colleagues should adopt a “reality-based” mindset with their approach to drop boxes. Liberals, he said, control the governor’s office, making it all but certain that GOP Rep. Lindee Brill’s bill to ban drop boxes would get vetoed by Evers. 

To that, Brill responded: “I am a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ, so do I think there’s a chance that (Evers) would change his mind and sign this into law? Sure. But I’m taking this on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”

In response to questions, she dismissed an Associated Press survey of election officials that found no widespread fraud from drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election that could have affected the results, saying she wasn’t sure she considered the AP a valid source. 

“You and I find truth in different spots,” she told a Democratic lawmaker.

During the hearing, Maxey let others speak at length, including Peter Bernegger — a conspiracy theorist fined by the Wisconsin Elections Commission for making frivolous complaints — who echoed unfounded claims of widespread drop box fraud in Wisconsin.

When Krug scrutinized Brill’s proposal, though, Maxey interrupted him, leading a visibly frustrated Krug to ask him to “give me the last sentence, like we’ve let others have.”

Republicans have slim majority, divided caucus

This clash between the two views on election policy “is long-standing and is not going to be resolved anytime soon,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor and founder of the Elections Research Center. “Right now, it seems like neither path is really working.”

Assembly Republican leaders typically only advance bills that have 50 GOP votes, enough to pass without Democratic support. They once held 64 of 99 seats, nearly a supermajority, but now have just 54, meaning they can afford to lose only four GOP votes to advance legislation. That math and the internal distrust make passing even modest reforms difficult. Unless they can rally the more skeptical voices in their caucus, Burden said, Republicans have to be willing to cross the aisle and court Democratic votes. 

Maxey, who co-authored Brill’s bill, told Votebeat that drop boxes “are about as effective for election integrity as a mask is at preventing COVID,” an analogy that left his meaning muddled: Drop boxes in Wisconsin have never been proven to be a means for widespread fraud, whereas masks have been shown to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Maxey said his worries weren’t “wild conspiracy theories” but came from past ballot issues in Madison, though none of those involved drop boxes. He told Votebeat that he fears tampering and that voters using drop boxes might be unable to fix ballot errors.

Burden noted that valid ballots deposited in drop boxes are like any other absentee ballot and contain voters’ and witnesses’ information, which helps prevent fraud.

Monday processing proposal in doubt

Krug’s draft proposal to let local clerks begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before an election was a change long sought by election officials to help speed up the reporting of results, but blocked by a few conservative lawmakers. Krug and other GOP leaders hoped his proposal could win them over because it was part of a broader package that included measures conservatives want, including an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on absentee ballot envelopes, and the stricter regulation of drop boxes.

But at a hearing on Nov. 6, Krug conceded that both the preprocessing and drop box proposals were in jeopardy because of GOP opposition. Those measures were stripped out of the package after pushback from Brill, Maxey and other conservatives, who released their own bill to ban drop boxes entirely.

Maxey told Votebeat that he would likely give a Monday processing proposal a hearing in his committee but would vote against it — adding that he knows other Assembly Republicans are against it, too. 

Krug — who previously told Votebeat that he “would use every little ounce of political capital effort created on elections to get Monday processing done” — appeared to downplay the measure’s importance, saying it was only an issue in Milwaukee, where late-night reporting of election results often leads to conspiracy theories about fraudulent ballot dumps. 

Clerks elsewhere disagree that the problem is so localized. Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, told Votebeat she hopes Krug “hasn’t entirely given up” on the Monday processing proposal, though “that’s what it sounds like for this session, at least.”

Krug also blamed its failure so far on the governor’s office, which he said received the draft Monday processing proposal months ago but never got back to him.

“Scott Krug has taken enough you-know-what in every community in the state of Wisconsin for being bold on this issue and saying we have to do it,” Krug said. “I need partners.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin election reforms sought by clerks are stalled by GOP infighting is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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More than 300,000 veterans who served their country call Wisconsin home. 

During the 2025-26 legislative session, state lawmakers from both parties have proposed bills that would extend benefits to veterans, support memorials to wars they fought in and fund programs that help veterans who struggle with housing, mental health and substance abuse following their service. 

But one of the biggest debates at the Capitol this session has been funding for the Veterans Housing and Recovery Program, which supports Wisconsin veterans at risk of homelessness. Veterans homes in Chippewa Falls and Green Bay closed in September after the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs did not receive additional funding for the program during the budget process. 

Earlier this year, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed an additional $1.9 million for the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs to fund increasing costs of operating veterans homes. But the Republican budget-writing committee later removed those dollars. GOP lawmakers have argued the WDVA already has funding to cover the costs of the veterans homes in a general appropriation that annually has been underspent, but the department has said the removal of veterans home funding from the budget casts doubt on the legality of using those funds.

Several proposals to fund the veterans homes have been introduced at the Capitol this year, but a solution has not yet made its way to Evers’ desk. 

Here are notable bills on veterans issues moving through the legislative process. More legislation could be introduced as the current session continues. 

Homeless veterans funding 

Senate Bill 411/Assembly Bill 428

Lead authors: Sen. André Jacque, R-New Franken/Rep. Benjamin Franklin, R-De Pere

Summary: The bills would provide $1.95 million over the biennium to support the Veterans Housing and Recovery Program operated by the WDVA. It also requires the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents to fund the Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project and reduces the disability rating threshold for veterans or their surviving spouses to claim property tax credits. 

Of note: Evers told Wisconsin Watch in October that he would sign Jacque’s bill if it reaches his desk.  

Status: Senate Bill 411 passed the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Veteran and Military Affairs in October. Assembly Bill 428 was introduced in September but has not received a hearing. 

Assembly Bill 596/Assembly Bill 597

Lead author: Franklin

Summary: Assembly Bill 597 would create a state-administered grant program to provide grants to organizations that house homeless veterans through the veterans trust fund. Assembly Bill 596 would provide $1.9 million over the biennium for up to $25 per day for homeless veterans housing organizations. The state funding would complement a federal Veterans Affairs grant program that awards up to $82.73 per day. 

Of note: Joey Hoey, the assistant deputy secretary for the WDVA, testified before lawmakers that while the agency supports funding for homeless veterans, the bills would not allow the WDVA to reopen the veterans homes in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls that closed in September. 

Status: The bills received public hearings in the Assembly Committee on Veterans and Military Affairs in October. 

Senate Bill 385/Assembly Bill 383

Lead authors: Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick/Rep. Jodi Emerson, D-Eau Claire 

Summary: The bills would provide $1.9 million over the next biennium to cover the increased costs of operating the Veterans Housing and Recovering facilities in Union Grove, Green Bay and Chippewa Falls. They also would help fund the lease of a new facility in Chippewa Falls. 

Of note: The bills are the only proposals that provide the funding WDVA says it needs to fund the veterans homes without additional provisions in the legislation. 

Status: The bills were introduced and referred to legislative committees.

Substance abuse and recovery support

Senate Bill 396/Assembly Bill 404

Lead authors: Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton/Rep. Robyn Vining, D-Wauwatosa

Summary: The bills would provide an additional $512,900 in the 2025-26 fiscal year and $602,800 during the 2026-27 fiscal year for the WDVA’s Veterans Outreach and Recovery Program, which provides support to veterans with mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders. It also increases the number of full-time positions for the program by seven employees. 

Of note: A fiscal estimate states that the seven full-time positions were previously funded through American Rescue Plan dollars, but funding expired in July. 

Status: Both bills were introduced this session and referred to legislative committees. 

Housing and property taxes

Senate Bill 175/Assembly Bill 247

Lead authors: Jacque/Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston

Summary: The bills would require local governments to reduce building permit fees by 75% or $500 if the permit is for improvements to the home of a disabled veteran and are necessary to accommodate their disability. 

Of note: Paul Fisk, the legislative chair of the American Legion Department of Wisconsin, testified in support of the bill in April but noted Wisconsin’s proposal would be more restrictive than an Illinois proposal that became law in January. The Illinois law entirely waives permit fees for disabled veterans. 

Status: The Senate version of the bill passed the Committee on Natural Resources, Veteran and Military Affairs in May. The Assembly bill was introduced and referred to a legislative committee. 

Senate Bill 261/Assembly Bill 264

Lead authors: Smith/Rep. Christian Phelps, D-Eau Claire

Summary: The bills would allow a person to claim both the farmland preservation tax credit and the property tax credit for veterans and their surviving spouses in the same tax year. 

Of note: A fiscal estimate for the bill indicates allowing Wisconsinites to claim both credits would reduce tax revenues by about $160,000 per year starting in the 2026 fiscal year. 

Status: Both bills were introduced and referred to legislative committees.

Education

Senate Bill 587/Assembly Bill 591

Lead authors: Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim, D-Appleton/Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse

Summary: The bills would remove the funding cap for the Wisconsin GI Bill, which provides full tuition and fee remission to eligible veterans and their dependents at UW system schools and technical college districts.

Of note: In an October press release, Dassler-Alfheim said Wisconsin only covered 15% of the total costs for individuals attending a tech school and less for those attending a public university. 

Status: Both bills were introduced in October and referred to legislative committees.

Senate Bill 59/Assembly Bill 47

Lead authors: Jacque/Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Hortonville

Summary: The bills eliminate five-year residency restrictions in current law that specify when a veteran or surviving spouse or child can be eligible for tuition and fee remission for UW system schools and technical colleges. Under the bills, people can get tuition and fees waived as long as they indicate they are Wisconsin residents immediately before registering at a school. 

Of note: Representatives of the UW system and Wisconsin technical colleges testified that legislative appropriations are not covering the rising costs of remissions at their institutions.

