The Capitol Report

Trek’s John Burke strongly considered running for president but abandoned that plan after determining he had little chance of winning.

Labor Day saw visits to Wisconsin by both Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris, not long after both President Trump and Joe Biden visited Kenosha.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ call for a task force to address racial disparity and public safety falls far short of what’s needed in the wake of civil unrest after Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake, say Capitol Democrats who question the effectiveness of such panels.

Voters in five of the state’s traditional Democratic counties were more likely to vote absentee than those in five key Republican counties in the Aug. 11 primary, according to a WisPolitics.com check of numbers available so far.

The state’s two most populous counties have told the Department of Corrections they have no intention of accepting state dollars to build new juvenile lockups in what likely is a crippling blow to Wisconsin’s plan to overhaul the youth justice system.

Incumbents across Wisconsin fared well in the Aug. 11 partisan primary — except for one Democratic lawmaker in Green Bay.

Gov. Tony Evers’ decision to issue a statewide mask mandate could set up another legal bill over the extent of his powers to combat COVID-19. But it would be with different plaintiffs and a different composition on the state Supreme Court.

The tab for private attorneys hired by Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin has now hit nearly $4.8 million for this legislative session, fueled recently by fights over Gov. Tony Evers’ orders during the COVID-19 pandemic and a string of election lawsuits.

UW System President Tommy Thompson and a coalition of shared governance groups are seeking to limit cuts to the state’s university system following Gov. Tony Evers’ call for $250 million in state agency budget cuts for the current fiscal year.

The EPA Small Refinery Exemptions update in mid-June shows the agency was considering 52 exemption petitions for Renewable Fuel Standard compliance in a big chunk of the 2010s — actions that could hurt a Wisconsin ethanol industry just beginning to come back from a pandemic-induced hit.