It would “require something extraordinary” for a court to strike down voter ID if it’s in the constitution, said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden, unless justices decide it conflicts with another part of the constitution.
“Some voters don’t even know that there’s a constitutional amendment on the ballot until they get to the polls,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative.
“The first time that you’re encountering those typically is when you’re going to vote, which gives you less time to talk to other people about it and to look up more information about it,” she said.
The State Building Commission denied a motion to allow $70 million in underspent funds to be used for a series of planned Universities of Wisconsin projects including the new engineering building at UW-Madison.
The future of UW-Madison’s new engineering building, as well as other Universities of Wisconsin building priorities, is again in limbo after Republicans on the state’s Building Commission refused to reallocate nearly $70 million in state funds.
“The really shocking number [in this report] is the dramatic decline in abortions provided in Wisconsin in 2022, and we know that that’s largely a result of the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned federal protections for abortion,” said Dr. Jane Seymour, a research scientist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Collaborative for Reproductive Equity (CORE).
Q: Would you support a change in the university’s governance structure or spinning off the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the rest of the Universities of Wisconsin?
A: I supported those ideas in the past, so I’m certainly open to having discussions, but our caucus has had no discussion about any of those kinds of things.
The new University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering building is again in peril.
Republican lawmakers rejected the UW System’s request to increase the project’s $347 million budget by $73 million during a State Building Commission meeting Wednesday. The ask to bump up the budget was based on increased costs and design changes, including an additional floor for business partnership opportunities.
Plans for a new, long-awaited engineering building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison face another obstacle after the State Building Commission denied a request Wednesday to adjust funding and approve construction.
Nedweski outlined a plan to address possible inefficiencies within Milwaukee Public Schools, the University of Wisconsin, the Department of Safety and Professional Services, and law enforcement. She is known for her efforts to shut down a Kenosha Unified School District board meeting in 2021 as a member of Moms for Liberty. Nedweski and others appeared at the meeting, holding signs that read, among other things, “We do not co-parent with the government.”
The request came after bids for projects in Eau Claire came in well under budget. However, the commission shot down the request due to what Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu called a lack of transparency.
Based on assessment findings, UW President Jay Rothman foresees higher oversight involvement and visibility of the Board of Regents.
“I’ve watched the markets grow from just plain phone service to hybrid computers that are in our phones, so-called smartphones through which life is now lived,” said Barry Orton, a retired telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Old fashioned copper wire-based phones, which we all used to have in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s are now a thing of the past,” he added
Paul Mitchell, professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s fairly rare to see Congress have to pass a second extension to the farm bill. But he said the lack of cooperation between the parties has made it more difficult to reach the consensus needed to pass the large piece of legislation.
“Just like we walk up to the edge on these continuing resolutions to keep the (federal) budget going, the same thing is happening with the farm bill,” Mitchell said.
UW-Madison is adding a business partnership floor to its upcoming engineering building, aimed at opening a direct pipeline between students and the kinds of businesses that may one day employee them.
UW System President Jay Rothman defended his agency’s $855 million budget request by saying it “gets (Wisconsin) up to average” and steps up from its low ranking. Rothman is correct that Wisconsin ranks 43rd in the country when it comes to funding public, four-year universities.
Rothman’s math also adds up. Subtracting Wisconsin’s revenue per student from the national average, then multiplying it by the total number of students in the system, does total $457 million.
We rate Rothman’s claim True.
State funding for the University of Wisconsin System was one of the biggest budget battles in 2023, and it’s looking like 2025 will be no different.
The UW System is asking for $855 million from the state Legislature in the upcoming two-year state budget, which lawmakers will craft in the coming months.
Merrifield discussed her priorities, the tech system’s upcoming state budget request and how she’ll approach conversations with lawmakers in a recent interview with the Cap Times.
Wisconsin counties with shuttered University of Wisconsin branch campuses are reimagining the properties to serve a range of purposes including senior housing, K-12 classroom space, even a wedding venue.
