Frederica Freyberg:

This morning a Racine County judge rejected the Trump campaign’s attempt to overturn the Wisconsin election results, affirming the Biden-Harris victory. Even as the judge spoke, a state Republican legislative panel heard testimony questioning the integrity of the election. Testimony that called attention to irregularities that no court has yet upheld.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Zac Schultz has the latest on this week’s court challenges to Wisconsin election results. A look ahead to the arrival of vaccinations in Wisconsin. An expert explains the impact of newly-restored protections for young immigrants. And Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes shares the results of the state climate change task force report. It’s “Here & Now” for December 11.

Announcer:

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

Judge:

Because the court is satisfied, the rules and guidelines applied in each of the disputed areas are reasonable and a correct interpretation of the underlying early absentee voting laws, the certification of the results of the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election, after the Dane County and Milwaukee County recounts, is affirmed. There is no credible evidence of any misconduct or wide-scale fraud.

Frederica Freyberg:

With that, a Racine County reserve judge Friday threw out a Donald Trump campaign lawsuit filed in Wisconsin, shooting down every challenge brought by the campaign. Trump lawyers immediately appealed the decision, as time is running out before the Electoral College meets Monday to officially deliver Joe Biden the presidency. This evening, the Wisconsin Supreme Court allowed bypassing the appeals court in this case and will hear oral arguments tomorrow. A federal judge in Milwaukee is ruling on another Trump lawsuit. And earlier tonight the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the victories in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. It’s been a Trump campaign, full court, last-minute push with Wisconsin at the epicenter in the final moments. Senior Political Reporter Zac Schultz is here. Thanks for joining us again tonight.

Zac Schultz:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

The big news obviously tonight, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s suit to overturn the election, again the Texas case suing over four other states’ results, including Wisconsin. That sends a clear message. Our Attorney General Josh Kaul said tonight it’s over for the Trump campaign notwithstanding cases remaining in Wisconsin. But in your mind, where does it leave Trump supporters who hung on this challenge?

Zac Schultz:

Well, it really was the last gasp nationally for the Trump campaign. Even if they win Wisconsin, those ten electoral votes won’t swing the difference. A lot of legal experts early on said it was a real stretch to begin with, but then it became a little bit of a litmus test for Trump supporters and Republicans whether they would sign on and pretty soon there were attorneys general from other states signing on, 106 members of Congress, including Tom Tiffany who represents Wisconsin’s Northwoods signed on and there were some never-Trumper conservatives in Wisconsin criticizing him for putting his reputation in line with this lawsuit that the Supreme Court ultimately denied.

Frederica Freyberg:

To our knowledge, he was the only one who did so, right? Who signed on.

Zac Schultz:

The only one in Wisconsin, correct.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, the state Supreme Court goes into Saturday session and they are relying on the Racine County record in that case. What do we know about the Wisconsin high court’s response and reaction to this and other cases from the Trump campaign as they’ve come through?

Zac Schultz:

Well, the real question is what will they actually rule on. In the initial decision to send it back to circuit court, Chief Justice Pat Roggensack said she wanted this ultimate result. She wanted a lower court to do the fact-finding, then let the Supreme Court decide. That’s going to happen. But even in that dissent originally she said she didn’t think that the Trump campaign would get the remedy they were seeking, which is ultimately to take away a couple hundred thousand votes and give Wisconsin’s victory to Donald Trump. And ultimately Brian Hagedorn may have be the swing vote as he was in the decision to send it down in the first place. Where he falls on these issues could be a deciding factor.

Frederica Freyberg:

I feel like Roggensack said they may not get the remedy, it may be out of reach for them, but we will have to see, of course. But to date, five Trump cases have been thrown out in Wisconsin. One that remains, the federal case out of Milwaukee, what do we know about remarks from that federal judge?

Zac Schultz:

Well, he’s called it bizarre. He’s called it odd. Even when he was commenting during the hearing, he said if he ruled in favor of the Trump campaign, it would be one of the most remarkable decisions in the history of the court and the judiciary. With everything else that’s happened, it’s hard to find a way in which this judge rules in favor of Trump. Obviously then that would be appealed up to the 7th Circuit and onto the Supreme Court if it happened. But it could likely be mute because the Electoral College will have voted. But anyway we’re still awaiting that decision. He said in the next couple of days so that could be tonight or that could be tomorrow or over the weekend.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, does it dampen at all the work that the courts in the state of Wisconsin have to do because the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that very large case tonight?

Zac Schultz:

I don’t know if it affects the Wisconsin Supreme Court in any way because they’re really ruling on state law and how it was followed. And whether they change the results or not, they may feel they want to weigh in on whether it was followed properly and whether they want to advise the Legislature to look at some of those issues. So beyond who won or not or changing the results, there may be some technical questions that the court feels they want to advise the Legislature upon.

Frederica Freyberg:

So at this same time that Trump was losing in court in Racine County, Wisconsin legislative Republicans were staging an all-day committee hearing where all manner of fraud claims were being made by invited witnesses. To what end was this hearing?

Zac Schultz:

Well, this also had the feel of kind of a litmus test for some of those Trump supporters who felt they wanted to hear about potential fraud. At the exact same time a Racine judge was saying all the law was followed evenly and there was no evidence of fraud, we had some of the wildest claims that have been thrown out of courts all across the country being aired in Wisconsin and before the Assembly. The Democrats walked out saying it was a sham and a racist sham at that targeting black and brown voters in Milwaukee and Madison. We don’t really know more than the show what will come out of this.

Frederica Freyberg:

One of the Republican members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission appearing at that committee hearing testified that there was not widespread fraud in November’s election, but that some changes could or should come out of all of that. Is that something that could be the next progression?

Zac Schultz:

Yeah. There actually are very important issues that need to be resolved coming up, and primarily it has to do with the processing of absentee ballots. One of the reasons Wisconsin’s results came in so late is because the cities weren’t allowed to process them until Election Day whereas some states like Florida and Ohio who are used to having more mail-in ballots process them throughout the week so they’re ready to count them on the day of election. We don’t have these delays. You don’t have poll workers working overnight. And I know that’s something that Democrats want to see that changed. Some Republicans have talked about it. It just depends on whether the politics surrounding all of this continues to go forward or if both parties can look for resolution because obviously Governor Evers has the veto. So if he doesn’t like whatever gets passed, then it’s not going to go anywhere.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Thank you for your work on this, Senior Political Reporter Zac Schultz.

Zac Schultz:

Thank you.