>> The following program is part of our "Here and Now"
2018 Wisconsin Vote election coverage.
>> I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on "Here and Now," U.S.
Senator Ron Johnson on the blow-up over immigration reform.
Elections Commission leader Michael Haas is here.
Two more dem candidates in the governor's race and they're both
here, Paul Soglin and Kelda Roys.
It's "Here and Now" for January 12.
>> Funding for "Here and Now" is provided in part by Friends of
Wisconsin Public Television.
>> In our first look tonight, an interview with Wisconsin U.S.
Senator Ron Johnson.
He's here as fallout from a contentious oval office meeting
over an immigration fix, including protection for
dreamers, continues to spread.
The president rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals last year, but has said he'd be willing to reinstate the
program in return for border wall funding.
In the midst of a bipartisan meeting of senators with the
president on DACA, the president reportedly made incendiary
comments over a plan to reinstate temporary protected
status programs for El Salvador, Haiti and some African nations,
reportedly asking why are we having all these people from
bleephole countries come here?
Senator Johnson was not among those in the meeting but he too
is looking for an immigration fix.
He joins us now.
Senator, thanks very much for being here.
>> Happy new year.
>> What is your response to President Trump's reported
comments about the U.S.
taking immigrants from bleephole countries referring to some in
Africa and others?
>> Totally inappropriate and he should apologize.
When you enter the public realm, I don't care what your past was,
I don't care what kind of salty language you might have used,
you stop doing it.
You have a certain responsibility,
a certain decorum you need to conduct yourself in public with.
You have children watching.
You have nations watching.
Totally inappropriate, very unfortunate.
Because a couple days before that,
I think the president showed himself in really a good light
with a bipartisan group of senators and house members
really trying to find areas of agreement.
I hope people take a look at that extended video of that
almost cabinet-like meeting, where he did show himself in
command.
He showed himself listening and you can really see exactly how
the process works.
You have a principal in charge of the meeting,
then you have members of Congress.
You all get about maybe a minute to make a comment.
But you saw an attempt try and find areas of agreement,
which is how you actually accomplish things.
>> Let's just back to the other for a moment.
You call it unfortunate, but do you condemn it?
>> Yes.
And, again, the best thing he can do is admit it,
apologize it and move on.
Truthfully, it's going to be helpful to have the president
involved in this, but this is Congress's responsibility.
We have got to pass legislation to fix the dreamer problem,
but also to fix our broken legal immigration system as well.
I think we have a great opportunity.
I think the vast majority of Americans,
I think the vast majority of members of congress want to fix
the dreamer issue, but also want to secure our border,
want to have a legal immigration system that makes sense,
where we can start limiting the abuse of chain migration,
the diversity lottery that through the combination our last
two terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by people who came
to this country in some way shape or form that way.
So again, there's common sense approaches I think the American
people would support.
We need to get back on that and pass the legislation.
>> How does all of what's blowing up right now affect the
possible passage of any of that?
>> It shouldn't affect it at all because what President
Obama-- er, President Trump said a couple days ago was he will
sign what we put on his desk.
It's incumbent upon us, senators,
house members to come up to that agreement.
We're going to have to hash it out between ourselves.
>> There was an agreement, a bipartisan agreement that was
presented to him, and this was the result.
>> But again, that was with a small group.
You know, this was the exact same thing in 2013.
I was totally supportive of what the Gang of Eight was doing,
but my counsel to them at that same time was work with the
House, get the House to pass immigration reform first because
in this case it was the higher hurdle.
You kind of have to--
when you're looking at a piece of legislation,
where's the choke point?
What is the higher hurdle?
In this case I think it's going to be the House.
So let's be working with our house colleagues.
There's another effort with John Cornyn and Steny Hoyer and Dick
Durbin, trying to think of the other person involved.
But there's about four of them that are also working.
I'm trying to work with all the groups quite honestly.
I'm Chairman of Homeland Security,
certainly involved in border security issues,
as well as the immigration laws as well.
So this is a strong attempt by a number of members of Congress
including myself to get this thing actually accomplished.
>> I heard Dick Durbin say this morning that he would take this
package that was presented in the Oval Office and introduce it
in the Senate.
How would you vote on that?
>> I still don't know the details of their specific
package.
