Frederica Freyberg:
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Governor Evers puts his veto pen to the state budget. How state farmers are faring during this wet summer season. And McCoshen and Ross dive into the race for president in tonight’s political panel. It’s “Here & Now” for July 5th.

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

Frederica Freyberg:
A first look tonight at how midweek Governor Tony Evers announced he made 78 partial vetoes to the Republican-drawn two-year state budget. They included action that increases school spending by $65 million, saying he objects to the “continued drastic underfunding of Wisconsin’s public school children” but saying even his hikes don’t go far enough. He says the plan is a down payment on what he calls the people’s budget. He could have vetoed the entire thing, but says that would have been more of the same divisiveness and petty politics. For their parts, Republican leaders describe the vetoes as minimal, a reflection they say, of a good Republican-crafted budget.

Tony Evers:
Today I am signing a much better version of the Legislature’s budget, with the understanding that we are nowhere near where we should be and there’s lots more work that we need to do. We worked hard to make this budget more fiscally responsible and that includes adding a record nearly $300 million to our state’s rainy day fund. The bills we will sign today deliver on my campaign promise to deliver a 10% tax cut for working families, including $500 million in overall tax cuts targeted to working middle class people in our state.

[applause]

Scott Fitzgerald:
The budget targets state investments more responsibly and spends $2 billion less than the governor’s original plan. I’m relieved to know that schools throughout the state will know what resources are available to them as they begin putting their budgets together for the upcoming school year, including a massive increase in special education funding.

Frederica Freyberg:
WPR Capitol Bureau Reporter Laurel White has covered the budget from start to finish and she joins us now with details. Thanks for being here.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
First out of the gates, what will the Evers’ veto boost to K-12 mean dollar-wise for schools?

Laurel White:
So for schools, it’s about $63 per pupil in each of the next two years of the state budget, which is a little bit more than even the Wisconsin Association of School Boards asked for earlier this week. They wanted $25 more. They said that would help them meet the rising cost of inflation. So the governor went above and beyond there for them.

Frederica Freyberg:
We heard Majority Leader Fitzgerald applaud the certainty for school districts, almost like he was glad the governor made these hikes.

Laurel White:
Yes. So part of the conversation about potential changes to the state budget or an overall veto of the budget was pushing negotiations into the fall. And the ramifications of that are school districts aren’t going to know how much money they’re going to have, what increases there if any. So the governor taking the action he did today set up that certainty and I think that’s what Fitzgerald was nodding to.

Frederica Freyberg:
And even though the governor increased that spending to K-12 even above what the school boards wanted, he still calls his increases insufficient and continues, as you know, to call for Wisconsin to expand Medicaid and he wants that gas tax. In fact, he made a pointed veto in the transportation budget against a study on tolling, saying that actually that study would simply show that a tax gas is what is necessary for funding for transportation. What else did the governor do on transportation in his vetoes?

Laurel White:
So this is one that folks might remember kind of coming up late in budget negotiations last week. There was a provision that would have allowed Tesla vehicles to be sold directly to consumers in Wisconsin without a car dealership intermediary. That was pegged to one particular Republican state senator who might have been iffy in his vote on the budget, Senator Chris Kapenga from Delafield. The governor clearly wasn’t happy with that addition to the budget. He vetoed that. He said that he didn’t think that sort of policy change should be included in the budget without more kind of debate and deliberation.

Frederica Freyberg:
So I wonder what the Senator Kapenga thinks about that, having been offered that, among some other things, for his ”yes” vote to push this budget through.

Laurel White:
Right.

