Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production. You’re watching “Here & Now” 2024 election coverage.

Zac Schultz:
Vice President Kamala Harris visits western Wisconsin promoting abortion rights and announcing two new federal rules for nursing homes. And a seasoned Democratic throws his hat in the ring for the 1st Congressional, a district that’s been red since he last held that very same seat.
Good evening. I’m Zac Schultz filling in for Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” 1st Congressional Republican incumbent, Bryan Steil, and his Democratic challenger, Peter Barca, both join us. Then what the new rules for federally regulated nursing homes means for facilities, caregivers and residents. Finally, an economic think tank says the UW-Madison is in decline. We look at why. It’s “Here & Now” for April 26th.

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

Zac Schultz:
Republicans and Democrats in Congress managed to come together this week to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package. The bill was stalled for months in the House until Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to break the funding into four separate bills and let members vote up or down on each measure and then repackage them and send one bill over to the Senate. The measure includes $60 billion to Ukraine for their war against Russia, $26 billion to Israel for defense, $8 billion for Taiwan and a fourth bill that gives the social media company, TikTok, nine months to divest from its Chinese parent company. President Biden signed the bill into law on Wednesday. Joining us now to talk about this bill is Republican Congressman Bryan Steil, who joins us now. Thank you for your time today.

Bryan Steil:
Thanks for having me on.

Zac Schultz:
You voted “yes” on aid to Taiwan and Israel and for breaking up TikTok, but you voted “no” on aid to Ukraine. Can you walk us through your decision specifically regarding Ukraine and Israel?

Bryan Steil:
From a global perspective right now, we’re in one of the more dangerous positions that we’ve been in in generations. Tyrants are tempted when they sense weakness and dysfunction. We’ve seen that from a foreign policy perspective from the United States. I think it’s important that we make sure we’re standing with our democratic allies. So as we look at the importance of making sure we’re funding Israel so that they can defend themselves from the terrorist attack from Hamas, but also from other Iranian proxies, I think that bill was pretty straightforward. Making sure that we’re providing Taiwan and in particular the U.S. Naval Fleet the resources they need to be able to confront and prevent China from moving in against Taiwan. I think that’s a positive move. The broader national security bill banning TikTok or forcing its sale as well as my bill that addressed some of the terrorism financing that we continue to see from Iran, I think was an essential piece to pass. As it relates to the Ukrainian funding, I think it is appropriate to send lethal weapons to Ukraine to allow the Ukrainians to be able to defend themselves. My concern with that bill was the significant amount of humanitarian aid funding that wasn’t paid for. When we see this volume of funding, I think it’s really important that we go in and we are very careful in the use of taxpayer dollars as it relates to foreign aid. For example, there’s $300 million in the bill to address narcotics trafficking, an important topic, but I think that we should have been looking at ways to be able to pay for that piece of the puzzle. Overall, the entire package was signed into law and I think it’s important that we continue to stand with our democratic allies against tyrants who are on the move across the globe.

Zac Schultz:
Do you have any concerns about how Israel is conducting their military operations in Gaza?

Bryan Steil:
I mostly have concerns that the Hamas continues to hold hostages, not only Israeli hostages, but U.S. citizens hostages. This entire conflict could be ended tomorrow if Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages. And so I think it’s important that Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel is continuing to conduct operations against the terrorists. They continue to hold both Israeli as well as U.S. hostages.

Zac Schultz:
Looking ahead to the fall, Democrat Peter Barca recently announced he’s running against you in the 1st Congressional. What do you think are the main dynamics that will shape the election this fall?

Bryan Steil:
I think there’s going to be a conversation on the issues and the policy differences between me and my opponents are pretty significant. I know there’s an ongoing Democratic primary. We’ll see who the voters ultimately select. But if we look at Peter Barca’s 40-year history, you see a series of votes I think are out of line with voters in the state of Wisconsin. When he was the Democratic minority leader in the statehouse in Madison, he voted to protect sanctuary cities. I think in contrast, we should be working to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. The implications of the unsecured border are very significant in the state of Wisconsin. It’s not only fentanyl that’s flowing in. I can’t tell you how many moms and dads that I’ve talked to that have lost a loved one to fentanyl, but it’s also the challenges being faced in communities like Whitewater, city of 15,000, where the chief of police has recognized there’s roughly a thousand migrants that have moved in in the past two years from Nicaragua and Venezuela. So there’s going to be a stark policy contrast between me and my opponent. I think that’s actually a healthy conversation to have with folks across the country and across Wisconsin over the course of the next 200 days.

