Republican lawmakers have been grilling Wisconsin's Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul about the use of environmental prosecutors whose positions were funded by an outside foundation.

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A new poll shows former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has more name recognition than any other candidate for governor, but he isn't Democratic voters' clear first choice.

The post Marquette poll: Hong, Barnes top Democratic primary for governor, but most voters undecided appeared first on WPR.

The Winnebago County Board declined to take action on a resolution condemning federal immigration actions in Minneapolis, removing the item from its agenda Tuesday night without debate.

The post Winnebago County Board declines to take up resolution denouncing ICE action in Minnesota appeared first on WPR.

Intense flash flooding in August caused tens of millions of dollars worth of damage throughout Wisconsin. After an appeal for federal public infrastructure aid was recently denied, two EMS directors tell WPR what’s next.

The post After FEMA rejection, Wisconsin communities decide how to cover flooding repair costs appeared first on WPR.

A pair of Republican state lawmakers wants to bring the death penalty back to Wisconsin for the first time in more than 170 years. It would be reserved for those convicted of certain sexual assaults against children under 13 years old.

The post Republican lawmakers want death penalty for child sex crimes in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

A group of parents and educators from across Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Monday against the state Legislature, alleging lawmakers have failed to adequately fund public schools. 

The post Parents, educators file lawsuit against Wisconsin lawmakers over school funding appeared first on WPR.

Since 2024, there's been a bit of a migration into northern Wisconsin's sprawling 7th Congressional District by people hoping to represent its residents in Washington D.C. Voter registration records show half of the eight candidates running to succeed Republican Tom Tiffany of Minocqua recently listed primary voting addresses outside the 7th district and even outside Wisconsin.

The post Half the candidates for Wisconsin House seat recently lived outside district or state appeared first on WPR.

For weeks, it looked like a deal might be struck between legislative Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers to use some of the state’s $2.5 billion surplus to provide both tax relief and money for schools. 
But those talks fell apart early last week.

The post Wisconsin’s state Assembly adjourned without changes to school funding appeared first on WPR.

Federal officials announced that ICE agents are set to leave Minnesota after a months-long immigration crackdown. A Wisconsin business owner said the crackdown has stoked fear — and a Milwaukee nonprofit told WPR fewer agricultural workers are applying to work in Wisconsin.

The post Fewer seasonal migrant workers apply for visas ahead of Wisconsin’s growing season appeared first on WPR.

Before Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced his retirement Thursday, it was obvious something had changed. The longest serving speaker in Wisconsin history, known for keeping Assembly Republicans on a tight leash, slipped out of a caucus meeting late Wednesday night. Capitol reporter Baylor Spears tracked him down at a fundraiser at the Madison Club, where, she reported, Vos told her his caucus was meeting without him. Later that evening, Assembly Republicans announced that Vos had suddenly dropped his yearslong opposition to letting Wisconsin expand postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers for one year. Vos’ last-minute change of heart allowed eight Republicans facing competitive reelection races to hold a late-night press conference proclaiming the news that they planned to pass postpartum coverage, along with another measure extending life-saving breast-cancer screenings that Vos was suddenly permitting to come up for a vote. Vos himself didn’t bother to attend. 

With both Vos and Gov. Tony Evers retiring, the two most powerful politicians in the state — and the often dysfunctional dynamic between them — are going away. It’s the end of an era characterized by toxic partisanship, although probably not the last we’ll see of divided government in our 50/50 state. 

Still, as Vos relaxes his grip, Wisconsin Republicans are starting to wrap their heads around the new reality that they no longer hold complete control over what was once, effectively, a one-party state. 

New, fairer voting maps have already eroded gerrymandered GOP supermajorities in the Legislature that previously endured even when Democrats won every statewide race. In the upcoming November elections, the new maps will, for the first time, take full effect.

