From the Article:

Wisconsin's powerful Republican Assembly leader said Tuesday that he hopes the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court adopts new constitutional legislative boundary maps, even as he slammed proposals from Democrats as “a political gerrymander” and threatened an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court tossed Republican-drawn maps, long considered among the country's most favorable to the GOP, and ordered new maps that do not favor one party over another. It said if the Legislature doesn't adopt maps, the court will.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Republicans have approached Democrats about passing new maps in the Legislature, but “we have not gotten a warm reception to that idea.”

“We are ready, willing and able to try to engage in that process,” Vos said at a news conference.

Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer questioned Vos' sincerity.

“We are always open to conversations with our colleagues, but have yet to be convinced that Republican Legislators are serious about passing a fair and representative map, especially given the extreme gerrymander they submitted to the court on Friday," she said in a statement.

Wisconsin is a purple state, with four of the past six presidential elections decided by less than a percentage point. But under legislative maps first enacted by Republicans in 2011 and then again in 2022 with few changes, the GOP has grown its majorities to 64-35 in the Assembly and 22-11 in the state Senate.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the maps passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2021, leading the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court to adopt the maps that are currently in use. The court has since shifted to liberal control, and it threw out the maps last month.

In a 4-3 ruling, the high court said the current maps were unconstitutional because not all districts were comprised of a contiguous territory. Some districts included areas that weren't connected to the whole.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers, along with Evers, a conservative Wisconsin law firm, a liberal law firm that brought the redistricting lawsuit, a group of mathematics professors and a redistricting consultant submitted new proposed maps on Friday.

The map submitted by Republicans would maintain the current 64-35 GOP majority, while other maps would narrow it to as little as a one-seat Republican edge, according to an analysis by Marquette University Law School research fellow John D. Johnson

Vos dismissed the maps submitted by Democrats, saying they would move too many boundary lines and force incumbent lawmakers to run against one another. He called them “nothing more than a political gerrymander.”

In the 2022 election, Wisconsin’s Assembly districts had the nation’s second-largest Republican tilt behind only West Virginia, according to an Associated Press statistical analysis that was designed to detect potential gerrymandering. Republicans received less than 55% of the votes cast for major party Assembly candidates, yet they won 65% of the seats.

The submitted maps are being reviewed now by two consultants hired by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They will submit their report by Feb. 1, which will include their recommended maps.

“My hope is that the court, in any fair reading, rejects the maps that were submitted which have large partisan bias and either has maps drawn by the professors, if they go that route, or ultimately we'll have to go to the (U.S.) Supreme Court and demonstrate the huge political nature of what they’ve done, ” Vos said.

When asked when such an appeal would be filed or what it would argue, Vos declined to say.

“Our goal is not to rush to the U.S. Supreme Court," Vos said. “We want to try and have a map that meets the constitution."

Republicans have indicated that they would argue that there were due process violations. Vos has also suggested that the appeal would argue that liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who called the current maps “rigged” and “unfair” during her run for office, should not have heard the case. She sided with the three other liberal justices in ordering new maps.

From the Article:

One in 10 Wisconsin teenagers has attempted suicide over the last three years. More than one-third of high schoolers feel sad or hopeless. Half of Wisconsin youth have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety or behavioral problems.

At the same time, half of Wisconsin's youth say they have difficulty obtaining mental health services and half of children aged 3 to 17 with mental health conditions received no treatment.

These are just some of the deep concerns raised by the Wisconsin Office of Children's Mental Health, a state agency within the Department of Health Service, which met with state legislators, stakeholders and members of the media Friday morning. The data are part of the latest annual report from the state agency, which tracks well-being trends and demographics, offers strategies and solutions, and hosts discussions that impact the social connectedness of youth.

Some of the stressors impacting young people, according to research, include academic pressures, widespread gun violence, racism and discrimination (especially with regard to anti-LGBTQ+ policies), political divisiveness, and climate change. And some stressors that more broadly impact families also harm young people, such as the state's lack of child care options, financial insecurity, food insecurity and housing instability.

