(The Center Square) – A second three-judge panel in Wisconsin dismissed a challenge to the state’s congressional maps as gerrymandered on Tuesday.
The panel ruled that the state’s Supreme Court is the “ultimate interpreter” of the state constitution and that the challenge goes against the court’s prior interpretation that the maps were constitutional.
The ruling in Wisconsin Business Leaders For Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission was consistent with the ruling of a separate three-judge panel in March.
Law Forward vowed Tuesday that it will appeal the decision to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The motion to dismiss in the case ruled on Tuesday came from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. Will argued that the challenge asked the lower court to overrule the Wisconsin Supreme Court, that the challenges were filed too late and that the challenges lacked merit.
“Upon careful review of the law, the panel concludes that Intervenors are correct,” the panel wrote in its ruling. “The Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that claims of the sort Plaintiffs allege are not actionable under Wisconsin law, and this panel, as an inferior tribunal exercising the powers of a circuit court, has no authority to modify or overrule that precedent.”
WILL had warned in early 2025 that challenges would come to the state’s maps following Judge Susan Crawford’s victory over Brad Schimel for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat that left the court with a liberal majority.
“The three-judge panel got it right,” WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said in a statement. “This is a victory for the rule of law in our state. WILL is proud to have represented our clients in this case and will continue to work to uphold our constitutional separation of powers.”
“We are disappointed that after receiving the case from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the circuit court panel has declined to allow us to present evidence and legal arguments that we believe demonstrate the anti-competitive nature of Wisconsin’s congressional map and how it violates Wisconsin voters’ constitutional rights,” Doug Poland, Law Forward’s Director of Litigation, said in a statement. “This is the first anti-competitive gerrymandering case ever filed in Wisconsin courts, and it deserves to be heard. We believe that the circuit court was wrong in concluding that anti-competitive gerrymandering is “functionally equivalent” to partisan gerrymandering. They are different claims, based on different evidence, that target different ways of manipulating representation to the detriment of voters.”

(The Center Square) – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Wisconsin’s attempt to block prediction markets from operating in the state.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit last week targeting Kalshi, Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket, Crypto.com and their affiliates for operating what they call prediction markets on event contracts in the state.
“States cannot circumvent the clear directive of Congress,” CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a statement. “Our message to Wisconsin is the same as to New York, Arizona, and others: if you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you.”
The CFTC claims that it has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets across the country.
The lawsuits are part of a national debate on whether states or the federal government should have the final say over prediction markets, which allow people to bet on real-world outcomes such as sports and elections.
As states ramp up enforcement against these markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asserted its exclusive authority, setting up a legal battle that could determine the future of event-based trading nationwide.
The lawsuits come as Wisconsin has approved allowing its 11 tribes to start operating online statewide sports wagering after compacts are created and approved for the revenue and state payments that will be made from the operations.

(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin congressmen have introduced a bill that would allow Wisconsin to petition to have its air quality designation change and remove the requirement for vehicle emissions testing in Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Washington and Waukesha counties.
A group of Wisconsin state representatives sent a letter to Wisconsin’s congressional delegation in December and Congressman Tom Tiffany stood with state leaders in late March stating he would push the Environmental Protection Agency to change Clean Air Act rules to remove the emissions testing requirements.
The seven counties are part of a nonattainment area that the lawmakers said shows pollution from Chicago and outside the state with no more than 10% of the pollution measured coming from Wisconsin.
Tiffany, R-7th Congressional, along with Reps. Bryan Steil, R-1st Congressional, Scott Fitzgerald R-5th Congressional and Glenn Grothman, R-6th Congressional, introduced the Fair Air Standards Act to allow states to petition to remove themselves from the status based upon where the pollution originates.
“This is a topic we’ve been working on for 25 years, as the poorly drafted Clean Air Act has punished industries in Wisconsin, making them less competitive, especially compared to other states and factories around the world,” Grothman said in a statement.
The testing is funded through a 1-cent per gallon petroleum tax with an estimated $271.4 million spent by Wisconsin residents from 1984 to 2022-23 on testing.
Lawmakers have cited advanced technology and a low failure rate of 3.1% and 3% in 2021 and 2022.
