Here & Now

Here & Now for February 6, 2026

Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:
Another government shutdown averted for now after immigration enforcement tactics leave communities reeling and demanding change.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Congresswoman Gwen Moore on DHS funding and accountability for ICE agents. Zac Schultz sits down with one of the candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court and a report on how small communities are pushing back against big data centers. It’s “Here & Now” for February 6.

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

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats could block funding for Homeland Security when it expires next Friday, unless there are, in their words, dramatic changes to how immigration operations are conducted. This comes in the aftermath of the deaths of two protesters in the midst of the enforcement surge in Minneapolis. In Wisconsin, all six Republican members of Congress voted this week for the stopgap two-week spending plan. Both Democratic House members in Wisconsin voted against, including U.S. Representative Gwen Moore of Milwaukee. She joins us now from Washington and thanks very much for being here.

Gwen Moore:
Oh, thanks for having me, Frederica. Always good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So why did you vote no on the stopgap spending for Homeland Security?

Gwen Moore:
Well, Frederica, I was being very consistent. I had voted against the bill when it passed the House and went on to the Senate. The Senate then, Senate Dems, managed to create a negotiation where they split the bills. Theoretically, five bills to pass as is, and the Homeland Security bill to have a two-week stopgap. When it came back to the House, I truly expected it to have an opportunity to vote on separately on the other five bills in Homeland Security. But I had exactly one vote, and I decided to stick with my initial vote because of the egregious way that these, you know, you know, rogue forces were operating. And of course, as you mentioned, they killed two people. And further, they’ve jailed children, American citizens, destroyed property and just terrorized our communities. And I just couldn’t in good conscience, knowing that I had an opportunity to vote and stick a pin in this to not do so.

Frederica Freyberg:
What specifically are you and others seeking around these accountability measures for agents that are part of these enforcement activities?

Gwen Moore:
Well, thanks for asking Frederica. Really common-sense things. Anything that any American would expect, how they would want to be treated as a citizen or not. First of all, targeted enforcement. Have probable cause to stop someone, not stop someone because they are speaking Spanish or because they look like a Somali, or they look brown, or God forbid that they be a protester that’s exerting their First Amendment rights, and they get arrested for that. Have a probable cause. We want them to have no masks. I mean, this is horrifying. You know, Frederica, would any of us tolerate masked people not in uniform, but just dark clothes and hoodies to come up and kidnap us. Require some identification. What’s wrong with a badge and a badge number? We want state and local oversight and coordination in these arrests. Police in Wisconsin have the right to prosecute ICE officers if they are using unreasonable force. We want body cameras being used to record what’s happening, not to track people, but to record what’s happening. And certainly no paramilitary police. We want people trained as in regular law enforcement duties and standards, and we want them to have a judicial warrant in order to be able to arrest them, not an administrative warrant, not something that, you know, Pam Bondi has drawn up, but a warrant, a warrant signed by a judge.

Frederica Freyberg:
In terms of judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants, I’ve heard some Republicans say that the requirement of having judges sign off would cause gridlock in the system and dramatically slow this process. What about that?

Gwen Moore:
We wouldn’t have a snag in the system if, in fact, they were going after the people they said they were going after. God bless every ICE agent that finds a rapists and murderers and folks like that who have breached our borders. But to just round people up and to have a quota so that if they see you and I together, they decide to round us up so they can get their quota that day. None of that. They are creating the gridlock with these aggressive paramilitary activities.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are your expectations for quick agreement around these measures that you call for?

Gwen Moore:
These are not extraordinary things. I mean, these are common sense things. I mean, some of the worst criminals in the history of this country have not been confronted by agents with masks on and hoodies. They have been arrested, given their — told what their rights are and they’re being reassured that they’re being arrested by people who have the authority to do it. And they’ve been arrested because there was probable cause that they, in fact, were the people that they were seeking, not just some — they were not five-year-old kids being scooped up in order to manipulate their parents into presenting themselves to be arrested. This is common. This is — how hard could it be to come to some agreement around common sense, a common-sense agenda? Just regular order. How about regular policing? That’s what we’re asking for.

Frederica Freyberg:
I wanted to get your take on the president calling to federalize elections. Do you think Wisconsin, and especially Milwaukee could be a target of that?

Gwen Moore:
Well, just let me say the Constitution, which the president seems to readily and often and frequently ignore, says that states shall run the elections. So this is yet another unconstitutional thing that President Trump and his sycophants want to do. I am so happy that Fulton County, Georgia, is suing the president over the seizure, the FBI seizure, of their records. And I’m sad to think that the Justice Department, that they are appealing to a bunch of, you know, Trump cronies. But at some point, I hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the 10th Amendment, the Supremacy Clause, which Republicans have often relied upon for their segregational purposes. But the 10th Amendment clearly talks about a couple of things, like our right, for example, to have authority, arresting powers and authorities in our jurisdictions, as well as securing our voting operations.