Status: The Senate version of the bill passed the Senate Committee on Universities and Technical Colleges in October. The Assembly bill was introduced and referred to a legislative committee in February. 

Memorials

Senate Bill 254/Assembly Bill 250

Lead authors: Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto/Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc

Summary: The bills would create a continuing appropriation at a total of $9 million within the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs designated to support the preservation of the Milwaukee War Memorial Center. 

Of note: Annual maintenance costs for inside the 67-year-old memorial exceed $800,000, members of the war memorial’s board of trustees wrote to lawmakers in April. 

Status: The Assembly bill unanimously passed the Committee on Veterans and Military Affairs in June but hasn’t been scheduled for an Assembly vote. The Senate bill was introduced in May and referred to a legislative committee. 

More veterans benefits

Senate Bill 2/Assembly Bill 27

Lead authors: Jacque/Murphy

Summary: The bills would expand the definition of veterans in Wisconsin to include people who served in Special Guerrilla Units operating in Laos during the Vietnam War and were naturalized under the Hmong Veterans’ Naturalization Act of 2000. It would not include admission to state veterans homes or burial in a veterans cemetery. Those are subject to federal laws. 

Of note: In January testimony, Jacque said that there are as many as 1,000 Hmong veterans in Wisconsin. 

Status: The Senate bill passed the chamber in May. The Assembly bill passed the Committee on Veterans and Military Affairs but has not been scheduled for a floor vote. 

Senate Bill 387/Assembly Bill 389

Lead authors: Jacque/Franklin

Summary: The bills would change the definition of veteran to allow former members of the U.S. Army reserves or the National Guard to indicate their veteran status on their driver’s license or identification card. Current law does not allow veterans of the reserves or the National Guard to include that status on licenses. 

Of note: A fiscal estimate for the bill from the WDVA states that license applicants who want their veteran status on their identification must provide verification of their eligibility to the agency or a county veterans service officer. The agency processes 6,000 to 7,000 veteran status forms each year. 

Status: Both bills were introduced and referred to legislative committees.

Senate Bill 505

Lead author: Smith

Summary: The bill would allow disabled veterans with an up-to-date deer hunting license to hunt deer of either sex during any open firearm season, which is currently only available to active members of the U.S. military who are on furlough or leave in Wisconsin. 

Of note: A fiscal estimate for the bill suggests about 5,947 gun deer licenses sold by the Department of Natural Resources in the 2025 fiscal year were purchased by disabled veterans.

Status: The bill was introduced in October and referred to a legislative committee.

As Wisconsin celebrates Veterans Day, lawmakers are considering these 12 veteran-related bills is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin is among a coalition of states suing the federal government over new restrictions on disaster relief grants, increasing pressure on the Trump administration from battleground states.

Eleven states and the governor of Kentucky have filed a lawsuit this week against the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The lawsuit takes issue with two grants: the Emergency Management Performance Grant and the Homeland Security Grant Program. FEMA placed a hold on EMPG funding until states provide their population as of Sept. 30, 2025, and the plaintiffs argue that states do not keep such up-to-date census information. The federal agency also reduced the number of years that states must complete their grant activities to be reimbursed from three years to one.

“These grants go towards efforts and equipment that help protect Wisconsinites’ safety,” Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement. “The federal government shouldn’t be imposing new, unlawful conditions that hinder the use of these funds.”

In a statement to NOTUS, FEMA said it “implemented additional requirements on its grant programs” at the direction of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

“This is yet another example of a lawsuit trying to obstruct President Trump’s agenda and the will of the American people,” the statement said. “They are part of a methodical, reasonable effort to ensure that federal dollars are used effectively and in line with the Administration’s priorities and today’s homeland security threats.”

The lawsuit alleges that the administration did not properly follow legally mandated procedures to put these additional burdens of information on the state. Much of the funds are already accounted for in states’ budgets, the lawsuit said. For example, in Wisconsin, the funds go toward the state incident management team and statewide communications and warnings and maintain the state emergency operations center, the lawsuit said.

“Our emergency management and first responder teams worked around the clock in the weeks following Hurricane Helene, and these funds were critical to their work,” North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said in a statement. “We’re in hurricane season right now, and without these funds, we’ll be left with fewer resources to help people during the next storm that hits North Carolina.”

The lawsuit is led by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon are also participating in the suit. Several of the Trump administration’s moves around FEMA have ended up in court. In September, another coalition of blue states successfully sued over the administration’s decision to withhold homeland security funds from blue states.

“The Trump Administration should be working with states to keep our residents safe,” Nessel said in a statement about the litigation. “Instead, the White House continues again and again to pull the rug out from under us, putting the safety of our communities in jeopardy.”

North Carolina lawmakers have expressed frustration in recent months with FEMA. Sen. Ted Budd placed a hold on all DHS nominees because of FEMA delays. Budd announced that he would lift at least one hold on the nominee for DHS general counsel, James Percival, once western North Carolina received the approved funds.

This story was produced andoriginally published by NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute. This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and The Assembly.

Wisconsin pressures Trump administration in new lawsuit against FEMA and Department of Homeland Security is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Residents choosing health insurance on the federal marketplace for 2026 will contend with hikes in premiums and other fees, the potential ending of tax credits that made payments more affordable and fewer plan options in some areas. 

• But Wisconsin’s average premium hike of 17.4% next year is lower than the national average of 26%.

• The exact changes in costs and options depend on where you live. 

• Insurance navigators say finding an affordable plan is still possible.

People who rely on the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace to choose health insurance for 2026 must contend with a host of challenges as the open enrollment period begins. Those include hikes in premiums and other fees, the potential ending of tax credits that made payments more affordable, and fewer options in some areas. 

That’s as a growing number of residents have used the marketplace. More than 300,000 Wisconsinites, or about 5% of the state’s population, signed up for plans last year at HealthCare.gov — more than double the enrollment from about a decade ago. 

If you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed while considering your options, here is some information that might help. 

How long does open enrollment last? 

It began Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 15. Choose a plan by Dec. 15 if you want coverage to kick in by Jan. 1. 

How much will premiums increase? 

Here’s some bad news: Premiums in Wisconsin will increase on average by 17.4% next year, a Wisconsin Watch analysis shows. If it’s any consolation, that’s less than the estimated 26% national hike as reported by KFF, a health policy nonprofit.

“Wisconsin is better than the national average,” said Adam VanSpankeren, navigator program manager of Covering Wisconsin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension program that helps people enroll in publicly funded health care. “Don’t be afraid to look at your plan and see what’s available because you’ll probably be able to find an affordable option.”

Premiums for most plans will increase by 9.4% to 19%. Premiums for a few outlying plans will surge by over 33.3%.

The increases depend on where you live. For example, the new benchmark plan in Milwaukee County will be 44% more expensive than the 2025 benchmark. That’s compared to an increase of just 8.13% in La Crosse and Trempealeau counties.

A benchmark plan refers to the second-cheapest Silver-tier plan, an Affordable Care Act concept used to calculate subsidies to help a marketplace enrollee pay their premiums. 

Benchmark plans in Sawyer and Ashland counties will become the state’s most expensive next year, with 27-year-olds paying premiums of $637.57 per month. The two counties also stand out when comparing the average plan costs. The state’s cheapest benchmark plans will be found in Kewaunee, Brown, Door, Shawano, Oconto, Marinette and Manitowoc counties, where a 27-year-old will pay $444.58 monthly.

Statewide prices for Common Ground Health Cooperative will increase an average of 16.6% in 2026, including more noticeable hikes of at least 30% in Jefferson and Walworth counties. The company attributed the changes to rising health care costs and a changing federal landscape.

“By updating our rates, we can ensure the sustainability of our marketplace product and continue to deliver high-quality care to our members,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

What is happening with subsidies? 

More than 86% of Wisconsin enrollees last year received advanced premium tax credits that lowered the cost of premiums by an average of $585, according to KFF.

But one major subsidy, the enhanced premium tax credit, introduced in 2021, is set to expire at the end of 2025. Democrats in Congress have called for the credits to be extended in a debate that’s central to the ongoing federal government shutdown. 

The tax credit’s expiration would result in lower reimbursements for eligible households. Households with an income of more than four times the federal poverty level will no longer be eligible for any federal tax credit.

“How much Wisconsinites’ healthcare coverage costs will increase varies depending on age, income, plan selection, and available insurers in each county, but many Wisconsinites will see their premiums increase significantly, with seniors and middle-class families seeing some of the largest increases if Republicans in Congress do not extend enhanced tax credits under Affordable Care Act,” Evers wrote in an Oct. 27 press release.

A 60-year-old couple making around $85,000 in Barron County could see premiums skyrocket over 800%, with an annual increase of over $33,000 in costs, according to calculations by the Insurance Commissioner Nathan Houdek’s office. The same couple living in Dane County could see premiums triple, paying nearly $20,000 extra a year. 

VanSpankeren says to examine your options as soon as you can, with help from insurance agents or navigators such as those at Covering Wisconsin.

“That (cost increase) does not mean be scared or anxious or stay away from the marketplace,” VanSpankeren said. “It means you’ve got to look again, and you’ve got to do your homework and work with a navigator if you need to.”

If you’re looking for a marketplace plan, it’s a good time to estimate your income for the year, VanSpankeren added, even if that seems difficult. If your income changes over the year, you can report that later.

“You’re just going to do your best, and that’s all anybody can do,” he said. “But really take that extra time to calculate it, however close you can, it’s going to help you a lot in terms of making sure your plan is affordable and making sure you’re not paying back in tax credits that you shouldn’t have gotten.”

