A little background information, as I've recounted a few times on Lemmy: Back in the '90s, UW-Madison professor Joel Rogers co-founded an aspirational new political party—creatively named the New Party—that tried to revive fusion voting. They endorsed a Democratic candidate for the Minnesota House in 1994, and the Minnesota DFL objected. They took the case to the Supreme Court, which upheld the ban on fusion voting. The New Party lost momentum and fell apart soon afterwards. Progressive Dane, based in Madison, is the only remaining New Party affiliate.

It's not surprising to see the Wisconsin Republican Party objecting to the practice; it will be interesting to see what the Wisconsin Democratic Party thinks. (I recently learned from the Wikipedia page on fusion voting that the Republicans and Democrats used to run fusion candidates to defeat socialists in Milwaukee.)

I wish United Wisconsin all the luck.

The partial veto that the Wisconsin governor can do is ridiculous. But it was ridiculous back when Tommy Thompson was doing it, too. If Republicans can use it, so can Democrats.

In a sliver of good news for today, Michael Gableman faces consequences.

https://bsky.app/profile/satyaformadison.bsky.social/post/3lm3o2mnpxs2g

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27797493

I guess that every election now will have a referendum to amend the state constitution for funsies. Let's add Chapter 1 of the statutes—Sovereignty and Jurisdiction of the State—since that seems pretty important. Maybe the state symbols? I mean, nothing's more patriotic than the American Robin. Let's get the lyrics to "On, Wisconsin!" in there, too. That, and the 2025 Green Bay Packers schedule definitely should be in the constitution, and we can add 2026 next year.

Now that it's an open ledger, what other random crap should we put into our foundational document?

Congratulations, Wisconsin!

Hey there, so I just saw that Wisconsin DMV has started warning residents about these phishing texts.

I'm just curious have you heard anything else about issues with stolen data or anything like that from the Wisconsin DMV?

Louisiana had an incident a few years ago where state government servers were hacked, and then a few years later pretty much every adult in LA had their data breached by a cyber attack at the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV).

We never heard much else about it, but on the 20th of March the current governor reissued the state of emergency for the incident, gave the director of the governors office of Homeland security and emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) the authority to handle it, then moved GOHSEP under the National guard and named a Louisiana guardsman interim director of GOHSEP. There's been continuing weirdness around it since, but not much detail.

Just wondering if there's any connection between the two. Seems like odd timing to be getting the message from your DMV.

https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about-wisdot/newsroom/news-rel/032825phishscam.aspx

https://louisianarecord.com/stories/670486434-murrill-warns-louisiana-residents-about-fake-toll-scam-texts

https://www.nola.com/news/politics/jeff-landry-restructure-gohsep-under-louisiana-national-guard-fiscal-responsibility/article_7e9e08f2-ee67-463c-a2b3-424f6165a087.html

https://www.fox8live.com/2025/03/21/gov-landry-declares-state-emergency-response-louisiana-omv-disruptions/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/louisiana-commissioner-office-motor-vehicles-231107729.html

https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2025/04/01/heres-the-latest-in-louisianas-office-of-motor-vehicles-outage-crisis/82754080007/

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59733282

I saw someone on Mastodon mentioning Musk and the Wisconsin election and decided to do a quick dive into Wisconsin government to get things started.

Anyone from Wisconsin (or anywhere) that sees this please feel free to take the wheel and pick up where I leave off, or go somewhere else completely. The point of this is just to give you an example of how easy it is to find the corruption links in the massive SPN network.

So starting from scratch and knowing nothing about Wisconsin politics:

Wisconsin here's your SPN (and totally not the Heritage Foundation 😉) small government loving affiliate:

https://will-law.org/

I have to admit they seem to have their shit much more together than the majority of these places:

https://will-law.org/will-unveils-open-records-guide-to-promote-transparent-government/

Transparency is apparently very important to them, but not a whole lot of DOGE talk like most affiliates.

Oh wait, nvm, apparently Wisconsin's DOGE goes by GOAT, Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency, how cute goat 🐐

https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsins-version-of-doge-called-goat-getting-started

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/17/what-to-know-about-wisconsins-doge-inspired-goat-efficiency-committee/82337215007/

From these two articles I learned:

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos created GOAT.

The committee chair is Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie. The co-char is Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers.

Also on the committee: Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth; Rep. Nate Gustafson, R-Fox Crossing; Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard; Rep. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown; Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, and Rep. Angelina Cruz, D-Racine.

I started searching around for any of those member's names on WILLs website and on the first try, I found Amanda Nedweski mentioned in an article talking about how much she liked some education research WILL did in 2021.