Frederica Freyberg:
So on the work requirements for FoodShare, this is another area that the governor took out his veto pen on. He cut funding for basically the administration of that program, presumably meaning that the ability to enforce that program, the provisions of that, would be stymied. Speaker Vos to that kind of thing and that veto said, “Governor Evers seems intent on trapping people on welfare.” He seems decidedly more unhappy with this budget than Senator Fitzgerald.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. I think Speaker Vos really came out with kind of an aggressive and pointed comment on that particular element of the governor’s vetoes. You know, he zeroed in on that of the 78 vetoes and really expressed some concern. Now, I think it’s interesting to note that the governor’s office said that this won’t completely stymie implementation of those work requirements. There will be some that are still in place but it certainly takes away — it’s more than $20 million from implementing those. Speaker Vos is concerned. Another high-profile Republican that’s concerned, Representative John Nygren, who co-chairs the state budget committee. He released a similar statement.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Speaker Vos is one that has repeatedly called the expansion of Medicaid the expansion of welfare. So this is a place where he, as you say, is kind of focusing some of his attention. Now, all the Democrats in the Legislature voted against the budget, which was, again, signed today. Scott Fitzgerald tweeted, “I have never seen so many ‘no’ votes lined up at a podium for a bill signing before.” Is there any lingering sense among any legislators or others that Governor Evers should have vetoed the whole thing?

Laurel White:
I certainly haven’t heard that since the governor released his veto message. I think Democratic lawmakers are really more in the camp now of saying look at what we were able to accomplish because we have a Democratic governor. They’re sort of framing this as the Democratic governor moving the needle on the Republican-controlled Legislature and getting Republican lawmakers to approve more funding, different funding for different programs, focusing an income tax cut on low-income individuals, things like that.

Frederica Freyberg:
Does the Republican Legislature have the two-thirds votes needed to override any of these vetoes?

Laurel White:
No, they don’t. We know that Republicans obviously have large majorities, particularly in the Assembly, but they don’t have the two-thirds majority to override any of these vetoes unless Democrats come onboard. And I think that would be pretty unlikely.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah. So I know that Governor Evers was speaking to this being, again, kind of an insufficient budget, in his mind, and looking toward September, looking toward his next priorities. What were some of those?

Laurel White:
So Governor Evers is already talking about reintroducing the Medicaid expansion as stand-alone legislation. Obviously, that would face a really steep climb in the Legislature. He’s also talking about a nonpartisan redistricting commission in Wisconsin. Obviously that’s particularly timely because of the Supreme Court decision last week. He says he’s going to push really hard for that. And he also mentioned medical marijuana. That was something he included in his budget proposal as well as decriminalizing small amounts of recreational marijuana. Assembly Speaker Vos has said he might be open to medical marijuana in Wisconsin. So I’m expecting that to be a big debate in the fall.

Frederica Freyberg:
So medical marijuana might be a go but I would suggest that expanded Medicaid would not or redistricting.

Laurel White:
Probably not. I think those face tougher odds.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right. Laurel White, thanks very much.

Laurel White:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
In the midst of the budget work Governor Evers signed a bill that will delay closing the Lincoln Hills youth prison until July of 2021. The governor says more time is needed for construction of replacement facilities. Prisons and prison over-crowding is the focus of a new report out from our partners at Wisconsin Watch. Governor Evers pledged to cut prison population by 50%, but there are numerous challenges to that goal as detailed in the story. Dee Hall is the managing editor at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and she joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Dee Hall:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So one of the things that your reporter describes is that the Evers’ campaign again promised to cut the prison population by 50% while at the same time he’s increasing his corrections budget to increase prison beds because of over-crowding. So both things are true.

Dee Hall:
Yes, they’re true at this moment. So the governor has stated that his goal is to improve the conditions and the conditions are overcrowded. The prisons are also understaffed as has been widely reported. And so what Izabela Zaluska, who’s our reporter on this story found is that they are taking sort of a long approach, which starts with improving conditions both at Taycheedah and Jackson Correctional, but also at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, which is going to get some other upgrades because it’s been very controversial.

Frederica Freyberg:
So how overcrowded are our prisons at this point?

Dee Hall:
About 33% above their designed capacity right now in some places. There are two that really aren’t overcrowded, two adult prisons. But then really the rest of them, the other 18 adult prisons are overcrowded anywhere from just a few percentage points up to 50% above their capacity.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what are the details as to how Governor Evers expects to try to reduce the population?

Dee Hall:
He has some mechanisms at his disposal and some are not. The ones that are at his disposal include reducing or eliminating so-called crimeless revocations. That’s where a person violates a condition of their supervision of their release and is sent back to prison. That’s one that he’s talked a lot about. The other thing that could happen would be to boost paroles. In recent years we’ve been in single digits in terms of the percent of people who apply for parole who are eligible who are actually granted parole. The other thing that he can do is something called a Special Action Release Program. That’s a rarely, rarely used mechanism. We don’t know when it was last used. We weren’t able to figure that out. But it is a special mechanism about 30 years old that allows the Department of Corrections’ secretary to release prisoners in the event of an over-crowding incident.