“Because of outdated federal rules, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin drivers in seven counties are forced to complete emissions tests every two years just to renew their registration,” Tiffany said. “Wisconsin families should not be punished with costly and time-consuming mandates because of pollution drifting in from Illinois and Indiana.
“Four decades later and with cleaner vehicles on the road, it is time to end this non-attainment zone mandate and stop burdening drivers with a system that cannot prove it works.”

(The Center Square) – Former Democratic state representative Pedro Colón announced Tuesday he will be running for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat to replace retiring conservative judge Annette Ziegler.
Colón, a Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge, joins Judge Lyndsey Brunette in the race. Brunette previously ran as a Democrat and won the race to become Clark County District Attorney in 2012, the first woman to hold the position.
The election will be April 6, 2027, with a primary Feb. 16, 2027, if necessary. Ziegler will be one of two conservative justices on the court until her term ends.
Colón was part of the state assembly representing Milwaukee between 1999 and 2010 before being appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in 2010 and serving 13 years, including winning three elections.
“I came to Milwaukee at 10 years old, not speaking a word of English. I know what it feels like to stand before a system that was not built for you,” Colón said in a statement. “For 15 years on the bench, I have made sure every person who walks into my courtroom gets the same thing: a listening ear and a fair shot. That is exactly what I will do on the Supreme Court.”
Colón was appointed to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals by Gov. Tony Evers in 2023, becoming the first Latino to serve on our state’s appellate court.
“Some of Wisconsin’s most consequential cases will come before this court over the next decade and I know that I have the experience, judgment, and empathy needed to help decide them,” Colón said. “Our state Constitution guarantees equal protection. It guarantees the right to a jury trial and a remedy in our courts when you have been wronged. It guarantees free and equal elections. I understand the law and I am ready to apply it fairly and equally to everyone who appears before the court.”
The court will have five liberal justices and two conservatives after Chris Taylor takes her seat Aug. 1 and, if Brunette or Colón wins the race, the new liberal justice would have the potential to extend the liberal majority to six members with one conservative.

(The Center Square) – There is now a formal complaint about the plan from Milwaukee Public Schools to delay raises for its teachers.
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association filed a prohibited practice complaint against the district, saying that “MPS has failed to bargain in good faith and has interfered with MTEA members’ exercise of their rights.”
The complaint comes after MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius announced plans to delay scheduled raises for teachers and other MTEA union members.
On Monday, she defended those plans.
“MPS must make hard fiscal decisions to ensure the district is protecting resources for classrooms and presenting a balanced budget proposal for the next school year. We cannot spend money we do not have,” Cassellius said in a statement. “Our team is committed to reaching a fair, lawful, and fiscally responsible agreement that delivers the maximum allowable wage increase to every MTEA-represented employee while honoring the district’s obligation to adopt a balanced budget.”
The superintendent said MPS has offered a full 2.63% wage increase to the union, but she wants to delay when those raises begin.
Cassellius has said delaying the raise beyond July 1 could save as much as $20 million.
The union continues to say those numbers are off.
“The difference between the cost of providing MTEA bargaining units the maximum 2.63% COLA on July 1 and MPS’s highest-cost proposal is only $2.2 million according to MPS Administration’s own calculations,” the union stated in a Facebook post Monday. “MPS Administration is making that incredibly difficult by going out of their way to mislead our community about the real financial impact of providing a 2.63% cost of living adjustment to frontline MTEA workers.”
Cassellius said MPS is looking at a $46 million budget deficit. In addition to the plan to delay the union’s cost of living raises, she wants to eliminate nearly 200 positions. Cassellius has promised to use federal money to hire back nearly 100 teachers and other classroom staffers.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany is asking that Democratic candidate Francesca Hong comment on a post by fellow Democrat Kirk Bangstad and Minocqua Brewing that said a “a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship” after a shooter attempted to run past security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Bangstad’s company posted that it would be a free beer day if President Donald Trump dies.
Hong reportedly donated $25 to Bangstad’s 2020 campaign for state assembly.
Congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke, running again against incumbent Derrick Van Orden, reportedly previously did work for Bangstad’s campaign.
Bangstad’s post caught the attention of social media accounts such as Libs of TikTok and media outlets across the country. In response, Bangstad made several posts about reporters who reached out for comment, posting their cellphone numbers and criticizing the outlets, including Newsweek, Fox News and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

(The Center Square) – One of Milwaukee’s aldermen is jumping into the race for Congress in southeast Wisconsin.
