Here & Now

Here & Now for September 24, 2021

Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

With the clock ticking to the 2022 election, new district maps are being drawn. But what’s a fair map? That’s in the eye of the beholder. And the Delta variant causing a 123% uptick in cases since last month, sending more and more Wisconsin patients into intensive care and creating concerns over staff burn-out.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Marisa Wojcik reports from the Marshfield Clinic on the toll the Delta variant is taking on nurses and other hospital staff. Zac Schultz seeks the answer to the question, “What makes a fair voting map?” And Republicans lead by former Justice Michael Gableman continue their quest to relive the 2020 election, though no sign of wrongdoing has been found. It’s “Here & Now” for September 24.

Announcer:

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

Karen Timberlake:

We know that our hospitals and our hospital systems across the state are feeling the strain of this increase in disease activity. Across our state today, only about 5% of beds in our intensive care units are available, and 5% of medical surgical beds are available. And reports of pressures on staffing and staff availability are coming in from hospitals and long-term care providers all across Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Among those recently in intensive care with COVID-19, Wisconsin State Senator Andre Jacque. He was released to an intermediate care facility this week. Also this week though she is not reporting symptoms Republican candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch announced she had recently tested positive for COVID. The Wisconsin Hospital Association reports 1,072 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 today, including 335 in the ICU. “Here & Now” was inside one such intensive care unit in recent days to see what the grave situation looks like from the vantage of the frontline health workers fighting the most serious of cases. Marisa Wojcik reports from Marshfield.

William Melms:

The pandemic was looking like it was essentially over two months ago. We had zero to two, maybe three patients in the hospital.

Marisa Wojcik:

William Melms is the chief medical officer for the Marshfield Clinic Health System.

William Melms:

Today, we watched the state of Wisconsin, the number of new patients continues to rise and the new patients per day are the kind of leading indicator of what we can expect. So we have grave concerns yet that we’re not near the end of this surge.

Marisa Wojcik:

During rounds in the COVID ICU, doctors, nurses and residents are busy discussing each patient’s progress and treatment plan. Patients are here for weeks, usually in a medically-induced coma as machines work to save their lives.

Ryan Letsch:

Everyone is seeing stuff in the new they don’t believe it until it’s happening to them.

Marisa Wojcik:

Ryan Letsch is a COVID ICU nurse.

Ryan Letsch:

Or they do know what’s happening and that makes them even more scared.

Marisa Wojcik:

He specializes in administering a respiratory treatment called ECMO.

Ryan Letsch:

What ECMO does is we’re allowed to have the lungs do basically nothing as we oxygenate through the machine and keep the patient’s brain and heart and kidneys all healthy with oxygen.

Marisa Wojcik:

It can be the last tool health workers have to save a patient’s life. But ECMO resources are limited and in high demand across the country as the Delta surge continues to worsen.

Vicky Varsho:

The patients are sicker this time. We see that they’re deteriorating quicker as well and being sicker requires more resources.

Marisa Wojcik:

Vicky Varsho, a chief nursing officer, says Delta in inundating health systems everywhere.

Vicky Varsho:

We’re getting calls from Canada. We’re getting calls from the east, from the west. We’re getting calls from people we’ve never received their patients from before because they are so strapped for beds and resources as well.

Marisa Wojcik:

Letsch sees the ruin this disease leaves every day, comparing it to a hurricane, leaving destruction in its wake.

Ryan Letsch:

There’s definitely a different feeling when we’re putting a breathing tube in these COVID patients just because so often we’re not able to hear from them again. And knowing that, going into the breathing tube is very, very difficult.

Marisa Wojcik:

Their stories endure and so does the trauma.

Ryan Letsch:

Having to convey or do Facetime with these patients and their family, we’re really — we’re the middleman, having to say hello to their son who’s going to college for the first time or people are getting married and watching them have to see it through a tiny camera on their phone while they’re intubated is very tough.

Marisa Wojcik:

Staffing shortages were a problem before 2020. And the pandemic has made it worse as many health care workers leave the profession.

Ryan Letsch:

Worsening burn-out turns into a vicious cycle because they leave health care, another new person replaces them and the issue isn’t fixed so they get that burn-out all over again.

