Nearly four years ago, Massachusetts landed $64 million from the Biden administration’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, the massive $5 billion national push to seed thousands of new charging stations across the country. It is now mid-2026, and the state has yet to turn any of that money into a single working charger.

Two years ago, the state selected three vendors to identify possible locations for the new charging stations. Only two of them, Applegreen and Global Partners, have signed contracts, and both companies, along with the state Department of Transportation, have stayed conspicuously tight-lipped about what’s actually happened since.

Read: Sixteen States Say Trump’s Admin Is Illegally Holding EV Money Hostage

The Commonwealth Beacon reports that Applegreen and Global Partners have spent roughly $4 million between them on engineering, permitting, and procurement. There are finally signs of progress, but MassDOT isn’t saying why things have crawled along this slowly.

According to MassDOT spokesperson Marshall Hook, Applegreen recently placed an order for EV charging equipment for sites in Greenfield and Newburyport, with construction expected to begin in July. Global Partners, meanwhile, has ordered the equipment needed to set up stations in Lancaster, Raynham, and Wrentham.

Too Slow For The EV Transition

“The slowness of adoption here is mystifying,” former state transportation secretary Jim Aloisi said. “If your approach to transportation sector decarbonization is largely about the transition to EVs, then you should be spending a fair amount of effort accelerating the process of getting people to adopt EVs, and one way to do that is obviously to roll out the NEVI initiative. That’s the disconnect.”

Massachusetts is hardly the only state dragging its feet on getting these federally funded chargers running. A website tracking the NEVI program shows that plenty of states have received tens of millions of dollars without building a single station, including Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oregon, Alabama, Arizona, and, surprisingly, even California.

On the flip side, some states have put the money to work. Texas, for one, already has several NEVI-funded charging stations in operation, with many more at various stages of construction.

U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden were hyped on Friday afternoon, yelling to the crowd at a Chippewa Falls “farm roundtable” about how great  President Donald Trump is for American farmers and how thrilling it was to have him here in Wisconsin. Was that flop sweat on their glistening foreheads? 

Trump’s approval rating hit a new low of 38% according to a Marquette poll released two days before his rural Wisconsin visit, with most respondents saying Democrats do a better job handling the economy. In rural Wisconsin, the Northern Ag Network reports, high fuel and fertilizer prices have been weighing heavily on farmers ever since Trump began his protracted military entanglement in Iran, while farm income is down and projected to drop further this year.

Van Orden, who is trying to hold onto his 3rd Congressional District seat and Tiffany, who wants to be Wisconsin’s next governor, have been faithful to Trump, voting for his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” with its historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance that will fall especially hard on rural areas. The five-year, $50 billion rural healthcare fund added to the bill in the U.S. Senate — which Van Orden touted at the Chippewa Falls event — will not come close to making up for the OBBA’s $137 billion in permanent Medicaid cuts to rural areas, according to KFF health policy research. Those cuts will lead to the closure of rural hospitals and, combined with the rollback of the Affordable Care Act, will leave an estimated 30,000 Wisconsinites without healthcare. 

Trump’s visit to Wisconsin was a kind of Hail Mary. “Who’s excited that Donald J. Trump is here?” Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins shouted hoarsely. “Can I get an amen?” 

It was not an intellectual appeal. As Henry Redman reports, the so-called roundtable mostly consisted of a meandering speech by Trump, who insulted Democrats, mocked former President Joe Biden and showed pictures of his revamp of the Washington, D.C. reflecting pool. Instead of policy, the event offered vibes. But vibes can only do so much to overcome the cold, hard economic reality confronting rural voters.

Tiffany and Van Orden, who helped inflict Trump’s disastrous policies on rural Wisconsinites, are hoping Trump’s star power will propel them to victory. 

Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming took a stab at justifying the cognitive dissonance that will require of Republican voters, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Trump is forcing them to go through pain now so that he can fix long-term structural problems and bring them future prosperity. 

It was a pretty good try. Wisconsin farmers have demonstrated tremendous resilience in the face of brutal economic cycles. Those who are still around have persevered as more than half of the state’s dairy farms disappeared over the last two decades, through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump has denounced the global trade deals embraced by both political parties and promised to stop global trade from harming U.S. workers and farmers. For people who lived through massive consolidation, vertical integration and the commodification of farm products that sent prices plummeting, major structural change, even if it involves some short-term pain, sounds good. But how much longer can those early promises stay fresh? And how much faith do voters have that Trump really has a long-term plan? 

In Chippewa Falls, Trump spent a lot of time bragging about better than expected recent jobs numbers and ignoring underlying weaknesses in the economy that are a danger sign. He complained that the stock market didn’t share his rosy outlook. And he crowed about stopping illegal immigration, telling Wisconsin farmers who rely heavily on immigrant labor that he has stopped “people from mental institutions” and “murderers” from coming across the border. Wisconsin farmers are the wrong crowd for that red meat.

The most significant thing Trump said, before rushing through the brief “roundtable” section of the program, leaving just enough time for the assembled Republican politicians, two athletes, a beer company executive and one farmer to shower him with praise, was a promise of a massive farm subsidy. “I got $28 billion for the farmers in the first term,” he said, referring to the Market Facilitation Program that paid out big checks to farmers just before the 2020 election, to offset the effects of tariffs and trade wars. Once again, he said, he’s  “working on something” to help farmers, “because what happened to you was artificial.” 

Van Orden and Tiffany are hoping that will be enough to stave off reality a little bit longer.

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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon changed course Monday after its removal of dozens of religious denominations from a list of recognized faiths drew intense criticism over the weekend from Utah Republicans incensed by the failure to classify the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Christian denomination.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a member of the church widely known as the Mormon church, said the policy for military chaplains announced Friday was “offensive” and demanded the Pentagon reverse course, which the department did Monday afternoon.

“It’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations,” Lee, a Utah Republican, said in a video statement posted to social media Sunday night.

“So I’m respectfully imploring the people at the Pentagon to reconsider this, not just reconsider but undo it,” Lee continued. “Secretary Hegseth: Tear down that wall. This is not cool.”

Hours later, Lee wrote on social media that he personally spoke to President Donald Trump on the phone about the “Pentagon’s ‘Christian list’” and told people to “stay tuned.”

“I won’t speak for him, but I’m thrilled about where this is heading,” Lee wrote. “We’re most fortunate that President Trump (1) loves Latter-day Saints, and (2) is our commander in chief.” 

A spokesperson with Lee’s office told States Newsroom Monday the senator received assurances from the administration that the issue will be resolved.

Just after noon Eastern time Monday, the Pentagon pointed States Newsroom to a social media post showing an updated list without the word “Christian” before any of the denominations.

“The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,” according to the post by an account with the handle “DOW Rapid Response,” using the acronym for the administration’s preferred but unofficial name, Department of War.

Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, also spoke out on social media stating the church is “unequivocally Christian.”

“It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the religion’s own foundational tenets,” he wrote Saturday.

A concern from lawmakers is that service members who belong to the Latter-day Saints may not receive services from a Christian chaplain.

The issue places the Pentagon in the middle of a longtime theological dispute between Latter-day Saints, who believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and consider themselves Christian, and some members of other Christian faiths who believe the Salt Lake City-based church should be viewed as outside of Christianity.

Latter-day Saint church leaders declined to comment Monday.

The White House pointed States Newsroom to the department’s Monday afternoon social media announcement.

Shorter list

Citing a two-page letter posted to social media Friday, Parnell said the department was making a “long overdue move” to reduce the military chaplains’ overall list of religious affiliations to 31, down from an “unmanageable” 200.

“This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions. Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups,” Parnell wrote.

The list includes 21 separate Christian denominations, but lists the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints separately.

‘Christian nationalist takeover’

Criticism of the new list reverberated beyond Latter-day Saints.

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and president and CEO of the Interfaith Alliance advocacy group accused the administration Friday of pushing a “Christian nationalist takeover of the Department of Defense.”

