UpNorthNews Presents: Protecting Justice For All

This is a special presentation from the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome to Protecting Justice For All, a conversation about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race brought

to you by Up North News in partnership with your local Civic Media Radio Station.

A guest panel will discuss the economy, education, environment, and more.

These are topics important to you and a focus in the campaign for a seat on the State Supreme

Court with the election April 1st.

Supreme Justice For All, live from the Overture Center in Madison.

Now, here are your hosts, Up North News radios, Pat Critello, and Civic Media's Todd

Albuk and Dan Schaefer.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Overture Center in downtown Madison, Wisconsin.

We are one block away from the state's capital building here on a beautiful evening here

in March.

Welcome to our special evening of Protecting Justice For All and evening of conversations

about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election coming up on April 1st.

And we are just a couple of hours away from a very important debate tonight between the

two candidates for the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.

But first, we're going to have a little bit of fun here is for those who are watching

in the hall.

You might hear some applause, hopefully some booze, but Pat Critello is in the house.

Oh, yeah, he has lots of fans here in the house.

For those who are watching.

Old fur claws.

Look at that.

Look at that.

Fantastic.

I want to thank the folks at the radio station for bringing up the applause sound effect.

For those of us listening across the Civic Media Radio Network, we want to thank Civic

Media for hosting this event tonight because I think it's just so important to have these

discussions in long form as they say of broadcasting not in the little snippets that are being

advertised, 30-second sound bites or pamphlets at the door or on our smartphones or whatever,

but actual real conversations.

So to all of our folks across Wisconsin, on all 11 news talk stations from the shores

of Green Bay to the shores of Lincoln, Michigan, Green Bay and the Mississippi River and all

points in between.

My name's Todd Albaugh.

I host a little program on Civic Media between noon and two every day.

But really the person that got this all started is my friend and colleague.

He is the host of Updorth News Radio every morning on Civic Media between six and eight.

He is also the founder, one of the co-founders of the Courier News Service and of course of

Updorth News Radio.

Mr. Pat Critello.

Pat Good evening.

Thank you.

You thank you very much.

Mr. Albaugh.

Let's introduce our third moderator here, Mr. Schaefer.

He's a very vital part of this team.

Absolutely.

We're happy to have him.

You might know him as a person that when you might feel a little discombobulated, he

recabobulates you.

He is the founder of the great news source, the recabobulation area, and also now we're

proud to say our political editor here at Civic Media, Mr. Dan Schaefer, Dan, how are

you?

I'm doing well, Todd.

Thanks so much for having me.

Thanks, Pat, for having me join this wonderful event here, Albaugh.

I always feel better.

I feel more co-obulated once you're here.

That's what I aim to do.

It's a very, very discombobulating time, is it not?

It really is.

We're going to try to do a discombobulate or recombobulate a little bit of it for you

here.

So again, our thanks to Civic Media for helping provide broadcasting for this, the first

ever-live event for up-north news.

Up-north news is a separate entity from Civic Media.

Career Newsroom is our parent company with outlets in 10 plus states right now that help

to try to make state and especially political news approachable to audiences who may not

be regular blog readers and podcast listeners and somebody that still feels newsprint in

their hands on Sunday mornings.

But these are still important issues and we want to try to explain the issues to folks

and it occurred to us with the state Supreme Court race happening on April 1st that this

was a perfect opportunity to hold our first live event, bring in some experts, bring in

some lawmakers, bring in some trusted voices, break it down into three major areas and then

find out what our guests think about that in terms of the significance of the race.

With an open seat on the state Supreme Court, which is what this is all about, which will

decide control of the court by liberals or conservatives.

In these three areas there can be just a tremendous sea change.

I'm going to be hosting the third panel, moderating the third panel I should say, which

will be about reproductive rights.

You probably don't need me to say much about that but our experts are going to have a lot

to say about that because again, who shows up on election day truly determines the course

of reproductive rights in the state.

Dan's going to have the second panel so let's have you say just a bit about the economy

and the people that you're going to be talking to during the course of today's event.

Yeah, we've got a great panel we're going to be talking a little bit about how this election

will have an impact on the economy and on working people, everyday people here in the

state of Wisconsin.

You don't always think of a judicial election necessarily as having a connection to the

economy but so many of the decisions that are made by the state Supreme Court do have

an impact on so many different aspects of our economy right now and it's never been

more important as we've seen.

To have some good checks and balances seems pretty important.