The goal of the Office of Children's Mental Health report, its director Linda Hall said, is to "take a look at what's happening with kids, to monitor the data around children's well-being and then to work with a broad range of stakeholders to work on improving the children's mental health system."

Speakers Friday included staff from the Office of Children's Mental Health; Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Schofield) and Rep. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), co-chairs of the Legislative Children’s Caucus; and student leaders Samera Osman from Reagan High School in Milwaukee and Nathan Zirk from North Crawford High School in Soldiers Grove, a village south of La Crosse.

From the Article:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is now considering a handful of proposed changes to the state's legislative boundaries after Republicans, Democrats, university professors and partisan law firms submitted options as part of a lawsuit aimed at making the state's legislative districts more competitive.

The court received submissions from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Republican legislative leaders, Democratic lawmakers, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and the petitioners who brought the lawsuit who are represented by Law Forward, a liberal legal firm.

Most of the submissions would reduce the current Republican advantages.

The court will review the seven sets of competing legislative maps as it lurches toward the March 15 deadline to enact new districts ahead of the August legislative primary.

The court on Dec. 22 ordered the Republican-controlled state Legislature to draw new legislative boundaries ahead of the 2024 election, arguing the maps are unconstitutional because many disticts' boundaries are not contiguous — meaning they include pieces of land that are not connected.

In a 4-3 decision, justices said they are also prepared to replace the state's heavily gerrymandered maps if the Legislature and Democratic governor cannot agree on a new plan. In that case, the court ruled that justices will consider the partisan makeup of the new map if they are forced to step in.

Law Forward brought the legal challenge straight to the Supreme Court in August — bypassing lower courts in an expedited effort to put new maps in place before the fall. The lawsuit came to the court shortly after it flipped to a liberal majority for the first time in years with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz.

The state's current maps are a product of another court battle — Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission — that ultimately landed at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2022, the nation's highest court threw out election maps drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The state Supreme Court embraced a redistricting plan crafted by Republican state lawmakers just three weeks later.

Like now, the decision from the state Supreme Court was released without time to spare, just as candidates could begin circulating petitions to get on the midterm ballot that year.

The court's most recent ruling delivers a political landmine ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle that will all but certainly focus on the battleground state of Wisconsin. It's the latest chink in Republican power since GOP dominance in Wisconsin state government began diminishing in 2016, when Donald Trump became president.

Since then, Republicans have lost the governor's office and control of the state Supreme Court.

In a narrowly divided state that often decides statewide races by a few thousand votes, Republicans have held wide majorities in the state Legislature for years.

The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

From the Article:

A Wisconsin judge ruled that the state’s top election leader can legally remain in her position, handing a blow to the Republican-controlled state Senate that tried to oust her.

The GOP-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted in September to fire Meagan Wolfe, the top election official, from her position at the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), after months of threatening to remove her over how she handled the 2020 election.

They falsely claimed that Wolfe orchestrated a plan to rig the election in the state — a swing state that President Biden secured by over 20,000 votes.

Biden’s win in Wisconsin has withstood multiple partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review and multiple state and federal lawsuits, the Associated Press reported.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ann Peacock declared Friday that she agreed with the WEC, which argued that stability in its elections system ahead of the 2024 election would be best for the public. Thus, Wolfe was cleared to remain in the role.

The injunction, Peacock wrote in her order, will “provide stability to protect against any further legally unsupported removal attempts” against Wolfe.

Democrats argued that the state Senate vote to oust Wolfe from her position was not held properly and they don’t have the power to remove her from her position or appoint an interim administrator.

Peacock’s decision renders the the state Senate’s statute removing Wolfe as moot. The defendants were also barred under the ruling from taking official actions contrary to the order and their counterclaim and pending motions were nixed.

“I hope this will put an end to attempts by some to target nonpartisan election officials and fabricate reasons to disrupt Wisconsin elections,” Wolfe said in a statement to the AP.

“The effort to undermine me was especially cruel given that the defendant legislators themselves admitted in court that I remain the lawful administrator,” she added.

