The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
>> In the last two days, my office has gotten over 1000
constituent calls with people angry, hurt, and terrified that
the services they use every day will vanish.
>> Democrats push back hard as President Trump and Elon Musk
advance aggressive downsizing of the federal government.
[MUSIC] on "Here& Now". More on the
impact of President Trump's new tariffs to refugee resettlement
and the upheaval over Wisconsin's standardized test
scores. the candidates for the state
Supreme Court. It's "Here& Now" for February 7th.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus Fund for
Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
>> We are less than 60 days away from the election that will
determine the balance of power on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
We plan on bringing you continuous coverage of this
important race between now and the election on April 1st.
Tonight, we'll introduce you to the conservative in this race,
Brad Schimel. Schimel is currently a Waukesha County
Circuit Court judge, but has previously served as the
Wisconsin Attorney General. And before that, he was the Waukesha
County District Attorney. Here and now, senior political
reporter Zach Schultz sat down with Brad Schimel at a diner in
Waukesha. >> Let's start with your
judicial philosophy. Can you explain how you approach things
from the bench? You know. >> Officially in the legal
world, we say that a person with my philosophy is an originalist,
meaning you go, you go back to how the Constitution was written
at the time with the intent of the founders when they wrote it.
That's that's complicated language. I'll tell you that. My
philosophy basically is, is that I approach my role as a judge
with great humility. I respect the separation of powers that
the legislature sets the laws, not the judge. I approach it
with humility, 2 toward the litigants that appear in front
of my court. I respect that they are entitled to their day in
court, that they are entitled to have somebody that's going to
listen to them all the way till the end of the case. Before I go
deciding or making up my mind on things. So those are those I
think that wraps up my judicial philosophy, how I view this.
>> So how do you approach something like precedent?
Because obviously in federal and state cases, we've seen a lot of
precedents being overturned in recent years.
>> Well, as the circuit court judge, I respect precedent. I
don't have the authority to decide. The Supreme Court got it
wrong on a case. As a Supreme Court justice, we have to we
have to overturn precedent only very rarely and very carefully.
The whole system relies on on stability that people need to be
able to predict what the law says so that lawyers can advise
their clients. So everyday citizens can know what's going
to keep them from getting sued for their actions, what's going
to keep them out of trouble with with the police, other things.
So you have to have that stability. So we should have
great respect for precedent. We should we should only rarely and
only in extraordinary circumstances be overturning it.
>> So what do you think about the Wisconsin Supreme Court with
their drop boxes decision or the redistricting decision and the
most recent iteration of the court overturning those old
cases? original case from a little over
two years ago now. I read I read the decision in this case. I did
look at some of the briefing as well. I would have sided with
the dissent in the recent decision. I, I think they got it
right that the legislature created two ways to vote early
absentee. One is put it in the US mail box, which is
essentially a drop box. You know, the whole argument was
that we're making it too hard for people who don't work
regular jobs that don't work, that can't get to the polling
place early to drop off their, their, their ballot. You can put
it in a US mail box. And that's a secure, safe way to mail to
mail in your ballot. Or you can bring it to your clerk in
person. I think I think that the majority got it wrong on that
one. approach to precedent with the
Dobbs decision? So obviously that at the federal level was a
pretty big overturning of precedent?
>> Yep. That was a very old precedent, too. And it was
established the United States Supreme Court is the recognized
that abortion isn't in the United States Constitution.
There's no reference to it anywhere. Therefore, the
decision belongs with the people, and that's where they
returned it. And it's a it can create a messy situation, I
guess, where each state is going to have their own set of rules
based upon what the voters in that state want. Mississippi and
California are going to have two different, very different
perspectives on abortion. But that's the way the Constitution
intended it. If it's not in the US Constitution, it belongs to
the people and the states, and that's what they recognized.
That was a, you know, it had been a long time that that that
the Roe decision was in place. But the supreme state Supreme
court three years ago, almost now considered that precedent
and decided it was no longer it wasn't valid.
>> So in 2023, Janet Protasiewicz kind of set a new
territory in terms of talking about personal values and saying
those were separate from how she intended to rule or how she
would rule in a case. Did that reset the public expectations
again, for what it should sound like to hear someone running for
the Supreme Court? >> I think when she said the
maps are rigged, referring to the legislative redistricting
maps that wasn't talking about a personal value, that was
stating, that was stating a legal opinion and a judgment.
