- I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on "Here and Now,"
a recap of spring election results.
After that, a "Closer Look" at why fewer people are running for
the state supreme court.
And in tonight's "Capitol Insight" segment, the state
senate majority and minority leaders are here with both sides
of the new high-capacity wells bill.
It's "Here and Now" for April 7.
- Funding for "Here and Now" is provided, in part, by Friends of
Wisconsin Public Television.
- First up tonight, spring election results,
starting with the race for state school superintendent.
Incumbent Tony Evers was reelected with 69% of the vote
over his challenger Lowell Holtz who garnered 23% of the vote.
Tuesday was a big day for school referenda in the Green Bay and
Verona school districts.
Voters gave the go-ahead to the Verona district to exceed
spending limits by a total of $184 million to pay for projects
that include the building of a new high school and renovation
of a middle school.
In Green Bay, voters approved $165 million more over the next
ten years.
Overall, there were 65 referenda on ballots across the state.
40 passed.
25 were rejected.
- In tonight's "Closer Look," Justice Annette Ziegler was
unopposed in her race for a second ten-year term on the
Wisconsin Supreme Court.
It's the first time since 2006 that no challenger emerged, and
many judicial observers believe some of the best candidates for
the court simply are not willing to run.
"Here and Now's" Zac Schultz reports.
- The Supreme Court of the state of Wisconsin
is now in session.
- The Wisconsin Supreme Court is technically a nonpartisan
body.
That's why the justices are elected in the nonpartisan
spring elections to ten-year terms that should insulate them
from partisan politics across the capitol.
But judicial observers say over the last decade, those
safeguards have become mere technicalities and the
partisanship that defines the fall elections has spread to the
spring.
- The judicial branch in general has become far more
politicized.
- The more partisan our elections get the more
irrelevant they become to whether or not the best judges
are seated in these most important seats on the Supreme
Court.
- Kendall Kelley and Richard Sankovitz are both respected
circuit court judges who have been approached by groups asking
them to run for the Supreme Court.
But in the end, they've both declined.
It's not that they didn't want to serve.
It's that they didn't want to run.
- I think that judges are getting more and more
uncomfortable with the idea of running for those higher
offices, in part because when it comes to getting involved in a
race that's bound to be dominated by partisan forces, we
are fish out of water.
- The rise in partisanship has been a decade in the making.
In 2005, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a few decisions
that angered the business community, especially Wisconsin
Manufacturers and Commerce, the state's largest business lobby.
In 2007, there was an open seat on the court and Annette Ziegler
faced Linda Clifford.
- Probably the first time that a Wisconsin Supreme Court
election wasn't conducted in the usual gentlemanly manner,
if I can use that term.
- Clifford says early in the campaign she learned WMC planned
to spend millions to support Ziegler.
- Linda Clifford has zero experience putting criminals
behind bars.
- We saw millions of dollars from interest groups, locally
and nationally, coming into that election for the first time.
And as much as we tried to prepare for it, it was pretty
overwhelming.
- WMC declined to comment for this story.
In 2008 a win by a conservative swung the balance of the court.
Justice Louis Butler had been appointed to the court by
Democratic Governor Jim Doyle.
No incumbent justice had been defeated in four decades and it
appeared no one wanted to challenge Butler.
- It took a long time in 2008 for a challenger to emerge to
take on the incumbent that year.
- Judge Sankovitz was approached and said no.
Judge Kelley was approached as well.
- I was concerned that the process turned out exactly as I
would have feared.
- Eventually Judge Mike Gableman got in the race.
- And the challenger who came out was not reputed as one of
the best judges in the state, was not known by many judges in
the state and did not run a race based on experience or the
ability to command the things a Supreme Court justice should
command.
- Gableman ran an ad that opponents described as racist
and misleading and even his supporters called distasteful.
- Louis Butler worked to put criminals on the street.
Like Rubin Lee Mitchell who raped an 11-year-old girl
with learning disabilities.
Butler found a loophole.
Mitchell went on to molest another child.
- WMC spent more than $2 million on attack ads.
- Call Justice Louis Butler.
Ask him to deliver justice, not loopholes.
