Brian Dake

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday it would use the “least changes” redistricting plans submitted by Governor Tony Evers as Wisconsin’s congressional and legislative district maps for the next decade. In the 4-3 decision, conservative swing Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote that of all the plans submitted, Evers’ plan best complied with criteria laid out by the court and met all the requirements of the Wisconsin and United States constitutions.

Choosing Governor Evers maps over competing plans submitted by Republican members of Congress and the Legislature was, under the circumstances, a win for Democrats. In the Legislature, it could mean the difference between simple Republican majorities and supermajorities that could override any governor’s vetoes.

While the state Supreme Court’s say is typically final in the state court system, Justices Ziegler and Roggensack took the unusual steps of suggesting appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, suggesting Evers’ plan amounted to a racial gerrymander.

Compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act, or VRA, is likely to be a key part of any future litigation. Evers’ map creates seven majority-Black districts, one more than the 2011 map. Hagedorn wrote that Evers’ map gives minority voters better representation. “The risk of packing Black voters under a six-district configuration further suggests drawing seven majority-Black districts is appropriate to avoid minority vote dilution,” Hagedorn wrote.  However, Ziegler wrote the creation of a new majority-Black district was premature, arguing no clear violation of the Voting Rights Act was shown by Evers.

It would be unusual, though not unheard of, for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling.  The map could still be challenged on a more limited basis in an ongoing federal lawsuit brought by Democrats. That case had remained largely dormant while the state lawsuit proceeded.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will tell lawmakers Wednesday the central bank will likely hike interest rates later this month with inflation “well above” the central bank’s target range.

The Fed chief is set to tell members of the House Financial Services Committee that bank officials “expect it will be appropriate” to raise the baseline interest range from its current level of zero to 0.25 percent, according to prepared remarks released ahead of Powell’s appearance before the panel.

“We understand that high inflation imposes significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing, and transportation. We know that the best thing we can do to support a strong labor market is to promote a long expansion, and that is only possible in an environment of price stability,” Powell will say.

The Fed slashed interest rates to near-zero levels in March 2020 as the emerging coronavirus pandemic derailed the global economy. The Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s monetary policy panel, is on track to hike interest rates at the conclusion of its meeting on March 15-16, almost two years to the day it cut rates to current levels.

Powell will highlight the rapid recovery of the U.S. economy from the depth of the pandemic-driven recession, including the record-breaking gain of 6.7 million jobs in 2021 and economic growth of 5.5 percent. The Fed chief credited the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines along with substantial fiscal and monetary support deployed by the federal government in 2020 for the swift rebound.

Even so, the speed of the recovery also fueled a rapid rise in prices as it ran up against stubborn pandemic-related obstacles, Powell will note.

“As a result, employers are having difficulties filling job openings, an unprecedented number of workers are quitting to take new jobs, and wages are rising at their fastest pace in many years,” Powell will say.

“Demand is strong, and bottlenecks and supply constraints are limiting how quickly production can respond. These supply disruptions have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, exacerbated by waves of the virus, and price increases are now spreading to a broader range of goods and services.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service found the total amount of land in Wisconsin farms was 14.2 million acres last year. That’s 100,000 acres fewer, or a less than 1 percent decline, from 2020, but it’s the first decrease in the amount of land in farms since 2017.

Heather Schlesser is an agriculture educator for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension in Marathon County. She said the state has seen many producers transition out of dairy farming, which requires a lot of land for growing feed.

“They were transitioning out of dairy, making that decision to retire because they’re getting older. Or maybe they’re still younger, but they’re switching into beef production,” Schlesser said. “You can only do that for so long before you’re like, ‘You know what, I really don’t need this land. I don’t want to deal with the renters anymore. There’s no one new coming on the farm.’ And then they’re just deciding to sell it off.”

Some land is sold to other producers, especially the largest farms in the state. The amount of land farmed by producers earning at or above $500,000 annually grew by almost 4 percent from 2020 to 2021.

But for farms around urban areas, land is often sold to individuals looking to transition out of city living or looking for recreational land for hunting.

