While the latest entry to seek the Democratic nomination in Wisconsin’s crowded 1st Congressional District primary contest is highlighting a promise to raise more money than his rivals, another candidate is making the opposite case for his own campaign.

Adam Follmer, a suburban Milwaukee speech pathologist, has set a $10,000 cap his campaign spending.

“I’m playing to win in this campaign, but I think more than anything I’m playing to shift the Overton window a little bit more to things that we can talk about,” Follmer said in an interview. “We can actually think about what are our elections going to look like when we do get money out of politics.”

His campaign website stands apart from those of other Democrats in the race because it doesn’t have an opening splash screen soliciting donations.

It’s different in other ways as well. He said he’s trying to use his website to model “sustainable politics” — there’s even a page with that name — and in presenting the issues that he is campaigning on, Follmer has a series of videos that he’s encouraging visitors on the site to share.

“I’m hoping to appeal to people that are just tired of the endless attacks, the endless calls, the door knocking of people that they don’t even know, and instead change the way we engage in politics, and have that message come from people we know and trust,” Follmer said.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face incumbent U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who has a campaign fund exceeding $5 million and remains the favorite in the race, according to political oddsmakers.

Follmer’s platform in the campaign includes getting money completely out of politics, banning corporate political action committee donations and donations from lobbyists. He also favors ranked-choice voting and term limits in the U.S. House and Senate.

Some have criticized term limits for increasing the power and influence of lobbyists as the lawmakers in office turn over more often. Follmer, however, argues that the federal government should increase the employment of researchers and experts who “are supposed to help [lawmakers] understand the issues,” and severely restrict or eliminate paid lobbyists in return.

“The idea that a corporation can have the same voice as an actual voter is something that’s never sat right with me, and I don’t understand why that’s the norm,” he said.

Follmer also favors a wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million along with closing corporate tax loopholes; single-payer health care available to all; expanded public and affordable housing and rental assistance; and a series of worker supports including guaranteed universal child care, paid parental leave and a shift to a 32-hour work week without reducing weekly incomes.

Workforce training, fully funded public education, well-paid teachers, modernizing of infrastructure with a focus on addressing climate change and ensuring that publicly funded research is made open access round out his platform.

Follmer says his goal is to connect with 20,000 people in the district of more than 700,000 voters, either face-to-face or through his website, where he has installed a platform that visitors can use to communicate directly with him.  

The way politics is practiced currently, “we don’t have any infrastructure for us to actually communicate with our elected representatives in a meaningful way,” Follmer said.

He hopes that by reaching people more directly, they’ll in turn share his information with their friends and neighbors, building support for his campaign.

While Follmer said that he has often lined up with groups such as the progressive Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party on many of his policy proposals, he  initially launched his campaign in mid-2025 as an independent candidate, planning to skip the primary in August and wind up on the 1st CD ballot in November.

“What I was hoping for with the independent candidacy was that I could get people that voted for Trump in 2024 to realize there actually are candidates representing working class values, and that we could get those people to change,” he said. 

But in talking to voters, “I got a lot of feedback from the community that they didn’t want to see an independent candidate,” Follmer said, because they worried that the vote against Steil would wind up being divided, returning the incumbent to office even if there’s a majority in opposition.

“I want to be the kind of candidate that listens to the constituents,” he said. “And so I made that decision recently to change to the Democratic side and ride out the primary that way.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Rebecca Cooke, a Democrat running for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, did political consultation for Kirk Bangstad during his bid for Congress in 2016. 

Bangstad, now the owner of Minocqua Brewing Co., ran a short campaign in 2015 against then-U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, currently the secretary of transportation under President Donald Trump.

According to Federal Election Commission reports, Bangstad paid Cooke and her consulting company, Cooke Strategy, about $12,300 for her services. 

Cooke listed Bangstad’s campaign on her company’s now-deactivated website, according to the WayBack Machine website.

Cooke recently criticized Bangstad for a social media post promoting the idea of assassinating Trump, by saying his brewery would provide free beer on the day of his death. Bangstad, who said on May 2 he was launching a run for governor, has endorsed Cooke’s Democratic challenger in the race for the 3rd Congressional District, Emily Berge.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wayback Machine: Web archive
• Federal Election Commission: Campaign finance report
• Wausau Daily Herald: Duffy challenger drops out; now what?

Did Rebecca Cooke serve as a political consultant for Kirk Bangstad? 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.

The high-profile beer brand owner and political fundraiser Kirk Bangstad is entering the race for Wisconsin governor — a move he hinted at last year before putting it off.

Bangstad, who has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and state Republican politicians, announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination over the weekend at a rally outside his Minocqua craft beer brewery.

In an email newsletter Sunday from a Substack account he operates, Bangstad told subscribers he was running “because I believe Wisconsin needs a battle-hardened fighter to join the rest of America to save our Democracy from Trump’s regime, and that person doesn’t exist in the crowded field of Democrats currently running in Wisconsin’s Gubernatorial primary.”

The newsletter included a screenshot from the Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s website showing an account registered for his campaign for governor. The account was not visible at the commission’s website Monday. Commission administrator Daniel Carlton Jr. said in an email message that campaign accounts do not become publicly visible until they have been reviewed by the commission’s staff.

Bangstad, who ran for Congress in 2016, has sold a variety of beers bearing politically themed names honoring Gov. Tony Evers, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and others. He’s also promoted a promise of free beer when Trump dies.

He operates a SuperPAC that has funded advertising promoting Democratic candidates and attacking Republicans, as well lawsuits against Wisconsin’s school choice program and accusing congressional Republicans of enabling the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack that delayed certification of the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won. He also sued unsuccessfully to keep Trump off of the Wisconsin ballot in 2024.

Bangstad said in his newsletter that Democrats already running didn’t take seriously his demand for “an election protection plan, because I believed deep in my heart that Trump’s regime would unleash an ‘October surprise’ that would try to steal elections across the country and keep his goons in control of Congress.”

The Saturday rally was initially billed as a free speech event in response to Bangstad’s interview by Secret Service and FBI agents Thursday.

The interview followed a  social media post Bangstad made on April 25, shortly after the shooting upstairs from the White House correspondents dinner that Trump attended. Cole Tomas Allen, accused of crashing a security checkpoint with a shotgun, is being held on charges that included attempting to assassinate Trump. On Facebook that night, Bangstad declared, “Well, we almost got #freebeerday. Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle.”

Republican campaigns jumped on the post, accusing Bangstad of calling for Trump’s assassination. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a statement condemning the comment as well.

In a newsletter May 1 promoting his rally, Bangstad described the post as “satirical” and suggested federal authorities targeted him for “wondering publicly whether Trump’s assassination attempt was staged.”

In October, Bangstad floated the possibility of running for governor. He argued that “fascism is already here in America and must be stopped” in an Oct. 12 Substack post. “I’ve not heard a single candidate talk about what he or she will do to protect us.”

Bangstad wrote then that he was tempted to run on his history of battling conservative Republicans in court. “But that’s just narcissism rearing its ugly head,” he added. He vowed instead to compile a list of “most egregious votes” in Congress by U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the expected Republican nominee in the governor’s race, and spend money from his Super PAC on ads about “all the lies he’s told in service to Trump, and the harm he’s done to Wisconsinites.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

In the contest for the Democratic nomination for governor, “affordability” might be the most frequently used campaign watchword. Side-by-side with it is another word: Healthcare.

Healthcare “is one of the most broken systems in the whole of government,” says former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. It’s “working as it was designed to,” says state Rep. Francesca Hong — in what is decidedly not a compliment to the system.

Among voters, it is “a top issue if not the top issue,” says Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes calls healthcare one of the “foundational pieces of our economy” — but one that is under strain and not working well.

For Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, it’s “a complicated system” in which she made a career as an  emergency room nurse, a CDC infectious disease officer and finally a health system executive — “which means that I know the levers that we can pull to try to reduce costs across the state of Wisconsin.”

Former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan considers healthcare a leading Wisconsin asset, innovator and employer, but one that’s been hobbled by “the healthcare management that we are allowing to go on in this county — and it’s not helping.”

State Sen. Kelda Roys describes the healthcare system  as imbued with “the worst aspects of capitalism in that we’ve injected profits before patients at every step, but none of the benefits of capitalism — there’s no free market, there’s no real competition.”

Those remarks come from three forums in April at which the seven leading Democratic hopefuls fielded questions about their healthcare policies and priorities.

Four of them — Rodriguez, Barnes, Roys and Hong — took part in a forum hosted by HealthWatch Wisconsin that focused entirely on healthcare issues. (All seven were invited, according to HealthWatch, which is affiliated with the nonprofit public interest law firm ABC for Health).

All seven joined a Wisconsin Health News event focused entirely on healthcare as well as a Wisconsin Citizen Action online forum, where healthcare led off a discussion that covered a cross-section of other issues as well.

Many of the Democratic Party rivals’ policies and priorities overlap. They all agree that healthcare costs and access are among the most important priorities for the state.

All of them say they favor a public option for health insurance — a plan that would be available for people to purchase health coverage on the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace if they don’t have coverage through work and their incomes are too high to qualify them for Medicaid.

All but one of the seven propose to expand Medicaid, referred to as BadgerCare in Wisconsin, under the Affordable Care Act. Expansion would open the health insurance plan for low-income Wisconsinites with incomes above the current limit (100% of the federal poverty guideline) up to 138% of the guideline.

Roys is the exception, arguing that Medicaid expansion is no longer feasible in Wisconsin because of federal changes enacted after President Donald Trump took office.

Instead, Roys proposes a public option that would allow the public to buy into the state health insurance plan for public employees. Brennan also proposes using the public employees’ plan as a public option, but he favors Medicaid expansion as well.

Four of the other five Democrats would tie the public option to Medicaid expansion, making it possible for people whose incomes don’t qualify them for BadgerCare to pay a monthly health insurance premium for BadgerCare coverage. Rodriguez proposes a public option plan called “BadgerChoice,” which would be a state-based insurance plan but would not be connected to BadgerCare, according to her campaign. 

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a national right to abortion, all seven Democrats have vowed to protect reproductive healthcare and to firmly back abortion rights in Wisconsin.

All of them speak of the importance of ensuring that mental health is treated on a par with physical health. And all of them at least nod to the need to improve healthcare access in rural Wisconsin.

At the same time, each candidate’s proposals differ, sometimes in fine details, sometimes in broad priorities, and sometimes mostly rhetorically.

Federal relations

Another point of general agreement is on the need for stronger support for public health measures. All of the Democratic candidates have criticized the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for undermining longstanding support for vaccination against communicable diseases.

But they take different directions in their expectations for federal-state relations in healthcare. Roys, for example, writes off federal assistance during the current administration, which is why she considers expanding Medicaid a dead issue for now. Crowley’s Medicaid expansion proposal explicitly refers to federal matching funds to cover some of the costs.

None have laid out the level of detail that will be required for turning their ideas into legislation or incorporating them into the next state budget.

This report has been updated to clarify that the “BadgerChoice” proposal from Sara Rodriguez is not connected with Medicaid Expansion. 

In the gallery below, click on the caption of each candidate’s picture to read a summary of what that candidate has said and published about their approach to healthcare policy and links to relevant pages on the candidate’s campaign website. 

Early voting for the May 16 election began Saturday with confusion over whether all the races listed on the ballot are still taking place. 

Even motivated voters who showed up within the first few hours said they weren’t quite sure whether the U.S. House elections were still happening. 

“I went ahead and voted for who I wanted to vote for. If they don’t count it, that’s their problem,” said Betty Powers, who has participated in every election since 1968, outside an East Baton Rouge Parish polling location. 

