Frederica Freyberg:
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a first look at the state budget, which passed both houses this week. Then, a closer look at the Democratic primary debates. In our look ahead, we’ll see how the high court’s ruling on redistricting will impact Wisconsin. It’s “Here & Now” for June 28.

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Robin Vos:
The Wisconsin budget is a good budget for the entire state.

Gordon Hintz:
This budget is one of missed opportunities.

Jennifer Shilling:
We can do better. We, in Wisconsin, deserve better.

Scott Fitzgerald:
This is a responsible budget for Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
The biennial state budget, it’s all over but for any changes of the veto pen by Governor Tony Evers.

Clerk:
All members vote in the affirmative with the exception of senators —

Frederica Freyberg:
Both houses of the Legislature passed the budget this week. The Republicans in the majority hailing the nearly $82 billion spending plan.

Robin Vos:
We can live within our means. We can fund our top priorities like education and healthcare and transportation, and we can still cut taxes.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Overall, we’ve taken the parameters given to us by the governor and turned his out of control spending plan into a responsible budget for Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats assailed the Republican version for not including the expansion of Medicaid, a key provision in the Evers budget.

Jon Erpenbach:
The idea that the Republicans say no to the $1.3 billion in expanding Medicaid, knowing full well that that is the lynchpin of this budget, everything in Governor Evers’ budget was built around Medicaid expansion because it freed up so much money.

Jennifer Shilling:
We believe as Democrats that there is a better budget that could be developed that does invest in our local schools that improves access to affordable healthcare.

Frederica Freyberg:
Even as their leaders described it as responsible, some Republicans balked at what they call too much spending and borrowing, included in their own plan. In the state Senate, the majority could only lose two votes to secure passage, and they did. Senator Steven Nass and David Craig voted no, along with Democrats. A third Republican senator, whose no vote would have tanked passage, swung to a yes after the Assembly made changes, including a provision that would allow Tesla electric vehicles to be sold directly to customers in Wisconsin.

Chris Kapenga:
I still drive by gas stations in my Tesla and I laugh.

Frederica Freyberg:
Republican Senator Chris Kapenga called a press conference to acknowledge his love for the cars as purely a hobby, saying the budget provision would not result in a personal financial gain.

Chris Kapenga:
I have not met with Governor Evers yet in this session but I do plan to do so and specifically I want to talk about this provision and its importance to the state.

Frederica Freyberg:
Having secured the vote, majority leaders called for Evers to approve their plan.

Scott Fitzgerald:
The Legislature has done its part. Now it’s time for the governor to do his and sign this bill into law. Thank you, Mr. President.

Frederica Freyberg:
Governor Tony Evers is now reviewing the version of the budget passed by both houses. Joining me to talk about the governor’s options going forward, WPR Capitol Reporter Laurel White. And Laurel, thanks very much for being here.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is the timeline for the governor to take action on this budget?

Laurel White:
So once the governor officially has the document on his desk, he has six days excluding Sundays to act on it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Coming up pretty soon then. Everybody talks about the Wisconsin governor having some of the strongest veto powers in the nation. How so?

Laurel White:
So the governor has what’s called a partial veto in Wisconsin. So in addition to his ability to veto the entire document, he can take words out of a bill. He can also take numbers out of a bill. So that’s kind of an unusual power in addition that he has.

Frederica Freyberg:
Republicans say that they spent time trying to make the document veto-proof. What did they do to do that?

Laurel White:
So they did two things actually. The first was limiting the size of the budget document itself. The budget that the governor introduced earlier this year was about 1100 pages. The document that Republicans approved this week is about 500 pages. So I think the thought process there is the governor has less material to work with, therefore, he has fewer options for making changes. The other thing that they did was actually change some language in the budget. They changed a couple phrases from “shall not” to “cannot,” for example, “shall not exceed” to “cannot,” things like that to just kind of veto-proof it.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in other words, the governor, if it was “shall not,” could strike out either “not” or “shall,” —

Laurel White:
Exactly.

Frederica Freyberg:
Whereas “cannot,” you can’t go anywhere with that. Now there was a time in Wisconsin when governors could strike out individual letters called the Vanna White veto. There was also the Frankenstein Veto. Why did these things change and how recent were those changes?

