Here & Now

Here & Now for June 11, 2021

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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

It’s official. Governor Tony Evers tells Democratic Party members at the state convention that he will run for reelection in 2022. Republicans in the state Legislature turn away enhanced federal unemployment relief as things get hotter under the Capitol dome. And the heat, with no rain in sight, edges Wisconsin into drought conditions.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” state party leadership is here to kick off the 2022 — that’s right, the 2022 election season. Zac Schultz recaps a busy week at the state Capitol. And a UW agronomist looks for signs of drought conditions in a state that gets drier by the day. It’s “Here & Now” for June 11.

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

Tony Evers:

There’s a veto pen to protect and we’ve got bags to pack for Ron Johnson. So, holy mackerel, we’re going to need your help to get it done again in 2022.

Frederica Freyberg:

Governor Tony Evers’ message to Democrats as he announced his reelection bid. It’s true, as Republicans work to block his agenda and authority, the Democratic governor blocked their legislative agenda by veto. As to the Democrats’ plan to send Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson packing, they’ve certainly got a lot of candidates with that in mind, including these who have announced their bid for U.S. Senate: State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, State Senator Chris Larson, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, Wausau physician Gillian Battino. Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes is also said to be considering entering the race. Johnson himself has not announced he is running for reelection, but he is a high-profile target of the left. To talk more about the 2022 campaign, we turn to party leaders. First we go to Milwaukee to speak with the vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Felesia Martin. And thanks very much for being here.

Felesia Martin:

Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

So is Tony Evers ready for the fight given the number of Republicans lining up to run against him?

Felesia Martin:

Absolutely. Governor Evers is ready and has demonstrated that he is proven to be a good administrator for the state of Wisconsin. So, yes, he’s ready for the fight.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what are his and the party’s priorities, though they be blocked at most every turn by the GOP?

Felesia Martin:

What we plan to do is what our strategy has always been, is to amplify the message of Governor Evers and what he has accomplished considering we have considerable opposition in the state Legislature. So, what we will do is continue to connect with voters, help them to understand what is happening here on the ground and what is actually happening in our legislative branch. Who’s actually governing for them? Who’s at their back? And the answer all along has been Governor Evers.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, Republicans say that Tony Evers, “has nothing to run on except a record of abysmal failure and absent leadership,” citing his response to the pandemic, among other things. What is your response to that criticism?

Felesia Martin:

We like to take that question. He has the best record in the nation of rolling out the vaccine across Wisconsin. We’ve come in at the top of making sure we get that vaccine into arms. So he’s in a good place to run on that. We have a strong DPI superintendent coming in. He has delivered on all of his promises, in which to fight on behalf of Wisconsinites across the board, across the board. And one thing we will hone in is that message of who is actually standing with the people and governing for the people. And we will roll out his record, and we’ll stand on that record against any Republican.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think the voters think about kind of the partisan blockade between Republicans and the governor? Is this resonant with voters or where do you think they’ll turn because of this partisan so-called blockade?

Felesia Martin:

Partisan politics has brought us all, as it appears, to a standstill. Be it here in the state of Wisconsin or across our country. And voters are really tired of it. They really want those who govern for them to understand we feel stuck, those of us in the middle, between the right and the left. Who is actually governing for the people and have our best interest at heart? So our message must connect on those issues that families, regardless if they’re on the right or the left, what are we looking to do? Who’s fighting for clean air, clean water? Who is fighting and pushing back against this pandemic and making certain that we are following public health guidelines and that we are having vaccines into arms to save our people and so that we can open up our economy back, which it is open now, and we have to continue to follow those public health guidelines. Who’s being responsible? Who’s being responsive to the governing bodies? Who’s being responsive to the most important in the equation, which are the Wisconsinites. And if we give a strong message and stay on task and say we’re the ones who rolled out unemployment, $300 for unemployment, for all of our workers. We’re the ones who encouraged the stimulus bills. We’re the ones who are delivering the American Rescue Plan that President Biden has rolled out and Governor Evers has done a tremendous job in helping to facilitate rolling that out across Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for sending Senator Ron Johnson packing, how big of a priority is this for the party?

Felesia Martin:

Our first priority is to reelect Governor Evers so that he can continue on a progressive trajectory for Wisconsin and put us — and continue to keep us on track for bouncing back. Secondly, sending Ron Johnson packing? That is a key priority. And let me tell you, folks on the ground are ready to do it.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us, Felesia Martin. Thank you.

