PBS Wisconsin Original production.
>> Madison officials cleared the memorial site,
where a police officer shot and killed a man in.
Candidates competing in the primary for governor make
their final bids to land on the November ballot.
[MUSIC] Good evening. I'm Zac
Schultz, filling in for Frederica Freyberg tonight
on here. And now, a final look at the candidates
running for governor ahead of Tuesday's partisan
primary election. And we'll examine the limits of First
Amendment rights as Madison police shut down the
protest encampment and the Lac du Flambeau band
asserting sovereignty around their reservation
leads to federal lawsuits. It's "Here& Now" for August
7th. >> Funding for Here and Now
is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and
Friends of PBS Wisconsin. >> It was just over a year
ago that Governor Tony Evers announced he would
not seek a third term in office. The number of
candidates seeking to replace him as the
Democratic nominee for governor eventually surged
to seven. But today there are just four left, and
after Tuesday night, the party will seek to unite
behind the winner against the Republican nominee, Tom
Tiffany. >> You know, I think right
now we are truly in a movement moment.
>> On a Wednesday night in July. There's a packed
house at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of
Ozaukee County. It's standing room only to hear
from Francesca Hong, the frontrunner in the
Democratic primary for governor.
>> I may not be the most polished candidate. I know
that there are questions about executive experience
and leadership. >> A democratic socialist,
Hong has served three terms in the state Assembly. Not
the typical resume for a gubernatorial candidate.
>> I would say one of the most powerful messages that
I carry with me in knowing that maybe this is time for
a leader like me. >> Hong has consistently
polled well ahead of the rest of the field, and her
political movement is built on bringing new people into
the voting booth. >> It's imperative that we
grow a coalition and the electorate for Democrats to
win power and maintain power. We have to make sure
that our coalition is multigenerational,
multi-faith and with representing zip codes from
all across the state. It's exciting to hear folks have
their plan to vote, and it's their first time to
vote. >> Democracy can be messy,
and. >> David Crowley is now
polling second. Just a few weeks after he was out of
the race altogether. He dropped out in early July
and endorsed Sara Rodriguez, but then got back in after
her campaign blew up a week later, this time with the
endorsement of Tony Evers. The in and out maneuver is
not recommended for candidates, but Crowley
probably got more attention than if he was in the race
the whole time. >> Hindsight is always 2020,
right? And so, you know, trying to, you know, wonder
what would have happened or how things would have
unfolded if I was in this race. We don't know. I
can't look into a crystal ball, but we did see a
resurgence of energy. I mean, I think we had more
people at our relaunch party that was at our
launch party. >> Campaigns change in very
short order. >> Joel Brennan and Kelda
Roys are the last two Democrats in the race. They
have consistently pulled in the low single digits and
share the idea that if more people knew their names,
they'd have more support. >> My challenge from the
beginning has been that I am just not as well known
as other candidates, not as well known in some parts of
the state. I think when people have seen and heard
from me, they understand my experience, the work that
I've done, the vision that I have, like I win over
lots of those people. >> We need a candidate at
the top of the ticket who will not only beat Tom
Tiffany, but help us deliver a Democratic
Assembly and Senate. And most importantly, we need
somebody who's actually capable of doing the job of
governing. >> Are we going to stop big
government socialism right here in Wisconsin? Yeah.
>> Waiting on the other side of the primary is Tom
Tiffany, a congressman from northern Wisconsin who is
largely unopposed in the Republican primary.
>> My mom quilts. [MUSIC]
>> I've been a dam tender, a boat captain and a girl
dad with perfect attendance at 20 nutcrackers.
[MUSIC] >> Tiffany's record in
Congress and the Wisconsin legislature before that
shows he's a far right conservative, but he's
spent millions introducing himself to the state as a
folksy everyman. >> Tom, you know mom's
gonna hold you to it. [MUSIC]
>> I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah. I mean, it
was one of the goals from the start was to make sure
that people got to meet me on my own terms.
>> Democrats have spent their millions on their own
ads, but aren't worried. Tiffany has gained too much
of an advantage. >> Tom Tiffany has been the
frontrunner presumptive nominee for months. To
still be doing intro ads is a little bit embarrassing.
>> Listen, I like old Fashioneds. I've got four
daughters and a son. I like going to The Nutcracker
with them. That is not what qualifies me to be governor.
