(The Center Square) – An education advocacy group has filed a federal Title IX civil rights complaint with The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over access to gender-specific restrooms on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The complaint says that policy allows for male students to access female restrooms if they choose and tells female students to instead use a limited number of single-occupancy restrooms if they are not comfortable with it.
The lawsuit from Defending Education says that the policy in question states “students, staff, faculty, and visitors have the right to use the restroom, locker room, shower, or changing facility most safe and comfortable for them, without being harassed or questioned, regardless of gender expression or sex assigned at birth.”
Defending Education says that it is an organization that aims to protect students “from activists imposing harmful agendas.”
“While many female students feel unsafe or uncomfortable sharing restrooms with students of the opposite sex, UW-Madison guidance explicitly dismisses these students’ concerns,” the complaint states.
Attempts by The Center Square to reach UW-Madison for comment were unsuccessful.

(The Center Square) – Mobile sports wagering across Wisconsin took another step forward on Wednesday when a bill allowing the state’s tribes to take wagers anywhere in the state passed the Assembly Committee on State Affairs.
Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia, noted testimony from Sports Betting Alliance Counsel Damon Stewart, who said that a requirement that 60% of the gross revenue from mobile sports wagering under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act would be too high of a cost for top national brands such as DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Fanatics and Bet365.
Wittke said that he believes Wisconsin is better served sticking with the current proposal and having the state’s tribes operate sports wagering in the state.
The argument against that is by limiting which operators can offer wagers in the state, the most competitive promos, lines and technology as well as the widest variety of wagering options, such as prop bets, won’t always be available.
“While we support the goal of legal online sports betting in Wisconsin, this bill will only result in limited choices for consumers with no national brands, no chance for all Wisconsin tribes to actively participate in the market, no ability to make a dent in the illegal market that already exists in the state, and years of litigation that will hold up implementation of legal sports betting in Wisconsin,” Stewart wrote in his testimony.
The proposal would create a technical exception to the term “bet” in Wisconsin law by not counting mobile sports wagers that were conducted through a sportsbook with servers located on tribal land as one of those banned “bets.”
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty issued a memo on the bills Tuesday, saying it believes the laws are unlawful and explained the reasoning, starting with a state law that the Legislature cannot pass a law to allow for gambling in the state and because IGRA prevents creating a tribal gambling monopoly off reservation.
The memo also says the 14th Amendment prevents creating a race-based monopoly like the tribal gaming approval.
“These legal issues are significant,” the WILL memo says. “In our view, if passed, these bills would likely be struck down. Furthermore, litigation over these bills would result in intense judicial scrutiny of Wisconsin’s entire gambling apparatus, not just the subject matter presented by these bills.”
Jeff Crawford, attorney general for the Forest County Potawatomi Community, noted during testimony at a public hearing that the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks and Green Bay Packers are supportive of Wisconsin expanding its tribe-based mobile sports wagering statewide.
He said that the tribes take offense that SBA insinuated that the tribes could not properly handle the technology of statewide mobile sports wagering.
Crawford said that estimates show there were $150 million in offshore or illegal sports wagers placed by Wisconsin consumers in 2018, that exploded to $1 billion worth in 2024 and it is projected to only expand from there.

(The Center Square) – Eau Claire’s City Council approved an increase in its wheel tax from $24 to $50 at a Tuesday night meeting, making it the largest wheel tax in the state.
A wheel tax is a local fee added to vehicle registration costs in the state, with nearly half of the state’s municipalities now having wheel taxes after just four had them in 2010.
Overall, wheel taxes will cost taxpayers $70 million in 2025, according to a new report from Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Along with Eau Claire, new wheel taxes were recently approved in Fitchburg, Oshkosh, Sun Prairie and Wauwatosa. The taxes are in addition to Wisconsin’s $85 registration fee.
In 2015, wheel taxes raised $10 million. The taxes then grew rapidly through 2021, then the growth slowed until 2025, when wheel taxes went up 12% statewide, according to the report.
“In many communities, leaders of local governments such as the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County will have to make difficult decisions about whether to make the kinds of investments needed to repair aging streets and maintain transit services despite rising costs,” the report said. “Local wheel taxes could help meet these needs, but policymakers and voters will have to weigh the benefits against the costs.”
Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, recently introduced legislation that would require local officials to ask voters to approve a wheel tax.
“This doesn’t take away options from local governments, but it does require local officials to make their case directly to the people and ensures taxpayers have the final say at the ballot box,” Hutton said.

(The Center Square) – The criticism continues to roll in for Wisconsin’s
new school report cards.
The state’s Department of Public Instruction released the report cards from
last year Tuesday. DPI said the report cards show that more than 90% of schools in Wisconsin got passing grades.
“Of the 378 public school districts receiving report cards, 355 (94%) met, exceeded, or significantly exceeded expectations,” DPI said in its report card announcement.
But some education reformers, including the Institute for Reforming Government, said that 94% number is misleading.
“DPI’s state report cards say rich districts are worth the property taxes, even when they aren’t, and poor districts meet expectations, even when they don’t. Meanwhile, DPI underrates many of Wisconsin’s best districts,” IRG’s Quinton Klabon said.
He added to the criticism on social media.
“DPI’s report cards measure poverty, not quality,” he wrote. “There is not a single 1-star district. [In fact] 51% of schools are 4 or 5 stars, up from 2024.”
IRG said that discrepancy punishes some districts that do a good job teaching students to read, write and do math.
“DPI says lower-poverty, low-performing districts like Lodi, Lake Mills, and Saint Croix are 4 or even 5 stars. Even worse, DPI says higher poverty, high-performing districts like Wisconsin Dells, Sheboygan, and Janesville are just 3 stars,” the Institute said in a statement.
The IRG said DPI has lowered the bar by changing what it means to “meet” expectations, or become a 5 star district, Klabon said that has left parents with a false sense of how well their kids’ schools are doing.
“Parents should not have to play a guessing game about where their children can learn best,” Klabon added.

(The Center Square) — Most schools in Wisconsin received passing grades in the state’s latest round of report cards, a process that generated more criticism as the grades were released.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday said report cards for every school in the state showed that more than 90 percent passed.
“Of the 378 public school districts receiving report cards, 355 (94%) met, exceeded, or significantly exceeded expectations,” the department said. “Among the 436 private schools participating in a Private School Choice Program, 161 (85% of scored Choice report cards) met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations.”
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty Research Director Will Flanders, an advocate of voucher schools, said that comparison doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Private choice and charter schools remain bright spots,” Flanders wrote on X. “Choice schools in (Milwaukee) saw proficiency rates 10-11% higher than public schools when key control variables are considered. Charters saw higher performance in (Milwaukee) in both reading & math and higher in reading outstate.”
Flanders said the report makes it look like a lot of public schools are doing better than they really are.
“DPI continues to try to hide the ball on student outcomes, but they have failed to do so here. Despite absurd ratings like schools with less than 15% proficiency ‘exceeding expectations,’ very real achievement and achievement gap problems persist,” Flanders added.
The new numbers are the first since the department changed its benchmarks for local schools in recent years.
The Department of Public Instruction has said the new grading system was determined by a 26-member advisory committee that works with the contracted Center for Assessment, leaving DPI out of the decision-making process.
The latest report card information can be found here. It includes a search tool for school districts and individual schools.

(The Center Square) — Chris Lindner knows the possibility of his Loyal School District consolidating with Greenwood in Clark County has plenty of people paying attention.
School consolidations in Wisconsin, now a rarity, could increase if his is successful.
“It very well could be a pendulum swing,” Lindner told Wisconsin’s Assembly Committee on Education during a public hearing Tuesday on five school consolidation bills.
The measures are aimed at helping school districts use consolidation to combat decreased enrollments and aging buildings across the state. Public school enrollment in Wisconsin is expected to decline by 200,000 students by 2050. The state has seen an estimated 10,000 fewer students each year.
Sponsors of the bills emphasized they are based on supporting voluntary consolidation for districts.
Included in the bills is a statewide consolidation and feasibility study supported by leaders of Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. They said a study hasn’t been done since the 1960s and would provide a road map for what the state’s 421 districts could look like and which areas have the potential to benefit from consolidation.
