News & Commentary

For the past few weeks, our ACLU of Wisconsin team has traveled around the state, raising our voices to demand that Wisconsin’s 2021-23 biennial budget reflects the will of the people -- one that is grounded in justice, equity and investment in communities—and especially in marginalized communities.

Throughout 2020, multiple county sheriffs in Wisconsin decided to sign formal collaboration agreements with federal immigration authorities. Their decision to use local resources to assist on federal immigration tasks only serves to divide communities and drive immigrants in Wisconsin into the shadows. The ACLU is urging both the Biden administration and local officials to end the use of such agreements.  

After voters in every corner of this state cast absentee ballots at record rates in 2020, a few lawmakers are trying to take us backwards, creating barriers to voting for some of our most vulnerable communities and undoing the accessibility that made the previous election so successful. Our democracy works best when citizens participate in elections, and we must instead work to make sure every eligible voter in Wisconsin can cast a ballot.

By: Colonel (Ret) Sheri A. Swokowski, Ph.D., ACLU of Wisconsin board member

Waupun and Oshkosh Correctional Institutions are emblematic of the enduring inhumane nature of criminal justice and incarceration. They were founded more than a century apart; one established well before the abolishment of slavery in the United States. The other, founded on the front end of the War on Drugs era. 

State representatives concerned about reducing government spending should take a hard look at Wisconsin’s prison system. The size of our criminal legal system has grown exponentially thanks to decades of gross fiscal irresponsibility, and it’s time that we, as taxpayers, do something about it.

By: Tomás Clasen, Community Engagement Manager

Those who took part in the rampage at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 attacked more than a building that belongs to us all. They attacked an ideal that belongs to us all: government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

On February 16, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers will introduce his 2021 biennial budget, laying the foundation for what our state will look like over the next two years. The budget is not only a document that determines how taxpayer dollars are spent — it is a representation of our collective values and a blueprint of our shared goals. Questions over whether we should continue overinvesting in the corrections system and local police departments at the expense of public schools — or deciding to invest greater resources into special education and healthcare programs — are as much about the budget as they are about our moral principles. The budget process, although complicated and tedious, is what translates the will of the people into the work of the government, defining what we want our public officials to prioritize.