The Capitol Report

Well ahead of the Wisconsin presidential primary on April 7, President Trump and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have aggressively built a campaign presence on the ground here.

Officials from Wisconsin counties that were approved for a partnership with the state on new youth prisons say they won’t have their facilities up and running ahead of the July 2021 deadline mandated in state law.

Interest groups spent $16.7 million lobbying the state Capitol during the second half of 2019, a big drop from the same period two years earlier, according to a WisPolitics.com check of filings.

Gov. Tony Evers is getting some traction on his call for aid to farmers and rural Wisconsin. Evers made the call for a special session during his State of the State address in January.

A persistent backlog of commercial building permits at the Department of Safety and Professional Services has prompted the state’s construction industry and agency leadership to explore solutions to the problem.

GOP state senators up for re-election this fall in Wisconsin, on average, had almost twice as much money in the bank as their opponents.

Democratic National Convention Committee CEO Joe Solmonese told an audience of journalists in Milwaukee recently that the Democratic Party aims to correct the errors that led to President Trump’s win in 2016.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul says Republican legislative leaders have wasted taxpayer money by paying private attorneys $19,670 so far to review proposed settlements under a lame-duck law he says doesn’t work.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling said Republican lawmakers have failed to lead on issues such as helping the middle class and addressing homelessness, because they’ve been unable to agree with each other and focused on opposing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Following his appointment to the bench, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly had dozens of his past blog posts pulled down from the blog “Hang Together.”