Alderman Peter Burgelis on Sunday said he’s running for Congress against Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil.
“I can’t sit by while Bryan Steil lets Donald Trump take aim at our neighbors, our pocketbooks and our values,” Burgelis said. “Congressman Steil has made a career working for the rich and powerful, from Speaker Paul Ryan to big law firms, and he’s backed Trump’s costly agenda 100%.”
Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District runs from Racine to the Illinois stateline, and west to Janesville.
The Steil campaign called out Burgelis for now living in the district. The U.S. Constitution only mandates candidates live within a state they represent.
Burgelis was first elected to Milwaukee’s City Council in 2024. Before that, he was a commissioner for Milwaukee County.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin is estimated to lose $1.5 billion in initial foregone state sales tax from four data center projects, according to a new Legislative Audit Bureau report.
In addition, the state will lose $369 million annually once construction on the projects are complete, according to the document obtained by Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin has a wide-ranging sales tax exemption for data centers that was created in the state’s 2023-25 budget.
A Legislative Audit Report from fall 2025 showed that $70 million in foregone sales tax had already been foregone, which far exceeded estimates from the time the exemption was initially passed.
The exemption applies to everything from property purchases to computer servers and energy systems at the site to electricity and cooling systems.
Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue estimated the value of the incentives would be $8.5 million for the full multi-year construction of a facility and $735,000 recurring afterward. The department attributed the estimates to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that a typical data center costs about $215.5 million to construct.
But many of the Wisconsin data centers are much more expensive than initial estimates with Microsoft alone announcing more than $20.6 billion in data centers in Wisconsin.
OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers have announced more than $15 billion in data center investments in Port Washington. Epic Hosting is expected to spend $347 million in Verona. Meta has announced a $1 billion project in Beaver Dam.
In all, that means $36.9 billion in data centers are coming to the state from those four companies alone with the state forgoing an estimated $40 million in sales tax for every $1 billion in company investment.
“The announcements and planned investments from these four certified companies combine for a total investment of more than $36.9 billion, spread over the life of each project” currently planned to occur between 2024 and 2028, the report said. “It is estimated that an investment this size would result in $1.5 billion in initial foregone state sales tax revenue. Additional foregone state sales tax revenue of $369 million on an annual basis is estimated once these projects are completed.
“Expenditures eligible for the state tax exemption would also be exempt from local sales and use taxes, resulting in forgone county, city, and premier resort area tax collections, if applicable.”
Those totals have led Congressman Tom Tiffany, a Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, to declare that he will end subsidies for data centers.
The sales tax exemptions are just one of the tax breaks for data centers with many of the projects also being placed in tax increment districts where they can keep the additional property taxes from their properties to cover money spent on things such as infrastructure at the data center site.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a series of three lawsuits against prediction markets in Wisconsin alleging that the companies are operating illegal commercial gambling in the state.
The tactic has previously been taken in other states, including Arizona.
The lawsuits targeted Kalshi, Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket, Crypto.com and their affiliates for operating what the prediction markets on event contracts in the state that look and payout like sports wagering. Kalshi makes $1 billion annually from the event contracts with sports representing 90% of its revenue, the lawsuit stated.
“Thinly disguising unlawful conduct doesn’t make it lawful,” Kaul said. “These companies’ alleged facilitation of sports betting in Wisconsin should be shut down.”
The lawsuits are part of a national debate on whether states or the federal government should have the final say over prediction markets, which allow people to bet on real-world outcomes such as sports and elections. As states ramp up enforcement against these markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asserted its exclusive authority, setting up a legal battle that could determine the future of event-based trading nationwide.
The lawsuits come as Wisconsin has approved allowing its 11 tribes to start operating online statewide sports wagering after compacts are created and approved for the revenue and state payments that will be made from the operations.
The Ho-Chunk Nation previously filed a lawsuit filed against Kalshi and Robinhood for operating in the state.
Wisconsin’s tribes agreed to a ban on micro betting on small events such as the result of an individual pitch in a baseball game along with several responsible gaming concessions in order to get the votes necessary to pass the state’s new sports wagering bill.

