A volunteer stocks produce at the Independence Food Basket, a food pantry operated by the Community Access Center in Independence, Kan. Like other food pantries across the country, the organization has been providing food assistance to more families even before a disruption to the federal food stamp program. (Photo by Kevin Hardy/Stateline)

INDEPENDENCE, Kan. — Just a few years ago, the Community Access Center’s food pantry here served up to 250 families per month. But that figure has skyrocketed as the price of groceries has pinched more and more families.

Now, the small food pantry serves about 450 families a month in this community of about 8,500 people. Serving that growing number has become increasingly difficult with the high cost of food, cuts in federal aid — and an unprecedented disruption in the nation’s largest food assistance program looming.

Chris Mitchell, who leads the nonprofit that operates the Independence Food Basket and provides other services, said the amount the organization spends on food to supplement donated items increased from $1,700 per month in 2018 to $4,000 per month now.

“And that’s getting it from the food bank without taxes,” he said.

Like other providers across the country, the Independence Food Basket is bracing for a spike in demand when an estimated 42 million people are expected to lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP. Monthly benefits will not be provided beginning Saturday because of the ongoing federal government shutdown.

The unparalleled stress of a SNAP disruption on food pantries and the food banks that collect, warehouse and distribute food comes at a time when they were already stretched thin. High grocery prices have pushed more Americans to look to food banks for help. But organizations providing food relief have lost more than $1 billion in federal aid and are bracing for the impacts of legislation that will permanently limit the reach of SNAP.

Food banks now are asking local governments and donors to step in as they prepare for long lines. Many operations have increased orders ahead of the expected SNAP chaos, though some food pantries say they may have to ration food if supplies dwindle too quickly.

“You’d have to be living under a rock somewhere to not know that the prices of groceries went up and stayed up,” Mitchell said. “Now, you’re going to take away the means that people in poverty can afford food.”

The rising price of food has driven up not just visits to pantries, but also costs for the charitable food system in recent years.

Social service providers also are bracing for the impact of permanent changes to food stamps and other social services enacted in President Donald Trump’s major tax and spending law signed in July. The first in a wave of cutbacks to SNAP ended exemptions from work requirements for older adults, homeless people, veterans and some rural residents, likely pushing millions out of the food stamp program.

The administration also has pulled direct aid to food banks.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture in March nixed more than $1 billion from two programs that helped food banks and school meal programs buy local foods including fruits, vegetables and proteins.

Also this spring, the administration abruptly cut $500 million from a program that sends domestically produced meat, dairy, eggs and produce to food banks. The items that were delivered through The Emergency Food Assistance Program were some of the healthiest, most expensive items organizations distribute, ProPublica reported.

In Missouri alone, that move canceled 124 scheduled deliveries to food banks, including 146,400 pounds of cheese, 433,070 pounds of canned and frozen chicken and 1.2 million eggs.

“Food banks have been operating on fumes since the pandemic,” said Gina Plata-Nino, interim SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center, a national nonprofit working to address poverty-related hunger. “As much as we love the food banks and the superhero work that they’re doing, they can only do so much.”

Already rising demand

Plata-Nino said food banks and food pantries were intended as emergency food aid, but have become “a way of life” for many who struggle to afford groceries.

A disruption in SNAP benefits will cause millions to make impossible decisions about how to stretch their limited dollars, Plata-Nino said. She noted that the majority of SNAP recipients make less than $1,100 per month. (The liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the average SNAP benefit this fiscal year is about $188 per month per person.)

“People are already making really difficult choices,” she said, “and I hate to call it a choice, because it’s not a choice when you don’t have one.”

In Texas, the San Antonio Food Bank has been responding to a surge in need from furloughed federal workers. With major Defense Department operations across the area, San Antonio is home to the largest number of federal employees in Texas.

Eric Cooper, the food bank’s president and chief executive officer, estimates it will serve about 50,000 more people who have gone without paychecks this month. Each year, the food bank serves about 577,000 people across 29 counties.

He recalled one furloughed U.S. Social Security Administration employee who recently visited for the first time. Though she weathered previous shutdowns, she now takes care of her grandchildren.

“She’s like, ‘Hey, I showed up to get food because I don’t know if I’m going to get paid, and I can’t let my grandbabies go hungry,’” Cooper said.

Given the disruption to SNAP, Cooper said the food bank has been gearing up to not only increase inventory but also manage limited supplies and heightened emotions among the public.

“Should the demand start to outpace our supply, we will start to ration,” he said. “Rather than giving a week’s worth of food or two weeks’ worth of food, we’re going to be giving less.”

Generally, the need for free food spikes during times of natural disasters or recessions, said Michelle Ness, executive director of PRISM, a nonprofit providing housing and food assistance in suburban Minneapolis.

But Minnesota food shelves, known as food pantries in other parts of the country, have seen a 150% increase in visits since the pandemic, she said.

“This is during nonemergency times, nondisaster times — needs are going way up,” she said. “Right now, food shelves are at just about the max capacity we can handle.”

To meet the projected increase in demand because of the SNAP disruption, Ness said her organization’s food shelf is considering launching a sort of express lane that would allow people to quickly pick up prepackaged boxes of food. She hopes donors will increase their giving to avoid rationing food.

“If anything, I would like to be able to give out more food, because people will have greater needs without getting SNAP benefits,” she said. “That’s a lot of food that they’re not going to have to fill their refrigerator and cupboards.”

A daily necessity

While nonprofits happily take donated food items, much of the stock is purchased. And that doesn’t come cheap — even with discounts for purchasing foods in bulk from nonprofit food banks.

The Food Group, a Minneapolis food bank that supplies PRISM and other operators, has had to raise its prices and cut back on certain expensive items — including eggs, said Executive Director Sophia Lenarz-Coy.

In the past year, The Food Group has raised its wholesale prices of spaghetti by 26%. Jasmine rice has gone up 6%, and dry potatoes have increased 11%. Between 2022 and 2025, a case of frozen ground beef has increased from just under $50 to $63.08 — a 28% spike. Cases of margarine have risen 39% over that time, and diced tomatoes have gone up 23%.

“I think it’s really hard to overstate just how grocery prices have changed in the last three years,” said Lenarz-Coy.

While higher earners can make adjustments in their monthly budgets, she noted that food is often the only flexible item in lower-income household budgets.

“Housing costs, how much you need to pay for transportation or medical costs or day care — those are all fixed costs,” she said. “The place where people can flex is on food, but those flexes just don’t get you as much as they used to.”

Back in southeast Kansas, Mitchell, of the Community Access Center, has come to appreciate the urgency of hunger.

Mitchell previously worked in homeless services. Oftentimes, people can get by temporarily staying with friends and families, but food is a constant, daily need, he noted.

“It’s like going without liquid,” he said. “You just don’t last very long without it. And that’s probably what hurts me the most about this cutoff.”

The looming SNAP disruption has him bracing for panic among those who rely on the pantry.

The per capita annual income in Independence is just under $30,000, and about a quarter of all children live in poverty, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.

To meet surging demand, Mitchell is considering further limiting the pantry’s already rationed offerings, whether families have one person or six in the household.

“That kills my heart,” he said. “But that’s so everybody gets some. … I’ve got this many people, and I’ve got to make sure that I can put something in each hand.”

Located inside a beige cinderblock building, the one-room food pantry is set up like a grocery store, with freezers for meats, refrigerators for fresh veggies and shopping carts for browsing.

Mitchell is proud to offer that kind of choice for people, which makes the process more dignified and reduces the likelihood that food goes to waste.

But a rush of visits next week — and concerns about hoarding and public safety — may force the nonprofit to reinstate its pandemic-era practice of handing out prepackaged boxes outdoors.

“It feels like going backwards,” Mitchell said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

A woman shops at the Feeding South Florida food pantry in Pembroke Park, Fla., this month. Food banks across the country are gearing up for massive demand from an interruption to federal food aid because of the government shutdown. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

There’s no way his local government can fill the void created by a disruption in the federal food stamp program, but local official Gregg Wright says his Minnesota county had to do something.

“This is pretty much a crisis for families,” said Wright, a member of the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners.

Last week, the board unanimously voted to send up to $200,000 to a local food bank to help neighbors at risk of losing food assistance because of the federal government shutdown.

Olmsted County, which has a population of about 165,000 and is home to the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, expects to lose about $1.7 million per month in benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP. It’s a predicament facing leaders across the country preparing for an unprecedented pause in the nation’s largest food assistance program as the shutdown drags on.

While attorneys general and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Tuesday to try to force it to pay SNAP benefits next month, the administration says it will not release funds until the congressional budget impasse is resolved.

That leaves food banks, food pantries and local governments scrambling to prepare for an onslaught of demand. States are declaring emergencies, deploying National Guard members and sending millions of taxpayer dollars to local food banks. Nonprofits are bracing for long lines, bare shelves and even panic or civic unrest as some 42 million Americans are expected to lose access to the safety net program in a matter of days.

“The enormity of this issue is almost hard to comprehend,” said Wright, who noted that his county is just one of the more than 3,000 across the country.