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the U.S. House races Thursday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Louisiana’s House district map unconstitutional. 

Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, who is not related to the governor, has said votes cast in Louisiana’s U.S. House races won’t be counted. But that didn’t deter several early voters from picking a House candidate on their ballot anyway. 

“Something is delayed … but I don’t know if it affects East Baton Rouge Parish or not,” said Valerie Amato, who wore a shirt with the picture of President Donald Trump and the slogan ‘I’m still here’ to her polling location. She said she voted for a U.S. House candidate out of habit. 

Mail-in ballots with U.S. House races listed had already been sent out by the time the governor declared the election was off. Nancy Landry’s office also didn’t have enough notice to remove the affected candidates’ names from the ballots before in-person voting started. 

“[The House race] was still on there, so we voted for it,” said Evan Delahaye, a Baton Rouge resident who voted early with his brother.

“I am worried we’re going to have to vote twice,” he added. 

Pressure from the president

Gov. Landry’s move to postpone an election for a reason other than a natural disaster or health crisis is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in Louisiana. 

The state has proceeded with U.S. House races after federal courts declared the voting districts unconstitutional in the past, most recently in 2022. Previously, officials agreed it was too close to the elections to change the map, and that new districts could wait until the following cycle two years later. 

But Landry and other Republican officials insist the Supreme Court decision from Wednesday is so sweeping in nature that it demands the aggressive action of calling off an election, even when absentee voting was already underway.

Trump is also putting pressure on GOP elected officials across the country to create as many Republican-leaning districts in Congress as possible before the end of the year to ensure the party maintains its advantage in the House.

The Supreme Court declared Louisiana’s current House map unconstitutional because it said state officials relied too heavily on the race of voters to draw its district boundaries. As a result, Landry and Republican legislators are expected to create a new map that would eliminate one, or both, of the state’s majority-Black districts. 

Calling off the current elections allows the governor and Republican state lawmakers to draw up new, more conservative U.S. House districts sooner.

A flurry of lawsuits have been filed in federal and state court attempting to stop the governor’s actions and keep Louisiana’s House races moving forward. So far, none have been successful, but more court decisions could be handed down in the next few days. 

In light of that uncertainty, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican whose contentious reelection campaign is on the same ballot, was among those who chose to still pick a candidate in a House race when he went to early vote this week. 

Cassidy said he wasn’t convinced a court would uphold Landry’s decision to call off the election and wanted to vote just in case.

The senator said he agreed with the Supreme Court ruling on the U.S. House districts, but he was uncomfortable with the decision to cancel those races less than 48 hours before early voting began.

“The way that the election has transpired, that has almost treated the voter with disrespect,” Cassidy said in an interview with reporters. “That’s confusing to voters … We should be serving the voter, not politicians.”

 

Through the first four months of the year, Kia EV6 sales have tumbled 37.4% to 2,751 units. That’s a steep decline and it can likely be attributed to the elimination of the federal electric vehicle tax credit.

Kia is now trying to shore up sales by announcing a steep price cut for 2026. Kicking things off is the EV6 Light Standard Range, which begins at $37,900 before a $1,545 destination fee. That’s a savings of $5,000 compared to the 2025 model.

Review: The Kia EV6 GT-Line Still Feels Great, Yet Something’s Missing

The EV6 Light Long Range also sees a $5,000 price cut, while the all-wheel drive variant gets marked down $5,100. The Wind trim benefits from a $5,500 reduction across the board as pricing now begins at $44,800.

Last but not least, the GT-Line will set you back $48,700. That’s $5,500 less than last year’s model, while the AWD variant offers a savings of $5,900.

Kia didn’t mention the EV6 GT, but the automaker stopped importing the high-performance variant earlier this year “due to changing market conditions.”

Minor Model Year Updates

Besides lower prices, the 2026 EV6 now comes with a standard dual level charging cable. Buyers in ZEV states also get a free DC fast-charger adapter. Speaking of charging, the model now sports a plug and charge capability, which allows for automatic billing at compatible chargers via Kia Charge Pass.

Additional changes are limited, but the EV6 Light Long Range drops the Tech Package to “reduce complexity.” Buyers will also find an updated color palette inside and out.   

As a refresher, the EV6 offers 63 and 84 kWh battery packs as well as ranges of between 237 miles (381 km) and 319 miles (513 km). Buyers will also find outputs of 167 hp (125 kW / 169 PS), 225 hp (168 kW / 228 PS), and 320 hp (239 kW / 324 PS).

2026 Kia EV6 Pricing

Prices exclude a $1,545 destination fee

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday overruled controversial ballot-counting decisions in Mequon and Madison, ordering the cities to revise final tallies in their Wisconsin Supreme Court election results.

Madison counted 23 late-arriving ballots that the commission voted should not have been included, while Mequon threw out five ballots the commission said should have been counted. The commission voted 6-0 to investigate both city clerks’ offices and ordered changes to the counts — voting 5-1 to require Madison and Dane County to exclude the 23 ballots and 6-0 to require Mequon and Ozaukee County to count the five.

The deadline for the state to certify the election is May 15, but some commissioners acknowledged the likelihood that lawsuits over the decisions could come before then.

In Madison, poll workers on Election Day counted 23 absentee ballots that arrived at four polling places after 8 p.m. Tuesday, despite a state law requiring that absentee ballots be “delivered to the polling place no later than 8 p.m.” in order to be tallied.

There was some debate ahead of the Madison vote because Commission Chair Ann Jacobs and Commissioner Mark Thomsen, both Democrats, said they felt uncomfortable disenfranchising the 23 voters. But Jacobs said she was following the law in ordering Madison to redo its count, adding that she hoped “those voters will perhaps appeal this decision.” 

“We’re going to disenfranchise 23 people,” said Thomsen, the lone no vote. “I don’t think the law requires us to do that.”

Voting in favor, Don Millis, a Republican commissioner, said the commission is bound by state law not to count those ballots.

“There has to be some accountability,” he added, “for the failure to get these ballots to the polling places in a timely manner.”

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, a Democrat, told Votebeat that he’s considering suing over the agency’s order. McDonell previously voted to count the late-arriving ballots during the county’s canvass.

“It’s disappointing that the Wisconsin Election Commission’s directive is to reject ballots that were properly cast by voters,” Madison Clerk Lydia McComas said in a statement.

This marks the second significant error from the Madison clerk’s office in recent elections. In 2024, officials didn’t count 193 ballots that arrived at the city well ahead of Election Day, leading to investigations and a lawsuit.

Mequon redo comes amid confusion over clerk’s standard

The decision to investigate Mequon came after City Clerk Caroline Fochs decided not to count five ballots under an unusually strict standard for the witness address field on absentee ballot envelopes. Commissioners and staff found that decision to be an abuse of discretion.

For years, Fochs has used a standard contrary to the commission’s guidance, which is to consider a witness address valid if it includes a street name, number and municipality.

Instead, if a witness lists a municipality that shares a name with another elsewhere in the country and does not include a ZIP code or state — even though the absentee envelope doesn’t call for them — Fochs told Votebeat she does not count the ballot. If the municipality name is unique, she will count it without a ZIP code or state. 

In this latest election, those municipalities were Baltimore, Fox Point, Verona and Houston.

“The idea that someone would Google to find out whether or not there’s multiple Veronas in the United States, but not Google the witness’s address to confirm where they were located just strikes me as an odd choice, and contrary to the applicable law,” Jacobs said.

A Votebeat review of Mequon ballots rejected since 2024 found that Fochs in some cases appeared to have misapplied her own standard — rejecting ballots from municipalities that didn’t share a name with any other city, like Chicago and Fox Point.

Referencing Votebeat’s reporting, Jacobs said those people’s votes “were not counted for any good reason.”

Fochs and her city attorney have defended the city’s standard as a proper use of discretion despite coming under fire for it. Fochs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Speaking with Votebeat after the votes, Millis said that although mistakes happen from time to time, clerks need to understand that there can be consequences for errors “if you don’t follow the law and take reasonable efforts to make sure that all ballots are counted.”

Pointing out that he was a Republican commissioner, Millis said he also has a partisan interest in making sure votes in Mequon, a traditionally GOP city, are counted.

“We shouldn’t be doing things to make it difficult for anyone to vote, but here, from just even a partisan standpoint, on average, it’s hurting Republicans more than Democrats.”

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

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

Wisconsin Elections Commission overrules ballot-counting decisions in Madison and Mequon 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.

Sen. André Jacque (R-New Franken) announced Monday he’ll retire from office at the end of his term. 

Jacque’s decision means a third of the Republican Senate caucus is not seeking reelection, including Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) and Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), who both represent key districts that will determine control of the body in November, as well as Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg).

“My passion for serving our community has not waned, but after much discussion with family and friends I have decided that I will not be seeking re-election to the State Senate this fall,” Jacque, 45, said in a statement.

The wave of retirements comes in an election year where odd-numbered Senate seats will be up for election for the first time under the legislative maps that were adopted in 2024. There are also eight Republicans who have so far announced their retirements. 

Jacque has represented Senate District 1 since 2019. The solidly-red district under the maps adopted in 2024 encompasses Door and Kewaunee counties as well as parts of Calumet, Brown, Manitowoc and Outagamie counties. After the new maps were adopted, Jacque ran in the GOP primary for Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District, losing to U.S. Rep. Tony Wied, who received the endorsement of President Donald Trump in the three-way primary.

Jacque said he is not sure what he will do after leaving the Legislature, but “this is not farewell — there is still much to be done and I will always work for a brighter future for our state and the advancement of those worthy ideas that never quite made it all the way through the legislative process.” He added  that he has been “greatly blessed, and God’s not done with me yet.” 

Democrats will have the chance to win control of the Senate for the first time since the 2009-11 legislative session. State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee spokesperson Will Karcz said in a statement that the Republican caucus was “retiring en masse to avoid losing at the ballot box in November.” 

“While Republicans jump off their sinking ship, Senate Democrats are focused on the issues that Wisconsinites care about and are making it clear they have a plan to deliver results when they win a majority in November,” Karcz said. 

Jacob VandenPlas, a combat veteran, farmer and former leader of DC Farm for Vets, a veterans nonprofit, announced his campaign for Jacque’s seat on April 17.

Independent Mark Becker is also running for the seat. Becker, a small business owner, was formerly the chair of the Brown County Republican Party. He has hosted a podcast on Civic Media called “Rational Revolution” since 2024, though he has stepped away from that to campaign.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 6 minutes

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Mequon City Clerk Caroline Fochs rejected five absentee ballots in April because they did not include a ZIP code or state in the witness address — information that is not specifically requested in the address field on the ballot or specified as a necessary component by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Her approach, which differs from how other clerks interpret the rules, has drawn intense internal scrutiny and could ultimately be tested in court.

Two weeks ago, Ozaukee County canvassing officials declined to reverse course, leaving the ballots uncounted in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Republican Party attorneys told county officials they lacked the authority to overturn a local official’s judgment call, while the liberal election law firm Law Forward said rejecting the ballots may have disenfranchised voters who had followed all requirements.

Even the county clerk, a Republican, said she believed the ballots should have been counted.

The ballots listed a street name, number and municipality in the witness address field, but no ZIP code or state. The Wisconsin Elections Commission instructs clerks that a street name, number and municipality are sufficient. Under state law, absentee ballots must be signed by a witness who is a U.S. citizen and not a candidate on the ballot.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission redesigned the absentee ballot certificates in August 2023, during litigation about what constitutes a valid witness address, removing any reference to ZIP code and state in the witness address field. Now, the certificate only explicitly asks for street number, name and municipality.

