Here & Now

Here & Now for April 27, 2018

Announcer:

The following program is part of our “Here and Now” 2018 Wisconsin Vote election coverage.

Shawn Johnson:

I'm Shawn Johnson filling in tonight for Frederica Freyberg who’s on assignment. Tonight on “Here and Now,” former Badger and NFL football star Chris Borland joins us to talk about his work educating the public about the dangers of sports head injuries. After that, we’ll hear from both sides of the new landlord/tenant law. Then a closer look at the ever-expanding primary field of democrats running for governor. And reporter Marisa Wojcik looks head, way ahead into the prospect of driverless shuttles on the UW-Madison campus. It’s “Here and Now” for April 27.

Announcer:

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

Shawn Johnson:

Badger football fans know the name Chris Borland. Borland’s aggressive defensive play at UW earned #44 a trophy case of awards: Big 10 Freshman of the Year, Conference Defensive Player of the Year, First Team All-American. All of which caught the eye of the pro scouts and landed Borland in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, pulling down a $2.9 million four year contract his rookie season. But at the end of his first year as a pro, after playing through what he believed was a concussion, Borland packed it up and walked away from the game and from the millions he could have made playing it. Post football, Borland has been playing offense on the front line educating the public about the dangers of head injuries in sports. This week he wrote a profile for “Time” magazine of the physician he said may have saved his life. Neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee, also a UW-Madison alum. Chris Borland joins us by phone from West Point, New York. Chris thanks for joining us.

Chris Borland:

Shawn, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Shawn Johnson:

So it's actually a big weekend in professor football because the NFL draft is happening, where all 32 teams pick college players to build their franchises around. Before we talk about what you wrote in “Time” magazine, let’s go back four years to just before you were drafted. At the time, how big was that moment for you?

Chris Borland:

It was a thrill. You know, I was singularly focused on fulfilling a dream. And it was an interesting time for me as a player who had a lot of success in college, but was smaller and had a couple of surgeries. So didn’t know exactly where I'd fall. Wound up in a really thrilling way falling to one of the best teams in the league at the time, San Francisco. And draft day for anybody who’s experienced it is just unforgettable.

Shawn Johnson:

I was reading about what people were saying about you back in 2014, just before the draft. Pro scouts were saying stuff like, “You turn on the film and he’s in on everything.” So they were excited by you not because, you know, just because you’re an athlete, but because you were so aggressive. From where you sit now, do you remember what it was like to be that person?

Chris Borland:

That's a great question. It’s hard. I haven’t been around the game really in over three years. I did, shortly after I walked away, attend a spring game at Oregon State. And after a three month or so hiatus and after losing weight, was standing on the sidelines and couldn’t believe that I did it at the highest level just four months prior. So I'm really far removed from that life and feel like the last three years have changed me in a lot of ways. So sometimes it is hard to see an old graphic or a picture of myself in uniform and realize that was me just a short time ago.

Shawn Johnson:

So what convinced you to change and what role did Dr. Ann McKee play in your decision?

Chris Borland:

Well, I think the first thing was personal experience. I had two bad diagnosed concussions in 8th and 10th grade, a slew of others in high school and college. And you mentioned the one in the intro with the 49ers. I wanted to better understand what I had experienced and what I was in store for if I were to fulfill my goals in the league. So I began looking into it and found out a lot. I was really naive to the information that was available while I was in college. And the more I looked into it and compared it with my experience, my goals, knew that I couldn’t really justify a long career in the game. And Dr. McKee's work is central to that evaluation. She’s done autopsies on over 200 former NFL players at this point, getting more and more control brains. And of that sample, over 99% have been diagnosed with CTE. So that was a shock to me when I read about that initially. Getting to know Dr. McKee personally, and just how much integrity she has with her work, you know, I have a really deep understanding of the struggles. She’s from Wisconsin. She’s a Packers fan. It’s a hard thing to come to grips with but she’s a leader. She’s the leader in the field and an inspiration.

Shawn Johnson:

What advice would you have for today’s college football players who are being drafted by NFL teams this very weekend?