Felesia Martin:

Thank you. Have a good day.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to the Republican Party and how 2022 is shaping up for GOP candidates. There’s only one Republican candidate so far who has announced his intention to run for governor. Jonathan Wichman is a small business owner. Others who have expressed interest in running include Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, State Senator Chris Kapenga, 2018 U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson, former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow and former GOP staffer and lobbyist Bill McCoshen. Now McCoshen is also a “Here & Now” political panelist. He’s currently on hiatus from the series. Andrew Hitt is the chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin and he joins us from Appleton. So that’s quite a slate of candidates, Andrew. But what is your response to Tony Evers running for reelection?

Andrew Hitt:

Well, you know, I don’t think it’s really a big surprise that Governor Evers would run for reelection, entering — trying to enter into a second term. My reaction, though, is what is Governor Evers going to run on? He really has no record of accomplishment over the last two years. We’ve seen mismanagement and incompetence from the governor. I think the one thing that he’s really good at is blaming Republican legislators. So it’s going to be interesting to see as they develop a reelection messaging strategy, because I’m not sure really what he’s going to run on.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, he has been at the helm obviously through the pandemic and very protective of public health. In your mind, too protective?

Andrew Hitt:

Well, I think, you know, if we go back to the beginning of the pandemic, and just the unevenness, where you could go to Walmart and buy furniture, but you couldn’t go to your local furniture store on Main Street. People saw a lot of inconsistencies across our state and across the spectrum in terms of the rules and lockdowns. I think people were very frustrated by that. People saw a willingness to exceed the legal abilities, the legal restrictions and the powers of the governor. I think they’re also frustrated by that. But I think, most importantly, he was the former DPI superintendent and he didn’t get our schools open. He couldn’t get our schools open. And he had all the resources in the world with the stimulus dollars in order to try to accomplish that and he really didn’t even try. And we saw across the state there were some schools that opened and did so effectively. They did so safely and showed that it could be done, but he couldn’t muster that. He couldn’t marshall that on a statewide basis.

Frederica Freyberg:

He keeps trying to expand Medicaid and Republicans keep blocking it. Why is that move resonant with voters when polling shows that Wisconsin supports expanding Medicaid?

Andrew Hitt:

So I think, you know, Medicaid, if we go back to the reforms that Governor Walker put in, we are one of, at that time the only state in the country that did not have a coverage gap. There was coverage for those people that needed Medicaid below 100% of the poverty line. Anybody over 100% of the poverty line had access to health care through the exchange. Republicans are very concerned that the money being offered by the federal government is going to disappear at some point and then the maintenance and effort requirements that are out there are going to sack the state of Wisconsin with a hefty, hefty bill. There are — there is no coverage gap in Wisconsin. There are certainly more things we can do to improve health care, and we should do that, but expanding Medicaid doesn’t have to be one of them.

Frederica Freyberg:

But this sounds like another example of the GOP kind of turning away federal dollars, big federal dollars, coming into Wisconsin.

Andrew Hitt:

Well, the concern with the federal dollars coming in, a couple of things. One, those aren’t just magical dollars that are coming in from nowhere. Those are taxpayer dollars. And under the Biden administration, we have seen an unprecedented increase and proposed increase in federal spending and expansion of the federal government. We as Republicans don’t agree with that. We’re also concerned about the strings that come attached with those federal dollars. The fact that those federal dollars will go away at some point, leaving the states with trying to figure out how to grapple with this. We need a Wisconsin solution, not one from the federal government.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to turn to electoral politics and ask you what has Senator Ron Johnson told you about whether or not he will in fact announce that he is running again?

Andrew Hitt:

So as I’ve said many times before, Senator Johnson is not going to make a decision anytime soon. I don’t expect a decision, to be honest with you, this year. I think we will see Senator Johnson’s final decision sometime in early 2022. He is going to do things and has done things already as though he has decided to run for reelection, like laying infrastructure, like connecting with the grassroots all over the state of Wisconsin and traveling and, importantly, raising money. He’s going to continue to do that, but his final decision will come early next year.

Frederica Freyberg:

Ok, good to know. Andrew Hitt, thanks very much.

Andrew Hitt:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

For some political analysis as well as how the fraught state budget is shaping up, let’s talk with Senior Political Reporter Zac Schultz. Hi Zac.

Zac Schultz:

Hello Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what stands out on the timing of the Tony Evers’ announcement on running for reelection?

Zac Schultz:

Well, historically it’s a little bit ahead of schedule. When you look at incumbent governors, so we have to go back to Scott Walker, Jim Doyle or Tommy Thompson, traditionally they like to wait until after that last budget is signed before they transition into the campaign, just to separate the last piece of big state policy from the next election and also there used to be a sense of impropriety around fund-raising while the budget was going on. Evers moving this up either sends a message about he may not think the budget is going to be signed anytime soon, but also the idea of starting to get that fund-raising going right now.

