U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican front-runner in the 2026 race for Wisconsin governor, has a mixed record on statements fact-checked by Wisconsin Watch.
The northern Wisconsin congressman has been on target on some claims, such as low Wisconsin business rankings, the link between marijuana and psychosis, and a drop in Wisconsin reading scores.
Other assertions, including claims about tariffs, aid for Ukraine and vetting evacuees from Afghanistan, have been off.
Peer-reviewed research has found links between marijuana use and psychosis — the loss of contact with reality, experienced as delusions or hallucinations.
The consensus is there is a clear association, but more research is needed to determine if there is causation.
In August, Tiffany called for more research on the link to inform legalization policy.
Canada has set tariffs exceeding 200% for U.S. dairy products.
But the tariffs are imposed only when the amount imported exceeds quotas, and the U.S. “has never gotten close to exceeding” quotas that would trigger Canada’s dairy tariffs, the International Dairy Foods Association said.
Tiffany claimed that Wisconsin had “fallen behind” Mississippi in reading.
In the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress assessment, issued every two years, Mississippi’s fourth grade public school students scored higher than Wisconsin’s in reading proficiency, though the ratings “were not significantly different.”
In 2022, 33% of Wisconsin fourth graders rated “at or above proficient” in reading, vs. 31% in Mississippi. In 2024, Wisconsin dropped to 31%; Mississippi rose to 32%.
A $95 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which President Joe Biden signed into law in April 2024, prohibits funds from being allocated to pensions in Ukraine.
Tiffany claimed that the law included “millions” for pensions in Ukraine. His office, pointing to a U.S. State Department news release, told Wisconsin Watch that Tiffany meant to say that previous U.S. aid packages funded Ukrainian pensions.
Following the Afghanistan evacuation that began in summer 2021, more than 76,000 Afghans came to the U.S. after being vetted, The Wall Street Journal reported.
All evacuees were brought to a military base in Europe or the Middle East, where U.S. officials collected fingerprints and biographical details and ran them through criminal and terrorism-related databases, the Journal reported.
In reviews, the Defense and Homeland Security departments found that not all evacuees were fully vetted.
Tiffany made the claim about changes the Biden administration made in 2024 to Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools receiving federal funding.
The new rules protect students and employees from sex-based harassment and discrimination. The rules say future changes will address sex-separate athletic teams.
As of late October 2023, when Tiffany made his claim, more than 200 non-U.S. citizens on the federal terrorist watchlist had tried to enter the U.S. between legal ports of entry and were stopped by Border Patrol during the Biden administration.
The watchlist contains known or suspected terrorists and individuals “who represent a potential threat.”
In making that claim, Tiffany cited a Wall Street Journal report on closed-door congressional testimony given by Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, about Joe Biden participating with Hunter in about 20 phone calls when Biden was vice president.
The Journal quoted Republican Rep. James Comer as saying Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to help Hunter sell “the brand.” A transcript shows Archer testified that Joe and Hunter never discussed business on the calls.
Information cited by Tiffany when he made that claim in 2023 contained only unverified intelligence that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Biden $5 million.
A Waukesha County judge on Friday ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to determine whether any noncitizens are registered to vote and to stop accepting voter registrations without verifying that the applicant is a U.S. citizen.
A Pewaukee resident, represented by conservative attorneys, filed a lawsuit last year seeking to require the election commission to verify citizenship of registered voters and applicants. The suit also sought to force the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to compare its citizenship information against voter rolls.
The election commission opposed the initial request, saying that no state law called for requiring documented proof of citizenship. It also argued that the DOT has no obligation to match citizenship data with voter records.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Maxwell rejected the commission’s argument, saying that the agency is failing in its duty to ensure that only lawful voters make it to the voter rolls. He cited several statutes that he said made clear that only citizens could cast a ballot.
Maxwell didn’t specify how the election commission and local clerks should verify citizenship of new registrants, or how the commission should check for noncitizens on the voter rolls. He only called for the parties to figure out a plan, whether that be through matching the DOT’s citizenship data or using “other lawfully available means.” He called for that process to be substantially completed before the next statewide election, which is February.
Currently, applicants for voter registration in Wisconsin and most other states must attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, but they are not required to present proof of citizenship.
Republicans praised the decision, with state Rep. Amanda Nedweski calling it a “great win for election integrity.”
Democrats and the respondents in the case were largely mum.
Election commission spokesperson Emilee Miklas didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Riley Vetterkind, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which represents the commission and the Department of Transportation, declined to say whether the agencies would appeal the decision.
The current plaintiffs, Pewaukee resident Ardis Cerny and Waukesha resident Annette Kuglitsch, sued the election commission, the Department of Transportation and officials in both agencies. They have argued that the election commission is violating their voting rights by not checking for noncitizens already registered to vote and seeking to vote.
Maxwell agreed, saying they “have a clear legal right to not have their votes diluted by a non-citizen casting an unlawful ballot.”
It’s unclear how the commission would verify the citizenship of all of Wisconsin’s registered voters by February. Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, said the decision will “definitely be appealed” and that the lower-court decision could be stayed while the appeal goes through the courts.
If the case reaches the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the liberal majority could overturn the order of the conservative-leaning Waukesha County Circuit Court.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
A bill with bipartisan support scheduled for a committee vote on Tuesday could restore funding for Wisconsin veterans homes in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls that closed in September due to funding cuts in the 2025-27 state budget.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers told Wisconsin Watch he would sign the Republican-sponsored bill, even though it includes additional items that are not part of a Democratic “clean” proposal that only funds the veterans homes. But it’s unclear if the bill will pass the Republican-controlled Assembly.
Senate Bill 411, from Sen. André Jacque, R-New Franken, would provide the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs $1.95 million over the biennium to increase funding for the costs of running the agency’s Veterans Housing and Recovery Program, which supports veterans at risk of homelessness. The dollars would also cover costs for leasing a new facility in Chippewa Falls. Klein Hall, which housed VHRP veterans there, was nearly 50 years old and needed repairs, staff told Wisconsin Watch this summer.
Veterans organizations, Republicans and Democrats spoke in favor of the bill at a public hearing in September, and no one spoke against it. The bill also requires the Universities of Wisconsin System Board of Regents to fund the Missing-in-Action Recovery and Identification Project and reduces the disability rating threshold for veterans or their surviving spouses to claim property tax credits.
But the bill’s path beyond Tuesday’s executive session vote in the Senate’s Committee on Natural Resources, Veteran and Military Affairs, which Jacque leads, remains unclear at this point.
Even if Jacque’s bill makes it to Evers’ desk for his signature, it would still take “a few months” to reopen the Green Bay facility and at least a year for a site to reopen in Chippewa Falls, said Colleen Flaherty, a spokesperson for the WDVA. The Chippewa Falls timeline is longer because the WDVA would have to apply for a new round of federal grants, Flaherty said.
Still, Jacque said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that he was “heartened” by the support for SB 411 so far.
“I look forward to continuing discussions with the Department of Veterans Affairs and fellow committee members to get this legislation to the governor as quickly as possible,” he said.
How we got here
SB 411 is one of several legislative proposals brought forward after the state’s two-year budget passed without additional funds to cover the rising costs of running veterans homes across the state.
Evers originally proposed $1.9 million in new funding for the low-cost housing option, but the Legislature’s Republican-led budget writing committee removed those dollars during the legislative process.
Political finger-pointing followed as the state prepared to close the Green Bay and Chippewa Falls facilities. Evers placed the blame on the Republicans in the Legislature. Republican lawmakers, such as Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, argued Evers and the WDVA already had funding to keep the veterans homes open.
According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the WDVA receives an appropriation for “general program administration,” which has been underspent its funding by $600,000 to $2 million in each of the last six fiscal years. The agency has broad enough stipulations that it could use extra funds to support the veterans housing program.
But it’s possible the WDVA believes the Legislature did not intend to continue to support the veterans homes when it did not approve the specific funding proposed during the budget process, the LFB said. Flaherty, with the WDVA, said the agency “needs legislative approval for the funding.”
Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback said the governor is “hopeful” the Legislature will “work quickly” and pass SB 411 in its current form, which he would sign into law.
“While it’s great to see that Republicans have now decided they support Gov. Evers’ budget requests, it’s disappointing they chose not to approve these investments months ago when they had the chance, which could have prevented two facilities serving homeless veterans from closing,” Cudaback said.
Wimberger, in a statement to Wisconsin Watch, continued to place the blame on Evers.
“I’m not opposed to Senator Jacque’s bill,” Wimberger said. “However, Governor Evers is extorting the Legislature since the program already has funding. If paying twice makes Governor Evers stop sending veterans out on the streets, maybe we do that.”
What’s next for SB 411?
Should SB 411 move beyond the Senate’s committee, it would then go to the full Senate for consideration. The chamber has not met since early July.
In the meantime, the WDVA found new placements for all of the veterans who previously called the Green Bay and Chippewa Falls sites home. The last veteran left Chippewa Falls on Sept. 9 and Green Bay on Sept. 12, Flaherty said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Reading Time: 7minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
A year ago more than 80 people were sickened by pizza from Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton. Officials determined the pizza was contaminated with THC-infused oil. Since then one of them has filed a lawsuit against the pizzeria.
Wisconsin is one of six states that don’t regulate or have plans to regulate THC, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana, which is why incidents like Famous Yeti’s haven’t resulted in fines or penalties against the company.
Efforts to regulate THC have been included in bills seeking to legalize marijuana, but while marijuana remains illegal, legal hemp-derived THC is being used in more and more products without additional consumer protections.
On Oct. 23, 2024, Samuel Hoffland stopped by Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton on his lunch break. What happened next is detailed in a previously unreported lawsuit he filed in May in Dane County claiming the restaurant was negligent when it contaminated his pizza with THC.
The lawsuit describes how Hoffland endured a multiple-hour ordeal to get home after feeling “abnormal symptoms associated with THC intoxication.” He crashed his car and ended up in the emergency room. His injuries led to lost work time and ongoing medical issues, according to the complaint.
Two tests a day apart confirmed Hoffland was experiencing THC intoxication. Over 80 people experienced similar symptoms, including 27 who went to the emergency room, some of whom reported concerns it was carbon monoxide poisoning, according to responses to Public Health Madison and Dane County’s final report obtained under the open records law.
In the weeks and months after the incident, the contamination created a stir online with a range of reactions. Some blamed Famous Yeti’s and expressed concern while other comments said “even more reason to eat them” and “who is complaining?” But for Hoffland, the experience was no joke, leading him to file a civil lawsuit against Famous Yeti’s and the owner of Turtle Crossing Cannabis, a company that shared kitchen space with the pizzeria.
Public Health Madison and Dane County investigated the incident and determined the food was mistakenly contaminated with THC oil from a bulk container (though the report doesn’t mention Turtle Crossing Cannabis). But the agency determined there was nothing it could do because Delta-9 THC, the chemical derived from hemp and used to make edible THC products, is not regulated in Wisconsin.
In other words, there are no laws or regulations prohibiting the preparation of THC and non-THC products in the same industrial kitchen.
Nearly a year later, that remains the case.
In Wisconsin, regulatory laws surrounding hemp-derived cannabis are lacking, creating gray areas that make it difficult to enforce any standards surrounding the production and distribution of THC-related products. Wisconsin is one of only six states, along with Alabama, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina and West Virginia, that neither ban nor regulate or aren’t attempting to regulate Delta-8 THC.
The lack of regulation has put consumer safety at risk. The Famous Yeti’s Pizza incident is one example, but not the only incident. In June, two children in Milwaukee went to the hospital after their mother mistakenly purchased 600 mg of THC gummies from a convenience store. The shop owner received a warning letter, but didn’t receive a citation because the sale wasn’t illegal.
THC derived from hemp plant
Under the 2018 Farm Bill, the U.S. government authorized commercial hemp production and made it eligible for federal crop insurance. The intended purpose was to provide additional support for people in the agriculture industry.
Hemp under the Farm Bill was defined as cannabis with a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentration of below 0.3% on a dry weight basis. THC is the psychoactive compound present in both hemp-derived and marijuana-derived cannabis. But marijuana-derived cannabis has a higher presence of THC and is federally illegal.
“Cannabis itself is actually the same product, whether it’s hemp-derived or marijuana,” Jason Hunt, CEO and general counsel of DynaVap, said. “Cannabis sativa is actually the product. It’s really the same plant, but it depends on when it’s harvested, as well as the concentration.”
Delta-8 and Delta-9 are similar variations of the same THC compound found in cannabis. Delta-9 is more commonly found in the marijuana plant, while Delta-8 is almost entirely found in hemp and is federally legal.
Delta-8 THC is found in low concentrations, so it is often chemically modified by concentrating Delta-8 from the hemp-derived cannabidiol, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“They take a portion of the plant and they chemically modify it to make sure it’s more intoxicating, so it’s a synthesized cannabis product,” Hunt said.
So, how is hemp regulated?
In 2022, Wisconsin’s regulatory hemp program fully transitioned to the federal level, so now the regulatory authority falls under the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Instead, Wisconsin regulates products with hemp derivatives at the state level through the same laws that govern retail food establishments and food processors. Like other products, hemp-derived products are subject to Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection requirements for labeling, weights and measures, consumer safety, misrepresentations, and deceptive advertising.
The state only allows hemp that has been certified by DATCP or another state’s hemp program to be in food products, but food items or ingredients containing hemp manufactured and packaged outside of Wisconsin cannot be sold in Wisconsin. Wisconsin also has “truth in labeling” laws requiring all hemp products to be properly labeled. Knowingly making an inaccurate or misleading claim regarding hemp products is illegal under a state statute.
Dane County Executive Melissa Agard, a Democrat who served in the Legislature for 12 years and authored bills to legalize recreational and medical marijuana, argues that legalization would lead to regulation.
