Here & Now

Here & Now for Nov. 9, 2018

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

Frederica Freyberg:
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” reports on the Evers and Baldwin victories Tuesday night. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald is here to talk about limiting the governor-elect’s authority. Shawn Johnson looks at challenges ahead for a Democratic governor who faces a Republican legislature. It’s “Here & Now” for November 9.

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

Frederica Freyberg:
Record midterm voter turnout Tuesday. According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, unofficial results show that more than 2.67 million Wisconsinites, more than 59% of the voting age population, trudged through rain and cold to get to the polls. And there’s this. “There is no evidence of hacking or voter fraud or suppression,” said Meagan Wolfe of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “Given the unprecedented voter turnout for the midterm election, the relatively small number of issues reported should give Wisconsinites confidence and pride in our system of clean and transparent elections.” We begin tonight with the governor’s race, where Democrat Tony Evers captured just more than a one-point margin of victory. But it wasn’t called until Wednesday morning. Zac Schultz reports.

Zac Schultz:
Governor Scott Walker’s election night party in Pewaukee was a more subdued affair than in prior election years.

[cheers and applause]

Zac Schultz:
During his wins in 2010, ’12 and ’14, Walker was a clear favorite heading into the night and was declared the winner in time for the 10:00 news. But this time a small crowd of supporters looked anxious as Walker and Democrat Tony Evers traded the lead past midnight. Looming over it all were 47,000 uncounted absentee ballots from the city of Milwaukee. With 98% of all precincts reporting, it was clear these ballots would determine the winner. The results were broadcast live in the room by WTMJ in Milwaukee.

Election Official:
For Walker, 47,463. He received 7,181. And the Democratic candidate, Evers, received 38,674.

Zac Schultz:
That gave Evers his winning margin of 29,000 votes. Immediately the audio was cut. And those who weren’t stunned into silence began heading for the exits. Two minutes later, Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch took the podium.

Rebecca Kleefisch:
I am here this morning to tell you that the fight is not over.

[cheers]

Zac Schultz:
She did not concede. Instead, she asked for donations and volunteers.

Rebecca Kleefisch:
That this morning we are preparing for the likelihood of a recount here in the state of Wisconsin.

Zac Schultz:
Supporters weren’t ready to talk about the end of the Scott Walker era.

Man:
My mood on the whole thing is disbelief.

Woman:
I need some Tums.

[cheers and applause]

Zac Schultz:
Meanwhile, in Madison, the future Lieutenant Governor, Mandela Barnes, was talking about emotions on the other end of the spectrum.

Mandela Barnes:
This has been a wild night. We’ve gone through a range of emotions. But in the end, we prevailed.

[cheers and applause]

Zac Schultz:
Even without a concession call from Walker, Tony Evers was ready to declare victory.

Tony Evers:
Given all the results we have seen tonight, I feel confident in saying to you right now, my name is Tony Evers, and I’m going to be the next governor of the state of Wisconsin!

[cheers and applause]

Frederica Freyberg:
By Wednesday afternoon, Governor Walker conceded the race by press release that read in part, “Thanks to Tony Evers for his gracious comments on our call today. I offered the full support of my staff and our cabinet as he begins the transition process. Finally, thank you to the voters of the great state of Wisconsin. It has been my honor to serve as your governor for nearly eight years.” Within hours of the governor’s concession, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos floated the idea of convening a lame duck session of the legislature. A session that would explore and possibly approve changes to current authorities entitled to Wisconsin’s governor. Republicans caucused on the matter Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Scott Fitzgerald:
You bet. Good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is this about reducing the powers of Governor-elect Tony Evers?

Scott Fitzgerald:
I think it’s being mischaracterized. I think what we’re really talking about is codifying some of the rules that currently are part of Wisconsin law into statute. They’re things that Republicans feel real strong about. And it’s certainly I think something we had been talking about if in fact Governor Walker were to lose re-election. And after talking to some of the members in our caucus, they said, “Yeah, we think that is a good idea.” I think it’s prudent. It’s not certainly I think capturing or taking away anything from Governor-elect Evers. I think it’s once again kind of underscoring what we think is important.

Frederica Freyberg:
Codifying like what?

Scott Fitzgerald:
There’s a number — I mean, it’s not the longest list in the world. I think it’s probably about a dozen items.

