Wisconsin Right Now

A federal judge on Monday temporarily paused a Biden administration program that would grant a path to citizenship for the spouses of American citizens. District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker paused the new Biden administration effort until a final ruling is made. The program in question allows illegal immigrants who have married an American citizen to avoid deportation and start the path to citizenship. The halt comes after a coalition of 16 states filed a lawsuit to challenge the program. Proponents of the policy say it helps repair the immigration system and helps the migrants in limbo in the U.S. Critics say it incentivizes illegal immigrants even more than they already are and that the policy violates the U.S. Constitution and breaks federal law. “Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the federal government is actively working to turn the United States into a nation without borders and a country without laws. I will not let this happen,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton...

Judge Brad Schmiel says he’s not going to repeat the mistakes of the last Wisconsin supreme court race. Schimel told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber he isn’t going to politicize the race like liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz, and he’s not going to ignore his campaign like former conservative Justice Dan Kelly. Schimel said he can run for the court next year without injecting Republican politics into the court. “I've had plenty of people on our side that suggested, ‘Brad, you just got to do the same.’ No. I cannot do that,” Schimel said. “We still have to respect the rule of law. We still have to respect the Constitution. We still have to respect judicial ethics. I'm not going to go out and promise people what I'm going to do. But I will promise people that they can look at my record, and they know that I've done the right thing. That I have put the law above politics. I put the law above my own personal opinions.” Republicans roundly criticized Protasiewicz ...

  Judge Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s Georgia election interference racketeering case, ruled Friday that despite allegations of misconduct, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, can remain on Trump’s case. McAfee ruled, however, that Willis must remove legal counsel Nathan Wade, with whom she had an affair and allegedly misused taxpayer dollars for, from the case. Willis could also withdraw from the case, and Wade would then be allowed to remain. Willis has been accused of overpaying Wade, whom she has had a romantic relationship with, using taxpayer dollars. Willis hired Wade to work on the Trump case, but the allegations fueled a push to have her removed from the case. One of Trump’s lawyers blasted the decision. “While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying ...

  A state judge on Wednesday dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump in the Georgia case that accuses the former president of trying to interfere with the 2020 election. Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six charges in the indictment, including three against Trump due to a lack of detail that he said was "fatal." But the ruling doesn't end the case against Trump. Trump still faces criminal charges, including Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges that underpin the prosecution's case. "The Court's concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance," McAfee wrote. "However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned's opinion, fatal." However, the judge wrote that the case was far from over. "This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed," he wrote in a footno...

Nilsestuen’s decision could be appealed, but it would likely then end up before Wisconsin’s liberal majority Supreme Court. A judge in Dane County says absentee ballots in Wisconsin don’t need a full address to be counted this year. Judge Ryan Nilsestuen ruled local election managers need not reject absentee ballots if the absentee witness’ address is incomplete. "The definition [of an address] preferred by the WEC and the Legislature would establish a simple, bright line rule, but it does not fit within the broader statutory context,” Nilsestuen wrote in his decision. “In fact, it directly conflicts with several other similar terms. Therefore, this definition is improper and, as used by the WEC, invalid." The ruling comes after a judge in Waukesha County ruled last year local election clerks could not count ballots with missing address information. The Waukesha County ruling also forbade clerks from “curing” those ballots by adding the missing information. Nilse...

  A federal judge on Friday denied former President Donald Trump's motion to delay his classified documents trial until after the 2024 presidential election. Trump, 77, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden, has pleaded not guilty to 40 felony counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people who didn't have security clearance and tried to thwart the government's attempts to get them back. Trump and his attorneys have argued that prosecutors have proposed an unrealistic schedule for what's expected to be a complex case, especially in light of Trump's pending criminal charges in Washington D.C., Georgia and New York. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon agreed Friday to push back some pre-trial deadlines but said it was "premature" to postpone the trial date. The trial is set to start in May 2024, right in the middle of the Republican presidential primary calendar. The j...

