Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

Republicans still doubting the 2020 election polled most excited to vote in 2022. With significant amounts of COVID-19 funding left in its coffers, Wisconsin spends some of it addressing court backlogs. And the persistent swell of the highly contagious BA.2 variant has public health concerned, as the general public resolves to be done with the pandemic.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Milwaukee County Chief Judge Mary Triggiano on the pandemic legacy court backlog. How Wisconsin one-time borrowers can nearly double their debt. Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson urges the pandemic is not over. And Charles Franklin’s latest political poll. It’s “Here & Now” for April 29.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Voters grow more unhappy and primary candidates aim to make their mark, according to the latest Marquette Law School Poll. Pollster Charles Franklin joins us over his latest results. Thanks for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s take a look at the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate right out of the gates. Mandela Barnes has slipped since your last poll in February by about four points and Alex Lasry and Sarah Godlewski have gained a little. Barnes has name recognition as lieutenant governor but Lasry and Godlewski are all over the airwaves as you know with TV ads. Do you suspect as the money pours in this will be the trend?

Charles Franklin:

Well I think some tightening of the race is really notable here from a ten-point margin last time to just a three-point margin this time. So there’s really a shift there. It’s also noticeable as you point out that Lasry and Godlewski are the two that are on the air. Barnes and Nelson have not been advertising yet. I do think this is a good advertisement for the power of TV advertising.

Frederica Freyberg:

Your polling also shows nearly half of the respondents were undecided. When do people get serious about deciding?

Charles Franklin:

I think that is another part. There are so many voters still sitting out there to be picked up by anybody. We saw this in 2018 when we had a very big democratic gubernatorial field. Even as late as June, there were still a lot undecided. Our primary is not until August 9th. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that undecided number still stay high even in June.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now in the republican primary for governor, Rebecca Kleefisch holds her lead but your poll went into the field before Tim Michels announced his run. Is Michels going to benefit in your mind from name recognition from his last runs for office, or is the electorate’s memory short?

Charles Franklin:

I think the electorate’s memory is short and that prior race was long time ago in political time. He entered the race after we had finished our poll so he obviously wasn’t included. One good thing about that is first, we don’t see any shift appreciably in the republican gubernatorial from February till now. A change of two points for both top candidates. We do have one virtue that this shows where things stood before Michaels entered. In June, when we do the next survey, we’ll get to see the impact. That republican race also has nearly half undecided. So again, Michels is in a position to tell us whether he picks up those undecideds or the vote shifts among the candidates that were already in.

Frederica Freyberg:

That will be interesting to see. Hearkening back to the 2020 election, as the GOP is keeping that alive with the help of Donald Trump, there’s a major partisan split as also might be expected here but 15% of Republicans are very confident in the results of the 2020 election compared to 85% of Democrats. I’m surprised here that there are 15% of Republicans that are very confident.

Charles Franklin:

Yeah, certainly the rhetoric is awfully strong on this. When you put “very confident” and “somewhat confident” on the one hand and “not too confident” and “not at all” on the other, over all the public is about 2/3rds confident, 1/3rd not confident. But in the Republican Party, that’s the mirror image. It’s 2/3rds not confident, 1/3rd confident. And that does seem to have some implications for the GOP.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s weird in your polling is that 2/3rds of Republicans say they don’t know enough about the Michael Gableman election investigation. There’s been a lot of time and money and effort put into that. What does that say about the psychology of this?

Charles Franklin:

People often ask what am I surprised by in the poll. This is one. With 2/3rds of Republicans saying they lack confidence and all the attention that Republicans have given to the Gableman investigation, the political Republicans have, it’s stunning that 2/3rds of Republicans aren’t even able to say they know enough to have an opinion of the Gableman investigation. Now it’s 50% of Democrats that don’t have an opinion but still, more lack of attention to the most prominent, current investigation of the election and the folks in general most worried about the election generally aren’t paying much attention to it.

Frederica Freyberg:

There’s also this polling result that 13% of Democrats want to decertify the results of the election. That seems like an outlier too.

Charles Franklin:

No, it does. And I think there, first of all it’s much higher among Republicans that want to decertify so there is some — and higher among those that are most skeptical of the election. That makes sense. I actually think a lot of people don’t understand the term “decertify.” I don’t know if they hear it as recertify or something else. It’s not that there are that many Democrats who are skeptical of the election outcome that you would think might reasonably want to decertify. Here we use the language that Justice Gableman used in his report and as it had been covered in the news. But I think that term maybe just not clear enough and we probably should have defined the term in the context of the question for people. So that’s my bad.

