Frederica Freyberg:
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Administration Secretary Joel Brennan is here to discuss budget news and the lame duck court ruling. Then, WPR’s Shawn Johnson joins us for some additional capitol insight. And a check-in with U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher and Mark Pocan. It’s “Here & Now” for March 22.

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Frederica Freyberg:
A big week at the state capitol, as this week Republicans rejected every single building project in Governor Evers $2.5 billion capitol budget, including about a billion worth of projects slated for the UW System and money for new juvenile prisons. Republicans on the State Building Commission voted against sending the spending items to the Legislature’s Budget Committee, an unprecedented move. It means that that committee will work out a budget without the recommendations of the Building Commission. Governor Evers called the move disappointing, to say the least. He accused the Republicans and the legislature of playing politics and not doing what’s best for the state. And then this. Thursday, a Dane County judge struck down laws passed during the lame duck session in the final days of the Walker administration. Those laws limited the governor’s power and among other things, kept the governor and attorney general from removing Wisconsin from the federal lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act. Almost immediately following the ruling, Governor Evers instructed the Department of Justice to do just that. Today, in an attempt to put on the brakes, Republicans filed for an emergency stay in the Third District Court of Appeals. We take up these matters now with Wisconsin Secretary of Administration Joel Brennan, who joins us from Milwaukee. And, boy, Im breathless, Secretary, but thanks for joining us.

Joel Brennan:
Thank you. It’s been an active week in Madison and around the state, that’s for sure.

Frederica Freyberg:
So these fast-breaking developments in this court case, the Republicans’ appeal, not unexpected, but if granted, where does that leave Governor Evers at this point?

Joel Brennan:
Well, I think there are going to be — continually there’s going to be ground that’s going to continue to shift. I think what’s important for everybody here is that what we have done in the last 24 hours is kind of returned to a sense of normalcy. What happened in December is really what was the disruption. And now we’re moving back to the way things have been for a long period of time and the way that the governor is looking at appointments and the way that he’s looking at these things legislatively. All of those things are a return. The disruption is what happened between December and now. Undoubtedly because some of the actions that have been taken today and will continue, those grounds will continue to shift in the next several days or the coming weeks and months.

Frederica Freyberg:
But leading up to the appeal, what was your reaction to Judge Niess’ ruling?

Joel Brennan:
Well, I think that the governor and the people in the administration were not surprised by this. And I think what the judge did yesterday, what a federal judge had done previously, was to make sure the people understand that this was an overreach from the legislature and that’s an opinion that was shared by a large amount of a majority of the citizens of the state of Wisconsin as well. So I think the governor and everybody associated with the administration understands that what this is is an affirmation that the people in the legislature were not happy with the election results in November of 2018 and they’ve taken kind of unprecedented steps to try to undo or thwart the will of the people. I think these steps have been things that have brought balance back into the conversation.

Frederica Freyberg:
Quick action on the part of the administration to remove Wisconsin from the ACA lawsuit. What is the status of that, in the midst of this appeal particularly?

Joel Brennan:
Well, that action was taken immediately yesterday and that action was taken based on the decision that was made yesterday. So the attorney general had moved forward with that. So that’s an affirmative step that has been taken by the state yesterday and will continue to move forward.

Frederica Freyberg:
So they made that move but does that mean that Wisconsin is right now, today, not a part of that lawsuit or is there some kind of process that needs to work out over the coming days?

Joel Brennan:
Well, the attorney general took the initial steps yesterday. I believe there is a process in place and that this will work itself out in the coming days related to that step that the attorney general has taken.

Frederica Freyberg:
Okay. Now to Republicans’ rejection of every single project included in Governor Evers’ capitol budget. What is the administration’s response to that?

Joel Brennan:
Well, I think these are — the two issues we’re talking about are almost the same issue. It’s that the Republican leadership in the legislature was really unhappy with the results of November, 2018 and they’ve been willing to take unprecedented steps, unconstitutional steps to try to thwart the will of the people from November of 2018. In the case of the Building Commission, there is a well-honored 50-year tradition that the process is that the Building Commission spends months, the staff spends months putting together a list of projects, prioritized from the different agencies, prioritized from the university, submits those to the Building Commission. The Building Commission votes on those affirmatively, sends those forward to the legislature. That’s what didn’t happen this week. 300 times, four Republican legislators voted against the will of — those projects that have something to do with public safety, that have to do with veterans, that have to do with cancer research. Any number of issues, they stood in the way of time and time again.

Frederica Freyberg:
But for their part Republicans called the proposed $2 billion in borrowing “unrealistic and unsustainable.” What about that persuasion?