The local food bank estimated it could serve SNAP families for one month by spending about $400,000 on bulk food purchases. Rather than front that whole amount, the county board challenged community members to help raise another $200,000.

Wright said the county is unable to keep funding food assistance for long.

“We can’t continue to do this without raising taxes, because it isn’t in our budget,” he said. “ … Who could plan for this? Who would expect that this would come from the federal government?”

Minnesota is among 10 states where counties administer the food stamp program rather than state governments. Across the country, state and county governments have been redirecting local resources to try to fill the shutdown gap.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has set aside $80 million in state funds and deployed members of the National Guard to help food banks.

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency, saying the commonwealth would use its own funds to temporarily help SNAP recipients.

In Louisiana, state leaders are preparing to use $150 million monthly to help continue SNAP aid, while Nevada plans to funnel $38.8 million toward local food banks.

Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced the state would divert $4 million to food shelves across the state.

“This is meant to be a bridge,” Walz said during a Monday news conference. “It will not make up and backfill everything.”

Food banks across the country are already facing increased demand.

Virginia Witherspoon, executive director of Channel One Regional Food Bank in Rochester, Minnesota, said the phone was “ringing off the hook” last week. The nonprofit distributes food to partners across 14 counties and operates its own food shelf in Rochester. That pantry saw an average of about 450 families per day last month, but by last week was already averaging 550 per day, Witherspoon said.

“I don’t blame anyone who is rushing to their local food shelf and stocking up because they’re afraid they won’t be able to feed their families,” she told Stateline. “What I would say is that food shelves in Minnesota — we’re here, we’re open, we want to serve you. We’re doing our absolute best.”

Channel One and other operators, though, are concerned about the potential for panic by families scrambling for food.

Witherspoon told the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners her organization has considered asking for a police presence, but wants to be careful about what kind of message it sends to the public. She said even increasing food distribution from once to twice a week could cause people to rush in.

She said it reminds her of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she went on local television to tell people not to worry, though she was privately concerned about running out of food.

“It’s tough. On the one hand, I’m in public sounding the alarm to you, to our donors, to our government,” she told commissioners. “But on the other hand, we don’t want to make the public panic and all come shop at once. It’s really not a good situation, and we’ve never been here before.”

Debate over federal funds

The predicament facing nonprofits and local governments is unprecedented: Food stamps have not been disrupted during other government shutdowns. And even the Trump administration previously offered assurance that it would tap into a multiyear contingency fund to continue paying SNAP benefits.

The administration reversed that position on Friday, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would not release funds in November and warned states they would not be reimbursed for spending their own revenues on the food program.

SNAP has about $6 billion in its contingency fund — short of the roughly $9 billion needed to cover a full month of the program.

It’s unclear what the administration’s position means for states that have already begun setting aside their own dollars.

Following Virginia’s emergency declaration, the newly created Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance program is expected to send money to SNAP beneficiaries starting on Nov. 3.

The governor estimates that about $37.5 million will be allocated per week to Virginia’s roughly 850,000 SNAP recipients, the Virginia Mercury reported.

Neither the governor’s office nor the Virginia Department of Social Services responded to Stateline requests for comment.

North Dakota officials said they had enough cash on hand to cover November SNAP benefits, but are unable to load the funds onto people’s electronic payment cards, the North Dakota Monitor reported.

State and federal lawmakers, advocates and attorneys general across the country have pushed the administration to release November SNAP funds.

Last week, the chief executive officer of the National Conference of State Legislatures asked the USDA to issue clear guidance on states’ ability to spend and be reimbursed for ongoing administrative costs.

North Carolina Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson, one of the officials who sued the Trump administration Tuesday, said 1.4 million people — including nearly 600,000 children — would lose SNAP aid in his state.

“They have emergency money to help feed children during this shutdown, and they’re refusing to spend it.”

Contingency plans

In New Hampshire, Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced a state “contingency plan” to help SNAP recipients. Pending approval from other state leaders, the plan would divert $2 million to the New Hampshire Food Bank to open up to 20 locations for SNAP recipients twice a week over the next five weeks.

Officials in Ayotte’s office and the state health department did not respond to Stateline requests for comment.

Elsy Cipriani, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank, said the organization is still working out details with the state. She said the group would likely ask to see people’s electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards — the debit cards people use to access SNAP benefits at grocery stores — to ensure the state-purchased food goes to SNAP recipients.

“While we don’t intend to replace SNAP benefits — because we can’t; there is no way that we can replace that — we are hoping to provide some relief,” she told Stateline.

In Minnesota, county leaders are working overtime in some areas to respond to questions from SNAP recipients and help find other food assistance.

That additional workload comes without any state or federal reimbursement, said Tina Schenk, the health and human services director in rural Meeker County.

“That’s just to respond to our community, because that’s our job,” she said. “But that’s very different work than we normally do.”

The reserve funds of Meeker County, home to about 23,000 people, aren’t large enough to cover even one month’s worth of SNAP benefits, Schenk said. So county staff are instead working with local nonprofits and reaching out to families who will be hardest hit by an interruption in benefits to connect them with other state grant programs.

The sole local food shelf is increasing its orders with a central food bank, Schenk said — but so is nearly every other operation in the state.

“Are they going to have enough to fulfill these orders? That’s a question that I don’t know the answer to.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Children from the KU Kids Deanwood Child Care Center complete a mural celebrating the launch of a local child tax credit in 2021 in Washington, D.C. New research suggests cities could significantly reduce childhood poverty by creating their own child tax credit programs. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Community Change)

Child tax credits are becoming more popular across the country, with more than a dozen states offering them as financial relief toward the cost of raising kids.

But new research suggests cities could significantly reduce child poverty by offering child tax credit programs of their own.

An analysis by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University and the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that municipal programs could move the needle with relatively small amounts of money: offering $1,000 or less per year to low- and middle-income families could cut child poverty rates by 25% in several cities.  

Researchers say this sort of new assistance would not only boost household finances, but also likely create more demand for local businesses, stabilize housing markets and increase local tax revenue.

The study focused on 14 cities: Baltimore; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Jacksonville, Florida; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New York; Oakland, California; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Seattle; and the District of Columbia. The analysis found that most of those cities could make significant gains by spending less than 15% of municipal revenues on new child credit programs. 

In Minneapolis, for example, researchers said a new program that cost less than $30 million per year would cut the city’s poverty levels by half when accounting for existing state and federal credits. (The mayor there has recommended spending about $2.03 billion in the 2026 fiscal year budget.) 

The prospect of creating new tax credit programs would likely pose financial and logistical challenges. Cities already are juggling many other priorities including public safety and housing affordability, while at the same time facing what some experts have characterized as a “fiscal crisis” from growing climate change costs, federal funding cuts and declining downtown activity.

Some cities, including Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, have city income taxes that could incorporate a child tax credit. But, the research noted, cities without that tax managed to distribute pandemic recovery funds through basic income programs. That experience shows cities could create their own standalone applications, leverage IRS data-sharing agreements or  work with third-party administrators.

“So you could use a similar sort of outreach approach, which wouldn’t necessarily be as comprehensive or systematic as a city that already has its own income tax system in place, but it’s a potential option,” said Ryan Vinh, an author of the study and a research analyst at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy. 

State interest in creating or expanding child tax credits boomed after the pandemic-era expansion of the federal child tax credit delivered cash directly to millions. That move quickly lifted millions of children out of poverty, researchers found. But the expanded tax credit expired in 2021 — leading to a doubling in the nation’s childhood poverty rate in 2022.

Advocates favor refundable tax credits that provide money directly to families. While parents must still file tax returns to receive the benefit, refundable credits give parents funds even if they earn too little to owe income tax, providing financial relief for groceries, medical care or rent. 

This year, several conservative-led states explored new child tax credit programs, though proposals offering the biggest benefits to families fizzled in Indiana and Ohio. So far, no city has implemented its own credit. 

While many cities and states are facing tight budget constraints, Vinh said a reduction in federal support will likely put more pressure on local governments to tackle challenges like poverty. The federal government has slashed funding for safety net programs including Medicaid and the nation’s largest food assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

“A lot of these things will either lead to the erosion of benefits over time, a loss of benefits, or kind of a decline in what families are able to receive,” Vinh said. “We don’t fully know the number yet, but we do know that child poverty will most likely increase as these program restrictions increase.” 

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org

South Central Federation of Labor President Kevin Gundlach addresses a rally in support of Group Health workers seeking union representation on Monday, Oct. 13. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

On Oct. 13, Group Health Cooperative held what appeared to be its largest membership meeting in at least a decade. Scores of GHC patients filed into the Alliant Energy Center’s Exhibition Hall, packing the meeting room until there were no seats left. They voted unanimously to direct their cooperative to change course and voluntarily recognize GHC workers’ chosen union. 

This win was a long time coming for GHC workers like me. We are unionizing for many reasons. Personally, I started working as a family medicine physician at GHC 22 years ago, and was excited about working for a primary care-based, member-owned cooperative that valued clinical staff voices. But GHC has changed. Through my union involvement I’ve come to see that many of my coworkers also face struggles with high turnover and understaffing, unfair pay and discipline and racial inequities. These struggles collectively hurt our ability to provide excellent patient care.

