Walker signs pair of bills to combat homelessness
By Noah Habenstreit | Nov. 27, 2017Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills into law Monday aimed at helping Wisconsin’s homeless population.
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.
More parents would be able to excuse their children from standardized testing under a proposal approved by the state Assembly last week, as part of a series of education bills making their way through the Capitol. The proposal would allow parents and guardians to excuse their student from statewide examinations between grades three-12, building upon current law, which allows opt-outs during grades four and eight-11. The opt-out provision, which was initially intended to be expanded to other grades, was never broadened after mandated testing became more regularly applied for all students. This inconsistency, bill co-sponsor state Rep.
Gov. Scott Walker has announced a special election early next year to replace former state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, following her appointment to the post of agricultural secretary. The appointment comes after Ben Brancel’s retirement from the position in August after seven years on the job.
Gov. Scott Walker plans to name state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, as his agriculture secretary sometime this week, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Wisconsin's job agency board approved a $3 billion contract with Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn, moving the deal forward for the governor’s signature after months of intense debate.
Wisconsin’s strict environmental protections against “toxic” sulfide mining would be repealed in a bill passed by the Legislature in an effort to boost economic growth.
Already one of the booziest states in the union, Wisconsin could allow residents as young as 19 to belly up to the bar and walk through liquor stores under proposed legislation.
U.S. Congressman Mark Pocan is recovering at a hospital in Madison after undergoing triple bypass heart surgery Wednesday.