Reading Time: 4 minutes

President Donald Trump recently broke Wisconsin law by offering cash to voters if his preferred candidates win this fall’s congressional elections. This continues his patterned disregard for state election laws and long-standing policies enacted to keep our democracy free from corruption. The president is unlikely to face legal repercussions, though others have been punished and likely would be prosecuted for similar conduct. The reality is that we, as citizens and voters, bear the responsibility of deciding what we will tolerate from our leaders.

Recently in Texas, the president said, “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend.” Some shrugged his comments off as unserious or impracticable. Others opined that they fall within the bounds of First Amendment protected speech. But Wisconsin law expressly rejects paying for votes in any fashion; in particular, Wis. Stat. § 12.11(1m)(a)3. prescribes felony charges for “Any person who … offers (or) gives … anything of value … in order to induce any elector to … vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular person.” 

A different provision in the same statute — this one prohibiting offers to induce people to vote or refrain from the act of voting — is the basis of Law Forward’s ongoing lawsuit against Elon Musk for promising opportunities to receive $1 million payments in exchange for voting before Election Day in the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Wisconsin’s election bribery statute contains exceptions to protect ordinary endorsements of candidates and robust campaign activities, but neither the president’s recent promise nor Musk’s scheme last year seems to fit into those exceptions. 

This is a big deal. Wisconsin law forbids any offers to voters worth more than a single dollar. This has been raised over the years in response to numerous food-related giveaways, from sandwiches to barbecue to ice cream. Wisconsin authorities even considered filing election bribery charges against Democratic campaign workers who provided kringle to residents of a group home in an effort to encourage them to cast absentee ballots. This is no kringle: The president is using the prospect of $5,000 payments to sway the midterm elections in favor of Republican candidates. 

Wisconsin law forbids election bribery to prevent any hint of corruption and to ensure that voters are making their choices on the merits. For the same reasons, Wisconsin forbids voting in an election where you have wagered on the outcome. This law has recently been criticized by prediction market websites.

The law’s laudable goals will remain out of reach if prosecutors are unwilling or unable to enforce them. No prosecutor has challenged President Trump over his latest comments. That is unsurprising: The U.S. Supreme Court decided a few years ago that the president stands above the law, enjoying near-absolute immunity from prosecution for his conduct. In so doing, the court weakened a fundamental axiom of our democracy: that ours is a nation of laws, not men. This misguided decision shields the president from even the threat of criminal liability for, among other things, violations of Wisconsin’s election bribery law. 

But even those without presidential immunity are evading criminal accountability. Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Elections Commission found probable cause that Musk engaged in illegal election bribery. La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke nevertheless declined to prosecute, even as he acknowledged that a statement by Musk “could be seen as … (offering) to pay someone (for) voting.” To be sure, picking a fight with Musk is a daunting prospect, given his public profile, his wealth, his ownership of X, and his scorched-earth litigation tactics. But the rule of law requires standing up to even those — indeed, especially those — who wield tremendous power. Yet, sadly, America’s most powerful figures increasingly operate under their own set of rules in our shared democracy. 

This is evident right now in the president’s all-out assault on voting rights. Even as he routinely votes absentee by mail, the president seeks to limit everyone else’s ability to do so. He has the federal departments of Justice and Homeland Security running roughshod over state election laws in a fruitless quest to identify noncitizen voters. He has sued dozens of states in an effort to seize private voter information, but courts in Wisconsin and every other state that has considered the matter have ruled against him. And after the president asserted in a primetime national address that DHS had identified more than 24,000 noncitizen voters in just four states, the administration admitted that number is false. DOJ has indicted 19 noncitizens — in the entire country — for allegedly voting unlawfully over the past decade. 

So, what should we expect in the face of unprecedented attacks on the right to vote and ever-increasing threats to our democracy? That is up to us, as citizens and as voters. Each of us individually, and all of us societally, must decide how much we value our freedoms, our traditions and the rule of law. In the face of emboldened corruptors, wary prosecutors and an overburdened judiciary, how will we exercise active citizenship and stand up for our values? Will we demand that political parties and candidates for office, if they want our vote, must speak to these issues and defend democracy? 

Corruption erodes and weakens the foundations underlying democracy. The future of American democracy is in our hands. We are the inheritors of a profound legacy, and it is up to us to ensure that, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  

Jeff Mandell is the president and general counsel of Law Forward.

Guest opinion: Voters must stand up to leaders who act above the 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

On Aug. 28, Milwaukee County Judge David Borowski, during a hearing for a defendant charged with triple homicide, learned the defendant had used a county jail-issued tablet to discuss threatening witnesses. 

Borowski revoked the defendant’s tablet access and ordered him confined to his cell around the clock. The judge also pointed to two other recent instances in which tablets and laptops had been used in ways detrimental to personal and public safety.

“Why is the sheriff’s department handing laptops or iPads to defendants?” Borowski asked.

The comments soon went viral, picked up by candidates, public relations firms and political influencers. Few explained why tablets and laptops exist in correctional facilities, how common they are across the country or what actually happened in the security lapse. Instead, a nuanced issue was reduced to a single alarming anecdote.

The sheriff’s office would later note that it does not hand out iPads, but rather “pre-programmed devices with limited capabilities.”

Tablets have been used in jails and prisons nationally for well over a decade. They are now used in 48 state prison systems, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and numerous county jails throughout Wisconsin. They were introduced to help incarcerated people communicate with loved ones and access educational programming. Yes, the companies that provide them also profited from poor, disproportionately Black and brown families in the process. See Worth Rises for more information on this issue.

This is how the model works in Milwaukee County: Incarcerated users and their families pay the cost, not taxpayers. Over time, better vendors entered the market, prices dropped and some services became free. What has never changed is that these tablets do not provide internet access. They operate on a controlled intranet system. These cost and access dynamics are why tablets were requested in the first place.

Correctional officials have credited tablets with reducing violence and disturbances inside correctional facilities. Some jurisdictions have reported declines of up to 40%, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons described the agency’s tablet program as reducing administrative burdens and allowing staff to focus more on institutional safety, not as a security risk it was forced to accept.

This is not a partisan issue. Some of the nation’s most conservative states have rolled out tablets to every person in custody, regardless of charges or convictions. Sheriffs, who as a group tend to skew conservative, have widely approved their use because those who actually work with incarcerated people understand the benefits they provide.

Responding to the misuse of a few by eliminating a beneficial service for everyone mistakes the appearance of action for the work of actually solving the problem.

Tablets do not inherently create greater opportunities for witness intimidation. They simply create a more visible story when they happen to be the tool used. If tablets disappeared tomorrow, people could still call home, write letters or find other ways to intimidate witnesses.

We do not even know the full story of how this breach occurred. 

But tablet security features are more than capable of preventing situations like it. A more useful conversation would focus on identifying and closing the security gap that allowed it.

While I was incarcerated, I had access to a tablet during the final two years of my 17-year sentence. The growth, efficiency and preparation for the real world it gave me as a writer, student, researcher and future employee were light-years beyond what I achieved during the previous 15 years.

Most people do not realize that 90% to 95% of incarcerated people will eventually return home. The only question is who we want them to be when they do.

The nonprofit I founded while incarcerated, The Community, publishes rehabilitative videos, newsletters and podcast episodes that reach more than one million incarcerated people each month through these tablets. The positive feedback and outcomes have been considerable.

But what technology builds, fear can still take away.

I once tried to pay for the language-learning software Rosetta Stone so people inside could learn Spanish. Instead, all of the existing language tapes and CDs were removed because someone unfamiliar with the fact that they had been available for years worried that people might learn another language to plan something illegal.

That episode illustrates how easily a single anecdote — or even a hypothetical possibility — can define the entire conversation, producing a hammer where a screwdriver would do.

As a national advocate for criminal legal system reform, I have many concerns about tablets in jails and prisons, so I do not defend them uncritically. But many outlets covering this incident stopped at the sensational headline instead of doing the reporting the story required. Political candidates and influencers with their own agendas were then given free rein to use the incident as content.

Half a story, told quickly and left uncorrected, leaves the public further from understanding a system it pays dearly for every day.

Wisconsin deserves a justice system more worthy of that name. This episode demonstrates how far we remain from that goal — but also that we know exactly how to get there, if decision-makers take the problem seriously.

Shannon Ross is the founder of The Community and a founding member of the Justice Forward Wisconsin coalition, which prepares incarcerated people for healthier futures, creates opportunities for them and their loved ones and advocates for positive systems change for everyone impacted by the criminal legal system.

