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Gov. Evers calls special session to reduce property taxes, fund schools
Gov. Tony Evers held a news conference on Thursday at the state Capitol surrounded by schoolchildren, teachers and public school advocates to sign an executive order calling for a special session to increase state funding for public schools. New revenue estimates show that Wisconsin is expected to take in $812.2 million more than previously projected […]
Trump acquitted, despite one GOP defector
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has survived impeachment, but he didn’t emerge unscathed. The U.S. Senate on Wednesday acquitted Trump on charges that he abused his power by pressuring a foreign government to interfere in a U.S. presidential election and then obstructed a congressional investigation into his actions. The vote was almost entirely partisan, except […]
Trump’s scary, nihilistic State of the Union
It was worse than we thought it would be. Impeached President Donald Trump’s one hour and 18-minute State of the Union rant was a new low in American politics, even in these unprecedented times. There was the extended attack on “criminal aliens” and the sanctuary cities that shelter undocumented immigrants who are supposedly threatening the […]
What does school choice have to do with gerrymandering?
There was something fishy about the whole spectacle at the Capitol on Tuesday, as Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos parachuted in to praise Wisconsin as “the birthplace of education freedom.” Surrounded by cute kids in bright-yellow School Choice Week scarves who sang hymns, drummed, danced and recited the Pledge of […]
Mike Pence arrives in Madison to promote school choice
Vice President Mike Pence will arrive in Madison Tuesday at 11:05 am on Air Force Two, and travel by motorcade to the State Capitol Building, where he will deliver the keynote address at the Wisconsin School Choice Student Showcase at 12:15 pm. The event, part of National School Choice Week, is a celebration of voucher […]
Citizens United and the Big Picture
As this week’s floor sessions began in both the Senate and the Assembly on Tuesday, a group of legislators and campaign finance reform advocates held a sparsely attended press conference in the Capitol to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and to point out how money in politics has […]
Sen. Mark Miller won’t run again
Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) announced Tuesday that he will not run for re-election in November. Miller served in the state Legislature 22 years, first in the Assembly, where he was elected in 1999, and then in the Senate since 2005. “I will miss this place,” Miller said in a statement about his decision to step […]
In Democratic debate, progressives resist efforts to divide them
The moderators did all they could to start a fight, but Sanders and Warren refused to bite. In the lead-up to Tuesday night’s Democratic debate at Drake University in Iowa, there was a lot of chatter about the growing negativity between the progressive candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The CNN moderators did their best […]
State appeals court puts voter purge on hold
On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued two orders putting on hold Ozaukee County Judge Paul Malloy’s order that the State Elections Commission purge more than 200,000 voters from the rolls. The court of appeals also stayed Malloy’s contempt order that would have required individual commissioners to pay $250 per day for as long […]
New twists in Wisconsin’s voter purge case
There was a flurry of new developments in the Wisconsin voter purge case on Monday: Ozaukee County Judge Paul Malloy found the state Elections Commission in contempt of court for failing to immediately purge more than 200,000 voters from the rolls after he ordered them to do so. He imposed fines of $50 per day […]
Judge finds state Elections Commission in contempt on voter purge
Ozaukee County Judge Paul Malloy found the state Elections Commission in contempt of court on Monday for failing to immediately purge more than 200,000 voters from the rolls after he ordered them to do so. The judge ordered the commission to pay $50 per day, and three individual commissioners to pay $250 per day each, […]
Board votes not to dissolve Palmyra-Eagle School District
On Thursday the School District Boundary Appeals Board voted 6-to-1 to deny a proposal to dissolve the Palmyra-Eagle Area School District. But what happens next is up in the air. The financial problems that triggered the original vote to dissolve the district have not been solved. The appeals board vote was big news for the […]