Chris Borland:

You know, I think proceed with caution. I don’t want to tell anybody what to do. But they are playing in the era of information and can have a better understanding of the risks. And NFL contracts aren’t guaranteed. The NFL settlement that came out last year excludes anyone from suing the league for CTE symptoms for 65 years. So hold on to your money and be smart, because even if you play for ten years, you have a life to live after your time in the game.

Shawn Johnson:

So what about fans, the fans who cheered for you at the UW-Madison who still love to watch football? You mentioned that your doctor, that you honored this week, was a football fan. What’s your message for fans who loved to watch you and still love to watch?

Chris Borland:

Well, I don’t watch football and Dr. McKee's shared publicly that she doesn’t either anymore. And that’s a recent development for her. I empathize with fans. I grew up such a diehard Packers and Wisconsin fan. The difference for players is that they go through that catharsis. They play and they experience what it’s like. If it’s always romanticized, it would be hard to come to grips with a lot of this information. So I understand. I understand fans. I don’t condemn anybody who supports this. It is true that football players can be informed and choose whether or not to play. So I disagree, but in a civil way.

Shawn Johnson:

Real quick before we let you go, what’s life been like for you after you left the bright lights of football? You know, was it a good decision for you?

Chris Borland:

Oh, it was a great decision for me. I made this decision chiefly for personal health and I think it’s the best decision I could have made from that standpoint. I didn’t anticipate it being such a story, but it’s led me to really, really wonderful things. Most recently a study at the University of Wisconsin with Richie Davidson, where we did a meditation program with former NFL players. Never would have guessed that four years ago that’s what I'd be involved with. But what a thrill to work with the likes of Dr. McKee and Richie.

Shawn Johnson:

Chris Borland is a former linebacker for the University of Wisconsin-Madison football team. He wrote an essay in “Time” magazine dedicated to the doctor who convinced him to leave the sport.

Now to state capitol news and a new law that affects both landlords and tenants. In tonight’s inside look, among the many bills recently signed by Governor Scott Walker was another rewrite of Wisconsin’s landlord/tenant laws. It made a variety of changes. Among them, it further restricts the power of local governments to inspect rental property. It reduces the amount of time someone seeking emergency help can avoid eviction and it requires that a person’s eviction record remain on a publicly accessible website for at least ten years. We hear two perspectives on the new law. First, Ron Hegwood is the president of the Apartment Association of Southeast Wisconsin which helped write the new law. Thanks for joining us.

Ron Hegwood:

You’re welcome.

Shawn Johnson:

This is at least the third major rewrite of landlord/tenant laws in Wisconsin over the past five years. Your organization has supported all of them. Why has there been such a push by landlords to make these changes and why was this latest law needed?

Ron Hegwood:

Well, the landlords that are — or excuse me, the laws that have been changed over the last couple years, as you stated, are rewrites. They’re just a further articulation of what was already on the books and a clarification so that everybody knew what the laws were and would interpret them the same, which in essence, levels the playing field for everybody.

Shawn Johnson:

But if you look at the laws as a whole, they generally tilt more toward landlords in each instance. Why was that needed? Why did you need that shift in Wisconsin?

Ron Hegwood:

I don’t necessarily agree with you on that. I mean, the judges, and rightfully so, will tend to, at least from a landlord’s perspective side on the tenant’s side. So it gives the judges a better clarification on the intent of the law. I mean, there’s nothing that’s changed. Again, it just clarifies the laws.

Shawn Johnson:

So one of the provisions of this new law speaks to when a city or another local government can inspect a property, when it can conduct regular inspections. It allows for those in some cases, but you have to have blight or reduction in property values, things like that. Why wait until those conditions are present to allow for these inspections?

Ron Hegwood:

Well, I'm not aware that any verbiage of that blight or anything like that. It says it has to be a hazard. In other words, a minor pinhole in the wall or something like that doesn’t — some local municipalities were trying to put things in the books where tenants could withhold their rent without validating it and this is an effort to protect that. By all means, everybody needs good housing. There’s no argument on that. But for a tenant to able to not pay their rent for some unvalidated reason, it was an attempt to stop that.

