PBS Wisconsin Original production.
>> Right now. Yes. [MUSIC]
than it should be, but we're going to end this
damn war with Iran, and we're going to get back to
economic prosperity and freedom.
>> Republicans rally their base and chart a course to
the November polls at their state convention. And
heading into Memorial Day weekend, a Wisconsin gem is
feared to one day be overrun by tourists. I'm
Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on "Here& Now",
Congresswoman Gwen Moore on the barrage of news coming
from Washington and congressional Republicans
gear up for election season. A federal bill to designate
the Apostle Islands as a national park faces local
opposition, and a single building provides a
multicampus haven for students with
neurodiversity. It's "Here& Now" for May
22nd. >> Funding for Here and Now
is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and
Friends of PBS Wisconsin. >> As Wisconsin and the
nation geared toward midterm elections, what are
voters to make of what goes on in Washington and how it
affects them? Or are they tuning out because of the
daily crush of headlines? There's the ongoing war in
Iran, prices at the pump and in the spring planting
fields. There is the nearly $1.8 billion anti
weaponisation fund that the president could give to
people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.
There is the significant narrowing of the Voting
Rights Act by conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court.
And the list goes on and on. We regularly like to touch
base with our congressional delegation for their news
and views. Over the past couple of weeks, we've
invited Wisconsin Republicans to share their
viewpoints without success. Tonight, we turn to fourth
District Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
And thanks very much for being here.
>> Always great to be with you, Fredricka.
>> So of all the news that is swirling, what stands
out for you as you represent your constituents?
>> Well, the thing that is obviously standing out to
me is just the unending crush, economic crush that
people are facing. Combination of the tariff
tariffs, the war on Iran, the erratic, mercurial
functioning of this president, him freezing
funds for essential services like daycare and
childcare. These are things that are disrupting
everyday Wisconsinites lives. The crisis with
health care and the doubling sometimes of
people's health care premiums, or the loss of
their health care premiums. You know, just the
aggregation of all these things is placing a huge
economic crush on families. And so that's the thing
that sort of stands out to me as the background for
all of the very particular things that are happening.
>> As to the ruling related to the Voting Rights Act,
that a majority minority district was an
unconstitutional racial gerrymander, what does that
mean to minority representation?
>> It means an awful lot. You know, the the 13th,
14th, 15th amendment, the 14th amendment of the
Constitution in particular, really guaranteed African
Americans equality. And we we have seen throughout
history, this is not new people. We have 'seen
throughout history sort of lost cause. You know,
Democrats and Republicans grieving over African
Americans having access to the ballot, access to power
and their willingness to sort of interfere with that
power by any means necessary. You know, the
rise of the Ku Klux Klan came as a result of African
Americans being enfranchised. And so this
is absolutely no this is a backlash for the power that
African Americans have achieved. And this could
have an impact on a minimum of 19 sort of voting,
voting rights districts in the country.
>> Turning to the war in Iran, the U.S. and Iran are
reportedly negotiating. Are members of Congress on both
sides tiring of this ongoing war and wanting a
say? >> Well, I'll tell you, we
have been putting up war powers resolutions,
repeatedly privileged resolutions, which, by the
way, the Republicans did not honor. Yesterday we had
yet another war Powers resolution ripen, and they
didn't put it before us because they in the House
did not have the votes to defeat it. We've seen more
and more and more Republicans join us in
putting forth this War Powers Resolution. To this
day, we don't have a concrete reason that we
went in there. >> On another matter in
your mind, should Congress have a say over the nearly
$1.8 billion fund that resulted out of a
settlement President Trump made with the IRS that
would pay people the administration believes
were unfairly prosecuted. >> It's all very ludicrous.
I bet Frederica you can't even believe that you're
asking this question. This $1.8 billion slush fund for
his cronies and his buddy and, you know, also a part
of that other part of that agreement is that Donald
Trump and his sons should never, ever, ever be
audited again. That is absolutely the pinnacle of
corruption. But as a member of the Ways and Means
Committee, we did we did offer in our markup
yesterday, which was on corruption of TANF, for
example, corruption. We did offer amendments to try to
get rid of this $1.8 billion fund.