Editor’s note: This column was updated to correctly describe the facility where the defendant accused of using a tablet to intimidate witnesses was held.

Guest opinion: The debate over jail tablets is missing the point 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

For Wisconsin parents, the most disturbing aspects of their teen’s phone probably have little to do with screen time. Bigger questions surround what happens inside the apps: notifications, endless feeds, the urge to keep checking and personalized recommendations. Families sense these problems even when scientists can’t prove causation or define a diagnosis.

Wisconsin’s Assembly Bill 963 aimed to target some of those features. It would have required large platforms to estimate users’ ages, obtain parental consent for minors and add safeguards such as the highest-privacy settings, no targeted advertising and no infinite scrolling or profile-based feeds. The Assembly passed it in February with bipartisan support, but the Senate didn’t take it up before adjourning in March 2026, meaning it did not become law. 

What the research does — and does not — tell us

About 97% of teens use the internet daily, and about four in 10 say they’re online almost constantly, according to the Pew Research Center. 

Nearly half of teens also express concerns about social media: 48% say it has a mostly negative effect on people their age, and 45% say they spend too much time on it, Pew’s surveys show. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that frequent social media use is associated with a higher prevalence of persistent sadness or hopelessness, bullying and certain suicide-related risks. But association isn’t proof of causality. Teens experiencing psychological difficulties may use social media differently, and many other factors shape their well-being.

A systematic review of 32 studies on adolescent anxiety and social media found similarly mixed evidence. More than half found a positive association between social media use and anxiety, with stronger associations in studies focused on problematic use. Even so, the authors called for more research and better ways to measure use.

The distinction between association and causation matters as lawmakers consider a difficult question: How should they regulate potential harms that researchers are still working to define?

From screen time to platform design

Wisconsin is part of a national movement. By March 2026, all 50 states had introduced legislation on digital media and minors, ranging from age verification and parental consent to feature restrictions and limits on targeted advertising. States have also pursued social media companies through litigation. 

Attorney General Josh Kaul joined Wisconsin in a 47-state settlement with Meta that requires stronger child-safety measures, including time limits, age-assurance measures and limits on push notifications. 

The settlement matters, but it applies only to Meta and does not cover every design feature targeted by AB 963. The bill would have set broader standards for large social media platforms, including limits on targeted advertising, infinite scrolling and profile-based feeds. 

AB 963 focused on minors’ social media accounts and the platforms themselves, shifting attention from whether and how long children use social media to how platforms are designed to keep them engaged.

If a platform’s design encourages engagement through features such as personalized recommendations, infinite scrolling or constant notifications, responsibility should not fall entirely on the child or parent. Parents can identify problems and set boundaries, but they cannot control every feature built into an application they did not design.

Measuring whether the rules work

Although AB 963 stalled this year, similar proposals are likely to return. If Wisconsin enacts a similar proposal, lawmakers should measure whether the protections change how platforms operate and improve young people’s online experiences.

Wisconsin does not need to wait for perfect scientific certainty before taking reasonable steps to protect children. But evidence, not fear, should drive any response.

Stan Gottfredson is president of Atraxia Law, a paralegal firm supporting families dealing with the legal and practical challenges minors face online.

Guest opinion: Beyond screen time — Wisconsin should focus on the features that keep teens engaged 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In 1998, the Madison School Board adopted an important academic goal: “that all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level.”

Flash forward 28 years to a July 29 Rotary Club event. Madison Superintendent Joe Gothard highlighted recent improvements in literacy in district schools. But he pointed out that proficiency rates still hovered around just 40% at the elementary, middle and high schools he listed.

“We should not be sitting in a place where we can say 60% of our students are not proficient at their grade level in reading,” Rebecca Kundert, the district’s senior executive director of curriculum and instruction, said in follow-up remarks.

As Wisconsin embarks on another major effort to improve reading, the history of previous initiatives shows why sustained attention matters.

“It’s complicated,” one retired teacher said at the Rotary talk. Many factors add complexity, including readiness to learn, distractions, leadership turnover, attention spans and civic malaise.

Nearly three decades have passed without Madison reaching that goal, even as the district spends substantial money. It has a total budget equivalent to about $26,000 per enrolled student — far above average. 

But Wisconsin doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Other states have significantly improved their reading proficiency.

What should Madison and other school districts learn from other states?

1. Stick with it

In 2011, Wisconsin lawmakers approved one of Massachusetts’ teacher-content-knowledge requirements for early literacy. Beginning in 2014, the law required applicants for a broad assortment of teaching licenses to pass the Foundations of Reading test, just like Massachusetts educators, before they could teach early learners.

But the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) allowed many who failed to keep teaching on temporary licenses. First-time pass rates were often in the mid-60% range.

Consider the message this sends to teachers, schools of education, administrators, students and parents.

2. Commit real effort

Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and his wife, Sally, donated $100 million in 2000 to improve early literacy in Mississippi, which ranked 49th nationally in fourth grade reading.

Wisconsin ranked above average at that time.

The funds helped retrain teachers, update curriculum and teacher preparation, and provide classroom coaches. Mississippi also passed SB 2347 in 2013, requiring “intensive intervention for any K-3 student with a reading deficiency, notice to parents, and no promotion past third grade for children whose deficiency is not remedied, subject to good-cause exemptions.”

In 2019, Alan Borsuk, writing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, noted that Mississippi “was the only state where fourth grade reading scores improved.” He cited a “strong requirement that teachers be well-trained in reading instruction,” similar to what Massachusetts previously implemented.

National Assessment of Educational Progress results in 2024 showed Mississippi fourth graders at 219, outscoring the national average for the first time. Wisconsin, at 215, was statistically indistinguishable from the national average of 214.

The New York Times published a district-by-district test-score lookup in May 2026. Columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that “a Black fourth-grader in Mississippi is now two and a half times as likely to test proficient in reading as a Black fourth-grader in California.”

Comedian Bill Maher carried the comparison to his show. 

“Mississippi is kicking our ass in education and for way less money.” he said. 

3. Use an honest scorecard

Wisconsin has shown weak academic transparency and changed the goalposts when convenient.

In 2003, for instance, 80% of Wisconsin fourth graders scored proficient or advanced on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE) in reading, but just 33% scored at the proficient or advanced level on the NAEP.

In 2008, DPI officials went so far as to state: “Schools should not rely on only WKCE data to gauge progress of individual students or to determine effectiveness of programs or curriculum.”

Wisconsin has a fresh opportunity to get it right

In 2023, the Wisconsin Legislature passed and Gov. Tony Evers signed Act 20, modeled on Mississippi reforms, after he vetoed the two previous attempts to address Wisconsin’s literacy disaster.

Act 20 shifted reading instruction from 4K through third grade toward phonics and the science of reading, bans the “three-cueing” method beginning in the 2024-25 school year and requires universal early-literacy screening, reporting of results to parents and personal reading plans for struggling readers.

Wisconsin Act 20 requires school boards to have adopted a written policy specifying criteria for promotion from third to fourth grade by July 1, 2025. Then, beginning Sept. 1, 2027, a school board may not promote a third grader to fourth grade unless the student satisfies the criteria in that district’s policy. 

The law also created an Office of Literacy at DPI, authorized up to 64 literacy coaches and created a Council on Early Literacy Curricula to vet curricula for a program that reimburses schools for part of the cost of approved materials. The $50 million earmark for literacy initiatives in the Joint Finance Committee’s supplemental appropriation became the subject of litigation involving DPI, the Legislature and Evers.

Citizens, parents, teachers, politicians and administrators now have an unprecedented view of 4K-through-third-grade literacy skills through Act 20’s early-literacy screener requirement. The screener is administered three times annually in kindergarten through third grade and twice to students in 4K.

Nearly 97,414 4K-through-third-grade students, or 37%, scored below the 25th percentile in a national comparison group during the 2024-25 school year. Madison lagged the state, with 3,888 students, or 43.7%, scoring below the 25th percentile.

What can you do?

Understand your school district’s total spending, staffing and student enrollment. Review early-literacy screener data and ask elected officials what they are doing about it. Track changes over time.

Packers President Dominic Olejniczak hired Vince Lombardi after the team’s disastrous 1-10-1 season in 1958, its 11th consecutive season without a winning record. 

Lombardi won a title in 1961, his third year, and again in 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967.

We can do much better, quickly.