Marisa Wojcik:

And the emotional toll is greater now, as the issue of the pandemic rolls on and the patients are not only sicker, they’re younger.

William Melms:

We have had pediatric cases. The youngest patient we had was four months old. The demographic of the patients we admit in our facilities are certainly younger than they were last year. Absolutely the case. Absolutely the concern.

Marisa Wojcik:

Health officials are hoping more people will choose to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the wake of this latest surge.

Ryan Letsch:

Even some family members who were very against the vaccine, it’s a lot different when they’re crying over their spouse. Every single one of them have gotten the vaccine that day of admission or the very next day.

William Melms:

The frustrating aspect of this pandemic is that we could be preventing so much of this and we’re not.

Marisa Wojcik:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik in Marshfield.

Frederica Freyberg:

The director of the CDC this week gave the green light to Pfizer booster shots for health care workers, teachers and other frontline workers.

Now to state politics. The fight over voting maps yet to be drawn in Wisconsin ratcheted up this week. On a conservative majority vote, the state Supreme Court agreed to consider a lawsuit from conservatives rather than having it start in lower courts. Just a day earlier, a federal court set a January trial date for two redistricting lawsuits brought by Democrats who want federal courts to step in sooner rather than later as the Republican Legislature and Democratic Governor Tony Evers are unlikely to reach agreement on a redraw. We’ll hear more about the court-side wrangling, but first senior political reporter Zac Schultz sets the table with the question, “What is a fair map?”

Tony Evers:

I believe and Wisconsinites do too that people should get to choose their elected officials, not the other way around.

Zac Schultz:

In January of 2020 Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order creating the People’s Maps Commission. Their task was to draw fair, impartial maps that would be used in state elections for the next decade.

Annemarie McClellan:

It’s been a long process.

Zac Schultz:

When Annemarie McClellan volunteered to serve as a commissioner, she wasn’t expecting the COVID-19 pandemic to delay the census and stretch their process out to the end of 2021.

Annemarie McClellan:

A lot of us felt that, you know, by end of April, early May we would be done and we could get on with our lives. But that’s not the case. We’ve gone this far. We have to see it out to its end.

Zac Schultz:

The census data is here. The commission took virtual and written testimony from thousands of citizens and experts. And people across the state are using online software to create their own maps and propose them to both the Legislature and the Maps Commission. But still, no one can answer the defining question surrounding redistricting: “What makes a map fair?”

Annemarie McClellan:

When people think of fairness, for the public it’s like does this represent the greater will of the mass of the public?

Joe Handrick:

Fair is in the eye of the beholder.

Zac Schultz:

Joe Handrick is a former Republican Assembly representative, but he’s best known for his work on redistricting for Republicans over the past few decades. He says the law demands that districts be contiguous, have close to equal population, try to keep communities together and follow the federal Voting Rights Act when it comes to minority representation.

Joe Handrick:

There’s other people who define fair maps as what’s the political outcome? Are the Democrats or the Republicans getting enough seats? But that’s not defined or expected anywhere in the statutes or in the Constitution.

Jordan Ellenberg:

The very word “fair” there’s some question of philosophy and some question of ethics and some question of law.

Zac Schultz:

Jordan Ellenberg is a professor of math at the University of Wisconsin. He says when it comes to what is a fair map, we might be asking the wrong question.

Jordan Ellenberg:

There is not really a good answer to what is fair. So then you may say, “Well, what are we even doing? Why am I here talking about it?” Because there is a good answer to what is unfair. That’s a different question.

Zac Schultz:

Ellenberg says the best example of unfair maps are the current Wisconsin maps for Congress, state Senate and Assembly, drawn by Republicans a decade ago.

Jordan Ellenberg:

I think in my professional opinion the current map we have is one of those where it’s very clear by any metric you would use that that map has been cooked to the benefit of one party.

Zac Schultz:

If the maps were cooked, Joe Handrick was one of the chefs. In 2011, Handrick worked for the private law firm Republicans hired to draw the current maps. But Handrick says that wasn’t a gerrymander.

Joe Handrick:

Did we create a map that created the Republican majorities? No. The geography of Wisconsin and the concentration of Democratic voters creates the Republican majority.

Zac Schultz:

This point where Joe Handrick and Jordan Ellenberg agree. In a statewide election, Wisconsin is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Ellenberg says he can create thousands of computer-generated maps to test what the average number of wins should be for each party in the Assembly.

