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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

State lawmakers this week turn their sights to how people can vote and come up with a raft of bills that would change how elections are run in Wisconsin. Republicans say it’s about ballot integrity. Democrats say it’s about voter suppression. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” new bills at the State Capitol would change how Wisconsin elections are run. COVID-19, making sure vaccine gets to people in all communities. And later, an interview with school superintendent candidate Jill Underly. It’s “Here & Now” for February 26.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Senate Republicans unveiled a package of ten bills this week that would modify how the Wisconsin vote is taken. The measures range from a proposal that would change how absentee ballots can be gathered to a bill that would redefine who and how a vote is cast by voters who say they are indefinitely confined. These voters cast their ballot by mail due to being confined to home because of age, disability or other physical barriers. Currently these voters can have a witness sign their ballot as proof of identity, no photo ID required. Under the newly proposed law ID exemption for indefinitely-confined voters would be eliminated. In addition, these voters would have to swear under oath that they are indefinitely confined. Voters in this category under the age of 65 would have to provide a health provider’s documentation of confinement status. A pandemic is not cause for indefinite confinement under the proposal and the measure would eliminate the indefinitely-confined status of voters who enrolled as such between March 12 and November 6 of last year. Republican Senator Kathy Bernier is the chair of the Senate Committee on Elections and she joins us now from the Village of Lake Hallie in Chippewa County and thanks very much for being here.

Kathy Bernier:

It is my pleasure. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the indefinitely confined proposals really clamp down on rules in place last November. Why do you think that’s necessary?

Kathy Bernier:

Well, I don’t agree with 100% of the bills that came out and all the detail involved in it, so I did have a conversation with Senator Stroebel, Senator Darling and all of our staff got together and I said I have some concerns. I have been working with the disabled, disability community and their advocates to come up with something that would be appropriate and easy to navigate for the people with disabilities. And that is what that provision really was created for. It was not created for able-bodied individuals who can go out shopping or campaigning or whatever to use indefinitely confined. And so it’s individuals is — what precipitated it is there were individuals who abused that privilege that was really designed for the disabled and elderly.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, let me ask you what problems you have with it that you would like to see changed.

Kathy Bernier:

Well, I would like to see that individuals who are able to leave their home as desired don’t have that option, because, once again, when you have absentee voting, that is the area which is easier to abuse. And so it is intended for individuals who are actually incapable of getting out of their homes as desired.

Frederica Freyberg:

Right, but —

Kathy Bernier:

And that didn’t include — that does not include me or someone like me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Sure. But did you say that you had issues with the way the draft of the proposed law looks right now, with some of the things that we just laid out or do you like it the way it stands?

Kathy Bernier:

I do not like it the way it stands. I would like to see some changes.

Frederica Freyberg:

Like what?

Kathy Bernier:

I would like to see where the witness and the affidavit — an affidavit is an oath so essentially they signed that saying they are unable to leave their home as desired, and so that is clear. And to require medical information is not reasonable. I’m not even sure HIPPA would allow for that or we can require that. So we want it to have that opportunity for the individuals who need it, but we don’t want it abused by others. I use the example of parking in a disabled parking spot is not my right. I am not disabled. I will pay a fine for it. The same applies for this provision in the law.

Frederica Freyberg:

So is Senator Stroebel listening to your concerns and do you expect then there to be modifications?

Kathy Bernier:

Yes. He recognized that many of these proposals will have changes made to them. He recognized that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because the bill as it stands now would clarify in state law that a pandemic cannot be used to apply for indefinitely-confined status. In your mind is that what caused the number of such voters to increase by nearly 150,000 in the November election compared to 2016?

Kathy Bernier:

It didn’t intuitively cause that. It is two county clerks that took it upon themselves to interpret state law as they so choose, which I believe the Supreme Court — or I know the Supreme Court did send a message to the county clerk in Dane County that he has no authority to do that. And I share that opinion with Scott McDonald, that county clerks do not interpret the law or provide guidance. That is why we have the Wisconsin Election Commission. So that is I believe what caused the problem in the first place.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, you were a long-time election clerk in Chippewa County. Do you think the volume of absentee ballots of all kinds resulted in voter fraud in Wisconsin that flipped the election to Joe Biden?

Kathy Bernier:

No. I do believe we have a higher percentage of voter fraud as I was talking to the executive director of WEC that we will have a higher number, but I have told lots of conservatives straight up that we do not have 20,000 voter fraud cases in the state of Wisconsin. I am confident of that. But I also point out that individuals who think that we need not tweak our election laws, we did in 2016 with the accusations from Democrats that Russians hacked our elections and we dealt with Homeland Security and we added more encryption. We added more double authentication from the municipal clerks when they’re in the voter registration system. So we reacted to those accusations, just as we’re going to react to accusations made during this election.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, we will wait to see what those modifications look like. Senator, thanks very much for joining us.