“Religious freedom in the military must mean religious freedom for everyone who serves, not just those this administration finds politically useful,” Raushenbush said in a statement.

“Secretary Hegseth is not ‘streamlining’ anything. He is elevating one narrow religious worldview from the top of the chain of command. That is dangerous, discriminatory and fundamentally un-American. The First Amendment does not allow the government to create a hierarchy of faiths, and it certainly does not allow the Pentagon to decide which beliefs are worthy of recognition.”

Hegseth announced a restructuring of the military’s chaplain corps in March, which he said had been “infected with political correctness and secular humanism.”

Hegseth hosts a monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon.

President Donald Trump held a roundtable discussion Friday at Custer Farms in Chippewa Falls to tout his administration’s efforts to help farmers. 

Trump’s visit is his first to Wisconsin during this year’s election season. First to take the stage on Friday were U.S. Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Tom Tiffany, signaling the importance of the 3rd Congressional District and the Wisconsin gubernatorial contest  for Republicans this year. 

Despite Trump’s waning approval ratings, Van Orden and Tiffany tied themselves to the president, effusively praising him.

Trump appeared on stage for the roundtable with both congressmen as well as U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, farm owner Ken Custer, Jake Leinenkugel, Olympic speed skater Jordan Stolz and Joe Thomas, a Hall of Fame former NFL player who played for UW-Madison and now owns a western Wisconsin beef farm. 

Despite its billing as a roundtable discussion of agriculture policy, Trump spoke for more than 40 minutes straight, at times appearing to read from a script and at others riffing on a number of favorite topics including former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, “Dumbocrats in Congress,” the allegedly “rigged” 2020 presidential election, transgender people, his multi-million dollar D.C. renovation projects and the southern border. 

“These are some very sick puppies that I’m looking at that are running for office and on the other side,” Trump said. “I call them the Dumocrats, D-U-M, you take out the B, a lot of people don’t know, dumb has a b, a lot of people don’t know. You take out the b and change the E, you put the you and you have a Dumocrat, but they are, their policy is just outstandingly bad, and it’s really bad for the farmer, because we were having record stuff, and then we had to put out a fire, we had to extinguish a nuclear weapon.” 

With six months until November’s midterm elections, many of Trump’s signature policies have directly affected the bottom line of Wisconsin farmers. Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran have greatly increased the cost of essentials such as fertilizer and gas while limiting access to foreign markets for corn and soybeans. In western Wisconsin communities close to where he appeared on Friday, Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota’s Twin Cities extended into the Dairy State, directly striking the undocumented migrant labor the region’s farmers rely on. 

“If anybody you hear says that Donald Trump doesn’t care about the farmers, you can look him straight in the eye and tell him that’s a pile of manure, because the man is right back there,” Van Orden said. “We’re going to make sure our farmers don’t have to wring their hands at night because they’re worried about paying bills.” 

Trump and other speakers promised that the administration and congressional Republicans are working to ease the burden on American farmers, but offered little in the way of concrete proposals for how fertilizer, seed, gas and equipment will get cheaper or how milk, corn and soybeans will get easier to sell. 

“Your fertilizer prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago,” Trump said. “Your fertilizer is down, your energy’s down, your oil, your gas is all coming way down. And frankly, I thought it would go much higher than it did.” 

In the days leading up to Friday’s event Democratic politicians and Democratic-aligned groups rolled out a series of tours, roundtables and online events to highlight complaints about administration policies on all manner of things. 

“Wisconsin farmers do backbreaking work to produce world-class products that feed the world and drive our rural economies. President Trump came into office promising to support our farmers, but instead has taken every opportunity to jack up their costs, limit their customers, and cut into their margins,” U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) said in a statement. “Between Donald Trump’s trade war, unnecessary war in Iran, and attacks on our health care system, Wisconsin farmers are paying more for everything, and Donald Trump has no solutions to the problems he’s caused. As President Trump visits Wisconsin, he owes our farmers more than lip service – they need real relief from the high costs they are paying.”

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New federal dollars could extend the life of one of Wisconsin’s remaining coal power plants.

The Trump administration plans to spend $425 million to support operations at 13 coal plants in 10 states, arguing the move will help meet rising electricity demand and preserve thousands of jobs tied to the ailing coal industry. The White House will do so by invoking the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law that gives the president broad authority to accelerate American industrial output at times of crisis.

Some of that funding could go to Madison-based utility Alliant Energy, which told Wisconsin Watch that it applied for a $19 million grant to extend the life of coal-powered units it owns at the Columbia Energy Center near Portage in central Wisconsin. The utility previously planned to retire the plant’s coal units before the end of the decade. 

President Donald Trump announced the action from the Oval Office Thursday, highlighting  that the coal plants set to benefit are all in states he won during the 2024 election.

 “Wisconsin put you over the edge,” U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., interjected, standing among the gaggle of Republican lawmakers and Cabinet officials behind the president. 

“Our action will allow these facilities to invest in upgrades that will extend their operational lives for decades into the future, reinforce the reliability of our electrical grid … and keep electricity prices low for the American people,” Trump said, adding that the move may also bolster the nation’s artificial intelligence boom.  

The administration will also distribute $200 million in Department of Energy grants to reopen a coal plant in Maryland and build the first new coal plants in the U.S. in over a decade: one in Alaska and another in West Virginia.

The Trump administration has already intervened to block the retirement of coal plants in Michigan, Indiana and elsewhere. But the White House did not pair those earlier orders with funding to support ongoing operations, so ratepayers across most of the Midwest — including in Wisconsin — will pick up the bill for those extensions.

Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board (CUB) and other Midwestern ratepayer advocacy groups have since filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging federal orders blocking the closure of the Michigan and Indiana plants. The costs of extending aging coal plants’ operations “are adding to an affordability challenge customers are already experiencing in Wisconsin and nearby states,” said CUB Wisconsin Executive Director Tom Content.

Alliant has already pushed back the retirement dates for its coal-powered generators at the Columbia Energy Center and Edgewater Energy Center in Sheboygan. The company initially pledged to shut down the last coal generator at the Columbia plant by 2024; Alliant did not clarify the new expected life span of the plant. 

The Edgewater plant is slated to transition to natural gas generation by 2029.

Coal generation accounts for a declining share of Wisconsin’s and the Midwest’s overall energy mix. Natural gas surpassed coal as the state’s primary fuel for generating electricity in 2022.

Wisconsin ratepayers owe at least $1 billion to pay off debts tied to retired coal plants, including We Energies’ now-shuttered Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Kenosha County.

Extending operations at Alliant’s remaining coal plants could reduce the amount ratepayers will still owe when those facilities eventually close. 

Wisconsin clean energy advocates reacted with alarm to the White House’s doubling down on coal generation. 

“Burning coal in Wisconsin releases a long list of toxic chemicals and heavy metals, both into the air and water,” said Clean Wisconsin spokesperson Amy Barrilleaux. “No one in Wisconsin is asking for more mercury, arsenic, lead or soot. But we will be getting all of it, especially as the Trump administration dismantles pollution safeguards at coal plants, insisting more power is needed for the ‘AI data center revolution.’”

“It’s also important to note that burning coal is one of the most expensive ways to produce energy in Wisconsin — far more expensive than wind and solar farms, which are the cheapest,” she added. “So Wisconsinites will have higher energy costs and will be paying for the health costs, the longer we burn coal in this state.”

Alliant has scaled up investments in renewable energy generation in recent years, buoyed in part by clean energy tax credits extended by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The U.S. Department of Energy also agreed to back $3 billion in loans supporting Alliant’s wind generation and battery storage buildouts in the final days of the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has since largely reversed Biden-era tax incentives for renewable energy development. In its 2025 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alliant noted that the termination of clean energy tax credits could “adversely impact” the company’s finances. 

The company did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the status of Department of Energy financing for its wind and battery storage projects.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued Thursday that clean energy tax incentives created a false impression of the viability of renewable energy sources. Wind energy developers, he said, “weren’t trying to generate electricity. They’re just trying to generate tax credits.”