Frederica Freyberg:
And there are special provisions, though, as part of that Special Action Release Program, right? I means these cannot be people who are in prison for life for murder, for example?

Dee Hall:
Right. You can’t be serving a life sentence. So you have to be within 18 months of your mandatory release, which is an old term actually under the old law, the pre-truth-in-sentencing law. So that’s why those would be the folks most affected by this. You have to be close to being released and no convictions for assaultive behavior or any history of assaultive behavior within the prison system.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so the truth-in-sentencing law went into effect in the —

Dee Hall:
Beginning of 2000.

Frederica Freyberg:
So it would only be inmates presumably that were convicted before that law went into effect?

Dee Hall:
That’s unclear to me right now. But, yes, those are the folks who would meet the definition of what we’re hearing a special release inmate might be.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet what are the numbers as to how many people he might be able to release under this Special Action Program?

Dee Hall:
That one I’m not sure. They didn’t have any good estimates for us on that one. We do know that hundreds if not thousands of inmates could be released if the so-called crimeless revocations were eliminated. That’s accounting as we speak for 40% of new prison admissions, are people not committing new crimes, but are violating terms of their release and being sent back to prison.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kind of political reaction is there to this?

Dee Hall:
Well, so we have seen some bipartisan moves in this direction. One thing that the Legislature can do because they hold the purse strings is to increase the amount of money for treatment and diversion programs. There’s been a little more put into the budget. The amount that Evers was seeking was disappointing to the advocates. Right now it’s $1 million a year each of the next two years in the biennium that they’ll increase the current program. That’s one that there does seem to be some bipartisan buy-in. There is not buy-in from what we can tell on the issue of changing the truth-in-sentencing law and that has been a major driver of our prison population, which is projected to get to 25,000, which would be a record high in the next two years.

Frederica Freyberg:
Dee Hall, thanks very much and thanks for your work.

Dee Hall:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
Forecasts for rain may dampen weekend picnic plans but rain is a much bigger threat to state farmers. In tonight’s inside look, a status report on a challenging and wet spring and early summer. Last week the State Department of Agriculture encouraged farmers with fields still too wet for planting to take advantage of a federal conversation program. The program provides farmers income for land taken out of production and changed into grasslands and other buffers again future flooding. We get an update on the growing season now with president of the Wisconsin Farmers Bureau, Jim Holte, who joins us from Eau Claire. Thanks a lot for being here.

Jim Holte:
Nice to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
How are Wisconsin farmers being affected by the amount of rain that we’ve been seeing going back into the spring?

Jim Holte:
Honestly, it varies from place to place depending on your likelihood of getting rain and also types of soil you have. In general it’s been much delayed from normal. So there’s many farmers that have land that they have not and probably will not plant currently in this season. So it’s challenging. Yet each one of us lives by the weather a little bit. I mean, for instance today it’s kind of warm and muggy out and that impacts us all. But for us in farming it’s a big deal. Weather is a big part of our day.

Frederica Freyberg:
It always is. Difficult growing conditions are a way of life for farmers. But this comes on top of depressed milk prices and trade wars and labor shortages. What are your members telling you about how they are faring as we hit what should be peak growing season?

Jim Holte:
Well, you’re exactly right, Frederica. This is one more challenge built on top of other ones that places a little more stress and strain on a lot of farmers. I wish I could say there’s an easy, quick, simple solution. I don’t know if that’s true. The weather continues to be a problem not only with the planting season, but now as some struggle to make dry enough weather to make hay and those sort of things. So the challenges go on, although I would say farmers know the weather can be different every year and so we know we have to adjust and we’ll do the best we can.

Frederica Freyberg:
With 49 Wisconsin farm bankruptcies last year, the highest in the nation, are market and weather conditions resulting in some farmers opting, as we’ve suggested, for putting their land into conservation reserve programs?