“If we would pass a bill in regards to legalizing and regulating cannabis in Wisconsin, there would be a lot more consumer protections, whether you’re at a restaurant that might be serving cannabis-infused foods or a bar that’s selling cannabis-infused beverages, or at a corner store where you want to buy some edibles or some bud,” Agard said. “Right now, you’re just kind of taking people’s word for it. There’s no checks and balances, there’s no real accountability.”
A person walks into the Wisconsin Horticulture LLC Dispensary on July 29, 2025, in Milwaukee. Wisconsin is one of six states that do not regulate or have plans to regulate THC. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Minnesota, where marijuana is now fully legal, also regulates hemp products including requiring all consumers to be at least 21 years of age.
In Michigan, only companies licensed through the Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency can sell, distribute and manufacture hemp-derived Delta-8 products, and all customers must be 21.
Wisconsin has no specific age requirements for purchasing and ingesting hemp products. Instead, age requirements are left up to localities.
Wood County was the first state locality to set an age restriction on purchasing hemp-related products in 2022. Milwaukee County set an age requirement in July after two children were left hospitalized after being sold THC gummies.
In February, Public Health Madison and Dane County expressed support for implementing an age restriction statewide.
Without a statewide age restriction, many localities have not passed specific requirements, leaving those markets widely unregulated.
In the Famous Yeti’s incident, eight people under 18 were reportedly intoxicated by cannabis oil, but without regulations, there were no citations.
“There are no regulation requirements for products derived from the hemp plant,” Public Health Madison and Dane County said in a blog following the incident. “Unlike commercial tobacco, Public Health cannot issue citations for the sale or distribution of hemp-derived products to minors.”
No compensation for THC victims
The Famous Yeti’s Pizza incident shows the consequences of a lack of regulation.
Jason Tarasek, a Minnesota attorney who specializes in cannabis law, explained that people harmed by the contamination would likely need to show monetary consequences to win a lawsuit against the establishment.
“One of those people who were harmed could easily bring a negligence action against that restaurant because it’s a breach of your duty to act as a reasonable restaurant if you’re accidentally slipping THC to people,” Tarasek said.
According to responses to the public health department’s questionnaire accessed via an open records request, respondents did raise concerns about the monetary consequences of the contamination.
“I don’t think I should have to pay for my ambulance ride or my tests that I needed as a result of being drugged,” a female respondent said.
Another female respondent said she was going to have over $1,000 in hospital bills even after her insurance claim.
“The closer you get to pointing at a bill for money, the easier it is to get a judge or jury to award you that,” Tarasek said.
The civil lawsuit against Famous Yeti’s pizza relates to negligence on behalf of the restaurant.
Samuel Hoffland, a Famous Yeti’s Pizza customer who was sickened by pizza contaminated with THC, filed a lawsuit against the pizzeria in May 2025.
Hoffland claims Famous Yeti’s breached its duty by “negligently preparing, handling, and serving food contaminated with THC” resulting in “physical illness, mental distress, and other injuries requiring medical attention and resulting in damages.” The civil lawsuit also claims Famous Yeti’s is strictly liable for Hoffland’s injuries and damages from consuming “THC-laced” food.
In response to the complaint, Famous Yeti’s said it was not negligent in preparing the food nor at fault for the contamination, but admits the product unintentionally “contained” THC. The restaurant also denied the food was laced, which would imply the food was deliberately infused with THC.
“The contamination of the subject product was the result of an intervening cause not due to any negligence or fault on the part of the defendant,” Famous Yeti’s said in its response.
Currently, the civil lawsuit is still pending. Famous Yeti’s, Hoffland and their attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
Current status of regulation attempts
Wisconsin’s lack of cannabis regulations continues to leave consumers in the dark when they purchase hemp-derived THC products in Wisconsin.
Gov. Tony Evers has attempted to regulate cannabis in multiple budget cycles, the most recent being the 2025-27 biennium. The marijuana-related provisions would have legalized and set regulatory standards for marijuana.
Evers’ budget recommendations included a section that would have started a program within DATCP to regulate the cultivation, production and distribution of marijuana requiring all producers and processors to hold a permit from DATCP.
The provision would have also set more stringent requirements, such as requiring all purchasers of THC products be 21 or older and banning production or distribution of cannabis near schools, playgrounds, public parks or child care facilities. If passed, it would have also established a training program under DATCP for proper handling of cannabis.
But Republicans removed the provision from the budget bill early in the process.
In 2024, Republicans, who have been otherwise reluctant to support marijuana legalization, introduced a bill to legalize and regulate medical marijuana in Wisconsin, specifically through heavily regulated state dispensaries. The bill was sponsored by 19 Republicans, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, but failed to pass the Legislature. It would not have regulated THC products derived from hemp.
This story was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
A formal recommendation of punishment for Michael Gableman, whose career rise and fall set him apart in Wisconsin legal and political history, signals the end of a case that has been humiliating for the former state Supreme Court justice and the court itself.
In a report issued Friday, a referee in a state Office of Lawyer Regulation case found that Gableman committed 10 lawyer misconduct violations in his probe of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin.
The partisan probe was authorized at the behest of then-citizen Donald Trump, who lost that election to Joe Biden.
The referee, Milwaukee attorney James Winiarski, recommended that the state Supreme Court suspend Gableman’s law license for three years.
Gableman and the Office of Lawyer Regulation, seeking to settle the case, had stipulated to the three-year suspension.
“A high level of discipline is needed to protect the public, the courts and the legal system from repetition” of Gableman’s conduct, by him or other attorneys, the referee wrote.
Former state Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, who was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, said before the report was issued that Gableman’s behavior in the investigation “was so outrageous and damaging to the image of the Supreme Court.
“But he has been on the outskirts or around ethical violations his whole Supreme Court career.”
Gableman, 58, a Waukesha County resident who has largely receded from public view, did not reply to requests for comment.
The conservative Gableman, a former small-county judge with close ties to the Republican Party, made history by defeating an incumbent justice in the 2008 election. He served one 10-year term before his career began to unravel.
As Wisconsin Watch detailed in April, Gableman attended the 2016 Republican National Convention, in possible violation of the state judicial code, and had to be escorted out of two gatherings there after causing disturbances. After deciding not to seek re-election in 2018, he worked for the first Trump administration before leading the election investigation, a probe that found no fraud but cost taxpayers $2.8 million — four times the budgeted amount.
Gableman now finds himself facing punishment from the very court he served on.
Winiarski has practiced law for more than 40 years and has previously served as referee in lawyer discipline cases. He invoiced the Supreme Court $8,208 for nearly 109 hours on the case at $75.51 per hour. He recommended Gableman be responsible for all costs associated with the disciplinary matter.
The suspension recommendation essentially codifies a stipulation Gableman made in April with the Office of Lawyer Regulation in which he stated he could not successfully mount a legal defense against the misconduct allegations.
The liberal-majority Supreme Court, which began its current session in September, must still approve the punishment.
Geske, who was a justice from 1993 to 1998, said the suspension would be fair punishment in part because Gableman’s conduct in the investigation, including threatening to jail elected officials, helped solidify the public perception that Wisconsin judges have become partisan actors.
“I think people wonder what’s happening in the court and what’s happening with the individual justices,” she said. “So I think he did great harm to the court in engaging in that behavior.”
The Office of Lawyer Regulation case against Gableman alleged that during the election investigation Gableman violated 10 counts of Supreme Court rules of professional conduct for attorneys. He was accused of making false statements about a judge, an opposing attorney and two mayors; making false statements to the Office of Lawyer Regulation; disobeying a court order; and violating the state open records law and confidentiality rules.
University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Howard Schweber, who is affiliated with UW’s law school, said a three-year license suspension verges on lenient because of the seriousness of the misconduct and because Gableman was acting in a public capacity, not as a private attorney.
Wausau attorney Dean Dietrich, a former Wisconsin Bar Association president and expert on lawyers’ professional responsibility, said “it is unfortunate” that a former justice is facing a law license suspension, but that “the actions of one person do not reflect the actions of others.”
Judicial offices in Wisconsin technically are nonpartisan, but state Supreme Court races have drawn heavy participation and money from the Republican and Democratic parties.
Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather, author of a recent book on the importance of selecting judges with good character, said a three-year suspension would be typical for the type of misconduct alleged against Gableman.
“Ultimately, we want people of the highest character in judicial roles,” Oldfather said. “Somehow we have to find a way to get the legal profession and the broader culture to buy into that as the top priority, which seems like an awfully heavy lift these days.”
There are also calls for tougher action on lawyer misconduct.
Madison lawyer Jeffrey Mandell, head of a law firm that filed a misconduct complaint against Gableman with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, noted that Gableman previously was investigated for ethics violations involving an ad he ran in his Supreme Court campaign and for hearing cases while a justice that involved a law firm that gave him free legal services.
Gableman was not sanctioned in those cases.
Mandell said the state needs to act more quickly and more decisively on lawyer misconduct. He noted Wisconsin lawyers are not subject to permanent disbarment. Those who receive the most severe punishment, a five-year license revocation, can petition after five years to get their license back.
The vast majority of states allow disbarred attorneys to apply for license reinstatement.
“Some conduct is simply beyond the pale, deserving of a permanent ban from the public trust of legal practice,” Mandell said. “It’s past time for Wisconsin to recognize this.”
After the report was issued, Mandell called for the Supreme Court to revoke Gableman’s law license, saying: “Anything less minimizes the gravity of his offensive behavior and lacks deterrent effect. Wisconsin attorneys must understand that engaging in unethical conduct to overturn the will of voters will not be tolerated, regardless of who the actor is.”
Reading Time: 4minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
The Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers have been fighting for control of the administrative rulemaking process since before Evers took office. The rules affect many facets of Wisconsin life, such as water quality.
The liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled legislative committees can’t indefinitely block rules from taking effect.
Republicans have instructed the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish rules that aren’t approved by legislative committees. Evers has filed another lawsuit to address the situation.
Are you worried about toxic algae blooms closing beaches and ruining local lakes? Here’s a story worth following:
Nearly two years ago, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources submitted a rule change to the Legislature that would update policies on preserving the quality of Wisconsin water bodies. The purpose was to bring the state in line with updates the federal government made to the Clean Water Act in 2015.
At that point in 2023, the DNR had already received feedback from industry and environmental groups, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed off on the proposed change. But nearly two years later, the update is still making its way through Wisconsin’s administrative rulemaking process.
The DNR water quality update is among executive agency rule changes swept up in a yearslong political debate over who gets the final say on those policy changes in Wisconsin’s state government.
Evers argues the Republican-led state Legislature has obstructed his administration in delaying rules during legislative committee review periods. Republican legislative leaders counter that their oversight of policies from the executive branch during the rulemaking process is necessary to ensure checks and balances remain in place.
The debate has made its way up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where there has been a liberal majority since 2023. In July, the court ruled the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules lacks the authority to delay publication of rules from executive branch agencies.
In August, the Republican-led Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted along party lines to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish administrative rules still going through standing committee reviews. Evers and several executive agencies responded with a Sept. 9 lawsuit filed in Dane County Circuit Court that seeks to force the Legislature to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling from earlier this summer.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has clashed with the Legislature over the administrative rulemaking process. Evers is seen delivering the State of the State address on Jan. 22, 2025, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
There continues to be finger-pointing from different groups about why the DNR’s rule has taken so long to get through the process. Rep. Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, a co-chair of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that the DNR “has not taken the steps to get it through the process.” DNR declined to comment on the rule, citing ongoing litigation.
In the most recent lawsuit the Evers administration specifically highlighted the DNR’s antidegradation rule, which would require permit holders to justify new or increased pollution discharges into state water bodies.
“Currently, Wisconsin does not apply antidegradation review to all discharges of pollutants, to discharges of stormwater, or to discharges from new concentrated animal feeding operations,” Evers’ lawsuit states. “The long promulgation delay has therefore meant that some discharges that this proposed rule would cover have not been and are not being evaluated, risking the degradation of surface water quality.”
The rule is scheduled for a public hearing before the Assembly’s Committee on Environment on Thursday at the Capitol, the second time the change will be heard before that committee this year.
Environmental advocates say the delay means Wisconsin’s water antidegradation policy remains below minimum federal standards, jeopardizing Wisconsin lakes and rivers.
For example, a pollutant like phosphorus, which is found in farm fertilizers, can cause toxic blue-green algae when discharged into water bodies, said Tony Wilkin Gibart, the executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates. That’s “an important consequence” for Wisconsinites who live near a lake or river, he said.
Erik Kanter, the government relations director for Clean Wisconsin, called the delay a “good example” of a “broken process” in state government.
“It was an easy thing, just trying to comply with federal law,” Kanter said. “And it became this political football lost in this complicated process.”
How we got here
The administrative rules debate has pitted business and private property interests against administrative attempts to boost public health and environmental protections. The rules are written by executive branch agencies to fill in the details of laws passed by the Legislature and governor.
But Republicans have long decried the rules as bureaucratic red tape, rallying voters during their 2010 takeover of state government with promises to make Wisconsin “open for business.” Assembly Republicans, led by Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, launched a “Right the Rules” project to streamline administrative rules during the 2010s, but it hit a crescendo when Evers defeated former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the 2018 governor’s race.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has long advocated for streamlining administrative rules and asserting legislative control over the rulemaking process. Vos is shown waiting for the State of the State address to begin on Jan. 22, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In the weeks before he left office, Walker signed legislation that sought to strip power from the incoming governor and attorney general. Those laws gave the Legislature authority to block or delay administrative rules that come from executive agencies, such as the DNR.
After liberals gained a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023, recent opinions have dialed back some of the Legislature’s power over the executive branch. In 2024, the court ruled that a legislative committee could not block DNR spending for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. Then in July, the court sided with Evers when it ruled a legislative committee could not block executive agency rules from going into effect following approval from the governor.
The July opinion specifically highlighted delayed administrative rule proposals on banning conversion therapy and updating Wisconsin’s commercial building code. Prior to the court’s July decision, the Legislative Reference Bureau could not publish administrative rules until legislative committees reviewed and acted on the changes.
