PBS Wisconsin

Transcript: Here & Now # 2151

Original Air Date: June 30, 2023

Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Robin Vos:

To improve the services that Wisconsinites receive and make sure that the money that they have overpaid is returned back to the taxpayers and that’s been the two priorities of this entire budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

Republicans take a victory lap after the state budget through both chambers. And just as the UW system’s funding is cut over its diversity offices, affirmative action in college admissions is struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” former governor and UW system president Tommy Thompson shares his vision for higher education. Charles Franklin has results from his latest Marquette Law School poll and we’ll get political takes on budget action at the Capitol from panelists Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross. It’s “Here & Now” on June 30.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

The nearly $99 billion biannual state budget finished its journey through the Senate and Assembly this week passing along party lines and now heads to the governor’s desk where he has promised an abundance of partial vetoes if he doesn’t veto the budget in full. Republicans heralded the tax cuts as a triumph while Democrats assailed them.

Robin Vos:

I’m incredibly proud of the document that’s being presented today. It focuses on the priorities we heard and we know Wisconsinites want. That’s a budget that’s rightsized for the state, ensuring we can afford it for the long term, making sure we invest in our priorities. Everything from police and fire to ensuring we have great schools all across the state and then ultimately returning a significant chunk, almost half of the dollars that were overtaken from the citizens of Wisconsin back to them in income and property tax cuts.

Melissa Agard:

Today I urge my GOP colleagues to provide targeted tax relief to the middle-class families and main street businesses who are the backbone of the state of Wisconsin. Every Wisconsinite should know Republicans are choosing to give our state’s top eleven earners $20 million in tax cuts.

Frederica Freyberg:

The U.S. Supreme Court this week called affirmative action or consideration of a person’s race in college admissions unconstitutional for violating the equal protection clause. Affirmative action policies have existed since the 1960s and consider a person’s minority race status to help counteract historical inequality and discrimination. The UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin released a statement saying, “The ruling will require some modifications to aspects of our current admissions practices; we will, of course, adapt our practices to comply with the law. At the same time, I want to reiterate that our commitment to the value of diversity within our community, including racial diversity, remains a bedrock value of the institution.” Hundreds of millions of dollars in the state budget go to higher education and with little coordination between the UW and technical college systems, we are now at a crossroads. That’s according to Tommy Thompson, former governor and former UW system president. He joins me now and thanks very much for being here.

Tommy Thompson:

Frederica, it’s a pleasure to be with you. It always is, and I love your program. I love what you do and thank you very much for having me on your program.

Frederica Freyberg:

Thank you. So with 13 two-year UW campuses and 16 main technical colleges in Wisconsin, what are the inefficiencies in that?

Tommy Thompson:

Well, that’s only part of the problem, what you just outlined. When you take a look at the University of Wisconsin, it’s got 13 campuses, but it also has 13 two-year campuses. So it’s got 26. And the vocation schools got 16 main campuses but 54 other branch campuses. So you put them all together. You got 80 institutions, 80 places out there that teach higher education and vocational education. There’s no cooperation. There’s really no consideration of one to the other. They have two different systems. One is funded by the taxpayers of the state; one is funded by the property taxpayers and the coordination is very small. And the fact of the matter is the population is going down and then by 2026 is a cliff. And nobody is planning what are we going to do. That’s what I’ve been advocating for some time. There needs to be a blue-ribbon task force to study all this because we’ve got overduplication. We’ve got too many buildings, too much education for the amount of students we have. We need to do something about it. Better to do it now in an impartial and systemic smart way than waiting until 2026 and say, “Oh my Lord, what do we do?”

Frederica Freyberg:

The writing has been on the wall for years in terms of these demographic shifts in enrollment. Now West Bend wants to consolidate UW-Washington County and Moraine Park Tech College. Is it your sense the rest of the two-year, two-year UW campuses should merge with tech campuses?