>> Are your voters overwhelmed by the crush of
everything that happens out of Washington on a daily
basis? >> You want to know
something that I'll say? The whole political
strategy of the Trump administration has been to
flood the zone, to just keep us running like a rat
on a treadmill so that we won't be able to respond to
their chaotic, mercurial governance strategy. We are
hoping to get back into power to really resolve
some major threats to our community of interest. That
is the ability for people to vote, the ability of
people to be able to go to a doctor, the ability of
people to be able to afford, you know, both the bacon
and the eggs and, and to be able to live a productive
life, to be able to put gas in their cars so they can
get to work. This is this is a this is the American
dream just to have normalcy. And so this is what we're
offering voters in the future. And that is we're
keeping our eye on the prize.
>> Congresswoman Gwen Moore, we leave it there. Thank
you so much. >> Thank you.
>> Wisconsin Republicans did stake their opinions on
some of these issues during the state party convention,
where there was high praise for President Trump,
mentions of the culture war and an emphasis on kitchen
table issues. When asked what are the most pressing
priorities for Wisconsin voters, Congressman Derrick
Van Orden responded. >> It's gas. Groceries,
grandkids. Gas is going to start coming down E15 right
now. That's up to $0.30 a gallon less. The the war
that Iran declared on us is going to end. That's going
down. The input costs are already going down for
groceries. So everything is predicated on energy.
Energy production is going up. That means that the
input costs for agriculture going down the farm bill,
when signed into law, is going to help tremendously
lower the groceries part and then the grandkids. I
think Donald Trump is doing a fantastic job that that
implies the security, the security for our nation. So
there hasn't been a single illegal alien released into
the United States in a year. We got the Lake and Riley
Act passed. So if you're a criminal, illegal alien,
you know what? You're getting deported.
>> As the nation honors fallen service members this
Memorial Day on Monday, the tourism industry marks the
start of the summer season. A bill in the U.S. House
would re designate the Apostle Islands as
Wisconsin's first national park, the 21 islands and 12
miles of mainland off Lake Superior in northern
Wisconsin is already a national lakeshore.
Supporters say the designation as a national
park would boost tourism and local economies.
Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany introduced the
measure and it passed. Committee this spring. But
local governments in and around Bayfield County and
the Red Cliff band of Lake Superior Chippewa oppose
the redesignation. The county and the tribe
drafted a formal resolution together opposing it. We
asked Bayfield County Board Chair Jan Lee why. And
thanks very much for being here.
>> Thank you for having me. >> So we've done some
reporting in Bayfield, kind of during the summer season.
And the crush of tourists can be difficult for small
businesses there to manage. How would a national park
designation increase those crowds?
>> Yes. Thank you. So I think to to start, like you
said, the tourism area here in Bayfield, in particular
at the at the gateway to the Apostle Islands has
hasn't been a problem in the summertime. There's
never been a problem with not having enough tourists
up here in the late spring, summer, early fall,
basically through Apple Fest every first weekend of
October. As a matter of fact, we're pretty much
bursting at the seams in terms of what we can
accommodate in terms of lodging and restaurants.
And that affects workforce, of course. And we don't
have housing for people up here. It's hard to have to,
to to have workforce come in that can accommodate all
these tourists for the businesses. So and I know
that Mr. Tiffany has touted this redesignation as a
boon for tourism, but we're we're basically looking for
tourism in other directions. I, you know, I think as a
whole, we're, you know, we've done a lot of work
over the last 15 to 20 years trying to create
tourism as an industry up here, getting people all
the way up to northern Wisconsin to enjoy Lake
Superior and the inland lakes that we have. And,
and we've done a really good job of that. But what
we've really been trying to do is subsequently also is
to try to do that in the shoulder seasons and in the
winter, to expand tourism in those areas. And the big
problem with Mr. Tiffany's bill at this point in time
is that we don't know where the infrastructure is going
to come to support it. >> Infrastructure like
roads and lodging and parking. But but wouldn't
the Federal Park Service be responsible for that?
