When the Wisconsin Legislature returns to work in January, Republicans will still be in charge but will have the narrowest majorities since taking control in 2011. That’s giving Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers, optimism that both sides will be able to work together better than they have since Evers took office six years ago.

Both sides are eyeing the state’s massive budget surplus, which sits at more than $4 billion. What to do with that money will drive debate over the next two-year budget, which will be written in 2025, while questions hang in the air about whether Evers plans to run for a third term in 2026 and how the state will interact with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

Here is a look at some of the biggest pending issues:

New dynamic in the Legislature

Democrats gained seats in the November election because of redrawn maps ordered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Republican majority now sits at 54-45 in the Assembly and 18-15 in the Senate. Democrats have 10 more seats in the Assembly than last session and four more in the Senate and are hopeful about gaining the majority after the 2026 election.

“We have already seen a shift in the Capitol due to the new maps,” Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Greta Neubauer told The Associated Press.

She and other Democrats predict it will lead to more pressure from rank-and-file Republicans in competitive districts to move to the middle and compromise with Democrats.

“Everybody understands, at least at this point, that we need to work together, pull together,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu told the AP. “And it’s important to get some things done.”

Pushing back against Trump

Democrats say they have been talking with Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul about how Wisconsin can push back against the incoming Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations. But Democrats say they are also looking at other ways the state can fight Trump’s policies on issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

“We’re worried about a lot of the things that former and future President Trump might do, especially when it comes to deportation and immigration,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he would support Trump’s efforts to deport people who are in the country illegally and commit crimes.

Republicans prioritize cutting taxes. Democrats are open

Republicans passed a $3.5 billion tax cut that Evers gutted to just $175 million with his veto in the last budget. With another large surplus, Republicans say they want to try again.

“People struggling to pay their bills,” LeMahieu said. “We heard that in our local races. And so we want to help help help families out there. We have the money to do it. And that’s going to be our number one priority.”

Both he and Vos said they would like a tax cut of around $2 billion.

Democrats say that they aren’t opposed to cutting taxes, but that they want it to be targeted to helping the middle and lower classes and families.

“We are not interested in tax cuts that primarily benefit rich Wisconsinites or corporations,” Neubauer said. “But we are certainly open to tax cuts that help those who are struggling to make ends meet.”

K-12 education funding

The state superintendent of schools, Jill Underly, proposed spending more than $4 billion on K-12 schools in her budget proposal, which is subject to legislative approval. That’s almost certainly not going to happen, both Republicans and Democrats said.

“We’re not going to spend $4 billion on education, I can guarantee you that right now,” LeMahieu said.

While Democrats say they are prioritizing education funding, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to match that,” Hesselbein said of the $4 billion request.

Universities of Wisconsin

Leaders of the cash-strapped Universities of Wisconsin have asked for $855 million in additional funding in the next budget, nearly an 11% increase. System President Jay Rothman says schools need the money to stave off tuition increases, cover raises, subsidize tuition, and keep two-year branch campuses open in the face of declining enrollment and flat state aid.

Evers has promised to include the request in his budget, but Republican leaders said they would not approve that much, and Democrats also said it was a goal that was unlikely to be met.

LeMahieu and Vos both said UW would not get what it wants.

“We’re going to need to see some substantial change in how they’re doing their programing,” LeMahieu said. “We can’t just keep spending more and more on a system that’s educating less and less people.”

Marijuana, health care and other priorities

Vos said he intends to create a state-level task force to improve government efficiency, similar to what Trump created at the national level dubbed DOGE. He also supports passing a bill that would allow for the processing of absentee ballots the day before Election Day, a measure that’s had bipartisan support in the past but failed to pass.

Democrats say they will continue to push for ways to expand and reduce costs for child care, health care for new mothers and prescription drugs. Both Republicans and Democrats say they want to do more to create affordable housing. The future of the state’s land stewardship program also hangs in in the balance after the state Supreme Court said Republicans were illegally blocking funding of projects.

Democrats also say they hope to revive efforts to legalize medical marijuana, an effort that was backed by some Republicans but that failed to pass last session.

LeMahieu predicted the slimmer Republican majorities will make it more difficult for any marijuana bill to pass because some lawmakers “are dead set against it.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Legislature’s tight Republican majority sparks hope for bipartisan cooperation is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A 15-year-old student killed a teacher and another teenager with a handgun Monday at a Christian school in Wisconsin, terrifying classmates. A second-grade teacher made the 911 call that sent dozens of police officers rushing to the small school just a week before its Christmas break.

The female student, who was identified at a press conference Monday night, also wounded six others at a study hall at Abundant Life Christian School, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said. A teacher and three students had been taken to a hospital with less serious injuries, and two of them had been released by Monday evening.

“Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. … We need to figure out and try to piece together what exactly happened,” Barnes said.

Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life Christian School, said students “handled themselves magnificently.”

She said when the school practices safety routines, which it had done just before the school year, leaders always announce that it is a drill. That didn’t happen Monday.

“When they heard, ‘Lockdown, lockdown,’ they knew it was real,” she said.

Police said the shooter, identified as Natalie Rupnow, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound when officers arrived and died en route to a hospital. Barnes declined to offer additional details about the shooter, partly out of respect for the family.

He also warned people against sharing unconfirmed reports on social media about the shooter’s identity.

“What that does is it helps erode the trust in this process,” he said.

Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school — prekindergarten through high school — with approximately 420 students in Madison, the state capital.

Wiers said the school does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras.

Children and families were reunited at a medical building about a mile away. Parents pressed children against their chests while others squeezed hands and shoulders as they walked side by side. One girl was comforted with an adult-size coat around her shoulders as she moved to a parking lot teeming with police vehicles.

A motive for the shooting was not immediately known, but Barnes said they’re talking with the parents of the suspected shooter and they are cooperating. He also said he didn’t know if the people shot had been targeted.

“I don’t know why, and I feel like if we did know why, we could stop these things from happening,” he told reporters.

A search warrant had been issued Monday to a Madison home, he said.

Barnes said Tuesday the first 911 call to report an active shooter came in shortly before 11 a.m. from a second-grade teacher — not a second-grade student as he reported publicly Monday.

First responders who were in training just 3 miles away dashed to the school for an actual emergency, Barnes said. They arrived 3 minutes after the initial call and went into the building immediately.

Classes had been taking place when the shooting happened, Barnes said.

Investigators believe the shooter used a 9mm pistol, a law enforcement official told the AP. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Police blocked off roads around the school, and federal agents were at the scene to assist local law enforcement. No shots were fired by police.

Abundant Life asked for prayers in a brief Facebook post.

Wiers said the school’s goal is to have staff get together early in the week and have community opportunities for students to reconnect before the winter break, but it’s still to be decided whether they will resume classes this week.

Bethany Highman, the mother of a student, rushed to the school and learned over FaceTime that her daughter was OK.

“As soon as it happened, your world stops for a minute. Nothing else matters,” Highman said. “There’s nobody around you. You just bolt for the door and try to do everything you can as a parent to be with your kids.”

In a statement, President Joe Biden cited the tragedy in calling on Congress to pass universal background checks, a national red flag law and certain gun restrictions.

“We can never accept senseless violence that traumatizes children, their families, and tears entire communities apart,” Biden said. He spoke with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and offered his support.

Evers said it’s “unthinkable” that a child or teacher would go to school and never return home.

The episode was the 323rd shooting at a K-12 school campus thus far in 2024, according to researcher David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database. The database uses a broad definition of shooting that includes when a gun is brandished, fired or a bullet hits school property.

“This shooting follows the common patterns with planned attacks at schools. The perpetrator was a student (insider), committed a surprise attack during morning classes, and died by suicide before police arrived,” Riedman wrote Monday on his website.

It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas.

The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms. But school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.

Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said the country needs to do more to prevent gun violence.

“I hoped that this day would never come to Madison,” she said.

Wisconsin Watch contributed information to this story.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Teacher and a teenage student killed in a shooting at a Christian school in 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.

The Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a new religious rights case over whether a Catholic charitable organization must pay Wisconsin’s unemployment tax.

The justices will review a divided state Supreme Court ruling that refused to grant an exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau, based in Superior, Wisconsin. The state court ruled that the work of Catholic Charities and four related organizations is primarily not religious, although it found that the motivation to help older, disabled and low-income people stems from Catholic teachings.

The case probably will be argued in the spring.

The Supreme Court in recent years has issued an unbroken string of decisions siding with churches and religious plaintiffs in disputes with states.

Lawyers for the Wisconsin groups argued to the court that the decision violates religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment. They also said the court should step in to resolve conflicting rulings by several top state courts on the same issue.

“Wisconsin is trying to make sure no good deed goes unpunished. Penalizing Catholic Charities for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike is ridiculous and wrong,” Eric Rassbach, the lead lawyer for Catholic Charities at the Supreme Court, said in a statement.

Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul had urged the high court to stay out of the case, arguing that much of the groups’ funding comes from state and local governments, and the joint federal and state Medicaid program.