Jim Zellmer is part of the team that created Fast Lane Literacy by SEDSO, a research-based early literacy box designed to accelerate foundational reading skills for nearly anyone attempting to learn to read.

Guest opinion: Wisconsin has tried to improve reading for decades. Will this time be different? 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

It took until the early morning hours to call the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. When the counting ended at 3 a.m., Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley had beaten state Rep. Francesca Hong by fewer than 4,000 votes, closing a gap that public polling had put at double digits in Hong’s favor. Hong, a democratic socialist, made a moratorium on new AI data center construction a signature of her campaign. Crowley had a different data center answer: build, but make sure the data centers provide real benefits to surrounding communities.

The postmortems have treated the race as a proxy war between the party’s establishment and its left flank, which is certainly a theme. But it was also a statewide primary in which data centers became a defining issue, and it is worth asking why an issue that appears so popular at first glance was held by the candidate who underperformed at the polls. 

Dig beneath the surface, and the anti-data center position seems politically weaker. While national polling can’t explain the results of a statewide race, it suggests voters’ views on data centers may be more nuanced than a simple for-or-against debate. In the Rainey Center’s May national survey of 1,010 registered voters, data centers sat underwater, 29% favorable to 48% unfavorable, and the sharpest hostility was exactly where Hong was strong: 41% of very liberal voters held a very unfavorable view, the most intense opposition of any ideological group.

But when you look closer the picture changes. Black voters were the most favorable group in the electorate, 36% favorable to 30% unfavorable, with a third saying they were not sure. White voters ran 29% to 53%. None of this makes Black voters cheerleaders for AI, but it is a long way from the revolt a moratorium presumes, and the rest of the survey shows why. 

Hong’s dismissal of data centers excites populists, but most voters are interested in a more thorough understanding of the issue. It’s worth understanding what voters are actually worried about and how Crowley defused those concerns. In our polling, Black voters are most concerned that data centers will destroy jobs: 19% named AI destroying jobs as their top concern, and another 12% said the projects do not create enough permanent jobs. Jobs are justice, and Black voters want to see a data center policy that creates jobs in their communities. 

Unions, another key constituency that Democrats, particularly left-wing Democrats, claim to speak for, are standing on the opposite side of the activists on data centers. Unions understand that data centers are a source of blue-collar jobs that don’t require a college degree and can’t be outsourced.

And while data centers sound scary in the abstract, their impact can be enormously positive. Loudon County, home of more than 250 data centers, will see $1.3 billion in tax revenue next year from data centers, enough that property taxes have been slashed by 30% in the last decade. 

Data centers are still controversial, and advocates for America leading the world in technology will need arguments that persuade voters. The pro-data center coalition is unions, blue-collar workers, rural communities looking for economic development, and Black voters. Accountability can strengthen data center support with these voters and expand the coalition. 

Requiring data center operators to sign a community benefits agreement, committing to local hiring, infrastructure upgrades, and payments to the community before construction begins, drew 66% support overall and 60% to 14% among Black voters. And 61% want ratepayer protections, the industry pledge that data centers cover their own power costs, written into binding law.

Crowley has embraced the principles of Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge (though he would surely plead ignorance as to the policy’s provenance). He has said data center companies should cover the full cost of the grid upgrades they require, use union labor and sign community benefit agreements. His position aligns with Black voters, union voters and non-college voters who want jobs and accountability.

Rob Smith is a fellow at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a commentator on American public policy, culture, leadership, and national priorities. His work focuses on issues including energy independence, U.S. competitiveness and the policies shaping America’s future.

Devan Patel is the Visiting Fellow for Tech Ethics & Democracy at the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy and a lawyer and political strategist focused on artificial intelligence, technology and public policy. He is also an adjunct professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and has worked at the intersection of AI ethics, national security and democratic governance.

The Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, named for the first Black House member, is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank formed in 2018 to examine public policy issues. Its advocacy positions span the partisan divide.

Guest opinion: What Wisconsin’s Democratic primary reveals about data center politics 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I’m 32 and I’ve already had more jobs than I care to admit. In my first job after college, I joined the marketing team at a big corporation. I remember asking my manager one day, “Hey, I’ve done everything on my list. Can I help with something else?” Their response: “No.” The message was clear: stay in your lane.

After that, I tried other roles, including operations, sales, construction and custodial work. Like many of my peers, I was searching for a place where I could grow and keep learning. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was looking for the right culture.

Then, two years ago, I saw a job posting at DSG, a wholesale contractor supply company based in the Midwest. I remembered a college coach who worked for DSG. He seemed to have a great experience there. DSG had a training program, so I decided it was worth a try, even without experience in contractor supply. I had run out of other ideas.

That was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve turned off all my old job alerts because I hope to work here until I retire. I believe I’ll keep improving my skills and moving upward even if I’m here for decades, and my co-workers will value creativity and unconventional ideas.

We’re 100% employee-owned through an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP. It’s a retirement plan that allows companies to share ownership with workers. Our employee ownership culture is the secret ingredient that makes me excited to stay here for the next 30 years.

When I started, I didn’t know anything about ESOPs or what being “employee-owned” meant. During my orientation, my manager showed me our company’s ESOP retirement wealth calculator. If I stayed at the company long enough, I could accumulate generational wealth for myself and my family without contributing a cent to my ESOP account. From year one to year two, my ESOP account balance grew by more than 200%.

From the start, DSG’s training program encouraged me to get involved in every aspect of the business. Instead of a “that’s not my job” attitude, my co-workers went out of their way to answer my questions and help me learn. They celebrated when I got involved outside my direct job and listened to my ideas. When the training program ended, DSG hired me full time as an inventory planning analyst. I learned that this welcoming environment was the norm across the company.

As employee owners, we all have an interest in doing our best and helping others excel. For example, all 63 of our branches share inventory. Rather than compete, we cooperate. We know the savings across the organization benefit our finances in the long run. I also travel for my job. Instead of using company funds to buy expensive meals on the road, my co-owners in other branches have invited me over for home-cooked dinners. By doing what’s best for each other and the company now, we all reap the rewards in our ESOP accounts later.

Most importantly, it’s not just people with college degrees who are building generational wealth. Whether we’re working with spreadsheets, driving delivery trucks or loading equipment in the warehouse, we have the same opportunity to change the trajectory of our financial futures. No matter the position, background or education level, each full-time employee at DSG gets an ESOP retirement plan.

I’ve read studies that found companies with ESOPs tend to have higher employee retention and withstand economic downturns better than non-employee-owned companies, but there are only 240 ESOPs in Wisconsin. Still, momentum is building. 

The Expanding ESOPs coalition is building a movement of nearly 100 organizations focused on expanding employee ownership in Wisconsin and beyond.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., previously introduced H.R. 3105, the Promotion and Expansion of Private Employee Ownership Act of 2025. The bill would help small businesses establish S corporation employee stock ownership plans (S ESOPs), provide technical assistance to companies pursuing S ESOPs and create an employee ownership advocate within the U.S. Department of Labor.

Two years ago, I took a chance and applied for a position meant for recent college grads. I knew nothing about ESOPs. I thought it would be just another job. I couldn’t be happier that I was wrong. If employee ownership can have that kind of impact on me, imagine the impact of having more ESOP companies in Wisconsin.

Conner Scott lives in Eau Claire with his wife and two sons. He is an SIOP analyst at DSG, which has locations across Wisconsin.

Guest opinion: Why Wisconsin needs more employee-owned companies 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A few weeks ago, Wisconsin State Journal reporter Chris Rickert was using his cellphone to scan records in the office of the Dane County clerk of circuit court, when an office staffer informed him that this was not allowed. 

Rickert complied, but followed up with an email to the office’s clerk of courts, Jeff Okazaki, noting that he and the paper’s former courts reporter had routinely done this to avoid the mandatory $1.25 per-page charge for copies made by office staff. “We have not been secretive about scanning the documents and no one else has ever told us not to,” he wrote.

Okazaki, in reply, explained that while the public can inspect documents for free using the office’s terminals, any copies must be made by staff for the statutory fee. He cited a 2014 opinion by then-state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen stating that clerks of court and registers in probate cannot charge for copies made using personal devices such as a camera phone or handheld scanner, but can “choose whether to allow an individual to make copies in this manner.” Okazaki said most county clerk’s offices, including Dane’s, promptly disallowed this practice, noting that the office has long had a “No Cell Phones!” sign posted in its records room.

