Here & Now

Here & Now for Nov. 24, 2017

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here and Now,” we hear from an expert on sexual harassment and assault, as more and more women go public. After that a closer look at the 2018 governor’s race. The latest on the call for more positions at the State Elections Commission. And a CWD update in the midst of the 2017 deer hunt season. It’s “Here and Now” for November 24.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

Frederica Freyberg:

Day after day, more and more reports of sexual harassment, even sexual assault, are in the news. Is this the tipping point or the tip of the iceberg? We asked Erin Thornley-Parisi, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center in Madison, an expert on these matters. Thank you very much for being here.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So as to that question, do you believe this is the tipping point or tip of the iceberg?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Both. I think that it is the tip of the iceberg as far as what we’re going to find because women are finally feeling that — empowered to come forward. And their jobs are a little safer because places like CBS are speaking up and being protective of their employees who have been sexually harassed. I think that it’s just going to be kind of an avalanche. But that’s kind of the turning point as well. You know, I like to believe that this is just allowing a lot more people to feel free to get the help that they need.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of that, were you surprised by the “Me too” twitter response?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

I was. Initially I was very surprised. It was kind of this — I was at home and just watching it and it was like a ticker tape. It was just these little hearts popping up and the retweets and it was kind of astonishing. It’s been wonderful really, to see all of these people just coming out and being able to talk, for once, about their experience and have them be believed. That’s the biggest part.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do all of these reports kind of trigger people, though, about things that have happened to them that they might have buried?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Right. It is very triggering for many people. And so, you know, the good part is is that there are help lines like ours. There are these all over the nation. There’s even a national help line. RAINN has one that people can call and talk. And I think that that’s the hard part is that we have a help line. We take about 2500 calls a year, maybe 3,000. That’s really not that many calls. And I always wish that more people would call. And now I'm really hoping this results in more people calling and saying I just need to talk and find out what my options are if I want to pursue this legally.

Frederica Freyberg:

We were talking about that “Me too” hashtag, but for every one that was posted, are there an equal number of people that just aren’t going there yet?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Oh, sure. In general, one out of ten people report sexual assault to anybody. So I'm sure there were dozens behind every hashtag.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why don’t people report?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Because they’re not believed. That’s probably hands-down the most important thing or the most prevalent reason. The first reactions that people often have is disbelief and victim-blaming. And we just say to a woman who says I was — you know, my boyfriend raped me last night or something, we just immediately start trying to excuse his behavior. Well, maybe he was drunk. Well, maybe, you know, and we completely dismiss the effect that that had on her.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is this like for men who would never behave this way?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Well, I think it’s — you know, I have a lot of friends on Facebook and I have people in my life who would never behave this way. And what they are doing is feeling disappointed in other men. They are trying to step up. They are trying to say things now. I think it also gives men the freedom now to say, hey, cut that out. Hey, don’t do that. And they don’t have to be judged for them being wimpy or whatever the term might be.

Frederica Freyberg:

So far, these reports involve kind of Hollywood or political figures or star journalists. But this harassment is certainly not limited to big-name people.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Oh, heavens no. We all deal with it. I’ve dealt with harassment throughout my career in the different businesses that I've worked in. No. It’s extremely common. And this is — in many ways, it has been a way of life for women. And so this is really important that right now this kind of, you know, mask is being lifted up and everybody is getting to see that this doesn’t just happen to me. It happens to everybody else. And I think that although I'm shocked that people are shocked, you know, men are finally able to see what we’ve been living with our entire lives.

Frederica Freyberg:

You spoke a moment ago about how it kind of gives men the freedom to say, hey, cut it out, that kind of thing. But generally men and women, what should people do in the face of sexual harassment?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

They do need to stop it right there, because sexual harassment is a form of sexual assault. And it is something that is bad in and of itself, but it can also lead to more advanced sexually abusive behavior. So it’s important to just say, you know, you’re not treating her very well. That’s inappropriate. Whatever words feel relevant to the environment that you’re in. You know, which can be very different in a workplace than they can be, for instance, on an athletic field.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about this whole idea that it’s just boys being boys or locker room talk or other kinds of things we’ve heard. So you come forward and say, hey, cut it out, that’s inappropriate, you look like you’re not a team player. You look like you’re on the outside.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

I think that you may — especially for younger boys, they may feel that’s what it makes them look like, but in all honesty they look like a leader. And that’s just something that they’re going to recognize later in their life, is that the person who does step up and protect somebody, even if the person is not there, they’re just talking about somebody, that person who steps up really is showing leadership skills.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, at the university we were all mandated to take online sexual harassment training. How important or how unimportant are these kinds of online trainings?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

I think they are important in just in that we have to cast a wide net and we really have to cover a lot of ground and talk about this in many different ways. So I would hate to see that go away. I wish that there was more of it.

