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Wisconsin Justice Initiative presented its second annual "Advocate for Justice Award" to Parker White and Evan Bondoc of the Foley & Lardner law firm. White and Bondoc represented WJI pro bono regarding a 2024 rule petition in the Wisconsin Supreme Court to increase the use of professional interpreters in municipal courts statewide. White and Bondoc provided excellent representation, and the award acknowledges their skill, effort, and dedication in advocating for needed change. Executive Director Margo Kirchner presented the award at WJI's May 14 fundraiser at Turner Hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For more than a year, White and Bondoc managed meetings, drafted a proposed new rule and well-reasoned briefs, and provided solid and insightful counsel. This past December they argued WJI's rule change petition before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Although the court did not agree with WJI's proposed new rule and denied the petition, every justice said that the issue was an important one, and the court referred the issue to the Wisconsin Judicial Council for further study. Since the rule petition ended, work to improve municipal court interpreter services continues, and White and Bondoc continue to provide strategic advice.
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Nicole D. Porter, senior director of advocacy with The Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., presented "Decarceration 2.0: Charting New Strategies on Prison Population Reductions and Closures" to close to 100 attendees at Wisconsin Justice Initiative's fundraiser event on May 14. Porter discussed other states' recent efforts to reduce their prison populations, the current political climate impacting incarceration rates, and what can be done here in Wisconsin to return incarcerated people to their communities and reverse the past five decades of mass incarceration. Attendees enjoyed a cocktail hour with appetizers and engaging conversation, followed by Nicole's thought-provoking presentation and an informative question-and-answer session. The event was held in the Palm Garden at historic Turner Hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. If you missed the event or want to watch Nicole's presentation again, click on the YouTube video link below. We admit we're not professional videographers, but the content is excellent! To better see the PowerPoint slides from the event, click here. Please share the video with those in the justice system, carceral system, and Legislature whose actions impact the rates of incarceration in Wisconsin and with concerned citizens who can use their voices to call for change. Many thanks to the following sponsors of the event: Diamond Level  Platinum Level
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Margo Kirchner Edgar Lin  Portrait of Mabel Raef Putnam taken by Pach Bros., N.Y., included in her book, "The Winning of the First Bill of Rights for American Women." Photograph by Amy Rabideau Silvers. By Amy Rabideau Silvers In the world of unsung legal heroes, there is a woman whose role in Wisconsin remains shrouded in unknowns and contradictions. Mabel Raef Putnam makes the short lists—including one by the State Bar of Wisconsin—of women who influenced Wisconsin legal history. She became the leading activist in the push to pass Wisconsin’s Equal Rights law in 1921, working with the National Woman’s Party and its nationally known leader, Alice Paul. The law was the first such measure in the nation, rating national headlines and celebratory declarations about the state’s fine example. With passage, Wisconsin became “the only spot in the United States where women have, or ever have had since the beginning of our country, full equality with men,” Alice Paul declared in a telegram. But did it change much of anything or bring Wisconsin women closer to equality? The short answers are probably no and no. The more nuanced analysis shows the final legislation was, perhaps, a casualty of its time and conflicting cultural perspectives—something that appears unsettlingly similar in more recent history. The stated purpose of the statute, signed into law on July 10, 1921, was “to remove discrimination against women and to give them equal rights before the law.” The final wording, however, was more ambiguous than decisive: “Women shall have the same rights and privileges under the law as men in the exercise of suffrage, freedom of contract, choice of residence for voting purposes, jury service, holding office, holding and conveying property, care and custody of children and in all other respects. The various courts, executive administrative officers shall construe the statutes where the masculine gender is used to include the feminine gender unless such construction will deny to females the special protection and privileges which they now enjoy for the general welfare. … Any woman drawn to serve as a juror upon her request to the presiding judge or magistrate, before the commencement of the trial or hearing, shall be excused from the panel or venire.” A victory of sorts, it did include some rights Wisconsin women already had. It also it came with an inherent tension between “the same rights and privileges under the law as men” and the exception for “special protection and privileges which they now enjoy for the general welfare.” In the years immediately following passage—and even with that “special protection” provision—Putnam noted that there was “some talk, among elements hostile to social change, of an attempt to have the law repealed, or amended adversely.” There was, she maintained, no chance that would happen, in that or any later legislature session. In 1922, a year after passage, the woman also known as Mrs. Frank Putnam spoke to the National Woman’s Party meeting in New York, according to an article in The New York Times.  Putnam wrote this book to tell the story behind the historic bill. This copy, one of a thousand copies printed, is included in special collections at the Milwaukee Public Library's central location. Photograph by Amy Rabideau Silvers. “Wisconsin women are little, if any, more actively interested in politics than they were before the equal rights bill was passed,” Putnam then said. “But as voters they would be instantly aroused by any attempt to legislate them back into the condition of legal inferiority from which they have emerged.” Putnam herself wrote about the legislative effort in a slim how-we-did-it book called The Winning of the First Bill of Rights for American Women. It was published by her husband, Frank Putnam, whose professional work included news and publishing. “This edition is of 1,000 copies,” according to a publisher’s preface in the book. “It is a gift to the cause of human liberty. Its aim is to aid in the liberation of American women from a status subordinate to American men under manmade constitutions, laws and customs.” A new direction after legal suffrage The effort began following the 19th amendment, ratified in 1920, which gave women the right to vote. The National Woman’s Party held its national convention in Washington early in 1921, disbanding as a suffrage organization and setting a new goal. A sample bill was drafted to abolish discriminations against women on account of sex. In Wisconsin, newspapers reported on that, with Putnam's comments. “The national congress and the legislature of each of the forty-eight states,” said Mrs. Putnam, “will be asked to pass a bill in substantially this form, to give women legal equality with men, as the suffrage amendment gave us political equality. … We want Wisconsin, first to ratify the suffrage amendment, to be first in removing the legal disabilities of women.” Putnam became the point person in Wisconsin, but it was a new and uncharted role for her. “I was at a loss how to begin,” she wrote in her book. “I had no previous experience with a state legislature, nor did I know any member of the Wisconsin legislature, nor any person connected with the State government at Madison.” She began meeting with other interested women, as well as