We're worried about now, I don't know, for a variety of reasons, yeah, checks, balances.

I don't know, we haven't heard that much about that.

No, it's really just been about checks and the ones that are doing that right.

But we'll get to that and then the first panel of the evening will be about education and

Todd, you'll be moderating that one.

Yeah, looking forward to it, I come from a family of educators, something near and dear

to my heart but more importantly, we have some wonderful folks who will introduce some

here in a moment and you've curated a great panel in that we have somebody from the

legal side because I think there is somebody legal questions, obviously, is the Supreme

Court race and people say, well, what in the world does the Supreme Court race outcome

have to do with education?

Well, it turns out quite a lot in terms of protecting students' rights and protecting

educators' rights and then there is a little something that I'm not sure if you remember

Pat, act 10.

I'm so much familiar, yeah, so we'll talk about that.

Okay, so much that we're going to cover in those three topic areas, we hope you find it

very informative.

Josh Clemens, come on up for a second.

We want to visit with you as well because while we're talking to experts in their field

and lawmakers, there's also no shortage of people who communicate about politics through

all sorts of ways.

I mean, it used to be, it was just, you know, either you were a TV anchor or a radio reporter,

you were an ink stain wretch in a newspaper someplace, but now there are these things

called influencers and content creators and podcasters.

And Josh, you have just a little bit of experience in digital communications, so thanks for joining

us for a couple of moments to talk about this.

Thanks so much for having me.

I'm very honored to get to speak to a lot of people every day about what's going on

in Wisconsin politics.

Anybody here on TikTok?

Anybody here recognize me?

We should have done a radio and not to raise their hands, but that's okay.

There's a crowd here and they all raise their hands.

That's fair.

And those at home should also be raising their hands.

So I work in politics.

I get the honor of working with a lot of amazing progressives throughout Wisconsin and

nationally, but I also spend a lot of time talking directly to voters and potential voters

on TikTok.

And that is where a lot of my energy these days seems to go, because every year we have

another existential race that we have to win or democracy dies.

And that is something that I am, unfortunately, perennially focused on as are all of you,

I am sure.

It's exhausting.

It's not how this is supposed to work.

But here we are, and we've got another one next year that we have to win, and another

one the year after that, so it just keeps on going and going, but yeah, happy to talk

about it.

Well, and the whole notion behind this is to not take democracy for granted, something

I never thought we'd have to say in our lifetimes.

But for a while now, that's something we ignore at our peril.

And it's one thing for, let's say Dan writes a thousand-word column for the recombobulation

area.

Short end.

Yes, Todd.

Todd's got two hours every day on radio, as do I.

But in TikTok, I mean, you've got to make that point quickly, or people are scrolling right

to the next thing.

So, can you talk just a bit about the challenge and the importance of reaching people who

may not be subscribing to any of those typical political sites, they're on TikTok.

What can you say, how can you get that attention about the importance of this race in short

order?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, anybody who's out there trying to do this on social, anywhere, it doesn't matter

if it's TikTok or otherwise, remember that you're talking to a lot of people who don't

know the facts, and that's okay.

Like, there's no shame in not knowing what's going on.

It's hard to keep up with this.

We do it for a living, and it's still hard to keep up with it.

My goal, every time I log on to TikTok, is to try to bring people along on the journey

that I'm on.

And as far as how I'm talking about this race specifically, democracy is counting on

us.

I say this all the time, if you see me on TikTok, you've seen it.

This is not a race about Democrats versus Republicans.

This is a race about democracy versus the end of democracy.

There are three reasons why we have to win this race, why Susan Crawford has to win.

If Susan Crawford doesn't win, we are going to have gerrymandered maps again.

And I think a lot of people have not processed that after 15 years of fighting for fair maps,

we literally might only have them for a single cycle before we go right back to gerrymandered

maps.

And that is a horrifying notion to a lot of people.

The second reason is we need our courts to recognize that elections matter.

North Carolina Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that Republican courts do not recognize

the will of the voters to pick their elected officials, and we cannot afford a court that

it's even in question.

And the third reason is that if we lose this race, we are telling the world that democracy

is for sale, that every election is for sale, to the highest bidder, and I have bad news

for all of us.

Elon will always be the highest bidder, and that is not a world that we want to live in.

And where Elon Musk gets to pick his candidate in each and every cycle moving forward.

So that's my three reasons.

I hope I captivated you as long as I kept captivated TikTok audience.

And that's yours.

Take it.

Use it.

