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The Wisconsin Elections Commission declined to vote Wednesday on whether the state’s top elections official should appear before a state Senate hearing on her reappointment as a fight continues over who will lead elections in the critical battleground state ahead of the 2024 presidential race.

Without clear instructions from commissioners, it is up to Meagan Wolfe, the commission’s administrator, to decide whether she will testify before Republicans who control the state Senate and wish to force a vote on firing her.

“It is a really difficult spot,” Wolfe said. “I feel like I am being put in an absolutely impossible, untenable position either way.”

Wolfe has been a target of conspiracy theorists who falsely claim she was part of a plan to rig the 2020 vote in Wisconsin, and some Republican leaders have vowed to oust her.

The bipartisan elections commission on June 27 deadlocked 3-3 along party lines on a vote to reappoint Wolfe, with Democrats abstaining in order to cause the nomination to fail. Without a nomination from at least four commissioners, a recent state Supreme Court ruling appears to allow Wolfe to continue indefinitely as head of the elections commission, even past the end of her term.

Senate Republicans tried to proceed with the reappointment process anyway, deciding in a surprise vote the following day to move ahead with a committee hearing and ultimately hold a vote on whether to fire her.

Commissioners said Wednesday they would not vote on a motion to either authorize or prohibit Wolfe from appearing at a hearing of the Senate elections committee, as it is not standard for the commission to decide those matters.

“Meagan Wolfe is the chief elections officer for the state of Wisconsin. I have no interest in babysitting who she speaks to,” said Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs.

The commission’s decision came despite partisan disagreements about the legitimacy of the Senate’s actions.

“They do not have a nomination before them. I don’t care what they said in that resolution,” Jacobs said. “I don’t have any interest in indulging the Legislature’s circus, which is based on a false reading of the law.”

But Don Millis, the Republican chair of the commission, argued that if Wolfe fails to appear, it could worsen the already tense situation.

“They’re probably going to hold a hearing anyway,” he said. “We’ve already seen what’s happened when we didn’t approve her nomination with four votes. I think that turned out very badly.”

The Senate has not yet set a date for the committee hearing on Wolfe’s reappointment, and Wolfe did not say at Wednesday’s meeting whether she will appear once a date has been set.

Commission won’t tell Wisconsin’s top elections official whether to appear at reappointment hearing is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A Wisconsin judge has dismissed a GOP state lawmaker’s lawsuit over military voting records, saying Friday that the challenge should have been brought against a local elections official, not the statewide elections commission.

Rep. Janel Brandtjen, the former head of the Assembly elections committee who has promoted election conspiracy theories, and a local veterans group sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission in November in an attempt to stop military absentee ballots from being counted in the 2022 midterm.

The lawsuit came in response to the actions of a top Milwaukee elections official who falsely requested military absentee ballots and sent them to Brandtjen’s home. Kimberly Zapata, the former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, claimed she was trying to expose a vulnerability in the voting process. She now faces charges of election fraud and misconduct in office.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Maxwell refused to order military absentee ballots to be sequestered in November, issuing his decision just 14 hours before polls opened.

Local elections officials are required by state law to keep a list of eligible military voters in their jurisdictions. Brandtjen and the Concerned Veterans of Waukesha County wanted to obtain updated lists to see whether clerks were complying with the law. In his ruling Friday dismissing the lawsuit, Maxwell said it should have been filed against a municipal clerk, and not the elections commission, which is responsible for issuing guidance and providing support to local officials who actually run elections.

“The Court agrees with the assertion that WEC’s guidance ought to have more information for local election officials on how to utilize the military ballot list and perhaps how to audit the list and ballots to ensure that there are not fraudulent military ballots being cast, but the Court does not have the authority to require such additional guidance,” Maxwell said in his ruling.

Other efforts to address potential vulnerabilities in the military absentee voting process are ongoing. A bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers in May proposed requiring service members to provide their Department of Defense identification number when requesting a military absentee ballot. Local clerks would then be required to verify the voter’s identity using that information.

Wisconsin judge dismisses lawsuit over military voting lists is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill into law Wednesday overhauling the way reading is taught in the state.

The Republican-authored bill is meant to improve sagging reading scores and emphasizes phonics, the relationship between sounds and letters, over memorization. It also requires more frequent reading tests and employs reading coaches to help struggling students.

“We have to ensure our kids have the reading and literacy tools and skills to be successful both in and out of the classroom,” Evers said in a statement. “This bill, modeled after initiatives that have been successful in other states and fine-tuned with significant changes throughout the legislative process, is a step in the right direction.”

Evers, a Democrat, and the state Department of Public Instruction initially opposed the bill over a requirement that low-scoring third-graders repeat reading classes. That measure was changed to put low-scoring students in a remedial program with mandatory summer reading courses.

The department worked with Republican lawmakers for months to create the plan, which passed both chambers of the GOP-controlled Legislature last month with some bipartisan support.

Evers, who was state superintendent before he became governor, called Wednesday for the Legislature to also pass other investments in public education.

Only about a third of Wisconsin fourth graders scored high enough to be considered proficient readers in 2022, marking a 20-year low, according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The bill Evers signed into law requires students in kindergarten through third grade to complete three reading tests a year, up from just one currently. Those tests will be used to more quickly identify struggling students and get them extra help.

The plan applies to public schools and private schools that receive funding through Wisconsin’s school choice voucher programs. Republicans already set aside $50 million in the state budget for new curriculum materials, teacher training and hiring reading coaches.

Evers vetoed a similar bill last year because it did not include enough funding.

