Here & Now

Here & Now for October 29, 2021

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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” the latest on the state wolf hunt. We check in with the state senator who is leading the next election investigation. And WPR’s Shawn Johnson breaks down the latest on redistricting. It’s “Here & Now” for October 29.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

Partisan roiling around the 2020 election hit a fever pitch late this week. The Racine County sheriff accused the Wisconsin Elections Commission of breaking the law in the midst of the pandemic for allowing nursing home staff to help residents vote in 2020 in place of special voting deputies. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos quickly piled on, calling for the WEC administrator to resign and other Republicans called for all state election commissioners to immediately step down and face possible prosecution. In response, Meagan Wolfe said, “Despite the current political firestorm, I will continue to apply my full focus on the important work of serving all Wisconsin’s voters and local election officials. It would be irresponsible to spend any energy engaging a blatantly partisan and coordinated attempt to baselessly challenge the integrity of democracy in our great state.” Governor Tony Evers called Vos’s reaction “unbecoming of his position” and, importantly, the Racine County district attorney has not filed charges. In the midst of all of this, there is yet another Wisconsin election investigation in the works. State Senate leaders this week announced they too would launch a probe into the 2020 election following results of the Legislative Audit Bureau review. The audit did not find anything that would change the results of the election or any widespread fraud but made 30 recommendations for the Wisconsin Elections Commission and 18 for the Legislature to consider around election procedures. Now the Senate Elections Committee will conduct the latest investigation. Its chair is Republican Senator Kathleen Bernier of Chippewa Falls who joins us now and thanks very much for doing so.

Kathleen Bernier:

It is my pleasure. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So was this a coordinated partisan attack attempting to undermine our elections? What the Racine County sheriff announced?

Kathleen Bernier:

No. This is not a new phenomenon. That is with nursing home staff who manipulate and take advantage of the elderly and the disabled. I spent months working on special voting deputy legislation for that purpose, because it is something we knew that was occurring. And so because of the pandemic, a decision had to be made, and I don’t know what other decision they could have made, but I believe that the enforcement of the law against these individuals that took advantage of our elderly and disabled should be pursued.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you also think that the WEC commissioners and its administrators should resign?

Kathleen Bernier:

I believe the commission is set up for failure at this point with the personalities that are involved, with three Democrats and three Republicans each voting their separate partisan wishes. So a 3-3 vote means that the staff do not get any direction. When they go to the board and ask for direction, it ends up in a tie and then a tie means nothing will happen.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about Meagan Wolfe? Do you think she should step down?

Kathleen Bernier:

No. No. She is doing what the election commission tells her to do or tells her not to do. I don’t believe it is fair to a staff person to hold her 100% accountable for what the election commission has decided. And I believe the audit points to that direction. Very few things — there’s one thing I’ve read thus far that the staff did not do correctly and that’s inform governing bodies that the clerk didn’t do their training. But aside from that, most all of it refers to the Wisconsin Election Commission itself.

Frederica Freyberg:

Turning to your investigation specifically, why are you deciding to move forward with yet another investigation?

Kathleen Bernier:

Well, I don’t know about yet another investigation. We haven’t really had this before, so this is — the investigation has to do with election officials who may not be accommodating the Legislative Audit Bureau. I don’t believe that can stand, because our state law directs counties, municipalities to accommodate the audit bureau’s requests. So that is the focus of this investigation is to why they would not accommodate the audit bureau. Because in the future, whether it has to do with elections or anything else, the municipalities and the counties and the school districts are required by law, 13.94, to accommodate the requests of the Legislative Audit Bureau. And that is strictly the focus of this investigation.

Frederica Freyberg:

So this has to do with clerks who decline to allow audit bureau staff to physically handle election records. But I understand that it’s also been decided by the legislative counsel that it was “arguably reasonable to permit only clerks’ staff to physically handle these documents.”