Fochs rejected the ballots anyway, using her own system for deciding when a witness address is clear enough.

Fochs has served as clerk since 2016 in the traditionally GOP city, which has become more liberal in the Donald Trump era — emblematic of the leftward political changes in other nearby Milwaukee suburbs in Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee counties.

The dispute in Mequon didn’t have the potential to swing any race. But it highlights two unresolved questions that election lawyers say are all but certain to land back in court sooner than later: how much latitude clerks have to impose their own standards on absentee ballots, and whether county canvassing boards can intervene when they think a municipal clerk got it wrong.

Situations like the one playing out in Mequon often arise when there’s a flexible rule rather than a bright-line rule, said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA. Flexibility, he said, can result in disparate treatment for voters. “Maybe the Legislature needs to change the law,” he said.

“It can tend to be more enfranchising to have a rule that gives discretion, but there’s a flip side to that,” he said. “These are things that courts and legislatures have to consider when they write their rules or interpret the rules.”

Statewide races in Wisconsin can sometimes be decided by several thousand votes or less, and the outcome of this conflict could have implications for the midterms in the event of a close race.

Ballots at issue had elements requested on absentee form

The battle over what constitutes a proper witness address has been debated in court for years. In 2024, a circuit court rejected Republicans’ push to require witnesses to list their ZIP code and state. The current standard allows a witness address to be considered valid if the clerk can reasonably assess where the witness lives, but the underlying lawsuit is ongoing.

Fochs said that’s not a workable standard.

Clerks across the state are “obviously doing things differently,” she said. “We don’t agree that it’s been decided. You can’t, on one hand, tell me it’s up to me to discern and then tell me exactly what I’m going to discern.”

Rather than following WEC instructions in the Election Day manual, Fochs for the past several elections has adopted her own system. She compiled a list of municipalities witnesses have used in their address fields in recent years, identifying which names are unique nationwide and which are shared.

If a witness lists a municipality that shares a name with another elsewhere in the country and does not include a ZIP code or state, Fochs said she does not count the ballot. If the municipality name is unique, she will count it even without a ZIP code or state.

She said she typically sends absentee ballots with insufficient witness addresses back to the voter for correction. But this time, she said, the five ballots in question arrived too late to be sent back, corrected and returned in time for tabulation.

Two of the rejected ballots were from Fox Point. Despite a handwritten note on the rejected ballots saying there are multiple municipalities named Fox Point in the United States, there appears to be just one: the municipality just a couple miles away from Mequon.

Told there appears to be only one municipality named Fox Point in the United States, Fochs said her Google search showed multiple results. She said that even if only one exists, she does not believe the ballots were wrongfully rejected because “the search” indicated otherwise, though she declined to explain what that search includes. “If the search came up with multiple Fox Points, then we reject it,” she said.

The three other rejected ballots came from Baltimore, Houston and Verona. Although there are multiple municipalities with each of those names, the street names and numbers are unique only to one such named municipality in the United States.

Though a court established the current standard in 2024, Fochs said she believes the issue needs to be taken up again. “There has to be an answer to this,” she said.

Jeff Mandell, founder and general counsel of Law Forward, said that Fochs should have at least checked to see whether the street addresses used in the witness address form were unique to one of the multiple municipalities with the same name before deciding what to do about the ballots. He said she was wrongfully disenfranchising voters.

But Fochs said she shouldn’t have to jump through multiple hoops to figure out where a witness lives.

“If you give me incomplete information, that’s not my fault, and it’s not up to me to correct it,” she said.

In Rock County, on the other hand, County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat, gives municipal clerks a help sheet to determine whether a signature is sufficient. Similar to the election commission’s manual, the sheet says a street number, name and municipality is sufficient — without stipulating whether a municipality is uniquely named.

County decides not to count ballots amid GOP urging

When the fight moved up to the county, it split in two. Ozaukee County officials had to decide not only whether the five ballots should have counted — but whether they had any authority to do anything about it.

Ozaukee County Clerk Kellie Kretlow, a Republican, said the ballots should have been counted by the city. “I, in no way, want any voter to ever feel like we’re disenfranchising them,” she told Votebeat.

Kretlow said that the Wisconsin Elections Commission told her that, if the county canvassing board determines that the disregarded ballots make the election return defective, she may send the “arguably defective” election results back to Mequon for the city to correct, according to emails obtained by Votebeat that outline her communications to attorneys for the Wisconsin Republican Party.

That position seems to align with the more liberal stance on the issue. For example, Law Forward said the county does have the power to count the votes or instruct Mequon officials to do so, under a statute that allows counties to return results to a municipality if its election returns are “so informal or defective that the board cannot intelligently canvass them.”

Republican attorneys disagreed. Nicholas Boerke, counsel for the state GOP, told Kretlow the county had no authority to send the ballots back or count them itself without a recount and warned that doing so would set a “dangerous precedent.” The GOP lawyers did not weigh in on whether Fochs was right to reject the ballots in the first place. Boerke declined to comment for this story.

In the end, Kretlow said, she decided not to count the ballots — not necessarily because she agreed with the Republican lawyers on the legal question, but because the five votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome of any race.

Issues of discretion unsolved going into November midterms

Barring a lawsuit and a quick judgment, the question over how much discretion municipal clerks and county canvassing boards have may go unanswered ahead of the midterms. Some election officials said that discretion can pose a danger if it’s abused, but others said that latitude can come in handy.

“I believe that things can be vague, but they’re vague for a reason,” Kretlow said, saying that while she wished the ballots were counted in this latest instance, more open-ended rules give clerks wiggle room for scenarios that nobody foresees.

Recent court rulings in election lawsuits have started to define the scope of clerks’ discretion over standards for accepting absentee ballots, potentially shaping how future cases will be decided.

One appeals court judgment in July 2024 gave an open-ended definition of what constitutes a proper witness address, saying that the standard “involves the perspective of each local, municipal clerk performing their duties in a reasonable manner” and acknowledging that clerks have discretion in some of the many tasks they perform in administering elections.

A July 2024 Wisconsin Supreme Court judgment, which led to the legalization of drop boxes, said that giving clerks discretion on many local matters is “consistent with the statutory scheme as a whole, under which Wisconsin’s 1,850 municipal clerks serve the ‘primary role’ in running elections via our ‘decentralized’ system.”

TR Edwards, a staff counsel at Law Forward who attended the Ozaukee County canvass board meeting, said those court cases were right in giving clerks latitude, but they should have clarified that the discretion should be used “to affect the will of the voter, not to craft their own policy for disenfranchising people — stuff like this.”

Mandell, the founder of Law Forward, said the group was still evaluating its options and did not commit to a lawsuit.

But Wisconsin courts have been hearing a growing number of election law disputes. Whether it’s over the most recent dispute in Mequon or a similar incident in another election, disputes like these are all but certain to end up in court.

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

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

Wisconsin clerk rejects five absentee ballots over address info, raising legal questions 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.

Amid a climate of uncertainty surrounding the future of federal funding for after-school programs, Wisconsin advocates, representatives from nonprofit organizations and local youth asked Democratic candidates for governor what they will do to support after-school programs.

Four of the seven major candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor participated in a forum Tuesday evening at the Goodman Center on Madison’s East Side, hosted by the Wisconsin Partnership for Kids. They included former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison).

The hosts were from a coalition of organizations that work to improve early childhood education, literacy and economic mobility for children across the state. Some of the coalition’s goals include stabilizing access to child care and supporting out-of-school time programs.

Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, did not respond to the invitation to participate, according to the hosts. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and former Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan had previous commitments. 

Jackie Scott with the Wisconsin Partnership for Kids told the Examiner that the organization wanted to ensure there was a forum where youth issues were at the center of the conversation. 

“There’s a huge gap and we wanted to make sure that kids are front and center in the conversations for the next leader because, it’s corny, but kids are our future,” Scott said. “Unfortunately, I feel like kids’ issues often take the back burner. There’s not a whole lot of conversation that actually involves kids and gives youth a voice.”

Catie Tollofson, the vice president of mission and programs at the Goodman Community Center, echoed that sentiment.

“Anytime we’re going to  elect an official, we want to make sure that those folks, if they’re representing us at a state level or any level, have youth issues as a part of what they are speaking about and thinking about and running on,” Tollofson said. 

During the forum, candidates took questions from kids as well as adult advocates. One of the first questions, from a 10-year-old girl, was about candidates’ favorite activity from when they were her age. Barnes said biking; Roys said attending camps through the Madison School & Community Recreation; Hong said sledding and Rodriguez said camping. 

Candidates were asked how they would help to strengthen or expand Wisconsin’s after-school programs. 

The conversation came as President Donald Trump has proposed a budget eliminating dedicated federal funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC), which supports local school and community-based after school and summer learning programs. 

According to a 2023 report by the National Conference of State Legislatures, federal funding for the program has decreased by about  $10 million in inflation-adjusted terms since 2014. This is despite rising demand.

About 27 states in the U.S. have a dedicated funding stream for after-school and outside-of-schooltime  programs. Wisconsin is not one of those and its programs rely mostly on federal, local and philanthropic dollars. Last year many programs in the state were left in limbo when the Trump administration abruptly withheld funding. It eventually released the funds.

Candidates expressed support for the programs and said they would  provide state funding to keep them going.

Rodriguez said her child care plan, which would cap costs for families at 7% of their income and ensure a minimum wage for employees, would also cover after-school programs.

“You should treat it like the infrastructure that it is… My plan also indicates that child care providers should be paying at a minimum of $18 an hour, and this would include many different types of child care,” she said, including after-school programming.

Hong said she would support investing state dollars into afterschool programs. She said that access to grants or funding would need to be equitable, meaning it should be easy to find and apply for and available to those working in the programs. 

“After-school time is mental health care. After-school time is healthcare. It is a way for kids and our communities to be able to take care of each other, and it should have its own dedicated funding stream from the state,” Hong said. 

Roys said she breathed a sigh of relief when she got a notification this week that her 8-year-old and 4-year-old got into their after-school programs. 

“I think about how much scrambling it would mean if they hadn’t gotten in,” Roys said. “Families with means can pay for all types of enrichment, things that should be basic rights for children… to do sports, to be able to socialize with friends, to have help with homework and tutoring, to do theater and art — that should be available to every single child. Instead we ration it based on where you live and based on whether or not your parents pay for it.” 

Roys said that publicly funded after-school programs would help close the gap. “This has become so critical, given what the federal government has put on the chopping block,” she said. “We cannot leave Wisconsin children vulnerable to those kinds of cuts.”

An America After 3PM survey of Wisconsin families conducted by the AfterSchool Alliance found that for every child in an after-school program, there are four who cannot access a program. 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, about 20,000 Wisconsin students are served annually at 168 sites that receive 21st Century CLC funding. 

Barnes said the state is in a care crisis due to the cuts to education implemented under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-led Legislature. He noted that he participates in Milwaukee recreational programs. 

“We already know what works. We have well functioning systems in place in the state. What we don’t have are well funded systems in this state that contribute to the growth and development of our children,” Barnes said. “That’s what we have to prioritize immediately.” 

Scott noted that Wisconsin is surrounded by states that are investing in child care, including in Michigan where $75 million in state grants are going towards before-school, after-school and summer programming in the 2025-26 fiscal year. 

“I was really excited that pretty much every single candidate acknowledged the fact that this is a broken system in Wisconsin, and that we don’t choose to invest in our kids,” Scott said. “We put that burden on philanthropy or we put that burden on local governments and it’s just not something that could be carried alone by philanthropy and local governments.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country have escalated their anti-Islam rhetoric in recent months, a strategy aimed at energizing voters by claiming without evidence that Muslim culture and religious tenets threaten American political values.