“They want to be close enough to that downtown center so that they don’t have a long commute to get to work, where they’re still close to the cultural centers and everything that town has to offer,” she said. “But they want that country feel.”

Schlesser said urban sprawl is not a new trend for the state, but it may have been more of a factor in 2020 after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A federal judge in Louisiana on Friday shot down President Biden’s interim estimates on the social costs of greenhouse gas emissions, dealing another judicial blow to the administration’s climate agenda.

A 2021 executive order directed agencies to use an interim metric that estimated costs to society that would come from burning carbon in environmental permitting and regulatory decisions. But Louisiana, Alabama, and eight other states “sufficiently identified the kinds of harms” needed to block the metric’s use, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled.

“The Court agrees that the public interest and balance of equities weigh heavily in favor” of ordering the administration to disregard the calculations Judge James D. Cain Jr. wrote in the opinion.

States challenged the temporary cost, claiming Biden didn’t have the authority to issue such a significant decision without notice-and-comment rulemaking. They also claimed that its use in decisions would hamper their economies through higher costs and more stringent standards.

The Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to argue that the states’ claims were premature until the metric was actually used in a decision. The DOJ said it’s “reviewing the decision” and declined to comment further.

The court did make it clear that it was ruling on whether Biden had flown against administrative procedures with his interim metric and not on “the scientific issues regarding greenhouse gas emissions, their effects on the environment, or whether they contribute to global warming.”

A group of Republican lawmakers is hoping to block local governments from using a relatively new approach to fund road maintenance through what are known as transportation utility fees.

On Wednesday, Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, introduced bills that would punish local governments that enact transportation user fees by forcing them to lower the amount they can collect from property taxes by however much they raise from the new transportation fees.

A statement from Stroebel’s office said lawmakers have worked to ensure a favorable tax climate and have increased local transportation aids in recent state budgets.

“A municipality must not be allowed to circumvent the popular levy limit law through the creation of a transportation utility to extract more money from taxpayers,” Stroebel said. “The option of a referendum is always available if the people actually want higher taxes.”

At the same time, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is arguing in Outagamie County Circuit Court that transportation utility fees are unlawful taxes. The firm is suing the Town of Buchanan for adopting a transportation utility district and corresponding fees in 2019.

A 2020 legal opinion written by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities states that local governments have “broad statutory and/or constitutional home rule powers to create a transportation utility and charge property owners transportation utility fees.”

Wisconsin spent or made plans for some $2.8 billion in federal pandemic aid funding through the end of 2021, and the state has more than $1.8 billion in federal funds that have yet to be spent.

Gov. Tony Evers this week issued an update on how the state has spent the COVID-19 relief funding it received as a result of federal aid bills passed in 2020 and 2021. The data show the state has spent or allocated the great majority of aid intended for businesses, schools and local governments. What remains of the $4.6 billion the state was granted include major investments in broadband expansion, health care and neighborhood infrastructure. Some of the new grants are set to be announced this month.

According to data released by the governor’s office, some of the federal funds yet to be allocated in Wisconsin include:

• $205 million in Neighborhood Investment Fund grants, which could go to the creation of new buildings or other infrastructure aimed at “help(ing) neighborhoods recover from negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
• $125 million in workforce innovation grants aimed at addressing worker shortages.
• $83.9 million for broadband access expansion. The state has spent or allocated $21 million of a total $113.7 million in funds.
• $75 million for health care infrastructure, especially in areas disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
• $59 million in public safety grants, including grants to fund victim services and violence prevention initiatives.

The data release comes as Republicans in the Legislature are proposing a constitutional amendment that would give the Legislature greater oversight on the spending of federal funds. In Wisconsin, the governor has authority to allocate federal funding. Given the large amounts of aid that have come from federal pandemic relief, this has meant an unusually large amount of spending in the last two years was overseen by Evers rather than allocated through the state’s budget process.

The constitutional amendment proposal passed the state Senate and may pass the Republican-controlled Assembly as well. But in order to change the state constitution, it would have to pass two consecutive sessions of the Legislature and win a statewide popular vote. That process would necessarily take years.