By supporting each other and working together through a union, we can better advocate for ourselves and improve our ability to provide the best patient care. Our input as employees is not only useful, but critical, to making GHC the best it can be.

But since we announced our intention to unionize in December, GHC has waged a relentless union-busting campaign. Following the legal counsel of antiunion law firm Husch Blackwell, administrators have engaged in surveillance and other intimidation tactics, and even used union activity as a factor in discipline. Their actions are under investigation by the National Labor Relations Board. GHC has also consistently parroted legal arguments straight from the Trump administration’s attacks on workers’ rights. 

GHC’s most fundamental attack, however, has been on our ability to choose for ourselves what our union looks like. We are creating a union of providers and nursing staff in primary and urgent care and closely related units – basically, the generalists you first see when you get care – since we all share issues in common and would benefit from bargaining together.

But GHC administrators are seeking to forcibly add on workers in specialty care units like optometry and radiology who haven’t even sought collective bargaining. Why? They hope to dilute our Yes votes and make it impossible for us to win a union election. They like to claim that the National Labor Relations Board sides with them, and that these specialty care workers must join with us – but don’t believe it. While the NLRB has said that the employer’s version of our union was feasible, they also said they weren’t offering an opinion on the appropriateness of a primary and urgent care union. GHC is still free to recognize the union we chose. 

GHC has also been confused, or is misleading, about what it is we’re asking for. Speaking with Wisconsin Examiner’s Erik Gunn, GHC representative Marty Anderson said “voluntary recognition” wasn’t likely, because they’d want “an NLRB sanctioned and overseen vote.” But voluntary recognition is an NLRB-sanctioned process: all GHC needs to do is tell the NLRB that they recognize our chosen union, either with or without an NLRB-sanctioned card check or secret-ballot demonstration of majority support. That’s voluntary recognition. It would save everyone further time and expense, not to mention cultivate a positive relationship between both parties going forward. We look forward to a collaborative relationship with GHC as we move forward as a union. 

Attending the meeting on Oct. 13 and seeing the support from our patients and community was truly heartwarming. It reinforced my decision to become active in our union movement – both for ourselves and for the care that we provide to our dedicated patients. Excellent patient care is at the heart of our union movement.

And GHC patients have made it clear, with a unanimous vote, that they stand shoulder to shoulder with their caregivers. As a cooperative where members stand “at the top of the leadership chart,” GHC’s Board should respect membership’s vote by voluntarily recognizing our union, effective immediately. To do anything else is unthinkable in any cooperative that claims to be democratically run.

To show your support, please send an email to the GHC Board telling them to respect the will of the membership and recognize our union: https://act.seiu.org/a/ghc-board-1.

Nisha Rajagopalan, MD is a family medicine physician at GHC’s Hatchery Hill Clinic.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's secretary designee, Amy Pechacek, right, with Gov. Tony Evers at a 2023 DWD event held at the Plumbers Local 75 training center in Madison. Pechacek held a news conference online Thursday where she spoke about the impact of the federal government shutdown on DWD and the state. (Photo courtesy of DWD)

As the federal shutdown drags on, Wisconsin is likely to feel the impact — in employment, in agriculture and in the safety net for workers, according to the state’s labor secretary.

“Right now, we have the ability to continue to operate and our goal is to not disrupt our current workforce programs or state workforce,” said Amy Pechacek, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, during an online news conference Thursday.

Governments in some other states have started to reduce their workforces, Pechacek said. Wisconsin is holding off on filling vacancies and taking other steps “to try and preserve all of the funding we can so that we don’t have programmatic or employment disruptions,” Pechacek said.

Nevertheless, 75% of the DWD’s $500 million annual budget — three out of every four dollars — comes from the federal government, she said.

The remaining 25% that comes from the state isn’t “just one big pot,” Pechacek added, but funds specific programs. For example, the state workers compensation program, which covers treatment costs and lost income for people injured on the job, is entirely state funded. That includes the cost of administering the program.

But job support services — local job centers, career counseling, unemployment insurance administration, state apprenticeship programs, and the division of vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities — are “all tied to federally funded programs,” Pechacek said.

“We need the federal government to come together, come up with a funding mechanism and continue to support their obligations to all the states and to all the people to ensure that we can move forward with the economic health and prosperity that we have enjoyed without this chaotic massive interruption,” she said. “The longer this goes, the continued adverse and exponentially worse impacts to our workforce will compound.”

Pechacek’s virtual news conference Thursday took the place of DWD’s monthly report on Wisconsin employment data. The usual reports draw on the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys that poll employers on the number of jobs they have and poll households to calculate the unemployment rate.

The data BLS compiles and analyzes is one of the casualties of the shutdown, Pechacek said, hampering employers, job seekers, nonprofits, economic development agencies and governments.

All of them rely on BLS data “to guide fiscal decision making, determine whether to open or expand their businesses, determine if they’re going to hire or lay off, figure out how to allocate resources, and understand really how best to train their current workforce,” Pechacek said. Without that information, “employers are putting off important decisions, essentially fumbling around in the dark until Congress can get around to turning back the lights on.”

Unemployment claims can serve as one indicator, and Scott Hodek, section chief in the DWD Office of Economic Advisors, said the department is looking at other data sources to fill in some of the missing information. Those sources include various private sector organizations as well as the regional federal reserve banks.

“But really it’s pretty difficult to get an accurate picture of what’s happening,” Hodek said. “It will get more difficult as time goes on.”

Another federal report on inflation is expected to be released soon, even with the shutdown, because the findings are used to calculate annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, Hodek said.

That report will also figure into the deliberations of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee when it meets at the end of October to decide whether to cut interest rates. The Fed’s dual mission includes keeping inflation as close to 2% as possible while encouraging maximum employment.

“That becomes very difficult to do if you don’t have any of that data to make those decisions,” Hodek said.

Looking at the coming months, Pechacek said, the process of applying for H-2A agriculture visas is on hold. The visas enable about 3,000 migrant workers to come in annually to work in specific seasonal agricultural operations, including planting, harvesting and food processing, she said.

DWD is required to verify that there is a worker shortage in the occupations to be covered, and the U.S. Department of Labor must certify the state’s verification report before the federal government issues the visas, she said, but the federal certification of the state’s report is on hold because of the shutdown.

December and January are the months when the most requests come in for H-2A visas, Pechacek said, so if the shutdown continues for too long, the agricultural employers depending on those workers would be unable to get the needed certification.

Pechacek said the department is also watching to see how many federal employees file for unemployment insurance.

There are about 18,000 federal employees in Wisconsin, and DWD has estimated that 8,000 might be affected by the shutdown. By comparison, she said, one of the largest layoffs in Wisconsin took place in 2018 when a larger retailer shut down, laying off 2,200 employees.

So far, however, there have been just 30 initial claims from federal workers, Pechacek said.

If federal workers who file unemployment claims get back pay when they return to work, however, they’ll have to repay the unemployment insurance fund.

Pechacek noted that President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently fire federal workers in the shutdown as well as to withhold back pay for furloughed federal workers who return to work. Between uncertainty about those threats and court rulings that have blocked some mass federal layoffs, however, “it is really an ongoing situation,” she added.

Pechacek several times criticized Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress for the shutdown.

“The president and congressional Republicans have shut down our nation’s government trying to force massive health care cuts and cost increases to the nation’s working and middle class families and we are in a stalemate,” she said.

“We really need our federal government to return to work so they can restore some predictability and reliability to our economy and continue to be the partner that we need to ensure the economic health and prosperity of Wisconsin workers.”

South Central Federation of Labor President Kevin Gundlach addresses a rally in support of Group Health workers seeking union representation on Monday, Oct. 13. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

A stalemate between Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin and employees who have been seeking union representation for the last 10 months shows little sign of breaking soon.

At a mass meeting Monday at the Alliant Center in Madison, members of Group Health, sometimes called GHC for short, passed a motion directing the co-op to voluntarily recognize the union as the employees originally petitioned in December — covering three departments and a series of health care professionals.

The motion set a deadline of Friday, Oct. 17. Marty Anderson, Group Health’s chief strategy and business development officer, said Thursday that action on all the motions would likely be deferred, probably until November.

“We communicated clearly ahead of the meeting that all motions are advisory in nature,” Anderson said. “Any deadlines that would be in any of the motions would also be advisory in nature.”

Monday’s mass meeting was the first of its kind for Group Health members to ask questions of the co-op administration and express their opinions about the union drive. About 172 people attended, according to a Group Health spokesperson. Group Health has more than 50,000 Class A and Founding members — the two groups that were considered eligible to attend, according to the co-op.

In the spring, a volunteer committee met with the board to argue in favor of recognizing the union. 

People attending the Monday meeting described the crowd as strongly supportive of the union, and the voice votes in favor of recognizing the union and other motions favored by union supporters were unanimous, according to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin. 