If done quickly, the study could be expensive but could answer questions on “how do we sync some of these things up,” said DPI Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy.
There is no estimate for the cost of a statewide study. Lindner said his district paid $12,000 for an individual district consolidation report.
McCarthy said the state had 7,000 school districts in the 1920s, reduced to 4,000 in the 1940s and further to 800 in 1950s and 1960s as K-8 districts and unified high schools consolidated in many areas.
The state’s last school consolidation came in 2018, when two districts combined to create the Holy Hill School District in Richfield.
McCarthy said two-thirds of the state’s school districts are experiencing declining enrollment and 75% of the state’s students are being educated in the largest 100 districts in the state, while 53% of school districts have less than 1,000 students.
“We need a toolset for our districts,” said Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie.
The consolidation bills would give districts an additional $2,000 per student for the first year after consolidating; a $25,000 grant to conduct its own consolidation or shared services study; grants for districts that consolidate but have differing levy limits; and school board consolidation grants of $500 per student for whole grade sharing.
Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, said some districts are considering consolidation or whole grade sharing, and the incentives could provide an impetus to make it happen.
“I don’t expect them to be out there begging for this,” Kitchens said, but noted that many districts also “recognize that this is going to be necessary.”
Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, said consolidation isn’t feasible for some of the smaller districts in her area because of the logistics of wide-spread school districts and transportation, noting she can drive 3 ½ hours from one end of her legislative district to the other.

(The Center Square) – A group of bills dubbed the Red Tape Reset are on the move after passing a Senate committee with a 3-2 vote on a party line.
The set of bills include regulatory sunsetting, regulatory budgeting, a one rule per scope statement and a proposal challenging the validity of administrative rules.
The bills were the subject of an Oct. 9 joint public hearing on regulatory reform.
“When agencies are creating new regulations that raise costs, they’ll have to offset them,” said Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin. “This is really about accountability and restoring balance.”
The bill aims to cut down on the 165,000 restrictions currently in state law with the sunsetting bill requiring all chapters of administrative code be reviewed, updated or allowed to expire every seven years.
“Red tape hurts real people,” Bradley said. “… The bills in the red tape are just going to clear the path so that they can move forward.”
The budgeting bill requires any new administrative code regulation with an economic impact to be offset by the repeal or revision of existing regulations of equal or greater impact.
The single scope bill blocks allowing agencies to use a single scope statement to create multiple regulations over time.
The challenge bill would require courts to award attorney fees and costs to plaintiffs who successfully challenge unlawful administrative rules.
The bills come as a Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty study estimated that a 20% reduction in regulatory restrictions in the state would increase Wisconsin’s economy by $23 billion by 2037.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Democratic U.S. Senator is not on board with the plan that could reopen the federal government.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin took to social media late Sunday night to explain her “no” vote on the Senate agreement.
“A wink and a nod to deal with this health care crisis later – with no actual guarantees – is just not enough for me or the Wisconsin families I work for,” Baldwin wrote. “I refuse to sign off on a deal that doesn’t lower working families’ health care costs.”
Eight Senate Democrats voted Sunday night to move forward with a plan. The vote did not open the government, but it shows that there is support from Democrats on Capitol Hill to do so, possibly by the end of the week.
Baldwin has voted against every Senate attempt to reopen the government. She has blamed President Donald Trump for the shutdown for weeks.
“Donald Trump could have avoided all of this if he had chosen not to use hungry families as a bargaining chip,” Baldwin wrote on X on Thursday. “Thankfully, a judge stepped in and is making him fully fund SNAP. The President needs to listen to the court – millions of hungry families are relying on it.”
Wisconsin’s two Democratic members of Congress, Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore, were silent Sunday about the Senate vote.
Green Bay-area Republican Congressman Tony Wied, however, was not.
“Even after her more reasonable colleagues came to a deal, @SenatorBaldwin is getting ready to vote ONCE AGAIN to keep our government closed and continue to hurt our service members, farmers, federal employees, and families in need,” Wied wrote on X. “Wisconsinites deserve so much better.”