Employees don’t have to be Catholic and “people receiving services from these organizations receive no religious training or orientation,” Kaul wrote.

Catholic Charities has paid the unemployment tax since 1972, he wrote.

Wisconsin exempts church-controlled organizations from the tax if they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.” The state high court ruled that both the motivations and the activities have to be religious for organizations to avoid paying the tax.

A group of religious scholars, backing Catholic Charities, told the court that “the case involves governmental interference with religious liberty” that warrants the justices’ intervention.

Catholic, Islamic, Lutheran, Jewish and Mormon organizations also filed briefs in support of Catholic Charities.

At the state Supreme Court, the Freedom from Religion Foundation argued that a ruling for Catholic Charities would extend to religiously affiliated hospitals and some colleges across Wisconsin, potentially taking their employees out of the state unemployment insurance system.

Catholic Charities in Superior manages nonprofit organizations that run more than 60 programs designed to help older or disabled people, children with special needs, low-income families, and people suffering from disasters, regardless of their religion, according to court documents.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Catholic Charities plea to avoid Wisconsin unemployment tax 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 U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Wisconsin parents who wanted to challenge a school district’s guidance for supporting transgender students.

The justices, acting in a case from Eau Claire, left in place an appellate ruling dismissing the parents’ lawsuit.

Three justices, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, would have heard the case. That’s one short of what is needed for full review by the Supreme Court.

Parents with children in Eau Claire public schools argued in a lawsuit that the school district’s policy violates constitutional protections for parental rights and religious freedom.

Sixteen Republican-led states had urged the court to take up the parents’ case.

Lower courts had found that the parents lacked the legal right, or standing. Among other reasons, the courts said no parent presented evidence that the policy affected them or their children.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals included two judges Republican Donald Trump appointed during his first term.

But Alito described the case as presenting “a question of great and growing national importance,” whether public school districts violate parents’ rights when they encourage students to transition or assist in the process without parental consent or knowledge.

“Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support” encourages transgender students to reach out to staff members with concerns and instructs employees to be careful who they talk to about a student’s gender identity, since not all students are “out” to their families.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

US Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin parents’ challenge to school guidance for transgender students 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.

Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election next spring already had high stakes, with majority control on the line. But a judge’s ruling this week restoring collective bargaining rights to roughly 200,000 teachers and other public workers in the state further intensifies the contest.

The liberal-controlled court has already delivered a major win to Democrats by striking down Republican-drawn legislative maps. Pending cases backed by liberals seek to protect abortion access in the state and kneecap Republican attempts to oust the state’s nonpartisan elections leader.

Now, the court could be poised to notch another seismic win for Democrats, public teachers and government workers by restoring the collective bargaining rights they lost 13 years ago in a fight that decimated unions, sparked massive protests and emboldened Republicans who later restricted rights for private-sector unions.

Liberals gained the majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years following a 2023 election that had deep involvement from the Republican and Democratic parties, broke turnout records and shattered the national record for spending on a court race.

Abortion took center stage in that race. Now, it appears that union rights could be a major issue in the 2025 contest to replace a retiring liberal justice.

“You can make the argument that this race is more important than the race for the Legislature or the governor,” said Rick Esenberg, president of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said Wednesday. “I don’t think you can understate the importance of this race to the voters, no matter which side of the political divide you are on.”

The April 1 election will pit Brad Schimel, a Republican judge who supports President-elect Donald Trump and served as Wisconsin’s attorney general from 2015 until 2019, against Susan Crawford, a liberal judge whose former law firm represented teachers in a lawsuit that sought to overturn the anti-collective bargaining law.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, upheld the law known as Act 10 in 2014.

Crawford’s past attempt to overturn Act 10 raises questions about whether she could rule objectively on it, Schimel said in a statement to The Associated Press. His campaign on Monday branded Crawford as a “radical” and said she would be a “pawn” of the Democratic Party if elected.

Schimel, when he was attorney general, said he would defend Act 10 and opposed having its restrictions applied to police and firefighter unions, which were exempt from the law.

Treating public safety workers differently from others makes the law unconstitutional, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost ruled Monday. He sided with teachers and restored collective bargaining rights, a decision affecting about 200,000 workers in the state, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

The Republican-controlled Legislature promptly appealed.

Crawford’s former law firm is not involved in the current case.

Crawford didn’t directly address a question from the AP about whether she would recuse herself from any case involving Act 10. But her campaign spokesperson, Sam Roecker, said Crawford “will make a decision at that time about whether she can be fair and impartial, based on the particular facts and parties.”

Roecker said Schimel’s immediate condemnation of the court’s ruling Monday “shows he has already prejudged this case.” Schimel didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether he would recuse himself from any case involving Act 10.

The appeal of Monday’s ruling striking down Act 10 would typically first be heard by a state appeals court — a process that could take months. But the public workers who sued could ask the state Supreme Court to take the case directly, which would make it possible for a ruling before the new justice is seated in August.

Crawford has been endorsed by the state teachers union, which was gutted after Act 10 became law, as well as the Wisconsin Democratic Party and all four of the current liberal justices on the court. In addition to suing to overturn the anti-union law, Crawford also previously represented Planned Parenthood in a case to expand Wisconsin abortion access.

Christina Brey, spokesperson for the statewide teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said she couldn’t speculate about whether Crawford would hear a case challenging Act 10.

Brey said Crawford won the union’s endorsement because “we believe she is going to be the most dedicated and most impartial, constitution-believing judge to put on the Supreme Court.”

Schimel is endorsed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, all five of the state’s Republican congressmen, the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, and a host of law enforcement agencies and officials, including 50 county sheriffs.

If Crawford wins, liberal control of the court would be locked up until at least 2028, the next time a liberal justice is up for election.

Candidates have until Jan. 1 to enter the April 1 race. The winner will serve a 10-year term.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Union rights take center stage in high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race 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.

Wisconsin public worker and teachers unions scored a major legal victory Monday with a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law that sparked weeks of protests and made the state the center of the national battle over union rights.

That law, known as Act 10, effectively ended the ability of most public employees to bargain for wage increases and other issues, and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.

Under the ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost, all public sector workers who lost their collective bargaining power would have it restored to what was in place prior to 2011. They would be treated the same as the police, firefighter and other public safety unions that were exempted under the law.

Republicans vowed to immediately appeal the ruling, which ultimately is likely to go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That only amplifies the importance of the April election that will determine whether the court remains controlled 4-3 by liberal justices.

Former Gov. Scott Walker, who proposed the law that catapulted him onto the national political stage, decried the ruling in a post on the social media platform X as “brazen political activism.” He said it makes the state Supreme Court election “that much more important.”

Supporters of the law have said it provided local governments more control over workers and the powers they needed to cut costs. Repealing the law, which allowed schools and local governments to raise money through higher employee contributions for benefits, would bankrupt those entities, backers of Act 10 have argued.

Democratic opponents argue that the law has hurt schools and other government agencies by taking away the ability of employees to collectively bargain for their pay and working conditions.

The law was proposed by Walker and enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature in spite of massive protests that went on for weeks and drew as many as 100,000 people to the Capitol. The law has withstood numerous legal challenges over the years, but this was the first brought since the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to liberal control in 2023.

The seven unions and three union leaders that brought the lawsuit argued that the law should be struck down because it creates unconstitutional exemptions for firefighters and other public safety workers. Attorneys for the Legislature and state agencies countered that the exemptions are legal, have already been upheld by other courts, and that the case should be dismissed.

But Frost sided with the unions in July, saying the law violates equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into “general” and “public safety” employees. He ruled that general employee unions, like those representing teachers, can not be treated differently from public safety unions that were exempt from the law.

His ruling Monday delineated the dozens of specific provisions in the law that must be struck.

Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he looked forward to appealing the ruling.

“This lawsuit came more than a decade after Act 10 became law and after many courts rejected the same meritless legal challenges,” Vos said in a statement.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying organization, also decried the ruling. WMC President Kurt Bauer called Act 10 “a critical tool for policymakers and elected officials to balance budgets and find taxpayer savings.”

The Legislature said in court filings that arguments made in the current case were rejected in 2014 by the state Supreme Court. The only change since that ruling is the makeup of Wisconsin Supreme Court, attorneys for the Legislature argued.

The Act 10 law effectively ended collective bargaining for most public unions by allowing them to bargain solely over base wage increases no greater than inflation. It also disallowed the automatic withdrawal of union dues, required annual recertification votes for unions, and forced public workers to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.

The law was the signature legislative achievement of Walker, who was targeted for a recall election he won. Walker used his fights with unions to mount an unsuccessful presidential run in 2016.

Frost, the judge who issued Monday’s ruling, appeared to have signed the petition to recall Walker from office. None of the attorneys sought his removal from the case and he did not step down. Frost was appointed to the bench by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who signed the Walker recall petition.

The law has also led to a dramatic decrease in union membership across the state. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said in a 2022 analysis that since 2000, Wisconsin had the largest decline in the proportion of its workforce that is unionized.

