• Peter Barca, a former Democratic congressman from southeast Wisconsin in the 1990s, announced his candidacy for Congress against Republican incumbent Bryan Steil, who seeks a fourth term.
• Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, previously held by Paul Ryan, has become more competitive after new boundary lines were adopted in 2022.
• Barca’s political history includes previous terms in Congress and leadership roles in the state Assembly.

A Democrat who represented southeast Wisconsin in Congress in the 1990s before going on to become a leader in the Assembly and state revenue secretary announced Thursday that he’s running for Congress again.

Peter Barca announced his bid against Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who is seeking a fourth term. Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, previously represented by former House Speaker Paul Ryan, leans Republican but was made more competitive under new boundary lines adopted in 2022.

The seat is a target for Democrats nationally as they attempt to regain majority control of the House. It is one of only two congressional districts in Wisconsin that are viewed as competitive. The other is western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District held by Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

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Republicans hold six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional seats.

Barca, 68, previously held the 1st Congressional District seat from 1993 to 1995. He had previously considered running again for the seat after Ryan stepped down in 2018.

Barca is the first well-known Democrat to get into the race. National Democrats are expected to back Barca’s campaign. The primary is Aug. 13.

Barca, in a statement announcing his campaign, said his long record of public service showed that he was a fighter for working families and contrasted himself with a “do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress.”

“We need someone to step up and start going to bat for our families again,” he said.

The Steil campaign said in a statement that Barca has “put his political career ahead of Wisconsin families” over the past 40 years. The campaign also faulted Barca for opposing a 2016 bill that would have banned sanctuary cities and for voting in 1993 for a budget bill in Congress that raised the gas tax.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella branded Barca as a “sacrificial lamb” who has “put his out of touch policies ahead of Wisconsinites.”

Steil was elected in 2018 by 12 percentage points, and won reelection by 19 points in 2020 and 9 points in 2022.

Barca was elected to serve in the state Assembly from 1985 until 1993 when he resigned after winning a special election to Congress. After he lost in 1995, former President Bill Clinton appointed him to serve as Midwest regional administrator to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

He was elected again to the Assembly in 2008 and served as Democratic minority leader from 2011 to 2017.

Barca was leader of Democrats in 2011 during the fight over collective bargaining rights. While his Democratic colleagues in the Senate fled to Illinois in an attempt to block passage of a bill that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers, Barca helped organize a filibuster in the Assembly that lasted more than 60 hours.

Barca stepped down as minority leader, in part over grumbling from fellow Democrats over his support for a $3 billion incentive package for Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing company that had planned to locate a massive facility in his district.

Barca left the Assembly in 2019 when Gov. Tony Evers tapped him to be secretary of the state Department of Revenue. He resigned last month.

Frustrated over the lack of progress on homelessness in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for increased oversight of cities and counties that receive state funds in an effort to hold them accountable to deliver results.

Newsom’s more aggressive stance is the latest example of the governor wanting local governments to do more to lessen homelessness, which has worsened in his tenure despite more than $20 billion in state funds spent on programs to help over the last five years.

The governor’s plan seeks to expand a unit that was created in 2021 within the Department of Housing and Community Development to enforce local compliance with state housing law. The unit’s work has resulted in Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filing lawsuits against cities, such as Huntington Beach, for refusing to build enough homes.

“Local governments have told us that they have plans to reduce unsheltered homelessness,” said Jason Elliott, Newsom’s deputy chief of staff. “They’ve written that down, and they’ve signed on the dotted line. This reform is about making sure that those promises get fulfilled.”

The proposal would broaden the responsibilities of the Housing Accountability Unit to include oversight of state homelessness grants to cities and counties and whether local governments follow through on their plans to reduce unhoused populations and adhere to state laws. Through the state budget process, the proposal seeks to shift nearly two dozen staff members into the unit to focus on local homelessness oversight and enforcement.

Newsom also wants lawmakers to pass legislation that would, beginning in 2027, in effect require jurisdictions to zone housing for homeless populations and give the state another avenue to hold local governments accountable for reducing homelessness.

The changes “create a pathway for jurisdictions to actually be responsive to that lower income category,” said Tomiquia Moss, secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. “The zero to 30% area median income, which many of the folks who are unhoused fit within, has not had a housing requirement to it.”

Newsom’s plan is likely to receive support from advocates for the homeless and elicit concerns among some local governments about enforcement. His effort to punish cities and counties for not approving enough housing has drawn a mixed bag of reactions over the years, including concerns about the state infringing on the rights of local government.

The effort follows a report from the California state auditor’s office that found the Newsom administration failed to track and evaluate the effectiveness of billions of dollars spent on its own programs. Elliott said the state does not have enough data to determine the efficiency of its homelessness programs and added “we’re really not getting information from local governments about whether or not they’re executing on their obligations.”