In a Sept. 12 video posted on social media, Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, argued lawmakers’ review of executive agency rules is necessary before some of the Evers administration’s proposals essentially become law. She slammed a recent proposal from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to raise fees on animal markets, dealers and truckers. One animal market registration fee, according to the proposed rule, would increase from $420 to $7,430.
“Evers and his unelected bureaucrats are going to implement their ideology through administrative rules, knowing that the leftists on the Supreme Court shockingly gave them a green light,” Felzkowski said in the video.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
On a quiet Friday at Mo’s Bar, a lakeside dive where regulars gossip over beer and fried perch, Rep. Scott Krug blended in easily.
He nursed a Miller Lite and gestured out the window toward Big Roche a Cri, one of the lakes that he said had taught him everything he needed to know about surviving the Capitol’s sharpest fights.
“I was the water guy in the Legislature for years and years,” said Krug, an eight-term Republican who represents a region of farms, lakes and rivers stretching south and west from Wisconsin Rapids. Instead of sticking to the party line, he said, he tried to balance the interests of farmers, the tourism industry and clean water — ultimately winning support from both conservation and agricultural groups.
“I don’t give a shit about getting my head kicked in by both sides,” Krug said.
That willingness to buck party orthodoxy has mattered even more in recent years amid Wisconsin’s fierce battles over election administration. As many Republicans leaned into Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud, and the Assembly’s elections committee became a stage for conspiracy theories, Krug carved out a different role: the pragmatist trying to keep the system running.
He took over as chair of the committee in late 2022 after his predecessor’s hard-line tactics cost her influence. This session, Krug has moved up to assistant majority leader, a role that puts him at the center of GOP caucus strategy. That might mean winnowing 18 election ideas down to five bills, huddling with Wisconsin Elections Commission appointees, talking with clerks across the state, or working the halls to find a path for bipartisan proposals long stuck in gridlock.
It has been hard for Krug to overcome the conspiracy theories embraced by a small GOP faction and rally his colleagues behind his proposed election reforms. When Republicans do unite on election policy, their bills usually face Democratic opposition and a veto from Gov. Tony Evers.
Still, Krug has kept pushing for the policies that clerks have long asked for, like allowing absentee ballots to be processed the day before an election.
He said he measures his success not only on whether he can get his proposals enacted, but also on whether he can change the tone of the debate, increase confidence in elections and cool the conspiracy talk on the elections committee and in his party, even as Trump and his allies help fuel it.
“Messaging,” he said, “has become more important than actual policy.”
The era Krug replaced
Krug took over the election committee from Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Trump loyalist who regularly invited conspiracy theorists to testify. Groups like True the Vote and people like Peter Bernegger, a prolific election litigant, used the committee’s platform to veer into unsubstantiated accusations of malfeasance or outright fraud by election officials.
Brandtjen also routinely exceeded her authority as chair, issuing invalid subpoenas to counties and other election offices.
Brandtjen also embraced former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s partisan review of the 2020 election, which floated the idea of an unconstitutional decertification of the election, threatened to jail mayors and ultimately cost taxpayers more than $2 million.
While Trump praised Brandtjen’s loyalty, her standing within her own caucus weakened. Assembly Republicans voted to bar her from closed caucus meetings in 2022, writing to her that past issues “led our caucus to lose trust in you.” Brandtjen dismissed the note as “petty.”
Krug saw an opportunity to restore order and told Assembly Speaker Robin Vos: “Give me the election committee,” he recalled. Vos handed him the gavel that December.
The tone changes, while legislation stalls
The tone shifted immediately.
In one of the committee’s first sessions, Krug held public hearings on bipartisan bills to limit polling place closures and compensate local governments for holding special elections. In the next session, he held a hearing on another bipartisan bill to increase penalties for harming election officials.
He didn’t shy away from giving space to Republican-backed priorities either — including a bill to specially mark noncitizens’ IDs as not valid for voting, and an informational hearing to investigate whether noncitizens were on the state’s voter rolls. The first was vetoed by Evers, and the second didn’t go far after the Department of Transportation declined to turn over the necessary data. (Krug told Votebeat he thought the number was minuscule but still wanted the department to share its data.)
Still, for clerks and legislators across the state, Krug has been a welcome change.
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, who has been advocating for clerks in the Legislature for about eight years, told Votebeat that Krug was the best chair she’s worked with so far. “He wants to understand the system the most,” she said.
Rep. Lisa Subeck, a Madison Democrat and former member of the election committee, said Krug brought a civility back to the committee that had disappeared after the 2020 election. She also praised some of his ideas, though she questioned the effectiveness of his advocacy, noting many proposals he supported never got Assembly approval.
Rep. Scott Krug is seen during a convening of the Wisconsin Assembly at the State Capitol on Jan. 25, 2020, in Madison, Wis. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Krug said a lot of the obstacles come from the state Senate, which blocked the Monday processing bill last year. The Senate, he said, has more “further-outs” on elections.
Kim Trueblood, the Republican county clerk in Marathon County, called Krug’s leadership “refreshing” but said she doesn’t know what to do to convince some GOP senators “that the bogeyman under the bed is not real.”
Krug said he’ll keep trying, and his record suggests he won’t shy away from intraparty disagreements.
He tried to calm down the rhetoric after 2024 U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde delayed conceding for two weeks, blaming his loss in part on “improbable” absentee ballot totals in Milwaukee. Krug recalled Hovde raising the issue again in a phone call during this year’s Supreme Court election. Krug, who was observing Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility, said he told Hovde: “I’m telling you, it’s not the issue here.”
Hovde said he couldn’t recall the exchange. He told Votebeat that while he does not blame his loss on central count, his skepticism of the process remains.
Other states, meanwhile, are still battling the ghosts of 2020 in their legislative committees. In neighboring Michigan, Republicans rebranded their House’s Elections Committee into the Election Integrity Committee and placed it in the hands of a legislator who believes the 2020 election was stolen, regularly inviting the type of firebrands Brandtjen once welcomed. In Georgia and Arizona, hearings on election-related legislation regularly erupt into partisan shouting matches.
Vos, the Assembly speaker, said Krug has treated election concerns as “a problem to be solved,” rather than “milked.” He praised Krug for being practical with legislation rather than holding out until he found perfection.
“I think he’s really done a good job of bringing people together,” Vos continued. “He’s been an incredible leader to try to showcase that it doesn’t have to always be partisan.”
Walking the GOP tightrope on election policy
Krug stepped down as committee chair this session, shifting to vice chair and taking on a new role as the Assembly’s assistant majority leader, where he’ll help rally Republican votes. He said he hopes to bring the same spirit of compromise to his leadership role.
The new role means he can write his own bills for the election committee, which he was unable to do last session, as committee chairs generally are not allowed to preside over their own legislation.
Krug said one of his biggest hurdles this session is dealing with election conspiracy theorists — a faction he argues has lost influence in Wisconsin but remains disruptive.
Krug has tried to give where he can, incorporating some provisions of a Trump executive order on elections into draft legislation.
But his tone changed when Trump posted on social media that he wanted to ban mail-in voting and criticized voting machines. “My whole goal is to get results quicker,” he said, “not to go back to hand-counting and wait for results until the Friday after the election.”
Usually, when his constituents or other Assembly members come to him espousing these ideas, he can calm them down with “truth and data,” a strategy he says works until another press release comes from the Trump administration.
“And that’s our struggle,” he said. “You see this ebb and flow, and it’s all based on what comes out of Washington. So we put the fire out. He stokes it, then I put the fire out, he stokes it.”
Krug, a real estate agent, parent of six, and grandparent, said he’ll stay busy even if his tactics make him politically unpopular. If his constituents force him out for telling the truth, he said, he’ll just go sell more houses — and keep adding to his bobblehead collection, a running competition with Evers.
Krug sees promising signs in his party
At Mo’s Bar, where workers and patrons greet him like a neighbor, it’s clear his independence hasn’t yet cost him local support. Despite the headwinds, he insists the atmosphere around elections has changed.
“I feel it when I talk to everybody,” he said. “It used to be my first conversation when I walked in here: ‘What are you gonna do about the goddamn election?’ It’s over. People don’t do that.”
Buoyed by that shift, Krug is scheduled to introduce several election-related bills on Wednesday, telling Votebeat he expects most to win bipartisan support. The measures would let clerks process ballots the day before an election, add new auditing requirements, regulate the use of drop boxes, and repeal a law critics say puts ballot privacy at risk.
He also sees promising signs of improvement from within his own party.
In April — when Hovde and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson were still criticizing Milwaukee’s election operation — losing Republican Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel conceded defeat without caveat or complaint.
As some supporters booed him, Schimel said, “You’ve gotta accept the results.”
Krug said he hoped the concession would be a sign to other GOP candidates that the “shine has worn off” of holding radical election positions.
“I’ll never find a way to fix it entirely,” he said, but he has to keep at it because the effort will shape how Wisconsinites view the Legislature on all other issues.
“Everything starts from elections,” he said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Wisconsin’s controversial practice of randomly removing ballots to resolve discrepancies between the number of ballots and the number of voters would be prohibited under new draft legislation that requires meticulous audits in every county.
The draft proposal, obtained by Votebeat from Republican Rep. Scott Krug, will be formally released this week. Krug said the proposed ban on removing random ballots, known as drawdowns, was inspired largely by a Votebeat investigation highlighting election officials’ reluctance to use the practice and questions about its constitutionality.
“That practice undermines public trust,” Krug said, calling drawdowns “outdated.”
Wisconsin’s law allowing drawdowns is almost as old as the state, and it appears to be used most often in recounts. Other states have had similar laws, but most have repealed them.
Drawdowns occur when records show more ballots cast than the number of voters who cast ballots. These discrepancies usually stem from minor recordkeeping errors or process mistakes.
For example, if poll workers discover an absentee ballot envelope was improperly filled out but had already been separated from its ballot, the ballot still counts, leaving more ballots than valid voters. Because ballots are generally unidentifiable, the law would call for election officials to remove one ballot at random.
Multiple Wisconsin clerks have told Votebeat that they loathe the practice, and national election experts have been flabbergasted that it exists.
A legislative study committee in 2005 questioned the practice’s constitutionality without resolving the issue. Courts have similarly scrutinized its use. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has said a drawdown should be reserved as a last resort “when you cannot explain why you have more ballots than voters.”
Sam Liebert, Wisconsin state director of the group All Voting Is Local and a former clerk, said he once had to conduct a drawdown. He called it “one of the most gut-wrenching things I think I’ve ever done.”
“Every one of those ballots — it’s an American citizen’s hopes and dreams of the candidate or candidates that they want to represent them,” he said.
Although drawdowns are rare and usually limited to recounts, they’ve drawn national attention.
When President Donald Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, his team invoked the law to seek a drawdown of 220,000 absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, calling the practice “the only legally available remedy” to account for what it alleged were unlawfully cast ballots. The Wisconsin Supreme Court narrowly rejected the effort.
Other states typically require officials to explain discrepancies rather than resolve them by discarding ballots. Krug’s legislation would require exactly that — for election officials to document the discrepancy and record the number and type of excess ballots.
Proposal would require risk-limiting audits
The bill also requires risk-limiting audits, a kind of post-election review designed to give statistical confidence that votes are accurately tallied.
In these audits, workers review a statistically significant sample of ballots that should mirror the vote totals. If the sample doesn’t align with official results within the allowed margin of error, officials review more ballots until it does. The number of selected ballots varies from election to election, depending on how close a race is and how many ballots were cast.
The math behind risk-limiting audits is complex, but election experts and officials have long supported the practice.
Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, a consulting firm, said she has long promoted risk-limiting audits because they can include more ballots than other reviews. They can be laborious in close races but less burdensome in lopsided ones.
Morrell said jurisdictions that have implemented risk-limiting audits have become better at accounting for their ballots and reconciling vote totals, knowing that any issues would become obvious during an audit.
Liebert, from All Voting is Local, called risk-limiting audits “an effective way to ensure a correct count and detect any statistical anomalies,” while boosting voter confidence.
Closer races require larger samples, and in very tight contests, such audits may require a full hand count. Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson said that could happen often, as races across the county tend to be quite close.
Krug’s proposal calls for county clerks to perform a risk-limiting audit for the contest garnering the most votes at each general or spring election before they certify the election results. It also calls for an additional audit of a random contest in those elections that the Wisconsin Elections Commission selects.
A pilot program would begin in 2026, with full implementation in 2027.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
Some of the 193 Madison voters whose ballots mistakenly didn’t get counted in the 2024 presidential election filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking class-action status, arguing that the city unconstitutionally deprived them of their right to vote.
The lawsuit stands out because it seeks monetary damages for alleged violations of voting rights — a remedy that has become increasingly rare. According to election experts, that type of claim is unlikely to succeed.
“These voters deserved better,” Scott Thompson, an attorney for the plaintiffs with the firm Law Forward, said in a statement. ”In Wisconsin, we value the right to vote, and there will be consequences when that right is denied.”
What’s the dispute?
During the November 2024 election, Madison election officials made a series of errors that kept 193 absentee ballots from being counted on Election Day. Officials waited so long to report the ballots to the county and state that they couldn’t be added before the election results got certified.
The named plaintiffs are some of the 193 voters whose ballots didn’t get counted in the 2024 election: Precious Ayodabo, Cary Bloodworth, Benjamin Jones, Sara Browne, Jenna Innab, Amira Pierotti, Miriam Sham, and Johannes Wolter. They’re represented by attorneys at Law Forward, a liberal election law group, and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP.
They’re suing the city of Madison, the city’s clerk office, former Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl, and current Deputy Clerk Jim Verbick, seeking monetary damages for the city’s failure to count the voters’ ballots. The complaint doesn’t specify the amount, but in a claim filed in March, the group representing the plaintiffs requested $34 million, or $175,000 for each disenfranchised voter.
Madison’s interim City Clerk and City Attorney Mike Haas declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Why does it matter?