But, well, the Judicial Ethics Commission looked at it and said
nothing offensive about it. And I guess we have to live with
that. It's worth noting that decisions by the Judicial Ethics
Commission are driven by the majority on the Wisconsin
Supreme Court. That means the majority on the Wisconsin
Supreme Court would have wanted to punish one of their own, and
they just didn't want to. But this isn't acceptable. Imagine
this if you went to a Brewer game and you you bought your $17
beer, but you sat down and the umpire comes out, not in the
Black they're supposed to wear, but a Cardinals jersey. You're
not buying another beer because this you know how this game is
going to end. The Cardinals fan in the stands might feel good
about that. For the moment, but what they're just witnessing is
the death of baseball, right. And now you can always, with
baseball, move on to another sport. If we've got people on
the Supreme Court that can't set their personal opinions aside
and are wearing the jersey of a team, then our justice system
doesn't survive and we don't have any other sport to go to,
so to speak. It's not acceptable and just judges and candidates
for office shouldn't be talking about how they're going to rule
on cases, period. >> So there's going to be people
watching this are going to say, well, you're a former
Republican. You were the attorney general of Wisconsin.
As a Republican. You've run statewide. How is that
different? How how do you explain to them the difference
between running as a partizan versus running for this?
>> Well, first off, all of my prior roles were as a prosecutor
and the Waukesha DA's office, and I did I was a Da as a
Republican in Waukesha County for that and attorney general as
a Republican. Both of those roles, you don't make law. You
enforce the law the way someone else made it or wrote it. And
the same thing in my role as a judge. But I've set those
things. I've set those partizan things aside every single day on
the bench. It's worth noting my opponent also has a partisan
history. She was chief legal counsel for Governor Jim Doyle.
It doesn't get any more partisan than being in that role. Short
of being the governor, you're the next most partisan person in
that office. Both of us have partisan histories, and it's
kind of fraudulent to suggest that just because I officially
ran as a Republican, I'm the only one with that kind of a
history. >> So there is a history of
former partisan officeholders being on the Supreme Court.
Justice Prosser was there. He explained to me the difference
between being a judicial conservative and a political
conservative can. Do you agree with his definitions? There.
>> Absolutely. Being a political conservative means ascribing to
certain policy values as a judicial conservative. It is a
it's a philosophy like you asked me about earlier and a judicial
conservative believes that the courts should be restrained when
they're looking at a law. You interpret it the way the
legislature wrote it, and you don't try to change it into some
other form. The opposite is judicial activism or being a
judicial liberal, where they believe that the court's role is
to is to change the law into a form that they think is best.
And that's the difference between between those judicial,
conservative and judicial liberal, but very different than
the political conservative and liberal judge.
>> Schimel, thanks for your time.
>> Next Friday night, you'll hear from his opponent, the
Liberal candidate Susan Crawford. As to the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, it issued a decision today that says Meagan
Wolfe is allowed to stay on as administrator of the Wisconsin
Elections Commission. Republicans in the legislature
have been trying to remove Wolfe from her position in the wake of
election conspiracies coming out of the 2020 presidential race,
the court ruled unanimously that even though Wolf's four year
term has expired, the Elections Commission is not required to
renominate her and she can stay in her position until a majority
on the commission decide to replace her in state education.
News, Republican lawmakers want to change the way the Department
of Public Instruction now scores standardized tests for third
through eighth graders. That's because last year, DPI changed
the cutoff scores needed to be proficient in reading or math,
resulting in scores in 2024 being about ten points higher
than the year before. The new forward exam scoring also no
longer aligns with the more difficult national test, known
as the Nation's Report card, a bill now before the legislature
would require DPI to revert back to the previous scoring model.
Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Republican Senator
John Jagler, authored the bill. And thanks very much for being
here. >> So why don't you like the new
scoring methods on the statewide forward exam?
