Here & Now

Here & Now for October 8, 2021

Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

The race for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District heats up, as Democrat Brad Pfaff enters the contest. The Republican-led election investigation incites confusion and partisan bickering. Across the state, jobs lost to pandemic closures may have returned, but there’s still no sign workers will return to fill them. And the latest on COVID-19 as hospitalizations continue to stretch health care capacity, while a vaccine for children age 5 to 11 is on the horizon.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” an interview with newly-announced Democratic candidate in the 3rd Congressional District Brad Pfaff. A report on the worker shortage in restaurants through the lens of two owners who are state legislator on opposite sides of the aisle. What a shortage of school bus drivers across the state means for students and families and an infectious disease doctor on where we stand with COVID in Wisconsin. It’s “Here & Now” for October 8.

Announcer:

Funding is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

The race for an open seat in the 3rd Congressional District has all eyes on Wisconsin, as Democrats in the House hold a slim majority coming in to 2022. The Democratic incumbent narrowly held on to the 3rd in the western part of the state in the last election and is not running again. But his Republican challenger is and has not stopped campaigning. Donald Trump won the 3rd and it’s a firm swing district. Into that political environment steps newly-announced Democratic candidate for the 3rd Congressional District, State Senator Brad Pfaff. He has served as the executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency, has served as the deputy chief of staff for the outgoing representative of the 3rd, Ron Kind, and was elected as the state senator of the 32nd district in Wisconsin in 2020. “Here & Now” extended an invitation to Republican candidate Derrick Van Orden, who declined for this week. Tonight we talk with Brad Pfaff and thanks very much for being here.

Brad Pfaff:

Well, thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate the opportunity.

Frederica Freyberg:

Good. So how do you compete against your Trump-endorsed challenger in a district that the former president carried?

Brad Pfaff:

Oh, I feel very comfortable where we are here. I have deep, deep roots in this district. My family has been farming in this area since they first came to this country in the 1800s. I know this district. I know the people. I know the communities. I understand the values of what people go through every single day in order to put food on their table and to make sure that they raise their families and move forward in their careers. All politics is local. A lot of people are going to try and nationalize this race, but we need to recognize the fact that at the end of the day, it’s the people here in western Wisconsin, in west-central Wisconsin who will make this decision. They want a candidate that understands them, who they are, what they stand for, what it means every single day to get up and go to work and to raise a family and that’s who I am.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to that, what are your top priorities should you represent the 3rd Congressional District?

Brad Pfaff:

Well, I strongly believe that Washington must do better and it’s obvious that we need to make sure that we have an economy that works for all of us. Regardless of our background, regardless of our education, we need to make sure that we have an economy that continues to provide possibilities and provide opportunities. We need to make sure that our small towns and our main streets and our family farmers have opportunities to succeed. We also need to make sure that we stick to our values, the values of hard work, dedication, resilience. And when times are tough, we come together and we work together to get things done. Sadly what’s happening right now is there’s been a breakdown. A breakdown in social discourse. Sadly, we see that at some of our local school boards. We recognize the chatter that’s taking place on social media. And honestly, January 6. January 6 does not represent the values of the people of western Wisconsin. And we can do better and we need to prioritize the people here in this district and I’m stepping forward and running.

Frederica Freyberg:

On infrastructure and social spending, now gripping Washington, would you be in the camp looking to spend more or spend less?

Brad Pfaff:

Well, I come from a background obviously that we pay our bills. You know, I come from an agriculture background. The thing is at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we have to live within our means. But I also recognize the fact I’m here every single day for my constituents in this district. The real need for improvements in roads and bridges so we can get our products to market. We can get to our jobs. The need for child care. The need for broadband. The need to make sure that we have lower prescription drug cost prices. All of that is very, very real. I’m not in Washington right now. I can’t tell you the back and the forth of the negotiations that are taking place, but I can tell you this. We need to recognize the fact that we got to give our people an opportunity to succeed in today’s economy. And there are resources that we need to invest in. But we also need to live within our means. And we’re thrifty people here. We’re hard-working people in this part of the state. We recognize the value of a dollar. And that’s who I am and that’s where I come from and I will always, always recognize that it’s the people’s money, it’s the taxpayers’ money. And so any investment that we make will be investment that will be a good return on all of our money.

