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- The following program is part of our "Here and Now"
2018 Wisconsin Vote election coverage.
- We are getting positive things done
for the people of Wisconsin.
- Governor Scott Walker addresses
the State of the State.
I'm Frederica Freyberg.
Tonight on "Here and Now," State of the State analysis
in our first look segment.
After that, a closer look at the Senate's vote
to fire state elections officials.
And what the governor's health care proposals
could mean to Wisconsin households.
It's "Here and Now" for January 26.
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- Funding for "Here and Now" is provided, in part,
by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
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- Governor Walker's hour-plus speech on Wednesday covered a
range of topics from tax credits to F-35 war planes.
State Democrats labeled it an election year campaign ad.
We will hear from the Assembly minority leader right after a
few more words from the governor on his priorities and
accomplishments.
- Rich or poor, big city or small town,
Republican or Democrat, these are the issues that people want
us to work together on.
Issues like pushing for more ways to help our schools improve
student success.
Growing the number of opportunities for our young
people to pursue great careers
that will keep them here in our state.
Expanding our Wisconsin Works For Everyone welfare reforms.
Helping small businesses grow across the state.
Continuing to reform our government.
Creating a new child tax credit to help working families.
And providing stability in health care.
These issues are the seven common sense principles of our
ambitious agenda for 2018.
- Republicans passed the largest funding cuts to public
schools in our state's history while at the same time handing
out tax cuts for the wealthy that will cost the state more
than $1.3 billion by the end of next year.
For Wisconsin to achieve educational excellence for every
school and every student, Wisconsin needs a sustained
investment.
Wisconsin Democrats believe education is the biggest
priority and should be the biggest priority every year,
not just election years.
- Now, the governor's State of the State address was longer in
length and stronger on political moderation compared to years
past, very clearly a re-election message.
In tonight's first look we are joined by WPR's Shawn Johnson
to break it down.
Thanks for being here, Shawn. - Thanks for having me.
- As you know, the governor's newly-announced plans,
ranging from health care help to juvenile corrections changes to
welfare reform, also include some money in your pocket if
you've got kids.
- Families from across the state will receive $100 for
every child under 18 living at home.
A couple hundred dollars more in the family budget
could really make a difference.
Particularly when getting ready for the next school year.
- So that's obviously got to be popular.
- Walker calls it a reform dividend,
which would affect what his office says would be 671,
000 households at a cost to the state of $122 million per year.
The governor says the projected budget balance of $385 million
should go back to the people.
He also wants to spend more in other areas: rural schools,
attracting workers, a rural economy development fund,
new juvenile institutions.
Here's what Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz had to say
about it.
"We are witnessing a desperate career politician who say do and
do anything to be re-elected.
This speech sounded a lot like a going out of business sale."
- It has to be said that the tone of the governor's speech
was decidedly more moderate.
The governor even singled out a Milwaukee Democrat for his work
on juvenile corrections reforms.
The change in tone stood out to political observers including
UW-Milwaukee Professor Mordecai Lee,
who told us this about Governor Walker's speech.
He said, "He is trying to change where he stands politically.
I think it indicates that his election campaign will be about
persuading those leaning to vote Democratic to vote for him.
That's the opposite of his recall campaign,
which was to mobilize the base."
I know that the governor stated
that the election results earlier this month
in the 10th Senate District over near St. Croix County,
where a Democrat won that usually Republican district,
should represent a wake-up call for Republicans.
But do you suppose that this address its new plans is a
manifestation of that alarm bell?
- I mean it could be.
Think about what the governor said when he was asked about
the wake-up call the day after that election.
What do you mean?
And he said that he thinks that people need to know more
about what Wisconsin Republicans have done here.
Essentially don't confuse us with what's happening in
Washington, where Republicans are in control,
and not getting everything they want done.
We're doing things here in Wisconsin.
So you heard the governor hit that theme over and over again
especially in the early going in the speech
of things that he has done, he has accomplished.
That message I think definitely ties into that wake-up call
that he was talking about.
