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Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production. You’re watching “Here & Now” 2024 election coverage.

Joe Biden:
We made a commitment to fix our broken student loan system because while a college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive.

Frederica Freyberg:
In a presidential visit to Wisconsin, Joe Biden releases his new plan for student loan debt relief. And in a surprise announcement, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley says she will not seek re-election in 2025. An election that could once again tip the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a look at the implications of Justice Walsh Bradley leaving the bench. Nathan Denzin reports on the rise of mass book challenges in K-12 school libraries. Then why some parts of the state can’t find candidates for local government. And finally, how smaller communities are dealing with the rise in people who lack housing. It’s “Here & Now” for April 12.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced this week that she will not run for re-election when her term is up in 2025. A departure from statements she made a few months ago. This upset of the court could mean a conservative majority once again. The three-term justice did not give specifics as to why she will not run again. Only that, in the 177-year history of the state, she said only four justices will have served longer than my length of service. She went on to say, “I know I can win re-election, should I run, but it’s just time to pass the torch, bringing fresh perspectives to the court.” The announcement is another curveball for the court as it’s become a focal point for Wisconsin politics. It’s also a 180 from statements she made in November while in attendance at Janet Protasiewicz’s election night party when the balance of the court’s ideology changed for the first time in her near 30-year tenure.

Reporter:
Do you have any idea whether you’d want to run again?

Ann Walsh Bradley:
I’m absolutely going to run again. I do have — by the way, I do have an idea and it is yes, after tonight’s performance and seeing the energy in this room, I’m not only going to run, I’m going to win.

Frederica Freyberg:
In her time, she’s presided over many important cases in the state, but a Legislative Reference Bureau survey of significant Wisconsin court decisions in 2020 said, “rarely have so many cases involving the core and essential powers of the state’s political institutions been on the court’s docket.” And by 2022, it again stated “political conflict inevitably made its way onto the court’s docket,” a testament to the recent trend of high-profile issues turning to the court to make decisions. Despite the court justices officially being non-partisan, last year’s election between Dan Kelly and Janet Protasiewicz garnered a record $51 million as interests across the board poured money into the campaigns, setting the stage for another expensive election. As an incumbent, Justice Walsh Bradley would have had an edge over opponents. Candidates from both sides have expressed running in 2025. Former Wisconsin attorney general Republican Brad Schimel has formally announced his run.
In education news, Saturday marks the end of National Library Week dedicated to getting young readers into the local libraries. But at the same time, Wisconsin schools and libraries have had to deal with more book challenges and bans than ever before, more than doubling in 2023. “Here & Now” reporter Nathan Denzin has more.

Monica Treptow:
I would say our school librarians are under a lot of stress.

Jill Underly:
And it’s this culture war of control, right?

Dan Kiel:
I think there was 280 some books in the high school that were being challenged.

Rebecca Blom:
Even nonreaders were coming up to me, like, “What is going on?”

Nathan Denzin:
Wisconsin has seen a huge rise in book challenges since about 2021.

Monica Treptow:
The inquiries are so strong that it actually has shifted the priorities of my position and made that one of the focus areas in support of our school librarians.

Nathan Denzin:
Monica Treptow is the Wisconsin Department of Instruction’s school library media consultant. She travels around the state helping educators understand the current environment of book challenges.

Monica Treptow:
There’s been book challenges for decades, right? That’s not a new thing. But it is new in that the techniques are different.

Nathan Denzin:
Those techniques are often spread on social media.

Jill Underly:
With social media, there’s a lot of misinformation that is spread. Misinformation is designed to stoke outrage.

Nathan Denzin:
Dr. Jill Underly is the state superintendent of public instruction. She says apps like Facebook or X have contributed to the increasing number of challenges. According to the American Library Association, the number of titles challenged hit a record high in 2023. In Wisconsin, there were 27 challenges aimed at hundreds of books. Treptow said that a typical book challenge used to be over a single book. A concerned parent would bring it to a librarian or educator. In contrast, recent challenges include long lists of books that have been sent straight to district administrators or school boards.

Jason Tadlock:
For the middle school is over 600 pages long and for the high school, I believe, it was over 1,400 pages long.

Dan Kiel:
You looked at it at first and went, “Oh my God.”

Ryan McBurney:
We knew immediately there was no way to actually read all of the books.

Nathan Denzin:
Jason Tadlock, Dan Kiel and Ryan McBurney work in the Elkhorn School District. Tadlock as superintendent. Kiel as the high school principal and McBurney as the middle school principal. In late 2023, Elkhorn fielded a challenge to a whopping 444 books. These two stacks represent about one-sixth of all of the books that were challenged in Elkhorn. District staff say it took months to sift through all of the material. Titles like “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck and “The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson were among the challenged material. As were books containing LGBTQ or race topics.