A nationwide push to embrace similar teaching methods has gained ground as lawmakers look to address learning losses attributed to the coronavirus pandemic. Wisconsin’s bill is modeled after literacy laws in Mississippi, sometimes referred to as the “Mississippi miracle,” because the changes led to dramatic improvements in the state’s reading scores over the past decade.

Wisconsin governor signs bill overhauling elementary reading education is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed off on a two-year spending plan Wednesday after dramatically scaling back the size of a Republican income tax cut that would have moved the state closer to a flat rate.

Evers, a Democrat, also used his partial veto power to increase funding for K-12 public schools for more than 400 years unless undone by a future Legislature and governor. The move will increase how much revenue schools can raise per student by $325 a year until 2425.

Evers, a former state education secretary and teacher, had proposed allowing revenue limits to increase with inflation. Under his veto, which he achieved by striking a hyphen and two numbers, Evers said schools will now have “predictable long-term spending authority.”

“There are lots of wins here,” Evers said of the budget at a signing ceremony surrounded by Democratic lawmakers, local leaders, members of his Cabinet and others.

Republicans blasted the vetoes, accusing Evers of breaking deals he had reached with them.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said allowing the school revenue limit to increase effectively forever would result in “massive property tax increases” because schools will have the authority to raise those taxes if state aid isn’t enough to meet the per-pupil cost. He also said scaling back the tax cut put Wisconsin at an economic disadvantage to neighboring states with lower rates.

“Legislative Republicans worked tirelessly over the last few months to block Governor Evers’ liberal tax and spending agenda,” Vos said in a statement. “Unfortunately, because of his powerful veto authority, he reinstated some of it today.”

Vos did not say if Republicans would attempt veto overrides, an effort that is almost certain to fail because they would need Democratic votes in the Assembly to get the two-thirds majority required by state law.

Republicans proposed tapping nearly half of the state’s projected $7 billion budget surplus to cut income taxes across the board by $3.5 billion. Evers did away with rate reductions for the two highest brackets, which received the largest cuts under the Republican plan.

The remaining $175 million in tax cuts over the next two years are directed to the lowest two tax rates, paid by households earning less than $36,840 a year or individuals who make less than $27,630. Wealthier payers will also benefit from the cuts but must continue to pay higher rates on income that exceeds those limits.

Evers was unable to undo the $32 million cut to the University of Wisconsin, which was funding that Republicans said would have gone toward diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — programming and staff. The budget Evers signed does allow for the university to get the funding later if it can show it would go toward workforce development and not DEI.

Evers previously threatened to veto the entire budget over the UW cut. But on Wednesday, he noted that the university can recoup the cut, and he used his partial veto to protect 188 DEI positions at UW that were slated for elimination under the Republican plan.

Evers called cuts to UW funding “shortsighted, misguided and wrong for the workforce and wrong for our state.” But he also said he was confident UW would be able to work with lawmakers to get the $32 million later.

Another of Evers’ vetoes removed a measure that would have prohibited Medicaid payments for gender-affirming care. The governor accused Republicans of “perpetuating hateful, discriminatory, and anti-LGBTQ policies and rhetoric” with the proposal.

No Democratic lawmaker voted for the budget, but most stopped short of calling for a total veto.

Evers ignored a call from 15 liberal advocacy and government watchdog groups that had urged him to “fight like hell for our collective future” and veto the entire budget, which they argued would further racial and economic inequality. Groups endorsing the letter included the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Voces de la Frontera, Citizen Action of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.

Evers said vetoing the entire budget would have left schools in the lurch and meant rejecting $125 million in funding to combat water pollution caused by so-called forever chemicals known as PFAS, along with turning down $525 million for affordable housing and pay raises for state workers.

No governor has vetoed the budget in its entirety since 1930. This marks the third time that Evers has signed a budget into law that was passed by a Republican-controlled Legislature. In 2019, he issued 78 partial vetoes and in 2021 he made 50. That year, Evers took credit for the income tax cut written by Republicans and used it as a key part of his successful 2022 reelection campaign.

This year he made 51 partial vetoes.

The budget also increases pay for all state employees by 6% over the next two years, with higher increases for guards at the state’s understaffed state prisons.

Tony Evers scales back GOP tax cut, extends K-12 funding growth in Wisconsin budget is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A vote on the future of Wisconsin’s top elections official ended in partisan deadlock Tuesday amid Republican calls for the nonpartisan administrator of the statewide elections commission to resign over how she ran the 2020 presidential contest.

A stalemate between elections commissioners on whether to reappoint Meagan Wolfe creates uncertainty over who will be in charge of elections in a battleground state so narrowly divided that four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point. Wolfe has staunchly defended the decisions she’s made and fought back against false claims of election fraud, including those made by former President Donald Trump.

“When your constituents challenge you about the integrity of Wisconsin elections, tell them the truth,” she wrote to lawmakers just days before the vote on her reappointment. “When people perpetuate false claims about our election systems, push back publicly. Election officials cannot carry the burden of educating the public on elections alone.”

The six members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Republican commissioners voted to reappoint Wolfe, but Democrats abstained from Tuesday’s vote for fear that reappointing her would allow the Republican-controlled state Senate to reject her confirmation. Commission actions require at least a four-vote majority.

“Meagan Wolfe is the best person to run our agency, and that’s why I’m abstaining. I will take my shots with the court rather than at the Senate,” Democratic Commissioner Mark Thomsen said.

The impasse means it could be months before commissioners or lawmakers choose someone to lead the elections agency through the 2024 presidential race and beyond, if they do so at all.

