Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Tammy Baldwin:

Later day we are poised to pass the Respect for Marriage Act out of the Senate and take the next step to make marriage equality the law of the land.

Frederica Freyberg:

Protecting same-sex marriage takes one major step forward.

Man:

The bill as amended has passed.

Chuck Schumer:

Mr. President, what a great day. What a great day.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Senator Tammy Baldwin describes her work shepherding the Respect for Marriage Act through the U.S. Senate. A former state Supreme Court justice warns of a case that could permanently cement power over elections in the legislature. A Wisconsin village divided over contaminated water, and the emergency state of EMS. It’s “Here & Now” for December 2.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Landmark legislation passed the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote this week. The Respect for Marriage Act insures that same-sex and interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law. The bill passed 61-36 on Tuesday including support from 12 Republicans. Not among them Wisconsin’s other Senator Republican Ron Johnson. In a statement on his “no” vote, he said in part “the Democrats continue to use this to create a state of fear over a settled issue in order to divide Americans for their political benefit. The substitute amendment did not provide sufficient protection for those with strongly-held religious beliefs.” The chamber’s first openly gay senator, Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, was lead sponsor. She joined us earlier from Washington. Senator, thank you very much for joining us.

Tammy Baldwin:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how meaningful is it to you that the Respect for Marriage Act passed the Senate this week?

Tammy Baldwin:

It’s meaningful on so many different levels. I will start with the fact that I have heard from so many who are expressing gratitude because they have been seriously worried about the future recognition of their marriages because of the threat that hangs over it after the Dobbs decision of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer. And countless individuals have said how much it means to have a little bit more peace of mind now that the Respect for Marriage Act is headed towards being signed into law by President Biden. It’s also meaningful in, I think, a sort of bigger arc of history, if you will. This vote would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. That’s not where the Senate was. That’s not where the Congress was. That’s not where the people of the United States were. And so I think hearts and minds have changed. In fact I know that’s the case. 70% plus of Americans and Wisconsinites support marriage equality and I guess we’re gaining on those numbers in the U.S. Senate. We had at least 61 out of 100 join together to pass the Respect for Marriage Act and that says a lot about where we’re moving as a country.

Frederica Freyberg:

What precisely does the act provide for gay or interracial married couples?

Tammy Baldwin:

Yeah, so if either of the Supreme Court rulings that protected same-sex marriage or made same-sex marriage the law of the land, or made interracial marriages possible in every single state, if either of those cases were to fall, it would require that states, regardless of what their state law or constitution says, would have to respect and honor through the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution marriages that were valid where entered and when entered. So, for example, in a state like Wisconsin, where we have a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, Wisconsin would nevertheless still have to recognize any valid same-sex marriage that was entered into either in Wisconsin when it was legal, right? Or in another state where it is or was legal. And the other thing that the Respect for Marriage Act does is repeal the 1996 federal act called the Defense of Marriage Act. That created a federal barrier to recognition of same-sex marriages. It’s still on the books, and it’s been rendered toothless by the Supreme Court in their marriage equality case Obergefell

but it’s still on the books. So this gets rid of it. It will be off the books.

Frederica Freyberg:

How in this hyper-polarized political landscape did you get the Republican votes to get here?

Tammy Baldwin:

I think there were a number of different ways and frankly, you know, talking to Republicans who wanted to get to yes, but listening carefully to what their concerns and questions were and being able to work with some Republican colleagues on crafting language to clarify answers to their questions. So let me restate that I think a huge difference has been made that I don’t have any Republican colleagues who don’t know a gay couple, a lesbian couple, who don’t understand what marriage equality has meant in America.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your comment on Wisconsin’s other senator, newly reelected Republican Ron Johnson’s “no” vote on this?

Tammy Baldwin:

Obviously you have to ask him. He was on all sides of this issue, which was quite puzzling. I know early on he talked with the Wisconsin reporter and said he saw no reason to object to it, to not pass it. And then went through lots of machinations, in particular, I think citing some of the religious liberty concerns that some of my other Republican colleagues voiced. But we were able to fashion a response to that that led to the endorsement of this broad coalition of faith-based organizations, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the 7th Day Adventists, a coalition of evangelical churches, a group that represents Christian colleges and universities, Orthodox Jews. I mean this was an amazing coalition who is saying, look, having these religious liberties clarified and to clarify in the bill this is status quo.