Joel Brennan:
Well, I think it’s interesting. The speaker, Speaker Vos and Majority Leader Fitzgerald were in those roles in 2013. And if you go back and you look at Governor Walker’s budget in 2013 and what the total amount of borrowing was, it was about 2.8% difference. 2.8% less than what the governor has proposed in this budget. If you go back to Tommy Thompsons last budget, if you go back to Scott McCallum’s only budget, those were both probably 10% to 15% higher if you look at it in terms of 2019 dollars than the borrowing that this governor has proposed. It’s less — I’ve heard them say that they — that this was something that they couldn’t stomach. I don’t think it’s something they can’t stomach. I think they don’t like the chef. And I think that’s the difference when it comes to these things.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet Governor Evers’ capitol budget proposal is $1.5 billion over Governor Walker’s last capitol budget.

Joel Brennan:
Yeah. I think you should probably take a look at — and I think people would probably agree that some of the work that happened in Governor Walker’s last couple of terms should have a little bit of an asterisk next to it. In the biennial budget two budgets ago, he was getting ready to run for president of the United States so wanted to appeal to a conservative base around the country. In the next biennial budget, this was after he had had a disastrous campaign for president and was looking at running for re-election and so I think he was trying to appeal to others. During that time, the fact that there weren’t investments made in the 6700 state facilities and in the university system and things like that, there is an acknowledgment across the capitol that there’s pent-up demand for those things. Governor Evers’ investments are a return to and an acknowledgment that we do need to invest in those things.

Frederica Freyberg:
The largest chunk of Governor Ever’s capitol budget would go to the UW System, of which we should say WPT is a part. But where does the rejection of those items put those UW projects?

Joel Brennan:
Well, those projects come from a prioritized list that the UW System has amassed over the last couple of years, just as the other agency requests have done. As we submit this and as the legislature takes this up, my presumption is that they will look at those in the same priority order, that the challenge is that there’s an infrastructure in place at the Building Commission. There’s a staff that spends months doing all of the due diligence behind these things, making sure there’s thoughtful consideration of these things. By the legislature just taking these things up and maybe not acknowledging that, while I know there are talented people in the legislature, that same infrastructure, that same thoughtfulness doesn’t exist. So you wonder what is it that’s going to be the determining factor? Is it going to be politics instead of thoughtful, deep discussion of these things and ponderance? I think that’s the challenge. But make no mistake, the actions, the 300 times that these Republicans took no votes on these things, they put all that into question on issues having to do with life safety, having to do with public safety, having to do with the investment in the innovative arm of the state which really is the university system.

Frederica Freyberg:
We need to leave it there. Secretary Joel Brennan, thanks very much for joining us.

Joel Brennan:
Thanks very much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on the lame duck decision and the appeal of it, we turn to WPRs Capitol Bureau Chief, Shawn Johnson. Shawn, thanks for being here.

Shawn Johnson:
Hey Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:
So it wouldn’t be Wisconsin without some dueling court cases flying around late in the week.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. Kind of reminiscent when Governor Walker came into the office in 2011. Made a lot of changes. Went through court. It’s kind of fitting that this is stuff that happened at the end of his administration that’s now working its way through court again.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, late this afternoon Governor Tony Evers took the opportunity to overturn some appointments that Republicans made during the lame duck session, which was then struck down by Judge Niess. That’s pretty big news.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. If you’re wondering if this ruling by Judge Niess on Thursday was consequential, this would be an argument that the answer is yes. Judge Niess essentially ruled that everything that happened in that December lame duck session was unlawful because the legislature can’t meet in extraordinary session. The state Constitution doesn’t explicitly allow it. So anything that happened was unlawful, that included the 82 appointments. There was some question about what that meant. We now know what Governor Evers thinks it meant. It means that those appointments are no longer valid, so these are appointments that include appointments to the Public Service Commission, that’s a term that runs into 2023, an appointment to the Board of Regents.

Frederica Freyberg:
Two of them, right?

Shawn Johnson:
One of those runs until 2023 again. Those are consequential appointments that Governor Evers is now saying he has withdrawn.

Frederica Freyberg:
Meanwhile, the defendants in this case want to take it to the Third District Court of Appeals seeking an emergency stay of Judge Niess’ ruling striking down that lame duck legislation. What do we know about that Third District?