Frederica Freyberg:

More robust kind of training.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Yes. Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

I know obviously in Congress they’re talking about that now.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Yeah.

Frederica Freyberg:

And how should — briefly, we only have about a half a minute left, but how should that training look?

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

It should look all about humanizing women and about respecting women, so that we’re really tying it all together and saying not only can you not sexually harass women, but you can’t treat women unequally.

Frederica Freyberg:

We expect to continue this conversation in the weeks and months ahead.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Great.

Frederica Freyberg:

Erin Thornley-Parisi, thanks very much.

Erin Thornley-Parisi:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

In tonight’s closer look, the election for governor in Wisconsin is now just shy of a year away and democrats are lining up to run against Scott Walker. Tonight, some insight into the race from a political expert, the two majority political parties and the candidates themselves.

Scott Walker:

Rebecca and I are asking for four more years to serve as your governor and lieutenant governor, to move Wisconsin forward!

[cheers and applause]

Frederica Freyberg:

With that announcement earlier this month, the race is on.

Scott Walker:

Four more years. Four more years to keep moving this state forward. And looking ahead. We want a state where everyone shares, everyone shares in our economic prosperity, whether you live in a big city or a small town.

Frederica Freyberg:

And the incumbent figures to power through.

Mordecai Lee:

Scott Walker had a near death experience as a result of his run for president.

Frederica Freyberg:

UW-Milwaukee Political Scientist Mordecai Lee says the bottom dropped out for Scott Walker at that time, his polling in the mid-30s.

Scott Walker:

Today, I believe that I'm being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive, conservative message can rise to the top of the field. With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign.

Frederica Freyberg:

But he’s back, his numbers in a position to win. Lee calls him a political Ever-Ready battery.

Mordecai Lee:

I think we should recognize that the way he clawed his way back to political viability is an indication of his political skills. Notwithstanding all the criticisms that Democrats will make of him, one has to respect what an adaptable and fleet-footed politician he is.

Frederica Freyberg:

And there’s no shortage of Democrat jumping on board. At least 15 so far. Walker says they’re all the same. Not so say the candidates we’ve interviewed, when asked what sets them apart from each other, starting with Tony Evers, who has won three statewide races for superintendent of public schools.

Tony Evers:

The last time I won with 70% of the vote. I won 70 of 72 counties.

Andy Gronik:

Someone who’s helped companies solve problems and access billions of dollars a year so they could grow and create jobs. It’s a very different skill set.

Mike McCabe:

They all have at least one thing in common. They seem very, very comfortable operating within the political system as it currently functions. And I'm not.

Dana Wachs:

I think being an advocate for the middle class, I think I'm best-suited to take our case into that building and make sure that the middle class is being heard.

Kathleen Vinehout:

I come to politics later in my career. I worked in health care. I spent ten years as a university professor.

Matt Flynn:

I was the chair of this party for four years, for two terms, retired our debt. We elected a Democratic governor and we elected Democratic majorities in the legislature.

Bob Harlow:

We all have a vision for a prosperous Wisconsin. And as governor, I will lead our state forward toward that vision.

Mahlon Mitchell:

I've been a firefighter for 20 years giving back to my community. As firefighters, we lead. We don’t divide. We unite each other. We have one common goal and that is to help others.

Martha Laning:

The Republicans have spent all their time doing what’s right for the wealthy and for giving handouts to corporations. It’s time we bring politics back to the grass roots, to the people. That’s what we’re going to stand for. We’re going to be out there talking about those issues. We already are. Our candidates are doing exactly that.

Mark Morgan:

I think the confidence that we derive is from the strength of our candidate and the strength of our message. You know, we’re very confident in the fact that Governor Walker when he has the chance to lay out his reforms and lay out his message for the voters, it’s a compelling message. When you get to talk about how the state has come back from where we were in 2010 and what his plan is to keep us moving forward. So that I think we’re very confident in.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mordecai Lee says after his first term of shock and awe, campaign watchers should expect a continued play to the middle from Scott Walker.

Mordecai Lee:

I think his last budget was the least ideological budget in the sense of, yeah, he refused to increase the gas tax and it was a sop to the ideological purist, I’ll never increase taxes. On the other hand, the main feature of that budget was he increased funding for public education, which is a very popular thing to do. I think what we’re going to be seeing this time around is a governor running for reelection as a moderate Republican as opposed to as an ideological Tea Party Republican.

Martha Laning:

His agenda doesn’t work. He was big and bold and made all kinds of promises, the job creation that he claimed he was going to make. He still hasn’t delivered on that. It’s seven years later.

Frederica Freyberg:

Though not making it a centerpiece of his campaign, Walker did sign the $3 billion deal on a potential 13,000 jobs with Foxconn, something Democrats call a reckless giveaway. Aside from the issues, Lee says personality plays a role.