Political observers say Republicans are seizing on anti-Islamic sentiment to gin up enthusiasm among their voters as they head into the 2026 midterm elections. It’s been a successful campaign strategy in the past.

Aggressive enforcement tactics have soured many Americans on hard-line immigration policies, once a winning issue for conservatives, and GOP victories on abortion and transgender rights have blunted the electoral power of those issues.

Instead, GOP candidates in some of the highest-profile political races in the country are putting Islam and the nebulous threat of Shariah at the center of their campaigns.

Shariah is a religious code derived from the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad that addresses moral, spiritual and daily life for Muslims. But the term has become shorthand, in some conservative circles, for anything having to do with Islam or with Islamic extremism.

Critics say conservative politicians have made Muslims a political bogeyman in their fight to hang onto power. Muslims say the rhetoric misrepresents their values and endangers their communities.

“I worry this will harm freedom, which is the very value some of these politicians are claiming to protect,” said Mustafa Akyol, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Akyol is Muslim, and his research focuses on public policy and Islam.

“To think that American Muslims, which make 1% of the whole population, can enforce Shariah or force it on other people, that’s a very exaggerated claim.”

Up and down the ballot, Republicans have spent about $12 million since last year on ads that negatively mention Islam, Muslims or Shariah, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell, now running for Alabama attorney general, recently released a campaign ad inviting supporters of “radical Islam” to “Allah Akbar your butt all the way back to the Middle East.”

In Georgia, Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal, a candidate for lieutenant governor, released an AI-generated campaign ad last month depicting Muslim people invading a suburban neighborhood. In a post on X sharing the video, he described Muslims as “invaders who would rather pillage our generosity than assimilate.”

Officials in Alabama and Oklahoma have quashed efforts by Muslim groups to expand into larger facilities after those proposed developments attracted the attention and ire of conservative politicians. And Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature this year enacted laws allowing a handful of state officials to designate certain groups as domestic terrorist organizations.

At the federal level, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn released a $1.6 million political ad earlier this year that claims “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology” and says “Shariah law has no place in American courts or communities.”

There’s even a Sharia-Free America Caucus in Congress, launched last December by Republican Texas Reps. Keith Self and Chip Roy. It currently has more than 60 members spanning 25 states, according to Self. He called it “a noble cause to save Western Civilization and fight back against the threat of Sharia” in a January press release.

Akyol, of the Cato Institute, likens the furor to the American panic over communism in the 1950s that culminated in Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s efforts to root out communist infiltration in the U.S. government and other spheres of power.

Those efforts “led to the crackdown on public freedoms in America like civil liberties, freedom of speech,” Akyol said. “Luckily that ended, but this seems like a McCarthyism 2.0 era where the issue now is not communism, but Islam.”

Years of legislation

Republicans say they’re responding to voter concerns and trying to preempt the possibility that religious or foreign political codes might creep into the U.S. legal system, jeopardizing free speech or due process.

Oklahoma state Sen. David Bullard is working with fellow Republican state legislators on a constitutional amendment that would bar courts and municipalities in Oklahoma from using any foreign law or religious code that would undermine the U.S. or Oklahoma constitutions. Similar efforts have been made this year in Arkansas, Missouri and other states.

Bullard said he’s heard from constituents who are concerned about a growing threat of other cultures “trying to forcefully usurp” American culture.

“Those are definitely Eastern ideas that don’t mix with Western culture, and the Constitution is created wholeheartedly on that Western culture concept,” he told Stateline.

He notes that his amendment doesn’t mention Shariah and does not single out Muslims.

Conservatives have been pushing similar state legislation for more than a decade. Since 2010, at least nine states have enacted laws aimed at preventing courts from enforcing foreign legal codes, including a 2014 constitutional amendment in Alabama.

When asked about examples of the kinds of instances he’s trying to prevent, Bullard cited a 2009 case in New Jersey in which a judge refused to give a woman a protective order after her husband repeatedly assaulted her, saying the husband was acting on his religious interpretation of Shariah. The ruling was overturned the following year.

“I think more and more people in Oklahoma are calling on us to protect them from that,” he said.

But even the most vocal proponents of anti-Shariah measures have struggled to explain how it could replace the American legal system or why more laws are needed to curb it. The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution already prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another, or forcing adherence to a religious code.

Standing at a podium with a sign emblazoned with a line through the words “Sharia Law,” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis conceded during a news conference earlier this month that there isn’t an immediate threat of Shariah becoming the basis for Florida law.

“Of course that won’t happen any time soon,” DeSantis said. “But the more that we’re able to do to protect against that, I think, is going to benefit Floridians for many, many years.”

Real-world worry

The Islamic Academy of Alabama has operated as a K-12 private school near Birmingham for nearly three decades. But in December, local leaders of a nearby suburb denied the school’s request to relocate to a larger facility there. Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican who’s running for governor and who has railed against Islam on the Senate floor and social media, called for the school to move out of Alabama.

School officials declined Stateline’s interview request but said they remain focused on supporting the education, well-being and safety of their students and community. They’ve dropped their current relocation plans.

In Oklahoma, Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond — who is running for governor — elevated a proposed expansion by the Islamic Society of Tulsa into a political issue when he announced an investigation into its funding. City leaders later denied the society’s application; Muslim leaders responded by hosting a community open house at their Tulsa mosque to connect with the community and promote a better understanding of their faith.

And in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Cornyn for the GOP nomination in the state’s Senate race, sued over the proposed development of a large Muslim-centric community north of Dallas. He called it a “radical plot to destroy hundreds of acres of beautiful Texas land and line their own pockets” and claimed it was unlawfully reserved only for Muslims.

Although the group initially advertised that sales would be limited to certain people, representatives for the development have since said it is open to anyone.

Shariah shorthand

While some lawmakers have made a distinction in their rhetoric between extremism and the Islamic faith, others have made sweeping, derogatory claims that denigrate and stereotype all Muslims.

Tuberville of Alabama has said: “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult.” U.S. Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee has said, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican who’s cosponsoring an anti-Shariah bill in Congress, posted on X in February: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

While politicians have invoked fears of extremism in their public comments, Akyol said American Muslims are the ones who are most worried.

“If the people who govern your state define you like that, what may come next?” he said. “Maybe a legal step against you, or some fanatic who really believes in that can take his machine gun and attack you.”

Much of the Islamophobic messaging has gone unchecked by other conservatives, a marked departure from previous leadership. In 2001, a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush visited a mosque in Washington, D.C., and met with Muslim community leaders, declaring “Islam is peace” and condemning retaliation against Muslim Americans.

Earlier this month, DeSantis signed a Republican-sponsored bill into law that allows a few state officials to label certain groups “domestic terrorist organizations.” The new law also bans Florida courts from enforcing religious laws and bars state funds from going to schools affiliated with groups designated as terrorist organizations. It does not specifically mention a religion, but cites Shariah as an example of the kind of religious laws it covers.

“You can have these groups that may not be waging physical war-type jihad,” DeSantis said earlier this month. He warned groups could wage “stealth” or “financial” attacks.

“To me, that’s still jihad and we’ve got to stop it, and this bill provides the structure to be able to do it.”

Critics say such laws also have the potential to harm any organization that finds itself at odds with a current administration.

“That is the danger of these laws, because they are specifically designed to silence political dissent,” said Wilfredo Ruiz, communications director at the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights group. CAIR was one of two groups labeled as terrorist organizations by an executive order DeSantis issued in December.

The Biden administration criticized CAIR for statements made by its leadership after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, but the group denies that it supports terrorism.

CAIR Florida sued over DeSantis’ order, arguing it violated the group’s First Amendment right to free speech. In March, a federal judge blocked the order.

Ruiz said his organization has the resources to continue challenging such laws in court. But he said he worries about smaller groups, including those that aren’t Muslim but might be at risk of being declared a “terrorist group” by whoever is currently in power in Florida.

“Having that executive power with the capacity to name you a terrorist organization before you have been even accused criminally, much less convicted, this is an openly unconstitutional proposal.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

A lawsuit seeking to throw out Wisconsin’s congressional maps on the basis that they’re unconstitutionally anti-competitive was dismissed Tuesday by a panel of three circuit court judges. 

The lawsuit was brought last summer by bipartisan business group Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy Coalition, represented by the progressive nonprofit Law Forward. 

For more than a decade, Wisconsin has been a national symbol of the effects of extreme partisan gerrymandering and Tuesday’s dismissal comes amid a effort by both major parties to redraw maps ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. 

A national mid-decade redistricting tit-for-tat started last year when Texas Republicans drew new maps, at President Donald Trump’s request, in an attempt to limit the number of Democrats in the House of Representatives. A number of other Republican states, including Missouri and North Carolina, followed suit. In response, voters in California and Virginia voted to change state laws to allow Democrats to re-draw their maps to minimize Republican seats. 

This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a bill that would redraw his state’s maps to give Republicans four more seats. 

While both parties have drawn political maps to favor their own candidates, only congressional Democrats have proposed a bill that would ban partisan gerrymandering. In Wisconsin, state Democrats have long pushed for the adoption of a non-partisan redistricting commission. 

Wisconsin’s current congressional maps were adopted in 2021 by the state Supreme Court after Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans in the Legislature were unable to reach a deal on their own. When forced to weigh in, the Supreme Court instituted a “least change” rule that required any maps proposed to the Court to hew as closely as possible to the maps instituted by Republicans in 2011. The map the Court chose was proposed by Evers, a Democrat, but resulted in a heavily Republican congressional delegation, since they were drawn to adhere to the “least change” standard.

The 2011 political maps and the least change decision allowed Republicans to hold six of the state’s eight congressional seats. The state Supreme Court tossed out the state’s legislative maps in 2023 — which remained heavily gerrymandered under the “least change” standard — on the grounds that the shapes of the districts, some of which were broken into noncontiguous parts, were illegal. 

Over the years, the court system has heard a number of challenges to Wisconsin’s congressional maps on the basis that they are an illegal partisan gerrymander. A separate three-judge panel dismissed another lawsuit on partisan gerrymandering grounds late last month. 

Despite that dismissal, the Law Forward lawsuit argued that its claims were new and therefore deserved to be considered by the courts. The lawsuit argued that the maps were drawn to unfairly give incumbents of both parties an advantage, pointing to the fact that only one of the state’s congressional districts, western Wisconsin’s 3rd CD, is regularly decided by a single-digit margin. 

“After the Wisconsin Legislature adopted the 2011 congressional map, congressional races over the ensuing decade were, as intended, highly uncompetitive,” the lawsuit stated. “The Court’s adoption … of the ‘least change’ congressional map necessarily perpetuated the essential features — and the primary flaws — of the 2011 congressional map, including the 2011 congressional map’s intentional and effective effort to suppress competition.”

Republicans and their allies intervened in the case, arguing that it should be dismissed because the anti-competitive argument treads the same ground as the partisan gerrymandering claims the Court has already declined to hear. 

The three-judge panel, made up of Dane County Judge David Conway, Marathon County Judge Michael Moran and Portage County Judge Patricia Baker, agreed and dismissed the case, noting that the makeup of the state’s political maps is a question best left to the political branches of government, not the judicial system.

“Plaintiffs’ anti-competitive gerrymandering claims are functionally equivalent to partisan gerrymandering claims, at least for purposes of the political question analysis,” the judges wrote. “In a two-party system, partisan fairness and competitiveness are correlated: a more competitive map is typically a fairer map, whereas less competition usually means less partisan fairness. The objective of both theories is to change ‘the partisan makeup of districts,’ whether by achieving proportional representation, electoral competitiveness, or both.” 

