Here & Now

Here & Now for June 22, 2018

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Im Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a first look at latest poll numbers for upcoming primary elections. After that, capital insight on the high court redistricting remand. A closer look at democratic candidate Matt Flynn, and an election season fact check, Wisconsin versus Minnesota. It’s “Here and Now” for June 22.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

A first look tonight at the latest statewide poll on primary candidates and issues of import. The long list of democrats running for governor haven’t picked up much traction by way of name recognition and the primary is less than two months away. This week, two of the dems dropped out of the race, Milwaukee businessman Andy Gronik and Eau Claire State Representative Dana Wachs. Director of the Marquette Law School Poll Charles Franklin joins us now with more. Thanks very much for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so given what you know about polling and campaigns, would you expect more to drop out quickly?

Charles Franklin:

Well, I think the problem is with such a large democratic field, it’s been hard for people to get traction. Tony Evers has an advantage having been elected statewide three times already. So it’s been very hard for the rest of the pack to break out. We didn’t see anybody break out in the wake of the Democratic Party Convention in June, for example. And so I think those low numbers are an example of so many people spreading the support around.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so Tony Evers breaks out more than others as you say, but still, he’s not known by 61% of the respondents.

Charles Franklin:

And that’s the best known of the candidates, including the republican candidates for senate. I think Evers had an advantage in the teens in our March poll, now it’s up in the 20s, but there’s still 34% that say they’re undecided about who they’d support in the democratic primary. So that shows the fluidity that’s possible but also shows Evers has a really substantial advantage at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:

Lets go ahead and take a look at those screens because you’ve just been talking about the numbers here. They’re single digits except for Tony Evers and the same holds true only lower for the other candidates. How unusual is the size of this field?

Charles Franklin:

The field is exceptionally large. In Wisconsin politics, it may be a historic high. Nationally we saw a very large field in the republican primary in 2015 and ’16, so that was sort of a preview of what we’re seeing now. But the real problem with such a big field is divided resources, divided support, and then what does it take for someone to get traction and move up? It’s possible in big fields for someone to break out and supporters to suddenly coalesce around them, but we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.

Frederica Freyberg:

Lets take a look at the senate primary. In that race, your polling shows that Nicholson sees 37% to Vukmir’s 32%, with 30% of the respondents saying they don’t know. Why no big bump here for Leah Vukmir after the Republican Convention?

Charles Franklin:

Thats really interesting because she got the endorsement solidly, 72% or 3%, I think, at the convention. We might have expected a boost for her, but her name recognition is better than it was in March, but so is Nicholson and hers didn’t bounce up a lot more. Same thing on the democratic side, Kelda Roys got the, won the straw poll at the Democratic Convention yet she’s still at 2% in our latest poll.

Frederica Freyberg:

Taking a look at the possible senate matchups, your poll found Baldwin receives 50% to 39% for Nicholson, 7% undecided, 4% saying they would vote for neither. And then matched against Vukmir, Baldwin receives 49% to 40% for Vukmir. Are these strong numbers for Tammy Baldwin?

Charles Franklin:

These are pretty good numbers for her. 50% is sort of a magic number, 49 is still 49, but the margin of 9 or 11 points is not small. That’s a pretty good margin. It is still July, or June, rather, and we still don’t have name recognition for Nicholson or Vukmir. Both of them are up in the high 60s, low 70s of non-recognition. So you know, I caution that we’re a ways away from the primary and we’re certainly ways away from the general.

Frederica Freyberg:

I makes me wonder, is all of this kind of non-name recognition anything to do with how national headlines might be stealing the show?

Charles Franklin:

I think there is certainly a competition that if you’re following politics closely, you’re overwhelmed by national news, and the latest things from the Trump White House, for example. If you’re a more casual viewer, then you turn on the TV and those things tend to crowd out any local information about your candidates. And none of the campaigns as campaigns have really gone up on the air with a massive ad campaign. We’ve seen some outside groups advertising and the campaigns are beginning to put some ads up, but we’re still not at the point where that would infuse the air with messaging.