Kathleen Bernier:

So there’s more to that story. When a legislative counsel opinion is given, it usually is worded and pursued by a specific legislator. And that was Senator Janet Bewley requested that. The director of the leg counsel reached out to me for more to the story and additional information. I haven’t spoken with her yet. But there is more to the story. Such as the presidential race is not the only race on that ballot. There are many other races, state races and county races on those ballots. And so there’s a lot more to be investigated, which why I’m having an investigation.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very quickly, I just want to say that Minority Leader Janet Bewley also stated that instead of launching an investigation into the audit bureau’s findings, the legislature should be focusing on its election-related recommendations. What about that idea? We have only about a half a minute left.

Kathleen Bernier:

Okay. I’ve already — we’re already working on that, drafting instructions for the recommendations. The audit committee already is holding a hearing on the results of the audit. And then my investigation has to do with the cooperation or the lack of cooperation by election officials.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Great. Thank you very much. And thanks for joining us today on this very controversial election stuff that’s going on in the state of Wisconsin. Senator Kathleen Bernier, thank you.

Kathleen Bernier:

Okay. You’re welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

A federal judge in Madison today heard arguments on the state wolf hunt set to begin next Saturday. Six Chippewa tribes in Wisconsin sued the DNR and the natural resources board to stop the hunt after hunters blew through the harvest quota for the wolves in the February hunt.

John Johnson:

I think they took too many of them at one time during that winter — I guess the winter-spring hunt here. They took 218 animals. We had claimed half of them as the Ojibwa’s tribe’s, to try to preserve them because there’s other things in our ecosystem that need to be taken care of by that wolf and a lot of it has to do with chronic wasting disease in our areas. Especially the ones we hunt and take food from.

Frederica Freyberg:

In a separate court case, a Dane County judge a week ago issued a temporary injunction stopping next week’s wolf hunt saying the hunt cannot happen until the DNR enacts formal rulemaking for hunting wolves. As a result, the DNR reports it is not issuing any licenses for the hunt as it works on rules and a wolf management plan. Tonight, Luke Hilgemann, CEO of Hunter Nation, joins us. That group successfully sued to force the wolf hunt in February and now want the DNR to appeal the state court ruling. Thanks very much for being here.

Luke Hilgemann:

Thank you for having me on.

Frederica Freyberg:

It would appear that this year’s fall wolf hunt which was supposed to begin in a little more than a week is off. What’s your reaction to that?

Luke Hilgemann:

Well, we think there’s still an outward chance if the Evers administration and the Department of Justice comes back to the legal table and challenges this ridiculous ruling coming out of Dane County, that hunters’ rights and the constitutionally-protected right that we established in our court case that started the wolf hunt in February can still happen. We have November until the month of February to hunt wolves by statute. We believe that this activist ruling coming out of Dane County is a setback for sure, but definitely not one that if the governor and the Department of Justice challenge this ruling, we think that they can prevail at the appeal level.

Frederica Freyberg:

Given the DNR says it is now promulgating wolf hunt rules and not issuing any licenses, it would appear that the agency is not going to appeal that Dane County judge’s ruling.

Luke Hilgemann:

And we think that’s a terrible decision. We think that’s one that the Evers administration and definitely his Department of Natural Resources and Attorney General Josh Kaul are going to be held accountable for this coming fall. We believe there is an absolute need to appeal this activist ruling and we are pushing hard. We’re still looking at our potential opportunities to appeal this ruling as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

What kind of response have you gotten from your calls to the Evers administration and the attorney general to go ahead and appeal this?

Luke Hilgemann:

Too much silence, unfortunately, Frederica. Thousands, we know that thousands of hunters have picked up the phone and demanded that this ridiculous ruling be challenged. We believe it has no basis in law and hardly any basis in logic. The way that he got to this ruling jeopardizes regulations that have been held in place in the state of Wisconsin for generations. We believe that hunters have a strong constitutional right to hunt that is being infringed by this ridiculous ruling and we’re going to be there to fight it.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you respond to tribal nations who oppose harvesting wolves but told us that if wolves are bothering farm animals that a more selective hunt could be considered, like issuing permits to affected farmers to let them kill nuisance animals. What do you think about that?