From the Article:

Republican majorities would shrink but the party would maintain an upper hand in the Wisconsin Legislature under new redistricting plans proposed by the Democratic voters who convinced the state Supreme Court to declare the state’s Republican-drawn legislative maps unconstitutional.

Seven sets of map proposals were submitted to the court Friday afternoon by parties to a redistricting lawsuit that has generated national attention.

In its Dec. 22 opinion, the Supreme Court’s liberal majority said remedial maps must comply with the Wisconsin Constitution’s requirements that voting districts be compact, include equal populations and have boundaries that physically connect. That last requirement, known as contiguity, was the justification the court’s 4-3 liberal majority used to strike down current Republican drawn maps.
The majority said it would also consider “partisan impact” to measure political fairness of new maps, telling parties that it would take care to avoid picking new maps that favor one political party over another.

The proposals submitted Friday mark the beginning of the court’s efforts to replace maps that have helped Republicans cement lopsided legislative majorities in a state that’s otherwise known for close elections.

Many power outages across the state due to snowfall causing tree branches to take out power lines. Be sure to report that you have a power outage so the power company is aware of it. WPS phone number is: 800-450-7240, and here is the link to report if you have WE Energies.

It sounds like it may take a few days to fix. Make sure to stay warm and be safe. Run your faucets at a fast drip to help prevent them from freezing.

From the Article:

Opponents of a proposed interstate expansion in Milwaukee are arguing those plans should be put on hold because the project is now the focus of a federal civil rights investigation.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced plans in 2022 for a $1.2 billion project to expand Interstate 94 on the city's west side from six lanes to eight — four lanes in each direction — on about a 3.5-mile stretch of highway that passes the Brewers' American Family Field.

Opponents of the project believe the expansion would negatively impact people of color, as a majority of Black and Hispanic residents live along the corridor.

Cassie Steiner, the senior campaign coordinator for the Wisconsin chapter of the Sierra Club, is calling on Gov. Tony Evers to halt the project because of the civil rights investigation.

"Highway expansions have caused decades of harm, especially to Black and Brown communities," Steiner said.

Environmental activists have argued that more gas-burning cars on the road will lead to more carbon emissions in the air, contributing to climate change. They believe the expansion will make climate change and air pollution worse in the area. Environmental attorney Dennis Grzezinski said the project is located in a corridor that has a "larger proportion of Black and Hispanic residents than can be found in any other community in the region."

Aside from increasing noise and air pollution as more cars zip down a wider highway, some residents also worry the addition of about 29 acres of asphalt — the equivalent of more than 20 football fields — will increase flows of stormwater into the area.

"Who's it going to impact? Not the folks trying to get to downtown during rush hour from richer, whiter neighborhoods and communities, but the folks who live in and around the center city," Grzezinski said.

Last year, community groups and opponents of the project sent a civil rights complaint to the Federal Highway Administration. The complaint said if the project goes forward, people of color will "bear the brunt of the impacts of highway construction and expansion, while whites, especially white persons living in highly segregated suburbs, will reap most of the benefits."

"This will compound and exacerbate the historical, longstanding disparities and injustices to which these Milwaukee communities have been subjected," the complaint said.

From the Article:

COVID-19 cases are growing in Northeast Wisconsin, but the numbers aren’t significantly higher than a year ago.

A new variant, called JN.1, is spreading. According to a doctor we spoke with at Bellin Health, there’s a small change in part of the virus that’s causing more people who’ve already had COVID or were immunized to get this variant of the virus.

As of right now, the number of cases in our community is similar to this time last year.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services website, COVID hospitalizations in Northeast Wisconsin increased by 17% between Dec. 24 and Jan. 6. Specifically in the Fox Valley, hospitalizations grew 13% during that time period.

Overall, COVID symptoms are still fairly mild for people who’ve been vaccinated, according to doctors. People with a compromised immune system, underlying health conditions, and older adults still face significant risk.

If you think you have COVID, doctors urge you not to go to an emergency room to get tested unless you’re very ill and need to be evaluated by a provider.

