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Madison - Homeowners using deadly force against intruders would get powerful legal protection, under a bill approved by the Assembly late Tuesday.

The bill passed on a bipartisan 71-24 vote and now goes next to the Senate, which like the Assembly is controlled by Republicans. But it was unclear Tuesday if the Senate would take it up Wednesday, the only day it is slated to be in session this week.

If the Senate doesn't vote on it Wednesday, it may not consider the bill until January or later because after this week the Legislature isn't scheduled to be on the floor for the rest of the year.

Rep. Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee), a former judge, criticized the bill and said that Republicans were wrong to focus on issues like the deadly force bill and the state's new concealed carry law rather than on the state's struggling economy.

"I am deeply troubled with the whole trend," Kessler said. "I am troubled with the fact that in this jobs session we are not dealing with jobs. We're instead dealing with the issue of gun rights."

Under the bill, courts in most criminal and civil matters would presume that property owners using deadly force had acted reasonably against anyone unlawfully inside their residence, business or vehicle, whether they were armed or not. The proposal is sometimes known as "castle doctrine" legislation, a reference to the saying that one's home is one's castle.

The Assembly was also expected to take up a bill approved by the Senate last month that would allow school officials to use standardized test scores to help decide whether to discipline or fire teachers. Dozens of bills are moving through the Legislature this week as GOP lawmakers try to advance their agenda ahead of recall efforts expected to start against Gov. Scott Walker and state senators later this month.

During the debate, Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Bill Kramer (R-Waukesha) initially ordered the Assembly galleries cleared because some opponents of the bill were cheering a lawmaker as he criticized it on the floor.

Kramer backed away from that after Rep. Tony Staskunas (D-West Allis), who held the job in 2009 and 2010, asked Kramer to reconsider the action, saying it went too far to clear everyone when only some visitors had cheered.

The Assembly's work on the castle doctrine bill came the same day that Wisconsin became the 49th state in the country to allow people to carry concealed firearms. Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) said that the bill would help law-abiding residents protect themselves.

"This is to ensure that innocent citizens can safely and securely defend themselves when threatened," he said.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has said Wisconsin, like most states, doesn't need a castle doctrine because current law provides more than adequate protection for anyone legitimately acting in self-defense. Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco said that strangers occasionally enter the wrong homes accidentally if they're confused or drunk.

"Shouldn't there be some minimal effort required to assess the situation or call police before firing?" DeCecco asked.

Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said he had not reviewed the particulars of the bill, but that he supported the general concept.

"Being a Second Amendment advocate, I have always been a proponent of some form of the castle doctrine," he said. "I'm a strong believer that law-abiding citizens can be trusted with firearms, know how and when to use them when they feel like they have to, and they should have the ability to protect themselves."

Under current law, a person can't seek to kill or wound someone unless he or she reasonably believes it's needed to prevent the same type of injury to himself or herself.

Supporters of the bill say that people in their homes or businesses don't necessarily have the time to check whether an intruder is trying to hurt them.

The proposed immunity under the castle doctrine legislation wouldn't apply to people who were using their home or other property for crimes such as drug dealing.

It also wouldn't shield a shooter who attacked someone who he or she knew or should have known was a police officer.

Teacher discipline bill

Under another bill the Assembly was to take up, school officials could use standardized tests to help decide whether to discipline or fire teachers. The Senate passed that measure last month on party lines.

The bill also would eliminate a 200-day cap on the number of teaching days each school year for the Milwaukee Public Schools.

Existing law allows school administrators to use standardized tests as one of multiple criteria to evaluate teachers' performance but prohibits school districts from using the test results to fire or suspend a teacher.

The bill would allow such actions, as long as the test results weren't the sole reason for removing, suspending or disciplining a teacher.

Some Democrats and state schools Superintendent Tony Evers argue lawmakers should wait for a more comprehensive effort by Walker and Evers to develop a system that would better evaluate educators.

That group, known as the Educator Effectiveness Design Team, has been working since the beginning of the year to develop criteria for teacher and principal evaluations that would include student academic growth data. The group's recommendations are expected soon.

Using the results of students' annual standardized state test scores to measure teacher performance has been a historically thorny issue, especially in Wisconsin, which until recently outlawed the practice completely.

Election measure. Also Tuesday, the Assembly passed on a bipartisan 67-28 vote a bill to move partisan primaries from September to August and eliminate a guarantee that most voters can receive absentee ballots by email.

The Assembly gave preliminary approval of the measure last week, but Democrats blocked final action on it.

Moving the primaries is needed to conform to a federal law that requires states to send absentee ballots to military and overseas voters at least 45 days before an election. Wisconsin's existing election schedule makes it impossible to comply with that federal law, election officials have said.

The Senate approved the bill in June, but it must go back to that house because of changes the Assembly made to the bill. The changes included a tweak to the recently enacted law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls starting in February.

Under that law, people can get state IDs for free from the Division of Motor Vehicles - a provision that was included to ensure courts didn't view the ID requirement as an illegal poll tax. People who lose their free IDs have to pay to replace them.

The bill before the Assembly Tuesday would make those replacement IDs free as well.

Doctors' apologies. The Assembly signed off 62-33 on a measure giving doctors immunity in court from their own apologies or other statements to patients and their families. Democrats blocked a final vote on that bill last week because they said it goes too far by giving doctors immunity even when they say they are at fault, responsible or liable for bad outcomes.

Doctors say the bill would give them more assurance that they could offer sympathy to relatives and patients with bad outcomes without worrying that their words would be twisted and used against them in a lawsuit.

University regents. The Assembly also approved on a voice vote a bill that would require that members of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents come from each of the state's eight congressional districts. The bill goes to Walker.

Jobs proposal. Earlier Tuesday, Democrats announced a package of job-creation bills they plan to introduce later this week that would funnel money to technical colleges facing filled classes and waiting lists or job training programs.

Among the nine jobs bills are initiatives that would provide grants to technical college programs that have waiting lists for skills in demand by Wisconsin businesses.

Meg Jones and Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.