Tommy Thompson:

Not necessarily but they should come together and decide which one is the strongest. One should be a tech school. Maybe — they should all be community colleges, I think. I think they should come together, be community colleges and teach both vocational education and baccalaureate degrees and allow the students to be able to choose the best course for themselves and get more students to graduate. It’s sort of a deplorable record to get all these students into college and they don’t finish, both at the university and even more so at the vocational education. Does that make any sense? It doesn’t make any sense to me and it doesn’t help the students. It doesn’t help the workers’ productivity or workers’ graduation rates in the state of Wisconsin. And that’s what I’ve been saying for so long. We got overduplication. We have some vocational schools and two-year campuses sharing the same parking lot, the same classrooms, and yet they have two different systems. Does that make any sense to anybody when the declining population in both systems are vying for that student? Why don’t we put all of these into a community college and put them in and decide how many we really need?

Frederica Freyberg:

What about the kind of localized sense of pride and ownership of having a UW campus for students who can go on to get their four-year degree at the corresponding campus?

Tommy Thompson:

It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful and the problem is you can’t afford it and that’s what’s happened in Richland Center. Richland Center is being closed down. Now the County of Richland, which is a poor county, has got to take care of the buildings and they’re not going to have classes next year. And so the people in Richland Center are very upset. But you have a vocational school at Fennimore which is doing very well. Wouldn’t it make sense, I mean, just common sense to say why don’t the two come together and have courses so that the students can go and have some courses in the Richland Center so those buildings are being utilized and make those both into a community college? Down in West Bend, they had the university declining in population but the vocation school is doing well. So Josh Schoemann, the county exec, came up with a brilliant idea. Let’s see what we can do, study and put them together. That’s what has to happen. But we should be doing this statewide. We shouldn’t wait til this cataclysmic decline that’s coming in 2026 and everybody is saying, “Why didn’t we do something?” Time is now. It was yesterday, but today let’s get started and not waste any more time.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what do you think of the legislative budget writers cutting $32 million from the UW and targeting its diversity, equity, and inclusion offices?

Tommy Thompson:

Well, I think, you know, that when you take a look at the affirmative action opinion that came out of the Supreme Court this week, it’s obvious that maybe the university has got to come to grips with the fact that they’re going to have to work with the legislature. I’m not saying one side is right and the other side is wrong, but I’m saying cooperation and leadership and discussion is what is needed and I don’t think there’s enough of that.

Frederica Freyberg:

As the former president of the system, what do you think of the value of those DEI offices?

Tommy Thompson:

When you look at how many, I think that, I think the university has gone, has got probably too many positions and I think the legislature is saying, “Yes, you have too many positions. You gotta be taking care of students in Wisconsin as well.” We’ve got to make sure the university is well-funded. We’ve got to make sure the university is able to recruit enough students. We’ve got to make sure the university is planning ahead and looking at these problems and finding ways to, you know, to solve them, and they’ve got to learn to work with the legislature.

Frederica Freyberg:

Who do you think should take the charge?

Tommy Thompson:

I think it’s got to be the Board of Regents, the president and the governor. They are the ones that have the authority to set it up and make an independent study. I think we should go sit down with the vocation school and the University of Wisconsin two-year campuses and come up with ways of how to turn them into community colleges and be able to meet the needs of Wisconsin. Wisconsin has got to have more graduates and more students prepared to work, more students educated in the jobs that we have and are going. Wisconsin is growing and we don’t have the expertise really to pilot the programs and the jobs that are out there.

Frederica Freyberg:

Tommy Thompson, thanks very much.

Tommy Thompson:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

You can watch our full-length interview with Tommy Thompson by visiting our website at PBSwisconsin.org/news.

Turning to elections, the job security of the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission is uncertain as officials deliberate the fine print of her appointment. Meagan Wolfe’s four-year tenure has weathered the chaos of holding elections amidst a pandemic and numerous court cases alleging voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election but is now in the crosshairs for Senate Republicans who typically approve nominees for the job. In a procedural move this week, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted on Wolfe’s reappointment. The commission’s three Republicans voted in favor but the three Democrats abstained saying Wolfe doesn’t need to be reappointed; she should maintain her current role until there is a vacancy.