He also suggested considering how often you expect to visit the doctor’s office over the year and whether you anticipate any major procedures. That will help determine what plan makes most sense to choose. 

How will changes affect plan options? 

Residents in most counties will find fewer plan options as companies retreat from certain markets. Data from Houdek’s office show that 46 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties lost at least one insurance company. Up to four companies will stop serving Winnebago, Racine, Calumet, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Outagamie, Manitowoc and Kenosha counties. 

Two out of three providers currently serving Fond du Lac County have announced exits, leaving residents with just one option.

VanSpankeren worries dwindling options will push some residents out of the marketplace, leaving them unable to access any existing subsidies — potentially falling prey to providers that exploit people in need.

“This would be an opportunity for the good agents and brokers of Wisconsin to rise to meet that need and say, ‘Hey, there are these other things you’re looking for. This particular hospital, this plan actually covers it. Let’s talk about your options,’” VanSpankeren said.

Dean Health Plan by Medica, Fond du Lac’s remaining insurance provider, is “committed to being a stable presence in the community and supporting those who may need to choose a new plan,” spokesperson Ricky Thiesse wrote in an email.

The company encouraged residents to confirm whether their preferred doctors and hospitals are in-network, or if they need to select new providers to receive full benefits.

What other plan changes might we see? 

A majority (61%) of the health plans in Wisconsin will feature higher deductibles next year, increasing out-of-pocket costs before insurance starts paying. The most dramatic deductible increase will be $2,800.

Some providers are also adjusting co-pays and coinsurance rates to reduce company costs. That could require enrollees to pay more per doctor’s visit or spend more on certain drugs.

Should I consider a catastrophic plan? 

Catastrophic plans, a federal marketplace alternative, commonly feature low monthly premiums but very high deductibles before providers pay for care. They are seen as affordable ways to protect only against worst-case scenarios, like getting seriously sick or injured, according to HealthCare.gov. Catastrophic plans are open only to people under 30 or those who qualify for a hardship or affordability exemption. 

But they are also getting more expensive next year, with premiums surging an average of 57.8%. Catastrophic plans make up the top six plans with the biggest premium increases in 2026. 

VanSpankeren suggests comparing a catastrophic plan with Bronze- or Silver-tier plans that might offer more comprehensive coverage.

While individual comparisons will vary, a single 27-year-old enrolling in a catastrophic plan in 2026 would save an average of just $38 monthly compared to a Bronze-tiered plan.

“We don’t choose plans for people, and we don’t steer people towards plans. But I would say it is very rare for anybody that a navigator works with to choose a catastrophic plan,” VanSpankeren said. 

Want to see how we crunched the data? Read our data analysis process here.

How to navigate the health care marketplace as premiums rise and options shrink  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin candidates now have a path to get off the ballot besides dying, thanks to a proposal Gov. Tony Evers signed into law on Friday.

The proposal was triggered by 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s failed attempt to withdraw from the ballot in a bid to boost President Donald Trump’s candidacy. The case made its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which rejected Kennedy’s argument after a lower court ruled that death was the only way for nominees to drop off the ballot.

Under the measure that Evers, a Democrat, signed into law, candidates can now get off the ballot as long as they file to withdraw at least seven business days before the Wisconsin Elections Commission certifies candidates ahead of the August and November elections and pay processing fees to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The measure doesn’t apply to the February and April elections.

Many county clerks had opposed an earlier version of the legislation because the originally proposed deadline to drop out would have disrupted tight timelines to prepare, print and send off ballots on time. That deadline would have allowed candidates to get off the ballot any time before the election commission certified candidates’ names.

To address those concerns, Rep. David Steffen, the Republican author of the measure, amended the proposal to require candidates to let the commission know at least seven business days ahead of time. The law also would charge anybody impersonating a candidate to get off the ballot with a felony.

The measure passed the Assembly with a voice vote. It passed the Senate 19-14, with just two Democratic votes in favor. 

Steffen called the new law a win for Wisconsin voters, adding in a statement that it will “reduce unnecessary voter confusion.”

Clerks say they can adjust to ballot law

The new law won’t change operations much, said Wood County Clerk Trent Miner, a Republican in a county of about 74,000. Miner’s office programs and prepares the county’s ballots, which he said would make readjusting the ballots easier.

La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer, a Democrat, said a candidate dropping out at the last minute would still lead to extra hours of work since ballots are generally ready to be printed by then. But Dankmeyer added that it’s still doable and won’t stress her out. She said the new deadline is far better than the originally proposed one.

The Wisconsin law prohibiting withdrawal in cases besides death stood out nationwide as unusually strict. The state used to allow nominees to drop off the ballot if they declined to run, but it changed the policy in 1977 to the one that was active until Evers signed the new law last week.

Many other states allow nominees to drop off the ballot between 60 and 85 days before an election. Some states require polling places to have notices clarifying candidates’ withdrawal if they drop out after ballots are already printed.

Kennedy’s attempt to get off the ballot last year shocked clerks, who had already printed their ballots when his case was moving through the courts. 

His lawyers requested that clerks cover up his name on the ballot with stickers, a proposal that clerks said could lead to tabulator jams and disenfranchised voters. Kennedy still received 17,740 votes, or about 0.5% of the vote. Trump won the state by a little less than a percentage point.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Wisconsin candidates have path off the ballot besides death under new law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Jack Daly, who was convicted and sent to prison last year after pleading guilty to defrauding thousands of conservative political donors out of money — including a scheme claiming to draft former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke to run for the U.S. Senate — has emerged from federal custody to quietly re-establish himself as a top Republican Party campaign fundraiser.

A NOTUS investigation found that dozens of federal-level Republican political committees — including the Republican National Committee, numerous congressional committees and campaign operations tied to President Donald Trump — have together spent nearly $18 million on digital fundraising, donor lists and other services from Daly’s latest political consulting firm, Better Mousetrap Digital, according to Virgin Islands corporate filings and Federal Election Commission records.

Daly established Better Mousetrap Digital in September 2023, around the time he surrendered his North Carolina law license, accepted notice of disbarment and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and lying to the Federal Election Commission.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Daly “targeted vulnerable victims, including a woman with Alzheimer’s and elderly veterans.” A judge in December 2023 sentenced Daly to four months in prison, a $20,000 fine and nearly $70,000 in restitution payments.

Federal Bureau of Prisons records indicate Daly exited federal custody in June 2024. He is scheduled to remain under supervised release until mid-2026 and is currently petitioning a federal court to vacate his conviction.

Daly, through his attorney, Brandon Sample, declined to answer a series of questions from NOTUS about his legal history, experiences in prison and Better Mousetrap Digital’s operations and business model. Daly likewise declined to comment about whether Better Mousetrap Digital clients are aware of his legal situation and whether he’s ever lost business because of it.

But when asked by NOTUS about their contracts with Daly’s Better Mousetrap Digital for fundraising and data services, several Republican political committees said they will stop, or have stopped, working with the firm.

Among them: the Republican National Committee, which has paid Better Mousetrap Digital more than $1 million since September 2023. This includes payments as recently as last month, on Sept. 17 and Sept. 30, totaling nearly $15,000 for a “list acquisition,” according to FEC records.

“Services from this vendor originated more than two years ago under a previous leadership team, and currently the RNC does not have an ongoing business relationship with them,” RNC Communications Director Zach Parkinson told NOTUS. “The RNC runs one of the largest digital fundraising operations in the conservative ecosystem, which regularly works with a wide range of outside vendors for services. All RNC activities are conducted in full compliance with the law.”

The Mullin Victory Fund — a joint fundraising committee composed of Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s Oklahoma campaign committee, the senator’s Boots Political Action Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — has spent about $66,000 with Better Mousetrap Digital since September 2023, FEC records indicate.

The Mullin committee’s most recent payment to Daly’s firm came last month, on Sept. 30 — $4,969 for “list rental fees,” per FEC records.

“We were not aware of this, and will not use them moving forward,” Mullin’s campaign committee said in a statement to NOTUS when asked if it was aware of Daly’s legal history.

Meanwhile, the reelection campaign of Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican of Wyoming, has spent about $122,000 on “fundraising fees” with Better Mousetrap Digital since 2023, including more than 30 transactions this summer and autumn, according to FEC records through September.

When asked why it works with Daly’s company, Hageman’s campaign told NOTUS that “we have advised all vendors to cease any sub-vendor relationships with the referenced company.”

The 1776 Project PAC has paid Better Mousetrap Digital about $151,000 since September 2023, with its most recent payment coming on June 30, for “fundraising consulting agency fees” totaling about $111,000, according to the most recently available FEC records.

“The 1776 PAC has never spoken to Jack Daly,” PAC spokesperson Mitchell P. Jackson said. “He was a digital vendor that worked for a vendor, who we no longer work with. In other words, Daly was a vendor of a vendor that we no longer use.”

NOTUS attempted to contact more than three dozen other Republican political committees about their payments to Better Mousetrap Digital, which range from the low four figures to well into seven figures.

The federal-level committees of the Republican Party of Florida and West Virginia Republican Party acknowledged NOTUS’ inquiries but provided no answers to requests. The Republican state party committees in Arizona, California, Iowa, Minnesota and Texas, which also do business with Better Mousetrap Digital, did not respond to repeated messages.

Nor did several of Better Mousetrap Digital’s most lucrative federal clients, including the NRSC (more than $5.2 million in spending since September 2023), Trump National Committee JFC (nearly $3.6 million in spending) and the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee (nearly $1 million).

