>> Do you have questions about Wisconsin government
and politics? If so, you are definitely not alone.
And this week we're going to answer a few from our
audience about polarization, social media, and money.
This is inside Wisconsin politics.
I'm Shawn Johnson here with my colleague Zac
Schultz and Rich Kremer in
Eau Claire. Hey, guys. Hello.
>> Hey, Shawn.
>> So we want to say up front that if you have
questions, you should email us at Inside Wisconsin
politics@wpwr.org. But the questions we're going to
talk about today didn't just come out of nowhere.
It turns out Anthony Chergosky, a professor of
political science at the University of Wisconsin, La
Crosse, watches our show, and he watches it with his
students in his legislative process class. We talked to
Professor Chergosky a lot. He suggested his students
could ask us questions, and he helped set that up. A
couple of the students submitted their questions
by video, including Riley Bickelhaupt, who wanted to
know about political polarization.
>> Hi guys. My name is Riley. I'm a freshman at
the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse I'm studying
political science in Spanish with a minor in
legal studies. My question for you guys today is, how
do you think the ongoing political polarization in
Wisconsin affects the bipartisan legislation?
>> Zac, I feel like there are layers to this answer,
which is kind of like we the reason we like the
question. So where would you begin to answer Riley
here. >> Last semester and then
hope that their time doesn't run out before
summer starts. This is a huge question. It's a good
question, Riley. The first thing you have to do is
define is what is bipartisan. Because
technically one Democrat joins the Republicans. It's
a bipartisan bill. Even if all the rest of them oppose
it. So it can really stretch the definition. And
Shawn you remember back, you know, 20 years ago
under Jim Doyle, at the end of the year interviews,
we'd talk about like controversy in the Capitol.
He'd say, 90% of the bills we pass are bipartisan. And
those statistics are true. Most of those bills are
really minor. Some technical adjustments. Some
of those really aren't controversial at all. So
they are overwhelmingly bipartisan. But the ones
that get our attention, the ones that we track and we
follow, are very contentious. And yes,
political polarization absolutely factors into the
image that your audience or their voters at home will
view. What happens if they let something pass. And
that goes through leadership all the way down.
I can tell you for certain that Robin Vos, as Assembly
speaker, knew exactly which districts he had to worry
about more vulnerable members, and he would let
them vote against Republican bills because he
knew that they had to show they were more moderate or
more bipartisan in those areas, or bills that were
going to pass. They got to be cosigners on so that
they could say, I helped pass this legislation. So
there's a lot of tricks and details into what is
bipartisan, but absolutely, there's only one bill that
needs to be passed each legislative session, and
that's the budget. So, Shawn, my question to you
is, if only Republicans in the legislature vote for
the budget, all Democrats vote against it. But
Governor Evers signs it. Is it not bipartisan?
>> I think it is, yes. I think that the Democratic
lawmakers in that situation have the luxury of knowing
that their governor's back there to make the call that
needs to be made. And if they have issues with it,
they can go to the governor and say, hey, maybe take
this out or reword this with your your partial veto,
governor. So I think that's an example of, of a
bipartisan budget. And I think, as you've seen, the
Republican margins shrink, you have seen more
Democratic votes on those budgets, too, because you
have some of those lawmakers, like you talked
about under this new map, you have lawmakers that are
more inclined to represent a 5050 district. And what
do you hear from them when they are campaigning? We
want to work across the aisle. That is a go to
message. Rich, how about you? When it comes to
bipartisanship and Riley's question, what stands out
to you? >> So I think what you've
both said is totally accurate. One of the things
that's a couple things that stick out to me is when
there are these bipartisan bills that get our
attention because they are major, you know, policy
issues. It seems like the compromise falls under a
couple categories. It's fear or favor. So I think
of when the the Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal
majority struck down Republican drawn
legislative voting districts as
unconstitutional. Shortly after Republicans actually
voted for maps that were drawn by Governor Tony
Evers when they were opposed to the the the
court case. I mean, they were opposed to these maps
all along, but yet they voted for the ones from the
governor. Why would they do that? Well, one of the
theories is that they feared that the Supreme
Court justices, liberal majority, might draw maps
that are more favorable to Democrats than what they
ended up passing from Evers. So and then when it comes
to favor, I think of a bill that passed in and was
signed into law this past session that started out as
a Republican bill banning people, getting people from
purchasing soda or candy with federal food
assistance. Democrats hated the bill, but it was
amended, and Democrats wanted to get a lot of new
funding and positions for the Department of Health
Services so that it can comply with federal changes
to the Food assistance program and avoid putting
the entire program at risk. Republicans on their own
weren't interested in that, but this bill morphed into
a soda and candy ban, plus $72 million for the
Department of Health Services. So that's one of
those favor for favor kind of bills.
>> I think the one thing that I would like to impart
upon people who feel like you look around the
politics today and it feels extremely polarized. I
think that, yes, some Democrats and some
Republicans legitimately hate the other party. And
in no uncertain terms, I think the Wisconsin
legislature has a lot of moments, though, of actual
bipartisanship. I think about the local government
funding bill that they passed shared revenue Weid
call it. I mean, I cannot believe that they did that.