Meagan Wolfe:

Thank you to the commissioners for their kind words and their unanimous support for my job performance today. I was so impressed by the commissioners’ integrity and willing to stand up for the truth about elections, to set the record straight about our process and how the commission works and how our decisions, the commission’s decisions, which I don’t have a vote on, how they’re made, deliberated as part of a public meeting.

Ann Jacobs:

I think the statutory law regarding the WEC is crystal clear, as clear as it can be. I also, I guess, am a battered veteran of I don’t know how many court cases since being appointed in 2016. So someone is going to sue us, they’re going to sue us and we’ll see how that shakes out, but I feel very confident in our interpretation of the law.

Don Mills:

I’m very concerned that now we are leaving the job of the administrator in the hands of a circuit court judge or a court of appeals to the Supreme Court and her position could be in jeopardy on a moment’s notice. And I don’t think that’s good for the staff. I don’t think that’s good for the administration of elections in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

With election 2024 already heating up, the latest statewide polling on candidates, sitting politicians and issues takes the public temperature in Wisconsin. The new Marquette University Law School poll finds some interesting results. Here to talk about it, Poll Director Charles Franklin. Thanks for being here.

Charles Franklin:

Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Governor Tony Evers’ approval rating jump is interesting.

Charles Franklin:

It’s quite a jump.

Frederica Freyberg:

Your survey found that 57% of respondents approve of the job he’s doing while 39% disapprove and his approval rating has gone up 11 points since just before the last election. What in your mind explains this?

Charles Franklin:

I think there are two things. One is just before the election, you’re in the heat of an electoral battle so that tends to push down the approval numbers but then, he won that race by over 3 percentage points and I think during the spring, he’s had a pretty good legislative session. He certainly hasn’t gotten most of what he wanted but he’s gotten a fair bit of what he wanted. So I think the spring has been fairly good. It’s also striking that he’s the one person that’s really had this substantial rise in approval since October. Other rises are much more modest. So I do think we have to give some credit to him.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the other hand, your poll shows that 57% think the state is on the wrong track, 40% saying it’s going in the right direction, but could that be something other than Tony Evers?

Charles Franklin:

I think what we’re really seeing is that used to be a measure of how good a job the incumbent’s doing, but now if you’re a Democrat, you blame Republicans for why we’re headed off in the wrong direction. If you’re a Republican, you blame the Democrats for the same thing. There’s a lot of across the aisle pointing. We see that in the national numbers as well as the state numbers. We keep asking the question but it really doesn’t seem to mean what it used to mean about whether things are good or bad.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interesting. So in the GOP presidential primary, among Republicans and those who lean Republican when accounting for all of the GOP candidates out there, it’s even between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, 31% to 30% but with 21% undecided, that seems like a big number. When you asked who they would pick if it were only between those two, 57% chose DeSantis over 41% for Trump. What do all these numbers say?

Charles Franklin:

Well, first of all, it’s really surprising because in national polling Trump is leading DeSantis by at least double digits and that’s been pretty consistent including in our national polling. I was surprised by that number. But what we see is that of the people that would like somebody other than DeSantis or Trump or are undecided, they go 65 to 75% to DeSantis when you ask the head-to-head question. Only about a quarter of them move to Trump. Trump is getting a lot of support from his base within the party but of the 30% of Republicans that don’t like Trump, he got 0% on the head-to-head question. So it’s not, you know, those that like him still like him quite a bit but there is this segment, a minority of 30%, that really don’t like Trump and are looking for any alternative.

Frederica Freyberg:

So as for either of the two frontrunning Republican primary candidates for president, your poll showed a close match-up between Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis. 49% for Biden, 47% for DeSantis with 4% undecided. In the hypothetical match-up between Biden, he does much better against Trump, 52% to 43%. So as a candidate, Donald Trump has some work to do in this important swing state.