Congressional reelection committees that have recently used Better Mousetrap Digital and that did not respond to requests for comment include those of Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. The campaigns of Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Cory Mills, Byron Donalds, Jimmy Patronis and Kat Cammack of Florida also did not respond, nor did those of Reps. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Ronny Jackson of Texas.

Better Mousetrap Digital also does some state-level political business. In New Jersey, for example, state campaign finance records indicate Republican political committee Elect Common Sense has spent more than $155,000 with Better Mousetrap Digital, mostly on “fundraising fees.” Kitchen Table Conservatives, a New Jersey super PAC in part led by former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway that’s supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli ahead of next week’s election, has spent more than $7,000.

On his LinkedIn page, Daly describes himself as a “prominent and prolific digital fundraiser for more than one thousand clients (GOP candidates/committees and conservative/MAGA causes)” and a “leading digital fundraiser for President Trump & Congressional Republicans.”

Better Mousetrap Digital describes itself as the “premier digital fundraising consulting firm for Republicans. With decades of experience spanning from state house campaigns to the White House, we bring unparalleled expertise and dedication to our clients.”

On its website, the firm advertises Donald Trump for President, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the RNC as clients, alongside the committees’ logos.

Daly, who previously led digital fundraising firm Reach Right Digital Marketing LLC, per Virgin Islands corporate records, can trace his legal troubles back to 2017, the same year the Daily Caller published an article about Daly headlined, “How a shady super PAC convinced 20,000 conservatives to hand over their money.”

Prosecutors accused Daly and fellow attorney Nathanael Pendley of raising more than $1.6 million for a political committee, known as Draft PAC, that promised to convince Clarke, the former Milwaukee County sheriff, to run for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin ahead of the 2018 midterm election.

Clarke, who did not respond to requests for comment for this article, never ran for the Senate and maintained he never had intentions to do so, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Daly was operating a “scam PAC.” Federal prosecutors said Daly and Pendley kept fundraising anyway, in part for their personal benefit, and lied about their activities to federal officials.

In a letter to NOTUS, Sample — Daly’s attorney, who leads the Washington, D.C.-based Criminal Center LLC law firm — wrote that “a guilty plea is an admission only to the essential elements of the charged offense, and nothing more.”

While Daly “respects the freedom of the press,” Daly “will not tolerate the publication of any material that misrepresents the narrow scope of his plea, repeats as fact the government’s unproven and rejected allegations, or otherwise defames him,” Sample wrote.

Sample also emailed a copy of the transcript of Daly’s Dec. 15, 2025, sentencing hearing before U.S. District Court Judge J.P. Stadtmueller, with several passages highlighted.

Among them is a statement from Daly’s former attorney, Matthew Dean Krueger, that Daly’s crime is “a very limited offense.”

Krueger also told the court that “the government suggests that the defendants put each of these prospective donors at risk. No, it is the other way around. It’s the donor that put themselves at risk by subscribing or submitting a contribution.”

Daly is now in the midst of a monthslong court proceeding in which he is fighting to have his conviction vacated.

In a Sept. 30 request for an evidentiary hearing, Sample argues in a filing with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin that Daly received “substantively incorrect advice” from his previous attorneys and was in “profound turmoil over his plea” — and therefore unable to make a “knowing and intelligent decision during the critical window when his right to withdraw that plea was absolute.”

In his 2023 plea agreement, Daly “acknowledges, understands and agrees that he is, in fact, guilty of the offense” of which he was charged. “The defendant admits that these facts are true and correct and establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

At Daly’s December 2023 sentencing hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Knight argued that “Mr. Daly has pled guilty to a year-long criminal conspiracy to lie to the FEC and to defraud donors. So the idea that somehow it’s inaccurate to suggest that there’s a multi-year course of criminal conduct, that’s literally the offense of conviction. That is beyond dispute at this point, and any suggestion to the contrary should just be flatly rejected.”

This story was produced and originally published by NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Fundraiser convicted of defrauding ‘vulnerable’ victims is back — and making millions from Republican campaigns is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Election Day 2026 is now 365 days away. Over the next year Wisconsin voters will cast their ballots in a number of races that will set the future direction of the Badger State. 

Voters will see candidates — and campaign ads — in 2026 for races from the governor’s office to the Capitol’s legislative chambers to the halls of Congress. Many of the top statewide races feature open seats, which will mean new faces in offices following next year’s elections. 

There is much on the line. Will Republicans retake control of the governor’s office? Will Democrats win a majority in  either chamber of the Legislature? Will the liberal majority grow on the Wisconsin Supreme Court? 

Here are five election storylines Wisconsin Watch is following as the state heads into 2026. 

Another Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Before next November, Wisconsin has another Supreme Court race in April. 

Appeals Court judges Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor are running for the seat currently held by Justice Rebecca Bradley, who announced in August she would not run for another 10-year term on the court. While it’s still possible for other candidates to enter for February primary contests, signs point to Lazar and Taylor as the likely contestants.

The candidates are political polar opposites, even as Wisconsin’s judicial races remain “nonpartisan” in name only. Lazar is a conservative former Waukesha County Circuit Court judge, who served as an assistant attorney general during former Gov. Scott Walker’s administration and defended key policies in court, including the administration’s voter ID laws. Taylor, a former policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, served as a Democrat in the Assembly before Democratic Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020. She ran unopposed for an appellate seat in 2023.

But, unlike the 2024 and 2025 Supreme Court elections, the race between Lazar and Taylor is not for a majority on the court. That makes it less likely to draw record spending than previous years, said David Julseth, a data analyst with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. 

Still, Taylor has already raised more than $500,000 in the first half of the year, according to campaign finance reports. The financial position for Lazar, who announced her candidacy in early October, will become clearer after fundraising reports are filed in January.

Will Democrats flip the Senate? Will Republicans maintain the Assembly majority?

Republicans have controlled both the Assembly and the Senate since 2011. But while the GOP held onto majorities in both chambers in 2024, Democrats flipped 14 Senate and Assembly seats last year to further chip away at Republican control. 

The party breakdown in the Legislature this session is 18-15 in the Senate and 54-45 in the Assembly. 

The attention of political watchers is on the Senate where Democratic Campaign Committee communications director Will Karcz said gains in 2024 put the party in a good position to win a majority in 2026. 

The Assembly poses more of a challenge. Twelve Assembly seats were won within less than 5 percentage points in 2024. Just five of those races were won by Republicans, so Democrats would have to flip those seats and maintain the seven other close contests from 2024 to win a majority next year. And those five include some of the more moderate Republican members, such as Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville.

The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee is eyeing three districts currently held by Republicans in parts of the state where portions of the new legislative maps will be tested for the first time. They include the 5th District held by Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield; the 17th District held by Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green; and the 21st District held by Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine. Democrats running in those districts include Rep. Robyn Vining in the 5th, Rep. Jenna Jacobson in the 17th and Racine Transit and Mobility Director Trevor Jung in the 21st. 

The party is also eyeing the 25th District seat held by Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, as a potentially competitive race.

Democrats would gain a majority in the Senate if the party flips two seats and holds onto District 31 held by Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick. Republican Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, in mid-October announced he plans to run for the District 31 seat. James moved to Thorp after his home in Altoona was drawn out of his seat in the 23rd District, but last month said he planned to “come home.”

Who will be the gubernatorial nominees? 

Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial election is the state’s first since 2010 without an incumbent on the ballot. Evers announced in July he would not seek a third term, opening up the field for competitive primaries ahead of the general election next November. 

Neither candidate field is set at this point, but two Republicans and seven Democrats already announced gubernatorial campaigns this year. There is still a long stretch of campaigning before Wisconsin voters choose their candidates. The Marquette University Law School Poll released Oct. 29 shows a majority of registered voters haven’t heard enough about the candidates. Additionally, 70% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats have yet to decide on a primary candidate, the poll shows. 

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann make up the current Republican primary field. Tiffany is positioned as the front-runner largely due to the base of more than 700,000 residents in his congressional district, said Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist and Republican strategist who previously worked for former Gov. Tommy Thompson. 

Tiffany and Schoemann are both “consistent conservatives,” and a clean primary between the two candidates could benefit Republicans further into next year, McCoshen said. 

“Republicans did a lot of damage to themselves in the 2022 primary and weren’t able to put the whole house back together in time for the general,” McCoshen said. “There are a lot of Republicans who, sadly, did not vote for (2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee) Tim Michels, and we can’t have a repeat of that.”

The Democrats include Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. leader Missy Hughes, former Madison state Rep. Brett Hulsey, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Madison state Sen. Kelda Roys and beer vendor Ryan Strnad. 

The unanswered question for Democrats is whether former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes enters the primary contest. Some polls already indicate Barnes, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 and narrowly lost to Sen. Ron Johnson, would be the Democratic front-runner if he enters the race. 

The Marquette poll shows none of the Democratic primary candidates has reached double-digit percentage support. Hong had the most support among Democrats at 6% with Rodriguez next at 4%. 

Will there be a congressional shake-up in the 3rd District? 

All eight of Wisconsin’s congressional districts are up for election in 2026, but the race to watch is the 3rd Congressional District in western Wisconsin currently held by U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden. 

Van Orden was elected to the 3rd District in 2022. It had been held by former Democratic Rep. Ron Kind for 26 years before he retired. In his two terms in Congress, Van Orden, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, has garnered a reputation as a polarizing political figure. 

“Derrick Van Orden does not have as firm a grip on the district as incumbents do, like Bryan Steil, in their districts,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “He’s a controversial figure. He’s given his opponents a lot of material that could be used against him.”