Growing dissatisfaction 

At a rally outside the Alliant Center before the meeting, South Central Labor Federation President Kevin Gundlach, a Group Health member, charged that the co-op “has lost its way” in its response to the union organizing drive.

“We want GHC to listen to the workers,” Gundlach said. “And these workers know, and it says on my shirt here” — he pointed to his chest — “it’s better in a union.”

Group Health has rejected charges that it’s trying to thwart the union drive, contending that it simply wants health care employees in all departments to take part in the union representation vote — not just those from departments and job classifications that were included in the original union petition.

Union supporters say that claim is disingenuous and a ploy to “dilute the vote,” in the words of several workers interviewed — racking up votes against the union from employees in departments that don’t have the same concerns.

Anderson denied the charge. “We don’t know” what the votes will be, he said.

According to workers involved in the union drive, the Group Health union campaign grew out of increasing dissatisfaction in specific co-op departments with working conditions and what they contend was a lack of input into the co-op’s practices.

“I feel like we can improve the patient care that we provide through unionization and through increased involvement in decision-making,” Dr. Nisha Rajagopalan, a family physician who has worked at Group Health for 22 years, said Thursday.

Pay practices, employee turnover and a voice at the table are all reasons employees have cited for supporting the union.

“GHC leadership stopped collaborating with us and despite our many patient care concerns and our many meeting requests,” said Julie Vander Werff, a physician assistant, the lead speaker at the Monday rally.

Who should be in the union?

Complicating the organizing campaign is the conflict over exactly who among Group Health’s workers should be included in the union.

Union supporters involved in the organizing drive originally proposed that the union represent a bargaining unit of about 220 people. They were doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nursing staff in three departments: primary care, urgent care and dermatology. Their petition also included physical therapists, occupational therapists and health educators.

The petition was filed Dec. 12, 2024. Group Health filed a brief asserting that the unit the employees sought “was an inappropriate unit,” said Anderson, the Group Health executive.

To resolve the differences, a National Labor Relations Board staffer held a meeting on Dec. 30 in Madison, where he moved between separate rooms, one housing Group Health executives and the co-op’s lawyer, the other housing SEIU Wisconsin staff and Group Health employees leading the union drive.

The NLRB staffer suggested to the union group that they narrow their petition to a single clinic, Group Health employees wrote in a letter to the Group Health board of directors Feb. 10, 2025. Hoping to get an agreement, they took the suggestion.

Group Health opposed the single-clinic unit, however. In subsequent hearings the co-op management’s lawyer argued the vote should include all direct care employees, including in departments that weren’t part of the union’s original petition.

After reviewing briefs from both sides, the NLRB regional director in Minneapolis who heard the case ruled that the single clinic unit that the union had proposed would not be an appropriate bargaining unit. The decision issued by Regional Director Jennifer Hadsall stated that the unit proposed by the employer, Group Health, was appropriate and set an election among all the co-op’s health care employees.

SEIU Wisconsin, however, moved to block the election. A raft of pending unfair labor practice charges against the employer could scare employees from voting for the union, SEIU charged. Hadsall agreed to block the vote until the charges are resolved.  

As a result, the vote is on hold. The NLRB investigation of the charges is on hold as well, because of the federal government shutdown.

Shared concerns, conflicting concerns

In her order, Hadsall also included a footnote that states she did not address the unit that the employees had originally asked for because it had not been formally litigated.

“We had always argued that we are a clinically integrated organization,” Anderson said. “Our staff floats between various parts of the organization and different clinics. And the bargaining unit was established [consisting of] all of our clinical sites and all of our direct care employees.”

But pro-union employees say there are concrete differences between employees who are in the groups that they had originally included in the union petition and the rest of the Group Health staff — including direct care providers.

“Initially our bargaining unit included employees who were in primary care and urgent care,” said Rajagopalan, the family doctor. “We practice similarly and we share the same concerns. There are other departments within GHC that don’t share the same concerns [and] practice very differently than we do. That’s why our initial bargaining unit is an appropriate unit.”

Pat Raes, president of SEIU Wisconsin and a nurse at UnityPoint-Meriter hospital in Madison, said that throughout her health care career she’s seen many workplaces where only some groups of workers are unionized.

“At the bedside or at the side of the patient, it doesn’t make a difference because the priority is patient care,” Raes said. “It’s not whether you’re unionized or not.”

Addressing the rally before Monday night’s meeting, Steve Rankin said it was “entirely normal” for workers in a single workplace to be represented by different unions or no union depending on their department or position.

“There is no reason that everyone at Group Health has to be in the same union,” said Rankin, who joined Group Health when it was founded in 1976 and has been active in marshalling Group Health patients to support the union effort. “We call on GHC to recognize the bargaining unit chosen by the workers themselves and to commit to bargaining in good faith toward the contract.”

While the board has yet to consider the motion that was passed at Monday night’s meeting, Anderson said Thursday that voluntary recognition was unlikely. 

“We want an NLRB sanctioned and overseen vote,” he said. “That’s always going to be our criteria.”

Gov. Tony Evers speaks to reporters in March 2025. Evers has written the Department of Energy urging officials not to cancel $1.5 billion in funds for Wisconsin projects. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

With more than $1.5 billion in federal energy investments in Wisconsin at risk, Gov. Tony Evers is urging the Trump administration not to roll back previously awarded funds in the face of rising energy costs.

Evers’ response, in a letter to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, followed multiple news reports in the last week about energy projects on target lists for cancellation.

The governor’s office has compiled a list of 22 projects for which federal Energy Department funding totaling $1.56 billion has been marked for cancellation.

“Federal support plays a critical role in advancing the Wisconsin Idea and American innovation, lowering energy bills for families across America, supporting clean energy development to improve energy independence and resilience, creating good-paying jobs in innovative industries and sectors, and maintaining our nation’s leadership in science and technology,” Evers wrote Tuesday in his letter to Wright.  

“Given these clear benefits and the importance of these investments to Wisconsin’s and our nation’s economy, I was deeply concerned to see reporting last week containing a list of over 600 DOE funding awards that are potentially going to be targeted for termination with no clear reasoning or justification.”

Evers’ letter mentions several Wisconsin projects and companies on the target list, including several that the Wisconsin Examiner reported on this week.

The letter also notes forecasts of rising costs for electric power that the energy policy think tank Energy Innovation attributes to the tax and spending cut megabill that President Donald Trump signed July 4.

“Terminating these funding awards at a time of record-high energy demand and rising costs would be counterintuitive, reckless and ill-advised,” Evers concludes in his letter to Wright. “I urge you to reaffirm DOE’s commitment to honoring these funding awards and to continue supporting these investments that drive Wisconsin’s and the nation’s energy landscape forward.”

The roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine is topped with a green roof planted with sedum and covered with solar panels. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

The news that $130 million in already-committed clean-energy funding for Wisconsin is on the chopping block is not abstract politics. It pulls real tools out of Wisconsin homes, schools, farms, and shop floors — right as our state is building momentum. The result is simple: higher bills, fewer choices, and lost jobs.

In a purple state like ours, climate action has succeeded because it’s kitchen-table common sense. It lowers costs, creates good local jobs, and protects the air and water families depend on. Our playbook is pragmatic — align smart policy with market innovation, center justice, and let businesses, workers, tribes and frontline communities lead together. Clawing back funds mid-stream breaks that compact and injects uncertainty just when we need reliability and speed.

What’s at stake here and now

Across Wisconsin, 82 clean-energy projects are moving forward: EV-charging corridors that support tourism and commerce from Superior to Kenosha; solar on schools and farms that cuts operating costs and keeps dollars local; grid upgrades that reduce outages for households and manufacturers. Clean energy already supports more than 71,000 Wisconsin jobs, with manufacturers, contractors and building trades poised to add tens of thousands more if the rules stay steady.

This is not coastal hype — it’s Menomonee Valley and the Fox Valley. Companies like Ingeteam in Milwaukee build components that power wind and EV projects nationwide. Give our manufacturers clear, predictable rules and Wisconsin will keep making core parts of the transition -— batteries, solar panels, wind components, EV chargers, and smart-grid equipment -— right here at home.

Schools and local governments are also using direct-pay to put solar on rooftops, electrify buses, and cut fuel and maintenance. Green Homeowners United and similar groups are helping thousands of households -— including many lower-income homeowners of color — tap rebates that reduce bills and carbon at the same time. These are the practical tools that stretch tight budgets and improve health outcomes in neighborhoods that have carried the burden the longest.

The real cost of policy whiplash

Rolling back incentives is a hidden tax on working families — up to $400 more a year on energy without the savings tools people are using now. With AI and data centers accelerating demand, the cheapest, fastest reliability gains come from efficiency, storage, and renewables. Cut those tools and we invite more price volatility and more outage risk — exactly what Wisconsin manufacturers, hospitals and farms can’t afford.

The “Big, Broken Bill” passed in Washington goes further, weakening EPA pollution standards and letting big polluters sidestep responsibility. That doesn’t eliminate costs; it shifts them to families in the form of asthma, missed school days and medical bills. It’s not fiscal conservatism to socialize pollution costs while privatizing short-term profits.