Shawn Johnson:
We don’t know much about why they decided to go to the Third District other than it’s not Madisons district. So the state is split up into different districts for Court of Appeals. Madison, Dane County is in District Four. This case was brought in Dane County, but Republicans decided they wanted to go to a district that covers the northern half of Wisconsin. They say that they can do that in lawsuits against the state. The plaintiffs in this case and the governor say not so fast. It’s not that kind of lawsuit. You have to bring the appeal in Dane County if you want to bring this case.

Frederica Freyberg:
Also, Governor Evers is saying that he wants to be heard on this.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. Essentially that he’s telling the court, slow down a second, because Republican lawmakers through their attorney are saying there’s chaos out there. We need you, the Court of Appeals to step in and undo everything that Judge Niess did, return things back to the way they were Wednesday and then we can talk about this. Governor Evers is saying not so fast. Before you talk about moving this to the Third District Court of Appeals, Im in this case, hear me out.

Frederica Freyberg:
And we understand now that the Third District Court of Appeals is giving all parties until 4:00 p.m. on Monday. So I guess that said, we don’t expect them to rule on this emergency stay, you know, on Friday or Saturday or Sunday. So I guess we’ll just stay tuned for that. But back to Judge Niess’ original ruling. He said this about it. He said, “The bottom line in this case is that the Legislature did not lawfully meet during its December 2018 extraordinary session, which therefore proceeded in violation of the Wisconsin Constitution.” And yet there have been extraordinary sessions going back where they passed legislation. What about that?

Shawn Johnson:
There have. Back to 1980s, when the Wisconsin Legislature had its first extraordinary session. There have been about two dozen in Wisconsin history. This has not been a completely unusual affair for it to happen. An extraordinary session has been when legislative leaders call the legislature back into session when they’re not normally scheduled to be there. Judge Niess is saying the Constitution doesn’t say anything about that. The Constitution authorizes the governor to call special sessions and governors have done that back to 1861. Doesn’t say anything about extraordinary session. So it doesn’t matter that it’s been done a lot. They’re not allowed.

Frederica Freyberg:
Republicans say that this ruling creates chaos because Judge Niess’ ruling creates this chaos that “raises questions about items passed in past extraordinary sessions.” Judge Niess said, “Don’t try to scare me.”

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. So they’re saying that anything that was passed in extraordinary session, if you adopt this argument, is no longer valid and they’re pointing out long pages of laws actually that have been tweaked during extraordinary sessions, including laws governing prison sentences for sex offenders. Judge Niess said, look, my ruling is strictly to December of 2018 and that extraordinary session, nothing more.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We will be watching this as usual as the days tick on. Shawn, thanks very much.

Shawn Johnson:
Thanks, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:
This week, two Wisconsin Congressmen who hold very different political positions on most everything came together to talk about their shared values. Republican U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher from Green Bay and Town of Vermont Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan took questions at a forum in Appleton sponsored by the history museum there. The program is called Bridging the Gap. In these most polarized of times, the pair seemed to truly enjoy each other’s company and the discussion of where they agree. We started our interview with them asking why they seem to be breaking the mold on lockstep partisanship.

Mark Pocan:
You know, I think part of it’s being from Wisconsin and part of it is present company. Mike is someone who’s a very approachable, nice person. I don’t think we’ve ever had a point where we’ve been disagreeable to each other anything. And you know, Mike’s been wrong a lot. I think it’s really the approach more than anything. You know, find out what you agree on, see if you can move on from something from there. We’ve tried to operate that way. And I think this is what, our third time we’ve done something like this, having a conversation. I just think if more politics happened this way we’d all be better off.

Mike Gallagher:
Yeah. I think it’s enjoyable because it’s so rare in modern politics. I mean I have people that still come up to me after the first couple of these that say we just never see anything like that. It’s not like Mark and I left those town halls agreeing on a lot of things. But we were able to have a respectful dialogue and debate without it devolving into sort of fist fights. We need more of that and that’s the Wisconsin way. You treat your neighbors with respect.

Frederica Freyberg:
What would you describe as your most important shared values?

Mike Gallagher:
What came out in the discussion, I think when we talked about the role of America in the world, certainly as a force for good and a land of opportunity. I mean, I think when it comes down to it, we all kind of want the same things. We want to pass that amazing gift that we have as Americans on to that next generation. We can have a disagreement about how we get there, but the ends remain the same. To continue this experiment in self-government that’s been the most successful one in human history.

Mark Pocan:
I think we both also agree on a lot of the processes that are broken right now.

Mike Gallagher:
Yeah.

Mark Pocan:
So you could do differently and make the Congress work a lot better. So that’s been helpful, whether it be budget review or other ideas that are out there about where concentration of power is among leadership, et cetera. Just the fact you recognize that allows you to see some paths forward.