“We just opened a fast lane clinic by [Austin Straubel] airport -- that’s new -- where people can get a test that’s ordered by their doctor or their nurse practitioner and get that test through the drive-through. So there’s easier ways than going to the emergency room and waiting a long time. We really want to make sure we’re protecting our emergency departments in this community when people truly need it,” Bellin Health Dr. Brad Burmeister said.

From the Article:

Verona resident Libby Belden and her husband chose to buy an electric vehicle almost a year ago. But as Green Bay Packers season ticket holders, they’ve run into hurdles trying to attend games at Lambeau Field.

Belden has tickets to two regular season games each season and a preseason game. Since buying an electric SUV, she has had to stop in Appleton for a charging station compatible with her vehicle before heading home to the Madison area.

While the charger isn’t one that requires the vehicle to be plugged in overnight, it still takes about an hour of waiting because it’s not a high-speed charger.

“We actually decided, after having done that for a few games, to skip a game we were planning to go to with a bunch of family this year, which was really heartbreaking,” Belden said. “It was a night game. We knew we were going to have to drive home, it was already going to be really late, and then it was probably going to be about a four-hour drive home with having to sit at that charger for an hour.”

Belden is not the only EV owner who has to meticulously plan trips throughout Wisconsin. That’s because the Badger State has fewer publicly accessible charging stations than most of its neighbors, according to data provided by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, or DOT.

Citing the Alternative Fuels Data Center Station Locator and state EV infrastructure plans, a DOT spokesperson said Wisconsin has 578 publicly accessible stations with 1,373 total ports, with 90 of those stations having high-speed chargers. Among surrounding states, only Iowa had fewer stations at 363 with 820 total ports.

From the Article:

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who has pushed for full legalization of recreational marijuana, said Wednesday that he is open to a more limited medical marijuana legalization being promoted by Republicans.

"I would think that getting it all done in one fell swoop would be more thoughtful as far as meeting the needs of Wisconsinites that have asked for it," the Democrat said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But if that’s what we can accomplish right now, I’ll be supportive of that."

Republicans have been working behind closed doors for years on a medical marijuana bill and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in December that they would unveil it this month. Republicans have repeatedly rejected calls from Evers and other Democrats to legalize all uses of marijuana, including medical and recreational.

Vos said the proposal would be limited and modeled after the medical marijuana law that had been in place in neighboring Minnesota before it moved to full legalization.

"I'm glad that the governor is open to supporting our proposal," Vos said Friday. "But if he keeps saying it’s only a precursor to recreational marijuana, it will kill this proposal."

From the Article:

Wisconsin's political party leaders met in the state Capitol for about six minutes Tuesday morning to determine which presidential candidates will appear on the primary ballot in the state: including former President Donald Trump.

The quick, no-hiccup meeting contrasts with two other states that have moved to bar Trump from the ballot. That decision was made by the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine's Democratic secretary of state based on an anti-insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment. The issue is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last week, the Wisconsin Elections Commission quickly rejected a petition filed by Kirk Bangstad — a Democratic activist and owner of the Minocqua Brewing Co. — that sought to keep Trump off the ballot on those grounds. Bangstad plans to challenge the decision in Dane County Circuit Court, and hoped it would reach the state Supreme Court.

WEC does not place candidates on the ballot in Wisconsin. That decision is up to the bipartisan state Presidential Preference Selection Committee, which is made up of state Democratic and Republican party chairs, majority and minority leaders in the state Legislature, and others.

The six candidates named by the state Republican party include: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump.

The state Democratic party presented only one name for the ballot: President Joe Biden. Author Marianne Williamson and Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips are also running as Democrats.

State law requires the committee to include all names "whose candidacy is generally advocated or recognized in the national news media throughout the United States," and can include additional names.

The names now go to WEC, which contacts the candidates to inform them they will appear on the ballot unless they notify the commission by Jan. 30 that they do not intend to run.

From the Article:

Attorneys for Republican lawmakers are asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reconsider its 4-3 decision that found the state's current legislative maps unconstitutional and ordered them to draw new ones, arguing their timeline to do so is rushed.

