Here & Now

Here & Now for December 20, 2019

Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” we get the latest on the state’s contract with Foxconn from Secretary of Administration Joel Brennan. After that, the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission responds to the court order to purge more than 200,000 voters from the state rolls. And an inside look at the historic impeachment week in Washington. It’s “Here & Now” for December 20.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Blockbuster reporting from “The Verge” on the status of Foxconn in Wisconsin showed how state officials are saying the company is ineligible for hefty tax credits because the scope of the project has changed. The reporting was based on letters written back and forth between the company and the Evers’ administration. “Here & Now’s” Marisa Wojcik also obtained the correspondence and has this report.

Marisa Wojcik:

A torrent of newly-released correspondence dating back to April between Foxconn, Governor Evers’ administration and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation show growing conflict over the Taiwanese giant’s ability to collect public tax subsidies. Governor Evers’ administration is arguing Foxconn presently is ineligible for tax credits under Wisconsin law because new plans for its Wisconsin LCD manufacturing facility no longer fit the terms of the original incentive contract. The state is calling on Foxconn to renegotiate the contract to fit the changes, a demand which Foxconn says comes with great surprise and disappointment. In January, Foxconn’s Louis Woo told Reuters that the Mount Pleasant facility was no longer going to be a LCD flat panel TV manufacturing plant, known as a Gen 10.5 factory as originally planned. Instead, Foxconn would build a smaller Gen 6 plant, now currently under construction. Melissa Hughes, the new CEO of WEDC, told Foxconn the project work and plans do not align with the project agreed to by the parties. The Department of Administration says the performance-based agreement was only for the Gen 10.5 project. Foxconn representative Alan Yeung told DOA the changes were necessary due to market and supplier conditions. But the material terms of our contract with the WEDC are jobs and investment. The original 2017 contract signed by Foxconn and Wisconsin under Governor Scott Walker says the state would pay up to $4 billion in tax credits to Foxconn if it invested $10 billion for a production plant to create up to 13,000 jobs. Walker and the WEDC reassured skeptics that clawbacks and provisions in its contract with Foxconn would ensure proper use of the taxpayers’ investment. A new report from the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau says they’re concerned with the numbers Foxconn is reporting on job creation and capital investments. Throughout the eight months of letters between Evers’ administration and Foxconn, they ensure one another both are committed to the project. But in the latest letters lobbed in November, DOA Secretary Joel Brennan says Foxconn was opaque about its project plans. Foxconn’s response quipped distractions like these leave job creators and job seekers wondering if doing business in our great state is welcomed by Governor Evers’ administration. Foxconn’s last words to Wisconsin say Foxconn will continue to play an important and constructive role in the state of Wisconsin. However, at this point, we shall be evaluating all available options relating to the WEDC contract.

Frederica Freyberg:

For the latest on the status of the Foxconn contract with Wisconsin, we turn to Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration, Joel Brennan, and thanks very much for being here.

Joel Brennan:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so what specifically does the state of Wisconsin want from Foxconn right now?

Joel Brennan:

Well, I think fundamentally we want Foxconn to be successful. We want the local units of government to be protected. We want the people in southeastern Wisconsin and throughout the state to benefit from this project. But we also want to ensure that everybody understands that nobody gets a blank check in these things and that fundamentally this project has changed from where it was two years ago. Those things are okay, but it also requires us then to revisit some of the fundamentals about the agreement.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so you’d like to amend the contract.

Joel Brennan:

I think it’s important to note that the first discussion of amendment of the contract actually came from Foxconn. There has been this series of communications that have come out over the last few weeks and really going back to March of this year, Foxconn expressed to us their intention to file new applications and to proceed with the amendment process. We proceeded under the assumption they were going to do that for a long period of time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are they now providing you things that you need to have to make these decisions?