Kathy Bernier:

You are welcome. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Democrats at the State Capitol were joined in opposition to the bill by advocacy groups such as Disability Rights Wisconsin. The Milwaukee office director of that group is Barbara Beckert, who joins us now from Milwaukee and thanks very much for being here.

Barbara Beckert:

Thank you for the opportunity.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is your overall reaction to the proposed bill to limit indefinitely confined voters?

Barbara Beckert:

Well, we’re concerned these proposals will make it harder for many people with disabilities and older adults to vote. We want to work with policymakers to address barriers to voting and protect the rights of voters and also ensure we have secure elections. And we agree that there are opportunities for improvement.

Frederica Freyberg:

Of the prongs of it, including requiring a doctor’s signature for voters under age 65, which parts of it stand out as problematic for you and why?

Barbara Beckert:

Well, these voters would be required to provide statements under oath that they are indefinitely confined. We’re not sure what that means, but we’re concerned. These are individuals who have a lot of difficulty getting out into the community. Does it mean they would have to go to a notary or to their municipal clerk? Needing to have a statement signed by a doctor is very concerning. This is not covered by insurance, so it’s likely the voter would need to pay for the visit. I’ve heard some people say they feel like it’s a poll tax. These are low-income people in many cases, who wouldn’t be able to afford that. In addition, if the voter or the doctor makes a false statement, it’s a felony with a fine and possible prison time. So I think it’s very unlikely that health care professionals will be willing to go out on the line and sign this, especially since it does not define what indefinitely confined means.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, we are just off the air with Senator Bernier who says she too takes issue with those kinds of elements in the proposed bill, specifically a doctor’s signature and an oath to swear that you are indefinitely confined. And she expects there to be modifications to this. What’s your response to that?

Barbara Beckert:

Yeah. We’ve appreciated the dialogue with Senator Bernier. I think she’s been very concerned about ensuring that the rights of voters with disabilities and older adults are honored. But also seeing that there’s some opportunities for improvements in the way we do business with our election system here in Wisconsin. And we welcome the chance for continuing conversation.

Frederica Freyberg:

So are there any changes to current law around indefinitely-confined voters that you would support?

Barbara Beckert:

Well, one thing that we have seen is that the term is confusing to people. At Disability Rights Wisconsin, we have a voter assistance hotline, so this year — or rather last year, 2020, we assisted hundreds of voters with disabilities and older adults who had questions. And many of them, in our experience, they want to follow the law. And when they hear a term indefinitely confined, it makes them anxious because they say, yes, I have difficulty voting and going to my polling place because of age, disability or infirmity or medical condition. However, I do leave my house sometimes. I, you know, may be able on a good day to go to the grocery store. I go out for medical appointments and so on. So do I qualify for indefinitely confined? And the State Supreme Court has affirmed that, that this is up to the voter to decide and to certify. But I do think that there’s an opportunity to further clarify it so that people are comfortable. Because in our experience, voters want to do the right thing. So I think we can help them with that. And also ensure that municipal clerks have a consistent understanding.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yeah, because it is true that the use of the indefinitely-confined status jumped from under 70,000 voters in 2016 to more than 200,000 voters in 2020. In your estimation, was it over-used by people who are not in fact disabled or confined?

Barbara Beckert:

Well, I guess first I would put that in the context of the fact that we had a worldwide pandemic. So I think it’s not at all surprising that the usage increased. And did some people do this in an effort in some way to be fraudulent and defraud the system? That’s possible. I don’t know that. That isn’t the people who have called us. You know, we had individuals who perhaps had not used that designation before, but they were scared because of COVID and they wanted to receive absentee ballots for the election in 2020 and did not have an easy way to provide a photo ID. It’s very interesting that the data from the Election Commission showed that the majority of people who used indefinitely-confined status did have a photo ID request on file or had shown it in a past election.

Frederica Freyberg:

Like 80% or something, yeah.

Barbara Beckert:

Exactly. You know, a lot of people don’t have a

privilege where they have access to technology or they may not know how to upload a photo ID. So that’s a challenge. Not that people want to defraud the system.

Frederica Freyberg:

Absolutely. Barbara Beckert, thank you very much. Thanks for your work.

Barbara Beckert:

Thank you for this opportunity to be a voice for voters with disabilities and older adults.