In 2015, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature approved a right-to-work law that limited the power of private-sector unions.

Public sector unions that brought the lawsuit are the Abbotsford Education Association; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Locals 47 and 1215; the Beaver Dam Education Association; SEIU Wisconsin; the Teaching Assistants’ Association Local 3220 and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 695.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin unions score win as Dane County judge strikes down Act 10 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.

Judicial regulators filed a complaint Tuesday against a former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who spread election conspiracy theories and was hired by Republicans to lead an investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, accusing him of violating multiple rules of conduct.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation’s 10-count complaint accuses former Justice Michael Gableman of violations that could result in a variety of sanctions, including possibly losing his law license. The complaint does not make a specific recommendation regarding what sanction the Wisconsin Supreme Court should apply.

Gableman did not immediately return text messages seeking comment.

The complaint stems from Gableman’s work investigating allegations of fraud and abuse related to the 2020 election that Trump narrowly lost in Wisconsin. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had hired him to lead the inquiry. Gableman found no evidence of widespread fraud during his investigation, drew bipartisan derision and cost taxpayers more than $2.3 million.

Vos said in 2021 when he hired Gableman that he was “supremely confident” in his abilities. But when he fired Gableman in August 2022, Vos called him an “embarrassment.” Gableman this year helped backers of Trump who were attempting to recall Vos from office. Two of their efforts failed to gather enough valid signatures to force a vote.

Vos in 2022 said Gableman should lose his law license over his conduct during the election probe. Vos did not return a message Tuesday seeking comment.

In his seven-month inquiry, Gableman was sued over his response to open records requests and subpoenas and countersued. He was ridiculed for scant expense records, criticized for sending confusing emails and making rudimentary errors in his filings and called out for meeting with conspiracy theorists.

The complaint accuses Gableman of making false statements, disrupting a court hearing, questioning a judge’s integrity, making derogatory remarks about opposing counsel, violating open records law and revealing information about representing Vos during the investigation while Gableman was promoting a failed effort to recall Vos from office.

Among the complaint’s allegations:

— Gableman filed writs in Waukesha County Circuit Court in an attempt to force Madison and Green Bay’s mayors to submit to depositions without telling the court that his office had agreed depositions wouldn’t be needed because the two cities had turned over election documents Gableman requested.

— He falsely accused Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe and officials in five Wisconsin cities of trying to cover up how election grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life were used during testimony to the Assembly elections committee. The CTCL is a liberal group backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

— Gableman violated attorney ethics rules by publicly discussing private conversations with Vos related to the investigation. The complaint cites two videos Gableman appeared in where he supported the recall effort against Vos. The videos were shown at a program organized by Trump supporter Mike Lindell.

— Gableman practiced law while working on the investigation despite his claim to the contrary. He gave legal advice in his election report, represented his office as an attorney in legal filings in Waukesha County and signed a contract with Vos saying he would work as legal counsel.

— Gableman’s office destroyed public records that liberal group American Oversight had requested.

— During a hearing before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington on whether the records were inadvertently destroyed, Gableman accused Remington from the witness stand of railroading him into jail and acting as an advocate for American Oversight. Gableman also was captured on a microphone while the court was in recess making sarcastic comments about Remington and American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg’s ability to do her job without Remington’s help.

Remington ultimately found Gableman in contempt of court for not complying with open records laws. The judge forwarded the contempt order to the OLR.

Attorneys from the liberal law firm Law Forward also requested sanctions against Gableman in 2023. They alleged that Gableman “has embraced conspiracy theories, spread lies, rejected facts, impugned the character of people he perceives to be his adversaries, and abused the legal process.”

Gableman was a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 2008 to 2018 and joined with the conservative majority in several major rulings, including one that upheld the state law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers. The court is now controlled 4-3 by liberal justices, including one who was elected to fill the seat vacated by Gableman.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin regulators file complaint against former Justice Michael Gableman, who led 2020 election probe 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.

Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde conceded defeat on Monday to Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin in their U.S. Senate race, saying he did not want to “add to political strife through a contentious recount” even though he raised debunked election conspiracies.

Hovde, who was backed by President-elect Donald Trump, could have requested a recount because his margin of defeat was less than 1 percentage point, at about 29,000 votes. He would have had to pay for it himself.

Baldwin’s campaign referred requests for comment on Hovde’s concession on Monday to her victory speech. In that address, Baldwin pledged to work with Trump when possible but also vowed to fight him to protect the national health care law and abortion rights.

Hovde, in his concession video, repeated claims he made saying there were “many troubling issues” related to absentee ballots in Milwaukee and when they were reported. Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisan election leaders all refuted the claims of impropriety Hovde made.

“Without a detailed review of all the ballots and their legitimacy, which will be difficult to obtain in the courts, a request for a recount would serve no purpose because you will just be recounting the same ballots regardless of their integrity,” Hovde said Monday.

Although there is no evidence of wrongdoing in the election, many Hovde supporters questioned a surge in votes for Baldwin that were reported by Milwaukee around 4:30 a.m. the morning after the election. Those votes put Baldwin over the top.

The votes were the tabulation of absentee ballots from Milwaukee. Those ballots are counted at a central location and reported all at once, often well after midnight on Election Day. Elections officials for years have made clear that those ballots are reported later than usual because of the sheer number that have to be counted and the fact that state law does not allow for processing them before polls open.

Republicans and Democrats alike, along with state and Milwaukee election leaders, warned in the days and weeks leading up to the election that the Milwaukee absentee ballots would be reported late and cause a huge influx of Democratic votes.

Hovde also repeated his complaint about the candidacy of Thomas Leager, who ran as a member of the America First Party. Leager, a far-right candidate who was recruited by Democratic operatives and donors to run as a conservative, finished a distant fourth.

Republicans supported independent presidential candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein in efforts to take votes away from Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to get his name removed from the ballot in Wisconsin and other swing states after he backed Trump.

In the Wisconsin Senate race, Leager got about 400 fewer votes than the margin between Baldwin and Hovde. But Hovde claimed on Monday that he would have won the Senate race if Leager had not been on the ballot.

Baldwin declared victory after The Associated Press called the race for her on Nov. 6. She outperformed Harris, who lost Wisconsin by about as many votes as Baldwin defeated Hovde.

The Baldwin win came in the face of Democratic losses nationwide that allowed Republicans to take control of the Senate.

Her win was the narrowest of her three Senate races. Baldwin won in 2012 by almost 6 percentage points and in 2018 by nearly 11 points.

Hovde, a multimillionaire bank owner and real estate developer, first ran for Senate in 2012 but lost in the Republican primary. He poured millions of dollars of his own money into his losing campaign this year.

Hovde on Monday did not rule out another political campaign in the future. Some Republicans have floated him as a potential candidate for governor in 2026.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Eric Hovde concedes defeat to Tammy Baldwin in US Senate race in 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.

Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde admitted Tuesday that he lost the U.S. Senate race to Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, but refused to concede and instead repeated misleading claims about the election while he considers a recount.

Hovde preleased a video saying he wanted to gather more information and assess whether to seek a recount. But in a later interview on 1130-AM radio, Hovde admitted he lost while still stopping short of conceding.

“I will definitely pick myself up and move on and fight for our wonderful country and state, which is why I got into this whole thing,” Hovde said. “It’s the most painful loss I’ve ever experienced.”

Hovde can request a recount because his margin of defeat was less than 1 percentage point, at about 29,000 votes. But he hasn’t said yet whether he will request one, explaining in a video directed at his supporters that he wants to review all of the information and options that are available.

“This is a difficult decision because I want to honor your support and, at the same time, bring closure to this election for our state,” Hovde said in the video posted on the social media platform X.

Hovde pointed to what he claimed were irregularities with the vote results. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing in the election, the results of which are still being reviewed by counties before they submit the canvassed totals to the state by Nov. 19 for certification by Dec. 1.

Democrats, and even some Republicans, immediately called out Hovde for what they said was a perpetuation of lies about the integrity of the election.

“Stop trying to erode trust in our elections (and I say that as someone who supported Hovde),” said Jim Villa, a longtime Republican who previously worked in the Legislature and Milwaukee county executive’s office under Scott Walker before Walker became governor.

“That grift needs to stop!” Villa posted on X.

Baldwin campaign spokesperson Andrew Mamo accused Hovde of “sowing doubt about our very democracy.”

“Leaders on both sides of the aisle should condemn the lies he’s spreading and the pathetic campaign he continues to run,” Mamo said. “Tammy Baldwin has won this race and there is only one thing for Eric Hovde to do: concede.”

John D. Johnson, a Marquette University researcher and data scientist, reacted to Hovde’s video on X by saying, “Reckless disregard for the actual facts here.”

Hovde also raised concerns about precincts in Milwaukee where turnout was higher than the number of registered voters posted on the county’s website. That’s because the original number posted didn’t account for people who registered to vote on Election Day, something that happened in both Republican and Democratic parts of the state in the election.

