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This is the Civic Media
Spotlight.
Hello and welcome to the first hour of the Civic Media Spotlight.
We begin the first hour with Daybreak.
with Brian and Jamie.
Brian and Jamie talked to Joe Petrangelo and Andy Tisdell from the Wisconsin Policy Forum to talk about a report that found incarceration rates in Wisconsin have some of the highest racial disparities in the nation.
Check it out.
Local voices, statewide impact.
It's Daybreak
with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
It is 8.35 right now.
You are listening to the Civic Media Network.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And good morning, I'm Brian Noonan.
According to a recently released report from Wisconsin Policy Forum, a public policy think tank, the racial disparities in Wisconsin's prisons are some of the worst in the U.S.
Black Wisconsinites were 12 times more likely than white Wisconsinites to be locked up in state prisons in 2022.
Now that disparity was the second highest of any state in the nation
behind only Vermont.
So joining us to share more about the results of the study are Joe Pietrangelo.
He's Wisconsin Policy Forms Research Director and Andy Tisdall.
He's a co-author of the report.
Gentlemen, thank you for being with us this morning.
Welcome.
Joe, let's start with you.
What were some of the key questions that you hoped would be answered by the study?
Well, so the study really looked at the criminal justice system in the state from beginning to end.
So from arrest, we looked at arrest data and victim data.
We looked at court data, corrections, and even we looked at the spending and staffing of the state criminal justice system.
We're really hoping to understand, just get a broad
understanding of the whole system, what some of the biggest challenges are, what some of the striking trends are within the system, including looking at demographics of the population throughout the system and how Wisconsin compares with other states.
One of the things that I found most fascinating as I was going through the report was that it highlights Wisconsin as a highly segregated state.
And so I want to dive into a little bit about that as well, but how does that essentially, that sort of segregation that we're seeing, how does that shape outcomes in our justice
system?
Oh.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Andy.
Go
ahead.
No, my connection is really not good.
I think I might.
Oh, dear.
Well, we know that
poverty is a risk factor for criminal justice involvement.
A national study conducted by the Brookings Institute that they found that people born into the bottom 10% of the income distribution had a much higher rate of incarceration than people born to the top.
And we also know that in Wisconsin there are disparities in things like the unemployment rate by race.
So you have these areas where where poverty is very high and these areas are also often segregated.
And so that can help influence the criminal justice outcomes of individuals.
And as we look at Wisconsin, is our
where does our incarceration rate fall compared to the rest of the country and then extrapolating from that the rate for black wisconsinites
well the rate for black wisconsinites compared to the rest of the country as you said uh we have i think it's us in vermont that that have the highest disparity between those two uh as far as overall incarceration rates
ours is a little lower compared to some of the southern states where their disparities are a bit lower because there's the higher incarceration rates for whites as well, but our ratio is quite high as we found.
We're talking with Joe Pietrangelo.
He's the research director at Wisconsin Policy Forum and Andy Tisdale, who is a researcher also at Wisconsin Policy Forum, WisconsinPolicyForum.org.
So when we're talking about the economic factors like poverty, unemployment, and income inequality, how much of that is tying back to, according to your research, what we're finding for the incarceration rates, especially amongst the Black
population of the state.
So our study didn't really try to get into the causation or even the correlation with different factors.
So what we're really showing is the differences between populations, between geographies.
In terms of some of the factors Andy already mentioned, we do discuss how there are
big income disparities by race in Wisconsin and about two-thirds of the state's black population lives just in the city of Milwaukee and there are major income disparities in the city but we don't try to figure out all of the factors and how much they contribute to each trend we're seeing.
There was one one thing that you'd not
tried to figure out the causation.
So, but you were able to find that some of the disparities were tied to where law enforcement focused more different communities, the policing styles in different communities, correct?
We raised that as a possible factor, but again, we didn't try to measure it.
And, you know, it's really difficult to determine how much of, you know,
criminal justice activity is captured by the system throughout and how much is not.
But it can be a factor that if there is heavier policing in certain areas, there could be more arrests happening in those areas.
And then that continues through the system.
Now, this report also showed that crime and victimization are concentrated, as you have mentioned, in these certain areas.
How is that, did you find anything about how that's impacting communities in the long term?
Again, that's sort of beyond the scope of this study.
This was a really end up study that really tried to break down all the data across the system, but we didn't really get to the level that you're talking about.