- Gableman won by 20,000 votes.
Judge Kelley says he's glad he wasn't the candidate.
- I didn't want to be part of the advertising campaign,
intentionally or unintentionally, that I thought
harmed the very work that we do.
- It didn't get better.
In 2011, Justice David Prosser's race against JoAnne Kloppenburg
became a proxy vote on Scott walker's Act 10 bill.
- Tell David Prosser judges should be independent,
not a rubber stamp for Scott Walker.
- That race ended with a recount.
- But JoAnne Kloppenburg says she's not tough on crime.
- 2016 saw another Walker proxy vote when his appointee Rebecca
Bradley defeated Kloppenburg again.
- She may be right for Scott Walker but she's too extreme for
our Supreme Court.
- Judge Sankovitz says Supreme Court election ads are dominated
by criminal issues.
- The issue is fighting crime and putting victims first.
- Which are a small part of what the court decides.
- That frustration, that futility that a judge faces in
deciding to jump into a race where the judge knows that the
issues that really count won't be discussed keeps a lot of
people out of the race.
- Not everyone agrees there's a problem.
- I think we have a very good court.
- Andrew Hitt was Justice Ziegler's first law clerk at the
Supreme Court.
He says there are two simple reasons she had no challenger.
The first is respect.
- You have a wide swath of practicing lawyers that really
respect her work and the contributions she has made to
the court.
- The second reason is philosophy.
Like Ziegler, Hitt is a member of the Federalist Society, a
conservative legal group.
He says conservative judges wouldn't challenge a sitting
conservative.
They're more likely to reach the court by getting appointed to an
open seat by Governor Walker.
- Is there going to be an opening?
Is there a chance at an appointment?
- That makes sense when you consider 11 people applied for
the open seat on the court last year that eventually went to
Justice Dan Kelly.
But no one of those 11 decided to run against Justice Ziegler a
few months later.
- More often the case it probably comes down to judicial
philosophy.
- Andrew Hitt doesn't discount the notion of Supreme Court
races being ugly and expensive or the impact of Wisconsin
Manufacturers and Commerce and other third-party interest
groups.
But he says the impact ends on election day.
- Does that electoral impact or the fact that they spent some
money, does that impact how any of them decide?
I would say for all seven of them the answer is definitively
no.
- We have an incredibly compromised and ethically bereft
Supreme Court.
- Scot Ross is the executive director of One Wisconsin Now, a
progressive advocacy group.
He says the Supreme Court's partisan elections result in
more than a loss in credibility.
- Got five judges basically that do the bidding of corporate
special interests and Governor Walker's republican agenda, top
to bottom, every single time.
- Ross says the evidence is in Supreme Court decisions on
controversial issues like Act 10, voter id and stopping
the John Doe investigation, a case where WMC was under
investigation for possible illegal election coordination
with Governor Walker's campaign.
- They bought a "Get out of jail free" card when it came to
the John Doe investigation because they stopped the
investigation.
- WMC has had an impact on elections, but I guess I would
say that to those people who think they've bought and paid
for a court, it sounds good in the movies, but it's not
reality.
- But if WMC hasn't paid for results, why have they spent
millions trying to get conservatives elected to the
court?
- What likely motivated WMC was we want a court, they want a
court that respects the role of the judiciary and adheres to the
proper role of the court.
- And if the court is so corrupted, why did no one
challenge Justice Ziegler?
- Now, some folks have said if you couldn't beat Rebecca
Bradley, why would anybody get into the race?
- Ross says the liberal anger against Donald Trump could have
made the difference.
- There's a huge progressive pushback and somebody, I think,
missed a real golden opportunity to take on Annette Ziegler and
potentially take her out of office.
- Many observers think there are not as many progressive
judges in Wisconsin simply because there's no one to
appoint them to the bench.
- The fact is right now most of our justices don't get there by
election.
They are appointed in the middle of a term to replace another
justice and then stand for election later on.
- In six years, Governor Walker has made 65 judicial
appointments, meaning 25% of the judiciary was handpicked by him,
including the last two Supreme Court justices.