“Energy shouldn’t need subsidy,” Trump responded.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 5, 2026 to include information from Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin

Wisconsin power plant could benefit from Trump’s $425 million coal push 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.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, to fill the top role at the Department of Justice on a permanent basis, he said Wednesday night.

Trump revealed Blanche as his choice at an outdoor event at the White House, saying “we are going to make him permanent attorney general” and adding that he expects Blanche’s nomination process to “go very quickly.”

Blanche has been leading the department in an acting capacity since former Attorney General Pam Bondi exited the administration in early April.

Blanche, of Florida, will almost certainly have that state’s two Republican senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, supporting his nomination.

The GOP-led Senate confirmed Blanche as deputy attorney general in early March 2025 on a party-line vote.

Blanche represented Trump in 2023 and 2024 during a New York state hush money case. A jury convicted Trump two years ago on 34 first-degree felony counts of falsifying business records.

The close tie between the president and his pick for attorney general is a major reason Democrats will oppose the nomination, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.

“Trump picked Blanche because he’s loyal to the president alone – not the Constitution, not the rule of law, and certainly not the American people, and not to the values that this country has had for 250 years,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “For years, Blanche has been Trump’s personal lawyer and attack dog, and that didn’t stop when Blanche joined the department.”

Anti-weaponization fund

Blanche has taken heat in recent weeks, including from Republicans, for the department’s settlement in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS.

Trump dropped the suit in exchange for the department establishing a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for persons Blanche described on May 18 as “victims of lawfare.” The settlement revealed that the fund would be governed by five commissioners hand-chosen by Blanche, with only one involving consultation from congressional leadership.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle quickly objected to the proposal, noting the possibility that people convicted — then pardoned by Trump — of assaulting police during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol could receive reparations from the fund.

When pressed at a May 27 Senate hearing on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants who were pardoned could reap taxpayer dollars from the fund, Blanche replied, “Anybody can apply.

“The commission will set rules, I’m sure,” he continued. “That’s not for me to set, that’s for the commissioners, and whether an individual, an Oath Keeper, as you just mentioned, applies for compensation, anybody in this country can apply.”

Several lawsuits quickly challenged the legality of the fund, including one from former police officers who deployed to the Capitol on Jan.6, and another from legal advocates who argued the fund would be illegally shielded from transparency laws.

After intense pressure, Blanche testified to a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday that the administration was “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

The concession cleared the way for reluctant Senate Republicans to support a roughly $70 billion immigration enforcement package. Senate Democrats plan to stall the bill on the floor Thursday with a marathon of amendments, including proposals to curtail or outright ban such funds going forward.

The administration is still facing questions from lawmakers about a provision in Trump’s IRS settlement that absolves him, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization, from tax audits. 

Epstein files

Blanche has also come under scrutiny for the DOJ’s handling of the release of files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The botched release last year, when Bondi headed the department, initially exposed names of sexual abuse victims.

Democrats claimed Bondi told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during a closed-door interview last week that Blanche oversaw the legally mandated release of the files and made the decision to not investigate any possible leads.

Bondi refuted the claim on social media following the interview.

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

Ahead of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April, Green Bay election officials accidentally sent duplicate ballots to 150 voters, prompting an administrative complaint before the Wisconsin Elections Commission and conspiracy theories online.

In a slightly different example from this year, some voters in Maryland initially received primary ballots for the wrong party. Election officials then intentionally issued new ballots for the correct party to all voters who had requested a mail ballot, and the original ballots were voided. Nonetheless, President Donald Trump falsely suggested that nobody knew what was happening with the original ballots and that “any Republican running in Maryland doesn’t have a chance” because voters who received them, who were disproportionately Democrats, would be allowed to vote twice.

Despite the heightened attention, election officials accidentally sending duplicate ballots — or sending out an erroneous batch before intentionally sending corrected ballots to the same voters — is a rare but well-understood mistake nationwide that hardly ever results in the type of double voting Trump has warned of.

“Once any ballot is received and accepted, it locks down that voter’s record, so that a second ballot could not be accepted for that same voter,” said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer of the National Association of Election Officials. “That’s the way it works everywhere.”

Two primary mechanisms keep these accidental duplicate ballots from getting counted: proper record keeping and deterrence, said David Levine, an election security expert and the election director in Richmond, Virginia. Generally, that record keeping is done by putting unique barcodes on absentee ballot envelopes, which prevent people from voting more than once.

“It’s usually not an issue because, one, election officials are pretty good about contingency planning and having procedures in place, so if something like this happens, they know how to either void ballots or segregate them appropriately, so that they’re not going to be counted,” Levine said.

Second, he added, most voters understand that double voting is a crime, and it’s not a practice they want to engage in. A study of 2012 election results found that, at most, one in 4,000 votes cast could be a double vote, but that clerical errors in marking turnout records — not actual double voting — may account for most if not all of that number.

Some of the attention on these mistakes comes from people who are genuinely unaware of the protections that keep double votes from being counted, Levine said. But, he said, there’s also scrutiny from people who are familiar or should be familiar with those safeguards but “choose to try and make a lot of hay out of something that’s largely much ado about nothing.”

Why do duplicate ballots get sent out?

Simply put, election season is an extraordinarily busy time for clerks and the vendors that print their ballots. Sometimes amid their multitasking, they mistakenly send two batches of absentee ballots to the same group of voters, or send an incorrect batch and have to send a second, correct one.

In the Green Bay instance, City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys said election officials were scrambling because a mid-March blizzard closed much of the city, and her staff faced a time crunch to send ballots out on time. The city sent notices to the 152 affected voters before Election Day. Ultimately, just one voter returned two ballots, and both were voided after Green Bay officials alerted the voter about it.

In Maryland, the State Board of Elections said the initial batch of ballots was erroneous because of a coding error with the board’s mail ballot vendor. Since the vendor couldn’t identify which voters received the wrong ballots, the board decided to send new ballots to everyone who had requested a mail ballot in that election and void the old ones in the state’s registration database, so they wouldn’t count even if voters returned them.

Similar errors have happened around the state and country. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Madison, Wisconsin, officials sent around 2,200 duplicate ballots because of a data processing error. In Racine, Wisconsin, this year, election officials intentionally sent voters a second batch of ballots because the first set left off a municipal race. Other incidents have happened in Pennsylvania and California.

What keeps those erroneous ballots from getting counted?

One of the best tools election officials in Wisconsin and elsewhere have at their disposal are unique barcodes printed on the absentee ballot certificates that voters receive.

Those barcodes in Wisconsin connect to the statewide voter registration database and are unique to each voter. Other states have similar systems, with unique identifiers tying an absentee ballot to each voter. If an election official scans a duplicate ballot, the system shows that the voter already returned one, and one of the ballots is rejected.

That’s a “very, very established process,” Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe said after the Green Bay incident.

In examples like Racine, when voters receive a ballot missing a race or containing another error that can be corrected before Election Day, officials will intentionally send another, correct ballot to the voter. The first ballot becomes known as the “A” ballot, and the second one is known as the “B” ballot.

If a voter returns just one ballot, that vote will count — including only valid votes from the erroneous ballot, if that’s the one submitted. If a voter returns both ballots, officials will scrap the “A” ballot and count the “B” since the latter is the correct form.

That’s different from Maryland, where election officials voided all of the original ballots and reissued new ones.

How specific instances of duplicate ballots get resolved — whether that’s canceling out all the original ballots or planning for “A” and “B” ballots like in Racine — can depend on state laws, officials’ discretion and court rulings, Patrick said. How close the error is to election day and the jurisdiction’s budget can also influence how election officials handle duplicate ballots, she added.

Patrick also drew a distinction between officials sending out duplicate absentee ballots and the rare but occasional instances of double voting.

“More often than not, the rare instances where we see it, it’s an individual voting in two different jurisdictions or two different states,” she said. “It’s not so much that a single person is voting in the same election, in the same jurisdiction, under the same name.”

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.

