Wisconsin

Last week on the UW-Madison campus.

From the article:

A Republican-controlled committee approved 6% wage increases for all state employees on Tuesday morning except for the University of Wisconsin’s over 36,000 full-time employees.

State employees, except for those in the University System, will receive a 4% pay raise in 2024 and 2% for 2025. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield), who co-chair the Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER), have refused to schedule a vote on the UW System raises.

The decision is a continuation of Republicans’ targeting of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across the state. Republicans lawmakers cut the UW System budget by $32 million during the budget writing process, and would have cut 188 DEI positions if not for a line-item veto by Gov. Tony Evers. Vos has since threatened to cut the raises for UW employees until universities eliminate DEI programs.

The lack of action on Tuesday brought criticism from Democratic lawmakers and one Republican on the committee.

Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), who co-chairs the budget writing committee and has UW-Platteville in his district, said he was disappointed the raises for University of Wisconsin employees were not scheduled for a vote.

“The local employees on our campuses should not be penalized for policy decisions made by leaders of the university system,” Marklein said. “The custodians, executive assistants, food service providers and local faculty at UW Platteville have very little to do with the politics of the university system.”

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard (D-Madison) said the committee was only doing half of its job on Tuesday. She noted at the committee meeting that university employees make up around half of the state’s public employees.

Agard said lawmakers were denying pay raises to those employees because of “one person’s resistance to initiatives to increase inclusion on our campuses.”

“This is a sad moment for our state when the majority party of our state is actively holding our workers hostage because they cannot fathom the ability to focus on equity and diversity in the state of Wisconsin,” Agard said.

Vos said during the committee executive session that taxpayers “do not want an ideological agenda even more on the campus than it already is.”

Vos said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon that he has met with UW leaders over half a dozen times to discuss possible ways forward.

“I have tried very hard to say, perhaps it’s not possible — because they are so dug in — to eliminate all of the DEI positions that are on campus,” Vos said. “That’s what I think should happen.”

Vos said he proposed a “middle ground,” allowing the Legislature future oversight of UW’s hiring. He said that he couldn’t imagine lawmakers ever approving a DEI position, but would approve other potential faculty positions. He said UW leaders seem to have rejected that offer, but that he plans to meet with leaders again soon.

From the article:

The owner of a Northwoods brewpub is challenging the legality of Wisconsin’s private voucher school program, calling it "devastating" to public schools.

Minocqua Brewery owner Kirk Bangstad regularly mixes his business operations with fights for liberal causes. He funded the lawsuit on behalf of Wisconsin parents, grandparents and "concerned citizens." Bangstad said the current school financing system fails to equitably distribute resources and threatens the financial stability of public education in Wisconsin.

Last year, Wisconsin taxpayers spent about $568.5 million on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, the Racine Parental Choice Program, the Special Needs Scholarship Program, and the Independent Charter School Program, according to Department of Public Instruction records.

Next year, that amount will increase. The state budget included the largest financial expansion to private school choice in the program’s history.

Funding for kindergarten through 8th grade private choice schools increased from about $8,400 per student to $9,500 per student. Funding for private choice high schools will go from $9,045 to $12,000 per student.

"The revenue limit and funding schemes for voucher school programs and independent charter schools violate the Wisconsin Constitution's Public-Purpose Requirement and the Uniform Taxation Clause," said Brian Potts, an attorney on the case. "This parasitic funding system is pushing public school districts into an ever-worsening financial crisis, which is leading to what can only be described as a funding death spiral for public education."

But voucher school advocates say if the lawsuit is successful, low-income children will suffer because they are the beneficiaries of private school education through the voucher system.

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg said the conservative law firm is preparing to file a motion to intervene in the case to defend the parents, students and teachers who participate in choice schools across the state. Esenberg called the lawsuit "incomplete, misleading and misinformed."

"Wisconsin’s choice program serves over 52,000 students and plays a vital role in Wisconsin’s education system," Esenberg said in a statement. "Unfortunately, far-left interest groups are uniting behind a Super PAC, to take education options away from low- and middle-income kids and families across the state."