>> We don't have to redefine. We just have to
make sure that people know who he is. Always been. And
like my grandma used to say, you know, when someone
shows you who they are the first time, you have to
believe them. >> Whoever wins this
primary is going to come out with wind at our back
with momentum, and then we'll be the time where Tom
Tiffany can't just look over his shoulder and talk
about his mother. He's going to have to look over
his shoulder and talk about Donald Trump.
>> After the primary, Tiffany's ads will have an
opponent to attack by name. And for his part, he says
he's not worried about which Democrat he faces.
>> There really isn't a dime's worth of difference
between the candidates. I mean, they're very similar,
and whoever comes out of the primary is going to be
advocating for the same stuff.
>> Reporting from Muskego. I'm Zac Schultz for Here
and now. In this week's Inside Wisconsin politics
had more to say on the two leading candidates. I'm
joined by NPR's Shawn Johnson, Anya van
Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer. >> It seems like just a few
weeks ago on this show, we were all kind of wondering
where all these candidates in this big primary fit.
What were their political lanes?
>> Well, I think you have the context of the national
political mood for primary voters, which are Democrats
that are mainly angry at Donald Trump and his
administration there. If you look at it in that
frame, the establishment's the bad guy. The
establishment is national Democrats who haven't done
enough to stand up to Trump. So tapping into those
voters meant you couldn't be the establishment
because then you were on the side of inertia. So
Francesca Hong clearly moved to the left. She was
going to fight, fight, fight. And a lot of the
other Democrats in this race were trying to
outflank her, and they just could not.
has a particularly kind of interesting personal
really sort of impoverished, challenged background in
Milwaukee. And so up until, you know, he dropped out
the first time in this race, he was kind of described as
potentially not electable because statewide, there's
a there's sometimes, you know, negative feelings
about Milwaukee. There is, you know, always the racial
element of the fact that there's never been a Black
man elected to statewide office in Wisconsin. So
there were all these questions about him. Then
he comes back with the endorsement of Tony Evers,
and all of a sudden he's described as the
establishment. It's a needle of I'm a viable
candidate, but I will also stand up to the things that
you're angry about. >> Crowley raised more than
twice as much money during the month of July. He
raised $776,000 thereabout, and Hong brought in around
$339,000. So that is a big sign that, at least in
terms of money, Crowley's campaign is getting some
backing. And the other sign that caught my attention
was Governor Tony Evers, you know, who endorsed
Crowley's campaign, which is definitely being framed
as an alternative to Francesca Hong. He also
gave $20,000 from his from Evers campaign account to
Crowley's campaign account. That's not a lot of money,
but it could be a signal to Evers donors, Evers
supporters that I'm not just saying I support this.
I'm putting my money behind it.
>> Francesca Hong is running a really unique,
strange race. She has not raised as much money, but
it doesn't seem to matter. She's making sort of
headlines on her own, sort of organically rather than
through these paid ways. And then all these other
candidates are just trying to kind of trying to to
catch up. >> And she's not putting
herself on TV, but other people are. You've had
these Republican groups consistently putting her in
TV ads, calling her liberal ahead of this primary.
>> She has spent $0 on television, which is just
unheard of in any type of serious race. And she's not
running just a serious race. She's running the leading
race. She's doing some, you know, digital media and
things like this. But a lot of her campaign is very
grassroots, very kind of door to door. And so you're
right, when we see if you see her face on your TV or
on your your YouTube, it is because these Republican
groups are paying for ads trying to get her over the
finish line because they think she's beatable. But
meanwhile, she kind of says, you know, thanks for for
calling attention to my policies.
>> You can get the full episode of Inside Wisconsin
Politics wherever you get your podcasts. Earlier this
week, Madison police in riot gear cleared out a
protest encampment at the intersection where an
officer shot and killed Corey Ruiz on July 22nd.
For at least two nights, protesters responded by
throwing rocks and setting fires in the street. More
than two dozen people have been arrested. In a written
statement, the Ruiz family denounced any affiliation
with the encampment, calling for people to be
peaceful. Here and now, reporter Murv Seymour was
on the scene and brings us this report.
>> I personally do not plan on leaving this space at
all. >> Going into the 13th day
of this protest. The week begins with tension and a
seeming clock ticking at the corners of Baldwin and
Williamson streets. Just how long could. And would
this intersection where Corey Ruiz was shot and
killed by a Madison police officer remain closed?
>> I've been here since the 22nd.