Sometimes officials send duplicate ballots. Here’s how security measures prevent double voting. 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.

WASHINGTON — Transgender military members won a temporary victory against the Trump administration in federal appeals court Monday when two judges ruled a policy banning them from service violated their constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

Judges Judith W. Rogers and Robert L. Wilkins for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling allowing those plaintiffs involved in the case to continue their service. The decision is a preliminary injunction, meaning the case will continue to play out in court.

The policy, issued by President Donald Trump in an executive order in January 2025 and carried out by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender,” Wilkins wrote for the 2-1 decision.

“As such, at this preliminary stage, I conclude that the Hegseth Policy is both arbitrary and based upon animus, and for those reasons the Policy violates Plaintiff-Appellees’ constitutional right to equal protection of the law,” continued Wilkins, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014.

Rogers was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

Judge Justin R. Walker, a 2019 Trump appointee, dissented.

Walker argued U.S. Supreme Court precedent dictates “the military can deprive its members of rights that the Constitution may well guarantee to civilians.”

“Like today’s majority, I cherish those rights, and so I understand the impulse behind the majority’s unprecedented intervention into military affairs. But because the plaintiffs are service members not civilians, and because we are judges not generals, I respectfully dissent,” Walker wrote.

Jennifer Levi, the lead attorney for the eight military plaintiffs, said Monday’s appeals ruling is an “enormous victory.”

“I will say that the plaintiffs in this case have just served their country with incredible honor and courage, and this decision is a recognition of that fact,” Levi, senior director for GLAD Law, told States Newsroom in an interview.

“And really it’s important because (it is) recognizing that those who are capable of serving should be able to continue.”

States Newsroom reached out to the Pentagon and the White House for comment. 

Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces initially brought the case, Talbott et al v. Trump, against Trump and Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military. The number of plaintiffs has since grown.

The preliminary injunction does not extend to the plaintiffs pursuing enlistment, and does not extend universally to all active transgender service members beyond those who filed the case.

Kara Corcoran, executive director of SPARTA Pride, an advocacy organization for transgender service members, said many transgender service members, including her, are uncertain about the future of their careers.

“While today’s decision provides important relief for certain named plaintiffs, it does not extend protection to the broader transgender military community. Thousands of service members remain subject to ongoing administrative actions, involuntary separation processes, and significant uncertainty about their futures,” said Corcoran, an 18-year Army veteran who is awaiting the military’s decision on whether they will allow her to claim retirement instead of a separation because she is transgender.

Corcoran said “there’s a lot of unknowns to the future” for named plaintiffs and others as the government could seek an emergency stay on the ruling as they did in a separate case, Shilling et al v. Trump. 

In Shilling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 18, 2025, upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal.

In May 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military.

“This is now two appellate courts from both Schilling and Talbot who have now signaled to the Supreme Court that yes, this is irreparable harm to people who are in (this situation), and at the same time, it’s discrimination,” she said. 

President Donald Trump’s extraordinary $1.776 billion fund to pay off allies and others who say they have been wronged by past administrations has drawn widespread condemnation by opponents, including some Republicans, who characterize it as an act of brazen corruption.

But the Trump administration’s push to reward its supporters also harkens back to an earlier era of American cronyism, experts say, while expanding the frontiers of political favoritism.

From the early years of the United States until well into the 19th century, a spoils system dominated the federal government. Presidents handed out jobs to supporters, filling the bureaucracy with workers who had demonstrated loyalty to the administration in power. 

Trump’s political idol, President Andrew Jackson, replaced large numbers of federal officials after his 1829 inauguration, for instance. One appointee to a role at the Port of New York made out with more than $1 million, valued at tens of millions today.

The comparison isn’t exact. The spoils system was associated with the distribution of government jobs to political allies, a practice called patronage. Trump’s new fund would instead deliver taxpayer dollars directly to favored individuals.

Yet, academics who have studied the spoils system and the presidency see parallels between the past and present — with a desire to reward allies and build allegiance at the center of it all.

“It seems to me that may be the common element here,” said Sidney Shapiro, a professor of law at Wake Forest University who wrote before the 2024 election that Trump wanted to reinstate the spoils system. “It appears President Trump is thinking about using the fund to reward people unfairly punished, but I think in his mind it’s unfairly punished because they were trying to support him.”

Five-member board to be named by Trump

The Department of Justice announced the “anti-weaponization fund,” which critics call a “slush fund,” on May 18 as it moved to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed in his personal capacity against the IRS over the leaking of his tax returns by a former agency contractor. 

The suit placed Trump in the extremely unusual position of effectively negotiating with himself because he has erased the DOJ’s post-Watergate tradition of independence from the White House.

Even before the settlement, the Justice Department under Trump had taken actions that would have been unheard of in other recent administrations. For instance, federal prosecutors have brought a case against former FBI Director James Comey and tried to pursue criminal charges against New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James. 

The DOJ has also obtained an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a frequent critic of GOP politicians.

Trump’s settlement agreement provides for the creation of the fund overseen by a board of five members chosen by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal attorney. Trump can fire the members for any reason.

The fund’s board will have the power to make decisions about payments, as well as issue formal apologies. Claims submitted to the fund must be processed by Dec. 1, 2028, prior to the end of Trump’s term.

Jan. 6 rioters line up

A bevy of Trump supporters and hangers-on have said they plan to apply for compensation. They include individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, disrupting Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Trump previously pardoned rioters when he took office in January 2025.

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison before Trump pardoned him, predicted on a recent podcast that a “lot of J6ers are going to spend their money on firearms.”

Trump has cast the fund as an act of magnanimity on his part because the settlement agreement doesn’t include a monetary payout to him. 

However, Blanche also signed a document barring any additional scrutiny of the president’s past tax history, a move that shields him from audits. The New York Times and ProPublica reported in 2024 that Trump could have owed $100 million if he lost an audit battle over improper tax breaks.

“I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward. I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my Tax Returns and the equally illegal BREAK IN of Mar-a-Lago, for an absolute fortune,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to the FBI search of his Florida residence in 2022.

“Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!”

Trump has adopted a “patrimonial” approach to governing, James Pfiffner, a professor emeritus at George Mason University who has studied the presidency, wrote in an email to States Newsroom. 

Benefits, like federal contracts, go to those who are loyal, Pfiffner wrote, and the government is treated as if it were a family business and the state’s resources were his personal property.

The “anti-weaponization fund” represents an extension of that approach, Pfiffner wrote, but also goes further than past presidents. He wrote that he could think of no past precedents in the modern presidency for such a blatant use of taxpayer money to potentially reward loyalists.

“At least in the spoils system, the people hired by the government were working and presumably doing their jobs,” Pfiffner wrote. “The beneficiaries of this fund have done nothing to earn their benefits, and presumably some will be rewarded for having committed crimes to overturn the 2020 election.”

Congress began curbing the spoils system after the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield by a spurned job seeker. 

Over the next two decades, many federal positions were moved into a civil service system. While the federal government still includes some 4,000 political appointees today, the vast majority of the bureaucracy is staffed by civil servants.

Critics and defenders in Congress

But it’s unclear whether Congress will block Trump’s fund, despite an intense backlash.

Anger among Republican senators has stalled action on budget legislation funding immigration enforcement, which Democrats would have used to force votes on amendments to block the fund. Democrats have introduced multiple bills aimed at halting it.

“Congress cannot stand by while Trump turns the federal government into a political operation for his friends and cronies,” Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, said in a statement.

Obstacles exist to congressional action. Even if Republicans who control both chambers voted with Democrats, Trump could veto bills passed placing restrictions on the fund, which would require two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate to override. 

And some GOP lawmakers have defended the fund.

On May 21, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, objected to a unanimous consent request by Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, to pass a bill that would prohibit payments to Jan. 6 rioters.

“Thankfully, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Trump Department of Justice established a standard and lawful process to hear from American citizens who suffered lawfare or weaponization under the Biden administration,” Tuberville said on the Senate floor.

Lawsuits have been filed challenging the fund and how it’s structured. Two police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 have sued, warning that rioters could use the money to organize. 