Frederica Freyberg:

That explains a little bit. But now, here’s a headline, too. Those that are least confident in the accuracy of the 2020 election are more enthusiastic to vote in 2022. Unpack that.

Charles Franklin:

That’s right. And that’s within the Republican Party and has real implication for the primary and perhaps for the general. Those “least confident” are like 20 points more enthusiastic about voting than Republicans who are “confident” in the election outcome. Well, that probably means the primary voters are going to be more heavily tilted to those skeptical of the election. You see candidates having to deal with that in their campaigns. But it also means maybe those Republicans who don’t agree the election was stolen, may not be as enthusiastic about supporting an election-skeptical candidate who carries that into the November election. This is something worth watching about how this division within the party and about a third of Republicans again are pretty “confident.” Does that hurt them in the fall even if it means in the primary? Skeptics have the upper hand.

Frederica Freyberg:

Charles Franklin, thanks very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

New COVID-19 cases statewide tripled in the last month according to the Department of Health Services data. COVID patient hospitalizations are also growing in the northwest and northeast regions of the state. All as mask mandates and mitigation efforts continue to collapse. Milwaukee Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson joins us to describe the dissonance. Thanks for being here.

Kirsten Johnson:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Statewide cases have tripled in the last month. What’s happening right now in Milwaukee?

Kirsten Johnson:

We’re experiencing something similar. We are seeing our cases increase. We’ve been really watching that trajectory closely but we have seen significant increase week over week over the last two weeks.

Frederica Freyberg:

How concerning should this be for people, most of whom seems like are over this pandemic?

Kirsten Johnson:

I think what’s most important to realize is twofold. That COVID is here with us. That there is risk. That you have to evaluate your own risk. But also comparing that to what we experienced in December and January, and it is nothing compared to what we saw in the middle of the Omicron surge.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is this new variant — does it affect people less severely? Is that what is happening?

Kirsten Johnson:

That is a good question. What we do know is it’s more contagious. It is a little early to determine what the hospitalizations are going to look like. I know they’re experiencing them throughout the rest of the state but here in the southwestern region, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of hospitalizations related to COVID specifically. But again, it’s something we are watching closely and we do — the trajectory is — it is increasing, our number of cases.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are vaccination rates like right now in Milwaukee?

Kirsten Johnson:

So over 60% of adults are fully vaccinated in city of Milwaukee. That said, it’s been stagnant for a number of months. And it’s really been an emphasis for us. Looking forward, one of the things we are planning on working on most critically over the course of the summer.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about the uptake of the boosters? When you say fully vaccinated, is that the two shots or does that include boosters?

Kirsten Johnson:

So fully vaccinated is just the two. Boosters is a lower number but over 40%. So still a decent number of people who have gotten their boosters. So up to date is how we’re classifying people who have had their boosters and fully vaccinated is the two initial shots.

Frederica Freyberg:

How vulnerable is the population you serve?

Kirsten Johnson:

That is a really good question. I think it is hard to know. We know our vaccination rates in some neighborhoods are lower than they are throughout the rest of the city. Again those are the neighborhoods we’ve targeted most closely. Done our door-to-door campaign. Working closely with our community partners like Milwaukee Public Schools to bring vaccines to where people are. I do think there are increased risks certainly for people who are not vaccinated. We know that that varies by neighborhood in the city and we’re really trying to address it.

Frederica Freyberg:

You described how hospitalizations and deaths are not rising with the new kind of increase in positive cases, but could that be a lagging kind of indicator? Or is it just this variant is just not doing that at this point?

Kirsten Johnson:

Hospitalization data always lags by a few weeks. I think it is a lag in data but again, I don’t think — I don’t anticipate we are going to see what we saw this winter, this spring or in this blip that we’re experiencing.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet Milwaukee schools made masks mandatory again after determining a significant transmission of the virus within the city of Milwaukee. It just seems like there are so many mixed messages here. What about this new mask mandate in the schools? It sounds kind of alarming.

Kirsten Johnson:

I think it’s less alarming and more trying to use the mitigation measures we have to ensure kids stay in school. I think from the Milwaukee Public Schools’ perspective and from my perspective in my role, what is most important at this point in the pandemic is our children are able to continue to go to school in person. I think using the masks as a tool is critical to make sure that continues to happen. Again, we know COVID is here. We know it’s spreading and we know masks work. It is a great mitigation tool to ensure it’s not spreading in our classroom and our kids can stay in school.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there more that needs to be done at this point or are we just at this point where we are living with it?