This lawsuit aims to emphasize the importance of properly counting all ballots and set a monetary penalty for denying a person their vote. Election law experts note that claims for such remedies were common in voting rights battles of the late 1800s and 1900s — particularly when officials deliberately worked to disenfranchise Black voters — but are now rarely pursued and unlikely to succeed.
Although election officials around the state have repeatedly emphasized the severity of Madison’s errors, some told Votebeat that seeking monetary compensation for election mistakes would add unnecessary pressure on them.
Thompson, the Law Forward attorney, told Votebeat that he understands how clerks feel but wants there to be a clear penalty for disenfranchising voters, especially as some conservative groups in the past have sought to prohibit clerks from counting certain ballots.
What happens now?
The lawsuit will likely play out for months or longer. Madison has already hired a new clerk, Lydia McComas, who is set to start in late September.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
Wisconsin Republicans are reviving a plan to let poll workers process absentee ballots on the Monday before an election, a change long sought by election officials, but blocked by a small but influential group of conservative lawmakers.
This time, the proposal is tied to measures conservatives want, including regulations for ballot drop boxes and an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on ballots. By bundling the measures together, GOP leaders hope to finally unite their party on a plan that would shorten the wait for election results, reduce the opportunity for election misinformation and avoid a veto by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
The proposal, which Votebeat obtained in draft form from Republican Rep. Scott Krug, is set to be publicly released next week. Krug, former chair of the Assembly Elections Committee and now assistant majority leader in the Assembly, said he “will use every little ounce of political capital effort I created on elections to get Monday processing done, because that’s 90% of our problem in the state: perception.”
Early processing of absentee ballots has had support from Democrats and many Republicans, but proposals to allow it have repeatedly stalled in the past due to concerns over whether Milwaukee, a Democratic stronghold that has been a target of election conspiracy theories in the past, could be trusted with the head start on processing ballots.
Krug said he is “confident” that this measure will pass.
“I think the right-leaning voters of the state will appreciate that we’re codifying the court decision that (clerks) can’t cure ballots anymore,” said Krug. “I think the middle and the left-leaning people are going to be able to appreciate the Monday processing, and I think everybody’s going to be able to appreciate that there’s standards for drop boxes — they’re not going away.”
Monday processing proposals have stalled in the past
Most states allow some early processing of absentee ballots, but in Wisconsin, local clerks in Wisconsin cannot begin until the morning of Election Day. That process includes verifying voters’ information, checking for complete witness information and running the ballots through a tabulator. This proposal would allow everything to begin on Monday, except tallying the results.
In Milwaukee, where absentee ballots numbering between 50,000 and well over 100,000 in general elections are counted in a central location, counting often stretches into the early hours of Wednesday. As those ballots get tabulated in batches overnight, they can swing who is ahead in the vote tallies broadcast by the media, fueling false claims of fraudulent “ballot dumps.”
Election workers count ballots on Election Day on Nov. 5, 2024, at the central count facility at the Baird Center in Milwaukee. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Democrats have long asked for a bill that includes only the Monday processing proposal, but Krug told Votebeat it’s unlikely that enough Republicans would get behind such a measure for it to pass. Evers himself has proposed “clean” versions of the Monday processing bill in past state budgets, but ran into Republican opposition.
In 2023, the Assembly quickly approved a version of a Monday processing bill, only for it to stall in the Senate after Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a former elections committee chair who has spread election conspiracy theories, testified against it.
“Why would we give bad actors an extra day to cheat?” Brandtjen said in a statement in 2022 criticizing the transparency of Milwaukee’s election operation. (Claims of widespread voter fraud have never been substantiated.)
What’s included in the current Monday processing proposal
The current proposal is similar to past versions and includes previously proposed measures to create a centralized database of Wisconsin residents deemed incompetent to vote and to eliminate an obsolete practice of counting absentee ballots.
This version also proposes eliminating a law to record unique ID numbers on the back of absentee ballots at central counting facilities — a requirement that election workers say can risk ballot secrecy and creates needless work. It also includes a provision that would standardize witness address requirements on absentee ballot envelopes.
The proposal would require municipalities that count absentee ballots at a central location to begin processing them on Monday; it would allow municipalities that count them at polling places — such as Madison and the vast majority of other municipalities — to start on Monday, too, as long as they pass an ordinance allowing it.
An extra day to process ballots would allow election officials to work shorter shifts and get the job done more efficiently, said Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat.
It could also give election observers, some of whom are skeptical of the voting process, more opportunity to observe both ballot casting and counting, she said.
Tollefson said she was “hopeful” that the bill will finally cross the finish line this session.
“I really would like to have a large municipality have the option to use this, especially for your April and your November elections,” she said. “Those are really long days.”
Why Monday processing could break through this year
Krug said the proposal is one of his top priorities this session. And enough elements might have lined up for it to finally head to the governor’s desk.
Krug’s new leadership role could help. As assistant majority leader, he brokers support within the GOP caucus, which can only afford four defections in the 99-seat Assembly. He said he’s been trading support for colleagues’ priorities to build votes for Monday processing. He also is no longer chair of the elections committee, freeing him to author bills and advance them directly.
Ballot drop boxes may prove to be a key bargaining chip. The conservative-led state Supreme Court banned them in 2022; the liberal-led court reinstated them in 2024 but left them unregulated in statute.
Krug said he helped work on a poll in April that found 76% of Wisconsinites support the Monday processing proposal and 80% support standardized rules for absentee ballot drop boxes.
He decided to put the provisions together, proposing requirements for drop boxes, including where to place them, how to secure them, how to collect ballots, and how to keep records of when they’re emptied. He also proposed a requirement for the drop box to be under a continuous, livestreamed video feed.
Some members of the Republican caucus, Krug said, still want to get rid of drop boxes entirely. So “we had to kind of beef up the requirements for drop boxes to meet their hurdle. We’re not allowing them, we’re codifying them.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Sometimes life hits you with full-circle moments. For me, writing this is one of them.
After eight years away from the Badger State, I returned home this month to start my role as the new state government and politics reporter at Wisconsin Watch. I will be following the major stories inside the Capitol and connecting with key players in and outside of the building to make sure Wisconsinites understand what is happening in their government and how it affects their lives.
This work is important to me because Wisconsin is my home. I grew up in the Milwaukee area and graduated from Marquette University, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Real-world reporting opportunities in college at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service launched my career and taught me the value of community journalism. (NNS is now part of Wisconsin Watch, another full-circle moment.)
One thing never changed during my time away: Wisconsin was always on my mind, and frequently in the national spotlight. (It hasn’t even been six months since the April Supreme Court race set another spending record.) I felt a pull to return home, and Wisconsin Watch gave me that rare opportunity.
I’m thrilled to be back and to contribute to the important journalism my colleagues are doing every day across the state.
In the meantime, you can help me get going in this essential work. Email me at bcarloni@wisconsinwatch.org with your ideas on what to look into, questions about why our government works the way it does and suggestions for who I should meet. You can also subscribe to our weekly politics newsletter, Forward, to stay informed about what’s coming each week at the Capitol.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Reading Time: 9minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
Criminal defendants needing a constitutionally guaranteed lawyer are experiencing longer and longer waits for their day in court.
The median time it takes for felony cases to be adjudicated increased from 126 days in 2015 to 205 days in 2024. The case backlog remains more than 12,000 as of Aug. 1. A 2022 lawsuit against the State Public Defender office continues to move through the courts.
The state budget added far more funding for prosecutors than support staff for the State Public Defender office. State reimbursement rates for private attorneys continue to lag average lawyer pay.
Tracy Germait has waited more than two years for a public defender in her Brown County felony drug cases.
In the time since her two cases were first opened, Germait has worked on turning her life around: She has led two addiction support groups, became a certified peer support specialist, worked toward her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice online from Colorado Tech University, gained custody of her three children and has stayed clean for 18 months.
But every day she faces the possibility of being sent to prison once she finally has legal representation and stands trial.
“My biggest fear is not being there for my kids,” Germait said. “I’m barely getting their trust back, having them on a routine, a schedule, and giving them stability, and that getting ripped all away.”
Germait reports to court every couple of months, only to learn she still lacks an appointed attorney. The last time she appeared, the court told her it attempted to contact an attorney 10,410 times for her 2023 drug possession case and 4,184 times for her 2022 drug possession and delivery case.
“I’m kind of just stuck here,” Germait said. “I wish I could spend my vacation time with my kids, or doing something outside of work with them, but I can’t because I don’t know how many court dates I’m going to have in between now and the end of the year. So that is taxing.”
A calendar hangs on the wall at Tracy Germait’s transitional housing unit Aug. 12, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Tracy Germait, left, cleans up with her daughter, Isis, after leading a Cocaine Anonymous meeting Aug. 12, 2025, at MannaFest Church in Green Bay, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Germait isn’t the only defendant facing a long wait. In 2022 several indigent defendants lacking timely appointment of counsel filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin’s State Public Defender (SPD) office, claiming an ongoing pattern of delays in appointing a public defender for open criminal cases around the state. The suit found at least 8,445 defendants experienced a delay of 30 days or more in obtaining counsel for trials since 2019.
In January, the plaintiffs renewed their motion for class certification, meaning the suit would be able to continue. The case is awaiting a court ruling on the motion. If granted, the next step would likely be to begin litigating the case, moving toward a resolution.
As of Aug. 1, the Wisconsin Court System reported a backlog of around 12,586 felony cases.
Court data show the median age of pending felony cases has risen since before the pandemic. In 2015, the median time cases were pending was 126 days. In 2020, during the pandemic, it was 192 days, compared to 205 days in 2024.
And yet in the latest state budget, Republican lawmakers only granted 12.5 of the 52.5 requested SPD support staff positions, while increasing the number of prosecutors statewide by 42 and providing state funding for 12 expiring federally funded prosecutors in Milwaukee. As Wisconsin Watch reported in August, those 12 Milwaukee positions may have been funded in a way that violates the state constitution.
A right guaranteed by the Constitution and courts
The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 7, of the Wisconsin Constitution guarantee a defendant the right to a fair, speedy trial, including a lawyer. The landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright required states to protect those rights. But how to do so was largely left up to the states.
For the first few years, Wisconsin took a county-by-county approach to assign counsel, rather than relying on a state standard. But in 1977, Wisconsin established the independent Office of the State Public Defender to enforce the Gideon decision statewide.
“That office was never expected to handle all of the cases,” said John Gross, director of the Public Defender Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School and a former New York state public defender. “It was never funded to that degree.”
The backlog of open criminal cases stems from problems dating back decades that have yet to be solved.
When SPD first started, the agency was only expected to handle about half of the cases, and members of the private bar would enter into agreements to take on remaining public defender appointments, according to Gross.
“It’s necessary in any system for the simple reason that you have conflicts of interest, so if three guys get arrested for a robbery, the public defender’s office can only represent one of them,” Gross said.
Tracy Germait, right, leads a Cocaine Anonymous meeting with Mark Stevens, co-chair of the group, left, on Aug. 12, 2025, at MannaFest Church in Green Bay, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In Germait’s 2023 case, she was told there was an unspecified “conflict,” which means she’s waiting for SPD to appoint a private attorney.
The Legislature didn’t raise the $40 hourly rate — the lowest nationwide — for private attorneys handling public defender appointments for nearly 20 years. In 2020, it was raised to $70, then in the 2023-25 state budget the rate increased to $100 an hour.
But that rate remains well below the average hourly private attorney rate in Wisconsin, which averaged around $248 in 2023, according to SPD’s 2023-25 biennial budget request.
Over the past decade private attorneys have handled anywhere from 37% to 40% of public defender cases.
But private attorneys are often not interested in taking up public defender appointments due to low pay or just the stressful nature of working in a trial setting.
Christian Thomas, a Milwaukee County-based criminal defense attorney, said one of the first things he looks for in a public defender appointment is whether the defendant has previously had an attorney.
If an attorney previously dropped the case, that could make it more difficult to obtain evidence because a new attorney would rely on the previous lawyer rather than getting it directly from the prosecutor.
“After having spent much of my career doing sexual assault and homicide cases, I don’t take those anymore, unless they are my full pay clients,” Thomas said. “The public defender’s office is left holding on to a number of very serious cases that need very serious defense for whom there are very few of us (private attorneys) around, and most of us that have been around just don’t want to touch those cases anymore.”
For the 2025-27 budget cycle, SPD requested and Gov. Tony Evers proposed a $25 hourly increase for the most severe criminal cases, which the Legislature rejected.
Even when a private attorney takes on a public defender case, the lower reimbursement rate compared to full-paying clients incentivizes attorneys to cut a quick deal, risking the defendant’s legal outcome, according to a report from the Sixth Amendment Center.
To make the problem worse, during the COVID-19 pandemic, more public defenders aged out of the system to turn to the private sector, which increased wages more quickly than government employers to respond to pandemic-era inflation, the Wisconsin Policy Forum reported.
Elena Kruse, left; Jennifer Bias, middle; and Katie York are leaders of the Wisconsin State Public Defender office. Bias, the agency’s top official, said the growth of criminal charges for violating release conditions is a great overreach by prosecutors. (Beck Henreckson / Cap Times)
Meanwhile, the State Public Defender office is struggling to attract law school graduates who are discouraged by low pay and the demanding nature of public defender appointments while still paying off student loans. The office has 37 unfilled positions, amounting to a 10% vacancy rate. The vacancy rate has decreased since the pandemic, when it rose to about 25%.
Private law school tuition today is 2.54 times more expensive than it would have been if it had increased by inflation since 1985, while public law school tuition is over five times more expensive.
The University of Wisconsin Law School laid off John Gross, director of the law school’s Public Defender Project, among other employees due to budget cuts. (Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison)
The annual starting salary for a public defender in 2023 was $56,659, a Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis found, less than half of averages for all lawyers statewide.
Lawmakers this budget cycle approved two wage increases: a merit-based 3% general wage adjustment for all civil servants in the state for 2025 and 2% for 2026.
