Only 7 of 71 seats in state contested in 2020. Impacts criminal justice reform. By Bridgit Bowden, WisContext - Jun 1st, 2021 05:24 pm //end headline wrapper ?>Courthouses from Wisconsin counties where district attorneys ran uncontested. Angela Major/WPR
Kimberly Lawton didn’t always want to go into criminal law. In fact, when she was in law school, she found it depressing.
“I just saw the sadness,” she said. “Victims that didn’t have resolution, and defendants or inmates that have just such trauma in their own lives.”
But after a few years of working in the legal system, she began to see potential for change, and she wanted to be a part of it. So she did something that few people do she ran against an incumbent district attorney.
Wauwatosa wants to address an increase in panhandling activity in its medians, more than two years after the city repealed a law that prohibited “aggressive panhandling.”
The discussion of the city s handling of panhandlers comes days after a 24-year-old woman was hit while asking for money near Mayfair mall. That woman is still in critical condition at Froedtert Hospital, according to Wauwatosa Police Capt. Luke Vetter.
In 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin sent letters to Wauwatosa and seven other Wisconsin cities asking them to get rid of their panhandling laws, calling the laws unconstitutional in the wake of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
GOP-sponsored legislation limits drop boxes, restricts qualifying as indefinitely confined. //end headline wrapper ?>A SafeVote drop box. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
A state Senate committee considered several bills Wednesday that would put new limits on absentee voting in Wisconsin.
The Republican proposals would place new restrictions on absentee ballot drop-off locations and ballot drop boxes and set new eligibility requirements for indefinitely confined voters. They are part of a larger package of GOP-sponsored election bills that mostly respond to partisan criticism of the 2020 presidential election.
Supporters of the measures discussed Wednesday argue they will increase public confidence in elections by clarifying election administration policies and voting procedures statewide.