Author: Scott Bauer

A Wisconsin judge recently considered whether to make clear that local election officials can accept absentee ballots missing parts of a witnesses address, the latest legal fight in the battleground state where Republicans oppose the acceptance of partial addresses. The case was brought by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin last fall, weeks before the midterm election. The crux of the lawsuit, and another similar pending case, rests with how much of a witness address needs to be present in order for an absentee ballot to count. Wisconsin law says if the witness address is missing, the ballot...

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...