Here & Now

Here & Now for July 6, 2018

Announcer:

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

Zac Schultz:

Good evening. I’m Zac Schultz, filling in for Frederica Freyberg. Coming up on “Here and Now,” students from the UW Law School are heading to Texas to provide legal assistance to immigrants. Mike McCabe, Democrat in the primary race for governor, is here. And our political panelists, McCoshen and Ross, will discuss this week’s political news. It’s “Here and Now” for July 6.

Announcer:

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

Zac Schultz:

In our first look tonight, a team of UW Law School students will travel next month to Texas to provide legal services to immigrants facing deportation. Erin Barbato is an immigration attorney and a clinical instructor at the UW Law School and will lead the students. Thanks for joining us today.

Erin Barbato:

Thank you for having me and thank you for your interest.

Zac Schultz:

Who will you be representing exactly? You’ve heard a lot about different groups of people, children, families, adults.

Erin Barbato:

So we’ll be heading to a town, the town of Dilly, where there is a family residential facility there that currently houses about 2,000 people. We’ll be representing people who are detained there in certain immigration proceedings.

Zac Schultz:

And are these the separated children that everyone’s heard the most about or is this a separate situation?

Erin Barbato:

Right now, the south Texas family residential center where we will be going, they house families. So it’s mostly mothers and their children who are housed there.

Zac Schultz:

What kinds of services are you going to be providing?

Erin Barbato:

What we’re hoping to do is often we will be representing individuals and helping them prepare for a thing called a credible fear interview as well as alternatives to detention. So helping some families apply for bond. And if they can post the bond, then they can be released from the facility in order to continue the process of applying for release from deportation and often that’s asylum.

Zac Schultz:

Are all these people seeking asylum?

Erin Barbato:

I wouldn’t say all of them but a good majority of them are.

Zac Schultz:

We heard a lot of the stories of people that are coming from Central and South America escaping gang violence and other issues. Is that what you’re expecting to find?

Erin Barbato:

Correct. Yes. So a lot of the individuals are coming from the northern triangle of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. And they’ve made the trek through Mexico to get to the border of the United States. And then once they arrive, they’re placed in these facilities. And as of now they’re not separated from their children, but housed in detention together. And then from there they start their journey through the immigration process.

Zac Schultz:

And what would happen if they didn’t have representation?

Erin Barbato:

As many people know, and not everybody knows, our government doesn’t provide representation, legal representation in immigration proceedings because it’s considered a civil proceeding. So if attorneys aren’t there, then the individuals are representing themselves in front of an immigration judge and immigration officers without legal representation. And studies have shown that if you’re in detention, you’re twice as likely to be successful in an immigration proceeding if you’re represented by an attorney.

Zac Schultz:

So for these students, are they going there for work experience or is this part of social justice for them?

Erin Barbato:

I think it’s both. I mean they are very passionate. They’re very concerned about what is going on in our country right now in terms of immigration. So it’s kind of dual-fold. It gives them an opportunity to be on the ground and helping people immediately, but also growing their skills as immigration attorneys and just attorneys in general and being able to bring those skills back to Wisconsin, where we have a need for these services as well.

Zac Schultz:

And will you be following these cases all the way through completion or is this just a temporary thing?

Erin Barbato:

The way that the program is set up, it’s set up through the CARA pro bono project and it’s basically set up so people can come down there for a week and represent. It’s a training for one week. So they get trained on Sunday and then every other day of the week we’re doing services, whatever’s needed down there. After then after that we’re not necessarily taking the cases with us home, but the next group that comes in will continue with that representation. Some of them we may, depending on what goes on. We may be able to continue with them, but we don’t know at this point.

Zac Schultz:

Governor Walker has refused to comment on the family separation policy saying it’s a federal issue and not related to Wisconsin. Do you agree with him? Or is all of this connected?

Erin Barbato:

No. I think the — separating families, children from their parents, I don’t know how any human being can agree with that. It’s not a policy that our country should ever support. And so his inability to respond I think is a huge message about where he stands.

Zac Schultz:

But you also do immigration services in Wisconsin.

Erin Barbato:

Correct.

Zac Schultz:

It’s not just the border that has these kind of issues.

Erin Barbato:

No. Wisconsin, we have a lot of need, especially here in Dane County, where we don’t have a lot of pro bono services available for people in removal proceedings, especially people that are detained. They can’t afford to pay a private attorney to represent them because they’re unable to work while they’re in detention. So we’re working towards providing more services to individuals in Dane County and raising funding so that eventually we can have universal representation for every resident of Dane County placed in removal proceedings, especially children.

