Wisconsin lawmakers will investigate claims Attorney General Josh Kaul is pursuing an anti-oil agenda with the help of an assistant paid for by an advocacy group.
The arrangement is at the center of a lawsuit filed by Wisconsin dairy-farming groups who call the relationship “repugnant.” Like other AGs around the country, Kaul, a Democrat, has taken in a special assistant to focus on climate-change litigation whose salary is paid by a Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded program at the NYU School of Law.
The Wisconsin Senate Committee on Organization announced a Special Committee on Oversight of the Department of Justice. Its job is to perform an investigation into “external influences affecting the Wisconsin Department of Justice.’
A final report will be in by April 14.
“The people of Wisconsin deserve transparency and accountability from every corner of their government,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said.
“This special committee will ensure that the Department of Justice, an agency created and funded by the Legislature, is operating within its statutory authority and serving the public interest – not the agenda of third parties or outside organizations.”
Dozens of climate lawsuits have been pushed by state, city and county officials who hired private lawyers working on contingency fees. President Donald Trump has forbidden any more lawsuits against the oil industry in an executive order.
The state of Wisconsin has not filed one, though it remains active in climate matters. In September, it joined a coalition of states opposing the rollback of EPA emissions standards.
Challenges to the Bloomberg-funded prosecutors in other states focused on communications between AG offices and the NYU School of Law State Energy and Environmental Impact Center. Last year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Kaul hired Karen Heinemen with an annual salary of $90,000 to be paid by the NYU program.
Complaining of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “far-left” agenda, the dairy groups said in their Calumet County lawsuit, which is still pending, that, “such an arrangement between a special interest group and a Republican attorney general would be just as outrageous and unlawful.”
“It is not difficult to imagine how a ‘Second Amendment Fellow’ deputized as a (special assistant attorney general) by the Gun Owners of America would be received,” the complaint adds. “Or an ‘Anti-Abortion Fellow’ empowered to act on behalf of the State while being paid by the National Right to Life.”
Republican members of Congress earlier this year announced an investigation into the NYU program, with Kentucky’s James Comer, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, questioning the motives.
Environmental litigation can take many forms, but the biggest target is currently Big Oil, which has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put an end to the approximately 40 cases it faces nationwide.
Judges in South Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania have found the cases involve questions of international emissions standards better left to the federal government.
Dozens of lawsuits remain pending. Colorado’s and Hawaii’s supreme courts refused to grant motions to dismiss cases there, and the Colorado case is the one that will possibly be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawyers crafted their complaints to keep them out of federal courts, where companies like Exxon and Chevron had stronger defenses. The lawsuits allege violations of state laws of consumer protection and public nuisance and allege the public wouldn’t have used as many fossil fuels as it did had the industry been more honest about their effect on the environment.
Bucks County, Pa., judge Stephen Corr noted that the county’s complaint used the word “emissions” more than 100 times, while “deceptive” and “deception” were used only 39 times combined. He threw out the case as an attempt to regulate the international emissions market masked in consumer protection.
Judge Videtta Brown, in Baltimore’s case, said the litigation goes beyond the limits of Maryland law, or whatever states other cases are filed in.
“This Court holds that the U.S. Constitution’s federal structure does not allow the application of state court claims like those presented in the instant cases,” Judge Steven Platt wrote in tossing Annapolis’ case.
“The States such as Plaintiffs here… can participate in the efforts to limit emissions collaboratively, but not in the form of litigation… If states and municipalities [or] even private parties are dissatisfied with the federal rulemaking or the outcome of cases, they may seek federal court review.”

(The Center Square) – The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval in October of Enbridge permits for a reroute of Line 5 around the band’s reservation in Wisconsin.
The Band is hoping to block permits granted by the corps for a 41-mile reroute of the Line 5 pipeline in northern Wisconsin.
It has separately challenged permits approved by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and is waiting for a ruling in that case.
