Today’s announcement of a budget agreement that begins to address priorities like delivering cost savings for working families, supporting public schools and child care, and investing in health care is a testament to the hard work and dedication of Governor Evers and legislative Democrats.
We stand in solidarity with UW nurses and SEIU Wisconsin in their pursuit of collective bargaining rights and the freedom to have a say in their workplace, and we applaud them for standing up and demanding their basic workplace rights be honored and recognized.
In a 5-2 ruling released this morning, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided that Wisconsinites deserve clean water and corporate polluters who contaminate our waterways must be held accountable under the law.
With one just week to go until the end of the state’s fiscal year and the deadline to pass a new state budget, Republican state lawmakers have no scheduled meetings for the budget writing Joint Committee on Finance and no action scheduled in either the Senate or Assembly to debate or vote on a state budget bill. The lack of legislative action comes on the heels of Senate Republicans walking out of budget talks with Gov. Tony Evers for a second time late last week.
On the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, and as polling continues to show that a majority of Wisconsin voters support safe and legal abortion care, A Better Wisconsin Together is urging Wisconsin Republicans to listen to their constituents and end their relentless attacks on our reproductive rights once and for all.
As we celebrate today, we also are reminded that the work is not done. From attempts to ban the Juneteenth flag from being flown in Wisconsin and censor what can be taught in our public schools, to scrubbing Black history from government websites and signing an executive order attacking the Museum of African American History, Trump and his Republican allies in Wisconsin are blatantly trying to erase Black history, undo the progress made, and stifle the progress yet to come.
Instead of respecting our fundamental freedom to voice our opinions or doing their job to pass a state budget, Republicans in the state Senate are looking to use our government as a weapon against their fellow Wisconsinites.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court today unanimously struck down part of a partisan Republican power grab adopted by the state legislature in their unprecedented post-election sore loser session in December 2018. Today’s action by the state high court reverses the earlier decision authored by right-wing Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, and joined by Judge Shelley Grogan, to uphold the GOP’s actions.
In a social media post yesterday, Republican state Senator and former state Senate President Chris Kapenga expressed both his opposition to a budget plan being crafted by his fellow Republicans and his preference to go without any state budget for the next two years. Kapenga joins his colleague Sen. Steve Nass, one of the longest currently serving legislative Republicans, in calling for a budget boycott.
We are heartbroken for the families and loved ones of the victims of the targeted, apparently politically motivated violence that occurred in Minnesota. The loss of life is tragic and we condemn the abhorrent violence directed at public servants.