Kirsten Johnson:

I think we are living with it. I think the message is we know how to live with it. We’ve learned a tremendous amount over the last two years. We know that if you are at higher risk, you need to be more cautious. We know people — People know their own level of risk and their comfort with risk. We know there are children who have not yet been eligible for vaccine. We anticipate that’s coming during the summer. But I think it is really identifying what your level of risk is as an individual, for your family and then measuring that against the activities you engage in. And knowing again, that there are mitigations. We can put on a mask. We can socially distant. We can test before we gather with friends and family for a large gathering. We have tools we didn’t have previously.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Kirsten Johnson, thank you for joining us.

Kirsten Johnson:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

The pandemic created a backlog of criminal court cases across the state with the biggest crunch in Milwaukee County courts. According to court records, the state as a whole sits at a felony case backlog of more than 17,000 cases as of this week. Milwaukee County has more than 1600 of those. Milwaukee County Chief Judge Mary Triggiano is working to dig out and is getting a boost from more than $14.5 million in COVID-19 relief money, part of $50 million statewide going to police and courthouses. She joins us know from Milwaukee. Judge, thank you for being here.

Mary Triggiano:

Thank you. Happy to join you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So paint a picture. How bad is it?

Mary Triggiano:

So, we have been working really, really hard to make sure our backlog wasn’t as bad as some places across the country. We knew back in the early part of this pandemic, in fact the beginning phases – March, April, May – we needed to come back as quickly, as efficiently as we could so our backlog wouldn’t expand more than it is today. We worked really hard in the beginning, even starting jury trials in the summer 2020 when really no one across the state or the country was doing it. We did that because we knew that a backlog can have consequences. And so I think we — our backlog right now is going in the right direction. It is going down but we really need that extra push, that extra oomph from the monies that the governor has allocated to make sure we can address this backlog in record time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Describe how the pandemic contributed to the backlog.

Mary Triggiano:

Sure. We have — if I just focus on the felony division, which has the highest — I guess the misdemeanor division has a high backlog but the felony division has some pretty serious cases. What a judge wants to do is make sure they are disposing of enough cases so that when they get others in, they’re keeping sort of a balance, right? Whatever goes out comes in. You’re having the same amount of cases or you’re trying to reduce that. When the backlog hit — I mean when the pandemic hit and we shut down, those cases started to go up. Each judge probably has a third to 50% more cases on their calendar than they did before. That creates really, problems in trying to resolve and dispose of cases going out the door. You have the crush of these extra cases constantly on your calendar.

Frederica Freyberg:

Also you’re experiencing a shortage of employees who staff court cases, is that right?

Mary Triggiano:

Every stakeholder in the criminal justice system right now is experiencing a labor shortage. Not unlike the health care industry and other industries across the country, which makes it problematic in trying to get at that backlog. When you need to resolve more cases, you need more people. We don’t have that. We are working to build capacity to make sure we have the ability to get that backlog done in record time.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are the effects of these backlogs on defendants waiting for trial, victims of felony crimes and even community safety?

Mary Triggiano:

Sure. The backlog is untenable and has certainly unintended and intended consequences. You have defendants who might be waiting in custody for lengthy periods of time to have their case come in for a judge for a trial. You will have victims who are waiting for their day in court to resolve a case and have to wait to see that happen and that can cause its own stress and trauma, the delay of justice. It has a pretty significant impact on everyone in the system.

Frederica Freyberg:

How will you use the $14 million plus to kind of resolve the backlog?

Mary Triggiano:

Our intentions are several fold, right. We believe based upon data, the number of cases we can resolve in a year and a half, we need five additional courts. What we’re looking is to set up three felony courts, one domestic violence specialty court and one misdemeanor court so we can address the backlog in each of those divisions. We have to create five courts. We have to have enough staff in those five additional courts to be able to conduct any kind of hearing or trial to resolve cases and reduce the backlog. We’re also looking at a potential pilot. Doing some of our cases in the evening hours to try to reduce the misdemeanor backlog.

Frederica Freyberg:

So a night court and hiring blitz, I would think if you are already kind of down employees. Now you have to staff five new courts.