Frederica Freyberg:

So on the U.S. Senate race what happens to the field of Republicans lining up to run against Evers for governor if Ron Johnson doesn’t run for Senate?

Zac Schultz:

Well, you’ll definitely see a much larger field in the U.S. Senate race, one would think, just on its face. The idea of running for an open seat is a lot easier than running against Tony Evers, who would be a popular incumbent seeking reelection. And there’s a lot of the people, the names we’ve seen out there, seem to have more experience already in Washington or with military background or foreign policy experience. And that all fills into the lane of a U.S. Senator as opposed to a governor.

Frederica Freyberg:

So turning to legislative state business, the big deal right now, I don’t have to tell you, is the two-year state budget and this newly projected big revenue surplus, $4.4 billion more than expected. But there are different ideas about what to do with that cash. Let’s take a listen.

Robin Vos:

And a vast majority, if not all of the money should really go toward paying down people’s taxes so that we reduce income taxes.

Gordon Hintz:

A tax cut, these guys are too focused on 2022 and not focused enough on actually improving people’s lives in our state.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what do Dems want to do with it?

Zac Schultz:

I think they’d love to see Governor Evers’ budget request fully funded. That would be their main priority. The Republicans on Joint Finance have trimmed down a lot of spending requests, the main one being education funding. They’ve shorted that by such a large amount that there is a genuine risk that some of the schools don’t capture some of that federal COVID dollars that are supposed to be coming in. Republicans say don’t worry, it will all get worked out in the end, but definitely that traditional debate over tax relief versus putting money into education or other places.

Frederica Freyberg:

So is handing out tax cuts something that people like to do during an election campaign?

Zac Schultz:

Oh, absolutely. It’s a politician’s favorite thing, is to give a big tax break right before they go back to ask them to reelect them. Scott Walker sought to do that in his last big budget. Remember there were those attempts at sending special checks home. I think Tommy Thompson did it way back when. It’s definitely a popular thing to give rebates or tax cuts and trump up I’m saving you money. That’s not a new thing by any stretch. Traditionally Republicans always want to lower taxes. That’s part of their core mission.

Frederica Freyberg:

So back to Vos and Hintz. The sides fight regardless of whether the state is in a big deficit or a big surplus.

Zac Schultz:

Yeah. That’s just the nature of where politics is right now. Not only are there diametrical — philosophical differences between where the two parties are but next election is always around the corner and the concept of winning is so important to both sides, more specifically not letting the other side win, that both sides are determined to make it seem like their priorities are what’s good for the state and the other side’s priorities are only self-interests.

Frederica Freyberg:

So legislative bills making their way through right now, so many are expected to be vetoed, like particular voting restrictions or ending enhanced unemployment to not enforcing federal gun restrictions. But what is the point of not even trying here to reach consensus?

Zac Schultz:

Well, the idea that if they can’t reach a consensus, they’re at least going to speak to their voters, their core constituencies, their donors. Republicans have the ability to pass these bills to send a message to say this is what we would do if we had complete control. Democrats don’t really have that ability to pass their own bills, but they could have Governor Evers come in and order a special session on Medicaid expansion and say these are what we would do if we had complete control. So a lot of signaling voters and donors.

Frederica Freyberg:

Zac Schultz, we leave it there. There’s a lot more fun to come with all of this stuff. Thanks very much.

Zac Schultz:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to our dry, hot weather. Below normal rain levels in the spring are unchanged heading into the summer, leaving water levels lower than usual and front yards scorching. The U.S. Drought Monitor issued severe drought conditions in southeastern Wisconsin. Moderate drought conditions we’re called across southwest and central parts of the state with abnormally dry conditions in the rest of Wisconsin. UW-Madison Climate Researcher and Agronomy Department Chair Christopher Kucharik is on top of these developments and he joins us now from Madison and, professor, thanks very much for doing so.

Christopher Kucharik:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what kind of precipitation deficit have we experience since spring and what would it take to make it up?

Christopher Kucharik:

We’ve been running about half of what we normally would get and that’s just sort of a general statement. That’s about two to maybe four or five inches across the southern part of the state. And that’s equal to about a month to maybe a month and a half, depending on where you are of the normal precip we would get during the summertime and the spring. You know, it could be made up quickly depending on if you’re under a heavy thunderstorm. But it can take a lot to make up that kind of a deficit quickly.

Frederica Freyberg:

Absolutely and you don’t necessarily want those giant deluges, either. Now the northern part of the state is not as dry, but the whole state, as you’ve reported, had been below normal for much of the last year. Significantly so across the state?

