Yearly Archives: 2023

(The Center Square) – There was one group at Wisconsin's budget hearing pushing for less. Americans for Prosperity warned Wisconsin lawmakers about spending too much of the state's record $7.1 billion surplus.

Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin this week waited through hours of requests for more money at the legislature’s public budget hearings to make the simple case to spend less.

AFP’s Megan Novak told The Center Square Wisconsin cannot afford to recklessly spend over $100 billion like Gov. Tony Evers has suggested.

“From tax hikes, to spending increases in every section of the budget to handouts for professional sports teams, Governor Evers’ proposal was a fantasy budget from the start. The Joint Finance Committee was right last time to scrap Governor Evers’ tax and spend wish list budget, and we are glad to see they will be doing the same this time around,” Novak explained.

The Joint Finance Committee, which will actually write Wisconsin's new two-year spending plan, hosted two budget hearings this week. Both saw a cavalcade of local government leaders, local school leaders, and advocates press lawmakers for more money.

Novak said the Republican-controlled JFC needs to keep a lid on state spending.

“AFP’s grassroots activists showed up at budget hearings across the state to make sure the Joint Finance Committee knows there are hardworking taxpayers out there who support their efforts to return the surplus to the taxpayers, expand education freedom, and stop handouts to out-of-state millionaire sports team owners,” Novak added.

JFC members have been relatively silent about the Brewers’ ballpark finding deal. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said last week that he wants a separate vote on the American Family Field plan, saying he wants to keep it out of the state budget.

Novak also warned lawmakers about spending Wisconsin’s record $7 billion surplus too quickly, or too frivolously.

“Gov. Evers’ proposed budget would recklessly and irresponsibly spend our state’s record surplus, somehow managing to turn a $7 billion surplus into a deficit in two years,” Novak said. “[We] strongly support reining in this proposed out of control spending, and instead focusing the state’s next budget on meaningful tax reform, smart government spending, preventing stadium bailouts for out-of-state millionaires, and education freedom.”

(The Center Square) – The push for a universal free school lunch program in Wisconsin is running into opposition at the State Capitol.

Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction on Monday shared the testimony it plans to deliver to the legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee about its Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids initiative.

“As adults responsible for the well-being of Wisconsin’s children, we must ensure they are fed. This shows care, humanity, and a connected community,” Duy Nguyen, assistant state superintendent for the Division for Academic Excellence at the Department of Public Instruction, said. “Children should have access to free school meals.”

DPI wants to fully fund a free school lunch program, at the cost of $120 million for the second year of Wisconsin’s two-year state budget.

DPI claims that “over 40% of Wisconsin students are economically disadvantaged, and nearly 21% of the state’s children are considered food insecure."

Kids from families who make less than $36,000 a-year currently get free school lunches, and kids from families making as much as $51,000 currently get reduced-price school lunches.

Sen Duey Stroebel, R-Cedarburg, who sits on the JFC, told The Center Square that families able to pay for their kids’ lunches should pay for their kids' lunches.

“Taxpayers should not be on the hook for paying school lunches for families that could otherwise afford it. Wisconsin has finite resources – it’s important to make sure that students who are in the most need of free and reduced-price lunches are able to take advantage of this program as it was originally designed,” Stroebel said.

Stroebel said the expansion of school lunches during the pandemic is driving DPI’s desire. But he noted that he’s not the only one pushing back on the idea of universal free school lunches.

“I don’t recall anyone who thought this was a compelling cause before COVID-19, so returning to the pre-pandemic status quo should not be considered an affront to Wisconsin schoolchildren and their families. In fact, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards’ Delegate Assembly recently rejected a proposed resolution that called for increased state funding to establish a universal free school lunch program,” Stroebel added. “ Schools cannot and should not attempt to replace parents, but the adoption of a universal free school lunch program would be one more step in that direction.”

DPI will present its push for the new free lunch program at JFC’s budget listening sessions this week.

(The Center Square) – There is a plan at the Wisconsin Capitol that would allow teachers and school workers to carry a gun inside a school.

State Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, is circulating the legislation for co-sponsors this week.

Allen said the idea is to allow local school boards to set their own rules about guns in school.

“The bill avoids a state-wide solution, and instead gives each school district the ability to make a choice that is currently prohibited by state law. The bill also would eliminate the concealed carry license fee for teachers,” Allen said in a statement.

