☀️ Good morning!

When we started UpNorthNews in January 2020, we did so with an editorial policy you could describe as anecdotal and rooted in my earlier jobs as a journalist and an elected official.

In both roles, TV anchor and legislator, people always felt comfortable coming up and introducing themselves. It happens everywhere, but I’ll use the quintessential Wisconsin scene: a fish fry at a supper club.

“Pat, what’s the deal with…” is how folks pivoted from greetings to the heart of the conversation. I am still humbled that complete strangers can approach me for a little insight on something in the news. 

They know I’m going to try to convey some information (and my perspective) in a manner that is conversational and fact-based. They won’t necessarily agree with my opinion, but I’m doing things right if they walk away feeling better informed and appreciative of how either side of a debate has some wiggle room for further discussion, even compromise.

I’d like to think you can see that in the responses to last week’s question about Democratic Party direction. There were so many heartfelt responses for each option — and I’m going to put them in a single article in the near future. It’ll read like you surveyed everyone at a supper club on some Friday evening! This is just one more thing that makes Wisconsin so incredible.

Enjoy your day. And, as always, if news breaks while you’re out and about, you can stay up to date with our weekday newsletter, our social media posts, and our morning radio show — either live or as a podcast.

⏮️ Last Week: We asked you about the direction of the Democratic Party, given recent instances of younger, bolder voices emerging on the scene. Here’s what you said:

26%  🄰  Be bold, go left 

38%  🄱  Big tent, room for all 

30%  🄲  Moderation, don’t go too liberal

🍿6%  🄳  Republican spectators with a box of popcorn

We’ll highlight one response — and welcome one of our international readers, Annie Graul, vice chair of Democrats Abroad in Barcelona, who said:

“Americans are demanding fairness and economic opportunity, which are clearly supported in the Democratic platforms. The Republicans are not giving them those things. We on the left don’t need better policies, we just need to communicate our existing policies better. Thanks and best wishes from a cheesehead in Spain, where liberal politics have given the citizens one of the greatest public healthcare systems in the world.”

⏭️ This Week: Businessman Bill Berrien, a Republican candidate for governor, announced a $400,000 ad buy more than a year before the August 2026 primary. If you see a candidate running ads this early, what’s your thought?

🄰  👎🏻 I hate it – I’ll have an instant negative vibe about you and it’ll be tough to win me over when it’s actually time to start thinking about 2026 elections. 

🄱  🤷🏻‍♂️ I get it – Nobody likes political ads, but they’re the only way someone can build their name ID with the general public. It won’t make a difference to me and it won’t hurt them when it’s finally time to vote. 

🄲  👍🏻 I like it – I like the initiative, the gumption. I think a candidate should be rewarded for communicating with voters right now as opposed to doing nothing but fundraising.

Be sure to answer as if it’s a generic candidate, not specifically one whose party you like or don’t like.

To answer this week’s question or to suggest a different answer, hit reply or email me directly at pat@couriernewsroom.com, and we may share it in a future newsletter or on our radio show.

Corrine Hendrickson joined our radio show from her kitchen, prior to the morning’s first kids arriving to her home daycare.

Corrine Hendrickson, a leading advocate for state funding to address the crisis of affordable childcare in Wisconsin, announced on our radio show Thursday that she’s closing her center in New Glarus next month, due in large part to a state support program not being funded adequately in the new state budget.

“One of my kids, she looked at me and she said, ‘Corrine, why don’t you get to be a teacher anymore?’ And that just about broke my heart because that’s what I do.”

With the end of a state program funded with federal pandemic relief funds, Hendrickson said she faced raising her rates to a point she saw as “untenable” for all of her working parents.

Hendrickson said one option may be to run for a seat in the Legislature to call attention to the needs of parents, childcare providers, and employers who are losing workers unable to find safe, affordable options for their children. She is considering a challenge to Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee that struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ request for using $480 million of the state’s $4 billion surplus to support childcare providers and parents. The new budget contains significantly less funding and for only one year.

When Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker passed a new state budget in 2015, it included language that has brought Wisconsin about one year away from potentially explosive costs for taxpayer funded vouchers that can be used to move children from public to private, mostly religious schools.

After a decade of 1% annual growth, according to Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire), vouchers are now capped at 10% of a school district’s population; but the original law now calls for those caps to be eliminated at the start of the 2026-27 school year. Phelps told our radio show Wednesday that the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has confirmed that there is no estimate of how many families might seek vouchers and how much that would cost state taxpayers and —by extension — local property taxpayers, as public schools are forced into more referendums to make up what voucher schools skim off the top of each annual budget.

“This was the last state budget we were going to pass before that enrollment cap comes off, the balloon pops, and we don’t know — there’s no way to know how big the program could get” Phelps said.

1️⃣ 🇺🇸 State Sen. Jeff Smith talked to us about something else missing from the state budget: funding to support our veterans who become homeless. 

2️⃣ 🏛️ Trump is ignoring Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin and will decide on his own whom to appoint as the next judge on a state Court of Appeals, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

3️⃣ 🤡 At least Baldwin and Johnson try to work together on finding judicial nominations. Contrast that with video from Spectrum News showing US Rep. Derrick Van Orden rudely interrupting a bipartisan press gaggle with US Reps. Mark Pocan and Rep. Tony Wied and provoking a verbal confrontation.

Catch our radio show weekdays from 6-9 a.m. on our Facebook and YouTube pages as well as stations across Wisconsin thanks to our friends at Civic Media. If you can’t listen live, listen on-demand by subscribing on Spotify.

📱 And stay up to date all day with all of our team’s work through our social media feeds, including Instagram and TikTok.

🏁 Thanks for reading today’s update.

Have a great week.