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Forcing county sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officers or danger dropping state funding. A tax reduce for service business employee money ideas. Banning “overseas adversaries” from proudly owning Wisconsin farmland. The GOAT committee.
The primary few weeks of the Legislature’s new session have been dominated by concepts impressed, no less than partly, by President Donald Trump, as Wisconsin Republicans convey concepts pushed in Washington to Madison.
The localization of Trump’s agenda — which helped the president safe a slim however important victory in November — comes as Republican lawmakers proceed to set the legislative agenda in Wisconsin.
However Democratic legislative leaders are pushing again on that agenda, in contrast to a lot of their counterparts on the nationwide degree.
“These usually are not critical proposals,” stated Meeting Minority Chief Greta Neubauer, D-Racine. “They’re political; they’re for the right-wing base. However they’re merely not addressing the issues that the individuals of Wisconsin are dealing with.”
Immigration crackdown
Final week, Meeting Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, unveiled laws to mandate cooperation between Wisconsin legislation enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
The invoice would require “sheriffs to request proof of authorized presence standing from people held in a county jail for an offense punishable as a felony,” in line with evaluation from the Legislative Reference Bureau. It additionally compels sheriffs to “adjust to detainers and administrative warrants obtained from the federal division of homeland safety relating to people held within the county jail for a legal offense.”
If a sheriff shrugs the legislation, the sheriff’s county would face a 15% reduce in state help within the following 12 months, in line with a draft of the invoice. However the invoice isn’t about concentrating on locations like Dane and Milwaukee counties — the place leaders have pledged to not cooperate with federal authorities — stated Meeting Majority Chief Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva. “It’s about simply guaranteeing that each county is working the identical and that there isn’t a refuge for these violent criminals.”
Whereas introducing the invoice, flanked by two dozen of his GOP colleagues, Bradley stated the laws ought to garner bipartisan assist, pointing to the Laken Riley Act — the same crackdown on theft and violent crime dedicated by unauthorized immigrants — that obtained some Democratic assist in Congress. It was the primary invoice signed into legislation beneath the brand new Trump administration.
Sure. The act requires detaining such immigrants who’re arrested for, or charged with, violent crimes or theft. This will result in deportation.
“Solely far-left extremists on this nation imagine that somebody right here illegally that commits a felony needs to be allowed to remain,” Bradley stated.
No tax on ideas
State Sen. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, is one in all 4 Republican lawmakers circulating a invoice that will eradicate taxes on money ideas earned by service employees — a proposal Trump closely touted on the marketing campaign path. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, later introduced assist for the coverage as nicely.
Jacque and a gaggle of bipartisan lawmakers final launched the invoice in 2019, but it surely by no means turned legislation. He stated it’s closely favored by these within the hospitality business.
Trump’s push to enact the same coverage on the federal degree made this the best time to reintroduce the invoice in Wisconsin, Jacque stated.
“Having a federal administration that’s placing some political capital in direction of making that a part of the equation occur definitely provides a whole lot of hearth to being able to be aligned on the state degree,” Jacque stated.
In 2019, the invoice, which solely would have exempted money ideas from taxation, was estimated to cut back the state’s income by practically $4.7 million yearly. A fiscal estimate of the present invoice has not but been launched. It might not exempt the vast majority of ideas, that are left on a bank card.
Banning ‘overseas adversaries’ from proudly owning land
One other state invoice launched by Republicans final month would forestall “overseas adversaries” from “nations of concern” from buying forestry and agricultural land within the state.
The laws mimics Trump’s marketing campaign guarantees in January 2023 to ban Chinese language nationals from shopping for farmland and proudly owning different “very important infrastructure,” citing nationwide safety issues. Jacque, an creator of the invoice, stated he wasn’t conscious of Trump’s earlier assist for the same proposal.
Jacque launched related laws in 2023 that by no means turned legislation. He pointed to bipartisan congressional assist for related “overseas adversary” payments launched on the federal degree. It’s a “commonsense concern” that “resonates with the general public,” Jacque stated.
GOAT Committee
The Authorities Operations, Accountability and Transparency Committee is new to the Meeting this legislative session. Like DOGE, the federal Division of Authorities Effectivity led by Elon Musk, it’s named after a popular culture meme (GOAT is shorthand for best of all time; DOGE is called after a meme turned cryptocurrency).
The committee’s chair, Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Nice Prairie, stated the committee will work “to establish alternatives to extend state authorities effectivity and to lower spending.”
“The individuals of Wisconsin need to see their hard-earned tax {dollars} being spent on providers that instantly have an effect on them, not on the growth of packages that profit solely choose teams of individuals,” she stated in a written response to questions from Wisconsin Watch. “GOAT will examine methods by which the state can reallocate revenues away from extreme desires and funnel them extra into vital wants with out rising spending.”
One motivating issue for her 2022 Meeting run was “to convey my skilled expertise in course of enchancment to the general public sector as a result of so many obtrusive inefficiencies in state companies have been uncovered throughout the pandemic,” Nedweski stated, noting she needed to enhance “fiscal accountability” for the state lengthy earlier than DOGE was an idea.
The committee was created in response “to an outpouring of demand from the individuals,” Nedweski stated, including that “DOGE is making fiscal conservatism cool and accessible to extra individuals.”
“The efficiency of state companies beneath the present administration has typically been subpar beneath this administration relative to the tax {dollars} invested,” she stated. “If the (state) companies usually are not going to take sincere seems to be within the mirror as to how they will higher serve Wisconsinites, GOAT will. Whether or not or not the Governor chooses to work with us is as much as him.”
GOAT serves a distinct position than the Legislative Audit Bureau, Nedweski stated, noting {that a} “high goal of GOAT is to be conscious of actual individuals dealing with on a regular basis challenges with state authorities.”
Whereas the committee may fit with LAB and the Joint Audit Committee, “the perform of GOAT can be much less technical than Audit and extra instantly conscious of a variety of stakeholder issues,” she stated.
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