Author: Scott Bauer

Governor Tony Evers recently proposed that counties and more than two dozen large cities in Wisconsin be allowed to ask voters to raise the sales tax to pay for local services such as police and fire protection and road repairs. He first unveiled a proposal to change how local governments are funded in his State of the State speech last month. Evers, a Democrat, wants to fund local governments with 20% of the state sales tax, or 1 cent of the 5-cent sales tax charged per dollar spent. That amounts to about $576 million in the first year, with...

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled on February 2 that a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of a man shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during a protest in 2020 can proceed against Rittenhouse, police officers and others. The father of Anthony Huber, one of two men shot and killed by Rittenhouse, filed the lawsuit in 2021, accusing officers of allowing for a dangerous situation that violated his son’s constitutional rights and resulted in his death. Anthony Huber’s father, John Huber, also alleged that Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, conspired with law...

Partisan-backed candidates running for a seat that will determine whether conservatives or liberals have majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court said at a January 9 forum that they would not let party politics influence how they rule. But the two liberal candidates made clear where they stand on hot-button issues, speaking out against the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortion legal, as well as the state Supreme Court’s approval of Republican redistricting plans. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow and former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly are running as...

The former chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party said Republican Senators Ron Johnson spoke to him weeks before Joe Biden assumed the presidency about having the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature, rather than voters, choose Wisconsin’s presidential electors, according to newly released documents from closed-door testimony to the House January 6 committee. Johnson, in a statement on January 3, said he had no recollection of the conversation with Andrew Hitt and accused the committee investigating the 2021 Capitol insurrection of attempting to “smear” him by selectively releasing text messages. “I have no recollection of the phone call referenced in the texts,...