Weekly Review - November 11, 2025

Four Lakes Voices is a free online publication diving into Dane County, Wisconsin, and National politics. Please share with your friends!

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Publication Manager & Editor Four Lakes Voices
November 11, 2025

Articles In This Issue

Yeah, Dane County Board defunded police

Who are you going to believe, the Democratic-endorsed Dane County supervisors claiming they’re not defunding the police or your lying eyes? 

Incredibly — as in: you gotta be kidding! — the chairman of the committee overseeing the Sheriff’s Office, Richelle Andrae, denied the county board majority was defunding the sheriff’s department! Why, it’s just a “freeze” of 20 previously funded deputies that you cannot hire next year, she claimed. That “freeze,” sponsored by board chair Patrick Miles, passed 32 to 5 last night 11-05-25. Except it doesn’t save $2,388,000 for a county with a $31 million structural deficit because they’re spending it on the City of Madison’s homeless shelter and other human services.

Wisconsin GOP Bill Would Require Voter Approval for Wheel Taxes

A new bill proposed by Wisconsin Republicans would require voter approval before local governments implement or renew wheel taxes— annual vehicle registration fees used to fund road maintenance and transportation projects. 

More than 50 Wisconsin municipalities have a wheel tax in place, as well as 14 counties. Under the proposal, any existing wheel tax would be eliminated if local voters fail to approve it in a referendum held within eighteen months after the bill becomes law. The implementation of a new wheel tax would only occur if a majority of voters approve it. 

Liberal fury over shutdown deal convulses Democrats

Tensions in the Democratic Party are boiling over this week after a group of mostly moderate Democratic senators joined Republicans to advance a bill to reopen the government.

The Democrats’ support for the spending bill all but ensures that the history-making shutdown will soon end, but it came without Republicans giving any ground on the Democrats’ central demand for an extension of ObamaCare subsidies.

“What Senate Dems who voted for this horses‑‑‑ deal did was f‑‑‑ over all the hard work people put in to Tuesday’s elections,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, posted on social platform X. “Healthcare matters. Not platitudes.”