Frederica Freyberg:

In Washington, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson received criticism for his statements at a hearing looking at the attack on the U.S. Capitol January 6th. Senator Johnson has previously stated he didn’t think the attack counted as an armed insurrection because so many of the attackers were using flagpoles and sticks instead of guns. At Tuesday’s hearing, Johnson read into the official record a first-person account of the attack by a right-wing writer who claimed some in the crowd of protesters were anti-Trump protesters in disguise.

Ron Johnson:

Although the crowd represented a broad cross-section of Americans, mostly working class by their appearance and manner of speech, some people stood out. A very few didn’t share the jovial, friendly, earnest demeanor of the great majority. Some obviously didn’t fit in and he describes four different describes of people: plain clothes militants, agent provocateurs, fake Trump protesters and then disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. I think these are the people that probably planned this.

Frederica Freyberg:

The author of the article wrote he didn’t see any of the people he suspected of being fake Trump supporters actually causing trouble. But Senator Johnson did not read that part of the account into the record. Johnson was quickly accused of spreading conspiracy theories. Wisconsin’s other U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin tweeted a message after the hearing blaming the Capitol insurrection on Donald Trump saying, “Every member of Congress should tell this truth instead of pushing conspiracy theories.”

The State Department of Health Services announced this week that more groups will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine beginning March 1. This as access to the vaccine is leaving communities of color squeezed out of allocations that the state gets. Dr. Zeno Franco, an associate professor of Family and Community Medicine with the Medical College of Wisconsin has these recommendations for creating greater access and trust to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine in Milwaukee.

Zeno Franco:

Well, I think some very simple solutions can go a long way. One, we really need to have vaccinators of color at every vaccine location, right? So that people clearly can trust the situation. They can talk to somebody from their own culture who’s taken the vaccine. If they have questions they feel comfortable in asking. Again, it’s very, very important that we move from centralized distribution of the vaccine to the FQHC model, right, the community clinic model. But even more than that, maybe to mobile vaccine clinics that are going in a way, block by block in communities of color so if somebody doesn’t have access, they can get the vaccine if they want it. We really need to slow down, right? And this is for the institutions, for all the institutions in the region, the big agencies, slow down, have a conversation with the community. What are your worries? You know, it’s easy for me to say it’s not going to change your genes, it’s not going to turn you into a zombie, you’re not going to be sterilized by this, but those are genuine worries for community members right here in Milwaukee. And it’s really easy to gloss over them and say that’s just dumb, it’s ignorant, you don’t understand the science. No, they don’t understand the science, and we have an obligation to explain it, right, in a way that’s easy to understand, consumable and helps people make a well-reasoned decision about what they want to do for their health care.

Frederica Freyberg:

Another issue impeding equitable access, vaccine tourism. Early this month, DHS announced a partnership with Walgreens to distribute the vaccine to under-served communities. However, people from outside the area can take up appointments at neighborhood pharmacies where they don’t reside and then expend the limited vaccine supply. Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore spoke to Marisa Wojcik about this and other vaccine inequity in Milwaukee.

Marisa Wojcik:

Why is vaccine tourism creating inequitable access in your Milwaukee district?

Gwen Moore:

Well, I wouldn’t attribute tourism to the entire problem. I mean the entire problem is many of my constituents, people of color, the system is already built up and designed to provide vaccine inadvertently to white people, people who are in the medical profession, people who, you know, as first priority, people who are over 65. The median age of white people, the cost of the baby boomer generation after World War II are white. And so the thing that makes tourism so much more egregious is that the inequities are already built in.

Marisa Wojcik:

And in particular to vaccine tourism, what were you proposing to DHS and to Walgreens in order to prevent that specific issue from happening?

Gwen Moore:

If you are say a Walgreens serving an area where you know that there are higher rates of pandemic or low-income people, it’s very simple to ask for ID and ask for address, to make sure that you’re meeting those clients. But more particularly, we are asking Walgreens to use their same system where they reach out to people to remind them to pick up refill prescriptions, people who are already in their database and live within their service area, to reach out to them, just to notify them that the vaccine is available. And they were receptive to using technology that’s readily available to them. Just sort of thinking out of the box. It’s very, very important to put, I think, extra initiatives into all elements of vaccine hesitation, tourism, lack of availability to certain communities because of age differences. That’s even greater when you get to the Latinx community, that age disparity, and to really create enough vaccine so that we’re not in this “Hunger Games” situation.

Frederica Freyberg:

To see the extended interviews with Dr. Franco and U.S. Representative Moore, visit our website at PBS Wisconsin.org and then click on the news.