(The Center Square with Wisconsin Right Now) – Judge Arthur Engoron issued an order Thursday blocking former President Donald Trump from moving his assets without informing a court monitor. The judge's order states that Trump and the other defendants must disclose all of the entities they own and declare in advance "any anticipated transfer of assets or liabilities to any other entities." “I have a Deranged, Trump Hating Judge, who RAILROADED this FAKE CASE through a NYS Court at a speed never before seen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The judge, a Democrat, has also gagged Trump from speaking or posting about members of his staff. Trump is not being tried before a jury. His team says the Democratic Attorney General filed the civil case under a provision that doesn't allow one. Engoron previously found Trump liable for fraud and ruled that New York Attorney General Letitia James had proved the core of her case. Trump has appealed that ruling.  Trump, 77...

(The Center Square) – A judge in Waukesha County issued a ruling that sides with parents in the debate over how school districts handle transgenderism in schools. Judge Michael Maxwell on Tuesday sided with two parents in the Kettle Moraine School District after they sued in 2021 because the district did not tell them that school leaders and teachers were calling their middle school-aged daughter by a different name at school. Luke Berg with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, one of the law firms that handled the case, said this is the first time a judge has come down on the side of the parents in a case like this one. “This victory represents a major win for parental rights. The court confirmed that parents, not educators or school faculty, have the right to decide whether a social transition is in their own child’s best interests. The decision should be a warning to the many districts across the country with similar policies to exclude parents from gender transition...

A judge will not delay counting military ballots in Wisconsin. A Waukesha County judge on Monday refused to sequester military ballots until they can be verified. I felt that that was a drastic remedy, that I felt that it was at least at a minimum a temporary disenfranchisement of our military voters’ votes to say, 'let’s put them on hold and let’s figure out after the fact whether or not there’s bad votes cast,'” Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Maxwell said in his ruling from the bench. State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, asked the judge to intervene after she got three fake military ballots in the mail last week. She said she wanted to make sure that only military members were casting military ballots. Wisconsin law allows military members to request a ballot online without having to register first or show any kind of voter ID. The Thomas More Society joined the case as well, asking the judge for a temporary restraining order. The judge’s decision...

Another judge has ruled that absentee ballots must be properly – and completely – filled-out in order to be counted on Election Day in Wisconsin. Dane County Judge Nia Trammell on Wednesday refused to issue a temporary restraining order that would have stopped local election clerks from rejecting incomplete absentee ballots. "I believe that to issue a temporary injunction would upend the status quo, not preserve it," said Trammell. "I also believe that the fact that the election is all but two weeks away lends some credence to the argument raised by [the Wisconsin Election Commission] and the Legislature that any decision issued by the court granting the temporary injunction would frustrate the electoral process by causing confusion." The issue continues to be absentee ballot witness addresses. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin wanted a judge to give clerks some wiggle room on those addresses. State law is clear that voters and their witnesses must p...

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Biden administration's controversial mask mandate for planes, airports and trains. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle called the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) mandate “unlawful” for overstepping its authority and not following normal rulemaking procedures. "But the mandate exceeded the CDC's statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions," she wrote in the ruling. Last month, a bipartisan group of senators passed a resolution 57-40 that would repeal the federal mask mandate on airplanes and federally regulated public transit. Critics of the mandate praised the judge’s ruling. They had argued it was not necessary and conflicted with the Biden administration’s decision to lift Title 42, a Trump-era immigration rule that allowed border agents to immediately expel illegal immigrants to slow the spread of CO...

An Outagamie County judge is not going to stop a team of medical workers from taking new jobs. Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis on Monday refused to continue an injunction that would have stopped seven former employees at ThedaCare from leaving. ThedaCare asked the judge to intervene this month, complaining that losing the seven members of their interventional radiology and cardiovascular team would leave stroke patients in the Appleton area without care. Judge Mark McGinnis ruled on Monday that the argument didn’t carry enough weight to force the seven to stay. Technician Kailey Young testified on Monday that she left ThedaCare for a new job at Ascension Northeast because it was a better offer. She said her new job had “life changing money,” and a better "work-life balance.” Other nurses and techs told the judge the same thing. ThedaCare accused Ascension of “poaching” the team. Ascension maintained that it simply offered team members opportunities, and they...