Republicans have long urged government to run more like a business.
Well, the Universities of Wisconsin are doing just that, under the leadership of President Jay Rothman. The GOP-controlled Legislature should appreciate and reward his effort with greater funding in the state budget.
In response to TAA concerns, UW-Madison said it has increased minimum graduate assistant stipends by 14% this year as part of a four-year planned increase, with some individual programs setting rates even higher to stay competitive.
“It tends to be the court where the big battles get fought out,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center. “Without a kind of regularly functioning legislative branch and executive branch working together, the court is the venue where the hot items, big ticket items, are being decided.”
The Universities of Wisconsin are set to fare better financially than earlier projected, largely due to sizeable increases in tuition at a handful of schools and unaccounted-for donation dollars for UW-Madison, the system said Monday.
The data comes from states with so-called “shield laws,” said Jenny Higgins, director of the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These laws give some legal protections to clinicians who offer abortion care by telehealth to people living in states with abortion bans or telehealth restrictions, she said.
“The size of the pie is getting bigger,” said Steve Deller, a UW-Madison professor of agricultural and applied economics and co-author of the report. “Agriculture’s slice of that pie is also getting a little bit bigger, but it’s not growing at the same pace as the state’s economy is growing.”
We learn how workers in Wisconsin are looking to bolster family farm income via employment in surrounding communities. Then a pediatrics professor shares research on social media and youth. And two members from the Wisconsin band Bizhiki discuss their new album of Indigenous music.
The privately funded program, known as the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise, covers the full cost of attendance for in-state students who are enrolled members of one of the 11 federally recognized tribes in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin state agencies have requested to spend $53.8 billion next fiscal year and $55.8 billion in fiscal 2026-27 in the state’s upcoming biennial budget.
Those are increases from the adjusted base of $49.4 billion this fiscal year with a large portion of that increase coming from the Department of Public Instruction’s $3 billion requested increase and Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed $800 million increase for the University of Wisconsin System.
The overall economic impact of Wisconsin’s dairy industry is bigger than ever, and dairy remains the leading sector of Wisconsin agriculture. This newly released data is from the Contribution of Agriculture to the Wisconsin Economy: An Update for 2022, conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics.
Howard Schweber, professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained that some of the issues worth keeping an eye on are abortion, elections, Act 10 — Walker-era legislation that curtailed collective bargaining rights for many public employees — redistricting and religious freedom.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated the law prevented 4,000-11,000 Milwaukee and Dane county residents from voting in the 2016 presidential election.
An economic analysis shows Wisconsin’s agriculture industry is pulling in more revenue in recent years but employing fewer people.
The report, titled “The Contributions of Agriculture to the Wisconsin Economy,” is published every five years. The newest survey found the industry earned $116.3 billion in revenue in 2022, the latest data available. That is a 10.9 percent increase from 2017. However, the numbers are nuanced, Steve Deller and Jeff Hadachek, co-authors of the report out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
I drove south out of Madison, Wisconsin, along solitary rural roads until I arrived at a secluded home set amid scattered forest and open prairie. Waiting inside for me were two men: Michael Samuel, a retired professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Bryan Richards, the emerging-disease coordinator at the US Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center.
Patrick Remington, the former dean of public health at the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s hard to tell in advance how Kennedy would lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Time will tell how his personal views over the past several years will translate into actions as secretary,” he said. “I think it’s important to understand sometimes people’s views change when their roles and responsibilities change.”
Bryna Godar is a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She said one of the complicating factors in the Wolfe case is that none of the parties are asking the court to overrule the 2022 decision on holdover appointments.
She said it’s rare “for a court to voluntarily overrule” a prior decision without parties asking justices. Still, Godar said the battle over Wolfe’s appointment wouldn’t be happening if not for the Prehn decision two years ago.
“And so, we’re kind of taking that as a given rule in Wisconsin, and going from there,” Godar said. “And saying, OK then, what does that mean in this situation?”
