Wisconsin Right Now

Dorow is the 4th candidate to enter the race. Dan Kelly is the other conservative. Two extremist liberal candidates are also running. The primary election is Feb. 21. The Supreme Court race is for control of the court. Chief Judge Jennifer Dorow announced on Wednesday that she was running for state Supreme Court, saying she wants her three children and "all of Wisconsin's young people" to live in a "safe, prosperous state, where the rule of law and respect for the Constitution are part of our core values." In the press conference at the Waukesha County Courthouse, where she is a judge, Dorow said she made her decision after many discussions with family and close friends and a "lot of prayer." "I am running as a judicial conservative to carry on the legacy of a judicial giant and someone I respect and admire, and that’s Justice Patience Roggensack," said Dorow, who is running for the seat that Roggensack, a conservative,...

There are new questions about the 2020 election after the latest numbers from the 2022 election. Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, on Tuesday said this year’s military voting numbers show something happened between the two elections. “We have learned that the number of active military members voting in the 2022 election dropped by over 83% since the 2020 election!” Brandtjen said in a statement. Brandtjen is at the center of the story about military ballots in Wisconsin. She received three fake military ballots ahead of Election Day. Those ballots, it turned out, came from a Milwaukee election manager. “When Milwaukee deputy election clerk Kim Zapata created three military members out of thin air and sent requests for legitimate ballots to my home address, the vulnerability of the military ballot process was exposed,” Brandtken added. Military voters in Wisconsin don’t have to actually register, and never have to show voter ID in order to get an absentee ballot in th...

A Wisconsin Republican congressman is amping-up the war of words against TikTok. Congressman Mike Gallagher was on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures over the weekend, and talked about China and its influence over TikTok. “TikTok should be banned. Senator Marco Rubio and I have legislation that does exactly that. TikTok is digital fentanyl addicting our kids, and just like actual fentanyl, it ultimately goes back to the Chinese Communist Party.,” Gallagher said. TikTok is owned by a Chinese tech firm called ByteDance. The company says more than a billion people use TikTok each month. Gallagher says that means China is essentially spying on a billion people each month, including a lot of young people in America. “TikTok is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance is controlled by the CCP. That means the CCP can track your location. It can track your keystrokes. It can censor your news. Why would we give our foremost adversary that amount of power?” Gallagher asked. Gallagher’s criticism...

The next legal fight over whether someone has to belong to a group as a condition to do their job may be coming to a courtroom soon. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Monday asked the United State Supreme Court to take once again a look at mandatory bar membership in the state. “For far too long, this Court’s precedents have allowed States to put attorneys to the choice of either losing their ability to earn a living in their profession or associating with and funding opinions with which they disagree,” WILL argued in its amicus brief. WILL is calling the challenge a First Amendment case. [caption id="attachment_94848" align="alignleft" width="189"] ANTHONY LOCOCO Deputy Counsel[/caption] “Forcing objecting attorneys to join and fund an organization that engages in speech with which they disagree is contrary to fundamental values of free speech and free association,” WILL Deputy Counsel Anthony LoCoco, said. “If the State Bar wants ...

  More than 40% of U.S. small business owners say they couldn’t pay rent on time or in full for the month of November, the highest this year. The small business network group  Alignable released the survey, which found that the hardship varies by industry. A notable 57% of beauty salons said they couldn’t make rent as well as 45% of gyms, 44% of retail and 44% of restaurants. “Making matters worse, this occurred during a quarter when more money should be coming in and rent delinquency rates should be decreasing,” Alignable said. “But so far this quarter, the opposite has been true.” This latest report continues a steady increase in businesses that can't pay rent this year. “Last month, rent delinquency rates increased seven percentage points from 30% in September to 37% in October,” Alignable said. “And now, in November, that rate is another four percentage points higher, reaching a new high across a variety of industries.” Business owners cite a range of reasons for t...

The University of Wisconsin is all but closing one of its smallest campuses. UW President Jay Rothman said in a letter Tuesday the UW-Platteville will end all in-person classes at its Richland campus. Rothman ordered Platteville’s chancellor to end the degree program at the Richland campus because only 60 students are taking classes there right now. “While the University of Wisconsin System remains committed to the branch campuses and to providing as broad of access for students as possible, there comes a time when financial pressure and low enrollment makes in-person degree level academic instruction no longer tenable,” Rothman wrote in his letter. Next year the 60 Richland students will be transitioned to either the Platteville or Baraboo campuses. No one is saying what will happen to the faculty and staff members teaching at the Richland campus. And Rothman isn’t saying if this will be the last or only small UW campus to close. “Each of the branch campuses have a diffe...

There is already a focus on Wisconsin’s next election. Former Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday said if liberals win the race for Supreme Court in Wisconsin, all of the state’s reforms from his time in office will be in danger. “An activist court, as we’ve seen elsewhere in the country, could do almost anything,” Walker told News Talk 113O WISN’s Jay Weber. “If you listen to at least a couple of of the liberal candidates … they sound very much aligned with some of the things we’ve seen in California and Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.” Walker says that could mean changes not only to Act 10 or Right to Work in Wisconsin, but could mean changes to things like redistricting that he says “affects the rest of the country.” Judge Dan Kelly is the leading conservative candidate for Supreme Court on the Republican side so far. Walker appointed Kelly to the court back in 2016, and on Tuesday said Kelly made his mark on the court. “Kelly to me was much like [Antonin] Scalia was on the U.S. Sup...