Wisconsin Democratic chair announces plans to step down
'Our state party is now in extraordinarily strong shape, we have secured a pro-democracy Supreme Court majority for at least the next two years, and Democrats are poised to win a trifecta in 2026,' Wikler said in a letter to Democrats in the Badger State.
'Now is the right time for me to take a breath, and to find new ways to advance the fight for a country that works for working people, and one that honors every person's fundamental freedom and dignity,' he continued. 'When my third term as chair ends this June, I will be passing the torch.'
Wikler took the helm of the state party in 2019, overseeing several major successes in the state since becoming chair, including former President Biden's win in Wisconsin in 2020; Gov. Tony Evers's (D) reelection in 2022; and winning three key state Supreme Court races in 2020, 2023 and 2025, which he noted in his letter.
While President Trump won the state last November, Wisconsin Democrats were able to narrowly reelect Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).
The state party's successes in the state Supreme Court have also led to new legislative maps in Wisconsin, and Democrats have since made inroads in the Capitol.
Wikler ran for Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair earlier this year against a handful of other candidates, ultimately losing to DNC Chair Ken Martin, who had been the state party chair in Minnesota.
Asked in an interview with WISN 12 News aired on Thursday about whether his next steps could be a potential political run, Wikler answered, 'maybe someday,' while noting he wasn't sure what his next steps would look like.
Pressed at various points in the interview on whether he would run for governor if Evers didn't run, Wikler tried to dodge some of those questions, saying he wanted to see Evers run again and that the governor had his support.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
23 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Texas House Democrats flee to Chicago to deny GOP's congressional redistricting effort
Opting to use what Texas politicians called a nuclear option, Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives left for Chicago on Sunday under threat of fines and arrest to deny Republicans the quorum they need to redraw five congressional districts aimed at helping President Donald Trump and the national GOP maintain a U.S. House majority in next year's midterm elections. The Texas Democrats were scheduled to be met by a supportive Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker upon their arrival in Chicago. Pritzker issued a statement echoing Texas Democratic arguments that Republicans were using a special legislative session in Austin, aimed at providing relief for last month's flood victims in the state's Hill Country, to please Trump and 'as political cover to push through a racially gerrymandered congressional map.' 'This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,' state Rep. Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement. 'We're leaving Texas to fight for Texans,' Wu said. 'We will not allow disaster relief to be held hostage for a Trump gerrymander. We're not walking out on our responsibilities; we're walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent. As of today, this corrupt special session is over.' By coming to Illinois, the Democrats from Texas are leaving a state where Republicans dominate and will find themselves in a state where the opposite is true. Pritzker, in his statement, said the move denies Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott a quorum 'to pass his rigged redistricting scheme,' which was encouraged by Trump's political allies. Pritzker and Abbott clashed often in the last few years over the Texas governor's decision to bus and fly thousands of immigrants from the southern border to Chicago in part to mock state and city sanctuary policies, resulting in Illinois and the city spending tens of millions of dollars for services. A source close to Pritzker said discussions about Texas Democrats seeking help from the governor began June 28, when Pritzker attended a dinner for the Oklahoma Democratic Party. There, Pritzker met with Kendall Scudder, the head of the Texas Democratic Party, and the two spoke about the challenges facing Texas Democrats. Pritzker vowed to support and defend them if they came to Illinois, the source said. The topic came up again a little more than a week ago when the governor met on Chicago's South Side with some Texas Democratic lawmakers to discuss that state's GOP midterm redistricting effort, the source said. The 150-member Texas House has 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats, with 100 members required to be present for a quorum call in order to conduct legislative business. It was not immediately clear how many Democrats were making the trip to Chicago. It's not the first time that Texas House Democrats fled the state capital in Austin to deny a quorum. In July 2021, when Republicans in the state pushed for tighter restrictions on voting, they spent five weeks in Washington, D.C. The move prompted a Texas House rule of $500 per day fines for any such future absences. But the Texas Tribune reported that in recent days, members of the state's Democratic congressional delegation were contacting their campaign donor base to put together funds to compensate missing members for fines as well as their accommodations in Illinois. One estimate put the cost at $1 million per month. Additionally, Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is mounting a primary challenge to GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, has offered the services of his office in 'hunting down and compelling the attendance of anyone who abandons their office' to deny quorum. Pritzker, who is a billionaire, has no plans to pay for the Texas Democrats' stay in the Chicago area, but his campaign staff would make hotel recommendations and help with other logistics, according to the Pritzker source. The move by Democrats came a day after a Republican-led Texas House panel voted along party lines to advance a draft congressional map altering current district boundaries to create five districts that favor Republicans. The GOP currently holds a 25-12 advantage among the 38-member congressional delegation, with one vacancy. While the U.S. Department of Justice under Trump sought to offer legal justification for redrawing the map, contending four districts were unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered, Texas House Republicans flatly stated their goal was to increase GOP representation in the state's congressional delegation. 'Different from everyone else, I'm telling you, I'm not beating around the bush,' said state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Corpus Christi Republican who sponsored the remap legislation. 'We have five new districts, and these five new districts are based on political performance.' Texas Democrats said the new map would come at the expense of representation for Black and Latino voters who would either be packed into new districts or widely dispersed among them. It's not the first time that Illinois has become home for another state's Democratic lawmakers. In 2011, Indiana Democrats crossed the border and stayed for five weeks in the Champaign-Urbana area to deny a quorum over a Republican push for union-weakening legislation and creation of a school voucher program. A right-to-work bill passed the following year under GOP majorities achieved through the 2011 remap.