A recent Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling appears to allow Wolfe to continue as administrator, even after her term ends on Saturday. But relying on that decision, which has allowed Republican appointees to stay on state boards, raises unanswered legal questions.

“We are in unprecedented territory,” Wolfe said at a news conference after the vote. “I have a very clear intent here, and that is to make sure that our commission, our agency, our local election officials, that they have the stability they need as we move forward.”

Commission Chair Don Millis, a Republican, warned that having a holdover administrator would only decrease stability by encouraging conspiracy theorists and drawing questions about Wolfe’s authority during the 2024 election.

“It’s more than a bad look. It’s going to create problems for us and for elections officials across the state,” he said.

Wolfe has served as the state’s elections administrator since 2018 and has become one of the most respected elections leaders in the nation. Before defending her record in a letter to state lawmakers, she called on commissioners to vote for the option they believe offers the most stability for Wisconsin elections even if that’s not her.

If the commission eventually appoints Wolfe or someone else to replace her, they will need to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Some Republican state senators have vowed to vote against reappointing Wolfe, who has sparred with them over election conspiracy theories on numerous occasions. If a commission appointee is rejected by the Senate, then commissioners would need to make a new appointment within 45 days or else a legislative committee controlled by Republicans could choose the next administrator.

Relatively few people meet the legal requirements or hold the experience necessary to serve as Wisconsin’s top elections official. An appointee for elections administrator cannot have ever worked in a partisan office or donated to a partisan campaign in the past year, and the state’s elections system is one of the most decentralized in the country.

The commission’s vote comes as a divided GOP struggles to move past election lies that Trump and his followers have promoted since his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. Republican state lawmakers across the country have sought to expand their control over elections in recent years, and far-right candidates have won seats in local government with platforms built on election skepticism.

But by and large, election denialism has hurt the GOP. Most candidates in 2022 in swing states including Wisconsin who supported overturning Trump’s defeat lost. A draft Republican National Committee report obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year reviewing the party’s performance in recent elections called for candidates to stop “ relitigating previous elections.”

In Wisconsin, the outcome of the 2020 election has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review, numerous state and federal lawsuits, and a Republican-ordered review that found no evidence of widespread fraud before the investigator was fired. The GOP-controlled Legislature has rejected attempts to decertify the results.

Vote casts confusion on future of Wisconsin’s top elections official is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Income taxes would be cut across the board by $3.5 billion under a plan announced Thursday by Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget-writing committee, a proposal that Democrats assailed as being skewed to benefit the wealthy.

Republicans also plan to cut the University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $32 million despite a projected record-high $7 billion state budget surplus, leaving the university nearly half a billion dollars short of what it requested, GOP leaders announced Thursday.

The cut comes in reaction to Republican anger over diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs on the system’s 13 universities. Republican leaders have said the $32 million is what they estimated would be spent on those programs over the next two years.

“They need to refocus their priorities on being partners on developing our workforce and the future of the state and we’re hopeful that they’re going to be ready to do that as we move forward,” Republican state Rep. Mark Born, co-chair of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee, said at a news conference.

Both plans, part of the larger state budget, must pass both the Senate and Assembly before going to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. He can make changes with his line-item veto power before signing the two-year spending plan into law.

The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to add both measures among the final pieces of the two-year state budget later Thursday. The budget will likely be passed by the state Senate and Assembly next week, sending it to Evers for his consideration. Evers can either sign the budget, veto it or make partial vetoes.

Top tax rate gets biggest cut

Under the income tax cut, which would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2023, the average reduction would be 15% for all filers or $573, Republicans said. The state would go from four to three brackets, with the lowest rate dropping to 3.5% and the highest rate being 6.5%.

Evers, who had proposed a tax cut primarily benefitting low and middle-income earners, criticized the GOP plan.

Evers “believes that when we deliver tax relief, it should be real, responsible and targeted to the middle class,” his spokesperson Britt Cudaback said on Twitter. “The GOP is doubling down on tax breaks for wealthy millionaires and billionaires instead of prioritizing relief for working families.”

The largest percentage point drop would be at the highest rate, paid by married couples who earn more than $405,550 or single people making more than $304,170. That rate would drop from 7.65% to 6.5%. The middle two brackets would collapse so all married couples earning between $9,210 and $202,780 would pay 4.4%. The lowest rate for the poorest taxpayers would drop only slightly, from 3.54% to 3.5%.

The income tax cut will be paid for by tapping the state’s projected $7 billion surplus. Republicans were also devoting $622 million to keep property taxes in check.

Some Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, had wanted even deeper cuts. LeMahieu proposed moving to a flat income tax rate of 3.25% by 2026, saying the state surplus offered a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to make generational tax reform. But fellow Republicans balked at that plan, which would have cost nearly $5 billion over two years.

Wisconsin’s total tax burden, which is total taxes measured as a share of personal income, fell to its lowest point in more than 50 years in 2022, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. It also found that that in recent years, Wisconsin income tax rates have declined more for higher income earners than they have for those with lower incomes.

Overall, however, when compared to national averages, rates in Wisconsin are higher for higher incomes and lower for lower incomes.

Republican Rep. Terry Katsma said the cuts were designed to keep Wisconsin competitive with neighboring states with lower rates, like Illinois, which has a flat tax of 4.95%.

“We have to be competitive with the states around us,” Katsma said.

But Democrats objected, saying the tax plan would make the state less competitive when combined with GOP budget decisions to end funding for child care programs and cut spending for the University of Wisconsin.

