The Assembly passed a bill that would spend $50 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act money on a loan to a cooperative buy the Verso paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids. Lawmakers voted 63-35 on AB 367, which would allow the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to loan Consolidated Cooperative $50

Assembly lawmakers approved along party lines a bill that would put in place guidelines on how the state should handle lawsuit settlements from opioid manufacturers. The bill would require any settlements on the suit between the AG and local governments and opioid manufacturers, marketers or distributors to first be approved

The Assembly today passed by voice vote a bill that would define use-of-force for police policies and require officers to report colleagues who use excessive force. Lawmakers voted 60-38 to add an amendment to SB 120 that adjusted when officers are required to intervene in instances of excessive force and

The Assembly voted today to send Gov. Tony Evers a bill requiring municipalities to record any broadcast of their canvassing proceedings. Rep. Kristina Shelton, D-Green Bay, raised concerns about using services like YouTube to save broadcasts for future viewing. While free, YouTube is not a viable service for saving long

The Assembly voted today to send a bill to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk that would require indefinitely confined voters to apply for absentee ballots annually. Indefinitely confined voters can currently receive automatic absentee ballots indefinitely. State law defines an indefinitely confined voter as a person “confined because of age, physical

The Assembly today voted 60-38 along party lines to send to Gov. Tony Evers’ a bill that would change regulations on absentee voting in nursing homes and residential care facilities. The bill would require election administrators to provide notice of the dates and times when special voting deputies will be

The Assembly today voted to send to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk a bill that would cut shared revenue payments to municipalities that cut funding for law enforcement. The bill, passed on a 61-37 vote, would make the reduced shared revenue the amount the municipality would receive going forward. The bill

The Assembly along party lines has sent to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk a bill that would create new criminal penalties for election officials. The bill would make officials subject to a $10,000 fine or up to three-and-a-half years in prison if they were found to have, among other things, failed

The Assembly passed along party lines a bill today that would delay redrawing of boundaries for city councils and county boards until just before 2023 elections. Under AB369, the February 2022 primary and April 2022 general election for local offices would be held under current maps drawn in 2011. Speaker

The Assembly today passed a bill banning businesses and government entities from requiring vaccination passports to prove people have been inoculated against COVID-19. Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, said the bill would interfere with business’ operations and could be harmful to public health. Spreitzer added the government should not tell businesses

The Assembly today approved a series of bills to overhaul police policies, including one to ban chokeholds except in self-defense or when an officer’s life is in danger. That bill was one of four heading to the desk of Gov. Tony Evers, who has said while he wished the bills

The Assembly passed along party lines two bills that would ban transgender student-athletes from participating in girl’s or women’s school sports. One of the bills would ban transgender girls who were designated male at birth from competing in Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association girls’ sports categories. But it would still allow

Wisconsin would overhaul its policies for absentee ballots, indefinitely confined voters and the use of drop boxes under bills that cleared the state Senate today. The Senate also voted to ban the use of private money to cover the costs of an election. Many of the provisions in the four

Both houses of the Legislature today voted along party lines to end enhanced federal unemployment benefits even as Gov. Tony Evers has signaled he will veto the bill. Assembly Republicans acknowledged that ending the extra $300 a week in UI wouldn’t be a silver bullet to address the state’s labor

The state Senate voted today to punish communities that reduce their spending on law enforcement, restrict the use of chokeholds by police officers and require officers to report colleagues who use excessive force. SB 121, which would restrict the use of chokeholds except in life-threatening situations or in self-defense, passed

Gov. Tony Evers, rebuffed multiple times by Republican lawmakers over expanding Medicaid, today announced a special session to take up covering an additional 90,000 Wisconsinites through the program. To up the pressure on GOP lawmakers to accept expansion, Evers announced $850 million in projects, including economic development work, he said

The Senate voted to rework the makeup of police and fire commissions in the state’s two largest cities and changed reporting requirements for use-of-force incidents as part of a package to overhaul law enforcement policies in Wisconsin. The bill reworking police and fire commission policies was first introduced in 2017.

The Assembly passed today a bill that would bar local governments from using private money to cover election costs. The bill passed along party lines in a 60-36, sending it to the Senate. The Senate previously passed a similar bill by voice vote. But that amended version would ban donations

— The Assembly passed in a 60-36 vote a bill that would qualify more students for school vouchers.   The bill, now in the Senate, would change the income cap from 220 percent of the federal poverty level to 300 percent for families who want to enroll in the Wisconsin

The Assembly has passed a bill requiring the playing or singing of the national anthem at sporting events where at least some taxpayer money was used to finance the event facility. Under the bill, which moved to the Senate after a 74-22 vote for passage, no sporting event may be