A set of bills aimed to support children in the foster care system is in the works to be introduced in the Legislature next month, lawmakers announced Thursday. The initiatives, proposed by the Assembly Speaker’s Task Force, are called “Foster Forward” and will focus on preventing children from being taken away from their homes.
Wisconsin farmers will now be able to grow industrial hemp after Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill into law Thursday that had previously passed unanimously in both the state Assembly and state Senate. Federal law generally outlaws the growing and possession of cannabis but states are allowed to create programs that research and grow industrial hemp since it is non-psychoactive, as opposed to marijuana. Wisconsin was the country’s leader in the production of industrial hemp.
Gov. Scott Walker announced the launch of a $6.8 million marketing proposal aimed to attract and retain workers in the state at the Future Wisconsin Summit Wednesday.
With little evidence that Congress will renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program, commonly known as CHIP, many states face the reality that millions of children will lose their insurance.
State Superintendent Tony Evers “fired” Wisconsin’s Attorney General Brad Schimel from representing Evers in a lawsuit issued against him last week, stating that Schimel has a conflict of interest in the case. The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the suit after Evers superseded recent legislation that requires heads of state agencies to receive approval from the governor’s Department of Administration before passing agency rules through their respective departments. Evers, who heads the state Department of Public Instruction, claims that the previous legislation does not apply since the DPI is supposed to be independent from federal executive departments. A similar case against Evers appeared in the state Supreme Court last year, with a ruling of 4-3 in favor of Evers.
Majority and minority leaders in the Wisconsin Assembly have both agreed not to release records regarding complaints or investigations into sexual assault allegations against legislators or their staff, even though many professionals argue that this is ineffective when it comes to protecting victims’ rights. The opposition came to light as a plethora of national reports has surfaced in the media in recent weeks exposing sexual harassment by men in high profile, public positions. The decision to maintain a hold of records on sexual harassment claims against legislators or their staff came from state Assembly Chief Clerk Pat Fuller and state Senate Chief Clerk Jeff Rank.
With the Federal Communications Commission set to repeal Net Neutrality rules, Wisconsin’s U.S. Senators have weighed in with sharply different stances.
Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills into law Monday aimed at helping Wisconsin’s homeless population.
Researchers at the UW System will have an easier time privately funding and commercializing their discoveries under a new bipartisan bill in the drafting process.
Wisconsin teachers are less experienced and leaving the profession at higher rates since the passage of Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 legislation, according to a recent report from a left-leaning think-tank.
Tony Evers is being sued for allegedly overreaching on his authority to make rules as the state’s education superintendent — but he and his department are denying the claim, citing similar cases they’ve won in the past.
UW-Madison’s Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership, a policy center funded both privately and by the state to promote research and leadership training, held its first event Friday, after its controversial inclusion in the state budget. The event titled “Leadership Across the Branches” featured speakers from top lawmakers, professors, journalists, and experts on Congress.
The minimum wage in Wisconsin would be raised to $15 from the standard $7.25 in an effort to support middle-class families, under a bill introduced by two Democratic lawmakers Friday. Along with the $15 increase over a five-year period, the bill includes requirements for the minimum wage to be annually indexed to inflation after the fire-year period.
Wisconsin’s U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson have denounced two political figures who have been accused of sexual harassment in two separate incidents this month. U.S.
Over 110,000 people in Wisconsin are living with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia. While there is no cure and the number of people suffering from the disease is only expected to increase, researchers at UW are pushing to help ease the burden the cognitive disease causes. Wisconsin lawmakers have been hard at work proposing legislation to help those with Alzheimer’s.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state school superintendent Tony Evers announced plans on Wednesday to cut tuition by 50 percent at all 13 of UW’s two-year colleges if elected. The proposal would cut current tuition of $4,750 with the hope to “strengthen our UW Colleges, create a better-trained workforce and make college more accessible to all Wisconsinites,” Evers said in a statement. In total, Evers expects the plan to cost less than $20 million – an amount he says is more than feasible if current “legislative Republicans are fine with giving 11 multimillionaires $22 million in tax breaks,” referring to Gov.
Four black Democratic legislators wrote a letter to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, in response to a new task force that will study the efficacy of Wisconsin prisons that solely consists of white men. The task force was created to analyze Wisconsin’s need for a new prison amid recent prison incidents involving overpopulation, neglect and violence. The letter, signed by Democratic representatives from Milwaukee, David Crowley, Jason Fields, David Bowen and Leon Young, requests Vos to reconsider his nominations in order to add at least one black member to the task force. “In Milwaukee County over half of African American males in their 30s have served time in state prison,” the letter said.
A bill pending in the state Senate would require retailers to remove tobacco- and nicotine-related products from the show floor, placing them in a more secure location, inaccessible without retailer assistance. Following national trends to reduce tobacco consumption, the bill seeks to curb adolescent exposure and accessibility to tobacco products, with most becoming long-term smokers at an early age and developing health conditions later on in life.
Creating a false identity online and using it to manipulate another person — a phenomenon commonly known as “catfishing” — is currently permitted under Wisconsin law. A bipartisan bill is looking to change that.
Until Saturday, children under the age of 10 were prohibited from hunting in Wisconsin. But now, thanks to a law signed by Gov. Scott Walker this weekend, any kid can shoot.
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