(The Center Square) – Rising prices are not scaring Wisconsin home buyers away.
The latest Wisconsin Realtors Report, for March, shows another increase in prices. But it also shows a sizable jump in sales.
“Sales rebounded in March after a slow start in January and February. As we enter the peak period for sales, it’s good to see this bounce in closings, and hopefully it continues into the summer,” Realtors chairwoman Amy Curler said.
March 2026 home sales jumped 7% compared to March of 2025. The real estate agends said they closed on 4,750 homes last month, compared to 4,441 last March.
Since January, home sales in Wisconsin have steadily grown.
According to the report, sales were up more than 2% for the first quarter of 2026. That is noteworthy, particularly because prices are growing as well.
“The annual appreciation of home prices ticked up, rising 6.5%, and the modest improvements in family income and mortgage rates just kept pace with that price increase. Supply remains tight, so we really need to see consistent reductions in mortgage rates for affordability to improve,” Realtors CEO Tom Larson added.
The median price for a home in Wisconsin increased last month, jumping to $330,000. That’s a 6.5% increase from March of last year.
That is, of course, the statewide median price. Homes in the Madison-area remain more expensive. The median price for a house in south central Wisconsin hit $395,000 last month. Homes in southeast Wisconsin, which includes Milwaukee, saw a median price of $340,000.
Homes in central and northern Wisconsin remain the only ones with a median price less than $300,000. The Realtors report said the median price there is $272,000. The median price in northern Wisconsin saw a median price of $275,000.
The report adds that interest rates on 30-year mortgages have fallen, but the real estate agents said there continues to be not enough homes for sales.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s tribes agreed to a ban on micro betting on small events such as the result of an individual pitch in a baseball game along with several responsible gaming concessions in order to get the votes necessary to pass the state’s new sports wagering bill, according to Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison.
Tusler said on Thursday that the tribes first declined the requests but ultimately agreed with a group of Wisconsin legislators to ban the use of credit cards, use an age verification system, allow self-exclusion and allowing users to put a cap on daily deposits.
“I shared these concerns with many of my Republican colleagues, who expressed similar hesitation,” Tusler said. “For that reason, I opposed the bill throughout most of the legislative process. However, I realize that unregulated sports gambling is already occurring in Wisconsin, unchecked, on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings. Further, there has been no effort to enforce our laws on these sites.”
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed the sports wagering bill into law April 9 and is negotiating compacts with Wisconsin’s 11 tribes to send revenue from gaming from the tribes to the state. Those compacts must be approved by the federal government.
“Although not perfect, these limitations are better than unregulated and unchecked betting in this state,” Tusler said. “I will be watching closely as the tribes amend the sports gambling compact to include these provisions and work vigorously to provide more resources to help problem gamblers. Our goal should be to reduce the amount of people gambling, and I will work with both Republicans and Democrats to achieve this.”
The law changed the state’s definition of “bet” to allow the state’s tribes to offer mobile sports wagering if the bettor is in Wisconsin and the sportsbook servers are on tribal land, an amendment to current compacts allowing for casino gambling and sports wagering on tribal lands despite the state’s ban on betting.
The law allows for a similar sports wagering model as Florida, where the state’s sportsbook operators have servers on federally recognized tribal lands while users can be in the state of Wisconsin.
“I have long been against sports betting in Wisconsin,” Tusler said. “In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which made sports betting illegal in the United States. Since then, I have had the unfortunate opportunity to see the effects of unchecked, legalized sports betting across the country.
“From what I have seen, unregulated, legalized sports betting has caused more harm than good in these states.”

(The Center Square) – Openness and transparency is now an issue in Wisconsin’s race for governor.
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who is one of seven Democratic candidates for the state’s top seat, last week said she would craft a new state budget in secret to avoid Democratic opposition if she is elected in November.
“I have committed to having a budget done before I swear in, and we are going to do this, we are going to do our negotiations behind a curtain so that we are not doing a circular firing squad within the Democratic Party,” Rodrigez said. “We have got to make a difference in people’s lives. We have got to be on the same page.”
Channel 12 broke the story, and on Wednesday, most of Rordiguez’s Democratic opponents responded.
“Latest reminder to everyone that sunshine is the best disinfectant,” Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said. “Backroom deals are NOT the way to deliver progress for Wisconsinites. Democracy delivers best when it’s transparent and inclusive of everyone in the state.”