Van Orden won reelection in 2024 by less than 3 percentage points over Democrat Rebecca Cooke. The 2026 contest will most likely be a rematch between Van Orden and Cooke, a waitress who previously ran a Democratic fundraising company.  

In 2024 and 2026, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put the Van Orden-Cooke race on the party’s lists of flippable House seats. National election analysis sites, such as the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, rate Wisconsin’s 3rd District as a toss-up. 

Wisconsin voters in the Northwoods will see an open contest in the 7th Congressional District with Tiffany’s exit to run for governor. At least three Republicans have already announced campaigns in the 7th: former 3rd District candidate Jessi Ebben, Ashland attorney Paul Wassgren and Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. 

That seat is likely safe for Republicans. Tiffany won reelection in 2024 by 27 percentage points. 

What will the voter mood be in 2026?

Signs are beginning to emerge as to what mood voters will be in as they head to the polls. 

Democrats could benefit from a midterm election year, where Trump is not on the ballot and elections often favor the opposite party of the White House. 

Since Trump’s inauguration in January, his administration has garnered headlines for its immigration policies, cuts to federal government agencies and the deployment of the National Guard to Democratic cities, such as Chicago. Opposition to Trump and his policies has led to mass demonstrations across the country this year.

“National politics now is largely a battle between the Trump administration and Democratic governors and attorneys general around the country,” Burden said. “So I think Trump is going to be near the center of the governor’s race.” 

Inflation and the cost of living are the top issue for Wisconsin’s registered voters heading into 2026, which could also support Democratic candidates running against Republicans currently in office. The poll found 83% of Democrats, 79% of independents and 54% of Republicans are “very concerned” about inflation. The top concern for Republicans, according to the poll, is illegal immigration and border security, with 75% of Wisconsin GOP respondents saying they are “very concerned” about the issue.

“Inflation stuff is much more of a problem for the Republicans at this point because presidents tend to get blamed for that,” said Charles Franklin, the Marquette poll director. “Across all of our questions that touch on inflation, cost of living, price of groceries, those are some pretty grim numbers if you’re the incumbent party that may be held to account for it. We saw how much that damaged Biden when inflation spiked in the summer of 2022.” 

Republicans, though, could benefit from increasing voter concern about property taxes. The Marquette poll shows 56% of voters say reducing property taxes is more important than funding public education — a reversal from responses to that question during the 2018 and 2022 elections that Evers won. And 57% of voters said they would be more likely to vote against a school referendum, a huge swing from just four months ago when 52% said they would support a referendum.

5 things to watch over the next year as Wisconsin’s election cycle begins is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Chief Inspector Megan Williamson processes absentee ballots at the Hawthorne Library on Madison's East Side. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a right-wing law firm, complained in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice last week that the Wisconsin Elections Commission is improperly allowing erroneous data entries to remain in the state voter registration database. 

The Elections Commission says WILL is overstating its claims, misunderstanding how the voter database is used and wrong about the requirements of federal law. Meanwhile election administration experts say that WILL is stoking the fears of Wisconsin election conspiracy theorists, which is dangerous because of the Trump administration’s history of election meddling, increasing willingness to prosecute perceived enemies and growing warnings that it will interfere in next year’s midterms. 

In its letter to the DOJ, WILL complains that the state voter database includes “thousands of active, registered voters in Wisconsin whose voter registration information does not match the information in their DOT records. And WEC appears to be doing nothing about it.” The letter states that this problem has only worsened in recent years. 

State law requires that whenever someone registers to vote, either online or in person with their local municipal clerk, the information they provide is double checked against data kept by the state Department of Transportation — the person’s name, date of birth, address, driver’s license number or Social Security number. 

When someone registers online, this double check happens automatically. When someone registers on paper, the data is entered manually by the clerk and checked against the DOT information. 

The problem is that human error can creep into data entries, so there are entries in which someone with the full name “Robert” registers to vote under “Bob,” or the characters in a 14-digit driver’s license number are transposed or the clerk makes a typo. 

When these mistakes are made, clerks can rectify them on their own, or reache back out to the voter to clarify. The double-checking process is required under a federal law, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). 

“Approximately 5% of the people who registered to vote between January 1 and November 3, 2020, were at least initially non-matches with either DMV or Social Security databases,” a FAQ page on the elections commission website states. “That does not mean these voters are not real Wisconsin citizens. When there is a non-match, a registered voter is never ‘removed’ from the statewide voter database. Neither Wisconsin nor federal law require a match, and Wisconsin law does not permit clerks or the WEC to remove a voter from the list for not matching.”

WEC notes that the HAVA check requirements on the state were litigated in 2008 and that the law does not require Wisconsin’s election authorities to declare people as ineligible voters. But WILL states the agency has been ignoring the problem.

“Critically, WEC has not taken sufficient steps to remedy this situation. In fact, the issue has gotten worse,” the letter states. “WILL understands that this data does not indicate the cause of the discrepancy. And while some of these errors might be minor, the large and growing number of mismatches in the system underscores the need for a comprehensive audit of Wisconsin’s voter registration list, which WEC refuses to perform in violation of its obligations under HAVA. Accordingly, we respectfully request that the U.S. Department of Justice takes this information into account as it investigates this issue and takes all necessary steps to remedy this significant problem.”

Emilee Miklas, a spokesperson for WEC, disputes the WILL analysis. 

“The primary objective of the HAVA check process is to identify errors and rectify discrepancies,” she said in an email. “The presence of non-matches discovered in a previous analysis does not necessarily indicate a persistence of errors in the system a year later.”

In a statement, WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said the commission FAQ is “not a sufficient explanation” for the data errors. 

“Given the thousands of mismatches that are in the current voter registration list, it appears that whatever WEC does, if anything, is woefully insufficient,” Vebber said. “But to determine if WEC is complying with HAVA it is necessary for WEC to describe the complete process in its response.”

Jeff Mandell, general counsel at the progressive voting rights focused firm Law Forward, says the letter is the latest example of WILL repeatedly casting doubt on the voter rolls. He pointed to a 2018 lawsuit in which WILL sued to force WEC to kick thousands of people off the voter registration list. WILL ultimately lost that lawsuit at the state Supreme Court, which was controlled by a conservative majority at the time. 

“This is just more fearmongering. WILL has been trying to purge the voter rolls for years,” Mandell says, adding that it’s part of the Republican party’s recent efforts to stir up unfounded concern about non-citizens casting ballots. “They have been upset about the voter rolls and insisting without evidence the voter rolls are wrong. Now they’re jumping onto the latest piece of this and skepticism about proof of citizenship. There is still no evidence, no one has been able to show any incidence of non-citizen voting. If the rolls were as error-filled as WILL’s latest suggestions insist, that wouldn’t be true.”

After the rise of election conspiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election, WILL  distanced itself from the most fevered Republican theories. The firm released a report on the 2020 presidential election, affirming that it was won by Joe Biden while pointing to a number of adjustments and rule changes that could be made to improve Wisconsin’s  election administration. 

“WILL seems to want it both ways, claiming to not be conspiracy mongers and that they can prove that by saying Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and yet still play footsie with conspiracy mongers,” Mandell says. “They do that by filing nonsense lawsuits over and over and over … and this is another example.” 

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, says that the only effect of going to DOJ with these complaints is raising the likelihood that the results of the 2026 midterms will be questioned — by Trump or his supporters. 

“All they’re doing is providing a little ammo to the Trumpers and the people that are going to question the outcome of the 2026 election,” Heck says. “And so they’re just planting more seeds of doubt in people’s minds, at least the people that would be doubting it anyway.”

Heck also points out that an easy solution to WILL’s complaint would be the establishment of automatic voter registration in Wisconsin, which would automatically register someone to vote when they obtain a driver’s license or state ID from the DOT and cut out WEC’s role as the middleman. But, he says, WILL and Republicans do not support that. 

Despite the DOJ’s potential threat to interfere in election administration, Vebber said in his statement the firm went to the DOJ because it is the agency responsible for enforcing HAVA.

“The U.S. Department of Justice has the express authority to enforce each state’s compliance with HAVA,” Vebber said. “WILL is concerned that WEC is violating HAVA. As a result, the correct agency to complain to is USDOJ. As stated above, in our letter to the U.S Department of Justice we suggested [eight] specific follow-up questions on this issue. WEC does not need to wait for the USDOJ to answer these questions. In the interests of transparency, we would ask WEC to voluntarily answer them.”

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As Democrats across the country devise ways to match Republican redistricting efforts, a long-standing battle over congressional maps has been quietly progressing in one of the nation’s most competitive swing states.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is taking up two gerrymandering lawsuits challenging the state’s congressional maps after years of back-and-forth litigation on the issue. Over the summer, it appeared redistricting efforts would go nowhere before the midterms; the state’s high court in June rejected similar lawsuits.

But liberal groups have found new ways to challenge the maps that the state Supreme Court appears open to considering. This time, plaintiffs are requesting the court appoint a three-judge panel to hear their partisan gerrymandering case, and a new group has stepped into the fray with a lawsuit that argues a novel anticompetitive gerrymandering claim.

The jury is still out on whether those rulings will come in time for 2026.

“Could they be? Yes. Will they be? That’s hard to say,” said Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice.

Some developments in the cases in October indicate that the gerrymandering fight in Wisconsin is far from over.

The justices have allowed Wisconsin’s six Republican congressmen to join the cases as defendants. The congressmen are now looking to force two of the court’s liberal justices, Janet Protasiewicz and Susan Crawford, to recuse themselves from the cases. Both justices were endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin; Protasiewicz criticized the maps on the campaign trail, and Crawford’s donors billed her as a justice who could help Democrats flip seats.