The "research" these institutes do is usually how they justify the money SPN throws at them, so this is also usually a good place to find corruption if you're wondering where you should start.

(Side note:I included this information in another post, but this is a really great resource to get a quick overview of SPN shady nonsense. From the SPN source watch page: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network

SPN groups operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support.

SPN groups increasingly peddle cookie-cutter "studies" to back the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda, spinning that agenda as indigenous to the state and giving it the aura of academic legitimacy.)

So anyway, back to Wisconsin, WILL's research director is William Flanders. Looking at his LinkedIn it looks like 4 weeks ago he helped present some data about why Medicaid expansion is wrong for the state. Not surprising, this is sounding very typical for an SPN affiliate.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wilawliberty_statebudget-medicaidexpansion-healthcarereform-activity-7300621776840007680-7Qvv

Presenting that data with Flanders was Robin Vos, creator of GOAT as well as Senate President Mary Felzkowski.

A quick search of Mary Felzkowski shows she's a member of Alec 🚨🚨🚨

Specifically, she's an Alec Health and Human Services Taskforce chair, so her involvement with this SPN affiliate peddling "research" about why Medicaid expansion is bad for everyone in Wisconsin checks out 100%

https://alec.org/person/mary-felzkowski/

If I were any Wisconsin citizen looking for low hanging fruit in order to expose some corruption and point out hypocrisy (and probably more direct ties to the Heritage Foundation and big corporations) in government officials promoting "accountability and transparency" I would say this is a great place to start. And that's coming from somebody who has never been to Wisconsin or heard of any of these people before making this post.

Imagine what Wisconsin citizens with insider knowledge can dig up in no time.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/24935450

Trying to the same dirty trick from Pennsylvania. Hopefully our Wisconsin friends outwit the fascist.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/24817456

Ben Wikler and HCR lay out the case that investing volunteer time and donations in the Wisconsin Supreme Court Race is of the utmost importance to counter the $10M+ in spend by Elon and the Uihleins as this is likely a pivotal race for the WI congressional maps in 2026 and 2028.

Quad/Graphics Inc., which still relies heavily on revenue from commercial printing, anticipates a fourth consecutive year of sales declines in 2025 as sales and profits face headwinds including a postal rate increase and possible tariffs on paper from Canada.

The Sussex-based printing and marketing firm (NYSE: QUAD) continues diversifying its business from shrinking commercial printing segments, such as magazines and newspaper inserts, to higher-margin targeted print products and Quad’s marketing and advertising businesses.

Quad executives told analysts and investors in late 2024 the company would see continued sales declines until 2027 or 2028, when revenue is expected to increase and cash flow to improve.

For the near term, the company last week increased its quarterly dividend by 50% to 7.5 cents per share per quarter, or 30 cents per share annually.

Chairman and CEO Joel Quadracci told analysts Thursday that Quad expects U.S. postal rate increases to continue outpacing the overall inflation rate. That adds to customer costs and causes some customers to reduce the volume of printed products they’re planning to mail, he said.

Quadracci said he expects another postal rate increase of up to 13% in July. The latest rate hikes were planned under outgoing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, but Quadracci said he expects the U.S. Postal Service to implement the rate hike regardless of the organization’s leadership.

The parent company of PyraMax Bank is voluntarily delisting from the Nasdaq and transitioning to trade over the counter in an effort to reduce expenses.

1895 Bancorp of Wisconsin Inc. (Nasdaq: BCOW) said it would be withdrawing the registration of its common stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a press release.

The bank has been public for about three and a half years, with its listing on the Nasdaq starting in July 2021, the culmination of a conversion project the former mutual savings bank began early that year.

Mutual savings banks are owned by their depositors, not outside shareholders, as the bank was once it transitioned.

BCOW's stock started out trading with a share price over $15 but within days settled down to trading between $10 and $11, a level it stayed at until March 2023.

The stock was generally selling for less than $10 a share until October 2024, when it returned to that level, where it has stayed. On Wednesday, it closed at $9.98.

The decision to delist and deregister was made to reduce expenses and allow management more time to focus on its core mission, PyraMax Bank CEO David Ball said.

Seven western Wisconsin Republican lawmakers did not appear at an event hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls Friday as farmers from the area said they were concerned about the effect that President Donald Trump’s first month in office is having on their livelihoods. 

Madison-area U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth), state Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire) and state Reps. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) were in attendance. 

U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden, state Reps. Rob Sommerfeld (R-Bloomer), Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi) and Clint Moses (R-Mondovi) and state Sens. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) were all invited but did not attend or send a staff member.

Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates that about 28% of the state’s current $99.33 billion comes from the federal government.