Joel Brennan:

I think that’s really one of the things that’s fundamental to this. Just a little bit about what the justification of this was two years ago. So at that time, Ernst & Young did some very deep analysis of what this was going to be and a lot of the reason for this unprecedented public subsidy was based on some of the evaluation they had done. In that evaluation, they noted that the payoff for the state was based on getting to a point where they were producing six million LCD televisions in Racine County. Foxconn has said they’re no longer doing televisions. What we don’t know is what is the market for what they are going to be doing. Frankly, I think Foxconn may not know that either, which is okay, except that we have a contract that was for the LCD screens from two years ago. So we need to make sure the project they’re doing now is married up with what the contract terms are.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you have any idea what exactly Foxconn plans to build?

Joel Brennan:

We have a good idea of what they’re doing throughout — up until about the end of 2020. There are three buildings on the site, about 1.4 million square feet of space and there are some exciting things happening there. There’s one company in particular, Foxconn Industrial Internet, FII, that’s doing two of those three buildings, and they’re doing things that are a little separate from what the contract or what the terms that were discussed two years ago. Those are things that have evolved and changed with this project. And that’s, again, those things are good. They’re exciting. They’re going to employ people. However, that’s not what the contract was signed for. And that’s why we have to go back and revisit those things with Foxconn.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to this, Speaker Robin Vos describes that contract as ironclad and he says he doesn’t want to materially change it, saying if you – the Evers administration – want to reduce incentives, it could result in less hiring. What about that?

Joel Brennan:

Well, I think that for anyone to argue that there haven’t been material changes in what Foxconn said they were going to do and contracted for two years ago versus now, they haven’t been really following the news. They haven’t been following Foxconn’s own communications. So it just kind of goes to the fundamentals of this. There was — the state had the option in 2017 to choose project A or project B, what they call the Generation 10.5 plan or Generation 6. They opted for project A, the Gen 10.5. There was a list of things that came along with that. So that’s what was evaluated, what was applied for, what was contracted for in 2017. There are things that are fundamentally different with this other plan. I’ve heard the speaker also say you wouldn’t tell somebody else to produce screwdrivers instead of hammers for a different thing. Well, frankly, if you’re going to produce six million TVs and that’s what all of the evaluation was, if they are going to produce something additional, there’s nothing wrong with that, but are they going to produce 60 or 6,000? Those are the questions I think that we still have and which taxpayers probably want us to be able to answer, too, before we can say that, yes, a horse is a horse is a horse or all these things are the same thing.

Frederica Freyberg:

As it stands, your position is that the company is not eligible for subsidies at all?

Joel Brennan:

The project that they’re doing now is not within the bounds of the contract that was signed in 2017. We made that pretty clear for them over the last several months. And I think it’s important to note, they’ve continued to do work aware of that. We’ve continued to have discussions about those things. And I anticipate we will over the coming weeks.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your response to Foxconn saying that your position leaves job creators wondering if doing business in Wisconsin is welcome by the Evers administration?

Joel Brennan:

Well, I think over the first several months of the Evers administration there have been several occasions, high-profile announcements with Milwaukee Tool, with Molson Coors of the state providing and frankly being nimble in being able to provide resources so companies like that could grow here and I think that fundamentally the conversations we’ve had, the investments we’ve made have been in companies that are here, that want to grow here, that want to continue to work with us on the entire fabric of the economy. So all evidence is to the contrary about that. And we — every conversation we’ve had with Foxconn has been we want them to be as successful as they possibly can be here in Wisconsin. That’s why it’s to their benefit and in their best interest to make sure that we marry whatever the contract terms are with the project that they are doing now. And that will continue to evolve for them. I think they don’t know — and this is part of how the project has evolved over the last two years in that things are fundamentally different in the world marketplace than they were two years ago. There’s nothing wrong with that. They need to be able to evolve with that. But you can’t have a contract that puts the feet of — the state’s feed in clay and doesn’t allow us to have some of that opportunity to evaluate these things moving forward as well. I make common sense. That’s what rational people would do as we want to move forward on this.

Frederica Freyberg:

Given the friction, as evidenced by the correspondence back and forth between you and others in the administration and Foxconn, does the state run the risk of Foxconn just bailing on this project altogether?