Frederica Freyberg:

Its coming. So with about a minute left, I just wanted to ask you about matchups in the race for governor. Scott Walker’s support range from 44 to 49% but dem candidates support, you found range from 36 to 44%. Isn’t Walker basically running pretty close to these unknown candidates?

Charles Franklin:

He is, and that reflects how strongly divided the state remains about Scott Walker with a substantial percentage favoring him and supporting but a substantial percentage not. I think the takeaway here is that he leads by, let’s call it 4 percentage points across several of the candidates. Does a little better, there’s a 2-point margin with Mike McCabe, a 4-point with Tony Evers and couple of other democrats. But the bottom line here is, Walker versus a democrat is roughly a 4-point margin right now. And as the democrat ends up getting the nomination, we might see that tighten more.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Charles Franklin, thank you very much.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

The highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Wisconsin lawsuit over gerrymandering came out this week and was underwhelming. In tonight’s capital insight, how the court’s opinion sending Gill v. Whitford back down to a lower court had experts calling it a punt. Wisconsin Public Radio’s Capital Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson is here. Thanks for being here.

Shawn Johnson:

Hey Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

It may have been a punt. They didn’t dismiss this thing outright, leaving plaintiffs in the case saying that they feel like they can make it anew.

Bill Whitford:

The more I digested it, the more I realized that the path forward, it’ll take time, but the hurdles they’ve put up are not difficult for us to meet. It’ll happen.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the hurdles as Bill Whitford calls them include going back and finding more plaintiffs in more districts to prove their case.

Shawn Johnson:

Yeah, but the bottom line is, I guess, going into this case, a lot of people viewed the Wisconsin case as a chance for the court to answer a question that has been grappled with for decades, can there be a point at which the drawing of district lines gets so bipartisan that a violates people’s constitutional rights. The court didn’t say yes or no with Wisconsins case, but it did keep the case alive.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion stating that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, while expressing no view on the merits. He said, “It is a case about group political interests, not individual legal rights, but this court is not responsible for vindicating generalized partisan preferences. The court’s constitutionally prescribed role is to vindicate the individual rights of the people appearing before it.”

Shawn Johnson:

And the court’s unanimous remands to the lower court over standing is what had Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel state this, “I am pleased that the highest court in the land has unanimously reversed the trial court’s erroneous decision in validating Wisconsins Assembly map. Today is a win for the rule of law in Wisconsin and a testament to the talented attorneys at the Wisconsin Department of Justice.”

Frederica Freyberg:

Not so fast, though, because even in her concurrence, Justice Kagan offered a road map for plaintiffs in a new case. So it’s not necessarily over here. And her road map, as I understand it, included finding more plaintiffs or vigorously arguing an infringement of First Amendment Rights of Association. So those rights held by parties or political organizations and their members.

Shawn Johnson:

And she goes on to cite Justice Anthony Kennedy extensively in her concurrence that he is the swing vote in this case, and his opinion was widely viewed to be critical to the outcome in the Wisconsin case, and he was silent on this one.

Bill Whitford:

We didn’t get a commitment from Kennedy. And he dodged making a commitment. And the whole case was really about getting Kennedys vote and that’s still out there.

Frederica Freyberg:

And on this point, experts who’ve watched Wisconsins case, watched cases like this around the country, and watched Justice Kennedy, agreed, here is University of California-Irvine Election Law Professor Rick Hasen.

Rick Hasen:

I think what we can read is that after a decade and a half, Justice Kennedy still cannot make up his mind about what to do about partisan gerrymandering. In both the Wisconsin case and the Maryland case, the court punted, put the issue off for another day, didn’t decide really anything big on the merits, and decided to boot these cases on a technicality.

Frederica Freyberg:

So interestingly, he says Justice Kennedy still hasn’t made up his mind but it’s not as though there hasn’t been a lot of time to do that.

