Wisconsin Right Now

It looks like taxpayers in Wisconsin will continue to pay for the Brewers’ baseball stadium. The Wisconsin Senate on Thursday morning approved the plan to spend about $500 million on future renovations and maintenance at American Family Field. To make it happen, the Republican sponsor of the plan had to work a few changes. "This is a good deal for baseball fans, a good deal for taxpayers, a good deal for the state of Wisconsin,” Sen Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, said. The new proposal will give Gov. Tony Evers and Milwaukee’s elected leaders extra spots on the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District board. The district owns the stadium, and the board makes decisions on how the stadium’s money will be spent. Feyen also agreed to gradually raise a non-Brewer game ticket tax from $2 next year to $4 by 2042. It took Democratic votes to get the ballpark package through the Senate. Eleven Republicans voted against the plan. That’s half the Republican caucus in ...

The free speech survey was supposed to ask students about speech on campus, and whether students felt there were any problems. It looks like University of Wisconsin schools won’t be asking students about free speech after all. On Wednesday, the professor who organized the free speech survey told the UW System he wants to wait a while. Timothy Shiell with the Menard Center for the Study of Institutions and Innovation at UW-Stout sent an email to the UW’s new president, explaining that he is going to wait until the fall to send the free speech survey to all 13 UW campuses. “Given current circumstances, I must delay the launch of the ‘Student Perceptions of Campus Free Speech, Viewpoint Diversity, and Self-Censorship’ survey launch until Fall 2022,”  Shiell wrote. “The extra time will enable us to answer fully and accurately the avalanche of questions arising and lay the groundwork for a successful survey.” The free speech survey was supposed to ask students about speech on cam...