Some are unsure why the Republican congressmen are entering the fight now, months after the liberal groups filed the new cases.

“They took their time to even seek intervention, and now they’re seeking recusal, and now they’re trying to hold up the appointment process. I’m sure their goal is to try to throw sand in the gears of this litigation,” said Abha Khanna, a plaintiff attorney in Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, the partisan gerrymandering case requesting that the courts appoint a three-judge panel to review the maps.

The offices and campaigns of the six Republican congressmen did not respond to requests for comment.

Khanna said her team filed the lawsuit with enough time to potentially redraw the maps, despite the congressmen’s recent actions.

“There certainly is time to affect the 2026 elections,” she said.

This lawsuit lays out a more familiar partisan gerrymandering argument, in which lawyers say Wisconsin’s congressional maps discriminate against Democratic voters. Six of the state’s eight House seats are filled by Republicans, even though statewide elections have been close partisan races. Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin — a Republican and Democrat, respectively — won their most recent statewide elections by a percentage point or less, while Gov. Tony Evers kept his office by more than 3 percentage points in 2022 (Evers will not be seeking reelection in 2026).

The plaintiffs believe they ultimately have a strong case because the state’s high court ruled in 2023 that the “least change” principle — which dictated the 2021 maps to be drawn “consistent with existing boundaries” of the 2011 maps — should no longer be used as primary criteria in redistricting. The state legislative maps were changed. But the federal district maps were not.

In effect, the maps that were proposed by Evers in 2021 continued on the legacy of Republican gerrymandering, Khanna said. The lawsuit, filed in July, requests the appointment of a three-judge panel to hear the case, after the state Supreme Court in June rejected the plaintiffs’ petition.

“It’s a judicially created metric that violates the principles of the (Wisconsin) constitution,” Khanna said. “This can be decided without any fact-finding at all. The court can decide it as a matter of law, and then we can proceed quickly to a remedial map.”

Not everyone involved is so optimistic that this will be resolved quickly. Jeff Mandell, a plaintiff attorney in the redistricting lawsuit alleging that the maps are illegally too favorable to incumbents — a new argument that hasn’t been tested in the state — said it is “exceedingly unlikely” that new maps could be drawn in time for the midterm elections. Primary candidates must file their nomination papers to the elections commission by June 1, 2026. The final district lines must be in place by spring for candidates to circulate their papers among the right voters.

“If we don’t have maps by the end of March or so, it’s very, very difficult to run the election next November,” Mandell said.

Even if the Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that the current maps are unconstitutional, the most likely scenario would punt the task of redrawing to partisan officeholders, he added — a process that could hinder easy consensus and potentially draw out the timeline for months.

Mandell’s lawsuit is arguably facing a bigger hurdle as it attempts to make the case that the districts are drawn in a way that makes it extremely difficult for challengers to have a real chance.

The exception is Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, where Rep. Derrick Van Orden has won by fewer-than-four-point margins and is currently facing three challengers, including the well-funded Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who lost to him in 2024.

The median margin of victory in Wisconsin’s remaining congressional districts is about 29 percentage points, according to a NOTUS review.

“Thirty points is not something you can overcome by having a really good candidate, it’s not something you can overcome by having a great campaign plan and executing it flawlessly, it’s not something you can overcome when there’s a swing election,” Mandell said.

The next months will prove whether the incumbent argument is convincing to Wisconsin’s justices, who have heard their share of redistricting cases.

This story was produced andoriginally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Wisconsin’s redistricting fight isn’t over, but will new maps be drawn in time for 2026 election? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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As a 19-year-old election worker in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Lydia McComas discovered how meaningful it was to help voters navigate the process. Less than a decade later, she’s the city clerk in Madison, Wisconsin, overseeing one of the most scrutinized election offices in the state and working to rebuild trust after last year’s ballot mishandling scandal. 

Between those two points, McComas followed an unusually direct path: a college internship supporting elections planning, then a full-time job in a county elections office along with a graduate program in election administration.

She’s part of an emerging generation of officials who set out early and very intentionally, through internships and university training, to make a career out of election work. Driving this movement toward professionalized election administration are veterans of the field who recognize the need to replace retiring clerks and have spent years creating a stronger, more sustainable pipeline.

Together they are transforming a profession once dominated by civic-minded volunteers and on-the-job learners.

“I’d love for more young people to get involved with election administration and explore it as a future career,” McComas told Votebeat in an interview. 

For now, McComas is an outlier in Wisconsin: At 28, she’s among the youngest to hold a municipal clerk position — and one of the few who pursued the election profession, on purpose, from the outset. Nearly 80% of the state’s chief election officials are over 50, and fewer than half have a college degree or higher, according to the Elections & Voting Information Center. 

Her rise comes amid historic turnover that highlights the urgency of developing the pipeline of election officials: Between 2020 and 2024, more than 700 of Wisconsin’s municipal clerks left their posts, the highest churn in the nation.

The new generation is fully aware that the job has changed since many of those veteran clerks started, said EVIC research director Paul Manson, with their work under closer public examination and intense political pressure.

McComas’ expertise will be tested

McComas’ new role is about more than elections — she’ll take meeting minutes, process licenses and handle business registrations, among other duties. But her expertise is connecting with voters, the media and community partners and explaining complex election procedures in layman’s terms.

That expertise will be tested immediately in Madison, where trust in the city’s election office is still mending after last year’s controversy over 193 missing ballots. The fallout — investigations, a civil lawsuit, and the suspension and resignation of longtime clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl — left voters demanding transparency.

“There’s pressure to make sure that everything works well, that the public trusts us,” McComas said. She knows the climb will be steep. Most of the staff who weathered that turbulent year remain, seasoned administrators now adapting to greater public scrutiny.

The glare of attention on Madison, she said, mirrors the national reality for election administrators everywhere — their jobs are increasingly under the spotlight of polarization and doubt.

“Last year was really tough, and next year is tough,” McComas said, noting the four statewide elections ahead in 2026. 

An early start in the workings of elections

People take different paths into election administration. Milwaukee’s chief election official, Paulina Gutiérrez, came from public safety and legislative work, while Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jeffreys was the mayor’s chief of staff. Others arrive from outside government — teachers, bankers or longtime poll workers who worked their way up.

McComas’ journey into this world started early. As a kid in Minneapolis, she tagged along with her parents to the polls, filling out mock ballots and proudly wearing an “I will vote” sticker. She also joined them knocking on doors for get-out-the-vote drives. Those formative experiences led her to study political science at the University of Minnesota, volunteer on campaigns and intern for U.S. Sen. Al Franken.

Her time on campaigns confirmed that the partisan side of politics wasn’t for her. “I was used to talking to people regardless of their party,” McComas said. “Working for candidates and not doing that just felt wrong.”

Her first job in elections was a college internship with Hennepin County in 2017, supporting the election department on planning, updating training manuals and legislative priorities. McComas was struck by the precision required in running elections and wanted to devote her career to it, she said.

After graduating, she joined Hennepin County Elections full time, first as a general election administrator and then specializing in voter engagement for a jurisdiction of 700,000 voters in and around Minneapolis. She helped voters get registered and answered questions about voting during a pandemic.

She also oversaw compliance with election laws and developed training for poll workers.

Meanwhile, she pursued a graduate certificate in election administration from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

She was hired in Madison in August.

A new era for training for election officials

Academic programs like the one McComas followed, focusing on elections as a career path, are more common today, but still rare at most universities, where public affairs education focuses more on city management, emergency planning and public health, said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer at the National Association of Election Officials and a longtime election administration educator.

The ones that exist are growing: The University of Minnesota’s election program had just over 50 enrollees in 2017. In 2025, there were over 200. In addition to the Humphrey School, Auburn University offers a graduate certificate in election administration, and Northern Arizona University now provides an undergraduate program.

Meanwhile, 43 states, including Wisconsin, have other types of programs to train local election officials, a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis found. Wisconsin is also among the 22 states offering training specific to new election officials. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Arizona Fellows program places students in county election offices, boosting interest in election work and helping offices engage younger, more diverse voters.

Patrick, who has taught at the Humphrey School since 2016, sees an urgent need to formalize the field and promote it to youth because so many older clerks are retiring.

“It’s just not on anyone’s radar as an option,” Patrick said, “and I think that that’s part of the work we need to do as a profession, which is particularly challenging in this environment, because now people are aware of election administration for all the wrong reasons.”

Formalizing the pipeline might be even harder for Wisconsin, where most municipal clerks work part time, and most who work full time spend much of the year working on things besides elections.

McComas said that both Madison and Hennepin County try to do local outreach to universities and have interns to promote election administration as a career path.

Still, she finds herself explaining to many people that running elections is a full-time job, not just a poll-working gig for several days a year.

McComas says she’s prepared for challenge in Madison

In Madison, McComas said her first goal is to rebuild trust. 

She plans to draw on her voter engagement background to make that happen. Under interim clerk Mike Haas, the city overhauled many of the systems that failed in the 2024 election, but those improvements, she said, went largely unnoticed because there wasn’t a strong communications plan.

“Next year,” she said, “we will be able to show the public that we are transparent and that we are answering any questions.”

Although her career doesn’t go back decades, McComas said her experience has prepared her for this moment. Her graduate certificate program gave her a broader perspective, she said, and helped reaffirm her commitment to the role. 

Beyond school, McComas said the work — and the people she met in Hennepin County — sparked a lasting passion for election administration. Surrounded by colleagues who shared her dedication and curiosity, she found a community she wanted to be part of for the long haul.