“As the only person in the race with experience creating budgets, this sounds like hiding from the people, and that is unacceptable. I have never created or signed a budget in secret. I have done it in the open with town halls, public input, and real transparency because it is your money and you deserve a say,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.
Former Department of Administration secretary Joel Brennan also joined the fray.
“I helped build two budgets with Gov. [Tony] Evers, and I can tell you, it’s one of the hardest and most important things a governor does. You’re balancing the demands of every state agency and every community across the state, all while the clock is ticking and people are counting on you to get it right,” Brennan said on X. “You don’t get a good budget by hiding it from the people it’s supposed to serve.”
Republican Tom Tiffany also slammed Rodriguez’s comments.
“@saraforwi said she will negotiate her budget “behind a curtain” because moderate Democrats will struggle with her ideas,” Tiffany wrote on X. “You deserve transparency. Listening sessions will be held across Wisconsin during the budget process. I won’t govern in secrecy.”
Rodriguez later tried to clarify, and said she is simply trying to be ready to go as soon as she is sworn in.
“My commitment is simple: be ready on Day One as governor to deliver a state budget that reflects our values and priorities,” she added.
Rodriguez’s focus on working with Democratic leaders behind the scenes is also a bit of a criticism of how Gov. Tony Evers crafted three of his four state budget.
Evers routinely worked on a budget on his own, then delivered his spending plan to lawmakers. A number of Democratic lawmakers didn’t like that approach.
Democratic legislative leaders did have more say in the current budget, but that was because Republicans needed Democratic votes to get the plan through the Assembly and Senate.

(The Center Square) – A majority of adults in the U.S. believe that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits with 69% believing the costs are greater and 30% believing that the benefits are higher, according to a new national poll from the Marquette University Law School.
The results were an increase from the 62% who believed that the costs outweighed the benefits in January.
The results mirrored results from a survey of 850 registered voters in Wisconsin, when 69% of those voters said the costs outweigh the benefits.
Questions were asked of 982 voters nationwide between April 8-16.
Large-scale data center projects have popped up across the country in recent years with the tax incentives often hidden in tax increment districts and waiving sales tax on construction materials.
A recent Good Jobs First report showed that 14 states and scores of local governments fail to properly disclose how much revenue they are losing to data center tax breaks while a deeper look at just three states showed that they are losing more than $1 billion per year to data center tax breaks.
A Wisconsin waiver on sales tax on large-scale data center construction materials has led to that $70 million in forgone sales tax in its first two years, a number that is expected to multiply as data centers in Mount Pleasant, Verona, Beaver Dam and Port Washington have now been certified by the state to be eligible for the sales tax exemption.
The new Marquette Poll showed bipartisan opposition to data centers with 62% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats, and 73% of independents saying the costs are greater than the benefits. Those numbers all increased since a January poll.

(The Center Square) – A reported $3 million campaign was not enough to get Paul Wassgren to the primary in the race for Congress in northern Wisconsin.
Wassgren announced that he is suspending his campaign to replace Tom Tiffany as the congressman in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.
“This election has never been about a position or a paycheck for me – it is about serving Wisconsin families and creating economic opportunities for our state,” Wassgren said in a statement. “While I have the resources and message to win this race and be a fierce advocate for our district in Congress, I recognize that a bloody and highly expensive primary will only benefit the Democrats. In light of the spring election results, I call on all Republicans, including candidates, to prioritize the interests of the Republican Party and the state of Wisconsin.”
Wassgren is a businessman and corporate attorney from Ashland. Campaign records show he spent more than $3 million on his campaign through early April.
Wassgren said instead of running for Congress, he is going to spend his time as Ashland County Republican chairman to get Tiffany elected governor.
“As our next governor, Tom Tiffany will restore common sense and conservative values to Madison. I will proudly advocate for him during this critical election year for Wisconsin,” he added.
Wassgren’s exit thins the crowded field in the Northwoods a bit, but still leaves seven candidates vying for the open seat.
Republicans Michael Alfonso, Jessi Ebben, Nina Baum and Kevin Hermening are still in the race. As are Democrats Fred Clark, Chris Armstrong and Ginger Murray.