Frederica Freyberg:
Like?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Of things. Probably photo ID is the best one. That’s something that’s had overwhelming support among Wisconsinites. Again, we just had a statewide election in which there were very few issues related to that. But that’s something that was never really addressed by the Republican legislature and is still in rule. So that’s a good example of an item that I think we’d like probably take up.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let’s see what Robin Vos said. He said, “Governor-elect Evers made a generous offer to work together, so he should not have a problem with the legislation that may be considered. The reforms are intended to keep both sides at the table to reach a consensus.” Would this include things like appointments?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Well, the makeup of some of the boards, I think is one of the items specifically that we want to take a look at. I think there hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to that. But, you know, Governor-elect Evers made some campaign promises and I think probably the one we’re most worried about is that he’s going to disassemble the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and replace it with the old Department of Commerce. That’s a mistake. I think it’s a huge mistake. When I get an opportunity to meet with him, hopefully we’ll be able to convince him not to do that.

Frederica Freyberg:
In response to all of this, Governor-elect Evers tweeted this. He said, “Let me be clear. The Republicans and Speaker Vos should stop any and all attempts to play politics and weaken the powers of governor’s office in Wisconsin before I take the oath.” He says, “This is a complete violation of the separation of powers in our system. Wisconsin voted for a change from the years of naked partisanship and divide-and-conquer politics. This must end.” What is your response to that?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Pretty strong. I think since then he’s probably walked it back a little bit. Listen. Most of us have known Tony Evers for 25 years that have been in the legislature for any length of time. We’ve worked with him as superintendent. We’ve worked with DPI on a number of different, pretty, you know, sweeping proposals, like school choice. And I think, you know, we’ll find kind of our rhythm here. It’s going to take a while. But in the eight years that I was in the legislature when Governor Doyle was there, we worked things out and I think — I think that’ll happen.

Frederica Freyberg:
So is Governor Walker on board with this and in talks with you and was he part of that kind of discussion before the election?

Scott Fitzgerald:
No. I haven’t talked to Governor Walker about that. I haven’t talked to Governor Walker since the election yet. But that’s a conversation certainly we’ll try and have with him soon and see kind of what his view is on some of these proposals. But, again, I think until we kind of work through this and are able to actually define it, you know, I don’t want people to over-react, because I think they’ll be underwhelmed when they see some of these items. It’s really, again, about codifying rules in statute.

Frederica Freyberg:
Going forward with this kind of divided government, which is a place that you’re not used to being in for the past eight years, can we expect gridlock at the capitol?

Scott Fitzgerald:
I think things will slow down. You know, it was pretty easy for a state senator, an assemblyman to kind of come up with a bill, run it through their house and kind of move it over and then, boom, it was on the governor’s desk.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right.

Scott Fitzgerald:
You know, I think there’s going to be some Republican legislators that are going to be surprised just how slow that process becomes for them at each juncture. People are saying, “Is the governor going to sign this? Probably not.” Well, then maybe it’s not worth doing. So I think there’s going to be some give and take. But the big areas, I think K-12 education, probably transportation are a couple of the areas we know that aren’t necessarily partisan. And as a result of that, I think that’s kind of where the common ground is going to be.

Frederica Freyberg:
Interestingly, though, K-12 and transportation, new reporting out today just talks about how it would take $2 billion just to continue kind of agency spending right now. So that’s likely to be kind of a push and pull.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Well, that’s Governor-elect Evers’ number. Do I think we’ll hit that number? No. So that $2 billion figure is confined within the idea that that’s what his budget will look like. Hopefully there will be some give-and-take before he rolls something out in February so those types of huge discrepancies won’t exist.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there. Scott Fitzgerald, thanks very much.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now a look ahead at what promises to be a challenging transition at the state capitol. For that we welcome Wisconsin Public Radio’s Shawn Johnson. Shawn, thanks for being here.

Shawn Johnson:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
Long week of course. But before we get into this divided government discussion and what that might look like, you did some number crunching going back as to turnout specifically in Dane County.