Now this this study took us about a year to do and we are planning to do follow-up research in a number of areas so So this is just kind of a baseline for us as we as we go forward
Joe Pietrangelo and Andy Tisdell are our guests Joe is the Wisconsin Policy Forums Research Director Andy's co-author of the report you can check it all out at wispolicyforum.org Andy where there any
notable trends that popped out of this as far as incarceration in wisconsin
well one of the major trends that we observe was a a rise in incarceration rates for older adults on both people age sixty and over and also saw a rise in the age fifty and over uh... yes uh... and and that's we found that's
both people aging in place, people who have long sentences, who are just getting older inside prison, but also there were increased admissions for older adults.
The incarceration rate for adults 16 over doubled between 2010 and the present day, and the arrest rate also increased.
We saw growth in people whose most serious offense was violent crime, whose most serious offense was operating while intoxicated,
and other public order offenses as well.
So that's what we observed for the growth of that population.
Besides the older adults and Black Wisconsinites, are there other groups that you're starting to see trends that this ethnic group is being incarcerated more than they had been before or less than they had been before?
Yes.
We saw that the incarceration rate for American Indian and Alaska Native individuals had gone up significantly.
I wish I could recite the number offhand.
I don't have it.
Nope, I do.
Admissions for American Indian individuals grew from 6.8 per 1,000 to 11.6.
So not quite doubled over the last quarter century.
And so that was the most, the population with the highest admissions rate in the most recent several years was the American Indian population.
So it's now exceeded the admissions rate for the black population in the state.
So we have actually seen a decrease in admissions of black Wisconsinites.
So despite having some of the biggest racial disparities in the country in terms of the black versus white incarceration rates, we have seen a bit of an improvement over time in black incarceration rates and admissions to prison for both black and Hispanic population.
Are there examples from other states that Wisconsin could realistically follow if they wanted to reduce the number of incarcerations for, say, the black population or even the indigenous population?
Again, that's a little bit beyond the scope
of
this particular study.
We are doing some follow-up research, like I mentioned, on specific issues.
We're planning to publish a report in later this spring or early summer on the drunk driving issue where we're looking really closely at how that issue is affecting different populations in the state, how Wisconsin's laws compare to other states.
So in that way, we'll bring in insight from across the country, potentially on what we might do differently.
And we can continue to do that with other follow-up research.
Part of the conclusions that you reached at the end of this study was that the racial disparities are just one of the clear trends in the justice system here in Wisconsin.
What are some of those other trends that kind of go along with this or maybe are happening, but they're not directly related to the racial disparities?
So the aging
trend that Andy discussed was one of the biggest findings as well.
Just more older adults entering the system and being in the system.
We also have observed that health care costs for the correction system have gone up quite a bit.
They've tripled since 2005.
It was the biggest portion of the budget increase.
for the corrections department.
And so when combined with this rising aging population and higher healthcare costs to care for those older adults, that's a concern.
We're spending more than a lot of other states are on corrections.
Healthcare is part of the driving force behind that.
And we're also incarcerating, we're over incarcerating in terms of
the size of the prison population is much higher than what the prisons were built for.
As you were going through your long study and you were researching, was there anything that you came across that surprised, and either of you can answer this or both of you, was there anything that was very surprising or striking to you that you did not expect to find as you were going through your research?
Andy, do you
want to start?
Sure.
Well, one thing that surprised me was in terms of the total cost of Wisconsin's correctional system, we ranked 12th among the states.
And we were the second, we had the second highest corrections cost of any Midwestern state behind only Nebraska.
In addition, we found a study that said that we had the highest cost for re-incarcerating people who were returning to prison.
I was not expecting either of those facts.
And I'd like to dive into them more in the future report.
One of the things that
the... Sorry, Joe.
Joe, you can answer this one.
The study you said took a year.
During that time, what changes in the prison system did you see, if any, during the year that you were studying this?
Well, one thing that just happened is that on the youth justice side,
Milwaukee County, a new youth facility was just opened for youth in Milwaukee County.
Milwaukee County, about half of the youth that have been sent to Lincoln Hills in northern Wisconsin and Copper Lake are youth from Milwaukee County.
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From Lake Superior to Lake Michigan.
This is Wisconsin's morning conversation.
Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
It's 8.52 right now.
We hope you are having a great start to your Monday, a little rain around most of the state today.
So, you know,
hopefully you keep yourself dry.
Keep your umbrella handy kind of thing.
We'll give you all of those hands.