Short of amending the constitution, some lawmakers are calling for more information about how funds have been spent. On Tuesday, a legislative committee considered a proposal to have the state’s Legislative Audit Bureau review the state’s use of COVID-19 funding. That audit proposal, which appeared to have bipartisan support, would be aimed at assessing whether funds were used appropriately.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted its full approval of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine will now be marketed under the name Spikevax for the prevention of COVID-19 in people 18 years of age and older.

“The FDA fully approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine last August for those 16 and older and now has done the same with the Moderna vaccine for those 18 and older. These approvals are further confirmation that these vaccines are effective and safe,” said DHS Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake. “We urge those folks that have waited to get vaccinated to do so now and join their nearly 3.7 million fellow Wisconsinites who have received their COVID-19 vaccine.”

This is the same vaccine people have been getting for months. In order to grant full approval, the FDA required extensive data on safety and effectiveness, inspection of manufacturing facilities, and a comprehensive review of all clinical and real-world use. The full approval means that even more data were gathered and analyzed following the grant of emergency use authorization in December 2020 to further confirm that this vaccine works and is safe. All of the COVID-19 vaccines are extremely effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death – including from the Delta and Omicron variants.

The Moderna vaccine was the second COVID-19 vaccine to receive emergency use authorization (EUA) in the U.S. This authorization came after the Moderna product underwent rigorous clinical trials and an expedited review process to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. FDA granted the application for full approval through a priority review designation, and reviewed updated data from the clinical trial which supported the EUA and included a longer duration of follow-up in a larger clinical trial population.

The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose slightly for the fifth week in a row, climbing 2.9 cents from a week ago, according to an industry expert.

Currently, the national average is sitting at $3.34 per gallon, according to GasBuddy, which compiled price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The current figure reflects a nearly 76-cent increase per gallon compared to a month ago and a nearly 93-cent increase per gallon compared to a year ago.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said in a blog post Monday that the continued uptick at the pump is because oil prices are being “pushed into territory unseen in over seven years.”

By June, GasBuddy estimated that the national average price for a gallon of gasoline could climb to a high of $4.13.

Yesterday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced the creation of the Special Assembly Committee on Trade and Supply Chain. State Representative Rob Brooks (R-Saukville) will Chair the new committee.

“Across the state and country, demand is high, quantity is low, prices are increasing, and workers are scarce. The creation of this committee is another step Assembly Republicans are taking to support the Wisconsin businesses, families, and individuals who are impacted by these economic factors. I have full confidence Representative Brooks and the members of the committee will work hard to address these issues,” stated Speaker Vos.

The Committee on Trade and Supply Chain will focus on the relationship between the labor shortage and supply chain interruptions and the impacts and barriers this creates for businesses and consumers. The committee will examine the disruptions in production and distribution of products over the last two years, the lack of workers in the labor market, and Wisconsin’s role in recovering.

Interim UW System President Tommy Thompson will resign his post in March, writing to Regents President Edmund Manydeeds on Friday that doing so will allow the university to put its full attention on his successor.

Thompson, the longest serving governor in Wisconsin history, was brought in to lead the system on an interim basis on July 1, 2020, after a failed search to find a permanent replacement for the retiring Ray Cross.

In his letter, Thompson wrote he agreed to accept knowing two things: “that I was needed, and that it would be temporary.”

The three-page letter opens with the line, “I love Wisconsin.” It then ticks off a series of accomplishments, including leading the system during the COVID-19 pandemic and working with the Legislature and guv to restore authority to the Board of Regents to set tuition after a decade-long freeze for in-state undergraduates.

“While I firmly believe that the pursuit of excellence never ends, I am satisfied that I have accomplished what has been asked of me and what the people of this state have sought,” Thompson wrote.

Thompson noted the regents will soon identify a candidate to become the full-time president, writing “the onboarding process will require the full attention of System staff, chancellors, faculty, and the many remarkable people that carry out the business of the System every day.”

The committee overseeing the search for a new president was to meet in closed session today to select finalists for the job. The finalists won’t be announced until a later date.

“Until the end, I will work to accomplish all that is needed before allowing staff the ability to prepare for the transition,” Thompson wrote.