Allen added that the idea came from Germantown’s school board which asked him to change Wisconsin’s concealed carry laws.

“This bill came about at the request of the Germantown School Board who wrote that the ‘gun free school zone’ signs do nothing but notify a criminal that there will be few, if any, people in the building that can defend themselves,” Allen explained. “Schools provide soft targets for those looking to do harm, and this bill gives school boards the option to change that.”

Current Wisconsin law prohibits anyone but a police officer from carrying a gun inside a school.

Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol, however, have looked to change that law since the shooting at that middle school Uvalde, Texas.

Gov. Evers on Monday made it clear that even if Allen’s plan makes it through the legislature, it will never become law.

"Wisconsinites have been desperately demanding commonsense proposals that will reduce gun violence and keep our kids, our schools, and our communities safe. This bill isn’t among them. This bill shouldn’t make it to my desk — but if it does, I'll veto it. Plain and simple," the governor said on Twitter. “I already vetoed Republicans’ bill to allow loaded guns on school grounds because increasing firearms on school grounds won’t make our schools or our kids safer. So, let me be clear: I’ll veto any bill that weakens Wisconsin’s gun-free school zone law. Period.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal and science technology office, has made race and gender speech codes for its scientists a top priority.

The guidance, for example, tells federal employees not to use the words "blacklist" or "whitelist" because of the racial connotations and also cautions against "using terms that assign a gender to inanimate objects, such as male/female connectors."

The NIST is a little-known government agency tasked with helping the U.S., among other things, stay technologically ahead of rivals like China. Congress appropriated about $1.65 billion for the group for 2023.

Lawmakers recently hammered the Pentagon for investing heavily in critical race theory and gender ideology. The National Institutes of Health has done so as well, along with other agencies.

The NIST is one of many federal agencies putting its attention and taxpayer funds into these efforts as it struggles to keep pace with its key mission. The NIST sparked controversy for its "Inclusive Language Guidance," which tells scientists which words or phrases they can or cannot use in reports.

From the document:

- Consider that biased terms, such as blacklist/whitelist, also may introduce comprehension issues.

- Avoid terms such as master/slave that perpetuate negative stereotypes or unequal power relationships.

- Avoid identifying an individual’s gender unless necessary for comprehension, or using terms that assign a gender to inanimate objects, such as male/female connectors.

- Avoid descriptive terms that are condescending or reductive in favor of language that the groups being described would prefer.

Steven Lipner, chair of the Congressionally authorized Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, sent a letter to NIST in 2020 recommending the whitelist and blacklist changes as well as the changes for master and slave usage.

"Many technology and security standards contain racially insensitive language that is both offensive to many of our colleagues and is also, in many respects, ambiguous – technically and culturally," the letter said. "Examples of such language include using the terms blacklist and whitelist instead of block-list and allow-list and using the terms master and slave."

Jennifer Huergo, a spokesperson for NIST, told The Center Square the guidance "was created primarily for the benefit of NIST staff experts who participate in the development of documentary standards as expert collaborators and leaders."

"Use of inclusive language helps to avoid potential gaps in understanding that could arise from the use of colloquial or idiomatic expressions that are rooted in particular historical events or regional dialects," she said.

The NIST’s DEI office also promotes liberal ideas around gender and sexuality. The DEI staff page features the preferred pronouns of its employees as the first priority in the bios.

The issue has regularly been thrust into the forefront because while Americans are largely split on the debate over gender identity and critical race theory, federal agencies have largely embraced it and put millions of taxpayer dollars behind it.

A Pew Research report released last summer found that while most Americans say there is discrimination against transgender people, "60% say a person’s gender is determined by their sex assigned at birth, up from 56% in 2021 and 54% in 2017."

The NIST speech code also links to the American Psychological Association’s webpage on "biased language," which goes on at length about the myriad of possible genders, and the need to cater to them.

"Transgender is used as an adjective to refer to persons whose gender identity, expression, and/or role does not conform to what is culturally associated with their sex assigned at birth," APA says. "Some transgender people hold a binary gender, such as man or woman, but others have a gender outside of this binary, such as gender-fluid or nonbinary. Individuals whose gender varies from presumptions based on their sex assigned at birth may use terms other than 'transgender' to describe their gender, including 'gender-nonconforming,' 'genderqueer,' 'gender-nonbinary,' 'gender-creative,' 'agender,' or 'two-spirit,' to name a few."