Usually right now it's dry
out.
It's just a little
cloudy.
It looks, you know, like it could rain, but it hasn't yet, so...
See, that's why people are lucky you're back, Jimmy, because you will give them nice, mothering advice.
If you weren't here, the three of us would go, yeah, it's gonna rain.
Good luck with that.
Because I always figure, you know, unless I'm talking to children, then I will tell a child, oh, you gotta bring your coat today.
It's gonna be rainy
when you put on your boots.
I don't know.
I ran into all this.
But with adults, I listen.
If it's raining out and you don't know, then you're
no better than a turkey.
I ran into a lot of people in the airport this week who were adults, actual adults who need that type of advice on a daily basis.
The
public needs guidance, but I don't feel it's my place to
give it.
You learn a lot watching, sitting and waiting for things and watching other human beings try to interact in this world.
It makes me actually feel better about myself.
Sure,
yeah.
Well, if you were in there watching that, the sea of humanity at an airport, and you felt worse about yourself, it's time for some serious
therapy.
It is reevaluation time.
8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
What is your favorite horror movie?
Now, if it involves an animal, that will be better because...
Did you put this story in or
did Frank
put this?
I did.
All right, first of all, who knows?
Second of all...
Where did you find it?
Because this is insane.
Oh, I was doing just some search and going through some of my old prep services and it gave me a headline and I was like, oh, this is a thing.
I need to go look this up.
So I did a little research and here we are talking about killer hippos, apparently.
All right.
Yeah.
What's the deal?
So what's
the deal with hungry?
Well.
We gotta go back 14 years ago because 14 years ago Hasbro, you know the maker of toys and games and all
of
that Announced that it was developing a movie based on the game hungry hungry hippos a hippos So it actually started to happen and now we are getting this a horror movie about a killer hippo And it is called hungry the tagline even says this hippo isn't playing games and while it sounds like some sort of throwaway garbage man
to capitalize on some sort of existing product, probably.
But this movie looks like it could be good if you like horror movies.
And I did, in fact, watch the two minute trailer to see.
And I'm not a horror movie fan.
So I
had to check out the trailer though.
My former Morning Show co-host always told me that hippos were nature's killing machine.
They
are.
Hippos are one of the most dangerous animals on the planet.
And I told him he never had to worry about that at Devil's Lake, and that he was fine at Devil's Lake.
Is he?
Well, he's in Minnesota now, so he never got
to
experience that.
But Hungry the Movie is coming.
It is going to be on demand, and it's going to hit digital platforms on June 23rd.
This is one that I would watch just out of sheer curiosity.
Right.
But it's, it can't be, they'd be dumb to try to, the game is not scary.
The game is hilariously fun.
Hungry, hungry hippos.
I
love hungry, hungry hippos.
Yes.
So, but this is, it does, it's in the vein of Jaws.
It's in the vein of Kujo when animals attack.
A good animal attack movie because it makes you look at your pets differently.
It makes you very skeptical.
When yesterday I was cutting the grass, a cat shout out from bushes and went under my shed.
I'm like, what's going on with you?
Maybe that cat is plotting my demise.
I don't know.
Kitty killer.
That's what I'm making a short film partner
in my
backyard.
I don't want you to be a part of that movie.
Put some sort of GoPro on the cat and you got yours.
And I'm pretty sure that cats want all humans dead anyway.
Well,
last week when you were in here, Jamie, we talked about this guy in Wisconsin who had been stalked by a bobcat while he
was turkey hunting an attack.
I saw that story.
That was insane.
See?
So bobcat.
Bob.
That would be the movie, the title.
I
saw
the trailer too and that, man, that hippo looked angry.
The hippo looks mean.
I don't know what
makes a hippo so angry
that it turns
on humanity, but...
This film, in case you're wondering, it's going to center on a group of holiday goers who must fight for their lives against this rampaging hippo on the loose after becoming lost in the Louisiana Swamplands.
Nice.
Now, there is an interesting line in the trailer that totally contradicts...
the movie's title and the marketing.
In fact, I found this super ironic.
A guy says, quote, hippos are vegetarian.
He ain't killing you to eat you.
He's killing you for fun.
So not only is he not hungry, but it appears that he is playing games.
So take it for what it's worth, but it does look like if you like horror movies, a whole lot of fun.
A homicidal hippo, a thrill killer.
Just going out there on a rampage.
I want to know, well now there's so many questions, I have to watch the movie.