But higher pay alone won’t likely solve the backlog issue that has plagued Wisconsin and other states. The Oregon Legislature, for example, approved hourly wage raises for public defender appointments, but the state still has a massive backlog.
Public defenders require extensive training and education, so it may take years to see a noticeable increase in law school graduates willing to pursue a career as a public defender.
Recently, the UW Law School laid off Gross among other employees due to budget cuts. The future of the Public Defender Project, a clinic designed to prepare law students for a career in public defense, remains uncertain.
Cases in limbo destabilizing families
Defendants are facing consequences as cases pile up without attorneys to defend them. Even though those charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court, an open felony case can hurt a defendant’s chance of finding employment and housing, creating financial instability for them and their families.
Housing and job insecurity put someone at risk of homelessness, increasing their chances of ending up back in jail or stacking up additional charges.
Delaying a hearing by years or even months also jeopardizes the credibility of the evidence and witness testimony, said Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director at ACLU Wisconsin. In 2024, only 28% of cases were active for fewer than 90 days in Wisconsin. Over 5,000 cases were open for nearly two years.
“When people are detained pre-trial, it makes the problem even worse from a civil rights and liberties perspective because even spending a few days in jail can have devastating, long-lasting consequences for people who are presumptively innocent under the law,” Merkwae said. “It impacts them, it impacts their families, you think of the risk of job loss, losing housing, potential impact on child custody and parental rights.”
Many defendants awaiting counsel are sitting in jail because they can’t afford bail.
In Brown County, only one in five county jail inmates is serving a sentence. The rest are awaiting a sentence. On July 30, the jail, which has a capacity of 750 inmates, was over capacity by 107 people with an average stay of 256 days.
Tracy Germait leads a Cocaine Anonymous meeting Aug. 12, 2025, at MannaFest Church in Green Bay, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
So what can be done?
A problem that has worsened in recent decades has no quick fix.
This past budget cycle, the State Public Defender office proposed two budget items aiming to decrease the backlog and increase staffing. Neither passed as proposed.
The first was to increase SPD administrative and support staff by about 52.5 positions; the agency was ultimately only granted 12.5.
Support staff include investigators, who help collect evidence and identify witnesses for a case, and personnel to help clients understand the legal system, ensuring they are well-equipped for court.
Merkwae said another way to reduce the backlogs is reexamining and changing charging practices.
This past budget cycle, the public defender office recommended changing the sentencing and charging for a first-time disorderly conduct violation, which was projected to yield $1.9 million in savings for SPD by affecting 2,448 cases.
Felony and misdemeanor bail jumping are bail rule violations that get tacked onto other felony cases. They range from missing a curfew or appointment to not updating an address or having beer, and they can dramatically affect case outcomes, Merkwae said, adding that they can make defendants feel “coerced into entering a plea to their original charge because of the leverage that’s created by the bail jumping charges.”
Wisconsin is one of only seven states that allow prosecutors to file additional felony charges if someone violates pretrial release conditions.
During this budget session, the Legislature also added 42 new prosecutors around the state, with the highest number in Brown and Waukesha counties, where felony bail jumping is the most commonly charged felony.
Adding prosecutors without boosting resources for public defenders and private attorneys could exacerbate backlog issues, according to Thomas.
“This is simple economics,” Thomas said. “If you’re paying 12 extra people to do that job, you’re going to end up with 12 extra people’s worth of charges.”
In Wisconsin, the median case age at disposition for nontraffic felony cases is 247 days. In Brown County, it’s 373 days, with over 2,000 open felony cases filed in 2024.
For Germait, the limbo is constantly on her mind — and it’s shaping her life.
Tracy Germait, who has been waiting more than two years for a public defender, talks to her daughter, Isis, in her room on Aug. 12, 2025, at her transitional housing unit in Green Bay, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
After living in Amanda’s House, a sober-living home for women and children, Germait applied to several housing programs and apartments but was denied from most due to the active felony case.
Germait now lives in a transitional housing unit set to expire in April 2026. But with no updates or progress on her open cases, Germait faces the added stress of finding stable housing for herself and her children.
“I had to do an appeal and go through all that, and eventually they said yes because I had letters of support,” Germait said. “We have to move out in April, and it’s like, ‘What am I going to do then?’”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Reading Time: 8minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
In Wisconsin, permanently and totally disabled workers haven’t seen a raise to their worker’s compensation benefits in nine years, despite prices increasing 34% and the Legislature granting companies premium cuts worth more than $1 billion.
There’s a chance the raise will finally happen now that the state budget includes the creation of a worker’s comp fee schedule for medical services, which was a sticking point in past worker’s comp bill negotiations.
The proposed bill would make an estimated 210 more people eligible for raises and increase the maximum weekly benefit to $1,051 from $669 effective Jan. 1, 2026. It still must pass the Legislature and be signed by the governor.
Jimmy Novy grew up on a farm with corn, cattle and chickens in Wisconsin’s smallest municipality. Yuba, in the Driftless Area northwest of Madison, covers a third of a square mile. Novy correctly quotes its population in the last census: 53.
In 1967, at age 19, married with a child, Novy got a job at the Rayovac plant in nearby Wonewoc. It made batteries used in walkie-talkies in the Vietnam War.
In his late 20s, Novy learned he had been exposed to manganese, a key component in batteries. He suffered neurological problems that affected his left leg, severely limiting his ability to walk or even maintain his balance.
“The nerves from the brain to my leg, they can’t do nothing about that,” he said.
With four children to raise, Novy turned to Wisconsin’s first-in-the-nation worker’s compensation system. After three years of legal back-and-forth, the state agreed that Novy was permanently and totally disabled (PTD), meaning he was among the worst-off of Wisconsin workers injured on the job. As a result, he qualified for worker’s comp checks for life.
But there was no guarantee of how often those checks would increase.
Jimmy Novy suffered neurological problems in his late 20s after a decade handling toxic chemicals at a Rayovac plant in Wonewoc, Wis. (Courtesy of Jimmy Novy)
A now-abandoned factory once housed Rayovac Corp., a battery company at which Jimmy Novy suffered a workplace injury in his late 20s. The site is seen July 29, 2025, in Wonewoc, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Now 77, widowed, remarried and using hearing aids and a cane, Novy hasn’t seen an increase in his $1,575 monthly worker’s compensation check — nor have the other more than 300 other PTD recipients — since 2016.
“I can’t make it,” Novy told Wisconsin Watch in mid-July. “I got $8 left in my checkbook right now to last me through the last week of the month.”
“The wife buys food and stuff, otherwise I’d be starving to death,” he added.
Had Novy’s worker’s comp payment kept pace with inflation, which rose 34%, he would have received nearly $21,000 more over the past nine years, according to calculations by University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Menzie Chinn.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin employers have seen their premiums for worker’s compensation insurance decrease 10 years in a row, saving them $206 million in the past year and over $1 billion since 2017, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association, which is part of the state Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council.
Twenty-three states, including Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, provide automatic cost-of-living raises for PTD recipients. In Wisconsin, raises have been provided only when they are included in a wide-ranging worker’s compensation “agreed bill,” proposed every two years, and only if the bill becomes law.
That moment might be at hand.
The advisory council has recommended raises for PTD recipients in the next agreed bill, which is being drafted.
The bill still has to be approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Making history, creating PTD raises
In 1911, Wisconsin became the first state to adopt a comprehensive worker’s compensation law that was upheld as constitutional. Before that, the burden was on the worker to prove that a job injury was the employer’s fault. Now it’s a no-fault system. Workers injured on the job can receive regular payments based on their salary, plus coverage of medical bills to treat their injuries.
Wisconsin’s system has received high marks for getting injured workers back on the job quickly and for worker satisfaction in health care for their injuries.
The money for worker’s compensation checks comes from worker’s compensation insurance companies and from employers who are self-insured for worker’s comp. No tax dollars are involved.
About 21,000 people annually receive Wisconsin worker’s comp checks, the vast majority of them for a temporary period. Only about 500 people receive PTD benefits, and only 300 of them, like Novy, are eligible for raises.
That’s because the 2016 agreed bill limits raises, known as supplementary benefits, only to PTD recipients injured before Jan. 1, 2003.
Wisconsin Watch’s Tom Kertscher explains how permanently and totally disabled workers haven’t seen a raise to their worker’s compensation benefits in nine years. He also talks with Jimmy Novy, 77, who grew up on a farm in Yuba, Wisconsin, and became severely disabled after his job at the local Rayovac company exposed him to manganese. (Video by Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
How PTD raises are decided
The process that determines whether PTD raises are granted is not unlike the bargaining that an employer and a union do to reach a contract. Both sides have priorities, and there is horse trading and eventually compromise, at least on some issues.
The Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council is composed mainly of five representatives from management and five from organized labor, though it also includes nonvoting members representing insurance, health care and the Legislature.
Every odd year, the council develops a bill proposing multiple changes to worker’s comp. The process typically takes months of negotiations, said John Dipko, the council’s non-voting chair and administrator of worker’s compensation for the state Department of Workforce Development.
If approved by the Legislature and the governor, the bill becomes law the next year.
That process has produced 11 PTD raises since 1972. The 2016 raise put the maximum PTD payment at $669 per week.
‘The most severely changed’
Circumstances have left PTD recipient Scott Meyer better off financially than Novy, but delays in raises have forced Meyer to dip into savings and, as his health conditions worsen, worry about the future.
Meyer grew up outside of Milwaukee, playing in the woods and farm fields of rural Washington County. He was a member of the hockey team at West Bend West High School.
In 1993, at age 19, Meyer was working on a loading dock when a co-worker backing a semi-trailer pinned Meyer between the trailer and the dock. Meyer closed his eyes and tried to remain calm, thinking his right leg was broken.
“One of the paramedics in the ambulance thought that I was unconscious and said to the other paramedic that this was going to be his first fatality call,” Meyer recalled. “And I immediately then knew that something more major had happened.”
Scott Meyer in 1992 in his West Bend West High School hockey uniform. (Courtesy of Scott Meyer)
Scott Meyer in 2023 with his dog Luna near their home in Frisco, Colorado. (Courtesy of Lynn Meyer)
Worker’s comp recipient Scott Meyer’s video request to the state for a raise.
Meyer underwent multiple surgeries, spent more than a year in the hospital and dropped to under 100 pounds. He was left a paraplegic.
Though unable to work, Meyer became an Alpine skier in Colorado, where he now lives, competing in the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, Russia.
Meyer, 51, said he receives about $2,300 per month from worker’s compensation – nearly $370 per month less than what he was paid on the job in 1993.
Meyer, who owns a condominium with his wife, a mental health therapist, said he has been able to live comfortably only by preserving savings, including from a one-time payout he received from his former employer for his injury. But with no raises in nine years, he has had to dip into savings to get by.
Earlier this year, both Novy in an email and Meyer in a video asked the Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council to recommend raises for PTD recipients.
“These are people whose lives are the most severely changed and are legitimately dependent upon these funds,” Meyer told Wisconsin Watch. “We’re talking about pennies on the dollar to the kind of money that is in the system.”
The process that results in PTD raises involves negotiations on a variety of worker’s compensation issues. That has made the road to another raise rocky in recent years.
Delayed raises and a possible breakthrough
The Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council’s agreed bill for 2018 would have raised the maximum weekly PTD payment to $711 from $669 and made more PTD people eligible for raises. But the bill also proposed a “fee schedule,” generally opposed by health care organizations, to limit how much health care providers can charge for worker’s comp care. The bill did not pass the Legislature.
Since then, the labor side of the advisory council continued to propose PTD raises, while the management side continued to seek a fee schedule. Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states without one. The two sides did not agree to include PTD raises in their 2020, 2022 and 2024 agreed bills.
A key barrier was cleared when a fee schedule for worker’s comp was included in the 2025-27 state budget adopted in July.
Days later, the advisory council proposed raises for current PTD recipients and made more PTD recipients eligible for raises.
Jimmy Novy smokes a Wrangler cigar on his porch July 29, 2025, in Hillsboro, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Under the 2026 agreed bill, the injury date for PTD recipients to be eligible for raises would change from Jan. 1, 2003, to Jan. 1, 2020 — making an estimated 210 more people eligible for raises.
The bill would also raise the maximum weekly benefit for PTD recipients to $1,051 from $669 effective Jan. 1, 2026.
And it would add raises each Jan. 1, though those amounts would not be set until shortly before they become effective.
For individuals, the raise amounts would vary based on when they were injured.
For example, a PTD recipient injured in 1985 and receiving $535 a week would get a 57% increase to $840. The increase would amount to nearly $16,000 per year.
Once it’s drafted, the new agreed bill would need a final vote from the advisory council, which is expected in September. Then the bill would be submitted to the labor committees of the state Senate and Assembly.
Council management representatives didn’t reply to calls and emails requesting comment. Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale, the lead labor representative, said she understands the frustration over delayed raises. But she said the advisory council system, with management and labor hashing out worker’s compensation issues, provides stability.
Without it, “it would be up to the Legislature, and the whims of the political winds would determine the policy,” she said.
Dipko, the DWD administrator, said the department is sympathetic.
“We agreed that an increase is overdue,” he said.
Jimmy Novy holds out his arm to show his new tattoo on July 29, 2025, in Hillsboro, Wis. He has been collecting worker’s comp checks from the state since his injury in his late 20s. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
An archival photograph of Jimmy Novy, one of 312 permanently and totally disabled individuals in Wisconsin who haven’t seen a raise in their supplemental income since 2016. (Courtesy of Jimmy Novy)
After waiting this long, Novy isn’t sure what to think. He’s happy he and wife share a $125,000 brick house they own “with the bank,” as he puts it, and for his monthly $1,635 Social Security check, which increases each year. But he has filed for bankruptcy three times, most recently in 2020. He feels that at this stage of his life, he should be more secure, and a raise in worker’s comp would help.
“The Legislature should be — forget Republican, Democrat — just vote for what’s good,” he said.
“I can’t see how come they can’t give us a little raise every year,” he added.