Dan Kiel:
It wasn’t just sex. It was drugs. It was abuse. It was, you know, any number of different topics.

Jason Tadlock:
The policy also required at that time and requires for those books to be pulled out of circulation until such a time a principal makes that judgment.

Nathan Denzin:
That caused about 160 books from middle school and about 280 books from the high school to get temporarily pulled from shelves. In order to get information about all 444 books, the parent had pulled reviews off of booklooks.org. The site was previously affiliated with Moms for Liberty, which is considered a far-right antigovernment organization by a group that tracks extremism in America.

Scarlett Johnson:
The message that parents don’t have privacy over their child’s education has been prevalent for years and for too long, we have stayed silent as out-of-touch administrators, school board members and even union leaders behaved as parents aren’t smart enough to choose what’s right for their own children.

Nathan Denzin:
Scarlett Johnson is one of the founders of the Moms for Liberty chapter in Wisconsin. She has used social media to speak out against numerous books all over the state since 2020. Johnson did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story. However, in a sit-down with WXOW in La Crosse, she pushed back against what she calls indoctrination.

Scarlett Johnson:
We send kids to school to be educated, not indoctrinated, and also we don’t send them there for therapy.

Nathan Denzin:
In Madison, groups like the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property can be found protesting content in schools and libraries.

Jonathan Marine:
The literature that they’re promoting in the libraries, a lot of it is pornographic or obscene.

Nathan Denzin:
Jonathan Marine is a member of the American TFP, which is an anti-LGBTQ organization.

Jonathan Marine:
These things should not be allowed in libraries.

Jill Underly:
Of course, parents should have a say in what their kids are reading, but when we look at the challenges, it’s really a subset of people are dictating what it is that you can read and what your kids can read.

Nathan Denzin:
In Elkhorn, staff had to take on extra duties in order to check every book that was challenged.

Ryan McBurney:
Principals, librarians, administrative assistants, directors, just kind of an all hands-on deck to make sure that we’re getting, with the sheer volume of it, getting all that information together as much as possible.

Dan Kiel:
We try to do our best to get a consensus on where is this book — where should this book be rated age-wise.

Nathan Denzin:
To determine an appropriate age range, they used a combination of professional review sites to learn more about the content of each book. Ultimately, none of the books were banned because staff did not find any of the books to be objectionable. A handful of books were moved from the middle to the high school and another handful had a grade or age restriction applied. Despite the long hours, district staff said that there was one positive. They learned more about each book in their school’s library.

Dan Kiel:
It’s not bad for me to get into the library, see what’s actually there, what are people concerned with.

Nathan Denzin:
But they also said it was a distraction for some of the students.

Jason Tadlock:
I think that it was disruptive. I think it created a lot of angst among students and our parents.

Rebecca Blom:
It brought a lot of attention and a lot of questions.

Nathan Denzin:
Rebecca Blom is the library media specialist for the Elkhorn High School.

Rebecca Blom:
Believe it or not, some of the circulation went up a little bit because they’re like, “Oh, which books are on that list?”

Jason Tadlock:
We had a lot of feedback from parents that how dare an individual determine or try to determine for me what’s appropriate for my kid or not.

Rebecca Blom:
I would just say the more diverse selection we have in here, the more opportunity we have for these kids to really grow.

Jill Underly:
Libraries are places that are supposed to be safe. They’re supposed to be inclusive for everybody.

Monica Treptow:
In its core principle, there’s nothing wrong with a book challenge. But when it goes to these extremes and you’ve got raising — people raising concerns in very — either distant relationships to the school district or in mass amounts, then it turns into something that does threaten democracy.

Nathan Denzin:
Underly and Treptow say now is the time for districts around the state to review their book challenge policy.

Jill Underly:
Really important that our school districts look at their policies so that they can be prepared.

Nathan Denzin:
Tadlock also said the Elkhorn District is revising their challenge policy so a one parent can’t challenge a mass number of books.

Jason Tadlock:
It will require up to five community members and they’d like to have five individuals from different households would have to submit the challenge.

Nathan Denzin:
The policy will require the challenger to have read the book in full before submitting. The district also developed a form for parents that would give their student access to any restricted book.

Dan Kiel:
Parents can say my kid can read the restricted books and they’re open and accessible to all kids.

Rebecca Blom:
My argument for that is sometimes, depending on what the book is, then maybe put that in the parents’ hands and let them have those conversations with their kids.

Monica Treptow:
We want our libraries to be that inclusive space for all of our students to be able to find the resources that they need.

Ryan McBurney:
What we’re doing is keeping books in the hands of students so that they can support their learning.