The taxpayer-funded speech guidelines also quote racial theory from a book written by Tukufu Zuberi, a professor of Race Relations and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania steeped in critical race theory. The book is titled "White Logic, White Methods." Zuberi also penned an article titled, "Critical Race Theory: A Commemoration."

While the U.S. is a world-leader in developing intellectual property, it lags behind in the ability to manufacture it. For example, the source of electric batteries, seen as the future of the green energy movement, is largely overseas. In fact, China made about three quarters of the world's lithium ion batteries in 2021, while the U.S. made only 7%.

(The Center Square) – It appears Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate have secured enough votes to out-vote the governor.

Current state Rep. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown, ended Tuesday night with a nearly 1,000 vote lead over his Democratic challenger Jodi Habush Sinykin.

The Associated Press reported that Knodl had 38,594 compared to Habush Sinykin’s 37,208 with 99% of the votes counted Tuesday night.

If Knodl’s win holds, Republicans will have a supermajority in the Wisconsin Senate and will have enough votes to both override Gov. Tony Evers, and oust some of his cabinet secretaries if they chose.

A spokesperson for Habush Sinykin said the margin is too close, and said they are not ready to concede in the race.

Bail Reforms Pass

Voters in Wisconsin on Tuesday said they want to change how bail works in the state.

Both of Wisconsin’s bail reform constitutional amendments passed by overwhelming margins.

The first question that would change the constitution to allow judges to keep people in jail, or set higher bails for people accused of serious, violent crimes passed with about 67% of the vote. The second question that allows judges to look at more than just a suspect’s likelihood of returning to court passed with about 68% of the vote.

The amendments come after years of working to update the Wisconsin Constitution’s bail requirements, and after the state’s cash bail system came under fire because of the Waukesha Christmas Parade attack.

The changes will now go forward, though there is some uncertainty. The Republican-controlled legislature passed a plan last month to clarify just what the constitutional amendment means by “serious bodily harm” and “violent crime,” but Gov. Evers has yet to sign that legislation.

Welfare Work Requirement Passes

Just over eight-in-10 voters in Wisconsin want people on welfare to have to work to receive public benefits.

The advisory question on Tuesday’s ballot that asked "Shall able-bodied, childless adults be required to look for work in order to receive taxpayer-funded benefits?" got just over 80% of the vote.

Preliminary returns show that more than 1.4 million people voted to require some work in exchange for welfare.

The vote doesn’t really matter. State law will not change, and anyone receiving public benefits in Wisconsin will not need to find a job. The question was advisory only.

(The Center Square) – Liberals have won another landslide statewide election in Wisconsin, pushing judge Janet Protasiewicz on to the state Supreme Court.

Protasiewicz won the closely watched, and massively expensive race for Supreme Court by nearly 11 points Tuesday. She got 55% of the vote, compared to conservative former Justice Dan Kelly’s 44%.

“I will bring the fairness and impartiality that you all have been waiting for, and I will be a part of the solution to make our Supreme Court something that you all feel proud of and protected by,” Protasiewicz said in her victory speech.

“I wish Wisconsin the best of luck because I think it’s going to need it,” Kelly said in his speech on election night.

Wisconsin’s 2023 race for the Supreme Court is the most expensive in U.S. history. Some estimates have the race costing at least $45 million. That crushes the former record of $15 million spent on the Illinois Supreme Court race back in 2004.

Turnout was huge, and played a huge role in the race.

Early numbers suggest that 36% of voters cast a ballot for Tuesday’s election. That would beat the previous high turnout for a Wisconsin judicial race, and would beat the turnout numbers from the 2020 court race and presidential primary.

The race was Kelly’s second defeat for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He lost in the 2020 race by a similar double-digit margin.

“Judicial campaigns are supposed to be about constitutional principles and legal scholarship, which has been the focus of my conversations with the people of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, my opponent made her campaign about cynical appeals to political passions, serial lies, and a blatant disregard for judicial ethics and the integrity of the court. But the judgment of the people of Wisconsin is paramount, and this is what they have chosen,” Kelly said.

The Protasiewicz-Kelly race was a national draw, bringing in millions of dollars from out-of-state supporters, because it is seen as a proxy election on abortion.