>> Well, we are responsible as a county for our roads
and I mean the highway department for our county
roads and county. Highway 13 is what gets you up to
Bayfield. It runs through Washburn, which is also a
small city about 12 miles south of Bayfield. And that
is also sort of a gateway point to the Apostle
Islands, as well as north of Bayfield, where the Red
Cliff Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe live. About two
miles north of Bayfield is where the reservation
starts. And they have treaty rights, of course,
to the area. The big. Another issue that we've
we've been sort of trying to address is the treaty
rights and the fact that we've. We've invited Mr.
Tiffany to come. We want to be a part of the dialog. We
want to share our concerns and our questions, have our
questions heard. But he hasn't come. And so we
received about a year and a half ago or we. And by that
I mean the County Board and the Red Cliff Tribal
Council first heard about Mr. Tiffany's bill
resolution H.R. 9111. And when we heard about it, we
found out that the resolution had basically
already been written and was already on its way to
Washington, D.C. without consultation with the
county board or the City of Bayfield or the Tribal
Council. And so we never got a chance to express our
concerns or ask our questions. And that pretty
much left us in an area of the only option that we
have left at the federal level is to enact some
resolution. So that's what we did. We don't normally
like to enact negative resolutions. We like to
work in the positive. And but this is an instance
where we felt that since we hadn't been heard or
consulted, that we really didn't have another option.
>> What would you be seeking from the federal
government or the Federal Park Service to make this
thing work? >> I think, first of all,
what we've never heard is an as a as a deeper
explanation of why the National Lakeshore
designation is already a part of the Park Service.
It's a part of the national parks programing of
designation of land matter and bodies of water. So.
And right now, as the National Lakeshore, it is
at one of the highest, if not the highest level of
protection, because it is a wild area. It's a it's a
wilderness area. Even though people live in these
small communities on the shoreline, the lake itself
and the islands are subject to very dramatic weather
shifts and very cold water that as as we know of
anybody who knows this area knows, has been responsible
for hundreds of deaths, either in ships or boats or
people out kayaking or, you know, canoeing, who aren't
familiar with how unpredictable this very big
lake, which is actually more of an inland sea, how
quickly the weather can change, how cold the water
is, and how prepared and knowledgeable you have to
be in order to embark on it. So that's one of our
concerns, is just the safety of it, of it all as
well. >> Well, we will we will
watch this bill as it as it moves through and prepare
to visit and do some field reporting up there.
>> We'd love to have you come up, take a look, enjoy.
The area. >> All right. Jan Lee from
Bayfield County. Thanks very much.
>> Thank you. >> Our political reporters
covered Tom Tiffany at the state GOP convention, as he
was officially endorsed as the Republican candidate
for governor. Tiffany was also in the mix during last
week's failed vote at the Capitol over tax relief and
public school funding, purportedly calling
lawmakers to kill the deal. A new report out of the
Legislative Fiscal Bureau says if it had passed, it
could have put the state's budget in a nearly $3
billion deficit in a few years. Let's hear what they
had to say about it on this week's Inside Wisconsin
politics. >> I think when you're
looking at a 2.95 billion projected budget deficit at
the end of the next two year budget, not the one we
are now, but the one after that feels real to me. And
I mean, just looking through those numbers,
right? >> And, you know, the sort
of important caveat is that that number from the
Legislative Fiscal Bureau doesn't take into account
the fact that we are in a period of sort of
remarkable economic so it says that we would
have that deficit, that sort of almost $3 billion
deficit were this to have passed. And that's not
accounting for potential changes to tax revenue, to
the fact that there's like a war going on right now
that is affecting oil and gas prices, all these
different things. And so from all of the Democrats
who voted against it, and then also from the
Republicans who voted concern about the cost of
this thing, which was kind of nebulous. And so even
with those kind of firmer numbers, it, you know,
justifies, I think, what some of those lawmakers
were saying on the floor. But it also kind of points
to this, again, political gamesmanship that we often
see when it comes to appropriations, which is
what is what is our money for? What is our state
surplus for? Is it for things like this? Is it to
have kind of in our back pockets? And so there was
that was really the contours of the fight.