How did a hippo get abandoned in the Louisiana swamps?
And what are these people doing?
This is, you could tell it was overseas because nobody
in
America goes on holiday.
No, they don't go on holiday.
What I also loved about the trailer, so this is no surprise because this is part of the trailer and I'm not, I'm not doing some sort of spoiler alert.
They go on some sort of airboat ride in Louisiana Bayou and all
of the
alligators are dead and mangled and they can't figure out why.
And it turns out that it's because of the, because of the hippo who is obviously hungry.
And it's just one hippo.
We're doing all these damage.
It's one hippo.
One hippo.
Yeah, that's it.
One hippo in this.
It's not like a thing.
I'm going to see how they
stretch this into 80 to 90 minutes, because
I'm thinking
one hippo versus one high-powered rifle.
Oh, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
They're big.
That's just it, though, too.
They're on a tour in an airboat, so nobody's
equipped to
deal with the hippo.
Who's hungry?
Now, I know hippos are fast on land.
I wonder how fast they are in the water chasing an airboat.
Can't
they swim like 80-90 miles per hour or something?
There's
no chance.
There's no chance a hippo can swim.
I'm looking it up.
Please let me check this in our last 30
seconds.
Yeah, we gotta look
at this.
How fast do hippos swim?
They can
swim
up to 10 miles
per hour.
That's a lot less than 9, Jim.
It is.
That is exponentially less
than 9.
This is why I fact-checked myself.
Come on now.
Well,
Jamie's back.
She's making wild hippo accusations.
But we'll be back tomorrow with more.
This has been Daybreak.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Thanks
for listening.
I'm Jamie Bartson.
It's 8.59 right now.
We stay right here on The Civic.
media spotlight with Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
The next two segments talk all about the Supreme Court's ruling on a case about voting maps in Louisiana and how it's overturning part of the Voting Rights Act.
Brian and Jamie talk about the ruling and break down what it means.
This is where Wisconsin wakes up.
It's Daybreak with Brian Noonan and Jamie Martinson.
Here are your hosts, Brian and Jamie.
606 right now.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning on the Civic Media Network.
Hopefully your day is off to a great start.
Already a little sunshine peeking out, which is good news for a lot of us.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
And good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Always happy to hear from you throughout the morning, eight, five, five, seven, five, civic eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.
Have you closed the blinds yet?
So you are
not
blinded at some point
in the show.
We just left up from earlier this week.
We just left up where they were at.
So hopefully we're good to go this morning.
We don't want your retinas burned out at some point during the show again.
That would be horrifying.
There's a lot of glass in our studio.
There's also a lot of glass in downtown Madison.
So there's a lot of
Reflection that happens when the Sun comes out isn't there Parker?
Horrible place to be
doing a show
during severe weather.
I was genuinely very concerned about Dom the other night.
They made it
through.
All that's true at night.
So yeah, you have the windows blown out?
No, no, no, that's good.
No, we've always made it through.
That's right.
We've always made it through safely.
So that's the good news.
But
I should get like some...
Kind of curtains or something
all of a sudden Parker's concerned Brian.
I
mean Just throw some cardboard up there Parker
It's
really just you and Dom in there I mean the morning so true
So really, so
what do you expect?
We're expendable.
Can't you go to that inside?
For those of you who are not familiar with most people or not, there's another studio in there that has no windows.
Yes.
You
go sit in the bunker.
That's
true.
It is like a studio bunker.
That's essentially what it is.
And all
the big equipment that runs the network is in a bunker too.
That's right.
There's a reason the building is designed as it is.
In fact, our headquarters
are
an old bank headquarters.
So that's why you've got a lot of inside walls in here.
So little inside information if you ever want to visit us at our headquarters in downtown Madison.
I am having an issue that I'm hoping some people can give me advice on, because I have reached a point where a lot of people who have elderly parents get to this point, and everybody was, I'm hoping people could be as helpful with this as they were with Frank's bachelor party conundrum
last week.
When you
were gone, Frank used the show, Jamie, as a...
a pulpit for his own needs.
And got a lot of great suggestions from folks about where some specific places to host a bachelor party in Wisconsin.
So he got really good advice.
If you get to a certain age, pardon me, and your parents are a certain age, you kind of take over the role as caregiver.
And I'm kind of at that point with my mom, where now we've been told by assisted living that she has to move into a long-term nursing facility.