You know, we're all in this together.

Each and every one of us has to be sharing that message every single day with every person

we know, because paid organizers are not going to win this thing.

Susan Crawford is not going to win this thing.

We are going to win this thing, and that is how we have to approach every election.

It's not about the candidate at the top.

It's not about the candidate's team.

It's about us.

We together have to save democracy, because it's us who will pay the price if we lose.

I'm sorry.

I already scrolled to this meeting.

I lost it.

Should I make a joke and bring it back up?

There was a cat with a laser pointer, but anyway, no.

This is the challenge that we've got.

Is this a little device?

We can use it.

I think often, I really do.

Edward Armero's speech from 1956, I believe it was, that, you know, he was talking about

TV, but it could be just about any screen, you know, that it can educate, it can illuminate,

it can inform, or it can be lights and wires in a box.

And we know how often that's happened, but we still know the value of information.

Information that is packaged right and presented to the people in a way that motivates them

to believe in something that maybe they think is hokey.

They think is maybe, you know, beneath them, politics, but these things are important.

They're critical.

If you're listening to this broadcast, if you're in this room at the beautiful Overshire

Center here in Madison, you get the importance of this.

But you all have friends, neighbors, sibling, somebody, and they reach out to you.

Sometimes from the voting booth, I swear it has happened to me going, what am I voting

for for this thing?

And whether it's that close to the casting the ballot or a couple of weeks before, like

we are right now, you folks are, there are the ones who can take in information from

events like this and help people truly understand that you don't just show up once every four

years when there's a presidential election.

Democracy is truly a full-time endeavor here, Dan.

You need people to be as informed as we can make them, which, as you know, Josh has said,

there's varying levels of how much people want to be informed, but we have to try to do

our part.

Absolutely.

Democracy is built from the ground up, I think, as Josh was alluding to here.

And we can't take any plays off in Wisconsin, we are over and over again, we have these

everything on the line elections because that's the state of our politics, that's where

we are right now.

And I think for those of us, you know, in this room, those of us, you know, who have,

you know, a lot of TikTok followers, perhaps, you know, we can really make an impact because

the turnout matters so much.

And so for those of you in this room, I always think of this analogy that the band developed

underground, only sold like 1,000 copies of their first record.

But every one of those people who bought that record started their own band.

So you guys are here buying that record.

We need you to go out and start your own band and spread the word about this election and

how important it is to the state of Wisconsin.

I like that, man, that's the clip I'm going to put on TikTok when this is all said and

done.

You're welcome.

So this is not a polished TV production, you're going to see us just kind of walking around

at times because we have one set of stairs, so we're about to have a traffic jam here

as a couple of us move stage left.

And the members of our first panel start to come on.

Todd, you can stay there.

Oh, gee, thank you very much.

Your knees aren't getting in.

I appreciate it.

A big hand, a lot of applause for our folks here.

And for those missing on the radio, we are going to take a one minute break to allow

the people here to set up.

So if we're ready back at the old home studio across the street as it turns out, stay

with us.

You're listening to Protecting Justice for All and evening of conversations about the

Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 1st, presented by Up North News Radio here

on the Civic Media Radio Network.

And welcome back to Protecting Justice for All and evening of conversations with Wisconsin

Supreme, about this Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 1st.

I'm Todd Lable from Civic Media.

We are here as our main sponsor.

The presenting sponsor of this is Up North News Radio.

And of course, the founder, what are the founders of Pat Critelow, my colleague here who

is on the air every morning from 6 until 8.

You are listening to us across the Civic Media Radio Network.

This is a live event.

And we are down at the beautiful Overture Center here in downtown Madison as it turns out

right across the street from our World Headquarters here.

And I'm glad to have you all along and thanks to everybody who showed up here in person.

We are beginning the evening.

We have a number of panels throughout the evening, so we're kind of going to reset here.

And look at this, we're back for our commercial break and we have a four wonderful fine people.

And this part of the panel, this part of the evening, is a panel on public education.

And this is something that's near and dear to my heart.

I think this is why Pat was so kind to ask me to moderate it.

I grew up in a little town called Richland Center, 5,000 people in Southwest Wisconsin.

My maternal grandmother started as a farm girl.

And my great grandfather didn't think girls should get a education beyond eighth grade.

And she was Bohemian and didn't think that was really great.

And so she left home at 14 and ended up not getting just her high school diploma, but

her college degree and fast forward she ended up being the first woman to be a dean in

the state of Wisconsin at UW-Richland.

