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(The Center Square) – A state lawmaker wants a full accounting of how the University of Wisconsin System has thousands of more administrators now than it did 30 years ago, despite having fewer teachers.

State Rep. David Steffen told The Center Square on Wednesday the UW system has hired 6,000 administrators over the past 30 years.

“What are the students and the taxpayers getting as a result of that investment?” Steffen asked. “That becomes very difficult, especially when you dig deeper to realize that it really isn't an increase in the faculty, the in-classroom personnel. These are all ancillary, secondary, non-essential type of additions to the head count.”

Steffen pointed to a memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau that showed in the 1992-93 school year, the UW had 26,360 full time employees. In the 2022-23 school year, the UW’s headcount grew to 33,538.

The additions are all out of the classroom. The LFB’s memo shows the faculty headcount in 1992-93 was 7,181. That number fell to 5,729 in 2022-23.

“How are all of these ancillary and secondary staff positions providing a better product?” Steffen asked.

Staffen said he is pressing ahead with his questions because the University of Wisconsin is asking for nearly $1 billion more in the next state budget.

Steffen said lawmakers and taxpayers need to know how the university is spending the $7.5 billion it currently has before lawmakers can give the school more money.

“So, we have an entity that obviously has not applied the same amount of effort to providing better services at a lower cost with less people. They are the only entity in the world that appears to have taken that approach,” Steffen said. “And that's unfortunate for the taxpayers, especially when you are looking to make an ask at the same time for $855 million dollars more in your upcoming budget.”

University leaders say they need the $855 million more to avoid a tax increase, and to keep the university competitive with other colleges and universities.

Gov. Tony Evers is expected to include the university’s request in his proposed budget.

Steffen said he’s shared the LFB information on the rise in administrative staffers with other lawmakers, including the legislature’s committees on higher education, and the Legislative Study Committee that is looking into the UW’s future.

“This is the sort of issue that needs to receive a tremendous amount of attention. I'm glad that we have this now in September, so that for the next four or five months before the governor's budget is presented, we can begin that communication with the university to make sure that it's clear to them we need better justification for your existing funding in any new funding increases,” Steffen added. “No longer can the response be ‘Give us the money because we're the UW system. Period.’.”

(The Center Square) – Following nearly a year of investigations into political donation platform ActBlue, Republican Rep. Bryan Steil has introduced legislation he says will increase transparency and prevent illegal straw donations in online political donations.

The Secure Handling of Internet Electronic Donations Act, or SHIELD Act, would prohibit political campaigns from accepting contributions from gift cards or other prepaid credit cards, and require them to obtain and verify the CVV of all online credit and debit donations. It would also require political campaigns to get the affirmative consent of donors before they make a recurring contribution.

“American elections should always be free from foreign interference,” Steil said Monday. “The SHIELD Act will take a crucial next step in blocking foreign funding in our elections and certifying that every political contribution received is actually coming from the individual whose name is on the contribution. By passing the SHIELD Act, we will increase integrity and American trust in our elections.”

Steil launched a probe into ActBlue’s donor verification policies last year amid his concerns the organization was allowing foreign and fraudulent contributions.

Accusations of ActBlue violating or skirting federal campaign finance laws included laundering foreign contributions through prepaid gift cards, and accepting hundreds of donations for $2.50 from the same individual. Unlike many other online fundraising platforms, ActBlue does not require a CVV number for all donor transactions.

In its response to a November letter from Steil, ActBlue revealed it manually reviews contributions that indicate a foreign country in the address information, uses an external fraud prevention tool on its website, and requires CVVs for some transactions.

“Traditionally, CVV numbers have addressed fraud in transactions where material goods or services are provided in order to prevent chargebacks for stolen goods, which is not the case with political contributions,” the organization said. “Still, we currently require and use CVV on many transactions across the site, and have been in the process of increasing coverage of CVV to improve the donor experience.”

During the presidential debate on Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris deflected when answering questions on the ongoing border crisis.

When asked “why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act” on the border crisis, and if she would have done anything differently from President Joe Biden, Harris didn’t answer the question. She deflected by repeating the claim she’s previously made that she prosecuted transnational criminal organizations when she was the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017.

“I'm the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns drugs and human beings,” she said.

She also repeated a claim that she would sign a U.S. Senate border bill that went nowhere in the Democratic controlled Senate.