I've never done this before obviously if you have moved your parents into a nursing home What did you look for when you were going there?
You know, she doesn't have like skilled medical needs.
She doesn't have feeding tubes or or any of that kind of stuff But but yeah, so this is the newest project that consumes
The I have either this show that I'm working on or I'm trying to figure out right nursing homes, which is that's like oh my good
No,
no time off for me No time off we got a and I have a cut like I found
I went through, just like I did when I was looking for assisted living, I went through and got Medicare grades, and then I got US News and World Report rankings, and so I'm looking and comparing, and I'm trying to keep it within a certain geographic area,
of course, because- Sure, so you can get there quickly.
Yeah, since I'm
the one who's here.
So it's all very...
It's all very new and I know I'm not the first to go through it.
Has any of that been helpful as you put some of that together?
Is any of that helpful?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
No, especially, well, the Medicare one especially alerts you right away if there have been complaints against the facility.
So those are gone first.
Sure.
Anything average or below average, I kick out.
So then it gets to
And they, it's surprising, they do kind of, they do kind of balance out the US news and work, cause they give, you know, their awards and their certifications.
Cause I stay away from like Yelp reviews.
right there's always yelp is always disgruntled whether it's restaurants right or nursing
homes anything
people are disgruntled about something
it's always the people who are upset or got feel like they got wronged bad service whatever it might be whatever situation yes totally it's
amazing right you go to a restaurant and you have a great time it's good the food's terrific the service is great and you then you look at yelp and you
They have 73 one-star reviews.
How could this possibly be?
And it's usually stupid stuff.
Like the server didn't bring me enough biscuits or the server didn't give up to give me water when I needed it.
Okay.
Well, maybe it was a really busy time that you were in there.
Maybe you should just be, I mean, like I get it.
You're
paying for it, but at the same time, you know what?
Our service industry, they don't exactly have it easy.
So I take some of those.
those reviews with a grain of
salt.
Or like you the other night, it would have been, but you got in there in time.
I went there three minutes before
the
kitchen closed and they didn't have everything I wanted.
That's on me.
That's totally on me at that point.
Or I always loved the ones.
I went out on a Friday night at six PM and I had a 45 minute wait, really?
You don't say.
No
reservation.
You just had to wait.
Shocking.
Wow.
Shocking.
So yeah.
So that's what I'm, I'm, I'm doing the same thing, but with a place
to live and
it's like, oh boy.
And then how do you have that conversation with her?
It's the whole thing because I am not going back to a Magnum Force and a man's got to know his limitations.
I know I am a good problem solver,
but I am
not the greatest.
Caretaker, you know, I'm empathetic.
I just I'm Like a lot of people I want to solve the problem right and some some problems you cannot solve
And that's the frustrating part.
It's not, oh, I'm frustrated because I have to take care of somebody.
It's
frustrating
because I can't help enough.
I can't get the job done.
And I think in this particular case, it becomes, it's really hard, especially if you have a parent who, because let's be realistic, especially when they get to, as people get to a certain age, sometimes the body gives out long before the brain does, right?
That's
the, that's yeah.
And when they're still sharp enough to be able to make those decisions and be involved in those conversations, it makes it
doubly hard because they feel like, at least in cases we've had in our family,
it always to that person always felt like you were trying to take things away from them and and
you
didn't trust them and their ability.
And that's not what it is.
You want them to be safe, right?
You want them to
be cared
for and it has nothing to do with what we think their abilities are.
It has everything to do with what their body is allowing them to do at this particular moment.
And that's where it becomes really difficult.
That's the hard part.
And then, you know, cognitive ability, everything is sliding.
And over 89, you
know,
things happen.
And boy, but it does make you think about your own
age, doesn't it?
Yes, yes, yes.
Parker, I want you to promise you're going to old yell at
me.
Ready a guy who wants you on record.
I want somebody to just take me out to the shed, Parker.
Yeah, I'm good with it.
But it is a hard conversation, right?
And then to think of it in your own terms of your own life, it's a conversation Corey and I actually have often because we're at our late 40s, we have no plans.
We have absolutely no plans of what's gonna happen to us and we have two boys who at some point are probably gonna have to make decisions for us and I've seen their empathy.
I don't even wanna
know what's gonna happen to
us if they have to make decisions for us.
But you know, and then you toss in the fact that in where we're at right now, facilities are not.
We don't have a plethora of them really anywhere for for patients like your mom We don't have a plethora of doctors the cost for families is so astronomical
Then
you have to start making choices of do you want to?
