Monthly Archives: June, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the state of Colorado cannot force a graphic designer to make websites with messages that go against her religious beliefs, citing the First Amendment.

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, Lorie Smith, a Christian graphic designer based in Colorado, asked for an exemption to the state’s public-accommodation law that bars discriminatory sales. Smith wishes to create wedding websites only for straight couples, arguing the law compels her speech against her traditional religious beliefs on marriage in violation of the First Amendment.

"The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Because Colorado seeks to deny that promise, the judgment is Reversed," said Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in the 6-3 case.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the minority, stated the ruling exempts a business from following state law.

“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Sotomayor wrote. “Specifically, the Court holds that the First Amendment exempts a website design company from a state law that prohibits the company from denying wedding websites to same-sex couples if the company chooses to sell those websites to the public. The Court also holds that the company has a right to post a notice that says, ‘no [wedding websites] will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’”

Gorsuch’s opinion for the majority showed chasm between the justices.

“It is difficult to read the dissent and conclude we are looking at the same case,” Gorsuch wrote. “… But none of this answers the question we face today: Can a State force someone who provides her own expressive services to abandon her conscience and speak its preferred message instead?”

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group representing Smith, said the ruling reaffirmed the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe in.

“Disagreement isn’t discrimination, and the government can’t mislabel speech as discrimination to censor it,” ADF President and CEO Kristen Waggoner said in a statement. “Lorie works with everyone, including clients who identify as LGBT. As the court highlighted, her decisions to create speech always turn on what message is requested, never on who requests it.”

The ADF also represented Colorado cake designer Jack Phillips, in a similar case that made its way to the Supreme Court that was narrowly ruled.

The Supreme Court agreed to take up the case in February 2022 and heard arguments last December.

Cancelling hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt cannot be done by President Joe Biden and his administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday.

In a 6-3 opinion, the court said Biden’s administration did not have the authority to unilaterally cancel student loan debt, blocking the president’s plan to cancel $10,000 per borrower.

Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the case known as Biden v. Nebraska.

“The issue presented in this case is whether the Secretary has authority under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) to depart from the existing provisions of the Education Act and establish a student loan forgiveness program that will cancel about $430 billion in debt principal and affect nearly all borrowers,” the court said.

The court ruled that the previous legislation allowed for tweaks to student loan forgiveness but did not allow for the sweeping forgiveness Biden tried to enact.

“The authority to ‘modify’ statutes and regulations allows the Secretary to make modest adjustments and additions to existing provisions, not transform them,” said the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The court also ruled that the state of Missouri, a lead challenger in the case, would suffer injury from the plan and therefore had standing to challenge the forgiveness program, which was a key legal question in this case. Missouri was one of six states that sued.

In the dissent, written by Kagan, the justices argued that during COVID-19 both Republican and Democratic administrations used the HEROES Act to delay student loan repayment, signaling a universal understanding of the legislation’s broad power.

“The plaintiffs in this case are six States that have no personal stake in the Secretary’s loan forgiveness plan,” the dissent said. “They are classic ideological plaintiffs: They think the plan a very bad idea, but they are no worse off because the Secretary differs. In giving those States a forum – in adjudicating their complaint – the Court forgets its proper role. The Court acts as though it is an arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather than of cases and controversies.”

Federal student loan repayments had been put on hold. The Department of Education said last year that repayment would resume 60 days after this court ruling.

As The Center Square previously reported, Biden announced last year that his administration would cancel $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 per year. For those who have received Pell Grants, the debt forgiveness could total $20,000. The administration also said debtors would be allowed to cap repayment of their loans at 5% of their income.

Biden said in the original announcement that his plan and the delayed repayments were “to give working and middle-class families breathing room…”

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated that Biden’s debt plan would cost taxpayers about $400 billion. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an analysis last year predicting it would take only a few years for debt levels to return to the precancellation levels.

Biden’s student loan announcement has been a highly political fight since it was announced.

House Republicans voted in May to overturn Biden’s student loan forgiveness under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to undo federal rules. The Senate then voted in June, with the support of a few Democrats, to also overturn the plan.

Although the plan had little chance of becoming law since the president would have had to sign the legislation, it showed the student loan forgiveness was far from a highly popular plan. In fact, several Senate Democrats turned against it as criticisms piled up that it is unfair to those who worked to pay off their loans or who never took them out in the first place.