Shawn Johnson:

So when it comes to an eviction, a tenant who’s applied for what’s known as emergency assistance can get a court to stay or temporarily block an eviction notice, but under this new law that court stay can only last for ten days. If someone’s in a dire enough situation that a court would step in and halt an eviction, why limit that?

Ron Hegwood:

Well, first off, you have to take into consideration that by the time you’re in court, it’s already been, I don’t want to say a minimum, but around 30 days and it could be 60 or 90 days since the tenant’s paid any rent. If they’re now going to get emergency assistance, it’s just giving them another ten working days. So it’s actually 14 more days. So a lot of time has already gone past. The feeling is it just, again, it puts clarification on the law that was already on the book, what that reasonable time frame was.

Shawn Johnson:

When this bill went through the legislature, the group End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin testified that this particular provision could put domestic abuse victims in harm’s way because they won’t be able to come up with the money they need in just ten days after they’ve severed ties with an abuser. How do you respond to that concern?

Ron Hegwood:

Well, I'm not sure why we assume that there’s domestic abuse and automatic economic problem with that. I mean, that’s more of an emotional issue than an economic issue. If you have a domestic abuse, again, I go — that’s an emotional situation, not an economic situation. So I wouldn’t equate those two things together.

Shawn Johnson:

And this law also keeps the tenant’s eviction record public on website known as CCAP for at least ten years. Why was that provision added?

Ron Hegwood:

Well, you’re only reading part of the law. Again, I’m not an attorney, so I don’t know the law by heart. If the tenant has satisfied the original eviction, because that is a process, and then it can be erased after two years. It’s only if they haven’t satisfied it that it stays on.

Shawn Johnson:

All right. Ron Hegwood.

Ron Hegwood:

Much like my speeding ticket stays on for a period of time for my insurance company. They want to know what kind of driver I am.

Shawn Johnson:

We're going to have to leave it there. Ron Hegwood, thank you for joining us.

Ron Hegwood:

All right. Thank you.

Shawn Johnson:

In addition to property owners, renters across the state may need to get up to speed on the changes in the new law. We’re joined now by someone who helps tenants full-time in his work as the program director at the Tenant Resource Center based in Madison. Aaron Romens, thanks for joining us.

Aaron Romens:

Thank you for having me.

Shawn Johnson:

So backers of this law say it’s about setting clear timelines, a level playing field. How do you view it?

Aaron Romens:

Well, I never understand the idea about a level playing field because it’s not a level playing field. Landlords, especially property managers, it’s their job to understand all of these different law changes. The sixth set now since 2011. Meanwhile tenants, they already have other jobs. That’s how they’re getting the money to pay their rent. So if we’re talking about leveling a playing field, I believe that all these changes just continue to create confusion to the point where tenants now almost need to take out a second-time job just to catch up with all these changes.

Shawn Johnson:

So there’s a lot to digest in this new law, but what is most troubling to you or what do you think tenants need to know about?

Aaron Romens:

Well, first of all, what’s troubling for me is the idea that municipalities are now extremely limited in their ability to have routine building inspections. These inspections are really important to protect the safety of the tenants. They are the things that make sure that tenants are safe from fire or other very hazardous and dangerous situations that could put them in the hospital. It’s going to be very difficult under these new regulations for municipalities to have routine building inspections under Act 317.

Shawn Johnson:

So there are provisions in this law that say cities and local governments would still be able to conduct regular inspections in areas where there’s evidence of blight, high rates of building code violations, other conditions. Won’t that let cities zero in on the most problematic rentals?

Aaron Romens:

Well, it’s telling them how to zero. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the right way to go about this. Cities are very different from one to another and probably should be able to do this in the way that they see fit. It is a lot of micromanagement, I feel, from the state to be telling cities exactly these very precise ways of conducting their building inspections.

Shawn Johnson:

So what if someone wants to challenge a landlord now in small claims court? What could they do before and how has that changed now?

Aaron Romens:

So in small claims court when landlords and tenants have a dispute, especially in case of an eviction, it goes to what would be considered a joinder conference or a return date. And at this conference, tenants would be able to get a trial by just claiming that there’s a contest. The idea that they disagree with something that the landlord is saying. Now they have to be able to raise valid legal grounds. And we’re not sure exactly what those valid legal grounds may be. We have some ideas. But what it probably means is that tenants are going to have to know some magic legal words, some sort of law language that gets them there. And tenants are represented at about a rate of 1% in Wisconsin by attorneys. Most of them are there by themselves. And to ask them to determine what are valid legal grounds and to bring them up at a hearing like this I think is not appropriate.