Zac Schultz:
You mentioned the border and drugs. Originally this foreign aid package included money for border security, but it was Donald Trump who told Republicans not to pass it, not to give Joe Biden a win, so to speak. Do you have any prospects for that changing and what is the impact of Trump on all of these issues in the election?

Bryan Steil:
I pretty strongly disagree with your framing of that topic. I would note that House Republicans, we passed a comprehensive border security package. Unfortunately, Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, has refused to bring our bill to the floor. He’s also refused to bring the bill to the floor that you’re referencing. So I don’t think it’s fair to say that the reason that it’s not there is because of conservatives. I would actually note Democratic leadership in the Senate refuses to bring any security bill to the floor. They should bring the conservative-passed, border security bill, passed in the House now over six months ago to a vote. If they have amendments or want to seek changes to it, I would love to see the conversation. But the fact that Democratic leadership in the Senate refuses to act and President Biden, who has the authority today refuses to act is incredibly concerning. Today, President Biden could end catch-and-release. He could end the abuse of the parole system. He could reinstate stay in Mexico. He could restart border wall construction immediately. He refuses to do that. It’s the lack of action from the president, the lack of action from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that’s causing us a lot of problems that we have on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Zac Schultz:
So looking ahead to the summer, we have the RNC and Donald Trump in Wisconsin. What impact will that have for the state and for the fall?

Bryan Steil:
One, there’s no better place to be than in the state of Wisconsin in July. I think it’s a huge opportunity to show off our state and to show off the city of Milwaukee to the entire country. I also think it’s a real opportunity for us to talk about the biggest issues facing American families. So many people can’t afford the things that they need brought to us by massive volumes of inflation directly related to massive reckless spending in the first two years of the Democratic one-party control, the Biden administration. The policies that we need to see moving forward are getting price and inflation under control. We can do that by addressing the reckless spending and, two, the importance of securing the U.S.-Mexico border. If we’re talking about the policy issues in front of us this summer and through this election, that’s good for the American people, that’s good for the state of Wisconsin and I look forward to that conversation.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Congressman, thanks for your time today.

Bryan Steil:
Thank you.

Zac Schultz:
The last time a Democrat represented Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District was in the early ’90s and that man was Peter Barca, who recently announced he is challenging Steil again this fall. Peter Barca, thanks for joining us today.

Peter Barca:
Very good to be with you, Zac. Thank you so much.

Zac Schultz:
You’ve spent the last few years serving as the secretary of the Department of Revenue in the Evers administration. Why did you decide to leave that job and run for Congress this fall?

Peter Barca:
Well, it’s a difficult decision. I served for 5 and a quarter years in the Evers administration. It was a great opportunity. We accomplished a great deal. We were able to cut taxes for middle class families. We were able to give law enforcement tools on everything from vaping laws. You have to have registries, because my law enforcement agencies that worked for me told me that people end up, especially children, end up in the emergency rooms from this dangerous vaping. One of the last bills he signed was near and dear to my heart and that was to use the tax system for organ donations, something vitally important. In fact, at the end of that bill-signing, I had four people from the UW organ donation center, they said Secretary Barca, you have to tell your staff, you are definitely going to save hundreds if not thousands of lives through this aspect. So it was a great opportunity. I loved doing it every single day. It was a difficult decision to leave, but like most people in America and I haven’t talked to anyone yet that doesn’t feel we have a do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress. I don’t like what I’m seeing. I think it’s something that absolutely has to change. When I worked in the political system, whether it was in Congress or the state Legislature, I was the kind of person that believed you roll up your sleeves, you work with both parties, and you solve the major issues of the day. Right now there’s too many political games going on. There’s too much intense partisanship but not enough effort to try to resolve the issues of our day and to make progress for the American people and the people of Wisconsin, who I care deeply about.

Zac Schultz:
There was one thing that Congress passed recently, and that was the foreign aid package. I want to get your perspective on how you would have voted had you been in Congress. I’m going to run through the four elements of the bill. Give me a quick yes or no, and then we’ll talk about them. Yes or no, would you have supported the aid to Taiwan?

Peter Barca:
Yes.

Zac Schultz:
Yes or no on the aid for Ukraine?

Peter Barca:
Yes.

Zac Schultz:
Yes or no on forcing TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company?

Peter Barca:
Yes.

