Author

Ruth Conniff

Ruth Conniff

Ruth Conniff is Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner. Conniff is a frequent guest on MSNBC and has appeared on Good Morning America, Democracy Now!, Wisconsin Public Radio, CNN, Fox News and many other radio and television outlets. She has also written for The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications. Her book "Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers" won the 2022 Studs and Ida Terkel Award from The New Press.

Joe Biden during a virtual roundtable discussion on rural issues (screenshot).

Biden reaches out to rural Wisconsin

By: - May 21, 2020

Winning Wisconsin will be critical in the 2020 presidential election. But the coronavirus pandemic has put the kibosh on political rallies and door-to-door campaigning. So on Wednesday, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden appeared from home at a virtual “rural issues roundtable” hosted by Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) to talk about the concerns of a […]

Voters wait in line at Washington High School (Photo by Isiah Holmes)

Wisconsin voters sue Elections Commission to fix voting problems before the fall

By: - May 19, 2020

Melody McCurtis is one of three Wisconsin voters who say they were deprived of their right to vote in the chaotic April 7 election, and are now suing the Wisconsin Elections Commission in federal court. The lawsuit, filed Monday morning in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin by the voters, along […]

COMMENTARY
President Trump delivers his third State of the Union to the nation the night before the U.S. Senate is set to vote in his impeachment trial. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Bullies in charge

By: - May 18, 2020

Wisconsin has been re-opened for business. Forcibly reopened, it turns out, by Republican legislative leaders and four state Supreme Court justices. In a messy decision filled with incendiary language and spurious claims, the court overturned Safer at Home by “torturing the plain language” of a state statute, as Justice Rebecca Dallet put it in her […]

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack (photo from Wisconsin Eye video of oral arguments in Wisconsin Legislature v. Andrea Palm)

‘Blatant judicial activism’ as Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns Safer at Home

By: - May 14, 2020

In a 4-3 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the extension of Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer at Home order by Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm. The order sought to prevent people throughout the state from gathering in large groups, going to school, church and restaurants, and otherwise participating in social contact […]

U.S. President Donald Trump stands in the colonnade as he is introduced to speak to March for Life participants and pro-life leaders in the Rose Garden at the White House on January 19, 2018 in Washington, DC. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Anti-Trump ad by Republican group airs in Wisconsin

By: - May 12, 2020

An ad seeking to persuade Republicans not to vote for Donald Trump went up on cable television stations in Wausau and La Crosse Tuesday. The ad, titled “Mourning in America,” contrasts Trump with Ronald Reagan, and has generated more than 20 million impressions on YouTube and prompted an angry rant on Twitter from Trump. “More […]

COMMENTARY
Protester in a MAGA cheesehead at the Reopen Wisconsin rally at the Capitol on April 24, 2020 (photo by Luther Wu).

The GOP tests 2020 campaign theme: ‘Some of you will have to die’

By: - May 11, 2020

Republicans appear to be going all-in on the idea that some of us will have to suck it up and die in order to get the economy restarted.  Can they win in 2020 with this message? Party leaders at both the state and national level seem to think so. President Donald Trump made his pitch […]

Jill Underly, candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction (photo courtesy of Underly)

Rural educator Jill Underly is running for state superintendent

By: - May 7, 2020

Pecatonica school superintendent Jill Underly announced on Thursday that she will run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction next spring, to succeed Carolyn Stanford Taylor who announced in January that she will not seek another term. Stanford Taylor was appointed by Gov. Tony Evers, who held the job himself for nine years before he was […]

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chamber, State Capitol Building, Madison

Supreme Court justice asks if Safer at Home is ‘tyranny’

By: - May 6, 2020

Gov. Tony Evers told reporters last week that he was “confident” the state Supreme Court would rule in his favor, and against GOP legislators who are seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s Safer-at-Home order. “We have the facts on our side. We have the law on our side. And we have lots of opportunities to share with […]

COMMENTARY
Protesters at the Reopen Wisconsin rally at the Capitol on April 24, 2020 (Photo by Luther Wu)

Pandemic temper tantrums

By: - May 4, 2020

People are sick and tired of staying at home. That was the message about 30 protesters brought to Gov. Tony Evers’ residence on Friday afternoon, gathering in the street outside the wrought-iron gates of the white, columned mansion, and shouting through bullhorns “Come out Tony!” “Government is nonessential!” and “Tony the tyrant!” “Hey, better stay […]

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly

Justice Kelly ‘unrecuses’ himself from voter purge case

By: - April 29, 2020

Justice Daniel Kelly has decided to “unrecuse” himself from a Supreme Court case involving the possible purge of more than 200,000 voters from the rolls in Wisconsin. Kelly sent a letter to the lawyers in the case, Zignego v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, on April 15 explaining that he had originally recused himself from the case […]

Dueling briefs in Supreme Court lawsuit to overturn Safer at Home

By: - April 29, 2020

The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a request by a group of labor unions on Tuesday to intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the extension of Gov. Tony Evers’ “Safer at Home” order. The unions argued that for their members — healthcare workers, teachers and bus drivers — continuing the shutdown of much of […]

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly

Justice Kelly asks whether to ‘unrecuse’ himself in two cases

By: - April 28, 2020

Justice Daniel Kelly, the conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who lost the April 7 election to Dane Co. Circuit Judge Jill Karofsky, is pondering whether or not to “unrecuse” himself from two separate cases involving Wisconsin voters. On April 15, Kelly, who was appointed to his seat by former Gov. Scott Walker, sent a letter […]