Frederica Freyberg:

We know the bill goes back to the House for a final vote before the president signs it. But what more is left to do in your mind on behalf of LGBTQ citizens?

Tammy Baldwin:

We have work to do to address these repeals of these bans of same-sex marriage in the states, including by amending our constitution in Wisconsin. But on the broader question, you know, at the same time that we’re celebrating the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, we know that record numbers of anti-LGBTQ legislation, particularly focused on transgender individuals, transgender youth in particular, are being introduced in state legislatures across America and that rhetoric exists also on Capitol Hill. There’s a lot of work yet to be done to achieve full equality, full equity and that work remains ahead of us.

Frederica Freyberg:

What will it be like for you to see this act signed into law?

Tammy Baldwin:

I think I might get a bit choked up. I already have been. It’s — you know, I know it’s going to make a difference. I know how many people just were resting a little bit easier upon Senate passage knowing that this was almost certainly going to become law.

Frederica Freyberg:

Senator Tammy Baldwin, thank you very much.

Tammy Baldwin:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

A highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court case set for oral arguments next week has legal experts sounding the alarm on its implications for every state, perhaps most especially including Wisconsin. The high court takes up a case originating out of North Carolina where that state’s high court struck down Republican-drawn congressional maps calling them an egregious partisan gerrymander. Republicans there then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing state legislatures have sole authority to set rules for elections, including voting maps, election rules and outcomes. Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Janine Geske joined in a brief calling on the high court to reject this independent state legislature theory. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Janine Geske:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why are you sounding the alarm on this?

Janine Geske:

I think — first I think it’s under the radar for people to understand the court is considering the fact that there will be no state court review of any actions by legislatures on congressional races. So how the election rules are set, how people vote, how they are counted, and ultimately how the lines are drawn will not be reviewable by state courts. That’s pretty unique. The governor has no veto power over it and the courts have no reviewability, so I think it is really important. Really taking away the voice of the people through the independent judiciary and having legislatures make the final call on this. In North Carolina the court held that it violated, what the legislature had done violated, the North Carolina Constitution. And, you know, the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to throw that out and say it’s not up to North Carolina courts to decide that.

Frederica Freyberg:

So in the case of Wisconsin should that come to pass that the high court agreed with the North Carolina Republicans, Wisconsin’s outsized Republican majority legislature certainly could throw its weight around. But would it in your mind?

Janine Geske:

I think it would, you know. The Republican-led legislature has been doing a lot of work on elections and changing voting rules and, you know — but fortunately there is always that reviewability of the court. In some cases, even though we have a court that’s divided, some cases have reversed some of the things the legislature has done and some have affirmed it. But not to have that reviewability would give more power to the legislature. I have no doubt that they would take it.

Frederica Freyberg:

So this theory, which you would is pushed by extreme partisans, seems is exactly what was at play when Republican false electors in Wisconsin tried to toss out Biden’s slate for Trump electors. Where do you think the U.S. Supreme Court will go with this?

Janine Geske:

It’s interesting. There are at least four justices, the more conservative ones that have voiced an interest in this theory. John Roberts has as well. I don’t think John Roberts will do something to take power away from the state courts. That’s just my sense. He feels very strongly about the importance of the judiciary and the independence of the judiciary and actually there is an amicus brief representing all the chief justices from all 50 states asking the court not to adopt this legislative theory. And I have — it’s just sort of a gut feeling from watching John Roberts that he won’t go along with it. In which case they wouldn’t have enough votes. But we’ll see with the argument next week.

Frederica Freyberg:

What will you be listening for from justices?

Janine Geske:

Actually John Roberts. The kinds of questions he’s going to be asking. I mean I think the conservative ones have indicated they are doing a very narrow and not very popular reading of the U.S. Constitution in terms of control of elections and they’ve written on that in the past. I can’t imagine anybody else who, you know, the more moderate or liberal or whatever you want to call them justices would go that way. I really think it’s up to John Roberts to make the call. So I’ll be real interested in what he is asking them. In particular what he is asking the Republicans who have brought this suit about taking away the power of the state courts.

Frederica Freyberg:

In the end, how in your mind would giving legislatures sole authority over elections thwart the will of the people?