Shawn Johnson:

So in practice, won’t most renters be okay even under this law as long as they pay the rent on time?

Aaron Romens:

Well, that’s always an interesting question because everything is always fine until a problem comes up, right? That’s what we find at the Tenants Resource Center. Nobody really calls us and says everything is going great with my landlord, you know? And so, yeah, if things are going well, things are going well. But the problems is tenants have a lot of rights, and these laws not only take away some of those rights, but also create a lot of confusion about them and they may not be willing to assert some of the rights that they already still have.

Shawn Johnson:

All right. Aaron Romens, the Program Director at the Tenant Resource Center based in Madison, thanks for joining us.

Aaron Romens:

All right. Thank you for having me.

Shawn Johnson:

We pivot now to the election year and a closer look at the deep pool of candidates running in the democratic primary for governor. The list goes up and down a number. Currently there are 16 democrats officially in the race. At least one long-time political observer in the state believes that’s not a good thing. That would be Mordecai Lee of the UW-Milwaukee political science department. Thanks for joining us.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:

I want to throw out a theory here for you and see what you think about it. If two candidates run in a primary, that’s democracy in action. Democracy’s good. So if 16 candidates run in a primary, that’s even more democracy, even better. Does that check out?

Mordecai Lee:

Is this multiple choice? Are you going to give me a better option because it’s not good democracy, democracy with a small d, whether this were to be a republican or democratic primary. The closest example I can come up with was during my political career, the year I got elected to the state senate. 1982 the local congressman from Milwaukee retired. There were ten names on the ballot in the September primary. The winner, Jim Moody, got something like 19% of the vote and he then became the congressman. The number two person came in, I think it was about 17% or 18%. So that shows you a field of ten. Imagine what it would be like with a field of 16.

Shawn Johnson:

But if democrats are excited about running and they want their chance to take on Governor Scott Walker, that’s their right, isn’t it? Is there any alternative, really?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, there is an alternative. It’s called either second choice voting or runoff primary. In other words, when you’ve got three, four, five, 16 people running, nobody is going to get a majority and we believe that democracy is based on majority rule. So it seems to me that the way to go is what some southern states do. Trim the field to the last two. Then a month later they have a runoff primary. So if there are only two candidates on the ballot in the runoff, somebody is going to get a majority. The other way to do it is a little more complicated. It’s called second choice voting. Wisconsin had it for one election in I think it was 1911. That’s that you cast your vote that day and then you say but if my preferred candidate doesn’t win, then I would have voted for, fill in the blank. And then what the county clerks do is they sort of ratchet it down and ratchet it down until somebody gets a majority of votes.

Shawn Johnson:

So we don’t have that in Wisconsin, though, right now. Small d democratic concerns aside, what’s your best guess on what this large primary means for the big d democratic party? Is it good or bad for them?

Mordecai Lee:

I suppose theoretically it’s good. But the problem will be the winner. Let’s say the winner wins, I don’t know, 15% of the vote. The winner doesn’t necessarily represent how Democratic voters feel. For example, there are right now two silos. There’s the moderate Clinton wing and then there’s the Bernie Sanders wing. What if one wing doesn’t like the results of who won the primary with a plurality? And also there’s a problem here about name recognition. Sometimes people vote based on, oh, yeah, I've heard of that person. So right now some of the office holders who are going to be on the ballot have relatively high name recognition compared to the unknowns. But voting for somebody based on name recognition is not an affirmative vote. It’s not saying I agree with them. All it’s saying is I heard of them.