Frederica Freyberg:

So Wisconsin Republicans, as you know, are embarking on an investigation into the 2020 presidential election and your challenger traveled to Washington D.C. for January 6 but says he left when it turned into an insurrection. First, what is your reaction to the persistent drumbeat that the election in Wisconsin could have been rife with fraud?

Brad Pfaff:

Well, that’s the key word, could be. It wasn’t. They don’t have any evidence of that. I mean, this — they’re spending taxpayer money that — unnecessarily here. They’re stoking and getting people excited about something that does not exist. We have opportunities to come together, to make sure that we beat this global health pandemic, to make sure that, you know, we provide jobs and opportunities for the people of this state. We have opportunities to continue to invest in transportation. But instead, there’s something going on here as far as continuing to perpetuate, you know, the “Big Lie” about the election and that is something that obviously, you know, I’m disappointed in that. I speak to my county clerks and my city administrators and city clerks all the time. Some of them are Republicans, some are Democrats. They’re doing their job. And so there’s no evidence there. In regards to my opponent, Republican opponent, he was in Washington D.C. on January 6. He was on the Capitol grounds. Why was he there? What’s going on? That’s not who we are here in western Wisconsin. That’s not our values. Our values are to put our head down and work hard and get things done. And when times are tough, we come together in order to make sure we help our neighbors and help out one another. As I like to say, you know, I’m from a farm. I grew up on a farm. And on the farm, we used our pitchforks to lift hay, not to tear down Congress. And that’s a disappointing thing that happened in Washington on January 6.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Thanks very much for joining us. Brad Pfaff, thank you.

Brad Pfaff:

Thanks for the opportunity.

Frederica Freyberg:

Redistricting could also affect the 3rd Congressional District. That process is currently underway and already in the courts. The Republican investigation into the 2020 election in Wisconsin saw a double flip-flop by late today. Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman now reportedly insists he will compel officials to testify as part of his probe. This, after his office reported Thursday he was putting off such interviews that arose from his recent issuance of subpoenas to election officials and mayors demanding documents and their testimony. Gableman’s investigation had subpoenaed officials in Wisconsin’s five largest cities in connection with their election help from a Facebook-affiliated non-profit.

On the economic front, Pew Research says nearly 10 million Americans lost their jobs at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. And while many of those jobs have returned, the workers have not. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz shows us what’s happening in the restaurant industry and why both Republicans and Democrats blame the government’s response but for different reasons.

Zac Schultz:

Anywhere you travel in Wisconsin, you’ll find “Now Hiring” signs hanging in the windows of restaurants or displayed on a sign or even listed on the board next to the daily special.

Rob Swearingen:

I’ve got an ad in the paper that is reoccurring every time the paper is published. I’m looking for a cook and wait staff.

Zac Schultz:

Rob Swearingen and his wife own the Al-Gen Dinner Club in Rhinelander.

Rob Swearingen:

How long you been in the bar business?

Man:

Five years.

Rob Swearingen:

Oh, congratulations. Five years?

Zac Schultz:

He’s also a Republican representative in the State Assembly.

Rob Swearingen:

Did you have any problems getting help this year?

Man:

No. I’ve got a lot of family.

Rob Swearingen:

Family help. Okay.

Zac Schultz:

He says the problem started on St. Patrick’s Day of 2020.

Rob Swearingen:

We had the corn beef in the oven.

Zac Schultz:

That’s when Governor Tony Evers issued the first “Safer At Home” order and shut down most of the state in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Rob Swearingen:

We had reservations and we were ready to go and the light switch went off and it stayed off for a long time.