Shawn Johnson:

He has been well briefed, right? This has been an issue that– Kennedy wrote something in 2004 that made everybody think at some point, we’re going to revisit this and we’re going to bring a case that maybe Kennedy will like. We’ll bring a metric that maybe Kennedy will latch on to. Maybe Wisconsin has that. So not hearing from Justice Kennedy in this case is big. I mean that was arguably the biggest thing to happen in this case, is that we didn’t find out what he thinks about all this.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile Plaintiff Whitford says maybe Wisconsin won’t even be the vehicle for the case that decides all of this.

Shawn Johnson:

Thats one school of thought. There’s another redistricting case out of North Carolina, as of right now, the court hasn’t said whether it will hear. So maybe North Carolina is the case that decides all this. Hasen said, no, I think Wisconsin is going to be the case. That the Wisconsin case is going to end up back before the U.S. Supreme Court and they’re going to have to decide this thing one way or another.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet the timeline here is pretty critical. We’ve come down to kind of the crunch time of 2020 elections.

Shawn Johnson:

It’s not going to happen in time for 2018 obviously, but whoever gets elected in 2020, the legislature that gets elected then, will be the legislature that draws the next redistrict maps that are in place in Wisconsin for the next decade, so the 2020 election is critical.

Frederica Freyberg:

Everybody is going to be watching all over again.

Shawn Johnson:

Watch that court again, that’s right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Shawn Johnson, thanks very much.

Shawn Johnson:

Youre welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

As the Trump Administration’s policy of so called zero-tolerance separated children from parents coming over the border into the U.S. caused nationwide upset this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker sent two dozen National Guard troops to Arizona on Monday to help secure the border. Wisconsin’s troops will assist the Arizona National Guard and U.S. Custom and Border Patrol. Images of immigrant children in federal custody dominated the news cycle and by mid-week, President Trump signed an executive order ending family separations. We know of one father and son that were on their way to Milwaukee when they were detained at the border and separated. Meanwhile, immigrant advocates Voces de La Frontera says they have been devastated since the zero-tolerance policy was instituted.

Mario Garcia Sierra:

So the separation of families at the border, it impacts the families here because on one, we are seeing that separation of families here already, but also increases the fear in people’s lives.

Frederica Freyberg:

In the midst of the immigration uproar, President Trump held a rally in Duluth mid-week. Wisconsin Public Radio’s Superior Bureau Reporter Danielle Kaeding was there. She joins us now with that and an update on flood recovery in the northwest part of the state. Danielle, thanks a lot for being here.

Danielle Kaeding:

No problem, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

So even as President Trump signed an order ending the separation of parents and children just before traveling to Duluth, he maintained his zero-tolerance policy at this rally?

Danielle Kaeding:

Yes, he touched just briefly on the actual order itself and the signing of it, saying that they were going to keep families together at the border but they were going to be as tough as they’ve ever been on immigration. And then he really talked to his supporters in terms of repeating over and over again that they were going to build the wall. That they already had resources put towards that, and that they were going to continue do that. Drawing chants from the crowd, “Build that wall, build that wall.” So he was definitely saying they were going to do more, not less, to control immigration.

Frederica Freyberg:

What else stood out at that rally?

Danielle Kaeding:

The number of people. I mean there were more than 8,000 people in the AMSOIL Arena. It was a packed house. People came from all over Minnesota and Wisconsin to see him speak. He talked about a number of other topics too including his recent visit with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, and efforts to shore up denuclearization there, tax cuts and also the economy and how well it’s doing.

Frederica Freyberg:

As for flooding in northwest Wisconsin, I know the governor declared a state of emergency in five counties and at least two people were killed in the high water. What’s the situation at week’s end?

Danielle Kaeding:

Well, now the waters are beginning to subside and county and state road crews are being able to get in there and see exactly what the damage is. There is still some areas of northern Wisconsin where flood waters re still covering the road including U.S. Highway 63 near the Bibon Swamp Area in Bayfield County. They’re beginning to develop plans to repair state highways including U.S. Highway 2 by north Fish Creek, near Ino, where that project could take several months to replace a bridge that was entirely washed out there. And also on U.S. Highway 53, where they’re currently restricted to one lane northbound and southbound on Highway 53 as far as traffic goes. They’re going to try and get in there next week and begin repair so they can have that up and running for the July 4th holiday.