Shawn Johnson:

So you referenced another big primary. I’m not aware of any primary back through Wisconsin history that’s been this big in a race for governor. So why is this huge, potentially huge democratic primary happening this year?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, the logical interpretation is that there are a lot of people who sense that Governor Walker is vulnerable and so they want to be the one to run against him. But there are so many of them there’s sort of no weeding out. Now by June 1, the filing deadline, I suspect that some of those 12, 16 people are going to drop out. And maybe some more during the summer will either unofficially drop out or due to lack of money won’t be serious contenders. But nonetheless there will be at least a half a dozen names on the ballot of serious candidates. So that’s a problem in terms of majority rule. Who is the best candidate democrats want to run against Governor Walker.

Shawn Johnson:

You're talking about the field potentially getting smaller. Right now as we speak there’s another democratic, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who’s potentially going to get into this race. Why is that happening now given the size of the field already?

Mordecai Lee:

Well, presumably what’s happening is that Mayor Barrett is well-known because he ran for governor three previous times. And so he would have instant name recognition and instant credibility, because he used to be a state senator and he knows state issues. The problem is, again, the issue of name recognition. Would he win because he’s the preferred candidate of a majority of the voters or would he win because perhaps he has, let’s say, higher name recognition than the superintendent of public instruction or the mayor of Madison? So it all comes down to being able to interpret the choice as somebody who the democrats want to be their nominee against Governor Walker.

Shawn Johnson:

All right. Mordecai Lee, thanks very much for joining us.

Mordecai Lee:

Thank you, Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:

We move now from politics to science news and a look ahead, way ahead to the future of transportation. The University of Wisconsin-Madison brought a driverless shuttle to campus this week to give the public a demonstration. Multimedia reporter Marisa Wojcik caught up with the shuttle and spoke with the project’s leaders.

Marisa Wojcik:

By now most of us have seen driverless vehicles in the news, but not many of us have had the chance to see one in person. Students and community members had a chance to see an Autonom shuttle from French manufacturer Navya, a 15-passenger, electric driverless shuttle. The demonstration was meant to show people that driverless vehicles are not so scary.

Jonathan Riehl:

Outreach is really something that I think is critical with autonomous vehicles. There’s a lot of people, if you ask them what they are, they haven’t seen it.

Marisa Wojcik:

UW-Madison’s College of Engineering was one of ten in the country to be federally designated as an automated vehicle proving grounds. Some got to see the shuttle drive itself. But on its second day on the road, it required a pit stop.

Chris Pauly:

We were able to operate the shuttle in fully autonomous mode yesterday and this morning. This afternoon, unfortunately, the shuttle was not able to operate.

Marisa Wojcik:

The vehicle is designed to stop operating when these issues occur. For now, federal regulations require an operator to be onboard at all times.

Man:

Pop this down.

Marisa Wojcik:

But manufacturers are already planning for a different scenario.

Aaron Foster:

So we really designed these vehicles to be ready for the time when we’re not going to have any operators onboard the shuttle so we want them to be as easy to use as possible.

Marisa Wojcik:

Which includes using an Xbox controller to drive the vehicle in the event that it can’t drive itself. The Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory is not only researching the engineering aspects, but other areas, like legal implications, public acceptance and urban planning.

Jonathan Riehl:

It's really campus-wide and it’s trying to bring together a community of researchers who are interested in different problems.

Marisa Wojcik:

Problems like urban food deserts, where the metro service lines don’t reach a certain area. Or for Katherine Corbett, who is blind, a driverless vehicle can mean more independence in transportation.

Katherine Corbett:

In a lot of literature, the future has been — predictions have been made about automated vehicles and self-driving cars. As a person who doesn’t drive, that’s always been kind of a dream of mine.

Marisa Wojcik:

For driverless vehicles on the road, the future is now.

Shawn Johnson:

That was Marisa Wojcik reporting.

We go now to southeastern Wisconsin where the state DNR approved a water diversion application for Foxconn. This allows the plant to use water from Lake Michigan, though the site straddles the line between the Lake Michigan and Mississippi River basins. The DNR also approved a series of air pollution permits for the site. The Village of Mt. Pleasant announced this week that they are close to purchasing all of the land where the Foxconn plant will sit. This comes as construction equipment begins arriving in Racine County to break ground. And that’s our program for tonight. Frederica Freyberg will return next week. I’m Shawn Johnson. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. For more information on “Here and Now’s” 2018 election coverage, go to WisconsinVote.org.