“President Biden’s student loan transfer scheme shifts hundreds of billions of dollars of payments from student loan borrowers onto the backs of the American people,” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who led the House effort, told The Center Square earlier this year. “I am proud to lead the fight against President Biden’s reckless, unilateral, and unauthorized action that would unfairly penalize those who worked hard to pay off their loans or who never took them out in the first place."

(The Center Square) – The University of Wisconsin says it doesn’t yet know what the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to end affirmative action university admissions will mean for UW schools.

UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin on Thursday said she will need some time to examine the university’s admission policy, and determine if any changes are needed.

“The full implications of today’s ruling — both nationally and on our campus — will not be known for some time. UW–Madison and UW System attorneys are now carefully reviewing the Court’s opinions and monitoring the potential release of additional guidance from relevant federal agencies,” Mnookin said in a statement to students, faculty members, and university workers.

Mnookin said UW-Madison does consider race when admitting students.

“We have considered the race of applicants as one factor in a holistic admissions process that focuses first and foremost on candidates’ academic strength. Our process looks at written statements, extracurriculars, recommendations, and the range of experiences, talents and backgrounds candidates will bring to the university. Every admitted student here at UW–Madison has demonstrated the potential for academic success within our competitive applicant pools,” Mnookin added. “Though we have seen a roughly 50 percent increase in our underrepresented undergraduate student population in the past five years, our current enrollment percentages of underrepresented students still lag behind many of our peers.”

The Supreme Court yesterday said basing university admissions on race violates the constitution’s equal protection clause.

State Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, said the nation’s high court got it right.

Republicans have always believed in merit. People shouldn’t be pigeonholed into categories based only on the color of their skin. They should be recognized as unique individuals. Each student has talents and abilities of their own. Our country is based on equal opportunity, and this decision helps treat college applicants with equality,” Murphy said. “No student should enter the college admission process at a disadvantage. Asian students and others have been discriminated against, and their hard work and merit have been overlooked.”

Murphy is part of a group of Republican lawmakers who are pushing for a change in UW-Madison admissions, specifically to guarantee top high school grads in Wisconsin a seat at the university.

Mnookin said UW-Madison will continue to focus on diversity on campus.

“The ruling will require some modifications to aspects of our current admissions practices; we will, of course, adapt our practices to comply with the law. At the same time, I want to reiterate that our commitment to the value of diversity within our community, including racial diversity, remains a bedrock value of the institution,” Mnookin added. “I want to stress to all our students, faculty, staff, prospective students and families that UW–Madison remains committed to creating a community where people of all backgrounds, identities, and beliefs belong and can thrive.”

(The Center Square) – The latest effort to get more Wisconsin kids into the University of Wisconsin would require UW to change admissions procedures for incoming freshmen.

A group of Republican lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation that would guarantee a seat at UW school for any Wisconsin high schooler who graduates in the top 5% of their class.

“With the amount of money that we as taxpayers [pay] for K-12 and University of Wisconsin System, is it too much to say ‘We want that top 5%?'” Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, asked reporters on Wednesday.

O’Connor’s plan would require the UW System to rewrite its admissions formula, and share with schools, parents, and teachers more of what it takes for students to get into UW-Madison.

Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, said getting any answers about UW-Madison’s admissions is a part of the problem.

“As chairman of the Colleges and Universities Committee, my office asked for UW-Madison’s admissions policy. We got a more than 50-page document that is about 90% redacted,” Murphy added.

The UW has said it shares the lawmakers’ goal of keeping Wisconsin’s “best and brightest” in the state, and at a UW school. But the university didn’t specifically comment on the requirement that the Republicans are pursuing.

O’Connor said he hasn’t spoken to the university about the requirement, but did say “this issue has been brought-up to the university previously, and they’ve made no changes.”

There are fewer than 70,000 high school graduates in Wisconsin each year. Five percent of that comes to about 3,500 kids. UW-Madison accepts about 3,600 Wisconsin students each year.

“So the idea that we are going to push somebody else out, I don’t buy that,” Murphy said.

UW-Madison’s freshman class was 8,628 students back in September of last year. The UW’s own numbers show that about 45% of that class is from Wisconsin, the rest are from other states or other countries.

O’Conno said those lopsided numbers leave Wisconsin kids left out.

