Wisconsin Right Now

Wisconsin Right Now asked the gubernatorial candidates their opinions on the Wisconsin gas tax, indexing of the gas tax, their thoughts on how Scott Walker handled the transportation budget, and their opinion of the minimum markup law. We sent the campaigns the following questions: 1) What is your position on the Wisconsin gas tax? Do you believe it should be increased, decreased, or stay as is? If you do not believe the tax should be increased, how do you plan to fund the transportation budget? 2) Do you believe automatic indexing of the gas tax should be brought back? Why or why not? 3) What do you think of the way Scott Walker handled the transportation budget? What do they think Scott Walker should have done differently? 4) Do you think there is bloat in the transportation budget? Where and how much? 5) What is your position on Wisconsin's minimum markup law? Here are their responses: Rebecca Kleefisch "When I'm governor, money already paid by roa...

The Wisconsin GOP debate got pretty pointed. Republican gubernatorial candidates Rebecca Kleefisch, Kevin Nicholson, and Timothy Ramthun took the gloves off, slamming businessman Tim Michels for skipping a candidate debate in Green Bay and raising questions about his residency and ties to organizations that worked to raise the state's gas tax. The candidates also made news on other issues in the first full debate in the GOP primary; the three candidates were asked if they would remove pro-abortion district attorneys who won't prosecute Wisconsin's abortion law, like Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. All three said they would fire them. Asked whether they thought the 2020 election in Wisconsin was stolen, only Ramthun said yes. Host Joe Giganti said the candidates needed to answer with a yes or no or they could not answer that question. Kleefisch would not answer yes or no but said the election "was rigged from the very beginning." Nicholso...

Michels was also board president of a group that opposed a bill that would have stopped companies that employ illegal immigrants from getting government contracts. For years, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels and his family-run company have been involved in groups that pushed aggressively for increases in the Wisconsin gas tax and vehicle registration fees, Wisconsin Right Now has documented. Some of the groups have deep ties to Democrats and the Tony Evers' administration, which has supported increasing the gas tax. Evers' 2019-2021 budget proposal would have increased the gas tax and indexed it each year on April 1 to inflation. Indexing is an automatic increase in the gas tax. Michels himself once served as board president of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, and he was on the executive board of the Transportation Development Association. That group's president has directly advocated for increasing the gas tax and vehicle registra...

We knew it would get ugly, but this is really beyond the pale. A text message push poll went out to Wisconsin conservative voters today that is supportive of Republican Attorney General candidate Adam Jarchow and tells a stone-cold lie about his opponent, Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney in an attempt to turn voters off of Toney. Specifically, the push poll lies to voters about Toney, who is a Republican, saying: "Eric Toney prosecuted Kyle Rittenhouse for murder after Rittenhouse defended himself from attackers during rioting in Kenosha." The poll then asks people if that "fact" makes people more or less likely to vote for Toney. We've obtained a screenshot: However, Eric Toney did NOT prosecute Kyle Rittenhouse . He did not have anything to do with that prosecution at all. Toney is the District Attorney of Fond du Lac County. Rittenhouse was prosecuted by the office of Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley and his assi...

Roe vs. Wade has been overturned. In a 6-3 decision authored by Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the right to an abortion was NOT in the U.S. Constitution. Read the decision here: 19-1392_6j37(1) The landmark decision was released on June 24, 2022, a Friday. It now leaves the issue up to the states. The court found: "We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be 'deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition' and 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.' Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997) The right to abortion ...

The Bruen decision struck down a New York law that limited who could carry concealed weapons outside the home. The U.S. Supreme Court has expanded gun rights in a major decision that struck down a New York law that restricted concealed carry outside the home by limiting it to those who could show unique self-defense circumstances. The Court found that such a subjective test violated the U.S. Constitution. "The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not 'a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,'" the Supreme Court wrote in its June 23, 2022, decision. The Bruen decision was authored by Justice Clarence Thomas. He was joined by Justices Sam Alito, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. You can read the court's decision here. The court held, "New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing la...

The new Marquette poll is out, and we unearthed 8 positive signs for Republicans in it. To be sure, the races for U.S. Senate and governor will be an absolute battle. To some degree, the poll is a wake up call about that. Don't take the 'red wave' for granted. Some hot button issues are favoring Democrats (abortion, gun regulations), according to this poll. Both elections could go either way, with Tony Evers in a slightly stronger position than the Democratic candidates vying to take out Ron Johnson. But there were points of optimism for the GOP in the June 22 poll: 1. The enthusiasm gap This is a huge deal. Republican voters are more enthusiastic to vote than Democratic and independent voters, according to the poll. This could end up being a very big deal if it materializes in November turnout. Furthermore, lower turnout models favor the Republicans more than higher turnout models. The pollster noted, "The poll finds that in June there is a significant di...