Frederica Freyberg:
I know you share this. You both voted against the emergency declaration. First to you, Representative Pocan. Why?

Mark Pocan:
I saw it as something that wasn’t really an emergency and an abuse of what the law should be for any president should have that. I would argue that is true of Democrats too. If something’s a national emergency, we’re all stopping everything we’re doing because it’s a national emergency. If it’s anything short of that, then it’s probably not a national emergency. If you can’t convince Congress to give funding for a wall that he wants, he’s got to find other ways to do that. But that’s not the proper way to get it done.

Frederica Freyberg:
Representative Gallagher, you kind of bucked your caucus on that. Why?

Mike Gallagher:
So I was highly critical of the expansion of executive authority under President Obama. I think the distortion at the heart of our Constitution is the fact that Congress has surrendered all of its power to the executive branch. In order to be conservative in any meaningful sense, in order to be intellectually consistent, I have to oppose that expansion even when it is my own party, doing something I largely agree with on the merits. How you do things actually matters in this country.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as to funding that border wall, where do you stand?

Mike Gallagher:
I voted for the $5.7 billion. I would continue to vote for it today. I don’t see a political path forward at present because we lost the election and now the Democrats control the House. It’s my belief based on my reading of the statute that the administration is going to try and spend at least $5 to $6 billion prior even to getting to the money that’s linked to the emergency money. In order to transfer money from one account to the other, they’ll have to get Congressional approval, in my opinion. Article One, Section Nine of the Constitution, you can’t draw appropriations except in consequence of law. I think Congress needs to demand a greater seat at the table. I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and solve any number of issues. But that’s not the way it works. You have to through the difficult process of getting buy-in from Article One.

Frederica Freyberg:
Representative Pocan, as to the funding for the wall, whats your position on that kind of funding?

Mark Pocan:
Yeah, I think that misses the actual point that people are trying to get done. One, we should have a real conversation about comprehensive immigration reform. We’ve got lots of people here who we need to figure out how to deal with that status. And to what the president said he’s worried about drugs getting into the country, he’s worried about human trafficking, gangs. They don’t come in the places that he’s trying to put border walls. We found that 90% of the drugs come through points of entry. Let’s beef up what we do a points of entry so we can stop drugs from coming in the country. But just because he made a campaign process about a wall doesn’t mean that it’s right. I think all the other data shows that it wouldn’t work.

Frederica Freyberg:
What should be done about immigration finally?

Mark Pocan:
I wish — my first session, now four sessions ago, there was a bipartisan effort I think with about 70 votes that came out of the Senate that had a pathway to citizenship for aspiring Americans but also dealt with some security issues. It wasn’t perfect but the fact that it got that much bipartisan support meant it was a really great proposal to at least work off of. I think we need to have that conversation again. You can’t have 11 or 13 million people here right now who are undocumented and pretend as if that’s not an issue.

Frederica Freyberg:
Where are you on that conversation?

Mike Gallagher:
I think it has to start with border security because I don’t think we’ll have the trust of the American people until we actually, effectively secure the border. I believe it should be a bipartisan goal to get 100% operational control of the border. Now you’re right to suggest that that’s going to involve many more things than just a wall, right? We going to have to deploy technology. Right now we have AI technology that allows us to really get comprehensive coverage of some sectors of the southern border. We’re going to need more personnel. But really the crisis we have right now is we have people in Central America that are coming up and they’re claiming asylum and surrendering to the authorities. We don’t have the legal resources necessary to adjudicate those asylum claims. Sometimes they get released, particularly if they’re with children. And they never show back up. Until we can solve those immediate problems, Im not sure we’re going to be able to get to comprehensive immigration reform. But I do think there’s some common sense fixes like a state-based guest worker visa program making it easier for people with STEM backgrounds who study in our universities to stay here that we can work on simultaneously.

Frederica Freyberg:
Bringing this a little bit closer to home, we know that Wisconsin dairy farms rely very heavily on immigrant labor. How do you protect that class of employees and the farmers themselves?

Mark Pocan:
Yeah. It’s one of the big things you hear right now. With farms, they’re worried about the workforce. A lot of folks are people from other countries who are working on it. And secondly they’re worried about some of the president’s trade practices, too. I meant that’s the other part because of the fight with China and not exactly clear where we’re at with NAFTA. Soybean farmers, dairy farmers are really facing some real challenges. So they feel like they’re being hit from a lot of fronts. What we don’t want to happen is lose the small family farms, all just become a bunch of big corporate farms. That’s happened in other states. We’re doing our best to make sure that doesn’t happen here.

