Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:24 and sunset is 8:35, for 15 hours, 11 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1928, sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor’s 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.
There’s much exuberance, all of it unfounded, that the agreement between Gov. Evers and WISGOP legislators means bipartisanship has returned to the Badger State. If bipartisanship means genuine congeniality and cooperation from legislators in both parties (and that’s the proper connotation), then Wisconsin does not have bipartisanship.
Instead, Wisconsin has a better political environment because the WISGOP that profited from gerrymandering now faces fairer districting across the state:
But the negotiation process that led to the latest biennial budget was drastically different than in previous budget cycles since Evers took office in 2019, which were largely conducted on party-line votes without significant negotiations.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky said last year’s redistricting was one key. Under the new maps, Democrats failed to win a legislative majority in November, but gained 10seats in the Assembly and four in the state Senate.
“With the slimmed-down (Republican) majority, they had to lean on Democrats because they could not pass the budget with just their own members, and that transformed the negotiations compared to what we’ve seen in previous budgets,” Chergosky said.
The final budget vote in the Senate was 19-14, with four Republicans voting in opposition. Without the votes of Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, the compromise would have fallen apart.
See Rich Kremer, Experts, Dems say new voting maps laid groundwork for Wisconsin budget compromise (‘With smaller state Senate majority, Republicans cut a deal with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’), Wisconsin Public Radio, July 7, 2025.
That’s it: When the WISGOP lost their gerrymandered majorities, and when national policies incited protests across the state this year, Speaker Robin Vos came to a deal because he was too weak to do otherwise.
See also Vos Admits That Worry Over National GOP Policy Compelled WISGOP Deal With Evers, On the State Budget Deal, Evers Seems to Win Most, and It’s Not a Wisconsin Budget Negotiation, It’s Another WISGOP Display of Bad Faith Claims.
Tesla shares fall as Musk’s ‘America Party’ riles investors:
(Businesses require an attention that ketamine-fiend Musk seems to lack. In any event, there’s only room for one dysfunctional daddy in the GOP, and it’s not gonna be Musk…)