“Some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate came up with the border security bill which I supported,” she said. “That bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now overtime trying to do their job.”

While a U.S. senator, Harris opposed increasing funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and advocated for eliminating ICE detention facilities, which house the most violent criminals, The Center Square reported. She has also more than once called for abolishing ICE altogether.

The Senate border bill would have expanded current failed policies, critics claim, codify mass migration and nullify state sovereignty.

Harris also repeated a claim that former President Donald Trump “got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said, ‘kill the bill.’ And you know why? Because he'd prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

The bill failed because many Senate Democrats didn’t support it and their campaigns began distancing themselves from Biden-Harris border policies, which the majority of Americans oppose, according to numerous polls.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, also said it was dead on arrival. He called on the Senate to pass what he, and others say, is the strongest border security bill, HR 2, which the Senate refused to consider.

When asked about being appointed “to address the root causes of migration,” she did not cite one example of a root cause or what she did to address it, fix it or remedy it.

Nor did she address the record more than 12.5 million foreign nationals who illegally entered the country under her watch, including two million who evaded capture. They total more than the individual populations of 45 states. If illegal border crossers were a state, they’d be the sixth most populous state ahead of Illinois, The Center Square reported.

Nor did she address the record number of known or suspected terrorists who’ve been apprehended attempting to enter the U.S., more than 1,700 since fiscal 2021, the greatest number in U.S. history.

When asked about her flip-flopping on issues like building a border wall, she repeated the claim that “her values haven’t changed.” This is after The Center Square and other news outlets fact checked her opposition to border wall construction and funding for years.

At no point during the debate did she outline her plan for border security, deportation of violent criminals, or express condolences to Americans whose families have been murdered and raped by criminal foreign nationals who were released into the country under her watch. Biden-Harris parole programs have been directly linked to violent criminals who illegally entered and remained in the country who then went on to commit violent crimes against Americans, The Center Square has reported.

Earlier this year when endorsing Trump for president, the brother of Maryland resident Rachel Morin, who was raped and murdered by a Venezuelan illegally in the country, said, “My sister's death was preventable. The monster arrested for killing Rachel entered the US unlawfully after killing a woman in El Salvador. Joe Biden and his designated ‘border czar’ Kamala Harris opened our borders to him and others like him, empowering them to victimize the innocent. Yet to this day, we have not heard from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. They never apologized.

“When Rachel was killed, President Trump called my family to offer his condolences. He wanted to meet with us. He cared. That is leadership. And we need real leadership back in the White House.”

Houston angel mom mother Alexis Nungaray, who also endorsed Trump, said she never heard from Harris even after she came to a Houston fundraiser after her daughter was strangled to death by two Venezuelan men illegally in the country. They were released into the country because of Biden-Harris policies, she said, which had to change.

“We're losing very innocent people to heinous crimes that shouldn't be happening in the first place."

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Unions see a clear path through the legislature to boost membership after several legal challenges saw workers leave in droves.

This, according to a new report released Wednesday that grades public sector labor laws across the nation. The data was compiled by the Commonwealth Foundation, a policy group that focuses on fiscal conservancy.

David Osborne, senior fellow for labor policy at the foundation, said during a media briefing that government privatization, changing demographics and a 2018 Supreme Court decision, Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, have caused membership rates across the nation’s four largest public sector unions to fall more than 320,000 over the last five years.

The decline represents $106.8 million in annual dues and fees, according to the report.

“The overarching theme is that the unions have really responded to the membership losses since JANUS to drive up union membership,” Osborne said.

In the JANUS decision, courts held that unions could no longer collect “fair share” dues from non-members who benefit from collective bargaining agreements. Follow-up litigation has challenged the cumbersome process many former members had to overcome to leave the union and recoup dues improperly withheld.

In the report, states known as union “strongholds” scored lower than others that have enacted collective bargaining reforms.

Illinois, Michigan and Maryland stood out for unprecedented reforms that, in some cases, have constitutionally rooted union protections and tipped the scales in favor of executives, according to the report.

Illinois, for example, enshrined collective bargaining rights into the state constitution, which extended unionizing rights to every workplace, including those once considered inappropriate. Osborne said the “experiment could have really disastrous implications,” such as raising taxes to fund “outrageous” union demands.

He pointed to recent collective bargaining negotiations with Chicago Public Schools, during which leadership asked for abortion care access, affordable housing, homeless shelters in schools and all-electric bus fleets.