I think an awful lot of the elements are quite good in there.
To a certain extent addresses some of the chain migration issues.
But I want to see the details because it is --
the devils really are in the details of this.
But from my standpoint, we have got to start closing the
loopholes created by bad law, bad legal precedent that
incentivize people to come to this country illegally.
We have to limit chain migration to a common sense level.
Right now Frederica, we let about 1.1 million people in this
country legally in terms of permanent,
legal residence every year.
65% of that is some kind of chain migration.
22% is diversity lottery.
Asylum refugees.
Only about 14%, 15% has anything to do with work.
That is a crazy system, when you have literally millions,
probably hundreds of millions of people
want to come to this country.
We can't assimilate all those people.
We've got to limit.
We've got to limit it on a merit-based system.
We've got to fix our system.
>> What's regarded or called chain migration is not allowing
citizenship based on being sponsored by one's children.
I heard Dick Durbin say that that language, chain migration,
is super offensive because it hearkens back to --
>> It's what people use.
It's not meant to be offensive.
It's just describing something that allows an immigrant to
allow in their parents, their children.
But what ends up happening is it does chain,
where those people then can bring in their children,
their parents.
All of a sudden one individual and you've got cousins and adult
children, adult siblings.
That's what we need to limit to something
that just makes common sense.
>> I want to just go back one more time to the president and
his comments and ask you whether or not you believe that those
were racist utterances on his part?
>> I don't want to put labels on things.
It's just completely inappropriate and he should
apologize for it.
>> All right.
I know that you have worked a lot on the opioid problem,
and the president this week, just yesterday or Wednesday --
>> I was in the signing ceremony.
>> That's right.
Didn't the president there say something about how he has the
answer to fix this problem?
>> I don't know what he was talking about there.
But again there's a good example of a very bipartisan effort,
finding an area of agreement.
We all agreed that this opioid problem is a huge problem.
This particular bill, INTERDICT Act,
authorized and then funded detection devices for fentanyl,
which is really becoming dangerous.
President Trump before he signed it,
allowed every member of Congress in there,
I think at least four or five Democrat Senators,
Democrat House members, Republicans there,
all asked us to make comment.
And it really was a very good example of how you accomplish
things like you do in the business world.
You tenaciously pursue areas of agreement.
The problem in politics all too often people exploit areas of
division.
I'm trying to find those areas of agreement.
>> All right. We need to leave it there.
Senator Ron Johnson, thanks very much.
>> Have a good day.
>> And Democratic U.S.
Senator Tammy Baldwin tweeted this out this afternoon,
"The President's comments from the Oval Office are sickening,
hateful and divisive.
He should take responsibility for them." In our closer look
tonight, an interview with a state official who accuses
Wisconsin's Republican leaders of slander and wants them to,
"Stop trashing his name and reputation." Here's the
background.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker
Robin Vos say they've lost confidence in the directors of
the state Elections and Ethics Commission because of partisan
influences when they worked for the former Government
Accountability Board.
This follows a scathing report from the state Attorney General
over how the GAB handled the now-closed John Doe
investigation into Governor Scott Walker's campaign.
The AG described the GAB as, "weaponized by partisans in
furtherance of political goals." The Republican leaders call for
the Ethics and Elections Commission administrators to
step down and if they do not, Senator Fitzgerald has set a
January 23rd Senate vote to reject their confirmation.
Fitzgerald says he won't hold a public confirmation hearing and
adds, "It has become abundantly clear to me that as appointees,
Administrators Michael Haas and Brian Bell will never receive
the votes necessary for Senate confirmation,
which has been the case throughout their tenures.
Any leftover remnants of the partisan GAB will never have the
confidence of the public to ensure complete,
non-partisanship in the administration of elections or
the oversight of government ethics." For his part,
the chairman of the bipartisan Elections Commission this week
called Senator Fitzgerald a bully and a coward.
This is tough stuff.
And Elections Commission Administrator Michael Haas
is in the middle of it.
Thanks for being here.
>> Thank you. Good to be here.
>> How have Republican leaders slandered you?
>> Well, I'm an attorney.
I know what it means when somebody says that there's
potential criminal activity.
