Here & Now

Inside Wisconsin Politics: The State Senate Looks Past 2026

Frederica Freyberg:
The state Senate adjourned this week, but not before passing bipartisan bills to release more than $125 million for PFAS cleanup, protections and help for communities poisoned by the forever chemical. After years of impasse, the measures now head to the governor for signing.
In related news, tonight we share a new on-air program and podcast from WPR and PBS Wisconsin News. “Inside Wisconsin Politics” is a weekly political roundtable that brings together our most experienced Capitol reporters to share the week’s political and government news, explaining what happened, what it means and why it matters. PBS Wisconsin senior political reporter Zac Schultz, WPR Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson and WPR political reporters Rich Kremer and Anya van Wagtendonk join the conversation. Today’s program included the breaking news that the Republican state Senate majority leader will not run for reelection. The crew unpacked whether the governor will sign the online sports betting bill passed out of the chamber, the approval of money for the UW to offset name, image and likeness costs of athletes and data centers, and how the politics of the final regular Senate session played into it all. Here’s an excerpt.

Shawn Johnson:
The Wisconsin Senate wraps up its regular business for 2026. What passed, what didn’t, and what can we learn from the way this Senate voted? This is “Inside Wisconsin Politics.” The Senate gave us lots to talk about including – as we’re getting ready to record – news that the Senate majority leader, Devin LeMahieu, is not going to seek reelection, which in the world of the state Capitol, as you all know, that is a pretty big deal. Zac, what can we take from that, given the way that the Senate has been acting this week? And how big a deal is it in the Capitol?

Zac Schultz:
Well, it certainly felt like a week of voting where people weren’t worried about the next election or the next term. There were questions of whether that signaled LeMahieu knew that his majority position was at stake as Republicans are worried about having the Dems flip the Senate. But I think the bigger picture to look here is we’re going to have a new majority leader in the Senate, a new speaker in the Assembly and a new governor. And the last time that happened was 2011 with Scott Walker and the Fitz’s running the show. Big changes that time. We might see big changes next session, too.

Shawn Johnson:
A wave election. And there’s people, of course — every election is nationalized right now. And there have already been people talking about whether this would be a nationalized democratic election. Anya, you know that Capitol building and you know how much sway leaders carry. How big of a deal is it to you that Devin LeMahieu, the leader that you’ve covered in that Senate since you’ve been here, is stepping down?

Anya van Wagtendonk:
There were a few bills that came forward where there was a real question of whether Devin would let them get to the floor, because he did not have Republican votes. And so there were, kind of, threats being floated about what that would mean for his leadership position. And those bills passed with necessary Democratic votes in order to pass. And so then him stepping down, it really is this kind of signal that he — whatever kind of consequences might have come in the caucus — he doesn’t have to worry about them anymore.

Shawn Johnson:
And Rich, you were covering the session this week and that question of whether or not to get Democratic votes is something that everyone was talking about. And, you know then Senator LeMahieu even had some, kind of, not so veiled threats thrown out from a member of his own caucus. Don’t do that, basically. How unusual was this session week in terms of bipartisanship frankly?

Rich Kremer:
Things are changing there. It feels like things are changing in the Senate. They used to have a supermajority not that long ago. Then we got new maps after the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority struck down ones that were drawn by Republicans back in 2011. And then we had an election under those maps. So that supermajority went down to 18 Republican senators. And that threat goes to this thing called “the rule of 17.” It’s an informal rule, but the idea is that if you’re in the majority, you pass bills with majority support. You don’t even really consider them if you don’t have those 17 votes. But we saw examples where Devin LeMahieu went ahead and passed them anyway with Democratic support.

Shawn Johnson:
So let’s unpack a couple of the bills where this did end up being a factor this week. And one of the bills that did die was this Republican data center bill, would regulate data centers. Speaker Vos very helpfully had a forum on the last day of Senate session where he had some opinions about the Senate not taking up his data center bill. Anya, what did he have to say?

Anya van Wagtendonk:
Yeah, I mean, this was basically the closest that the Legislature came to having any type of regulatory bill for data centers, which of course, are kind of exploding across the state. And the fact that it is — that it did not reach the floor of the Senate means that the session has passed without basically any guardrails, any new guardrails coming on. But this was a Republican bill. Vos championed it. It had a few Democratic votes in the Assembly, but most Democrats said this is rushed. We need to be more thoughtful about how we are regulating data centers. And then the Senate didn’t even bring it to the floor. But Vos talked about, you know, that really being, as he thought, an issue for Senate Republicans. That if they don’t kind of lead on this issue, that it might cost them votes in November.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. It’s rare to hear a speaker come out against a majority leader from his own party the week that he’s still in session with that kind of criticism. I think, sort of, the secret was sort of out on Tuesday. I mean, we didn’t know know that Devin LeMahieu was not going to seek reelection, but there was talk about it. There was speculation about it. People are looking at the Senate math and they’re thinking about it.

Zac Schultz:
Well, it changes a lot when no one has to worry about reelection next year. Evers, Vos and Mahieu can all speak —

Shawn Johnson:
He’s free.

Zac Schultz:
— in ways that we have not heard or we have not heard them speak publicly. We’ve heard them off the record or heard from their staffers. But I think this bill in particular still has the next election cycle written all over it, as Vos pointed out, because it’s a major issue in the gubernatorial campaign. I think if LeMahieu had a strong point of view, he would have brought it to the floor and let Democrats help pass it if he thought that was the way to go. But there’s not a clear advantage at this time. And Tom Tiffany as governor is clearly campaigning on this issue as well. So this is definitely one for the fall.