Doug Poland, Law Forward’s director of litigation, said in a statement Tuesday that it’s disappointing the panel dismissed the case before it had the opportunity to hear evidence. He also said the panel’s ruling will be appealed directly to the Supreme Court. 

“This is the first anti-competitive gerrymandering case ever filed in Wisconsin courts, and it deserves to be heard,” Poland said. “We believe that the circuit court was wrong in concluding that anti-competitive gerrymandering is ‘functionally equivalent’ to partisan gerrymandering. They are different claims, based on different evidence, that target different ways of manipulating representation to the detriment of voters.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A Milwaukee alder is throwing his hat in the ring to seek the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, saying that he’s been told he’ll get aggressive financial support in challenging the Republican incumbent.

The announcement is getting pushback from a Democratic Party-aligned union group that has endorsed another Democrat in the district.

The newest entrant, Peter Burgelis, said that he was first approached a few months ago by Democratic “party members, not party leadership, but people that care about our state” who didn’t think any of the other 1st District Democrats could beat four-term U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville). He formally entered the race Sunday.

“What it will take to get him out of office is someone who can raise attention nationally, raise money on a national level and attract national attention to the race, that makes this the top 10 race for Democrats to support,” Burgelis told the Examiner Monday.

Burgelis is a mortgage loan officer who was elected to the Milwaukee County Board in 2022, then ran for and won a Milwaukee Common Council seat in 2024. He doesn’t live in the 1st CD and acknowledged in an interview Monday that could make him a target in attack ads.

He said he decided to enter the race after looking at the fundraising data for the other Democrats who will be competing  in the August primary to challenge Steil.

“What I was hoping to see in the first quarter financial report is one of the candidates break out strong with a war chest that would be able to go to bat against Bryan Steil, attract national attention, attract national money, and there just wasn’t anyone that did that,” Burgelis said.

A crowded primary field

This year’s 1st CD Democratic contest has drawn more hopefuls for the nomination than any year in recent memory. Until Burgelis’ entry, the contest had appeared to coalesce around four people.

Among those four is emergency room nurse Mitchell Berman, who announced his candidacy in August.

John Drew, a retired United Auto Workers union leader who chairs the UAW’s statewide political action council, told the Examiner Monday that the council endorsed Berman after distributing questionnaires, conducting interviews and assessing the campaigns of the Democratic hopefuls.

Berman’s background as an ER nurse and as a union member helped drive the endorsement. “He’s somebody who cares deeply about the issues that affect working people,” Drew said. “And we saw that he was running a strong campaign. He was raising more money than any of his opponents, and we felt he was the best candidate to take on Bryan Steil.”

Federal Election Commission reports filed through March 31 show that Berman has collected a total of $426,671 and spent $286,071, with $146,600 on hand. The nearest competitor, Randy Bryce, has collected $45,618 and spent $36,854.

Burgelis, however, told the Examiner Monday that he considers Berman’s fundraising and cash on hand too far behind Steil, who has more than $5.5 million on hand, to make him competitive in the November election.

Burgelis’ opening campaign salvo largely echoes the issues that the rest of the Democratic field in the 1st District — as well as in Wisconsin and nationwide — have been centering in the approaching midterm elections

“Gas is up, groceries are up, healthcare, utilities — everything’s more expensive because of Bryan Steil’s votes to promote the Trump agenda,” Burgelis said. “They’re cutting Medicaid and food assistance in exchange for trillion-dollar tax cuts. That’s not something Wisconsin voters support. Bryan Steil is in it to benefit his billionaire buddies.”

Recruited by former Democratic chair, other insiders  

Burgelis said he was first approached a few months ago, by “a number of people,” including former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate.

He said initially he was asked if his aldermanic district overlapped with the 1st CD. Burgelis said the congressional district is about a mile away.

“Months later the conversation came back to — ‘We need someone who can win and beat Bryan Steil. No one’s coming out of the pack,’” Burgelis said. He added that he was told that the upcoming quarterly fundraising reports “aren’t going to be strong enough,” was asked, “would you consider running?” and decided to enter the race.

“I had conversations with many Democrats and other political leaders before making my decision to run,” Burgelis told the Examiner. “I got broad agreement that someone with a successful political record and who could attract national attention and national money would be needed to beat [Steil].”

He said, “The opportunity to flip the seat and attract national attention and national money is now. Nobody running now can do that.”

Asked about his role in recruiting Burgelis, Tate said in an email message, “Peter asked me about running a while back and I encouraged him to do so. He’s a hard worker, a good progressive, and we need a strong candidate to take on Steil. I don’t have any other color or the like to add.”

Burgelis said his review of past election results gave him confidence that the seat could be flipped to the Democrats.

“The residency thing, I think, is certainly something that a GOP campaign ad is going to harp on in November and October,” Burgelis told the Examiner. “But right now, the goal for Democrats is to get the best candidates through the primary.”

An Urban Milwaukee report April 21 that Burgelis was considering the race noted that Wisconsin law requires members of Congress to live in the state, but does not require them to live in their district.

“The congressional district is a mile from my aldermanic district, and people and neighbors in my district care about the same things that everyone else in Southeastern Wisconsin cares about — life is unaffordable anymore,” Burgelis said.

He said the absence of local elected officials or state lawmakers from the district in the race tells him that “no one sees that they can bring in the national attention or national money needed to have a successful race against an incumbent Republican.”

Drew, the UAW leader, said he spoke with Burgelis after first learning he might run and asked the alder to walk through his reasoning. Burgelis didn’t convince him, however.

“I thought it was a terrible idea,” Drew said. “It seemed like for party insiders a chance to install a manufactured candidate instead of looking at people in the 1st CD — like Mitch Berman — who live there, who are organic candidates, who have a great profile.”

Berman has “dedicated time to campaigning for that office,” Drew added. Ignoring that is “an indication that there are people in the Democratic Party that have not learned anything from our defeats — that a working class candidate who is fighting for bread and butter economic issues is the type of candidate we need to win, not only the 1st CD but in general.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• In the 26 school districts where voters prioritized lower property taxes over more school funding, their decisions spell brisk change. 

• Leaders in at least 11 districts have shared plans for cuts since the election, and those from three other districts are considering closures. 

• Several are preparing to put another referendum on the November ballot, or hoping state legislators allocate more funding to K-12 public schools. 

• The pace of the sweeping changes highlights how district leaders rely on referendums to balance their budgets — and how, for many, the ask to voters was a final effort before resorting to significant changes.

Parent Jackie Lindsey voted in favor of the Fond du Lac School District’s $30 million referendum earlier this month because she thinks past budget cuts have created a poorer classroom experience for her two children. So when voters shot down the proposal, she ached with frustration. 

Now, just three weeks after Election Day, district leaders said they’ll close two schools and cut 30 more employees. Lindsey worries the resulting larger class sizes will leave teachers even less equipped to help struggling students, like her seventh and ninth graders who have disabilities.

“We’re going to see a lot of worn-out teachers who are doing their very best with what they’re given, but have such a high workload that it’s going to affect them mentally and physically,” Lindsey said.

In the 26 districts that, like Fond du Lac, failed to pass referendums, school leaders have quickly turned to hacking away at their budgets. They’re cutting staff, making plans to close schools and shutting down programs after residents rejected their pleas for more revenue. At least three of these districts are considering closing altogether. 

The swift pace of the sweeping changes highlights how districts are relying on referendums to keep their budgets balanced — and how, for many, the ask to voters was a final effort before resorting to significant changes.

Many Wisconsin district leaders have bemoaned the state’s public school funding as inadequate and are increasingly solving budget imbalances with referendums, which ask voters whether school districts can increase property taxes beyond the limits set by state law to generate more revenue. 

“With the cost of everything, and the fuel prices going up and all of that type of stuff, I think it just played a kind of a perfect storm to put our community in a spot where they just had to say no this time around,” Augusta Area School District Administrator Reed Pecha said. “Hopefully that’ll change next time.”

In districts where voters prioritized lower property taxes over more school funding, their decisions spell brisk change. 

Several school districts are already drawing up plans to put another referendum in front of voters, or hoping lawmakers will bail them out by designating more school funding. 

“If this stuff doesn’t change, the funding formula doesn’t change, state aid doesn’t change, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Ellsworth Community School District Superintendent Brian Nadeau said. “(Cuts are) going to become an annual thing that we have to deal with until something changes.”

Rocky paths forward

Over $1 billion in referendums from 73 school districts were on the ballot earlier this month. Districts had the tall task of appealing to voters who are increasingly weary of increased property taxes. Ahead of the election, a Marquette University Law School poll warned that a record high 60% of registered voters said they would rather reduce property taxes than increase spending on public schools.

Voters approved 37 of 63 operational referendums, which ask to raise taxes to fund the cost of running schools, such as educational programs, salaries and transportation services. The 12 other proposals asked for revenue for capital construction projects, like building upgrades, nine of which passed.

At least 11 of these districts have shared plans for budget cuts since the election. For example, Monroe School District cut 22 positions. Southern Door County School District plans to slash 16 jobs and freeze pay. The Necedah Area School District will cut staff and put off purchasing new school buses. Dodgeville School District will lay off 13 people. 

Nadeau, the Ellsworth leader, said the district already had cost reductions ready to go in case its $8.7 million referendum didn’t pass. Now it’s rolling out the changes, including cutting roughly 15 staff and redesigning its 4K program. The changes must total $1.9 million to plug next year’s budget hole.

“It’s getting to the point where it’s extremely painful,” Nadeau said. 

Several other districts are drawing up budget cuts or presenting them for a vote at upcoming school board meetings. 

That includes the Augusta Area School District, where voters rejected a $750,000 proposal. The western Wisconsin district is now drawing up cuts to staff, and officials plan to announce reductions in academic programs and extracurricular activities in spring 2027. 

“It was a fairly modest ask, but with the community not supporting that, it definitely means that we have handed out non-renewal (notices to staff),” Pecha said. “We are reducing staff and trying to absorb positions as people have resigned, but we don’t have a lot more to cut.” 

No way forward?

Without much more to whittle from their budgets, some school districts are considering closing altogether. 

After its $3.75 million referendum failed, Hustisford School District in Dodge County lacks “sufficient funding to continue operations beyond this school year,” leaders wrote in a letter to families. The 240-student district canceled its upcoming summer school classes. 

Hustisford could partner with a local district to provide classes next school year while it works to fully dissolve by the following year. The school board will make a final decision by July 1. 

Leaders at Gillett School District in Oconto County find themselves in a similar predicament. District Administrator Nathan Hanson said the district’s budget deficit will deplete its savings by the end of this school year. 

The district is already understaffed. Cutting any more to lower expenses would create class sizes of over 40 students, Hanson said. Schools generally aim to keep classes under 30 students.

“Cutting enough positions to break even next year would be beyond what we believe would keep a viable education for our approximately 549 students,” Hanson said.

Hanson has reached out to the state’s education department and the school attorney to learn more about closing or merging with another district. He confirmed the district will remain open through at least the 2026-27 school year, but would need to “borrow money and pay interest to keep our doors open.” 

“We are learning what we need to know regarding the process of dissolution and consolidation,” Hanson told Wisconsin Watch. “These are not options our board wants to use, but our board is committed to finding the best possible solution for our community’s children.”

If at first you don’t succeed …

Some leaders already have their sights set on the next election cycle, eager to ask voters for more revenue and secure a different outcome. 

School District of Winter Superintendent Craig Olson asked the school board to return to voters with another referendum this November. 

