Here & Now

Here & Now for Feb. 23, 2018

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

I'm Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here and Now,” why some voters were left off the rolls on Tuesday. A closer look at the gun law debate at the state capitol this week. And a look at changes in the FoodShare program. It’s “Here and Now” for February 23.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

State voters in Tuesday's spring primary election narrowed the state Supreme Court field down to two. Sauk County Judge Michael Screnock tallied 46% of the vote, followed by Milwaukee County Judge Rebecca Dallet, who garnered 36%. Madison attorney Tim Burns was eliminated from the race with 18%. Candidates Screnock and Dallet have committed to a debate on Friday night, March 30 in a live broadcast cosponsored by Wisconsin Public Television and Wisconsin Public Radio. Tuesday’s spring election turnout was above average. Nearly 12% of voting aged residents pushed through bad weather to cast their ballots. There were a few snags however, including reports of voters whose names were erroneously purged from the registration rolls. That after state elections officials sent 343,000 postcards to voters in November because they were thought to have moved. If recipients of the cards did not respond, they were deactivated from the voting rolls. Now to get to the bottom of this, we are joined by Wisconsin Elections Commission Public Information Officer Reid Magney. Thanks for being here.

Reid Magney:

You're welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

How many voters have you determined were inaccurately removed from the voting rolls?

Reid Magney:

At this point we’ve only heard from less than 20 people. We’re asking people if this happened to you, please contact us. We’ve found that there were some people who actually did move and they should have had to re-register and they ignored the postcard. Or we’ve actually found a couple of people who were erroneously marked dead, in a different sort of thing, different issue. So we really want to hear from people. We really want to get to the bottom of it.

Frederica Freyberg:

And did it really mostly have to do with people just not responding to those postcards?

Reid Magney:

Well, it could have been that. It could have also had to do with the way we match data. Sometimes the DMV has information based on their address one way and we might have it in the voter records another way. And we’re — this is the first time we’ve done this kind of a match. And so I think we’re learning from it. We really want to take steps to make sure that nothing like this happens in April or August or November.

Frederica Freyberg:

And how do you intend to do that? What kind of changes are you anticipating?

Reid Magney:

Well, again, we want to learn from what happened. We are looking at a number of different options. We’re planning to present a plan to the commission on March 13.

Frederica Freyberg:

You said that it was a small number that you know of right now.

Reid Magney:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Your expectation is that perhaps there were other people out there that had happened to.

Reid Magney:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

But it was statewide, right?

Reid Magney:

Yes. This was not targeted to any one particular area. Not targeted at who people support. We’ve heard some people wondering are they trying to get rid of certain types of voters. That’s not how the Wisconsin Elections Commission business. The commission is bipartisan. The staff is nonpartisan. We really want to make sure that people are registered and are voting.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what happened to voters who went to the polls and their names weren’t on there?

Reid Magney:

So basically they had to re-register. So far we’re not unaware of anyone who was unable to re-register. You have to provide proof of residence. I think I’ve heard of a couple people who maybe had to go back home and get that–whether it’s a utility bill or something like that. We apologize for those kind of problems if that happened. But we’re not aware of anyone who was unable to vote.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why did the state undertake this endeavor of cleaning up these voter rolls?

Reid Magney:

So in 2016 we joined something called ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center. It’s a consortium of more than 20 states that share data and work with them to really help first to make sure that people who aren’t registered get registered and then to make sure that our voter rolls are accurate. In 2016 we sent out more than a million postcards to people who we thought were eligible to vote but not registered. We really want to get people registered. The second part of that is looking at okay, who’s maybe moved and needs to r-register because if you move even if you live in an apartment building and you move from apartment A to apartment B, you need to re-register. And some people don’t realize that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yet, again, in Wisconsin you can register same day as you vote.

Reid Magney:

Yes. That’s the fail-safe in Wisconsin. That’s why we felt comfortable doing it. Now, we’re going to make sure that nobody runs into this problem going forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

Especially because we’re coming into a general election where turnout could be much, much higher.