The court ordered parties on Dec. 22 to submit map proposals by Jan. 12, and consultants are set to review them by Feb. 1. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has said maps must be in place by March 15 for the fall legislative races. Candidates must circulate nomination papers for an Aug. 13 partisan primary ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

But Republicans argue instituting new maps as the 2024 elections draw closer would "needlessly disrupt the electoral process." They are asking those deadlines to be reconsidered and for the court to halt all proceedings in the meantime.

"Announced the Friday before Christmas, the parties have been given 21 days — a third of them falling on weekends and state holidays — to submit proposed remedies, lengthy remedial briefs and expert reports," attorneys wrote in a filing late Thursday.

From the Article:

Minocqua brewery owner and political gadfly Kirk Bangstad says he will go to court to force the Wisconsin Elections Commission to keep Donald Trump off of the state’s presidential ballots in 2024 under the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Bangstad filed a complaint with the elections commission Thursday demanding Trump’s exclusion. The election commission’s dismissal came almost immediately afterward, in a letter saying that the complaint “is being disposed of without consideration by the Commission.”

Bangstad had anticipated the commission’s rejection, telling reporters immediately after he filed the document that he expected it would be dismissed and that he would sue the commission in circuit court to press the complaint’s demand. After receiving the dismissal notice Bangstad said he would follow up with a lawsuit next week.

Bangstad said that he views Article 3 of the 14th amendment as a clear-cut justification for keeping Trump from running for president again.

His elections commission complaint says, “Donald Trump disqualified himself and forfeited his right to serve as President of the United States of America by choosing power over the oath he took as an officer of the United States to uphold the Constitution of the United States and engaging in an insurrection against the Country he swore to protect.”

It calls on the six commissioners to find Trump “disqualified from serving as President of the United States of America” and to “refuse Donald J. Trump access to the 2024 Republican presidential preference primary ballot.”

The complaint cites a Wisconsin statute that allows a voter who believes that an election official’s action or failure to act “is contrary to law” or an abuse of discretion to file a complaint with the commission “requesting that the official be required to conform his or her conduct to the law.”

From the Article:

Wisconsin election officials have declined to review a complaint attempting to remove former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot, citing the 14th Amendment.

Madison, Wis., brewery owner Kirk Bangstad filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday, claiming Trump should be removed from the ballot due to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The commission said the complaint was thrown out for procedural reasons, and it lists members of the commission itself as respondents.

“The complaint was disposed of without consideration by the Commission,” spokesperson Riley Vetterkind said in a Thursday statement to the media. “It is the position of the Commission that a complaint against the Commission, against Commissioners in their official capacities, or against Commission staff, warrants an ethical recusal by the body.”

Bangstad’s complaint relies on the same arguments as removal efforts in Colorado and Maine, which have been accepted, pending legal appeals.

The 14th Amendment bars those who “engage in insurrection” from holding office. The Maine Secretary of State and the Colorado Supreme Court found that Trump’s Jan. 6 conduct fell under that definition.

The Hill has reached out to the election commission and Bangstad for additional comment.

Other states have also rejected similar 14th Amendment claims. On Wednesday, a Michigan court ruled that its Secretary of State does not have the authority to determine the eligibility of candidates using the “insurrection clause” of the amendment.

Trump’s campaign denounced the Maine decision Thursday as “election interference.”

“We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said. “Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy.”

From the Article:

Gov. Tony Evers ordered that flags will fly at half-staff across Wisconsin to honor the life of former Bucks owner, U.S. senator from Wisconsin and lifetime Milwaukeean Herb Kohl.

The executive order states that flags should be flown at half-staff from Dec. 28 through the date of interment for Kohl.

Kohl's death was announced Wednesday by the Herb Kohl Foundation. He was 88.

“A Milwaukeean and Wisconsinite through and through, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl dedicated his life to serving our kids, our communities, our state, and our country," Evers said in a statement Wednesday after Kohl's death was announced. “Sen. Kohl was, without a doubt, nobody’s senator but ours. Kathy and I are devastated by the news of his passing."