Frederica Freyberg:
On another note, you’ve also been calling for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to act on congressional redistricting. But resolution isn’t at all likely ahead of the midterms, is it?

Gwen Moore:
Oh, absolutely. I would — I am calling on the jurists to look at this before our midterm elections with all haste, as we see the president trying to steal the 2026 election. You know, here we are in a state that’s 50/50, Democrat/Republican. Everybody knows that this is — this is the purplest of the purple states. That’s why we saw all the candidates congregating here during the election because this was high on — this is a prize to either side. And yet, in Congress you got poor me and Pocan holding it down for the Democrats. And there is a 6 to 2 majority for Republicans. And you know what? In a 50/50 state, 6 to 2, the math just ain’t math, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, we leave it there. Thanks very much.

Gwen Moore:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll hear from a Republican congressional member on these matters next week on this program.
In the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, we are two months away from Election Day. The seat is currently held by Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, but she decided not to run again. Liberals currently hold a 4 to 3 majority, so the winner of this race will not change the balance of the court. The conservative candidate is Appellate Court Judge Maria Lazar, and the liberal candidate is Appellate Court Judge Chris Taylor. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz sat down with each of the candidates tonight. We hear from Maria Lazar.

Zac Schultz:
Well, Judge Lazar, thanks for coming in today.

Maria Lazar:
Thank you for having me.

Zac Schultz:
So let’s start with your judicial philosophy. How would you describe it and how does it guide you from the bench?

Maria Lazar:
I describe my philosophy as originalism with a slice of textualism, which means for those who are not law nerds like me, which means that I look at the documents and the laws as they’re written, and I interpret them from that point of view. And if you have to go a little bit outside, I do, but I don’t go all the way outside to intent of legislators and things like that.

Zac Schultz:
So obviously this race is now an open seat because Justice Bradley decided not to run again. What was your first thought when she announced she was not going to do that?

Maria Lazar:
Well, it was a surprise. My thoughts were that I looked at the last election, and I thought that it was so politicized for the people in the state of Wisconsin that I thought they actually could use a judge or a justice like me, who’s someone who is calm, judicial, has the experience and will not legislate from the bench.

Zac Schultz:
Has she given you any guidance? Have you reached out to her about what it’s like to run for Supreme Court?

Maria Lazar:
I’ve talked to several of the past justices. I’ve talked to anyone who will talk to me, and actually more people talked to me than you would think.

Zac Schultz:
How much money is going to be needed to win this race?

Maria Lazar:
I’m not positive on that. I know it will not be anywhere close to last year.

Zac Schultz:
So in what way? How is this different from, I guess, the last two races when control of the court was up for grabs?

Maria Lazar:
Well, that’s one thing. I think what I meant by not being anywhere close, I think the numbers were bigger because it would have changed the composition of the court. This time we’re talking about a position that is going to be most likely in the minority, but someone who will stand up to be a strong voice for the common-sense people of my home state.

Zac Schultz:
So some of the early fundraising totals came out, and you raised about $200,000, your opponent close to $2 million. Some people raised their eyebrows at that but you got into this race after her and you’re trying to, I guess, fight your way into kind of an oxygen starved environment when it comes to fundraising. So what’s it been like for you?

Maria Lazar:
Well, that’s true. So I started on October 1. So I think the numbers actually are relatively good for starting that late. Also since January, which was the cutoff date, January 1, we’ve had a big groundswell of support from people who’ve recognized and actually heard about this race and realize there is no primary, and they’ve looked at it and they’ve said, “This is a race and a candidate they’re interested in supporting.”

Zac Schultz:
So when you look at the last two elections, has that impacted morale for the number of people paying attention to this race, or perhaps for people getting behind your campaign and seeing, well, the last two conservative candidates lost in rather large fashion.

Maria Lazar:
I don’t — I don’t know if it’s impacted morale. What I will say is this. I think that the state of Wisconsin is looking at these races and they’re asking who’s running and why people are running and for what reason? And when I look at this race, the reason I am running is because I want to be someone on that court who represents the law for the state of Wisconsin. I want to be someone who is their voice, bringing diversity of thought and judicial backgrounds and experience to that court. I don’t look at those past races as anything indicative of what’s going to happen. In fact, I’m kind of hoping that there’s going to be a line in the sand drawn now where we can look forward and say, who’s the better judicial candidate, who has more experience. And I think in this race, it’s pretty clear that that’s my candidacy.

Zac Schultz:
When you compare the records of the two candidates here, you’re both circuit court judges. You’re both now in the appellate court. So how do you explain to the public that the difference in your background?