Fund blocked temporarily

On Friday, a federal judge in Virginia ordered the Trump administration to halt work on the fund for at least two weeks while she considers ordering a lengthier pause.

The decision came in a lawsuit brought by a former federal prosecutor fired by the DOJ and a California professor who was charged but acquitted of assaulting a federal officer after protesting an immigration raid.

Legal advocacy groups also argue Congress didn’t intend for federal money to be used for these kinds of payoffs.

“Another commonality is we the taxpayers are funding both,” Shapiro, the Wake Forest professor, said of the spoils system and the Trump fund. “We certainly fund the jobs that people have and now we’re funding this fund.”

WASHINGTON — Former Attorney General Pam Bondi was on Capitol Hill Friday for a closed door interview with lawmakers about her role in the release of the federal investigation files of Jeffrey Epstein — the now deceased wealthy sex offender who surrounded himself with influential entrepreneurs, academics and celebrities, including President Donald Trump.

But Democrats speaking to reporters outside the session criticized Republicans for not conducting the interview under oath or on camera and said Bondi did not answer many questions and blamed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for the chaotic release of files related to Epstein. Bondi later denied on social media she evaded questions or tried to target Blanche.

Bondi sat for a transcribed hours-long interview before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as the panel continues its probe into the government’s handling of the Epstein case and sexual abuse survivors.

Epstein died in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters before the early morning interview began that the panel is “continuing to move along, and hopefully today will be beneficial.” 

Epstein estate subpoena

The committee subpoenaed Epstein’s estate in August 2025 and made public all documents it received, Comer said. He said the committee has since conducted more than a dozen interviews and has six more scheduled throughout the summer, including with Epstein’s former assistant Lesley Groff, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and private equity investor Leon Black.

“The government has failed the survivors. There’s no question about that, and that dates back five presidential administrations,” Comer said. 

Comer credited Bondi for appearing a second time before the committee and criticized Democrats who he said “got up and walked out” of the first meeting in March while Republicans “asked questions for a couple of hours.”

 

Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Summer Lee, D-Pa., who sit on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, spoke to reporters on Friday, May 29, 2026, outside the committee’s closed door interview with former Attorney General Pam Bondi. (Video by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) 

Committee Democrats were highly critical.

The panel’s ranking member, Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said the interview ground rules barring video and allowing Bondi to speak without taking an oath are a “disservice to the American people.”

House Oversight Democrats, and an Epstein abuse survivor, spoke to reporters outside the committee room for roughly 30 minutes following their portion of questioning.

The minority members said Bondi refused to answer any questions related to Trump’s knowledge of how the Department of Justice was handling the Epstein documents, and that a current DOJ lawyer was in the room with Bondi, choosing which questions she would answer. 

They also said Bondi sidestepped responsibility for the mishandled release of the files that initially unmasked victims’ names.

“She continues to push all of the investigation and the blame on acting AG Todd Blanche. She said, and I quote, ‘Acting AG Blanche was managing the entire investigation,’ end quote,” Garcia said.

Blanche, whom the president named as the acting attorney general after Bondi’s exit, was Trump’s personal lawyer prior to his second term. Committee Democrats said they plan to request Blanche come before the panel for questioning.

Bondi fires back

Bondi denied Garcia’s statement to reporters that she pushed blame on Blanche for the Epstein files release.

In two posts on X Friday afternoon, Bondi wrote, “I praised Acting AG Blanche’s management of this Herculean task. I said his ethics are beyond reproach and that he is an incredible Attorney General.”

She also denied remarks to reporters by panel member Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., that she was not forthcoming about the president’s knowledge of Epstein’s actions.

“MISREPRESENTATION by Walkinshaw.  What the world knows to be true is President Trump banned Epstein from Mar a Lago decades ago bc Epstein was a despicable creep!!” Bondi wrote.

States Newsroom contacted the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Trump has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed in a written statement to States Newsroom that department personnel accompanied Bondi to the interview.

“Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and other Department of Justice personnel attended former Attorney General Bondi’s transcribed interview to assist the Committee in understanding the Department’s role in implementing and complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act during her tenure,” according to the statement.

The spokesperson continued: “Because former Attorney General Bondi oversaw the Department at the time the Act was enacted and carried out, DOJ’s presence was solely to ensure accurate representation of Department processes, facilitate any necessary clarifications, and support a complete factual record for the Committee.

“As with any congressional engagement involving past Department actions, DOJ routinely provides staff with relevant institutional knowledge to support transparency, accuracy, and cooperation with oversight responsibilities.”

Survivor speaks out

Epstein survivor Liz Stein, now a human trafficking specialist and advocate for the organization World Without Exploitation, said outside the committee room that the Trump administration needs to do more to deliver justice to victims.

“These files contain leads, names, connections, friendships, patterns, witnesses, travel records, financial relationships and institutional failures,” Stein said. “In any other sex trafficking case of this magnitude, those leads would be aggressively pursued, but in this case they have not been.”

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with a fund that opponents fear will be used to pay off the president’s political allies.

Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a brief order halting the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department and other high-ranking administration officials from taking any additional actions to create the fund or make payments from it.

The order came in a lawsuit filed by a former federal prosecutor and a California professor. The plaintiffs are represented by the legal advocacy groups Democracy Forward and Common Cause. The lawsuit is part of a flurry of legal challenges against the fund.

The Justice Department on May 18 announced a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that will make payments to individuals who believe they have been wronged by past administrations. The fund came as part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over the leaking of his tax return information by a former IRS contractor.

Trump’s settlement agreement provides for the creation of the fund overseen by a board of five members chosen by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal attorney. Trump can fire the members for any reason.

Brinkema, a President Bill Clinton appointee, took no position on the legality of the fund in her order. She wrote that her order is to ensure no money is “irreversibly disbursed” while the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order is pending.

She also set a hearing for June 12 — likely ensuring the fund will remain blocked for at least the next two weeks.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Andrew Floyd, a former federal Jan. 6 case prosecutor who was fired by the DOJ in June 2025, and Joseph Caravello, a California university professor who was charged with felony assault on a federal officer after protesting an immigration raid last summer. A jury acquitted Caravello in April.

The nine-count lawsuit alleges in part the fund violates the plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights, and violates the authority of Congress.

“Since its inception, this fund has been on a collision course with the United States Constitution,” their complaint says.

Trump has written on social media that the fund will help those “who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration” receive justice.

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

James Troupis, the former attorney for President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign who played an instrumental role in the fake elector scheme that led to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, has applied for $3.2 million through Trump’s “weaponization” fund. 

Troupis, a former Dane County Circuit Court judge, was part of the trio of Trump campaign aides who conceived the plan to have Republicans posing as members of the Electoral College cast ballots for Trump and send those ballots to Washington D.C. to be certified by Congress as the official results. The false slates of electors were the mechanism through which the Trump-aligned “stop the steal” efforts were organized — culminating in the Jan. 6 attack aimed at forcing Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence to certify Trump as the winner of the 2020 election. 

Troupis also represented Trump in the campaign’s failed lawsuit seeking to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturn the 2020 election results. 

After participating in the plan, Troupis was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice under President Joe Biden and is currently facing felony charges of forgery for his role in the fake elector plot. He also settled a civil lawsuit against him for his involvement in the plan. 

In a letter to Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Troupis complains that his life has been upended because of the justice system’s effort to investigate and charge him with crimes. 

“I was honored to represent President Trump in the Wisconsin Recount,” Troupis wrote in the letter posted to social media by right-wing radio host Vicki McKenna. “Sadly, my life (and the lives of my entire family) has been a nightmare since I stepped forward to represent President Trump … The total real financial cost now exceeds $1.7 million, the annihilation of my reputation and law practice, thousands of hours in preparation and response to those legal actions, five years of time lost with my children and grandchildren, loss of retirement funds used for defense costs and ongoing legal expenses that will likely cost me our family home and the balance of my retirement funds. I now face spending the rest of my life in prison!” 