Mordecai Lee:

What the Democrats need is somebody who’s good on their feet, who’s good verbally and who’s got the discipline to only say what should be said and not start improvising or saying things on an ad hoc basis.

Mark Morgan:

Collectively, the biggest flaw all of them have is that they're going to have to find some way to actually articulate a reason that people should vote for them.

Frederica Freyberg:

Articulating messages on both sides will be aided by a change in Wisconsin law that now means candidates of all stripes can coordinate with independent spending groups. And Mordecai Lee says with, quote, money being the mother’s milk of politics, this change will open up the floodgates.

Mordecai Lee:

This is so revolutionary in terms of its impact on Wisconsin politics, I think we’re going to see the first $100 million campaign in Wisconsin. We’re going to see wall-to-wall TV advertising. We’re going to experience things we’ve never experienced before.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to more state political news. Wisconsin was one of 21 states targeted by Russian hackers in the 2016 presidential election. Now the State Elections Commission wants more staff heading into the 2018 election. The commission is asking the legislature for the funding. Elections Commission Administrator Michael Haas is here with details. Thanks for being here.

Michael Haas:

Sure.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what are you seeking?

Michael Haas:

We are seeking three additional positions that are program positions really for our agency. And it is partly about election security, but not all about election security, not all about the Russians. There are some basic positions that we feel our agency needs in order to fulfill all of its responsibilities under the statutes.

Frederica Freyberg:

What happens if you don’t get these?

Michael Haas:

Well, I think it’s going to put us in a little bit of a bind. As you know, under the budget the legislature approved, five of these positions, which were actually continuing positions and the governor’s veto reduced that. So both our commission and the legislature recognize that we needed five positions to continue what we are already doing. If we don’t have these three positions in addition to the additional steps we’re planning to take, I think eventually we’re going to be falling behind and we’re seeing some of that already.

Frederica Freyberg:

Falling behind how?

Michael Haas:

Well, a lot of our job has to do with supporting clerks at the local level so that they can run elections. And we maintain the voter registration database, which creates poll lists, make sure voters are in the right place. There’s just a lot of steps from a candidate getting certified to be on the ballot to election day. And we need to support the clerks and eventually the things we’re falling behind in on our projects are going to show up at the local level.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is the status on any kind of new security measures to protect the integrity of the election?

Michael Haas:

One of our big projects is our election security planning, which we undertook this year. Actually, it’s a continuation of what we had been doing, but it’s obviously a lot more prominent now. It’s a little bit ironic in that we’re probably one of the smallest state agencies and yet we are in the position of trying to ensure that all the local clerks, 1853 local clerks around the state, have the IT security that they need to keep personal information safe and to keep voter information and election information safe. I’m not aware of any other state agency that has really taken on the task of working with local officials to protect data that eventually comes to the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

How concerned are you heading into another round of elections about, I mean even Russian hackers?

Michael Haas:

It's one of our — one of many concerns. And it’s certainly been more in the news lately. We are putting in a lot of new steps, working with the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the State Department of Administration, which really does a great job providing cyber security at the statewide level. But nobody wants to have another headline that our state was the target of hacking, much less that anybody was successful in breaching a system or getting access to data.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, I understand that the governor had said that he thought that perhaps the Elections Commission could get by and make do with kind of temp or contract employees. What about that?

Michael Haas:

Well, there’s some truth to that. First of all, we do appreciate there was a big step in the budget that both the governor and the legislature supported, which was to make most of our staff, which is federally-funded, into state permanent positions, because those federal funds are running out within a year. So that was a big boost to the stability of our staff and the agency. We do currently use some contracted services for IT developers, for instance. And we are planning to at certain points in the process to bring on a handful of temporary staff. They can accomplish some things for us, but there are some limits to what you can do when you bring in temporary staff for a few weeks.

Frederica Freyberg:

What's your expectation as to whether or not you will get this funding?

Michael Haas:

We're hopeful. We’re optimistic. We are planning to meet with Department of Administration next week to talk about exactly what the process is. There’s a little bit of uncertainty because these positions are transitioning from federal to state positions and so the legislative mechanism is something we need to work out. We’re hoping we can get on the same page with DOA and the administration and the legislature and make this happen so that we’re fully staffed for 2018.

Frederica Freyberg:

Michael Haas, thank you very much.

Michael Haas:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

More than 600,000 hunters are expected to take part in this year’s gun deer season which wraps up Sunday. Where is Wisconsin on its management of Chronic Wasting Disease in the deer population? For that we turn to Ron Seeley, a freelance science and environment writer covering issues in the Great Lakes region who, for two decades, covered science and the environment at the Wisconsin State Journal. Thanks a lot for being here.

Ron Seeley:

Happy to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

So CWD first emerged in Wisconsin in 2002. I remember at that time it was really treated very urgently. How and why has that changed?

