Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:
Wisconsin’s U.S. senators are of two minds over military incursions in Venezuela, following a vote on a resolution saying President Trump exceeded his authority.
I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” Zac Schultz speaks with Assembly leadership on what to expect in 2026. State public defenders sound the alarm over juvenile justice practices and how the federal hemp ban will impact a growing Wisconsin industry. It’s “Here & Now” for January 9.

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

Frederica Freyberg:
The shooting death of a 37-year-old mother by an ICE agent in Minneapolis this week leaves a devastated family and cities roiled in protest, alongside defense of the Homeland Security sweep and its officers. It also brings response and reaction from the streets to the highest office. Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin said, “This is a tragedy, and I’m thinking of our neighbors to the West. We need an investigation into this incident and accountability. But this we do know; Trump is sending in masked agents into our neighborhoods, is causing chaos and is not making our communities any safer.” Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson said on WPR late this week. “It’s a tragedy all the way around. I think what I would like to see is that the elected officials stop inciting people to impede lawful operations. Don’t obstruct justice. Don’t put yourself at risk. It didn’t have to happen.”
While 2026 is just underway, the legislative session at the Capitol is almost over. The Republican floor calendar says the final days for general business are in March, with members shifting their focus to the fall elections after that. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz sat down with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Minority Leader Greta Neubauer to talk about what they hope to accomplish. Now, these are condensed versions of those interviews. You can find the full-length interviews on our web page under the news tab at PBSWisconsin.org.

Zac Schultz:
Greta Neubauer, thanks for joining us.

Greta Neubauer:
Absolutely. Happy to be here.

Zac Schultz:
One of the big headlines that’s come out of the Assembly recently is the failure to expand postpartum coverage for new mothers. Walk me through the process of what happened there and why it came to be, especially since it did so well in the Senate.

Greta Neubauer:
Sure, so for many years, we have known that it is essential for us to pass postpartum health care expansion for those new moms. Right now in Wisconsin, you can have a baby and be off of your health care in 60 days. That’s not good for the mom and that’s not good for the baby. And there are people each year whose health is really put at risk because they don’t have access to that essential care after they give birth. So we have been pushing on this issue for a long time. There are enough co-sponsors by far in the state Assembly to get this bill done, but it does not get brought to the floor. And that, of course, is Speaker Vos’s decision. We attempted to pull a petition that would have forced a vote on this issue, and the speaker did move the bill in a procedural sort of maneuver into another committee so that we have to restart that process. But really, the question that I have is why the authors of this bill — Pat Snyder, Jesse Rodriguez, people who say that this is an important issue for them are not able to get this bill to the floor. And what they’re going to say to those new moms in their district who lose access to health care. They’re governing. They are authors of this bill. They should be able to get it done.

Zac Schultz:
Other than that legislation, what’s the most important thing you’d like to try and get done next year, while there’s still a few months of session?

Greta Neubauer:
It’s going to be on affordability. As I said, this is what we hear about from our constituents. Assembly Democrats are continuing to do listening sessions and knock on doors. We, of course, run into our constituents at parades and holiday festivals. And we hear over and over that people are struggling with the cost of groceries, again, prescription drugs and health care and housing. There’s been a little bit of progress on housing in a bipartisan fashion in the last two sessions. That’s good to see. But we have not done enough. And so we’re really going to be continuing to push on those issues and making sure that the state keeps its commitment to our kids and our public schools and get some funding into the general aides so that we don’t see property taxes go up for people across the state to support their schools.

Zac Schultz:
You’ve been in the Assembly for a while. Would you say that this was a quieter year than past sessions, in terms of the amount of legislation coming forward that actually can get passed?

Greta Neubauer:
You know, it’s been a bit quieter. Yeah, I would say especially given what we see people going through in our state. We see significant impacts of the federal government’s actions on Wisconsinites, and we see the legislature really doing very little to address those impacts. We’re about to see people’s health care premiums skyrocket. If you’re on the marketplace in Wisconsin, the average increase is going to be $664 a month. And legislative Republicans really have no answer to that. The Senate Republicans in particular have met very few times this year. So it does seem like they’ve kind of run out of ideas, and they’re not really interested in addressing the problems that the people of Wisconsin are facing.

Zac Schultz:
Well, that obviously leads us into next year and the elections. How much will Democrats be able to convince the public that the legislature hasn’t done anything. It’s time for new leadership.