Mary Triggiano:

Yes, it is a hiring blitz. Most of the agencies that work in the courts have been trying to hire for some time now but I think this additional money will also allow us to use — do hiring in creative ways. Create project positions where somebody might want to come in and handle cases for a period of time or shifting bodies in different areas to be able to make sure we have enough capacity to do these cases.

Frederica Freyberg:

In the courthouse, how welcome are these COVID relief funds and these new courts?

Mary Triggiano:

That is a great question. I think it provides some level of hope. Everyone knows we want to provide fair, equitable and timely justice. And the backlog is weighing pretty heavy on everybody. The judges are working as hard as they can to get these cases moving. The prosecutors, the district attorneys, the public defenders, the court reporters and deputy court clerks are all pitching in, trying to figure out how to move cases as quickly as possible. Having this investment gives us an opportunity to restore some, I think, equilibrium to our court system so that we can advance justice at a pace we all believe is reasonable and I think everyone is really – has some hopes about this money coming in.

Frederica Freyberg:

Judge Mary Triggiano, thanks very much.

Mary Triggiano:

Sure, thank you, appreciate it.

Frederica Freyberg:

In other news when someone needs a quick short-term loan, they can turn to payday lenders but Wisconsin borrowers end up paying more on the backend because of high interest rates and fees. According to a new policy brief from Pew Charitable Trusts, this can result in a cycle of debt without stricter regulations. So where should you turn if you need quick cash? Melody Harvey, an associate professor of consumer science at UW-Madison joins us now to talk about it. Thanks for being here.

Melody Harvey:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to set the table here. Pew found Wisconsinites pay an average of $395 in fees when repaying $500 loans over the course of four months, an interest rate of 338%. Wisconsin is one of seven states that does not cap these interest rates. A person would have to be pretty desperate to take those terms, it seems to me but is that who is borrowing?

Melody Harvey:

In terms of the consumer base for payday loans, we know they are generally more credit constrained on average. Research has shown commonly, consumers turn to payday loans after exploring other credit options including plausible, available forms of liquidity. There is a credit constraint element as well as we know that payday loan consumers tend to be lower income on average. Both the income constraint as well as the credit constraints play a role into seeking payday loans.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if a person is cash strapped in this way, how do they pay these payday loans back?

Melody Harvey:

And so, on principle, payday loans are designed to be short term as suggested in the name payday loans so something that one would rely on in between pay periods and this is also characterized in the general fact that these tend to be small dollar loans. It’s available for a few hundred dollars as opposed to say thousands of dollars that one may peruse a personal loan for at a bank or credit union. And so given the small dollar amounts, we would like to believe one would be able to repay those within that two-week time frame but given the income volatility as well, numerous other shocks may occur including potential delays in pay day that result in rolling over the loan.

Frederica Freyberg:

You describe rolling over the loan, I am assuming if that happens and people unable to pay, fees just kind of keep accruing there?

Melody Harvey:

Right, so there is that capitalization element. So if you are rolling over a payday loan, you are effectively borrowing not only for that initial principle, but also the interest in fees charged that were accrued from that initial borrowing of the loan.

Frederica Freyberg:

Two questions kind of in one. Are these loans predatory or is there a place for payday loans?

Melody Harvey:

So that is the major debate occurring within the research space right now. So we don’t fully know what the welfare implications of these loans are at this time. And so when it comes to even substitution effects, for example, plenty of papers show that in an event of payday loan bans, which would be the highest form of regulation occurs, some consumers may turn to other forms, whether that’s auto title loans or pawnshop loans as well as even resort to bank overdrafts. And depending on how much one may overdraft from a bank account, that could prove more expensive in borrowing a payday loan. So much of it tends to be circumstantial.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yeah. Quickly with about half a minute left, we know Wisconsin Legislature a year ago tried to pass a 36% cap on payday interest rates but that did not pass. Is that the right move in your mind?

Melody Harvey:

So the 36% cap is certainly the most common form of payday loan prohibitions we see given that that number has shown to be an unprofitable rate for loans to operate. But another option could be mimicking the models that Ohio, Hawaii, Colorado and Virginia have implemented by converting the single use payday loans into these lower cost installments that consumers can use insuring they can get the small dollar loan as well as have enough time to pay them back at an affordable rate.

Frederica Freyberg:

Okay. Professor Melody Harvey, thank you for your information on this.

Melody Harvey:

Thank you for having me.

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 is 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.