The creation of more competitive districts has not immediately ushered in an atmosphere of productive bipartisanship in the Capitol. But it did cause enough of a thaw that Wisconsin could finally join the other 48 states that have already expanded postpartum Medicaid. Republicans running in newly competitive districts can campaign on this bit of belated progress. Two cheers for Wisconsin! We’re 49th!

At the Vos-less press conference Wednesday night, Republicans gave emotional testimony about “the women who need this protection.” They thanked the speaker for finally listening to their pleas. Then, instead of reaching across the aisle, they delivered a scorching rebuke to Democrats who had been pushing for months for a vote on both of the women’s health bills they were celebrating. When the bills were not scheduled, Democrats vowed to bring them up as amendments to other bills, holding up action on the floor and threatening to put their GOP colleagues in the embarrassing position of having to vote down their efforts.

“I’m very angry at what happened today — very angry,” Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said. “I talked to my Democratic colleagues and told them that I was close, that it was going to get done, but then they throw this crap at us today. It almost blew it up.”

By speaking up, Democrats nearly ruined Republicans’ efforts to gain support within their own caucus, according to Snyder. That analysis caused Democratic Minority Leader Greta Neubauer to roll her eyes. “It seems that the bills are going to the floor after years of Rep. Pat Snyder telling us that these bills were going to be passed and them not being passed, so it does seem like our actions made a difference today,” Neubauer said. 

Partisan habits die hard. For much of the most recent legislative session, Republicans formed a Sorehead Caucus whose sole aims were rehashing grievances about their loss of power and trying in vain to recreate the dominance they enjoyed when they controlled every branch of government. 

Back in 2018, when Evers won the first time, breaking the GOP stranglehold by beating former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Republicans held a lame duck session to claw back the incoming governor’s powers. Eight years later, as Evers is about to leave office at the end of his second term, they’re still at it. Motivated by spite over Evers’ line-item veto extending their modest, two-year increase in school revenue limits for the next 400 years, they have insisted on starving school districts of state funds, punishing not only Wisconsin schoolchildren but also the property taxpayers who, in the absence of state funding, are forced to pick up the tab. 

In a similarly spiteful vein, Republicans just killed off the popular, bipartisan Knowles Nelson stewardship program, setting up the 36-year-old land conservation effort to die this summer. Over and over in hearings on whether to renew the program or drastically cut it back, Republicans cited a state Supreme Court decision that held they cannot anonymously veto individual conservation projects. GOP legislators said the decision — written by the most conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — left them no option but to gut the program just to show who’s boss. 

As Henry Redman reports, a handful of conservation-minded Republicans could have joined forces with Democrats to save the program, but Republican bill authors insisted on negotiating only within their own caucus, ignoring Democratic efforts to make a deal and instead trying to please the program’s far-right enemies by making deeper and deeper cuts before finally giving up and letting the program lapse.

This style of governing — a hangover from the Walker era — might satisfy certain politicians’ hunger for power, but it’s ill-suited to getting anything productive done for the people who live in the state.

Let’s hope Vos’ departure marks the end of the petty partisanship that has blocked progress in Wisconsin for far too long.

Wisconsin voters will be asked whether the state's constitution should be amended to prevent the governor's powerful partial veto from increasing taxes or fees.

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The Wisconsin state Assembly approved two women’s health bills Thursday, after years of failed attempts and a surprise announcement the previous evening that Republicans would allow them to move forward.

The post Wisconsin Assembly passes postpartum Medicaid expansion, breast cancer prevention bills appeared first on WPR.

At least four communities have signed nondisclosure agreements to create data center projects in Wisconsin. Now, lawmakers are debating whether to ban the practice altogether. A pair of lawmakers told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” the move is to promote transparency.

The post New bill would ban nondisclosure agreements for new Wisconsin data centers appeared first on WPR.

Robin Vos, the powerful speaker of the state Assembly who shaped the GOP's agenda in Wisconsin for the better part of two decades, announced Thursday he won't seek reelection, marking the end of an era in state government and Republican politics.