Protasiewicz has made it clear her “values” include a woman’s right to choose. Kelly accused her of all but promising to strike down Wisconsin’s pre-Roe abortion law.

That law, which outlaws abortions in every case except for the health of the mother, is being challenged by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor and Democratic attorney general.

Protasiewicz will hear arguments in that case next month.

Protasiewicz ‘s win gives liberals a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, their first majority in 15 years.

Now there’s an expectation that Protasiewicz will rule on cases that involve Wisconsin’s election maps, Act 10, school choice, and a list of other issues that Democrats in the state have not been able to succeed on through the legislature.

The 34 count indictment of former President Donald Trump has been unsealed.

Read it below:

(The Center Square) – Regents at the University of Wisconsin say they are worried about the growing costs of attaining a college education, but almost every single one of them voted to raise tuition at the state’s campuses.

The UW’s 5% tuition hike passed Friday on a 15-1 vote.

Only Technical College System President Rodney Pasch voted against the increase, saying those are real dollars that real students are going to have to pay.

“Either they have an account, a savings that they can pull it out of, or if they have, if they have a job, they have to work some additional hours, or they have to go in debt. And we know that debt is a certain problem that students are dealing with today,” he said.

Regent Scott Beightol defended the tuition hike as part of inflation.

“It is important to all of us that a UW education continues to be affordable, but as resident tuition rates have been held flat for the past 10 years, inflation has increased a cumulative 26%, and it’s time to use this operational lever,” Beightol said.

The 5% tuition hike is the first for the UW System in a decade, and is earmarked mostly for raises and university employees.

Regent Dana Wachs said charging students more will allow the university to draw top employees from across the country.

“Now is the time to start taking steps to preserve this institution and preserve it into the future,” he said.

Regent President Karen Walsh echoed that idea, adding the University of Wisconsin needs more top professors and teachers.

“I’m very concerned about quality – and the campuses need to have the resources to deliver on this.”

The tuition increase is not a blanket across-the-board hike. Each campus will see a slightly different increase. For example, tuition will jump 5.4% at UW-River Fall, while only going-up 4.8% at UW-Whitewater.

Out-of-state students will also see a slightly lower increase, and graduate students will see a slightly different rate as well.

Wisconsin lawmakers froze tuition at the University of Wisconsin back in 2013 after years of tuition increases. Lawmakers have warned the university, however, not to move too quickly or raise tuition too high.

Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, has a piece of legislation that would limit tuition increases to the rate of inflation. The UW’s 5% hike falls well under the restrictions in Murphy’s legislation.

UW students will see the new tuition increase on their bills next fall.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s race for the state Supreme Court is the most expensive in U.S. history, and the conservative candidate says it’s all because of politics.

Former Justice Dan Kelly has long accused liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz of focusing on her politics, and not the role of a Supreme Court justice, during the campaign. Monday, Kelly told News Talk 113- WISN’s Jay Weber that Protasiewicz is focusing on her politics, because national Democrats have made the race all about politics.

“This is a political drive for them. My opponent goes around the state talking nothing but her politics,” Kelly said. “All she talks about are the politics she’ll bring to the court.”

Protasiewicz has consistently said that she talks about her “values,” and insists those are different from her “politics.”

WisPolitics last week said the race between Kelly and Protasiewicz has cost $45 million. Most of that money has come from outside groups, and in Protasiewicz’s case most of her donations have come from donors outside the state of Wisconsin.

“This race is being watched so closely around the country because this is the first judicial race, to my knowledge in the country’s history, in which one of the candidates comes out and says she will put herself above the law. She will place her thumb on the scale of justice.”

That’s a reference to a Protasiewicz comment to a Madison TV station back in January where she talked about abortion

“What I will tell you is that the [for] bulk of issues there’s no thumb on the scale, but I will also tell you that I’ll call them as I see them and I’ll tell you what my values are in regards to [the abortion] issue, because this issue is so critically important,” Protasiewicz said at the time.

Protasiewicz’s campaign has stayed mostly silent in the last few weeks of the campaign, and has not responded to Kelly’s accusations.

Kelly said voters in Wisconsin will have to decide who they want on the court.

“[Wisconsin voters] still love our Constitution. We still love our liberties that are protected by that Constitution,” Kelly explained. “And I don’t think that she can spend enough money to get [voters] to give that up.

Voters will make their decision between Kelly and Protasiewicz on Tuesday.