Republicans and Democrats that raised sales taxes in
Milwaukee. That's something that you never could have
imagined the Republican Party doing years ago. But
in Evers second term, it seems like he's been able
to cut those deals. And particularly since he got
these new maps, he's been able to to cut those deals.
And as you alluded to, Zac Rothman Vos sometimes
quotes this to 95%, I think is the number he gives of
the bills that they pass in the Wisconsin legislature
are bipartisan because, yeah, the legislature
passes a lot of bills that are incremental, and we
don't write about them. We don't talk about them as
much, but they're there. They do pass a lot of stuff
that is not a knock down, drag out fight.
>> And I think we saw two milestone shifts that have
occurred over Governor Evers time in office, where
this really came to the head, where Republican
legislature had to work with the Democratic
governor in the first term, Republicans were bound,
determined to give the governor nothing. They sent
him a budget and said, we dare you to sign this. And
over and over, Democrats could not get their bills
to come to committee, couldn't get a hearing,
never got to the floor. In fact, if Democrats wanted a
bill to pass, they would go find a Republican they
could work with, and they would have them become the
sponsor. So they had to, like, give the Republican
credit in order to get it somewhere. And that was in
order to make Governor Evers look bad, to weaken
him for reelection. But then when he won in 2022,
Republicans realized, well, years. So it doesn't make
sense to keep spiting ourselves. Let's see if we
can get done. And so there was a change there. And
then the other thing that Rich pointed out is when
the maps changed, we saw the electorate change
politicians, and we saw more people running to the
middle because they needed to, if they wanted to keep
their majority and keep that seat. And so we saw
more effort to bring things to the floor. And the
question that kind of gets back to the heart of what
Riley's been looking at is there's a federal image of
polarization. There's the theater that comes out of
press releases that we see from politicians. And then
there's the reality of what it looks like at the end of
the day in the chamber, when they all walk off the
floor back into the assembly parlor where the
cameras aren't, and we're allowed to get a little
glimpse of them laughing, drinking coffee together,
shaking hands. It's nowhere near the old days where
they would go drink beer afterwards at the bars, but
they still do communicate. A lot of the anger is
theater for their voters or for the media.
>> There is. They are actually people, it turns
out, who talk to each other sometimes, especially back
in that chamber. As you mentioned, Riley had kind
of a we'll call it a part two to that. It's a follow
up question. This was submitted by email. Riley
asks, how would you describe the effects of
social media and misinformation on the
political environment in Wisconsin? Rich, let's go
to you first on this one. How are social media and
misinformation affecting everything in Wisconsin,
but especially our politics? >> In a big way? I mean,
the the immediate example that comes to mind is
President Donald Trump's, you know, false claims
about the 2020 election being stolen from him
through massive fraud in states like Wisconsin. So
he began tweeting about that and has kept it up
essentially ever since. So one of those tweets was a
direct threat to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, where he
said, look, decertify the election or else, you know,
someone's going to run a primary against you. And
that ended up happening. You know, Vos said that
it's impossible to decertify the election.
Eventually, there was a recall effort, and the the
challenger to Vos was endorsed by President
Donald Trump and almost won. I mean, Vos Vos victory was
less than 300 votes. So that would have had a
really big impact on just the business of the
Assembly and the legislature as a whole. So
that's one concrete example. But there's all sorts of
others. You know, I also I spent a lot of time on
social media X Twitter, whatever you want to call
it. first for a reason, buddy.
>> Yeah. So I mean, it's, it's not real life compared
to people you meet on the street or, you know, but
also it bleeds into it. And one example is, you know,
these young conservatives turning point, they're very,
very focused on social media. That's how they get
the message out about candidates. That's how they
get their gentle threats against lawmakers or party
officials that aren't doing what they think they should
do. So it does bleed over into real life. But also
there's an aspect of it being totally online and in
its own universe. >> We had another question
from Anthony Chergosky class. This one came from
Kiley Skenandore, a junior studying political science
and criminal justice. She asks, do you think more
ideologically extreme candidates hurt their party
in a state like Wisconsin, or do these candidates help
their party win? Zac, will we get an answer to this
one once and for all this November?
>> Yes and no. And the reason for that is once
somebody wins, they are the definition of their party.
And certainly for governor. At one point in time, Tom
Tiffany was one of the more right leaning Moore. You
could label him an extreme. He was one of the early
ones to cozy up to Donald Trump and the Maga movement.
He was on the far right of the Republican
congressional delegation and certainly Republicans
within the state. Now, he is likely the frontrunner
to be the Republican nominee for governor. And
if he wins, he will be the face of the Republican
Party. And so that shift that occurs means it's no
longer about what is extremism, because the
voters will vote for whoever they think you know,
favors them. And politicians redefine their
own image all the time. We saw another Democrat enter
the field for Governor Kirk Bangstad, who has a pretty
tawdry history with with Democrats themselves
starting Minocqua and lawsuits. And I think he
was arrested and he's on the outs with a lot of
these candidates. And he decided recently he was
going to run for governor, enter the field. And he did
not get the same cordial welcome that the other
Democrats did when they announced last year. And he
would definitely be considered on the left and
a little more of an extreme candidate by most people's
views of what is a centrist, moderate, or even a far
left Democrat today. That doesn't mean Republicans
won't try and use it against the whole field,
the same way that Democrats are going to use Donald
Trump and his connections to Tom Tiffany against him.