Luke Hilgemann:

We respect and appreciate the opinions of the Native Americans tribes in the state of Wisconsin. But we also respect and appreciate the reality that wolves aren’t just selected killers, right? We’ve had thousands of animals, pets, livestock that have been killed by wolves as they expand their territory in Wisconsin. Hunter Nation isn’t an organization that wants all of the wolves killed. We believe that the wolf is an important part of our ecosystem, plays a responsible role if it’s managed properly. Unfortunately what we’ve seen over the last several years as Wisconsin’s wolf hunt has been shelved since 2014 is the wolf has expanded its territory and millions of dollars in depredation payments have been a result. We respect the tribe’s opinion, but at the same time, we believe that the farmers, ranchers, pet owners and people that live in the wolves’ territory have an opportunity and a privilege to also feel safe and protected when they go outside.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Luke Hilgemann, Hunter Nation, thanks very much.

Luke Hilgemann:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

The once-every-decade and very contentious redistricting process is well underway in Wisconsin, and late this week the Republican-drawn maps came before a joint committee for a public hearing.

Robin Vos:

Our goal from the start was to finish — was produce a least-changes maps that prioritize core retention while adjusting for population change.

Frederica Freyberg:

Like the last maps, the new ones would give Republicans a significant advantage in future elections, according to experts, but Governor Tony Evers is expected to veto the GOP maps in favor of his own, which still maintain a Republican majority, but a smaller one.

Sachin Chheda:

Not only do we not get the things that we asked for as a people. We don’t even get the debate, because the system is rigged. And as the elections show, the electorate shifts back and forth, the Assembly and the Senate do not.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so with the governor’s veto of the GOP maps all but certain, the maps are heading to court. Wisconsin Public Radio’s Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson has delved into redistricting in a big way over the past several weeks with the podcast “Mapped Out” co-produced with WPR’s Bridget Bowden. He joins us now with the latest. Hey, Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:

Hey Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are you pretty much mapped out then?

Shawn Johnson:

As you know, when you dive into a big project like this, even if I were theoretically mapped out, these episodes are very tight and not too exhaustive for the listener.

Frederica Freyberg:

They’re great really.

Shawn Johnson:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

But seriously, if the new GOP maps look a lot like their old maps, experts have depicted those old ones as the most gerrymandered in the country. Why are Republicans saying they are good maps?

Shawn Johnson:

They have said they are good maps for basically a couple reasons. The overriding reason is that they make very few changes to the last maps, which they like. They passed a resolution in September that said here are the principles that we are going to follow when we draw these new maps. Core retention, this idea of a least changes map, was one of the things they listed. The idea of not pairing a bunch of incumbents, so you end up having a lot of new representatives was one of the things they listed. Based on these criteria they unveiled a month ago, these maps pass with flying colors and they have the added benefit of cementing this Republican map that has helped them hold their majority for a decade.

Frederica Freyberg:

So an example of the current or old maps from your podcast that was super interesting was how the city of Deforest, which has a population of 10,000 has three Assembly and three Senate districts. Is that an example of how tortuous the process can become when trying to draw the perfect partisan map?

Shawn Johnson:

I think in Deforest’s case it’s an example of how a community of that size, which would be easy to put in a single district if that were a priority, can kind of get bumped down the priority list when you have other goals in mind. Mapmakers are always kind of staggering their priorities, what they really want to do. In 2011 Deforest came up on the short end of that. They have three representatives, three senators. Nobody really calls it home. In this new map Deforest would actually be less divided than under the old one, but you do have other communities where they’re still definitely chopped up differently than they were a decade or so ago.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what’s the outcome of a guaranteed Republican sweep in the legislature and then citing a line from your reporting, you say when you have a majority that you know you won’t lose, you can afford to think big. Basically you can do what you want regardless of public opinion. And what’s a primary example of that?