“I knew I wanted to devote my career to that work,” she said.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

New Madison clerk typifies movement to professionalize election administration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Update (Oct. 31, 2025): A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to tap into its reserves to partially pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of funding on Saturday.

U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell heard oral arguments Friday in a case brought by various cities and nonprofits. After the hearing, the judge ruled from the bench that the Department of Agriculture “must distribute contingency money timely or as soon as possible for the Nov. 1 payments to be made,” The New York Times reported.

“There is no doubt — and it is beyond argument — that irreparable harm will begin to occur, if it hasn’t already occurred in the terror it has caused some people about the availability of funding for food for their family,” McConnell said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “That irreparable harm will occur if this injunction does not pass and if SNAP benefits are not paid consistent with the mandate from Congress.”

The Department of Agriculture initially said it planned to use the more than $5 billion in contingency funds that are legally intended “for use only in such amounts and at such times as may become necessary to carry out program operations” to cover SNAP benefits. However, the Trump administration later changed course, claiming it was illegal to use that money for SNAP, and quietly deleting the initial guidance from USDA’s website.

Despite the ruling, it’s likely that the 42 million people who rely on SNAP will miss at least part of their benefits, because the process of distributing the funds did not begin as early as usual due to the shutdown.

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Update (Oct. 31, 2025): U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued an order Friday declaring that the Trump administration’s “suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful.” This case was brought by a coalition of Democratic states that filed a lawsuit Tuesday, arguing that the government’s decision to not use contingency funds was “contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.”

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A bipartisan coalition of state officials, including Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, sued the Department of Agriculture on Tuesday to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program partially funded through November.

In a press release obtained by NOTUS ahead of the lawsuit being filed, New York Attorney General Letitia James argued the administration is unlawfully allowing SNAP to run out of funding when it has “access to billions of dollars in contingency funds that Congress specifically appropriated to keep benefits flowing during funding lapses.”

The coalition of state officials, which includes attorneys general and governors, filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Massachusetts. They are asking for a court to immediately intervene to keep funding, which is set to run out at the end of the month, flowing. The program is facing the possibility of its first-ever pause in funding because of the government shutdown.

“Millions of Americans, including children, seniors, and veterans, are on the verge of losing access to the food assistance they rely upon,” Kaul said. “No one should have to go hungry because of dysfunction in our federal government.”

Politico first reported that dozens of Democratic attorneys general and governors were considering legal action. The coalition includes officials from New York, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and California.

Nevada’s and Vermont’s attorneys general are part of the lawsuit, the only states listed that have Republican governors. In all, more than 24 states and the District of Columbia are involved.

“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments,” a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.

In a memo Axios reported last week, the Department of Agriculture took the position that it would not tap into contingency funds and also argued that states that picked up the tab in the meantime could not be legally reimbursed.

The coalition of state officials is asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order mandating USDA to use all of the “available contingency funds toward November SNAP benefits for all plaintiff states.”

It’s one of several steps state officials are trying to take to preserve SNAP benefits, which nearly 42 million people across the country rely on. Outside of legal action, state officials have sought to tap emergency funding in their own states — though some have protested the lack of assurance that the federal government will reimburse their states and have argued that it’s the federal government’s responsibility.

This story was produced and originally published by NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

UPDATE: Judge declares suspension of SNAP benefits unlawful after Wisconsin, other states sued is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s prisons is set for a crucial vote this week that could determine whether the state can meet a 2029 closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution and the long-awaited shutdown of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth facilities. 

The State Building Commission at a public meeting Tuesday is expected to vote on whether to release $15 million for advancing Evers’ plan, an amount the Legislature included in the 2025-27 biennial budget. Subcommittees will meet prior to the full commission Tuesday afternoon, which could signal how Republican members may vote on the money for Evers’ plan. Republican lawmakers were tight-lipped Monday morning about whether they have an alternative plan and whether they plan to roll it out Tuesday. 

Evers in February announced what he called a “domino series” of projects that would include closing Green Bay Correctional Institution, converting Lincoln Hills into a facility for adults and turning Waupun’s prison into a “vocational village” that would offer job skill training to qualifying inmates. Evers describes the plan as the most realistic and cost-effective way to stabilize the state’s prison population. 

The Green Bay prison has been roundly criticized as unsafe and outdated, Lincoln Hills has only in recent months come into compliance with a court-ordered plan to remedy problems dating back a decade, and Waupun has had lockdowns, inmate deaths and criminal charges against a former warden.

The $15 million would fund initial plans and a design report that would allow capital projects in Evers’ proposals to be funded in the 2025-27 budget, according to the governor’s office. It would also prevent delays of Evers’ plan while he is still in office. Evers is not seeking reelection next year, and Wisconsin will have a new governor in 2027. 

But it’s unclear how the eight-member commission, which includes four Republicans, will vote on whether to release the $15 million for the governor’s plan. Sens. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, and Andre Jacqué, R-New Franken, declined to comment while still reviewing the proposals. Reps. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, and Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia, did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch. 

In addition to Evers, the commission includes Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska; Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse; and citizen member Barb Worcester, who served as one of Evers’ initial deputy chiefs of staff. 

Pfaff, who said he will support Evers’ request, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the $15 million will get approved with the necessary bipartisan support for it to pass. It’s not a final policy decision, Pfaff said. 

“I think it’s important to know that the proposal that’s being brought forward is a design and planning stage, so it’s not the end-all or be-all,” Pfaff said. 

At least one Republican, Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, has asked fellow party members on the commission to support Evers’ request. Howard represents a district near the Green Bay Correctional Institution. 

“I believe that the release of the $15 million will be important in moving corrections planning forward in our state,” Steffen wrote in an Oct. 14 letter to the Republican commission members. 

Corrections plans in the Legislature 

The funding for Evers’ prison plan, which was included in the governor’s original budget proposal, totaled $325 million. During the budget process the Legislature approved just $15 million for corrections projects and a 2029 closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, criticized the governor for not including GOP lawmakers in the process and suggested the party would form its own plan. 

“The idea of letting thousands of people out of jail early, tearing down prisons and not replacing the spots, I can’t imagine our caucus will go for it,” Vos told reporters in February. 

A spokesperson for Vos did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about whether the party started a process for forming its own plan. Evers in July partially vetoed the 2029 deadline for the Green Bay Correctional Institution and criticized Republicans for setting a date without providing a plan to close the prison.   

While lawmakers on the State Building Commission have since been tight-lipped about which way they plan to vote, leaders in both Waupun and Allouez — on whose land Green Bay Correctional sits — haven’t been shy to express their support for the plan. 

Waupun Mayor Rohn Bishop said he favors any plan that will keep Waupun Correctional Institution open. With three prisons within its jurisdiction, Waupun has been called Prison City in honor of its major employers. 

“We take pride in the fact it’s here,” Bishop said of the 180-year-old prison. 

Under the proposal, Waupun’s prison would turn from a traditional, maximum prison to what’s been called a vocational village that would offer job-skill training to those who qualify. The idea is modeled after similar programs in Michigan, Missouri and Louisiana. 

“The first and most important thing is to keep the prison here for the economic reasons of the jobs, what it does for Waupun utilities, and how our wastewater sewage plant is built for the prison,” Bishop said. “If it were to close, that would shift to the ratepayers.”

In recent years, complaints about dire conditions within the cell halls have mounted, with inmates describing a crumbling infrastructure and infestations of birds and rodents. Under Evers’ proposal, Waupun’s prison would have to temporarily close while the facility undergoes renovations.  

Meanwhile, under Evers’ plan, Green Bay’s prison is slated to close. In Allouez, where the prison stands, village President Jim Rafter said the closure can’t come soon enough.   

“I’m more optimistic than ever that the plans will move forward this time,” Rafter said, pointing to the bipartisan support he has seen on the issue. 

For Rafter, his eagerness to close the prison is partly economic: The prison currently stands on some of the most valuable real estate in Brown County, he said, and redeveloping it would be a financial boon for the village of Allouez. 

But it also comes from safety concerns for both correctional officers and inmates. 

“GBCI historically has been one of the most dangerous facilities across Wisconsin, built in the 1800s, and it has well outlived its usefulness,” Rafter said. “Its design doesn’t allow for safe passage of inmates from one area to the other. So safety is a huge concern.”

Wisconsin Republicans mum on prison plans heading into key vote on moving projects forward is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The clock is ticking before Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will be delayed for approximately 42 million Americans in November due to the federal government shutdown.

That leaves just nine days until Wisconsin — a key battleground state with two competitive House races in the 2026 midterms — runs out of funding for its food assistance program, Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday. Already, November benefits will certainly be delayed, Evers said.

“President Trump and Republicans in Congress must work across the aisle and end this shutdown now so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have access to basic necessities like food and groceries that they need to survive,” Evers said in a statement.

The governor is one of several Wisconsin Democrats who added SNAP delays to the long list of shutdown impacts they blame on Republicans.

“I want the government to reopen and to lower health care costs and to undo some of the devastating things that were done in Trump’s signature legislation, the ‘Big, Ugly bill,’” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin told NOTUS. “It’s in the Republicans’ hands to do that.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation on Tuesday to use unappropriated Treasury funds for payment of SNAP benefits during the shutdown. It is unclear if his bill will gain traction in the Senate.

“We need to start forcing Democrats to make some tough votes during this shutdown,” he said in an X post.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson declined to comment on SNAP’s funding lapsing.