Now to election news and April 6. That’s the general election day that will determine the next school superintendent. Last Friday we introduced you to one of the candidates in the race, Deborah Kerr. Tonight, a conversation with her opponent Jill Underly. Underly a former high school and middle school social studies teacher. She’s worked as a licensing specialist at the Department of Public Instruction and for the past six years Underly has served as the superintendent of the Pecatonica School District. Jill Underly joins us now from Hollandale. Thanks very much for being here.

Jill Underly:

Thank you so much.

Frederica Freyberg:

So K-12 schools that haven’t reopened are on the precipice of doing so, what are you calling for to fully and safely open to in-person classes?

Jill Underly:

Yes. That’s a great question. You know, I know the value of personal — or in-person learning, I should say. It’s better for your kids. It’s better for our parents, our economy, our communities and that’s why I’ve been working with our community and our teachers as well as their school boards to have our schools open. So what we need to do, I’m the only candidate right now who is currently leading a school district during the pandemic. We really need to work together. We need to make sure that there’s buy-in from the teachers, the parents and the board as far as our reopening plans. We need to make sure that our teachers get vaccinated.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s your response to Governor Evers’ budget and his proposals for a major boost in K-12 funding, calling for an increase of $1.6 billion over the next two years? What do you think of that?

Jill Underly:

Yeah. I think it’s great. I have a great relationship with Governor Evers. I think that investment in our public schools is really needed. When you think about inequities and you think about before the pandemic, we certainly have had a lot of financial struggles. You know, also when you look at the number of schools that are going to referendum on the ballot especially April 6th, you know that we need the funding in order to keep our schools open and invest in safety measures as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the budget also calls for caps on private school, state-funded vouchers. Where do you stand on that?

Jill Underly:

Yes, I’m 100% unabashedly pro public schools, so I support the cap on the voucher program. Right now we spend $380 million per year on private school vouchers and that’s money that should be in our public schools.

Frederica Freyberg:

So another thing the governor is calling for is rolling back parts of Act 10 to restore union collective bargaining rights, for example. As the candidate endorsed by the state’s teachers union, how do you think that, rolling back of Act 10, would help students?

Jill Underly:

Yeah. So when I look at Act 10, I mean here we are ten years out, and I thought about the fact that we’re not in any better shape than when Act 10 happened. Our budgets are still broken. We’ve also now destroyed our pipeline to the teaching profession. We struggle recruiting and retaining teachers and really Act 10 certainly made it an undesirable profession. So I would support Governor Evers’ rollback of Act 10 because what it will mean is if we can professionalize the teaching profession once again and get more teachers in front of our kids, that’s what we need to do.

Frederica Freyberg:

And this is a big question, but what is your plan for narrowing or eliminating the achievement gap between students of color and white students?

Jill Underly:

Yeah. You know, achievement gap is pretty much the popular word I think statewide, but I like to call them opportunity gaps, because when we talk about them about being achievement gaps, we’re putting the blame or the onus or responsibility on the kids. But really it’s a combination of a lot of things that the kids have no control over. It’s a combination of laws and policies and practices. Really what we find is the well-resourced schools have the most opportunities for those kids and those kids are likely to do better in school. So my platform is about early childhood expansion which is bringing that opportunity for high-quality, early childhood experience to kids, recruiting and retaining passionate educators for our kids, expanding mental health access and then fixing our broken funding formula.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet many of these kinds of ideas have been in force for a while and these gaps are so enduring. What about that?

Jill Underly:

Yeah. I think, though, that a lot of the things that I have been proposing are research-based and sound but they haven’t been in place for a while. Right now early childhood education is only reimbursed at 60%. We need to expand access for all kids so that every kid, no matter their zip code, has access to a high-quality preschool program because that sets them up for success. When we talk about teacher recruitment and retention, the schools that have the neediest kids or the highest poverty schools, they often have the least experienced teachers because when teachers get more experience, they often go to well-resourced schools where they can earn more money. And that’s not just urban schools, it’s rural schools, too. And when we look at mental health, there’s a shortage of mental health providers in the state. And pre-pandemic it was an epidemic. Post-pandemic we know we need to get mental health aid to our kids. These are all equity-based ideas but they’re also research-based and proven to work. So certainly using the funding, getting the funding to the kids and the schools that need it the most is my highest priority.

Frederica Freyberg:

Jill Underly, thank you for joining us.

Jill Underly:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

You can find more complete candidate profiles in the race for DPI superintendent by going to WisconsinVote.org.

And that is our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

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