Shawn Johnson:

I like to think of it in three categories of things. There’s stuff that Republicans have done in the past that gets locked in. So they passed Act 10, for example, or voter ID. There was never really a big attempt to undo those policies because the new legislature was never going to overturn those things. There’s stuff that they don’t have to do. For example, medical marijuana is supported by more than 80% of the public, but there’s never been a push in Wisconsin really to allow for medical marijuana. And then you have stuff that might have been unthinkable for Republicans before, like right-to-work, a private sector right-to-work law, where they said for years they didn’t want that. But around 2015, under the current maps, they changed their mind and they passed it pretty quickly. So there’s all sorts of categories of stuff where Republicans can behave differently, whether it means doing something or not doing something, when you have the map at your back.

Frederica Freyberg:

As we mentioned, this is expected to land in the courts after the Republican-held Legislature votes on them in the coming days and Evers vetoes them, as is expected. How is this court process going to go? We have like less than a minute.

Shawn Johnson:

Yeah. I mean, that’s the big question this time around. I think it’s pretty much a given it’s going to go to court. In the past, that has gone to a federal court where a three-judge panel has decided maps. But the federal court has given indications that it’s going to give the state Supreme Court the first shot at it this time. The state Supreme Court hasn’t drawn maps in Wisconsin since 1964. So it’s not a given they’re going to do it this time but this is where Republicans want it resolved and they’re asking the court to basically agree with their idea of making as few changes as possible to the maps that they passed that they like from 2011.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Shawn Johnson, thanks very much. Thanks for your work.

Shawn Johnson:

Thanks, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

In other voting news, a decade after Act 10, the word “recall” is back in Wisconsin politics. This time with national attention drawn to a school board race in southeastern Wisconsin. Reporter Will Kenneally explores why the race has garnered such a spotlight.

Chris Schultz:

It started with the pandemic and our mitigation efforts.

Will Kenneally:

Chris Schultz joined the Mequon-Thiensville School Board in 2015 shortly after retiring as a science teacher. Her district, like many, grappled with how to run schools amid the pandemic, weighing things like virtual schooling and mask mandates.

Chris Schultz:

We had parents on both sides concerned with mandatory masking versus optional masking and that issue continued and developed and got much stronger toward the end of the school year.

Will Kenneally:

That culminated August 23, when Amber Schroeder and other recall organizers filed enough signatures to begin the recall process for four members of the school board.

Amber Schroeder:

We want to see a lot of change. We want to see the focus brought back to the children, back to the kids in the district. We want to see more parental engagement with our kids and our community members.

Will Kenneally:

The group “Restore MTSD” is running candidates against the four members of the school board that are eligible to be recalled. Scarlett Johnson is running against Chris Schultz.

Scarlett Johnson:

We need to change the way our school board governs and I think when we do that, we’re going to see some real change.

Will Kenneally:

Johnson and Schroeder have been working up to this for about a year now, petitioning the school board for change.

Amber Schroeder:

It’s personal. It matters to me. It matters to the community. Hey, I’m doing a news interview right now. It’s not just about my kids. It’s about my neighbors’ kids. It’s about my friends’ kids. It’s about strangers’ kids. Our kids deserve more than what they’re getting right now from our district and we could not wait any longer and watch the decline happening.

Will Kenneally:

That’s a point of agreement for all sides.

Chris Schultz:

I have no doubt that there are parents that are authentically concerned about our district and what’s happening in our district and they want us to continue to be in the top, want us to be number one, right? As do we all. We all want our district to be the best it can be. The introduction of politics into this conflict, though, has from my perspective really muddied the waters.

Will Kenneally:

School board races have turned into a proxy for national political fights over things like the pandemic response and critical race theory. Wisconsin is among the states with the most recall efforts nationally and has drawn attention from political partisans. Rebecca Kleefisch, for example, has close ties with recall organizers and the campaign has received the backing of GOP donor Richard Uihlein.

Chris Schultz:

I think unfortunately, maybe because of the political flavor of what’s going on, it’s been much more controversial conversations that are being had. My heart cries — is crying out. Please, please let’s take care of our kids.