But Carlo Esqueda, who headed the office from 2007 to late 2023, shortly before Okazaki was appointed to the post, says it “wasn’t my policy to prohibit people from taking photos of the screens in the records center.” He says the sign about cellphones likely predated the 2014 opinion and was not about preventing people from using them to scan court records: “My recollection is that we just didn’t want folks carrying on phone conversations in that room where people are trying to concentrate on reading.”

In my four decades as a reporter, always working for cash-strapped media outlets, I have rarely forked over the $1.25 per-page copy fee set by statute for court records. In recent years, that has meant snapping photos of court records, mostly in Dane County. If anyone had objected, and no one ever did, I would have simply resumed doing what I did, back in the days before everyone had cellphones equipped with cameras — copy relevant sections from the records by hand. 

In other words, barring frugal requesters like me from making copies means additional labor and inconvenience, and potentially hours spent at terminals others might be waiting to use. But it will not necessarily generate additional revenue for the clerk’s office. (Rickert says he is now paying the per-page fee for some records and “taking notes on other, less important stuff.”)

Okazaki, who is running unopposed for a four-year term this fall, insists he has “provided no changes, updates or new policies regarding or related to the use of personal electronic devices to copy court records” and that any enforcement has come from “staff operating under existing policy and training.” He says there may have been instances in which violations went “unnoticed at the time.” And he wonders how anyone could see the “No Cell Phones!” sign and think it was OK to use a cellphone to take photos of records. (Well, one reason might be that this sign goes on to ask visitors to “respect others” in the room by exiting to the lobby to use their phones.)

But even if clerks are within their rights to adopt this prohibition, consistently or otherwise, that doesn’t make it a good idea. Letting people make their own copies, as the AG’s opinion expressly allows, is a harmless practice that reduces the workload of office staff and removes a potential barrier from people seeking to obtain public records for which they are, as taxpayers, already paying. A commitment to openness should trump the ability of government agencies to rake in money. 

Court records are among the most important public records we have. Clerks of court should not be making it harder or cost-prohibitive for members of the public to access them. 

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders, editor-at-large of The Progressive magazine, is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: Let the public copy court records 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Faceless megacorps scouring rural Wisconsin for land have put residents on edge – and it showed in the state’s primary earlier this month.

The big story in Dairyland isn’t the narrow defeat of state Rep. Francesca Hong, who preached a data center moratorium before losing the Democratic primary by roughly 3,000 votes to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

The big story comes from a small but consequential place that residents love and vowed to protect. Wrightstown, Wisconsin, just wrote the playbook for communities confronted by the proliferation of AI data centers, sometimes planned in secret. Residents learned of a potential project, organized against it, pushed village officials to pause development and forced the issue onto the ballot.

Then nearly 9 in 10 Wrightstown residents spoke through their votes on Aug. 11 and said “Yeah, no” to AI data centers. And what happened next? Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican  candidate for governor, made more than a dozen online posts claiming Crowley is too soft on data centers, according to an Aug. 23 Washington Post analysis. Crowley’s campaign countered by highlighting Tiffany’s congressional vote for legislation that included a 10-year ban on state and local AI regulation — and his previous description of data centers as “exciting new technology.”

But as the Wisconsin Examiner reported, the candidates largely agree on key guardrails: Both support giving communities the final say, banning local government nondisclosure agreements and protecting utility customers from added costs. Neither supports a moratorium, though Tiffany wants to repeal state tax incentives for data centers while Crowley has called for scrutinizing whether those incentives benefit taxpayers.

The political brawl comes after an LLC swooped into Wrightstown earlier this year, armed with a generic name and hungry for rural land deals.

Village officials denied at spring community meetings that they’d seen a project proposal from developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Yet emails released in response to an open records request revealed they’d been communicating with the company since January, WPR reported.

Residents pushed for and got a June pause on all AI data center projects until they could speak at the polls. Village board members in July unanimously extended the moratorium to a year as residents prepared to vote in a nonbinding referendum on Aug. 11.

NetChoice, a tech industry association that counts Amazon, TikTok, Meta, YouTube and other  Big Tech players as members, threatened legal action over the referendum.

But the industry couldn’t defeat months of grassroots organizing.

According to Ballotpedia, Wrightstown was the only Wisconsin municipality with a data-center-related measure on the primary ballot. Nationwide, Ballotpedia is tracking eight such measures in six states, including California, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada. As of Aug. 26, voters had approved four measures that limited development, none that favored it, and four remained pending.

In Wisconsin, Wrightstown’s vote followed Port Washington, where 66% of voters in April backed a measure requiring voter approval for future tax incremental financing districts exceeding $10 million — a referendum spurred by opposition to incentives for a massive data center.

Janesville voters will weigh in next: A November referendum will decide whether projects exceeding $450 million at a former industrial site must go before voters. Any referendum on a specific data center project would come later.

Why do we supposedly need these data centers in the first place? 

First, let’s look at some of the people behind these projects.

Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams sprang to action in Wisconsin Rapids this month as a paid adviser to the PNK Group. You may recall that Adams faced an indictment in a five-count federal bribery case. President Donald Trump’s administration bailed him out.

Adams is flacking these days for a 150-megawatt data center campus in Wisconsin Rapids. Attendees didn’t hold back at the pitch meeting, with one asking: “So, one question is how can we trust you because you’re a convicted felon, you’re indicted for bribery, and secondly, you talk about how AI and the medical use of AI, but given your ties to cryptocurrency and to the Russians, what is your AI data center going to be used for?” Adams was indicted but not convicted. Wisconsin Watch reported Aug. 28 that the two partners behind the project have strong ties to Russia — including being born, educated or having worked there.

I’ll get out my scythe now to cut through the facts and hammer home the details.

Residents booed Adams. They pushed for answers about water use, electricity demands, jobs and foreign ownership. Wisconsin Rapids’ Planning Commission will hold a hearing Sept. 16 and recommend whether the City Council should approve a conditional use permit for the proposed data center, Wisconsin Watch reported.

Without solid information on the who, let’s move to the why.

Big Tech has ready answers, citing national security for instance. 

They cry “Just trust us!” as Elon Musk’s company xAI fights for the right to nudify kids.

Does national security include spying on U.S. citizens with Flock cameras, which are so universally loathed that people are chopping them down? The Washington Post documented at least 50 cases across the country of law enforcement officers misusing the cameras, including to stalk women. Right- and left-leaning communities are ending contracts.

So, what’s next? Our state and federal lawmakers should wake up and follow the Wrightstown playbook.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered a first-in-the-nation statewide AI data center moratorium.

There is room for bipartisanship in Washington. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,  and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act to impose a pause on development of data centers.  

Elected officials are finally catching up, with Republicans increasingly criticizing data centers nationwide, according to a Washington Post analysis. 

What the Flock are the rest of you waiting for? Lawmakers, act now or suffer at the ballot box. Your political action committees can’t save you.

Juliana Keeping is the founder of  Keeping Strategies LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy communications firm specializing in moving evidence-based bipartisan reform at scale. She also serves as strategic artificial intelligence adviser at Our Lady of the Lake University in Houston and a Rotarian. She is the author of Keeping Shop, a newsletter on Substack.

Guest opinion: Big Tech wants Wisconsin land for data centers. Voters are saying ‘Yeah, no.’ 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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Every August, families in our state settle into familiar routines: filling backpacks with school supplies, scheduling sports physicals and wondering how summer disappeared so quickly. But before the first school bell rings, every family should put one more item on its checklist: making sure everyone — including children, parents and grandparents — is up to date on recommended vaccinations.

That message takes on new urgency with the recent measles outbreak in our state, and President Trump’s executive order calling for significant changes to the nation’s childhood vaccine recommendations, including splitting the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine across separate visits. The order comes amid renewed claims linking childhood vaccines to autism — claims repeatedly contradicted by decades of scientific research.

As vaccine-preventable diseases resurge, Wisconsinites should follow the evidence and trusted medical expertise while making it easier — not harder — for families to protect their children.

All of this is especially fitting during National Immunization Awareness Month. Vaccines are one of the few health decisions that protect not only the individual but those around us as well. Infants, older adults, cancer patients and neighbors with weakened immune systems all benefit when more of us are protected.

Unfortunately, our state is already moving in the wrong direction. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reports that only 66.9% of children reaching 24 months of age received the recommended routine vaccine series in 2025, down from 68.8% the year before. MMR vaccination rates among 2-year-olds have fallen below 80%, well below the approximately 95% coverage public health experts say is needed to prevent measles from spreading in a community.