“[There] seems to be an institutionalized brain drain, sending some of our best people to other states,” O’Connor said. “And guess what happens when they graduate from the University of Minnesota, or Iowa, or Indiana? They make that their home. They don’t come back.”

Any changes to UW admissions will come later, however. Lawmakers in Madison are due to wrap up their session for this year by the end of the week.

(The Center Square) – The future of Wisconsin’s elections administrator is likely headed for a couple of untested legal arguments.

The Wisconsin Senate on Wednesday approved a resolution that will try and force a confirmation vote on Meagan Wolfe from the Wisconsin Elections Commission. That resolution came immediately after Democratic members of the Elections Commission refused to approve Wolfe for a second term as election administrator specifically to avoid that Senate vote.

Rick Esenberg, general counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said both the Senate and the Elections Commission are banking on unique interpretations of state law and a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision.

“Democrats are trying to use [the Prehn case] to say that they can’t even vote on Wolfe because there is no vacancy…Now that position is, in and of itself, nonsense because it would leave the limitation of Wolfe's term to four years out of the statute,” Esenberg explained. “It would mean anytime there is an administrator who doesn’t want to leave, there’s no vacancy, and WEC can’t take a vote to replace that person. That is obviously not what the legislature intended.”

Esenberg said the Senate Republicans legal theory, that three elections commissioners voted for Wolfe, while none voted against her, thereby giving her a unanimous appointment is likely also not correct either. Esenberg said state law requires a two-thirds vote from the Elections Commission, which would be four votes.

Esenberg said the Democrats on the Elections Commission are, essentially, trying to game the system.

“This deadlock has been created artificially by the Democrats because they think it strengthens their legal position, and allows them to get this issue into court rather than have it go before the Senate or the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization,” Esenbeg said. “In my mind, it’s just another example of a problem that we have in the country. And that is people lose sight of their institutional role. And the institutional role of the Elections Commission is not to do what’s best for Democrats. It’s to do their jobs.”

Esenberg said by playing political games with its administrator, the Elections Commission is making it look like it is playing political games with Wisconsin’s electoral system.

“It looks like they are not honest brokers. It looks like they are just trying to do whatever will advance their side. And that’s not healthy,” Esenberg added. “And having a system which is perceived by the public as not healthy is a far bigger issue than whether Meagan Wolfe gets to continue as election administrator.”

Many Senate Republicans, and at least one Senate Democrat have promised to vote against Wolfe if her nomination comes before the Senate. They all continue to be unhappy with how Wolfe handled the 2020 election in Wisconsin.

No one is saying just when the Senate will vote on Wolfe, or when the first court case in the matter could be filed.

(The Center Square) – The majority of Wisconsin Republican state senators are on board with the new $99 billion state budget.

Almost every Republican voted for the two-year spending plan Thursday night.

"Overall, our budget invests in core priorities and returns a record amount of money back to the taxpayers,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu told lawmakers during the vote.

The budget spends $1 billion more on public schools in Wisconsin, increases pay for state workers, and earmarks hundreds of millions of dollars for road and bridge projects across the state.

The spending plan also includes a $4.4 billion tax cut, but Gov. Tony Evers may veto that out of the new budget.

Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, was one of two Republicans to vote against the new budget. He said it simply spends too much.

“The 2023-25 budget … will total more than $99 billion in spending (All Funds) for a state of only 5.9 million people. This is a $10.3 billion increase over the current budget (ALL Funds) or about an 11.7% growth in spending,” Nass said. “The budget submitted by the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) will take this state from a $7 billion structural balance to a $2.5 billion structural deficit at the start of the next budget period on July 1, 2025.”

Democrats in the State Senate also voted against the budget, because they say it doesn't spend enough.

“[Republicans] voted to turn their backs on families, on parents, and on children. And instead, they voted for a massive tax break for the wealthy. That will ensure that we cannot fund programs like childcare counts in the future,” Sen. Mark Spritzer, D--Beloit, said.

The budget also includes a $32 million cut to the University of Wisconsin aimed at the University of Wisconsin System’s diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Gov. Evers had threatened to veto the budget because of that cut, but over the weekend softened on that stance because lawmakers are giving the university a chance to spend the money elsewhere.

The State Assembly next takes up the budget Thursday afternoon.