Jordan Ellenberg:

Under those conditions of exact even split of voters, how many Republicans would there be in the state Assembly? Spoiler alert, I’m going to tell you the answer. Probably about 55.

Zac Schultz:

A lot of Democrats are concentrated in the cities, so while they can rack up votes in Assembly races, Republicans get their majority in districts crafted to give them 60% of the vote. Ellenberg says the range of wins for Republicans should be in the mid-50s, not the 61 seats they currently hold.

Jordan Ellenberg:

There’s not a single answer, but there is like a reasonable range, and, you know, 62, 63 is not in that range. It’s like way out there. That basically like never happens unless you build in a big advantage.

Zac Schultz:

Handrick says credit should go to quality Republican candidates, not just the map.

Joe Handrick:

Then you have to remember Republicans have won a couple seats that actually are Democratic seats on top of that. So that’s 57, 58. The map probably accounts for the difference between that and the 60 or 61 seats they’re at.

Zac Schultz:

Annemarie McClellan says the number one priority for the People’s Map Commission isn’t which party wins, but keeping communities of interest intact. Unfortunately, just like fair maps, there isn’t one definition for a community of interest. Often it’s interpreted to mean keeping counties, cities and villages in the same district.

Annemarie McClellan:

It might be school districts. That’s one thing that we heard a lot of people say that I want to keep it intact, because sometimes school districts cross municipalities or they even cross county lines.

Zac Schultz:

McClellan says the commission won’t ignore the partisan outcome for whichever map they choose since so many people consider that the ultimate test of fairness.

Annemarie McClellan:

And last of all, measures of partisan fairness, everything else being equal, if one map shows that it’s more fair partisan-wise, we would go with that.

Zac Schultz:

Handrick says any map produced by the commission should be viewed as a Democratic map.

Joe Handrick:

It’s not a nonpartisan commission. It’s not a bipartisan commission. It’s a partisan commission to advance the interest of Democrats. There is nothing wrong with that, but I wish they could just call it that.

Zac Schultz:

Ellenberg says any map produced by the commission should be looked at through the same critical lens you would use on a map created by Republicans in the Legislature. But he says the way each group went about creating their maps should be judged as well.

Jordan Ellenberg:

Their outcome, of course, has to be judged by the same standards you would judge any outcome, but the process is much better.

Frederica Freyberg:

What does it mean that the state Supreme Court took the redistricting lawsuit over lower courts? And where does that leave federal court action? Zac Schultz joins us now from the state Capitol with more. Hey, Zac.

Zac Schultz:

Hello, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the conservative majority on the state Supreme Court voted to take the case with liberal justices dissenting. What’s the implication of this case going to the high court?

Zac Schultz:

The first implication is they’re skipping the lower levels of the court. Usually when you go to a local court first, that sets the record. There’s a trial that brings in all the evidence that determines everything that happens after that. Then there would be an appellate level. All of that will be gone so it will be up to the Supreme Court justices in probably just a couple hours of oral arguments to gather all the facts they need in order to rule on whether they’re going to draw these maps. That’s a big question.

Frederica Freyberg:

Isn’t also the implication that it’s a friendly court?

Zac Schultz:

Well, Republicans certainly hope so. They think their 4-3 conservative majority with Justice Hagedorn straddling the middle, sometimes siding with the liberals, sometimes the conservatives. In this case he ruled with the conservatives to bring this case to the court in the first place.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile what’s happening right now with the federal lawsuit?

Zac Schultz:

Well, that’s ongoing as well and that’s the ball court where Democrats want to play. They think they’re going to get a better outcome with the feds. That’s who’s drawn the maps the last few times that it wasn’t drawn by Republicans. So they’re hoping that trial goes forward. The three panel judges have already set a trial date for January saying they want to move this along. In part, their decision to set that trial said we haven’t heard much from the state and whether the state will actually have this argument done in their courts and that’s what prompted the state Supreme Court to step in and say, “Oh wait, we can move forward as well.” So you might have two playing out at the same time. The federal court might get put on hold while the state Supreme Court takes their first swing at it. It’s unclear at this point.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, the Republicans have now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the federal court work on this in Wisconsin.