the editor of The Capital Times, and then Gov. John J. Blaine. “I had gone to Governor Blaine to get his opinion on our bill, and to ask his advice on the best way to proceed,” Putnam wrote. “I told him we had talked with lawyers, but had not been able to learn all of the remaining legal discriminations against women in the statutes of Wisconsin, and I asked him to send me to the person who would be most likely to know all of those disabilities and who would help us draft a bill removing them.” The governor advised her to speak with Charles Crownhart, revisor of statutes. Crownhart became “our best friend throughout our hard campaign,” she wrote. (Crownhart was subsequently appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, serving from 1922 to 1930.) Others argued that a comprehensive bill would never pass. “One of our former Woman’s Party members was connected with the legislative reference library. I went to see her. She was horrified at our idea of presenting a blanket bill; she was sure the legislature would never pass such a bill.” Instead, that woman argued, a bill-by-bill approach over four years could be successful. Putnam was adamant that was not an acceptable option. “My answer was: “The National Woman’s Party does not work that way; we do things NOW,” she wrote. The first committee meeting Putnam soon appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and its chairman, John A. Conant. “I was the only woman in the room,” she wrote, telling the story in her book. When it was her turn to speak, “I made known my desire, and read the bill, telling the committee it was to be introduced into Congress and each State legislature. “Mr. Conant laughed and said: ‘Have you heard about my jury bill and what happened to it in the Assembly? Such a bill as yours, including jury service, would never pass the Assembly.’” Putnam said that women would work to pass the Equal Rights bill. “Well, you take your bill to an Assembly committee, and get them to introduce it over there. If it passes the Assembly, it will pass the Senate,” he replied. “My heart went down, but I was determined not to yield. I said: 'No, I’m here now. If I went to an Assembly committee, they would tell me to take it to a Senate committee; and besides, we want this committee to introduce it.’’’ At that, a smile went round the committee table, and after some demurring and discussion among the committee members, Mr. Conant agreed to introduce it, “if Mr. Crownhart will draw it up.” Crownhart agreed, and Conant issued an admonition that she would “have to do a lot of missionary work in the Assembly.” That statement “seemed very funny to all the committee,” Putnam wrote. “I realized afterwards that an attempt to get any such bill through the Assembly seemed like a huge joke to them all.” More discussion and changes Putnam reached out to other women, including those involved in the League of Women Voters and women’s clubs and groups. And she continued reviewing legal language. “When reading the statutes in regard to jury service … the word ‘male’ was always used,” according to her book. “The idea kept recurring to my mind that probably there were other statutes when the word ‘male’ was used, instead of the word ‘citizens,’ especially in respect to holding office, and that we ought to have a blanket bill changing all the statutes necessary to avert the possibility of any future legal discriminations against women.” Putnam contacted Crownhart with her concerns and he agreed, with Crownhart proposing corrective language that “where the masculine gender is used to include the feminine gender unless such construction will deny to females the special protection and privileges which they now enjoy for the general welfare.” That language delighted Putnam and others involved in the effort, but it proved to be only the first change and the beginning of other challenges. Soon another bill—audacious according to Putnam—was introduced in the Assembly. It required jury service of “all citizens of the United States except women.” “How dare men introduce such a bill!” wrote Putnam. “Not satisfied with the discriminations against women which already existed, they wished to discriminate further against us.” The battle of the bills had begun. Next came the culture war argument that allowing a wife to determine her place of residence—should she want to live apart from her husband for any reason—would lead to the downfall of the family. Again, Putnam did not mince words. “Historically, a man who is not free to choose his own residence is a slave; the same applies to women,” she wrote. Some legislators were concerned about trying to pass the bill too quickly. Sen. Claire Bird of Wausau offered an amendment to strike the “freedom of contract” clause. “Senator Severson countered … with an eloquent floor speech during which he claimed that the denial of freedom to contract kept women ‘in a class with children and idiots and all other irresponsibles.’” Then Sen. Conant, thought to be an ally, offered an amendment striking the words “and in all other respects.” The bill was passed unanimously by the Senate. “We were horrified,” Putnam wrote. “We couldn’t believe it had happened.” And yet more politics Supporters of a true equal rights bill were incensed, launching a public relations campaign and intense behind-the-scenes lobbying. The discussion further shifted to the rights of married women, with Putnam declaring that they should have the same freedom of contract “that their brothers have always enjoyed.” In one press statement, Putnam had this to say: “Fifty per cent of the voters of Wisconsin are women. Men who imagine women do not want equality with men are mistaken. Men who think women voters will not use their ballots to win equality under the law are mistaken. A large majority of women are far more deeply interested in gaining equal legal rights with men than they were in gaining equal suffrage. Their long fight for equal suffrage was only a means to this end—that they might use their ballots to enforce equality with men under the laws of State and Nation.” The problem was in the state Senate, where many senators were Republican, “elected as Republicans, in large part by women voters, on a platform pledging them to grant equal legal rights to women,” she said. “We shall demand a roll call, so that Wisconsin women, in every senatorial district, may know whether their senator represents all of the voters, or only 50 per cent of them.” When the Senate reconvened on June 21, the “freedom of contract” and “in all other respects” clauses were restored, and the bill was passed. Other early amendments—“choice of residence” for voting purposes and the right to request being released from jury service—remained. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Blaine, who used a pen supplied by the National Woman’s Party. Supporters also arranged for a moving picture company to record the event. When the governor did not want photos taken, apparently due to long days and the July heat, the women successfully lobbied his wife. The moment was captured for posterity.  