Maria Lazar:
Well, numbers, numbers are the reason. So I spent 20 years in private practice. I spent five years at the Department of Justice representing the state of Wisconsin. But I spent seven years in the circuit court in every branch: criminal, civil, juvenile, mental commitments. My opponent spent two years in criminal. I’ve spent four years in the Court of Appeals, published many written opinions. My opponent has spent two. I think when you add up the numbers, it’s pretty clear who has the judicial and legal experience.

Zac Schultz:
Obviously, there’s a pretty high-profile race for governor also kicking off right now. When we talk about that oxygen starvation of people paying attention, how do you cut through to let people know, hey, this race is really important?

Maria Lazar:
Well, you’re right. So my race is April, April 7th and all the other races are in November. I think since I’ve been on the Circuit court and the Court of Appeals, I have continually gone to my 12 counties and anywhere else, including Milwaukee, to talk to people, to talk to high school kids, college kids about the courts, about why it’s so important. And I do that all the time. So I think this is just a continuation of telling people why this race is so important. It’s in April because it’s nonpartisan and it’s in April because that’s how Wisconsin Legislature has determined it to be.

Zac Schultz:
We’ve seen in the past couple of races talk more about their own personal values versus issues. And that’s a change compared to races in prior decades. How are you talking about your values versus issues, and what does that mean to the public when they’re listening and they want to hear maybe more, more clues to what you actually feel or how you might rule, even though that’s obviously not what you’re supposed to be talking about?

Maria Lazar:
So you mentioned two things that are really important. So how I might rule is never an issue. And no judge, no justice, no candidate should ever say that. But we’ve looked at the rules and we’ve looked at the ethical rules, and we’ve determined that it’s possible to tell the state of Wisconsin more information about where I stand, what I stand up for, and what issues I believe are important and how I view the law, how I interpret the law, what my philosophies are. So on my website, you can go there — JudgeMariaLazar.com, you can go there and it has my positions on important issues that are set there, written in black and white so people can see it, can see what I stand for. I don’t say how I will rule on a case, but I say what I believe is important.

Zac Schultz:
Is that frustrating when you speak to people that are potentially voters who they want to hear more, they want to hear you talk like a politician because they think of these races more political as opposed to an independent judicial race.

Maria Lazar:
They do. And in some respects, I’ll go places where there will be politicians speaking. And it’s always that interesting dichotomy between the calm demeanor of a judge versus the politician who’s yelling at the room and screaming at everybody. But I think that’s what people want. They want their judges not to be someone who’s yelling with their hair on fire in the room. They want someone they think they would like to have adjudicate their cases. So when I go and talk to people, I explain to them that I can’t tell them how I’ll rule on case A versus B, but I do tell them, here’s how I rule. Here’s how I respect people in my court, here’s what I think of victims’ rights, those sort of things. I think that gets across to people. They recognize that there are certain limits and that we’re bound by those limits, or we should be.

Zac Schultz:
When it comes to precedence, you’ve mentioned a couple of times that if you win, you would be in the minority. But that’s not a forever thing. As we’ve seen, the court can change. What is the standard when it comes to overruling precedent?

Maria Lazar:
Well — so people have to understand that it’s — precedent means that you don’t just because the court changes composition, you don’t necessarily go back and then revisit things you’ve just done. Precedent is that you respect, you give stare decisis. It’s a credit, and it’s a benefit to cases that have been done. And you give them time to maybe air, to be looked at. When courts have overturned precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court in general, it’s something that’s maybe 20, 30 years down the road. It’s not something that they just do willy nilly as Scalia would say, it’s something that you have to have seen that it doesn’t work. You can’t just say, “I’m now the member of the majority so everything that was done, I get to undo.” That’s not how courts work. We need to restore the respect and integrity in those courts and have them move forward and not always be looking back to things that they want to change.

Zac Schultz:
And finally, will you seek Donald Trump’s endorsement? We saw Brad Schimel go out and ask for that towards the end of his campaign.

Maria Lazar:
I’m not seeking endorsements of anyone who’s out of the state of Wisconsin. If someone looks at my campaign and they agree with my vision, my idea that we need to restore justice and integrity to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, I would welcome the discussion but I’m not seeking anything.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Judge Lazar, thanks for your time.

Maria Lazar:
Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:
A large-scale data center in the village of DeForest was rejected this week. It’s an example of the push-pull between local communities and tech companies, with their ever increasing demands to store and process huge amounts of data, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. As Steven Potter reports, opposition from DeForest residents left the village board with a difficult decision to announce.

Jane Cahill Wolfgram:
Some of you might feel very victorious tonight. Others are feeling a great loss.

Steven Potter:
When residents in the DeForest area first heard that a large-scale data center was being planned for farmland just outside their village, they were not happy about it.