>> For multiple reasons. I think it gives a false sense of what
our kids are doing and where they're at. But you know, the
bigger picture point here is it doesn't align. We have no way of
tracking data from previous years because and the DPI admits
this, that the way that they have blown up the scoring
system, we can't go back and look, we can't see how the kids
from the Covid pandemic, those those kids that were, you know,
kindergarten, first grade, are they catching up the kids, more
importantly, that are almost entering the workplace, the
seventh graders, who are now high school juniors and seniors,
where are they? Have they caught up from that? That last year?
And we can't track that data anymore. And, you know, as I
traveled around the new district, the new 13th Senate
district picked up a ton of geographical territory, and that
meant a lot of new superintendents, a lot of new
school districts. And the first thing I did was meet with law
enforcement and meet with my school superintendents. And they
were taken aback because they were not consulted. They had no
idea this came. And here we are. They don't know if some of the
innovation they're doing with literacy programs are working.
They have no way of going back and tracking. And then the
easiest point is we should be expecting our kids to do better.
We should set high standards, not lower them.
>> So Governor Tony Evers has also been critical of the new
scoring, saying just that, that we should have the highest
standards possible. But why should legislators decide on
learning assessments over educators? And should new
directives come with more funding like the $50 million for
phonics instruction. >> I don't think you can
conflate the two issues of saying it should come with with
more funding. I mean, why should we get involved? Well, honestly,
I wish we wouldn't have to. This was done in a closed situation
where these there is a list of just under 100 administrators or
school officials or people that they talk to for this process,
but they they did this in a vacuum, and it came out and it
came out, you know, let's be honest, politics is part of
everything. Came out in a in a very weird time to roll back
these standards, to make our kids look better, which in
effect, it did in an election year for the superintendent.
That's a little odd, but what perked my ears was the my
superintendent saying, we don't agree with this. We have. We
weren't part of this. We don't know where this came from. And
then when you have the governor first saying flat out, you know,
because those were his standards that he said she, she, they
rolled back the Department of Public Instruction, rolled back
the governor's standards, the education governor. So he caught
my interest when he said we shouldn't be lowering, we should
be expecting high standards. And then he kind of pivoted a little
bit to criticizing the process that it was done behind closed
doors without any input from stakeholders. And he was right
on both counts. >> And apart from the scoring,
why does the bill also call to revert back to how the scores
are described? For example, instead of below Basic as
previously to developing. >> Just to go back for
consistency. And one of the things that I had heard in an
interview was, well, you know, if you tell a parent that their
kid is below basic, that's, that's harmful, that's that's
hurtful language, that's I'm sorry, that's just weak sauce to
me. That's, that's that's soft. As I said in the in the
committee hearing, you know what? You know what hurts the
kids social, you know, mental health and hurts a kid in the
classes when he can't read. And we should be focusing on that
rather than what these labels say. And like I said, it goes
back the reason why we went back is we it's almost like just a
reset point. And unfortunately we're going to lose this year's
data. But I think it's worth it to go back and create some
consistency. And also create it so we can compare ourselves with
Naep, the national standards, and see how we're doing. How do
we possibly know when you're talking about investing billions
of dollars in education? What is the return going? How are our
kids doing? How are these educators using those dollars
that we commit to make sure our kids can read? And the troubling
part about it is this whole issue about rolling back the
standards came when the Nape scores came out this week, and
it should be a shock for everybody. It the numbers in
Milwaukee are, you know, we're talking the worst scoring for
fourth graders in the nation for Black kids in Milwaukee. The
achievement gap is still the lowest in the country. But the
eighth grade, eighth grade kids are also just just floundering.
And it shouldn't be acceptable to anybody. And you can't, you
know, the old line I was I was joking. It's Super Bowl week.
You can't can't achieve perfection if you don't strive
for excellence. You know, if you strive for strive for
perfection, you reach excellence. That's what Vince
Lombardi always said. And I think it's right on this count.
We should be expecting more. >> We need to leave it there.
Senator John Jagler, thanks very much.
>> Appreciate it. >> Banner headlines of 25%
tariffs on Mexico and Canada from President Trump one day.
Then an about face. And they're on pause for 30 days. And across
the board additional 10% U.S. Tariff on China remains in plac.