Many friends, colleagues and Wisconsinites have remembered and shared stories of Kohl's storied life.

“Sen. Kohl was deeply committed to community, kindness, and service to others. Wisconsin’s seniors, students, teachers, and schools, and farmers and rural areas, among so many others, are better off because of his life and legacy, the impacts of which will last for generations," Evers continued in his statement.

“Kathy and I join the people of Wisconsin, friends and colleagues of Sen. Kohl, and the many people whose lives he impacted — both near and far — in offering our sincerest condolences to the Kohl family and the Herb Kohl Foundation in mourning the loss of this Wisconsin giant.”

From the Article:

Wisconsin’s economy ended 2023 in good shape with businesses hiring workers and the state’s unemployment rate at 3.3%, lower than the national average of 3.7%.

Jobs and employment data is still being gathered for December. However officials with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development said that in November the state had more than 3 million people working, which is a new high for the state, and in the month 1,700 employees were added to the workforce.

In 2023, roughly 32,300 workers entered the workforce in Wisconsin.

The biggest problem with the economy has been there aren’t enough bodies to fill the openings.

“As the Baby Boomers age out, we find that we need more and more workers just in general,” said Scott Hodek, Section Chief for DWD's Office of Economic Advisors, “This is the big piece that we’re seeing influence the workforce and the economy into the next decades.”

Hodek made his comments during the department’s virtual economic briefing in December.

“Students, right now graduating, have a great job market,” Hodek said. “We saw we’re getting more people into the labor force, and that’s good, but we need more.”

And while the job market is in workers favor, there might be some signs of hiring slowing down.

According to the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association and Commerce's most recent data from October, Milwaukee metro area employment averaged 862,000, a 0.3% increase from one year ago.

“A weakened overall employment trend, as well as negative manufacturing and unemployment indicators, suggest a sluggish metro area economy,” Bret Mayborne, MMAC vice president of economic research, said in the monthly report. “On the positive side, local housing and real estate indicators may be on the mend after registering declines for the better part of two years.”

There are still some workers who received bad news this year.

In December only one employer filed a WARN notice with the state: Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc., based in Brookfield, informed 17 remote workers that they would be laid off beginning Feb. 16.

In 2023, 6,727 workers learned they would need to find a new job, which is up from 5,563 a year ago, and up from 2,888 in 2021.

But that annual number is a fraction of the 39,756 workers that were laid off in 2020.

From the Article:

The fate of Kohler Co.’s decade-long effort to build a championship golf course atop wetlands and forest in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, remains in question following a court ruling applauded by the project’s opponents.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals this month upheld an administrative law judge’s 2019 decision to rescind the company’s state-issued permit to fill wetlands.

The ruling was the latest in a theater of legal battles over the proposed golf course, including several in which Kohler Co. prevailed. The ruling may not kill the project, but opponents see it as a major step toward its defeat.

From the Article:

In early December, a rightwing Wisconsin organization called HOT Government sent out a breathless email: Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman turned election conspiracy theorist and staunch Donald Trump ally, had nominated an important Wisconsin politician for a dubious award.

The prize would go to the person who exemplifies “leadership in BEING AN OBSTACLE TO STOPPING ELECTION CRIME”, the email declared.

Lindell’s target wasn’t a Democrat, nonpartisan election official or even a moderate Republican – it was Robin Vos, the powerful Wisconsin Republican assembly speaker.

The nomination reflects a stark turn of fortunes for Vos, who has spent more than a decade using every tool at his disposal to cement Republican power in Wisconsin, touting a deeply conservative record including on voting.

Vos helped re-draw the state’s legislative maps in 2011, ensuring Republican control of the legislature ever since. The same year, he followed former Republican governor Scott Walker’s lead in creating the most restrictive voter identification law in the country and passing legislation to kneecap union power in a state where organized labor was once the core of the Democratic coalition.