The post Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to retire after longest tenure in state history appeared first on WPR.

Each year, the state Legislature passes a slew of ceremonial resolutions, recognizing people, holidays and historic events.
But, in recent years, resolutions honoring Black history have been met with controversy.

The post Will Wisconsin pass a Black History resolution? It’s been controversial in years past. appeared first on WPR.

WASHINGTON — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s faith calls him to address hunger, health access and community care, he said during an event Thursday at the progressive Center for American Progress that previewed a potential campaign in the 2028 cycle.

The Trump administration has “hijacked” faith, the Democrat said, leading to harm instead of helping people. He pointed to the repercussions of the major tax cuts and spending package Republicans passed last year that paid for tax cuts by making changes to food assistance and health care that will result in millions of people losing access to those safety nets.

“Are we using faith to help people or to hurt people?” he said. “It’s that simple.”

More than 100,000 people are expected to be kicked off SNAP and 25 rural hospitals are at risk of closing in Kentucky alone, he said.

“The reason why I talk about faith is it motivates me. (It’s) why I’m willing to get up no matter how mean and cruel the world has gotten and fight to make it just a little bit better,” he said.

Upcoming White House bid?

Beshear, 48, is widely expected to make a presidential run in 2028, and did not rule out a bid when members of the audience asked how he would govern if he won the presidency. 

Like previous presidential hopefuls, he’s gearing up for a book tour. He told the think tank his upcoming book explores how his Christian faith has led him through challenging times as governor, from the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic to deadly tornadoes, and how he believes those values can heal the deep polarization of the country.

“In the end, where we’ve got to go is … I hope that you would say that you are an American long before you’d say you are a Democrat or Republican,” Beshear said.

Beshear was a top candidate for 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate before she selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Immigration

An audience member asked Beshear how he would address immigration if he were president. The issue has dominated political discourse since the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis last month. 

Beshear said that every federal immigration officer needs to be retrained, and he expressed concerns about what he called constitutional violations, such as agents entering private residences without a judicial warrant.

“What we see with (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is an out-of-control law enforcement agency,” he said. “They are so overly aggressive compared to any other law enforcement group in the nation.”

He said enforcement operations like the one in Minneapolis “will continue in other places if the current leadership continues and if they are not fully retrained.”

Beshear said the country needs comprehensive immigration reform that addresses long-term undocumented immigrants in the country and also provides a steady workforce. 

“I think that there is a reasonable way to go forward on immigration,” he said. 

RFK as campaign model

Another audience member asked Beshear if a potential 2028 Democratic presidential run would resemble Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 campaign style that aimed to unite the country deeply divided in the midst of the Vietnam War, massive poverty and the Civil Rights Movement. Kennedy was a top candidate for the Democratic nomination before his June 1968 assassination.

Beshear said he would.

“Absolutely,” he said. “When I think about his campaign … you think about hope, you think about connection. He made you feel that progress was possible, that we could go up against huge adversaries like poverty and we could do better.”

Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly say they'll pass two bills related to women's health Thursday, a surprise move that comes after years of blocking the legislation.

The post Wisconsin Republicans announce plan to pass postpartum Medicaid, breast cancer bills appeared first on WPR.

In a bipartisan about face, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill Wednesday that includes nearly $600,000 in funding for WisconsinEye, the state's version of C-SPAN.

The post Senate passes bipartisan bill to fund WisconsinEye appeared first on WPR.

In his eighth and final State of the State address Tuesday night, Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday night said Republicans have chronically underfunded Wisconsin schools and blamed them for increased property taxes after negotiations for a tax cut stalled this week.

The post In final State of the State, Evers pushes for school funding, end to gerrymandering appeared first on WPR.

Whether Democratic Gov. Tony Evers can get onboard remains an open question.

The post In talks with Evers, Wisconsin GOP leaders back $2.3B plan to spend down surplus appeared first on WPR.