This summer, the United States surpassed 2,700 measles cases, the highest total in 35 years. The overwhelming majority occurred among people who were unvaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Clark and Vernon counties had kindergarten MMR vaccination rates of just 44% and 50%, respectively, creating pockets where a single imported case could quickly spark a local outbreak.

Children are only part of the story. Protection against some diseases fades over time, which is why adults also need routine vaccinations. Many adults remain behind on their recommended flu, COVID-19, Tdap, RSV, pneumococcal and hepatitis B vaccinations. Staying current helps prevent serious illness and hospitalization, particularly among older adults and people with chronic health conditions.

And vaccination isn’t a rural issue or an urban issue — it’s a Wisconsin issue.

Whether you live in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Eau Claire, Platteville, Kenosha or a small town in between, viruses don’t recognize county lines or political boundaries. An outbreak in one community can quickly spread to another, disrupting families, straining health care workers and increasing costs for everyone.

Parents and adults deserve facts — not fear. They deserve public health recommendations grounded in evidence rather than unproven claims. Decades of research have found no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism, and the combined MMR vaccine has been safely used for generations.

The federal government may be changing its approach, but states still have a critical role in protecting public health. My hope is that Wisconsin will do the right thing: follow the evidence, listen to physicians and public health experts and ensure our children continue to have access to vaccinations based on sound medical evidence.

Families should rely on conversations with trusted physicians, nurses, pharmacists and local public health professionals rather than on misinformation circulating online.

As another school year begins, make vaccinations part of your family’s back-to-school routine, and don’t forget the adults in your life. Check immunization records through the Wisconsin Immunization Registry and ask your health care provider which vaccines are recommended for every member of your family.

The healthiest thing Wisconsin students can carry into school this year isn’t in a backpack. It’s the protection that comes from a community committed to keeping one another healthy and from public health decisions grounded in science.

Rob Gundermann is president and CEO of the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging & Health Groups (CWAG).

Guest opinion: As vaccine guidance shifts, Wisconsin families should follow the evidence 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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After reading Wisconsin Watch’s preview about the upcoming commutation hearings — and learning that people convicted of serious crimes, including murder, are among the first cases to be heard — I find it mind-boggling.

I understand that Gov. Tony Evers’ executive order establishing Wisconsin’s commutation process specifically excluded people convicted of any offense on a broad list of disqualifying sex offenses. Yet the order allows someone who took another person’s life to potentially receive early release. That contrast deserves serious discussion.

Wisconsin’s prison system also faces significant capacity and financial pressures, with more than 23,000 people incarcerated in facilities not designed for today’s prison population. 

Taxpayers are paying to incarcerate people who have spent two or three decades behind bars, including some whose offenses did not involve death or physical injury.

The commutation conversation cannot be only about the people we all agree should not be released. Where is the conversation — and the support — for those who have demonstrated that they should be considered for release?

This debate also raises questions about forgiveness and second chances. Our federal government has demonstrated that clemency can be used for serious offenses. Shouldn’t our elected state officials at least be willing to have an honest conversation about who has earned a second chance?

When I read about Wisconsin’s commutation bill in Wisconsin Right Now and came across the stories of two men who received decades-long, de facto life sentences for armed robbery — despite no one suffering bodily injuries — I was stunned. One of the men later saved the life of a correctional officer during an attack by another inmate. And both the court and the district attorney agreed that he had served enough time.

There are always two sides to every story. But perhaps elected officials should look more closely at people who didn’t get a fair shake in life, who have paid their debt to society and who are now in their 50s and capable of becoming productive members of their communities.

This isn’t about being soft on crime. It’s about recognizing rehabilitation, proportionality and redemption while confronting the enormous financial cost of keeping people incarcerated indefinitely when they have demonstrated that they are no longer the same people who entered prison decades ago.

Wisconsin has an opportunity to address both a massive taxpayer burden and one of the state’s most difficult ethical questions. The question is whether our elected officials are willing to look beyond the headlines, examine individual cases and support people who have genuinely earned a second chance.

The commutation conversation should be about all of these people — not just the cases that generate the strongest opposition.

Tonia Thornhill is a Milwaukee resident.

Guest opinion: Wisconsin’s commutation debate should look beyond the toughest cases 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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Editor’s note: This column was excerpted from an open letter sent on July 30, 2026, to Madison city officials. On Aug. 2, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway announced plans to remove barricades and tow vehicles occupying Williamson Street — while relocating memorial items. 

On July 22 Madison police shot Corey Ruiz on Williamson Street. That shooting should have been a moment of profound self-examination for this city. Instead, what has followed has exposed another failure of leadership.

Let me be clear: The shooting raises profound questions about Madison’s use of force and demands a full, independent investigation and public accountability. A man is dead in a system that too often relies on armed police to respond to public health and social crises.

But what has happened in the days since has become something else entirely.

I spent time walking along Williamson Street this week and speaking with business owners. I watched volunteers attempting to provide mental health support, addiction services, sanitation and basic necessities that should never have fallen on their shoulders.

This is not a functioning response.

I saw broken glass, discarded needles, human waste and other signs of a neighborhood under tremendous strain. Businesses that have served this community for decades are struggling to stay open. That includes St. Vincent de Paul, which helps keep families housed by paying utility bills and distributes thousands of diapers every month. 

Small business owners who had nothing to do with the shooting are seeing their livelihoods threatened as city leaders allow others to shoulder responsibilities that should belong to the government.

This crisis was entirely predictable.

Williamson Street has long been home to organizations that provide food assistance, harm reduction resources and help navigating housing and social services. Those organizations perform essential work, and our community is better because they exist. But they were never meant to become substitutes for a comprehensive public health system.

When a city fails to provide sufficient emergency shelter, addiction treatment, psychiatric care, crisis response, supportive housing and outreach, people in crisis congregate wherever help can be found. This is the consequence of the government failing to build a system capable of meeting people’s basic needs.

Instead of investing in that system, Madison has effectively concentrated its social safety net in one neighborhood.

That isn’t compassionate.

It isn’t sustainable.

And it isn’t fair — to people struggling with addiction or mental illness, to the volunteers trying to help them, or to the residents and small businesses that call Williamson Street home.

What disturbs me most is that everyone now seems to be fighting the wrong battle.

The shooting of Ruiz should have united Madison around demanding better policing and stronger public health infrastructure.

Instead, neighbors are turning against protesters. Protesters are turning against businesses. Businesses are turning against the city. Residents are exhausted. People experiencing homelessness and addiction remain trapped in the same circumstances that existed before the shooting.

No one is winning.

I’ve read dozens of comments from Madison residents, many of whom initially supported the demonstrations but now say they feel abandoned by city leadership. They describe blocked businesses, unsafe conditions, interrupted access to essential services, fire hazards, open drug use and a neighborhood that increasingly feels less like a protest than a place where the government has stopped governing. Whether every account is accurate is beside the point. The common thread is unmistakable: People feel abandoned.

Government exists precisely for moments like this.

It is not enough to allow volunteers to build makeshift public health services on a public street while trained professionals remain absent.

It is not enough to leave sanitation to neighbors cleaning up broken glass, discarded needles and human waste outside their own storefronts.

It is not enough to ask local businesses to absorb devastating financial losses while waiting indefinitely for a resolution.

And it is certainly not enough to respond to profound social failures primarily with police.

Madison prides itself on progressive values. Those values mean very little if they amount to outsourcing public health to nonprofits, addiction treatment to volunteers, housing to charities, sanitation to neighborhood residents and crisis intervention to police officers.

Williamson Street deserves better.

The people living with addiction deserve better.

The business owners deserve better.

The residents deserve better.

Corey Ruiz deserved better.

If this city truly wants to honor his memory, then stop managing symptoms and start addressing causes.

Invest in mental health infrastructure.

Expand shelter and supportive housing.

Fund addiction treatment and professional outreach.

Restore sanitation and public safety.

Support the businesses and nonprofits that have borne the costs of this crisis.

Hold officers accountable when they use unlawful or excessive force.

And stop expecting one neighborhood to carry burdens that belong to all of Madison.

The tragedy began years before the shooting when we accepted that nonprofits, charities, neighborhood volunteers and police officers could substitute for the public systems that are supposed to be run by the government. 

The shooting was one terrible consequence of that failure.

The chaos that has followed is another.

Madison can do better.

Right now, it is choosing not to.

Sarah A. Larsen is a Madison resident. 