How to express your opinion
The Legislature later this year is expected to consider a bill that recommends changes in state law on worker’s compensation, including providing raises to the permanently and totally disabled. Here is contact information for the two labor committees:
The chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development is Sen. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac: Sen.Feyen@legis.wi.gov; 608-266-5300.
Reading Time: 3minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
Judge Mark McGinnis will resign Feb. 1, but won’t face criminal charges after jailing a man during a probation hearing for an unrelated financial dispute in December 2021.
The special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, said the decision was based on McGinnis’ decision to resign, acknowledgement he could have handled case differently and concerns about the separation of powers.
The cement contractor who was jailed for three days said he may pursue a lawsuit now that the criminal case is resolved.
An Appleton-area judge won’t face criminal charges for jailing a man during a probation hearing over an unrelated financial dispute, but he will resign in February before his term expires, a special prosecutor assigned to the case said Thursday.
Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis had jailed cement contractor Tyler Barth in December 2021 over a private money dispute that was not a matter before the court. McGinnis accused Barth of theft, but Barth had not been arrested or charged with a crime. Wisconsin Watch first reported the case in January 2024.
La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke was appointed as a special prosecutor in the case in March 2024, more than a year after the Wisconsin Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation.
“That’s crazy, the fact that nobody’s going to prosecute him for it, that’s insane,” Barth said in an interview Thursday. “If he’s retiring, I guess that’s good, he can’t do that to nobody else,” but “it’s just bullshit, in my opinion.”
Gruenke said several factors led him not to charge: McGinnis had acknowledged through his attorney that he could have handled the matter differently; McGinnis’ decision to retire; and concerns about the separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches of government over charging a judge for a “mistake” made on the bench.
“This isn’t a case to test those parameters, especially since he acknowledged that he should have done it differently,” Gruenke said in an interview.
Read the Wisconsin Watch report detailing allegations of misconduct by Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis.
McGinnis informed Gov. Tony Evers in a letter Wednesday of his retirement effective Feb. 1, which he said would follow his 55th birthday and make him eligible for retirement benefits. McGinnis did not mention the investigation. He said his plans include educating judges in the U.S. and internationally.
McGinnis and his attorney Michelle Jacobs, the former top federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, did not reply immediately to calls and emails requesting comment.
Barth had appeared before McGinnis for a probation review hearing on a felony conviction for fleeing an officer. McGinnis accused him of stealing several thousand dollars from a cement contracting customer.
The customer’s spouse worked in the same courthouse for another Outagamie County judge.
Even though Barth had not been arrested or charged with theft, McGinnis ordered him jailed for 90 days, saying he would release Barth as soon as he repaid the customer.
Tyler Barth, a Hortonville cement contractor, says Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis jailed him over a financial dispute with a disgruntled client who worked in the courthouse. He is seen on Sept. 8, 2023, at a job site in Appleton, Wis. (Jacob Resneck / Wisconsin Watch)
The 32-year-old Fremont resident spent three days in jail before Fond du Lac attorney Kirk Everson intervened and persuaded McGinnis to release him.
Barth said Thursday he would seek an attorney in hopes of filing a lawsuit.
McGinnis was first elected in 2005, at age 34, and has been re-elected every six years without opposition. Most recently he was re-elected in April 2023 for a term that runs through July 2029.
Wisconsin judgeships are nonpartisan.
Gruenke, a Democrat, is a 30-year prosecutor, including the past 18 years as the La Crosse County district attorney.
Gruenke was appointed as special prosecutor by the Outagamie County Circuit Court in March 2024 after Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis determined it would be a conflict of interest for her office to handle the case.
Legal experts agree judges have unparalleled latitude for taking away someone’s liberty, especially if the person is on probation. But invoking criminal penalties to compel action in an unrelated dispute arguably goes beyond a judge’s lawful authority.
Wisconsin legal experts said they weren’t aware of any instance in which a sitting Wisconsin judge was charged with a crime for actions taken as a judge.
Experts also had said they did not expect criminal charges against McGinnis, but that a referral to the state Judicial Commission would be possible.
With McGinnis’ announced retirement, it’s unclear if the commission, which could take up the matter on its own, would do so.
Any matters before the Judicial Commission are generally confidential. They become public only if the commission files a complaint against a judge or if the judge being investigated waives confidentiality.
Editor’s note: This story corrects the spelling of Kirk Everson’s name.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Reading Time: 3minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
Wisconsin’s latest budget diverts 100% of funds from the Common School Fund to pay for 12 assistant district attorneys in Milwaukee.
The constitution requires net proceeds from a county’s traffic fines and forfeitures to go to the Common School Fund. A 1973 Supreme Court ruling found the Legislature can’t have a nominal amount of that money go toward the school fund, which pays for school library books in many counties.
The Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, which oversees the fund, has asked the Legislature’s attorney for an opinion.
Editor’s note: This story was corrected to reflect that the 12 assistant district attorney positions are existing positions funded by expiring federal funding, not new positions.
A provision in the recently passed state budget that diverts $2.2 million annually from schools to fund 12 Milwaukee County prosecutors may violate the Wisconsin Constitution.
The budget act redirects all traffic fines and forfeiture revenues in Milwaukee County to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office to fund 12 assistant district attorney positions that had been paid for with federal funding set to expire.
But under Article 10, Section 2, of Wisconsin’s constitution, all “clear proceeds” from traffic fines are required to go to the Common School Fund.
A statute later established the “clear proceeds” at 50% of total revenue, while counties could retain the other 50% to reimburse the cost of prosecuting traffic violations or seizing and managing forfeitures.
In a 1973 Wisconsin Supreme Court case, the court granted limited power to the Legislature to define “clear proceeds.” In doing so, the decision said counties couldn’t keep so large a percentage of fine and forfeiture revenue that “the sum left for the school fund is merely nominal.” It also ruled that a county can only use these funds to reimburse for the prosecution of the fines and forfeitures.
By giving all revenue to the Milwaukee County DA, the new law, part of the biennial budget, contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision that all “clear proceeds” — or net profits — from forfeitures and fines be directed to the Common School Fund.
Established in 1848 under the state constitution, the Common School Fund is used by public schools to purchase school library books and instructional materials and may be the only source of library funding for some counties. The Office of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL) manages the fund.
In two recent BCPL meetings, board members discussed how the amendment appears to contradict the Supreme Court decision — raising the prospect of litigation, according to meeting minutes.
“This provision appears to directly violate the 1973 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion regarding Article 10 of the Constitution,” Tom German, board executive secretary of BCPL, said during an Aug. 19 meeting. “That opinion expressly limited the Legislature’s authority to define clear proceeds in order to prevent only a nominal amount of fines and forfeitures going to the school fund. Zero is less than nominal.”
The provision is projected to reduce revenue directed to the fund by $2.2 million annually. Wisconsin’s remaining 71 counties are still required to direct 50% of revenue from fines and forfeitures to the Common School Fund. A report from April 2025 estimated the 2024-25 library aid to be $8.3 million for more than 130,000 pupils in Milwaukee County.
The Milwaukee County DA’s office has about 120 ADAs and 160 support staff. The provision allows the county to maintain 12 ADA positions, which German says also violates the Supreme Court opinion.
The Legislature’s budget committee added the provision during the last executive session of this budget cycle under a “miscellaneous items” section of the motion as part of a budget deal with Gov. Tony Evers.
Before the provision was proposed and passed by the committee late in the budget process, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau did not publish budget papers to explain the redirection of revenue from fines and forfeitures, as it often would for other budget proposals that come before the Joint Finance Committee during normal budget deliberations.
“The DPI will work with our partners in state government and professional organizations to ensure the Common School Funds — which are critical to student learning — continue,” a DPI spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch in response to the funding change.
In the last BCPL meeting, German said he informed the Wisconsin Legislative Council — the nonpartisan state agency in charge of providing legal and policy analysis — of this violation, and the council is currently investigating the provision.
The Legislative Council declined to comment. Evers’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
A Milwaukee County spokesperson said the funding for the 12 assistant district attorneys was a “bipartisan solution” to an “urgent need” to address court backlogs in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
“Without this funding, Milwaukee County will lose a dozen assistant district attorney positions, which will significantly increase court backlogs that will impact public safety efforts now and in the future,” the county spokesperson said in an unsigned email.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Reading Time: 4minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
A special prosecutor was appointed in March 2024 to look into Judge Mark McGinnis’ decision to jail a concrete contractor in December 2021 over a money dispute during a probation hearing for an unrelated crime. The money dispute was with a courthouse employee.
The special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, said he plans to make a decision on the case around Labor Day.
Criminal charges against a judge for a decision made from the bench are possible, but unlikely and without recent precedent. Judicial misconduct cases have been reviewed by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission since 1978, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has the final say on any penalty.
A special prosecutor expects to decide in early September whether to take the extraordinary step of filing criminal charges against an Appleton-area judge over his actions from the bench.
The special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, declined further comment to Wisconsin Watch on his investigation of Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis.
Wisconsin Watch reported in January 2024 that McGinnis’ actions were the focus of a Wisconsin Department of Justice criminal investigation that had been ongoing for more than a year. The March 2024 appointment of the special prosecutor has not previously been reported.
Read the Wisconsin Watch report detailing allegations of misconduct by Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis.
McGinnis had jailed cement contractor Tyler Barth in December 2021 over a private dispute that was not a matter before the court.
When Barth appeared before McGinnis for a probation review hearing, on a felony conviction for fleeing an officer, McGinnis accused him of stealing several thousand dollars from a cement contracting customer.
The customer worked in the same courthouse for another Outagamie County judge.
Even though Barth had not been arrested or charged with theft, McGinnis ordered him jailed for 90 days, saying he would release Barth as soon as he repaid the customer.
“I think it’s definitely crazy, just lock a guy up with no charge, no pending charge, no nothing and then get away with it,” Barth told Wisconsin Watch in a recent interview.
The 32-year-old Fremont resident said he spent three days in jail before Fond du Lac attorney Kirk Evenson intervened and persuaded McGinnis to release him.
“I just don’t think the guy should be able to do this to anyone else,” Barth said.
Barth later settled the money dispute with his customer. An attorney advised him it would be difficult to win civil damages against McGinnis because of judicial immunity, but Barth is waiting to see what happens with the criminal case before deciding whether to pursue a federal civil rights lawsuit.
Tyler Barth, a Hortonville cement contractor, says Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis jailed him over a financial dispute with a disgruntled client who worked in the courthouse. He is seen on Sept. 8, 2023, at a job site in Appleton, Wis. (Jacob Resneck / Wisconsin Watch)
McGinnis did not reply to requests seeking comment.
McGinnis was first elected in 2005, at age 34, and has been re-elected each time, without opposition. Most recently he was re-elected in April 2023 for a term that runs through July 2029.
Wisconsin judgeships are nonpartisan.
Gruenke, a Democrat, is a 30-year prosecutor, including the past 18 years as the La Crosse County district attorney.
Gruenke was appointed as special prosecutor by the Outagamie County Circuit Court in March 2024 after Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis determined it would be a conflict of interest for her office to handle the case.
Legal experts agree judges have unparalleled latitude for taking away someone’s liberty, especially if the person is on probation. But invoking criminal penalties to compel action in an unrelated dispute arguably goes beyond a judge’s lawful authority.
Judicial historian Joseph Ranney, an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, said he is not aware of any instance in which a sitting Wisconsin judge was charged with a crime for actions taken as a judge.
Jeremiah Van Hecke, executive director of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, also said he was not aware of such a case.
Since 1978, the Judicial Commission has been the body responsible for investigating complaints against judges, which are then referred to the state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has published 31 decisions that carried some form of punishment, often a reprimand, including several for actions taken from the bench.
In 1980, Milwaukee County Judge Christ Seraphim was suspended for three years without pay for a number of violations, including “retaliatory use of bail.” In 1985, retaliatory use of bail was one of the charges brought against Rusk County Judge Donald Sterlinske, who was ordered removed from office even though he had resigned.
Former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman has agreed to a three-year suspension of his law license, but is awaiting formal action in that case. It centers on his work as a special counsel investigating the 2020 presidential election, not his work as a judge.
Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather said, though it’s unlikely, McGinnis could be charged with misconduct in public office. That state law prohibits, among other things, officials from knowingly exceeding their lawful authority.
But a referral to the Judicial Commission seems much more likely than a criminal charge, Oldfather said.
The commission could also initiate an investigation on its own.
A special prosecutor, Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett, decided not to file criminal charges following a 2011 incident in which state Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Justice David Prosser of choking her during an argument in a justice’s office.
The Judicial Commission recommended that the Supreme Court discipline Prosser for misconduct, but the court took no action for lack of a quorum of four of the seven justices. Three justices recused themselves because they were witnesses to the incident.
Any matters before the Judicial Commission are generally confidential. They become public only if the commission files a complaint against a judge or if the judge being investigated waives confidentiality.
There have been criminal charges filed in connection with a judge’s role as a judge, though they were not in response to official actions taken by a judge.
In April, federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan with two crimes for allegedly obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting a criminal defendant in her courtroom. Her case is pending.
In 2019, a Winnebago County jury found Leonard Kachinsky, a municipal court judge, guilty of misdemeanor violation of a harassment restraining order involving his court manager.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Reading Time: 7minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
The $111 billion state budget adopted last month doesn’t extend the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, but it does include two conservation earmarks totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district.
The projects include repairs to Echo Lake Dam, which Vos said will save Burlington taxpayers $3,000.
Environmental advocates are hopeful the Legislature will still extend the Knowles-Nelson fund before the end of the current session. A Republican bill would reauthorize it for four years at $28.25 million per year with additional legislative controls.
Wisconsin’s recently passed budget doesn’t include the extension of a popular land conservation program, but it does include two earmarks for environmental projects in the home district of the state’s most powerful Assembly Republican.
After Republican legislators declined to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund in the state budget, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five natural resources projects, criticizing the Legislature for choosing “to benefit the politically connected few” instead of supporting stewardship through the statewide fund.