“Those issues were ignored, denied, for this, what they came out with today, which was primarily a tax cut for the very wealthy,” said Democratic Rep. Tip McGuire.

“They are making Wisconsin a place that is unattractive and inhospitable to women and to families,” said Democratic Sen. Kelda Roys.

The last state budget, passed by the Republican Legislature and signed by Evers in 2021, cut income taxes by more than $1 billion.

UW warns of budget cuts, tuition hike

The proposed $32 million cut to the UW System comes despite warnings from UW President Jay Rothman of tuition increases and possible campus closures if the system’s budget was cut.

Rothman said in a statement that the cut “will diminish student access and affordability at our public universities. This is a missed opportunity and a significant setback to Wisconsin’s efforts to win the war for talent.”

The university system could get the $32 million back at a later date if it shows how it would be spent on workforce development efforts, and not diversity, equity and inclusion programs, lawmakers said.

Evers, a former member of the UW Board of Regents, threatened to veto the entire state budget if the university’s budget was cut. Evers has said that cutting the university’s budget given the state’s surplus would be “irrational.”

Republicans earlier this month rejected the university’s top building project — a new engineering building on the flagship Madison campus. Born left open the possibility that the project could be funded later, saying discussions about that would continue.

University leaders asked for a nearly half-billion dollar funding increase, citing financial difficulties stemming from a decadelong tuition freeze and inflation.

Evers proposed a funding increase of more than $300 million for the university system, an amount that already had university leaders saying they would have to consider raising tuition to make up the difference from what they requested.

Democrats on the committee slammed the cuts as the latest in a series of budget decisions they say will hurt the state’s economy.

“We reject the entire concept of what they’re doing, that the university system would be cut at a time of surplus,” Democratic Rep. Evan Goyke said. ”I don’t see in the budget any initiatives that will catch the attention of young people to either come here or to stay here.”

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has been the loudest critic of the university’s diversity efforts, saying at the state party convention on Saturday that he was embarrassed to be a UW alum because of it.

He called DEI “the single most important issue that we are facing as a people, as a nation and as, really, humanity.”

Vos calls the efforts a waste of taxpayer money that only sow racial division.

“For people on the left, (DEI) has become their new religion,” Vos told reporters last week. “They no longer go to church on Sunday, but boy, are they trying to make sure that everybody is evangelized on campus, that there’s only one acceptable viewpoint. That’s not what I think taxpayers should be funding.”

The university should not be “forcing these students to view the world through a lens of race, gender or economic class just to obtain one of these degrees,” Republican state Rep. Alex Dallman said when announcing the cut.

“UW System ought to be teaching them different things, such as critical thinking and problem solving, teamwork and collaboration, professionalism and communication skills,” Dallman said.

Rothman, speaking after a WisPolitics.com event prior to the vote, said at times that DEI efforts can sometimes go too far. Last month, Rothman ordered campuses to stop asking job-seekers to supply statements on their applications describing how they would support equity and diversity.

“This is an evolving process,” he said Thursday.

The fight reflects a nationwide cultural battle over campus diversity efforts. Republican lawmakers this year have proposed more than 30 bills in 12 states to limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education, an Associated Press analysis found in April.

Republicans seek $3.5B tax cut favoring top earners, $32M reduction for UW System is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A car smelling like marijuana is enough for police in Wisconsin to justify searching a person in the vehicle, even though substances legal in the state can smell the same, the state Supreme Court said on Tuesday.

The court’s conservative majority ruled 4-3 that Marshfield police had grounds to search the driver of a vehicle that smelled like marijuana, overturning lower court rulings that said officers couldn’t be sure that what they smelled was not CBD, a legal, marijuana-derived substance. The scents of CBD and marijuana are indistinguishable.

Two officers searched Quaheem Moore in 2019, who was alone in a vehicle that smelled like marijuana when he was pulled over for speeding. Moore told police that a vaping device he had contained CBD and that the car was a rental belonging to his brother. Police did not smell marijuana on Moore.

Moore argued in court that police had no reason to believe he was responsible for the smell.

To justify searching someone, police need enough evidence to believe that person has likely committed a crime. When they obtain more evidence through an illegal search, it’s not allowed to be used in court.

Moore was never charged with possessing marijuana, but officers charged him with possessing narcotics when they discovered small bags of cocaine and fentanyl in his pocket during their search.

A circuit court judge and an appeals court had previously moved to disqualify the drugs that police found, saying the search wasn’t legal.

Justice Brian Hagedorn, who issued Tuesday’s opinion on behalf of the court’s conservative majority, wrote that because Moore was the only person in the car, police could reasonably assume he “was probably connected with the illegal substance the officers identified.”

Tuesday’s ruling referenced a 1999 Supreme Court decision that said officers were justified in arresting a driver because they linked the smell of marijuana from his vehicle to him. That opinion said that the “unmistakable” smell of a controlled substance was evidence that a crime had been committed.

But the court’s three liberal justices called that ruling into question, saying it was outdated and did not account for the subsequent legalization of substances that smell like marijuana. They also said officers did not have strong evidence that Moore had caused the odor in the car he was driving.

“Officers who believe they smell marijuana coming from a vehicle may just as likely be smelling raw or smoked hemp, which is not criminal activity,” Justice Rebecca Frank Dallet wrote in a dissenting opinion.

Moore’s attorney, Joshua Hargrove, warned that the ruling could allow police to base searches on unreliable conclusions and never be held accountable in court. “This opinion could subject more citizens engaged in lawful behavior to arrest,” he said.