Guest opinion: After the Corey Ruiz shooting, Williamson Street encampment exposes Madison’s deeper failures 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 Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s new dashboard tries to make campaign finance information more accessible to the public. It cost $285,000 to build and will cost more than $270,000 to maintain over two years, plus another $20,000 to eliminate erroneous and duplicative records, according to Daniel Carlton, administrator of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. 

“The biggest gain for the public is that the new website has much easier and more complete access to reported activity,” says Carlton. “It’s presented in a much more transparent, easy-to-navigate way than ever before.” The website’s tagline? “Welcome to Sunshine.” 

As a reporter, I remember scraping through campaign finance reports under the old system, trying to find information about state legislative campaigns. The website was slow and frequently froze up. Campaign finance information was uploaded via PDF. Sorting through the data was not fun. 

The new dashboard was launched a year ago, in August 2025, and the coming Aug. 11 primary and the Nov. 3 election will present key opportunities to test it out. You can use the portal — at campaignfinance.wi.gov — to search for information on state candidates, including governor, attorney general and state legislator. 

The site tracks individual candidate’s donors and recipients. You can also see how candidates spend (or “disburse”) the money they raise on such things as media, campaign staff and polling. You can find donors and easily see what other candidates they’ve given to. There are many other ways to filter information. To confirm your information, you can download the actual reports submitted by the campaigns. 

As is often the case, the data isn’t always perfect. This spring, while reporting on a circuit court race, I used data from the Ethics Commission, confirming it in the actual campaign finance report. That data, according to the campaign manager, was wrong; it showed the campaign of a state Supreme Court justice donating more than the $6,000 maximally allowable for a circuit court election.

The campaign manager promised to correct this error in April, blaming the new reporting website. When asked again ahead of the most recent filing deadline, in July, he again promised to correct it. It has still not been corrected. 

Blowback over erroneous campaign finance reports recently forced Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez out of the race for governor. 

Carlton says typos and imperfect recordkeeping can create multiple entities when there should be one. ActBlue — a PAC that helps Democrats fundraise — is a good example. A filer can accidentally type “Act Blue” or “ActBlur,” which would be logged as separate entities. 

The Ethics Commission has built a tool to “de-duplicate” entries like these. So far, it has reduced duplicative entities by 78% — from 12 million down to roughly 2.6 million. Carlton says the extra cost to streamline the data was “well worth it.” 

“Staff is watching for obvious duplications and trying to deduplicate them after reporting deadlines,” says Carlton. “Of course, anyone that identifies duplicates can let us know and we can fix them quickly.” But a challenge of the system, he adds, is that “many users input data without training or experience, which can lead to data integrity issues. The system has to be set up to try to keep entities separate, but there is no perfect way to do that.”

Like with any new technology, the site comes with some growing pains. But the state should be lauded for trying to make campaign finance information — famously a shadowy process with plenty of loopholes — more accessible to the public.

Chali Pittman is a staff writer at Isthmus newspaper and a member of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the council.

Your Right to Know: Campaign finance site a big improvement 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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For years, the story surrounding American manufacturing was in decline. We heard about factories closing, jobs moving overseas, and communities struggling to replace the industries that once defined them. That narrative is beginning to change.

As executive chairman of QPS Employment Group, an employee-owned staffing and recruiting firm headquartered in Brookfield, I speak every day with manufacturers across Wisconsin and the Midwest. Unlike economists analyzing data after the fact, our recruiters hear what’s happening in real time. We know when production lines are speeding up, when companies are adding shifts, and when employers begin asking for more workers.

Today, the message we’re hearing is encouraging. Manufacturing is making a comeback. A recent Institute for Supply Management report backs up what employers have been telling us for months: U.S. manufacturing has expanded for six consecutive months. While growth moderated slightly in June, factories continue to report healthy levels of new orders and steady production, signs that demand remains resilient despite ongoing economic uncertainty.

That’s especially good news for Wisconsin. Manufacturing has long defined our identity.

From precision machining and industrial equipment to food processing and paper products, our state has built its reputation on making things. These industries don’t just create products; they create careers, support local businesses and strengthen communities.

A busy factory means more truck drivers delivering materials, warehouse employees moving inventory, and electricians, maintenance technicians, welders, engineers, accountants and administrative professionals supporting operations. The ripple effect extends well beyond the factory floor.

Several factors are contributing to today’s momentum. Companies continue investing in domestic production. Businesses learned from recent supply chain disruptions and increasingly recognize the value of producing more goods closer to home. Investments in artificial intelligence, data centers and advanced technologies are fueling demand for equipment, components and industrial products that American manufacturers are well positioned to produce. 

None of this means manufacturing is easy.

Many employers still face rising material costs, interest rate uncertainty and rapidly changing global markets. Labor shortages also remain one of the biggest obstacles to continued growth.

One of today’s biggest challenges is that manufacturing demand continues to grow even as companies struggle to find enough workers. That challenge won’t solve itself.

For decades, we’ve encouraged nearly every young person to pursue a four-year degree while overlooking opportunities in skilled trades and manufacturing.

The reality looks very different today. Modern manufacturing is clean, technology-driven and increasingly sophisticated. Employees operate advanced robotics, program automated equipment, analyze production data and work with technologies transforming the industry. Many of these careers offer competitive wages, excellent benefits and long-term stability without requiring massive student loan debt.

That is a message we need to do a better job of sharing with students, parents and educators alike. Employers share that responsibility.

Successful manufacturers aren’t waiting for talent to walk through the door. They’re investing in training, partnering with technical colleges, offering apprenticeships, improving workplace culture and creating career paths that encourage employees to stay.

Workforce development has become a competitive advantage. Wisconsin has long benefited from its work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Those strengths remain just as valuable today as they were generations ago. Sustaining this manufacturing resurgence will require continued investment not only in equipment and facilities but also in people.

That means supporting technical education, expanding apprenticeship opportunities, helping veterans transition into manufacturing careers and creating workforce solutions that allow businesses to fill critical positions. 

Manufacturers remain optimistic. After several years marked by supply chain disruptions, inflation and economic uncertainty, many employers are once again planning for growth rather than simply reacting to challenges. That shift in mindset matters because confidence often drives investment, hiring and long-term expansion.

We see that confidence firsthand. No one can predict exactly what the economy will look like a year from now. Manufacturing has always been cyclical, and challenges will inevitably emerge along the way. Still, the trajectory is moving in the right direction.

Wisconsin has an opportunity to build on that momentum by continuing to support the industries that have long been the backbone of our economy. If we invest in our workforce, embrace innovation and ensure manufacturers have access to the talent they need, this comeback can become sustainable.

It can become the foundation for the next generation of American manufacturing. That’s something worth building.

Scott Mayer is the founder and executive chairman of QPS Employment Group, an employee-owned staffing and recruiting firm headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

Guest opinion: Manufacturing’s comeback depends on Wisconsin’s workforce 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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One of my favorite parts of managing the Wisconsin Watch newsroom is hearing from readers. Whether you’re sharing a story tip, sending feedback or offering a fresh perspective, those exchanges make our journalism better.

That’s why I was excited to launch our guest commentary initiative.

Since January, we’ve published guest opinions from Wisconsinites with a range of perspectives. Some have written about issues they’ve worked on professionally. Others have drawn from personal experience or original research. Together, they’ve expanded the WisConversation around the most pressing issues affecting us all. 

These commentaries reflect the views of their authors, not Wisconsin Watch. But they still receive the same careful attention we bring to all of our journalism, including fact-checking and editing for clarity. Collaborating with contributors in that process has proved particularly rewarding. Several have expressed appreciation for having an editor scrutinize facts and help them communicate more effectively while maintaining their voice.

Thanks to all who have contributed. Below are the guest commentaries we’ve published just since May. You can find every submission here. 

• After decades in prison, who deserves a chance at clemency? — Sherry Reames, Mark Rice, Joyce Ellwanger and Harlan Richards
• How Congress can reduce deadly falls among older Americans — Kevin Svoboda
• A changing world demands a new vision for graduates — Jill Underly
• Going boating? Wear a life jacket. It could save your life. — Gail R. Kulp
• New federal funding guidelines fail to address root causes of homelessness — Josh Benti
• Many Wisconsin firefighters missed a chance at toxic foam compensation. Here’s how to fix that. — Jordan Cade 
• Rural Wisconsin workers lose health insurance twice as fast as before the pandemic — Jiyue Wang 
• Are your elected officials listening? — Judy Nagel
• Open letters on justice and public safety as Wisconsin weighs commutations — Shannon Ross
• Wisconsin should make polluters pay — Leo Rain
• Celebrate Wisconsin’s overdose decline, but demand accountability for opioid settlement spending — Jiyue Wang 
• We must oppose and ban the use of Flock technology — Nickolas X Doherty

Keep the WisConversation going

We’d love to hear from more of you.