But it will be. How will the candidate that emerges
be able to redefine themselves as the face of
the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?
>> And he announced for governor shortly after he
was visited by federal agents after promising,
among other things, to offer free beer when Donald
Trump dies. This was after the most recent
assassination attempt. >> So a perfect example of
what Rick is talking about in social media, being a
little bit of a toxic place, and going right back to
Riley's first question about political
polarization. It occurs in social media, and it does
bleed over into the real world.
>> To me, I think this question really kind of
boils down to the word extreme, which is always in
the eye of the beholder. You know, like you
mentioned, once somebody wins, they're they've
become normal. You know, you just become accustomed
to that. But I think in 2016, a lot of Democrats, a
lot of Republicans certainly considered Donald
Trump to be on the extreme end of things. It worked
for him. You know, it continues to work for him.
And when he's not on the ballot now, Republicans
suffer because that's what his voters are looking for.
So there's an example where even in a 5050 state like
Wisconsin, where you imagine somebody kind of,
you know, wanting to aim for that middle, the more
extreme candidate, you know, sometimes is the one who
carries the day. Rich real quick on this one.
>> Yeah. I wanted to point to, you know, we've got
Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden. He's
said a lot of inflammatory things. He's on social
media a lot. Thousands and thousands of tweets
probably, and Democrats call him extreme, but he's
won reelection. And some conservatives in the third
Congressional District like that. They like that about
him. They like that about Trump. They they feel that
that means they're authentic and that they're
not listening to the consultant class in
crafting their messaging. >> All right. I think we
need to move on. We're going to shift gears a bit
with our last question this week, which comes to us on
video. It's about political spending.
I'm studying political science and public
administration at UW La Crosse my question today is
with concerns about campaign spending in recent
Wisconsin state Supreme Court elections, how a
stricter recusal rules change judicial elections
when new rules reduce direct campaign
contributions to candidates, or would they shift
spending towards outside groups such as PACs or
political action committees? >> So recusal, the idea
that when you've got a stake in the case and
you're a judge, you step out of that case. Rich,
that's just a theoretical %
question. Supreme Court justices might consider it
soon. Right? >> That's right. There's a
rule petition proposal before the Supreme Court
brought by a group of retired judges. And
essentially, it would mandate that justices
recuse themselves if there are reasonable concerns
about donations they got during their campaigns
affecting cases. Essentially, if those
donations come from parties to the case, lawyers, what
have you. But the the the twist is, is that it's
still up to the individual judge or justice themselves
to decide whether or not to recuse. And this rule
proposal doesn't include any set dollar limits that
was attempted in a 2017 rule proposal that was
rejected by the Supreme Court's former conservative
majority. But now we've got a Liberal majority, and
they've been more open to the idea of some sort of
change. But in a lot of ways, this current rule
would be very similar to what exists right now on
the books. >> Zac, for somebody out
there that's just kind of wondering like, why don't
justices just adopt a strong recusal rule, put a
set dollar amount on it and say, I'm out? If we get
above that. >> There are so many
reasons why that does not work. The first is simply
inflation. I mean, a reasonable number that we
all could have agreed on ten years ago would be
pennies. Today, when you're talking about 50 and $100
million races, which is not this one, but the last two
and the other one is we now have a loophole in place
for fundraising for these judicial candidates that
did not exist 20 years ago. It was actually passed by
Scott Walker and the Republicans. But it allows
anyone to give as much money as they want to the
political party who can then donate that money as
much as they want to the candidate. And the reason
why giving money to the candidate is better than an
outside PAC, which is part of the question is the
candidate gets a better ad rate so they can buy more
TV ads, more online ads for their for their dollar. So
it's much more effective for them to keep doing it
that way and finding what is the actual number,
especially if it gets funneled through a party,
is a really difficult question to ask. And it
brings up the idea of what a group try and donate to
their opposite opposing person in the hopes of
spiking them off a future case.
say who are skeptical of this. Like, we can't do
that. They'll play games. >> Yeah. So it really is a
thorny question. There's not a simple answer. And
unfortunately, well, it comes down to the integrity
of the justice. And that's where historically it
>> Do we see a lot of recusals on this though?
>> Once in a great while, but not on funding.
>> All right. That's all the time we have for today.
But we would love to hear from you. If you have
questions for a future show, just email us at Inside
Wisconsin politics@wnpr.org. name and let us know what
you want to know about Wisconsin politics,
Wisconsin politics and government. Thanks for
joining us. This has been inside Wisconsin politics.
Wagtendonk will be back in a couple of weeks. Be sure
to follow us on PBS wisconsin.org. WPR.org,
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