Yeah, I think Marge Wallace was in there.

So she was a great woman and a great inspiration in my life.

Both my parents actually, I'll conclude three, my stepmom had been teachers now since retired.

And my sister and brother-in-law are educators in the O'Claire public school district.

But enough about that, I have a passion for this.

That's my point, so I appreciate having all of you here.

I'm going to go down the line here.

Each of you give us 30 seconds to one minute on yourselves, a quick little introduction.

Speaking of O'Claire, ladies and gentlemen, here's a guy who started out as kind of a student

and activist.

And now, a freshman representative in the state assembly, the one the only Christian

Phelps representative Phelps, congratulations, and welcome.

Todd's brother-in-law was one of my teachers in seventh grade.

Boy do I feel old.

Yeah, I'm Christian Phelps and I was born and raised in O'Claire.

I actually have a lot of extended family in Madison and I worked in public schools in Wisconsin

for two years.

And when I did that, it was the two years of my life that I lived in Madison.

So familiar with both places.

And I have just been really frustrated and mad about the state of affairs and the way that

the state treats young people for as long as I can remember was 17 when Act 10 was introduced,

for example.

So my entire adult life has been in this sort of attack on public education world.

And so eventually that led me to various different roles, including running for the state

assembly last year and being elected in November.

Well, you were the median age, could you say?

Congratulations.

Next up, what are panel peggy words Olsen from Weak?

Good afternoon or evening, I guess it is.

My name is Peggy Words Olsen.

I am a high school art and English teacher.

I grew up in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

So if you're familiar with that part of the state, I am a member of the Marshfield Teachers

Association.

So Central Wisconsin is my home local.

Hey, thanks for applauding.

And I'm currently serving as the president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

So I've been teaching for 27 years.

So certainly lived changes within the profession in that time and was active teacher and president

of my local union when, as Christian referenced, Act 10 happened here in Wisconsin.

Well, great.

Welcome.

Well, a round of applause.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Next up, another great organization that I have had the opportunity to be at their events.

They do great work, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, and here representing them, Heather

Dubois-Bernon.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Heather Dubois-Bernon.

I'm executive director of Wisconsin Public Education Network.

I am a public school parent and a former educator.

And I kind of got radicalized by Scott Walker.

And when I was working at my PhD at UW-Madison, was right around the time that Act 10 happened

and this budget-busting bill came out that just decimated school funding in the state.

And at the same time, I had an outreach job at UW where I was going around to different

schools around the state and seen with my own eyes the disparities sometimes just blocks

apart between schools that seem to have every resource a kid could need and schools where

you couldn't even drink out of the drinking pountains because there was lead in the pipes

and the building.

And I thought, what?

How did this happen here?

Who would let this occur and who's doing something about it?

And so, sort of looking for other people who were as mad as I was and I found them.

Yeah, it was Wisconsin Public Education Network and they were like, we need somebody to

get us organized.

And I was like, can it be me?

And so we've been organizing people all over the state to just kind of tap into that frustration

with those disparities and invite people who share our concerns and who agree that every

single kid in every single public school deserves equal access to an equally excellent school

should get that.

And when the state isn't needing its obligation, it's up to us to demand they do.

Great.

I would appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

And last but not least, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Professor Emeritus, Julie Mead.

Julie?

Yes, hello.

My name is Julie Mead.

I was born in Edgerton, but don't tell this against me.

I was raised in Northwestern Illinois.

But always close to Wisconsin, I am the product of public education all the way through to

my PhD.

So it's really, really important to me.

I began as a teacher of children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

So special education is kind of my thing.

In fact, my very first year of teaching was the first year that what is now the individuals

with disabilities education had to be implemented across the country.

And so I have, as a professional, grown up with that law.

And so not surprisingly, I began to study that law.

And I studied that law in particular, the intersection of programs for disabilities

or the rights of kids with disabilities, and our burgeoning kinds of school choice.

So I have done quite a bit of studying around vouchers and charters.

And yes, I am retired from the University, but I'm not retired from advocacy for public

education.

All right, so that was listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.

You were listening to you protecting justice for all and evening of conversations about

the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race election, which is, of course, April Fool's No

Joke.

And be a voter, as my colleague McMatheres likes to say, if you want to check your voter

registration or to register online, go to myvote.wi.gov.

That's myvote.wi.gov.

All the things you're going to hear tonight, either in person or online, that is it, right?

There.