Jim Holte:
Well, I think those different options look inviting at times. There’s certain insurance programs as well as certain government land set aside programs that become more of an option when you face these challenges. And each one of us has to make that decision for ourselves, whether it fits our current year and long-term plans. So it certainly is a consideration.

Frederica Freyberg:
What else can farmers do to stave off financial collapse? We know it’s bad out there.

Jim Holte:
Well, I would say that to be a farmer you have to be an optimist to start out with because you spend quite a bit of money and put a lot of things in the ground assuming they’re going to come out and come forward for you for harvest in the fall. So I think amongst farmers ourselves, we need to be a positive voice for our neighbors. We need to stop and have a conversation at times when you know somebody is struggling with the weather or with the fact they may have not planted or harvested their crop on time. So a lot of times it gets to be a social thing that we can help each other with.

Frederica Freyberg:
Are farmers looking forward to getting the new NAFTA ratified?

Jim Holte:
Well, the new NAFTA, as you’ve described it, the USMCA is a trade deal that’s been negotiated between the three countries of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. and while negotiations always have ups and downs and the results are always ups and downs, in general we would like to see it completed through the process and accepted by Congress. Because it will provide some more certainty, both to our farmers and to other business people across the country.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Jim Holte, thank you very much and have a good holiday weekend.

Jim Holte:
Thanks. You too. It’s a great Fourth of July.

Frederica Freyberg:
In addition to causing chaos for farmers, increased rains and other form of climate change are wreaking havoc on mercury levels in the environment. That’s according to research from the UW-Madison Center for Limnology and a new report from WPR Mike Simonson Investigative Reporting Fellow, Sarah Whites-Kodischek.

Sarah Whites-Kodischek:
What we thought was really interesting and important about his research was the connection to climate change and that was a surprise to us, that climate change was also changing the way that a toxin like mercury is acting in our environment. So he was looking for mercury levels in fish over time and just happened to correlate that over the course of 30 years with the water cycle, which has been affected by climate change, and realized that the two were on a parallel track.

Frederica Freyberg:
We spoke to Sarah on “Noon Wednesday,” a weekly online feature of “Here & Now.” A pivot now from Wisconsin to Washington and the 2020 race for president. Ripples from the first debate among the Democrats are surfacing in new polls this week for the primary candidates. Also this week, incumbent President Donald Trump walked the line between campaigning and diplomacy during international trips as well as a splashy 4th of July event at the Lincoln Memorial. We turn now to two patriots with different perspectives, Republican panelist Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot Ross. Thanks for being here.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:
Thanks for having us.

Frederica Freyberg:
So jumping right into it, overall impression of the Democratic candidates in last week’s debates? I’ll go to the Democrat.

Scot Ross:
I think it was incredibly impressive. I think you saw exactly what’s going to win this election and defeat Donald Trump. You saw Democrats talking about economic issues that matter to Democratic voters. We are in a polarized time. I’m going to save the candidates a little bit of money cause I know they’re all watching. Don’t spend your money talking to D.C. consultants about that last 51% of the 3% of undecideds. Win by this. Talk to Democrats. Inspired Democrats. Motivate Democrats. You are going to elect Democrats.

Frederica Freyberg:
You think those debates inspired Democrats?

Bill McCoshen:
Probably so but they left the center wide open for Donald Trump. I think their entire message, both nights, was Democrat, Democrat, Democrat and specifically far left. They had 15 million viewers on the first night, 18 on the second night. That’s a pretty good thing for the Democrats. But there were some pretty big winners and some very big losers out of these debates.

Frederica Freyberg:
Speaking of which, what do you think of the ascension of Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren after those?

Scot Ross:
I think it’s fantastic for the Democratic Party to have women leaders. I mean we have not had a woman president despite the fact that the last woman candidate got 3 million votes more than the guy who’s in the White House right now. I mean, it is a testament to the diversity of the Democratic Party. It is also a testament to the white, male, homophobic way in which the Republican Party is operating right now. I think that’s a challenge. We are a different America.

Bill McCoshen:
She knocked two guys down several pegs. Joe Biden being at the top of the list lost ten points in most polls. She’s now in second. So the guy she replaced in second was Bernie Sanders. So she out-shined both of those two guys on night number two. She had the varsity debate. The JV was the first night. And Elizabeth Warren likely won that. The polls show she’s now in third place so Kamala Harris comes out of this in a very strong position.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile did the debates do any damage in your mind to Donald Trump?