Troupis adds that he’s become a “poster-child” for the weaponization of the law. Last year, a Dane County judge denied Troupis’ effort to have the state criminal charges against him dismissed. 

“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense,” Judge John Hyland wrote. 

Troupis’ cause has become a favorite of right-wing figures, including U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson — who himself was involved in the fake elector scheme. 

The $1.776 billion fund created by the DOJ as part of a settlement in Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS has been criticized as a tool the Trump administration can use to pay out its allies and the foot soldiers of the Jan. 6 attack. Figures such as Enrique Tarrior, the former leader of the militia group the Proud Boys, have applied for funds through the fund. 

Jeff Mandell, the president and general counsel of Law Forward, a voting rights-focused firm that brought the civil lawsuit against Troupis, said that the request for $3.2 million in taxpayer money continues Troupis’ pattern of refusing to accept the consequences of his actions.

“Wisconsin attorney and former judge Jim Troupis was the primary architect of the national fraudulent-electors scheme,” Mandell said. “As Law Forward’s groundbreaking civil litigation discovered and made clear, absent Troupis’s actions, there never would have been an insurrection on January 6. He is facing criminally prosecution, and we have a pending ethics complaint seeking his disbarment. On January 6, Troupis texted congratulations to one of his colleagues on the fruits of their labor. Troupis was paid by the Trump campaign for the work he did then, has consistently been unwilling to accept personal responsibility for his misconduct since, and now wants to be paid again by the American taxpayers. His actions now continue to be as disgraceful as his misconduct was in the wake of the 2020 election.”

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee in the race for governor of Wisconsin, said at an event that he believes some people charged with crimes after Jan. 6 could “possibly” be entitled to compensation — though not if they assaulted law enforcement officers. 

Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein (D-Middleton) responded to the fund Wednesday by introducing the “No Taxpayer Dollars for Insurrectionists Act” which would apply a 100% state income tax on any money Wisconsinites receive through the fund. She said the fund was the “height of corruption.” 

“Put simply — if you’re from Wisconsin and you stormed the Capitol, you will not receive money from the slush fund,” Hesselbein said in a statement. “Wisconsinites are tired of the chaos and corruption caused by the Trump administration. From reckless tariffs to the conflict with Iran, the President continues to harm hard-working Wisconsin families and businesses by driving up costs. At a time when Wisconsinites continue to struggle with the rising cost of groceries, gas, and housing, our taxpayers must not foot the bill.”

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In its latest effort to narrow pathways to immigration to the United States, the Trump administration says it will crack down on attorneys who file fraudulent asylum claims for their clients.

The U.S. has long granted asylum to people who are unable or unwilling to return to their home countries because they have been persecuted, or fear persecution, based on their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinions.

In a directive it issued on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security instructed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to develop anti-fraud policies and to take action against immigration attorneys who file false asylum claims in an immigration court.

James Percival, Homeland Security’s general counsel, said “it is standard practice for immigration attorneys representing illegal aliens to assert that virtually every illegal alien is going to be persecuted or tortured in his or her home country.”

“Historically, ICE has depended on the discipline of immigration judges and the enforcement of criminal fraud laws to deter this conduct, but ICE has its own tools,” Percival said in a statement. “Now, thanks to this directive, ICE attorneys have greater authority to enforce the law and stop the abuse of our asylum system by illegal aliens and attorneys.”

The limited available data suggests that asylum fraud is extremely rare. A 2015 report by the Government Accountability Office found that as asylum applications increased during the early 2010s, the terminations of asylum status due to discovered fraud declined, from 103 in 2010 to 34 in 2014.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted asylum to a total of 76,122 people during that period and terminated asylum status for 374 of them because of fraud.

The administration’s new anti-fraud directive comes one month after a federal appeals court struck down an executive order by President Donald Trump that sought to close the U.S. border to asylum-seekers.

A panel of the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump’s executive order, which he issued on the first day of his second term, and subsequent administration guidance to turn back asylum-seekers without a court hearing were “unlawful” and “cast aside federal laws affording individuals the right to apply and be considered for asylum.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said at an event Tuesday in Madison that if elected governor he’d return the state’s current budget surplus to taxpayers while also cutting property taxes, eliminating taxes on tips and overtime and overturning Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year school funding increase while also increasing the rate at which public schools are reimbursed for special education services. 

Tiffany said he’d do all of that even though he has not “penciled out in detail” how he’d pay for it all. At the event Tuesday hosted at the Madison Club by WisPolitics.com, Tiffany repeatedly lamented “Madison math” that makes people ask what will be cut from the state budget if lawmakers cut taxes, reducing state revenue. 

Several times during the moderated interview and to reporters after the event, Tiffany compared the state budget process to household budgeting. 

“Families figure out what their priorities are, and then they spend accordingly,” he said. “Education is going to be one of my priorities. Transportation will be a priority. Healthcare is going to be a priority. Those things take first call on the budget, and then when we get down to the wants, if some of them fall off, so be it. We’re going to make sure that we take care of the basics first.”

Tiffany is running for governor during a midterm election cycle in which Democrats are planning for the possibility that they can hold trifecta control of Wisconsin’s government for the first time in more than 15 years. President Donald Trump’s declining approval rating, the national political landscape and new voting maps that could end years of Republican legislative control mean that Tiffany is campaigning against the political current. 

Repeating a line from his speech at the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention earlier this month, Tiffany said he was running for governor rather than continuing to hold his safe Republican seat in Congress because he wants to reverse what he sees as a “state in decline.” 

Loyalty

Tiffany, who was first elected to the Legislature in 2010 and then elected to represent northern Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District in 2020, said “people who know” him know that he’s always been loyal first to the people of Wisconsin rather than the Republican executives — former Gov. Scott Walker and Trump — he’s worked with. 

Tiffany is a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and has rarely broken from Trump while in Congress. Following the 2020 presidential election, Tiffany joined Republican efforts to overturn Trump’s loss. Last week, he told reporters he still had concerns about “improprieties” in the administration of the 2020 election. 

On Tuesday, Tiffany wouldn’t say that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, only that Biden was the president from 2021 until 2025. He said that he had concerns about the administration of the election in “a number of states.” 

“We should make sure that those things that were done wrong did not unduly damage that election,” he said. “On January 6 of 2021 it was decided by the Congress that Joe Biden won the presidency, and he became president … and I accepted that. I referred to him as President Biden, and, but I gotta tell you, it was a bad time for the United States of America when you had 10 million people that came in illegally, when we lost our energy independence, when we tucked tail and ran in Afghanistan … it was not a good period of time, but he was president for those four years.” 

Tiffany said he was still “studying the details” of the U.S. Department of Justice’s $1.776 billion slush fund for compensating people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But he said he didn’t think people who assaulted law enforcement officers should receive any of that money. 

Asked to point to other examples in which he disagrees with Trump, he said he didn’t believe the federal government should allow more Chinese students to attend American public universities such as the University of Wisconsin. 

During the audience question portion of the event, Tiffany was asked about the undocumented workers who make up a large portion of the state’s dairy workforce. Tiffany responded by criticizing Biden-era immigration policy, attacking “sanctuary” policies and claiming that the national decline in violent crime is because of Trump’s crackdown on immigration. 

But Tiffany wouldn’t say if Immigration and Customs Enforcement went too far during its occupation of the Democratic-run cities Chicago, Minnesota and Los Angeles. 

“The President made a decision that he thought that things should be done differently after what happened in Minneapolis, and I think that decision will be born out here as we go forward,” he said. “But remember, Minnesota was an anomaly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement works very closely with law enforcement. Here’s what I would do: I would make sure that local, county and state law enforcement works closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and coordinate their efforts to make sure what happened in Minnesota does not happen in Wisconsin.” 

Madison issues 

Tiffany also weighed in on a number of issues that lawmakers in Madison have taken up this year, including the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, the legalization of online sports betting and the growth of hyperscale data centers in the state. 