If you have expertise, lived experience or a perspective that could help your neighbors better understand an issue, please consider submitting. 

Find our guidelines here and send your idea to opinion@wisconsinwatch.org.

The WisConversation so far: Hear from your neighbors 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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Milwaukee has become part of a mass surveillance apparatus. Surveillance technology is dangerous, and few know that these are counterinsurgency tactics being practiced on residents by our own police department. 

Integrated surveillance technology tactics, like drones, automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), video cameras, “Stingray” international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers, and social media trackers, were developed during colonial endeavors and on battlefields like Vietnam, Colombia and the Middle East to pacify local populations. 

These types of surveillance technologies made their way back for use against the domestic populace in the United States. 

The dangers of Flock cameras

It’s unfortunate that the police have resorted to counterinsurgency tactics to surveil Milwaukee residents, but one is uniquely dangerous: automated license plate reading technology, more popularly known as Flock cameras. 

Flock technology can establish a “pattern of life” for Milwaukee residents, especially when combined with other surveillance technologies, without a warrant or probable cause. 

A “pattern of life” is the recurring patterns, behaviors and cycles that make up your average day-to-day activities. Establishing a pattern of life involves law enforcement collecting surveillance data and combining it to build a detailed picture of a person’s habits, routines, relationships and behavior. This includes where a person sleeps, when they leave, where they work, where they regularly meet, what vehicle they drive, which routes they take and much more. 

Flock cameras and other automatic license plate recognition tools also record other information, such as make, model, color, body style, temporary tags, damage and stickers. They call it the “vehicle footprint” and use it when there is no license plate or the license plate is unreadable. These cameras actually record everything in a wide angle, but allegedly the interface that the local police can see only displays what I’ve mentioned. 

The companies that make them, and theoretically anyone who accesses the recording, can see everything captured in the videos. That means faces, cellphones, clothes, actions – everything. 

The Milwaukee Police Department combines this with open-source intelligence like Babel Street, which analyzes publicly available information, such as social media data. This means they can also begin to build out a psychological profile, ideology, interests and a network of associates. 

Over-policing the community

Although the MPD has acquired this technology under the pretext of solving crime, it indiscriminately monitors all Milwaukee residents’ whereabouts and online activities, and that does not make Milwaukee safer. Instead, it reinforces over-policing, and these technologies tend to be concentrated in Black and Latino communities.

Studies show that over-policing produces more crime because it deteriorates community-police relations, causing communities to abide by what sociologists call the “code of the street,” which causes retaliatory violence. 

Researchers have clearly illustrated that most crime is a result of unmet needs, so if we intend to make Milwaukee safe, policing and surveilling the populace will not create a safe community. If people still have to survive harsh circumstances, the government can place all the surveillance technology and police they desire; people will still find ways to survive when faced with intense, concentrated poverty, hyper-segregation, economic exclusion and structural racism. 

Furthermore, the current federal landscape has set a dangerous precedent for how it accesses and exploits the surveillance data collected by local police and sheriff’s departments. We must oppose and ban Flock automated license plate readers and any other technology that undermines civil liberties and privacy. The abuse of these technologies causes more problems for Milwaukee residents. We need to remove them to protect our privacy and democracy.

Nickolas X Doherty is the Confronting Mass Incarceration coordinator at the Milwaukee Turners.

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service invites community members to submit opinion pieces of 500-800 words on topics of interest to central city Milwaukee. To send a submission for consideration, please email info@milwaukeenns.org. The views expressed are solely those of the authors.

Guest opinion: We must oppose and ban the use of Flock technology 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 celebrating an overdose decline it didn’t pay for.

Wisconsin just recorded one of the steepest drops in overdose deaths in its history. Opioid overdose deaths fell 42.5% from 2023 to 2024, from 1,422 to 817, according to the state Department of Health Services. State officials greeted the news warmly. Attorney General Josh Kaul said the work being done with opioid settlement funds is having a real impact. DHS Secretary Kirsten Johnson said the funding has saved lives.

The decline is real and worth celebrating. But the explanation deserves more caution because most of the settlement money has not been spent. As of September 2025, the state had received about $90 million of its share and reported spending roughly $35 million. Local governments, which receive the larger share, had taken in more than $160 million by the end of 2025, and most of it was still sitting in the bank: Just eight of the 87 local governments had spent more than half of their funds, and 16 had spent nothing at all. Much of the money arrived only recently, and grants take time to become services. A pot of money that remains mostly in public accounts cannot fully explain a decline that had already happened.

The deeper problem with crediting Wisconsin’s spending is that the same decline is appearing almost everywhere. Nationally, overdose deaths fell nearly 14% in 2025, the third straight annual drop, with decreases in almost every state, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The year before, Wisconsin was among the states with the largest declines. Deaths are falling even in places that have barely touched their settlement dollars. Menominee County, which has long recorded the state’s highest overdose death rate, received about 0.08% of local settlement funds. Yet overdose deaths in the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin community within the county fell from nine in 2023 to one in 2024.

None of this means the money is useless or that naloxone and treatment do not help. They plainly do, and some settlement dollars have paid for them. But naloxone, the overdose reversal drug most often credited, became available over the counter in 2023 and reaches people through pharmacies and many state and federal programs, not chiefly these local accounts. The timing and the geography do not fit a story in which Wisconsin’s settlement spending drove the drop. The dollars are mostly unspent, and the same downward trend appears across the country, including where little was spent. A single state’s fund cannot claim a nationwide decline as its own.

This is good news. And precisely because it is good news, it should not become a reason to relax oversight. Right now, the state’s reporting tells us how much money has gone out the door, not what it bought or whether it reached the communities hit hardest. Wisconsin can do better. It can build a single, searchable statewide dashboard of settlement spending, similar to what  Minnesota and Indiana already offer. That work is being done instead by a nonprofit newsroom: Wisconsin Watch built a searchable database of local spending reports because the state left them as PDFs on a legislative committee’s website. It can require recipients to report what the money actually funded and whom it served, not just dollar totals, instead of relying on local governments to voluntarily disclose that information in inconsistent ways. And it can measure progress by a simple test: Do these dollars reach high-burden places like Menominee and turn into services people can use?

The accountability gap runs in both directions. The executive branch should not claim a victory it cannot yet prove. The Legislature’s finance committee should not let local spending reports sit in formats few residents can search.

Wisconsin has cashed out a public health windfall before. In 2002 the state sold the rights to decades of its tobacco settlement payments for about $1.3 billion up front, then spent the entire amount within a single budget cycle. About $681 million went straight into the general fund, and most of the rest covered routine payments to counties and cities. Little was set aside for the tobacco prevention programs the settlement was meant to support. By the state’s own later accounting, the deal returned only about 60 cents for every dollar of tobacco money it gave up. The temptation has returned. In Arizona, the Legislature moved $115 million in opioid settlement money to the state prison system, and the state attorney general went to court to stop it and lost.

The lesson is not that settlement money fails. It is that good headlines are exactly when the public tends to stop watching. A real decline in overdose deaths should be the moment Wisconsin holds this money to a higher standard, not a reason to look away.

Jiyue Wang lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He completed this research as part of his master’s degree in economics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He will begin a Ph.D. in political science at Rutgers University in September 2026.

Guest opinion: Celebrate Wisconsin’s overdose decline, but demand accountability for opioid settlement spending 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.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Wisconsin needs to step it up and hold major climate polluters responsible for the damage they have caused. Fossil fuel corporations are polluting our world at the public’s expense, causing increasingly frequent climate disasters. The U.S. government provides an estimated $29.4 billion a year in direct subsidies, according to the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank. While oil companies are gobbling up taxpayer money, the public is footing the bill for disaster cleanup. The good news is that there is a straightforward fix. Wisconsin can follow Vermont and New York’s lead by making the polluters pay. 

Vermont and New York have already created climate superfunds, which hold polluters accountable for their share in the billions of dollars in damages climate change is causing. These funds are accounts into which fossil fuel companies must pay, with the money used to help communities become more resilient to climate change.