And for farmers, whose energy and conservation projects were finally penciling out with IRA tools, canceling support mid-contract leaves family farms holding the bag after planning in good faith. That’s not how you build durable rural economies.

Momentum that continues even if funds are cut

Here’s the other half of the story: Wisconsin’s transition won’t stop because some programs are attacked. Market forces, including  the declining cost of renewables and storage, efficiency that pays for itself and corporate and municipal sustainability commitments, continue to drive projects. Public-private partnerships, rural co-ops, tribal governments, school districts and village halls are working together to reduce risk, share data, and scale what works. That coalition will keep moving.

But let’s be clear: Clawbacks and moving goalposts slow us down and raise costs. They strand planning, freeze hiring and deter investment — especially in manufacturing corridors that depend on multi-year production schedules. If Congress wants to improve programs, fine. Just don’t pull the rug out mid-project.

Purple-state practicality: Results over rhetoric

Wisconsin’s approach is neither red nor blue; it’s results-based:

• Lower bills and stronger reliability through weatherization, heat pumps, rooftop and community solar and batteries that keep homes and Main Street businesses running during heat waves and deep freezes.
• Good local jobs in design, construction, electrical, HVAC, machining and advanced manufacturing.
• Cleaner air from electrified school buses and efficient buildings, health benefits that show up in fewer sick days and lower costs.
• Fairness by ensuring benefits land first where burdens have been heaviest.

We’ve also learned to say no when it matters and yes to better options. When a $2 billion methane gas plant was proposed, business and civic leaders asked basic questions: Is this the least-cost, least-risk path for ratepayers? Would it lock us into volatile fuel prices just as renewables, storage, demand response and efficiency are scaling? Pushing for a cleaner, more affordable portfolio wasn’t ideology. It was risk management.

A constructive path forward

• Keep the tools that help Wisconsin build here, hire here, and save here. Don’t rip away commitments families, schools, farms and manufacturers are already using.
• Provide certainty so manufacturers can invest in people and equipment. Certainty is economic development.
• Target affordability and reliability: Expand programs that lower bills, reduce outages, and prioritize investments in communities that have waited the longest for cleaner air and safer housing.
• Let locals lead: Support direct-pay and streamlined approvals for schools, municipalities, tribes and rural co-ops to deploy projects faster and cheaper.

Wisconsin has the talent, the supply chains — more than 350 in-state clean-energy companies — and the tradition of stewardship to lead the clean-energy economy. If we stay focused on trust, collaboration and measurable results, Wisconsin’s green momentum will outpace politics.

Don’t make Wisconsinites pay more to get less. Let’s build it here, power it here and prosper here.

John Imes is co-founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative and village president of Shorewood Hills. He will speak Oct. 22 on the American Sustainable Business Network national panel “Purple State, Green Momentum” — how Wisconsin’s pragmatic climate playbook lowers bills, creates good local jobs, and protects our air and water.

Electric power lines. Clean energy projects, including several that involve improving the efficiency of electric power grids, are at risk of losing federal funding that was promised during the Biden administration. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The projects are on a list that covers three groups of cuts proposed in May, on Oct. 2 and this past week. The online news outlet Semafor reported the third set of proposed cuts, which alone totals $12 billion, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, and published a link to a list that covers all three groups.

“However, it’s not clear whether, or when, the full list of cancellations will be enacted, or if President Donald Trump is instead looking to use them as leverage in negotiations over the [federal government] shutdown,” Semafor reported.

The Wisconsin grants on the list are a mix of projects that help boost energy efficiency, including supporting the expansion of energy storage battery systems. One potential casualty is more than $1 million to prepare young people to enter apprenticeships in the skilled trades.

Clean energy holds the promise of addressing air pollution and climate change as well as revitalizing the state’s industrial base, said John Imes, director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative (WEI), a nonprofit that advocates policies benefiting the environment and the economy.

“These are all win-win that all of us want regardless of our political affiliation,” Imes told the Wisconsin Examiner. “This is all bottom-line stuff.”

Rolling back projects that enhance cleaner and more efficient use of energy will likely increase the cost of energy, Imes said.

“It means higher electric bills, higher energy bills, fewer choices and lost jobs,” he said. “We’re going to lose momentum.”

Battery power and rural grid upgrade

The two largest Wisconsin projects on the Department of Energy list of targets involve one company, Alliant Energy. They account for more than half of the Wisconsin funds targeted for cancellation.

The projects are being undertaken by Alliant’s Wisconsin Power & Light unit. They include a $50 million grant for upgrading the rural electrical grid and $30 million for a power storage system using a technology based on carbon dioxide this is to be built near Portage, Wisconsin.

“We understand the Administration and Department of Energy (DOE) are working through their budgets and have notified some businesses of changes to grant announcements,” said Cindy Tomlinson, Alliant senior manager for communications, in an email message last week.

“At this time, we have not been made aware of any changes to the announced DOE grants for our Alliant Energy projects,” Tomlinson said. “We are optimistic the value and viability of these projects is clear and that they will remain fully funded. These projects deliver economic and customer benefits.”

The electrical grid upgrade project received a conditional commitment from the energy department in December, but a final award agreement hasn’t been executed, Tomlinson said, and no federal funds have been received or spent.

The federal grants accounted for about one-third of the total planned investment for each project. If the grid upgrade grant is canceled, the project is still expected to go forward, Tomlinson said, “however at a slower, more gradual pace than the fast, concentrated fashion outlined in our grant application.”

Other potentially affected grants include $28.7 million for Johnson Controls, based in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale, to support the company in its expansion of heat pump manufacturing.

The grant’s total value was $33 million at the time it was awarded to the company. According to USAspending.gov, a federal site that tracks the status of federal outlays, the business has received $4.4 million of the total.

Johnson Controls announced the grant in November 2023, part of an investment to scale up heat pump manufacturing at plants in Texas, Kansas and Pennsylvania and increase production by 200%, the company said at the time.

The company did not respond to inquiries Thursday and Friday by email and by telephone about the status of the grant or its planned heat pump manufacturing expansion.

Energy efficiency and innovation

Another Wisconsin recipient with grants on the list that are slated for elimination is Slipstream, a Madison-based nonprofit that provides consulting services on energy efficiency and innovation.

“We’re trying to make our energy systems more efficient and better so everybody’s paying less for energy,” said Scott Hackel, Slipstream’s vice president for research.

Hackel said Slipstream is working with other organizations on the list of targeted projects, and some of those organizations have been notified of grant terminations.

Slipstream also has two direct grants on the list, but has not received any notification that those grants are being terminated, Hackel said.

Slipstream had been awarded $5.2 million for work on equipping buildings with technology that enables them to automatically manage their power demand — reducing the building’s electrical load when demand on the grid is high and amping up the load when broader demand eases.

The organization is in the middle of a project implementing demand management technology in a group of buildings. The information gained from that test could be used to develop incentive programs for building owners to adopt that kind of technology, Hackel said.

If that gets cut off before it’s finished, other buildings in Wisconsin “would not have this example to look to,” he said.

A second grant awarded to the organization, $4 million, is to be used to train inspectors, building designers and others in how to effectively comply with and make the best use of building codes, particularly energy codes.

“Everything we’re doing is trying to make buildings and homes more affordable to live in with lower utility bills,” Hackel said. “If we’re not able to do that, that’s also a cost to people in Wisconsin.”

Two Universities of Wisconsin grants, one for $10 million and the other for $2.9 million, are on the list. Both involve projects to test technology innovations, according to the federal grant information documents.  

‘Electric city’ upgrades and a job-training program

A grant for the city of Kaukauna, Wisconsin, to install battery storage and make related electrical grid upgrades is also on the list. The original grant totaled $3 million, and so far $59,362 has been paid out, according to USAspending.gov, leaving $2.95 million that could be canceled.

The storage system is to bolster Kaukauna’s hydroelectric power generation operation, which dates to 1913 and led to the community’s adoption of “Electric City” as its nickname.

“Collateral damage from the Trump administration’s remarkably poor governance record continues to collect, this time in Kaukauna,” said Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson. “I can’t think of something more insulting than making the electric grid of a place known as ‘Electric City’ less safe or efficient.”

Also on the list is the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, a Milwaukee nonprofit that provides training and certification to prepare people to enter apprenticeships in the skilled trades. WRTP was awarded a $1.5 million grant for training in skills related to transportation electrification. So far $112,470 has been paid out. 

Dan Bukiewicz, head of the Milwaukee Building Trades Council and co-chair of the WRTP board of directors, said that the board hasn’t been notified that its grant might be at risk of being taken away by the Trump administration.

“I won’t say we’re surprised,” however, Bukiewicz said. “They’re just trying to roll back a lot of the green energy and infrastructure [investments]. … It’s trying to make time stand still, and it just won’t if the United States is going to compete globally.”

WRTP students typically come from underserved communities and are the most in need, Bukiewicz said. The program’s training emphasizes job safety, introduces students to the construction industry, equips them with basic skills that an apprenticeship will build on, and acquaints them with how the industry and the technology are changing and where they might find a place that suits them.