On the stewardship program, which is set to expire at the end of June after legislators failed to reach a deal on extending it past 2026, Tiffany said he’d sign a bill to re-authorize the program if it focuses on maintaining “what we have” rather than acquiring new state land. Tiffany in recent years has often joined Republican state lawmakers in opposing land conservation projects in the northern part of the state through the program. 

Earlier this year, lawmakers enacted a law that would allow the state’s Native American tribes to begin operating online sports betting operations. The bill will require the state’s gambling compacts with the tribes to be re-negotiated. 

Tiffany said he doesn’t support expanding gambling opportunities in the state but that he’d “have to review the details” of the law to weigh in on the compact negotiations. 

Over the past year, the construction of massive AI data centers has become one of the most potent political issues in the state. Tiffany said that the controversial data centers in Port Washington, Mount Pleasant and Beaver Dam have taught the state lessons on how to move forward. He said he would repeal a provision included in the 2023-25 state budget that exempted data center construction costs from the state sales tax, prevent data centers from being built on “productive farmland,” work to keep utility rates stable and prevent the tech companies building the data centers from making local governments sign non-disclosure agreements. 

However he wouldn’t say if legislation would be required to achieve those goals, only saying that “my Public Service Commission” would handle it.

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WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a court filing that a shooting Saturday in the vicinity of the White House further proves the need for an East Wing ballroom with “a heavy steel, drone proof roof, missile resistant and drone proof columns, bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” among other features.

A gunman opened fire at a U.S. Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and was killed when agents returned fire. One bystander was also shot and injured, according to the Secret Service. 

President Donald Trump was inside the White House during the incident but was unharmed, and no ongoing operations were impacted, according to the agency.

“This second attack on the President this month underscores the critical need for top level, state of the art security at the White House, including the Ballroom, a knitted, unified, cohesive part of the East Wing Project, which is vital for National Security, and is being constructed to ensure that the President can perform his constitutional duties in a safe and heavily secured facility,” Blanche argued.

The acting attorney general, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, filed the supplemental brief Sunday opposing a federal court order that temporarily halted any above-ground construction on the ballroom.

Shooting at press dinner

The proposed ballroom “will provide a ‘SAFE HAVEN’ from attackers such as the one last night, and on April 25th,” Blanche wrote, referring to the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month.

The alleged shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, who pleaded not guilty, is charged with attempting to assassinate the president and is being held in jail in Washington, D.C., awaiting trial. 

The Trump administration and his supporters in Congress amped up calls for a secure ballroom following the shooting at the historic annual dinner where Trump, the first lady and several Cabinet officials safely evacuated.

But skepticism among some Senate Republicans of using taxpayer dollars has all but scuttled a $1 billion Secret Service funding proposal — $220 million of which was earmarked for the ballroom.

Trump maintains the ballroom will be funded by private donors and routinely speaks about the project at unrelated events.

Drone port, sniper facilities

Blanche slammed the lawsuit against the White House construction project as “meritless.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the suit in December, less than two months after Trump demolished the White House East Wing to make way for the large structure. 

The lawsuit, Blanche argued, “has been a great attack on our Country in that the Military, Secret Service, and Law Enforcement are not happy that all of these Top Secret features have been revealed to potential enemies, criminals, and all others, including the fact that there will be a major drone port and Government sniper facilities on the heavily secured roof of the Ballroom.”

The proposed ballroom is slated to have “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment,” according to the court filing.

Trump posted an image of the filing on his Truth Social platform Monday morning.

The president also thanked the Secret Service on Truth Social in the wee hours of Sunday. 

“This event is one month removed from the (White House Correspondents’ Dinner) shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C. The National Security of our Country demands it!” he wrote.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday urged American corporations to condemn efforts to dilute Black voting strength, as Southern states eliminate congressional districts where most residents are Black.

The CBC’s attempt to mobilize the business community comes as Black representation in Congress potentially faces its most severe threat since the end of Reconstruction following the Civil War. But some business leaders have taken a friendlier tone with President Donald Trump, who backs the gerrymandering.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in April, in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, sharply weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, which had blocked states from breaking apart majority-minority districts. It limited the use of race in redistricting, prompting several Southern states to advance new maps targeting these districts, which are mostly held by Black Democrats.

“These actions are not routine political exercises,” the letter reads. “They are coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box and strip communities of representation in American democracy.”

The message is addressed to more than 200 corporations and business groups that signed on to a 2021 letter in support of voting rights, as well as an unnamed number of other corporate leaders. Among the signatories were Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Nike, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Target, Tesla and Unilever USA. 

That letter called on Congress to update the Voting Rights Act, including changes that would restore the federal government’s ability to review changes to election and voting laws in states and local governments with a history of discrimination, a practice called preclearance that the Supreme Court effectively halted in 2013.

On Tuesday, the CBC said those companies should issue individual or joint public statements opposing efforts to dilute Black voting strength and dismantle protections in the Voting Rights Act.

The lawmakers also want companies to report on corporate political spending and relationships connected to attacks on voting rights and “discriminatory redistricting schemes.” Companies should accept an invitation to participate in a national gathering alongside civil rights leaders and advocates to discuss voting rights and Black political power, the lawmakers wrote.

The letter asks businesses to respond by June 9.

“Five years ago, corporations across America publicly affirmed that democracy, racial equity, and voting rights matter. Today, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, those commitments are being tested in real time,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat who chairs the CBC, said in a statement. 

“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and benefited from Black communities cannot remain silent while Black political representation is dismantled in plain sight,” Clarke said. “Silence in this moment is not neutrality — it is complicity.”

Corporate leaders warm to Trump

But political attitudes in parts of corporate America, especially among tech firms, have shifted since 2021.

When businesses signed the July 2021 letter, they were acting after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis, and the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Six years later, some titans of American business have taken a more conciliatory approach to Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.

Elon Musk, who leads Tesla, spearheaded the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE, initiative in 2025 that resulted in the firings and layoffs of thousands of federal workers. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has spoken positively about the president. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, called Trump “more mature” in his second term.

Trump has also led a push against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. In March, the president signed an executive order targeting DEI practices by federal contractors. The directive followed another anti-DEI order in January 2025 that encouraged the private sector to “end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Callais, some Republicans have portrayed eliminating majority-minority districts as a constitutional imperative. The current districts should be tossed because they were drawn with their racial makeup in mind, they say.

“I don’t think race should be used to help a person because of his race, and I don’t think race should be used to harm a person because of his or her race,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiania Republican, said at a Senate hearing on racial gerrymandering last week.

Rapid remaps

Since the release of the Callais decision on April 29, Florida and Tennessee have changed their maps and Louisiana is expected to follow soon. South Carolina lawmakers tried but failed to advance a new map and Alabama has taken steps to implement a 2023 gerrymander after the Supreme Court lifted a lower court order that had blocked it.

A panel of three federal judges on Tuesday issued a new order halting the Alabama map, which would likely force out one of the state’s two Black Democratic members of Congress if enacted. The judges found that the map was racially discriminatory, even in light of Callais. 

Alabama has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

“I applaud the three-judge panel for upholding the rule of law and reaffirming that racial discrimination has no place in our redistricting process,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat who also signed Tuesday’s CBC letter, said in a statement.

“While we know that this legal battle is far from over, today’s ruling sends a clear message: Black voters in Alabama cannot and will not be silenced.”

President Donald Trump is again demanding Congress pass a sweeping set of voting restrictions and refuses to rule out sending troops to the polls, as Democrats and voting rights groups assemble a sprawling effort to guard against federal election interference.

The fight over election security is intensifying in Washington, D.C., as the White House and its allies seek to rewrite rules around voter registration and mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections. The stakes of the contests are massive — control of Congress and the future of Trump’s legislative agenda.

Trump wants lawmakers to attach the SAVE America Act to unrelated housing and surveillance legislation after it stalled in the U.S. Senate. The SAVE bill would require individuals to show documents, such as a passport or birth certificate, proving their citizenship to register to vote. It would also mandate voters show photo ID to cast a ballot.