Nathan Denzin:
For “Here & Now,” I’m Nathan Denzin in Elkhorn.

Frederica Freyberg:
In a sign of the times, a candidate for Douglas County board in Superior won two seats as a write-in in a spring election that had four board races without any candidate on the ballot. Our next guest has studied the declining interest in service in local government, especially in rural Wisconsin. David Helpap is a UW Green Bay professor of political science. Professor, thanks very much for being here.

David Helpap:
You bet. Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So how increasingly common and widespread is the kind of situation that we saw in Douglas County with too few people running for local office?

David Helpap:
Well, I think what we’ve seen over the last few years is that there has just been a declining interest in participating in politics more broadly, but when we start talking about rural areas, we have a situation where the population is declining in a lot of those areas. It’s getting older, and there has been some significant concern from those who are currently in office that once they retire or move on from public service, that there really isn’t going to be the next sort of cohort of individuals to take their place, that the next generation, the next group doesn’t really have an interest in taking on that role.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why doesn’t the next generation want to step up in that way?

David Helpap:
Most of these positions, the pay is limited or it is entirely voluntary. And so to take off time and to not be compensated for it, that can be difficult, particularly if you have a family. There is this need for social connection, for social capital to have people involved, to, you know, feel like they’re a part of the community and feel comfortable taking on those leadership goals within that community. When that sense of community goes away, particularly in rural areas, where there isn’t a huge population anyway and sort of that sense of community may not be there, may not — may have declined over the years, that makes a situation even more challenging.

Frederica Freyberg:
And meanwhile, many of these communities face rather daunting problems for which they need this kind of leadership. What are those kinds of particular issues related to rural local government that they’re having to deal with?

David Helpap:
A lot of the challenges that have been plaguing rural governments for a long time continue to exist. So limited resources, lack of capacity, challenges with delivering good quality services, but then there are some more recent challenges like affordable housing. There was a lot of concern about just good quality affordable housing in their community. Access to high-speed internet, substance abuse, those types of issues. And it is, I think, a challenge for some communities because there isn’t necessarily that capacity there to address them or the expertise to address them. Where, for larger communities that have been dealing with some of these problems for some time, that there is infrastructure in place to address it, but that may not be the case in smaller communities.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what are the ideas about how to address this?

David Helpap:
So getting, I think, more state support would help address the — one of the biggest concerns, I think 98% of communities said that they could use more resources, not surprising. Right? But at the same time, there may be opportunities to partner with other local governments, counties. Counties in Wisconsin typically provide a lot of services anyway. I think there’s this growing recognition that in order to solve a lot of the problems, big societal problems we have, regardless of if you’re in an urban area or a rural area, that some of that cross sector collaboration is needed, that we need to bring in multiple different levels of government, nonprofit organizations, private businesses to really sort of move ahead with social welfare issues, infrastructure issues. It is valuable to have those types of partners.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there. Professor David Helpap, thanks very much.

David Helpap:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
And this election year fact check tonight, a constitutional amendment on the November ballot in Wisconsin specifies that only a United States citizen age 18 or older may vote in an election for national, state or local office or referendum. The amendment changes current constitutional language from ‘every’ U.S. citizen to ‘only’ a U.S. citizen. Republican authors of the language say it’s needed because some states have allowed non-U.S. citizens to vote in local elections. With migration being a prime campaign issue, Donald Trump is pushing fears of noncitizens voting. But as Steven Potter finds, this kind of voter fraud is vanishingly rare.

Woman:
Our state issues valid driver’s licenses to people who are noncitizens and are not eligible to vote. How do you catch that?

Steven Potter:
Convinced of fraud in the last election, people at a recent election education event in West Bend raised a worry over immigrants voting illegally in 2024.

Man:
In the last five years, the state of Wisconsin has issued driver’s licenses to over a quarter million nonlegal, illegal, whatever the right terminology is, immigrants in the state.

Steven Potter:
But that number refers to non-U.S. citizens who are legally present here as permanent residents or temporary visitors. The Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles has issued more than 258,000 driver’s licenses and 41,000 photo ID cards to non-U.S. citizens since 2019. Those Wisconsin driver’s licenses, or photo IDs, are stamped with ‘limited term’ or ‘non-domiciled’ unless the person is a permanent resident whose cards have no such stamp. A photo ID is required to vote in Wisconsin but noncitizens cannot legally use their IDs or licenses to register and vote. Despite concerns that they are in large numbers, the Wisconsin Elections Commission says that since 2019, there have been three noncitizens who have been referred for prosecution for voting illegally. Mostly misunderstanding their eligibility. The question of citizenship happens before anyone casts a ballot. When registering to vote, a person must certify under penalty of law that they’re a U.S. citizen. Noncitizens risk being arrested, jailed, and deported if they do vote illegally. As to the question, “How do you catch that?” the Wisconsin Elections Commission told us there is no mechanism available to conduct real time checks on a voter’s citizenship status. No state or federal law requires the WEC or clerks to verify a voter’s citizenship status, but they also said there’s not evidence to support the idea that noncitizens are voting in Wisconsin in significant numbers. For “Here & Now,” I’m Steven Potter.