After that, the spending plan will head to the governor’s desk for his signature or veto.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s race-based affirmative action admission policies violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Separate 6-3 and 6-2 rulings upend years of common practice at higher educational institutions around the nation and could have a major impact on how colleges discriminate based on race, and whether schools that have refused to do so can now receive federal funding. The courts three liberal justices – Elana Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented in the 6-3 ruling. Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case because she previously served on Harvard's board of overseers.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying that the court previously allowed for race-based policies in narrow circumstances and for limited time frames but that the current practices have far exceeded those parameters.

“University programs must comply with strict scrutiny, they may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and – at some point – they must end,” he wrote. “Respondents’ admissions systems – however well intentioned and implemented in good faith – fail each of these criteria. They must therefore be invalidated under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

As The Center Square previously reported, the race-based admissions policies at Harvard and the UNC were challenged in two separate cases that were combined before the high court.

The nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions filed the lawsuits against Harvard and UNC in 2014, arguing that the policies were unfair to Asian and white students, who are disproportionately negatively impacted by the policies.

SFFA claims 20,000 members comprised of “students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.”

Higher educational institutions have considered race as a factor in admissions to promote a more racially diverse campus. The defendants in this case argued before the Supreme Court that the practice was standard in the field and that precedent was on their side, pointing to Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 case that allowed higher education institutions to consider race as a factor in admissions.

“Having failed to make the case that Harvard’s admissions practices contravene the court’s precedents governing the use of race in admissions, SFFA asks the court to overthrow them,” Harvard wrote in a filing last year. “But SFFA offers no legitimate justification for such an extraordinary step.”

Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, saying that Thursday’s ruling flew in the face of previous court precedent.

“At bottom, the six unelected members of today’s majority upend the status quo based on their policy preferences about what race in America should be like, but is not, and their preferences for a veneer of colorblindness in a society where race has always mattered and continues to matter in fact and in law,” she wrote.

The majority opinion did make clear that there is an allowance for discussion of race and its impact on a student’s life in their application.

"Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But, despite the dissent's assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today," Roberts wrote.

Edward Blum, president of SFFA, has pushed for years for fairness in admissions, saying earlier last year when the high court agreed to take up the case that “Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas.

“Every college applicant should be judged as a unique individual, not as some representative of a racial or ethnic group,” he added.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin state Supreme Court’s ruling has given officers across the state the authority to search an individual in a vehicle if they smell marijuana, even though substances now deemed legal in the state can have a similar scent.

By a narrow 4-3 margin, the court’s conservative majority ruled that Marshfield officers were within their legal authority to search Quaheem Moore in 2019 after pulling him over for speeding and then detecting the smell of cannabis emanating from the vehicle. The state high court’s ruling overturns lower court rulings that found officers had no way of knowing for certain if what they were smelling was an illegal substance.

During the stop four years ago, Moore told officers that a vaping device he had contained CBD and that the rental vehicle belonged to his brother. As the legal proceedings played out, Moore argued that officers never smelled marijuana on him and had no reason to believe he was directly responsible for the smell.

Moore was formally hit with possession of narcotics charges after officers reportedly found small bags of cocaine and fentanyl in his pockets. With possession of marijuana not being among the charges he faced, Moore’s legal team argued that because police did not smell marijuana on him and given the legality of substances like CBD and hemp, officers did not have probable cause to conduct the search and that any drugs found as part of it should not be allowed as evidence.

In rendering the court’s majority opinion, Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote that with Moore being the only person in the vehicle, it was safe for officers to assume that he “was probably connected with the illegal substance the officers identified.”

The ruling comes as the latest twist in the ongoing battle between Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the state over the issue of legalizing marijuana, with the court’s three liberal judges immediately blasting the ruling as outdated and not accounting for all the possibilities.

“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.

Soon after the verdict was made public, Moore’s attorney Joshua Hargrove also warned “this opinion could subject more citizens engaged in lawful behavior to arrest.”

For years now, marijuana has been legal in neighboring states Illinois and Michigan, but with Republicans in firm control of the state legislature in Wisconsin, attempts by Gov. Tony Evers to legalize the drug have been rejected.

(The Center Square) – There are celebrations and concerns from Wisconsin’s advocates and elected officials on the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

The United States Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade one year ago this past Friday, returning the question of abortion to the states.

In Wisconsin that meant going back to the state’s 1849 law that bans almost all abortions in the state.