Bill McCoshen:
I don’t think so. I think they helped him. Especially with the center. The people see that all 20 of these candidates want to give free health care to undocumented immigrants. All 20 of these candidates with one exception, Amy Klobuchar, I think she’s the only one, said they want to take away private health insurance for 180 million people. Those are far left, extreme positions. Those will not play with the center. So I think ultimately those helped Donald Trump.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about that, is there a fracture between the establishment more moderate Democrats and the more left-leaning?

Scot Ross:
No. I agree with a number of things that Bill said but I do not agree with the idea of the way he’s characterizing what the positions of the people in the debate were. I mean the fact is we have a president right now who has concentration camps in the United States of America who is genuflecting and cow-towing to dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-un. And we have a president who has been accused credibly by numerous women of sexual assault. We have a racist and a rapist in the White House. And that needs to be reminded to the people because we are better than this.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you think Donald Trump’s base likes it that he’s meeting with Kim Jong-un?

Bill McCoshen:
They do. He’s a strong man. They like a strong man. He went to Washington to shake things up. He shook things up from day one. His base loves it. His numbers with Republican voters are the highest they’ve ever been.

Scot Ross:
Yeah but there’s only 38% are Republicans. So that’s the problem he has.

Bill McCoshen:
There again I think the Democrats left the middle open for him to go after.

Scot Ross:
But Obama didn’t win by 440,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2008 because he was talking a centrist message. He inspired people to get to the polls. I think that’s what’s going to happen when they have that choice between the two.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is Donald Trump impervious to scandal?

Bill McCoshen:
I don’t know if anyone’s really impervious to scandal but people are willing to look beyond sort of small skirmishes and focus on the bigger picture, particularly within his base. In a lot of cases they’re willing to rally behind him when he’s attacked. In many ways it makes him stronger every time he’s attacked.

Scot Ross:
I think it’s a challenge because not talking about here, but our corporate media does rely on revenue ratings and he gets ratings. And so that was why we saw him omnipresent in 2016 and ’15 on cable news. I think that’s a real challenge here because it crosses that line as to what is being responsible and irresponsible.

Frederica Freyberg:
It also goes way beyond the usual kind of benefit of incumbency, right, for Donald Trump?

Bill McCoshen:
He knows how to use the incumbency, whether it’s meeting with Kim Jong-un in the DMZ last week and then crossing over to become the first United States president to be North Korea. That’s historic, right? He’s going to have this massive event on the 4th of July on the Library Mall in the Capitol. Those are historic things. So I think he’s redefining the presidency literally on every level.

Scot Ross:
Being a first-timer on things is not always necessarily a good thing. Here’s my question. When it comes to Kim, Bush W. ended the sanctions for a period of time. He relaxed sanctions. Clinton relaxed military exercises. Neither thing did anything to stop what Kim was doing. So my question is when Trump once again doesn’t get what he wants out of Kim is he going to have a tantrum? God help us Gen-Xers that a Boomer president and a millennial madman are going to bring us to the brink of nuclear war.

Bill McCoshen:
I’m willing to let the charm offensive take its course a little bit. It’s the third time they’ve met. I think it’s historic. So far they’re less of a threat than they were before. You know, as photo ops go, Barack Obama got the Nobel Prize literally for being elected. That was a photo op. Trump is trying to get stuff done.

Frederica Freyberg:
How about Trump’s relationship with Putin on display again?

Scot Ross:
Again, this is the guy who helped him get elected. Trump has continued to reach out and say, “Do it again, please.” Do whatever you can to subvert the elections, the will of the people and the elections in the United States of America. It’s pathetic and sad and the history books are going to be very unkind on that.

Bill McCoshen:
The Obama White House knew about the cyber attacks from the Russians during the campaign. Did nothing about it. The one who got Donald Trump elected was Hillary Clinton because she was such a flawed candidate.

Frederica Freyberg:
We have to leave it there. Thank you very much. Have a great holiday weekend.
That’s our program for tonight. Next Friday, Governor Evers sits down with us to go over his state budget vetoes. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

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