Joel Brennan:

I think the decisions, as has been the case over the past two years, Foxconn is going to make business decisions based not just — and this is what we have heard from them, they’re not going to make those decisions simply based on tax credits. They’re going to make those based on the fundamentals of their business. They’re going to make those based on the world economic realities. So anybody trying to say that the state doing this or that is going to drive them away, Foxconn has continued to evolve their business decision-making over the last two years with the contract that they had, with changes in administration, with changes at Foxconn. So those decisions are going to be made based on Foxconn’s business, not based on anything that the state is doing.

Frederica Freyberg:

When do you expect any kind of resolution to the questions that you have?

Joel Brennan:

I think there’s urgency to it in that there are reports that Foxconn has to file early in 2020. We want to make sure that we’re able to do — in our best way, to incentivize them so that the work that they are doing can be rewarded and the work they’re going to be doing in the future is rewarded. We want to make sure we make those changes with all the appropriate amount of speed, but also the appropriate amount of evaluation and justification. Because that’s really what people need out of this.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are you in current communication with them today?

Joel Brennan:

I haven’t spoke with them today, but we have had conversations with them this week. We have conversations ongoing with Foxconn on a couple different levels about what’s going on the ground and how can the state be helpful in making sure we’re doing that. There are also ongoing discussions about how can we make sure that whatever the state is doing from an incentive standpoint meets up with what Foxconn is doing on the ground and if those two things can move forward together to make us both as successful as possible.

Frederica Freyberg:

Joel Brennan, thanks very much.

Joel Brennan:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

A counter suit and an appeal came quickly following last week’s ruling by an Ozaukee County Circuit Court that more than 200,000 registered voters flagged as having changed address should be immediately deactivated from Wisconsin voter lists. The Ozaukee ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by a conservative group that challenged the Wisconsin Elections Commission decision to allow those who may have moved to be able to stay on the active rolls through April 2021. That suit cited a state statute that requires deactivation 30 days after such voters get a mailed notice saying records show they may have changed address and the circuit court agreed. That leaves Democrats crying foul, including the governor saying Republicans are trying to suppress votes. Republicans worry about voter fraud. But where does all this stand tonight on the cusp of a presidential election, where Wisconsin is pivotal? We turn to the administrator of the Elections Commission, Meagan Wolfe. Thanks very much for being here.

Meagan Wolfe:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

I just wonder, is the court’s ruling to immediately purge the voters in limbo now because of the appeal to the higher court?

Meagan Wolfe:

Currently there is an appeal and we’re waiting to see what the judge decides in terms of a stay of the current order before the commission decides on further action.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so right now, tonight, those voters remain on the active list.

Meagan Wolfe:

That’s correct.

Frederica Freyberg:

How fractious is this situation given that the Elections Commission is deadlocked on party lines over how to proceed after the ruling?

Meagan Wolfe:

So the oversight board for the Wisconsin Elections Commission is that six-member, bipartisan commission that provides us with guidance and decision-making for the commission. So there’s bound to be some differences from time to time. But I think it’s important to note that the decisions for the movers list, the process that was implemented, those votes were largely unanimous and any changes and sort of differences have really been in results to the direction of litigation recently.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why did the commission originally want to give these voters who changed address until 2021 before they were deactivated?

Meagan Wolfe:

The purpose of ERIC is really to determine if someone is properly registered at the correct address or if they’re eligible to be registered but they’re not yet to give them that information. So the decision was made to make sure that voters again had that opportunity to get registered at the correct address. When we’re looking at ERIC data sets, what ERIC does is it makes a report that determines differences between the state voter rolls and databases like DMV’s or the postal service and then it’s our job to determine how to educate voters about how if they may have moved, they might need to update their address.

Frederica Freyberg:

Tell our viewers what does ERIC stands for please?

Meagan Wolfe:

Sure, so ERIC is the Electronic Registration Information Center.

Frederica Freyberg:

That’s where this information comes from that tells the commission that these voters might have moved.

Meagan Wolfe:

Correct. It compares voter lists within our state as well as across the country to again determine if there are voters that are eligible to be registered to vote but currently aren’t so we can educate them or voters that may have moved and need to register at a new address.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about that statute, that state statute, that says that such movers must be purged within 30 days of this written notice?

