Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, Young People Are Thinking Beyond the Ballot Box | Election Letters

Published

8 months ago

October 21, 2024

In Wisconsin, Young People Are Thinking Beyond the Ballot Box | Election Letters

by Jane Houseal |
October 21, 2024

In Wisconsin, more than 12 elections in the last 24 years have been won by less than 30,000 votes—a statistic that has become a talking point among politicians. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the state by a little over 20,500 votes.

That election after election here is determined by such razor-thin margins underscores the potential influence of young voters. The University of Wisconsin campus at Madison alone has nearly 50,000 students. In the 2022 midterm elections, nearly half of Wisconsinites under age 25 cast a ballot. Months later, in spring 2023, young voters turned out again to elect liberal-favored Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The youth vote is often a driving factor in election results, but young people across the state, feeling their concerns about Palestine and other pressing issues are being sidelined, are flexing their political power in other ways. Some may still go to the polls, but they’re taking action beyond the ballot box, too, pressuring local and national politicians and institutions to enact change, and showing up or their community when the government fails to do so.

The trend has been obvious since Biden stepped away from the presidential race and Kamala Harris stepped in, bolstering her outreach to Gen Z with plans to reach swing states through targeted digital ads, campus visits, and Gen Z-focused social media content.

But such efforts miss the mark when they ignore Gaza. Some might argue that young voters “risk” the future, jeopardizing chances to ensure better policies for climate, health, or housing here in the U.S when they focus on foreign policy in the Middle East, eschewing voting for Harris-Walz to write in an “uninstructed” vote (as it is called it in Wisconsin) when no candidate aligns with their position on Israel’s military violence in Palestine.

But young progressives in Wisconsin—and across the country—aren’t burying their heads in the sand, or deprioritizing homegrown issues. Rather, they see U.S. support for Israel as inextricably tied to these issues at home, and fighting for justice in Palestine as a means of fighting for justice here. There’s a reason why young people championed demands such as “Money for Jobs, School, Healthcare, Housing, and Environment, Not for War!” at the March on the DNC, a march organized by the Coalition to March on the DNC, a collection of grassroots organizations fighting for the same demands.

Activists, including Greta Thunberg, argue that climate justice depends on a free Palestine. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to climate justice everywhere,” said Wisconsin climate organizer Max Prestigiacomo, who is a recent UW-Madison graduate and former alderman. “In a fight to prevent the climate crisis which first and foremost recognizes that the impacts of said crisis—death—will fall on marginalized people worldwide, ignoring the active oppression and genocide in Palestine is complacency.”

Reproductive justice, too—another issue bringing many young voters out to the polls. “Roe v. Wade got overturned here, we obviously have to fight for a women’s right to choose in the U.S.,” said 25-year-old Danaka Katovich, national co-director of CODEPINK, a feminist grassroots organization, during a protest at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. But “in Gaza, women are having c-sections with no anesthesia. Their children are being crushed under rubble and bombs that say ‘made in the USA.’ We’re here to link those two issues.”

Young people are ready to be heard. In Wisconsin, in the U.S., and around the world, those in power must listen and react to what we’re saying—not only on November 5th, but every day.

CODEPINK also protested at the DNC in Chicago—just like thousands of young people, including from Wisconsin, who protested both conventions, linking justice in Palestine to climate and reproductive justice but also to immigrant, worker, LGBTQIA+, and women’s rights, and to ending police violence. “What made me come to the march was the genocide in Palestine,” commented Wisconsin student Cesar Moreno at the March on the RNC.

Youth politics beyond the ballot box in Wisconsin traces its history back to UW-Madison, a campus with a rich history of protest, just blocks away from the state’s capitol. It’s not uncommon to see students marching down the street in protest or tabling for causes—regardless of the weather forecast.

“Students have been protesting since the beginning of UW,” Kacie Lucchini Butcher, director of the Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History, told campus radio station WUWM in a recent interview, calling UW-Madison students “civically engaged.” The Black Student Strike in 1969 mobilized thousands and eventually led to the development of a Black Studies Department; protests against South African apartheid began in the late 1960s and extended through the 1980s.

