Wisconsin Right Now

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday that his office will oppose President-elect Donald Trump's motion to dismiss his felony conviction in New York. Bragg said that despite plans to oppose Trump's motion, his office would agree to hit pause on the proceedings pending the judge's decision on Trump's motion to dismiss. Bragg also suggested the case could wait until Trump's finishes his term in the White House. "No current law establishes that a president's temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that is based on unofficial conduct for which the defendant is also not immune," Bragg wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan. "Rather, existing law suggests that the Court must balance competing constitutional interests and proceed 'in a manner that preserves both the independence of the E...

Third District Congressman Rep. Derrick Van Orden defeated Rebecca Cooke in a race that was called late Wednesday morning by multiple outlets. Van Orden, the Republican incumbent, had 51.35% of the vote with 211,696 to Cooke’s 48.65% with 200,556 votes in the district that includes Eau Claire and areas south of the city and extending east toward Oshkosh. Incumbents won seven of the eight U.S. House seats in Wisconsin as the Republicans hold a 6-2 advantage in the state. Republican Tony Wied topped Democrat Kristin Lyerly in the 8th District to fill an empty seat held by Republican Mike Gallagher until his April 24 resignation. Wied received 57.3% of the vote to Lyerly’s 42.7%. Republican incumbent Reps. Bryan Steil (1st District), Scott Fitzgerald (5th District), Glenn Grothman (6th District) and Tom Tiffany (7th District) won races along with Democratic incumbents Mark Pocan (2nd District) and Gwen Moore (4th District). Pocan represents a district including Madison and Moo...

The Wauwatosa School District is asking voters to approve a pair of referendums worth $124.4 million on the Nov. 5 ballot. But a taxpayer advocacy group believes the district , with declining enrollment, should “right-size” its current budget rather than using a referendum to spend more taxpayer money. The group pointed toward a second planned referendum in 2026 as part of a cycle of tax increases that it believes needs to end. The group points to a reported $4 million budget mistake by the district as a sign of mismanagement. The district’s two proposals include $16.1 million per year for four years to fund operational expenses such as salaries and benefits and a $60 million referendum for maintenance and capital projects at Eisenhower, Madison, Roosevelt, Jefferson, and Washington elementary schools, Montessori/Fisher and Wauwatosa East and West high schools. State law caps how much a district can increase its property tax levy without voter approval. The district says t...

The referendums would increase the property tax bill of a resident with a home assessed at $350,000 an additional $241.50 in the first year, $733.99 in the second year, $895.10 in the third year and $1,053.24 in the fourth year. The Madison school district wants voters to approve a pair of referendums worth more than $600 million on the Nov. 5 ballot despite the school district’s dropping enrollment. The ask comes as the Madison Metropolitan School District had a $39 million deficit in this year’s budget after the pandemic funds and previous referendum it was using to pay teachers have run out. Last school year, the federal COVID-19 funds were used to pay 111 educators while reserves were used to pay an 8% increase in wages for teachers and school staff, according to Wisconsin Policy Forum . The referendum asks for a cumulative $100 million in operational funding over four years. The second referendum asks for $507 million over 23 years to build new schools. The district has 2...

Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney said Wisconsin needs a proper process to check its voter rolls for noncitizens and remove them, ensuring election integrity in the state. Currently, election commissions cannot check their rolls with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to ensure an estimated 90,000 individuals who are currently legally in the state, who can get a drivers license, do not register to vote. Toney was one of several officials statewide to take part in a Tuesday morning press conference from the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy about Wisconsin election integrity. Wisconsin election managers recently pushed for an Office of Election Transparency and Compliance, with a $2 million budget request for the office approved by the Wisconsin Election Commission. “We want to make sure that it is easy to vote but hard to cheat,” said Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, who holds the state’s Seventh Congressional seat. Tiffany pointed to the...

The district has 200 languages spoken across the district. The Denver school district is among the first in the country to adopt a “language justice” policy as a "long term goal." The district would encourage non-English speaking students to be able to use their native language to learn as opposed to being educated in English, which advocates say is oppressive and rooted in racism. Denver schools had about 90,250 students in 2022 with 35,000 multilingual learners with home languages other than English. The district has 200 languages spoken across the district, with Spanish as the home language for the majority of those. The district included a draft of an equity document that includes a policy statement on "language justice." It was included in the Nov. 16 school board agenda . The document includes this definition for "language justice": "The notion of respecting every individual's fundamental language rights – to be able to communicat...