The four-year, $8 million referendum voters rejected earlier this month was Winter’s first operational referendum since at least 2000. Olson attributed the failure in part to a short preparation period that left many residents unaware of the district’s financial situation.

Olson said the district runs an annual deficit of about $1 million. Without a successful referendum, the district could run out of funds within a year and face the risk of closure. He hopes the voters will approve the next referendum if the district has more time to communicate the details with them.

Hanson also said Gillett’s school board will be “very strongly looking at running another operational referendum in the near future.” 

Data indicates districts might have better luck next time. In the 20 districts that went to referendum this year after voters rejected their proposals, 16 passed.

Several district leaders said they’re hopeful the Legislature will help ease their financial woes. 

“I’m just hopeful that our community can see the importance that our schools have,” Pecha said. “And I’m hoping that the state can maybe come through with some funding and hopefully give a little bit of a reprieve to some of us.”

Data reporter Hongyu Liu contributed to this report. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagramand Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Failed referendums trigger school cuts, closures and new funding pushes across Wisconsin 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: 6 minutes

Editor’s note: Wisconsin Watch asked the candidates whether they would allow commutations for murder convictions. After publication, David Crowley’s campaign responded that he would not allow commutations in such cases.

The top Democratic candidates for governor plan to continue allowing commutations and pardons if they are elected in November — though two are splitting with the current governor on whether to offer commutations in murder cases — while the front-runner for the Republican nomination plans to curtail clemency. 

The contrast is sure to feature in the gubernatorial election, as Democrats rally around a national mood that has turned against President Donald Trump, while Republicans try to capitalize on lingering distaste for the Democratic brand.

Their statements, in response to questions from Wisconsin Watch, come after Gov. Tony Evers signed executive orders in early April to reestablish the state’s commutations process, with just nine months remaining in his last term as governor. 

Evers’ executive orders specifically create a commutations advisory board to consider applications from incarcerated individuals seeking to reduce their prison sentence and establish a commutations procedure for people sentenced to life in prison as juveniles. The commutations advisory board is expected to hold its first meeting in June. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany’s gubernatorial campaign said in a statement he would rescind Evers’ executive orders on commutations, particularly because they don’t exempt individuals convicted of murder. Under Evers’ executive order only those previously convicted of sexual assault, physical abuse or sexual exploitation of a child, trafficking of a child, incest or soliciting a child for prostitution are ineligible for commutations. 

“(Tiffany) is making a commitment as governor that he will not release violent criminals early and will ensure victims and their families receive the full measure of justice,” Tiffany’s campaign said. Tiffany’s campaign did not respond to an additional question about whether the congressman would consider commuting the sentences of incarcerated individuals who were convicted of nonviolent offenses.

The difference between Tiffany and the top Democrats suggests that criminal justice reform and executive clemency, the powers the governor has to lessen or nullify a sentence, are topics that will get attention from the candidates ahead of the general election in November. Debate on the campaign trail will happen as Wisconsin’s prisons continue to be over capacity. The population of the state’s adult prisons as of April 17 was 23,548 people, which is nearly 32% above what the facilities were designed to hold. 

Evers is not running for reelection, which leaves the commutation process created by his executive orders subject to the views of the state’s next governor. That person could rescind, suspend or revise an executive order from the predecessor, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. 

Wisconsin’s governors have taken different approaches to using the office’s executive clemency powers. The last governor to commute a prison sentence was former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. 

Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle approved 326 pardons as governor but no commutations. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who issued no pardons or commutations in office, previously said he saw “no value” in visiting the state’s prisons. 

Evers reinstated the pardons process after taking office in 2019 and has since issued 2,000 pardons, according to his office. In early 2025, he released a prison restructuring plan with a “domino series” of projects that include closing the Green Bay Correctional Institution, converting the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison into an adult facility and transitioning the Waupun Correctional Institution into a vocational village with job training for inmates. 

Evers’ plan caught pushback from Republicans, who said they were not included in the process and objected to any reductions to the capacity of the prison system. There have been no updates since the state building commission voted in October to release $15 million to fund a design report for projects in the governor’s proposal. 

Diego Rodriguez, the coalition coordinator for Justice Forward Wisconsin, which advocates for a more equitable criminal justice system, emphasized that “broad, blanket statements” about incarcerated individuals don’t reflect a person’s remorse or growth over time.

“Democrats and Republicans have historically used clemency to make sure that we honor when people grow, we honor changes in development and changes in people,” Rodriguez said. “That is something that I think our nation is rooted in, this idea that people can grow and develop, and that redemption is a real thing.” 

What Democratic candidates said 

The seven top Democratic gubernatorial candidates who responded to questions from Wisconsin Watch said each of their approaches to executive clemency would attempt to take into account the growth of inmates and the needs of victims, although specifics differed between each candidate.  

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes would work with an independent commission to guide decisions on pardons and commutations, campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said. Also, unlike Evers, he would exclude those convicted of murder. He was the only Democratic candidate to make that distinction without being asked specifically about that issue. Wisconsin Watch asked the other candidates about that particular issue Friday afternoon and didn’t receive any responses before this story published Monday morning.

“Lt. Gov. Barnes will work to keep Wisconsinites safe — ensuring the justice system rehabilitates those who’ve served their time and pose no threat, while requiring individuals convicted of murder, sexual assault, or other violent crimes stay behind bars and serve their sentences,” Wozniak said.

Asked why Barnes differs from Evers on commutations for murder convictions, Wozniak said “for those already convicted, he believes the existing appeals process offers sufficient relief.”

Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary, said Evers “did the right thing” in restoring commutations. 

“The ability to pardon and commute sentences is one of the most consequential tools a governor has,” Brennan said in a statement. “I’d take that seriously, listen to the people closest to these cases, review them on the merits, and act where it makes sense.” 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he would work with the Legislature to “institutionalize” Evers’ commutations process. After this story published, Crowley’s campaign responded to the follow-up question about murder commutations, saying he “would not allow commutations of murderers.”

“I believe clemency is an important tool to correct past wrongs, especially in cases where sentences were excessive, laws have changed, or individuals have demonstrated real rehabilitation,” Crowley said in a statement. “At the same time, it must be handled with care, consistency, and respect for victims and communities.” 

Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong said she supports Evers’ decision to restore commutations and would work with stakeholders to build a “fair and safe” process. 

“My approach to executive clemency actions would be to build a senior advisory council and pardon board with diverse representation of lived experiences and leadership in the carceral reform sector,” Hong said in a statement. 

Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said in a statement she is supportive of Evers’ executive orders to restore commutations. In response to a follow-up question, her campaign spokesperson said she would offer pardons only to “nonviolent offenders who have paid their debt to society and only after a thorough and transparent review process.” He added that she “would take her commutation power seriously and use it only to ensure proper justice is delivered,” but didn’t specifically diverge from Evers on commuting murder sentences.

“I believe it is an important tool to have at the governor’s disposal to ensure we have fairness in our criminal justice system,” Hughes said. “As governor I would keep this executive order in place so that we have a mechanism for those who have paid their debt to society, and pose no threat to the public, can have their freedoms restored through an open and transparent process.”

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said in a statement that Evers has established a “thoughtful approach” to commutations. She criticized the Republican Legislature for not taking “a serious approach to criminal justice and corrections reform.” 

“As governor, I would continue the restored commutations process and carefully review it with input from stakeholders, including victims’ advocates, law enforcement, corrections professionals, and criminal justice reform organizations,” Rodriguez said. “We need to be guided by preventing crime, reducing recidivism, and keeping our communities safe.”

Madison state Sen. Kelda Roys said in a statement that “public safety and justice” will be the focus of her criminal justice policy. 

“As an attorney, I know that our judicial system is imperfect, and clemency can be an important safeguard so long as the process is fair, thorough, and transparent,” she said.

Correction: Missy Hughes’ campaign spokesperson responded before publication that she would only pardon nonviolent offenders. A previous version said the spokesperson didn’t respond. Wisconsin Watch regrets this error.

Tony Evers revived commutations, but what will Wisconsin’s next governor do? 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.

Audi introduced the A6L last month and now they’re following up with the A6L e-tron. The extended wheelbase sedan recently debuted at Auto China in Beijing and it packs a few tricks up its sleeve.

Built by Audi FAW, the EV’s wheelbase has been stretched by 5.2 inches (132 mm). This results in a spacious rear passenger compartment with flagship-worthy legroom.

More: Audi’s New A6L Feels Like An A8 For Half The Price

Audi didn’t stop there as they put the extra room to good use by installing a larger 107 kWh battery pack on most versions of the car. This enables the model to offer a CLTC range of up to 506 miles (815 km).

The A6L e-tron will be offered in Long and Extended Range variants. Some, if not all, will have a dual-motor all-wheel drive system producing 543 hp (405 kW / 551 PS) and 574 lb-ft (779 Nm) of torque. This enables the car to accelerate from 0-62 mph (0-100 km/h) in 4.3 seconds. When the battery is low, it can go from 10-80% in as little as 21 minutes thanks to the car’s 800V architecture.

There isn’t much to report on the styling front, but the A6L e-tron sports longer rear doors and a less dramatic roofline. Despite the changes, the model has an impressively low drag coefficient of 0.22.

The interior is also familiar as buyers will find an 11.9-inch digital instrument cluster, a 14.5-inch infotainment system, and a 10.9-inch front passenger display. They’re joined by two 7-inch screens for the digital side mirrors.

Among other options, Audi mentioned sports seats with available heating, ventilation, and massage functions. Buyers can also get a dimming panoramic glass roof and a 20-speaker Bang & Olufsen premium audio system.

Pricing starts at ¥309,800 ($45,317), but climbs to ¥439,800 ($64,333) for the range-topping variant.

Earth Day 2026 arrives less than a week after Wisconsin was battered by a succession of unseasonably severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes. A lack of snow in the West this winter has raised fears of an especially difficult wildfire season — raising air quality concerns across the Upper Midwest this summer. The administration of President Donald Trump has made drastic changes to the budget and structure of agencies such as the EPA and U.S. Forest Service, reducing staff at agencies that manage air and water quality and protect public lands. 

Nearly 60 years after Earth Day was founded by Wisconsin Gov. Gaylord Nelson, environmental advocates and elected officials celebrated the holiday noting the state, often labeled a “climate haven” for its easy access to fresh water and northern location, is not immune from the damaging effects of climate change. Still, they said, there are small victories happening every day across the state. 

Gov. Tony Evers spent the week on a statewide tour touting efforts to plant more trees, conserve more land and use more sustainable sources of energy. 

In 2021, Evers signed a pledge that Wisconsin would plant 75 million trees and conserve 125,000 acres of forestland by the end of 2030. In a Tuesday news release, Evers’ office announced that in 2025 the state planted nearly 12 million trees and conserved more than 7,800 acres of forestland in the state in 2025 — bringing the total to more than 54 million trees planted in five years. 

“Conservation and protecting our natural resources are core to who we are as a people and as a state — it’s in our DNA, and here in Wisconsin, our work to conserve and protect our lands, waters, and air and respond to an ever-changing climate has never been more important,” Evers said in a statement. “From flooding and severe weather events to unseasonable snow droughts and everything in between, it’s clear that climate change is an imminent threat to our state, economy, and our kids’ future. That’s why, since Day One, my administration and I have been working to conserve our natural resources and tackle the climate crisis head-on, but there’s always more we can do.” 

While Evers touts the work his administration has done to protect the state’s environment, the main tool the state has used to conserve public land for the last four decades — the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program — is set to expire this summer due to Republican opposition to land conservation and the Legislature’s inability to reach a deal to reauthorize the program before adjourning for the year. 