Written by Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.
Habush Sinkyin said one takeaway from talking to voters on the campaign trail was that the state Legislature needs to do more to fund public schools and the University of Wisconsin System, local governments, health care and tax relief.
Barry Burden, who directs the UW-Madison’s Election Research Center, said Hovde’s decision to not yet concede represents a new but troublesome trend. “It’s been happening in the United States over the last few years, of candidates not conceding immediately or graciously as often as they did in the past,” Burden told the Wisconsin Examiner. Donald Trump’s refusal to concede his reelection loss in 2020 “provided a model for some candidates.”
An explicit concession “is one of the things that shows us that democracy is working,” according to University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Mike Wagner. “Democracy is for the losing side because they get a chance to try again in the next election, and admitting when you lose is a critical factor required for the maintenance of democracies.”
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, who was reelected to her leadership position Tuesday, said the new districts provide “a pathway to a majority in 2026.” Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said Senate Democrats will make a renewed push to spend some of the state’s surplus on K-12 education, public universities, workforce needs and middle-class tax cuts.
President-elect Donald Trump flipped Wisconsin by narrowly increasing his margins across the state compared to 2020. But around some Wisconsin college campuses, his numbers grew by leaps and bounds.
Efforts to combat climate change and shift to renewable energy have accelerated under policies and regulations put in place by President Joe Biden’s administration. Even so, it hasn’t been enough to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, according to Greg Nemet, energy expert and public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re on track, but we need to really start pushing harder to get the adoption of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind power, heat pumps and all those things at a faster rate,” Nemet said. “I think what we’re looking at now is probably almost definitely slowing down.”
Morgan Edwards, assistant professor of public affairs at UW-Madison, said the slowing of emissions reductions may not be immediately evident in Wisconsin as much as they will in the long run. “We’re locking in long-term climate impacts that we’re going to see for decades to come,” Edwards said. “That’s things like more extreme weather events, warmer winters, more irregular farming seasons, which is a big deal across the country, but (also) in this state where we have a lot of agriculture.”
Stuart Craig, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business who studies health care spending, said hospital’s operating margins are also “a function of their choices.” He points out that most hospitals are nonprofit entities, so they should be motivated to keep patient costs as low as possible and invest any profit back into their facilities.
“Hospitals will often defend high commercial (insurance) reimbursement rates by saying, ‘Well, we lose money on all these Medicare patients,’” Craig said. “But those are choices that they’re making to set their cost structure. Like, if you looked at hospitals that operate in markets that are mostly Medicare patients, they just set a lower cost structure and stay open.”
Kaul’s office also argues the pre-Civil War-era law should not be in effect because it contradicts subsequent state laws that were passed to regulate abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade.
That argument relies on the legal principle of “implied repeal,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “This is something that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has explained in prior cases,” Godar said. “An older law becomes unenforceable if there are newer laws that directly conflict with it.”
The committee studying the future of the Universities of Wisconsin wants the state Legislature to explore spinning off the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The state Legislature should consider splitting UW-Madison from the rest of the Universities of Wisconsin system, according to a panel of legislators and others making a list of recommendations about the future of the UW system.
In the final meeting of the committee, the Legislative Council Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System evaluated recommendations that could see UW-Madison succeed from the UW System and give universities bonding authority.
A 2023 UW-Madison survey of Wisconsin dairy farmers found that nearly 40% of farms have at least one foreign employee; other studies have estimated that immigrants account for up to 90% of the labor force in the dairy industry.
President Donald Trump cast doubt on the integrity of votes cast and returned through drop boxes. It’s a stance that lacks proof, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Emeritus Howard Schweber.
“There is no evidence that anyone has ever tried to stuff drop boxes with fake ballots or multiple ballots or noncitizens’ ballots, and there’s no evidence that improper ballots that get into drop boxes end up being counted as votes,” Schweber said.