Essentially take the care that might be better here with a little better review But at the same time it's really really spendy and nobody wants to be put into that situation when you're talking about a loved one, right?
You just you don't want to be there
It's a fortunate
circle.
And some, a lot of people can't take somebody into their house, especially when they have advanced needs.
Right.
But yeah, I am so grateful that my mom and dad went into education because back in the day, they got good pension.
Sure.
And that's, and my mom still gets my dad's pension from the board too.
So I'm like, man, I should have thought of...
Parker,
there's still time.
There's still time.
There's still
time for you.
Save yourself.
I could get out of here.
I could teach at a school.
Do companies or do educators or companies still do pensions like that though in 2026?
At
least Illinois
teachers
do.
That's why people complain that they don't pay Social Security.
Sure.
they've paid in to
their
pensions, so they get their pensions.
Because I know that that's a big contentious point for a lot of government employees, because those pensions are starting to shrink smaller and smaller.
It's part of the reason why some of our government entities, hello United
States
Postal Service, is having the financial issues.
So I know there's a lot of companies, you know, because at one point in time, you got your pen, your gold watch, you retired, you got your pension, that's what people lived for, right?
Now in 2026, you're like,
All right, we don't have to pay this person anymore.
They're off the payroll.
Now we can take that salary and divide it among three different people because that's where we're at in the
economy.
Well, it's amazing now everybody is supposed to be a financial advisor of their own future.
Whereas back in the day, like you said, you put in 30, 40 years at a company
you retired, you got a pension.
And that's how that's how
the system
was.
Now it's like, if you don't start planning when you're 24, it's your first job and setting up all sorts of, yeah, you're late Parker.
Yeah, really
freaking
me out.
There's a refrigerator
box in your
in your
future.
God, but between the windows and now this,
I don't know
how you even get out of bed.
No, I'm in
shambles.
There's nothing that
Nothing that's going to save you.
That's horrifying.
It's so sad, Parker.
But yeah, it's amazing.
It's amazing how things change.
And just everybody's life evolves.
And again, my life is not unique.
That's why I was reaching out.
But it's just one of those hurdles you get to.
And then I, you know...
Now I'm like, oh, what's Molly going to do with me?
Right.
Yeah.
No, I think about those things.
I have it in
radio.
Well, I think about those things all the time.
And then the fact that my dad passed away almost 20 years ago, it will be in July.
My mom has been on her own ever since.
And, you know, I've talked about the situation with my mom.
She has
congestive heart failure.
So we're constantly worried about her medical needs, her medicines.
She lives on a fixed income, which is essentially my dad's social security, which isn't a lot and pretty much all goes to rent.
utilities and there's not always a lot of room left at the end of the day for all of the medicine she needs.
And yes, she
has health care, but we know how that's changed over the course of the last few, few months slash years.
Um, and, you know, and then you also, by the way, have to have some food in there too.
And so I, I
understand
this circle, uh, quite well because we go through it ourselves, uh,
very, very frequently.
And my mom is one of those people, I don't know how your mom is, but my mom is one of those people where she'll basically be completely out of money and she'll call and say, I don't know what to do, but I didn't want to bother you.
And you just know how busy you are.
No, no, no, no, no.
See, you should have bothered me because we couldn't handle
this.
Right, especially when it, thankfully one of my other brothers handles all the finances.
Oh, you're
lucky, you're lucky.
Well.
Sure.
When we come back, you know who's not lucky?
Us in the United States because the Supreme Court has basically rolled back our civil rights.
We'll talk about that and so much more.
It's daybreak and this is the Civic Media Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Local voices statewide impact.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
It is 22 minutes after six, very early on this Thursday morning.
And I'm telling you, Brian, I'm feeling every bit of the earlyness today.
By
this
point of the week, I start feeling it a little bit more.
And then tomorrow, I'll have a little bit more pep in my step, because who doesn't on a Friday?
But we're here, we're gonna muddle through today.
We are
here, we'll make it, and it does, you know, the old hump day term never really, it's really hitting since we started this show, where once Wednesday's done, I'm like, okay,
but then the last few weeks
I've been very confused after the Thursday show, and I'm like, oh, we're done.
I'm like, no, you have stuff to work tomorrow.
One more, one more, it's wishful thinking, that's wishful thinking, that's what that is.
It
could be.
We all get there with our
jobs.