Zac Schultz:

The shutdown meant laying off bartenders and wait staff. When they were allowed to open up in a limited capacity, Swearingen found many employees weren’t coming back.

Rob Swearingen:

It’s been a struggle since then to try to bring the staff up to where we were pre-COVID.

Kristine Hillmer:

There is not a sector that I know that isn’t scrambling for staff.

Zac Schultz:

Kristine Hillmer is president and CEO of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association. She says a lot of workers found jobs outside the hospitality industry.

Kristine Hillmer:

We – statewide – lost about 22% of our workforce. They went to other industries that were still hiring during the pandemic, specifically health care, manufacturing, retail. So a lot of those folks are no longer available to come back and work.

Francesca Hong:

It’s important to remember that we had a people shortage and a labor shortage in this state prior to the pandemic.

Zac Schultz:

Francesca Hong is co-owner at Morris Ramen, a noodle shop in Madison. She says the reasons for the worker shortage go beyond people switching careers. She says government has not enacted policies that would help people get back in the workforce.

Francesca Hong:

If there was universal health care, if there was paid sick leave, if there was affordable and accessible, high-quality child care, we wouldn’t be losing so many women in this industry.

Zac Schultz:

When Hong’s restaurant closed down, she decided to run for the Assembly as a Democrat.

Francesca Hong:

And we needed a really strong working class voice who not only understood the needs of service industry workers, but those in communities that have always been marginalized.

Zac Schultz:

There are a number of restaurant and bar owners in the Legislature.

Waitress:

You need a menu?

Zac Schultz:

But like Swearingen, most of them are Republicans. They focused on one thing for causing the worker shortage: the extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits provided by the federal government to help workers displaced by the pandemic.

Rob Swearingen:

The only incentive that some of these people had to get off the couch was to go to the mailbox once a week.

Zac Schultz:

Governor Evers didn’t need legislative approval to accept the extra benefits and he vetoed a Republican bill that would have ended the program during the summer. Republican Representative Michael Schraa was convinced it was the extra $300 keeping people from working at his custard shop.

Michael Schraa:

I’ll pay you $20 an hour. I’ll put you up for the week. I’m ten employees short.

Zac Schultz:

During an attempt to override the veto, he said Representative Hong should support ending the benefits.

Michael Schraa:

I know the gentlelady from the 76th when we were on the floor a couple weeks ago, she actually confessed to me that she had to bus tables because she did not have enough workers.

Francesca Hong:

I didn’t confess sh_t to you.

Zac Schultz:

Her response got her mic got off for a moment.

Francesca Hong:

It’s not a surprise the gentleman from the 53rd is struggling to retain workers. I certainly wouldn’t want to work for you. It is an honor to bus tables. Do you know how many people are actually on pandemic UI right now? 17,459 out of 3.1 million people in the Wisconsin workforce. That’s who you’re going after? This is political theater.

Clerk:

59 ayes, 37 nos. Assembly Bill 336 is not passed.

Zac Schultz:

Governor Evers’ veto was upheld. Representative Hong has no regrets about that day.

Francesca Hong:

So if anyone should be attacking work ethic, it’s the work ethic of my Republican colleagues.

Zac Schultz:

A study by the Wall Street Journal showed states that ended the benefits early saw about the same job growth rate over the summer as states that did not. The extra $300 a week in federal benefits ended in early September.

Rob Swearingen:

Have I had an increase in applications? No. One or two.

Zac Schultz:

The Wisconsin Restaurant Association supported the move to end the benefits early.

Kristine Hillmer:

Do I think that the federal unemployment dollars had an impact on restaurant workers and so on? Absolutely. I think it was a factor out of many factors. Is the elimination of it going to completely take away the trend that we can’t find workers? Absolutely not.

Zac Schultz:

Hillmer says bigger factors include baby boomers retiring and not taking a part-time job and the number of teenagers who don’t have time for work. And of course we’re still in the middle of a pandemic.

Kristine Hillmer:

We know that there’s a lot of folks that are concerned about COVID and returning to work.