Zac Schultz:

Now, a lot of the attention has been driven to the border based on the separation policy. Was this planned before all that came to light?

Erin Barbato:

It was. So students have been going down since 2014, when the initial residential facilities were built. And we did go down at that point, too. So the students of the Immigrant Justice Clinic and the Latino/Latina Law Student Association at the UW Law School planned this trip prior to the families being separated. So they were interested in going down and using their services down there prior to this policy which has now ended. But families are still being detained.

Zac Schultz:

So what has the additional spotlight meant for this program in terms of attention and maybe dollars too?

Erin Barbato:

Well, as of now, we’re not sure. I mean people are really interested to learn with what’s going on with the students going down there to help at the border, but I think what it’s given is an opportunity for people to understand the crises that we have in Wisconsin, being that there are a lot of people here who are without representation. And the need of Dane County being one of — or Madison being voted one of the kindest cities in the country, I think we are all motivated to continue to build funding to provide these services to people in removal proceedings.

Zac Schultz:

Is there a danger of the partisan polarization making it more difficult to navigate just in terms of service to people as opposed to becoming a political issue?

Erin Barbato:

I think right now everyone is understanding that immigration is — people in immigration proceedings and everyone who’s an immigrant is facing fear and policies that are affecting their families, our neighbors, our co-workers. So right now it just seems like everybody wants to help in some way.

Zac Schultz:

All right. Erin Barbato, thank you for your time today.

Erin Barbato:

Thank you so much for having me.

Zac Schultz:

Now for a closer look at the Democratic primary race for governor and our continuing series of candidate interviews. Tonight with talk with Mike McCabe. McCabe was raised on a dairy farm in Rock County. He’s the founder and president of the political grassroots organization Blue Jean Nation and he’s the former executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. And Mike McCabe joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Mike McCabe:

Thanks for having me.

Zac Schultz:

And let the record reflect you are wearing blue jeans today.

Mike McCabe:

I am.

Zac Schultz:

So you are in the spirit. Why do you believe you’re the progressive choice for Wisconsin?

Mike McCabe:

Well, it’s partly because of my life’s work. I’ve spent almost my entire adult life as an independent watchdog working to expose and break the grip of big money influence in politics and exposing corruption in our government. And we’ve got a government right now that works incredibly well for a wealthy and well-connected and privileged few at the very top, but it’s ignoring the wishes and the needs and the interests and concerns of so many regular working people out there. As I travel the state, there are just a whole lot of forgotten people living in forgotten places all around Wisconsin. Some of them in the inner city, some of them way out in the country, like where I grew up. But we’ve got to have government that works for all us, and not just a few. And that’s been something that Ive dedicated my life to.

Zac Schultz:

Why are you better positioned to beat Scott Walker in the fall than the other democrats in this race?

Mike McCabe:

Latest poll says that Im running strongest among any of the candidate in the field. So if you believe polls, right there it says that Im the one who’s the most competitive head-to-head against the governor. But I think the real reason is that people are really hungry for a very different kind of leadership and a new kind of politics. And there’s a big field of establishment politicians, machine politicians, who’ve come up through that system. But what people are looking for is a clean break from that system because they see how it’s failed regular people. If regular folks are going to be in the driver’s seat of our government, we do need a very different kind of leadership. I think that’s what people are looking for and that’s what they’re seeing in me.

Zac Schultz:

You mentioned the poll, the Marquette poll. The head-to-heads, you are neck and neck with Governor Walker, but for the Democratic primary, you’re at 7%, which is behind Tony Evers but generally at the top of the rest.

Mike McCabe:

Yeah, rose to second place in that poll. There’s so many people undecided. So many people still getting to know the candidates. Ultimately the only poll that really matters is the one that’s held on August 14. Let the people decide.

Zac Schultz:

On health care, on your website, you say you want to make BadgerCare available for everyone in Wisconsin. How much would that cost?

Mike McCabe:

Actually, we need to do three things: we need to correct the mistake that was made when Wisconsin turned down the federal Medicaid expansion money. We should take that money. People have paid taxes out to Washington. We should bring that money back to Wisconsin. That makes more than 80,000 more people eligible for BadgerCare. We got to correct another mistake, when Wisconsin chose not to set up its own insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. We need to set up our insurance exchange but then we need to make BadgerCare a public option and put it on that exchange and let anybody choose it. We can do that actually by changing a single word in state law. If we change one word in state law, we can make BadgerCare a public option, put it on the insurance exchange, make that something that’s available for anybody to buy into regardless of income. So that’s not a matter of a huge additional state expense. It’s a matter of correcting some mistakes and changing state law to create that as an option for everybody.

