Illnesses are climbing, reaching new peaks. Public officials
speak to their communities about immigration fears and how shared
revenue reform fell short. It's "Here& Now" for January 17.
[MUSIC] >> Funding for "Here& Now" is
provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS
Wisconsin. >> Even a casual observer could
conclude the relationship between the Republican
legislature and the Democratic governor is dysfunctional in
Wisconsin. Long stretches where they don't talk to each other,
lawsuits, vetoes, and end arounds to get their ways. Now,
the very balance of power between the legislature and the
executive branch is in the hands of the Wisconsin Supreme Court
with a series of cases having to do with whether administrative
rules can be effectively vetoed by the legislature. It's a lot
to unpack, and here to do it, senior political reporter Zach
Schultz, who joins us from the Supreme Court. Hi, Zach. Hello,
Fred. So first describe the kinds of rules and over what
that we're talking about. >> Well, the particular cases
the Supreme Court heard this week, one of them was a rule
about building codes. And another rule had to do with a
ban on conversion therapy, which is a type of therapy that tries
to convince LGBTQ people that they are actually straight
people. And the state wanted to ban that. And it's a committee
in the legislature that Waukesha the Joint Committee for the
Review of Administrative Rules. It's a small committee with just
a handful of members that can eventually put a hold on any of
these rules coming out of administrative agencies and stop
them from taking effect. And when they do that, it's in
effect, a legislative veto over administrative power. And the
Supreme Court is trying to weigh whether that's too much, whether
that's actually allowed under the Constitution, and where that
balance of power should reside. >> So what has the Republican
majority joint Committee on Review of these rules been able
to do with some of Evers authority to set various rules?
>> Well, they basically have been able to put them on hold.
They have various authority. When a rule goes into place,
they can call the committee into action and they can hold the
rule. They can suspend it for a short amount of time, or they
can suspend it for up to the full two year legislative cycle
and then come back into the next session and suspend it again,
which effectively creates a permanent suspension of the
rule. All they have to do is introduce a bill in the
legislature that would overrule the rule, and that gets put on
the table, it gets held and it has a hearing committee goes
nowhere. And effectively the rule is suspended. The ban on
conversion therapy, for instance, was first introduced
in 2020, and it's only been in effect for a handful of weeks
over the nearly five years since then. Because Jcar keeps coming
in and suspending it, it's in effect for the moment. Right
now. But starting tomorrow, they can come back into session and
put a hold on that rule, and then it will be suspended for as
long as they want, possibly the next two years.
>> So a potential swing vote on the court in the way of justice,
Bryan Hagedorn said during oral arguments that this decision is
especially consequential for the operation of government.
Describe how. >> Well, the kind of goes back
to the bedrock of how we create laws. The legislature could pass
a law, the governor can veto it. If the governor signs it. Often
the law is broad, and then there are agencies. The DNR or the
Department of Health and Family Services. They have to create
rules that carry out how those laws apply to businesses and
people throughout the state. Those rules effectively have the
power of law behind them, and often they can become very
granular and specific. And sometimes it takes years to
promulgate or create that rule and put it into place. But then
this legislative committee can come back and veto that rule and
just send it back, and it goes nowhere. So it's a legislative
veto on administrative power. If the Supreme Court decides that
that no longer applies, then the rules from the administration go
into effect, essentially with the power of law. And that could
reshape what the legislature writes into their own laws. And
that balance of power, of how the two branches of government
work together. allowed such power under the
Wisconsin Constitution or other courts case precedent?
>> Well, the one that they're looking at the most is a Supreme
Court decision from 1992 called Martinez. And the question is
whether they should overturn that rule or just adjust it
slightly, because the power of this committee did grow in the
Walker era, he gave them more expansive powers to hold and
suspend some of these rules for longer. But even Hagedorn in his
comments from during oral arguments, said that there
really is no basis for this relationship in the
Constitution. He called it a gentleman's agreement between
the two branches of government, of how they would go about doing
it, because since 1992, when the legislature has created laws,
they've done it with the understanding that when it comes
to creating rules under that law, of how it would be applied,
the legislature would have some sort of say over what those
rules said, and that could shift what kind of laws they write and
what how old laws are interpreted under rules.