The ruling comes as Democrats and Republicans in Wisconsin continue to fight over legalizing marijuana.

Republicans who control the Legislature have rejected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ attempts to legalize recreational and medical marijuana. But GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in April he was working on legislation to legalize medical marijuana as soon as this fall.

Marijuana has been legal in neighboring Michigan and Illinois for years and will become legal in Minnesota in August under legislation passed last month.

Scent like marijuana enough to warrant police search, Wisconsin Supreme Court rules is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Who will oversee the 2024 presidential election in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin remains clouded with uncertainty just weeks before the state’s nonpartisan top elections official reaches the end of her term.

Republicans who control the state Legislature could finally have a chance to oust the elections head they’ve sparred with over conspiracy theories and install their own appointee. But a recent state Supreme Court ruling appears to offer her an avenue to get around Republicans and stay in office.

And that’s if Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and one of the most respected election leaders in the nation, even wants to keep the job when her term ends on July 1. All across the country, election officials have left the profession after an unrelenting 2020 election cycle that brought unprecedented challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic but also an onslaught of harassment and death threats triggered by false claims about voting and elections.

Wolfe has declined to comment on whether she plans to seek reappointment.

The situation plays out as both parties are looking for every advantage they can get in Wisconsin, where the presidential winner has been determined by less than 1 percentage point in four of the last six elections. The outcome of the 2020 election in Wisconsin has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review, numerous state and federal lawsuits, and a Republican-ordered review that found no evidence of widespread fraud before the investigator was fired. The GOP-controlled Legislature has rejected attempts to decertify the results.

Unlike most states, where partisan secretaries of state run elections, Wisconsin’s top elections official is the nonpartisan administrator of the statewide elections commission. This person plays a crucial role in carrying out decisions from a panel of six partisan commissioners and giving guidance to the more than 1,800 local clerks who actually run the state’s elections.

The administrator can’t single-handedly reverse election results, or decide not to certify results, but a partisan appointee who embraces conspiracy theories about elections could cause significant trouble. Such an appointee could publicly promote election lies, push the limits of their freedom to interpret instructions from commissioners and hire partisan staff and legal counsel within the commission.

Wolfe got the job in 2018 after her predecessor was rejected by the Senate. How she handled the 2020 election angered Republicans, who had voted unanimously in 2019 to confirm her. If she seeks reappointment when her term ends, “there’s no way” she will be confirmed by the state Senate, said Senate President Chris Kapenga, a Republican. Senate rejection of her confirmation carries the effect of firing her.

“I will do everything I can to keep her from being reappointed,” Kapenga said. “I would be extremely surprised if she had any votes in the caucus.”

If Wolfe’s position becomes vacant, election commissioners can recommend a new administrator for Senate approval. If 45 days pass without a nomination, a legislative committee controlled by Republicans can appoint a temporary administrator for up to a year.

But for lawmakers to stall the process in order to install a partisan administrator is “extraordinarily hypothetical,” according to Kathy Bernier, a former Republican state senator and county election official who chaired the Senate elections committee during the 2020 election and was outspoken against claims of election fraud.

“I don’t see that happening,” she said. “I think cooler heads prevail in the Legislature.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu did not respond to an email asking about Wolfe’s reappointment. He also walked away from reporters after a Senate session last week without taking questions.

In a statement, Wolfe called it “deeply disappointing that a small minority of lawmakers continue to misrepresent my work.”

“Lawmakers should assess my performance on the facts, not on tired, false claims,” Wolfe said.

If Wolfe wants to avoid the possibility of Senate Republicans rejecting her confirmation, she could decide to simply stay in office without asking for reappointment.

A conservative majority on the state Supreme Court ruled last year that lawmakers can’t replace an appointed official until their position is vacant and that the end of a term is not a vacancy. The sweeping 4-3 decision allowed Republicans to maintain conservative control of policy boards by delaying votes for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ nominations.

That path would raise unexplored legal questions, but the ruling appears to imply that Wolfe could only be removed by impeachment or a vote by a majority of the elections commissioners. Senate Republicans in April gained the two-thirds supermajority they need to convict an office holder at an impeachment trial.

In addition to her more than 10 years working at the elections commission and its predecessor, Wolfe has served as president of the National Association of State Election Directors and chair of the bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center, which helps states maintain accurate voter rolls and has been targeted by conspiracy theories.

“Administrator Wolfe has done an outstanding job,” said Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs. “Wisconsin has been lucky to have her in this position for our recent elections.”

Jacobs did not say whether she planned to vote for Wolfe’s reappointment.

Following President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, Republicans called on Wolfe to resign for carrying out a commission decision to send absentee ballots to voters in nursing homes, instead of sending special voting deputies to assist them as state law requires. Nursing homes were not allowing visitors at that time because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think in some ways that they think I’m an easy target — I’m not,” Wolfe said in response.

Commissioner Bob Spindell, a Republican appointed by LeMahieu, said he would not be voting to reappoint Wolfe, even though “she’s been accused of a lot of things that were really not her doing.” Spindell, who served as a fake elector for Trump in 2020, came under fire earlier this year for bragging about decreased turnout among Black and Hispanic voters in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee.

All four Republican candidates for governor last year supported either abolishing or overhauling the elections commission, saying it had failed as an agency. The Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee last month killed a bipartisan plan to create a new office under the elections commission tasked with addressing voter complaints and building confidence in elections. Republicans instead signaled support for directing elections funding to local clerks.