Be a voter and get out, because as our previous people said, that's the only way that

we are all going to make a difference together.

All right, we've got 15 minutes.

Critlow will have to look.

He'll pull me off of here if I don't keep you doing it.

So let's get right into it.

Let's have a discussion.

Julie, let's start with you.

The big question that anybody can hop in here.

People say to Todd, why in the heck should I care about education for a Supreme Court

race?

What is a Supreme Court avenue from a legal perspective with education?

Well, a lot.

And in fact, remember that we're voting for someone who's going to be on that bench

for 10 years.

So think of all of the things that can come up in a 10-year span.

But we have a whole lot of things that are right for discussion right now that I think

we need to pay attention to.

In particular, I think we need to pay attention to that legislative obligation, Christian,

to be funding public education and whether or not our legislators have abdicated that responsibility.

And so there's likely, I would guess, maybe not, but we want to have someone on the bench

who understands that constitutional obligation and the investment that our grandparents and

great grandparents made when they crafted that constitutional obligation to fund public

education so that it would be, as it says, as nearly uniform as practicable.

In addition to that, of course, in two years, the limits on our voucher programs will expire.

And so all of the press that we currently have around school choice and some of the issues

in school choice, those are likely to burgeon and become even more pressing for schools

and school districts.

And so that's an issue that might come up.

And then, well, there are a host of others, the revenue limits, the issues of censorship,

students' rights, employees' rights, so there are a whole host of things that could come

up.

Representative Phelps, let's go to you next because you can make an argument that you're

the benefactor of a new Supreme Court in that this current Supreme Court redid the maps

and made them fairer.

You're a war that was redistricted, districts.

But talk for a minute, Democrats have made gains, certainly, this last election.

You're still the minority in the legislature.

The governor is a Democrat, obviously.

But what does it mean to you as a minority member of the Assembly is trying to get something

done to have a Supreme Court that's not going to legislate for the bench, but actually

interpret laws as a ridden?

Yeah, good question.

I think that the Supreme Court as one of the three branches of government, we shouldn't

lose sight of the fact that they are supposed to be a check on ours.

I think they were correct to say that the previous legislature having drawn maps to so heavily

advantage their majority was not right.

And so the Eau Claire area actually had some of the biggest change in our legislative maps

and where we used to have no competitive districts.

We now have only competitive districts, which is how it should be.

And unfortunately, the majority still holds a lot of control.

And so I serve on the Assembly Committee on Education.

Last session, there were about two-thirds of the Assembly was Republican and one-third

was Democratic.

And that was the ratio on our committees as well.

But I think not many people are aware of the fact that the majority, the speaker, still

sets committee ratios no matter what the body looks like.

And this year, the ratio on committees is still two-thirds, one-third, even though we

are 54-45 in the body.

So we are up against kind of a brick wall as majority members of the committee where there

are nine Republicans and four Democrats stopping bills as pretty close to impossible because

of the number of Republicans that we would have to get to break with their leader.

And I think it's worth mentioning that Julie brings up the constitutional obligation

to fund public schools, which I believe we've fallen short of for all the reasons she

enumerated.

Our committee has already spent three full taxpayer-funded days.

And so far, we have discussed cursive pronouns, locker rooms, the semantics of our test scores,

and not once have we discussed the special ed funding gap, the revenue limits, the voucher

program, or the fact that we're $3,500 per student behind the funding levels of 2009.

So we need a Supreme Court that's going to check and balance a legislature if it continues

to be this bad at meeting our constitutional obligation.

Peggy, I want to go ahead and give you one.

I want to go ahead and give you one, because for educators standpoint, as I said, I have

a family or educators, but talk to us around Wisconsin right now for a moment, as this

state has a dearth, a shortage of young people going into education.

And people say, why on earth, why do I want to go to Plattville on the walk here?

I think our great university schools to go into education when, after Act 10, as was talked

about before, it's tough right now.

So what does this mean having a fair court to an educator?

I think that as an educator, a fair court is critically important to the issues that

we've all been discussing tonight.

One thing that I will lift up is around our students' issues and needs in the classrooms.

The educator's ability to teach truth is something I want to mention tonight.

I also want to mention that real desire for an educator to be able to make ends meet

at the end of the day.

So you referenced going to a university, right, and the bills that come with that, and

then classroom, you know, being in a classroom with our students every single day, making sure

that the resources our students have are adequate and really meeting the needs of what those

students in the classroom have.