Charles Franklin:

Yes, I think that is certainly the case and it goes partly to the electability argument. It also goes to the fact that Trump is still getting 94 and 95% of the Republican vote when he’s matched up against Biden. DeSantis gets almost exactly the same Republican support there. So it’s not Republicans deserting Trump at all. What it is is the independents who lean a little bit to Biden versus DeSantis but move heavily to Biden when it’s Trump as the alternative. What we’re seeing is the difficulty of winning your primary with a lot of true believers but then moving on to a general election and you need to appeal to independents. And at least this month in this sample, Trump is doing noticeably worse with independents than DeSantis is. Remember, we are in the field the day and following the indictment of Trump. Didn’t hurt him with Republicans but it may be that that’s part of what’s going on with these independents and looking ahead to the general.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interesting context. So as for sitting U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, also up for re-election, her favorability rating ticked up 3 points from last October, now sitting at 40% favorable, 37% unfavorable but 22% have not heard enough about her. She must still be formidable though because nobody has jumped out to formally declare against her.

Charles Franklin:

That’s right and that 22% is sort of in line with where she has been for the last two or three years. Ron Johnson is usually in the 30s. Though when elections come, you get that number down to maybe 10% that say they don’t know enough. It’s a big election effect. When we asked about four potential Republican challengers between 50 and 85% didn’t know enough about any of those. And that just shows until somebody officially gets in and the race starts to heat up and they’re campaigning, no challenger is going to look very good on the name recognition side and in perspective Baldwin has a little advantage of being well known but the challengers when they do get in will build recognition over the next 18 months.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, Charles Franklin, thanks very much for your work.

Charles Franklin:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

As always there’s a lot going on in Wisconsin from politics to policy. Tonight we check in with our political panelists Republican Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot Ross. Thanks for being here.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:

Thanks for having us.

Frederica Freyberg:

First off, what is your broad take on the legislature’s state budget just passed and awaiting the governor’s action? Is it what you expected with a $7 billion surplus?

Scot Ross:

No, I think it’s a $7 billion wasted opportunity by Republicans to support things that are going to help the people of Wisconsin, men, women, children, thrive and excel. We missed the opportunity to end the criminal abortion ban. We’re gashing the UW system. We’re not fully funding public education. Let’s just talk about childcare. We’ve got childcare, there was an opportunity to provide real childcare but instead we’re giving a tax break to the top 1%. 25,000 people are getting the $300 million that could have otherwise prevented 2500 childcare facilities from closing over the next couple of years. It’s just shameful.

Frederica Freyberg:

Bill, your comment?

Bill McCoshen:

I think your viewers should be really excited about this budget. This is the first budget in divided government. This is Tony Evers’ third budget with Republicans in the majority where they have grand bargains on some key issues that voters care about. Let’s go through those. Shared revenue – historic increase in funding to local government, agreement. K-12 and charter and choice schools – historic investments in both of those so all kids benefit regardless of which choice their parents make for their education. Housing – $500 million to increase the housing stock not only in the urban but in the rural areas as well and that’s a workforce development issue. Literacy, transportation, pay raises for state employees. All of those things they agreed on, Fred. That’s the first time that’s happened in the last three budgets. I think there’s a lot to be really excited about in this budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about what the governor might do?

Scot Ross:

I actually talked to somebody high up today from over in the east wing and they said the chances of vetoing the entire budget are 50-50. If not, it’s going to be historic number of line item vetoes. They’re going to line item as much as humanly possible as the governor’s already stated and I think with good reason because we missed so many opportunities. We’re handing out too much money to rich people and we’re not investing in people the way we could.

Frederica Freyberg:

What would he be vetoing it over?

Scot Ross:

I think the tax plan in particular. You just see how much money they are wasting. Again, that top 1% is taking away $300 plus billion. If you get rid of that top rate, it’s $700 million that’s being lost that could be invested in things like childcare.

Bill McCoshen:

Scot, three choices: sign it in total, he won’t do that. Veto it completely, I don’t think that’s realistic, or partial vetoes. I think that is realistic. His staff has indicated he will use it as much as humanly possible. The reason he won’t veto the whole bill is the agreements that I just walked, all the funding for them is still in this bill. The likelihood of the governor getting a better deal the second time around is zero.