The bipartisan Milwaukee Election Commission put out a statement refuting Hovde’s “baseless claims.” The commission said it was “fully confident that Mr. Hovde’s accusations lack any merit.”

Andrew Iverson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said that “Hovde has the right to request a recount and pursue legal remedies to address whatever concerns he may have regarding the election.”

The Associated Press called the race for Baldwin on Nov. 6 and she declared victory on Thursday.

Although there is no evidence of wrongdoing in the election, many Hovde supporters have questioned a surge in votes for Baldwin that were reported by Milwaukee around 4:30 a.m. the morning after the election. Those votes put Baldwin over the top.

The votes were the tabulation of absentee ballots from Milwaukee. Those ballots are counted at a central location and reported all at once, often well after midnight on Election Day. Elections officials for years have made clear that those ballots are reported later than usual because of the sheer number that have to be counted and the fact that state law does not allow for processing them before polls open.

Republicans and Democrats alike, along with state and Milwaukee election leaders, warned in the days and weeks leading up to the election that the Milwaukee absentee ballots would be reported late and cause a huge influx of Democratic votes.

The reporting of those absentee ballots swung the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden, fueling baseless conspiracy theories that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump.

This year, the number of Democratic absentee votes in Milwaukee was not enough to sway the race for Vice President Kamala Harris, but it did put Baldwin over the top.

Hovde said before those ballots arrived that it “appeared” he had won and since last Wednesday, “numerous parties” had reached out to him about alleged inconsistencies.

But on election night, Republican strategists posted on X that Hovde was likely to fall behind Baldwin once the absentee votes from Milwaukee and other Democratic-heavy cities were posted. That is what happened.

To seek a recount, Hovde would have to request one within three days after the last county completed its canvass of the vote. Those are due by Nov. 19, but counties could complete the task sooner.

Hovde, a multimillionaire bank owner and real estate developer, first ran for Senate in 2012 but lost in the Republican primary. He was backed by Trump this year and poured millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde refuses to concede to Tammy Baldwin in US Senate race 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.

 Donald Trump has promised sweeping action in a second administration.

The former president and now president-elect often skipped over details but through more than a year of policy pronouncements and written statements outlined a wide-ranging agenda that blends traditional conservative approaches to taxes, regulation and cultural issues with a more populist bent on trade and a shift in America’s international role.

Trump’s agenda also would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers.

A look at what Trump has proposed:

Immigration

“Build the wall!” from his 2016 campaign has become creating “the largest mass deportation program in history.” Trump has called for using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort. Still, Trump has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the U.S. illegally. He’s pitched “ideological screening” for would-be entrants, ending birth-right citizenship (which almost certainly would require a constitutional change), and said he’d reinstitute first-term policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” limiting migrants on public health grounds and severely limiting or banning entrants from certain majority-Muslim nations. Altogether, the approach would not just crack down on illegal migration, but curtail immigration overall.

Abortion

Trump played down abortion as a second-term priority, even as he took credit for the Supreme Court ending a woman’s federal right to terminate a pregnancy and returning abortion regulation to state governments. At Trump’s insistence, the GOP platform, for the first time in decades, did not call for a national ban on abortion. Trump maintains that overturning Roe v. Wade is enough on the federal level.

Still, Trump has not said explicitly that he would veto national abortion restrictions if they reached his desk. And in an example of how the conservative movement might proceed with or without Trump, anti-abortion activists note that the GOP platform still asserts that a fetus should have due process protections under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. That constitutional argument is a roadmap for conservatives to seek a national abortion ban through federal courts.

Taxes

Trump’s tax policies broadly tilt toward corporations and wealthier Americans. That’s mostly due to his promise to extend his 2017 tax overhaul, with a few notable changes that include lowering the corporate income tax rate to 15% from the current 21%. That also involves rolling back Democratic President Joe Biden’s income tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans and scrapping Inflation Reduction Act levies that finance energy measures intended to combat climate change.

Those policies notwithstanding, Trump has put more emphasis on new proposals aimed at working- and middle class Americans: exempting earned tips, Social Security wages and overtime wages from income taxes. It’s noteworthy, however, that his proposal on tips, depending on how Congress might write it, could give a back-door tax break to top wage earners by allowing them to reclassify some of their pay as tip income — a prospect that at its most extreme could see hedge-fund managers or top-flight attorneys taking advantage of a policy that Trump frames as being designed for restaurant servers, bartenders and other service workers.

Tariffs and trade

Trump’s posture on international trade is to distrust world markets as harmful to American interests. He proposes tariffs of 10% to 20% on foreign goods — and in some speeches has mentioned even higher percentages. He promises to reinstitute an August 2020 executive order requiring that the Food and Drug Administration buy “essential” medications only from U.S. companies. He pledges to block purchases of “any vital infrastructure” in the U.S. by Chinese buyers.

DEI, LGBTQ and civil rights

Trump has called for rolling back societal emphasis on diversity and for legal protections for LGBTQ citizens. Trump has called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions, using federal funding as leverage.

On transgender rights, Trump promises generally to end “boys in girls’ sports,” a practice he insists, without evidence, is widespread. But his policies go well beyond standard applause lines from his rally speeches. Among other ideas, Trump would roll back the Biden administration’s policy of extending Title IX civil rights protections to transgender students, and he would ask Congress to require that only two genders can be recognized at birth.

Regulation, federal bureaucracy and presidential power

The president-elect seeks to reduce the role of federal bureaucrats and regulations across economic sectors. Trump frames all regulatory cuts as an economic magic wand. He pledges precipitous drops in U.S. households’ utility bills by removing obstacles to fossil fuel production, including opening all federal lands for exploration — even though U.S. energy production is already at record highs. Trump promises to unleash housing construction by cutting regulations — though most construction rules come from state and local government. He also says he would end “frivolous litigation from the environmental extremists.”

The approach would in many ways strengthen executive branch influence. That power would come more directly from the White House.

He would make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of them as being outside civil service protections. That could weaken the government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by reducing the number of employees engaging in the work and, potentially, impose a chilling effect on those who remain.

Trump also claims that presidents have exclusive power to control federal spending even after Congress has appropriated money. Trump argues that lawmakers’ budget actions “set a ceiling” on spending but not a floor — meaning the president’s constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” includes discretion on whether to spend the money. This interpretation could set up a court battle with Congress.

As a candidate, he also suggested that the Federal Reserve, an independent entity that sets interest rates, should be subject to more presidential power. Though he has not offered details, any such move would represent a momentous change to how the U.S. economic and monetary systems work.

Education

The federal Department of Education would be targeted for elimination in a second Trump administration. That does not mean that Trump wants Washington out of classrooms. He still proposes, among other maneuvers, using federal funding as leverage to pressure K-12 school systems to abolish tenure and adopt merit pay for teachers and to scrap diversity programs at all levels of education. He calls for pulling federal funding “for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

In higher education, Trump proposes taking over accreditation processes for colleges, a move he describes as his “secret weapon” against the “Marxist Maniacs and lunatics” he says control higher education. Trump takes aim at higher education endowments, saying he will collect “billions and billions of dollars” from schools via “taxing, fining and suing excessively large private university endowments” at schools that do not comply with his edicts. That almost certainly would end up in protracted legal fights.

As in other policy areas, Trump isn’t actually proposing limiting federal power in higher education but strengthening it. He calls for redirecting the confiscated endowment money into an online “American Academy” offering college credentials to all Americans without a tuition charges. “It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that’s going to be allowed,” Trump said on Nov. 1, 2023.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

Trump insists he would protect Social Security and Medicare, popular programs geared toward older Americans and among the biggest pieces of the federal spending pie each year. There are questions about how his proposal not to tax tip and overtime wages might affect Social Security and Medicare. If such plans eventually involved only income taxes, the entitlement programs would not be affected. But exempting those wages from payroll taxes would reduce the funding stream for Social Security and Medicare outlays. Trump has talked little about Medicaid but his first administration, in general, defaulted to approving state requests for waivers of various federal rules and it broadly endorsed state-level work requirements for recipients.

Affordable Care Act and Health Care

As he has since 2015, Trump calls for repealing the Affordable Care Act and its subsidized health insurance marketplaces. But he still has not proposed a replacement: In a September debate, he insisted he had the “concepts of a plan.” In the latter stages of the campaign, Trump played up his alliance with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and of pesticides used in U.S. agriculture. Trump repeatedly told rally crowds that he would put Kennedy in charge of “making America healthy again.”

Climate and energy

Trump, who claims falsely that climate change is a “hoax,” blasts Biden-era spending on cleaner energy designed to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. He proposes an energy policy – and transportation infrastructure spending – anchored to fossil fuels: roads, bridges and combustion-engine vehicles. “Drill, baby, drill!” was a regular chant at Trump rallies. Trump says he does not oppose electric vehicles but promises to end all Biden incentives to encourage EV market development. Trump also pledges to roll back Biden-era fuel efficiency standards.