Janine Geske:

Well, it would take — you know, in our state, we elect an independent judiciary to be a check and balance on our governor and on the legislature. It would take that check and balance away. And the only attack would be through a federal court if a federal court would take it. So it really does take that independent review by the state, consistent with the state constitution, of whether this was a lawful gerrymandered or whether it’s a lawful rule. I think that we’ve seen how important that is over the last several elections, where people are arguing about whether elections are valid or invalid and how you count votes and things. I think not to have reviewability in the state is very dangerous.

Frederica Freyberg:

Former Supreme Court justice state of Wisconsin Janine Geske, thanks very much.

Janine Geske:

You’re welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

We now turn to central Wisconsin where the discovery of nitrate in drinking water is posing a threat to public health in a small village. “Here & Now” reporter Nathan Denzin takes us to Nelsonville for the story.

Tarion O’Carroll:

Well, it started when I bought this house.

Nathan Denzin:

Tarion O’Carroll has lived in Nelsonville for about ten years. He says when he first moved in and started testing, his private well saw high nitrate levels.

Tarion O’Carroll:

They offered another nitrate screening in the village of Amherst and I decided to get a bunch of glass mason jars and I took them around and collected samples from all of my neighbors and about half of those samples came back above ten.

Nathan Denzin:

Above ten here means more than ten parts per million, the listed unsafe limit for nitrates. If you’ve ever driven by farms in Wisconsin, chances are you’ve smelled manure getting sprayed on crops. What you might not know, the process of fertilizing farmland can leave a chemical called nitrate in the soil. Nitrates can have serious health effects if they leech into drinking water. Nitrates are produced naturally when manure is sprayed on crops. Nitrate is necessary for most cash crops like corn or alfalfa to grow. George Kraft is a hydrologist at UW Stevens Point.

George Kraft:

Rainwater and snow melt, they wash the nitrate down through the soil and nitrate is a pretty slippery chemical. It doesn’t want to stick and it moves through the soil profile and gets to groundwater.

Nathan Denzin:

Normally Wisconsin’s clay-rich soil filters out nitrate before the chemical can reach private wells. However, in the Central Sands region in and around Portage County, nitrates move quickly through sandy soil and infiltrate groundwater. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says high levels of nitrate in drinking water can cause birth defects, Blue Baby Syndrome, thyroid disease and increase the risk of colon cancer. Any level above ten parts per million can be harmful to long term health. A threshold the O’Carroll’s water surpassed. Nelsonville has been dealing with a known nitrate problem in the private wells there since 2018, though it’s likely the problem has existed in the area for decades.

Jennifer McNelly:

In 2018 the residents who live within the village of Nelsonville had started asking questions regarding their water quality and when we started trying to find data to answer their questions, we realized there really wasn’t a whole lot.

Nathan Denzin:

Using grant money, Portage County Water Resource Specialist Jen McNelly and other county scientists sampled 60 of the village’s roughly 80 private wells and found results that alarmed her. About half of all wells in Nelsonville show nitrate levels above the safe limit of ten parts per million with some even reaching a dangerous tipping point of over 30 parts per million. If nitrate levels reach 30 parts per million, water can no longer be cleaned and made safe. However, it’s impossible to tell if your water is contaminated unless you regularly test it.

Tarion O’Carroll:

It doesn’t taste any different. It doesn’t look any different. There is no smell to it. It tastes great.

Nathan Denzin:

Mark Bruggeman is one of those people who has well water above the ten parts per million limit and is fighting for clean water as his well approaches that 30 parts per million limit.

Mark Bruggeman:

We can’t go on without water. It’s necessary for anything you want to do.

Nathan Denzin:

Bruggeman lives in a house with his wife, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He says after getting results that showed his water at dangerous levels, he contacted Culligan to install a reverse osmosis machine. Reverse osmosis or RO machines can filter nitrate under 30 parts per million. Bruggeman says his wife would often drink water from the faucet not connected to his RO machine, which could have had further impacts on her health.

Mark Bruggeman:

We now keep jugs of water in the fridge and Lois pretty much doesn’t get her own water anymore.

Nathan Denzin:

While RO machines are one Band-Aid solution, O’Carroll says his family has opted to get water from a public well in Lynd, a tiny town about 40 miles away from Nelsonville.

Tarion O’Carroll:

Not too bad. We’re at almost 30 degrees. Swimming weather in Sconnie. I drive there weekly and fill up my seven-gallon jugs. I usually fill about 4 or 5 of them.

Nathan Denzin:

O’Carroll says he tested this water to make sure it doesn’t have nitrate and now makes the 90-minute journey about once a week.