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. In a way, it feels like lazy analysis to talk about Dane County turning out the Democratic vote because you could say that every election, right. But if you look at the margin that Dane County put out for Tony Evers, set aside the margin they gave Tammy Baldwin, which was even larger, but for Evers, he defeated Scott Walker in Dane County by a margin of 150,000 votes. That’s huge. If you look back at four years ago, that’s 48,000 votes more of a margin than Mary Burke had in Dane County. If you go back to Tom Barrett’s run in 2010, he had about an 81,000 vote margin. Almost doubled Tom Barrett. That just shows you the growing power of Dane County for Democrats in statewide elections. Milwaukee County had a huge margin, too. The suburban counties did not give the same margins to Walker that they usually do.

Frederica Freyberg:
So those turnouts all about enthusiasm?

Shawn Johnson:
You would presume, yeah. I mean the suburban turnout actually is maybe as indicative of that as anything. I mean Governor Walker has been able to rely on Waukesha County in particular to help him offset Dane’s numbers over the years. He would get 72% of the vote there reliably. Got about 66% last week. That’s a drop-off in his margin of about 20,000 votes. In a close election that was decided by 31,000 votes, that counted.

Frederica Freyberg:
It felt like last week, but it was just —

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah, I said last week. Time is a little bit goofy.

Frederica Freyberg:
You’ve covered day to day legislators at the capitol for years. What is this divided government going to look at?

Shawn Johnson:
You remember covering Jim Doyle with the Republican legislature there. Jim Doyle, the Democratic governor, would introduce things. Sometimes knowing full well that it was not going to pass in the legislature, but he would say, you know, this is my agenda. This is what I want to see. And if they stood in the way of that, that was kind of to their peril, in a way. And the Republican legislature would send stuff to Governor’s Doyle’s desk, knowing full well Governor Doyle was going to veto it. There was a lot of that back and forth where they’d send one thing down the way knowing that it wasn’t going to become law, but that’s kind of just the way that it operated. Now, the budget’s a different story because they know they have to pass a budget. And so that kind of gives the governor a strong hand when it comes to budgets in particular.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, and one of the big items in that is going to be transportation funding.

Shawn Johnson:
Yes. And we have a governor now, Tony Evers, who has a very different set of priorities on transportation funding than Governor Walker did. And remember, Governor Walker was at odds with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos when it came to transportation funding. Speaker Vos was open to raising revenue for roads, was open to some kind of tax increase or toll roads. He was a very outspoken proponent of that. And if you hear what Tony Evers said on the campaign trail compared to what Robin Vos has said over time, seems like maybe there’s some like-minded people there. And maybe they would reach an agreement.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about the Senate on that piece?

Shawn Johnson:
So the Senate is where there was resistance to road funding — increasing road funding in the last session. And now — and it was kind of a small group of conservative Senators who were very against it. I think you could say that that small group got a little bit larger in this last election, with the election of a Republican senator, Andre Jacque in the First Senate District. Jacque, when he would talk about transportation during the campaign, he was saying things similar to Governor Walker, that he’d only be open to some kind of a revenue increase for roads if they cut taxes somewhere else.

Frederica Freyberg:
If it was offset. Now the other big thing that Tony Evers talked about on the campaign trail was accepting the federal Medicaid money and that would have to be signed off on by the legislature through the budget process. So that also doesn’t seem likely.

Shawn Johnson:
It does not seem likely given what Republican legislators have said about this over time. Although I think you can assume that would be in Tony Evers’ budget proposal. Another healthcare thing that he talked about on the campaign with stopping Wisconsin’s participation in this federal lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act. That’s something that Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul would be able to stop. That said, the lawsuit’s going to continue because it’s a multistate suit. Just wouldn’t have Wisconsin’s participation.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right. Robin Vos is now saying in terms of this lame duck session that would introduce some legislation that one of the big things that he wants to do there is some kind of provisions for coverage of pre-existing conditions. And so all of this gets kind of mixed up between the lawsuit and the Medicaid money and pre-existing conditions. But what do you make of Robin Vos coming out and saying that they really need to codify some of these rules into law and some people are construing it as a power grab?

Shawn Johnson:
Yeah. Before Governor Walker leaves office, they want to do all these things. Before Tony Evers takes office. I guess we should all say we want to see the details, because what they’re talking about could be nibbling around the edges or it could be big. When you’re talking about a governor’s powers in Wisconsin, it’s pretty broad. There are a lot of ways they could scale that back, whether it means rule-making or who a governor puts on boards and commissions all over the state. Maybe the legislature would say, actually we would like to make those appointments ourselves and Tony Evers would not get that chance.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll wait and see what’s in it. Shawn Johnson, thanks a lot.