- So half of his speech was about that,
and the other half was about his so-called ambitious agenda.
But given the duration of the legislative session,
do you think he can get that agenda through?
- There's a lot there, yeah, especially when you think about
the legislature potentially being out of session by maybe
the end of February, maybe March, more realistically.
That's not a lot of time to get all this stuff done.
In a way, for Walker it doesn't matter if they pass it.
He's put a marker down here and said I support this.
- Right.
- You know, in the case of like the tax cut for people with kids,
that's something that they would want to pass in some form
in 2018 if they actually want to have that money in the pockets
of people who would vote by election day.
- Right.
So what else stood out for you in his speech?
- You know, I think we were all watching the speech
to see what the governor would say about Foxconn.
This is one of the biggest accomplishments,
whether or not you like it or hate it,
the biggest, most consequential thing that has happened
in certainly this term of the Walker Administration.
So there was some question about what the governor would --
how much import he would give to Foxconn in the speech,
where he would emphasize it.
I think by my watch it was about 35 minutes in
to this hour-plus speech.
So it's not like he made it the crown jewel of the speech.
It's kind of the term that keeps coming back to mind.
- But he didn't ignore it.
- He did not ignore it.
He did talk about that.
- So while we're here we wanted to catch up on the latest of the
state Senate's move to remove the administrators of the State
Elections and Ethics Commissions for what Majority Leader Scott
Fitzgerald says was their work while at the now-defunct
Government Accountability Board which took part in the John Doe
investigation into the Scott Walker.
Now this week, the Senate voted on party lines.
Tell us what happened this week
in this very crazy kind of action on this.
- Yeah, here's what Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said
ahead of the vote not to confirm the pair.
- It's unacceptable,
and both of these individuals that are before us here today
were there.
Can I nail down exactly what they were part of and what they
did and how much of it did they look away from or were they
complicit or were they guilty of something criminal?
I have no idea.
But that's not what we're doing here.
We're trying to judge if this body is comfortable,
if each individual senator in this body,
is comfortable picking up the phone and calling over there
for some straight advice
about something related to ethics or elections.
- So the Senate voted on party lines earlier this week
to block the confirmations
of administrators Michael Haas and Brian Bell.
How did that vote come out?
- So that was along party lines as you mentioned in the Senate.
Then midweek, the Elections Commission voted 4-2,
with one Republican voting in favor of reinstating Michael
Haas as the administrator of the Elections Commission.
The Ethics Commission did not follow suit.
They voted 5-1 to keep their administrator job vacant.
So where does that leave things?
We still have Michael Haas at the Elections Commission.
They still consider him the leader of the Elections
Commission, but technically he's an attorney at the Elections
Commission now and he got a pay cut.
Brian Bell, who was the leader of the Ethics Commission,
has gone to the Department of Safety and Professional Services
and that agency does not have a leader right now.
- What is this really about? - What is this really about?
I mean, I guess the feelings that Republicans had about the
Government Accountability Board and the John Doe investigation
of Governor Walker's campaign and other Republicans,
those have not gone away.
And so, I mean, Scott Fitzgerald was pretty frank about not
wanting somebody associated with the former GAB to be in these
leadership positions even if a report that recently came out,
an investigation of that investigation,
showed that Haas and Bell weren't exactly making the calls
in that investigation.
- Is it expected that this will end up in the courts?
- I think it's a pretty good possibility when you're talking
about who's in charge of an agency and whether a Senate can
kick them out or not through a confirmation vote.
It's just maybe a question of who sends it to court first?
We do know if it were to go up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court,
it's run by a pretty strong conservative majority there
and has sided with Republican lawmakers
in a lot of the big issues of the day.
- Meanwhile, we will be taking a closer look at this issue of
the elections administrator just ahead.
But Shawn Johnson, thanks a lot.
- You're welcome.
- Taking a closer look at the upheaval in the state Ethics and
Elections Commissions now with UW-Madison Political Science
Professor and elections expert Barry Burden.
Thanks for being here. - Glad to be here.
- When you see what's happening with the administrator position
at the state Elections Commission,
what's your reaction? - Well, it's alarming.