And at the end of the day that we're not in this virtuous cycle of one referendum after

another in our schools, see if the doors open and the lights on.

So all of those issues and when I think about the students' needs in the room, every student's

learning conditions are really the educator's working conditions.

I think folks are dedicated to our kids.

Not for a minute, because I think this is something that goes under, talked about, I'm

on live radio, I see.

I'm not as good a live person, I mean, as we are in tape.

But talk for a second, the real impact, because we hear act 10, oh, they want more vacation

or they want more money.

No, no, no, no, let's talk for a second.

From an educator's standpoint, real families, because when act 10 came in, what individual

teachers were paying for healthcare, for out-of-pocket expenses, and that means

educators are paying more, and in many places our community, one spouse works for a school

district, and the other spouse is a plumber, or an electrician, or a baker, or has a childcare

business in their home, talking about that for a minute.

Yeah, so dollars and cents, I think, are a piece of what we're talking about tonight,

and their piece of what is impacting every educator I talk to.

Teachers who have second and third jobs, and we know the work in the classroom is important

in helping our students thrive, and that reach, teach, and inspire that every educator

wants to do, is tough to do when you're working that second and third job.

The erosion of healthcare benefits is something I do want to mention tonight that has been

an impact, where educators' benefits know we're even closely match up to the benefits

of a part-time legislator, like Christian, at this point.

So, every educator wants to see every student in their classroom succeed.

The challenge is with going into a profession where you know at the end of the day that

may not be the case, is a piece to what we're seeing, what we're facing.

I'm going to share one brief story, and that's from a colleague of mine, a two-educator

household who's about to have his first child.

Last week, tearfully talked with me about their fear that they're not able to pay for child

care for a new baby in a two-educator household.

Wow.

Those are real concerns.

And we listened to up north, it was radio from six to eight every morning at Pat

Critelow.

He does a great job of telling these stories.

Incidentally, that is not a singular story.

There are people like that all across Wisconsin.

Heather, you're on the show so much with Pat on Updoor News Radio.

I always appreciate when you come on.

One of the things that you bring is this experience of Wisconsin Public Education Network

going all over the state.

Talk for us a second, because we know that our school districts, particularly in place

where I'm from Richland Center, or Ithaca, Wisconsin, a great school district, even smaller

than Richland Center, they are our communities.

About public education, public school districts have to take all students by law as it is.

Talk to us about what the difference between public district's face versus a private district

or voucher districts.

People are often shocked to learn that when they choose to send their child to a private

school on a voucher, they give up certain rights and protections for those kids.

Public schools are not required, like public schools are to meet the needs of students

with disabilities.

They can openly discriminate against students for any reason and sometimes do.

They can use corporal punishment.

They do not have to hire licensed teachers.

They don't play by the same set of rules, and kids are at risk in these environments,

and we should not be using taxpayer dollars to fund any programs that put kids at risk.

And so that is a huge issue for folks.

The other thing that I think folks don't realize is all the opportunities that democracy

already affords us to have a say in our child's education when they attend a public school.

You can show up at school board meetings.

You can view all curricula.

You can have a relationship with your child's educator in ways that are not guaranteed

to you if you send your child to a private school.

And while people might make those choices for all kinds of very good reasons, if you want

to protect and preserve those rights, then the choice is to go public.

And that's super important.

Also people want their kids to have a thriving education.

They want their schools to be joyful places where kids have all the resources they need

and where educators feel valued and want to go to work because they know that they're

valued by kids and by families and by communities, and that everybody feels welcome and safe

in our buildings.

And if we aren't holding the state accountable for meeting those obligations in our public

schools, then we're doing something very wrong.

And so we need to prioritize those priority needs before we fool around with throwing

money away in programs that are wholly unaccountable to us.

All right, speed, Rob.

Let's give me the high sign.

We've got four and a half minutes left.

So short answers if we can, please.

Heather, we're going to start quickly with you.

Again, rights of students.

Students do have rights quickly.

Students do have rights.

And if you are concerned, like many of us are, about all of the attacks that we're seeing,

both at the state level, the federal level, sometimes at the school board level, not protecting

the rights of LGBTQ plus students, not protecting the rights of immigrant kids and their families,

not protecting the rights of educators to teach the truth in welcoming environments.

These are all things that matter deeply up and down your entire ballot from school board

to the state superintendent race to the Supreme Court race.

And also, if you're sick of raising taxes on yourself to pay for public schools to be open

and thriving, then you want to shut down this system of referendum.