Reid Magney:

Right. Instead of 12%, we’re looking in November 50% to 55%.

Frederica Freyberg:

While we have you here, we just wanted to ask you the status of the Elections Commissioner Michael Haas.

Reid Magney:

We’re having a special meeting next Friday, March 2, at which the commission is going to address that. There’s not a lot I can say right now. But stay tuned for that.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Reid Magney, thanks very much.

Reid Magney:

You're welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

The school shooting in Florida has sparked national outrage and dialogue, again. The Wisconsin legislature also debated and acted on gun violence in schools. In a moment, we’ll hear what passed this week at the capitol and why some don’t think it goes far enough. But first a look at a proposal to introduce something in the state legislature called a lethal violence protective order, more commonly known as a red flag law, which allows a court to order the removal of guns from someone showing signs of mental health crisis or escalating threats. It would allow the seizing of guns before someone can commit violence. Such a bill was introduced in Wisconsin last session by Democrats but it died in committee. A similar bill could be reintroduced. We sat down with a proponent of this kind of law. Shel Gross is director of public policy for Mental Health America of Wisconsin and member of the Wisconsin Council on Mental Health. We started by asking what a lethal violence protective order does.

Shel Gross:

It's a judicial process that would allow either a law enforcement officer or other individuals in a person’s life to request a — first a temporary and then a longer-term injunction to remove any firearms they might have in their possession. Would also prevent them from purchasing additional firearms. And specifically we’d be targeting individuals who are believed to be in danger of harming themselves or danger of harming other people.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why is it called “Families Know First” legislation?

Shel Gross:

So that’s actually a term that was used when the bill was introduced last session. And it really has to do with the fact that very often family members are seeing something in their loved one that is concerning. They’re hearing them talk about killing themselves or they’re hearing them talk maybe not specific threats about killing other people, but just things that are concerning to them. And very often, there’s little they can do. As you know, in Wisconsin we have emergency detention and involuntary commitment, but you have to be somebody identified with a mental illness. Sometimes people who are expressing these things have not been so identified. It’s a higher bar, as it should be, because then you’re talking about actually locking somebody up in a psychiatric facility. So this provides a way also for families to be able to at least help keep the family member a little bit safer if there are these warning signs.

Frederica Freyberg:

Five states currently have red flag laws on the books. 18 other states have proposed them. This week in the state Assembly, the gun debate escalated with Democrats calling for universal background checks. Republicans instead passed a bill that allows funding of grants to schools to provide firearms to safety officers. The same bill strengthens restrictions on straw purchases. We talk with both sides of this issue, starting with Republican Representative Joe Sanfelippo of New Berlin. We met up with him at his Assembly office and started by asking why the Republican rejection of universal background checks.

Joe Sanfelippo:

So I think that, I mean, what we’ve seen in most of these horrific incidents that have taken place is that a background check didn’t stop, because the individuals had gone through background checks and they still were able to pull off these crimes. So we’re interested in taking a look at anything that is going to help the situation. But I don’t like to do knee-jerk reactions where we say, oh let’s quick run out and do these background checks cause again, most of these individuals have passed a background check, and so there isn’t anything we could have done from the background check standpoint that would have prevented this particular case that we’ve just seen last week.

Frederica Freyberg:

A Madison Democrat in the Assembly says this, “Assembly Republicans show they are in the death grip of the NRA.” What’s your response to that?

Joe Sanfelippo:

You know I think that’s just nonsense because in the end, what you have to do is balance our freedoms in the country, right? I mean no matter whatever freedom we’re talking about, if it’s second amendment, if it’s voting rights or whatnot, there’s responsibilities that come along with every right. So we as legislators have to find that balancing act of where everybody is protected. I think when you take a look at what the NRA — I mean, there’s studies that have been out there that what the NRA spends on their political activities is minimal percentage and it mirrors or it really doesn’t have any effect. But we have to just take a look at the policies to see why we are finding ourselves in these situations, are becoming a little more prevalent than we’ve seen in the past and really get to the root of the cause.