>> So this court could change the current balance of power as
we know it. >> Absolutely, fundamentally
change, especially the way that the makeup has been in the six
years we've had with Governor Evers in power and with
Republicans in control of the legislature. So certainly the
next two years going forward. But fundamentally beyond the
timescale of this, because if they change the way this works,
then that's a Supreme Court decision, just like Martinez was
on the books for 30 some years. This could be on the books for
generations to come. Future administrations, either
Republican or Democratic governors and legislatures of
either party, would be under this same system, having to
figure out how does it apply, how do they write a law and how
do they create a rule that is fair for everyone?
also released a decision on whether the names and addresses
of people deemed incompetent to vote should be made public. What
did they do with that case? >> Essentially, the Supreme
Court of Appeals. It's kind of a convoluted case. The essence of
it is whether a conservative voter interest group could get
access to the records of all those voters, all those people
in the state that are deemed incompetent to vote, and whether
they could then check those names against the voter
registration rolls to determine if someone was voting on their
behalf, if they're not supposed to be a court of appeals. And
Madison said, no, you don't. You don't have a right to those
those are privacy issues. A second court of appeals in
Waukesha, a conservative one, said, no, we think you have a
right to those. The Supreme Court kicked it back and said,
you can't overrule one Supreme 1 appeals court. Do it right, and
then we'll decide if we take the case properly. So for right now,
they don't have access to those records. That's the status quo
for the moment. >> All right. Well thank you.
Thank you for all your reporting from the Wisconsin High Court.
Zac Schultz. Thank you. Turning to health hospitals around the
state are filling up. And the first flu related pediatric
death has occurred. This as respiratory viruses are peaking,
particularly among infants, up to four years old.
>> They tend to have immune systems that are not experienced
with viruses. They tend to be smaller. So for example,
respiratory syncytial virus or RSV can cause a lot of secretion
and produce difficulty breathin. And almost with any of the
viruses, we see a lot more fever with the first or second time
exposure as compared to those of us older who've seen many of
these viruses many, many times. So the fact that Wisconsin has
had one death in a child is fairly average for influenza,
but is very tragic because most of these children don't have
underlying medical problems, and most of them have not been
vaccinated. We're watching very, very closely for this avian
influenza and the potential that it could jump into humans. As of
today, we know of at least three cases across the country where
we don't know where the individual contracted the virus
from. Most of the other cases have been from dairy cattle or
from poultry, but it's really worrisome. And I mentioned that
simply because during the time that we have the regular
influenza circulating, we have the potential for mixing within
individuals and the production of different viruses that could
attain the ability to spread human to human. And so that's
one of the biggest new concerns we have out there with the Trump
administration assuming office this coming Monday, the
president elect's promises of mass deportations has some
communities on high alert. >> Two Milwaukee alders raised
concerns over a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility
on the northwest edge of the city, meant to replace an aging
facility downtown. >> Although we are not certain
what type of federal facility might be planned here for this
location, or how vague some of this information is at times, I
am firmly opposed to any expansion of ice type detention
services in the city of Milwaukee.
[MUSIC] are scared. This is the time to
push back hard. >> For its part, the agency has
said there are no plans for a detention center at that
location in Dane County. Law enforcement let residents know
their plans for interacting with immigrant populations.
>> Increased fear of mass deportations has already
inhibited some members of our most vulnerable populations from
reporting their victimization to law enforcement. This reality
perpetuates a cycle of violence. And criminality that have a
chilling effect on our entire community. Our schools,
workplaces, and neighborhoods become less safe when our
neighbors and loved ones are afraid to report crimes and
engage in our criminal justice system.
>> A bill in Washington would mandate immigration officers
arrest and detain immigrants in the country illegally who are
suspected of minor theft of $100 or more. In Beloit, where the
U.S. Census estimates, 10% of the population to be foreign
born and 20% to be Hispanic, the police chief wrote an open
letter to the city's 36,000 residents, saying officers do
not seek out people who are undocumented, but consider
immigration status only when a serious crime has been committe,
impacting public safety. The chief social media post has gone
viral with strong feelings on both sides. We sat down with
Chief André Sayles and started by asking his reaction to the
legislation. >> It's one of those things
where you have to really try to dive into it and wanting to look
and learn more about what is the actual goal of the bill. And
when you're looking at some of those minor crimes, it's one of
those things where when people are arrested for minor crimes,
what are we doing? We're overpopulating the jails and
some of those offenses, especially with our illegal
immigrants, as they say, are those things where we're holding
people in jail for minor offenses to where we can also
counsel them, talk to them about it, and then release them
instead of holding them in spaces where our violent
criminals need to be. I think one of the biggest things is
we're adding more work to an already stressful job. A job
that provides that here in the city of Beloit, we take roughly
57,000 calls a year, and that's over 1000 calls a week for our
police officers, over 100 and something calls a day. And when
we're doing that, you're going to put more strain on our
already strained law enforcement to now stay in these facilities
with individuals, to hold them for ice instead of ice, giving
guidance and saying, we will look at these certain crimes and
we will be responsible for it. You have federal government,
state government and local government, and we're putting a
lot more work on your local government to do, I believe a
job that should be on the federal side.