That was a theme from abortion rights supporters who marked the one-year anniversary of Dobbs with a call to action.

“For the past year, we have been living with fewer rights than we had 13 months ago, and millions of people are being denied essential health care and personal freedoms on a daily basis,” Lucy Ripp, a spokesperson for A Better Wisconsin Together, said. “As we reflect on the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that set us back 50 years, A Better Wisconsin Together is calling for immediate action to restore abortion rights in Wisconsin and nation-wide.”

“Politicians have absolutely no place playing the role of doctors. Abortion care is health care and I, along with the vast majority of Wisconsinites, believe that safe, comprehensive reproductive care should be accessible to all women, just like it had been for nearly 50 years,” Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said in a statement.

“Since the Supreme Court’s radical decision to repeal Roe v. Wade, we have seen women and girls in dire situations because of this ruling. We have seen young girls, who were victims of rape, forced to travel across state lines to access abortion care. We have seen women near death, experiencing sepsis with doctors in legal limbo afraid to care for their patients,” U.S. Rep Gwen Moore said on Monday. “We have seen women hustle up money to fly across the country to receive the abortion care they need. Before Roe, I was one of those women who relied on a network of middle-class women to receive an abortion in New York. I never imagined that reproductive rights would be rolled back more than 50 years.”

But Wisconsin’s pro-life supporters took time to praise the Dobbs decision.

““We celebrate the lives that have been saved post-Dobbs, and also recognize that our work is not done. More women than ever before in our state are in need of comprehensive resources and support when facing an unexpected or challenging pregnancy,” Gracie Skogman, Wisconsin Right to Life’s legislative director said. “Pregnancy help centers across Wisconsin have seen a massive increase in clients, and the need has never been greater. It is our duty as pro-life advocates to continue to ensure that mothers and their preborn children are provided with full support and resources.”

The future of abortion in Wisconsin remains in limbo.

A Dane County judge has yet to rule on a lawsuit from Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul that challenges the 1849 law. That lawsuit is expected to eventually end up before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which will by then have a liberal majority because of Janet Protasiewicz’s win in the spring.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s attorney general is dialing up the pressure this week in an effort to get Republican lawmakers to include his Office of School Safety in the next state budget.

“This is not about affordability,” Kaul told reporters at the statehouse on Monday. “The Office of School Safety can be funded for the next two years for less than one-tenth or 1% of our state’s budget surplus.”

Kaul said it’s about priorities.

Wisconsin lawmakers created the Office of School Safety back in 2018 with a $1.8 million federal grant. Lawmakers used $2 million in coronavirus stimulus money to pay for the office in the last state budget.

Kaul said lawmakers have yet to include more money for the office in the next state budget.

“The current budget would effectively dismantle the Office of School Safety,” Kaul claimed. “The budget includes 3.8 positions for that office. And just to put that into perspective, there are nine people who staff the 24/7 tip line alone.”

Kaul is not saying just how much more he is looking for, either in terms of money or people.

The Republican-controlled legislature is expected to finalize the state budget this week.

“I’ve personally met with every member of the Joint Finance Committee, and we’ve talked about the importance of the Office of School Safety,” Kaul said. “We really are at, really, the critical point where we will see in the days ahead the final decisions made on the budget.”

Republicans haven’t said why the new budget trims the funding for the school safety office, but Republicans have been clear that Gov. Evers’ original budget proposal spent too much.

State Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, reiterated Kaul’s point that this is not about money.

“More than 1,700 schools and law enforcement agencies in 63 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have received at least one tip [to the tip line]. The hotline has received more than 7,000 contacts, half of them in the 2022-2023 school year alone,” Andraca said.

The Wisconsin Senate is expected to take its final budget votes on Wednesday, though it's not known when the Assembly will take its votes.

Enticing illegal immigration isn’t protected free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

In United States v Hansen, in a 7-2 vote, the court on Friday reversed and remanded the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, citing the arguments made by 25 Republican attorneys general in an amicus brief filed by the court.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

At issue is whether the federal prohibition on “encouraging” or “inducing” unlawful immigration for commercial advantage or private financial gain violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled it does not.

A California resident, Helaman Hansen, ran a “scam,” the Supreme Court ruled, profiting $2 million by soliciting and “advising” foreign nationals who were illegally in the U.S. on how to obtain U.S. citizenship. He was convicted and sentenced for violating federal law, including on two counts of encouraging or inducing illegal immigration for private financial gain under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) (the “encouragement provision”) and (B)(i).