Laurel White:
So the Vanna White veto was actually done away with in 1990 through a constitutional amendment. So to amend the state Constitution, it has to pass the legislature a couple times. I has to go to a statewide referendum. So essentially lawmakers and the voters of Wisconsin decided that that Vanna White veto where they can take some letters out to create new words was just a little bit too much power, a little bit too much flexibility there for the governor. Like I said, that was 1990. And then just a few years ago, in 2008, they actually took away the Frankenstein veto as well. And that’s a veto that took out words to create new sentences. So you could take out specific words in two separate sentences to create a new sentence and that’s something obviously the governor can’t do anymore as well.

Frederica Freyberg:
The governor’s office is now going through this budget presumably with a fine tooth comb. What are areas he is likely to look at for vetoes?

Laurel White:
So the governor has been playing it pretty close to his chest in terms of what changes he wants to make to this budget. He said all along he wasn’t going to comment until he actually had the document on his desk. What we know for sure is that the governor can’t add anything into the budget that isn’t already there. That’s not part of his veto power. So we’re not expecting him to, for example, add any money for K-12 education that Republican lawmakers didn’t approve. There’s about a $900 million difference there.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah, so, I mean I know through the course of kind of the budget deliberations and debates, that clearly the Democrats were hammering repeatedly on the failure of the Republican document to expand Medicaid. I’m just wondering if a partial veto power has anything to do with his ability there.

Laurel White:
Well, you know, again, the governor can’t add anything in to the budget that isn’t there to begin with. And it’s a difficult thing because say he did want to increase funding for something, he would have to take funding away from something else using his veto power, and in most instances, the things that Republican lawmakers approved were smaller increases than the governor wanted, things like Medicaid, K-12 education, transportation. So we’re not expecting to see some of those major priorities that the governor had in those regards make it in to the budget this time around. The only way the governor could get something like the Medicaid expansion in theory would be to veto the entire document and send it back to square one.

Frederica Freyberg:
And what would happen then?

Laurel White:
So what would happen then is, I think we would be expecting a pretty lengthy delay in the state Legislature. Speaker Robin Vos just said today that if the governor vetoes the entire document, he wouldn’t expect the Legislature to come back until October to re-start negotiations. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he believes that process would be incredibly tricky for lawmakers and for the governor. He said essentially the governor isn’t going to get anything better than he has right now, so he should just sign it.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Laurel White, we leave it there. We’ll be watching. Thank you very much.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on Wisconsin’s history of having the strongest veto powers, visit our partners at WisContext.org.
In national politics, the 20-candidate slate of Democrats in the running for president have taken to the airwaves the past two nights in primary debates. In tonight’s inside look, experts from the UW-Madison Elections Research Center took to Twitter to live-tweet Thursday night’s debate. The crew included Professors David Canon, Barry Burden and Mike Wagner. Journalism and Mass Communications Professor Mike Wagner is an expert on elections and political communication. He joins us now with his take. And thanks for being here.

Mike Wagner:
It’s my pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:
What was the overall take from the three of you as to winners, losers and standouts? Did you have different takes?

Mike Wagner:
We were fairly united I think in our views about what we thought about last night’s debate or the second debate and the first debate. Kamala Harris I think really had best night of anybody across the two nights. She had a lot of air time. She was calm, poised, direct. She went after the frontrunner Joe Biden without being mean about it but just direct about how his policy views affected her life and the lives of people like her. And she was very strong on a variety of issues. I think she had a great night. Pete Buttigieg also in the second debate, I think had a fairly strong showing. On night one, Elizabeth Warren did no harm which was her goal as the frontrunner in that first set of debates. Cory Booker did well for himself. I think Senator Jillibrand did well for herself as well as Julian Castro in that first debate. So those are the folks I think who were getting the good spin out of what’s happened so far.

Frederica Freyberg:
Were any of those surprises to you?

Mike Wagner:
Well, I think Gillibrand, we thought maybe she would do better out of the gate than she had in terms of her polling. It had been not so great and you know, she kind of famously had her roommate from college, Connie Britton, the actress on social media trying to get people to give donations so she could qualify for that first debate, which she did. And I think she took that opportunity and said this is a chance to get noticed in a group of 20 and I think it was surprising for me to see her be that aggressive and do so successfully.

Frederica Freyberg:
Did the pointedness against Joe Biden end up feeling or looking like what people call a circular firing squad at all?