Nearly 700,000 people rely on FoodShare, Wisconsin’s SNAP program for families and seniors that is entirely funded by federal dollars. Wisconsin’s program already took a hit from Trump’s budget law, which will raise the state’s portion of administrative costs for running FoodShare by at least $43.5 million annually.

Wisconsin is among a slew of states sounding the alarm on SNAP funding, with Texas officials setting Oct. 27 as the last day before benefits will be disrupted. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state’s food assistance program may be disrupted if the government does not reopen by Thursday, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Health Services announced that benefits will not be paid starting last week.

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, lamented risks to FoodShare in a statement to NOTUS.

“This funding risk could be resolved tomorrow if Republicans would return to Washington to vote with Democrats on a bill to fund the government and protect access to affordable health care for millions of Americans,” he said.

November benefits will be delayed in Wisconsin “even if the shutdown ends tomorrow,” according to the announcement from Evers’ office.

It is not yet certain that delays in benefits will occur, and any disruptions would be a deliberate “policy choice,” said Gina Plata-Nino, the interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture could use a similar tactic as Trump did when he directed the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 15 to issue on-time paychecks to active duty members of the military using leftover appropriated funds, Plata-Nino told NOTUS.

The Trump administration transferred $300 million to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children to prevent benefits disruptions earlier this month. The Department of Agriculture will release more than $3 billion in aid to farmers during the shutdown.

“It is in their hands to issue a letter to the states and say, ‘We have $6 billion in contingency funding. We’re going to go ahead and utilize that, and we’re looking for sources of funding like we did for WIC, but then also how we’ve done to farmers when there’s been issues,” Plata-Nino said.

Plata-Nino said states and Electronic Benefit Transfer processors — companies that process EBT transactions for stores — would need to know they are getting contingency funds by later this week or early next week for SNAP benefits to go out smoothly on Nov. 1.

“Even if on the 30th, the USDA acts late and then finally issues its contingency funds, benefits are still going to be late,” she added.

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement Republicans should “come to the negotiating table” on the shutdown.

“After already cutting FoodShare in their One Beautiful Bill, Republicans’ inaction could again increase hunger and food insecurity,” she said.

When asked about FoodShare delays, Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican from northern Wisconsin who is running to replace Evers, pointed to Democrats’ 11 votes against Republicans’ continuing resolution bills.

“Maybe Governor Evers should ask Senator Baldwin why she is blocking the bipartisan budget bill and holding these programs hostage,” Tiffany said in a statement.

Republican Rep. Tony Wied, who represents the Green Bay area, pointed at Baldwin and other Democrats’ votes against the continuing resolution, accusing them of playing “political games.”

“House Republicans voted for a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open and ensure critical programs like FoodShare continue uninterrupted,” Wied said in a statement to NOTUS. “I am calling on Senator Baldwin and the rest of her Democratic colleagues to change course and vote to open the government immediately so Wisconsinites in need do not have to worry about going hungry.”

But Danielle Nierenberg, the president of the nonpartisan advocacy organization Food Tank, said Democrats and Republicans are “both in the wrong” for potential SNAP disruptions.

“Food should never have been politicized in this way. So whether you’re Democrat or a Republican you shouldn’t be punishing poor people for just being poor and denying them the benefits they deserve,” Nierenberg said.

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Wisconsin members of Congress point fingers as SNAP benefits run out is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A new Republican bill that would exempt certain life-saving medical procedures from falling under the definition of “abortion” is drawing criticism from medical professionals despite being described by its authors as an attempt to protect reproductive health care.

Under the bill, introduced on Friday, medical procedures “designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant woman and not designed or intended to kill the unborn child” would not fall under Wisconsin’s abortion definition. They would also not be subject to state laws prohibiting funding for “abortion-related activities” and Wisconsin’s ban on abortion past 20 weeks.

The bill, authored by Rep. Joy Goeben, R-Hobart, and Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, specifically exempts early inductions or cesarean sections performed in cases of ectopic, anembryonic or molar pregnancies from being considered abortion so long as the physician conducting them makes “reasonable medical efforts” to save both parent and unborn child from harm.

Moreover, the bill would change the definition of “unborn child” in Wisconsin statute from “a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive” to “a human being from the time of fertilization until birth.”

OBGYN Carley Zeal, a representative for the Wisconsin Medical Society and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said “unborn child” is not a medically recognized term because doctors don’t confer personhood to a fertilized egg or fetus. Legal expert Howard Schweber told Wisconsin Watch he doesn’t expect changing the definition of “unborn child” to begin at fertilization will have a meaningful impact.

Abortion as a political issue hits deep in the heart of Wisconsin, where Marquette Law School polls since 2020 show 64% of all voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Democrats have campaigned in support of eliminating restrictions on abortion, while Republicans, who in 2015 passed the state’s current ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy, have sought to increase restrictions on, penalize or ban abortion completely.  

The bill follows multiple successive changes to Wisconsin’s abortion law since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and returned the issue of abortion to individual states — leaving Wisconsin scrambling to put together a consistent abortion policy.

The new GOP bill also seems to nod toward several high-profile national incidents of patients dying from being denied reproductive care in states with restrictive abortion bans, even when the bans include exceptions for abortion care if a patient’s life is in danger. 

One  National Institutes of Health study found that after Texas’s abortion ban was passed, maternal morbidity during the gestational period doubled from the time before the law despite it having a medical emergency clause.

Goeben and Quinn stated in a memorandum that their bill seeks to “counter misinformation spread by bad actors” about doctors not performing needed medical care for fear of being criminalized under abortion statutes. Goeben told Wisconsin Watch she consulted with physicians about the bill and believes it will reassure them of their ability to provide this care.

“A doctor may at all times, no matter where the state is at on the abortion issue, feel very confident in providing the health care that women need in these very challenging situations that women face,” Goeben said.

Medical and legal experts weigh in

Both Zeal and Sheboygan OBGYN Leslie Abitz, a member of both the state medical society, the Committee to Protect Healthcare and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said they oppose the bill. 

They argue it is an attempt by the Wisconsin Legislature to use “emotionally charged, ideologically driven, non-medical terms” to “interfere with the patient-physician relationship” in medical care.

“The stated goal of the bill — to distinguish between medical procedures from abortion — is misleading because it suggests that abortion care is not an essential part of comprehensive health care,” Abitz said. 

“A woman is putting her health and her life at risk every time she chooses to carry a pregnancy, and so she shouldn’t be mandated to put her life at risk.”

Schweber views the bill differently. While a clause in Wisconsin’s 20-week abortion ban statutes already exempts abortions performed for the “life or health of the mother,” he believes Goeben and Quinn’s bill could make hospitals and insurance companies more comfortable with authorizing lifesaving reproductive health care procedures.

“Insurance companies and hospitals or doctors, in order to err on the side of safety, will tell the doctors not to perform a procedure that is medically needed and, in fact, properly legal,” Schweber said. “(This) law is trying to prevent a chilling effect on legal medical procedures.”

Though the bill is not yet formally introduced, the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit composed of physicians, nurses and public health practitioners specializing in abortion and contraception science, opposes it.

“The narrative that exceptions to an abortion ban — or redefining what abortion care is — can mitigate the harm of restrictive policies is based in ideology, not evidence,” Executive Director Amanda Dennis said in a statement.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has not yet taken a position on the bill, but told Wisconsin Watch that state medical emergency clauses “do not offer adequate protection for the myriad (of) pregnancy complications people experience, resulting in substantial harm to patients” in the case of an abortion ban.

Political reaction to the bill

Prominent Democratic lawmakers, such as gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, have criticized the proposed bill as part of a series of moves by anti-abortion politicians to distance themselves from the “deadly” consequences of abortion bans. 

“The way that you protect people from legal jeopardy is by not criminalizing health care,” Roys said. “Goeben’s bill just shows how deadly and dangerous criminalizing abortion bans are. It’s an acknowledgement of the truth, which is that abortion bans kill women.”

Goeben said she is surprised by the opposition because her bill on its own does not introduce any additional penalties to abortion.

“These are the issues that the other side of the aisle has talked about, saying, ‘oh, the poor women that can’t get health care!’” Goeben said. “So I thought honestly that this would be supported by everybody, if we are really concerned about the health care of women.”

She said she would also be open to discussing amendments to the bill, which would include exemptions for abortions performed because of other medical complications such as preeclampsia or maternal sepsis.

Anti-abortion organizations Wisconsin Right to Life, Pro-Life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Wisconsin Family Action have endorsed the proposal. 

A similar bill by Quinn prior to the Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidating Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban in July died in the Senate last year. Even if the new bill is to pass through the Legislature, Gov. Tony Evers plans to veto it, spokesperson Britt Cudaback told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Looming gubernatorial, attorney general and legislative races in 2026 could decide the future of abortion laws and enforcement in the state. New legislative maps and a national midterm environment that historically has favored the party out of power in the White House gives Democrats their best chance to win control of the Legislature since 2010. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the GOP frontrunner for governor, previously supported a bill planning to ban abortion after six weeks, though he has rolled back that position in recent media appearances and deleted all mention of abortion from his website.

Schweber said Wisconsin’s newly liberal majority Supreme Court will decide the future of abortion in the state. The justices must answer the cases being brought to them on whether the  state constitution guarantees a right to an abortion.

“Just because the U.S. Constitution does not secure a right to abortion does not mean that Wisconsin or Ohio or Texas constitutionally doesn’t have that right,” he said. “Each state supreme court now has to decide this profound question.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an incorrect description of the Society of Family Planning and to include additional background for Zeal and Abitz.

Medical experts criticize Republican bill that would exclude life-saving medical procedures from ‘abortion’ definition is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.