Welcome to our weekly DC Wrap, where we write about Wisconsin’s congressional delegation. Sign up here to receive the newsletter directly.

Quotes of the week

Trump and Republicans’ bill will be bad news for your health care. Medicaid is being cut. Health insurance premiums jacked up. Slashing funding for rural hospitals. All to fund tax breaks for corporations.When it comes to the Senate floor, I will be voting NO.
– U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, on the reconciliation bill. 

I don’t want it to come to that. I want to work with this president. I want to see him succeed. I want to see America succeed. I want us to stop mortgaging our children’s future, and that’s the promise I made in my three elections. I’m happy to engage on the conversation. I just can’t support something that actually increases the deficit, and that is what’s going to happen right now as the bill is currently written.
– U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, on the reconciliation bill. 

This week’s news

— Wisconsin Medicaid Director Bill Hanna said he expects about 63,000 out of the 1.3 million Wisconsin Medicaid recipients will be impacted by new regulations in the reconciliation bill, and potentially lose their coverage. 

“This is a disruption to the health care ecosystem, not only in Wisconsin, but across the country,” Hanna said on a WisPolitics Capitol Chats podcast, adding this would cost the state $8 million in the first year of implementation. 

Hanna said the bill from Congress would require eligibility checks every six months, up from once a year. He said this will essentially double the workload, not only for the Department of Health Services, but also individual counties that do this work. 

Another impact Hanna named was adding back the work requirement. He said other states that have done this have not seen a real change in employment numbers. 

 ”The federal regulations are really just more red tape and make it harder for people to maintain their coverage,” Hanna said.

Hanna said this will also cost health care providers, who may need to foot the bill for those who lose coverage and cannot pay. He said providers will then have to raise costs, which will be passed to others seeking care. 

Listen to the interview here. 

— Dem Rep. Mark Pocan has held his fourth town hall in GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s district this session. 

Pocan, who represents Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District, has been attacking President Donald Trump’s policies and the Prairie du Chien Republican Van Orden for not speaking with his 3rd CD constituents at in-person town halls. 

At his most recent town hall on May 31 in Eau Claire, Pocan slammed the Republican reconciliation bill and heard concerns about cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and education. 

“Derrick was a no-show,” Pocan said on X after the event. “People showed up worried about cuts to Medicaid, ACA health care plans, food assistance, education & more. They don’t want a big tax cut for Musk and Trump. Hope Derrick hears them.” 

The Farmers Union hosted the first in February in Chippewa Falls, inviting both Pocan and Van Orden. Pocan spoke to about 75 farmers, and Van Orden did not attend. 

Pocan’s office told WisPolitics that the liberal group Opportunity Wisconsin, a nonpartisan issue advocacy organization, has invited Pocan to the other three. Pocan went to Virocqua in March and spoke with 300 constituents, and to La Crosse in April and spoke to 350 people. 

Pocan has criticized DOGE, the budget process and reconciliation at these town halls. And he has repeatedly criticized Van Orden on X for not attending. 

Van Orden criticized Pocan in an email statement to WisPolitics.

“Mr. Pocan spends more time in the Third Congressional District than the one he represents, and I always welcome a new constituent,” Van Orden said.

Opportunity Wisconsin Program Director Meghan Roh told WisPolitics they started inviting Pocan to the 3rd Congressional District because Van Orden denied multiple invitations to speak in person with constituents. Roh said Opportunity Wisconsin thought constituents should hear from someone in Congress.

“I really felt like it was almost a no-brainer for us to start doing these events because I don’t know that there’s been a time in recent history where legislation is going to so deeply impact Wisconsin workers and families,” Roh said.

Roh said the town halls came from a combination of Van Orden’s vote on the reconciliation bill that would cut food assistance for Wisconsinites and his lack of in-person constituent meetings. 

“I really don’t know what his excuse is for not showing up especially when he is making the deciding vote on really harmful legislation.” 

The Republican National Campaign Committee had told Republican members of Congress not to hold in person town halls in March after Republicans in multiple states had encountered constituents protesting. 

Van Orden has held livestreamed town halls since the directive, but Roh argued the questions are “clearly” pre-vetted.

— Wisconsin’s six GOP House members and Republican state lawmakers want the state Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit asking the justices to redraw congressional lines.

And the six members of Congress want liberal Justice Janet Protasiewiciz to recuse herself from the case after comments she made during her 2023 race about the maps. 

The GOP legislators were among those who met a Friday deadline to indicate whether they wanted to weigh in on a lawsuit that argues the current districts failed to adhere to standards requiring the districts to have identical populations. That would be six districts with 736,715 people and two with 736,714. But some districts when drawn had 736,716 people. The suit, filed by the Campaign Legal Center, also argues the congressional map improperly split counties. 

The court has also received a second lawsuit asking to overturn the congressional maps, calling them partisan gerrymanders. The deadline is later this week to weigh in on that case.

The Elections Commission, which is the defendant in both cases, on Thursday indicated it takes no position on whether the court should accept the first suit. The agency wrote its primary concern is that any litigation is wrapped up in time to effectively administer “the 2026 election calendar.” The commission noted in past redistricting suits, it has explained that maps need to be in place no later than March of an election year for staff to be able to implement them.

— Dem U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore said their tour of Wisconsin’s only Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility did not yield much information. 

Pocan, of the town of Vermont, said Sheriff Dale Schmidt, who leads the Dodge County facility, was accommodating, but could not give them much information without ICE clearance. 

“Without ICE either picking up the phone or not disconnecting or blocking their number or being there on premises, we really couldn’t get some of the answers we would have liked for going into a facility,” Pocan said at a virtual press conference following their visit on Monday. 

Officials locked down the facility in the areas Pocan and Moore walked through including a walk into an empty cell. 

Moore, of Milwaukee, said she wanted to see Ramon Morales Reyes, who Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused of threatening President Donald Trump in a letter. Moore said Morales Reyes was falsely accused. She said the sheriff did not allow them to see inmates because they didn’t have an appointment. 

Pocan said they tried to call ahead with ICE. The contact in Milwaukee disconnected, and the contact in Chicago did not return Pocan’s call, he said.  

— Local prosecutors have accused a Milwaukee man facing robbery charges of forging letters threatening to kill President Donald Trump in an effort to have an undocumented immigrant deported so he couldn’t testify at trial.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week posted a picture of a letter federal officials received to tout the arrest of Ramon Morales Reyes and accusing him of threatening to kill the president. Reyes was arrested by federal immigration officials after his name appeared on the return address of letters threatening Trump.

But questions about the arrest of Reyes emerged shortly after her post. 

Now, the Milwaukee County DA’s office has charged Demetric Scott, of Milwaukee, of forging letters to AG Josh Kaul, Milwaukee Police and federal immigration officials.

According to the complaint, released Monday, Scott faced a July 14 trial on charges of armed robbery and aggravated battery of Reyes.

Scott now faces additional felony charges for sending the letters, including identity theft, bail jumping and witness intimidation.

Posts of the week

ICYMI

Fox News: Sen. Ron Johnson proposes ‘line-by-line’ cuts to pass Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

Wisconsin Examiner: Pocan holds town hall in Van Orden’s district, calls GOP budget the worst he’s ever seen

Wisconsin Public Radio: “It’s all a game:” Rep. Gwen Moore on federal spending and tax bill

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Elon Musk’s involvement in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race irked Trump, new report says

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