Greta Neubauer:
Republicans have been in control in Wisconsin for a while. They have had this chamber for 15 years. The state Assembly, and we have seen them attempt to enact their vision on the state of Wisconsin. And we’ve got local schools across the state that are at risk of closing. We’ve got local governments really struggling to fund essential services, including public safety and health. We are in a tough place in this state, and we know that people are frustrated with government and with politics, and they just want to see their elected officials care about what they’re going through and work hard across the aisle to get things done. We just have not seen that from legislative Republicans. And so I think we have a huge opportunity next year to communicate directly with the people of Wisconsin about what we’re going to do when we are in control as Democrats in the state House, and how it’s going to make their lives better.

Zac Schultz:
Obviously, you gained a lot of seats in the ’24 elections, but you fell short of regaining the majority. There were some close elections. I’m sure you know what seats you’re going to target. What will be different in ’26?

Greta Neubauer:
Yeah. So we worked to pick up 15 seats last year. And that, of course, was a big lift. That’s in addition to protecting our incumbents and close seats, including some that Trump wins. So we have five seats now left to go to flip control of the state Assembly. That’s a close number. We’re looking at a good environment next year because people are pretty unhappy with federal Republicans and state Republicans. And so we’re going to have great candidates who are going to work hard throughout the next year to connect directly with voters and communicate their vision for the state. These are parents and teachers, coaches, local elected officials, small business owners, farmers, DNR wardens, right. Just fantastic folks who are going to do the work of communicating that things can be better in this state and that they want to go to Madison and really represent them. So we’re really excited about the elections next year. We’re thrilled with the candidates who are stepping up to run, and we are just going to work every day to talk directly to those folks who we’ll need to win over for next year.

Zac Schultz:
Do you plan on getting involved in the gubernatorial primary?

Greta Neubauer:
Not at this point. I generally don’t get involved in Democratic primaries, but we have a really fantastic field. I think many people who could be great governors.

Zac Schultz:
Speaker Vos, thanks for your time again. One of the more recent headlines out of the Assembly had to do with expanding health care for women through Medicaid. That’s got a lot of support in the Senate. There are Republican co-sponsors. Walk me through your process for your caucus of when there are Republicans that support it, but it doesn’t come to the floor.

Robin Vos:
Sure. So we have a rule that by and large, things get to the floor as long as they have 50 Republican votes. We work really hard to get there. The vast majority of things do. Sometimes it takes a little longer to find out what changes have to be made, or how do we address the issues that people have concerns with. One of the concerns that I have is putting more people onto welfare is not something that is sustainable for taxpayers in the long run. We have done a very good job over the course of the past decade, as other states have seen increases in their welfare spending. We’ve kept ours flat. We’ve found other ways to address healthcare challenges. Remember, in the budget, we had a bipartisan agreement on a hospital assessment that actually brings in almost $1 billion into Wisconsin to help lower health care costs. I would much rather focus on lowering health care costs for everyone, as opposed to putting a few more people onto welfare that all of us are going to pay for.

Zac Schultz:
There has been some success over the last few years of actually working with Governor Evers to pass some bigger bills. Do you think there’s room for one more?

Robin Vos:
I’m always open to compromise in finding an answer. I mean, we’re working together on this idea of SNAP benefits right now. We believe that, you know, kind of like what’s happened in almost a dozen other states around the country. It’s crazy to have taxpayers paying for junk food when you’re on food stamps. We think we should be able to restrict those to healthier options. He’d like to have more money going into helping administer the program under the “Big Beautiful Bill.” There were some changes in how we administered it. We like the work requirements in the bill, so if we can do that in a way that reduces fraud, hopefully that’s an area we can find consensus. My hope is we can do that in the spring. But you’re right, there are other areas that we are more than willing to sit at the table and find that consensus, but we’re not going to give up our principles. And I respect the fact he doesn’t want to either.

Zac Schultz:
So a lot of other people have already shifted to looking at the election next year. What’s the recruitment process look like when you’ve got a lot of competitive seats out there?