State Superintendent Jill Underly released a statement, saying she welcomes any opportunity that would strengthen public education.

"Education represents an incredible opportunity to learn, grow, and strengthen our state, but public education represents even more than that. Public education is a constitutional right," Underly’s statement said. "Wisconsin needs to fulfill its responsibility to effectively, equitably, and robustly fund our public education system. I welcome any opportunity to move Wisconsin in that direction."

The lawsuit is being funded by the Minocqua Brewing Company's SuperPAC, which Bangstad has used since 2021 to fund liberal political causes.

The group has purchased billboard ads attacking Republican politicians and marketed beers named after Democratic politicians including an Evers Ale for Gov. Tony Evers and Tammy Shandy for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

Bangstad first announced his efforts to end Wisconsin’s private school voucher system in August on social media.

From the article:

The bill would give owners of transmission lines the right of first refusal to build new lines connecting to their existing infrastructure, which could prevent out-of-state competition.

It comes after the Midcontinent Independent System Operator last year approved $10.3 billion in new transmission projects across the Midwest to help th the transition to renewable energy.

Supporters of the bill say it boosts grid reliability and protects the role of the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin in deciding who owns and operates transmission infrastructure rather than giving control to out-of-state regulators. But critics say it would lead to higher prices for customers by eliminating competition.

From the article:

The University of Wisconsin System will rebrand itself over the coming months to “Universities of Wisconsin” as it looks to strengthen the “UW” reputation across all 13 schools, not just UW-Madison.

“University of Wisconsin System” will remain the legal name for the institution, but officials will start referring to the 13 universities by the revised “Universities of Wisconsin” name, an announcement from UW said. By early 2024, UW will transition its webpages and written materials to reflect the new identity.

In addition to dropping “System” from its preferred name, it will ditch the maroon “University of Wisconsin System” logo for one that simply shows “UW” inside the outline of the state with teal accents. A secondary logo draws the universities’ locations out like a constellation.

The rebranding also comes with a new motto: “Future Ready. For All.” It comes as UW President Jay Rothman has consistently talked about UW’s need to educate more students in the coming years to meet current and future employer demand.

It's just a photo from a budget phone, but I figured I'd share this Sunday afternoon scene from the middle of Madison.

Xcel Energy is proposing a new $500 million transmission line through parts of western Wisconsin. The utility says it's necessary to maintain grid reliability as coal-fired power plants are phased out in favor of renewable energy sources.

Longtime owner Lee Burgess announced last week that he is retiring and putting the drive-in movie theater east of Madison up for sale.

A Madison local is looking to provide firearms instruction classes to students who might not feel safe taking a normal firearms course. The classes are free to the students to make them as accessible as possible. If you can help out with operating expenses (classroom rent, study materials, etc.) you will help build proficiency and safety in a community traditionally under served in this area.

Thanks!

From the article:

Wisconsin is receiving over $11 million in federal funds to modernize technology used in the state’s unemployment system, which struggled with long backlogs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state Department of Workforce Development announced the grant award Monday. The agency says the money will be used in ongoing efforts to create a more modern and adaptable computer system to handle the state’s unemployment claims. Over time, the department says the project will entirely replace the “existing, antiquated mainframe” with a flexible, cloud-based system.

In a statement, DWD Secretary Amy Pechacek said the agency continues looking for ways to improve the speed and accuracy of unemployment payments, and to make the system easier to navigate.

“We look forward to investing these funds in additional efforts to overhaul our state’s decades-old unemployment insurance infrastructure and benefits delivery system,” she said.

DWD has been working on a long-term project to modernize the state’s unemployment insurance computer system since 2021, after working to find short-term fixes in 2020. Officials said the “outdated” system slowed processing unemployment claims during both the Great Recession in 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coupled with staffing shortages, that led to major backlogs of claims at the onset of the pandemic and left some Wisconsinites waiting months without receiving a single unemployment payment. In late June 2020, DWD had yet to process 509,000 claims it received between March and June, representing 151,000 people, according to Wisconsin Watch.

From the article:

One of three former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices asked to review possible impeachment of a current justice refused to tell a judge Friday who else was looking into that question.