Mabel Raef Putnam shaking hands with Gov. John J. Blaine following his signing of the equal rights law. Photograph courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. WHS Image 118142. Contemporary perspectives “The 1921 law, in my opinion, was a pioneering law,” said Joseph A. Ranney, of Marquette Law School and its Adrian Schoone Fellow for the Study of Wisconsin Legal Institutions. He is the author of Wisconsin and the Shaping of American Law. “They tried to use this as a national model,” Ranney said, speaking in a telephone interview. The reality was “it was more of a situation where Wisconsin woman slowly increased their rights.” The Equal Rights law did figure in some Wisconsin Supreme Court cases, with differing arguments and results. In one case, First Wisconsin National Bank sued Amalie Jahn after her husband failed to repay a bank note for $8,000. Amalie, who had signed as an “accommodation endorser,” or co-signee, was ruled liable for the debt. Although she would not have previously been found responsible under so-called special protections, she was ruled liable under equal rights. Interestingly, the court did address the matter of gender differences, saying that the law “does not and should not strike down sex as a basis of classification in the enactment of laws relating to our health, morals, and general well-being of our people.” In a 1926 case, Wait v. Pierce, Mathilda Wait sued her husband for negligence in an automobile accident, something not earlier possible under common law rules in which husband and wife constituted one legal identity. The final irony was that her right to sue freed his partners as co-owners of the vehicle from legal responsibility. It also brought much commentary on the possible collapse of common law family values. Those cases and more were “shaped by conflicting perspectives and ideas which had little to do with equality for women,” according to a master’s thesis by Samantha Langbaum, while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. She titled it, The Paradox of Aspiration and the Making of a Law: the Wisconsin Equal Rights Act of 1921. “As a result of the forces which battled during the enactment process and later, as judges interpreted the statute, the ERA was critically unstable and easily manipulable in its meaning,” Langbaum wrote. “I argue here that the written law was not ‘made’ on the date of its enactment; it was constructed as it went through many convolutions and interpretations … “As time went on, litigants continued to bring cases before the Court which enabled the justices to narrow the statute’s application from ‘all women,’ as they had in Jahn to an interpretation which further modified the rights of husband and wife as they existed at common law. Those modified rights were applied in twists and turns: though Amalie was reconstituted by the law as a freely contracting individual, her new legal status would not disrupt the tradition-bound order of the family.” Decades later, a federal Equal Rights Amendment was again proposed, with Wisconsin among the ratifying states, though it never became the official law of the land. In his book, Ranney wrote that “the new ERA elicited a new, reactive, special-rights movement. Phyllis Schlafly, the movement’s leader, raised the specter that women would lose their traditional exemption from military service and their legal rights to husbandly protection. “In Wisconsin, (Kathryn) Clarenbach and her colleagues secured legislative approval of a state ERA but did not take steps to accommodate special-rights concerns as Putnam had done,” he wrote. “In 1973, to their surprise, Wisconsin voters rejected the amendment.” As for Mabel Raef Putnam, little biographical information is readily available today. She moved from Wisconsin to Chicago about 1930, working as a business journalist and financial advisor, and publishing another book, What Every Woman Should Know About Finance, in 1954. “If I had to guess, she was an upper-middle class wife and involved with women’s clubs,” Ranney said. “And she probably thought, ‘I can do more than that.’ “From one perspective, the law didn’t make a great deal of difference,” he said. “But the law is still on the books today.”  Like these fellow activists, Mabel Raef Putnam was proud of Wisconsin's effort to give women equal rights. This photo, taken in 1923 in Seneca Falls, N.Y., was included in Putnam's book. Photograph courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. WHS Image 143040.  This project is supported by grants from   By Alexandria Staubach The number of students experiencing homelessness in Wisconsin increased from 13,499 in the 2020-2021 school year to a record high of 20,195 in the 2023-2024 school year. This is the third consecutive year of increase after hitting an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Wisconsin Department of Education has tracked its students’ housing data since 2019. The numbers come from an April report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The high 2023-2024 number is a 9.1% increase over the previous year, despite increased enrollment of only 1.1%, the report says.  Graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum report "Student Homelessness at a New High," April 2025. The prevalence of homelessness cuts along sadly predictable lines. English learners and students with disability experience homelessness at a rate of 5.6% and 3.9% respectively. The rate for students of color is 5.5%, according to the report. While the report shows an increase in young students experiencing homelessness, it also shows the rate increasing dramatically as students age and are more likely to be “unaccompanied.” Unaccompanied students are those without a parent or other adult to supervise them. The Milwaukee Public School system alone serves 23.7% of the total population of students experiencing homelessness and 40.7% of the state’s unaccompanied unhoused students. Other urban districts account for 37.9% of the state's students experiencing homelessness, while school districts in suburbs, towns, and rural areas total 38.3%.  Graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum report "Student Homelessness at a New High," April 2025. To understand the relationship between criminal justice involvement and youth homelessness, WJI talked with DeShanda Williams-Clark, chief program officer for Pathfinders. Pathfinders provides direct services to youth experiencing homelessness, based on individual need. Williams-Clark said that some youths find themselves involved in the criminal justice system while trying to avoid homelessness. “Young people who are facing instability, so they don’t end up in the street, they are creative with how they meet the cost of living without support,” she said. Williams-Clark said that in Milwaukee, Pathfinders sees youth who are “criminalized for survival.” She has seen instances where young people are coerced or forced into behaviors that they might not even know are against the law. “A lot of youth are just trying to survive in the community alone” and butt up against law enforcement because of it, she said. For example, while Milwaukee does not have encampment laws, youth located outside the city are sometimes criminalized for sleeping in tents when they may have no place else to go, she said. The rising costs and general unavailability of housing contribute to the problem, Williams-Clark said. “Criminal justice involvement doesn’t help end homelessness and results in hopelessness,” said Williams-Clark. She said homelessness coupled with criminal justice involvement makes it more difficult for young people to see a path forward. “As a community it costs us even more,” she said. According to Voices of Youth Count, a national study documenting the prevalence of youth homelessness, 46% of youth who experience homelessness had also been in a juvenile detention facility, prison, or jail. The study found that unhoused youths nationally are more susceptible to status offenses—conduct that would not be a crime but for age. They are more likely to be ticketed for offenses like breaking curfew or running away than their housed counterparts. The same study showed that unhoused youths who have been in foster care demonstrated a greater likelihood of being involved in the juvenile justice system and were more likely to identify as LGBTQ+. Those findings are consistent with what Pathfinders sees in Milwaukee. Williams-Clark said that the majority of the youths Pathfinders works with identify as Black or African American. Many young clients have a mental health issue, and a sizeable portion are part of the LGBTQ+ community. By Alexandria Staubach An advocacy coalition today called on Milwaukee’s Common Council to adopt and implement a Community Control Over Police Surveillance ordinance. Already adopted in 26 cities throughout the nation, CCOPS ordinances are designed to ensure that people living in municipalities have a meaningful opportunity to participate in decisions on the purchase and use of surveillance technologies. Cities that have adopted a CCOPS ordinance include Madison, Wisconsin; St. Louis, Missouri; and Detroit, Michigan. The ordinance would not ban the use of surveillance technology. Instead, the ordinance is “a mechanism to democratize the decision-making process surrounding Milwaukeeans’ personal privacy and surveillance and to ensure transparency and accountability in programs funded or administered by local government," the coalition's letter to the Common Council said. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin leads the coalition. Wisconsin Justice Initiative is a member, as are the Milwaukee Turners and Black Leaders Organizing for Communities organizations. "Law enforcement surveillance should always be the exception, and never the norm,” said WJI President Craig Johnson regarding CCOPS and the coalition's letter. “As new and more surveillance technologies emerge, WJI believes the people of Milwaukee deserve full transparency as to the means, methods, and costs associated with police surveillance. Excessive surveillance can negatively impact the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens," Johnson said. "CCOPS is a critical tool for revealing information about how and when law enforcement surveils us and shifting power back to the community,” Milwaukee Turners’ Executive Director Emilio De Torre told WJI. “That information, and that decision, belong to the public—both because we are the ones being surveilled and because it is paid for by our taxpayer dollars,” said De Torre. The model ordinance takes a three-pronged approach to ensure community control over the adoption and implementation of surveillance technologies. First, it would require a public hearing and approval of the Common Council before any municipal entity funds, acquires, or uses new or existing surveillance technology. “This gives community members and elected officials the opportunity to discuss the risks and alleged benefits of these technologies, instead of law enforcement making these decisions unilaterally and in secret,” the coalition letter says. Second, law enforcement operating in Milwaukee would be required to prepare an annual report to the Common Council on each form of surveillance technology used in the city and whether that information was shared with external parties. The report would include law enforcement’s summary of complaints received about the surveillance technology and a geographical breakdown of where the technology was used. Third, the ordinance would establish a community advisory committee on surveillance. “In recent years, we’ve seen states impose bans and criminal penalties for seeking reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care; we’ve seen state and local law enforcement officials enforce immigrant deportation schemes; and we’ve seen surveillance used to suppress free speech and intimidate leaders of political movements,” wrote the coalition. “(L)ocal police departments and their surveillance mechanisms will likely target individuals seeking or providing these services,” the letter warned. The letter noted that U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement is known to use mass location surveillance data collected on the local level to target individuals for investigation and that without “robust oversight,” law enforcement use of surveillance technology would risk regressing to a time when “surveillance was used to suppress political dissent and target minority groups.” “At a minimum, people who live, work, visit, or attend school in Milwaukee deserve to know if and how they’re being surveilled and who has access to that surveillance data,” the coalition wrote. CCOPS guidelines also will help build trust between police and the communities they serve, the letter said. “Now, more than ever, we need to have community involvement and transparency with surveillance technology. We have seen surveillance technology be used and weaponized against organizations, protesters, and racial profiling,” BLOC Executive Director Angela Lang told WJI. “Listening to people directly impacted is important and leads to further context about why this is harmful for us all,” she said. When asked why the Turners joined the coalition, De Torre said his organization remains “in opposition to the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement, and we see CCOPS coexisting with, and contributing to, restrictions on increases in surveillance technology." The coalition consists of ACLU of Wisconsin, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Com Force MKE LLC, The Difference Principle, Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, Fair Wisconsin, League of Women Voters Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Milwaukee Turners, NAACP Milwaukee Branch, National Lawyers Guild–Milwaukee, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, Voces de la Frontera Action, WAVE Educational Fund, Wisconsin Council of Churches, Wisconsin Justice Initiative, Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance, and Zao MKE Church. By Alexandria Staubach
Prolific overcrowding at Wisconsin’s adult institutions is nothing new, but the problem is close to setting records. The state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated in June 2023 that Wisconsin’s prison population would reach its highest peak ever, at 24,800 individuals, in July 2025. While the system is not there quite yet, it is getting close. According to the Department of Corrections’ May 2 population report, a total of 23,266 persons are held in custody, with nearly every adult institution operating above capacity. The highest prison population to date was in the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the number reached 24,116 individuals, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Recent prison population data show that the Department of Corrections' current stated capacity, including beds it contracts from other jurisdictions, is 17,642. Dodge Correctional Institution is operating at 153% capacity, with 623 more individuals than the facility was designed to house. At Green Bay Correctional Institution, the DOC houses 382 more people than the facility was designed to house. The minimum-security Oakhill Correctional Institution is operating at more than 200% capacity. Waupun Correctional Institution, which made national headlines last summer over dire conditions, is the only maximum-security prison currently under capacity. Overcrowding is not exclusive to men’s facilities. Taycheedah, the women’s prison, is operating at 150% of capacity, while the Robert E. Ellsworth Center, a minimum-security women’s facility, is operating at more than 214% capacity. During the pandemic, from 2021 to 2022, the average daily adult prison population dropped to 20,138. The fiscal bureau anticipated significant growth from that number as courts resolved the cases that were backlogged during the pandemic. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Wisconsin’s prison population grew by 11% between 2021 and 2023, and growth has not meaningfully slowed since then. WJI calculates that from May 2023 to the present the growth rate remains at about 10%. From May 2016 to May 2018, the growth rate was only 4%. This evening WJI hosts Nicole Porter of The Sentencing Project for a talk about reducing Wisconsin’s prison population. Porter, senior director of advocacy with The Sentencing Project, will discuss current efforts to reduce the nation’s prison population, the history of decarceration, and the political climate impacting the nation’s incarceration rate. Door admissions available at Milwaukee’s Turner Hall at 5:00 p.m. See www.wjiinc.org/events for cost and details.  L to R: Equal Rights Commission Chair Tony Snell, Equal Rights Complaints Liaison Ramona Ramos, new commission members Elle Halo Hill and Alexandria Staubach, and Equal Rights Specialist Omar Barberena, on May 8, 2025, at Milwaukee City Hall. Wisconsin Justice Initiative Policy Analyst Alexandria Staubach joined the city of Milwaukee's Equal Rights Commission yesterday when the Milwaukee Common Council’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee formally approved her membership and that of Elle Halo Hill, a Milwaukee community organizer and trans rights activist.