Wisconsin’s top elections official for 2024 uncertain as incumbent’s term nears end is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Police in Wisconsin say the fentanyl-laced drugs that killed one person and caused three more to overdose in a village north of Milwaukee were bought at a state lawmaker’s tavern that has been the subject of multiple calls to police in recent years.

Republican Rep. Rob Brooks has owned the Railroad Station in Saukville since 2007 and said he was aware of issues with drugs at the bar shortly after purchasing it but thought they had been addressed.

A regular patron of Brooks’ bar sold cocaine laced with fentanyl to 28-year-old Nick Hamilton and three friends attending a birthday party there on May 5, Village of Grafton Police Chief Jeff Caponera said Monday. Hamilton overdosed that night and died in the hospital on May 8. Brooks said he was not at the bar that weekend.

“It’s a tragedy what happened, no doubt, and we’ll do everything within our power to ensure nothing like this happens again,” Brooks said on Thursday. “We’re not running a bad establishment.”

But Joe Hamilton, Nick Hamilton’s father, questioned Brooks’ sincerity. Brooks has not reached out to the family or responded to their calls and did not publicly comment on the recent death or answer questions about the bar until Thursday.

“It ticks me off. It seems like he doesn’t care, like he doesn’t care about the community,” Joe Hamilton said on Wednesday.

While Brooks has sponsored measures to crack down on drug distribution as a member of the Assembly, police have been called for drug-related complaints at his bar.

In 2018, an undercover informant told Ozaukee County Sheriff’s deputies that a patron regularly dealt drugs at the Railroad Station on Thursday evenings, according to police reports obtained by The Associated Press. Officers searched for the man at the bar and other locations but did not find him.

Brooks said he was not aware of the 2018 police report and had no reason to suspect drugs were being used or sold at his bar in recent years.

In the incident tied to the bar this month, Nick Hamilton and three friends overdosed in the early morning hours of May 6 at a home in Grafton. One of the victims called police after realizing that Nick Hamilton was not breathing and that another victim had been mauled by a dog while unconscious. Officers performed CPR and administered Narcan, a nasal spray that can reverse opioid overdoses, according to a police statement.

Police have not named the surviving victims but said two were expected to recover quickly and the woman who was mauled had received surgery for wounds on her face.

Joe Hamilton called on Brooks to do more to deter drug activity at the bar, including installing surveillance cameras and keeping a closer eye on the business.

Brooks questioned the usefulness of cameras but said Thursday that he does plan to install them. “Security cameras are not going to prevent something like this,” he said. “We can’t put security cameras in bathrooms or other areas or cover every square inch of the property.”

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin, is highly addictive and can be lethal in doses as little as 2 milligrams, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency. Experts have attributed a national surge in overdose deaths in recent years to fentanyl being laced into many other illicit drugs. The state Department of Health Services said roughly 1,280 people in Wisconsin died from fentanyl overdoses in 2021.

Brooks and fellow Wisconsin Republicans have pushed for harsher criminal penalties to crack down on fentanyl distribution. Brooks cosponsored a bill in February that would set a maximum prison sentence of 60 years for someone convicted of reckless homicide for providing drugs that led to a fatal overdose, up from the current 40. The bill passed the Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly.

“What’s he going to do now? Promote it more because of the loss of my son? In reality, four people could’ve died, and they almost did,” Joe Hamilton said. “Can I say Robert Brooks knew? No, I can’t honestly say that. But I know that he’s been there enough.”

When asked about other incidents police have responded to at the Railroad Station, Brooks said, “We’re a bar, and there is alcohol served.”

Last year, officers arrested a regular patron of the bar after he allegedly beat the son of the bar’s former owner for calling Brooks a racist. The victim told police that a patron repeatedly punched and kicked him in the bar’s parking lot, breaking three ribs and a bone in his face as well as puncturing his lung.

Brooks was not at the bar when the fight took place.

A case in 2014 reached the Wisconsin Supreme Court after an off-duty Railroad Station employee ejected an intoxicated man who had been ordered to leave. The off-duty employee allowed a man to fall down concrete steps and then dragged him onto the grass outside the bar, according to court filings. The man suffered head injuries and hypothermia from the cold weather.

Brooks owns several other businesses in the Saukville area, including a restaurant and rental properties. He was first elected to the Assembly in 2015. A bill he authored that was signed into law in his first term allows landlords to evict tenants with five days’ notice for using, making or selling drugs at a rental property.

Brooks stepped down from a top legislative leadership position in 2018 amid backlash over racial and sexual comments he made to female lawmakers. He ignored calls from former Republican Gov. Scott Walker to resign from office, saying he made “stupid comments while under the influence of alcohol.”

Wisconsin lawmaker says his bar where overdose victims bought drugs isn’t ‘bad establishment’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Lawmakers in several states are embracing legislation to let children work in more hazardous occupations, longer hours on school nights and in expanded roles including serving alcohol in bars and restaurants as young as 14.

The efforts to significantly roll back labor rules are largely led by Republican lawmakers to address worker shortages and in some cases run afoul of federal regulations.

Child welfare advocates worry the measures represent a coordinated push to scale back hard-won protections for minors.

“The consequences are potentially disastrous,” said Reid Maki, director of the Child Labor Coalition, which advocates against exploitative labor policies. “You can’t balance a perceived labor shortage on the backs of teen workers.”

Lawmakers proposed loosening child labor laws in at least 10 states over the past two years, according to a report published last month by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Some bills became law, while others were withdrawn or vetoed.