Alfonso may be the best-known candidate in the race.
Alfonso is married to one of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s daughters. Duffy held the Congressional seat from the Northwoods for almost eight years.
Alfonso also has President Donald Trump’s backing. Trump endorsed Alfonso back in January.
Voters will make their choices in the primary in August. The actual election will follow in November.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin was second in the Midwest and 12th among all states in per capita correctional spending, according to a new wide-ranging report on Wisconsin’s criminal justice system.
Combined spending for the system and all of its functions between local governments in the state is between $4.5 and $6 billion annually, according to the study from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Law enforcement spending of $328 per resident in the local level was slightly below the national average but state spending on law enforcement was the lowest of any state in the country at $8 per resident, according to the report.
The next-lowest spending state was Florida with $32 per resident while the average in the country was $60 per resident. There were 22,801 adults in state prisons in 2024, exceeding the 17,648 capacity that the facilities were designed to house.
“Wisconsin’s correctional system carries significant financial and human costs,” the report concluded. “State and local spending on corrections ranked 12th among the states in 2022, and Wisconsin had the highest cost per capita in 2021 to reincarcerate people for violations of community supervision conditions, although these reincarcerations have decreased in recent years.
“Corrections costs are likely to increase both from the significant wage hikes for prison staff that were approved by the Legislature in 2023 to combat persistent understaffing, and from growing medical costs to care for the aging prison population.”
The state also has seen the number of individuals incarcerated whose most serious offense was a violent crime rise between 2000 and 2023 and, over that same time, the number incarcerated who were found guilty of intoxicated driving has quadrupled.
The report reasoned that increase was the result of increased penalties with longer prison stays along with more convictions for those offenses.
“While the overall number of court cases decreased during our period of study, we also observed a rise in the number of cases involving at least one felony across most crime categories,” the report stated. “These trends have contributed to Wisconsin’s prison and community supervision rates remaining high even as overall crime rates fell between 2019 and 2023, including an ongoing decline in property crimes.”

(The Center Square) – A late-session bill that would have protected local racing facilities in Wisconsin from litigation and law changes was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers in a flurry of post-session vetoes.
The “right-to-race” bill would prevent neighbors who buy their homes after the racing facility was in place from filing nuisance lawsuits against the facility unless the facility had a substantial and material expansion of operations.
The bill also prevented new laws that conflict with the racing facility’s use.
“I am vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to creating unfair and unnecessary hurdles for people pursuing legal avenues to vindicate the use and enjoyment of their land,” Evers said in his veto message. “As I have said before, I believe the presumption should be an open courthouse door to anyone seeking justice and an honest debate of the law of the land, and any immunity or deviation from that presumption should be tailored and finite.”
Bill supporters, however, believe that the bill was built to protect racing from subdivisions and home owners who move to an area after the facility was already operating.
“Motorsports is an industry that has enlivened life in Wisconsin for nearly a century,” the Specialty Equipment Market Association wrote in a post-veto message. “Instead of protecting Wisconsin’s economy and network of family-owned dirt ovals, drag strips, and every motorsports facility in between, and instead of fostering American manufacturing, STEM education, and engineering innovation, Evers made it crystal clear whose side he’s on: lawyers and NIMBYs.”
State Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, said in testimony on the bill mirrors right-to-farm legislation already in law.
Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, said in testimony that the bill would protect everything from the Milwaukee Mile and Road America to smaller tracks like Marshfield Motor Speedway and Golden Sands Speedway in Wisconsin Rapids.
“Wisconsin’s racing heritage runs deep and unfortunately, NIMBYTsm is putting these businesses at risk of closing and decimating a way of life for small town America,” Tomczyk wrote. “Current law allows individuals and local governments to bring actions to stop or correct a public nuisance, but also recognizes that certain longstanding and lawful activities should be protected from nuisance claims when they do not pose a substantial threat to public health or safety. Race tracks certainly fall into that category.”
Evers’ veto said that he did not approve of the block on local legislation against racing facilities because he prefers local control.
“I am also vetoing this bill because I object to removing control from local authorities and preempting their ability to pass ordinances with the interests of their community in mind,” Evers wrote. “This bill removes the ability for local residents in municipalities throughout the state to engage in self-government by passing local ordinances related to nuisance actions involving racing facilities.”