Staubach and Hill were nominated to the commission by Mayor Cavalier Johnson earlier this year. Ald. Mark Chambers Jr. moved Hill’s nomination for approval, while Ald. Robert Bauman moved Staubach’s nomination approval. Both nominees were confirmed by the committee without comment. The commission begins a period of regrowth following the COVID-19 pandemic, when its membership and capacity shrank, as discussed by commission Chair Tony Snell at the hearing. Staubach and Hill bring the commission’s membership to nine individuals, with room for two more members by city ordinance. The commission’s website describes the entity as a group of “diverse and invested city residents who advocate and celebrate Milwaukee’s diversity – while also working to eliminate all forms of bias and discrimination.” The commission began in 1944 as the Mayor’s Committee on Inter-Racial Relations. Per the commission’s website, the committee was charged with examining community issues to recommend and support polices that included all Milwaukeeans. The commission evolved over time and now has “the latitude to develop policy recommendations related to equal opportunities in housing and employment beyond race and including gender, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disabilities, lawful sources of income, martial status, sexual orientation, or familial status.” The governing ordinance charges the commission with monitoring the employment, contracting and program activities of the city; preparing and providing reports to the mayor and common council on efforts to promote equal rights and opportunities; promoting positive community relations; and eliminating discrimination and inequities in city government and the city as a whole. Currently, the commission’s scope of authority falls within three major areas: creating internal accountability within city departments, enforcing the Housing and Employment Discrimination Ordinance, and working with neighborhoods to improve community relations and address equal rights issues. The commission generally has investigative and enforcement powers over discriminatory employment and housing practices that do not otherwise fall within the jurisdiction of federal and state agencies. Commissioners are city officers under the Milwaukee code of ordinances. Note: We are crunching Supreme Court of Wisconsin decisions down to size. The rule for this is that no justice gets more than 10 paragraphs as written in the actual decision. The “upshot” and “background” sections do not count as part of the 10 paragraphs because of their summary and necessary nature. We’ve also removed citations from the opinion for ease of reading but have linked to important cases cited or information about them. Italics indicate WJI insertions except for case names, which are also italicized.  Karofsky The case: LeMieux v. Evers Majority: Justice Jill Karofsky (12 pages), joined by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet (except for five paragraphs), and Janet Protasiewicz Concurrence: Dallet (4 pages) Dissent: Justice Brian Hagedorn (20 pages), joined by Chief Justice Annete Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley Upshot We uphold the 2023 partial vetoes, and in doing so we are acutely aware that a 400-year modification is both significant and attention-grabbing. However, our constitution does not limit the governor's partial veto power based on how much or how little the partial vetoes change policy, even when that change is considerable. As our precedent recognizes, the governor's constitutionally-vested, quasi-legislative role defeats "any separation of powers-type argument thta the governor cannot affirmatively legislate by the use of the partial veto power." Indeed, the governor's reliance on his partial veto authority to potentially increase taxes without legislative approval is neither new nor unique in our partial veto jurisprudence. Background The Wisconsin Constitution provides that every two years the legislature is to pass a biennial budget. This budget establishes the level of revenue to be derived from taxes and other sources, as well as authorized expenditures. The process begins with the governor presenting the legislature with an executive budget bill. The executive budget bill then proceeds through the legislature’s multi-step review and report process involving the joint committee on finance and legislative fiscal bureau. The legislature then submits its bill to the governor. Before signing the bill into law, the governor may partially veto parts of the bill. Subsequently, the legislature may vote to override the governor’s partial vetoes by a supermajority. This process was followed for the 2023–25 biennial budget. First, the governor presented his 2023–25 executive biennial budget bill, which included three educational revenue limit increases . . . . Next the legislature reviewed the governor’s proposed budget bill and made modifications. Senate Bill 70 provided for a $325 per pupil revenue limit increase for both 2023–24 and 2024–25, without a subsequent inflationary index. Then the governor exercised his partial veto power, deleting portions of 2023 Senate Bill 70. As related to this matter, the governor deleted entire words and some numbers . . . The result . . . authorized a $325 per pupil revenue limit increase from 2023–2425, extending the provision by 400 additional years. . . . The senate subsequently voted to override the partial vetoes, but the assembly declined to vote on the override. Consequently, the effort to override the governor’s vetoes failed. The law went into effect and this original action followed. Per Hagedorn, the plaintiffs are two taxpayers. Guts In challenging the 2023 partial vetoes, petitioners do not ask us to overrule our precedent. Petitioners agree that the partial vetoes at issue satisfy the principles we have applied in our previous cases. Instead, petitioners bring two novel challenges. First, they contend that the 2023 partial vetoes violate the state constitution because the governor did not veto the bill “in part” when he extended a duration of time, as 402 years is not part of two years. Second, petitioners maintain that the 2023 partial vetoes violate the constitution because that provision prohibits the governor from striking digits to create new numbers. *** Over the past 90 years, our precedent has established four principles that we have applied to “deletion vetoes,” the traditional partial veto in which the governor strikes text: Deletion veto principles 1. The governor’s deletion vetoes are constitutional as long as the remaining text of the bill constitutes a “complete, entire, and workable law.” 2. The governor may exercise deletion vetoes only on parts of bills containing appropriations within their four corners. 