Expanding accountability, Elliott said, will hold local governments responsible for delivering solutions and tracking performance in exchange for billions in state funding.

The proposal marks a new effort by Newsom to address homelessness, a pernicious problem in California tied to a shortage of housing, the high cost of living and a drug abuse and mental health crisis. At last count, the state’s homeless population stood at 181,000.

Newsom has highlighted homelessness as the top policy priority of his governorship, and in doing so, also made the issue his greatest political vulnerability. Fox News and conservative politicians repeatedly draw on the image of encampments lining California sidewalks as an example of his failures as governor and as a rebuke of Democratic leadership.

The governor is acutely aware of the criticism and sends pictures to his aides of encampments from his travels throughout the state as a reminder that they all can do better.

Newsom has repeatedly criticized local governments for not taking a more aggressive stance to address homelessness and mental health needs in their communities as he takes on progressives in his own party by employing a more moderate approach to the problem than on any other policy issue.

Eager to make progress, the governor successfully advocated for changes to the law to permit compelling people with severe mental illness and substance disorders into care. He recently referred to the narrow passage Proposition 1, his March ballot measure to boost funding and treatment beds for mental health, as an example of voters feeling cynical about the idea that more money would solve the problem.

“The results are not what any of us want them to be,” Elliott said. “Walk down any street in any major or small city in California and you know exactly what I’m talking about. So, this is really about homelessness spending and accountability and accountability for the actions that local governments are required to take.”

Jury selection in former President Trump’s historic and unprecedented criminal trial stemming from charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is expected to resume Thursday morning.

Bragg has charged Trump, the 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee, with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The charges are related to alleged hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

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Trump has pleaded not guilty to all counts. He has blasted the trial as pure politics, a “political persecution,” and maintains his innocence. The former president is expected to testify during his trial.

“I tell the truth,” Trump said last week, when asked about his possible testimony.

Trump is the first president in United States history to stand criminal trial.

By the end of jury selection on Tuesday, seven jurors had been selected and sworn in. The jury pool so far includes four men and three women, all living in New York City. Their professions include law, finance, nursing, technology and more.

Court will not meet for the trial on Wednesdays, and the third day of jury selection is expected to begin at 9:30 a.m. in Lower Manhattan.

Tuesday, the second day of the trial, brought a filing from Bragg, who argued that Trump should be held in contempt of court for violating the gag order imposed upon him by Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the trial.

Bragg and prosecutors are arguing that Trump must pay a $1,000 fine each for three alleged violations of the gag order, with all relating to social media posts.

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In the motion, Bragg urged the judge to warn Trump that “future violations” of the gag order can be punished “not only with additional fines, but also with a term of incarceration of up to thirty days.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

But after sitting in a courtroom for more than eight hours of jury selection Tuesday evening, Trump made a campaign stop at Sanaa Convenience Store in Harlem. Trump was met by a large crowd chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump,” “Four more years” and “We love Trump.” The crowd was singing the national anthem.

The visit was intended to highlight rising crime in New York City under Bragg’s watch.

Former President Trump visits a Manhattan bodega – where a worker was assaulted by a man in 2022 and ended up killing him in an ensuing fight – on April 16, 2024, in New York City. Trump visited the bodega after spending a second day in court where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first of his criminal cases to go to trial. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Trump blasted the trial and charges against him, saying it is “rigged,” “all politics” and “coming out of the [President Biden’s] White House.”

“It makes me campaign locally, and that’s OK,” Trump said. “We’re doing better now than we’ve ever done, so I think it’s having a reverse effect.”

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“We’re going to come in – No. 1, you have to stop crime, and we’re going to let the police do their job. They have to be given back their authority. They have to be able to do their job,” Trump said. “And we’re going to come into New York. We’re making a big play for New York, other cities, too. But this city, I love this city.”

Trump said New York has “gotten so bad in the last three years, four years.”

“And we’re going to straighten New York out. So, running for president, we’re putting a big hit in New York; we could win New York,” he said. 

A court sketch depicts the second day of former President Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on April 16, 2024. Jury selection in his hush money trial is ongoing. (Christine Cornell)

“They want to keep me off the campaign trail,” Trump said. “But based on what I’m doing, I think there’s more press here than if I went out to some [other] location.”

As for crime in New York City, Trump said, “It’s Alvin Bragg’s fault. Alvin Bragg does nothing. He goes after guys like Trump who did nothing wrong. Violent criminals, murderers? They know there are … hundreds of murders all over the city. They know who they are. They don’t pick them up. They go after Trump.”

He added, “The people of New York are not going to take it. That’s why they’re going to vote for Trump.”