Frederica Freyberg:

As opposed to that universal background check, an amendment offered instead of that would allow funding armed safety officers in schools. How would that work?

Joe Sanfelippo:

I think Representative Kleefisch made some great points when he talked about that. We spend millions of dollars protecting government buildings, protecting sporting venues. Everywhere you go, where there are whether it’s dignitaries or just large amounts of public, we have armed guards there. But we don’t do it in our school. And for somehow, some people seem to think that’s such a horrible idea. But our children are our most important assets that anybody has in their life. That’s the way we value kids. So why wouldn’t we want to protect them? What this bill would do is provide some grant funding to school district to make the decision on their own if they want to put security and safety officers in the schools. And we would help them pay for that in order to do that. And I think that’s a great way to take care of a problem, at least in the long run. Now, we have to get to the root of what the cause of this problem is and that’s going to be a little bit longer time. But in the immediate future, this is an important step.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you know what the root is?

Joe Sanfelippo:

I think — I don’t. And I think that we need to really spend some time to take a look at why 10 or 15 or 20 years ago our kids never even had these ideas to go and shoot up a school or do things like this. And now all of a sudden they have these ideas. So why? What has changed in our society to make our young people feel like this is — I don’t want to say acceptable, because nobody — I don’t really think they think it’s acceptable, but they’re doing it for — they want to be famous or they think it’s a means that can be used. We need to really take a look at that. I think focusing in maybe on the mental health issues is going to be key.

Frederica Freyberg:

There’s a lot of talk right now about banning assault type weapons. What do you think of that?

Joe Sanfelippo:

Again, in 2016, according to the FBI stats, we had a little over 300 people killed with long guns. We had over 700 people killed just by being kicked or beaten to death and 1200 killed in stabbing deaths. So we’re focusing on the vehicle that has been used to commit the crime, but we’re not focusing on what is causing the crime to be committed in the first place. And that I think is where our focus needs to be. Because we could pass some tougher, additional gun laws. We could pass background checks and then we’ll pat ourselves on the back and say we did something. But I don’t think we have really addressed the problem until we find out what is causing it.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Representative Sanfelippo, thanks you very much.

Joe Sanfelippo:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Representative Sanfelippo also says he’s all for arming school teachers in Wisconsin. As for Democrats, in addition to calling for universal background checks that would require checks on people buying at gun shows or online in addition to purchases from licensed dealers, they also call for banning people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions from buying firearms and a ban on bump stocks. Democratic Representative Chris Taylor of Madison calls the Assembly Republicans irresponsible for rejecting such action. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Chris Taylor:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the president wants to see armed teachers and our own attorney general is also open to it. What’s your response to that?

Chris Taylor:

Well, teachers are not asking to be armed and students are not asking for armed guards at their schools. What students and faculty on campuses are asking us to do is please prevent dangerous people from getting weapons in the first place. Address the fundamental cause of what’s going on with people getting easy access to firearms who are dangerous and they shouldn’t have them.

Frederica Freyberg:

Don’t armed officers in schools, though, address one prong of school safety?

Chris Taylor:

You know, I should say the school in Florida where the horrible recent massacre occurred, they did have an armed guard there. It didn’t change anything. There’s no evidence it changes anything. What we do know though is background checks can help prevent a dangerous person from getting a weapon. 20% of gun sales are no questions asked. They’re done at gun shows. They’re done on the internet. No questions asked. And so we know it’s going to take a lot of steps, my colleagues and I, my Democratic colleagues and I know there’s going to be a lot of steps needed to stem this horrible tide of gun violence. Background checks is a common sense first step. It’s not going to solve everything but it’s going to address some of the issues.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact in the case of the Florida shooter, it wouldn’t have prevented him from having that gun because he bought it from a gun store.