Zac Schultz:
And yes or no on funding for Israel.

Peter Barca:
Yes.

Zac Schultz:
So give me a perspective. Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin voted “no” on both TikTok and aid for Israel. Why would you have supported those two elements?

Peter Barca:
Well, I would have certainly voted for it because, you know, for the entire bill. We have to protect our national security and we have to protect our allies. And it’s vitally important that America continue to have a strong presence in the world and support our allies and defend our national security over the long-term. This bill did accomplish that. I’m glad it passed, and it’s a very important measure.

Zac Schultz:
So looking at the campaign ahead, the 1st Congressional is a consistently Republican district. What needs to happen for you to be able to put it in play this fall?

Peter Barca:
Well, the district changed two years ago. It’s a district — even when I represented it, you had parts of Waukesha County, which is deep red, very difficult for a Democrat. That was taken out. And instead, parts of Milwaukee were put in. It still has all of Kenosha County, all of Racine County, all of Walworth, virtually all of Rock County, and so it’s a very — it’s a typical purple-type district that, especially for someone like myself, who had many people encouraged me to run. It turns out that Kenosha, Racine area are the most swing parts of the district. An area I represented for over a decade before joining the Evers cabinet, and I have a strong reputation here of working with people of both parties and getting things done. I just feel like it’s time for change. When things are not working, I believe accountability is the cornerstone of a democracy. Right now we have serious problems. I have a very full agenda of items I’d like to bring forward to try and make a difference. But first and foremost, I think people know they can count on me to go to bat for people. In fact, in my home district in the Assembly, I’ve always won by overwhelming margins because I’ve had support from Democrats, independents and Republicans, and I’m very proud of that.

Zac Schultz:
So what impact do you think the top of the ticket, Biden versus Trump for president, will have down-ballot on the rest of the state including your race?

Peter Barca:
It’s difficult to know, quite frankly, and I really can’t worry about that. I have to worry about my own race. We have a dysfunctional, do-nothing Congress, and we need to change that. I think people believe in accountability. That’s why I like my chances. I’m a person known for getting things done. In the Legislature, I was the leader for seven of my — seven of the 10 years that I was here. And I’m somebody that was known for standing up for the people in my home district and we accomplished a tremendous amount. Some of the things that are most vital right now. We have people that are hurting, having trouble making ends meet. You’ve got people struggling to get into the middle class, but even in the middle class, they’re having trouble. There are things we can do. We can have “Buy America” provisions which I champion. In the Legislature, I was the lead author. Also in the Congress, when I was in the Congress, I got a “Buy America” provision, the defense authorization bill, so ships engines would have to be made in America and that brought back hundreds of people that were laid off at Fairbanks-Morse, and many more were hired. We have to support unions. Unions are what gave us a pathway to the middle class. And we have to get rid of these disastrous trade deals that are hurting American businesses, hurting American competitiveness and hurting American workers. So those are the kinds of things that I plan to champion, but as a former small business owner, both my parents were entrepreneurs, workforce is the biggest issue I heard about, traveling the state for five years as secretary and same thing down in the 1st Congressional District. So one of the things I’ll champion is it’s ridiculous to have earnings restrictions on people that are getting social security. Maybe that made sense 20 years ago, but people desperately need workers. So if people want to work — they’re now restricted 15, 20 hours a week in many cases. If they want to work 30, 40 hours, God bless them. They’re helping to propel this economy. So those are the kinds of things I will champion and things that I think are important. I will stand up for our freedoms or taking away freedoms for women to make their own healthcare decisions. People’s right to vote. It’s unbelievable.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Peter Barca, we’ll follow this throughout the fall. Thank you.

Peter Barca:
Thank you so much. Nice talking to you Zac. I appreciate you keeping your listeners and viewers informed.

Zac Schultz:
Earlier this week, Vice President Kamala Harris was in La Crosse to introduce new federal standards for nursing homes in long-term care facilities. Once finalized, the new rules would implement a minimum number of hours staff would have to be around patients and require a registered nurse on-site at all times. It would also require 80% of Medicaid reimbursement go towards employee wages. Vice President Harris noted many of the workers in this industry have been traditionally underpaid, a factor that leads to staffing shortages.

Kamala Harris:
One of the character traits of real leaders is to have some level of compassion and concern about the suffering of other people and then want to do something about that to improve their condition. That’s the work of these workers that we’re talking about right now. And we as a society should value that.