Zac Schultz:

One of your position statements on your website connects legalizing the use of recreationally marijuana to paying for higher education. What’s the connect there for you?

Mike McCabe:

We’ve now got a state budget that spends more on prisons than on the entire university system. We are literally as a state spending more locking people up than we are on unlocking human potential. And a big driving force behind that is the fact that Wisconsin locks up so many nonviolent offenders. We’ve simply got to stop using prison as a punishment for nonviolent offenses. So yes, I’ve come out in favor of full legalization of marijuana. What that would do is get us to that goal of cutting our prison population in half. It’s a doable goal because look right across the border to the west. There’s Minnesota imprisoning half as many people as Wisconsin. Yet our two states have virtually identical crime rates. So imprisoning twice as many people hasn’t brought down crime in Wisconsin. It’s just doomed us to a budget that spends more on prisons than on the university system. We can turn that around. But it starts with using alternative approaches to sentencing with nonviolent offenses and investing in things like mental health and drug treatment services rather than locking people up and throwing away the key.

Zac Schultz:

I want to talk about your economic policy statement. It talks about a big shift in farming in Wisconsin, moving away from industrial agriculture and the CAFO, large scale dairy operations. Is that really feasible in this economy when those mid-size farmers are going away? They can’t afford to stay in the business.

Mike McCabe:

I grew up on a dairy farm. I come from that farming background. It was a small family dairy farm. We’ve lost over 10,000 family farms in Wisconsin in the last decade. And we’re still losing more than one a day. I just think our government should be on the side of incentivizing small-scale sustainable agriculture and helping to rescue those family farms so that they don’t all go away. Look, the way agriculture is evolving is not sustainable over the long haul for the land, for the air, for the water, for the animals, for the people of our state. We at least should have our government on the side of incentivizing a model of agriculture that’s sustainable. Coming from a family dairy farming background, having grown up working the land and milking cows with my family, I know that way of life really well and it’s a matter of having our government on the side of sustainable agriculture rather than subsidizing and encouraging the massive scale industrialization of agriculture.

Zac Schultz:

Mike McCabe, thank you for your time.

Mike McCabe:

Thanks for having me.

Zac Schultz:

Now to tonight’s edition of fast facts and Marisa Wojcik’s look at statements made on “Here and Now” by another candidate in the primary race for governor Matt Flynn.

Marisa Wojcik:

Ground has been broken on the $10 billion Foxconn manufacturing plant in the village of Mount Pleasant. But one democratic candidate for governor, Matt Flynn, says we can still put the brakes on Foxconn.

Matt Flynn:

I think it’s a crooked deal that I will stop with litigation. I was a lawyer for a long time practicing complex litigation with a lot of the same issues that it will take to stop the Foxconn deal.

Marisa Wojcik:

The Foxconn legislation was passed by both houses in 2017. Flynn says that Foxconn doesn’t have to play by the same rules as other manufacturers. Based on these special exemptions, he points to three areas he argues are unconstitutional. The first, Foxconn is exempt from completing an environmental impact statement in order to receive state permits. These statements are meant to prevent or eliminate damage to the environment as well as to consider alternatives. However, the results of these statements aren’t bound to any sort of regulation. The second exemption Flynn objects to is wetlands. Within Foxconns manufacturing zone, wetlands can be filled. However, for every one acre of wetlands adversely impacted, the Foxconn bill requires two acres of wetlands to be restored, which is above the state standard. The third is Foxconns unique ability to fast track any legal appeals to the state Supreme Court. And the high court must give preference to these cases. A review from the Wisconsin Legislative Council says it’s difficult to predict the constitutionality. Flynn has litigated complex commercial lawsuits. But in many respects Foxconn is uncharted territory. So even as ground has been broken for the Foxconn facility, it’s up for debate whether a lawsuit to stop the manufacturer from proceeding would be successful. For these and other fast facts, visit wpt.org.

Zac Schultz:

For some people, the calendar says it’s the middle of summer. But for our next guests we are exactly four months from the November election. We welcome back Capitol Consultants Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross of One Wisconsin Now. Thanks for being here.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:

Thanks for having us.

Zac Schultz:

Well sometime next week the president is expected to announce his choice to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in the U.S. Supreme Court. Scot, Merrick Garland isn’t on the list. Are all of these choices equally bad from your point of view?