Zac Schultz:

That’s right. They absolutely — Republicans want to see this done in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They don’t want any federal action at all. They’re hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will dismiss that case entirely so the only case that remains is with the Wisconsin Supreme Court forcing them to be the ones to decide or draw the maps themselves.

Frederica Freyberg:

Certainly playing hardball here. The underlying idea is that everyone knows that the Republican-controlled Legislature is not going to draw new maps that Governor Evers would approve. I don’t think that’s putting it too bluntly. But now Republicans expect to pass a resolution Tuesday to keep the maps pretty much as is. What’s the reaction to this?

Zac Schultz:

Well, the idea is that they already have maps that they enjoy. This last decade have shown us they win and they win big majorities with the maps that are in place. Democrats say that’s because they’re gerrymandered. Republicans say it’s because that’s the way the geography lays out. So only slight adjustments needed for population will likely give Republicans majorities for the next decade. So they to want play off the base maps they wrote ten years ago, only making adjustments where absolutely necessary. Democrats of course would like to see much larger adjustments and the idea of partisan fairness to hopefully even out the score so that even in a wave year maybe Democrats could come closer to winning a majority in either one of the chambers.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there some precedent for this? Ok, we’ve had these maps for ten years. We don’t really need to change them much. Is this something people who are going through redistricting do?

Zac Schultz:

Absolutely. It’s one of the arguments. But the whole thing about maps is that there really aren’t too many hard-set limits in law. You can make the argument that you should only make minor adjustments. But ten years ago Republicans completely redrew the map. They swung people around the state every which way in order to create the maps that gave them a majority. Ten years ago, they were absolutely fine with it. Today they’re not. So Democrats will say that’s hypocrisy. Republicans will say we just want to be consistent going forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

We will watch how all this works out but meanwhile this is certainly on the fast track. You’ve reported on local municipal voting boundary maps. Where does all of this leave those and what’s happening there?

Zac Schultz:

Well, the counties, villages, cities, they’re in the middle of their local ward and supervisory redistricting process. That’s separate from what the state Assembly and congressional maps are. They’re right in the middle of it. I know a lot of the counties have just finished up their versions. They’re sending them on to the local districts to draw their wards to fit within. It’s unclear if those maps, which may not be done until the end of November, will be incorporated into the larger arguments at either the federal or state Supreme Court, or if they’ll have to adjust the local maps later on down the line once we have the maps set for Congress and the state Legislature.

Frederica Freyberg:

I know as you reported in your story just a few minutes ago, these local boundaries are really important to people, including things like school districts?

Zac Schultz:

Absolutely. There’s a wide definition of what is a community of interest. Watershed, school districts, county lines, city lines. It’s really wide open, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Zac Schultz, thanks very much for your work on this.

Zac Schultz:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Former conservative Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman took to YouTube this week releasing a six-minute-long video statement about his investigation into the 2020 Wisconsin election. It came following confusion on the part of election clerks over an email from his office that was flagged as a possible cybersecurity risk. The state Assembly last week approved at least $680,000 in taxpayer money for the Gableman probe. This, despite the fact that after recounts, court challenges and official results audits, no widespread fraud was found. As some measure of that, yesterday the fourth Wisconsin voter out of some 3 million voters in the 2020 presidential election was charged with election fraud. Here’s an excerpt of Gableman’s video statement.

Michael Gableman:

This is not an election contest. We are not challenging the results of the 2020 election. Rather, we are holding government officials accountable to the public for their actions surrounding the elections. As the officials directly responsible for administering elections, Wisconsin’s 1,922 county and municipal clerks have a duty to the people of our state to be forthcoming in this investigation. It is my sincere hope that Wisconsin election officials will live up to that duty. But if they do not, we will use the power afforded to the Office of Special Counsel to compel answers to these questions. This investigation will be guided by a search for the truth and not by political priorities or political time tables. Some evidence has been produced previously that shows some election officials acted unilaterally in deciding not to follow established state law. We will request from those officials and others with potential knowledge of unlawful actions and will compel them, if necessary, to produce documents and testimony that will allow the public to gain a comprehensive understanding of how their elections were managed.

