Here & Now

Here & Now for July 30, 2021

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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

At least one Wisconsin county issues an indoor mask advisory for unvaccinated and vaccinated people, as COVID caseloads rise to numbers not seen since April.

Tony Evers:

The Republicans made a claim that this is — they provided a high amount of money for our schools, which, you know, is a shell game because most of that money that they provided was for property tax relief. And the schools don’t get that money.

Frederica Freyberg:

And Governor Tony Evers bashes Republicans for not delivering more school aid in a special session he called and that they gaveled into and immediately out of this week. Those same party members, in an extraordinary session of the Legislature, failed to override an Evers’ veto of their bill that would have ended bigger unemployment checks. So the extra $300 a week keeps coming to beneficiaries until early September.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” the Delta variant causes a new coronavirus spike. The CDC tells Americans to get the mask back on. Do extra COVID jobless benefits keep people from returning to the workforce? A UW expert reviews the fact and fiction of that theory. State renters and property owners brace for what happens after the eviction moratorium is set to expire on Saturday. Marisa Wojcik reports. And an interview with Republican primary candidate for Wisconsin attorney general, Eric Toney. It’s “Here & Now” for July 30.

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Just when you thought you could go without a mask, the CDC this week recommended that people should wear them once again indoors, where COVID-19 cases have spiked to substantial or high levels. That includes 35 counties so far in Wisconsin shown on this map in yellow and red. Dane County and the city of Milwaukee this week recommended everyone wear a mask inside regardless of vaccination status. To get the statewide picture, we turn to deputy secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Julie Willems Van Dijk, and thanks very much for being here.

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

You’re welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

So is the Wisconsin Department of Health following the CDC guidance and recommending people wear masks indoors at this time?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

Yes. We are again very consistent with CDC. We’ve seen an incredible rise in cases due to the Delta variant. And there’s also early emerging evidence that people who have been vaccinated that are infected with Delta, because some will be, may be able to transmit the virus. And previously we didn’t think that was true. And that’s the real rationale behind this recommendation for masks where there’s high transmission when we’re in indoor settings together.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so, again, who should wear them? Everyone, regardless of vaccination status?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

That is absolutely true. When you are in a community with higher substantial transmission, and even if you want to be extra safe in communities with moderate transmission. We have nowhere in Wisconsin with low transmission right now. We recommend that everybody, whether you’re vaccinated or not, when you are inside with people outside of your household, wear a mask.

Frederica Freyberg:

And what is your recommendation around k-12 schools when school starts?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

So CDC and DHS are also recommending that all teachers, staff, visitors and students in K-12 schools wear masks, again, when they’re inside. When we’re outside, we know there isn’t very high disease transmission. This is especially important in schools because we have such a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Children under the age of 12 cannot yet get vaccinated, so it’s a really important layer of protection so that our children can go back to school safely this fall.

Frederica Freyberg:

Some people continue to question this, including our own Senator Ron Johnson who asked publicly this week, “Do masks even work? Do they do more harm than good, particularly to children who have a low risk of serious disease or death from COVID?” So do they work? Do they cause more harm than good?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

They absolutely work. The science shows that this significantly reduces transmission of respiratory virus and the droplets that carry the virus. And they work especially well when everybody is wearing them. So, as we’ve said before, my mask protects you, your mask protects me. The other thing that I’ve heard from many, many parents and I’ve observed in children in my own family is children don’t have nearly as big a problem with wearing a mask as we do. As long as they get to pick which character or which print is on their mask, they actually seem to do quite fine with wearing masks.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are your concerns about this Delta variant and our jump in cases and how that might progress?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

Delta variant is very concerning. This is an extremely infectious variant of COVID-19. And let’s be clear. The garden variety of COVID-19 was infectious enough. CDC is saying today that as infectious as chicken pox. For those of you who remember Chicken Pox, you know if one kid in your family got it, everybody got it. That’s how infectious Delta variant is. The other thing that’s very concerning about this variant is it mutated from other variants. And so if we do not get a handle on this through higher vaccination, which is our most important strategy right now, what will the next variant look like and could it be even worse than this one.

Frederica Freyberg:

How are we doing on the vaccine front?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

So as of today, we have almost 52% of our total population of our state has received their first dose and almost — well, 49.3% have completed their vaccine series. And we all know we have stalled out. We were seeing those percentage points jump by a percentage or two a day in March and April, when people were clamoring for vaccine. They’re creeping up now. But we have seen a little bit of a bump since this news of Delta variant came out and I think some of the folks who have been waiting and wondering are volunteering and getting vaccine now. And we really need to move that 52% up to 70% or 80% in order to get a true community immunity to stop the spread of this.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Well, we will watch that. Julie Willems Van Dijk, thank you for joining us.