Will Kenneally:

A successful recall could be a blueprint for future action around the state. All this as voters head to the polls next Tuesday. Reporting from Mequon, I’m Will Kenneally for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:

The murder trial for Kyle Rittenhouse starts in Kenosha next week. Rittenhouse is charged with homicide and attempted homicide in the shooting deaths of two people and the wounding of another during fiery protests in that city last summer following the shooting of Jacob Blake. A pretrial ruling this week sparked controversy when the judge in that case ruled that attorneys could not refer to the men shot as victims, but could refer to them as rioters, looters and arsonists. What’s the take on this from a former trial lawyer and prosecutor? We asked Lanny Glinberg, clinical professor and director of the UW Law School Prosecution Project. Thanks very much for being here.

Lanny Glinberg:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why wouldn’t attorneys be able to refer to people who are shot and killed, the crime for which Rittenhouse is charged, as victims?

Lanny Glinberg:

So the ruling is uncommon but not unprecedented in this state. I don’t want to speak for the judge but I expect the concern goes something like this. That to identify someone as a victim is to conclude that a crime was committed and perhaps indicate who committed it. And at this trial, the judge’s job is to ensure that Mr. Rittenhouse gets a fair trial as well as to ensure the state gets a fair trial and to say the word victim might suggest to a jury that the decision they’re to make – whether a crime was committed – perhaps the court or whoever is saying the word is making an opinion on that. So the judge is ordering that the term be not used, I would say in the interest of impartiality. Again, not unprecedented, but not particularly common in the state courts.

Frederica Freyberg:

If calling someone a victim biases the jury against the defendant, why isn’t calling them rioters, arsonists or looters biased the other way, like they deserved it?

Lanny Glinberg:

Indeed and that’s the concern over the use of those terms as I’ve heard other report and as was argued in court that day. If the judge’s position is that you shouldn’t use the term victim until there’s already been proof of a crime, you ask a fair question, why would we identify someone as an arsonist unless there’s been proof that they’ve burned down a building? So at least — and I’m not familiar exactly with the judge’s reasoning on this, but by that reasoning, the rule would seem to apply or should perhaps apply universally in a given case.

Frederica Freyberg:

You know, back to the victim thing. If someone is shot dead by gunfire, I just fail to understand how they are not victims.

Lanny Glinberg:

Well, I tend to agree with you by any regular use of the term victim. Even a person shot dead in a justified act of self-defense, they’re still a victim of a gunshot wound. But I think what a judge in a circumstance like this may be doing is taking extra care to make ensure that the defendant’s presumption of innocence is not in any way biased by a term like victim, concluding or suggesting that the court has concluded that a crime was committed. Again, the judge’s job is to ensure that both Mr. Rittenhouse gets a fair trial and the state gets a fair trial.

Frederica Freyberg:

Clearly Kyle Rittenhouse is claiming self-defense in this. How hard will it be for the prosecutor to convince the jury it wasn’t self-defense?

Lanny Glinberg:

The prosecutor’s job will be to prove that Mr. Rittenhouse’s actions were unreasonable in several ways. That his belief he faced a threat of imminent death or great bodily harm, that’s the requirement for someone to use deadly force in the self-defense context. The state will have to prove that if he believed that, that that wasn’t reasonable or that the amount of force that he used was unreasonable in that circumstance. And the state will have to prove that like every other element of the offense that he caused the death of those that he shot.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the eyes of the nation are on this case. Is that a consideration inside the courtroom?

Lanny Glinberg:

Well, I think realistically everybody in the courtroom knows that. This is a significant case about issues that are highly charged and very significant and fraught in our society. Still, though, everybody in the courtroom will have to do their job and will be focused on it. The judge’s job is to ensure a fair trial for both sides. The state’s job to prove each element of the offense. And Mr. Rittenhouse’s counsel to defend him from the charges that the state is bringing.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Lanny Glinberg, thanks very much.

Lanny Glinberg:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

That is all for tonight. For more coverage, including coverage of this week’s COVID condition, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

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