“I am vetoing this section because I object to providing an earmark for a natural resources project when the Legislature has abandoned its responsibility to reauthorize and ensure the continuation of the immensely popular Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program,” Evers wrote in his veto message.
However, Evers didn’t veto other natural resources projects, including two totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district in southeastern Wisconsin west of Racine. Asked why Evers spared those projects, his spokesperson Britt Cudaback referred Wisconsin Watch, without specifics, to the agreement between Evers and legislative leadership that cemented the $111 billion two-year budget.
Local environmental earmarks in the state budget are nothing new, but the latest examples highlight how such projects can take on greater political dimension when not overseen by civil servants at the DNR and the Legislature’s budget committee, as has been the process for more than 30 years since the creation of the Knowles-Nelson fund. Legislators have allowed the program to inch closer to expiration while attempting to secure stewardship programs in their own districts.
The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund supports land conservation and outdoor recreation through grants to local governments and nonprofits and also allows the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purchase and maintain state land. The program is currently funded at $33 million a year until the end of June 2026.
Local governments and nonprofit organizations can apply for Knowles-Nelson grants during three deadlines every year, and DNR staff evaluate and rank projects based on objective criteria including local public support, potential conservation benefits and proximity to population centers.
Despite not authorizing the fund through the state budget, Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, and Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, committed to reauthorizing the fund and introduced stand-alone legislation in June to reauthorize the stewardship fund at $28.25 million per year for the next four years.
Burlington receives $15 million for two natural resources projects
The two projects in Vos’ district received a total of $15 million in state taxpayer dollars from the general fund and were the only natural resources earmarks mentioned in the state budget agreement between Republicans and Evers.
The only larger natural resources earmark — a $42 million grant for a dam in Rothschild — was added by the Joint Finance Committee and included in the final state budget, though it wasn’t mentioned in the agreement. That grant isn’t funded with general fund revenue, but rather a separate forestry account, which includes revenues from the sale of timber on public lands.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, speaks to the Wisconsin Assembly during a floor session Jan. 14, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In a statement on the inclusion of funding for the projects, Vos, R-Rochester, touted how $10 million for the Echo Lake Dam will save Burlington residents an average of $3,000 in taxes that would otherwise fund the project. Upgrades to Echo Lake will cost as much as $12 million including $3.5 million for dam modifications and up to $5 million for lake dredging.
For years, city officials in Burlington have grappled with how to address the Echo Lake Dam. In 2022, the Burlington City Council considered removing the 200-year-old dam but ultimately voted to keep it after residents expressed support though an advisory referendum. The dam needs upgrades because it doesn’t meet DNR requirements to contain a 500-year flood.
The Browns Lake Sanitary District also received $5 million for the removal of sediment in Browns Lake. Local residents have raised concerns over sedimentation in the lake, affecting the lake’s usability for recreation and ecological balance.
In a website devoted to the Browns Lake dredging, Claude Lois, president of the Browns Lake Sanitary District, thanked Vos for including $5 million for the project and advised residents: “If you see Robin Vos, please thank him.”
An image from the Browns Lake Preliminary Permit shows the proposed dredging areas for the lake. (Source: https://www.brownslakesanitarydistrict.com/)
DNR spokesperson Andrea Sedlacek directed Wisconsin Watch to Evers’ spokesperson, declining to answer questions on whether the two projects in Vos’ district could have been covered by Knowles-Nelson funds. The Echo Lake Dam project tentatively received a grant for over $700,000 from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund last fall for development of gathering spaces adjacent to the lake.
Vos did not respond to a request for comment.
Other conservation projects were vetoed by Evers, including a $70,000 dredging project on a section of the Manitowoc River in the town of Brillion. Ultimately, the DNR and the Evers administration provided funding for the project after Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, and local farmers criticized the veto, claiming that they were at risk of flooding without funds for the dredging project.
Rep. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, said he was surprised and disappointed with Evers’ veto of the Deerskin River dredging project in his district. He called Evers’ reasoning a “lame excuse, using the Knowles-Nelson program as political cover” in an email statement to Wisconsin Watch. Swearingen said he and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, were considering alternative funding sources, including introducing stand-alone legislation to finance the dredging project.
Swearingen declined to say what he thought about the projects in Vos’ district getting funded. Other Republican lawmakers with vetoed projects in their districts didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, left, talks to Rep. Joe Sheehan, D-Sheboygan, right, prior to the Wisconsin Assembly convening during a floor session Jan. 14, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, a member of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, told Wisconsin Watch she supports Evers’ vetoes because the earmarked projects did not go through the process the DNR uses to evaluate the benefits of particular projects.
Andraca said while several earmarked projects were likely strong contenders for Knowles-Nelson, without the DNR’s process of evaluating project merit, the most beneficial projects may not receive funding.
“We need to make sure that we’re taking into account that the best, most important projects are being funded, not just the projects that are in someone’s (district) who might have a little bit more sway in the Legislature,” Andraca said.
An angler casts a line near the Echo Lake Dam on Sept. 1, 2022, in Burlington, Wis. The Echo Lake Dam project tentatively received a grant for over $700,000 from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund for development of gathering spaces adjacent to the lake and got a $10 million earmark in the latest state budget. (Angela Major / WPR)
Paul Heinen, policy director for environmental advocacy organization Green Fire, lobbied for the first stewardship fund in 1989. Heinen said legislators have pushed for stewardship projects in their districts through the state budget process for as long as the stewardship fund has existed.
“The DNR has a process by which they go through to analyze projects, and that’s all set up in the code and everything,” Heinen said. “But of course, just like Robin Vos and any other legislator, if they can get something in the budget, it’s faster and you don’t have to go through the steps in order to get something done.”
In the 2023-25 budget cycle, the largest natural resources earmark was $2 million for dredging Lake Mallalieu near River Falls.
Heinen said legislators are faced with a conundrum — they claim to oppose statewide government spending on stewardship, but want projects in their own districts.
“Publicly, they say they’re opposed to government spending in this boondoggle stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “But then when it gets down to something in their district, they are at the ribbon cutting.”
State Supreme Court decision complicates reauthorization
For years the JFC halted Knowles-Nelson conservation projects by not taking a vote on them, something critics referred to as a “pocket veto.” The Evers administration sued over the practice, and in July 2024 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 6-1 the Legislature’s pocket veto was unconstitutional.
“What the court said was that the finance committee by going back after the fact and blocking an appropriation that had already been approved by the entire Legislature, and that was an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority,” said Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, an alliance of land trusts in the state.
Republicans have said trust issues with both the DNR and the Evers administration prevented them from releasing Knowles-Nelson funds without more control.
Kurtz and Testin’s proposed bill also includes new requirements for legislative approval for larger projects over $1 million in an effort to allow legislative oversight without the pocket vetoes.
Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee Vice Chair Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, listens to a fellow legislator during a Joint Finance Committee executive session June 5, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. Kurtz has proposed legislation that would reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund at $28.25 million per year. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The bill’s funding level is below the $100 million per year for 10 years that Evers proposed in his budget, but close to current funding levels of $33 million per year.
In 2021, the fund was reauthorized with $33.2 million per year for four years. In 2019, the fund was reauthorized for only two years, breaking a cycle of reauthorization in 10-year increments.
A poll of 516 Wisconsin voters commissioned by environmental advocacy organization The Nature Conservancy found 83% supported Evers’ proposal, with 93% of voters supporting continued public funding for conservation. However, most respondents were unaware of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund.
Funding for Knowles-Nelson peaked in 2011 and was reauthorized under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was the first governor to approve funding for the stewardship fund in 1989.
“There was a lot of talk initially from mostly Republican legislators who were skeptical of the governor’s proposal,” Carlin said. “But it’s really only a huge amount of money in comparison to how the program had kind of been whittled down through the years.”
In a January interview with the Cap Times, Vos said the chances of Republicans reauthorizing the fund were less than half.
Andraca said she hears more from constituents about the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund than almost any other program.
“I seriously hope that my Republican colleagues are serious about passing something because it would be a real tragedy to lose something like this that has bipartisan support and has been so instrumental in preserving Wisconsin’s natural areas,” Andraca said.
‘Totally uncharted territory’ for stewardship funding
Carlin said the failure to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson puts land stewardship organizations and local municipalities — the typical recipients of Knowles-Nelson grants — in “totally uncharted territory.”
Although Knowles-Nelson funding is set to expire at the end of next June, Carlin said local governments and land trusts face uncertainty in planning because they aren’t sure the Legislature will get the new reauthorization bill done.
“Similar to what you’re probably hearing from folks about federal budget cuts … this just totally scrambles the planning horizon,” Carlin said.
Heinen, however, is more optimistic the Legislature will vote to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson.
“90-plus percent of the people in the state of Wisconsin want the stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “Legislators know that. They’re not going to go running for reelection in November of next year and have their opponents say, ‘Why are you against the stewardship fund?’ So I’m really not worried about it at all.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission ordered Madison election officials to follow several specific election procedures to ensure that ballots don’t go missing again in the capital city, rejecting arguments by the interim clerk that the orders may exceed the agency’s legal authority.
The commission’s 5-1 vote Friday came a month after it withheld a first set of proposed orders amid pushback from Madison and Dane County officials and asked the city to propose its own remedies. Madison interim Clerk Mike Haas said the specificity of the commission’s original proposed orders “would set a troubling precedent.”
The city did submit its proposals, but the commission rejected them as overly broad and finalized orders that were largely similar to the ones it proposed in July, with some minor revisions, including citations of the legal basis for each order.
The orders require Madison officials to create an internal plan detailing which election task is assigned to which employee; print pollbooks no earlier than the Tuesday before each election; develop a detailed record to track absentee ballots; and search through election materials for missing ballots before the city’s election canvassing board meets to finalize results.
The WEC action responds to lapses by the Madison clerk’s office, then headed by Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl, after the November 2024 presidential election, when staffers lost track of 193 ballots and did not report finding them until well past the state deadline for counting. The commission launched its investigation into the matter in January.
Clerk’s cookie baking factored into commissioners’ discussion
During discussions ahead of the vote, Commissioner Don Millis, a Republican, cited Votebeat’s reporting that Witzel-Behl spent a long post-election vacation at home — not on an out-of-state trip, as he had believed — baking thousands of cookies when some lost ballots were discovered. That, he said, factored into his vote for stricter orders.
“She couldn’t be bothered to turn off the oven, to come to the office to figure out if the Ward 65 ballots could be counted,” he said. “The failure to mention that the clerk was readily available to address this issue, along with the fact that none of the city officials we depose felt it was their job to get the ballots counted, makes me even more determined that the Commission must impose the directions in our order.”
Similarly, commission Chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said it was “peculiar” that clerk’s office staff never told commissioners during their monthslong investigation that they rented cars on city time to deliver cookies after the ballot discovery.
Those deposed “were all part of the cookie crew,” she said ahead of her vote. “Why didn’t they tell us about that? Why didn’t the city of Madison ever mention this? Why did nobody bring this up?”
In a memo circulated ahead of the meeting, commission staff said the scope of the error “warrants a detailed order from the Commission correcting (Witzel-Behl’s) office’s policies and procedures, and ensuring those issues are actually fixed before the next statewide election.”
Haas, who was formerly the commission administrator, disagreed with the original proposed orders. He said the commission’s authority “does not extend to requiring the future implementation of specific procedures in excess of those required in the statutes.”
But commission staff pushed back, calling it “unreasonable and absurd” to read state law as barring the commission from ordering specific remedies.
In some cases, the commissioners made the requirements more stringent than what Madison proposed, but more lenient than the commission’s originally proposed orders.
For example, one order the commission initially proposed would have required Madison to print pollbooks no sooner than the Thursday before Election Day, despite state law calling on officials only to have the “most current official registration list.” Haas requested an order more in line with what state law outlines, printing the ballots as close to Election Day as possible.
The final order sets the deadline for printing pollbooks on the Tuesday before Election Day — two days earlier than first proposed — and requires that they be delivered no later than the Friday before the election.
Witzel-Behl’s office printed pollbooks for the two wards that lost ballots on Oct. 23, nearly two weeks before Election Day. The commission said printing that early made it harder for officials to track absentee ballots returned before Election Day and harder for poll workers to see how many ballots went uncounted.
Interim clerk’s objections to the commission’s order
Haas, who took over as interim clerk after Witzel-Behl was suspended in March, told Votebeat on the Tuesday ahead of the meeting that it was “way too early” to think about whether Madison would appeal the commission’s orders in court. In a statement after Friday’s vote, he said he was grateful that the commission altered some orders after the city’s feedback.
“The question is which level of government is best suited and authorized to determine specific procedures that work for the municipality in going above and beyond what the statutes require,” he told Votebeat. “We look forward to working with the Commission to ensure compliance with state law.”
Mark Thomsen, a Democratic commissioner, said he wasn’t comfortable with the agency beating up on Madison over mistakes made under a former clerk when a new permanent clerk hasn’t yet been hired.
At the meeting, Thomsen said he was uncomfortable imposing burdens on a new clerk that “no one else has to follow.”
“This order seems spiteful, and I don’t want to go there,” he said, before casting the lone dissent. Republicans Millis, Bob Spindell and Marge Bostelmann joined Democrats Carrie Riepl and Jacobs in approving the orders.
State law allows the commission to “require any election official to conform his or her conduct to the law, restrain an official from taking any action inconsistent with the law or require an official to correct any action or decision inconsistent with the law.”
Many of the orders, such as assigning specific staff to each election task, are not explicitly mentioned in statute.
Addressing claims that the orders were too detailed, commission staff attorney Angela O’Brien Sharpe said, “If the Legislature intended for the commission to only be able to issue general orders, they would have written a law to say just that.”
In a statement following the vote, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said the city is reorganizing the office to improve efficiency and accountability.
“We appreciate the Wisconsin Elections Commission considering our input and amending its orders to reflect that feedback,” she said. “I hope the WEC’s investigation can help inform best practices for election clerks around the state.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988.” Or you can send a text message to 988 or use the chat feature at 988lifeline.org.
