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$200 million in ARPA money sent to local governments across Wisconsin
Local governments big and small across Wisconsin received a total of $200 million through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) this week. The program is meant to help local governments recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and was disbursed by the Wisconsin Department of Administration. The amount each municipality received was determined through a formula based […]
Rittenhouse no longer enrolled in classes at Arizona State
Kyle Rittenhouse, who testified last month at his homicide trial that he was a student studying nursing at Arizona State University, is no longer enrolled at the school, according to a report from the Phoenix New Times. Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty on self-defense grounds earlier this month for shooting and killing two people […]
Wisconsin Senate Republicans move school culture war bill forward
Republicans on the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Education advanced a bill on Monday that would ban teaching certain topics about race and the harms of racism in schools, setting the bill up for a potential vote in the Senate when it returns in January. The advancement of the bill aimed at prohibiting the teaching of […]
Member of committee guiding wolf policy has been cited for illegal trapping
A member of the committee responsible for establishing how wolves will be managed in Wisconsin has twice been cited for violations of state trapping laws, court records show. Patrick Quaintance, a former warden with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), is a member of the Wolf Management Plan Committee (WMPC) — which is working […]
Auditors view Madison election records after disagreement over document access
State auditors were allowed to review the records of Madison’s 2020 election after a dispute over access to them was resolved last week. At the direction of Republican legislators, the Legislative Audit Bureau spent most of the year investigating the 2020 presidential election. In a report released last month, the auditors found that the election […]
Evictions, housing insecurity in Wisconsin become a ‘slow boil’ of crises ahead of winter
This summer, as the CDC’s moratorium on evictions was set to end, housing advocates across Wisconsin warned of a coming “eviction apocalypse,” as one of the few protections for people struggling to pay rent in an economy turned upside down by a pandemic went away and aid groups struggled to get millions of dollars in […]
Jefferson Co. judge rules DNR violated law by not holding wolf hunt in February
A Jefferson County judge ruled on Thursday that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) violated the law when it chose not to hold a wolf hunt last winter after the animal was taken off the federal list of endangered species. The judge, Bennett Brantmeier, ultimately forced a wolf hunt to be held after a […]
Evers vetoes Republican maps, moving fight to state Supreme Court
Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the redistricting bills passed earlier this month by Republicans, setting up a court battle over Wisconsin’s new political dividing lines that will first go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Evers said on Thursday that the maps proposed by Republicans were “gerrymandering 2.0” because they solidify the dividing lines that have given […]
As redistricting fight heats up, Democrats fight over Voting Rights Act compliance
For ten years, Wisconsin Democrats have fought a sisyphean battle against the gerrymandered political maps passed by Republicans in 2011. That battle went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and inspired most of the state’s counties to pass resolutions in favor of a nonpartisan mapmaking process. Now, as Republicans in the Senate and […]
Vos attacks UW over course he says makes white students ‘feel guilty’
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos sent a letter to UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Tuesday that attacks the university for a course required of graduate students that he says requires them to agree that “whiteness means privilege.” On Twitter, Vos accused the school of advancing “CRT [critical race theory] propaganda.” Wisconsin Republicans have worked over […]
Democrats on Assembly elections committee refuse to meet with Gableman
The Democratic members of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections said on Monday that they would be refusing to meet privately with former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who is conducting a widely criticized review of the 2020 election. Gableman, after a heated appearance before the committee last week, attempted to meet privately […]
Kleefisch files lawsuit against elections commission
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) on Monday that asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to order the WEC to establish rules guiding the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots, special voting deputies (SVDs) in nursing home facilities and how the locations of polling places can be […]