The encouragement provision of 8 U.S.C. makes it a felony to “encourage[] or induce[] an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.” Violating it carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, which can be increased to a maximum of 10 years when the violation is committed “for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.”

“Helaman Hansen promised hundreds of noncitizens a path to U. S. citizenship through ‘adult adoption,’” the Supreme Court ruling states. “But that was a scam. Though there is no path to citizenship through ‘adult adoption,’ Hansen earned nearly $2 million from his scheme. The United States charged Hansen with, inter alia, violating 8 U. S. C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), which forbids ‘encourag[ing] or induc[ing] an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such [activity] is or will be in violation of law.’

“Hansen was convicted and moved to dismiss the clause (iv) charges on First Amendment overbreadth grounds. The District Court rejected Hansen’s argument, but the Ninth Circuit concluded that clause (iv) was unconstitutionally overbroad. “Held: Because §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) forbids only the purposeful solicitation and facilitation of specific acts known to violate federal law, the clause is not unconstitutionally overbroad.”

In response to the ruling, Montana Attorney General Ashton Knudsen, who led a coalition of attorneys general in filing a brief with the court, said he was “glad to see the Supreme Court agree with our position and uphold the law.” They filed the brief because the “border crisis and illegal immigration are causing massive economic, social, and financial burdens on states across the country,” he said.

Joining Knudsen were the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

They also filed the brief expressing concerns that the Ninth Circuit ruling “threatens widespread uncertainty in the states’ ability to enforce their criminal laws that use” the terms “encouraging” or “inducing.” Such laws govern solicitation, prostitution, and sexual abuse of children in Montana, for example, or capital felony or felony of the first degree and smuggling of persons, including concealing, harboring or shielding victims from detection, in Texas.

The ACLU, which co-represented Hansen, made an unconvincing argument that 8 U.S.C.’s encouragement provision violates the First Amendment “because it criminalizes a wide swathe of constitutionally protected speech.”

After the ruling, Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said the court “drastically limited the encouragement provision to apply only to intentional solicitation or facilitation of immigration law violations. As written by Congress, the law has left people wondering what they can safely say on the subject of immigration. Now we expect the government to respect free speech rights and only enforce the law narrowly going forward.”

The arraignment for the valet to former President Donald Trump was delayed Tuesday.

Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet who is accused of moving boxes of classified information for the president and misleading the FBI, has been indicted but had his arraignment pushed back after a slew of flight cancellations and delays in Florida kept Nauta from making it to his court date.

Nauta also reportedly does not yet have a lawyer who can represent him in Florida. The scheduled arraignment was delayed until July 6.

The case is directly connected to Trump’s indictment, where he faces 37 counts for his handling of classified documents and alleged refusal to give back those documents after leaving the White House.

Trump’s trial is set to begin in August, but the Department of Justice's legal team for Special Counsel Jack Smith has requested the judge move that date back until December of this year. Trump and his legal team could push to move the date back even further.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor is taking a wait-and-see approach to the new state budget, which is softer than his stance just last week.

Gov. Tony Evers was on UPFRONT on Milwaukee TV over the weekend, and walked back his promise to veto the budget of Republicans tax cuts, and the plan to trim $32 million from the University of Wisconsin’s budget.

“I'm not going to predict whether it's going to come this time in that fashion to begin with,” the governor said. “The fact of the matter is, there's lots of time left of the budget has not been concluded.”

The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee last week set the stage for the final budget votes, expected this week, by approving a $4.4 billion tax cut package, and the final UW budget.

Evers last week said he wouldn’t sign either of those pieces of the new spending plan.

“I want a middle class tax cut. I don't want it a tax cut that is primarily for the wealthy in the state of Wisconsin. And I believe the University of Wisconsin system should be well funded. And now we have a situation where, you know, at least that $32 million is is retained. And and so a lot of moving parts and I'm not backing off where my belief system is. And we'll just see what happens,” Evers added.

He said he is not abandoning his previous threats, but did try to walk a finer line.

“I'm not going to get into what I'm going to veto or something or not feel something, because I believe at the end of the day, we'll be in a good position,” the governor said.

Evers did say he will not veto the entire two-year spending plan.