(The Center Square) – The Town of Palmyra board violated Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Act on five occasions, a Jefferson County judge recently ruled.
The claims ranged from Town Board supervisors Rob Martens and Josh Gajewski discussing town business over email instead of at a board meeting, discussing the lease of a Bobcat to the Town Airport at a meeting without that item appearing on the agenda and going into closed session three times without sufficient notice of the reason, including twice to interview town attorney candidates when those interviews should not have been done in closed session.
The case was brought by the Wisconsin Transparency Fund on behalf of former board member Weenonah Brattset.
“The judge said the Town was ‘categorically noncompliant’ with the Meetings Law,” explained Tom Kamenick, President and Founder of the Wisconsin Transparency Projec. “He said he had ‘no difficulty’ concluding that they broke the law.”
Brattset was awarded $35,000 in attorney fees and court costs while forfeitures were issued against Town Board chair Frank Sauter ($300) and both Martens ($350) and Gajewski ($250).
“As a new Palmyra Town Board member 10 years ago, I too failed to follow Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law when I requested that an item be placed on the agenda that did not fully apprise the public of the subject of the discussion,” Brattset said in a statement. “I pleaded ‘no contest,’ paid my fine, and paid the court costs at no cost to town taxpayers.
“Through that experience, I learned that meeting laws are clear and not difficult to follow.”
A sixth complaint is set to go to trial where Sauter and Martens allegedly met with the chair of the Airport Commission to discuss the Bobcat in what would be considered an unnoticed meeting of the Town Board.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said this week that it will lower its proposed increases to fees related to items such as animal markets, animal dealers and animal trucker licenses as receiving large pushback to the change.
Much of that pushback came through the efforts of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau and Americans for Prosperity – Wisconsin, which organized informational campaigns about the fee increases and AFP delivered hundreds of letters opposing the increases during the public comment portion of the new rulemaking led by AFP Grassroots Engagement Director Nicole Tyc.
One example of the DATCP changes was increasing a livestock market fee from $420 to $7,430. The trucker license fees went from $60 to $370 and animal dealer fees from $220 to $670.
The changes came following a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that blocked legislators from oversight on rulemaking with Gov. Tony Evers telling agencies to bypass having rules heard in committee and instead simply enact them.
DATCP did not present a new proposed fee schedule but said it would be “an inflationary adjustment to account for the roughly 17 years since the fees were last adjusted.”
“DATCP appreciates the many stakeholders and interested parties who engaged in this public comment process for proposed revisions to ATCP 10 and 12,” DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski said in a statement. “Once the public comment period closed, DATCP expeditiously reviewed the comments and began work on substantial modifications to the rules, including significantly reducing the proposed fees that fund these important animal health programs. Wisconsin farmers and businesses rely on these animal health programs, and it’s important that DATCP work with the industry to find a sustainable way to fully fund them.”
Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, introduced Senate Bill 622 to keep the fees the same as they were in December 2024 and take away DATCP’s power to establish fees for animal market licenses, animal dealer licenses, animal trucker licenses and animal transport vehicle registrations.
“Our rural and agricultural communities deserve better,” AFP-WI State Director Megan Novak said when the petitions were delivered. “These fee increases are yet another example of the Administration’s top-down approach that puts a burden on our neighbors, friends, and families. AFP-WI will continue to hold the Evers/Rodriguez Administration accountable to protect Wisconsin’s economy and the livelihoods of our hardest-working citizens.”

(The Center Square) – One Wisconsin lawmaker wants people to know just how much they are paying in taxes the next time they fill up.
Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, introduced legislation that would have the state add gas tax price stickers to pumps across the state.
“While the final price is clearly visible, the components of that cost are often a mystery to consumers,” Allen said.
Wisconsin charges 32.9 cents per gallon in gas taxes, and the federal government charges another 18.4 cents per gallon. Allen said it is important for people to understand that more than 51 cents per gallon of gas goes toward the government.
“[This would] provide the public with information and ensure they understand exactly where their hard-earned money is going, especially the significant portion dedicated to funding our roads and infrastructure. We believe drivers deserve a clearer picture,” Allen added.