And what was said was that
there was not confidence in our agency
or me as an administrator and that there should not be people
leading the agencies who -- I think the phrase was who are
candidates for criminal charges or something to that effect,
implying that I had something to do with some type of criminal
activity within the state agency.
That's just offensive. That's ridiculous.
It's completely false.
And I think it's beneath an elected official to make
allegations like that.
>> Do you deny their allegations about the Government
Accountability Board and indeed yourself being partisan?
>> Absolutely.
Unless people looked at the evidence in the investigations
that the Government Accountability Board reviewed
and its investigators reviewed, they don't have any idea of what
the judges on the board looked at when the judges authorized
preliminary investigations.
And beyond that, my focus has been on administrating
elections.
I was first staff attorney, but then elections division
administrator since 2013.
It's been a focus on administering the laws that the
legislature passes, whether it's photo ID or any other
election-related law.
And nobody can point to any decision or action of myself or
the GAB or the current Elections Commission that's been based on
partisan motives.
>> So what is your reaction to being told to resign?
>> Well, I answer to our commission.
Our commission's made up of three Republicans,
three Democrats.
They've unanimously supported me.
They unanimously appointed me.
And recently, I have reaffirmed that
and asked for a public hearing.
Senator Fitzgerald, Speaker Vos and many other Republicans
told me that they supported my appointment
when I was first appointed in 2016.
So I don't think it's true that the votes were never there.
And I'm confident that there is support amongst the Senate for
my confirmation.
>> And what is your response to apparently not getting a public
hearing?
>> Well, it's frustrating. I think it's unusual.
I mean, we have a little bit of a unique appointment structure
because it's not a gubernatorial appointment.
It's by the commission.
And then advice and consent to the Senate.
I think there would be two positive things to come out of a
public hearing.
Both myself, commissioners and the public could let the Senate
know what they think of the direction of the agency and
senators, if they have concerns, they can have their questions
answered.
I've been told that there's a lack of confidence amongst the
public.
We would know if that were the case.
We would be getting phone calls and emails.
That's not the case.
I've asked legislators if your constituents have concerns,
let me help you answer their concerns.
Nobody has offered up any specific concern of any member
of the public that we could address.
>> I should add here that we did ask Senator Fitzgerald to join
this conversation and he declined that.
What remedy do you have if your confirmation is rejected?
>> Well, I think that's a little bit of uncharted territory.
Right now we're focusing on making the case to the Senate
that my confirmation should be--
my appointment should be confirmed.
So if the vote is not to confirm,
then I think we will try to deal with those issues at the time.
>> You know, given the fact that the Government Accountability
Board was disbanded in 2015 and neither you nor Mr. Bell have
yet been confirmed, I mean, did that spell some trouble?
>> Well, not for me, because I was checking in with Senator
Fitzgerald's office regularly.
I would say, are there any concerns?
Are there any Senators you think I should talk to?
I was always told, no, we think everything's fine.
We'll let you know.
So I was surprised to get a letter, frankly,
requesting my resignation.
>> What do you think happened?
>> Apparently there was a caucus amongst the Senate Republicans
ironically on the same day that Senator Fitzgerald's staff said
they were scheduling a meeting for me with Senator Fitzgerald.
They said they'd be happy to set up a meeting the following week.
That was after Senator Nass had asked for our resignations.
But since that time, they're frankly just not answering my
phone calls.
>> Michael Haas, thanks very much.
>> Thank you.
>> The list of Democratic candidates lining up to
challenge Governor Scott Walker is long and getting longer.
We've been interviewing the many candidates over the past several
weeks.
As the calendar turned to the new year we're doubling up.
In tonight's inside look, we bring you two Democratic
challengers who this month threw their hat in the ring.
We start with Kelda Roys.
Roys is an attorney and the former executive director of
NARAL Pro-choice Wisconsin.
She served in the state Assembly from 2008 to 2012 and currently
runs a real estate tech business.
Kelda Roys joins us now.
Thanks for being here.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> We first want to ask you what sets you apart from the many
other Democrats wanting to go head to head with Scott Walker?
>> Well, I think it's great we have so much enthusiasm on our
side and so many great people stepping forward to run.
I don't view myself as running against
my Democratic colleagues.
I don't really even feel like I'm running against Scott
Walker.
I'm running for governor because I want Wisconsin to be
a place of opportunity and fairness again.