Zac Schultz:
Current law only says facilities need to have “sufficient staffing.” While many nursing homes already meet these new standards, the government says a majority of the country’s 15,000 nursing homes would need to add staff in order to come into compliance. To give us the Wisconsin perspective, we are joined by Rick Abrams, the executive director of the Wisconsin Healthcare Association and the Wisconsin Center for Assisted Living. Thanks for your time today.

Rick Abrams:
Zac, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Zac Schultz:
Give me a snapshot of what the long-term care industry is in Wisconsin. Are there enough beds and workers to provide for a generation of aging baby boomers?

Rick Abrams:
You know, Zac, at this point, there are enough beds. We’ve got approximately 26,000 nursing home beds in the state. Our average statewide occupancy is about 70%, so you’ve got capacity, but the challenge is dedicated workers. The labor shortage was always a problem in Wisconsin. Certainly was exacerbated with the pandemic. And from our perspective, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about it, a cookie cutter black and white staffing minimum just is not the right approach.

Zac Schultz:
So, yeah, let’s talk about what is your reaction to the new regulations? Are there any particular that seem more onerous or difficult for nursing homes and long-term care facilities to actually meet?

Rick Abrams:
You know, Zac, two things. First, even though we may disagree with the approach, there’s no question that everyone is well-intentioned. Whether you’re a federal policymaker like our vice president is, state policymaker, and certainly the folks in the sector, but when you look at the requirements of the minimum staffing mandate, the most difficult to meet is going to be the requirement of having a registered nurse, an RN, if you will, on-site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s going to be difficult, if not impossible in some cases to meet simply because there are not enough RNs. But equally concerning to us is that that 24/7 requirement, if you will, applies whether you’re a 40-bed nursing facility in rural Wisconsin or a 500-bed nursing facility in Bronx, New York. That just doesn’t make sense to us. We think there’s a better approach.

Zac Schultz:
So I want to read a statement we received from Kim Marheine, the state’s ombudsman on long-term care. She says many ask whether the time is right for these changes, given current staffing stressors facing the long-term care industry. Though there may never be a best time for these changes, consumer needs and expectations demand the time is now. What’s your response to that statement?

Rick Abrams:
Well, first, I have great respect for Kim. In fact, I got my start in long-term care as a long-term care ombudsman. But, you know, Zac, in the beginning, in your introduction, you talked about the current standard, and the current standard is sufficiency. Not only in numbers, but also in expertise, and we think that that is the right approach, because every nursing home, not only in the state of Wisconsin, but literally every nursing home in this country has a different patient mix. And the facility is duty-bound to staff to that patient mix. And we think that that’s the right approach.

Zac Schultz:
So will this result in nursing homes closing down? Will they just not be able to accept people? What’s the bigger implication, especially in rural Wisconsin?

Rick Abrams:
You know, I think there’s three implications, two of which you’ve addressed. I do believe that, especially in rural areas for our small community-based facilities, they may need to — they may need to close if they cannot meet these standards, because not meeting the standards then carries with it substantial penalties, and a facility can’t sustain that. But, you know, if a facility finds that after a good faith effort, they just cannot staff to the requirement, they’re going to then reduce the number of beds that are occupied. And when that happens, especially in rural areas, access is challenged, and nobody wants that to happen. But you know, Zac, the third thing, and this is purely from my perspective, is that if a facility cannot achieve the 3.48 hours per resident day, if they’re not in a position to reduce the number of occupied beds, what that does is it puts more pressure on the staff that is there and the biggest concern that I have with that is that that is going to hasten burn-out and that is going to hasten the exodus of these good and dedicated people from our sector, and nobody can afford that. So really, you know, your question was excellent. And for one, two, or all three of these reasons, we just don’t think a black and white cookie cutter, however you want to describe it, minimum staffing standard is the right approach.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Rick Abrams, thanks for your time today.

Rick Abrams:
It’s my pleasure. Take care.

Zac Schultz:
Finally tonight, a new study from the UW-Madison Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy asks is the UW-Madison in decline? Joining us now is Ananth Seshadri, a professor of economics and co-author of the study. Thanks for your time today.

Ananth Seshadri:
Thank you for having me.

Zac Schultz:
Your paper looks at different rankings of UW-Madison programs compared to other universities and you’ve shown a significant decline in overall ranking since 2010. How do you come to that?