Republican governors have been jump-starting the careers of new
judges for 22 of the last 30 years.
In fact, both of the judges in our story first reached the
bench through appointment.
Judge Sankovitz by Governor Tommy Thompson and Judge Kelly
by Governor Scott McCallum.
Since 1975, ten of the 17 Wisconsin Supreme Court justices
were appointed.
All of which leads Judge Sankovitz to ask why are we
still electing Supreme Court justices at all?
- If you had judges appointed by a fairly independent body
or at least a body that was balanced
when it came to partisanship.
- But conservatives like Andrew Hitt are just fine with the
current system.
- I think the sunshine and the speech from both sides is where
we get the best results.
- And even progressives like Scot Ross aren't onboard.
- I'm one of those people that I like to see somebody who's
making decisions that affect my life be directly accountable to
me at the ballot box.
But I can understand why people might have a different
perspective on that.
- Judge Kelly doesn't know if moving everything to
appointments would help.
- I'm not sure how you un ring the bell.
I don't know that I've ever read about any process
that's apolitical.
- So that leaves one option, convincing the best candidates
to run for office.
Otherwise Judge Sankovitz fears the candidates we do get won't
be able to avoid the stain of partisan politics.
- If good judges are not going to get into these races, it
might open the door to people who are not good judges, but who
are willing to take partisan positions and by doing so they
might win support from these outside interests.
- That was Zac Schultz reporting.
Now an update from Wisconsin's Native American population.
Stockbridge-Munsee president Shannon Holsey gave the annual
State of the Tribes address at the capitol Tuesday.
Here's what she had to say about working with state lawmakers.
- We have partnerships waiting to be developed.
We have collaborators waiting to bring their expertise and
experience.
We have each other.
We have economies to build, generations to educate, language
and conservation to protect, glass ceilings to shatter,
communities to expand and relationships to build.
Let us not seek the republican answer or the democrat answer,
but the right answer.
Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.
Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
- For tonight's "Capitol Insight," a look with senate
leaders at a contentious issue.
But first this background.
Wisconsin ranks number one in the nation for production of
snap beans, number two for carrots and number three for
potatoes.
That volume vegetable production means the need for water to
irrigate, especially in the Central Sands region in the
middle of Wisconsin, where potato production is king.
The use of high-capacity wells which withdraw more than 100,000
gallons of water per day is on the rise.
That's to the consternation of environmentalists concerned
about lakes and streams running dry because of the large scale
irrigation.
And that concern escalated this week when the state senate
passed a measure that relaxes regulations on high-capacity
wells.
Under the bill, the DNR would not have oversight on the wells
if they are repaired, replaced or the property is sold.
Senate Majority Leader Republican Scott Fitzgerald is
chief author of the bill.
We'll be joined by the minority leader who opposes the measure
in a few moments.
But Senator Fitzgerald joins us now and thanks very much for doing so.
- Good to be with you.
- So why did you author this bill?
- Really I think because if you go back to last session,
it was one of the few bills
that we were unable to complete our action on.
We passed it in the Senate.
The Assembly passed it.
There was an amendment added over there
that we just couldn't come to agreement on.
So we adjourned.
Both houses adjourned and we had not completed our action on
this.
So for me it was one of the things that we should have
revisited right away and we did, and with the way that -- just
with the way that the bill was drafted and how we brought it
together, I ended up being the sponsor of it.
- Well, now, you're quoted as saying that this bill could have
gone way further and this bill is not that.
- That's true.
- How could it have gone so much further?
- I think if you started to forecast exactly where you think
that industry is going, where agriculture is going I should
say, and there are other parts of the state where this could be
an issue as well where there's just a higher water need.
Southern Door County is probably another area that
is constantly scrutinized, but for different reasons.
Most of it is related to dairy, which is a big part of this
puzzle as well.
But in this instance I think based on some previous court
rulings and the way that we thought we could gain support
for this was to make sure that it was pretty much measured
and it's as you described.
It's really more about giving stability and kind of direction
when it comes to how are we going to deal with these
high-capacity wells in the future and should it be
measured.
And I think that this bill is exactly that.
There's a lot of fear talk involved in this.