3. The governor’s deletion vetoes may not result in a law that is “totally new, unrelated or non-germane” to the original bill. 4. The governor may strike “words, letters, or numbers.” But “the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill.” Nor may the governor “create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences of the enrolled bill.” Separate from deletion vetoes, there is one scenario in which the governor may exercise “write-in” vetoes by striking certain text and then writing in different text: Write-in veto principle The governor may strike an appropriation amount and write in a smaller appropriation amount. *** Karofsky writes that Evers' partial veto at issue in this case complies with the four deletion veto principles. The following three paragraphs were not joined by Dallet. Having addressed all four deletion veto principles, we turn to petitioners' request to apply the . . . write-in veto principle here. Petitioners ask that we invalidate the 2023 partial vetoes because under a prior case, the 402-duration created by these partial vetoes is not "less than" and thus not "part" of the legislatively-approved two-year duration. Even though 402 years are clearly more than two, the prior case does not apply here. In a prior case we evaluated the unprecedented scenario in which the governor decreased an appropriation amount from $350,000 to $250,000 by deleting “350,000” and writing in “250,000.” We determined that this write-in partial veto was constitutional under the very narrow facts presented in that case. . . . We concluded that because the write-in veto was only to an appropriation amount, and $250,000 is less than $350,000, $250,000 was part of $350,000 for purposes of the constitution. *** Here, we are tasked with evaluating a change in years, not appropriation amounts, which plainly falls outside a prior case’s holding and analytical principles. Petitioners fail to reckon with that case’s explicit boundary and do not attempt to equate appropriations with durations. As significantly, petitioners do not ask that we overrule or revisit our precedent. Therefore, we do not extend the write-in veto principle to the 2023 partial vetoes. *** Joined again by Dallet. Turning to whether the governor impermissibly deleted digits, the plain meaning of “word” does not include numbers written out using digits, and the plain meaning of “letters” does not include digits. By way of example, all agree with petitioners that the number “ten” is a word written with letters. However, when we write the number “10” using digits, we have used no letters. Simply put, letters and digits are not interchangeable for purposes of the pertinent constitutional provision. This has not demonstrably changed since 1990 when this provision passed. *** The bottom line is that the partial vetoes were within the bounds of the constitution. But the legislature is not without recourse. It has multiple options at its disposal, including: Future budget bills: Unlike an appropriation amount typically spent during the biennium in which the funds were appropriated, the 2023 partial vetoes affect revenue limits 400 years into the future. Accordingly, the legislature may address those partial vetoes during the 2025–27 biennial budget process, or in a subsequent biennial budget. Constitutional amendment: The legislature has the power to introduce a constitutional amendment. In the past 35 years, the people of Wisconsin have twice amended the constitution to limit the governor’s partial veto power. . . . Legislative drafting: Legislators may draft bills separate from appropriation bills to avoid the governor’s partial veto. And, legislators may anticipate the governor’s use of her or his power when crafting appropriation bills.  Dallet Concurring I agree with the majority/lead opinion’s conclusion that the partial vetoes at issue in this case do not violate . . . the Wisconsin Constitution. I write separately, however, because I have a different understanding of Petitioners’ argument that those partial vetoes are unconstitutional . . . and why that argument should be rejected. Accordingly, I join all but five paragraphs of the majority opinion. The constitution authorizes the governor to approve appropriation bills “in whole or in part . . . .” Petitioners argue that the partial vetoes at issue here exceeded the governor’s authority . . . because he did not approve “part” of the original bill. They cite to two prior cases for the assertion that the ordinary meaning of “part,” at least when applied to numbers, is “something less than a whole.” They claim that applying that definition in this case requires us to determine whether, as a matter of “substance rather than form,” the governor’s partial vetoes approved “something less than [the] whole” of what the legislature passed. And because the substantive effect of those vetoes was to increase the two-year duration the legislature passed to a 402-year duration it never contemplated, the governor’s partial vetoes did not approve something less than the whole of what the legislature passed. Petitioners’ argument has some support in the reasoning of a prior case. Indeed, one reason we cited for upholding the veto at issue in that case—crossing out a $350,000 appropriation and writing in $250,000—was that the result of the veto was substantively “part” of what the legislature originally passed. As we said then, $250,000 is “part” of $350,000 because it is “something less than” $350,000. That case’s use of this reasoning, Petitioners contend, demonstrates that there is a threshold requirement, imposed on all partial vetoes by the constitution, that the result of the veto must be substantively “part” of the original bill. Petitioners’ substantive-part analysis should be rejected, however, because it cannot be squared with the rest of our cases interpreting the constitution, none of which Petitioners ask us to overturn. We have long held that the only test . . . for whether a veto approved “part” of a bill is simply whether the veto results in a complete and workable law. Thus while Petitioners argue that their substantive-part analysis is separate from, and in addition to, the “complete and workable law” requirement, our case law in fact holds that if the veto results in a “complete and workable law,” then the veto approved the original bill “in part.” But even more importantly, our cases have repeatedly emphasized that a partial veto may affirmatively change the policy of the original bill. As we said in a 1976 case, “the constitutional requisites . . . fully anticipate that the governor’s action may alter the policy as written in the bill sent to the governor by the legislature.” In other words, the governor may, through a partial veto, change the bill’s substance. To date, the only limitation we have placed on the governor’s ability change the substance of a bill via partial veto is that a partial veto may not “result in the creation of totally new, unrelated or non-germane provisions.” While this limitation does require the substance of the post-veto text to be related in some way to the substance of the pre- veto text, it does not require the post-veto substance to be “part” of the pre-veto substance. *** In sum, I reject Petitioners’ argument that the constitution requires the result of a partial veto to be substantively “part” of what the legislature originally passed because it is incompatible with our long- standing approach to the constitutionality of partial vetoes . . . . And perhaps for the same reasons, even the dissent does not adopt Petitioners’ position. Instead, the dissent argues that we should revisit all of our case law under these provisions of the constitution, at least since 1935. Although I am open to revisiting our . . . jurisprudence, this case is not a “clear opportunity” to do so. Petitioners do not ask us to overturn any of our prior decisions, let alone reimagine completely our approach . . . . Accordingly, because upholding the partial vetoes in this case is consistent with our precedent, I respectfully concur.  Hagedorn Dissent