Robin Vos:
Yeah, I mean, it’s really no different than it’s been for the past 30 or 40 years. We’ve always had a competitive map in Wisconsin. We’ve been successful because we recruit good candidates who are locally based, and they focus on the issues that matter to Wisconsinites. As I look at what’s happening in the governor’s race, I watch the Democrats go farther and farther to the left. Their entire campaign is focused on one person, not the average mom or dad in Wausau or Rhinelander or Eau Claire, but they’re focused on Donald Trump. And I think most people are sick and tired of having an argument about one person. They want to see results. So I think our candidates are going to talk about affordability. How do we make things better for the average family? We’re going to bring up a bill this spring that focuses on putting more money back into the pockets of Wisconsinites. We’re going to focus on property taxes because they’re way too high. And ultimately, we’re going to try to make sure we have good programs that can build a social safety net, but in a way that encourages people to get off of it and doesn’t become a hammock.

Zac Schultz:
Do you plan on running again?

Robin Vos:
That’s — I haven’t gone through that process. My wife and I talked about it already. So I’ll make a decision sometime, like I normally do, in January or February.

Zac Schultz:
Do you plan on getting involved in the governor’s primary at all on the Republican side?

Robin Vos:
No, we have two good candidates at this point. There certainly could be more that enter in. I feel like either one of the two candidates that we already have are exceptionally good leaders. They both have to focus on what matters to Wisconsinites, and that is affordability, cost of housing, making sure that we have reasonable taxes and ultimately deliver services that people need. The Democrats are kind of running to the far left. The candidates that they have, a bunch of people who’ve run before and lost. I don’t know if that’s the most successful way for them to win, but I guess only time will tell.

Zac Schultz:
Do you think that the average voter will be focused more on what’s happening in Washington and the federal impacts, or do you think they will be focused on what the state legislature can do for them?

Robin Vos:
Well, it’s one of the rare times where the only race on the ballot are state races, besides our congressional seats, which are up every two years. A lot of times, you’ll have a congressional race, a senate race and a gubernatorial at the same time, so federal issues really overwhelm us. This time around, we get to talk about more of Wisconsin issues, and I think we have done a really good job of addressing issues that people in Wisconsin care about. We had a bipartisan housing package. We are going to be bringing up some issues dealing with utility costs in the spring, which I know are a big hassle for people. We’re going to focus on property taxes. We’ve dealt with crime in many ways. So I think we’ve done a good job, but there’s always more work to do.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Speaker Vos, thanks for your time.

Robin Vos:
Thanks. Appreciate your time Zac.

Frederica Freyberg:
Nine years after a lawsuit over abuse of juveniles at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prisons in northern Wisconsin, the facilities still operate. The 2021 state mandated deadline to close them has long since passed and been extended. They’re to be replaced with a new youth prison in Milwaukee, set to open this year, and county-based secure residential care centers. The footage you’re about to see could be disturbing. Just after the first such care center opened in Racine County last spring, the state public defender’s office learned of an incident shown on camera where a 15-year-old housed in the Jonathan Delagrave Youth Development and Care Center was punched repeatedly by adult security workers. Staff was asking the boy to return to his room and he can be heard saying, “Don’t touch me.” The boy’s family has retained a civil attorney and the office of Representative Angelina Cruz told us she is working to learn more about the incident, with the possible intention of having the governor’s office investigate the facility. For its part, in a statement to WPR, the administrator of youth rehabilitation services for Racine County, said “Situations like this are complex and unfold quickly,” and said, “We maintain our commitment to ensuring that staff have the training, oversight and support needed to manage difficult situations appropriately and professionally.” The Racine County DA declined to prosecute the security staffers, but how does this kind of treatment of a youth offender in trouble for retail theft square with best practices? We turn to the youth defense practice coordinator in the state Public Defender’s office, Eileen Fredericks, and thanks very much for being here.

Eileen Fredericks:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So when you first saw this footage from cameras inside the facility, what was your reaction?

Eileen Fredericks:
I was horrified. I had known that there were these allegations, but obviously I didn’t know the extent of them. So when I saw them, I was shocked to see that, you know, right out of the gates, this facility opening in May and having this happen, it was so disappointing and upsetting to know that this is kind of the result of, you know, the Lincoln Hills incidents and all the problems there. Now we have this new facility opening and the same problems seem to still be there.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is this kind of incident a rarity, do you think, behind the doors of these facilities?