Ron Seeley:

Lots of big headlines. I was working the beat at the State Journal then and remember when the announcement was made and what a shock it was in the wildlife management community and for hunters. I had families calling me asking whether they should eat the venison in their freezers because of the concern about the CWD and the potential for it to spread to people in the form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, the human version of the disease. In that first year, there was enough alarm that 40,000 deer were tested. There’s been a sea change since then. Last year, I believe something over 6,000 deer were tested. So there’s been a tremendous downturn in the attention that we’ve paid to this.

Frederica Freyberg:

If there’s been a downturn in the attention that we’ve paid, what has happened to the spread of CWD?

Ron Seeley:

It's continued to spread. The rates have gone up. For the last ten years, there’s been an increase in the rate of growth. There have been a number of things that have come together that aren’t good. One, we — the DNR is doing less testing. Today the testing is almost entirely voluntary. There are kiosks where the hunters can do the testing. They can find out where those are on the DNR web page. But many, many fewer hunters are testing their deer. Like I said, 6,000 last year. That’s a problem for two reasons. One, you have fewer hunters testing the deer to see if it’s safe for them to eat. It’s a matter of health. And we can talk about those health issues. The other thing is the DNR isn’t collecting enough data in a scientific way to allow it to make important management decisions. They have to reach a certain threshold in the number of tests they do, especially in areas where it’s newly spread, like Oconto County and Oneida County. They’re just not doing the number of tests they need to do in those areas.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Center for Disease Control recommends not eating infected deer or elk, but CWD is not known to cross into humans, so why that precaution?

Ron Seeley:

Well, that’s where the science comes in. Researchers are coming at this from a number of angles. Remember that this is caused by a strange thing called a prion, it’s a misfolded protein. And when I was writing about this initially, I remember racing down to campus trying to find somebody who knew about prions. We still don’t know a lot about prions. It was odd to people that a disease could be caused by a protein rather than a bacteria or a virus. So we knew very little about how it spread, how they worked and so forth. So the main thing that researchers were working at was trying to — initially was trying to figure out whether there was a chance that this could spread to humans. Now, we’ve been protected, researchers thought, by a species barrier that keeps the CWD prion from crossing to humans.

Frederica Freyberg:

Has this research changed? Do we know something different at this point?

Ron Seeley:

It has changed. You always have to remember, too, that a prion disease, Mad Cow Disease, did cross the species barrier in England and killed a number of people, including some Americans who ate beef. It has happened in the past. But most recently the thing that is alarming when combined with these lower testing numbers is that in Canada last year, researchers were able to feed CWD-infected material to monkeys, macaques, and those monkeys contracted the disease and that’s alarming. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to reach humans right away, but it means that that species barrier may be less of a protection than we thought.

Frederica Freyberg:

So is anybody sounding the alarm on this? And if so, doesn’t that make that person or those people sound, you know, like they’re taking the fun out of the Wisconsin deer hunt?

Ron Seeley:

Yeah. I think the scientists and researchers who are studying this are very serious about this. And they’re very concerned about the lack of management response. Some of the most important research is happening at the National Wildlife Health Lab here in Madison. That’s a federal lab. And there are researchers there who are studying transmission routes. And one of the alarming things they found, and I wrote about this for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism a couple years ago, but they found that these prions stay, they’re very stubborn. They stay in the soil for a long time. But they were also finding they can be transmitted, deer can pick them up and who knows, potentially humans at some point, by — in tomato plants, in corn plants, in these transmission routes that are much closer to us as humans.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if people are hunting this season and they take a deer, they should have it tested before they eat it?

Ron Seeley:

Yeah. The Centers for Disease Control recommends always getting your deer tested. There remains to be concerned that the state just isn’t doing enough. Since Governor Walker took office and downgraded our approach to this, the rate has continued to grow. The rate when he took office was 3%. The rate has spread. It’s now somewhere around 12%.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Ron Seeley, thanks.

Ron Seeley:

You're welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now back to politics and a look at candidates running for the State Supreme Court. Wisconsin will elect a new Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy left by Michael Gableman’s retirement. Three candidates so far have announced their intent to run for the seat. Tim Burns, Rebecca Dallet and Michael Screnock. In a comparison drawn by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the candidates give mixed responses on issues such as Wisconsin's voter ID law and the 2011 redistricting. Burns and Dallet expressed concern over both issues. Screnock, who worked at the law firm that drew Wisconsin’s 2011 maps, approves of legal arguments to keep courts out of the redistricting process. The candidates also named current justices they admire. Burns and Dallet cite the two liberal justices on Wisconsin’s court and Screnock names the late conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The primary election will be in February. Finally, today we had the pleasure of hosting a group of young journalism students from Black River Falls High School. The students are engaged this year in working with the PBS “Newshour” Student Reporting Lab. We wish them the best in their sure to be bright future journalism careers. And that’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great holiday weekend.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.