>> How does that legislation square with your community
policing philosophy? >> It aligns with it to some
point. But at the same time, we want to be good stewards of the
people of Beloit, our community members here in the city of
Beloit. So it's going to put that strain between our
community members and the police department, and we've worked
diligently to bring down that strain and to be inclusive to
all, and to make sure that we're working for everyone, giving
everyone a voice and an opportunity to have a
relationship with our police department, to talk with our
police department. And if we fully dive into that, we're
going to remove a great deal of people here in the city of
Beloit. >> When will your officers
cooperate with Ice? >> We will cooperate when we get
further guidance. When there are violent felon felons arrested in
those situations, we will call Ice. We will talk to them and
say, hey, this is what we have. What are our next steps? If Ice
were to come here and do a project, they typically call
them a roundup. What are we looking for? Who are we looking
for? What have they done that meets that felony threshold? And
how can we be of assistance of that? We're not saying that we
don't want to be partners with Ice. We're just saying we need
further guidance. We need further understanding. And we're
also going to need training. >> So you wrote an open letter
to residents in Beloit this month on this issue. Why did you
do that? >> I thought as the leader of
our police department and the leader of enforcing laws, I
think everyone in our community needed to hear from me to hear
our stance on it and to understand that we won't be
going out and just randomly knocking on doors to say, we
heard that this person in the home may be illegal. We need to
check your immigration status once again. That's going to add
more work to our officers. That's going to prevent us from
doing some of the things that we've done to build a better
Beloit as far as making sure our roadways are safe, making sure
that we're being partners of our students in the community
because they are our future, making sure that we're handling
the violent crime that Beloit has had a history of known for.
We are a city that went from having over 100 confirmed
shootings in this city to where we're in the 20s now, and that
is the hard work that the men and women of the police
department has done with the help of our community members.
So if we tarnish that relationship, we're going to go
back to those days of don't go to Beloit.
>> What has been the reaction from the community, the people
that I know that live in the city of Beloit has had a
positive reaction to the messag. >> They appreciate me being
transparent, explaining what we're going to do as a police
department and how we're going to continue to cooperate with
our community members. But I think a lot of it has been
probably a lot of people that's not from the city of Beloit,
weighing in on some things that I would just say they probably
really didn't understand, or they took bits and pieces of
that message and created a bigger message.
reaction on the part of immigrants in your city?
>> I really haven't had too many conversations, but I did speak
to one of our Hispanic population leaders in the city
of Beloit, and she was very appreciative of the message that
we put out and understood why I put that message out and
understood that by me putting that message out, it received a
little bit of stress from our Hispanic population in the city
of Beloit. And it's unfortunate that it seems that it's
directly, directly pointed only at the Hispanic population. But
when you look at immigration, you have to look at all of the
world. You know, we have people from China that may be illegal
immigrants. El Salvador, you have people that are from the
Philippines and things of that nature. So I think the
collective message is all that may be illegal. Immigrants don't
have to worry about us just knocking on their door, checking
their immigration status. If we get to a point to where they're
involved in a serious crime, that may come up, but we're not
just going to go out and ask for their immigration status.
>> So you said that you're waiting for guidance. Yes. On
all of this. And yet, what are your concerns given what has
been roiling around in the headlines?
>> No concerns as of yet. I'm a person that likes to sit back
and wait and watch and look and get my own facts from documents
that's provided for local law enforcement. And if I have
concerns out of that, then express those concerns to the
person that may have sent it to us from the federal government
that we think needs to change as a local law enforcement agency,
or can you provide further guidance on what you're saying
in these certain situations? >> If the guidance and the laws
say that you do, in fact have to interact with the immigrant
population in this city by way of going door to door and asking
for their documentation, you will uphold the law, I assume?
>> Yes, most definitely. But once again, I'm going to make
sure we are very detailed in our response to Ice or the federal
government to make sure that our officers that are going to be
held accountable for violating people's natural born rights,
that may be legal citizens of the city of Beloit, but someone
assumes that they're not. So we want to make sure that we are
doing things best, practice and making sure that we're getting
the guidance from the federal government to make sure that we
are upholding everyone's natural born rights. Our thing is, we
want to make sure that we are providing everyone an
opportunity to feel safe in this community of Beloit, and to make
sure that the victims are not continued to be victims of
crimes that they refuse to report because they feel that
we're going to check their illegal or their immigration
status before we make a case against the person that they're
calling on. >> Chief, thanks very much.
>> Thank you for allowing the police department to get our
message out. Thank you. >> In an emergency hearing, a
federal judge in Madison this week told an assistant U.S.