Frederica Freyberg:
That’s quite a crisis in Wisconsin as we know.

Mike Gallagher:
Huge crisis in Wisconsin. At a time when we’ve had persistently low milk prices for years now, farmers are now getting caught in the crossfire of the Section 232 tariffs. These are largely the tariffs that we placed on our allies’ steel aluminum tariffs against countries like Canada and Mexico. It’s my belief that we should absolutely be getting aggressive economically with China under Section 301 but then to simultaneously pick a fight with our allies under 232 doesn’t make any practical sense to me. It’s not fair for Wisconsin farmers to ask them to shoulder that burden at a time when they’re already struggling.

Frederica Freyberg:
You split on HR1, which is a piece of legislation that you sponsored. Describe to me briefly what that is and why you sponsored it.

Mark Pocan:
HR1 was a comprehensive way of trying to deal with the mess that’s sometimes known as Washington D.C. So it was trying to deal with election reform, campaign finance reform and ethics reform and had a lot of provisions in there that people I think have been talking about for a very long time. It did pass out of the House and my guess is that if it doesn’t pass through the Senate, we’ll break it up into pieces. I know there are some thing that Mike and I have talked about he also agrees with. There’s things he doesn’t. But the bottom line is one thing Donald Trump was really right about was when he said, “Drain the swamp.” Most people rightfully so realize special interests have way too much influence in Washington. The problem is he drudged it deeper, built a high-rise luxury condo on a swamp. We really need to address that. And this bill was trying to get at many of those problems.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why did you vote against it?

Mike Gallagher:
There’s certain provisions in there like the public, 6 to 1 match, public money for small dollar donations that I view as counterproductive. That would inject more money, in this case public money, into our elections when we actually need to do the opposite. We need to reduce the amount of money in our elections. While I support things like nonpartisan redistricting as well, I don’t think its the role of the federal government to tell the states how to do that. But Mark’s right to suggest there’s a lot in that bill that I like, particularly on the ethics section, which I believe is the first section. There’s some cases I didn’t think it went far enough in terms of banning lobbying from former members of Congress for lifetime. So I think there’s some stuff we can salvage even though I voted against the bill.

Frederica Freyberg:
The president’s budget sharply cuts domestic spending but sharply increases military spending even more, I understand, than the Pentagon asked for. But what in your minds does his budget say about his priorities going into the 2020 election?

Mike Gallagher:
Well, these budgets — we were talking about budget reform. The budgeting exercise is almost become a joke. These aren’t real documents. They’re messaging exercises and so it’s up to Congress to determine where the money’s actually going. And there’s a lot of areas where we have Wisconsin priorities we need to protect, like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. I think the president is right to suggest that we need to continue to sustain the military rebuild that we’ve had some success on in the last two year. And it’s going to require at least 3% to 5% real growth over the next ten years is my belief in order to keep pace with some of the investments that our competitors like China and Russia are making right now.

Frederica Freyberg:
Representative Pocan, what do you think this presidential budget says about his messaging going into the campaign?

Mark Pocan:
Yeah, I mean in its perfect sense, the budget should be a statement of your values. Where you actually put money is where you cared enough to actually invest our tax dollars. Unfortunately, his budget missed a lot. I mean it cut things like National Institutes of Health to help fund cures for diseases, something that bipartisan — in a bipartisan way Congress has increased money every single time. He cut that. He cut double digits to education, to human services, a whole lot of areas. And then of course he had his money additional for the wall. And I would argue Id prefer that if we’re putting money into defense, it goes to our service members rather than some of the other activities. This president has been pretty inconsistent on how he’s given direction to the Department of Defense. I think it’s a document that probably doesn’t have much standing right now, the way we do the budgeting process. It’s far more likely that the appropriations process will hopefully function and will wind up with a Senate version and House version and a conference committee will hopefully come up with something. I think we can move a little farther this time than perhaps the last few years.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We need to leave it there. Representative Gallagher, Representative Pocan, thanks very much.

Mark Pocan and Mike Gallagher:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Speaking of the president’s budget, this week the Pentagon sent Congress a 20-page list of military construction projects that might be eliminated to pay for President Donald Trump’s wall on the border with Mexico. It includes two in Wisconsin, a $23 million project to construct new barracks at Fort McCoy and $8 million to build a small arms range at Truax Field. The Defense Department said not all projects on the list would be chosen for cuts. And that is our program for tonight. Next year we will preview the race for state supreme court between Brian Hagedorn and Lisa Neubauer. 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.