Unsettled times and fast moving. What's the reaction in the
business community in Wisconsin for that, we turn to Kurt Bauer,
president and CEO of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. And
>> My pleasure. >> So last weekend, when you
heard the news of the 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico, what was
your reaction? >> Not a surprise. He campaigned
on this. We knew something was coming. We weren't sure exactly
how broad it was going to be. We thought it was a negotiating
tactic, particularly with Canada. We thought that there'd
be something more with Mexico. We obviously thought something
was going to happen with China, but it was a little broader than
we thought. >> How relieved were you then
when it was kind of pulled back? >> I think the pause is good.
I'm concerned the retaliatory tariffs would be rough on
Wisconsin. We are a manufacturing state. We are a
agricultural state. We make things, we process things, we
grow things, and we export them around the world. Canada is our
number one trading partner. We have a positive trade with them
right now. The second largest is Mexico and then China. So all
three are on the chopping block. They account for about 50% of
Wisconsin exports. So this could have a very significant impact
on the state of Wisconsin and our manufacturing and
agricultural industries. >> So it's apparently a 30 day
pause. Do you think it will be reenacted?
of talking across the border. I've talked with my counterparts
in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. We have a very strong
relationships among the trade associations across the border.
We're doing everything we can to try and work something out as
best we can. Ultimately, this is up to the president. He does
have the authority to do this, and we're hoping that we're able
to work out some sort of deal. And it looks like, you know, you
got Mexico and Canada, made some accommodations. We're seeing
that from other countries as well. So hopefully this will
work out and we won't have tariffs and we won't have a
trade war. >> Yeah. If business moves
uncertainty though. What's this climate like.
>> Well that's funny you should say that because business is
inherently uncertain. And this government shouldn't make it
worse. This certainly does. We saw during Covid 19 that
businesses were incredibly resilient. They were adaptable.
They'll have to be again, if this goes into place. The
concern we have is supply chain and energy. We get a lot of our
energy from Canada, particularly Alberta. We don't want those
flows cut off that will have a major impact on the cost of
energy in the state of Wisconsin. Supply chains are
difficult as well. You can't create a supply chain,
particularly on precise products and raw materials. So, you know,
there are we have skin in the game, to be sure.
>> What about the additional 10% tariff on China?
>> Well, we've seen a lot of our members moving away from China
for a variety of different reasons. China has not been a
good actor on trade. They have manipulated their currency. They
have stolen IP, they've forced tech transfers in exchange for
market access. They've subsidized their industries.
They have dumped into the United States to put American
competitors out of business. So 86% of my members support
tariffs on China because they don't believe that they've been
a fair player in trade. Look, we're a manufacturing state, as
I said earlier, we're an agricultural state. We want to
sell to the world, but we want it to be on a fair and equal
basis. to Wisconsin if the Canada and
Mexico tariffs or a trade war does happen?
>> It depends on how long it lasts. It depends on
specifically what. But it would certainly have an impact and
we'd see it right away. It depends on the industry. But
most businesses, most sectors would see some effect right
away. And of course that would trickle down to consumers as
well. what should consumers brace for?
>> Well, let's hope that we don't have to brace for
anything. But it's hard to know. I think gas prices would
probably go up. You'd see impact on products and maybe some
agricultural products that we bring up from Mexico. I was
thinking of the Super Bowl. If you want your guacamole,
avocados largely come from Mexico. All of that could be
higher prices. >> Briefly, you said you were in
Washington this week. Have you spoken with the Trump
administration about this and >> We had a delegation at the
white House this week. We did talk about it. I was not there.
I was at the Pentagon having a different conversation, not
Hill talking to the delegation. They're concerned about it. They
certainly recognize that Wisconsin is a major
manufacturing and agricultural state. They know the stakes.
>> All right. Kurt Bauer, thanks very much.
>> My pleasure. >> A President Trump executive
order late last month suspended refugee admissions to the U.S.