Workers’ rights

Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance framed their ticket as favoring America’s workers. But Trump could make it harder for workers to unionize. In discussing auto workers, Trump focused almost exclusively on Biden’s push toward electric vehicles. When he mentioned unions, it was often to lump “the union bosses and CEOs” together as complicit in “this disastrous electric car scheme.” In an Oct. 23, 2023, statement, Trump said of United Auto Workers, “I’m telling you, you shouldn’t pay those dues.”

National defense and America’s role in the world

Trump’s rhetoric and policy approach in world affairs is more isolationist diplomatically, non-interventionist militarily and protectionist economically than the U.S. has been since World War II. But the details are more complicated. He pledges expansion of the military, promises to protect Pentagon spending from austerity efforts and proposes a new missile defense shield — an old idea from the Reagan era during the Cold War. Trump insists he can end Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, without explaining how. Trump summarizes his approach through another Reagan phrase: “peace through strength.” But he remains critical of NATO and top U.S. military brass. “I don’t consider them leaders,” Trump said of Pentagon officials that Americans “see on television.” He repeatedly praised authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed 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 Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an emergency appeal to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the presidential ballot in two battleground states.

Kennedy wanted to get off the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan after dropping his independent bid and endorsing Republican Donald Trump in the tight contest. He argued that keeping him on violated his First Amendment rights.

Michigan and Wisconsin said removing his name now, with early voting underway days before the election, would be impossible.

The justices did not detail their reason in an order rejecting the emergency appeal, as is typical. One justice, Neil Gorsuch, publicly dissented in the Michigan case.

The presence of independent and third-party candidates on the ballot in swing states could be a key factor in the close presidential race. The high court previously rejected Kennedy’s separate effort to stay on the ballot in New York, a state where his presence is unlikely to make a difference in the race between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

Kennedy has been working to get off the ballot in the seven key swing states since endorsing Trump. Wisconsin and Michigan are the last two where his name was expected to appear.

In Michigan, he notched an appeals court win, but courts ultimately found he couldn’t withdraw as the candidate of the Natural Law Party, which had wanted him to stay on.

In his dissent, Gorsuch pointed to lower court judges who wrote that the timing of Kennedy’s original request to be removed wasn’t so unreasonable that it should be denied.

In Wisconsin, courts found that qualified candidates who file nomination papers must remain on the ballot unless they die, and a plan to cover Kennedy’s name with stickers was unworkable.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

US Supreme Court rejects push to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from ballot in Wisconsin, Michigan 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.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde repeatedly accused each other of lying over the course of their closely watched Senate race during an often testy and confrontational debate Friday.

Here are eight takeaways from the debate, held in Madison and hosted by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association:

Repeated allegations of lying

In their back-and-forth, each candidate accused the other of playing fast and loose with the truth, both on the campaign trail and during the debate itself.

“The one thing you’ve perfected in Washington is your ability to lie,” Hovde said during an exchange about Social Security.

His comment came after Baldwin pointed out that Hovde supports returning the federal budget to 2019 levels, which she said will result in massive cuts to popular programs like Social Security.

“He supports spending, just not for you,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin noted that more than a dozen independent fact-checkers found that Hovde made false statements during the campaign.

Hovde responded by alleging that “Every single one of her ads has been false.” He offered no evidence to back that up.

Hovde gets personal. Baldwin tells him to mind his own business

Hovde repeatedly called on Baldwin to disclose more information about the investments and business dealings of her partner, Maria Brisbane, ranked by Forbes as one of the nation’s top female wealth advisers. There is no requirement for Baldwin to release that information.

“They don’t disclose those investments and how much they’re profiting from it,” Hovde said, calling it a conflict of interest for Baldwin. “That’s fundamentally wrong.”

“Eric Hovde should stay out of my personal life,” Baldwin shot back. “And I think I speak for most Wisconsin women that he should stay out of all of our personal lives.”

If elected, Hovde would be one of the richest members of the Senate based on his campaign finance report, which showed he has assets worth between about $195 million and more than $564 million. Baldwin listed assets between $601,000 and nearly $1.3 million.

Baldwin supports national abortion law. Hovde wants states to decide
Baldwin voiced her support for passing a federal law that would make abortion legal nationwide, as it was before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“Women are dying because of the current situation,” she said. “Harrowing things are happening to women in this state.”

Hovde previously said he supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but now says he would not vote for a federal ban on abortion. Instead, he says, states should decide. That is a change of position from 2012, when Hovde last ran for Senate as someone “totally opposed” to abortion.

“I’m not for a national abortion ban,” Hovde said during the debate. “I never have been.”

Former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Hovde, has suggested that he would support a federal ban.

Hovde produces utility bill to prove he doesn’t live in California

Baldwin and her supporters have tried to paint Hovde as more California than Wisconsin because he owns a $7 million estate in the Pacific seaside city of Laguna Beach and owns Sunwest Bank, which operates on the West Coast.

Hovde was born and raised in Wisconsin.

“I’m supposedly a jerk from California,” he said before pulling from his pocket a document that he said was a utility bill for his Madison. He challenged Baldwin to produce 10 years of utility bills to prove where she lives.

Baldwin backs Obamacare. Hovde wants changes
Baldwin voiced strong support for the the national health care law, while Hovde called for changes.

“We need to build upon the Affordable Care Act,” Baldwin said.

Hovde said the law has not slowed health care cost increases, improved access or allowed people to keep their doctors.

“I’m a believer in results, and if you look at the results, every one of those promises has failed,” he said.

Hovde opposes absentee ballot drop boxes

Hovde questioned the use of the drop boxes, which the Wisconsin Supreme Court banned in 2022 but then allowed again this year after the court became controlled by liberal justices.

“We have to create confidence in our voting system,” Hovde said. “It is causing too much tension in our country. And let me tell you, it doesn’t help when our state Supreme Court brings back drop boxes, when those were only used for a pandemic. So why are they being brought back?”

Drop boxes have been used for years in Wisconsin, but they became more prevalent in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 500 boxes were used in 2020, but this year the Wisconsin Elections Commission said it is aware of only 78 in use. There could be more since communities don’t have to report them.

Presidential race is largely absent from the debate

There was only one passing reference to Trump and not a single mention of Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris during the hourlong debate. Hovde backs Trump and has appeared at his rallies. Baldwin supports Harris and has spoken at her events in the state.

The stakes

Democrats must hold onto the Wisconsin seat if they hope to maintain their slim majority in the Senate. Democrats are defending 23 seats, while Republicans have just 11 up for grabs this election.

Republicans see an opportunity in swing-state Wisconsin, and both sides have poured money into the campaign, making it one of the five most expensive Senate races this year.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin US Senate candidates trade accusations of lying during testy debate 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.

Absentee ballot drop boxes in the presidential battleground state of Wisconsin are only available in a small fraction of the places they were four years ago, with many conservative communities opting not to offer them for the upcoming election.

In 2020, more than 500 drop boxes were available for voters to return absentee ballots in more than 430 communities across the state. But as of Wednesday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission was aware of only 78 drop box sites in 42 communities statewide.

The count may actually be higher, elections Administrator Meagan Wolfe said, because there is no requirement for the state’s 1,850 local elections officials to report the use of drop boxes.

Milwaukee and Madison, the state’s two largest cities and also Democratic strongholds, reported having 14 drop boxes each. Racine had seven. Most communities that reported having drop boxes only had one, often located near their city hall.

Wolfe said people wondering why their community doesn’t have a drop box should ask their local officials.

More than 60 towns, villages and cities in nine counties have opted out of using the boxes for next month’s elections, according to a tally by the group All Voting is Local.

Many are conservative communities. In Dodge County, the Republican sheriff recommended not to use them out of security concerns, but several communities have gone ahead and installed them.

In Wausau, the conservative mayor carted away the city’s lone drop box — an action that’s under investigation by the state Department of Justice. The drop box has since been returned and is in use.

Drop boxes had been used for years in Wisconsin, but their popularity exploded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of voters casting ballots absentee is returning to pre-pandemic levels, Wolfe said Wednesday. Nearly 240,000 absentee ballots had been returned by Tuesday, which is slightly more than a third of the more than 700,000 that had been returned by this point in 2020, Wolfe said.

Voters in Wisconsin can begin to cast absentee ballots in person starting Tuesday. Former President Barack Obama, along with vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, planned to be in Madison on Tuesday to hold a rally to encourage early voting among Democrats.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Wisconsin supported drop boxes prior to the 2020 election, but their use became a partisan issue after Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden in Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes that year.

Trump and other Republicans stoked fears that drop boxes were not safe and suggested without evidence that their use increases the chances of voter fraud.

In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which was then controlled by conservatives, ruled 4-3 in favor of a conservative law firm that challenged the use of unstaffed drop boxes outside of clerk offices, such as near libraries and other public spaces. The court ruled that drop boxes can only be located at offices staffed by election clerks, not at remote, unstaffed locations.

The state Supreme Court flipped to liberal control in 2023 and in July overturned that ruling, leaving it up to local communities to decide whether to use them.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Use of absentee ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin is sharply down from 2020 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.

Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Wednesday that Gov. Tony Evers’ creative use of his expansive veto power in an attempt to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years appeared to be “extreme” and “crazy” but questioned whether and how it should be reined in.

“It does feel like the sky is the limit, the stratosphere is the limit,” Justice Jill Karofsky said during oral arguments, referring to the governor’s veto powers. “Perhaps today we are at the fork in the road … I think we’re trying to think should we, today in 2024, start to look at this differently.”

The case, supported by the Republican-controlled Legislature, is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long fight over just how broad Wisconsin’s governor’s partial veto powers should be. The issue has crossed party lines, with Republicans and Democrats pushing for more limitations on the governor’s veto over the years.

In this case, Evers made the veto in question in 2023. His partial veto increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and instead vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.

“The veto here approaches the absurd and exceeds any reasonable understanding of legislative or voter intent in adopting the partial veto or subsequent limits,” attorneys for legal scholar Richard Briffault, of Columbia Law School, said in a filing with the court ahead of arguments.

That argument was cited throughout the oral arguments by justices and Scott Rosenow, attorney for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Litigation Center, which handles lawsuits for the state’s largest business lobbying group and brought the case.

The court should strike down Evers’ partial veto and declare that the state constitution forbids the governor from striking digits to create a new year or to remove language to create a longer duration than the one approved by the Legislature, Rosenow argued.

Finding otherwise would give governors unlimited power to alter numbers in a budget bill, Rosenow argued.

Justices appeared to agree that limits were needed, but they grappled with where to draw the line.

When legal scholars and others look at what Wisconsin courts have allowed relative to partial vetoes, “they think it’s crazy because it is crazy,” said Justice Brian Hagedorn. “We allow governors to unilaterally create law that has not been proposed to them at all. It is a mess of this court’s making.”

The initial reaction from anyone would be that a 400-year veto is “extreme,” said Justice Rebecca Dallet, but the question is whether it’s within the governor’s authority to use the partial veto to extend the duration of dates.

“The governor is becoming the most powerful person in the state, arguably, to just make the law whatever he declares,” said Justice Rebecca Bradley.

Evers, his attorney Colin Roth argued Wednesday, was simply using a longstanding partial veto process that is allowed under the law.

The court, controlled 4-3 by liberals, will issue a written ruling in the coming months.

Wisconsin’s partial veto power was created by a 1930 constitutional amendment, but it’s been weakened over the years, including in reaction to vetoes made by former governors, both Republicans and Democrats.

Voters adopted constitutional amendments in 1990 and 2008 that removed the ability to strike individual letters to make new words — the “Vanna White” veto — and the power to eliminate words and numbers in two or more sentences to create a new sentence — the “Frankenstein” veto.

The lawsuit before the court on Wednesday contends that Evers’ partial veto is barred under the 1990 constitutional amendment prohibiting the “Vanna White” veto, named for the co-host of the game show “Wheel of Fortune” who flips letters to reveal word phrases.

But Evers argued that the “Vanna White” veto ban applies only to striking individual letters to create new words, not vetoing digits to create new numbers.

Reshaping state budgets through the partial veto is a longstanding act of gamesmanship in Wisconsin between the governor and Legislature as lawmakers try to craft bills in a way that is largely immune from creative vetoes.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, undid three of Evers’ partial vetoes in 2020, but a majority of justices did not issue clear guidance on what was allowed. Two justices did say that partial vetoes can’t be used to create new policies.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court grapples with Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year veto, calling it ‘crazy’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A Wisconsin district attorney said Thursday that her office is pursuing an investigation into the removal of an absentee ballot drop box by the mayor of Wausau.

Mayor Doug Diny removed the drop box, located outside of City Hall, on Sunday and distributed a picture of himself doing it while wearing worker’s gloves and a hard hat. Diny is a conservative opponent to drop boxes. He insists he did nothing wrong.

The drop box was locked, and no ballots were in it. The city clerk notified Marathon County District Attorney Theresa Wetzsteon, and she said in an email on Thursday that she is requesting an official investigation with the assistance of the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

Wetzsteon said she was waiting to hear back from DOJ on her request.

A spokesperson for DOJ did not immediately return a message Thursday.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers weighed in on Thursday, calling the removal of the drop box “wrong.” Evers said it should be restored “immediately”:

“Drop box voting is safe, secure, and legal,” Evers posted on the social media platform X. “As elected officials, we should be working to make it easier—not harder—for every eligible Wisconsinite to cast their ballot. That’s democracy.”

The incident is the latest example in swing state Wisconsin of the fight over whether communities will allow absentee ballot drop boxes. The Wisconsin Supreme Court in July ruled that drop boxes are legal, but left it up to local communities to decide whether to use them.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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The mailing of about 2,200 duplicate absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s heavily Democratic capital city of Madison has led a Republican member of Congress to falsely suggest that the clerk was lying about the presence of barcodes on the ballots themselves.

Ballots in Wisconsin do not contain barcodes. Envelopes that absentee ballots are returned in do contain barcodes so the voter can track their ballot to ensure it was received. The barcodes also allow election officials to ensure that the same voter does not cast a ballot in person on Election Day.

An initial statement on Monday from Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl did not specify that it was the envelopes, not the ballots, that contain the barcodes. The statement posted on the clerk’s website was later updated to specify that the barcodes were on the envelopes, not the ballots.

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, a strong Donald Trump supporter whose northern Wisconsin district does not include Madison, posted a picture of an absentee ballot on the social platform X to show there was no barcode.

“My office has proof that there is no barcode on the actual ballots,” Tiffany posted on Wednesday. “Here is a picture of the absentee ballots – NO BARCODE.”

He also called for an investigation.

By Thursday morning his post had more than 1.6 million views.

Tiffany later took credit for the clerk changing the wording on her initial statement.

“Why do they keep editing their statements and press releases?” Tiffany posted.

Madison city spokesperson Dylan Brogan said Thursday that he altered the wording of the statement for clarity before Tiffany questioned it by “parsing apart sentences.”

“The city routinely updates its website to provide as much clarity as possible,” Brogan said.

He called the mailing of duplicate absentee ballots “a simple mistake that we immediately rectified and it will have no impact on the election.”

“There are safeguards in place,” Brogan said. “The system worked.”

Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, rebuked Tiffany on X.

“I can’t tell if this is just profound lack of knowledge or the intentional farming of outrage,” she posted. “Both, by the way, are bad.”

The clerk said in her response to Tiffany that 2,215 duplicate ballots were sent before the error was caught on Monday. No duplicate ballots have been returned, Witzel-Behl said. Once a ballot is received and the envelope barcode is scanned, if a second ballot is returned it will not be counted, she said.

“I would simply note that elections are conducted by humans and occasionally human error occurs,” she wrote to Tiffany. “When errors occur, we own up to them, correct them as soon as possible, and are transparent about them – precisely as we have done here.”

The dustup in battleground Wisconsin comes as there is intense scrutiny over how elections are run, particularly in swing states that are likely to decide the winner of the presidential election. Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020. Nearly four years later, conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election and false claims of widespread fraud persist. Trump continues to insist, despite no evidence of widespread fraud, that he won that election as he seeks a return to the White House.

President Joe Biden’s win over Trump in Wisconsin survived two recounts ordered by Trump, including one involving the city of Madison, an independent audit, a review by a Republican law firm and numerous lawsuits.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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Stephanie Hirsch remembers growing up in the western Wisconsin city of Eau Claire when the community welcomed newly arriving Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia.

So Hirsch, now the Eau Claire city manager, said she was surprised at the hostility, fear and anger she saw last fall, when residents learned several dozen refugees would start arriving legally in the community of about 70,000. Opponents spread misinformation — including on a billboard — about how many people were coming and from where, and people packed a city meeting to protest the resettlements.

“It’s very hard for me to understand that fear,” Hirsch said. “I completely disagree with being afraid of people from different cultures. In fact, I’m really excited about it.”

But the way lifelong Eau Claire resident Fred Kappus saw it, the city should have other priorities.

“We really should attend to the homelessness situation before we bring in people from elsewhere,” said Kappus, the vice chairman of the Eau Claire Republican Party.

The flaring tension over the resettlement of refugees in Eau Claire has been repeated in many other midsize communities across the U.S., and it served as a backdrop to a campaign rally Tuesday with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who has focused on immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric as he and former President Donald Trump campaign.

Vance argued Tuesday that illegal immigration has devastated parts of the country, including places like Wisconsin that are far from the U.S. border with Mexico. He blames Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for problems such as the flow of illegal drugs and says he and Trump will secure the border and “put Americans first.”

“Every community is a border state,” Vance said. “Every community is a border community.”

The Ohio senator also has continued to promote false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and eating pets as he tries to draw attention to Democratic presidential nominee Harris’ immigration policies. Officials have said there have been no credible or detailed reports about the claims.

Vance defended talking about the claims in Springfield when asked about it Tuesday.