Christopher Kucharik:

More so in the southern half of the state. The north has been spared a little bit and they did get some more precipitation yesterday, which is helping. But the whole state has been sort of behind average, particularly the last six months, even going back to fall of last year, which is a pretty big change compared to what we’ve been experiencing the last decade across the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what does this drought condition look like for crops in the southern part of the state as we speak?

Christopher Kucharik:

Yeah. So, you know, it’s not too bad yet. A majority of our crops are rated in the fair to good range. And this drought is happening a bit earlier than normally we would experience. Typically it would be July and August when we start to see the much hotter and dryer conditions. But we’re doing okay and there’s a lot of the growing season left to make up some of that deficit. So the next four to six weeks will be pretty important for crop development.

Frederica Freyberg:

How does this year look compared to the drought of 2012 which we all remember?

Christopher Kucharik:

Sure. Yeah. Good question. So we are starting earlier this year with the drought conditions. We’re about a month ahead of where we were in 2012. And that really is because of the lack of springtime precip that we had. In 2012 across most of the state, we had about double the amount of springtime rainfall than we’ve had in 2021. So we’re going into the season with a lot less stored in the soil. So right now plants are growing. They’re just emerging and developing and they’re trying to put roots deeper to find water and they’re unlikely to find very much right now, which is probably the biggest difference between those two years.

Frederica Freyberg:

So in between then and now, we’ve also seen years as we’ve kind of described with heavy precipitation, described as kind of weather whiplash. Are we then experiencing the effects of climate change with these extremes?

Christopher Kucharik:

Yeah. This is something we worry quite a bit about moving into the future, is the variability moving, you know, very rapidly from one extreme to the next. And farming is already challenging enough, you know, if you talk to any farmer. They’re always waiting for the next rain or the next dry day to be able to do something. Unfortunately, this is a trend that we anticipate will continue to happen, where we go from really wet to really dry conditions. And it doesn’t have to be from year to year. It can be within a season itself.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yeah. All right. Well, we look for rain. Christopher Kucharik, thanks very much and thanks for joining us on this.

Christopher Kucharik:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Turning to police reform, Milwaukee Police Department policies and protocols show progress in line with national reforms efforts according to a recent analysis published by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. However, there are opportunities to do more. In this week’s “Noon Wednesday,” Marisa Wojcik spoke with the forum’s president, Rob Henken.

Marisa Wojcik:

Your report had six main areas of focus: reimagining public safety, use of force, data collection, accountability, training and demilitarization. So where does Milwaukee’s progress stand?

Rob Henken:

I think one of the real interesting, from a policy wonk perspective, part of this whole conversation is under this category of reimagining police or reimagining public safety. And, you know, there’s a range of reimagining reform efforts going on. One is effort to defund police, which is obviously very contentious. But a lot of this speaks to how do you use law enforcement and which types of 911 calls and other incidents do you want law enforcement to be the responder versus trained clinicians in behavioral health, versus emergency medical services, versus just civilians when it’s a traffic incident. And so there’s a lot of area there that really we’ve just started to think about in Milwaukee. So I think that’s one where potentially more progress can be made.

Marisa Wojcik:

Of the cities that you did compare Milwaukee to, how did Milwaukee stack up? What stood out to you?

Rob Henken:

We found that I believe each of the cities that we looked at had some substantial civilian participation in terms of the committees or groups of individuals that were charged with reviewing certain incidents, critical incidents, whereas in the city of Milwaukee for MPD there are internal committees consisting of MPD personnel, but there is not civilian participation on those committees. And so we brought this to the Milwaukee Police Department’s attention and I think they are now seriously looking at how to try to provide for some civilian involvement to ensure that these critical incidents are reviewed not only by members of the department itself, but also external members.

Marisa Wojcik:

Is there accountability in terms of accurate reporting? And if a police officer does have misconduct, that another officer or another area of the department can step in and not receive any sort of retaliation?

Rob Henken:

In terms of this question about whistleblowing and, you know, the extent to which we’re finding, you know, that fellow officers — that the blue wall does or doesn’t exist when it comes to Milwaukee Police Department and our officers who are seeing things that shouldn’t be happening to the extent that they are reporting those, are there proper channels. You know, my humble opinion is that that’s I think one of the top two or three areas of increased focus in the wake of the George Floyd incident that is now receiving the most attention and the attention that it does deserve.

Frederica Freyberg:

Marisa’s full interview with Rob Henken can be viewed by going to PBSwisconsin.org and clicking on the news page. That is our program for tonight. Next week, Governor Tony Evers will be here to discuss his decision to run for reelection. 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.