Shawn Johnson:
Thanks a lot.

Frederica Freyberg:
The Marquette Law School Poll was nearly pitch perfect in the race for Wisconsin governor, having it tied going into the election. Polling was also right as rain in the U.S. Senate race. Incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin won the race by ten points over her Republican challenger Leah Vukmir. In tonight’s closer look, how that played out Tuesday night.

News Anchor:
CNN is projecting that Tammy Baldwin has won her race in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
The projections for the win started coming in even before the polls closed in Wisconsin. The foregone conclusion of the official call that quickly followed didn’t dampen the celebratory mood over a second term for the Madison Democrat with statewide appeal.

[cheers and applause]

Tammy Baldwin:
So thank you, Wisconsin!
[cheers and applause]

Tammy Baldwin:
For us, it wasn’t simply a political fight. It was a fight about doing what’s right.

Frederica Freyberg:
Baldwin spoke to protecting coverage of pre-existing conditions, helping farmers, veterans and Wisconsin manufacturing, of combating climate change and maintaining retirement security.

Tammy Baldwin:
In Wisconsin, we understand that America will only be made stronger when our political debate becomes more about issues and less about knocking each other down.

[cheers and applause]

Frederica Freyberg:
60 miles away, supporters, including Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, heard Leah Vukmir concede after a rough-and-tumble run-up to the election.

Leah Vukmir:
Even though we don’t see eye to eye on the issues, to say the least, she ran a hard-fought race.

Frederica Freyberg:
Vukmir is as hard right as Baldwin is hard left.

Tammy Baldwin:
Make no mistake. I am proud to be a Wisconsin progressive.

[cheers and applause]

Frederica Freyberg:
Baldwin’s closing soundtrack election night was “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.”
Senator Baldwin says she sees a divided Congress being able to work potential compromise on issues such as infrastructure, lowering prescription drug prices and the farm bill. More on the election results and what it all means with our political panelists, Capitol Consultants’ Bill McCoshen and Scot Ross of One Wisconsin Now. Thanks for being here.

Bill McCoshen, Scot Ross:
Thanks for having us.

Frederica Freyberg:
So reaction to Tuesday night’s results?

Scot Ross:
Well, six Democrats on statewide ballot and six Democrats won. It was a huge, resounding victory for not just good government, but for the people of Wisconsin. 565,000 people early voted. That is a record. About 21% of the electorate. Top to bottom, every corner of the state, Democrats went out and voted and independents were with the Democrats on this one this time around. It’s a new day here in the state of Wisconsin. It’s a day where people are going to have to come together to forge real solutions.

Bill McCoshen:
Split decision. Democrats did win at the top of the ticket. Tammy Baldwin having the biggest margin, 10%. All the other races were very, very close. The gubernatorial race was 31,000 or 1.2%. The AGs race was 22,000 votes that separated them. Third party candidates played a role in both those races. So the good news for the Republicans was they overwhelmingly won the legislature. 63 seats in the Assembly, which was a loss of one. 19 seats in the Senate, which was a gain of one. So voters said we like the direction of the state. We’re just looking for a little tweak at the top.

Frederica Freyberg:
Speaking of that tweak at the top, is that like a gut punch?

Bill McCoshen:
I think so. Scott Walker has been around for a long time. For him to lose, I think had to be hard for him personally. Certainly hard for the administration. But it was — a lot of us saw this as a potentially the toughest race of his career. Tommy Thompson had said that many times. This was going to be Scott Walker’s toughest race. I think the fact that Tony Evers got through the primary was even more problematic for Walker because he was so generic and vanilla. It was hard to attack him and have anything stick. The race ultimately was more about Walker and wasn’t enough.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let me just ask, what do you know about what Scott Walker might do next?

Bill McCoshen:
So there are some rumors that he’s considering the ministry, which wouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s a very spiritual man. His father was a minister. I’m not sure if that’s his final course. I think he’ll be guided by god and we’ll see. But I’d be surprised if he didn’t do something in the faith community. He may have some options with the Trump Administration. But quite honestly, I’m not sure if those are something he’d be interested in.