Howard Lerner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said at an online news conference Tuesday that there are still wins happening for the climate. 

“We are getting things done in the Midwest, even while the Trump administration maintains its assault on core environmental values and rolls back years and years of federal progress,” he said. 

He noted that a variety of groups across the Midwest worked together to protect the funding in the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. He  added, however, that more work will have to be done to protect Great Lakes shoreline communities from the effects of an increasingly fluctuating water level. 

“When all is said and done, the impacts of climate change are leading to much greater fluctuations in Great Lakes water levels, and they’re leading to more intensive storms, high winds, heavy waves that batter the shoreline,” he said. “That puts a heavy impact and burden on our shoreline communities and on the shoreline infrastructure, and that’s infrastructure that we’ve got to protect and find ways of doing that.”

But the Great Lakes are also struggling with water quality, he said, largely in the form of contamination from factory farms that can lead to toxic events such as algae blooms. He said that in the wake of the federal government stepping back from its role protecting wetlands and waterways from runoff, Midwest states need to do more. 

“We need to get policies in the states that reduce the amount of phosphorus, nitrates that flow into the water supply,” he said. “I think you’re going to see that [concentrated animal feeding operations] are going to be a bigger story going forward. Communities don’t want them, and E. coli and local water supplies and more toxic algae blooms in the Great Lakes is something that the public, I just don’t think is willing to tolerate.”

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade congressional redistricting, a move expected to dramatically reshape the state’s political map and potentially shift its congressional delegation from a closely divided 6-5 split to a heavily Democratic-leaning 10-1 advantage.

By 8:50 p.m., the measure passed by a vote of 50.7-49.3% out of 2.5 million ballots cast, according to unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections, clearing the way for lawmakers to redraw district lines outside the traditional once-a-decade census cycle. The winning margin continued to increase throughout the night as more votes were tallied. 

Supporters argued the amendment gives Virginia flexibility to respond to aggressive redistricting efforts in several Republican-led states at the urging of President Donald Trump, while critics warned it opens the door to partisan gerrymandering and undermines long-standing constitutional guardrails.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in a statement Tuesday evening that voters “approved a temporary measure to push back against a president who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” adding that Virginians “responded the right way: at the ballot box.” 

She said she plans to campaign with candidates across the commonwealth ahead of the midterms and emphasized her commitment to restoring the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission after the 2030 census.

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said the results reflect what he described as a reaffirmation of democratic principles, arguing that voters “answered a question about the nature of our democracy … in favor of the people.” 

He said Virginians acted in response to what he called “unprecedented gerrymandering in other states,” adding that “fairness won” and “accountability won,” and that the outcome shows “the people will decide.”

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said the outcome sends a national signal, arguing that voters rejected efforts to “rig our democracy” and instead affirmed that “power belongs to the people.” He said the vote could shape the 2026 midterms, adding that Virginians “stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country” and that “when the stakes are highest, we lead.”

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said the vote delivers “a massive blow to the GOP plot to rig control of Congress,” praising Virginia voters for what she described as answering a national call to protect democracy. 

At the same time, she cautioned that “the fight is far from over,” arguing that redistricting battles will continue to play out in state legislatures and that upcoming elections will be critical in determining who draws maps and holds power in the years ahead.

Virginia House GOP Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, said Tuesday’s outcome was “not unexpected,” arguing the process was “tilted” by what he described as “misleading ballot language and a massive spending advantage.” 

He said legal challenges will continue, adding that “the ballot box was never the final word here” and that Republicans will keep pushing for “fair maps, transparent process, and equal representation for every Virginian.”

Special session sparks fast-moving redistricting push 

The effort to change Virginia’s redistricting rules began abruptly in late October, during a special legislative session that had been called to address budget matters but quickly veered into a broader political fight.

On Oct. 27 — days before the Nov. 4 statewide elections — Democratic lawmakers unveiled plans to pursue a constitutional amendment allowing congressional maps to be redrawn outside the traditional post-census cycle. 

Within hours, the proposal ignited a sharp debate over timing, process and political intent.

Scott framed the move as a response to national redistricting battles, saying at the time, “I think we have an opportunity now to send a message to the rest of the country that we’re not going to stand by while you rig this election. We will do everything in our power to level the playing field we were talking about.”

Republicans, meanwhile, questioned both the substance and the setting. Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, said the special session had been called for budget work, not constitutional changes.

“We went into a special session to solve a very specific problem. It was not meant to be used as a tool to continuously identify issues and keep what they’re doing,” Webert said. “We shouldn’t (have been) in two sessions at the same time (and) because of that confusion, I believe … it delegitimizes specific legislative processes.”

The session’s temperature rose further when Senate Democrats blocked the reading of a communication from then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who had sharply criticized the effort.

“I am disappointed to see the General Assembly reconvening this week to ram through a constitutional amendment on redistricting only seven days before the close of our 2025 statewide and House of Delegates election and with over one million voters already casting their ballot,” Youngkin wrote.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, appealed to what he described as Virginia’s past bipartisan approach to redistricting reform.

“Sometimes we must overcome our partisan desires and do what is right for the commonwealth as a whole,” Stanley said. “We looked Virginia voters in the eye, and promised them something fundamental, that Virginia would pick their representatives, and not the other way around. What message do we send to them if we walk away now?”

Despite the divisions, lawmakers moved quickly. On the same day, Democrats released the amendment’s language, outlining a framework for mid-cycle redistricting subject to voter approval. 

The House advanced the measure the following day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 in a party-line vote, sending it forward in the multi-step constitutional process. That process required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent legislative session. 

When lawmakers reconvened in January, the proposal moved forward — but soon became entangled in a series of legal challenges.

Legal battles complicate road to the ballot 

In late January, a Virginia court struck down the amendment that had been slated for the April ballot, casting uncertainty over whether voters would ultimately weigh in.

In a 22-page ruling, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley found that the legislature acted unlawfully in approving the redistricting amendment during a special session just days before the Nov. 4 election. Hurley concluded that lawmakers exceeded the scope of that session, violated their own procedural rules and failed to comply with constitutional and statutory requirements governing amendments to the Virginia Constitution.

The state’s highest court soon reversed that trajectory. In February, the Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to proceed, clearing the way for the issue to appear on the ballot.

“Certainly the General Assembly was clear with the amendment process they put forward, and now it’s up to voters,” Spanberger said at the time, mere weeks after taking her oath of office.  

At the same time, Democrats began outlining what new congressional lines could look like.

A proposed map released in early February would significantly reshape district boundaries and was widely seen as favoring Democrats across most of the state’s 11 congressional districts.

Republicans escalated their opposition later that month, filing an emergency lawsuit seeking to block the vote and challenging the amendment process itself — a move that the same Tazewell County judge granted but that only applied to his jurisdiction. 

Once again, the Supreme Court of Virginia stepped in, granting a petition for review of the case and staying the temporary restraining order, which allowed the election to move forward statewide. 

However, the justices emphasized their decision does not resolve the underlying legal claims about whether the General Assembly followed proper procedures in advancing the amendment.

Meanwhile, the referendum drew national attention, with prominent Democrats — including former President Barack Obama — voicing support while Virginia Republicans intensified their warnings as the campaign entered its final stretch.

On Tuesday evening, Obama praised the outcome on X, writing, “Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet,” and thanking voters for “showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.”

Campaign messaging grew increasingly contentious in March, particularly after mailers opposing the amendment invoked civil rights era imagery, prompting backlash and public criticism. 

Some Republicans defended the mailers, adding to the broader political dispute surrounding the vote.

Early voting data added another layer of uncertainty, with turnout showing strength in Republican-leaning areas even as both parties ramped up efforts to mobilize voters statewide.

In the final weeks, Spanberger balanced her governing responsibilities with public support for the amendment, while Youngkin returned to the campaign trail urging voters to reject it and continued to press for court intervention.

In her statement Tuesday, Spanberger said that she remained “committed to ensuring Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission gets back to work after the 2030 census, and to protecting the process Virginians voted to create.”

FULL COVERAGE: Virginia redistricting referendum

Lynk & Co’s production range has, until now, played it safe with SUVs and sedans. That may be about to change. The Geely-owned brand is marking its 10th anniversary with the “Time to Shine” GT concept at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show.

At 4,780 mm (188.2 inches) long, the coupe lands in roughly the same footprint as the Ferrari 12Cilindri, though it trades the V12 theatrics for a fully electric setup. The proportions still do the heavy lifting, with a long dash-to-axle ratio, a low, sculpted stance, and properly planted rear haunches.

More: Volvo Gives Its European Dealers Something New To Sell Without A Volvo Badge

The design does that familiar thing we’re seeing from some Chinese concepts, pulling in a few well-known ideas and blending them together. Up front and along the profile, there’s a passing resemblance to the Ferrari Amalfi, while the rear leans into an Aston Martin-style look.

The real talking point is its shape-shifting tricks. Tap a button on the center console and the rear wing rises, while the front and rear bumpers extend, stretching the car by 100 mm (3.9 inches) to chase extra downforce. At the same time, the suspension drops by 15 mm (0.6 inches), and the digital displays retract, clearing the cabin of distractions when it matters.

Inside, the 2+2 cabin is finished in white leather, offset by carbon fiber accents. The digital cockpit leans hard into the futuristic brief, pairing two screens in the instrument cluster with three more across the center console, though it hasn’t abandoned physical controls entirely.

More: This Chinese SUV Now Boasts Europe’s Longest Electric Range In A PHEV

While technical specifications remain under wraps, Lynk & Co has confirmed an electric rear-wheel-drive setup capable of dispatching 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) in 2 seconds flat. There’s also talk of an AI-driven digital chassis, tuned with track-focused intent, though what that actually amounts to remains unclear.

Taken as a whole, the GT underlines the brand’s motorsport credentials, something it has built through its success in TCR Touring Car Championship. Lynk & Co joined the series in 2019, effectively picking up where the now-defunct Volvo Polestar Racing left off.

What’s interesting is that this electric GT may be more than a one-off design exercise. Lynk & Co says it plans to “use feedback from the public and its community to help shape any future decisions regarding powertrain options and potential production.”

More: Volvo’s Favorite Tuner Just Crossed Over Into China’s EV Scene

If it does get the green light, the model could end up taking aim at the Denza Z from BYD, along with established sports cars like the Porsche 911 and the Mercedes-AMG GT. At least in theory, as this is the sort of company where you don’t just arrive, look pretty, and expect a seat at the table.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Town of Lima Clerk Pam Hookstead’s election operation is a well-oiled machine. She comes to the polls at 6 a.m., a pot of cowboy beef stew in hand to warm up for her poll workers, and takes a backseat as she lets the town’s longtime staffers settle into their rhythm.

Having run well over 100 elections, administering the Wisconsin Supreme Court race on April 7 in the 1,200-person town felt like second nature. Hookstead, now 65, has spent three decades in the role — a depth of experience many towns have lost since 2020.

Twenty miles south sits Clinton, where 59-year-old Town Clerk Shannon Roehl-Wickingson was administering her first election on her own. It will take years for her muscle memory to rival Hookstead’s. But, she may get there faster than many of her peers in Wisconsin — or across the country. Rock County has a support and training system that most new clerks can only dream of.

That kind of hands-on help the county provides is increasingly rare. Nationwide, election official turnover has hit record highs since 2020, driven by harassment, political pressure and exhaustion. And Wisconsin has been especially hard hit: Since elections are run at the municipal level, the state relies on around 1,850 individual municipal clerks to run its elections. Many new clerks land the job with little guidance and figure it out as they go.

