Browsing: Culture/Politics

Sen. Ron Johnson kicked off Badger Institute’s 2025 Speaker Series with a clarion call to fiscal responsibility.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has renewed his proposal that legislators allow themselves to be cut out of the process of making state law and permit bills to be passed or statutes to be repealed by petition and referendum, an idea that the Legislature’s leaders dismissed as dead on arrival.

Wisconsinites are increasingly interracial, challenging a deeply embedded and divisive system that relies on racial categories to apportion billions of dollars in government programs and subsidies in the name of equity.

Populist trade policy at the national level is especially dangerous for Wisconsin workers.

Since 1854, Wisconsin has cast its presidential votes in favor of Republican candidates 26 times, Democrat candidates 16 times, and the Progressive candidate once.

If we all reject violence in politics, why does a Milwaukee mural honor a woman who shot up the U.S. Capitol?

“The only reason you’re free is because of checks and balances. Period. And one of the central checks is the Electoral College.”

Wisconsin just celebrated a record breaking attendance at the Wisconsin State Fair, its largest statewide event, earlier this month. The festival in West Allis attracted 1,136,805 visitors over its 11-day run, topping the previous record of 1,130,572 set in 2019.

When it comes to UW-Madison faculty in social sciences and the humanities, the odds of finding a Republican donor are just 1 in 530.

Gov. Tony Evers granted a new tranche of pardons, bringing the total number of persons pardoned under his tenure to a record 1,264. His immediate predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker did not granting a single pardon during his term in office.

The Badger Institute takes a look at which U.S. state capitals command the largest and smallest share of their state’s population.

The two major political parties in the United States each have hosted 26 conventions since the year 1924. Here’s where they’ve been held:

Sociologist Brad Wilcox is telling young people to marry because it will make them happier. “People who embrace the core values and virtues associated with marriage are more likely to flourish both in marriage and in life.”

According to federal statistics, the marriage rate in the United States returned to prepandemic levels in 2022. While this may be true for the country, we wanted to look at the figures for Wisconsin and neighboring states.

We live on land that was made free by the more than 1 million Americans who died defending it. Certainly none of them wanted to die, but our imperfect country was given a chance to stick around and overcome its flaws because they were willing to do so.

Show your progressive friends the facts and ask this: If you’re not willing to pay to fight climate change, who do you think should?

In Wisconsin, total fertility rate peaked in 1960 and sharply declined shortly after, falling below 2 in the early 1970s and only approaching it in recent years before turning downward again.

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted 6-4 to instruct the state auditor to find out what has come of Gov. Tony Evers’ 2019 order to make “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI, a central feature of agencies’ plans and to corral every state employee into “mandatory equity and inclusion training.” 

If Wisconsin families ever needed adults in authority to show some grit by standing up for century-old institutions with proven records of helping children grow into happy adults, now is the time.

In both of the two most recent legislative sessions, Wisconsin legislators introduced just over 2,300 bills and saw less than 12% enacted.