Tarion O’Carroll:

In the summer, it’s not too bad. In the wintertime, it can suck. It gets all icy and they’re heavy. So it’s not something I look forward to.

Nathan Denzin:

The next step for residents of Nelsonville: find out where the nitrates are coming from.

Tarion O’Carroll:

As I like to tell people, my story’s not unique.

Nathan Denzin:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Directors of emergency medical services across Wisconsin are warning of a system on the brink. This is according to our next guest who says there is not enough money and there are not enough people to perform the lifesaving work. And that EMS has relied too heavily on volunteers for too long. James Small is the rural EMS outreach manager for the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health. Thanks for being here.

James Small:

Thank you for having me here today.

Frederica Freyberg:

How is the EMS system on the brink?

James Small:

Right now in many communities around the state and around the country this isn’t just a Wisconsin issue, this is a national issue that’s going on. There is many communities that have historically depended on volunteers or near volunteers where they’re being paid small amount but not a full-time wage for providing EMS and response. And what we’re finding is that we’ve had a decline in the number of people available to do that. And there is not the financial resources to replace them with full-time staff. So as you look around the state at what the system looks like, about a third or maybe a little over a third of the ambulance services in Wisconsin today are not able to staff 24/7, 365 like they are required to. So one in three let’s say. In addition to that, there is another third that are concerned that they can’t do that through 2023. So within the next year they may have system outages too. One of the challenges with that is that it then places the burden on their neighboring services to handle their calls. And there’s even been situations where somebody has called 911 and the ambulance never made it to their house because they couldn’t get an ambulance for them.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you feel as though stakeholders, lawmakers are aware of what you’ve described as a crisis?

James Small:

Yes. In the discussions I’ve had in the last few months with the — in the legislature, I believe they’re very aware that there is a crisis and are planning on working towards a solution to that in the next legislative session.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does a solution to that, I mean, is it money? Is that what municipalities need?

James Small:

Oh, that’s probably first and foremost the area we need to go down is increasing the funding to local municipalities. Right now the funding that comes from the state through the shared revenue program is the same amount it was in 1993. To put that in perspective in 1993 is when I got my EMS license originally and I’m eligible to retire in three years. So I could conceivably have worked my entire career under the same amount of shared revenue as what is being placed out there today.

Frederica Freyberg:

How long has the issue with EMS been a situation?

James Small:

It’s been growing for probably 20 years at this point. It just reached this crisis point. Six years ago, the legislature did a legislative council study committee which looked at issues and looked at solutions relating to this but never really got any traction implementing any of the ideas that were brought forth from that committee. I think now we’re in a different political environment where maybe some of those ideas can be brought forth again.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there a region of the state where this is most acute?

James Small:

In the more rural areas it’s more acute for the most part. But I think that as you go around the state, you will find that most regions have areas that are having difficulties. Right now we’re conducting a study of the statewide system and we’re seeing reports from all over the state describing system outages and lack of staffing and so on.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there a dollar figure for what it would take to try to replace the aging volunteer population with full-time paid staff?

James Small:

I would imagine that’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I don’t know exactly whether it’s $200 million or $500 million or upwards of that. But in addition to the EMS, there is also the fire response issues with the volunteer fire departments that are very similar. Law enforcement has similar issues also with funding and not enough people. So public safety as a whole is having a lot of challenges right now that we need to figure out solutions for going forward so we can at least stop the bleeding and start building things back to where we need to have response capability. You know, you look at some of these tragic incidents that happen around the country. If one of those happened in certain areas of our state right now we don’t have the capability of responding to those incidents.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is the situation like for people like yourself who dedicate your life’s work to saving others?

James Small:

It’s challenging. I think that what we’re seeing is that people are burned out. You know, you have numerous services around the state that are being operated on maybe 3 or 4 volunteers trying to cover 24/7, 365. That’s a huge burden to put on somebody that also has a full-time job that’s supporting their family and then doing this to help their community. The reason the system hasn’t collapsed yet is because these people are so dedicated and they’ve done everything in their power to make it work but we’ve hit this point where they can’t anymore. In some cases, the system failures are happening because a dedicated employee has passed away so they’ve lost that contribution that person was giving because they worked until they died. There are services right now that have an average age on the roster of over 70 years old. This isn’t sustainable where we’re at and we’re imminently looking at a collapse of the system in regions around the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

That’s sounding the alarm. James Small, thanks very much.

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.