“I haven’t made up anything,” Vance said. “I just listened to people who were telling me things.”

Vance said he wants to travel to Springfield and speak with people there, but that wouldn’t be in the city’s best interests right now.

Fight for a ‘blue wall’ state

Western Wisconsin is a target for both sides in one of the “blue wall” states, along with Pennsylvania and neighboring Michigan, that both parties say they need to win to secure the White House. Vance campaigned in Michigan earlier Tuesday before going to Wisconsin.

The city of Eau Claire — a regional economic hub about 90 miles east of Minneapolis — is reliably Democratic. But it is located in a county where margins of victory may make a difference in November. Biden carried the county by 11 points over Trump in 2020, when the Democrat won Wisconsin and the election. Trump lost the county by 7 points in 2016, but won Wisconsin that year.

Vance did not mention the resettlement in Eau Claire during his rally, but did talk about Trump’s plan to deport people living in the country illegally, drawing loud cheers from the crowd. He also said communities that are “overrun” by immigration have seen problems such as rising rents, increased car insurance costs and added pressure on health care and school systems.

The issue of immigration already has polarized people in Eau Claire and the surrounding area.

When news broke nearly a year ago that about 75 refugees who fled their countries due to war or persecution were headed to the region — representing about 0.10% of Eau Claire’s population — Republicans introduced bills at the state and federal level designed to give local communities more say.

A misleading billboard accused Eau Claire city leaders of using tax dollars to “traffic Somali refugees” and keeping the plan secret, though no one from Somalia was part of the resettlement effort. An overflow crowd at an Eau Claire County Board meeting opposed the resettlement, but the board rejected a resolution that would have paused the effort.

There was also initially a “total and complete lack of transparency” related to the resettlements and where the refugees were coming from, said Kappus, the Republican critic.

Hirsch, the city’s top official, says officials don’t need to hold a public hearing anytime someone moves into town.

“We have many thousands of people who move to Eau Claire on an annual basis,” she said. “There’s nothing unusual about having people move to Eau Claire.”

World Relief, a humanitarian aid group founded by the National Association of Evangelicals, settled 77 refugees in Eau Claire since February, about half from the African countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Central African Republic and others from Venezuela and Colombia, said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy. Five Somalis live in the nearby community of Barron, where family members had previously settled.

World Relief expects 100 to 125 more refugees in Eau Claire in the federal government’s budget year, starting Oct. 1, to arrive at about the same pace since the group began operations in the Wisconsin city in February.

Bill Berg, 73, who was born and raised in Eau Claire and lived most of his life there, said, “It’s a minority that disagrees with refugee resettlement.”

“It’s ‘the other,’” he said Tuesday when asked why he thought some were opposed. “It’s always ‘the other.’”

He described Eau Claire as a “welcoming community” and said he had no problem with the refugees.

“Half of my family are of other races, which I think is a good thing,” he said.

Refugee resettlement cap increased under Biden

World Relief, one of 10 nongovernmental organizations that works with the State Department and the U.N. refugee agency to bring refugees to the United States after extensive vetting, has been expanding after leaner times. Biden raised the cap on bringing refugees to 125,000 in the budget year ending Sept. 30 from 18,000 under Trump in 2020, the lowest since refugee resettlement began in 1980.

Just over 84,000 refugees came to the United States from Oct. 1 through Aug. 31, a pace that falls short of the 125,000 cap. Wisconsin took in 1,500 of them, about one-third from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is plagued by violent crime and civil unrest.

Eau Claire is one of several locations, along with Austin, Texas; Baltimore; and Scott County, Iowa, where World Relief grew over the last year, Soerens said. The group felt it succeeded in Appleton, Wisconsin — where it had settled refugees for more than a decade — and started looking for another Wisconsin city that offered jobs and a welcoming spirit. They spoke with police departments, school districts, potential employers and churches.

“The community that sort of rose to the top was Eau Claire, in part because the local government was eager,” Soerens said.

Hirsch was so confident that Eau Claire would be a good fit, she wrote the U.S. State Department last year that the county had an unemployment rate of 3.5%, with plenty of job opportunities and “a long history of welcoming refugees.”

But then the backlash hit.

Kappus, who lived his entire life in Eau Claire, thinks immigration is one of the top concerns of voters in western Wisconsin.

“Fentanyl is a problem here in west-central Wisconsin and Eau Claire,” Kappus said. “It all goes back to our open borders.”

World Relief, like other resettlement agencies, provides temporary aid that may include food, rent, clothing, furniture and help with school enrollment and job searches. That’s far different from Springfield, Ohio, where many Haitians are in the country under Temporary Protected Status, which spares people from being deported to countries that are considered unsafe due to natural disasters or civil strife. Refugees, unlike those on TPS, have a path to citizenship.

Eau Claire, the fastest-growing city in the northern half of Wisconsin, is attracting people from all over, including small towns and big cities, people escaping warmer climates and those from other countries, Hirsch said.

“We’re happy to have people come to the community whether they are refugees from the Congo or a candidate for vice president,” she said. “We want to be a community that’s welcoming.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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Liberal justices who control the Wisconsin Supreme Court voiced concerns Tuesday about the motives of a conservative activist who is seeking guardianship records in an effort to find ineligible voters while also appearing to cast doubt that the documents should be made public.

The lawsuit tests the line between protecting personal privacy rights and ensuring that ineligible people can’t vote. It is the latest attempt by those who questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential race to cast doubt on the integrity of elections in the presidential swing state.

“What it sounds to me like what you are trying to do is to introduce the fear that there is some sort of illegitimacy going on in the election in the state of Wisconsin, and that concerns me deeply,” said liberal Justice Jill Karofsky during oral arguments Tuesday.

Former travel agent Ron Heuer and a group he leads, Wisconsin Voter Alliance, allege that the number of ineligible voters doesn’t match the count on Wisconsin’s voter registration list. They want the state Supreme Court to rule that counties must release records filed when a judge determines that someone isn’t competent to vote so that those names can be compared to the voter registration list.

“What we want is eligible people to vote and people who are adjudicated by a circuit court judge ineligible to vote not to vote,” said Erick Kaardal, attorney for Heuer and the WVA.

There are ways for the government, not a private watchdog group, to review the records confidentially and determine if someone is voting illegally, said attorney Sam Hall, who represented Walworth County in Tuesday’s case.

Heuer and the WVA filed lawsuits in 13 counties in 2022 seeking guardianship records.

A state appeals court in 2023 overturned a circuit court ruling dismissing the case and found that the records are public. It ordered Walworth County to release them with birthdates and case numbers redacted. The ruling from the conservative 2nd District Court of Appeals contradicted a prior binding decision from the liberal 4th District Court of Appeals, which had dismissed the case.

The county appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments Tuesday. Its ruling is unlikely to come before the November election.

Hall said the appeals court ruling “blasts open the door for the personal information of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities to be broadcast, not only to those with noble and good intentions but to those who might do these folks harm.”

He urged the court to issue a ruling directly addressing the merits of the case, not a technical legal issue.

“I don’t think this issue is going away,” Hall said.

He also argued that the law is clear about who has access to the guardianship records, and the WVA did not demonstrate a need.

Kaardal argued that the records should be made public to root out people who are still on the voter rolls after being found ineligible to vote.

But the liberal justices questioned whether the law allows for the records to be made public. Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley asked if there was a way to perform an audit and ensure that government officials are removing people from the voting rolls when a court has determined they lost that right.

Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet stressed that there was no proof in the court record that a person ruled incompetent had voted illegally or been sent a ballot illegally or that the state elections commission had done anything wrong. Wisconsin Watch reported last year based on records provided by the Dane County clerk that adjudicated incompetent people have voted in past elections, though not in numbers that would affect the outcome of any election.

Heuer and the WVA have pushed inflated estimates about the 2020 election in an attempt to cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin. Heuer was hired as an investigator in the discredited 2020 election probe led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman that found no evidence of fraud or abuse that would have changed the election results.

The WVA also filed two unsuccessful lawsuits that sought to overturn Biden’s win in Wisconsin.

Biden defeated Donald Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, a result that has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and the recounts Trump requested.

Court weighs Racine mobile voting van case

The Wisconsin Supreme Court also wrestled Tuesday with whether a Republican had standing to bring a lawsuit that challenges the use of a mobile voting van in 2022 and seeks to ban its use in any future election in the presidential battleground state.

Such vans — a single van, actually — were used just once, in Racine in a primary election in 2022. It allowed voters to cast absentee ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election. Racine, the Democratic National Committee and others say nothing in state law prohibits the use of voting vans.

Whatever the court decides will not affect the November election, as a ruling isn’t expected until later and no towns or cities asked to use alternative voting locations for this election before the deadline to do so passed. But the ruling will determine whether mobile voting sites can be used in future elections.

Much of the oral argument Tuesday focused on whether the Racine County voter who brought the lawsuit was “aggrieved” under state law and allowed to sue. If the court rules that he didn’t have standing, it could make it more difficult to bring future lawsuits challenging election laws.