Chris Taylor:

Right. We have many other laws that are pending. We highlighted three common sense laws in our plea to Republican legislators because we thought how could anyone oppose these laws? 90% of our nation supports background checks. In Wisconsin polling, background checks are supported by every community. Doesn’t matter if you’re rural, suburban, urban. So we thought these three proposals we were highlighting that had been sitting in the legislature with no action were just so common sense that no one could oppose them. But we also have a lot of other pieces of legislation, gun legislation. I have a 48-hour waiting period. There’s probably going to be a red flag piece of legislation introduced, where a parent or law enforcement could flag a dangerous person for a judge, so maybe that would have had a difference. Florida does not have that type of law. We also did — we’ve had incidents in Wisconsin that maybe could have been stopped with a background check. We had a horrible incident at a spa in the Brookfield area. That shooter was not supposed to have a gun. There was a domestic violence restraining order against him. But he got a gun on the internet. So we know background checks is not going to solve all of our problems, but we thought it’s such a common sense first step.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you know about the status of any red flag law because we actually spoke to that earlier in the program? Is that something that you think the majority would be responsive to?

Chris Taylor:

That's something we’re going to find out. I don’t think Republicans are going to be responsive to that. If they’re not responsive to background checks. But look, we’re going to keep trying. I’m a mom of two kids. I have two children. I have a little boy in elementary school. I have a middle schooler. These students, I heard from the East High students. They came up and joined us at the capitol this last week. And they said please protect us. Please, we need you to do something. We’re not safe. We don’t feel safe going to school. They’re afraid to go to school. We have an obligation to our children to do absolutely everything that we can to stem this horrible tide. It’s not happening in other countries. You don’t hear about mass shootings. There’s certainly mentally ill people in other countries. So one of the key ingredients we believe is easy access to firearms for people who are dangerous. And we’ve got to stop that.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about banning AR-15s or those style of weapons?

Chris Taylor:

It's something certainly we should look at cause I do believe all options are on the table. I’ve not seen a piece of legislation that is crafted in a way that I think isn’t easy to get around. Because sometimes what you do — we saw this with the federal assault weapon ban, is it’s easy to get around. You just change something on a gun. So we talked about also ammunition capacity limitations. That might be something that we also look at. But we probably have now 10 to 15 different pieces of gun safety legislation. None of it’s moving in this legislature. Republicans are stopping it all for no good reason except they’re in the grip of the NRA. And that’s the reality that we have here.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Representative Taylor, thanks very much.

Chris Taylor:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Other bills in motion this week at the state capitol include Assembly passage of an $80 million juvenile corrections plan. The bill now heads to the Senate where the outcome is uncertain. Also this week the Senate passed a bill that allows developers to fill non-federal wetlands without a permit. Also nine of Governor Walker’s ten special session welfare bills saw final passage this week, mostly along party lines. The governor called the raft of bills “Wisconsin Works for Everyone” welfare reform. Several of the measures made changes to Wisconsin's food stamp program called FoodShare. Multimedia journalist Marisa Wojcik explains the changes in tonight’s fast facts segment.

Marisa Wojcik:

An average of 682,000 people received FoodShare benefits in Wisconsin in 2017. Wisconsin FoodShare benefits are entirely federally-funded. In 2015, work requirements were established for enrollees to receive benefits. Since then, 85,981 people have lost their benefits due to not meeting work requirements. Just over 25,000 have gained employment under the program. New legislation would require able-bodied parents to work if their child is over the age of six. Legislation would also change a minimum work requirement from 20 hours per week to 30.

Frederica Freyberg:

Multimedia journalist Marisa Wojcik on the FoodShare changes.

In tonight’s inside look, some of those numbers stand out, like four times as many people losing benefits as gaining employment. And that’s before the latest changes take effect. We turn to reaction from Feeding Wisconsin, the statewide network of food banks and its Executive Director David Lee. Thanks very much for being here.