Meagan Wolfe:

So the current law says that the state of Wisconsin must join the ERIC organization and must abide by the ERIC agreement, but it is not specific in terms of what happens with that data set. We’re just required by the ERIC agreement to make contact with at least 95% of the voters that are on the list for the movers, but it’s not specific. There are other places in statute that talk about this maintenance. Four-year maintenance, for example. So voters who have not participated in an election for four years, the statute does require for those voters that we send them a notice letting them know they haven’t participated in four years. And then if we don’t hear from them within 30 days, their record is deactivated. But that’s a separate set of laws.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think deactivating these voters if that happens following all these courts will suppress votes?

Meagan Wolfe:

Here in the state of Wisconsin we have same-day voter registration. So I think regardless of where the decision heads that the most important thing for voters to know, the biggest take-away or action item for them, is to know your registration status and make sure you’re registered to vote at the correct place. So any voter that’s wondering where they’re currently registered to vote or what their status is can go to myvote.wi.gov and check their voter status. If they see that their address is out of date, they’ll have an opportunity to register online. And then of course, you can also register at the polls on Election Day here in Wisconsin. Just make sure you’re ready, that you’re prepared and that you have a proof of residence document. So something like a utility bill, maybe your driver’s license that has your current name and your current address on it and you’ll be able to cast a ballot.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are more of the people on the change of address list democratic voters?

Meagan Wolfe:

We don’t track party here in the state of Wisconsin, so you don’t register as a party, so we have no way of knowing who those voters are.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet more of those voters come from larger cities, like Madison and Milwaukee. Is that accurate?

Meagan Wolfe:

The largest places with a larger population are going to have more voters on the list. Also places that maybe have a more transient population, so people that move around might be on that list more frequently.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you feel as though leaving them active encourages fraud?

Meagan Wolfe:

So we also have a photo ID law here in the state of Wisconsin, which means that any voter that shows up to vote on Election Day has to prove who they are. When you’re registering to vote, you’re proving where you live. When you show up to cast your ballot, you state your name and your address publicly and then you show that photo ID to prove who you are before you can cast a ballot. So even those voters if they have moved and they’re still on the poll list, they’re still going to be asked to affirm that they currently live at that address. If they have moved, the poll worker will direct them to reregister at their current address to be sure that they’re voting in the correct election.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meagan Wolfe, thanks very much.

Meagan Wolfe:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, an inside look at this week’s historic impeachment of President Donald Trump. The House vote on Wednesday makes Trump the third president to be impeached in U.S. history. The vote went largely along party lines. Here’s what Wisconsin 5th District Representative Republican James Sensenbrenner said on the floor during the vote, followed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments after the vote was tallied.

James Sensenbrenner:

There are no allegations that the president has committed a crime. We’ve had almost three years of nonstop investigations. We’ve had the Mueller report. We’ve had the Schiff investigation. We’ve had the Nadler investigation and at no time is there any evidence that indicates that Donald J. Trump violated any criminal statute of the United States.

Nancy Pelosi:

Seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior. No one is above the law and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

Frederica Freyberg:

When we asked U.S. Representative Ron Kind on this program last week how he would vote on Articles of Impeachment, he would not definitively say. However, he stood with other Wisconsin Democrats Wednesday, voting in favor. The state’s Republican delegation voted against impeachment of the president. That historic process coincides with electoral politics, including Thursday night’s Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate. We check in now with an expert on elections and the presidency, UW-Madison Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications Mike Wagner. Thanks a lot for being here.

Mike Wagner:

It’s my pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

First on the impeachment of President Trump. After so many, many hours of testimony and debate, really along strict partisan lines, it almost seemed anti-climactic, and yet, it is historic.

Mike Wagner:

It’s absolutely historic. We’ve only had this happen three times, although twice in the last 20 years. And so it seems a little more common for those of us living in this particular era. But this is a rare thing that happens in our country. And while the debates that happened on the floor of the House probably won’t be used in textbooks for examples of high-quality debate in future times, this is a really important moment that lays down what it is our lawmakers think presidents are allowed to do. Are they allowed to help themselves and help themselves politically by dealing with foreign nations or not, which is kind of the central question. And the secondary question, can they refuse to treat Congress as a coequal branch of government, the other Article of Impeachment.