Nancy Roth:
I picked this spot 40 years ago to live because it was so remote. I never thought we’d be faced with something like this.

Steven Potter:
Nancy Roth was one of the residents who opposed the sprawling 1600 acre and $12 billion development proposed by technology company QTS Data Centers. They worried that the data center may damage natural resources and tear apart the tranquility of their rural landscape.

Nancy Roth:
We want to live in a farming community, not next to a concrete walled data center.

Steven Potter:
So Roth and others went to work. They organized residents, printed yard signs, created an online community, and voiced their opposition at numerous town and village board meetings. And just this week, after months of expressing their outrage.

Jane Cahill Wolfgram:
We’re at a point where we can finally make a vote.

Steven Potter:
Those opposed to the DeForest data center were able to claim victory when the village board voted unanimously against the QTS data center plan.

Alicia Williams:
Yes, to reject. Thank you.

Steven Potter:
With that rejection of the proposal from the village of DeForest, QTS has now formally withdrawn from the project. This kind of conflict, which hinges on the local control of land and resources, has been repeating itself around the state. Here’s what happens. A large-scale data center gets proposed. Residents get upset and voice their opposition. And then local officials take notice of the outrage and put an end to the project. Or the data center company itself decides to pull out. Other proposed data centers that have been nixed recently include one in Brown County and another in Racine County, and the city councils of both Menominee and Madison have passed restrictions on data centers being built there.

Tricia Braun:
The data center industry, especially at this scale, it’s new, right? And any time there’s something of this magnitude that’s new, it’s scary.

Steven Potter:
Tricia Braun is with the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which advocates for these developments to boost the state’s economy. She says that our ever-growing need for more information, more entertainment and more innovation, including and especially with the use of artificial intelligence, is what’s driving demand.

Tricia Braun:
Whether you’re on your phone, your live streaming TV, you’re a manufacturer that’s automating your processes, you’re a regular company that just decides to move its server offline or to the cloud, all of that needs to be stored somewhere. That’s where data centers come in.

Steven Potter:
Some large-scale data centers house only one company, which is the case for the Beaver Dam Data Center being built right now by Meta and the Microsoft Data Center, under construction in Mount Pleasant. But Braun says smaller and midsize companies are clients, too.

Tricia Braun:
Whether it’s insurance companies, financial institutions, just general businesses can be some of these tenants. When it comes to something that is changing this fast and as you know, we’re all doing more with technology every day, the demand is increasing.

Steven Potter:
According to research from the Brookings Institute, there are more than 5,000 data centers operating in the United States. That’s ten times more than any other country. There are around 50 data centers here in Wisconsin, at least for now. But if technology companies get their way, there may be several more of them here soon. And some of them will be the hyperscale sized data centers that span hundreds of acres and cost billions of dollars. Data center companies find Wisconsin appealing because of available land, energy, and a favorable, particularly cooler climate. Currently, data centers are being proposed in Rock County, Ozaukee County, Wood County, and Kenosha County. And although QTS withdrew its bid for DeForest, the company says they may explore other locations in Wisconsin.

Ryan Hunter:
I think digital infrastructure is critical to our economy and critical to national security, and it has to get built somewhere.

Steven Potter:
State lawmakers are also getting involved in data center regulation.

Mark Born:
We need to be competitive in this space.

Steven Potter:
Mark Born, a Republican in the state Assembly, represents Beaver Dam, where social media company Meta is building a $1 billion, 700,000 square foot data center.

Mark Born:
This is the future and why shouldn’t Wisconsin communities benefit from some of the economic development that comes from that?

Steven Potter:
While he is in favor of these developments, Born also wants to make sure that data centers don’t lead to higher electrical bills for local residents and that the state’s water supply is protected. He’s a lead author of legislation that aims to regulate data centers.

Mark Born:
Ratepayers should be protected. We should be protecting our natural resources.

Steven Potter:
Democratic state Representative Angela Stroud of Ashland says the Republican bill doesn’t go far enough. She wants to see more rules around renewable energy, fees and labor. And if data center developers don’t meet those requirements…

Angela Stroud:
That means a project may not be well suited for the state and I think we should be willing to admit that and say, “Fine, then we’re not the place for you.” But if we can achieve those things, which we can with smart regulation, we need to get something done.

Steven Potter:
Regulation is a sticky topic for data center proponents.

Tricia Braun:
I think we have to be very careful about what is put into place as far as rules, restrictions, regulations to make sure that those unintended consequences aren’t an overall detriment to future development.

Steven Potter:
While the future of data centers in Wisconsin remains a case by local case situation, proponents say the need for more and more computing power and data storage is undeniable. But for now, it remains an exercise in compromise between data center developers, local residents, municipal government and state lawmakers. Reporting from DeForest, I’m Steven Potter for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSWisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’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.