Zac Schultz:

All of this has led to changes in the industry. First, you need to keep the employees you do have.

Rob Swearingen:

One of my employees came in late tonight. I had some stern words with him. Get back to work because I have nobody to replace him.

Francesca Hong:

I think the restaurant community is inherently about caring for one another and those are the most successful restaurants are the restaurants that take care of their staff because that will allow the staff to take care of their customers.

Zac Schultz:

Reporting from Rhinelander, I’m Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:

Another employer hanging out the “Now Hiring” signs, school bus companies. In Wisconsin, more than 600,000 students take a school bus every day, with more than 15,000 of the iconic yellow buses on the road. But there remains a severe shortage of drivers. One Wisconsin company that operates in 45 school districts is certainly feeling the pinch. Paul Mennen is statewide school bus manager for Lamers Bus Lines. He joins us now from Green Bay and thanks very much for being here.

Paul Mennen:

You’re welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

So have you ever seen anything like this in your business?

Paul Mennen:

No. There’s always been a driver shortage in the past few years, but this is ultimately has been the worst in the past year or so.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how severe is the shortage of drivers across the state and the nation?

Paul Mennen:

Well, across the nation in many communities it’s actually beyond critical. You may have seen articles where they even have the National Guard helping drive kids to and from school using their school buses. But as a company as a whole, speaking for us, we can easily hire for the state of Wisconsin probably 300 drivers to fill the positions that we currently have as a company just to get us back to where we were say two years ago.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what impact does this shortage have then on the routes that you run and getting students where they need to be?

Paul Mennen:

We’ve had to get pretty creative. We’ve had to double up routes. Some school districts have changed bell times in order to maximize the use of bus, of the buses and/or drivers. And we’ve had to just consolidate where we had to and in some cases we’ve had to notify the school that we had a driver call in sick and that parents may have had to take them to school that morning and all hands are on deck, office staff, any maintenance staff that have a CDL and can drive are filling those vacancies.

Frederica Freyberg:

How stressful is this for someone like yourself in charge of these logistics?

Paul Mennen:

Well, it’s very stressful. I mean, we’re up at 4:00 a.m., not really sure, checking to see who may not have been able to come in. We’re still in the midst of a pandemic. We have drivers that will call in and say I’m not feeling well, so they — we can’t allow them to drive. So that creates a shortage last-minute. It does upset our customers. We’ve had to say we can’t fulfill athletic trips because we’re prioritizing the home-to-school routes versus say a middle school track team or a sporting event and parents are now forced to either bring their student athletes to those games, or the districts are looking for any other way to get the teams to their events.

Frederica Freyberg:

Super, super difficult. But in a city like Milwaukee, where something like 40,000 students take the bus, what is this hardship like in a city like that?

Paul Mennen:

I think it’s pretty chaotic. I think it’s disruptive to the families. It’s disruptive to the school staff. You know, students are late. Students are not getting what they — unfortunately, what they deserve, you know, to be to school on time and to participate in activities like they used to.

Frederica Freyberg:

Could this be fixed with more pay for the drivers or what exactly is happening here?

Paul Mennen:

In all honesty, you know, what that amount is I’m sure, you know, all companies, including ourselves, we see it. Everyone is increasing the rate of pay. So it’s not necessarily filling. It’s just hopefully keeping people from leaving for other positions that may be available that are not involving driving a school bus. So we’re trying to be competitive with other companies seeking the existing workforce that’s out there. Quite frankly, I think the issue is is there’s just not enough people entering the workforce and we see the generation, the baby boomer generation, leaving. And this was predicted many years ago, that there’s going to be a worker shortage. The pandemic has just added a little extra layer to it.

Frederica Freyberg:

Can you give us a sense just for folks out there who might be listening to this and thinking “I could drive a school bus.” What is kind of the starting pay, or the pay?