Mike Wagner:
I don’t think so and I think part of it was Biden’s reaction. He kind of lurched around. He kind of almost yelled a little bit at Kamala Harris. He didn’t have a great response when Swalwell went after him on another issue. He seemed that he wasn’t so prepared. His staff was willing to leak to reporters that he hadn’t prepared very much and wasn’t taking their advice. So I think Biden came out looking a little worse, which is typical for a frontrunner whether it’s in a primary or a general, they often stumble in the first debate.

Frederica Freyberg:
At about 9:30, you tweeted, “Here in the Elections Center bunker, we were fans of the Chuck Todd question about prioritizing as president. A question that asked candidates to reveal whether they understand how politics works and what their major focus would be.” What were you talking about there?

Mike Wagner:
So Chuck Todd asked a question saying, you know, Barack Obama had to focus on healthcare and really put all of his eggs in that basket in the early part of his first term, knowing that that’s where he had to hold Democrats to get something major done. What would be your thing if you had to pick just one? What would be the first thing you did? That suggests you have to understand as president how legislating works. You can only get so many things done at a time. And usually it’s one big thing and usually it’s early in your term if that’s going to happen. So getting folks to think about here’s how I would prioritize as president is a revealing question about whether they understand how the system really works.

Frederica Freyberg:
Who do you think did that best?

Mike Wagner:
I think Harris, Buttigieg, Swalwell all had pretty good answers for that question. Senator Sanders rejected the premise of the question and said we’ll just do everything and put the system on trial, basically, which is his strategy. But I think the others had a better first response to that question. But in all the candidates’ defense, Todd did ask for a one-word answer which — that’s kind of the lousy part of that question. It’s nice to reveal priorities. It’s bad to say one word and nothing else about how you would do it.

Frederica Freyberg:
From your perspective, which of the candidates if you can say so at this point would be best to mix it up with Donald Trump on a debate stage?

Mike Wagner:
I think Harris was showing how she would do it. Calmly prosecuting a case with facts and personal story. She did that quite well. I think Elizabeth Warren revealed that she’s pretty good at that thing. Cory Booker, Julian Castro, all of those folks I think made it clear they would be good at mixing it up with Trump. Others, Biden and Sanders, have their style, and they’re not really trying to reveal through their style how they would go about mixing it up with Trump. They’re just saying look at me, I know what I’m doing. I’m a strong candidate. That would work with Trump. Whereas I think the other candidates are trying to show voters you may not know me but here’s how I would look in a debate against President Trump.

Frederica Freyberg:
A lot of Democratic candidates are saying this isn’t about Donald Trump. We don’t want to talk about Donald Trump, but isn’t it really all about Donald Trump?

Mike Wagner:
Re-election campaigns are often about the incumbent and the job that they’re doing. And so it was a little surprising that the night one debate, the folks didn’t mention Trump very much. I think the night two folks got the memo and mentioned him quite a bit more, but a re-election campaign for a sitting president are often mainly about the job that person is doing. How well is the economy faired under that person’s leadership? What’s our foreign policy situation? What’s the mood of the country? All those kinds of things.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there. Michael Wagner, thanks very much.

Mike Wagner:
My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:
In a major ruling of high import to Wisconsin, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that federal courts have no business interfering in cases of partisan gerrymandering. In the 5-4 ruling, the court delivered the decision involving redistricting cases in North Carolina and Maryland. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion saying, “Excessive partisanship and districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust. But the fact that such gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic principles does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary.” Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion saying, “For the first time ever this court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities. In doing so,” she says, “the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy.” Joining us to talk about what this means for Wisconsin’s own partisan gerrymandering case before the court is UW-Madison Political Science Professor and Director of the Elections Research Center, Barry Burden. Thanks very much for being here.

Barry Burden:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is your reaction to the high court ruling?

Barry Burden:
Well, this is a strong majority opinion. It’s very clear about what the court thinks. They see no place at all for disputes over partisanship when it comes to drawing districts in the federal courts ever again. They don’t want to see these cases. They’re not willing to entertain the arguments that were made about violations of First Amendment or 14th Amendment rights. They’re not willing to consider the evidence. They say this is not for us. This is a political question, not a legal question, and one that the parties and states will have to resolve on their own.

