WJI's Daily Reads for April 12, 2022

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ACLU of Wisconsin investigating whether Waukesha School District's signage policies on violate students' constitutional rights.

"Community members have reported that, at least in some schools, along with the displays mentioned above, Gay-Straight Alliance locker signs are also banned, but football team locker signs are allowed, as are Students for Life lobby signs, a 'Thin Blue Line' sign, and a poster of Ronald Reagan. Additionally, it is our understanding that a student has been allowed to distribute political campaign materials while another student was reprimanded for distributing (diversity, equity, and inclusion) materials," the ACLU of Wisconsin said. 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Prison population has dropped by 3,000 since March 2020, but not due to intentional actions to reduce the incarcerated population.

The number of people arrested has fallen by more than 25 percent in the last two years, from 238,528 in 2019 to 175,551 in 2021, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

The state's court system, meanwhile, slowed to a crawl as the pandemic raged, leaving judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys to deal with a massive backlog of cases still expected to take years to sort out.

Wisconsin Newspaper Association (WisPolitics.com): Already talking about Wisconsin's 2023 supreme court election.

Reuters: Republicans turn their attention to state supreme court races.

There are nearly 90 state supreme court seats on the ballot nationally this year, according to the elections website Ballotpedia, and control of the top courts in Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Illinois are all in play.

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which supports down-ballot statewide candidates, plans to pour more than $5 million into the most high-profile contests. That would be a record for the group, which is one of dozens of organizations and political action committees likely to spend money on the races.

Reuters: Google sues Cameroonian for allegedly using its services for scam pet sales.

Elder advocacy group AARP tipped Google to the scam last September following a complaint from a South Carolina resident who had sent $700 in digital gift cards to an online seller for a basset hound puppy that never came, according to Google's lawsuit in U.S. district court in San Jose.