Eileen Fredericks:
I mean, research across the country would suggest that it isn’t. That, you know, that the punitive nature of these correctional facilities and how they — the power dynamic and these vulnerable youth, that abuse is a major issue in these facilities. And I do think that, you know, the culture obviously isn’t what we need it to be. It’s not seen as a treatment facility. It’s a — it’s a jail essentially for kids. And with that attitude, I think the staff thinks of it that way and they’re not necessarily trained in a treatment mindset. They’re not trained to de-escalate situations. They’re not trained to recognize in themselves when they’re becoming, you know, dysregulated and struggling obviously seem to be the case in in this situation.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because this facility, when it talks about itself, it talks about that kind of care and support, but it looks just like a correctional facility.

Eileen Fredericks:
Yes. And I think that, you know, when they built this, they, you know, had all this beautiful ideas about what it was going to look like, but they did not really, I think, have a treatment focus like they could have. I think that they had already — they already had a facility in Racine that was housing kids long term, and they had that just kind of moved to this nice new building in hopes that it would kind of just carry itself. But the culture and the staff and the ideas that the workers are coming with are really what drive how the kids respond, right, that they have — that they have the support that they need, that they’re building relationships, that they want to help the kids, that they see the kids as kids and not as criminals or inmates.

Frederica Freyberg:
You’ve touched on this a little bit, but why does this kind of volatile violence inside these facilities persist?

Eileen Fredericks:
I do think it’s a cultural thing, and I think that they just are not basically coming from a treatment model to begin with. That they’re kind of, like, this is a correctional facility. This is a prison for kids. They call this school but you know, everything about it kind of screams like it’s more — we’re just controlling these kids, not we’re actually trying to rehabilitate them. And so there are residential treatment centers in the state that actually are built around a model of treatment, and they are much more, I think, working on, you know, rehabilitating and building relationships and providing therapy and doing assessments and seeing what needs the kids have and then responding to those needs. Where I think that this is a setting where it’s a much more one size fits all. And really, they don’t have the, you know, the goal of getting to the bottom of kind of what was going on. They’re more just trying to hold them for the time that they, you know, keep them out of the community for the time that they feel is appropriate and is allowable under the law.

Frederica Freyberg:
As additional facilities open, including the one in Milwaukee, how might this incident in Racine inform the treatment and care of juvenile offenders?

Eileen Fredericks:
They need to really look at these best practices. They need to be very careful about how they’re staffing these places. They need to have a leadership that is empathetic, that is, you know, positive in their mindset toward these kids and really be focused on making sure that they hire people who have — who kind of demonstrate a positive culture in the facility. That did not seem to happen in Racine. And I think that, you know, just even that there was four people involved in this incident. I mean, I work with those kids every day and like, they are, you know, 95% of the time, absolutely regulated and can be very calm. I mean, there are some extreme examples where kids are really out of control, you know, but these kids do not need to be treated like animals. It needs to be that everybody kind of is like, you know, eyes on and expecting of each other that they’re treating these kids with care and compassion.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We leave it there. Eileen Fredericks, thanks very much.

Eileen Fredericks:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
In other news, Wisconsin is one of just ten states where marijuana is illegal for both medical and recreational use. But since 2018, a federal loophole allowed cannabis products to become an industry worth millions of dollars in the state. That is, until the federal government closed the legal loophole at the end of the government shutdown. “Here & Now” student journalist Elijah Pines tells us how business owners are scrambling before the ban takes effect in November.

Joni Sayers:
We were still planning on growing. We were actually already making adjustments for next year.

Elijah Pines:
Joni and Jeff Sayers were among the first hemp farmers in Wisconsin after the 2018 Farm Bill made hemp legal to grow for industrial use. A technical loophole in the bill invited a new kind of industry to take hold.

Joni Sayers:
A small farm, sustainable crop that would be great to grow.

Elijah Pines:
For the past seven years, the pair have been growing hemp and making it into products containing THC, the chemical that causes a high. They sell gummies, lip balms, tinctures and topicals at the farmers’ market. They just finished this year’s harvest and were about to board a plane when they heard the news. The bill that ended the government shutdown closed the hemp loophole and will soon make their products illegal.

Joni Sayers:
Devastated, right? I mean, it was just — had the wind knocked out of us for a minute. But our first thought was, “Well, we live, eat and breathe hemp. This is our life.”

Elijah Pines:
The 2018 Farm Bill defined hemp as a cannabis plant having less than 0.3% of Delta-9 THC, a specific kind of THC. Since then, Delta-9 derivatives have blossomed into an industry worth billions. The new, stricter rules effectively ban all forms of THC for consumption.