Republicans have more enthusiasm, and most voters think the state is on the wrong track, which puts Tony Evers on shaky ground. But it will be a battle to defeat him. Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is in the margin of error against Democratic Gov. Tony Evers - a fact that Evers' campaign was highlighting in a furiously written fundraising email within minutes of the new Marquette Poll reporting it, calling the race a "pure tossup." You wouldn't know that from some of the media. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Evers had an "advantage" over all Republican candidates for governor in the poll, which was released June 22. The other Republican candidates for governor were behind Evers in the poll, outside the margin of error of 4.3%. It's the first 2022 Marquette poll to measure Evers against the Republicans in head-to-head match ups. However, the numbers also show that the Republicans have their work cut out for them: Here's h...

By: Senator Roger Roth Just over a month ago, Politico obtained a first draft of the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, in which a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised to overrule Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood. While a leak of this nature is unprecedented in modern times and is sure to cause untold damage to the operation of the Court as an institution moving forward, the reaction to the preliminary opinion has exposed the radical left's disdain for our republic's institutions and norms. From the immoral and potentially unlawful picketing and harassment of Supreme Court Justices in their homes by a group called Ruth Sent Us , to the vandalism of crisis pregnancy centers , harassment of churches this past Mother's Day, attempted firebombing of a Wisconsin pro-life office, and the plotted assassination of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the radical left, including those in the media , have embraced violence...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned Maine’s ban on state tuition assistance to students attending religious schools in an education case that could have big implications for schools around the country. The dispute began when the state of Maine created a tuition assistance program for rural areas without public schools. The program, though, explicitly said that state funds could not be used at religious private schools, only secular schools. A family sued the state of Maine saying they should be able to use the state funding at a religious school if they desired. They argued the program discriminates against religious schools and violates the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court sided with the challengers to Maine’s law Tuesday, ruling 6-3 in Carson v. Makin. “Maine’s program cannot survive strict scrutiny,” the court’s ruling says. “A neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations through the independent choices of...

The city was poised to give accused shooter Ricky De La Rosa his guns back. A Milwaukee County Circuit Judge has refused to return two firearms to a man who confessed to shooting a gun in the air, saying he doesn't understand why the District Attorney's office refused to prosecute the man for a crime. In the proceeding, a man named Ricky De La Rosa petitioned the city and judge to get his firearms back because the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office decided to “no process” his case. But the judge, David Borowski, had some strong words for the DA, speaking from the bench. "I will say again on the record, this is why we have situations like the Deer District..." the judge said, referencing those unrelated shootings. "I’m very displeased to hear about the charging decision or lack thereof. The DA’s office, it would appear – maybe I could be corrected or maybe there’s information that I don’t have – just decided to allow someone to engage in gunplay, f...

After the board was announced, critics quickly raised concerns about its implications for free speech and the Constitution. Several Republican senators are demanding a hearing saying they received documents from a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower about the agency’s new disinformation governance board that allegedly show DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas misled a Senate committee when he testified about the board last month. The lawmakers sent a letter this week to Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asking for a hearing on the issue where Mayorkas could come back for questioning. “We write to request you convene a hearing with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas as soon as possible to answer critical questions about apparently misleading testimony before the Committee on May 4 on the Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board (the Board),” the letter said. “We are d...

"First, we request that the District revoke its cease and desist letter. Second, we request confirmation from the District that it will stop spending taxpayer dollars to fund bullying tactics via legal counsel. The District should instead focus on educating its students with ageappropriate material." - WILL President and General Counsel, Rick Esenberg in a letter to the school district. The Oconomowoc Area School District (OASD) issued a cease and desist letter to a parent threatening her with a defamation lawsuit for statements she made in public forums about the use and accessibility of age-inappropriate material. [caption id="attachment_82805" align="alignleft" width="217"] Alexandra Schweitzer[/caption] On May 13, attorneys for the Oconomowoc Area School District School Board issued the letter to Alexandra Schweitzer of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, threatening legal action if she does not revoke public statements she made about classroom ma...

The last two months alone equals roughly the size of the population of Montana. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol published official data Thursday for apprehensions and encounters May: the highest monthly total in recorded U.S. history of 239,416. CBP published the data after The Center Square published preliminary numbers received from a Border Patrol agent. Official numbers include both Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations data of people entering the U.S. illegally at all ports of entry. Despite President Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and CBP Chief Chris Magnus arguing that the border is closed, that Title 42 is being enforced, and that it is complying with the Remain in Mexico policy, more people entered the U.S. illegally in May 2022 than any month recorded in U.S. history. And the numbers are only going up. In April, CBP reported 235,478 total encounters/apprehensions; in March, 222,239; in February, 165,902; in January, ...