Attorney he was responsible for making sure the Lac du Flambeau
band does not put up barricades blocking homeowners access on
roads to their properties. It's the latest back and forth
between the tribe and dozens of non-tribal property owners whose
land abuts reservation roadways. The Lac du Flambeau had
threatened to barricade the roads again as of Thursday,
because the town had not made ongoing payments to the band for
use of them. It all stems from long standing and historical
treaty agreements and disputes over tribal sovereign land
rights. Tribal leaders say the roads were built on their land
more than 50 years ago, and the least to use them expired in
2014. The tribe tried to renegotiate the leases and now
seek nearly $10 million in payment. A ruling in a federal
lawsuit to settle the dispute is pending. Wisconsin is sitting on
a $4 billion surplus. Some counties would like a bigger
piece of that pie through the state's shared revenue back in
2023, a much heralded bipartisan shared revenue plan for local
governments was passed, allowing Milwaukee to raise its sales tax
to shore up services, while at the same time boosting state
revenue. Coming to locals across the state. But now the richest
county in the state, Waukesha County, is looking at a $5
million budget shortfall in 2025 and is beseeching the state to
give more. Marquette University Professor of political Science
Philip Rocco is an expert in all of this, and he joins us now.
Thanks very much for being here. >> Good to be with you.
>> So I thought that this 2023 shared revenue plan was a great
deal for local governments. What happened?
>> Well, it was a big deal, right? It was the single largest
increase in shared revenue that local governments had received
since the early 2000. But the reality is that compared to what
cities, towns, villages and counties had lost since the
early 2000. Because the formula wasn't updated for inflation and
because there were several big cuts to shared revenue. It's
really a fraction of what local governments and county
governments had lost in inflation adjusted terms since
the early 2000. And at the same time, inflation has sort of
proceeded a pace that raises the cost of services for local
governments. And so while it was by no means a small thing, there
are still challenges that local governments around the state are
facing. >> Is it striking that a county
like Waukesha County, regarded as the wealthiest in Wisconsin,
would be in this position? >> No, I don't think it's
particularly surprising, in part because the shared revenue
formula is not necessarily designed to advantage counties
like Waukesha receives one of the largest or lowest shares in
per capita aid among counties in the state. At the same time, the
pressures that are on counties and municipalities around the
state are really pretty constant, regardless of their
wealth. So, for example, there are inflation pressures which
raise the cost of doing things like sidewalk repair and street
repair. But at the same time, the property tax levy limit that
the state sets has not been adjusted to sort of take account
of those inflationary pressures. And that really puts counties
and municipalities in a squeeze position.
>> Is it your expectation that the state would do something
around those levy limits? >> I think that's possible. I
think that that is, if you talk to local officials, both in
counties, municipalities, that's one of their key agenda items.
And so I would expect to see movement on that before. I would
expect to see movement on sort of increasing formula funding
under act 12. >> So other counties raised
their state sales tax to fund needs. And Waukesha wanted to.
What happened with that? >> I think that was one of the
things that helps explain the shortfall. And maybe why
Waukesha is in this position, which is like a lot of other
counties. There was a push to increase the sales tax by 0.5%,
but there was, unlike in Milwaukee, where the business
community was in favor of that measure, both for the county and
the city. In Waukesha County, the business community, the
Chamber of Commerce really opposed that. And so the
legislation was pulled sort of at the last minute to reevaluate
it. particular so strapped?
>> Counties are important because they really pulled
double duty in Wisconsin government. They're both local
governments in their own right that offer things on a
discretionary basis to their residents. But at the same time,
they are service providers and agencies of the state. And so
they have a lot of responsibilities that they can't
easily get out of. And a lot of their budget is sort of spoken
for by the state. And so that especially in in conditions
where there's sort of inflationary pressure that can
put an additional vice grip, I think, on county finances. And
so when you look at what counties are asking for in the
2025 to 27 budget, what they're asking for is not additional
shared revenue of the sort that that they got under act 12, but
the sorts of special revenue programs or aid programs that
help them to support the services that they provide on
behalf of the state. >> What are some examples of
those services that they provide on behalf of the state that are
different? >> So there's all sorts of
mental health services that counties are the sort of main
provider of. If you think about the state court system that
really operates through counties, jails as well, are
county functions. But mandated in a way by the state. And
there's really a host of additional kind of mandatory
programs that counties administer.
>> All right. Professor Phillip Rocco, thanks very much. We'll
be looking at that next state budget to see what it holds.
Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit
our website at PBS wisconsin.org and then click on the news tab
on Wednesday. Join us live at 7 p.m. On PBS. Wisconsin and
Wisconsin Public Radio for Governor Tony Evers, state of
the State Address at the Capitol, along with the
Republican response. That's our program for tonight. I'm
Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus Fund for
Wisconsin.