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Paul Melotik: A responsible budget that works for all Wisconsinites
This budget reflects a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility while making important investments that will improve the quality of life for all Wisconsinites.

Mark Belling: State GOP leaders celebrate a state budget battle they didn’t win
Evers didn’t get all he wanted but GOP didn’t get much at all.

David Blaska: Why are people fleeing Gov. Pritzker’s state?
Madison progressives can ask him soon.

Ruth Conniff: U.S. Rep. Van Orden blusters, boasts and misleads after gutting health care for Wisconsinites
Contrary to Van Orden’s triumphant tweets, he did not “secure” $1 billion for rural health care in Wisconsin.

Carter Zahn: I collapsed on basketball court at 16. Wisconsin must pass school cardiac response bill.
Let’s not wait for another tragedy. Every school in America should have a plan. Every staff member should know their role. Every student and educator should be part of a culture of readiness.

Book excerpt: ‘Forward for the People: The Autobiography of America’s Longest Serving Legislator,’ by Fred Risser and Doug Moe
The following is and excerpt from Forward for the People: The Autobiography of America’s Longest Serving Legislator, by former Wisconsin state Sen. Fred Risser and Doug Moe, © 2025 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Reprinted with permission. Chapter

Alex Dallman: Delivering results for Wisconsin
This was a budget with intense negotiations and compromises from both sides. But Legislative Republicans remained principled and ensured we delivered a budget with conservative wins for hardworking families.

Dave Zweifel: Lawmakers need schooling on UW’s contributions to the state
To be sure, over the years the school has on occasion floundered, and it needs to be called out when it does. But it remains a key to Wisconsin’s economic and educational future. And state legislators need to understand that.

John Torinus: Finally, UWM scores health sciences win
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders, in a welcome bipartisan compromise, included UWM in the capital budget with $189 million for the long overdue renovation of the old Columbia Hospital, known as the Northwest Quadrant. UWM bought it 15 years ago.

Noria Doyle: Wallace in Wisconsin: The 1964 campaign that tested America’s soul over the politics of identity
In April 1964, Alabama Governor George Wallace entered the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary as a defiant challenger to the mainstream liberal consensus.

Spencer Black: Trump’s bill is an environmental catastrophe
Environmentally, the grossly misnamed “big beautiful bill” is ugly as sin. The recently passed legislation is an ecological disaster.

Fabu: Now more than ever, Black history must be celebrated
Our ancestors’ response to their delayed independence was to creatively turn previous mourning into new-found joy by starting the Juneteenth Celebration on the actual day of their release, June 19, now a federal holiday.

Kenneth Zagacki and Richard Cherwitz: Something to learn from JFK’s Cuban Missile Crisis speech
In today’s highly charged political environment, in which a president’s handling of international crises, however competent or inept, is immediately subject to hyperbole and sanctification by supporters and in press conferences and tweets — sometimes by the president himself — it’s important to remind ourselves how some American presidents spoke publicly about past crises with clarity, humility and measured prose.

Steven Walters: New legislative districts led to bipartisan budget
For first time in 14 years, Republican leaders needed Democratic votes.

Katherine Loughead: Wisconsin’s retirement income exclusion will shift tax burdens to working families over time
The expanded retirement income exclusion will undermine the tax code’s neutrality and shift burdens onto working families over time, while yielding far less “bang for the buck” than other more pro-growth reforms.

Nate Gilliam: It’s time to overturn Act 12. Milwaukee deserves better.
ACT 12 is cementing anti-Blackness in legislation in a place that has suffered deep organized abandonment. It must be reversed.

Tom Barrett: Johnson voted for the Trump bill he called immoral. His choice will devastate Wisconsin.
In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Johnson said he could not support the bill ‘in its current form’ because it increased annual deficits. He voted for one that increased it more.

Gregory Humphrey: UW-Madison graduate students feel impact of Trump’s federal grant cuts
Without a reversal in federal policy, the long-term impact could be dire, not just for Wisconsin, but for the nation’s standing in global scientific leadership.

Judith Davidoff: A time of upheaval for public media
Managers say the struggle to survive hinges on the ability to adapt.

Michelle Bryant: No one should ever accuse Trump of acting like a daddy
NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte has repeatedly called Trump “daddy” during and since the organization’s recent summit in The Hague.

WisOpinion: ‘The Insiders’ discuss the rift between socialist Rep. Clancy and the Dem legislative caucus
The WisOpinion Insiders, Chvala and Jensen, take up the rift between socialist state Rep. Ryan Clancy and legislative Democrats. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties Association and the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.

Rewind: Your Week in Review for June 21
On this week’s episode of WisconsinEye’s “Rewind,” CBS 58’s Emilee Fannon and guest host Jack Kelly, statehouse reporter for Wisconsin Watch, discuss former President Trump’s rally in Racine, the Republican National Convention security perimeter, the latest on fiscal mismanagement at Milwaukee Public Schools, the effort to recall Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and more.