Legislators in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa are actively considering relaxing child labor laws to address worker shortages, which are driving up wages and contributing to inflation. Employers have struggled to fill open positions after a spike in retirements, deaths and illnesses from COVID-19, decreases in legal immigration and other factors.

The job market is one of the tightest since World War II, with the unemployment rate at 3.4% — the lowest in 54 years.

Bringing more children into the labor market is, of course, not the only way to solve the problem. Economists point to several other strategies the country can employ to alleviate the labor crunch without asking kids to work more hours or in dangerous settings.

The most obvious is encouraging immigration, which is politically divisive, but which has been a cornerstone of the country’s ability to grow for years in the face of an aging population. Other strategies could include incentivizing older workers to delay retirement, expanding opportunities for formerly incarcerated people and making child-care more affordable, so that parents have greater flexibility to work.

In Wisconsin, lawmakers are backing a proposal to allow 14-year-olds to serve alcohol in bars and restaurants. If passed, Wisconsin would have the lowest such limit nationwide, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The Ohio Legislature is on track to pass a bill allowing students ages 14 and 15 to work until 9 p.m. during the school year with their parents’ permission. That’s later than federal law allows, so a companion measure asks the U.S. Congress to amend its own laws.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, students that age can only work until 7 p.m. during the school year. Congress passed the law in 1938 to stop children from being exposed to dangerous conditions and abusive practices in mines, factories, farms and street trades.

Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in March eliminating permits that required employers to verify a child’s age and their parent’s consent. Without work permit requirements, companies caught violating child labor laws can more easily claim ignorance. Other measures to loosen child labor laws have been passed into law in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Iowa.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law last year allowing teens aged 16 and 17 to work unsupervised in child care centers. The state Legislature approved a bill this month to allow teens of that age to serve alcohol in restaurants. It would also expand the hours minors can work. Reynolds, who said in April she supports more youth employment, has until June 3 to sign or veto the measure.

Republicans dropped provisions from a version of the bill allowing children aged 14 and 15 to work in dangerous fields including mining, logging and meatpacking. But it kept some provisions that the Labor Department say violate federal law, including allowing children as young as 14 to briefly work in freezers and meat coolers, and extending work hours in industrial laundries and assembly lines.

Teen workers are more likely to accept low pay and less likely to unionize or push for better working conditions, said Maki, of the Child Labor Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy network.

“There are employers that benefit from having kind of docile teen workers,” Maki said, adding that teens are easy targets for industries that rely on vulnerable populations such as immigrants and the formerly incarcerated to fill dangerous jobs.

The Department of Labor reported in February that child labor violations had increased by nearly 70% since 2018. The agency is increasing enforcement and asking Congress to allow larger fines against violators.

It fined one of the nation’s largest meatpacking sanitation contractors $1.5 million in February after investigators found the company illegally employed more than 100 children at locations in eight states. The child workers cleaned bone saws and other dangerous equipment in meatpacking plants, often using hazardous chemicals.

National business lobbyists, chambers of commerce and well-funded conservative groups are backing the state bills to increase teen participation in the workforce, including Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political network and the National Federation of Independent Business, which typically aligns with Republicans.

The conservative Opportunity Solutions Project and its parent organization, Florida-based think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, helped lawmakers in Arkansas and Missouri draft bills to roll back child labor protections, The Washington Post reported. The groups, and allied lawmakers, often say their efforts are about expanding parental rights and giving teenagers more work experience.

“There’s no reason why anyone should have to get the government’s permission to get a job,” Republican Arkansas Rep. Rebecca Burkes, who sponsored the bill to eliminate child work permits, said on the House floor. “This is simply about eliminating the bureaucracy that is required and taking away the parent’s decision about whether their child can work.”

Margaret Wurth, a children’s rights researcher with Human Rights Watch, a member of the Child Labor Coalition, described bills like the one passed in Arkansas as “attempts to undermine safe and important workplace protections and to reduce workers’ power.”

Current laws fail to protect many child workers, Wurth said.

She wants lawmakers to end exceptions for child labor in agriculture. Federal law allows children 12 and older to work on farms for any amount of time outside of school hours, with parental permission. Farm workers over 16 can work at dangerous heights or operate heavy machinery, hazardous tasks reserved for adult workers in other industries.

Twenty-four children died from work injuries in in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Around half of deadly work incidents happened on farms, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office covering child deaths between 2003 and 2016.

“More children die working in agriculture than in any other sector,” Wurth said. “Enforcement isn’t going to help much for child farm workers unless the standards improve.”

Kids could fill labor shortages, even in bars, if these lawmakers succeed is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

A federal judge signaled Thursday he will not force an energy company to shut down an oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin, despite arguments from a Native American tribe that the line is at immediate risk of being exposed by erosion and rupturing on reservation land.

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa asked U.S. District Judge William Conley last week to issue an emergency ruling forcing Enbridge to shut down the Line 5 pipeline after large chunks of riverbank running alongside it were washed away.

But Conley voiced frustration with the tribe at Thursday’s hearing for not allowing Enbridge to reinforce the land around the pipeline.

“The band has not helped itself by refusing to take any steps to prevent a catastrophic failure at the meander,” Conley said. “You haven’t even allowed simple steps that would have prevented some of this erosion.”

The tribe says less than 15 feet (4.6 meters) of land now stands between the Bad River and Line 5 along a meander on the reservation. In some places, more than 20 feet (6 meters) of riverbank has eroded in the past month alone. Experts and environmental advocates have warned in court that an exposed section of pipeline would be weakened and could rupture at any time, causing massive oil spills.

Conley said before testimony began that it might be necessary for him to order a shutdown at some point, but he was not convinced it was the only option left on Thursday.