Scot Ross:

Well from the short list that we’ve seen, these are people who have absolute hostility to rights that we hold dear. Whether it’s the right to choose. Whether it’s the right to not be discriminated against when you have pre-existing conditions. Whether it’s the right to go out and cast your ballot and have that counted. All across the board, these candidates have a hostility to that. I think that’s going to motivate democrats even more to make sure they get to the polls in November. And I think it’s one thing that Scott Walker’s not going to be able to avoid having a conversation about because he’s obscured on those things in the past. He’s not going to be able to hide from them this election.

Zac Schultz:

Are there differences that you see between the options out there?

Bill McCoshen:

Yeah, first of all, let’s talk about the list. I mean talk about transparency. This list was public two months before he was elected president of the United States. He put it out there for everyone. He’s added some names to it since then. Was originally 20 names, now it’s 25. But those names have been public for years now. So people have had the opportunity to look at them, to look at the cases that they presided over during that period of time. That’s unprecedented in political history. So kudos to the president for being transparent about this. Secondly, I think regardless of who he picks on Monday night, that person is going to get confirmed by the United States Senate. Now, it might not be till October, but I think at a minimum it will gin up the Republican base so to the extent there was an enthusiasm gap heading into this election, that’ll be gone.

Zac Schultz:

Now there seems like there’s been an internal debate among conservatives about whether to talk about overturning Roe v. Wade. Is that the center of the debate? Do you think that should that a part of the conversation?

Bill McCoshen:

I think that’s what liberals want it to be about. I don’t think that’s what it’ll ultimately be about. I mean ultimately on the list of potential nominees, Amy Coney Barrett, Kethledge, Kavanaugh, all three of those have been on this list for some time now, with the exception of Barrett. She’s the youngest. She’s a catholic. She’s 46 years old. All of them are within a few years of one another. I think the oldest of the three is 52 years old. So they’re going to be on the court for a couple generations, 25, 30 years. I don’t think Roe is going to be the deciding factor. I’m not sure that this court is going to take that up anytime soon. However, I think there are some possibilities that they could limit types of abortion, like the Iowa case, three-day waiting period. I could see the next Supreme Court getting that case and potentially siding with the state of Iowa.

Zac Schultz:

In 2016 republicans rallied around Trump under the idea of the Supreme Court. Does that work for democrats? Because they didn’t seem to be inspired by defending President Obamas choice.

Scot Ross:

I think the right has made it a cottage industry to invest money and resources into winning the third branch of government with the same tenacity that they try and win the other two branches. Without a doubt, democrats and progressives are woefully over-matched in terms of money and funding. But when you talk about these fundamental rights of the right to choose, because listen, to get on that list which was created by the Federalist Society for Donald Trump, to get on that list you had to say, “I want to end Roe versus Wade.” Donald Trump said, “I want to end Roe versus Wade” during the campaign and said he wanted to punish women and doctors who are, enact– participate in abortions for god’s sakes. I mean, we’re talking about putting women in jail. I think that it’s a real wake-up call to the left. I think it’s a wake-up call to independents and I think it is going to be devastating, this conversation, to the republicans because it’s only going to grow enthusiasm on the democratic side.

Bill McCoshen:

We can’t know for sure. A judge can’t answer that question. Whether they’re running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court during that committee hearing, they can’t answer how they would vote on X or Y. But you can some assume things based on previous cases. I think those jurists that are on the short list are generally pro-life but again, I don’t think this is ultimately going to be about overturning Roe down the road.

Zac Schultz:

The president was in Wisconsin last week for Foxconn groundbreaking. While there he criticized Harley-Davidson yet again. Governor Walker had nothing to say. Is he just in a politically impossible situation when he’s got the president in his backyard and he’s bashing the motorcycle company that Governor Walker rides?

Bill McCoshen:

Well here’s where the governor and the president agree. They both agree that tariffs are bad, period, full stop. Whether it’s us imposing tariffs on other countries or other countries imposing tariffs on us. For example, in the dairy industry, they have a 270% tariff on our dairy products. Well that’s ridiculous. That’s not fair trade. That’s not free trade. What the president’s trying to do is create a situation where we have free and fair trade globally, not just between one or two countries and that some countries are taking advantage. Now, I will say this. The methods are bumpy. I mean there’s going to be some pain, both in the dairy industry, in the steel industry, you know. This isn’t going to be easy and the other countries appear to be fighting back. But I think long-term his goal is the right one, which is free and fair trade. And that’s where Walker is too. So I think he’s on safe ground. And by the way, the workers at Harley-Davidson are with Trump on this.

Zac Schultz:

What about Governor Walker’s response? What should he be saying?

