Category: State news

Quoted: Maxine McKinney de Royston, an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that tests were constructed as part of a system that has failed students of color. She also said tests aren’t completely predictive of future success.

“We use these tests to say, ‘Oh, now we’re in crisis,’ as opposed to saying, ‘Well, are we actually evaluating or assessing that which is important to us? Are we actually evaluating learning?” McKinney de Royston said.

Quoted: According to University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of political science Barry Burden, Republican voters in the state can be quite receptive to candidates who share Trump’s politics, but they do not always vote for such candidates when they don’t explicitly reference him.

“In races where the former president did not make an explicit endorsement such as the contest for attorney general, the ‘trumpier’ did not prevail,” Burden said.

Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center, detailed shifting racial demography and white suburban backlash to the Trump era as central elements to the increasingly leftward tilt of what was once a bastion of Wisconsin conservatism.

“I think the population has changed over time, and that’s has made them (the Milwaukee suburbs) more politically competitive,” Burden said ” There’s also some evidence that white suburban voters became disenchanted with Donald Trump as a Republican candidate. Voters who normally would automatically vote for the Republican candidate for president were not comfortable with Trump.”

Quoted: “The winner in this race will probably get in the 20s I’m guessing in terms of percentage of the vote, because it is so widely split,” said David Cannon, UW-Madison professor.

Quoted: Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center, said bringing the convention to Milwaukee is a strategic move by Republicans to take back the state.

“It has a lot of political value being in a key battleground state and in the Midwest, where there are other states up for grabs,” Burden said about the pick.

Quoted: “Given the importance of getting election administration right and the suspicion these candidates continue to express about the 2020 election, it is surprising that their plans for replacing the WEC are not more specific,” said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center.

Noted: As absentee ballots are being cast across the state for Aug. 9 primary elections, Robert Yablon, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, recently joined Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Central Time.” He said leaving the voting rule debates unsettled amid an election is essentially asking for controversies.

Quoted: Trump lost Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes in 2020. It was a key state to his re-election and one that he won in a historic victory in 2016 that a Republican hadn’t pulled off in decades. The state is key to any new run for president, said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Wisconsin is one of the states where he falsely claims to have been robbed of victory, so the recent Supreme Court decision gives him yet another opportunity to explain why his loss wasn’t actually a loss,” Burden said.

“Nearly two years after an election that every judge and security expert deemed to be proper, Trump’s continual fixation has an air of desperation.”

Quoted: Rob Yablon, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who specializes in election and constitutional law, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this year that there is no legal way for state lawmakers to decertify the 2020 election

“At this point, the bell cannot be unrung,” he said.

Howard Schweber, a UW-Madison political science and legal studies professor who is an expert in constitutional law, also said the fact that officials elected in 2020 have held office for more than a year “makes the whole thing even more preposterous.”

Friday morning, President Biden signed an executive order that provides some protection for emergency medical care access to women who seek abortions in states that ban it, like here in Wisconsin. But it does not undo the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

“I mean this is a lot of smoke, but not a whole lot of heat,” said Ryan Owens, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He says the president does not have the power to legalize abortion nationwide.

“The reality is in order to get any effective change on this you’d have to look at changing legislation,” said Owens.

Quoted: Ion Meyn, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin, called the cases against Wells and others in Fond du Lac County “a real abuse of (prosecutorial) discretion.”

Toney did not respond to multiple requests for an interview or answer emailed questions. But in a statement to Wisconsin Watch, he said attorney ethics rules prevent him from commenting on a pending case.

“Elections are cornerstone (sic) of our democracy which must be defended at every turn, not just when you agree with the law or the politics,” he wrote. “I want people (to) exercise their right to vote and ensure they do so lawfully. Wisconsin law requires someone to register to vote where they live, not where they receive mail. That is made clear on voter registration forms.”

Quoted: “I think there needs to be that follow up, and that follow up needs to be much quicker,” said Ryan Poe-Gavlinski, director of the Restraining Order and Survivor Advocacy Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “In restraining order cases, they do that firearms surrender hearing two weeks out, but why are we not doing them within 48 hours?”

Quoted: “I view it as an incompetent circus from someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing. But I think it’s had real effects,” said Barry Burden, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center.

Quoted: “The investigation has become a morass of competing lawsuits back and forth between different parties in the state and outside the state,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And those legal debates have sort of overtaken the substance of the investigation itself.”