Allen says his plan would not cost gas stations across Wisconsin anything.
His legislation orders the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to print the gas tax stickers, then would use state inspectors to get them on the pumps.
“State or municipal weights and measures inspectors will be required to affix this sticker to the face of every motor vehicle fuel pump during their regular inspection process,” the legislation states.
State Sen. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, is the Senate sponsor of the plan.
“We believe transparency is a fundamental pillar of good government,” Jacque said. “This is a straightforward step to provide the public with a better understanding of gas pricing, making the process seamless and ensuring our consumers are fully informed every time they fill up.”
The plan now heads to lawmakers for co-sponsors. After that it will likely be sometime next spring before the legislation gets a hearing and sees its first votes at the statehouse.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin spent at least $160,000 to send Gov. Tony Evers, his wife and several staff members and security along with former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes and WEDC staff to Germany and France earlier this year, according to documents acquired through public records requests by The Center Square.
The costs included $69,000 for a chauffeur and limousine service, nearly $19,000 to AHP International for consulting and printed materials related to the trip and a nearly $3,200 group welcome dinner at Zucker restaurant in Braunschweig, Germany.
The expenses also included $1,600 for a VIP service that greeted Evers and his wife during layovers at the Paris and London airports with a personalized name sign, luggage assistance and moving through the airports and customs from a company called Fastrack.
The expenses also included a $182 staff lunch that Hughes purchased that didn’t include a receipt and instead had a “lost” receipt for saying the expense was from a restaurant in Wiesbaden, Germany.
The expenses included per diem food costs for trip participants along with Madison airport parking, seat upgrades and extra bags on the flights.
Evers’ office and the WEDC did not respond to multiple attempts over multiple months to seek comment related to the trip, starting when WEDC produced a press release on the trip on April 1.
The WEDC took nearly seven months to produce the records from the trip.
John Mozena is the president of the Center of Economic Accountability and recently testified about the value of overseas economic development trips in a committee meeting discussing the topic in Michigan.
“These economic development subsidy programs run all too often not as economic tools but as political tools, a way for elected officials to essentially get taxpayers to fund re-election advertising on the cheap,” Mozena said. “These things aren’t being done to create jobs, they’re being done to make voters believe that you’re responsible for creating jobs.
“These international trips are a way for governors and other elected or high ranking officials to get a nice trip on the taxpayer dime but also to show how hard they’re working, supposedly, when in fact the real issues that companies are … sitting back at home not being addressed.”
Mozena noted that face-to-face meetings with governors and economic development officials are not an essential part of bringing businesses to states and cited a survey from Area Development magazine of U.S. business site selectors showing that state and local incentives were the ninth most important factor behind things such as energy availability and cost, workforce availability, available land, skilled labor and regulatory environment.
“They don’t do nearly as much as the folks that go on them would like to have everyone believe,” Mozena said, noting that the trips always seem to be to nice places where he and tourists would also visit “but I’m paying for it and not letting the taxpayers do it.
He also noted that meeting a governor isn’t really a big or important meeting for a multi-national corporation.
Evers’ office and the WEDC did not respond to questions on how the trip was paid for but the WEDC’s budget plan summary includes $900,000 for trade missions and foreign direct investment that it says includes trips planned to Japan, Canada, Mexico and Germany.
Hughes has since resigned her post and is currently running for governor while touting her economic development work, including Foxconn in Pleasant Prairie, which is now set to be a pair of data centers within tax increment districts.
“I had to come in and clean up that mess,” Hughes reportedly said at a Thursday morning candidate forum.
“I think Foxconn is the perfect example of the problems and dangers and limitations of this kind of thing,” Mozena said. “Foxconn is easily the highest profile international economic deal that Wisconsin’s ever had and it’s a disaster.”
Mozena said that he isn’t sold that placing data centers on those properties is a taxpayer win either.
“If you were trying to design the dumbest possible thing to subsidize, it would be a data center,” Mozena said. “… They are these big, dark buildings where virtually nobody works. Most of the high-value work at those facilities isn’t being doing by people on-site, it’s being done programmers in Silicon Valley or Shanghai or Mumbai or someplace like that.”