Scot Ross:

I think there’s a real problem for Governor Walker on this because again, he has to thread the needle because he cannot afford to lose a single Trump voter. And he can’t have Donald Trump come out and criticize him. That’s for sure. And that’s why Scott Walker sat there completely feckless and refused to do things like one: he refused to criticize the president for having baby jails. He refused to criticize Donald Trump for attacking Harley-Davidson. And he refused to criticize Donald Trump for attacking our brewers, our agriculture and our manufacturers. And it’s not so much that Scott Walker won’t stand up to Donald Trump. It’s that Scott Walker won’t stand up for Wisconsinites. That’s the real problem he has because I think in poll after poll I’ve ever seen, the one thing that Scott Walker has going for him is that his base thinks that he is a strong leader. When he looks weak, that’s a problem.

Zac Schultz:

Is Governor Walker at risk of losing some moderate republicans who say, “Hey, why don’t you at least defend Harley-Davidson?”

Bill McCoshen:

Well again the workers with Harley are with Trump on this. They think that the company is making a mistake. The CEO of Harley-Davidson has chosen, consciously chosen, not to criticize the president. So there was a business decision made here. The truth is their U.S. market is declining. Their European market is increasing. That is the primary reason why they’re putting some of these jobs offshore. Long-term, I wish they wouldn’t do it. And that’s where the president’s at and I believe that’s where the governor’s at.

Zac Schultz:

Now despite all that, the latest Marquette poll shows Governor Walker with a lead over every possible democratic candidate. He’s spending millions on positive I.D. ads for himself right now. Do democrats have a chance after the August election or is that too late for them to actually get some name I.D.?

Scot Ross:

Well I’ll take the first part first which is the Marquette poll. The Marquette poll sample said that his prediction for the electorate in 2018 is the exact same electorate as 2014, a plus three republican. Yes, Scott Walker’s numbers are going to go up if you include more republicans in the poll. Simple as that. Second thing is in 2002 I worked on a gubernatorial primary. There was a very robust gubernatorial primary back there. And democrats actually had an extra– had one month less after that primary because the primary used to be held in the middle of September. And they won and ousted an incumbent governor. Scott Walker’s poll numbers, when it comes to what real working families are looking, are in the tank. Scott Walker’s got really problems. He’s been in office for 25 years. He’s only 50 years old. And I think that that’s a real problem for him.

Bill McCoshen:

If I had to predict, Tony Evers is going to win the democratic primary. There’s only 39 days left in that democratic primary. There’s still eight candidates. He’s got a large lead. He’s got 25% in the Marquette poll. The next closest is at 7%. There’s no real way for any of those others to sort of jump ahead of him. There’s only 34% undecided at this point in time. But having said that, if Im right and Evers wins the nomination on August 15, how does he run against Walker? I mean this is the greatest economy Wisconsin’s had since Tommy Thompson was governor for sure and one of the greatest ever. So I think whether it’s investments in K-12 education or it’s backfilling on Obamacare where the Obama Administration came short, Walker handled that with the stability fund. I mean, a variety, thing after thing. Voters vote their pocketbook first, Zac. And Walker’s in strong standing.

Zac Schultz:

All right, ten seconds for each of you. Do we see more democrats drop out before the primary?

Scot Ross:

I’m not going to predict that. I don’t know.

Bill McCoshen:

They should, but they won’t.

Zac Schultz:

All right. Thank you gentlemen. Have a good weekend.

Scot Ross, Bill McCoshen:

Thanks for having us.

Zac Schultz:

Turning to the courts, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a suspended Marquette professor. The court’s conservative majority ruled Marquette University violated Professor John McAdams academic freedom when it suspended him in 2014. McAdams was suspended for linking a grad student’s personal information in a blog post critical of their actions. The grad student received threatening emails after the post was published. Justice Daniel Kelly wrote in his opinion, “Suspending Dr. McAdams for publishing the blog post would, of course, impair his full and free enjoyment of academic freedoms.” McAdams will be fully reinstated with back pay as per the court’s order. Finally tonight, a look ahead to next week when we’ll introduce you to Governor Scott Walker’s primary election opponent, Republican Robert Meyer. Our interviews with the large field of democrats running in the primary for governor continues throughout the month of July. Then, on Friday, August 3, we’ll have a one-hour “Here and Now” gubernatorial primary election special. We’ll compare and contrast the candidates on the issues and give you up-to-the-minute news on and off the campaign trail. I’m Zac Schultz. Frederica Freyberg returns next Friday. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

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

For more information on “Here and Now’s” 2018 election coverage, go to WisconsinVote.org.