I want Wisconsin to be the best place to raise a family and the
best place to grow a small business.
I have a lot of energy and ideas that I'm looking forward to
bringing to the campaign trail and to the governorship.
>> How did your past experience prepare you for this role?
>> I've had a long history of progressive accomplishments on a
wide range of legislative issues.
Certainly from my time in the legislature and as a legislative
leader but also even before that as a law student working on the
Innocence Project to prevent wrongful convictions.
When I was the head of NARAL Pro-choice Wisconsin working on
common ground, common sense initiatives to help reduce the
need for abortion, help women who have been victims of sexual
assault, et cetera.
>> On the issues, what's the most important thing in your
mind that Wisconsin needs to do for its education system?
>> Well, we need to prioritize it in the budget.
You simply cannot say that you value education if you devalue
educators and if you take money away from schools.
Under the current governor, we have divested about a billion
dollars from our K-12 education system.
I think that's absolutely wrong.
I say that as a parent, someone who is a product of public
schools, and as an employer, who knows that the way that we're
going to be successful now and in the future is by having
educated workers.
>> And so on that score, what's the best way to grow good-paying
jobs in Wisconsin?
>> Well, the majority of net new jobs come from small businesses.
They come from start-ups and new firms, companies like mine.
So if we're going to have a sustainable economy with
good-paying jobs, we need to make sure that people can start
small businesses and that small businesses can grow.
Right now we have a situation where the biggest businesses
that already have billions of dollars in capital are getting
massive incentives and tax breaks.
And all the rest of us are paying the price for that.
And small businesses do, too.
I have a number of ideas for how we can help small businesses
like mine succeed and I'm looking forward to talking about
all those ideas on the campaign trail.
>> We're talking about businesses, large and small.
What's your opinion of the Foxconn project?
>> Well, Foxconn is -- to me it's clearly a desperate Hail
Mary pass by the current governor.
He knows his record on job creation and the economy is
terrible.
Wisconsin is doing worse than a lot of our peers.
Our middle class is shrinking.
And so I can understand why he was so eager to make that deal.
But it was -- you know, the idea that we are going to give now $4
billion and counting to this foreign corporation with very
little security for us and only benefiting even one small part
of the state, to me that's not leadership.
That's desperation.
I want to see home-grown innovators given a chance in all
72 counties in the state.
And I want to make sure that we're investing resources where
they're actually needed, in small businesses.
>> How should Wisconsin in your mind create a sustainable
funding source for Wisconsin's roads and highways?
>> Well, this is an area where I think we have great potential
for bipartisan cooperation.
Roads and transit and transportation infrastructure
generally are absolutely essential for a strong and
growing economy and I think there's a lot of agreement
amongst Republicans in the legislature as well as
Democrats.
So I would like to see us exploring a lot of different
revenue sources.
I mean, certainly I think looking at being willing to look
at revenue sources like the gas tax are important,
but we also need to think in longer terms because as people
move more towards more efficient vehicles or electric-powered
vehicles, the gas tax is not going to be sustainable for
instance, as my children grow up.
>> Why do you think you could unseat Scott Walker?
>> I think that Governor Walker has had eight years to do what
he wants in Wisconsin.
He's had a very compliant legislature.
And a lot of us have been really disappointed by the outcomes.
Wisconsin is ready for new leadership.
We're ready for someone who is willing to say I'm not going to
put my big donors first, I'm not going to put the biggest
corporations first.
When I'm governor, I'm going to put every Wisconsinite first.
I'm not going to leave anybody behind.
We're going to make sure the economy works for all of us.
>> Kelda Roys, thanks very much.
>> Thank you.
>> This week Madison mayor Paul Soglin became the latest
Democratic candidate to announce his run for governor.
Soglin has served 20 years as Madison's mayor over three
different stints of time, starting with his first term in
1973.
Soglin is an attorney and former fellow at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard.
Mayor Soglin joins us now.
Thanks for being here.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> What sets you apart from the other candidates?
>> Probably the fact that I've got 25 years experience in the
private sector, owning my own successful businesses,
and time at one of the largest technology companies not just in
Wisconsin, but the U.S., where I held an important administrative
position, and over 20 as mayor of the city of Madison.