Scot Ross:
There’s an election in two years. Scott Walker will be a part of it in some way, shape or form. In 2022 not only is the governor up, but also Ron Johnson’s not running for Senate again. So that opportunity is there. Scott Walker spent 25 years doing politics. He ain’t going away.

Frederica Freyberg:
And that would seem to be like what he might do. What do you think of that?

Bill McCoshen:
Listen, sometimes a pause is okay. You can be off the stage for a little while. Let things cool down. Remember, voters overwhelmingly support the direction of the state. On Charles Franklin’s Marquette Law School Poll, the final poll had 54% of the people saying the state was heading in the right direction. 50% of the people said Walker was doing a good job. They approved of his job approval. So they were looking for a little bit of a tweak here, not necessarily like you would see at the national level, where it’s a tone thing. Where some voters don’t like Donald Trump’s tone. Scott Walker’s never had a tone like that. They were just looking for someone who’s going to keep their eye on Wisconsin full-time.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you don’t think Trump had anything to do with Scott Walker losing?

Scot Ross:
Oh, I think he did because Trump was on the ballot. Scott Walker tied himself. Now there wasn’t advertising. This shows you how powerful the Trump thing was. There wasn’t any advertising with, for instance, Donald Trump and Scott Walker in the oval office. The photo of him sitting in what we call the big boy chair. But he was definitely on the ballot because again, look at people running to the polls. Again, 565,000 people early voted. Dane County and Milwaukee County were enormous in terms of turnout. We also saw a depression in terms of the WOW counties, where suburban white women who were saying, “I ain’t with this Trump character.”

Bill McCoshen:
I think they under-used him. And I’ve said that on previous shows.

Frederica Freyberg:
Under-used Donald Trump?

Bill McCoshen:
Yeah. They should have put him back and put him either in West Bend or Port Washington or even in Waukesha. Where he performed — he went to Mosinee and all the northern counties Walker did better than he did in 2014. Mike Pence went to St. Croix County, to Hudson the final weekend and Walker did 1800 votes better than he did in 2014.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let me ask you about this. This thing that’s come out this week that the Republican legislative leaders are talking about limiting the power of Governor-elect Tony Evers.

Scot Ross:
It’s ridiculous. Robin Vos is the one who’s out there. It’s because Robin Vos is making a play to, allegedly, be the most powerful elected Republican in the state of Wisconsin. The fact is Robin Vos’ caucus, which is 63 because he lost Scott Walker and Leah Vukmir’s old Assembly seat, the fact is they got 45% of the vote but because of rigged maps, he gets 63 votes in the Assembly. That is not a mandate. As I understand it and I checked my Constitution — 45% of the votes in an Assembly caucus does not give you the keys to the governor’s office.

Bill McCoshen:
63 seats, 19 seats. I expect the legislature, the Republicans, to come back into lame duck session shortly after Thanksgiving. This is not uncommon. Democrats did it when Jim Doyle was governor on his way out the door. They tried to codify state employee contracts. Failed and Act 10 came two months later. I think they will come back. I think they’ll try and adjust some things but they’ll never limit the governor’s power. This is the most powerful veto anywhere in the country. Tony Evers will always have that. What they’ll do is some nips and tucks, some surgical changes to codify existing laws that they’ve already passed.

Scot Ross:
I think Governor-elect Evers, as Bill said, has the most powerful veto pen when he gets into office. He also has the bully pulpit, which is incredibly powerful. You’ve been there before so you know how powerful the bully pulpit is. What I like is the fact that Governor-elect Evers came out so very strong to say, “Hold on just one second.” And basically the educator gave Robin Vos a civics lesson. And I think that was great to see.

Bill McCoshen:
Voters voted for divided government and got to see a little bit of that this week. I mean Tony Evers, it was slightly out of character for him, but he’s going to have to do more of that in order to compete with Vos and Fitzgerald going forward.

Frederica Freyberg:
Bill and Scot, we leave it there. Thanks very much.

Scot Ross, Bill McCoshen:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now for a different look at the election results. Richland County has done it again. That is, keeping its streak for picking the winner in elections for governor. Since 1990, the county has voted for the winning candidate in elections for president and governor. Lincoln and Forest Counties had similar streaks of choosing the winners, including for U.S. Senate over that same time period, but missed the mark this year, going for Walker and Vukmir.
And that is all for tonight’s program. I’m 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.