Let's hold the state accountable for funding.

Julie, we're still quickly meeting you on this issue of immigration, because that's

we could do a whole evening just on that.

Very quickly, O'Clayer, we had Mike Johnson, the superintendent of Claire Public Schools,

on the show.

He's been on the Pat Show before up to use radio.

Talk quickly, if you can, please.

Just why again, a fair Wisconsin State Supreme Court could have an effect on these immigration

issues, how they're handled in public education?

Well, immigration is largely a federal issue, but schools and how schools operate and how

schools manage those things are state and local issues.

And so understanding, of course, that all kids, regardless of where they come from, when

they're in our communities, have a right, as the United States Supreme Court has said,

have a right to an education and have to be welcomed, valued, and taught.

And so I think understanding that we have to exist in that particular situation, we have

to help kids understand, and there are all kinds of heartbreaking stories right now about

kids being afraid, being afraid of what's going to happen when they're at school to their

parents and a whole variety of things.

So I think just understanding what school districts can do, but mostly how they can welcome

all kids, regardless of where they're from.

Representative Phillips, one minute left after that, from a legislative standpoint, again,

do you have gold?

Do you see any hope of working with your Republican colleagues right now, or is this a go at

alone and rely on a fair court?

Both.

Because there's a long-term battle that we can win if we build enough political power,

which we do partly through the messages that we're sending in the capital.

Just like I represent a competitive district, so do most of my Republican colleagues.

And so for example, the voucher issue, I think for the reasons Heather mentioned, it's

no coincidence that the people pushing a Christian nationalist agenda are the one supporting

school privatization.

The people in the rural communities that I represent, the public school families, are alarmed

and horrified to learn that they are losing funds to private schools when there isn't

even a private school in those communities.

I think my Republican colleagues have to answer for that.

And if they don't do it in this session, if we're loud enough, they will eventually.

Peggy, 30 seconds.

Sorry about that.

From a teacher's standpoint, why is this race important to you?

Well, I hope that every voter in Wisconsin thinks about the partnership between them and

their local school district in this election.

I know that our students' future depends on impartial justices who uphold the Constitution

and keep our communities and our schools safe and understand that importance for a great

public education for every student in Wisconsin.

Chris, Representative Christian Phelps, Peggy, Wertz, Olson, Heather, DeBla, Bornon, and Julie

Mead.

Thank you all for being here.

Big round of applause.

You should take all of them here.

Education is so important and this race matters.

Be a voter on April 1st.

Stay tuned.

Now we're going to take a quick break for those listening across the civic media on our

live coverage here.

We'll be back in one minute.

You're listening to Protecting Justice for All and Evening of Conversations about the

Wisconsin Supreme Court election and you're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.

All right, welcome back everybody to Up North News' first ever live event, Protecting

Justice for All, as we talk about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race election that is taking

place on April 1st.

We're talking primarily about the issues involved, the topics, the subjects, more so than the

individual candidates.

You may hear references to Judge Susan Crawford.

You may hear references to Walker Shaw County Judge Brad Shimmel, but we really wanted to

make sure that from an overarching standpoint, how does this affect life in Wisconsin?

In the areas that, as you just heard, might impact on education or, in this case, for our

next panel on the economy and coming up shortly, we'll be talking about the impact on reproductive

rights as well.

But our second panel has taken the stage, Dan Schaefer, political editor from Civic Media

and the founder of the Reconvobulation Area is joining us to moderate that panel on the

impact of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on the Wisconsin economy.

Damn, it's all yours.

Thank you, Mr. Critello, and thank you all for being here.

Again, my name is Dan Schaefer, I am the founder of a little publication called the Reconvobulation

Area.

Yes, it is named after the famous post-security area in the Milwaukee Airport.

I think with the discombobulating politics that we have in Wisconsin, we all need a place

to recombobulate.

So, go ahead and subscribe and join us at the Reconvobulation Area as we make sense of things

here in the state of Wisconsin.

I'm also now the political editor at Civic Media and hello to our listeners across the state

on the Civic Media Network.

So, we are now less than three weeks away from yet another everything on the line election

here in Wisconsin.

So, before we jump into our panel discussion, I want to see where all of you on the audience

are at with this election.

So, obviously, since we're streaming live on the radio, we'll ask you to clap instead

of a show of hands here.

So, I want you to clap if the answer is yes.

So, how many of you are registered voters?

I love to hear it, I love to hear it.