A crystallizing moment came in 1968, when hundreds of students protested the presence on campus of recruiters from Dow Chemical, the makers of napalm. Protesters encountered brutal police violence that, the Wisconsin Historical Society records, “politiciz[ed] thousands of previously apathetic students” and transformed the campus into “one of the nation’s leading anti-war communities.”

Community members today draw comparisons between the Dow Chemical protests and 2024’s pro-Palestine protests. Student groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine at UW-Madison have pushed for cutting U.S. military spending for Israel, interrupting a Harris rally in September and threatening to withhold their votes until she met their demands for an arms embargo. In May, students launched a pro-Palestine encampment to demand the university divest from Israel, which was met with police violence and arrests.

Beyond political protests, students and community members show up for each other when government and local institutions fall short. Whether students are using social media to raise funds for peers in need, starting community campaigns to provide legal support to those arrested at pro-Palestine demonstrations or various grassroots organizations working to support their community, young people are dedicated to dreaming up and building a better world.

Social movements have long leaned on mutual aid—“the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world,” as lawyer, activist, and author Dean Spade puts it—to address community needs. Now, young people are rallying around one another. They feel their elected officials are failing them.

“I think this moment represents a turning point,” said Wisconsin youth organizer Aliya Glasper. “We are depending on our community, our collective power, strength, resolve to resist the current system that exists to work toward a fully liberated world that benefits everyone. A world where the ‘lesser of two evils’ doesn’t exist.”

Young people are ready to be heard. In Wisconsin, in the U.S., and around the world, those in power must listen and react to what we’re saying—not only on November 5th, but every day. And understand that young people are more than their vote.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down law weakening state attorney general’s power

Published

13 hours ago

June 19, 2025

Press Room

Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down law weakening state attorney general’s power

A unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the Democratic state attorney general in a long-running battle over a law passed by Republicans who wanted to weaken the attorney general’s power during a lame-duck legislative session in 2018.

In a 7-0 ruling, the court found the law unconstitutionally violated the separation of powers doctrine. The court decided:

Litigation on behalf of the state is chiefly a core executive function. But where the Legislature has an institutional interest
rooted in the constitution, such cases may fall within the borderlands of shared powers … As the Legislature has failed to demonstrate that these types of cases implicate an institutional interest granting the Legislature a seat at the table, the
powers at issue are core executive powers.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul released the following statement after the decision was announced: “As a result [of the ruling], the Wisconsin Department of Justice will be able to more efficiently resolve the cases that are impacted by this decision, including civil actions enforcing our consumer protection laws and civil actions enforcing our environmental protection laws.”

In 2018, before a new governor and attorney general assumed office, the Wisconsin legislature amended the statute governing the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ability to settle cases. The new amendment led to the DOJ not being able to settle civil cases unless and until a legislative committee approved the DOJ’s settlement plan.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, the DOJ, Governor Tony Evers, and the secretary of the Department of Administration filed suit in the Dane County Circuit Court.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin gig workers could become independent contractors under bill headed to governor's desk

Published

1 day ago

June 18, 2025

Press Room

Wisconsin gig workers could become independent contractors under bill headed to governor's desk

Lawmakers in both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature approved a bill Wednesday that would formally classify gig drivers for transit apps — such as delivery drivers and rideshare operators — as independent contractors, rather than employees.

The bill states that drivers for transit apps, like Lyft and Uber, or for delivery services, like DoorDash or InstaCart, are not direct employees of those companies, exempting them from receiving worker’s compensation, minimum wage requirements or being eligible for unemployment insurance.

The legislation, which is supported by major tech companies like Uber, DoorDash and Instacart, was backed by nearly all Republicans and a handful of Democrats. Those who voted for it argued the independent contractor classification gives workers the freedom to set their own hours and drive for multiple companies without restrictions.

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It’s opposed by the labor union AFL-CIO and most Democrats, who argued that gig workers often take those jobs out of necessity, and should be entitled to certain baseline standards, such as a minimum wage.

The bill also establishes “portable benefits” for such workers, which would allow eligible drivers to pay into accounts that would then help cover paid leave, retirement, health care or catastrophic events.

