Wisconsin Right Now

Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to keep U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as head of their party in the Senate. The votes came in for McConnell despite a push from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to take the spot. Scott leads the National Republican Study Committee. He sent a letter to his Republican colleagues dated Nov. 15 making the case for their vote. “I’m writing to you today because I believe it’s time for the Senate Republican Conference to be far more bold and resolute than we have been in the past. We must start saying what we are for, not just what we are against,” he said. “I do not believe we can simply continue to say the Democrats are radical, which they are. Republican voters expect and deserve to know our plan to promote and advance conservative values. We need to listen to their calls for action and start governing in Washington like we campaign back at home. There is a Republican Party that is alive and well in communities across America. It is time there is one in Washingto

“Congress created Daylight Saving decades ago as a wartime effort, now it is well past time to lock the clock and end this experiment.” - U.S. Sen. James Lankford The U.S. Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent starting in 2023. Lawmakers unanimously adopted the Sunshine Protection Act, which advocates say will boost economic activity. The measure must pass the U.S. House of Representatives before going to President Joe Biden for consideration. The Sunshine Protection Act The bill,  S.623 , would apply to those states who participate in daylight saving time. Most states observe daylight saving time for eight months each year. The Sunshine Protection Act would do away with changing clocks twice a year. Hawaii and most of Arizona do not participate in Daylight Saving Time. U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-FL, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, sponsored the measure. “Resetting the clocks may soon be a thing of the past,” Whitehouse said in a state

The U.S. Senate Wednesday night sent the Biden administration a message: Congress' upper chamber does not support the president's private sector vaccine mandate. With two Democratic senators joining all 50 Republicans, the Senate voted 52-48 to repeal President Joe Biden's executive mandate requiring that private-sector employers with 100 or more workers ensure their employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 or face weekly testing. Businesses that didn't follow the directive were to face stiff fines. U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Jon Tester, D-Montana, joined Republicans in rebuking the mandate. While the measure, introduced by Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled U.S. House, federal courts already have halted Biden's private-sector and other vaccine mandates, saying they amount to executive overreach. "We've seen two consistent patterns in the past few months: the Biden Administrat