And resettlement funds. Last year, more than 1500 refugees
from all over the world settled in Wisconsin. The Christian
humanitarian nonprofit Refugee Resettlement agency World Relief
operates in the Fox Valley and Chippewa Valley in Wisconsin. We
turn to Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy
at World Relief. For more on this situation. And thanks very
much for being here. >> Yeah, I'm so glad I can be
with you. >> So we understand that
refugees ready to travel to the U.S. Had their flights canceled
when this executive order came, came down. Was your agency in
Wisconsin expecting people on those flights or flights in
subsequent days? >> Yeah. I mean, we had travel
that was that was confirmed. Of course, we were aware that the
president might do something similar to what President Trump
did back in 2017. So I think we had we're aware of this being a
possibility of suspending refugee resettlement. And in
cases where it was family reunification, where we've got
somebody in Wisconsin who was waiting to be reunited to a
loved one, you know, I think we would have at least shared that
we're concerned that this could be a possibility, but that
doesn't do anything to change the devastation when a family
that in some cases might have been waiting for a decade.
Apart, often with that loved one stuck in a refugee camp
overseas, and that travel had to be canceled. And we are hopeful
and prayerful that the president will resume refugee resettlement
after the initial 90 day suspension of resettlement that
was announced on his first day in office.
>> Because where does the suspension of the program leave
those people cleared to come here and those hoping to?
>> Yeah, it's it leaves them with a lot of uncertainty. And I
mean, frankly, refugees live in some of the most vulnerable
situations in the world. Often in camp settings, often in a
second country where they're being allowed to reside but not
to work lawfully, so not able to provide for themselves. So that
opportunity for resettlement to rebuild their lives in a state
like Wisconsin, while also contributing to the economy and
meeting key labor needs, is an incredible opportunity. And
we're just really devastated. And this includes people who are
allies of the US military from Afghanistan who are at risk
because of their service to the United States. Mission in
Afghanistan. It includes persecuted Christians and other
religious minorities who were persecuted for their faith in
their country of origin and were desperate for their religious
liberty that we offer here in the United States. So it is
really devastating. And again, we're really hoping and praying.
You know, President Trump has said that he values legal
immigration. He has talked as recently as in the last few days
about wanting to defend persecuted Christians. The
refugee resettlement program is an important way to be able to
do both those things. from the Trump administration,
or have you reached out to them on this?
>> We have, you know, we actually even before
inauguration, we had helped mobilize a Christian statement
on refugee resettlement. And we are an evangelical Christian
organization. So we've had more than 11,000 Christians around
the country. Sign on to a statement. Again, many of these
are people who voted for President Trump. This isn't
about Republicans or Democrats. But on this question of refugee
resettlement, this unequivocally legal form of immigration that
helps people who fled persecution, there's really
broad bipartisan support. But I would say, you know, we've
communicated that to the white House. The actually the
communication that we've received Post-inauguration has
been discouraging because we were actually told on January
24th, a few days after inauguration, that not only was
refugee resettlement being suspended going forward for at
least 90 days, which we had opposed but maybe anticipated
might be a possibility, but then we got word on the 24th of
January that we should stop all work to provide support for
refugees who had already been resettled in the previous 90
days in places like Appleton and Eau Claire and Oshkosh. And that
has put us in a really challenging situation because
we've committed to provide housing for those refugees in
Wisconsin. It's about 175 people. And that's, of course, a
lot of resources that we had expected the federal government
to follow through on their commitment for. And now we're
working with churches and others, individual donors to
meet that very significant gap. >> I understand that is about
175 refugees newly here that you were hoping to provide these
services for, and how much in in loss funding does that represent
for you? >> You know, I don't know the
specific figure for Wisconsin at the national level. It's we
estimate it's somewhere around $8 million that we are needing
to raise very quickly. That's not actually all the costs, but
to cover the most basic expenses for the roughly 4000 people that
we've resettled around the country. And again, 175 of those
are there in Wisconsin. And that, again, the biggest cost
there is rent. You can do the math on covering rent for 175
people for three months, which is what the federal government
committed to these people before they arrived and what we
committed to them as well. And we're doing our very best to
keep that commitment. We don't want to see anyone without
housing, and we want them to be able to be economically
self-sufficient. On month four and have a job and be able to
cover their own expenses. That's how this system usually works.
But when the government kind of pulls out of the public, part of
that public private partnership, we're relying very heavily on
churches and individual donors to help fill in those gaps.
>> All right. We need to leave it there. Matthew Soerens,
thanks very much, and thanks for your work.
>> 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. That's our program for
tonight. I'm Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.
[MUSIC]
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus Fund for
Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.