Paul Mennen:

Well, it varies a little bit around the state but, you know, for the most part you’re looking anywhere from $18 to $24 an hour, depending — for school routes, depending on what market or where you live. That’s, you know, the general, typical hourly rate that you would see for a school bus driver.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. So those jobs are certainly out there. As you say, right now you are looking for about 300 new drivers. All right. Well, Paul Mennen, we wish you well with this issue. Thank you for joining us.

Paul Mennen:

Absolutely.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mennen says many retirees who picked up work as school bus drivers left during the pandemic but he hopes they return when the risk eases.

There’s new hope with expanding vaccine eligibility to younger children. This week Pfizer requested its COVID-19 vaccine be approved for children ages 5 to 11. This comes as some hospitals and ICUs are at their peak capacity in the state. Marisa Wojcik sat down with infectious disease specialist Dr. Nasia Safdar with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Marisa Wojcik:

Have we kind of hit this peak of the Delta wave or are we still going to see the worst of it as we approach more of the fall and winter months?

Nasia Safdar:

It’s obviously hard to completely predict, but I think what’s happening is in areas that have high levels of vaccination, you’re not seeing quite as sharp a peak as you would otherwise expect. So there is a sort of stuttering effect where you are either holding steady or seeing more hospitalizations and then levels off. It would be great to have fewer hospitalizations. No one county or region exists in a vacuum. Here, for instance, we provide care to patients all over the state and beyond so our hospitalization rates may go up regardless of what local vaccination rates look like.

Marisa Wojcik:

With school having been in session now for at least a month, not only are we in person for the university, but also for K-12. Are we seeing more pediatric cases, considering Delta is considered a worse variant than what we saw last year?

Nasia Safdar:

I think overall pediatric cases have increased compared to the earlier days of the pandemic. I think there’s a big spectrum in how severe the illness ranging all the way from having no symptoms to landing in the hospital. There’s a syndrome of massive inflammation that can happen after one has recovered from COVID that is more common in children that does land some of them in the ICU. Having said that, I think the mitigating measures that places should take, such as schools, for instance, with masks, testing, monitoring and all those, those do appear to be effective in containing the number of cases. It won’t eradicate COVID. I think we’ve all come to the realization that eradication is not a practical option. But learning to live with it and managing it does seem to be the next goal.

Marisa Wojcik:

Are you worried about the long COVID symptoms in children?

Nasia Safdar:

I think we have to understand those a lot better not just in children but also in adults. There’s a big spectrum of symptoms. Some of them have to do with how severe your initial COVID illness was. And that may mean things like persistent shortness of breath or fatigue and so on that will improve over time. Others don’t seem to be related with the initial severity of illness. Those are things like feeling very foggy or having memory issues. Those are concerning. All symptoms are concerning but these in particular because we can’t always predict them and we don’t have good therapeutics against them. I think our main goal for COVID should still very much be upstream prevention.

Marisa Wojcik:

Even now a new pill from Merck is seeking federal approval. It’s designed to be taken upon a positive COVID diagnosis and supposedly it will help prevent more severe symptoms. Do you see this and other solutions that are not vaccines being promising in the fight towards combating COVID?

Nasia Safdar:

Well, absolutely. You know, the vaccines are great, but we still don’t have one for pediatrics and we need that as the first order of priority. Having said that, there will still be some people who have breakthrough infections or who won’t be able to take the vaccine. And so — or won’t be able to take the booster. So to manage the cases that we do get, we need a really good outpatient regimen. Right now we don’t really have much. We have the monoclonal antibodies. They require one to go somewhere to get it. It’s an IV infusion and needs monitoring, so it gets very complicated. And with complexity comes barriers to access. But if there was an oral pill that you could take in the safety of your home without having to go out with symptoms and potentially expose other people to your illness, I think that could be, if this is found to be effective, really change how we manage COVID cases.

Frederica Freyberg:

For more information on the COVID condition in Wisconsin, go to PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab to see the latest installment of statewide COVID coverage. That is all for tonight’s program. Thanks for joining us. Have a good weekend.

Announcer:

Funding is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.