That election had an unusually high number of absentee ballots because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Milwaukee’s results came out after midnight in 2018 and 2022, too, said Barry Burden, who directs the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“So it’s not just tied to COVID — it’s really the process that’s used in our state and in Milwaukee causes that to happen,” he said. “There’s nothing illegal about it. There’s nothing unexpected about it. Actually, we all know this is going to happen, but nonetheless, there are people who are skeptical about it, and in some cases, will intentionally spread disinformation about it, but it’s just part of the process.”
Barry Burden, professor of American politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it is difficult to compare the numbers to the past two presidential elections because of the pandemic and the longer period allowed for early in-person voting in 2016. However, he said the interest in early in-person voting appears widespread and that there is “clearly a new desire among Wisconsin voters to cast their ballots in person early this year.”
“It is happening at higher rates in communities of different sizes and with different partisan tendencies,” he said in an email.
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, called the spending “astounding.”
“I think the competitiveness of the state legislature this year is the main driver. This is the first time in 14 years that the Assembly has truly been up for grabs between the two parties,” he said. “And there’s no shortage of people who want to give money to try to flip it in their direction.”
There is no state program that pays student teachers, DPI spokesperson Chris Bucher said. Grant funding may be available through individual colleges or universities, such as the UW-Madison teacher pledge program.
New research has found that communities with more women-owned or -operated farms have higher rates of business creation, lower poverty rates and a longer average life expectancy.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Steven Deller is a co-author of the research first published in January. Deller and colleagues argue that the reduction in rural poverty is particularly important.
Universities of Wisconsin campuses have 1,177 more students this fall than previously projected, according to enrollment data released Tuesday.
“This is a really interesting phenomenon,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, adding that he had not heard of such initiatives elsewhere. He noted similar confusion among students at UW-Madison, where the early voting site is not always the same as the Election Day polling place.
“If they were registered, Wisconsin would be a no-contest,” said Ben Marquez, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist studying Latino political organization and behavior. “Kamala Harris wouldn’t even have to come here to win. They’d just go out and vote two-to-one for her, and she’d take the state.”
Jerry Clark, crops educator for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, said harvest is at least two weeks ahead of schedule in the western Wisconsin counties of Chippewa, Dunn and Eau Claire where he works.
“Since corn silage started to be harvested in the early part of September right through today, it’s been excellent conditions for getting the crop off,” Clark said on Wednesday.
Even if local officials in Wisconsin wanted to let non-citizens vote on local races or proposals, it’s not clear whether current state law would allow that change, according to analysis from the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“Courts in other states have reached divergent conclusions about whether provisions akin to Wisconsin’s current constitutional text allow municipalities to authorize local noncitizen voting,” the analysis noted.
At the same time, the Universities of Wisconsin system is calling for an $855 million state funding increase in the next two-year budget. And some expect Republicans in the Legislature will push for tax cuts.
Although less popular than local television and some other forms of media, local radio generally gains strong trust from those who listen, according to Mike Wagner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism and mass communication researcher and professor. In Wisconsin, during the 2016 election, radio stations were airing around 200 hours of conservative talk every day, according to one UW-Madison study.
Sykes’ WTMJ show was Walker’s primary connection to a statewide audience, according to Lew Friedland, distinguished journalism and mass communication professor emeritus and researcher at UW-Madison. “Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker,” Friedland said, calling Sykes “one of the top three most important political actors” at the time.
Yes, inflation has gone down, says Menzie Chinn, a UW-Madison economics and public affairs professor. But there’s a catch. He said that, though the rate of prices going up has slowed, it doesn’t mean prices are coming down. “Prices are flattening out,” Chinn said. “They are not going up as fast as they were, but they are still going up.”
J. Michael Collins, UW-Madison professor at La Follette School of Public Affairs and School of Human Ecology, said inflation hits people differently across the state, with one in four saying they’ve had trouble meeting expenses, especially rent, which can be a third to half of a person’s income.