Frederica Freyberg:
Turning to western Wisconsin, in March, the city of La Crosse cleared 130 tons of abandoned items at long-term overnight camping sites along the Black River shoreline. The campsites and others are where people experiencing homelessness in La Crosse had taken up residence. As part of a five-year plan to end long-term homelessness, bans on camping on city property are already in place. But with nowhere to go, campers pop up on other sites. It’s been a thorny problem for the city between trying to help the increasing number of unsheltered people in the aftermath of COVID and being responsive to community calls for action. La Crosse Mayor Mitch Reynolds joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Mitch Reynolds:
I appreciate you having me on. Thanks so much.

Frederica Freyberg:
Your Pathways Home plan states that encampments will no longer be tolerated once your new homeless response system is up and running. Is that system up and running?

Mitch Reynolds:
No. Implementation of Pathways Home plan began in January. At this point what we’re doing is data collection. That’s the first part. Then we move on to the other parts that include where we identify the surge housing, how much we need of emergency shelter, how much we need, because we don’t really want shelters. We want to move people directly from being unsheltered to a housing option immediately.

Frederica Freyberg:
According to the city’s documentation, there are about 200 individuals and 20 families experiencing chronic homelessness in La Crosse. Describe kind of the three prongs of the Pathways Home program to try to get people into permanent housing.

Mitch Reynolds:
It’s complicated, frankly, but — and just to be clear, you know, not everybody who is chronically homeless is living in a tent in the marsh right now. We do have dozens of people who are living in various places throughout the city, who are in various spots, like in the marsh and the forested areas and places that are not in La Crosse. A lot of people, and this is typical, we have people in our community who are not — they are — they may have temporary shelter with a friend or in a relative’s spare bedroom or on a couch or something along those lines. We have families that are — we’ve had a lot of issues with children who are homeless in the city of La Crosse for a really long time. Part of this is really just, and one of the areas in the Pathways Home plan is just trying to create more housing options in the city. And this work that we’re doing all the time, and frankly, that’s the most critical part of the Pathways Home plan, is that. Providing adequate supportive services is another absolutely critical part, but the most important part of Pathways Home is having the city and the county be the ones who are driving the bus, being the ones who are managing the homeless response. This is just — it’s almost exactly what the city and the county of Milwaukee did. In fact, I just talked to Hector Cologne this morning, who is now head of Lutheran Social Services and was the executive director of Milwaukee County Health and Human Services, and they orchestrated that a path to almost functional zero in Milwaukee County by doing this very same thing. From my perspective, that’s the most critical part is that the city and county are, for the first time ever, getting together and really managing the response to homelessness. We’re not leaving it to private service agencies. We’re directing traffic on this one, and I think that accountability, for me, that’s the most critical part of it. But certainly providing supportive services and then providing adequate housing, finding that adequate housing, that is an absolutely essential part of this.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because how hard is it for you as mayor to see this enduring problem?

Mitch Reynolds:
Feels like failure every single day. That’s how it feels. It’s constant work. It’s exhausting. But I’m not going to quit. It is absolutely critical for our community to address the needs of the most vulnerable for those individuals and for our community as well. We have to — we have to be able to believe that we are a kind of community that looks out for those who are living on the edge of the abyss. It’s critical work and it’s something I’m completely dedicated to. But, yeah, Frederica, it feels like failure every single day.

Frederica Freyberg:
Does the city and county of La Crosse have the capacity and resources to meet your goal of eliminating long-term homelessness by 2029?

Mitch Reynolds:
We do. We need more. I mean, when I was speaking to Mr. Cologne this morning, we were talking about the need for there to be community support through various donations, support through business, community organizations, individuals, that type of thing. It’s going to take money. And I think that that’s something that we’ll be working on, but we have resources. The county has personnel resources that they can utilize. They just had to shift focus away from homelessness and more towards the needs of the homeless individuals, their mental health needs, the addiction issues that they face, that type of thing. And I think that they’re more than willing to do that. But also because that — because there is coordination between the city and the county, so there’s definitely going to be some financial resources that we need and there’s definitely going to be a need to create more housing options within the city of La Crosse.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there, Mayor Mitch Reynolds. Thanks very much.

Mitch Reynolds:
I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.