Vos was elected speaker of the assembly in 2013 and has used his years in office since to shore up his party’s minoritarian lock on power in the swing state. When Republicans lost the governorship in 2018, the assembly quickly passed legislation that curbed the power of the incoming Democratic governor. And after Trump lost the state in 2020, Vos initiated an investigation into Wisconsin’s election, hiring a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” movement to lead it.

He was in all respects a loyal rightwinger. But Vos has drawn a line at embracing Trump’s false claim that he actually won Wisconsin in 2020 and refused to join colleagues who suggested overturning the 2020 election. His unwillingness to cross that line has turned him into a pariah on the far right, a target of Lindell, an enemy of Trump and a symbol of the current state of the Republican party where loyalty to Trump is the key litmus test.

Now, Vos is fighting elements of his party that rejected the results of the 2020 election and have come to view him not as a hardline conservative who has done more than almost anyone else to strengthen Republicans’ power in the state, but as a corrupt establishment hack complicit in Trump’s undoing.

With the Trump flank of the grassroots Wisconsin Republican party as strong as ever ahead of the 2024 election, Vos is scrambling to appease his hardline party detractors so he doesn’t become a casualty of the movement he helped create.

“There’s a segment of the Maga crowd who despises him, because they adamantly believe President Trump was cheated,” said a veteran Wisconsin GOP operative, who spoke anonymously given his role within pro-Trump circles. “Where he is right now is kind of emblematic of the fight going on within the Republican party – here in Wisconsin and across the nation.”

From the Article:

Wisconsin's Republican-drawn legislative district boundaries are unconstitutional and must be redrawn before next year's presidential election, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided in a landmark split Friday ruling that has the potential to dramatically alter the state Legislature's makeup.

In a 4-3 ruling, the state's high court ruled that the current, Republican-drawn maps violate the Wisconsin Constitution's requirement for legislative districts to be contiguous.

The majority decision, signed onto by liberal justices Jill Karofsky, Rebecca Dallet, Ann Walsh Bradley and Janet Protasiewicz, urged the Legislature to draw new maps but said it will "proceed toward adopting" remedial maps in case the legislative process stalls or Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoes any proposals.

The court's three conservative justices, Annette Ziegler, Rebecca Bradley and Brian Hagedorn, dissented in the ruling.

The redistricting case was filed the day after Protasiewicz won the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, shifting the court to a 4-3 liberal majority for the first time in more than a decade.

The lawsuit argues the state's legislative maps passed in 2022, which are largely similar to previous maps drawn in 2011, are unconstitutional and must be redrawn.

The Republican-controlled Legislature, which drew the maps, allege the plaintiffs are merely using the state Supreme Court's new liberal majority to revisit the court's 2021 ruling adopting the current maps. That ruling was delivered by the previous 4-3 conservative-majority court.

Attorneys in the case say 54 of the Assembly's 99 districts and 21 out of 33 of those in the Senate violate requirements in the state Constitution that districts be contiguous. Though the Wisconsin Constitution requires legislative districts "to consist of contiguous territory," many contain sections of land that are not actually connected. The resulting map looks a bit like Swiss cheese, where some districts are dotted with small neighborhood holes assigned to different representatives.

The Legislature has argued for a more liberal definition of contiguous that allows for the creation of districts where all land masses are not physically touching. The Legislature also argued that Wisconsin's redistricting laws, backed by state and federal court rulings over the past 50 years, have permitted districts under certain circumstances to be noncontiguous.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the state's set of 10-year legislative and congressional maps early last year after Evers vetoed Republicans' preferred maps in 2021.

After calling for maps that made minimal changes to previous legislative district boundaries, the state court selected Evers' preferred legislative and congressional maps. But Republicans alleged the governor's legislative maps included a racial gerrymander and appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nation's highest court then struck down Evers' legislative maps but accepted his preferred congressional maps. The Wisconsin Supreme Court then selected the GOP-drawn legislative maps.

The current maps heavily favor GOP majorities in both chambers, with Republicans holding a 64-35 majority in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.

