Publications

This information memorandum provides a summary table of professions that require the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) or a credentialing board to review a person’s arrest or conviction record when granting, renewing, or reviewing an occupational credential.

This information memorandum provides an overview of the standards used by the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) and the credentialing boards  in reviewing a person’s criminal records history when granting, renewing, or reviewing an occupational credential. Current law generally prohibits discrimination based on an arrest or conviction record, but allows consideration of a person’s criminal records history under certain guidelines. Current law also prohibits the use of criminal background checks in reviewing a person’s criminal records history, except with respect to certain occupations.

Pursuant to ch. 160, regulatory agencies collaborate to protect the state’s groundwater resources to provide adequate safeguards for public health and welfare. This information memorandum provides an overview of Wisconsin’s groundwater protection laws and associated DNR rules. 

Under 2023 Wisconsin Act 73 and subsequent legislation, a person must obtain a license to sell an electronic vaping device in Wisconsin, and an electronic vaping device that has not been registered with DOR generally may not be sold in Wisconsin.

In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law mandating age verification for access to sexually explicit online material deemed “harmful to minors.” By finding the burden on adult speech to be only incidental, the court applied intermediate scrutiny, rather than strict scrutiny.

This issue brief describes the statutory roles of JCRAR and its cochairs in the oversight of the administrative rulemaking process and in oversight of the existing administrative code following Evers v. Marklein, 2025 WI 36.

This issue brief provides an overview of two partial veto cases decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 2024-25 term, LeMieux v. Evers, 2025 WI 12, and Wisconsin State Legislature v. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, 2025 WI 27.

Under the Wisconsin Constitution, the Governor may approve appropriation bills “in whole or in part.” The partial veto power afforded Wisconsin’s governors is considered to be one of the most extensive in the nation. Since its creation by constitutional amendment in 1930, Wisconsin governors have exercised the partial veto with increasing regularity and imagination. In response, the Legislature has challenged the Governor’s use of the partial veto in court and, on two occasions, amended the constitution with voter approval. This information memorandum provides background information on the authority of the Governor to partially veto appropriation bills under Wis. Const. art. V, s. 10 (1) and describes the limits on the Governor’s use of this authority.