“For more than a decade, we have had to endure the unlawful trespass of a dangerous oil pipeline on our lands and waters,” Bad River Band Chairwoman Elizabeth Arbuckle said in a statement. “The reroute only makes matters worse. Enbridge’s history is full of accidents and oil spills. If that happens here, our Tribe and other communities in the Northwoods will suffer unacceptable consequences. From the Bad River to Lake Superior, our waters are the lifeblood of our Reservation. They have fed and nurtured our Tribe for hundreds of years. We will do everything in our power to protect them.”
The pipeline transports more than 500,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids each day through the reservation.
“This reroute will mean blasting, horizontal drilling, and trenching across hundreds of wetlands and streams,” Earthjustice Managing Attorney Gussie Lord said in a statement. “It will likely do permanent damage to the Band’s treaty-protected water, plants, and medicines – all for the enrichment of a foreign oil pipeline company.”

(The Center Square) – The K-12 education portion of Wisconsin property tax bills rose 7.8% this year, the largest rise in more than three decades, according to a new report.
That rise is due to a record number of school referenda approved along with actions in the past two state budgets, including Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto of an education funding item in the state budget. That led to a $325 per student per year funding increase for the next 400 years instead of just the next budget, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum report.
The K-12 tax bills are expected to rise a combined $476.1 million to $6.58 billion on December tax bills, according to the report and Department of Revenue estimates.
It’s the largest percentage increase in K-12 property tax bills since 1992 and a jump from the 5.7% increase a year ago. The K-12 costs on property tax bills are more than 50% of the property taxes collected statewide.
State lawmakers also put $500 million in increased aid in the state budget for special education reimbursements. Wisconsin public schools have added 3,300 staff members while enrollment dropped by 55,000 since 2016-2017, according to Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty Policy Director Kyle Koenen.
The K-12 property tax increase has become a major talking point in the upcoming race for Wisconsin governor. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany recently released a digital advertising initiative called “Don’t Fear the Mailman” related to those property tax increases.
“Even as public-school enrollment declines, property taxes continue to rise under Governor Evers’ 400-year property tax increase and growing administrative bloat in our schools,” Tiffany told The Center Square. “Per-pupil spending is at an all-time high in district-run schools, yet only 31% of fourth graders are reading at grade level. After 16 years of failed leadership by the so-called education governor, the system is failing, and Wisconsin families are paying more for worse outcomes.
“As governor, I will lower property taxes, put students and teachers first, cut administrative bloat, and demand results. We will raise standards, restore honest A-F report cards, and get back to the basics, because our kids and taxpayers deserve an education that prepares the next generation for success.”
Lawmakers are pushing a bill that would limit that increase to one school year, as lawmakers intended. It has passed the Senate and is moving through the Assembly but would have to be signed by the governor to become law.
Evers used his partial veto power to erase numbers and a hyphen to change “2024-25” to “2425” in a budget bill, a maneuver approved by the Wisconsin Supreme Court as legal in a 4-3 ruling.
The report showed that the county portion of property tax bills will rise 3.1% this year.

(The Center Square) – Homeowners across Wisconsin are finding much higher property tax bills in their mailboxes this month, and Republicans at the state capitol say second-term Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is to blame.
Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said people are seeing their property taxes jump by hundreds of dollars. He says it is largely due to Evers’ school funding increase that he vetoed into the last state budget.
“The huge increases in property taxes are a direct result of Tony Evers’ 400-year veto,” August told TCS.
Evers used his veto pen to change a one-year school funding increase in the 2024-25 state budget into a 400-year funding increase by erasing some of the numbers and punctuation from the budget, leaving the funding increase to run from 2023 to 2425.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld his veto.
August said as much as homeowners are paying this year, they need to get ready to pay more next year, and the year after that, and the years after that.
“Voters need to understand how much worse it would get under total Democrat control,” August said. “If Evers managed to single handedly raise property taxes this much, imagine how much they will go up if Mandela Barnes becomes governor with a liberal socialist Legislature. They have already said they’ll tear apart Act 10 which will lead to massive property tax increases as big government union bosses line their pockets off the backs of hardworking middle class property taxpayers who are already struggling to afford the basics.”
Barnes has said he supports ending Act 10, which rolled back how primarily teachers could negotiate their new contracts. Act 10 limited teachers to just negotiating over salaries, and capped salary increases to the rate of inflation.