Former Justice David Prosser called a lawsuit alleging violations of the state open meetings law “frivolous," saying those looking into impeachment met once but are operating independently and not as a governmental body subject to the law.

Prosser and the attorney for Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos both refused to tell the judge during Friday's hearing who else was tabbed by Vos to review impeachment. Vos is looking into possible impeachment of liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she does not recuse herself from a pair of redistricting lawsuits.

The liberal watchdog group American Oversight sued Monday, alleging the group of justices was violating the state open meetings law by not letting the public attend its meetings. Prosser is the only former justice to say publicly that he is among the group.

Prosser indicated during the hearing before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington that three former justices met at least once.

“Three people had lunch together," Prosser said. "We had lunch together because we didn’t know what we were really supposed to do. If other people are going to have input, it’s going to be their input, not my input. I think this is an absolutely frivolous case.”

When asked directly by the judge if he would name who the other two former justices were, Prosser said, “No.” Likewise, Vos attorney Matthew Fernholz said he would not disclose their names without first consulting with Vos. Vos has repeatedly declined to name who he asked, only saying he tabbed three former justices to look into impeachment.

None of the eight other living former justices, six of whom are conservatives, have said they are a part of the review. The most recently retired justice, conservative Patience Roggensack, hung up when contacted by The Associated Press to ask if she was on the panel.

The judge asked Prosser if the group intended to meet again.

“The people that I had lunch with had the same view of what we might say and we would do it individually," Prosser said. He said the group was not producing a formal report and Vos never told him he was creating a panel.

“The word ‘panel’ never came up," Prosser said. “Certainly we were not ordered to do anything. ... This is not a governmental body by any stretch of the imagination.”

Vos himself called it a panel when he announced its formation Sept. 13.

“I am asking a panel of former members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to review and advise what the criteria are for impeachment,” Vos said on WISN-AM.

Vos said he was asking the group to “come back with an analysis to say whether or not (impeachment) is possible and how it should occur.”

Prosser and Fernholz on Friday both asserted that the former justices were like any other constituent that a public official may meet with to gather advice.

“That’s done all the time," Prosser said. "That is not something that is going to require notices and people coming and listening to everything that’s happening. That’s just not realistic at all.”

Fernholz took it a step further, saying "The secret panel does not exist.”

American Oversight had asked the judge to order the group not to meet. But Judge Remington said he can't consider the case until after the district attorney has 20 days to investigate American Oversight's complaint. That deadline is Oct. 9. Remington set another hearing for Oct. 19.

“It could be very well, Justice Prosser, that this is not a committee that is not subject to public meetings law," Remington said. "We just don’t know because the facts are uncertain.”

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said in court Friday that it appeared to him the group may be violating the open meetings law, calling it “astonishing.”

“If nothing else they should be meeting in public," Ozanne said.

But he said his investigation hasn’t gotten far, in part, because he doesn’t know who the other former justices working on the issue are.

American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg said the group of justices is subject to the open meetings law because Vos created it to advise him, it has a defined membership and he asked that it report back to him with recommendations.

“We don’t have secret panels in Wisconsin," she said. "The work of government isn’t secret. I don’t think this is a very heavy lift. ... It just boggles my mind that all of this can be done in secret.”

Protasiewicz’s installment in August flipped the high court to liberal control for the first time in 15 years. Vos has called for her to recuse herself in the redistricting cases because of comments she made on the campaign trail calling the state’s heavily gerrymandered, GOP-drawn electoral maps “unfair” and “rigged,” as well as the nearly $10 million she accepted from the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Protasiewicz has yet to decide whether she will recuse herself from the cases. The court has also yet to decide whether it will take up the lawsuits.

Can't wait for this to be blocked again, pissing away money to all of our surrounding states.

The American flamingos spotted Friday in Port Washington, about 25 miles north of Milwaukee, marked the first sighting of the species in Wisconsin state history, said Mark Korducki, a member of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

From the article:

The requirement to show a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin would be enshrined in the state Constitution under a proposed amendment Republicans introduced Wednesday, amid fears the new liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court could overturn the current law.