Click here to read highlights from the story
Older adults account for 1 in 5 suicides in Wisconsin, with the rate among men over 75 twice the statewide rate for everyone.
The latest data from 2023 show suicide rates among older people declined over the previous year, when they were higher than the national average.
The state budget includes additional mental health resources in the Fox Valley and for Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh. Republican lawmakers are calling for additional telehealth resources, while Democrats want to reinstate the 48-hour waiting period for gun purchases.
Earl Lowrie doesn’t spend a day of retirement without thinking about suicide.
The disabled 66-year-old lives with two grandchildren in the village of Cameron in northwest Wisconsin, where he is $50,000 in debt and suffering from multiple autoimmune diseases. Nowadays, Lowrie spends his time trying to elude a pernicious voice, telling him “there really isn’t any recourse now” and to “take some opioids and go to sleep.”
Nationwide, adults over 65 have some of the highest suicide rates by age group, though they are among the least likely to seek or receive mental health support. They made up 20% of all suicide deaths in Wisconsin between 2018 and 2023 — but in 2023, only 3,142 older people used county mental health services, down from a peak of nearly 4,000 who used them in 2018.
Wisconsin Watch spoke to policymakers, health professionals, advocates and older adults about the current mental health landscape for older people in Wisconsin and the possible roads to geriatric suicide prevention in the future. Their goals beyond prevention are to help older adults realize that they are not forgotten and to raise awareness about community supports at every stage of life.
That’s what Lowrie is working to remember.
Older men kill themselves at two times the statewide rate
In 2023, 184 older Wisconsin adults ended their own lives, out of 921 total suicides. The statewide age-adjusted suicide rate was 15 out of 100,000 residents, while the rate for those between 65 and 74 years old was 15.7. Suicides among those 75 and older were higher at 17.1.
That’s down from the previous year, when Wisconsin adults above 65 died at a higher rate than the national average, 18.6 vs. 17.7. It’s unclear why the numbers went down or whether it will continue in future years.
Nonetheless, depression and anxiety disorders “have really picked up” recently for the patients of Kenneth Robbins, a geriatric psychiatrist based in Rock County. He has especially noticed issues with older men, who died from suicide at more than two times the statewide rate in 2023.
Robbins said that one of the biggest contributors to this suicide rate is isolation.
“What’s unique about older white men is that many of them are not very socially adept,” Robbins said. “When they retire, they’re not quite sure what to do with their lives exactly and often become very lonely and feel like they’re not doing anything meaningful and start to wonder, ‘What’s the point of living?’”
Robbins also noted that older adults who struggle with medical problems, such as dementia or cancer, are highly likely to attempt suicide for fear of physical pain and becoming a “burden” to their loved ones.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, more than half of residents 55 years and older who died by suicide in 2023 had health problems that “appeared to have contributed to their deaths.”
Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, said he was at a wedding when his wife’s great-grandmother, suffering from dementia, told him to kill her. James’ father told him he would rather die by suicide than live with the disease.
“I’ve had many family members state they would rather die by suicide than to remain on the Earth if they were attacked by dementia,” said James, who worked to ensure the recently approved state budget included more mental health services in the Chippewa Valley.
Older adults in rural Wisconsin face extra challenges
Lowrie retired from truck driving in 2019 after he had a fall at work and needed a spinal fusion for his back. Around that time, he developed rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis, and later stage 4 cancer.
“My mental illness went off the rails,” he said. “The only reason that I didn’t (take my life) was because I’ve seen how painful it is for others around you.”
The pain Lowrie was referring to was the loss of his youngest son, Justin, who shot himself a little less than a decade ago. Ever since then Lowrie retreats for long periods into a depression “closet” that lets very few people inside.
“I’ve been trying to break out of that here more recently,” he said. “Often you don’t have that trigger that you needed to get you out of the closet to go out and find something that’s going to bring you out of this slump.”
Earl Lowrie pours a glass of the kombucha he’s been fermenting in the kitchen at his home, June 21, 2025, in Cameron, Wis. Lowrie, who has struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life, sees a therapist he found after calling the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) hotline and getting connected to the organization’s Chippewa Valley local affiliate in Wisconsin. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Lowrie’s home county has an age-adjusted suicide rate lower than the statewide average, but many rural counties in the state have significantly higher than average rates. Of the 184 suicides among older adults in 2023, 115 were in areas with populations under 50,000 and 42 were in areas with populations under 10,000.
Older adults in rural areas often live far away from mental health providers, many of whom don’t accept Medicare, according to Robbins. They also often live far away from family and community.
“That further adds to the hopelessness you feel and the loneliness that you feel,” Robbins said. “Nobody’s noticing that you’re getting more and more depressed, and becoming less and less functional.”
No legislation geared toward geriatric mental health
Though there is no legislation circulating to address geriatric mental health and suicide prevention, legislators are pushing broader bills related to mental health, substance abuse and gun control, which they say will start to help.
Gov. Tony Evers’ initial 2025-27 state budget recommendations included $1.2 million and six full-time equivalent positions for Mendota Mental Health Institute’s geropsychiatric treatment unit, which serves mentally ill, disabled or drug-dependent older adults who require more specialized services than are generally available.
The request was for hiring additional staff and moving the unit to a nearby building with larger treatment space. Jennifer Miller, the communications specialist for Mendota, said the Wisconsin DHS made the request because it is seeing an increase in older patients who need mental health services.
With the new space, “there (would have been) additional capacity at (Mendota) to serve these individuals in a space designed to meet the unique mental health treatment and service needs facing an aging population,” Miller said.
However, legislative Republicans removed the additional funding for Mendota. Instead, the budget provides almost $16 million to address the current deficit at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute’s “civil patient treatment program” for 2025. Winnebago, located in Oshkosh, treats patients legally ordered to undergo mental health treatment, but the funding is not specifically for geriatrics.
The budget also includes $10 million in funding for the development of a mental health campus and $1 million for reopening a substance abuse treatment facility in the Chippewa Valley, which has a significantly higher suicide rate than the statewide average.
Earl Lowrie displays an X-ray showing the spread of his cancer, June 21, 2025, in Cameron, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Earl Lowrie holds a glass of tincture made from mushrooms he grew himself, June 21, 2025, in Cameron, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
James and Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, who co-authored the provisions, said the campus will restore the region’s mental health beds lost after two nearby hospitals closed last year. Moses also said that he has been working on general telehealth bills that would help bridge gaps in mental health care for older adults in rural areas.
“It’s about making sure they’ve got access — (especially) if they don’t have family members — to someone they can talk to,” Moses said. He believes older adults should be able to do an online video meeting rather than drive 45 minutes or an hour to talk to someone about their issues.
For suicide prevention, Democrats have circulated multiple bills related to gun safety, one of which would reinstate the previous 48-hour mandatory handgun purchase waiting period repealed by Republicans in 2015.
Former Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff — who last year purchased a handgun and killed himself within hours — had argued for reinstating the waiting period, saying it had prevented his own previous suicide attempts.
Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, a close friend of Brostoff who reintroduced the bill to the Senate in June, said the law had protected an “untold number of people.”
“There’s the false narrative of, ‘if you don’t have a gun, you’re not safe,’ right? … (But) the statistics show that most suicides that end in death are with a handgun,” Larson said. “The more time we can put in between the time that somebody is trying to obtain a handgun and when they actually get it, it saves lives.”
People 65 and older carry out 25% of all firearms suicides in Wisconsin and use firearms for suicide at by far the highest rate. Lowrie disagrees that gun legislation would prevent suicides and said older adults start to feel a “very large sense of helplessness” when their guns are taken away.
Finding community
Lowrie attributes suicide challenges and reluctance among older adults to seek mental health support to the way his generation was raised.
Organizations such as NewBridge, a Madison nonprofit dedicated to serving low-income older adults, seek to proactively address the issue by providing older adults with community programming and case management, but especially mental health care.
Kathleen Pater, the mental health manager at NewBridge, described older adults as a “forgotten group” who “might not be the best advocates for themselves.” Her team is often the first human interaction their clients have in a long time and the first to have honest conversations about mental health.
We need to “really focus and see the importance of this stage in life and how much seniors can really offer the community back,” Pater said. “It’s connecting them back into the community with intergenerational programs, and just a societal shift in seeing our elders as valuable and knowledgeable and having all this life experience rather than being isolated and forgotten.”
Earl Lowrie stands alongside his Harley-Davidson motorcycle in his garage June 21, 2025, in Cameron, Wis. “You wouldn’t know what light was if you hadn’t found darkness,” Lowrie said. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In January, Lowrie finally sought out help for his mental illness after an interaction with his ex-wife sent him into a “tailspin” of anxiety and suicidal thoughts. When an online artificial intelligence therapist didn’t work, his best friend Wes told him about the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Initially, Wes had suggested a NAMI chapter in Rice Lake, about seven miles away from his village. But Lowrie soon found the Rice Lake office was closed, and the nearest location in Eau Claire was 50 miles away.
Despite “talking (himself) into it and out of it above half a dozen times,” Lowrie took a leap of faith with the encouragement of Wes and his granddaughter and went to Eau Claire. He now describes NAMI as “a rope pulling me out of the water, keeping me from drowning.”
“There’s people from every walk of life and every different kind of problem that you could imagine, but mine was no more twisted and weird than their own,” Lowrie said. “It was through them I found enough encouragement and ideas of finding more help.”
Through NAMI, Lowrie was connected to individual, weekly counseling, a nutritionist, a dietitian, and a mental health prescription that gives him hope. He continues to attend NAMI Eau Claire’s biweekly meetings, and his cancer is now in complete remission.
Despite newfound support, Lowrie said he is often “suffocated” by his mental illness and that most of the time, he would rather be dead than suffer. In his worst moments, not even his favorite things, like the laughter of children or the breeze on his skin, can draw him out.
But Lowrie doesn’t intend to stop fighting.
“I am going to do everything in my power to get to the other side of my mental illness,” Lowrie told Wisconsin Watch. “I’m on a mission, and I’m not holding back at all … I’m coming out the other side one way or another.”
If you or someone you know is in immediate physical danger, call 911.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis:
Members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission expressed alarm Thursday at how much time former Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl spent on vacation while a crisis was erupting in her office: the discovery of 193 missing ballots from the November 2024 election that never got counted.
In its 400-page investigative report, finalized at a meeting by a 5-1 vote, the commission said that Witzel-Behl began her vacation in mid-November, days after the election, “and then had little to do with the supervision of her office until almost a month later.” No staffers took responsibility during the extended absence, the commission chair, Democrat Ann Jacobs, complained before the vote. The missing ballots were not reported to the commission until mid-December.
Records obtained by Votebeat provide some clarity into what Witzel-Behl was doing around the time: baking thousands of cookies and calling on her staff to help deliver them.
Most of that activity began after Dec. 2, when the second batch of uncounted ballots was found.
These records have not been publicly reported and were not included in the investigative report finalized Thursday.
“This is remarkable,” Republican Commissioner Don Millis said when Votebeat showed him some of the findings. “None of the witnesses we deposed disclosed her cookie staycation.”
After approving the report, the commission voted 4-2 to delay action on proposed corrective orders after city and county officials argued that the requirements were overly specific and exceeded state law. The city now has until Aug. 7 to provide a more complete response to the recommendations, and a follow-up meeting has been scheduled for Aug. 15.
Witzel-Behl didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘Cookie extravaganza’ featuring ‘100 different types’
Emails show that Witzel-Behl took time off for all or part of 17 days between Nov. 11 and Dec. 6 and said, according to an event invite, that part of it was for “devoting a staycation to baking.”
According to the commission, Witzel-Behl knew about the first batch of ballots on Nov. 12. That was well before the cookie event.
The second batch of uncounted ballots was discovered on Dec. 2 by office staff. Witzel-Behl was out of the office that day and for the rest of that week. She told the commission she learned of the second batch of ballots on Dec. 10. “While on vacation, she did not inquire of her staff whether there were absentee ballots in the bag,” the report reads.
On Dec. 10, she sent an email to three staffers, including Deputy Clerk Jim Verbick, saying she’d reserved three cars for cookie deliveries. “Maybe each of you can make at least one cookie delivery to a library,” she wrote.
She also arranged additional deliveries and rented more cars for later the following week, an email sent Dec. 13 shows. “We still have several packages of cookies, so feel free to pick a few agencies for another delivery,” she suggested to 16 staffers across her office and other city departments the same day.
“I had assumed — obviously erroneously — the clerk was vacationing in some faraway place,” Millis told Votebeat, denouncing Witzel-Behl for not personally managing the discovery of the uncounted ballots.
The clerk’s staff didn’t tell the commission about the missing ballots until Dec. 18. By that point, the state had already certified the election and the missing ballots couldn’t have counted.
‘She worked her ass off’ — on the cookies
Jacobs said before the vote that she was surprised by Witzel-Behl’s “complete lack of action” during the relevant time period. Marge Bostelmann, a Republican appointee on the commission and the former longtime Green Lake County clerk, said that even if she had been on vacation in such a situation as a county clerk, she would have remained accessible if urgent questions arose.
Commissioner Bob Spindell, a Republican, was the lone dissenter on the vote to approve the report, saying he didn’t want Witzel-Behl to be “crucified.”
One person close to the Madison Clerk’s Office, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told Votebeat that the task of making thousands of cookies and arranging deliveries “became all-consuming” for Witzel-Behl. “You could see how she was not focused on getting through reconciliation or whatever.”
“For some people, baking is calming,” that person continued. “It seemed like she needed a break. But then she worked her ass off (on the cookies). It was a huge operation.”
Between early and mid-December, city employees from a variety of departments thanked Witzel-Behl for her cookies. It’s not clear how many cookies she ultimately made.
On Dec. 16, one person in the city’s transportation department sent a clerk’s office staffer an email asking, “Are these cookies for the entire first floor? The entire building? The entire universe?”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Login
