Author: Wisconsin Examiner

A new research paper reviewed how each state implemented a federal program that has provided cash assistance to low income families over the last 25 years, and found that Black women with children repeatedly were excluded. Policy experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities outlined how states could remove restrictive requirements placed on Black families to receive cash assistance for food, bills, or rent in their report TANF Policies Reflect Racist Legacy of Cash Assistance. The findings also detailed ways the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF, can recenter its programs to help Black women with children...

The legal wrangling in multiple lawsuits brought by liberal and conservatives groups has intensified in recent days as activists fight over how the state’s new legislative districts will be drawn and who will draw them. Several lawsuits have already been filed in state and federal court in anticipation of Governor Tony Evers and the Republican-led Legislature failing to reach an agreement on the new maps, which must be ready in time for candidates to file for next fall’s elections. Recently, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) filed a response to a lawsuit brought by the conservative legal firm, the Wisconsin...

August is National Water Quality Month, a month dedicated to bringing awareness to the fact that access to clean water is a human right we all share. In Wisconsin — home of 15,000 lakes, two of the largest freshwater bodies in the world, and an amount of groundwater roughly equal to the volume of Lake Michigan — what could possibly stand in the way of guaranteeing that human right? Why is it that too many Wisconsinites — people living in communities like Marinette, La Crosse, Milwaukee and Kewaunee County — cannot safely drink the water coming out of their...

The incident, which started as a domestic call during a child’s birthday party, took place on a Kenosha street on a Sunday afternoon in late August of 2020. Neighbors took a cell phone video as Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey fired eight shots into Jacob Blake’s back. The video went viral, quickly igniting a firestorm. The small city on Lake Michigan, near the Illinois border, became the center of a nationwide reckoning over race and police violence. To this day Blake, who was 29 years old when he was shot, continues to recover and is paralyzed from the waist...