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

Thank you.

Robin Vos:

If you pay people over $17 an hour tax-free to stay home and not work, there are going to be fewer people working. It’s not rocket science.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because he said it’s keeping people from taking a job, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos wanted to end the $300 per week extra unemployment payments, but Republicans in his chamber failed to get enough votes to override Governor Evers’ veto of a bill to do just that. But does the extra money that expires in September actually act as a disincentive to work? To that question we turn to labor economist and associate director of COWS, formerly known as the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison, Laura Dresser joins us. Thanks for being here.

Laura Dresser:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So I know there are these studies like from the Federal Reserve that say the enhanced unemployment only results in a small number of people choosing benefits over taking a job, but it does still seem intuitive that if the benefits are better than whatever job you lost, why wouldn’t a person stay home?

Laura Dresser:

I mean, I think if you’re just going to hold that up, you can get a job or you can get these benefits, you can kind of see that. And that’s why I think the studies find a very small impact. But it’s a very small impact. What’s really going on in this labor market is we just had a once in a century, we hope, pandemic. Our labor, we contracted dramatically and the workforce — the number of jobs we have today is still 100,000 — more than 100,000 fewer than we did in February, 2020. And so the — and we’ve all faced incredible choices about work and our families and our health. And we are all figuring that out. I think all that is going on. The unemployment insurance benefit, the increase to that literally helped people stay in their homes, literally helped people keep food on their tables. It still is doing that work that is so important. And to act as if — that if we take that money away, that will bring a flood to this labor market, which there have been longstanding shortages — longstanding shrinkage, I think that just misplaces what the issues, what the complexity of the issues holding people a little bit away from work these days is.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yeah. Because I understand, you know, people describe other impediments to going back into the job force, like child care, transportation and, as you mentioned still health concerns and perhaps now increasing health concerns.

Laura Dresser:

Yes. I mean, I think we all want to pretend that — maybe a month ago, we all wanted to pretend, okay, this is over, now we get a new thing. But we understand I think today better than then that this is a dynamic thing and variants are going to create new situations. And if we’re not all vaccinated or even if we are, variants may create these kinds of situations. And what workers who consistently in coming into this pandemic, you know, the workers that have faced very volatile hours, very low wages and never get health insurance through their jobs. You know, health insurance is a lot more important now and a restaurant job where you’re exposed to a lot of people and you never get health insurance I think looks a little less appealing.

Frederica Freyberg:

So experientially though there do seem to be these supply chain problems and service and hospitality worker shortages but again, is that because all the federal relief benefits are too generous? Or do employers need to do something to kind of attract and retain people?

Laura Dresser:

I’d really look to — there isn’t one experience of the employers in this labor market. There are — it is harder to find workers in this labor market, but there are employers that are finding workers. They’re employers that attend to their scheduling practices. Their wages are not rock bottom. They offer benefits when they can. And then the government has a role to really make a massive investment in child care, to make it accessible, affordable, stable. Good-paying jobs for the child care workers so people have the supports they need to know their kids are safe too.

Frederica Freyberg:

A lot. Laura Dresser, thanks for joining us.

Laura Dresser:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

The federal moratorium on evictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19 is set to expire tomorrow. Some are predicting a tidal wave of evictions. Others say federal pandemic relief dollars are helping ensure that won’t happen. Marisa Wojcik explores the impact of the end of the moratorium with this story from Green Bay.

Danielle Kasee:

And they were going to pay it all off. And he still evicted me.

Marisa Wojcik:

It was one year ago, on her daughter’s birthday.

Danielle Kasee:

And he’s like, “All right, I’m giving you until the 31st to get out.” That’s my daughter’s birthday. It was her 16th birthday. We had no place to go.

Marisa Wojcik:

41-year-old Danielle Kasee said the rent check for her Green Bay apartment was put in the landlord’s mailbox. But the landlord claimed he didn’t get it. Danielle and her four children lost their housing on July 31, 2020.

Danielle Kasee:

When we moved in here, we were homeless. We were staying at friends’ houses. We stayed at the Freedom House for a couple months.

Marisa Wojcik:

A statewide eviction ban went from March to May of 2020. In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enacted a federal eviction moratorium to help curb the rise in COVID-19 cases. Tenants could not be threatened with eviction for not paying their rent. That moratorium is now set to expire July 31 and many are worried about the consequences. Danielle was evicted during a three-month gap after the state’s eviction ban ended and by the time the CDC enacted its ban in September, Danielle found herself in a homelessness purgatory.

Danielle Kasee:

No places were — you know, renting out because they couldn’t evict everybody because of that being in place. So I couldn’t find a decent place for what I could afford.