This is a commission that was designed to have some
independence from the state legislature,
to foster stability and competence and expertise.
Mike Haas, who's now I guess the outgoing administrator there,
has been in that role for a couple of years and has been
involved with state elections, someone I think is trusted by
the clerks around the state and by election officials
in other states in fact.
To me it's worrisome that the state legislature is essentially
meddling in a personnel matter in that agency.
- Well, how might this upheaval, though,
as we've described, affect the administration of elections as
we come into this election cycle?
- The timing is not great.
Here we are at the beginning of a long election season.
We have elections coming up next month in February,
again in April, again in the fall with the primary and with
the general election in November.
Wisconsin is a state where elections are complicated.
Every city, town and village in the state has its own clerk
which runs elections.
That's over 1,850 individual election officials,
plus the 72 county clerks.
They really depend on the state Elections Commission to be a
source of information, a place to get resources and help,
with the design of ballots, with purchasing of machines,
with issues and implementation of the voter ID law or other
complications.
The timing is just not good in terms of thinking about the
elections that are on the table.
- The chair of the commission says administrator Michael Haas
is a nationally-recognized, as you pointed to,
expert in elections and cybersecurity and the
commission's only staff member with this kind of security
clearance from the Department of Homeland Security.
How concerning is his departure, given that,
in light of what the chair also calls online security threats
from foreign governments and non-state hackers?
- We know that the Russian government tried to infiltrate
voter registration systems in a number of states.
They apparently tried to do that in Wisconsin, unsuccessfully.
They may have actually targeted the wrong agency.
But there were attempts there and there's still an interest on
the part of the Russian government and other actors to
do that.
Officials here, including Mike Haas,
were briefed by federal officials about that in the lead
up to the election and since then.
And Haas has gotten this special clearance to be involved in
those discussions at a higher level of security.
If he's gone, there's then no one available in the state to
have those conversations.
I suppose someone else, maybe a replacement administrator,
could get those clearances,
but you'd have to find someone you trust,
who's going to be a stable force at the top of the agency.
Right now stability is not the thing that is happening.
- You just described the ongoing threats,
but how real are those?
- Oh, I think they're quite real.
The intelligence community has said the Russian government is
interested in meddling in American elections,
maybe favoring one side,
but mostly just trying to cause some turmoil.
A lot of these systems are online
and they're attempting to get access.
In a couple of states it looks like they actually were able to
see the files and download files.
That happened in Illinois.
I think also in Arizona.
We have a new online voter registration system that just
went into effect at the beginning of this year,
so that's a new phase of voter registration in Wisconsin
that has an online component
that I think needs to be monitored this year.
There are just a lot of things to watch.
And having somebody at the helm who understands those issues
and has been in the conversations with
federal intelligence officials would be really helpful.
- Have you, as an expert in this world, reached out to anyone
who's in the midst of making these kinds of personnel
decisions in the state of Wisconsin?
- I've not.
I've been watching the back and forth essentially in the public
between commissioners, the six, three Democrats,
three Republicans, state senators who have been at least
on the Republican side critical of Haas and others who had
served in the GAB before these commissions were created.
And I think we're all watching from the outside that showdown
go down and to see what the legal status of the
commissioners is in terms of picking a new administrator.
- Is this making a buzz nationally
among experts like yourself?
- It is, in part because it's surprising.
Wisconsin had been a state that had been held up as a model
of good government when it comes to elections.
Most states have a partisan elected secretary of state who
runs elections.
That's true in probably over 40 states.
Some states have also boards of elections,
but those can have a partisan taint as well.
Both the Government Accountability Board and these
commissions that followed afterward are either nonpartisan
or bipartisan, had been viewed around the country as a model
for how to run elections that emphasize expertise,
continuity and independence in a way that other states have not.
- Given, though, that now it seems to be that politics have
kind of been inserted and inflamed in the midst of all of
this, in your mind would there be a better way to run and
regulate elections in Wisconsin?
- Well, there's no ideal way.