And there was a lot of it on the floor of the Senate, about lakes
drying up, streams drying up, all of that fear talk.
Listen.
I understand that ultimately, you know, we all have this real
concern about water.
And that was pretty evident in the debate we had.
But I think this bill is measured.
- But it exempts existing wells, basically, from
oversight, so that's measured?
- It is measured, because anyone involved in this industry
or in agriculture per se -- and you just rattled off the numbers
and what the impact it is for this state.
I mean, a lot of these farmers, all they want to know is that,
hey, if we make an investment, if we expand our operation, we
want to make sure that there's going to be water for that
expansion.
And, you know, they're protectors of the environment.
No one's a better protector of the environment than I think
agriculture and farming.
And they have the same concerns.
So I think -- you know, this is measured and this moves us
in the right direction.
- What have you heard from property owners who might have
lakefront homes or something and their concerns about
literally drying up their lakes?
- They're very concerned about it.
They're worried about it.
I've had it in my district for many, many years where a lake
will be certainly in a position, for many different reasons
that happens.
And, you know, no one's discarding that.
One of the things that one of our brand new senators, Patrick
Testin, who represents the 24th, insisted on was an amendment
that included a study of the Central Sands area.
We did adopt that amendment.
So that will take place.
But at the end of the day I think it's still about certainty
for the industry that continues to be a major, major player in
our economy.
- On that amendment, though, my understanding is that
it's not a review of the impact of the entire region,
just a portion of it.
- Well, you can study the whole state if you want.
We can talk about groundwater.
We can talk about the science of hydrology all you want.
This is I think focused on an area where, you know, there were
-- people that were vocal about it.
This is the part of the state that they have been focused on
and I think this responds to that.
So I think it makes sense.
You know, down the road you may want to do other studies.
I said southern Door County is another area where there's some
concerns.
Certainly in southeastern Wisconsin along the state line,
I mean, there's always been different areas of the state
where I think you can do a study and see what's really going on
and is there something going on.
- Let me move to the budget as long as I have you here.
We learned that the Joint Finance Committee, the budget
writers, are going to start from scratch on transportation.
What's your response to that and what will you be looking for?
- The way I would put it is we're working off
the governor's budget in all areas except transportation.
And the Speaker and I kind of came to that agreement just this
week.
And the reason is I think you're going to see some type
of omnibus motion when it comes to transportation.
There's going to be a lot of things included in that and
we're negotiating that now.
We're trying to work through that ahead of the finance
committee even so maybe we have something that we can present to
the full caucuses that's going to be embraced.
I mean, right now for me and this caucus, I think gas tax
increases are probably not going to be part of it or vehicle
registration fee increases are not going to be part of it as well.
So we've got to be creative.
We're thinking outside the box.
We're looking at the mega projects in southeast Wisconsin
as well as the majors and taking all that into consideration
and trying to come up with something long-term.
- On those southeast projects, you'd like those to proceed?
- I do.
I think all we're doing is falling further behind the eight
ball when it comes to those megas.
We're talking about $6 billion to be all-inclusive.
We've got to focus on that and continue to make sure that
that's not neglected.
If we fall behind on these, we're never going to catch up.
- All right. We need to leave it there.
Senator Fitzgerald, thanks very much.
- Thank you.
- As we forecast, Senate Minority Leader Jennifer
Shilling joins us in La Crosse.
She opposes the bill that passed in the Senate on a party line vote.
Thanks very much for being here.
- Thank you.
- So what is your opposition to this bill?
- Well, the waters of Wisconsin belong to everyone.
I mean, that is just a paramount belief that we hold here with
the public trust doctrine.
And the idea that privatizing access to Wisconsin's water is
deeply troubling.
It becomes a fairness issue, first of all, but also some
concerns with the Department of Natural Resources really
lessening the regulation of those high-capacity wells and
the renewal of permits.
So the idea that a permit will be forever
and will transfer
with property ownership, there's certainly a concern with
neighboring properties that are not taken into account about the
use of these high-capacity wells that can pump hundreds of
thousands of gallons of water a day.
And there's certainly a way to find a balance.