Ananth Seshadri:
Correct, so we look at four different measures of rankings. One is the very popular U.S. News and World Report college rankings of undergraduate programs. We look at rankings of doctoral programs. We look at R&D, research rankings. How much in terms of research and development money do we bring in, mainly from the federal government. And then finally, global rankings of universities. In the first ranking, we actually find in terms of America’s best colleges, we’ve pretty much caught up with where we were a couple of decades ago, around 34, 35, you’re back there. Some of this is changes in the methodology and some of this is just active investments on the part of UW-Madison. But in the other three dimensions, we find that we’ve basically declined. Most pronounced is the decline over the last decade or so.

Zac Schultz:
Let’s talk about that timeline because 2010 was when Scott Walker became governor, Republicans took over the Legislature, and they started about a decade-long process of forcing the UW to spend down its reserves and cutting — freezing tuition, cutting spending. Is there correlation and causation lining up in those areas?

Ananth Seshadri:
It’s a bit hard to say. We don’t exactly go into the details of why the rankings fell. Interestingly, one of our follow-up papers is going to ask the question, is the Wisconsin taxpayer a little too stingy when it comes to funding UW-Madison? And we’re right there in terms of the median of our peers. If you look at state appropriations per undergraduate student FTE, we’re not that far off from our median. So I would say there’s not a whole lot of evidence to suggest that that’s the major cause of the decline. I do believe that there are other aspects, both internal and external that we could address in order to better serve both the state of Wisconsin and our students.

Zac Schultz:
And your paper also looked at the research and development money, and UW used to be second in the nation. They’ve dropped to eighth. A lot of that is individual professors who write some of those grants and bring in the research for their particular areas of study. Once again, we’ve seen a lot of, I guess, so-called university superstars get poached by other universities. How much of that is related to pay and the environment and replacing them from within, I guess?

Ananth Seshadri:
Sure. So one of the things we’re not as good at as relative to our peers is our big grants. So an award from the office of vice chancellor for research are very focused on trying to get these multidisciplinary teams in getting $30 and $50-million grants from the federal government. One thing that we’ve got to be better at is to be a little more nimble. To give you an example, in 2020-2021, AI was a big initiative. So are we investing in AI and moving resources to the priority areas of the federal funding agency as fast as our peers. And so something like that would really help with shoring up our R&D funding.

Zac Schultz:
No matter the cause of the decline, your paper looked at the global impact. I want you to explain to people how these rankings do matter for some countries and whether they recommend students come here.

Ananth Seshadri:
Sure, I mean international rankings are very popular. Generically, students all over the world look at these international rankings of world universities. We note in the paper that it actually has bite. For instance, in the U.K. government, Chinese government, give priorities for students who graduate from a top 50 global university. So it’s not just the signaling value associated with the ranking, but it actually has real consequences.

Zac Schultz:
So does that mean we could see fewer foreign students on campus? In the past, that had been a big source of tuition coming in.

Ananth Seshadri:
Right. I think as an institution, we remain an excellent institution. So by no means is the report trying to sound alarmist bells, but I think it’s more of a call to arms to make sure that we allocate resources nimbly and efficiently. And, yes, I do think we would see pressure in terms of international students, excellent international students who want to choose UW-Madison as a destination, especially if we further continue to decline in these global rankings.

Zac Schultz:
In your executive summary, you say UW-Madison will benefit from a renewed commitment to excellence. What does that mean, and without more funding, how does that happen?

Ananth Seshadri:
Funding is a really critical part of the story. So I’ll go back in terms of funding and say that if you ask the question where are we against our peers, it’s not state appropriations where we are very different than our peers. It’s undergraduate in-state tuition. There’s this general trend towards a lot of concern with increasing tuition, but UW-Madison is excellent in ensuring that the students graduate debt-free. So as a source of revenue, that’s kind of where we stand out relative to our peers. In terms of being nimble, in terms of allocating resources, what I had in mind is the fact that over the course of the last few decades, student demand has changed. So now computer science is the most popular major. Priorities of the federal government has changed. In order to be able to both ensure that we cater to those students and cater to the new areas that are essentially being priority areas, then we’ve got to be moving resources much more nimbly than we have in the past.

Zac Schultz:
All right. We’ll leave it there. Ananth Seshadri, thanks for your time today.

Ananth Seshadri:
Happy to be here. Thank you.

Zac Schultz:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and click on the news tab. That is our program for tonight. I’m Zac Schultz. Have a great weekend. Thanks for joining us.

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