If the federal grant is pulled, “these dollars are irreplaceable,” Bukiewicz said. “It’s not just taking money away and eliminating classes. It’s eliminating opportunities and a chance for generational change for people who really need it.”

Antitrust experts say the new administration’s hands-off approach to tech regulation could gain the president the loyalty of tech executives in the short term, but could hurt the competitiveness of the American tech sector in the long run. (Photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)

Leaders in the tech industry have enjoyed more freedom to make business moves and an overall deregulatory attitude under the Trump administration, but antitrust experts say the administration’s hands-off approach could end up hurting American companies’ ability to innovate and compete on a global scale.

Antitrust laws protect fair competition, ensuring that no one company controls an entire market, price gouges for their products or controls the cost of labor. In the short term, a lax approach to these laws could mean the American people may see more big tech companies merge or acquire smaller competitors. 

In the long-term, it means the already small group of people running the country’s most powerful tech firms would gain even more control of the market, Illinois-based legislative attorney Maaria Mozaffar said.

“Traditionally, innovation in tech is inspired by how we can solve problems. And if there’s fewer people that are not invested in solving problems, but more invested in making profit, the innovation’s intent is going to be different,” Mozaffar said. “We’re going to get a repetition of the same models and the same products that are not actually solving problems, but just a faster way to make money.”

Trump’s approach to the FTC

Though Democrats and Republicans may have had different “philosophies” for antitrust rules in the past, it’s unusual to see wide swings in attitudes from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said New Jersey-based antitrust attorney Nadine Jones. 

The independent regulatory agency, which protects consumer interests and anti-competitive business practices like price-fixing, illegal mergers and monopolization, has historically run with little influence from the president, Jones said, though it technically is housed under the executive branch.  

But recent moves by the Trump administration suggest he wants a much more hands-on approach, Jones said. Before taking office, Trump chose Andrew Ferguson as the FTC chairman, replacing Lina Khan, who fought Big Tech overreach during her tenure. Together with antitrust specialist Mark Meador, the pair have focused on issues of “censorship” by big tech, arguing that tech platforms have unfairly restricted conservative views.

Earlier this year, Trump fired two Democratic commissioners from the FTC, a decision that was recently supported by the Supreme Court, and set a precedent that gives more executive branch control over the independent agency.

And in August, Trump revoked a Biden-era executive order that called for enforcement of antitrust laws to promote more competition within industries and keep companies from monopolizing. 

All of it points to a central theme of deregulation for the tech industry, with a goal of growing the industry with as little government involvement as possible. Trump’s alignments with big tech leaders during the 2024 election were probably the first clue that he’d handle the FTC differently, Jones said. 

“I think if I were to try to read the tea leaves in past administrations, currying favor with the president was of less importance,” Jones said. “The DOJ, antitrust division, the assistant attorney general of the division was who you wanted to curry favor with, or the chair of the FTC. Whether or not you’re smiling nicely with the president was, I think, of less significance, because they typically left these technical areas of law to the experts.”

For California-based tech founder and author Mark Weinstein, The FTC holds a critical role in upholding democracy and free market capitalism. Trump’s attempts to fill the commission with Republicans is a threat to both concepts, he said. 

“It’s concerning, even when he appoints people who are inclined to be strong antitrust enforcers, because they’re still appointed by the president,” Weinstein said. “There’s a quid-pro-quo that’s clearly inferred there.”

Weinstein thinks that before his second term, Trump realized the immense power that information giants like Meta and Apple had in controlling content and shaping public opinion. Deregulatory policies could curry favor with the leaders of Big Tech, and help him control information, Weinstein said.

“If Meta bans him from their platform, then they have all the power,” he said. “And he wants to have all the power.” 

With influence over large tech platforms, Mozaffar said, Trump is more capable of spreading his ideas around diversity, equity and inclusion and past “censorship” of conservatives.

“When you see the tech giants behind Donald Trump, people think it’s just about making them richer,” Mozaffar said. “It’s really [Trump’s] ability to have control over how those tech platforms do their business, as far as content control.”

What does this mean for American tech companies? 

So far, the FTC has been continuing antitrust lawsuits from previous administrations against some tech giants, like Google, which is currently awaiting a decision on a trial alleging it monopolized its search engine, after being found liable in a separate advertising-related trial in 2024.

The commission is also awaiting an outcome on a six-week trial in a case it brought against Meta, parent of Facebook, alleging in 2020 — under direction from the first Trump administration — that the company created a monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Trump-appointed FTC commissioner Meador said at NYU’s Law Forum last month he believes most Americans support the scrutiny into big tech companies. 

“I don’t think this moment is a flash in the pan,” Meador said during the event. “I think that it is growing out of deeper sentiments and concerns about economic fairness and economic regulation and policy at a very broad level. And this is just one manifestation of it. I think that’s a generational thing. I think it’s only going to amplify. So, I don’t think it’s going away.”

But the current Trump administration has only brought one antitrust case against a tech merger, when it sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise from buying Juniper Networks for $14 billion earlier this year.

Trump is likely feeling out his options, Mozaffar said — he could fall in line with more traditional Republican action, aiming to enforce antitrust laws to promote competition. But he could also be using a framework FTC Chair Ferguson outlined, which criticises tech platform’s content moderation rules, as a way to rein in platforms that the GOP has long accused of censoring conservative viewpoints.

Mozaffar said she’s watching how the administration handles both horizontal and vertical mergers. Horizontal mergers, when two similar companies merge to create one company, are likely more familiar to the average American. But vertical mergers, which involve partnerships of companies across several layers of a supply chain, have the potential to have truly expansive power. 

One possible example is a recent $100 billion deal between AI giant OpenAI and computing powerhouse Nvidia. Nvidia’s investment into OpenAI includes the ability to build out its data center capacity and computing chip needs, tying the companies’ growth and success together. The deal immediately raised antitrust concerns. 

“How much control do you have over every piece of the process? To the point where there’s no innovation in product and competition leading up to that final product?” Mozaffar said.  “And then how much are you controlling as far as protecting labor rights and best practices, because you can always cut corners to be able to make sure that the final product serves the profit that it’s supposed to serve.” 

Amid conflicting federal antitrust cases, Jones advised corporate lawyers to pay attention to their state’s antitrust laws, as state attorneys general are some of the biggest enforcers of antitrust law in the country. 

She said although letting tech businesses operate unfettered may meet some of Trump’s short-term goals, a lack of enforcement will ultimately make the United States a less competitive, less innovative place. 

“Antitrust philosophy believes the only way to get genuine benefits for consumers, to get people to race to get to the finish line of your dollars — and you choosing them with your dollars — is to compete with each other,” Jones said.  “And then we, the consumers, enjoy the fruits of those competitions.”

A man closes the entrance to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on Oct. 3 in Baltimore because of the federal government shutdown. States are currently covering costs of some federal programs, but it’s unclear whether they will be repaid once the government reopens. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

States are doing what they generally do during a federal government shutdown: continuing to operate programs serving some of the neediest people.

That means schools are still serving federally subsidized meals and states are distributing funding for the federal food stamp program. For now.

If the shutdown drags on and federal dollars run out, states can only keep programs going for so long. States may choose to pay for some services themselves so residents keep their benefits.

But this time, state leaders have new worries about getting reimbursed for federal costs once the federal spending impasse is resolved. That’s traditionally been the practice following a shutdown, but the Trump administration’s record of pulling funding and targeting Democratic-led states has some officials worried about what comes after the shutdown.

Many states already struggled to balance their own budgets this year. And some fear going without federal reimbursement for shutdown costs could force states to make painful cuts to their own budget priorities.

Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, said the administration has not made good on its word to states in recent months — freezing some congressionally approved funding and cutting already awarded grants. So it’s likewise unclear whether the federal government will follow previous practice and reimburse states for covering shutdown costs of crucial federal programs such as food assistance.

“I think everything is a risk with this administration. … We in the states are kind of left holding the bag yet again as the federal government tries to sort out what it wants to be when it grows up,” he told Stateline.

Nevada entered the shutdown with more than $1.2 billion in reserves. Last week, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office said in a statement that state funds would be adequate to cover “a short period of time with minimal disruption to services.”

But the governor’s office said a shutdown of more than 30 days would cause more significant challenges for the state.

Lombardo’s office did not respond to Stateline’s questions. But last week, it released a three-page document on the shutdown, saying it expected the federal government to reimburse states once the budget stalemate is resolved.

“As D.C. works through its issues, our administration will continue to support Nevadans in any way we can throughout this unnecessary federal government shutdown,” Lombardo said in the statement.

While mandatory programs such as Medicaid and Social Security continue to send funds to beneficiaries during the shutdown, funding for other safety net programs such as food assistance are more uncertain. The federal government told states there were enough funds for the food stamp program to cover October benefits, though the special food program for women, infants and children may run out of money sooner.

By furloughing workers and halting federal spending, the shutdown could cost the national economy $15 billion per week, President Donald Trump’s economic advisers estimated.