>> We had a state GOP convention over this past
weekend. Tom Tiffany is now the endorsed candidate. He
doesn't have to worry about a primary the way that the
candidates had to in 2022, so he can focus on the
general election now. And yet, Zac, we're talking
about the 2020 election here. What is Tom Tiffany
talking about? >> He cannot get away from
Trump's main grievance, which is the fact that he
lost to Joe Biden in 2020. And because he still has
such a powerful grip over the Republican Party
nationally, which we just saw in Republican primaries
in Kentucky and in Louisiana, Senate races,
that his people have to fall in line on his beliefs
or his incorrect beliefs that the 2020 election was
stolen. So Tom Tiffany is still answering questions
about election fraud investigations and whether
Joe Biden won the election with, you know, kind of
diffusing or deferring and trying to get away from it
because he can't come out and honestly say, no, of
course Trump lost. That's been warranted over and
over. Every Republican group out there, from Vos
to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has
already said so. And that is something that Democrats
love to hear, because they will continue to hang that
around his neck all the way to November as much as they
possibly can, the closer they tie him to Donald
Trump. And these grievances from four years, six years
ago now that the better off it is for them.
>> And Anya, just real quick, I mean, it seems
like this is an issue where as much as he wants to go
for those handful of voters who are in the middle, this
is a line that he can't cross as far as Republicans
are concerned. >> Yeah. I mean, I think
one of the lessons from this week is that in state
politics, it's not the time if you are a Republican to
be bucking Trump. And so we are seeing him sort of tie
himself again to this issue. And it'll be interesting to
see how much does that motivate his Republican
that turn off those moderate voters and
>> When it comes to college life? Burlington, Vermont,
city of Madison are connected by one house
Mansfield Hall tonight, "Here& Now". Reporter Murv
Seymour takes us inside the dorm that provides a one of
a kind college experience for students in all three
states. >> I would love a giant MH
out front to match the other Greek letters.
>> Nestled on the busy street known as Fraternity
Road near UW-Madison. >> You find a community.
>> Here is a former frat house.
>> We are college housing that is a lot more than
just college housing. >> That is home away from
home. >> You don't just live here.
You thrive here. >> I'm Ashley. I'm from
Chicago. The city of Chicago. And this is
Mansfield Hall. >> Mansfield Hall is a
living and learning community that serves
college students that are neurodiverse or diverse
learners. It can include someone with ADHD, autism,
any kind of learning difference like dysgraphia
or dyslexia, processing disorders, anxiety.
>> Oh, here we go. >> This is brilliant. Good
find. >> I'm glad I thought of
this. students. We have students
from around the country. We support students at Madison
College, at Edgewood University, and at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison. It can look like
course planning. We do student life support, med
management, learning how to cook, learning how to make
friends, learning how to communicate, executive
functioning. So setting up systems of support for
yourself. >> Because your Edgewood is
probably going to be first week.
>> This floor is all bedrooms. And of course
this one is mine. So come on in.
>> At this super dorm. >> It's almost like it was
written in the stars. >> As it's sometimes called.
Sure, you'll find plenty of puzzles and games.
>> Oh, okay. There. Because they are weighted
differently. That's what changed.
>> But they do business here too. There are nearly
two dozen students here. Don't just learn to learn
more independently. >> And I just need to see
the numbers and how they. What happens? Yeah, yeah.