Frederica Freyberg:

Tommy Thompson told us that the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in college admissions basically bolsters the Republican legislature’s budget decision to eliminate UW DEI offices. But what’s next in the realm of abandoning diversity and inclusion initiatives in Wisconsin?

Bill McCoshen:

I don’t think we’re abandoning it but I think, maybe finally, we’re going to put the focus where it belongs which is on urban schools. I mean if you want to give African-American kids a better opportunity, you got to teach them how to read. When 20% of African-Americans can read at grade level and 80% can’t, that 80% is never going to make it to college. They’re more likely to end up in prison. That’s got to be the focus here is making sure our urban schools are delivering the kind of education those kids need and the truth is the ones who suffered the most under the affirmative action were Asian-Americans, not whites.

Scot Ross:

I think it’s just disgraceful what the Supreme Court and I think it’s disgraceful what Republican legislature is trying to do. Again, diversity is what makes Wisconsin, what makes the University of Wisconsin great, and stymying that because you think it plays your racist base is not the way we should go. And I’ll just say this. $34 million cut out of UW. So a student who graduated from the University of Minnesota gets to walk after four years across the aisle. A student at the University of Wisconsin is going to have to stay five years because they can’t get what they need to graduate in four years as a result of these cuts.

Bill McCoshen:

We have these programs today. DEI across the campuses. My son graduated from Madison in May. I was at the graduation ceremony. Fewer than 200 African-Americans crossed the stage out of 8,000. A record number.

Scot Ross:

Again, that’s why we have to double down on diversity and not take it back.

Bill McCoshen:

We’ve got to focus earlier.

Scot Ross:

What the Supreme Court did was disgraceful and this probably was the worst week for the Supreme Court other than in 1896 when they did separate but equal with Plessy versus Ferguson.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of the Supreme Court, they obviously turned back Joe Biden’s action to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt. What are the implications of this for those who hold such debt? I know this is a big issue for you Scot.

Scot Ross:

I’ll just say this. I don’t understand how providing Robin Vos with a $300,000 forgiven PPP loan, he’s a multi-millionaire, we forgave his loan, the entirety of it, how that helps the economy? But forgiving $10,000 for nearly a million student loan borrowers who are going to put that money back in the economy helps our economy. It just doesn’t make any sense. And the people who financed the lawsuit actually got a $135,000 PPP loan. It’s hypocrisy across the board.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about that comparison?

Bill McCoshen:

I’m the seventh of eight kids that Pat and Ray McCoshen had. The notion that I would go to a Big Ten school and get a degree was unthinkable when I was a kid, yet it happened. Why? I invested in myself. I took out student loans. I paid those back. I viewed it as an investment in myself and I shouldn’t have to pay for someone else who made that same choice.

Frederica Freyberg:

That’s the argument.

Scot Ross:

Bill, we spent the money. We used to invest ten cents of every GPR dollar into higher education in the state of Wisconsin. It’s now down to two and a half cents. We’ve stopped financing higher education and put the burden on students. I paid student debt for 26 years. I support forgiving every penny of student loan debt and make public colleges and universities free.

Frederica Freyberg:

I only have about a minute left and I want to ask you about the Marquette Law School poll that showed 66% of people surveyed in Wisconsin think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. How will this issue continue to inform the upcoming elections?

Bill McCoshen:

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin is going to have a big say in that whether or not the 1849 law is the law of the land or something that was passed subsequent to that. So we will see. But if you look closely at those cross tabs, people don’t like abortion up til the time of birth and there are a lot of folks that don’t support any abortion at any time.

Scot Ross:

Nobody’s having abortions up to the point of birth but I do agree with Bill, it’s going to be a huge issue. I think it’s going to reign huge in the legislative races. It’s going to reign huge in congressional races and Democrats are on the right side of history. The lesson from the poll is Republicans if they acted a little bit more like Democrats and supported those issues, they might stop losing statewide elections.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross, thanks very much.

For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

Announcer:

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