Enbridge has repeatedly asked the tribe for permission to place sandbags along the riverbank to prevent erosion. It also requested a permit Monday to install barricades made of trees to protect the pipeline.

Tribal officials have not approved any of the company’s requests.

Judge Conley said the tribe’s inaction undermined claims it has made time and again that the pipeline must be shut down.

“It looks like a strategy, even if it’s just idiocy,” he said. “I’m begging the band to just act. Do something to show you’re acting in good faith.”

The Bad River tribe sued Enbridge in 2019 to force the company to remove the roughly 12-mile (19-kilometer) section of Line 5 that crosses tribal lands, saying the 70-year-old pipeline is dangerous and that land agreements allowing Enbridge to operate on the reservation expired in 2013.

Conley sided with the tribe last September, saying Enbridge was trespassing on the reservation and must compensate the tribe for illegally using its land. But he would not order Enbridge to remove the pipeline due to concerns about what a shutdown might do to the economy of the Great Lakes region.

Instead, Conley told Enbridge and tribal leaders last November to create an emergency shutoff plan for the pipeline. His ruling said there was a significant risk it could burst and cause “catastrophic” damage to the reservation and its water supply.

Line 5 transports up to 23 million gallons (about 87 million liters) of oil and liquid natural gas each day and stretches 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) from the city of Superior through northern Wisconsin and Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario. If the pipeline were shut down, gas prices would likely increase, refineries would shut down, workers would be laid off and the upper Midwest could see years of propane shortages, according to reports Enbridge submitted in court.

Enbridge has proposed a 41-mile (66-kilometer) reroute of the pipeline to end its dispute with the tribe and said in court filings that the project would take less than six years to complete. But the Department of Natural Resources has not granted the permits Enbridge needs to begin construction. A draft analysis of the project’s environmental impact submitted in December 2021 received thousands of public comments, with many criticizing the report as insufficient. The company is still responding to the DNR’s requests for more information.

Line 5 has also faced resistance in Michigan, where Enbridge wants to drill a new tunnel under a strait connecting two of the Great Lakes but Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have sought to shut down the pipeline. Nessel filed a brief Wednesday in support of the tribe’s request, saying a rupture in Wisconsin would also cause irreparable environmental damage in Michigan.

Judge signals hesitance to shut down pipeline, pleads with Wisconsin tribe to work with oil company is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Election officials in battleground Wisconsin hope to revive a bipartisan plan they say is critical to rebuilding confidence in elections but that was killed last week by Republicans without debate.

The state’s chief elections official said a new division designed to handle voters’ concerns and deal with an onslaught of records requests and complaints was “exactly what Wisconsin needs” and of critical importance.

The Legislature’s Republican-controlled budget-writing committee rejected the commission’s request along with more than 500 other spending proposals from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a single vote last Tuesday.

The move is contrary to other battleground states that are taking steps to invest in trust in elections ahead of the 2024 presidential race.

“I certainly hope it comes back,” said Don Millis, the Republican chair of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, which proposed the plan. “There are things we can do to improve confidence, and that’s where this inspector general office comes in.”

Millis said he intended to ask lawmakers whether the plan could be revived as a bill, but the head of the Assembly elections committee told The Associated Press he’s already looking elsewhere for ways to build trust in elections.

“I think it makes more sense for the municipalities to be in charge of their decision making and problem solving,” Republican Rep. Scott Krug said. Krug said lawmakers are working on plans to fund grants for local election officials, instead of more staff for the statewide elections commission. He had not heard from any lawmakers trying to revive the commission’s request.

“We would need to see details, but will always support additional funding for election administration and security, including at the local level,” said Meagan Wolfe, the nonpartisan administrator of the commission and the state’s top elections official. But she also pressed the Legislature to reconsider the commission’s request for 10 full-time staff for a new inspector general office at a cost of $1.9 million over two years.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission was created by Republicans in 2016, but it has increasingly been the target of GOP criticism since former President Donald Trump spread false claims that election fraud led to his defeat in Wisconsin in 2020.

There is no evidence of widespread fraud in Wisconsin in 2020, and the election outcome has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review, numerous state and federal lawsuits and even a Republican-ordered investigation by a former state Supreme Court justice.

Still, some Republicans have pushed to eliminate the elections commission entirely.

The primary responsibility for administering elections in Wisconsin falls to more than 1,800 local clerks in one of the most decentralized systems nationwide. The commission sets rules, certifies results and provides clerks with training and grants. Until recently, the agency had only one attorney and one public information officer to process complaints and respond to voters’ questions.

Conspiracy theorists, skeptics and even lawmakers looking for evidence of election fraud have inundated the elections commission with requests in recent years. Ahead of the 2022 midterm, the agency was receiving more than three times the number of complaints it had in 2020, and records requests topped eight times its 2016 average, according to an August report.

The three Republican and three Democratic election commissioners, who are appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, unanimously approved the request for an inspector general office last year.

“These investments are critical to boosting resiliency in our election infrastructure ahead of next year’s General Election,” Wolfe said in a statement after lawmakers killed the plan.

Millis, the Republican chair of the commission, said “it’s not fatal” if the plan fails. But he wanted lawmakers to at least consider new ways to build trust in elections and ease the workload of commission staff.

In addition to investigating complaints and responding to records requests, the new inspector general office would have been tasked with reviewing the accessibility of polling sites, engaging directly with concerned voters and helping to train local election officials.

Wisconsin election officials want to revive ‘critical’ plan is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.