The number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters continues to grow in the U.S., with 23 occurring in just last year, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that researches and reports facts about the changing climate. These disasters are not only happening in the South. They are right here in the Midwest. Wisconsin has been battered by an increasing number of extreme climate events in recent years. From tornadoes to hailstorms, it feels as though Wisconsin cannot catch a break. In April, another devastating hailstorm hit the east side of Madison and damaged hundreds of homes and cars with its baseball-sized hail.

Wisconsinites need to talk to their representatives and let them know that they are fed up with paying for climate-disaster-related damages while the fossil fuel companies earn record profits. The state needs resources to prepare for future climate disasters, and a Wisconsin climate superfund would fill that need. Please urge your state representatives to make polluters pay for climate damages.

Leo Rain is a Madison resident and member of the Madison chapter of Climate Changemakers, which describes itself as a “modern climate advocacy program built for busy, productive people who are looking for meaningful civic engagement.”

Guest opinion: Wisconsin should make polluters pay 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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On April 3, Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order creating a process for many people in the Wisconsin prison system to officially apply for commutation. It runs through Jan. 4, 2027, when Evers leaves office.

Commutations have been enshrined in our constitution since 1848, and they have been used in virtually every state as well as by the federal government for almost as long. This provides a rare, time-limited opportunity to prioritize and amplify public safety in Wisconsin. Every political actor in this moment now shares responsibility for whether it succeeds. I want to speak directly to the current and future governor, as well as Wisconsin voters, about the responsibility they all carry.

So here are my three open letters to the people who will shape what comes next.

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Gov. Tony Evers,

First, thank you sincerely for your record-setting and bold actions regarding pardons and, now, commutations. But two details stand out in order for the latter to be as successful as possible for society.

You have activated an unprecedented process that has fostered tremendous energy, time, expense, expectations, and hope among loved ones and advocates. It is crucial that you maintain that same courage to the end despite predictable attacks from critics. We work with families who have supported their incarcerated loved ones for decades as they await reunification and the chance to demonstrate that growth and redemption are real.

Equally important is how we consider and inform crime survivors. Proactively engaging crime survivors would strengthen the process. No single group or individual should have sway or control over a sentence given by a judge, or over an executive decision to amend that sentence, which is exactly why these powers exist. But the way crime survivors are informed — or not informed — of the possibility that the person who harmed them may be released is a serious shortcoming. If we are to truly create a justice system worthy of that name, we need to engage as fully as possible in addressing crime survivors’ needs and concerns.

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U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany,

I understand this is a political campaign and that the Republican Party has run on a tough-on-crime agenda for as long as I can remember. But I also see the values reflected in your journey as someone who built a family business helping people enjoy the beauty of the Northwoods. You understand the importance of helping people understand a topic that many take for granted and don’t think about until it becomes part of their experience.

A purple state is more difficult than a red state when it comes to addressing the failures of the criminal legal system. In a red state, the majority party doesn’t have to worry about losing power, so advocacy on the issue can focus on dollars, principles and efficacy. In a purple state, crime is too often treated as a political weapon, obscuring the reality that Wisconsin over-incarcerates, its processes inherently fail crime survivors’ needs, and state funding severely underinvests in rehabilitation and reentry efforts. All of this places extraordinary burdens on the personnel who work in the system to the point that suicide rates and substance abuse among correctional staff are some of the highest of any occupation. No one profits from the criminal legal system except those who literally profit from it.

This matters because your campaign rhetoric is building a reality that restricts your ability to govern wisely on this topic. We cannot incarcerate our way to public safety, and we know how to do better.

My request is that you consider your responsibility as the race continues. And if you do win — or, preferably, before the election — I ask that you meet with those of us who know the system from the carceral side to better understand how it can be improved.

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Democratic gubernatorial field,

During the 2024 presidential election, the almost instinctual, thoughtless decision to use then-candidate Donald Trump’s felony convictions as the key to undermining his candidacy was breathtakingly hypocritical. As Bianca Tylek from Worth Rises stated, using the term felon as an epithet to attack Trump would hurt Black and Brown men more than it would hurt Trump. This sent the message that Democrats felt having a felony made a person unfit and that they were willing to stigmatize a population that they claimed to advocate for when it was politically convenient.

I say this: Do not shy away from the commutations issue. It is a good policy, and people with felony convictions cut across every demographic in society.

The data, research and millions of lived outcomes point very clearly to what works and what doesn’t regarding criminal legal systems change. Whatever happens over the remainder of this year and under the next governor regarding commutations and broader sentencing policy, Wisconsin leaders and citizens must confront a simple question: If states with lower incarceration rates, use of commutations and smaller prison populations and costs are achieving public safety outcomes equal to or better than ours, what is stopping us from doing the same?

Shannon Ross is a member of the Justice Forward Wisconsin coalition and founder/CEO of The Community — both focused on creating a justice system more worthy of that name.

Guest opinion: open letters on justice and public safety as Wisconsin weighs commutations 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I am not a lawyer. I am a Madison resident who is curious about how the city spends money and whether it follows its own rules. 

A few years ago, I started writing a blog about Madison city government, focusing on things the mainstream media were not covering. A big part of this involves obtaining records under the state’s open records law. When I want to know what is happening, I ask for the documents, and I read them.

The open records law is built for people like me. It begins with a declaration: “In recognition of the fact that a representative government is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the public policy of this state that all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those officers and employees who represent them.”

Note what it says: all persons. Not just credentialed journalists or licensed lawyers.

Earlier this year, I asked the Madison Police Department for emails regarding a plan to let the department accept training grants without Common Council approval, a special exception unique to that department and apparently contrary to city policy. I was reporting on the proposal. The records arrived in May. They were useful, but the department had blacked out the work email addresses and work phone numbers of several government employees and a contractor doing business with the city.

That looked wrong to me. The open records law has only two provisions that allow a custodian to withhold contact information: sections 19.36(10) and 19.36(11). You can read both on the Wisconsin Legislature’s website. They cover only four things: a person’s home address, home email address, home phone number, and Social Security number. Neither one covers a work email address or a work phone number. You do not need a law degree to read them and see that an official’s city email is not a home address.

And so I pushed back. I wrote to assistant city attorney Adriana Peguero, whose job includes records compliance. I laid out my request, listed the specific redactions, quoted the two provisions, and explained why neither applied. Putting a request for compliance in writing is important because it puts all the facts and the rationale in front of the higher authority.

A couple of weeks later, Peguero replied. “I have discussed this matter with the MPD records custodians,” she wrote, “and they will be working on a new records set for you that discloses these email addresses and phone numbers.” I received the unredacted records the same day.

The whole thing took one letter and some patience. No lawsuit, no lawyer, no fee. It mattered because the result did not depend on special standing or special knowledge. Instead, it came down to a law being clear and a public official being willing to follow it once this was pointed out. That is how the system is supposed to work.

When a government tells you a record is being withheld, that is not the last word. It is one person’s reading, and sometimes it is wrong. You can read the statute yourself, point to the language, and ask someone with authority to take another look. Often, that is enough.

The information belongs to you. The law says so. Ask and you shall receive.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Madison resident Alex Saloutos is a native of Madison, a licensed real estate agent and publisher of the blog 77SquareMiles.com.

Your Right to Know: Anyone can lay down the law on open records 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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Have you thought your concerns are being ignored by your elected leaders? You hire them with your vote, but they seem to be largely unresponsive to your needs. Your perception is not wrong, as determined by two Supreme Court decisions: Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. These cases opened the door to equating money as free speech.

Former Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, recognized this as a problem when $500 million was spent on campaign financing. In 2002 they sponsored bipartisan legislation to limit campaign financing, and it passed Congress. Then this legislation was attacked by special interests, and the Supreme Court ruled against the McCain-Feingold bill. The total spent on federal and state elections in 2024 surpassed $20 billion, according to OpenSecrets. Our legislators are spending a good share of their time dialing for dollars versus communicating with their constituents. The massive amount of money has filtered down into our local nonpartisan elections through outside interests.

Now legislators are not able to set campaign finance guardrails until the Supreme Court decision is corrected. This is done through an amendment to the Constitution. A grassroots effort is requesting that amendment. Already 180 Wisconsin municipalities have sent a resolution to their state representatives requesting an amendment. This includes Green Bay and Brown County; both passed with overwhelming majorities. Twenty-five states have already called for an amendment by sending a resolution to their congressional representatives. 

Let’s see Wisconsin become the next state to demand our state representatives call for a resolution and return our government to representation by the people for the people. 

Judy Nagel is a De Pere resident and a volunteer with American Promise.

Guest opinion: Are your elected officials listening? 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.