Rep. Alex Dallman, R-Markesan, who said he used to drive for Uber, said the legislation would ensure that gig workers can “choose when and where they want to work, the freedom that they have to be able to earn benefits through the work that they provide for these different companies, and be able to really set themselves up for a future of success by having things such as health insurance,” he said.

Dallman said on Wednesday that, if signed by the governor, the proposal would make Wisconsin the first state in the country to have such a classification.

That’s after years of nationwide debate about how to classify gig workers, including at the federal level under former President Joe Biden’s Department of Labor. The Biden administration had proposed a rule to classify those workers as employees, entitled to the benefits of full-time employees.

During his first administration, President Donald Trump instituted a rule from the previous Trump administration calling those same workers independent contractors.

The bill passed the Assembly on Wednesday with a vote of 56-36, with four Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the plan. It passed the Senate by a vote of 17-15, with one Republican, Sen. Steve Nass of Whitewater, joining all Democrats to vote against it.

A spokesperson for Gov. Tony Evers did not respond to questions about whether he plans to sign the bill into law.

‘Bradyn’s law’ classifies ‘sextortion’ as a felony

Also on Wednesday, the Assembly approved a bipartisan bill that would create a new class of crime known as “sextortion,” and classify it as a felony. That crime involves coercing or threatening someone to provide sexual imagery or favors, or threatening to spread sexual or nude photos of a person in exchange for money or services.

Such acts would be punishable by up to six years in prison. It would also set additional penalties if the victim is younger than 18 and the perpetrator is more than four years older than the victim.

According to the FBI, instances of sextortion are on the rise, with scammers often targeting children and teens. The Wisconsin bill was inspired by the case of Bradyn Bohn, a 15-year-old boy from Marathon County who was driven to suicide after he was threatened by online scammers.

Under the bill, someone could be convicted of murder if a jury determines that sextortion contributed to or caused a person’s death by suicide.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin Lottery Mega Millions, Pick 3 results for June 17, 2025

Published

2 days ago

June 18, 2025

Press Room

Wisconsin Lottery Mega Millions, Pick 3 results for June 17, 2025

The Wisconsin Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at June 17, 2025, results for each game:

Winning Mega Millions numbers from June 17 drawing

16-23-39-46-55, Mega Ball: 12

Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 3 numbers from June 17 drawing

Midday: 3-0-7

Evening: 9-2-4

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 4 numbers from June 17 drawing

Midday: 0-0-3-3

Evening: 2-0-9-3

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning All or Nothing numbers from June 17 drawing

Midday: 01-04-05-06-08-10-11-13-19-20-22

Evening: 01-03-04-05-06-07-11-13-15-20-22

Check All or Nothing payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Badger 5 numbers from June 17 drawing

02-04-05-20-28

Check Badger 5 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning SuperCash numbers from June 17 drawing

05-06-18-26-28-31, Doubler: Y

Check SuperCash payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize

Prizes up to $599: Can be claimed at any Wisconsin Lottery retailer.
Prizes from $600 to $199,999: Can be claimed in person at a Lottery Office. By mail, send the signed ticket and a completed claim form available on the Wisconsin Lottery claim page to: Prizes, PO Box 777 Madison, WI 53774.
Prizes of $200,000 or more: Must be claimed in person at the Madison Lottery office. Call the Lottery office prior to your visit: 608-261-4916.

Can Wisconsin lottery winners remain anonymous?

No, according to the Wisconsin Lottery. Due to the state’s open records laws, the lottery must, upon request, release the name and city of the winner. Other information about the winner is released only with the winner’s consent.

When are the Wisconsin Lottery drawings held?

Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 10:00 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
Super Cash: 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
Pick 3 (Day): 1:30 p.m. CT daily.
Pick 3 (Evening): 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
Pick 4 (Day): 1:30 p.m. CT daily.
Pick 4 (Evening): 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
All or Nothing (Day): 1:30 p.m. CT daily.
All or Nothing (Evening): 9 p.m. CT daily.
Megabucks: 9:00 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
Badger 5: 9:00 p.m. CT daily.

That lucky feeling: Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.

Feeling lucky? WI man wins $768 million Powerball jackpot **

WI Lottery history: Top 10 Powerball and Mega Million jackpots

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Wisconsin editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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