Act 10, according to the MacIver Institute, has saved Wisconsin $35 billion since it became law back in 2011.
August and many other conservatives say if or when the Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes it down, those savings will be erased, and property taxes across the state will skyrocket.

(The Center Square) – Catholic Charities are to be granted religious exemption to unemployment taxes, the Wisconsin Supreme Courtruled Monday.
Attorney General Josh Kaul had asked the court to eliminate the exemption after the U.S. Supeme Court had ruled in June that Catholic Charities qualified.
Nineteen state attorneys general had supported the Catholic Charities case in a letter before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.
Monday’s order noted the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled on the case and sent further action on the case back to the Wisconsin bench to make further rulings that were consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Therefore, it wrote, Catholic Charities “is eligible for the religious purposes exemption to unemployment taxation” and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission to make Catholic Charities eligible for the exemption.
“After decades of fighting for a statutorily available religious exemption, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has affirmed the religious liberty of the Diocese of Superior Catholic Charities Bureau,” David Earleywine, Wisconsin Catholic Conference Associate Director for Education & Religious Liberty, said in a statement. “As the WCC has previously stated, true Catholic charity is inherently religious and cannot be reduced to another secular social service.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin all-terrain and utility task vehicle drivers now must follow Wisconsin laws on where they can drive the vehicles and must pay trail registration fees regardless of where the vehicle is registered.
The bill was recently signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers and it became Wisconsin Act 64.
The law requires any ATV or UTV to follow state law based upon how Wisconsin would classify the vehicle regardless of what the title says for the state where the vehicle is registered.
Lawmakers said the goal of the bill was to close a loophole where Wisconsin UTV and ATV owners would register a vehicle in South Dakota and Montana but drive it in Wisconsin.
“They’re contacting people in Wisconsin and saying ‘Hey, if you register your UTV to an LLC in Montana or South Dakota, we can license that as a motor vehicle, not as an ATV or UTV,’” sponsor Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, said during a public hearing on the bill. “And, because of that, they tell Wisconsin residents that you can now use this motor vehicle on any road in the state of Wisconsin.”
The current system of UTV and ATV routes and trails in the state and laws on using those vehicles are locally regulated and usage is determined on the local level.
The new law allows nonresidents access to all Wisconsin ATV and UTV trails and approved routes with a nonresident trail pass.
The registration system is a tax that allows ATV and UTV owners to pay their way by paying for the trail system, Wisconsin ATV Association President Randy Harden said during a public hearing. This means it is important that out-of-state vehicle owners also pay for using the system.

(The Center Square) – A trio of men from Chile who are believed to be illegally in the United States have been arrested and charged for a series of home burglaries in the Milwaukee suburbs.
All are being held in Waukesha County jail with hearings scheduled for Wednesday.
The men face multiple felony charges. Enjerbet A. Rojas Silva, Luciano A. Silva Cifuentes and Leandro F. Pino Uribe were all charged with burglary of a building or dwelling and possession of burglarious tools.
The Mequon Police Department sent out a warning about burglaries in November which alerted the public to coordinated property thefts at area homes during the early evening hours on Thursdays through Sundays.
“We are working closely with the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office and our other law enforcement partners to determine whether the individuals that were arrested by WCSO may be connected to the burglaries that occurred in the City of Mequon,” Mequon Police Operations Commander John Hoell told TCS on Monday. “Our priority is keeping the community informed while also ensuring a thorough and successful investigation. To protect the integrity of this ongoing work, no additional information is available at this time. We appreciate the community’s patience and cooperation.”
The criminal complaint said the investigation began with a home jewelry theft in Delafield where 100 pieces of jewelry were reported missing, according to the Waukesha Freeman.
Police were able to locate the subjects through a tower dump where they were able to identify phone numbers or devices used near the burglary sites.
A group of four international numbers appeared in both Delafield and Mequon during the burglaries, according to the complaint.
The numbers were found to move across the country regularly but were believed to originate in Florida, the newspaper reported.
The phone numbers and new phone numbers from the group were linked to burglaries in Mendota Heights and Edina along with Fox Point, De Pere and Middleton, according to the complaint.