Marisa Wojcik:

And an eviction on her record made it even harder. But with allies on her side like the Northeast Wisconsin Community Action Program or NEWCAP she had a better shot at finding an apartment and working with a new landlord. NEWCAP also supported her where it matters most to a landlord: with rent. After she left her job due to COVID-19 safety concerns.

Danielle Kasee:

NEWCAP was like we’re here, you know. Like we’re going to help her. I, like, felt so relieved.

Marisa Wojcik:

Danielle is one of thousands of renters across the state getting rent relief from the Wisconsin Emergency Rental Assistance program, or WERA, distributed through community action programs, providing a new financial safety net to tenants and their landlords.

Joe Dekeyser:

Well, of course we saw things on the TV about, you know, it kind of almost nationally being announced that renters would somehow not have to pay their rent.

Marisa Wojcik:

Joe Dekeyser is a landlord to nine households in Green Bay, some of which were not immune to the hardships of the pandemic. Unable to pay rent, they turned to NEWCAP for help.

Joe Dekeyser:

I was — I was kind of actually surprised by it, that these organizations were just like, oh, yeah, we’re willing to help you and no problem and the payment’s coming right to you. It might be two weeks or so. And it all worked out.

Marisa Wojcik:

Three rounds of rental assistance have been designated to help keep renters’ housing status stable during a turbulent pandemic. More than $720 million in federal rental assistance will come to Wisconsin through 2025. To date, more than $74 million of that has gone to help 26,000 households across the state. And because these funds will be available far beyond the moratorium, some are not predicting a tidal wave of evictions once the ban is lifted.

Cheryl Detrick:

You can move no one from poverty. You can move no one from a bad economic situation to a better one. You can get no one trained and get them into a job if you don’t first have them housed.

Marisa Wojcik:

Cheryl Detrick is president and CEO of NEWCAP, which operates in ten counties in northeast Wisconsin. While community action programs provide a number of services prioritized by local community needs, one issue is at the top of everyone’s list: affordable housing.

Cheryl Detrick:

Affordable housing is and will be for the next decade the biggest problem we have to overcome. No place in the United States where two people working minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment.

Marisa Wojcik:

But the edge of the cliff is shifting. And it’s not just the lowest income earners needing help.

Cheryl Detrick:

We’re also serving people between 60% and 80% of county median income. So 80% of county median income in Brown County for a single person is about $44,000. So we’re seeing this entirely different demographic of people than we’ve ever served before.

Marisa Wojcik:

On one side, the cost of living keeps going up. On the other side, incomes, especially those at the bottom, are stagnant.

Brad Paul:

There is a fundamental affordability problem, lack of available units. All of these things predate the pandemic. But right now the need is to meet people’s emergency needs and get them stabilized while we figure out longer-term solutions for our housing crisis.

Marisa Wojcik:

J. Scott Schnurer, a housing lawyer in Green Bay with the non-profit Legal Action Wisconsin provides counsel to as many tenants facing eviction as possible. He is expecting to be a lot busier after July 31.

J. Scott Schnurer:

We expect to be very overwhelmed. We’re already getting an increase in housing calls.

Marisa Wojcik:

Even with the rental assistance dollars, no one knows for sure what eviction numbers will look like when the moratorium expires. Over the last year, eviction filings fell to 19,427 in 2020, with the moratorium in place. That’s down from 27,026 filed in 2019. The fast pace of evictions was forced to slow down and evictions could be seen through a new lens.

Brad Paul:

It would be very beneficial from where I sit to have the moratorium extended, particularly because there is a significant amount of money in the housing system right now that can help stabilize people. Again, that helps landlords, too.

Marisa Wojcik:

Even before the pandemic, landlord Joe Dekeyser has worked with tenants who may have a past eviction on their record or who struggle financially.

Joe Dekeyser:

They were willing to improve on that and have a better quality of life and for me to give them an opportunity as a starting base it meant a lot that they could build from that and have some stability.

Marisa Wojcik:

A better quality of life and stability is what Danielle is working towards. And this year instead of worrying about the eviction moratorium expiring on July 31, she would rather make up for her daughter’s missed birthday exactly one year ago when they were evicted.

Danielle Kasee:

And I felt so bad, you know? So this year I have a surprise for her. So she’s going to go and have a bonfire with her friend’s at my daughter’s house on Sunday. I have something nice planned for her, so…

Marisa Wojcik:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik in Green Bay.

Frederica Freyberg:

President Joe Biden is calling on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium deadline once again because of a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant.