So I've had the opportunity both in the public and the private
sector to work on difficult, challenging problems and get
solutions.
Identify a need for housing and then putting a program that gets
us thousands of units of new housing built at all income
levels, look at the challenges that we see in regards to
communication and transportation and build those kinds of
networks and bring them in within budget.
>> Right out of the chutes, the Scott Walker campaign came out
against you tweeting, "The last thing we need is more Madison in
our lives.
Paul Soglin is the latest extreme liberal who wants to
take our state backward." What's your reaction to that?
>> Basically he's ungrateful and deceitful.
Let's just take the employment numbers,
whether we measure them by unemployment,
we measure them by job creation.
Wisconsin needs Madison.
Madison needs Wisconsin.
The city of Madison and the Dane County region have created more
jobs.
We are the ones that are leading in unemployment.
We are making Scott Walker look good.
And it's about time he acknowledged what limited
success he's had comes from our region.
At the same time, no one expects Mineral Point, Rice Lake,
Green Bay to become like Madison.
But we've all got common problems,
common problems in terms of transportation,
in terms of schools, in terms of solving the problems of the day.
>> So how do you transposes the successes of Madison statewide,
growing good-paying jobs, for example?
>> Well, it's making wise investment.
I means working in conjunction with the private sector.
Let me just say that a concept is fine.
Each individual project has to be evaluated on its own.
The decision on Foxconn is a disaster.
The decision is too costly.
It doesn't give us enough protections as the public.
The money could be more wisely spent on investment in small
businesses and entrepreneurship around the rest of the state.
The key to all of this is understanding that government is
to provide health and safety and to work with the private sector
in opening up opportunities.
>> What's the best way, in your mind,
to support Wisconsin's education system?
>> Well, we do need more money, more revenues.
We are going to have to put
more into primary and secondary education.
We're going to have to make a greater commitment
to the university system.
You look at our towns, our villages, our communities,
they are only as strong as their public schools.
We can have a debate till the cows come home about whether or
not we should have choice and voucher and all of that.
We've all got our own different opinions.
But no matter what your feeling is,
there must be strong public schools.
>> Where would you find a sustainable funding for
Wisconsin's highways and roads?
>> Well, we had an opportunity and we still do while gas prices
are low to raise the gas tax.
I mean, it's just ludicrous that we don't take a revenue stream
like that, which is a modest increase,
and then use it for further investment.
Our road system was a response to the dairy industry.
100 years ago, we had to get fresh milk to market.
And it meant investing in town and county roads.
It meant investing in state highways.
Those roads have now made a great economy for Wisconsin,
from manufacturing to the tourist industry.
We cannot turn our back on any county in the state and we have
to understand, make that investment in those roads and
then we will get a larger tax base,
we will create more jobs and it's wise.
Monona Terrace is a perfect example
of that kind of investment.
>> Let me ask you this.
Why do you think you can unseat Scott Walker?
>> Well, when we had a discussion in March and April
about the possibility of running for governor,
I asked Sarah what she thought about it.
And she simply said, you can run, but you have to win.
Well, I went about raising some money to do a poll.
And we did a poll.
Paul Maslin did it, who recently successfully completed the
Jones' Senate campaign in Alabama,
and the poll says I can win.
>> We leave it there.
Paul Soglin, thanks very much.
>> In tonight's look ahead, state officials are on a
mission.
As we've reported, Wisconsin really,
really wants millennials living and working in Chicago to leave
there and come here.
And this week, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
went live, with its million ad campaign in Chicago.
Commuter trains, train platforms,
health clubs and social media will see the marketing blitz
about how it's better here.
How many millennials does Wisconsin want to bring into our
borders?
As many as they can get, according to the WEDC.
Now this first marketing push is the precursor to a nearly $7
million campaign the state wants to pursue to remedy its worker
shortage.
State Democratic leaders say the money could be better spent on
job training and say Governor Walker and his policies are to
blame for driving young people out of the state.
That is our program for tonight.
Next week, we will be watching the state Senate election in the
10th district.
Will it be a bellwether race?
I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Have a great weekend.
>> Funding for "Here and Now"
is provided, in part,
by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
>> For more information on "Here and Now's" 2018 election
coverage, go to WisconsinVote.org.