Jeff Sayers:
We upgraded two more new greenhouses last year, and we were debating whether we should do it this year, but I think everything, at this point, will probably be on hold for a few months.

Elijah Pines:
In Wisconsin, it’s estimated hemp is a $700 million industry, providing 3,500 jobs. Businesses like Hemp Haven Farms are now on a one-year countdown before their THC goods are banned and have to figure out what to do next.

Joni Sayers:
We sell our farm.

Jeff Sayers:
I was considering myself semi-retired. Obviously, I take myself out of retirement to go back into building and home remodeling.

Elijah Pines:
Hemp has also expanded into other industries in Wisconsin. Eagle Park has been a staple of Milwaukee’s brewing scene for years. In 2023, the company’s president, Max Borgardt, and his partners decided to make the jump to THC drinks.

Max Borgardt:
We’ve always been pro THC in all industries and we had our customers start asking and, you know, figuring out, are we going to jump into this industry? And it made sense for us to do it at that time.

Elijah Pines:
THC drinks are now a significant chunk of their profit.

Max Borgardt:
It ends up being something like 16% this year. But it’s, you know, it’s nowhere — when we started out, it was a very small percentage. But I think the thing is it’s growing like crazy. It’s growing so fast.

Elijah Pines:
The provision to ban hemp was slipped into the bill that ended the government shutdown. It happened so fast, not everyone heard about it.

Joni Sayers:
We thought, “No, that won’t happen, but not in — not on this federal level, no.”

Jeff Sayers:
And we also didn’t have any idea that it was something that they were going to attach to this, you know, reopening and funding the government bill. But here it is.

Max Borgardt:
It’s billions of dollars on the line, and the public didn’t know, the companies didn’t know, and they did it within two days. So when it went through the Senate, it immediately went to the House. And that window was two days. There’s not enough time to react and not enough time to do anything.

Elijah Pines:
With the new year coming, Borgardt has to figure out what to do if the ban sticks.

Max Borgardt:
Next year it could have been an incredible year for us just because of how the segment has been doing.

Elijah Pines:
Critics consider products with under 0.3% levels of THC to effectively be legal marijuana. In Wisconsin, hemp products are unregulated.

Max Borgardt:
The opportunity for states and the federal government to make tax revenue, they can tax it. I mean, we’re taxed on the alcohol that we produce and the spirits that we produce. There’s an excise tax on those. We welcome an excise tax if that’s what needs to happen to have regulation in place.

Joni Sayers:
We are opposed to a ban obviously. Regulation is, is good, right. There should be an age restriction. There should be truth and accuracy in labeling.

Elijah Pines:
The Sayers worry when everything hemp is off the table; it becomes under the table.

Joni Sayers:
If this happens, the black market will grow. So that is unregulated. So I worry about the safety of products that might be out there that are unregulated.

Elijah Pines:
Both Hemp Haven and Eagle Park have their products tested by labs and sell only to those over 21. Prior to the federal ban, state lawmakers proposed their own bill to close the loophole. Other bills would legalize and regulate THC and hemp, but without new state laws on the books, in one year, the federal ban will take effect. For Wisconsin, time is running out for hemp.

Joni Sayers:
I’ll tell you. I had about three times the online orders this week than I normally do. People are panicking, I’m sure.

Elijah Pines:
Reporting from Deerfield, I’m Elijah Pines for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:
At the state Capitol this week, advocates urge the legislature to take up and pass Cole’s Act, a bill that attempts to clamp down on industry practices that they say hurt patients by increasing drug prices and decreasing access to medications.

Frederica Freyberg:
We need the legislature to get this done this session. Patients can’t wait any longer. These copay accumulator policies are preventing patients from getting access to needed medications, and that has to stop. Insurance plans are rapidly adopting these policies, and they are becoming increasingly common. As a result, more and more patients are reaching out to us with stories about going to the pharmacy counter to pick up their medications and being told they will have to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets in order to receive their medications.

Frederica Freyberg:
You can learn more about drug prices and benefits in “Rx Uncovered,” a special series of reports about why patients can’t afford lifesaving medication despite having health coverage. Watch the full special episode by visiting our website at PBSWisconsin.org, and then clicking on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight, I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

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