Frederica Freyberg:

It seems that the impeachment process has served to solidify the president’s base and support. How is that?

Mike Wagner:

Some of it, I think you saw from the comments from Congressman Sensenbrenner. Some Republicans have said well, the president has not been shown to have committed a crime. That’s not the standard for impeachment. So it’s not really relevant to the conversation. What’s relevant is whether the president violated his oath and has engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors, which is something the House gets to decide to define. So I think that’s one thing. Other Republicans have just said Democrats have had it in for President Trump since day one. I think the Democratic response is if that’s true, why didn’t we impeach him on day one? We waited until he did things that we felt violated the oath of office. Those are kind of the main arguments that are going on. It’s a super partisan process. It’s super acrimonious, and the public is interested but not really changing their minds in any kind of systemic way. I think we’re — once again, seeing another issue that polarizes us relatively equally

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you make of Speaker Pelosi slow-walking sending the Impeach articles to the Senate?

Mike Wagner:

I think she’s trying to assert a strong preference for the trial in the Senate being something that’s taken seriously. I think Speaker Pelosi wants to avoid something that we might think is akin to what happened in Wisconsin with the special session on guns where there was a gavel in and a gavel out and it was over immediately. Speaker Pelosi wants there to be in a trial in the Senate, presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, where the president has to make a defense to these charges against him. And she wants it to take time. And she wants the president to have an opportunity to lay out his case and the House managers to lay out theirs.

Frederica Freyberg:

It also allows her and the House Democrats to allow this idea of historic impeachment of Donald Trump to really sink in.

Mike Wagner:

It allows it to sink in, perhaps. And it also is political in that the longer this drags on, the more the president might be embattled, the more other things working their way through the courts about who else who works for the president might have to testify, might eventually be decided. So it’s certainly political as well as dutiful.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you expect the impeachment to help or hurt Democrats?

Mike Wagner:

That’s a great question and I think the honest answer is I’m not sure. When President Clinton was in office, he was really popular during impeachment. President Trump has not gained in popularity. He’s still under water largely in terms of his overall public approval even though the economy is pretty strong by some measures. He hasn’t had the same benefit. So I think to predict a systemic advantage one way or another is not something we have data to really know. I think it’s an open question.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for Democrats, any sense on your part who won last night’s debate?

Mike Wagner:

Well, I think Amy Klobuchar had a good night. Once the stage was smaller, it became clearer that there were two lanes the candidates are vying for. The more progressive lane that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are vying for although Warren is starting to drive on the more moderate shoulder of the road in the progressive lane. And Klobuchar is kind of vying with Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg for that centrist lane. I think Klobuchar did herself a lot of favors last night. People didn’t have their eyes trained and you know, quips trained on her because of her position in the polls. So Buttigeg and Warren could battle it out to maybe damage each other a bit. Biden and Sanders could do the same. And Klobuchar looked like the pragmatist who could get things done which is what she wants to be seen by. Whether that appeals to primary voters we’ll find out in the coming months.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s your prediction as to which candidate takes the nomination?

Mike Wagner:

I don’t know. It’s pretty early to tell still. I would say that Joe Biden has probably the best chance. I think Elizabeth Warren has the next best chance. There are plenty of people who are more middle of the road democrats who just don’t like Bernie Sanders. And so I think it will be harder for him to sustain the kind of popularity he would need to get to the nomination, although he came close last time. It’s Joe Biden’s to lose, but he’s tried this before and lost each time. And so — and he’s much older now and is not quite — doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of the times in the way he might have when he ran the first time, which leaves the door open for other candidates. That gives Pete Buttigieg a chance. It gives Senator Klobuchar a chance. It gives Senator Warren a chance.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mike Wagner. Thanks very much.

Mike Wagner:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

That is our program for tonight. Next week “Here & Now” will be pre-empted. We will return on January 3 when Governor Tony Evers joins us for a look back at 2019 and a look ahead to 2020. The first program of the new year also kick starts our “Here & Now” 2020 election coverage. We will begin our series of one-on-one interviews with the candidates running for State Supreme Court. Incumbent Justice Daniel Kelly will be here January 3. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

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