And this bill did not seek that middle ground and that balance
that is really needed for all property owners here in
Wisconsin.
- Wisconsin is a major producer of the kinds of crops that use
these high-capacity wells for irrigation as well as large
dairy operations that use them in their production, as you
know.
Now, Senator Fitzgerald calls this a pro-farm measure.
What about that?
- Well, I think as you talk to some of the small family farms,
that they are going to be concerned that these larger
farms, the corporate farms, will be--
will have that greater access to water.
And so as streams are lessening the flow, as wells may be
contaminated or drying up, we are seeing a drop in water level
in lakes, and people's property value is decreasing, that those
are some concerns that we are also hearing about.
So, again, I think through legislation that Senator Mark
Miller has put forward that restores really a balance of how
every ten years we could be looking at these permits for
renewal and looking at what that greater impact is in the region
on water levels.
- What have you heard aside from property owners from
environmentalists about their concerns over this bill?
- Well, they are concerned about the contamination.
They are concerned about Wisconsin really has an
abundance of fresh, clean water here in the state.
And as we look at the high-capacity well issue and
certainly it is something in Central Sands, that is an area
in central Wisconsin with a concern.
But also the Driftless Area and Kewaunee County as well.
They are having issues with the Karst.
So this really as we look at central Wisconsin the issues
that they have there, but water issues in general really is a
statewide issue and access to clean drinking water.
- You said you think the bill undermines the public trust
doctrine.
How so?
- Well, that in the Constitution, again, those
waterways belong to everyone.
So the idea that someone with a permit can monopolize or on the
floor one of my colleagues talked about stealing their
neighbor's water, that that idea just again I think flies in the
face of that public ownership of the waterways and access to
waterways.
- So would this measure if passed into law be subject to a
test in the courts because of that?
- Well, and I think that that is something, if I can see
around corners, that I would not be surprised, if this is
something that is contested in the courts.
We've had some previous cases dealing with access to the
waterways in the state.
So I fully intend -- or fully expect that this possibly could
be headed towards the courts.
- As long as I have you here, I wanted to ask you a couple
budget items.
What do democrats want to see on transportation now that we
learned that Joint Finance will start from scratch on this?
- Well, we definitely have known that there's been some
tension among the majority party and the governor on
transportation, that both parties have been asking for
some stronger leadership from the governor on transportation.
The idea now that the Finance Committee is going to go off of
kind of the base budget rather than the governor's
recommendations, which was more borrowing and delaying projects,
that I certainly think we can have a conversation about where
we need to diversify a funding mechanism in this state.
What we immediate to do to invest and have safe roads and
bridges and a transportation network system that I think is
important for all parts of the state,
not just a certain region.
- Where are you on self-insurance for the state?
- Well, I've been very skeptical about that from the
beginning, when the governor was kind of floating that idea, even
last year, about looking for requests for proposals for that.
And I think both sides of the aisle resoundly sounded like
they rejected that idea when it was brought up by agency
briefings last week, that it continues to have some -- that
people in both parties are skeptical about the savings that
the governor had talked about and that it could actually cost
the state $100 million and be disruptive to the insurance
market here in Wisconsin.
So I am highly skeptical that that is going
to survive and move forward.
In fact, I think that that issue is basically kind of dead.
- All right. We leave it there.
Senator Jennifer Shilling, thank you very much for joining us.
- Thank you.
- Now to what may be some very bad news for some Wisconsin
dairy farmers.
Dairy processor Grassland Dairy's Greenwood plant notified
75 Wisconsin farmers this week that it will cancel their milk
contracts within the next 30 days.
That's because of a trade dispute surrounding
ultrafiltered milk, which is used to make cheese and until
recently was a big U.S.
export to Canada duty-free.
But blowback from Canadian farmers caused some provinces to
implement a tariff on imports of that U.S. product.
Grassland losing Canadian business has forced it to halt
buying milk from dozens of Wisconsin farmers.
Finally tonight, a "Look Ahead" to next week.
That's when we will look into the status of the "Farm to
Table" program with our partners at WisContext.org.
I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Have a great weekend.
- Funding for "Here and Now" is provided, in part,
by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.