>> You need the steps. >> They learn life lessons
that help them live more independently.
class either. So I really don't want to have to take
something like that again. >> UW film student Han
Schuberth gets one on one help planning her class
schedule. >> Any props and successes
of the day. >> Gavin Speranza leads the
weekly community group. >> Well, yeah, because that
turns into 3/6. >> Isaac Moore works
through complex math equations during what's
called Stemtown Katy. >> How did marketing turn
out for you? >> A weekly tutoring
session for those who need help with science.
>> You still got a 92, though. That's awesome.
>> Technology in math. >> What worked? Like what?
What helped overcome the testing anxiety. Just
prepared. >> The staff here are super
helpful. >> Alissa, Sarah, Naomi.
Eric and Koko. The canine who casually provides
therapy for the house as needed. Are some of the
almost two dozen staff at Mansfield Hall. Isaac Moore
tells me he lives with Attention Deficit disorder.
For him, it's hard to focus and stay organized.
>> It never really impacted my school, so there was
never any reason to like, change it. You know, I
would still do well on my tests and stuff. And so it
was like, whatever. But here, like, I really do
have to like, you know, I have a schedule and I have
like a meeting with Eric once a week to make sure
that I'm like, if I have any questions with math,
I'm getting those done. I have like Google calendar
now, so all my classes are in there. So like I get
reminders 30 minutes before class. I have this class on
this day. I have like due dates in my Google calendar
and stuff. I keep my work more organized. Like it's
not just chicken scratch on eight different papers.
>> Mansfield Hall also provides support that helps
students transition from living at their house here
on Fraternity Row, before they step out into the
community, which helps them to step out in the real
world to live on their own once they leave college.
>> I moved into a residence hall at Edgewood.
>> Soon, Bennett Davishoff will graduate and live in
his first apartment. He's in what's called the
Connections program at Mansfield Hall, designed
for students making the transition away from dorm
life to living on their own or with a roommate.
>> I think it's going to be very challenging, very
tough. But I'm willing to. But I'm excited to give it
a try because I because I've always wanted to live
independently and I have some symptoms of OCD, ADHD,
and autism. And I can be a perfectionist with the way
things look in my room. I like things to look orderly
and clean, which is also a good thing, but it can also
be hard. >> What isn't hard?
>> Give a big round of applause for all of our
volunteers today that came in volunteering. Thank you.
>> We don't have chocolate milk right now, but we do
have no fat. I think. >> The Senior center in
Madison is one of many organizations around town
where people from Mansfield Hall lend a helping hand
every week. >> Oh yeah. Definitely.
Where are the milks? >> Aiden Mattingly and
everyone else say giving back helps them get job
ready. >> Bandana person wants
salt and pepper. >> And it helps them gain
something else. >> I'd say the social
skills really it really helps with like talking
with people. And I mean like everyone here is
really friendly. >> And some of those skills
can go from volunteering, can go out, can be utilized
in when applying for jobs. >> Can give you the
troublemaker ticket. Oh. >> One of the senior
centers lead volunteers Kat Hemming loves to give. And
she loves the crew at Mansfield Hall. Without the
help of Aiden and the others.
>> All right, let's go to the next table.
>> She says they would probably only have two
volunteers. >> Having the volunteers
come in, not only do they talk to the to the seniors
and it has more interaction. It's a lot more exciting.
And they really help. And they're not just I know it
helps them, but it helps us as well.
>> I also don't want to take myself out of this
class. >> Yeah, I wouldn't either.
>> Did I tell you all my second exam scores.
>> For your current classes? No.
Hall is straightforward. >> To provide equitable
access to higher education and to prepare young adults
for the world that can be getting a certificate. It
can be getting an associate's, a bachelor's,
a master's. It can be learning to make a friend
group for the first time and just try out college
courses. It can be finding something they're
passionate about, feeling seen and heard for the
first time. >> Now.
>> For students to make the most out of being part of
the Mansfield Hall family. Kirstin Bowns hopes every
one of them will. >> Lean into it. We're not
writing the script. We're just supporting their story.
>> Reporting from Madison. I'm Murv Seymour for Here
and Now. >> For more on this and
other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our
website at PBS Wisconsin Education 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.