The White House says a prolonged shutdown will affect the economies of every state by reducing employment, federal benefits and consumer spending. White House estimates say this could cost Michigan $361 million per week in lost economic output, for example, while Florida could lose $911 million each week.

‘Fend for themselves’

Some federal services are shuttered during a shutdown: The Environmental Protection Agency has ceased many research, permitting and enforcement efforts, and official jobs data is no longer being released. Federal funds for other programs, including food assistance, are expected to last through the end of the month. But states can elect to spend their own funds on these programs, which were previously authorized by Congress and state legislatures.

Before the shutdown, states were stockpiling reserve funding. The National Association of State Budget Officers reported most state budgets this year maintained or increased rainy day funds. At the same time, state and local governments are borrowing record amounts: As much as $600 billion in municipal bonds is projected to be issued by the end of 2025.

“So states and localities are kind of getting the message they really need to fend for themselves much more than they ever had,” said William Glasgall, public finance adviser at the Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit that works to support public sector workers.

Since January, the Trump administration has stripped states and cities of billions of dollars that Congress approved for education, infrastructure and energy projects. Glasgall said that record leaves states with legitimate concerns about getting repaid for their shutdown-related expenses — a prospect that would likely spark even more lawsuits from Democratic-led states.

“They’ve already, before the shutdown, started rolling back federal funding, and I don’t see any reason why they would stop now,” he said. “The recissions that have been announced are pretty harsh, and it’s money we’re expecting and not getting.”

The last shutdown, which lasted five weeks during Trump’s first term, delayed billions in federal spending and reduced gross domestic product — the value of all goods and services produced — by $11 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019. Experts say states were repaid for costs they incurred providing federal services during that shutdown.

In Minnesota, State Budget Director Ahna Minge said staff have been studying previous shutdowns. But at a news conference with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz last week, she characterized this shutdown as “unpredictable.”

“The current federal administration may not follow the historic playbook,” she said.

Walz said farmers would be among the first hit as the federal Farm Service Agency has ceased operations in the middle of the state’s harvest season. Among other duties, that agency works on disaster assistance and processes loans during harvest to protect farmers against commodity price fluctuations.

Minge said Minnesota officials think programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children have enough existing federal funds to operate through October. But she said the state budget cannot backfill all the commitments made by federal programs.

“What we know is that the longer a shutdown lasts, the greater the impact to state programs and services,” she said.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, has pledged to use state dollars to keep WIC afloat if needed, The Associated Press reported. And Colorado lawmakers set aside $7.5 million just before the shutdown to keep WIC running.

Already under strain

In Maryland, the shutdown is compounding the economic instability from Trump’s ongoing efforts to shrink the number of federal employees, agencies and spending.

With more than 160,000 federal employees, Maryland’s economy relies heavily on the federal workforce. The Trump administration has said it may deny back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers, despite a law he signed in 2019 guaranteeing such back pay.

Chief Deputy Comptroller Andrew Schaufele told lawmakers last week that a shutdown could cost the state $700,000 per day in lost tax revenue.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore pledged to continue funding some federal programs, but said the state would not tap into its rainy day funds to do so.

“We’re going to continually evaluate how long we can go,” he said at a news conference.

As for getting repaid, Moore spokesperson David Turner told Stateline that the state had received no indication that the federal government would deviate from past practice, “but we are monitoring closely.”

This fiscal uncertainty hits states as they are already struggling to respond to the strain of federal agency layoffs and cuts in the major tax and spending law Trump signed this summer. The law slashed billions in social service funding and created costly new bureaucratic burdens for states, which administer Medicaid and food assistance programs.

“There’s no way, really at this point, to sort of assess with any level of confidence what’s going to happen when you also have these massive layoffs that were going on pre-shutdown,” said Lisa Parshall, a professor of political science at Daemen University in New York. “There’s just a real sense from states and localities — and I think rightly so — that that kind of reliability of the federal government is now in question.”

It may not be a question of whether states are reimbursed for their shutdown expenses, but which states are reimbursed, Parshall said. The Trump administration has publicly targeted funding of liberal-led states and cities over policy disagreements, raising the possibility it could do something similar with the shutdown.

“Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, you know, you could argue,” she said. “But it’s definitely a thing that seems to be adding to this level of uncertainty — this shutdown feels different.”

In California, officials just closed a nearly $12 billion shortfall when negotiating the budget that was approved in June. The budget deficit is expected to grow to more than $17 billion next year, said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the State of California Department of Finance, which advises the governor and state agencies on budget issues.

“There isn’t a long-term, open-ended line of credit available if this drags out,” he said of the federal government shutdown.

The depth of reserve funds available varies by federally funded program, he said. CalFresh, California’s name for its Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, has enough funds to cover food stamp benefits for this month, but anything beyond that is uncertain.

“If the duration of this is in the matter of days, it will be an inconvenience, but should not pose a massive problem,” he said. “However, if it does drag out for an extended period of time, then clearly it’s going to be a problem.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Sen. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) speaks at a press conference Wednesday morning about the Senate Democrats' "Affordable Wisconsin Agenda." (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

If there’s one word at the top of Democratic Party political discourse this year, it’s “affordability.”

Whether focused on a particular issue — child care, health care and housing are the most frequent examples — or on the cost of just about everything, making goods and services and life “affordable” figures high in the opening pitches of candidates across the state.

“I think the No. 1  issue that we need to focus on is affordability,” said Mitchell Berman, a Racine County nurse, when he announced in August he would seek the  Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District.

Trevor Jung in Racine launched his state Senate campaign in September with a focus on “affordability” and “good-paying jobs.” Corrine Hendrickson, a former child care proprietor in New Glarus, said “affordability” is the top issue for her state Senate bid — and she wasn’t just talking about child care.

Democrats campaigning to be the party’s nominee for governor as diverse as David Crowley, Missy Hughes, and Francesca Hong have all uttered the word in introducing themselves to the public.

On Wednesday, the State Senate Democratic Committee had a press conference outside the Capitol to announce the Democrats’ focus on affordability, both for their upcoming legislative agenda and with an eye on the 2026 elections.

“Right now in Wisconsin, 65% of families are saying they are just getting by or they are struggling,” said Sen. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), the Senate minority leader. A spokesperson said the July Marquette University Law School poll was the source for the survey finding.

State Senate Democrats plan to spend the next few weeks traveling Wisconsin and hearing from state residents. Hesselbein said those conversations will become fodder for “tangible policy solutions that will help working families keep more of their hard-earned money, and we’re calling it the Affordable Wisconsin Agenda.”

Nathan Kalmoe, a University of Wisconsin political scientist, said via email that emphasizing poor economic conditions could be risky for Wisconsin Democrats running in state elections. While Republican lawmakers “may take some blame, the governor is a Democrat,” and voters tend to hold the chief executive responsible for economic conditions, he said. 

Kalmoe added that focusing on the economy exclusively at the expense of concerns for the most marginalized or concerns about Trump administration actions that threaten democracy would be “disturbing, and dangerous.”

Nevertheless, polling trends in the last several months suggest why Democrats nationwide have been focusing on inflation and the economy, said John D. Johnson, a research fellow and political analyst at Marquette University.

In Marquette polls shortly after President Donald Trump was elected to a second term in November, and again before he took office in January, 41% of adults nationally said they believed his policies would reduce inflation.

In Marquette’s most recent national poll, conducted in mid-September and released Oct. 2, “that had fallen to 25%,” Johnson said in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner. “Meanwhile, the share believing Trump’s policies would increase inflation grew from 45% to 60%.”

In the September poll, 40% of adults named “inflation and the cost of living” as the top issue in the U.S. “Another 19% chose ‘the economy’ more generally,” Johnson said.

“Overall, 29% of adults approved of Trump’s handling of ‘inflation and the cost of living’ while 71% disapproved,” Johnson said. (On “border security,” meanwhile, 55% of those polled approved Trump while 45% disapproved.)

In May, 68% of Republicans and 23% of independent voters told the Marquette pollsters they approved of how Trump was handling “inflation and the cost of living.” By September, Republican support had slipped to 57%, but among independents, support had plummeted to 14%.

“In other words, this is (1) an issue where there is a lot of daylight between how Republicans and Independents rate Trump, and (2) an issue where Trump is falling with both Democrats and Independents,” Johnson said.

At the Senate Democrats’ news conference Wednesday, a succession of senators — along with one state representative who is a Senate hopeful — spoke of how the issue of affordability cuts across a wide range of topics. And each laid blame for inaction on their Republican rivals.

“Senate Democrats have already been leading the fight to lower the cost of housing, whether trying to expand the homestead tax credit or preventing hedge funds from buying up available housing stocks, but undoubtedly more needs to be done,” said Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick).

Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon), who has the endorsement of the Senate Democrats as she seeks the party’s nomination in the 17th Senate District next year, pointed to “reckless federal policies” hitting farmers and hiking grocery bills.

Democratic state lawmakers have proposed a free school meal bill along with grants for farmers who provide food to food pantries, replacing a federal program cut by the Trump administration, she said; both are “examples of some of the kinds of policies that we can advance to lower everyday costs.”

Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) warned of coming spikes both in health insurance costs and in the rates of people without health insurance because of the expiring Affordable Care Act premium subsidies at the center of the federal shutdown fight in Congress. “We need Congress to get to work and renew these ACA subsidies,” she said.

Meanwhile, bills in the state Legislature to lower prescription drug costs and cap the price of asthma medication “haven’t even gotten a public hearing,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “We could be doing more here in Wisconsin to make life a little bit more affordable for everyone.”

Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) said Wisconsin continues to face “a child care crisis,” with too few options for working families. Care is increasingly costly, “not because child care providers are making huge profits,” she said. “It’s because we can no longer underpay those doing the child care work, mostly women.”

Democrats have been pushing for expanding child care support, “yet Republicans in Madison stand in the way every single time,” Keyeski said.

Hesselbein said that the Senate Democrats hope that they can follow up on their conversations with voters across the state by “bringing those ideas back to the state Legislature, working on them and hopefully being able to pass them in a bipartisan manner.”

At the same time, however, she blamed inaction on Republican lawmakers who “are mired in internal conflict, unwilling to cross the aisle and get stuff done for Wisconsinites.” The  2026 election will enable voters to “turn the page,” she said, “and vote for a vision that puts Wisconsinites first, that puts you and your families first.”

Oil pumpjacks are seen in a field near a wind turbine in April in Close City, Texas. Weak oil prices have led to recent energy layoffs in Texas and North Dakota. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Friday’s jobs report is missing in action because of the federal shutdown, but economists are finding other ways of measuring apparent job losses concentrated in Midwestern states and oil country.

Unemployment could continue to rise, especially for Black people, who have borne the brunt of recent job losses.

Friday’s jobs report for September was missing because of the federal government shutdown. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics staff responsible for collecting, analyzing and releasing the data have been furloughed since Wednesday.

The jobs report is useful to economists, government agencies such as the Federal Reserve, and investors trying to gauge the state of the economy, said Elise Gould, senior economist for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. If the data is missing for an extended time, it could distort such forecasts, she said.

“We still have some information on the economy from other sources, yes. None of the other indicators predict perfectly. There’s no replacement for the data,” Gould said.

Still, other groups are using their own measuring tools and sharing that information. ADP, a private payroll processing company, showed a decline of 32,000 jobs for the month of September.

The result “further validates what we’ve been seeing in the labor market, that U.S employers have been cautious with hiring,” ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said in a statement.

Austan Goolsbee, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said in an appearance on CNBC Friday morning that the available data shows weakness in both the labor market and in attempts to control inflation, making the Fed’s job difficult in deciding whether to stimulate the economy or rein it in.

“You’re seeing deterioration on both sides of the mission,” Goolsbee said. “The BLS data is the best in the world, and it does create difficulties when you’re kind of putting up a screen and you can’t see the data.”

Indiana, while gaining some new jobs in the Kokomo area for car parts and batteries factories, saw September layoffs of more than 1,600 workers, according to state figures. That includes 248 hospitality workers at a convention center in Evansville, 200 warehouse workers at a Target distribution center in Indianapolis, 123 layoffs at a security guard firm that lost a federal contract, and layoffs at two automotive parts factories totaling 189 workers.

Ohio also saw layoffs of 768 workers starting in September at a Kohl’s e-fulfillment in Middletown.

Black unemployment, which has spiked from 4.8% in April 2023 to 7.5% in August, has likely increased again, said Joseph Dean, who monitors it for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which encourages more investment in underserved communities.

“If there were a jobs report, I’d expect a rise in the Black unemployment rate,” Dean said. “It’s likely due to a combination of factors: federal layoffs earlier in the year, anti-DEI efforts, and now primarily, stagnation in industries that employ large numbers of Black workers — like transportation and professional/business services.”

Another indicator of labor market trouble, initial claims for unemployment, were up 85% in North Dakota and 44% in Texas from August to September, according to numbers through the week ending Sept. 20 from the U.S. Department of Labor. Weak oil prices have led to recent energy layoffs in those states.

In another private survey that could help gauge the health of the labor market, outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas reported Thursday that companies have reported more than 54,000 job cuts in September. That’s a slower rate than August but brings the total this year to 946,000 job cuts, the highest since the pandemic in 2020 and up 55% from the first three quarters of 2024.

The leading reason for job cuts has been actions by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency task force, the firm said, including cuts to government jobs and “downstream impacts” of the federal cuts, such as loss of funding to nonprofits.

There were also about 7,000 technology jobs lost to AI disruption in September, making it harder to land entry-level jobs, the firm said.

“Right now, we’re dealing with a stagnating labor market, cost increases, and a transformative new technology,” said Andy Challenger, a labor expert at the firm, in a statement.

In August, some of the largest increases in the unemployment rate over the previous year were in Texas cities on the border with Mexico: 2 percentage points each in Brownsville-Harlingen (to 7.5% from 5.5% in 2024) and Eagle Pass (to 8.9% from 6.9% last year). Those metro area estimates for August were released Oct. 1.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, saw a 1.8-point increase in unemployment from 3.6% to 5.4%, and there were 1.7-point increases in Blacksburg, Virginia (from 4% to 5.7%), and Grants Pass, Oregon (from 6.1% to 7.8%).

Unemployment fell the most in Kokomo, Indiana, (down nearly 4.5 points from 10.7% to 6.2%) where Stellantis has been adding jobs in its automotive parts and batteries plants.

An earlier Stateline analysis showed New Jersey and Virginia were among the states most impacted by job losses in the second quarter of the year as federal cuts and corporate restructuring took a toll.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org

A builder frames a house under construction. An Assembly committee advanced a dozen bills Thursday, with several aimed at expanding the construction of affordable workforce housing. (Spencer Platt | Getty Images)

A dozen bills, some aimed at addressing the need for affordable workforce housing according to their Republican authors, passed the Assembly’s Housing and Real Estate Committee Thursday, with all but three gaining bipartisan support.

Several of the measures have already been put on the tentative calendar for the Assembly floor session scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 7.

AB 182, would modify Wisconsin’s low-income housing tax credit and require the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) to ensure that 35% of the tax credits it allocates are for projects in rural areas of Wisconsin.

AB 449 would require local municipalities with zoning to permit accessory dwelling units on the property of existing single family homes.

AB 451 would create residential tax incremental districts, to encourage residential developments with the resulting increases in property tax collection used to fund infrastructure investment. That measure passed the panel 12-2.

AB 454 would establish a workforce home loan fund through WHEDA to provide gap financing for new construction or significant rehabilitation of a single family home for the borrower.

AB 455 would establish a grant program at WHEDA for the owners of apartment buildings to offset converting their properties to condominiums. In an unanimous vote, the committee approved an amendment from state Rep. Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh) requiring grant recipients to give current occupants in a building being converted an opportunity to purchase their unit.

State Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) persuaded a majority of the committee, including four Republican members, to adopt an amendment allowing the proposed grants to be used for conversions to housing cooperatives as well as condominiums.

“Housing co-ops are an important alternative for households in our communities that lack the means to individually purchase and maintain stable housing,” Clancy said in a statement issued after the vote. “They provide the assurance of predictable costs, create the potential for innovative forms of cost sharing and cost reduction, and help strengthen the communities that embrace this well-proven model.”

Clancy’s statement also included a thank-you to the Republicans who voted with the committee’s five Democrats to pass the amendment, as well as the committee chair, Rep. Robert Brooks (R-Saukville), “for giving my proposed amendment to AB 455 a fair hearing.”

Clancy’s statement prompted Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) to email Republicans and Democrats in both chambers castigating Clancy and the Republicans who voted for his amendment for adding “communes” to the bill.

Four other bills involved largely technical matters, one lowering real estate transfer fees, one updating the requirements for renting mobile homes, one enabling subdivision developers to certify that improvements comply with state requirements, and one on changes in real estate practices for single- to four-family homes. All passed with unanimous or nearly unanimous votes.

Divided on party lines

Committee members split on a bill that would allow landlords to demand a written statement from a licensed health professional attesting to a tenant’s need for an emotional support animal.

The bill’s author, state Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), asserted at a public hearing that there was a “rising trend of emotional support and service animal misrepresentation in Wisconsin.” All nine committee Republicans voted for the bill and all five Democrats against it. 

On a second party-line vote, a bill giving developers an automatic rezoning right for residential projects if they met certain conditions passed with only the Republicans voting in favor.

The committee also passed on party lines legislation that would put off the effective date of Wisconsin’s updated commercial building code until April 1, 2026.

The building code update had been blocked in 2023, but a state Supreme Court ruling this July held that state laws giving the Legislature the power to block executive branch administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.

After the Court’s ruling, the Department of Safety and Professional Services moved ahead to promulgate the new code, originally setting a Sept. 1 starting date. The department later postponed the effective date to Nov. 1.

In addition to the committee’s 9-5 vote Thursday on the bill postponing the date again, 29 Republican lawmakers sent DSPS Secretary-designee Dan Hereth a letter Wednesday also seeking to postpone the effective date to April 1.