Boston Globe
23 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Experts raise concerns over Trump's White House ballroom renovation plans
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The White House, the Supreme Court building, the Capitol, and all their 'related buildings and grounds' are exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which requires federal agencies to assess and mitigate adverse effects to historic properties and seek consultation through a formal review process. Advertisement Instead, the White House has its own committee that provides advice on the 'preservation and the interpretation of the museum character' of the building. The Committee for the Preservation of the White House — chaired by the director of the National Park Service — is made up of several federal officials and a number of members appointed by the president. Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said Thursday in a news release that the administration was 'fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House.' Advertisement Still, the committee's recommendations are not binding, giving the president significant leeway to do as he wishes. 'In most cases, you're not going to have a lot of binding obligations to historic buildings,' said Michael Spencer, a professor of historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington. The sheer scale of the project — a giant ballroom attached to the East Wing — worries preservationists. 'It could do some harm to the property overall,' said Richard Longstreth, professor of American studies at George Washington University. 'There aren't any checks and balances here, unfortunately.' Spencer said his expectations on preservation were 'pretty low.' 'We're oftentimes viewed as getting in the way of progress, and I would say in this particular instance, you've got a lot of strong personalities and they're under no obligation to really follow best practices as preservation puts forth,' he said. Jonathan Jarvis, former director of the National Park Service, which is responsible for the upkeep of the White House and its grounds, said any additions made to the White House must follow the architectural design of the building. 'You couldn't put something on the side of the building that doesn't match it historically in terms of its architecture, coloration, and style,' he said. He cast doubt on the timeline the Trump administration proposed, calling its plans to finish a project of this scale by the end of Trump's term 'optimistic.' 'You don't see one of those projects go that fast,' he said. 'It'll be a rush to get it done.' Advertisement Jarvis, who was the director of the National Park Service from 2009 to 2017, said construction at the White House is a 'complicated process' because it is 'not just normal construction.' 'It's the White House — it has to survive a terrorist attack,' he said. He added that every step of the process would need to be evaluated to ensure that nothing 'is being compromised architecturally or from a security standpoint.' Stewart D. McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, said the White House has gone through numerous changes to its interior and exterior since the cornerstone was laid in 1792, and many of them faced resistance. He said many of those changes made the White House what it is today. 'The South Portico, the North Portico, the East Wing, the West Wing, and the Truman Balcony all raised concerns at the time — but today, we can't imagine the White House without these iconic elements,' he said. It remains unclear whether the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, which works in tandem with the White House Historical Association, has provided recommendations or raised concerns about Trump's ballroom. A spokesperson for the historical association, Jessica Fredericks, did not respond to questions about the committee's position on the project. In addition to the director of the National Park Service, the committee is composed of representatives from the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Art, and a handful of presidential appointees. Trump has not nominated a park service director, a position that requires Senate confirmation, or announced the appointments of individuals to serve on the committee. The terms of 13 individuals that former President Joe Biden appointed to the committee in 2023 expired when Trump began his second term, according to a government database. Jessica Bowron, the comptroller of the National Park Service, is currently serving as its acting director. Advertisement The president tapped McCrery Architects as the lead architect of the project. James McCrery, the company's founding principal architect, was appointed by Trump in 2019 to serve a four-year term on the Commission of Fine Arts. He called the ballroom a necessary addition to the White House, where presidents have 'faced challenges hosting major events.' McCrery said he would preserve 'the elegance of its classical design and historical importance' of the White House. Questions about who is funding the project are also still largely unanswered. White House officials said the president and 'other patriot donors' would pay for the renovations but declined to give details. This article originally appeared in
San Francisco Chronicle
23 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Texas Democrats leave the state to block vote on redrawn House map backed by Trump
Texas Democrats are leaving the state in an attempt to prevent the state House from holding a vote Monday on new congressional maps that Republicans hope will net them several additional U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm elections. The dramatic move Sunday could expose Democrats to fines and other penalties — with the state's attorney general having previously threatened to arrest them if they took such an action. Refusing to attend legislative session is a civil violation, however, so Democrats legally could not be jailed and it's unclear who has the power to carry out the warrants. Democrats have cast the decision to leave the state as a last-ditch effort to stop Republicans who hold full control of the Texas government from pushing through a rare mid-decade redrawing of the congressional map at the direction of President Donald Trump. "This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,' said Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in a statement. To conduct official business, at least 100 members of the 150-member Texas House must be present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber. At least 51 Democratic members are leaving the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus. 'Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal," he said. The move marks the second time in four years that Texas Democrats have fled the state to block a vote. In 2021, a 38-day standoff took place when Democrats left for Washington in opposition to new voting restrictions. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature that started last month to take up the redistricting effort, as well as to respond to flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people in July. Trump has urged Texas Republicans to redraw the map to help the party net a handful of seats in the midterms next year. Texas Republicans last week unveiled their planned new U.S. House map that would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state's 38 seats. By leaving the state, Democrats are looking to block Republicans from the needed quorum to hold votes on the map set for Monday. The Texas House has rules to fine lawmakers $500 each day they break a quorum. GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton has said previously that if Democrats break quorum, 'they should be found and arrested no matter where they go.' 'My office stands ready to assist local, state, and federal authorities in hunting down and compelling the attendance of anyone who abandons their office and their constituents for cheap political theater,' Paxton said on the social media platform X on July 15. A large chunk of the Texas Democrats are heading to Illinois, where Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker had been in quiet talks with them for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum. Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, has been one of Trump's most outspoken critics during his second term. Last week, Pritzker hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort. California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state. Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. Now, with Texas Democrats holed up in Illinois and blocking the Trump-backed congressional map, the stage may be set for a high-profile showdown between Pritzker and the president. Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states, such as Missouri, according to a person familiar with conversations but unauthorized to speak publicly about them.