What are your feelings about the Supreme Court ruling yesterday cutting basically killing the voters right at voters rights act eight five five seven five civic eight five five seven five two four eight four two Jamie you we joke here about gerrymandering being one of your favorite things
and it's
not the gerrymandering is not your favorite thing but you do like talking about it and dissecting it and We've we saw this battle start
a little above a couple of months ago when Donald Trump was telling states they need to redraw their maps and Texas to redrew their map and then California threatened to redraw their map and here in Wisconsin we've been dealing with this issue for a long time about gerrymandering and redistricting and all of this.
I never thought I would see the Supreme Court overturn the Voters' Rights Act which basically
kills the hope of a lot of voters, especially in southern states, where gerrymandering against even one district.
has been going on for decades.
Yes.
And for anybody who wants to stay with us throughout the morning or can, we're going to actually have an expert join us at 7.30 and we're going to dive into this a little bit more with him, get a little history on this as well.
But you're right.
I mean, it feels very much like...
We've talked about this with the Supreme Court, right?
It feels like when they do one thing correctly, they're gearing us up for something even bigger that they're preparing to undo.
We've seen this throughout the Trump administration.
We saw this even during Joe Biden's term, where it felt like every time they give us a little win, that means there's something much bigger coming down the pike.
And
this is one
of those things because
Essentially what happened is they tossed out Louisiana's long contested congressional map as an unconstitutional gerrymander.
And this is as a decision, as you rightly pointed out, Brian, that could have implication for years.
not to mention the fact in the midterm elections coming up in just a few months.
Now, for Louisiana, this decision scraps the map that was drawn in early 2024 and added a second black and Democratic lawmaker to the state's overwhelming Republican delegation.
And just a second one,
not a little and just a little Louisiana history.
Over a third of their voters.
are
african-american
yes it
might even be more than that but it is it is
yes
so to have two representatives
It doesn't seem like that
many.
No, it really doesn't.
And of course, the Supreme Court's decision comes in the middle of a much broader and as a lot of us know, a very highly unusual mid-decade redistricting because these Republican states have, this has been a war against voting.
And we've
seen
this play out all across the country.
And I think when you look at what happened yesterday,
The timing is probably the most suspect thing to me in all of this because it wasn't random.
This wasn't done randomly.
By any means, this was essentially done at the time it was to make sure that the Republican party has an upper leg, especially in large portions of this country in the midterm elections.
Because the one thing that they do not want to have happen is people to vote and be able to have their vote counted
in a fair way.
That has been an ongoing battle with this party.
Yes, that part is true.
I have been reading a lot of dissertations.
Now, we know Florida had a redrawn map ready to roll.
And as soon as this decision came down, they passed that.
So Florida is picking up four seats.
Louisiana, they said it's probably too late to
get a
new map done before the midterms.
And that's the case in most places because
there was a March 10th deadline to have all that stuff in.
So for the midterms, other than in Florida, things may stay the same.
Now, once the, you know, the presidential election comes around
or
later elections come around, that's when that's when we're really going to see the effects of this.
But my question, and we'll talk to our expert later is, where does this end?
Right?
Because, all right, you start seeing it across the south and
Again, it's not they're not Taking away a lot of represent.
It's not like there's a lot of representatives from the south anyway, but they're gonna try to get rid of all of them.
Yes
They're looking at Tennessee.
They have one one Democratic district in Tennessee.
There's already talk about that
trying to
be redistricted, but then does California do right loose states then does this just become a nuclear escalation of trying to redistrict and
It changes every time
there's- It does.
This is why gerrymandering is a pet project of mine because and why I hate it so much because of exactly what we're talking about.
And back to your point, one of the things that I think worries me the most is when we look at the midterms, we've seen several of these Republican states who have Republican governors, state houses, state senates, state supreme courts, all under Republican control.
When you have that, the thing that worries me the most is how quickly will they be able to push something through if they really, really want it to happen.
And that's what terrifies me about November, because I will...
There's a part of me that believes some of these Republican states have had these plans drawn up in the background just
hoping
just waiting for this moment in time and That that's what I think terrifies me about how we're gonna disenfranchise so many voters potentially across the country because of this
Are you looking to adopt a Beagle?
Well, there's going to be a lot coming to rescue centers near you in the near future.
We'll talk about that and more.
I'm Brian Noonan.
This is Daybreak.
I'm Jamie Martinson, 629.
You are listening to the Civic Media Network.
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