A white Nissan Rogue believed by prosecutors to be driven by the suspects was found to travel regularly between Florida and Wisconsin. The group was then arrested Wednesday by Waukesha County Sheriff’s deputies along I-43 in Mukwonago.
The suspects were found with a Dewalt Sawzall, 13 red Diablo Sawzall blades, and 26 block radio antennas resembling those used in Wi-Fi signal jammers, along with window punchers similar to those used to break patio doors in the burglaries and multiple fraudulent IDs and passports, according to the newspaper.
Prior to publication, TCS was unsuccessful getting a copy of the criminal complaint by contacting the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office, district attorney’s office or clerk of the court.

(The Center Square) – Joel Brennan, candidate for Wisconsin governor, says he wants to continue tax policy as set by his former boss and predecessor.
“I’d like to make sure that we continue to do what we’ve done under the Evers administration, is to find ways to lower the tax burden for middle-class families,” Brennan said of second-term Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. “And I think that’s been one of the hallmarks of what Tony Evers has been able to do. I think one of the things we have to do is find rational, reasonable ways to raise revenue in the state, but also direct that revenue and invest in things that we consider to be our Wisconsin values.”
Brennan is one of seven Democratic candidates to succeed Evers. He served as Department of Administration chief under Evers from 2018-21. He is running as more of a moderate and also holding the Democratic line on second-term Republican President Donald Trump.
Brennan, in a broadcast interview, suggested he may be open to a tax on higher earners in the state. No specifics were offered in the exchange. And he is looking to roll back Act 10.
Conservatives supporters in the state say that would guarantee a wave of property tax increases.
“I think it all depends on who you end up doing this,” Brennan said about the chances that ending Act 10 would raise taxes. “You can’t just settle all the responsibility of what’s happening at the local level. There needs to be this level of partnership. We decided to put a target on the backs of public employees and on teachers, and I think now we’re having challenges in finding people to fill some of those roles that now have for the better part of 10 years, some real challenges that they’ve had to do in retaining and attracting people in those jobs.”
Brennan used his campaign announcement last week to promise to fight the president.
“I think every campaign is a campaign about Wisconsin,” Brennan said. “Is it about Donald Trump? Yes. Is it about standing up for Wisconsin? Absolutely.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to get involved in the former Donald Trump lawyer and Dane County Circuit Judge Jim Troupis, who is facing 11 felony charges in Wisconsin related to an alternate set of electors in the 2020 election.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Hyland denied Troupis’ motion to dismiss the charges, which Troupis claimed were the result of “blatant political bias.”
Troupis’ lawyer, Joseph Bugni, went on to question whether Hyland authored the ruling, instead believing the writing was actually authored by retired Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington.
Remington’s son is a law cleark for Hyland.
Hyland recently denied Bugni’s request to move the case to another county, stating that “no person other the assigned staff attorney and I had a hand in drafting or editing the decision.”
Bugni has cited a forensic linguistics expert from Georgetown University who he said analyzed the order and documents previously written by Judge Hyland and Judge Remington, concluding it was “highly likely from a linguistic perspective, that the [August 22 Court order] was written by Judge Remington, despite the fact that it is signed by Judge Hyland.”
“It is difficult to understand how Judge Hyland can make an impartial decision about Mr. Bugni’s allegations when he is directly implicated,” Johnson wrote in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Therefore, I respectfully request that the Department of Justice review Mr. Troupis’ case to determine whether any wrongdoing has occurred.”
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced charged in 2024 against Kenneth J. Chesebro, Michael A. Roman and Troupis for fraudulent writings and being “part of a conspiracy to present a certificate of purported electoral votes from individuals who were not Wisconsin’s duly appointed electors,” according to Kaul.

(The Center Square) – Many state labor laws in Wisconsn no longer apply to Minor League Baseball players after Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation to redefine what counts as minium wage overtime and record keeping.
The bill allows the state’s players on the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in Appleton and the Beloit Sky Carp to adhere to the rules of a 2023 collective bargaining agreement that runs through 2027 instead of being subject to reporting hours for their jobs.