>> Some businesses stuck in the past still shut down as
city officials and protesters work to hash out
a resolution that comforts both sides. Some community
members demand a permanent memorial to honor Corey
Ruiz. City officials say they're open to that, but
want an end to the encampment.
>> And now the grief has turned into anger. Now,
because they're not moving swiftly enough.
>> That's what community activist Jackie Morris says
about police and the city's investigation. He and
others continue to demand that the unidentified
officer who pulled the trigger is arrested and
charged. >> As a community, what are
we doing here? >> Azrael JD, who goes by
the name spawn, wants to see more than that.
>> The perfect situation would be a complete end to
policing as we know it, at least in the city of
Madison. Policing should lie in the hands of the
community. >> I'm sure if they
arrested him right now, at this minute, all this would
go away with blink of an eye.
week, all four corners leading to the scene still
cut off by homemade blockades set up by
protesters made of cars, RVs, debris and at this
section, a bed of nails. >> What's his name?
>> A day before the two week mark of this
controversial shooting, in what seems like a blink of
an eye during a pre-dawn raid, a swarm of nearly 50
law enforcement officers sweep in, clearing out with
force what couldn't be cleared out with patience,
compromise or negotiations. >> By the time that I got
over here on all four of these corners, there were
dozens of cops out here, dozens on every single
corner. And the mayor has been like, oh, it's
dangerous. The businesses are against them. The
neighbors are against them. It's not sanitary. The food
isn't safe. But they always do that because they will
always paint out community protecting each other.
>> Can you guys move off the spot? I did.
>> Kern Latinos. >> Criticism over policing
in Madison makes its way all the way to leaders at
City Hall. >> How are we supposed to
build trust with this? How do you come back from this?
>> This week's virtual Common Council meeting
lasts more than seven hours. >> But my neighbors, the
people I care about, they are being terrorized every
day by these police officers.
>> Three minutes at a time. Almost 400 people
registered to speak, most in support of more trauma
inspired policing. >> People need to have more
of a grieving time for all this.
funding for. >> Oversight without
resources is not oversight. >> In her first briefing
with reporters flanked by the police chief and other
city leaders, the mayor admits there's work to be
done to better relationships between
police and the people they're sworn to protect.
>> I still believe that we will do better working
together than causing more harm and destruction. I
very much hope that our community can come together,
start listening to each other across difference.
Acknowledge some of the deep structural issues in
our society and focus on how we move forward.
>> I've identified some areas that I think we're
going to make immediate progress on, hopefully in
immediate steps, to do some restructuring to help us
get there. But that takes time. And the mayor's point,
it's it's near impossible to do it when you're in the
middle of a crisis. >> For most of the week,
traffic flows through this traumatized community
pretty much like normal. But the sense of permanent
peace and normalcy in and around this intersection
remains to be seen. >> The community needs some
kind of closure, and we need to be able to trust
the police, the ones who protect and serve us
instead of the community against the police, the
police against community. >> And that's something
both sides can agree on. Reporting from Madison. I'm
Murv Seymour for here and Now.
>> The First Amendment to the Constitution protects
our freedom of speech and the freedom to assembly,
including to protest. But what are the limits to
those rights? For that, we welcome. UW-Madison
political science professor Emeritus Howard Schweber.
Thanks for your time today. >> Well, thank you for
having me. initially took over the
intersection where a man was shot and killed by
police, they were assemble. Were they still
within their legal constitutional rights to be
in that public space? >> No. Or to put it
differently, not necessarily. So let's back
up a step. The way these kind of rules, the way
rights in general we talk about them is not in terms
of you have the right to do X, but in terms, can the
government stop you from doing X? It's always a
negative constraint on what the government may do with
the implication that anything that's not
left free to undertake. So the rules are the
government is perfectly free to make what are
called content neutral time, place and manner
regulations. And these are things like don't use
loudspeakers at night. Don't camp overnight in a
park. Those are actual old cases. So there's no
question that cities and states have the authority
to make those rules, so long as they're content
neutral. There are two complicating factors. One
is when a city or state makes these rules, they
have to be as little restrictive of expression
as is possible. The other complicating factor is
whatever rules are adopted, there has to be adequate
alternative avenues for expression. So those are
the broad general principles. And having said
all that, setting up an encampment that blocks
traffic and close businesses. Yeah, that's
very clearly something that is not protected by the
First Amendment and something the government is
perfectly free to put an end to.