Frederica Freyberg:

Okay. Tough stuff. Danielle Kaeding, thanks very much.

Danielle Kaeding:

Thanks, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

A closer look now at the governor’s race and our continuing series of interviews with democrats running in the primary. Tonight, we speak to Matt Flynn. Flynn is an attorney in Milwaukee. He is a U.S. Navy veteran and former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Matt Flynn joins us now. Thanks very much for doing so.

Matt Flynn:

Good to be here. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So two of your compatriots have dropped out of this race as of today. What will you do?

Matt Flynn:

Im in it for the long haul, and I think we’re in pretty good shape. The Marquette Franklin Poll that just came out shows me in second place. I’m tied with two others in the rounding, but in the raw data, we actually are in second place, and I think we’re doing very well.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet those numbers in the Marquette Poll, what is it, 7% of the vote you garner, and 77% of those polled don’t know who you are.

Matt Flynn:

Their name recognition polls. The good news is that they know me a lot better than all the others except maybe for Tony Evers, but we have a ways to go. But with seven weeks to go, which is where it is right now, our advertising campaign on television is about to start, and Im working hard, getting around the state and we’re picking up a lot of support.

Frederica Freyberg:

Among all the other candidates, albeit two fewer, why do you think you should be the progressive voice for Wisconsin?

Matt Flynn:

Well, there’s a couple of things. I was the chair of this party. And I know the state and I know the government well. I’m a Navy veteran. I’m the only veteran in the race and getting good veteran support around the state. And I differ from them on a number of issues. One of them is Foxconn. I think it’s a crocked deal that I will stop with litigation. None of the others say they will stop it. Tony Evers says he’ll make them put solar panels on and the others complain about it. I will stop it because it’s going to strangle our budget for 15 years.

Frederica Freyberg:

On what basis can you beat Scott Walker?

Matt Flynn:

Well, right now in that poll that we saw, Scott Walker leads me but Im within the margin of error. He leads me 46-42, and I come to it with much less name recognition than he does. There’s a hunger to replace Scott Walker in this state, there really is, and I think out of all the candidates, 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. If Im on the stage with him, it’s going to be a different kind of debate than it was the last couple of times. So I think every indication is we can beat him.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the economy, one of the things you want to do is reverse Act 10. How does that help the economy?

Matt Flynn:

The way it helps the economy is several fold. Teachers have been demoralized, they really have. Act 10 was a taunting document. If you read the actual act, they did it to basically insult and demoralize teachers, and they’ve reduced their wages. Now, there are certain things that you could do outside of an Act 10. I will repeal Act 10. I will not compromise on it. It’s going to be totally repealed. I think teachers’ wages have to go up. Now how to pay for that in an issue such as should they contribute to their pension, healthcare, my view is if they’re going to contribute to their pension and healthcare, they should be paid a wage that permits them to do that. So my wife is a speech pathologist in the Germantown Public Schools for over 30 years and I saw the devastation it did, so I will repeal Act 10.

Frederica Freyberg:

You also want to invest, you say, in roads and infrastructure. How would you pay for it?

Matt Flynn:

Re-indexing the gas tax. I think it was a big mistake 10, 13 years ago to stop doing that. Right now our transportation budget is 20% debt service. In other words, paying interest on what we’ve already borrowed and it’s going up. We can’t have that. So we’re going to pay as we go and we’re going to repair our roads. And Im also– there are 13 east-west roads from Highway 2 down to Highway 14. Many of them, only Highway 29 is really four-lane. I want to make them all four lane and as soon as we can do that, it’s going to revitalize rural and western — northern Wisconsin as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

On educate, you call for free two-year public college or university tuition for every in-state student. How do you do that?