As the job has grown more complex, more scrutinized and more politicized, municipalities are left scrambling to replace experienced officials and train newcomers fast enough to keep up. Rock County — where five of 29 municipalities had first-time clerks running elections earlier this month — is testing a more hands-on approach to that transition, pairing new clerks with experienced ones and building a network that helps them learn the job in real time.

But hiring is only half the battle. Keeping clerks can be even harder, in part because the job is both sprawling and slow to master. Beyond running elections, a single clerk may take meeting minutes, issue licenses, sell public land and even oversee cemeteries. All responsibilities, especially elections, are governed by a shifting patchwork of legal obligations that can take years to learn but often change quickly. Rock County is hoping to fix that.

“If I wouldn’t have had help, I might have thrown in the towel by now because it’s very daunting,” said Roehl-Wickingson. “For God’s sake, in today’s climate, with voting, you just don’t want to make mistakes. But there’s tremendous support. You just have to ask the questions.”

The approach is deliberate: County Clerk Lisa Tollefson ensures municipal clerks are trained beyond state requirements and works to recruit long-serving or retiring clerks as mentors. During the busiest times of the year, her husband, Town of Harmony Deputy Clerk Tim Tollefson, makes the rounds to check in with new municipal clerks to make sure everything is moving smoothly.

Together, they push clerks to stay in close contact, with them and with each other — swapping advice on absentee voting, preparing for budget season, or gathering in person with a brandy old-fashioned to celebrate a well-run election.

Part of Tollefson’s motivation for creating the county’s support network comes from experience. When the Democrat first became Harmony’s town clerk in 2010, she knew resources were available but “felt really shy about reaching out” for help. “I don’t want anyone to ever feel that way.”

Now, she goes to public tests for every new clerk, making sure they understand there’s no dumb questions and telling them that she has been in their shoes.

In Hookstead’s view, Lisa Tollefson is the coach, municipal clerks are the assistant coaches, and poll workers are the team players.

“None of us could survive without the other one,” she said. “We’re a team. We work very well together in this county.”

‘Clerk gene’ essential to long tenures

Making a longtime clerk out of a new recruit takes some luck and some science.

In some cases, it also starts off with a little bit of deceit.

Many clerks have similar origin stories in Wisconsin: They were persuaded to begin their jobs by a town board member who made the job sound easy. Just taking minutes, they’re told. Little mention of elections, budgets, licenses or managing municipal property. That was the pitch that drew both Tollefson and Hookstead into their first clerk jobs.

Once on the job, they quickly realize how much more it entails. Some hunker down. Others leave.

What separates the two, Lisa Tollefson said, is the “clerk gene.” She described it as a mix of curiosity, a lack of timidity, and a desire to help the public. And while some — herself included — stumble into the role of clerk and step up to the job, Tollefson said transparency about the job is the best way to recruit and retain staff. “Being open about all the duties,” she said, “is huge.”

Roehl-Wickingson, whose previous job included helping union workers sign up for benefits, said the desire to help others has carried over for her. In both elections and unions, those who are indifferent are “definitely in the wrong place.”

Right now, Lisa Tollefson said, every chief election official in Rock County has what it takes to be a clerk. That’s a blessing for her office, which saw a lot of clerk turnover after the highly contentious 2020 election, when a wave of retirements rocked the workforce. Just eight of 29 Rock County municipalities still have the same clerks as they did six years ago.

“There were some older clerks at that time,” she said, “and they’re like, ‘I’m not doing another. I’m done.’”

To keep new clerks from burning out, Lisa Tollefson tries to reinforce that instinct to be a supportive clerk with training and support.

She has encouraged her clerks to become trainers themselves, including to train poll workers to be chief inspectors and to use the state’s electronic pollbook system — something most poll workers aren’t usually trained to do.

The need for such advanced planning became clear in 2020, when nearly every worker at one Rock County polling location was exposed to COVID-19 during a public test and could no longer serve on Election Day. Two poll workers didn’t come to the public test, though, and because they were trained to be chief inspectors, the location was still able to open and proceed normally. That year, Tollefson also trained about 50 county employees as chief inspectors as an additional cushion against emergencies.

The benefits of this preparation and community-building also show up in smaller moments. At a recent public test of voting equipment, Tollefson said she watched experienced poll workers reassure a new clerk that everything would be OK. “There’s a lot of strength in the poll workers,” she said.

It’s an example set by Tollefson herself. She is a constant presence for clerks, Hookstead said. She offers advice and checks in, reminding clerks that she’ll be up at 5 a.m. and ready to provide any support she can offer on Election Day.

“She’s just willing to make our lives so much easier,” said Hookstead. “And it is through training — her trainings are fun.”

Rock County clerks also seem to have found another reliable strategy for finding and retaining election workers: recruiting family members.

After Tollefson left her first job as the Harmony town clerk, she recruited her husband to replace her after nobody else applied. He later became the town’s deputy clerk. Hookstead’s mom, daughter and husband have all served as poll workers in Lima. In the town of Magnolia — in western Rock County — clerk-treasurer Graceann Toberman was preceded by her mother as treasurer. Together, they’ve spent more than 60 years in the role.

Roehl-Wickingson was also recruited by family. When the town of Clinton needed a new clerk, she got a call from her daughter, who works in the county clerk’s office, suggesting it would be a good part-time job in retirement. (Unlike Lisa Tollefson and Hookstead, Roehl-Wickingson said she received an accurate summary of what the job entailed.)

“You get the bug,” Lisa Tollefson said. “It happens all the time.”

Longtime clerk says county helps her understand changing rules

Hookstead has had the bug for 30 years. She has silvering blonde hair and, on Election Day, wore a green cardigan and a name tag identifying her as clerk — not that anybody is unfamiliar with her. She said she’s not quite ready to retire as a clerk.

If anything, she’s prepared to spend even more time on the job. Having just retired from her full-time position as secretary at a school in Whitewater, she’s decided to redesign the town’s website and reorganize its paperwork system.

Still, she knows she won’t do it forever. If somebody comes along to replace her — something Hookstead acknowledged wasn’t terribly likely — she said she’s ready to step aside.

Hookstead lives and does most of her work from home on a 180-acre beef farm in town.

The 1,300-person town is sparsely populated, with no bars, no restaurants and no grocery stores — just dairy and cattle farms, a Presbyterian church and a small cluster of homes near the town center. On Election Day, its town hall had pop-up voting booths next to its wood-paneled walls and a check-in booth by the front entrance, a setup that Hookstead has meticulously spaced out to provide the best flow for voters, some of whom are in wheelchairs.

For early in-person absentee voting, residents don’t go to a government office. They go to Hookstead’s house.

Voters go to her kitchen and take a seat at what she calls her voting table. Given its placement, with several seats surrounding it and a sack of onions on top, you’d be forgiven for calling it a kitchen table. Hookstead concedes it’s both.

Voters cast their ballots there, overlooking a cattle field and a swamp frequented by geese and sandhill cranes. If two voters come to her house at the same time, they sit on opposite corners of her kitchen table while Hookstead waits for them in the living room, near a mounted buck that her husband killed with a bow.

It’s a laid-back setting, Hookstead said — one where voters can both cast a ballot and talk about the price of corn.

When she started her job, things worked differently. There wasn’t much early absentee voting, and almost every voter cast a ballot on Election Day, hand-marking the ballots and dropping them into several wooden boxes at the town hall. Hookstead would unpack the ballots at the end of the night and hand-count for several hours.

Now, electronic tabulators and shorter ballots have sped things up. Even so, the job has grown more complicated — especially as election rules have shifted in recent years. Hookstead said she’s been frustrated by rapidly changing election rules since 2020, particularly when they don’t seem to follow clear logic. She pointed to one rule blocking voters from returning their elderly parents’ ballots, with only limited exceptions.

That’s where the county support system comes in.

Tollefson, the county clerk, notifies Hookstead and other clerks of new rules and guidelines — sometimes before the Wisconsin Elections Commission does — and always makes herself available for questions.

“I have told Lisa that when she leaves, I’ll be going,” Hookstead said.

New Clinton clerk runs successful election after weeks of nerves

In the Clinton Town Hall, just off County Road X, Roehl-Wickingson this month was running her first election as town clerk. She spent the day answering questions from poll workers, working through new problems and greeting older residents curious about the new person running their elections.

Some had been skeptical, particularly because she lives 20 miles north in Harmony. A law passed last year allows municipalities to appoint clerks who live outside of town borders.

“I’ve been nervous all day,” she said, as she sat in the clerk’s office on Election Day with paperwork instructing her what to do at every step. She added that each time her chief inspector comes around to ask her a question, “I think, please let it be easy.”

Roehl-Wickingson was a longtime General Motors employee, working at the Janesville plant as an assembly worker until its mass layoffs in late 2008. She then worked as a union representative at a GM plant in Kansas City, where part of her job was spent registering union workers to vote and getting out the vote. She retired in 2024, wanting to get back home to her family in Rock County.

But retiring doesn’t mean she’s “ready to sit still in the rocking chair,” Roehl-Wickingson said from her office, where she sat beneath a street sign reading “Clerk Way.” She shuffled through stacks of paper, checking lists, double-checking them, pausing only to answer a question before returning to the lists.

When her daughter told her about the clerk opening, she felt she was the right person to take it on. Roehl-Wickingson said her position as a union rep prepared her for the contentious election landscape.

“I won’t say I’m thrilled to death about it, but I knew the atmosphere,” she said. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

Even so, the lead-up to Election Day was consuming. She said she barely slept the night before, instead rereading the election manual again and again, afraid she might miss something.

“My husband was like, ‘You’re gonna get sick,’ because I’ve been nervous the last couple of weeks and running ragged, making sure I had everything,” she said.

By early afternoon on Election Day, Tim Tollefson had turned up to meet with Roehl-Wickingson. He was making his way around the county to check on new clerks, a task he took on after his wife encouraged him to help mentor the wave of new clerks.

Much of the job, he said, is procedural, not entirely different from managing inventory at his former job as a manager at the outdoor recreation retailer Gander Mountain. Tollefson said some bits came easy for him, and the rest came with time. Two years, he said, is around how long it can take to start feeling like you have a grip on the role.

Until then, it can be overwhelming.

Both Tollefsons have been essential to her success, Roehl-Wickingson said. Without the support system, she said she would have felt lost doing things like compiling the town budget.

“You definitely need guidance,” she said. “You just don’t know what you don’t know,” she said.

That guidance extends beyond any one person. Over time, Roehl-Wickingson said, the job has started to make more sense — in part because of formal training, but just as much because of the network of clerks across the county.

“If (Lisa) didn’t pull us together, I’m not sure we would have that on our own,” she said.

By Election Day, Roehl-Wickingson had done everything she could to prepare. Too nervous to set up the polling place the day before, she went in on the Saturday before Election Day, spending hours making sure every table, sign and voting booth was exactly where it needed to be.

As the day wound down, she glanced at the analog clock on the wall: just before 8 p.m.

The room had emptied. No last-minute voters came through the door.

When the clock struck the hour, her chief inspector closed the polls.

There was plenty left for Roehl-Wickingson to do. But first, she checked the numbers — ballots cast versus the number of voters checked in.

Both were 225.

“I’m so glad,” she said, thanking her chief inspector.

For all her nerves, the first outing of Roehl-Wickingson’s late-blooming career as an election official was a success.

“At times, it’s very consuming and daunting and overwhelming, but at the same token, today, I feel kind of a sense of excitement,” she said. “And it’s rewarding to know that you’ve been a part of it, and you put it together, and you’ve been that cog in the wheel.”

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

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

How one Wisconsin county is making running elections easier for new clerks 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.