I don't know if we created a system from scratch today we
would decide every town and village should have its own
clerk for example.
Or that we would design the ballots the way we do.
There are a lot of things that have just crept up as part of
our history and I think voters and election officials have
become used to them and it would be difficult to change.
But having some sort of nonpartisan competent agency at
the top of this hierarchy that can serve the clerks around the
state, that is not subject to the daily whims of the state
legislature, whether it's controlled by Republicans or
Democrats, that has its own budget authority,
so it doesn't depend on making those legislators happy in order
to fund the next budget would be really helpful.
- All right. We leave it there.
Barry Burden, thanks very much.
- Glad I could be here.
- Now back to Governor Walker's State of the State address and
his proposals to tweak health care coverage in Wisconsin.
- The biggest concern I hear about as I travel the state is
from those who are worried about pre-existing conditions.
With this in mind, I propose that we enact a law in Wisconsin
that will guarantee coverage of pre-existing conditions.
[applause]
- Guaranteeing coverage of pre-existing conditions is one
prong of what Governor Walker calls
the Health Care Stability Plan.
Under the plan, he would also seek a waiver to make the
prescription drug assistance program, SeniorCare, permanent.
And he calls for giving $200 million in state and federal
money to insurance companies to hold down premiums.
Bobby Peterson is the executive director at ABC for Health,
a public interest law firm that helps people connect
with health care coverage.
Thanks for being here. - Glad to be here.
- I want to take these prongs of his plan one by one and
see what they do and don't do.
On guaranteeing pre-existing coverage, doesn't the ACA,
which is still in effect, do that right now?
- Yes, it does.
So it's a bit of window dressing what the governor has proposed,
but also in case the ACA would ever get repealed,
it would help partially Wisconsin folks that may have
pre-existing conditions avoid certain limitations
to access in coverage.
- So how would it compare what's in the governor's plan
now to what existed in Wisconsin before the Affordable Care Act?
- Well, before the ACA -- and I was a practicing attorney and I
represented people -- it was pretty bad because pre-existing
condition was a limiting factor for people to secure coverage.
Insurance companies did reviews of your health status.
If you didn't reflect your information,
what they considered to be accurately, you could be denied.
So it was pretty bad back then.
This will be a step in the right direction.
The ACA was a major step in the right direction.
What Governor Walker did is just create a backup to the ACA,
but it's not even as good as what the ACA provides.
- So could it end up if in fact the ACA were repealed
and the state decided to go along with this plan,
would it or could it cost consumers more?
- It could.
It could just because there's gaps and you have to maintain
coverage, continuous coverage, for it to apply.
So it's not a blanket
pre-existing condition limitation.
There are some holes in the process.
- And yet I would imagine that people herald it in the event
that ACA is repealed. - Right.
It was not originally proposed by the Democrats.
The Republicans tweaked it a little bit.
It passed the Assembly, not the most satisfactory version of it,
but this is what Governor Walker is proposing that we extend.
- On SeniorCare, the governor would seek to make it permanent
instead of having to apply for this waiver
to extend it every four years.
But it should be mentioned this comes after he twice tried to
reduce SeniorCare by about 40%.
What do you know about the mechanics of being able
to make it permanent?
- Doesn't appear at this point that there is a mechanism
under federal law to make it permanent.
So he would have to go through some extra hoops I think
to make it permanent.
It's unclear at this point.
But it is interesting that he fought against the program
two separate times and now he's become a fan of it, which,
you know, he should because
it's a good program for Wisconsin seniors.
It helps a lot of seniors
receive affordable prescription drugs.
It's got strong bipartisan support.
So I'm not surprised that the governor is endorsing it now.
A little late, but he is endorsing it.
- Tremendously popular program.
How would you rate it in terms of its popularity of programs?
- I think it's very popular.
I think it's one that a lot of people need.
Prescription medication
is an increasing part of people's lives.
The expense of drugs is important and SeniorCare
provides a buffer to help folks with that.