How does a bill become a law? According to the majority, one option looks like this: The legislature passes a bill in both houses and sends it to the governor. The governor then takes the collection of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks he receives from the legislature, crosses out whatever he pleases, and—presto!—out comes a new law never considered or passed by the legislature at all. And there you have it—a governor who can propose and enact law all on his own. This fantastical state of affairs did not appear all at once. The people of Wisconsin gave the governor the power to partially veto appropriation bills 95 years ago. But as governors pushed the boundaries over the last half-century, this court largely responded by throwing up its hands. And now, what the constitution calls the power to “approve[] in whole or in part” has transformed into the monarchical authority of one person to create brand new laws from scratch. Instead of reading what the bills actually say, and construing the partial veto power accordingly, this court treats bills presented to the governor as simply a set of alphanumeric ingredients from which the governor can cook up whatever he pleases. One might scoff at the silliness of it all, but this is no laughing matter. The decision today cannot be justified under any reasonable reading of the Wisconsin Constitution; the majority does not suggest otherwise. Yet when presented with a clear opportunity in this case to reboot our mangled jurisprudence, the majority responds by blessing this constitutional monstrosity, all the while pretending its hands are tied. The cases the majority relies on make a mockery of our constitutional order. This is a mess of this court’s making, and it is long past time for us to fix it. *** Our founders were intentional about placing the legislative power in the hands of the legislature. They designed the Wisconsin legislature to be the institution most animated by, representative of, and responsive to the people. This representative design was meant to “unit[e] a disparate group of people into one society” by providing a collective “mechanism for bringing together, negotiating, and resolving the different interests.” Following the pattern of the federal constitution, the Wisconsin legislature is the institution “by which the body of the people can act; the only way in which their opinions can be known and collected; the only means by which their wills can be united, and their strength exerted.” In other words, by vesting the power to legislate in the legislature, the Wisconsin Constitution situates the power to make laws in “the collective wisdom of the people and their representatives.” *** The veto power is an aberration from and exception to the default constitutional structure. A veto gives the governor a powerful voice in whether a legislative proposal becomes law. This function is not naturally within the power to execute the law. Rather, it serves as a limit on the legislature’s vested power to make law. Alexander Hamilton similarly described the president’s veto in Federalist No. 73 as a “qualified negative” meant to check legislative power. The delegates to the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention of 1846 were clear that “the governor’s powers should be limited and the primary lawmaking power should reside with the legislature,” while acknowledging a narrow exception for the gubernatorial veto. In that way, the “veto is simply one of the instances in which our framers broke off a small piece of power that naturally belongs in one branch and put it in another.” But this quasi-legislative power to veto is still at root the power to influence legislation by subtraction, not addition. All laws—policy proposals that have been formed into legal commands and instructions in a bill—must come from the legislature. And while the governor may reject bills presented to him, he may not affirmatively design them on his own. This is Wisconsin’s constitutional design. *** Hagedorn then discusses how the supreme court strayed in prior caselaw. So how should the court handle the 402-year “veto”? By doing what the majority suggests, but never does: “’focus on the constitutional text, reading it reasonably, in context, and with a view of the provision’s place within the constitutional structure.’” Once we do so, it is clear that the Governor’s “veto” in this case is not a veto at all, but merely gubernatorial lawmaking that is repugnant to our constitutional structure. As we have explained, a “veto” is a power of negation. It allows the governor to do nothing more than to reject laws that the legislature has proposed. The fundamental nature of a veto does not change just because the governor can veto “part” rather than all of an appropriation bill. The partial veto simply means that the governor can now reject policy proposals contained within an appropriation bill instead of being forced to reject it in its entirety. As a power to “reject,” it may assuredly change aspects of the legislature’s collection of policy prescriptions; the legislature may get most of its proposals, but not all of them, enacted into law. But what the partial veto clause does not do is establish a second lawmaking branch of government. The governor has no constitutional power to create new proposals that did not originate with the legislature or go through the constitution’s lawmaking process. An appropriations bill is not merely “a potpourri of individual letters, an alphabet soup if you will,” as the majority assumes. It contains draft statutes reflecting specific policies that have been considered and voted on by the legislature. This is what the constitution commands with all laws. So when the governor rejects part of an appropriations bill, the policy proposals that remain after the governor exercises his partial veto must still have been created and approved by the legislature in the first instance. Once again, we cannot lose sight of the constitution’s structure. The legislative power is vested in the legislature. And the constitutional amendment giving the governor power to partially veto appropriation bills did not change this. Here, when the bill left the legislature’s hands, it permitted school districts to exceed their base tax revenue for two years, the 2023–24 and 2024–25 school years. By striking out numbers, words, commas, and some hyphens, the governor rewrote the bill to say that districts could increase their revenue by those amounts from 2023 through 2425. The legislature never proposed extending the increase through 2425. This simply was not a policy proposal considered and voted on by both houses of the legislature. This is not a policy that was presented to the governor for approval. And contra the majority, we are permitted to read the words in the bill and make sense of them, not just consider the bill an alphabet soup of options. Thus, after the governor exercised his “veto,” there was something in the bill that did not originate from the legislature, was never subject to lawmaking procedures, and was not presented to the governor. This is plainly unconstitutional. It is true that the petitioners here do not explicitly ask us to . . . formally roll back the missteps of our prior cases. But where the governor’s actions are so out of step with the constitutional order, and where we are asked to apply the constitution, “the principle of stare decisis should yield to a result consistent with the plain meaning of the words within the amendment.” Instead of treating the fractured legal framework with another quick fix of judicial epoxy, it is time to raze it to the ground.  The Milwaukee County Safety Building in November 2024. Photograph by Margo Kirchner. By Alexandria Staubach
“Public safety, efficacy, and dignity,” said Milwaukee County Circuit Court Chief Judge Carl Ashley to a crowd about Milwaukee’s County’s biggest facilities concern: the Safety Building. Ashley spoke Monday at a Wisconsin Policy Forum luncheon about replacing the county’s “crumbling, aged, and obsolete” Safety Building. Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Wisconsin Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), and Wisconsin Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) joined Ashley on stage. The officials discussed the need for the project and how to fund it. Numerous plans have been developed over the years to address the Safety Building’s failing infrastructure. Panelists said the need is now not only more pressing but also more expensive. The projected budget is now about $495 million. The Safety Building is one of three buildings in the county’s judicial complex. Constructed in 1929, the Safety Building initially housed the central police station, some courtrooms, a jail, and the sheriff’s office. In the 1990s, the jail facilities and sheriff moved into a new space, leaving the courtrooms and legal offices behind. Currently, the Safety Building houses the district attorney’s office and criminal courtrooms. However, the building was not constructed with today's notions of due process and civil rights in mind. Age, coupled with its unintended use, takes a toll. Privacy and safety were concerns shared among the panelists. Because there are no segregated hallways, individuals in custody share close quarters with their families, witnesses, attorneys, law enforcement, victims, and potential jurors trying to get to and from courtrooms. Crowley said this mix of individuals resulted in more than 850 incidents requiring law enforcement response last year. Lovern highlighted that some 40,000 victims and witnesses are made to comingle with defendants and their families at some of the most charged moments in their lives. “It is not conducive to the safe adjudication of a case,” he said. Erin Perkins, project manager for the county’s Community Justice Council, who also spoke at the event, said the absence of private spaces outside courtrooms results in “trashcan meetings” where defendants and witnesses often discuss sensitive matters, at times within earshot of jurors. Ashley said jurors overhear conversations they should not hear, resulting in mistrials that are wasteful, implicate victims' and defendants' rights, and slow down the circuit court’s already crammed docket. Further, it “engenders a lack of trust in the criminal justice system,” he said. Perkins shared that the county allocates $500,000 per year in its budget to address emergency repairs alone. Bringing the building up to code could cost as much as $300 million, without the benefit of providing a more suitable environment, she said. Panelists agreed that the building must be replaced, but the politics of funding are an issue. While the legislators were supportive of the project, they were wary of buy-in in Madison. Donovan said multiple times that for broader buy-in from the Legislature, the City of Milwaukee needed to “step up” and that “engaging the City of Milwaukee in this fight” would be crucial. Felzkowski, president of the Senate, highlighted that many in the Legislature may feel exhausted at the idea of helping Milwaukee after the last budget cycle, when the area received a lot of state assistance. The state’s investment and intervention in the pension crisis, shared revenue bill, and Brewers’ stadium consume resources that others in the state would love to have, she said. She noted the state’s surplus but said “we would have spent that surplus with requests five times” if each were granted. Felzkowski said there was reason to hope a deal with the Legislature could be reached but acknowledged that funding the project on a short timeline will likely be an uphill battle in the Legislature. Spreading payments over several years will lessen the blow, she said. Negotiating a funding plan with the Legislature was “very doable,” but “it’s got to be creative,” she said while sharing her personal support and recognizing that “when Milwaukee is strong the rest of the state is strong.” Donovan chuckled at that statement and said it was not necessarily shared by other legislators. There was tension over who should foot bill, and the panel explored state-mandated costs specific to Milwaukee that could be used to free up some resources. Felzkowski was quick to point out that “counties exist to carry out the work of state government,” while Crowley highlighted Milwaukee County’s outsized responsibilities, such as paying for highway patrol and the Community Reintegration Center, compared to other localities. Chuck Kahn, a former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge in attendance (and a current WJI Action board member), pointed out that the courts are administered by the state and that judges are state employees. “Why are we starting with the premise that this is the county’s responsibility at all?” he asked. Waiting to take action to replace the building could be even more costly. Crowley and Perkins said that waiting just five more years could result in $100 million of added costs to replace the building. Plus, 60,000 square feet of the building cannot be used, but the county still pays to heat and ventilate it, Perkins said. Eliminating the energy bill alone could save the county $1 million per year, Crowley said. By Alexandria Staubach
Milwaukee Municipal Court continues to dodge its obligation to record hearings by proposing an insufficient new policy in response to a court order. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Borowski rejected the municipal court’s proffered new policy but clarified some of the municipal court’s responsibilities. Borowski held in December 2024 that the municipal court and its judges had consistently failed to comply with statutorily imposed recording requirements for hearings on motions to reopen as well as hearings addressing a defendant’s ability to pay. Such hearings must be recorded so an appellate court can review them. Borowski placed the municipal court under his supervision and ordered the municipal court to comply within 90 days. He reserved the right to hold hearings every three to six months to monitor compliance. Over the years, Milwaukee Municipal Court developed several different categories of hearings and limited recordings to only what it called “indigency hearings,” even though judges regularly took up a defendant’s ability to pay in other hearings as well. Borowski found in December that names of court proceedings are an invention of Milwaukee Municipal Court and the court could not avoid recording requirements through its naming system. He ordered the municipal court to “fully implement” policies and procedures to electronically record every hearing in which “(1) a decision is made as to a motion to reopen a case (regardless of whether said motion is made orally or in writing, regardless of the label or category assigned to said hearing, and regardless of the ultimate result of the hearing) and (2) a determination is made as to the defendant’s ability to pay a judgment due to poverty (regardless of the ultimate result of the hearing).” In March 2025, Milwaukee Municipal Court submitted to Borowski a plan that purported to bring it into compliance but failed to address key components of his December order. The policy Milwaukee Municipal Court submitted again only applied to “indigency hearings.” Further, it shifted the burden of recording from the municipal court to the court’s bailiffs and said the municipal court would no longer grant “motions to reopen based on pleadings alone but rather schedule a hearing,” as a result of Borowski’s decision. Milwaukee Municipal Court sought clarification from Borowski because it thought his December decision was “reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation,” asking Borowski to point out the “specific circumstances requiring a hearing in open court” that would trigger the recording requirement. Last week, Borowski found that the proposed policy Milwaukee Municipal Court presented “lacks sufficient clarity to ensure compliance with the Court’s Decision and Order.” He directed the municipal court to develop a new policy that “must explicitly require electronic recording of ALL of the following”:
The new order forbids the municipal court from placing the obligation of recording on bailiffs. “Court staff may be responsible for turning on the recorder, but the policy and procedure must clarify that any recording must be made at the direction of the judge,” Borowski wrote. Milwaukee Municipal Court has 14 days to develop a new policy, Borowski said. Borowski noted that nothing in his December order requires Milwaukee Municipal Court to hold a hearing on a written motion or when a judge would otherwise dispose of a matter by written order. “Judge Borowski’s April 21, 2025 order is very clear guidance to any municipal court that is still unsure which hearings must be electronically recorded,” said Susan Lund, attorney for the plaintiff who brought the case challenging Milwaukee Municipal Court’s recording procedures. |
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