Frederica Freyberg:

The top election official in Wisconsin, Meagan Wolfe, says she does not know what possible unlawful actions Gableman is talking about. Wolfe has repeatedly defended the integrity of Wisconsin’s 2020 elections. Marisa Wojcik sat down with UW-Madison election expert Barry Burden and asked him his reaction to the Gableman YouTube statement.

Marisa Wojcik:

What is your take on that? This is an investigation that seems to be different than looking for fraud. Is this just creating more confusion? Certainly we haven’t seen something like this before.

Barry Burden:

Well, I have a couple worries about this. One is that Gableman’s investigation seems to have a moving target in mind. The kinds of things that his team is interested in have shifted over time. He’s traveled to Arizona to see the recounts audit business that was happening there in Maricopa County. He’s traveled to a seminar that Mike Lindell, the My Pillow CEO, put on in South Dakota and consulted with other folks who are in that industry of raising questions about the election. His most recent video, as you mentioned, is now talking about clerks not following the law. To me that seems like a very different set of concerns. If that were happening, I think the Legislature would have the right to hold hearings to look into that and they’ve already done some of that. There could be court cases filed. Someone could file suit claiming that clerks or election officials were not following the law. Viewers will remember that there were seven or eight of those suits filed right after the presidential election in Wisconsin, both in state court and federal court claiming that laws were not being followed, that the collection of ballots in city parks was not allowed under the law. Maybe drop boxes should not have been permitted. Maybe clerks were assisting voters with completing absentee ballot information that they shouldn’t have. All of those suits essentially were tossed out. They were not seen as having any merit and they didn’t make any changes to the election as a result. Now, that’s not to say we shouldn’t do some improvements after each election. It is an imperfect process. It’s a very human process. We went through a really different kind of election than ever before and I think the system adapted, but it wasn’t designed to deal with the kinds of challenges we faced in 2020. So some changes to the election law are probably right. But I don’t think doing it through a somewhat secretive investigation that’s not done in full public view and with moving targets is really problematic.

Frederica Freyberg:

On a different front, Biden administration brass traveled through Wisconsin this week.

Miguel Cardona:

Are you going to have a great year?

Students:

Yeah.

Frederica Freyberg:

The U.S. secretary of education, Miguel Cardona, rolled out his return to school road trip with several stops in the state. The tour, designed to highlight students safely returning to in-person learning. The Wisconsin stops included Eau Claire. That’s where high school students that are part of the “NewsHour” Student Reporting Labs got a personal audience with the secretary. Cardona sat down with 17-year-old Kaylee Sweno from Black River Falls High School for an interview.

Kaylee Sweno:

Because of the pandemic, obviously a lot of students are behind in the learning process. How do you plan to catch these students up after missing a year of in-person school?

Miguel Cardona:

Every student I talk to, they’re just happy to be with their friends, that social/emotional piece, right? We talk a lot about the digital divide but the relationship divide is something we have to focus on. So making sure that you have access to fun activities at school and sports or extracurricular activities, that’s just as important as the academic acceleration. We know students lost content so we have to accelerate it but the American Rescue Plan, there was $130 million allocated to states across the country to help and get tutors for students that need it, additional teachers, additional school counselors. So the money is there for extra support. I think in the next year or two you’re going to see a lot more support for students who are feeling a little bit behind either academically or need a little bit of access to social/emotional support, mental health access because we know, we all went through this trauma together.

Woman:

I just don’t think a lot of people know what special education teachers do.

Frederica Freyberg:

Cardona also traveled to UW-Madison, where he met with students in the School of Special Education program, the chancellor and governor. Amid COVID outbreaks in schools and communities, Cardona emphasized the importance of safety protocols like indoor mask requirements to keep schools open.

Secretary Cardona also said this week that he endorses making COVID vaccines mandatory for eligible students. We want to thank Black River Falls High School journalists with the “NewsHour” Student Reporting Lab for sharing their work with us.

Finally tonight, the return of an icon to the Capitol square. Miss Forward, the statute on the square that was torn down during demonstrations last summer, was returned to her post at the top of State Street this week. Another piece, the sculpture of Union Army Civil War Colonel Hans Christian Heg, was also returned to its original pedestal on the Capitol grounds.

For the latest COVID condition reporting, go to PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news page. That is all for tonight’s program. Next week, Murv Seymour with the story of a man granted a governor’s pardon. 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.