In addition, a Republican bill introduced Thursday proposes withdrawing Wisconsin from a national nonprofit that collects and cross-compares voter registration data to detect possible instances of double voting.

The draft constitutional amendment would require photo IDs in all elections while allowing the Legislature to establish exceptions to the requirement.

“Ensuring the legitimacy of votes in an election is a prerequisite of democratic government,” draft amendment proposal authors Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Schofield, and Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said in a memo to legislators introducing the measure.

"This pre-Roe statute says nothing about abortion—there is no such thing as an '1849 Abortion Ban' in Wisconsin," Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schlipper wrote in her July ruling that rejected a motion filed by a county district attorney to dismiss the case.

From the article:

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says former members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court are advising him on the potential impeachment of liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz.

During a Wednesday morning appearance on WISN’s The Jay Weber Show State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he’s formed a panel of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices to “review and advise what the criteria are for impeachment” of Justice Protasiewicz if she refuses to recuse herself from lawsuits before the court seeking to overturn GOP drawn voting maps. He said he would not name the justices while their review was underway.

Vos and other Republicans claim Protasiewicz has prejudged the redistricting cases because she called GOP voting maps “rigged” on the campaign trail ahead of defeating conservative former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly by 11 points.

His comments came the day after a surprise press conference on Tuesday when Vos announced a Republican bill had been introduced to create an “Iowa-style” nonpartisan redistricting process in Wisconsin. Republicans are fast-tracking the bill, which creates a redistricting process similar to one they had previously opposed.

Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers, quickly voiced opposition to the plan, claiming Vos cannot be trusted. They say legislation could give Republicans a chance to draw their own maps.

Vos told Weber impeachment is the “last thing I want to happen” and would prefer to see Wisconsin’s redistricting rules be changed rather than have the state go through potential court battles over recusal and impeachment.

“But if you have a justice that has predetermined cases and is not going to take themself off the case, I want to know what all of our options are so that we are ready to go if it is required,” Vos said.

State Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, told WPR it’s “vitally important” to remember that Vos “created gerrymandered maps” and has been unwilling to consider reforming the state’s redistricting process as Democrats and their supporters have called for in the past.

Agard noted Vos and Republicans are set to vote on the redistricting bill Thursday without offering any opportunity for public comment.

Vos accused Democrats of being “hypocrites” for opposing legislation that is similar to what they introduced in 2021, their plan at that time also based on Iowa’s redistricting process.

“If they are so certain that they have a justice in their pocket, because they don’t even want to take an idea that has been their own for 20 years, it certainly says to me that the process in the Supreme Court is even more rigged than what they say the maps are.”

Agard said there’s no guarantee that Democrats would reintroduce their 2021 redistricting bill but are still interested in changing how maps are drawn.

“The Supreme Court would very likely come up with a solution for right now,” Agard said. “But as we move forward after future censuses, we could find ourselves in the same spot. So we need to come up with a long term solution that prevents us from fighting up in the same place again.”

Without Gov. Evers’ support, the GOP redistricting plan appears doomed. It’s also unclear whether Republicans in the State Senate would support it. WPR emails sent to State Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, Tuesday afternoon went unanswered.

From the article:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans who control the Wisconsin Senate planned to vote Thursday to override three of Gov. Tony Evers’ vetoes, including one that attempted to enshrine school funding increases for 400 years.

Republicans have the necessary two-thirds majority to override the vetoes in the Senate, but they don’t have enough votes in the Assembly. Vetoes must be overridden in both chambers in order to undo the veto.

Two of the votes scheduled Thursday attempt to undo partial vetoes Evers made in July to the state budget passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature. One Evers’ veto undid nearly all of a $3.5 billion income tax cut. Another attempted to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years.

Evers’ creative use of his partial veto authority in that case drew widespread attention and criticism.

The Senate was also slated to vote on overriding Evers’ veto of a bill that would prohibit state and local governments from restricting utility service based on the energy source, such as natural gas.

Republican proponents and other backers, including the state chamber of commerce and energy companies, said the measure was needed to prevent any type of ban in Wisconsin like those discussed in other states. But environmentalists said the bill was in search of a problem as no community or the state was contemplating such a ban.