- As to the $200 million reinsurance program to hold down
premiums, the governor talked about a Wisconsin woman who saw
her premiums go up by almost $2,
000 a month under an Obamacare individual plan.
What kind of person or what kind of plan could that be,
could you imagine? - Hard to say.
It's varied based on county, based on age,
based on, you know, your status.
So it's really hard to pin that down.
But I think the reinsurance mechanism that Governor Walker
is proposing, again, is probably something that we can use.
It addresses the cost of health insurance,
but not the cost of health care.
That's an important distinction.
Because health care costs can keep going up.
You subsidize insurance companies against this risk it
doesn't mean you're dealing with the cost of health care.
It's state money.
And interestingly, he's going to be accepting federal money.
That is something he has opposed in the Medicaid expansion area,
where he could secure a lot more federal money
if he accepted the Medicaid expansion.
- Right. And so this money goes to insurance companies.
I've read elsewhere that there's no guarantee
that those insurance companies would then pass that along?
Or would that be something that would have
to be part of that plan?
- It will be interesting to see the legislation when it comes
out how they propose to implement it.
But insurance companies are under a variety of different
pressures, including marketplace pressures to make their products
competitive in the marketplace.
So there could be market pressure that helps as well
to keep some of the prices down.
- Speaking of market pressure and upward pressure,
the governor said that Affordable Care Act premiums are
averaging increases in the 36% range.
Is that what we're seeing in Wisconsin?
- It's close to that in some situations.
But I think that -- again, it's different depending
on where you live and the competitive pressures
within your region of the state.
- And with those increases, I mean,
we've been doing some kind of research on the latest numbers
in the ACA marketplace in 2018.
My understanding is that subsidies still in place
within the ACA help offset those increases.
- That's right.
- How accurate is that? - That's true.
That -- for lower to moderate income folks those subsidies or
tax credits are still available.
They're very helpful.
They mitigate a lot of the increases that we see for health
insurance rises in the marketplace for that population.
- And yet it could be people that are kind of outside the
eligibility income ranges for those tax credits or subsidies
that get hit the hardest?
- Correct. Right.
Those are the folks that may be affected by increases
that are not eligible for the tax subsidies
because of their income.
So they'd bear the brunt of those increases.
- Now, just lastly, and with about a half a minute left,
how in your mind does all of this
square with Governor Walker's previous inclinations
when it comes to the Affordable Care Act?
- It's a 360 in some ways because he viewed the Affordable
Care Act as radioactive so anything related to it,
he was opposed to.
He was opposed to consumer protection to help people
navigate the system, which is an important element in terms of
helping people get the coverage they need.
Cost is one factor,
but navigating the system is really important.
And not helping with that is a major deficit in his plan.
It's an about-face.
I'm encouraged that at least he seems to be listening more.
I think he has to listen harder now to the folks out there that
are struggling to connect to the coverage and get those services.
- All right,Bobby Peterson, thanks very much.
- You're welcome.
- With health care and specifically the Affordable Care
Act top of mind, multimedia journalist Marisa Wojcik brings
us these fast facts on 2018 enrollment in Wisconsin now that
the open period to sign up has closed.
In Wisconsin, 15,291 fewer people selected plans on the
healthcare.gov marketplace in 2018 versus 2017.
Federal funding will no longer go toward the cost-sharing
reduction program, which is causing premiums to rise.
But other federal subsidies increase as premiums increase
for those who are eligible.
A Wisconsin consumer on the benchmark plan will pay
an average of $201 more per month before subsidies
in 2018 versus 2017.
Expert Donna Friedsam says despite increases in premiums
because the federal government ended cost-sharing payments last
year, consumers eligible for subsidies were largely protected
because their subsidies increased.
Now to eastern Wisconsin, where the DNR created new rules
regarding manure spreading.
In response to widespread groundwater contamination,
the DNR is limiting
the amount of manure farmers may spread on their fields.
The measure depends on the amount of topsoil but requires
at least two feet to be present.
However, according to the DNR board,
no funding has been secured yet to implement the new rule,
which now heads to Governor Walker for approval.
And that is our program for tonight.
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.