Turning to the 2022 election, two candidates are currently in the Republican primary race for Wisconsin attorney general. Last week we introduced you to Ryan Owens. Tonight we speak with Eric Toney. Toney has been the Fond du Lac district attorney since 2013. He’s the president-elect of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association. During the pandemic in 2020, Toney advised local officials that Governor Tony Evers exceeded his legal authority by extending the public health emergency beyond 60 days. Eric Toney joins us from Fond du Lac. Thanks for being here.

Eric Toney:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why should Wisconsin voters elect you to be attorney general?

Eric Toney:

What we’ve really seen from our current attorney general is leadership failure after leadership failure, whether it was Marsy’s Law when that came out last April and the failed guidance to law enforcement and district attorneys across Wisconsin to give concrete guidance where now we have so many different counties struggling to still adapt to Marsy’s Law. We then saw the failed guidance from the attorney general’s office during the pandemic. And then when we saw the “defund the police” movement and the chaos that ensued after the Jacob Blake shooting, again our attorney general was nowhere to be find. We need someone that is not afraid to lead and I’ve been leading as the district attorney in Fond du Lac County in my ninth year now, and as you noted, I’m the president-elect of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association. And I have also prosecuted just about any type of case you can think of, from murderers, cold case homicides, sexual assaults, complex drug conspiracies, drunk driving, domestic violence, racketeering. I’ve utilized literally every resource that the Department of Justice has to offer for law enforcement. Our attorney general is our top cop and we need an attorney general that’s going to act like our top cop. I’m the son of a cop. My dad was in law enforcement for over 30 years and I grew up in that law enforcement family and they have earned our respect and our support. But I also recognize we don’t want bad cops out there either. But we have to make sure that they have due process just like everyone else. Because any bad cop out there is standing on my dad’s reputation and all our other wonderful law enforcement officers out there. As I’ve gotten across Wisconsin, that’s the same sentiment that our law enforcement have throughout this state. The leadership I have exhibited over my time as district attorney is evident by the law enforcement support that I have. Over 60 of our law enforcement professionals from all corners of Wisconsin have endorsed me. It’s bipartisan support from Republicans, Democrats and the unanimous endorsement from the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what would you say would be your position on some of the prongs of police reform that people are calling for in light of circumstances like that of George Floyd?

Eric Toney:

Well, we have to — when we talk about police improvement, we’re not just talking about police, we have to talk about the criminal justice system as well, so prosecutors, public defenders and our courts. I’ve been on both sides of the coin. Before becoming the district attorney, I made my cop dad really proud and was a defense attorney for about two and a half years. So I would represent criminals, do mental health cases. I’ve really seen this issue from both sides and I’ve had those personal conversations with defendants to understand what some of their concerns are. That’s a unique perspective that nobody else in this race has. So we can all do better. But we can’t just focus on police. We have to look at the system as a whole and not pander to interest groups just because it sounds like a good idea. We have to look at improvements that will actually make people safe without compromising the safety of our law enforcement.

Frederica Freyberg:

You say you strongly support improving and defending Wisconsin election laws and say that as Wisconsin attorney general you would fight to ensure all ballots are treated equally throughout our state regardless what county they are cast in. What does that mean?

Eric Toney:

So what we’ve seen is some clerks when we look at for example absentee ballots, where someone is filling out a certificate, and whoever is filling that certificate out to verify that someone is who they say and they say forget to put their address on there, some clerks are filling in that address as the Election Commission guidance told them. Other clerks are not doing that. It’s so important to make sure that everybody is operating by the same rules to make sure that the law is applied equally across all of Wisconsin. That’s an area whether — frankly an attorney general’s opinion could give great guidance to our clerks and officials throughout Wisconsin because this isn’t an effort to say we don’t want people to vote. We do want people to vote but we want to make sure that everybody’s ballot is being treated equally throughout Wisconsin. And there’s nothing controversial about that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Just really quickly, do you believe that investigations into Wisconsin’s election are warranted?

Eric Toney:

Well, I think it depends on what you talk about as far as elections –investigations go. I’m more concerned, I think our Legislature has done a pretty good job of identifying some of these issues with our election laws to clarify some of those gaps and are working really hard on that. The bigger concern I have is our attorney general has cut the prosecution unit from the Department of Justice by about 25% and also allowed key DCI positions to go unfilled, effectively defunding the police when we’ve seen Milwaukee set an all-time record for homicides. Other communities, such as Green Bay and Madison, seeing surges in shootings and homicides. That’s not a record to be proud of as our attorney general said that he’s proud of that record when he’s reduced resources to law enforcement throughout Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

I need to leave it there, but thanks very much.

Eric Toney:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Out of time there for a follow-up, but the DOJ says its budget took a $2.5 million cut from Republican budget writers and now after the Lame Duck Law lacks access to settlement funds to backfill the agency’s budget. You can see our interviews with other candidates for attorney general at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. 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.