>> So what happens then when a city doesn't enforce
those rules? >> Right. So and of course,
you know, I think we all recognize that the broader
context of this goes back to Black Lives Matter and
the pro-Palestinian encampments that got so
much attention during the 2024 presidential election,
in the first months of President Trump's term,
we've seen a growth, a considerable growth in the
last few years of protests and protests in the form of
encampment. It's just become a style of
protesting that's become popular. And one of the
problems that raises is precisely the problem you
just mentioned, which is and you're exactly right to
ask that question what happens if the application
of the rules I'm talking about the state is
inconsistent? What if some encampments allowed and
others, you know, are taken down? And that was
precisely the claim that was made in the case of the
of the pro-Palestinian encampments and pro-Israel
legislators and citizens who objected to the way
they were being treated. The claim was it was
inconsistent. These encampments were being
allowed. These students were being allowed were
being allowed, being permitted to be disruptive
in a way that other student protesters had not been. So
a city or state can run into trouble by showing
favoritism as well as disfavor. The flip side is
whether we're talking about a city or a university, or
a state government, or any police force. Discretion is
always part of the job description. Using your
judgment, deciding when to step in, deciding how much
leeway to allow. And that always opens the
possibility of someone claiming you're being
inconsistent. >> So we've talked about
the word encampment coming around in protest movements
more. And, you know, we can go back 15 years to the act
ten protests where the capital was occupied for
more than a month. There were protest zones within
there where the protesters themselves prevented media
from accessing certain halls, legislators from
getting to their offices. That was negotiated in
terms of how people would exit the capital, the
preservation of materials. There were very few arrests
down to the last handful of people brought out,
obviously, the Palestinian protest encampment on
UW-Madison required police intervention. This one did.
>> Well, we should be clear on this. The Palestinian
protest in Kamala Madison was tolerated for a
considerable period of time. The university and, you
know, this is the bind that they're in. They tried to
do this with a gentle hand. They tried to exercise
discretion to maximize the ability of students to
express themselves. They tried to find a balance
between allowing this, this expressive activity to go
forward while preventing disruption. But that
becomes the problem. So take Acton, for example,
many conservatives who oppose the protests who
supported Governor Walker were deeply upset. Why are
the police not throwing these people out? Why are
they letting these people occupy our Capitol building
and prevent the business of the government from going
forward? Would they do the same if this were the Ku
Klux Klan? And again, they're not wrong. The
answer, I hope, is no. So this just gets back to the
point I was making earlier. There is a history of
encampments and takeovers. In recent years,
governments have been wrestling with them, and
the politics around those government responses has
been so amplified and made so partizan and fraught
because of the way Trump treated those issues when
he ran for president in 2024, that now, you know,
all the cities, universities, states are on
tenterhooks trying to way to proceed. And the
error on the side of caution is intervening and
moving the encampments out rather than being unduly
tolerant. >> So kind of put a bow on
this in terms of the First Amendment and protesters,
well, it's my First Amendment rights. What is
the great confusion there that comes within the
bounds of your rights versus someone else's
rights? version is you have a right
to protest up to the point where you're disrupting
other people's ability to go about their day. This is
a simplistic, simplistic version, of course, but
it's not far off if you block streets, if you block
sidewalks, if you block access to businesses, if
you block people's ability to get out of their home,
if you disrupt the operation of classrooms,
for example, none of those is protected by the First
Amendment. The First right to express yourself
in ways that are peaceful and discursive. There
simply is no protection for engaging in, well, civil
disobedience. And the reason we call it civil
disobedience is that when you do that, when you
deliberately march into a racially segregated lunch
counter and integrate it, right, you acknowledge you
risk being arrested and suffering the punishment.
That's part of the whole civil disobedience paradigm.
And it's an honorable it can be a very honorable
thing. But there is not a First Amendment right to
engage in acts that would otherwise be crimes.
>> All right, Professor Schweber, thanks for your
time today. >> Another battle between
property owners in the Lac du Flambeau band of Lake
Superior Chippewa is in court. The tribe recently
declared non-Native peoples could not fish for walleye
and muskie in lakes within tribal territory. And
they're now facing a federal lawsuit. “Here&
Now” reporter Erica Ayisi traveled to the Northwoods
to hear how tribal members feel about their
sovereignty being challenged in court. This
report is in collaboration with Eich T, formerly
Indian Country, today. >> I feel strongly that
everyone needs to take care of what we have on earth.
