📝 Choo choo

🚞 A Big Win For Passenger Rail Service

• Wisconsin will receive a total of $2.5 million in federal funding to study the expansion of passenger rail between Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Multiple corridors across the state will be evaluated, including expanding Amtrak’s existing Hiawatha line that runs from Milwaukee to Chicago. Another proposed corridor would connect Milwaukee to Minneapolis via Madison and Eau Claire.
• Related: Remember when Wisconsin was only steps away from having a high-speed passenger rail line? WPR made a podcast about the whole saga. [Wisconsin State Journal, WPR]

🚫 No Deal for UW and Legislature

• Over the weekend, the UW Board of Regents rejected a deal with Republican lawmakers to fund UW-Madison’s new engineering building and allow pay raises for more than 30,000 university employees.
• Lawmakers had demanded all UW schools implement a three-year freeze on hiring for diversity, equity, and inclusion positions, and “realign” some jobs currently focused on diversity. Schools would have had to remove any diversity statements in admissions applications and develop a class on freedom of expression for undergraduate students entering all campuses.
• Several regents spoke in favor of keeping diversity programs, and said accepting the deal would have encouraged lawmakers to seek further concessions. The vote was close, with nine regents voting to reject the deal and eight voting to keep it.
• Some context: Back in October, Gov. Tony Evers sued the legislature for rejecting the budgeted pay raises; the lawsuit is pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. [WisPolitics, Cap Times, UW, WPR, Wisconsin Court System]

🦣 Wisconsin’s Newest National Parks (Kinda)

• Two Wisconsin scenic trails will soon get major upgrades. As part of the National Scenic Trails Parity Act, the Ice Age Trail and North County scenic trails will receive better management and access to additional funding by being given a new status in the National Park System. Wisconsin’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has pushed for this legislation for years.
• The Ice Age National Scenic Trail runs across roughly 1,200 miles of Wisconsin. The North Country National Scenic Trail spans around 4,800 miles across eight states and through northwestern Wisconsin. [Cap Times, WPR, Ice Age Trail Alliance, WDNR]

✡️ Your Lunchtime Read: Wisconsin 101: Synagogue Window of Sheboygan

• “In the early 20th century, millions of Jewish people fled Russia due to persecution and poor quality of life. Some of them ended up in Wisconsin. In Sheboygan, a former synagogue with an historic stained glass window acts as a testament to the area’s once thriving Jewish community.” [Wisconsin Life]

Inside the New Push to Repeal Act 10

For the past decade, Wisconsin teachers and most other public employees have only been able to bargain with their employers over inflationary raises. That’s due to Act 10, a controversial Wisconsin law passed back in 2011, which curtailed their rights. The law has been challenged numerous times over the years, but now several unions have filed a new lawsuit seeking to toss the law as unconstitutional.