Matt Flynn:

At in-state institutions, not outside. The reason is very simple. My proposal is not K-12, it’s PreK-14. I’ll put more into early education, early childhood, but for the first two years, there are a lot of kids in the state when they turn 18 think they can’t afford college or trade school, they go off to Duluth, Minneapolis. They go to Chicago. We’re losing a lot of good people. If we get rid of Foxconn, if we take that billion dollars in Medicaid supplements Walker turned down, if we take the $800 million in train money he turned down, if we get rid of the manufacturers’ credit and exemption, which is very unproductive and it’s cost us about a billion dollars, we can easily do it. And other states have done it.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you just touched on the Medicaid money. What else would you do for healthcare in Wisconsin?

Matt Flynn:

Well, long-range, I think federally we’re going to have to have Medicare cover everybody from birth to death. And it’s the cheapest way to do it. 70% of the people in this country already get some sort of government-related Medicaid, Medicare, military, so forth. But what I would do in the short run, because I can’t mandate that, even though Medicare is a real cost cutter, I would open up BadgerCare. In addition to getting the billion dollars back, open up BadgerCare to anybody who doesn’t have health insurance and wants to buy into it for a premium unless they’re indigent.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act is being chipped away at and more efforts are underway to do away with it. If you became governor, you can declare that you want all of these things but how do you kind of reverse what has been happening to the Affordable Care Act?

Matt Flynn:

Well, we have a President Donald Trump who in my view is vandalizing our healthcare system and betraying us to the Russians quite frankly but in the short run, what I would do with healthcare with him, the Affordable Care Act to me is a bridge between an old system and what I hope is Medicare for everybody. So we have to open the exchanges. We have to have more options and I will fully fund everything that’s in my power to fund.

Frederica Freyberg:

Matt Flynn, thanks very much.

Matt Flynn:

Good to be here. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

We continue to follow up on statements made on “Here & Now” by democratic candidates for Wisconsin governor. This week, multimedia reporter Marisa Wojcik circles back to remarks made by Tony Evers about healthcare.

Marisa Wojcik:

Wisconsin can’t go very long without being compared to Minnesota. Recently democratic candidate for governor Tony Evers told us Wisconsin is lagging behind its western neighbor in the area of healthcare.

Tony Evers:

All those things that Scott Walker didn’t do has caused Minnesota to move forward and have cheaper and better healthcare than we do in Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:

What does cheaper and better mean? We followed up with Evers’ campaign and they referenced a 2017 study by the liberal group Citizen Action of Wisconsin. This particular study looked at 2018 premiums and found that on average, Wisconsinites pay 45% more in premiums. A recent report from the Urban Institute shows that from 2017 to 2018, Wisconsin premiums saw an overall increase of 43.5%. Minnesota saw a 15.1% decrease. Now nationally, many states saw premiums spike as federal reimbursements for cost share reductions were no longer available and overall, fewer people enrolled in the individual insurance marketplace. For Minnesota, it wasn’t until recently that premiums stabilized. The state’s 2016 premium rates were set to increase between 14 and 49%. Many in Minnesota attribute the new found balance in the state’s marketplace to the state’s re-insurance program, which uses state and federal money to subsidize insurance companies to cover exceptionally high claims. Wisconsin is hoping to enact a similar re-insurance plan. Having applied for a federal waiver back in April. For these and other fast facts, visit wpt.org.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now for an update away from the state capitol, the former General Motors plant in Janesville is coming down to be rebuilt for future use. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation this week announced it is putting a half million dollars toward the demolition. Six buildings in the former assembly plant will be razed. The demo is expected to be completed in two years. Remediation and redevelopment will take several more years. A commercial real estate company then plans to turn the property into about 1 million square feet of industrial and warehouse space. Also this week, a new state office building in Milwaukee will be named after the late civil rights leader Vel Phillips. Phillips passed away in April at the age of 95. She was the first African-American woman on the Milwaukee Common Council and the first African-American woman to hold state-wide office as secretary of state. And finally tonight, a look ahead to next week, when we will continue our interviews with the democratic candidates for governor. Firefighter Mahlon Mitchell will join us next week on “Here & Now.” Im Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

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

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