That means our water, our land, and everyone's
well-being. >> Bagwajikwe Madosh is a
citizen of the Lac du Flambeau band of Lake
Superior Chippewa Indians, and she says she believes
in preserving Ojibwe traditions, which the Lac
du Flambeau tribe is defending in federal court.
>> Let us do what we know best replenish our lakes,
keep our grounds clean, our forests long.
>> Interlaken Lake is one of 19 lakes within the Lac
du Flambeau Reservation that a federal judge
temporarily blocked the tribe from, banning
nonmembers from fishing walleye and muskellunge in
fish. >> We replenish the fish,
we replenish, we take. >> DOGE says their fish
hatchery helps to maintain their stock, but says
there's concern about the fish population.
>> It's not what you use it and then go on with life
without knowing what's going to come next.
>> The state of Wisconsin sued the tribe for blocking
nonmembers from fishing in certain lakes. Tribal
President John Johnson said the fish population is
declining but needed to feed their 4000 tribal
members. change, a lot of it's
logging structure, infrastructure, everything
that goes on in our territory. We're here to
protect it. >> Madhosh says. There's
overfishing on their lakes and rivers.
>> We need to all limit what we take, you know, and
many people are taking what many people can have as
well. >> Flambeau Lake is also
mentioned in the lawsuit against the tribe.
>> Walz, which is Lake of the Flaming Torches.
>> Adrian King grew up here and has seen new neighbors
over the years. >> A lot of these are
non-native houses, as far as I know.
>> He says he supports the tribe in responding to a
second federal lawsuit involving the tribe, this
one filed by the White Sand Lake Association, a group
of non-Native homeowners who are suing the tribe for
access to use a boat launch on a private property on
the shoreline of White Sand Lake that's within the
reservation. >> At least, are
experimenting, are flexing their sovereignty a little
bit more. >> The tribe says the lake
is threatened by documented environmental concerns,
including the presence of Eurasian watermilfoil, an
invasive species under Wisconsin law, saying it
threatens their cultural resources along the
shoreline. >> However, the information
and data came from whether it was our own or the
state's, we, we. We pay attention to that.
>> According to the lawsuit, the association is asking
the Federal court to decide whether a tribal government
may regulate the activities of nonmembers on a fee.
Simple, privately owned land and navigable waters
in the state of Wisconsin. Tory Dolan, assistant
professor of law at the University of Wisconsin and
citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, says
the United States recognizes Indian tribes as
sovereign nations who have the right to govern
themselves, their members, and their territories.
>> It means that they're exercising their ability to
have a say over what happens in their territory
and in their community. >> When we talk about, they
can govern themselves. What does that mean for the
communities that are around them?
>> Generally, just being in tribal territory, you are
going to interact with tribal law in some capacity.
>> Dolan says the Lac du Flambeau reservation is
checkerboarded with non-tribal members
purchasing property there because of the Dawes Act or
General Allotment Act of 1887.
>> Congress created the Dawes Act, which authorized
Indian agents to go into tribal communities, parcel
out the communal land, sell the surplus.
>> In a different federal case. Last year, a judge
sided with non-tribal homeowners in a dispute
over access to four tribal roads that led to private
properties on the Lac du Flambeau reservation.
>> The Bureau of Indian Affairs approved these
easements, and once they expired, the tribe sought
to assert their property rights by closing these
roads. was motivated by a belief
that Native American Indians would die out,
assimilate or be indistinguishable from
non-Indian populations. >> That's why we have so
many legal and political issues today, because they
really didn't expect tribes and tribal people to endure.
>> Dolan says. She believes it's important.
>> Their ability to enforce their own laws means their
ability to continue to exist as a people, to
continue to exist in their territory and to protect
the area. >> King says. In times like
these, the different tribes in Wisconsin come together.
>> They feel a part of the tribe or a tribe, and they
want to do their part to protect it.
>> We as a people want to keep our earth as clean as
possible. >> Meadows says the pending
federal lawsuits involving the Lac du Flambeau are
about keeping their tribal sovereignty.
>> That's the main one that we need to keep for
ourselves. >> And maintaining their
culture. >> And for our children for
times coming in. >> Lac du Flambeau. I'm
Eric Ayisi for Here and Now and I see T.
>> For more on this and other issues facing
Wisconsin, visit our website at PBS
wisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That
is our program for tonight. Frederica Freyberg will be
back next week. I'm Zac Schultz have a great
weekend. [MUSIC]
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus
Fund for Journalism and friends of PBS Wisconsin.