Major League Baseball Senior Vice President of Government Relations Joshua Alkin explained in a public hearing on Senate Bill 374 that the legislation would allow players to receive housing benefits, club-provided meals, per diems on the road, highly subsidized health benefits, retirement benefits, salary continuation for disability resulting from work-related injury, tuition assistance and signing bonuses that are part of the CBA.
If the bill did not pass, teams would have to track all work-related activities for players and count rehab, any training and time spent at the ballpark or with the team toward overtime requirements.
“To be clear, we are not here because our collective bargaining agreement for Minor League players fails to meet state standards but because both MLB and the players’ own union believe that our negotiated compensation structure is more beneficial to the players and better fits their actual day-to-day experience,” Alkin said.
He explained that the minimum in-season salary for High A Minor League players is $920 per week, but that tracking hours would be difficult figuring out what counts and what doesn’t toward work hours.
“The experience of players is unique to hourly workers, who can only work at employers’ specified times,” Alkin said. “Indeed, Minor League players compete vigorously at and away from the ballpark to reach their dream of being called up to the major leagues, so it doesn’t benefit them to have their playing or practice time limited or access to club facilities and resources restricted due to having hourly worker status.”
Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana and New York have passed similar bills, noted sponsor Rep. Alex Dallman, R-Markesan.

(The Center Square) – Opening arguments are scheduled Monday for the Wisconsin judge accused of helping a person illegally in America evade federal authorities leaving her courtroom.
Two of 14 jurors – five women, nine men – are alternates to be dismissed prior to deliberations in the trial of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan. Prosecutors say she helped a suspect leave her courtroom to avoid detection by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Dugan is facing felony federal obstruction charges. Prosecutors say she confronted a pair of ICE agents in April while they waited outside her courtroom.
After speaking with the agents, and sending them away, a video shows Dugan return to her courtroom. Shortly after she returned, the same security video shows Eduardo Flores-Ruiz walk out the nonpublic, usually restricted side door of Dugan’s courtroom. He made his way to an elevator, and left the Milwaukee County courthouse complex.
A third ICE agent spotted Flores-Ruiz, and was able to eventually arrest him.
Duagn was indicted and arrested about a week later.
Lawyers have been instructed to avoid injecting feelings about second-term Republican President Donald Trump into the trial. The judge in the case has barred jurors from seeing some social media posts about Dugan made by Trump administration officials.
Flores-Ruiz eventually pleaded to both federal immigration violations, and the state charges that he was facing in Dugan’s court. As part of his plea deal, Flores-Ruiz agreed to be deported in November.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s prison managers say it took them a couple of hours to deal with the Slenderman Stabber’s broken ankle bracelet because they had hundreds of other calls that night.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections wrote to state lawmakers this week, explaining that the same night that Morgan Geyser cut her GPS ankle bracelet and ran from a Madison group home, they had 297 other alarms in just three hours.
“As you know, DOC takes very seriously our obligation to ensure to the policies and procedures we have in place, which are an important part of public safety. The results of that investigation will determine any further disciplinary actions that are necessary and, if so, how severe,” DOC Secretary Jared Hoy wrote to the lawmakers.
Three DOC workers have been placed on leave, though Hoy would not say if more could be.
Hoy said more than 250 of the alarms on the night that Geyser escaped were marked as “high priority.”
Hoy added that Geyser cut her ankle bracelet at 9:38 pm. He said it wasn’t until 11:34 pm that DOC staffers called the group home to see if Geyser was still there. However, it wasn’t until about 12 hours later that police in Madison were notified about her disappearance.
Geyser was missing for almost a full day before police in Illinois caught up with her behind a gas station.
Geyser was quickly arrested and brought back to Wisconsin. But where she is, for now, remains unclear.
Jail records in Waukesha County Wednesday showed that she is no longer being held there.
Geyser’s lawyer had asked the judge in her case to return her to the state mental hospital where she spent nearly a decade for the Slenderman Stabbing.
The state’s Department of Health Services, which runs the mental hospital, has not yet confirmed if Geyser is there.
Geyser was originally sentenced to 40 years in the mental hospital for the Slenderman Stabbing, after her escape it remains unclear as to whether she will have to finish that full sentence.