“The legislature wouldn’t have any opportunity to overrule that behavior,” Osborne said. “It would take a constitutional amendment to correct that balance.”

California, Pennsylvania and Vermont have considered similar amendments – the latter two more seriously, he added.

In Michigan, which slipped from a “B” to a “D” over the last two years, lawmakers repealed the“paycheck protection” law – which prevents public payroll systems from deducting union dues and political contributions – as was the state’s Right to Work provision. The state also gives unions access to employees’ personal information.

Some 13 other states give unions the same data collection power. In Hawaii, unions even store Social Security numbers to verify workers’ identities. The report says the practice leaves information vulnerable to ransomware attacks – like one that happened earlier this year in California.

Maryland, Delaware and California also offer tax incentives for union membership as way to boost recruits. While Delaware’s labor laws earned a "D" in the report, Maryland and Delaware – along with Illinois, Oregon and Washington – earned an “F” grading.

The nation’s four largest public sector unions – the American Federation of Teachers; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the National Education Association; and the Service Employees International Union – collectively represent 6.6 million workers.

AFSCME, according to records submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor, has lost 7.5% of its members since 2017, outpacing the other three unions between 2.8 percentage points and 4 percentage points.

“I do think JANUS is playing a big role in this,” said Andrew Holman, a policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation. “And I think after the decision, people are becoming more and more aware of what their dollars are being put toward and are saying, 'I don’t want to be a part of this.'”

Osborne said 60% of membership fees, albeit funneled through outside organizations, support political causes. Even though members may be aligned ideologically, many feel “uncomfortable” with resolutions that take positions on issues like the war in Gaza or abortion rights.

Unions have refuted this claim in the past, such as the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which is under review by several state agencies for alleged funneling of union dues to support Gov. Josh Shapiro's 2022 campaign. The state's labor laws scored a "D" in the report.

“None of the issues seem to relate to what it is to be a teacher, for instance, so many of the members come home feeling like my union has really taken a stance on these political matters that have divided the workplace rather than united it,” Osborne said.

Of the highest-ranking states, Florida “sets a new gold standard,” according to the foundation. The most impactful reform, Osborne said, requires unions to run for “recertification” once membership drops below 60%. This means workers can decide whether to keep representation.

“We’ve seen a bunch of unions fail to file for reelection because they know they’ll lose,” Osborne said. “This ends up removing a union that never had majority support to begin with.”

Wisconsin and Iowa also require recertification. Unions in other states – like Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York and California – have never run for “reelection” since organizing in the 1970s.

(The Center Square) – Former Independent party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Election Commission to remove his name from the state’s ballot this November, part of his ongoing battle to exit from races in swing states.

The case argues that, absent a compelling reason, different treatment for third party candidates violates the Equal Protection Clause and Kennedy’s First Amendment rights. It claims the different deadlines for ballot withdrawal for Democrat and Republican candidates versus third-party candidates–September 3 for the former and August 6 for the latter–are unlawfully discriminatory.

“Third parties can’t be treated differently and they can’t be discriminated against. Yet that’s what happened here. The Republicans and the Democrats have until today at 5 p.m. to withdraw their nominees and replace them with someone else,” the lawsuit argues. “But those rules don’t apply to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr…He has not been treated fairly or equally with the other presidential candidates who declared and ran for the presidency and have since wanted to withdraw.”

In its certification of presidential candidates last week, the WEC voted 5-1 to put Kennedy on the ballot, despite his withdrawal and endorsement of Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump. Following the decision, county clerks were authorized to begin printing ballots.

But Kennedy has argued his request is not unreasonable since Wisconsin election law already provides exceptions for candidate removal post-certification, including in the case of candidate death or for personal and health reasons–provided the Democrat or Republican candidate meets the September 3rd deadline.

“Kennedy has (like President Biden) decided that for associational and expressive reasons, he does not want to run for President anymore. The deadlines prevent him from withdrawing, even though the Democratic and Republican Parties (at least in theory) could provide a different nominee to the Commission today,” the case says, arguing this proves “The Commission cannot claim any compelling state interest in forcing Independent candidates to file paperwork a month earlier.”

Due to these reasons, the lawsuit requests a stay on the WEC’s ruling and for Dane County Circuit Court to issue an order barring the agency from placing Kennedy’s name on the ballot.