Frederica Freyberg:
What do you think of that?

Barry Burden:
I disagree. I had actually submitted an amicus brief to the court along with a bunch of other political scientists arguing that in fact there were pretty clear constitutional violations here. There are clear standards that could be used. In fact, that have been used in other federal and state courts over the past several years, striking down maps. That the kind of gerrymanders we see today are more insidious and more durable than the kinds I think that the justices may have had in mind from the 70s and 80s, when a lot of this early litigation happened and that some action needed to be taken to stop it.

Frederica Freyberg:
What does the Supreme Court ruling mean for Wisconsin’s case against the Republican-drawn maps?

Barry Burden:
I think the case here is now dead. This has been a long saga that has gone on for almost a decade. We’re just about to the trial which was scheduled for next month. It sounds to me as though the attorneys and the plaintiffs are asking that it be called off and I think that’s the message from the Supreme Court. This is not a case that they would consider viable.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is there any sense that this might have turned out differently had Wisconsin’s case not lacked standing before the Supreme Court last year and proceeded while Justice Kennedy was still seated?

Barry Burden:
Yes, with nine justices, one seat matters a lot. And we’ve switched from Kennedy to Kavanaugh over the course of the past year. The Wisconsin case was written with Kennedy in mind. He had been the deciding vote in a lot of these cases over the years. He had written the majority opinion or the deciding opinion in many of these cases, including the last big one that came to the court back in 2004. He was asking for things that the plaintiffs thought they were providing. But in the end, Kennedy didn’t bite and that was the end of his career on the court.

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats point to the fact that Wisconsin voters elected Tony Evers and Josh Kaul, for example, in statewide races but the Legislature remains locked in a Republican majority. Is that a prime example of the election outcomes of Wisconsin’s maps?

Barry Burden:
I think so. In fact, Democrats won all five statewide races in 2018. I think that was the first time that had been done in 30 years. But their success stopped as soon as it came to the state legislature, particularly in the Assembly where I think Republicans now hold about two thirds of the seats, Democrats hold about one-third. Just doesn’t reflect what seemed to be the preferences of voters as expressed in the 2018 elections.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet isn’t it true that had the Democrats had the full trifecta majority, they would have done the same thing?

Barry Burden:
I think so. Republicans are better at it, and they were more organized, especially after the 2010 elections. They were really organized across the country in providing consultants and a plan to take advantage of the wins they had that year. But it’s true, Democrats when they’re in power will try to take advantage as well. In fact one of the cases that was part of the Supreme Court decision yesterday was out of Maryland where Democrats had taken advantage and pushed the last remaining Republican incumbent in Congress from that state. I think Republicans just had more opportunities and are often better organized to take advantage.

Frederica Freyberg:
How will split control of Wisconsin government affect the next round of redistricting with Democrat Evers as governor?

Barry Burden:
This is actually an old pattern in Wisconsin, before the 2010 census and that redistricting, the past several decades before that were all divided government. So we’re familiar with that. Those were all stalemates. They ended up in the courts. This one will be more of a stalemate because the parties I think are more adversarial today than they were in those earlier decades. What has also changed is that the courts are now more partisan and ideological than they had been so I think everyone is looking ahead to see who’s on the bench, either the state Supreme Court or federal courts that might end up deciding what the districts look like.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is there any “what’s next” in terms of challenging Wisconsin’s maps?

Barry Burden:
There’s not much left. Any alternatives were really laid out by the majority in the court yesterday. The alternatives are for voters to put the issue on the ballot and try to create an alternative system like a commission. That was done in Michigan and some other states last year. It’s not possible in Wisconsin under our laws. Another possibility is the state Legislature would reform the system itself. My understanding is legislative leaders are not interested in doing that. Third option would be to work through state courts and that was actually what happened in Pennsylvania where the state Supreme Court struck down the maps. I think we’re probably at a dead end there, at least for this decade. Maybe after the new maps, there will be more litigation, but that’s sort of where things stand today.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, Barry Burden, thanks very much.

Barry Burden:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
We return now to the crisis at the southern U.S.-Mexico border, with earlier this week, a father and daughter died trying to cross the Rio Grande and a photo of their bodies has sparked nationwide outrage and urgency. U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, gave an impassioned speech calling for action.