“I think it would mess it up,” Evers said. “The fact of the matter is we passed the legislation making that happen, but the money is obviously part of the budget so we will see. As you know, I also have partial veto authority, and that is always something we are going to be looking at.”

Lawmakers return to the Capitol Tuesday. The new state budget is due to the governor by the end of the month.

(The Center Square) – The $4.4 billion tax cut plan approved by Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol is the latest piece of the new state budget that Gov. Tony Evers is promising not to sign.

Republicans on Thursday okayed a tax cut package that will lower income taxes for everyone, but will give top earners in the state a larger tax cut.

“We are cutting income taxes by $3.5 billion and property taxes by $795 million, along with finally ending the personal property tax once and for all. The average taxpayer will see a $573 decrease in their state income taxes beginning in 2023,” Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green said.

Gov. Evers wants a tax cut as well, but he has called the Republican’s previous tax cut suggestions a “tax cut for millionaires.”

He used a similar line about this tax cut proposal as well.

“Tax relief should be targeted to the middle class to give working families a little breathing room – not to give big breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don't need the extra help to afford rising costs,” Evers said on Twitter. “That's just common sense.”

The governor did not say Thursday if he planned to sign the tax cut plan, he has said in the past that he would veto any budget that cuts taxes for top earners.

Marklein acknowledged that is a possibility.

“But we made tax cuts last time, and the governor approved them, signed them into law, and ran on those tax cuts last fall,” Marklein added.

The Republican plan as written would cut Wisconsin’s top income tax rate of 7.65% to 6.5%, which means a 15% tax break for married couples making over $405,550 a-year. The same married couple making between $36,840 and $405,550 would see their income tax rate go from 5.3% to 4.4%, which is a 17% tax cut. Married couples who earn less than $36,840 would see their income tax rate go from 4.65% to 4.4%, which would be a 5% tax cut. Wisconsin’s lowest earners, a married couple who is making $18,420 or less, would see a .04% income tax cut, from 5.54% to 5.50%.

“These are good policies, and proper actions to return some of the surplus to the people of Wisconsin, and we hope that the governor agrees with that,” Born added.

The Republican tax cut is just one piece of the new state budget that has the governor promising a veto.

Gov. Evers has suggested he would veto any cuts to the University of Wisconsin, particularly those targeted at diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at the school.

Lawmakers voted for $32 million in DEI cuts at the UW System on Thursday.

(The Center Square) – The plan to allow Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to raise their sales taxes and take themselves off a fiscal cliff are now state law. But the city of Milwaukee is preparing to go to court to fight the spending restrictions that are also now law.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told reporters at the Wisconsin Capitol Wednesday that’s a bad idea.

“It’s really disappointing,” Vos said. “We have literally spent months negotiating in good faith, saying that we were willing to flex on some of the things that were core priorities for us as conservatives, and it seemed like they were willing to flex on things that were important for them. To find that common-sense consensus. And to now say they are going to use the very dollars the state of Wisconsin gave them to sue the state is a really bad sign for future relations.”

Vos and his fellow Republicans included a number of spending restrictions in the shared revenue legislation, including requirements that Milwaukee spend its new money on police, fire, EMS, roads, and its struggling pension system.

The Republican restrictions also bar Milwaukee from spending money on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Milwaukee Common Council President Jose Perez on Tuesday said he intends to not only ignore those spending restrictions, but take them to court.

“We will also be taking up legislation that would double the funding for the Office of Equity and Inclusion and Office of African American Affairs, [and] set aside funds for litigation to fight provisions of the bill that overstep our home rule,” Perez said in a statement. “Despite the Legislature’s efforts to impose their values on us, we are resolute in our promise to operate our government in accordance with the values of our diverse community.”

Vos said lawmakers tried to help Milwaukee with its fiscal crisis, and this is what they get in return.

“I certainly hope they rethink their decision as they try to focus on the good that was in the bill, rather than try and micromanage some of the things that have challenges with. Which, frankly, every single one of which improves their financial situation. Which was the goal of the bill anyway.”

Milwaukee is not wasting time in moving toward raising its sales tax by as much as 2%. The first vote on the tax will come next week, with a final vote coming two weeks after that.

Perez said waiting only costs Milwaukee. He said the tax will bring-in $16 million per month and he doesn’t want to let any of that money go uncollected.