Karofsky said she had a hard time seeing how the voter who brought the lawsuit, Racine County Republican Party Chairman Ken Brown, had been injured by simply witnessing use of the mobile voting van.

The law allows Brown, as a voter, to file a complaint because he believed an election official was breaking the law, said Lucas Vebber, attorney for the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which represented Brown. Vebber argued that voters can bring an election lawsuit in their local jurisdiction.

But Gabe Johnson-Karp, representing the Wisconsin Elections Commission, argued that the voter in this case wasn’t personally injured and therefore can’t bring a lawsuit. He can’t bring a lawsuit making a “generalized grievance about too many people voting or the election officials not following the law,” Johnson-Karp argued.

Liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley asked if the court would have to consider other issues in the case if it determines Brown did not have standing.

Vebber said he didn’t know if the court could, but if it did, “I think it would be beneficial to the voters of Wisconsin and to the government entities to resolve these issues.”

Republicans argue it is against state law to operate mobile voting sites, that their repeated use would increase the chances of voter fraud, and that the one in Racine was used to bolster Democratic turnout.

Wisconsin law prohibits locating any early voting site in a place that gives an advantage to any political party. There are other limitations on early voting sites, including a requirement that they be “as near as practicable” to the clerk’s office.

For the 2022 election, Racine city Clerk Tara McMenamin and the city had a goal of making voting as accessible to as many voters as possible.

Racine purchased its van with grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Republicans have been critical of the grants, calling the money “Zuckerbucks” that they say was used to tilt turnout in Democratic areas.

Wisconsin voters in April approved a constitutional amendment banning the use of private money to help run elections.

The van was used only to facilitate early in-person voting during the two weeks prior to an election, McMenamin said. It traveled for two weeks across the city, allowing voters to cast in-person absentee ballots in 21 locations.

Brown filed a complaint the day after the August 2022 primary with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, arguing that the van was against state law. He argued that it was only sent to Democratic areas in the city in an illegal move to bolster turnout.

McMenamin disputed those accusations, saying that it shows a misunderstanding of the city’s voting wards, which traditionally lean Democratic.

Liberal justices appeared wary of accepting the argument that the van improperly favored Democrats.

The elections commission dismissed the complaint four days before the 2022 election, saying there was no probable cause shown to believe the law had been broken. Brown sued.

Brown sued, and in January, a Racine County Circuit Court judge sided with Republicans, ruling that state election laws do not allow for the use of mobile voting sites.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in June kept that ruling in place pending its consideration of the case, which effectively meant the use of mobile voting sites would not be allowed in the upcoming presidential election. The court also kept in place the same rules that have been in place since 2016 for determining the location of early voting sites. The deadline for selecting those sites for use in the November election was in June.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court justices question merits of case brought by election activist 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.

With just days to go before his first and likely only debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election, which he said would be under intense scrutiny.

“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote late Saturday, sowing doubt once more about the integrity of the election, even though cheating is incredibly rare.

“Please beware,” he went on, “that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly.

Just days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had indeed “lost by a whisker.”

While Trump’s campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump in recent days has veered far off course.

On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.

Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.

“The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail — they want me in jail — for the crime of exposing their corruption,” Trump claimed at an outdoor rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bulletproof glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.

There’s no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris have had any influence over decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to indict the former president.

Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparation, choosing to hold rallies and events while Harris has been cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, working with aides since Thursday.

Harris has agreed so far to a single debate, which will be hosted by ABC.

At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to “Drain the swamp” — a throwback to his winning 2016 campaign message as he ran as an outsider challenging the status quo. Though Trump spent four years in the Oval Office, he vowed anew to “cast out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “cut the fat out of our government for the first time, meaningfully, in 60 years.”

As part of that effort, he repeated his plan, announced Thursday, to create a new “Government Efficiency Commission” headed by Elon Musk that will be charged with conducting “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” to root out waste.

After again maligning the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s capitol by his supporters after his election loss in 2020, Trump told the crowd of thousands that he would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.

Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement.

And he said he would “completely overhaul” what he labeled “Kamala’s corrupt Department of Injustice.”

“Instead of persecuting Republicans, they will focus on taking down bloodthirsty cartels, transnational gangs, and radical Islamic terrorists,” he said.

Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will “use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6.”

Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.

Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win “blue wall” states. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.

As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly weeping as Harris hugged her and said, “We’re going to be fine. We’re all in this together.”

Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman.

“People are exhausted, about the division and the attempts to kind of divide us as Americans,” she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be that the country wants to be united.

“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said. “It’s time to bring our country together, to chart a new way forward.”

Trump held his rally in the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.

During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic” ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”

Trump also railed against the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of having “imported murderers, child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet.”

Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

He dismissed warnings from U.S. officials about ongoing Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of November’s election, including an indictment this past week that alleged a media company linked to six conservative influencers was secretly funded by Russian state media employees.

“The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd. “And, you know, the whole world laughed at it this time.”

Among those in the crowd was Dale Osuldsen, who was celebrating his 68th birthday Saturday at his first ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump administration will take on “cancel culture” and bring the country back to its “foundational past.

“We’ve had past administrations say they want to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”

Many supporters embarked on hours-long drives from across Wisconsin to see Trump speak. Some came from even further.

Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA-themed rap music under the stage name, “King Bullethead,” blasted his songs from a truck in the event parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies approximate the experience of a raucous concert.

“Trump is a rock star,” Moon said. “He’s incredible. People see he represents them and the deep state trying to kill him and take him out. But he’s standing strong, and he stands for the normal person.”

Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must win the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance of cutting into the Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.

Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Ahead of presidential debate, Donald Trump threatens to jail adversaries 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 mayor of Waukesha on Wednesday condemned a campaign ad run by a Republican independent group that links Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin with the killings of six people at a 2021 Christmas parade in that Wisconsin city.

Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly called the ad a “pitiful political tool” that “doesn’t just hurt the families that had members that were killed, or those that were injured or those that even saw it, it hurts the whole entire community.”

Baldwin faces Republican Eric Hovde in one of the most hotly contested Senate races in the country this year. The race is crucial for Democrats to win to maintain majority control of the Senate.

The ad, which began airing across Wisconsin last week, was paid for by One Nation, an independent group aligned with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“This issue ad focused on Senator Baldwin’s vote against increased funding for pretrial detention of violent criminals and included a call to action at the end,” said One Nation spokesperson Torunn Sinclair. “It’s not political.”

She said the ad stopped running on Monday. It remained viewable online on Wednesday.

Reilly said in a telephone interview that “our pain and our suffering from the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade is once again being used by unprincipled people to drive votes.”

Reilly referred to a joint statement issued by Baldwin and Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson shortly after the parade killings in 2021 urging no one to use it for political gain.

“I would hope that Eric Hovde would also support what Sen. Johnson said,” Reilly said. “No politician should allow the use of the Waukesha Christmas parade attack and its impact on our community to drive votes by creating fear and disgust to purposely create divisions.”

Hovde said after touring a manufacturing business in Waunakee, Wisconsin, that he wasn’t familiar with the ad in question. But he accused Baldwin and her allies of unfairly attacking him, including the allegation that he is more of a Californian because he bought a business and a home there than he is a Wisconsinite where he was born.

“I think we need to lower the rhetoric on both sides,” Hovde said. “I would prefer not to see all these negative attack ads. I’d rather focus on the issues.”

Baldwin’s campaign spoke out against the parade ad.

“Using the attack for political purposes is not only wrong, it is deeply hurtful to a community still recovering from the tragedy of that day,” her campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo said.

Reilly used to be a Republican but disavowed the party after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He said he is now an independent who supports Baldwin in the Senate race.

The ad shows footage from the Waukesha Christmas parade in November 2021 after Darrell Brooks Jr. drove his SUV through the parade route, killing six people. Brooks was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without parole.

“It never should have happened,” the narrator of the ad says over the sound of sirens and video images of people running along the parade route and people hovering over those struck by the SUV. The narrator adds that Brooks was released on $1,000 bail just days earlier after trying to run over his girlfriend with the same car.

The ad then shows an image of Baldwin on the Senate floor, with the narrator saying she voted against funding for pretrial detention of violent criminals. The ad cites an Aug. 7, 2022, vote, which came nearly a year after the parade killings.

The narrator says the vote made it “easier for criminals like Darrell Brooks to terrorize our communities.” The ad ends with side-by-side images of Baldwin on the Senate floor and Brooks in an orange prison outfit.

Baldwin had nothing to do with the setting of Brooks’ bail before the Christmas parade.

The $1,000 bail was the amount requested by the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office. District Attorney John Chisholm acknowledged later that the $1,000 bail request from an assistant prosecutor in his office was far too low.

The judge granted the bail request, which Brooks posted, just days before he drove through the Christmas parade, killing six.

Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2023, pushed by Republicans after the parade killings, that makes it easier for judges to post higher bail amounts.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Waukesha mayor condemns GOP Senate race ad tying Tammy Baldwin to Christmas parade killings 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.