Ron Johnson:
I didn’t have time to have the picture blown up but we’ve all seen it of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month old daughter Valeria. Now I realize tragedies occur all over this country, all over the world. I don’t want to see another picture like that on the U.S. border. I hope that picture alone will catalyze this Congress, this Senate, this committee, to do something.

Frederica Freyberg:
The Senate and House butted heads over two different versions of emergency spending packages for $4.6 billion in humanitarian aid at the border, ahead of a deadline for current aid to expire. By Thursday afternoon, the Democratically-controlled House conceded to pass the Senate’s version, leaving out measures of accountability for the treatment of migrants, including children. Local immigration attorneys are splitting their time between Wisconsin and Mexico, working with asylum seekers, women, children and separated families. One of those attorneys is Erin Barbato, Director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the UW Law School, who told us, never in my wildest nightmares did I think that this type of work would be necessary. She joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Erin Barbato:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what’s your reaction to the emergency aid toward issues at the border?

Erin Barbato:
Well, I’m glad that there is action in terms of funding emergency aid at the border but incredibly disappointed that none of the wording within the bill indicates that there will be direct relief or any promises to children and the needs of families that are detained near the border.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because where is that kind of aid needed most and how?

Erin Barbato:
I think what we’ve learned from the recent news and from the work that I do, seeing children in detention centers without proper food or clothing or hygiene products is unconscionable, and we need to address that first. This is happening on U.S. soil. It should not be happening anywhere in the world.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now as Director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the UW Law School, along with doing work at Wisconsin immigrant detention facilities, your group travels to border facilities and into Mexico, where asylum seekers have to wait for the duration of their immigration proceedings. What do you do there with these migrants?

Erin Barbato:
So we do two different types of trips. One is to the detention center where families, mothers and their children are detained. I also recently traveled to Tijuana to work with people seeking asylum that are either stuck in Tijuana or waiting to present themselves at the border in a lawful manner to Custom Border Protection. Oscar and Valeria were two people that were waiting on what’s called the Migrant Protection Protocol.

Frederica Freyberg:
And those are the kinds of people that you work with?

Erin Barbato:
It is. When we were in Tijuana, we met with a lot of the families that were recently placed on the Migrant Protection Protocol, otherwise known as remain in Mexico, where these families are forced to remain in Mexico during the pendency of their asylum process.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why would someone be so desperate as to just decide not to remain in Mexico and try to make a go for it over the river?

Erin Barbato:
Well, a lot of these families are fleeing political violence as well as gang violence in their home country. And the gang violence and the gangs do not stop across borders. So many of these families still have the same fears in Mexico that they do in their home country. And so they’re left with the option of waiting in Mexico for months to process in the United States or oftentimes it’s a matter of life or death, so their only choice is to attempt to cross illegally in a very dangerous manner.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are the conditions like for those people in Mexico waiting?

Erin Barbato:
You know, I wasn’t able to see any of the shelters that were in Tijuana. We didn’t visit those. We worked directly with an organization and worked in their offices. From what we learned from the people I worked with was that oftentimes the shelters were full. They had no way of paying for shelter while they’re remaining there, and the conditions there are, again, inhumane.

Frederica Freyberg:
And your work also takes you, again, to the border with Texas at a Texas facility, and what do you do there?

Erin Barbato:
So there I travel with students down to the detention center in Dilly which houses up to 2400 women and children. At that facility, we work to help women and children prepare for their credible fear interviews. That’s what we did last year when we went. We’re heading back in August and it may be different.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you expect the conditions there to be different?

Erin Barbato:
I would assume that the conditions in the facility will be the same. However, the families that will be there, there are some rumors that the families that are being housed there are people that will be picked up by immigration and then placed there prior to deportation.

Frederica Freyberg:
You know, we talk with people including Senator Ron Johnson and he suggests that many of these people that are fleeing from Central America, trying to make it in to the United States, are criminals, sex traffickers, drug dealers. What do you say to that?

Erin Barbato:
You know, I think that’s a very short-sighted view of the individuals that are seeking relief. The people I work with are families. They are unaccompanied minors. There are children separated from their families by our government. The people that I work with and the people that I’ve met in Mexico, in Dilly, they’re all seeking relief from persecution in their home country.

Frederica Freyberg:
Erin Barbato, thanks very much.

Erin Barbato:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
That is our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

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