David Lee:

Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why in your understanding are more than 85,000 people not meeting the work requirement and then being ineligible for their FoodShare benefit?

David Lee:

Well, I think there are a lot of people in our state that experience some challenges to engaging with the labor market, whether that’s job training as provided by FSET or just regular jobs, right. So while the state has allowed people to satisfy their work requirement over the last few years by participating in FSET, people may not be able to get to the FSET office or they might lack transportation or child care in order to be able to participate.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, you say FSET and that stands for FoodShare Employment and Training Program?

David Lee:

That's correct, the work training program.

Frederica Freyberg:

You have spoken favorably about that program.

David Lee:

Well, we believe that a good job is the best way to fight hunger and the best way out of poverty. I think when the program works for the 25,000 people who have been connected to jobs, I think we can all agree that is a great outcome for them and we hope that they are on the way towards a better tomorrow. But as you mentioned, far too many people have either been referred to the program and have been aged out of the program or just didn’t participate. And I think while the program works for the folks who got connected to jobs, for the folks who didn’t, I think understanding and fine-tuning how the program works can actually lead to better outcomes for those folks. I think the question that we’re really wrestling with is how do we ensure the program works better for everybody?

Frederica Freyberg:

Are people listening at the state level in terms of fine-tuning to make it work better?

David Lee:

I think, well, we — during the special session on welfare reform, we asked our legislators to really slow down on this process, because good policy takes time. And from the introduction of the special session bills that really changed how the FoodShare program works, the whole process took about three weeks. And I don’t know that three weeks is a good enough time to make good policy.

Frederica Freyberg:

How in your mind will increasing the required number of work hours affect the numbers of people who either gain employment or lose eligibility?

David Lee:

We are really, really concerned about this. Right now the work requirements at 20 hours. By increasing it to 30 and also expanding it to families with children, we believe that really increases the amount of challenges that people will experience, right? So we help people with FoodShare through our organization. We give them good information to make a good decision on their own whether or not they to want apply. We hear from a lot of people that they’re already working and they’re working 20, 25 hours, 28 hours. They want more hours, but they just either aren’t available where they live or they can’t get them from their employer or due to scheduling. These are folks who are working hard, playing by the rules and just trying to utilize FoodShare as it’s intended, as an income support to help them have the nutrition they need to live a better life. And we believe that by increasing this work requirement, some of those folks are really going to sort of get caught in an unmanageable catch-22.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think of the asset test? If somebody has a house that’s $320,000 or a $20,000 car, should they be eligible for food stamps?

David Lee:

I think we shouldn’t make policy that incentivizes people to get rid of their assets if they fall on some temporary tough times, right. Like I think as we know in today’s dynamic economy, things can change on a dime. If you’ve done the right thing your whole life, built assets, I don’t think that if you lose a job or get into a medical situation that you would have to maybe sell your house in order to qualify for really temporary assistance, right? I think the asset test is really a policy aimed for that one or two bad stories about the person driving some expensive car. We don’t know that that person didn’t have that expensive car when they had a great job and suddenly may have lost a job due to a downturn in the economy and somehow still needs that car in order to take their kids to day care, look for new jobs. I think we want to create a system where people are building assets to guard against poverty, right, not liquidate assets so it’s harder to get out of poverty.

Frederica Freyberg:

Good point. David Lee, thanks very much.

David Lee:

Thank you so much.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now for news about public broadcasting and UW-Madison. That’s where the UW Board of Regents announced this week that as part of the UW System restructuring, Wisconsin Public Radio and Television will now be part of UW-Madison. Our services were formerly overseen by UW-Extension. Our broadcasting licenses, as before, will continue to be held by the board of regents. We expect no changes in our programming or policies. Finally tonight, another reminder that state Supreme Court candidates Rebecca Dallet and Michael Screnock will debate here on Wisconsin Public Television and Radio on Friday night, March 30, at 7:00 p.m. That is all for tonight’s program. I’m Frederica Freyberg. 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.