From the Article:

A Wisconsin family has agreed to sell 407 acres of their land, which includes a local pumpkin farm attraction, to Microsoft — for a total of $76 million, reported the Milwaukee Business Journal. The local government initially offered the Creuziger family in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin about a third of that sum in 2017 as a part of an agreement with the Foxconn Technology Group. But the family refused, opting to hold out for a better offer.

“The family wishes the village and Microsoft well, and they would appreciate people respecting their privacy,” the family’s attorney David Barnes told the Business Journal.

The land, which also includes the Land of the Giants pumpkin farm and a nine-acre corn maze, neigbhors another 641 acres of land purchased by Microsoft from the village of Mount Pleasant — for a total of $99.7 million. The end goal for Microsoft is to build a data center campus in the area, in which it plans to invest over $1 billion.

All told, the sale is a happy ending for the village, after several years of confusion and mixed signals from Foxconn. It’s only been two years since Foxconn drastically scaled back its promised $10 billion investment in Mount Pleasant, which would have included a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant.

The Milwaukee Business Journal reported that Microsoft plans to initially hire 200 employees at its Mount Pleasant data center — and could add over 460 jobs over time. But it’ll still be a fraction of the 13,000 jobs that Foxconn originally promised the area back in 2017.

From the Article:

Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections commission, for a second time, has unanimously rejected a complaint against fake presidential electors who attempted to cast the state’s ballots for Donald Trump in 2020.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission first rejected the complaint in March 2022. But a judge in May ordered the commission to rehear the complaint, this time without one of its members who served as one of the fake electors for the former president.

The commission released its unanimous 5-0 decision to reject the complaint Wednesday without explaining why. The elections commission’s discussion of the complaint, as well as its vote on Tuesday, was conducted in closed meetings.

The complaint asked the elections commission to investigate the fake electors’ actions and declare that they broke the law.

Last year, when it rejected the complaint the first time, the commission attached a letter from the Wisconsin Department of Justice that said that Republicans who attempted to cast the state’s 10 electoral college votes for Trump did not break any election laws. The state Justice Department concluded that Republicans were legitimately trying to preserve Trump’s legal standing as courts were deciding if he or Biden won the election.

Fake electors met in Wisconsin and other battleground states that Trump lost in 2020, attempting to cast ballots for the former president even though he lost. Republicans who participated in Wisconsin said they were trying to preserve Trump’s legal standing in case his defeat was overturned in court.

The fake electors settled a lawsuit filed against them by Democrats seeking more than $2 million in damages. The case is proceeding against two of Trump’s attorneys.

Under the settlement, the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward which filed the original complaint with the elections commission against the electors agreed to withdraw the second complaint. But the elections commission was still free to take action on the complaint, which its attorney noted on Wednesday when announcing it was rejected.

One of the Wisconsin fake electors was Bob Spindell, a Republican member of the elections commission. He voted to reject the complaint last year, but did not participate this time after he agreed that his involvement was improper. There have been calls for Spindell to be removed from the elections commission over his role as a fake elector.

From the Article:

The Republican lawmaker who forced the Universities of Wisconsin to reduce diversity positions called Tuesday for an in-depth review of diversity initiatives across state government and repeated his claim that he has only begun to dismantle equity and inclusion efforts in the state.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos made the remarks after the Legislature’s employment committee voted to release $107.6 million to cover a 6% raise for about 35,000 UW employees. The vote resolved a six-month battle over the raises; the state budget Republicans approved in June included funding for the raises, but Vos refused to allow the employment committee to release the money, using it as leverage in his fight against campus diversity initiatives.

Vos and Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman finally reached an agreement earlier this month. The deal called for the regents to freeze diversity hires, re-label about 40 diversity positions as “student success” positions, drop an affirmative action faculty hiring program at UW-Madison and create a position at the flagship university focused on conservative thought. In return, Vos agreed to hand over the money for the raises as well as tens of millions of dollars for construction projects across the university system.

The regents voted to approve the deal last week despite intense criticism from students and faculty that they were selling out students of color and LGBTQ+ students. Vos, who is white, said after the regents’ vote that he had only just begun to remove “these cancerous DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) practices” from UW campuses.