Wisconsin Right Now

Wisconsin’s governor is asking the state Supreme Court to allow ballot drop boxes ahead of this November’s election. Gov. Tony Evers filed a brief with the court, asking the new liberal-majority to overturn a ruling from 2022 that said ballot drop boxes are not allowed under state law. “At the very heart of our democracy is the fundamental freedom to vote. In Wisconsin, we must work to protect that freedom and to empower our clerks and election administrators working hard at the local level to make decisions that are right for their communities. Drop box voting is safe and secure, and there is nothing in Wisconsin’s election laws that prohibit our local clerks from using this secure option, absent an incorrect ruling by our courts,” Evers said in a statement. Wisconsin law does not specifically allow for ballot drop boxes anywhere other than the local clerk’s office. The then-conservative-majority court based its ruling that banned ballot drop boxes on that fact. But Evers ...

Nine governors are asking the National Collegiate Athletics Association to rewrite its policy on transgender participation in sports, saying it is unfair to female athletes. The NCAA updated a 2010 policy last year that requires transgender females to show they have undergone a year of testosterone suppression treatment. Testosterone levels are also checked before competitions. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and eight other governors cited University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines as an example of why the policy is unfair. Gaines tied with transgender athlete Lia Thomas for the top trophy at the NCAA Division I national championship in 2022. The NCAA gave Thomas the first-place trophy. "The decade of hard work and the countless hours spent in the pool were suddenly wasted," the governors said in an Oct. 30  letter to the NCAA. "Riley's lifetime of achievement was ripped away from her by someone who shouldn't have even been in the race – all for a pho...

Asking questions is not bullying, and pointing out the law does not constitute creating chaos. And no one supported the threats made against Kiel Schools. Rick Esenberg with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty responded to claims that his group bullied Kiel school leaders over its misgendering investigation into three middle school boys and unleashed a national campaign of chaos that led to a wave of threats against the school district. “Putting aside the unresolved question of whether Title IX even covers gender identity or whether the First Amendment even permits such a charge to be based on the refusal to say what the government wants you to say, the mere use of disfavored pronouns does not create an environment ‘so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to education, which is a precondition to a charge of harassment under Title IX,” Esenberg wrote in a weekend op-ed at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Esenberg r...