“Voter I.D., and Proof of Citizenship, must be approved, NOW,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social, his social media platform. On Wednesday, he took to social media again to call for the firing of the Senate parliamentarian and suggested she’s an impediment to passage of the bill.

“We need THE SAVE AMERICA ACT passed, and NOW,” Trump wrote.

Democrats and voting rights advocates say the measure would cause chaos if passed this close to the election. They warn it would disenfranchise voters and create additional obstacles to voting for married women and others who have changed their names.

Vote possible soon

The Senate may hold another vote as early as this week on adding the SAVE America Act to a budget reconciliation bill. Senators rejected a prior effort to advance the legislation in a 48-50 vote in April, but  Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, has vowed to try again. 

The SAVE America Act is popular among Republicans in the U.S. House, which passed the bill in February. But a handful of Senate Republicans have joined Democrats in opposing the proposal, which doesn’t have enough support to overcome a filibuster.

“It is voter suppression with a suit and tie,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Tuesday in a speech at a progressive conference.

Some House Republicans have kept up pressure on the Senate to act. During a House Administration Subcommittee on Elections hearing Wednesday, Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, called for the passage of the bill multiple times.

“American citizens deserve secure elections and to know that their votes are guaranteed,” Miller said.

Thune blames Democrats

Senators spent several weeks this spring debating the legislation before moving on to other business. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, on Monday said the chamber held a “robust debate” but indicated senators were unlikely to return to the legislation.

Speaking about the bill in the past tense, Thune cast the measure as a political cudgel that Republicans would use against Democrats in November.

“Democrats are on the record against all of it,” Thune said on the Senate floor. “And we’ll be sure the American people know that Democrats are blocking commonsense policies that have broad support from the American people.”

Democrats, fearing that Trump may try to assert unilateral control over elections regardless of whether the legislation advances, have begun outlining how they plan to combat any attempted election takeover. 

Schumer on Tuesday said Senate Democrats are launching an election protection task force. The group, which will include 11 senators and election experts, will be prepared to mount “lawsuit after lawsuit” throughout the election process.

“Let me be very clear: local officials run elections. Voters decide elections. Donald Trump does not,” Schumer said.

Troops at polling places

In describing their concerns, Schumer and others point to Trump’s refusal earlier this month to close the door on deploying troops to polling places. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also recently dismissed the possibility as a “gotcha hypothetical” without actually ruling it out. 

Federal law prohibits federal troops and agents at election sites in nearly all circumstances.

“I’d do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections,” Trump told reporters when asked about sending troops of immigration agents to the polls.

Trump’s critics also emphasize his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his continuing portrayal of the contest as stolen. He has pardoned rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, disrupting Congress’ certification of the election. 

On Monday, the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump allies who say they were victims of past administrations.

“This is pure fraud and highway robbery,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said in a statement.

Executive orders

Preparations for possible interference in the midterms come amid a series of steps by the Trump administration over the past year aimed at giving the White House greater authority over elections — though the U.S. Constitution says they are administered by the states.

Trump signed an executive order last year that sought to mandate proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, but the measure was blocked in court. He signed another order in March restricting the sending of ballots through the mail; a federal judge is expected to rule soon on a request to halt its enforcement.

Trump this week attacked Maryland officials over a mistake that caused voters to receive incorrect mail-in ballots for the state’s June primary. Maryland election officials have faulted a vendor for the error and are resending the ballots, but the president has called for a Justice Department investigation.

“You want to have proof of citizenship, you want to have voter ID, you want to have all these things. But to me, maybe the worst of all is the mail-in ballots,” Trump told reporters on Monday.

DOJ battles states

For months, the Department of Justice has demanded states turn over sensitive personal data on voters, such as driver’s license numbers, partial Social Security numbers and dates of birth. 

It has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the information, which it plans to run through a computer program called SAVE at the Department of Homeland Security to identify possible noncitizens.

Federal judges have so far ruled against the Justice Department. Several voting rights groups have also sued to block the DOJ effort, alleging the Trump administration wants to build an illegal national voter database.

Anthony Nel, a Texas resident and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement that his voter registration was canceled a month after SAVE wrongly identified him as a possible noncitizen.

“The DOJ should not be building a national database out of our most sensitive, personal information when it can’t even get this right,” Nel said.

FBI agents have visited the home of Milwaukee County’s elections director, Michelle Hawley, leaving a business card after attempting to contact her, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said Wednesday, prompting sharp reactions from county officials. 

Citing an unnamed source, WISN 12 News reported that the FBI was interested in 180,000 absentee ballots cast during the 2020 presidential election that reportedly have not yet been destroyed. 

President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, then unsuccessfully sought in court to overturn the results. 

In a statement Wednesday, Christenson said the county will follow up on the FBI’s attempt to interview Hawley. He defended the 2020 presidential election results in Milwaukee as fair, transparent and accurate. 

”This has been proven repeatedly over the last six years by the post-election canvass, the Presidential Election Recount, State court-based challenge, Federal court-based challenge, the forensic audit by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, and two additional independent audits,” said Christenson. “Continuing to relitigate settled questions does not strengthen public confidence in elections but it undermines it.” 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, reiterating that Trump lost the 2020 election, said that Trump has “crossed a line if he is sending FBI agents to the private residence of Milwaukee County’s elections director.” 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has previously reported that the FBI recently interviewed Robert Kehoe, deputy administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

Local officials “will always cooperate with law enforcement officers and the investigations they are pursuing, but this action raises serious concerns of intimidation,” Crowley said. “Regardless of how this situation evolves, the facts are clear: In 2020, election clerks did their jobs. The election was safe and secure. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in Wisconsin. No amount of fear and intimidation from the Trump Administration will change that truth.”

Trump and his supporters have persisted in denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election more than five years ago.

Word of FBI agents visiting election officials in Milwaukee comes after the federal agency seized 2020 ballots in Georgia earlier this year. The British newspaper The Independent reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was seen at the raid, and the New York Times reported that Trump called her on the phone during the raid.  Georgia was a focus of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, when he called Georgia’s secretary of state and falsely claimed he had won the state that year. 

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WASHINGTON — Kevin Warsh will officially take the lead at the Federal Reserve after U.S. senators voted Wednesday to confirm the economist and former central bank governor to replace Chair Jerome Powell.

Senators approved Warsh 54-45 nearly along party lines. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., broke ranks with his party to join Republicans in support of Warsh’s nomination. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., did not vote.

Warsh, of Florida, takes the helm after President Donald Trump spent most of his second term haranguing and threatening to fire Powell if he did not lower interest rates.

Trump is also tangled in litigation over his firing last summer of Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing whether Trump’s dismissal of Cook exceeded his presidential authority.

Dropped investigation

Trump’s ire for Powell escalated into a Department of Justice investigation in January that even angered some in Trump’s own party.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who sits on the narrowly divided Senate Committee on Banking, House and Urban Affairs, withheld his support for Warsh’s nomination until the administration dropped its probe into Powell’s handling of a multiyear renovation of the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia scrapped the investigation on April 24, but said the Fed’s inspector general would continue to examine cost overruns. The administration had accused Powell of lying to Congress about the price of renovations.

A federal judge dismissed DOJ’s criminal subpoenas into the Fed and Powell in March, citing in his order “abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair.”

Powell’s term as chair expires Friday. He will stay on as a sitting governor on the central bank’s board.

Democratic critique 

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., criticized Warsh on the Senate floor ahead of Wednesday’s vote. Van Hollen said Warsh has done a “180-degree flip” on inflation since his time of arguing for higher interest rates as a Fed board governor during the 2008 financial crisis. The Maryland senator said Warsh is now a “super dove on interest rates.”

“Markets need confidence that monetary policy decisions are being made on the basis of economic evidence, not on the basis of political pressure or convenience,” Van Hollen said.

“That is especially important now, as prices are rising too fast and President Trump is still demanding a big cut in interest rates,” he added.

Inflation data released Tuesday showed a 3.8% increase year over year, the highest jump since 2023.