How many of you have a plan to vote in the spring election?

Who is voting early?

Who is voting on election day?

How many of you have already voted absentee?

All right.

All right.

Very interesting.

And, how many of you are encouraging others to vote?

Let me ask that one more time.

How many of you are encouraging others to vote?

There we go.

So this panel is about the economy and the impact of this election on the Wisconsin economy.

How are we all feeling about the economy right now?

Maybe a little iffy?

All right.

So this is going to be an important panel.

So we don't always think of the courts as playing a major role in the economy, but the

decisions made by the Wisconsin Supreme Court have a far-reaching impact on a myriad

of issues affecting things like job creation, everyday affordability, a changing climate,

and justice for consumers and workers.

So first, let's check in with our panel.

I'm going to ask each of you to introduce yourself briefly and then answer this question.

How could this election impact the economy here in Wisconsin?

We'll start right here with State Representative Francesca Hong.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm State Representative Francesca Hong.

I represent the 76 district here in Madison.

Welcome to the 76.

What Dan said was right.

Everything is on the line.

And I think how this Supreme Court race is going to impact the economy.

I think it's going to directly undermine and harm the care economy.

And when I say care economy, I'm talking about long-term care, investing in caregivers,

child care, early education, as well as paid medical and sick leave.

Because we do not have a workforce that works for the working family unless we have care.

And if we can't pass these policies, unless we have fair maps.

So with a swing in the State Supreme Court, we could go back to a rig map system where

we have a majority party whose power was artificially built on rig maps.

So that's what's on the line is care for our future.

And it matters even more now because we've got an aging state.

And we want to make sure that those folks are taken care of.

And new families have the resources they need to have success in their own home and be

able to take care of themselves.

Greetings, everybody.

I'm Supreme Moore on McCune Day.

I'm a State Representative and I represent the 17th Assembly District in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

So everything that's happening at the federal level right now is probably going to end up

in court at some point.

One, two, the 10th Amendment of the United States guarantees the state its rights that are

not specifically taken on by the federal government.

So we're going to find ourselves in state court a lot.

So whoever has the majority on the Supreme Court is going to be making a lot of decisions

on contracts because of executive orders that have dismissed contracts.

Whether they be for inflation reduction act dollars and impoundment federal dollars that

the Congress has determined should go to the States, we're going to end up in court

over that.

So whoever has that majority on the court is going to help us determine and make a decision

that's going to have a great effect on our economy.

Thank you.

Hi.

Well, I am a Democratic strategist.

I am a frequent guest with Pat Crightlow on Up North News.

I do a weekly segment with him called Climate Check where we talk about all things climate.

I previously worked for Governor Evers in the administration managing communications.

And I think that I'm also, as an aside, I want to point out I am married to this lovely

gentleman here, Joseph Aggie.

And I will also note that we did not coordinate these outfits.

The guys happen to be wearing the literal exact same jacket.

And Representative Mohan and I just, you know, kind of both were black a lot.

So anyway, in addition to the great points they made, I would just say our democracy is

online with this court election.

When it comes down to things like you look at the decision that came down regarding

drop boxes and people being able to access their right to vote, being able to participate

in the process fairly when it comes to who's, who's getting on the ballot when it comes

to things like fake electors determining how our votes will be counted.

The Supreme Court is going to make decisions like that.

So really this, the court is going to decide really big, make really big decisions about

our democracy, about our ability to participate in elections fairly.

And so it's incredibly important that we have those fair, impartial, justices making

those decisions.

And I have the hardest job of all.

How do you do better than your better half?

I'm Joe Zepekki.

I think the credential that got me on the economy panel is during President Obama's first

term.

I was a political appointee at the US Small Business Administration, which was probably

the coolest job I ever had, working with entrepreneurs, making sure they had access to capital.

But I'm not going to talk about that, and I'm not going to talk about the great points

that they made.

I'm going to talk about the raw politics of it, because that's what I do these days.

And I am here to tell you that there are certain rules of political gravity that still apply.

Okay?

Not all of them.

Trump has changed the calculus a little bit, but there are rules and laws of political

gravity.

And the extraordinary opportunity that we have in Wisconsin in just two and a half weeks,

three weeks, is to be the first voters anywhere in the United States.

And we're in a battleground state to send a message that is stop enough.

This is not what people voted for.

The American people, including a lot of Trump voters, who we got to find a way to have

a conversation with, they didn't vote for an international trade war.

They didn't vote for laying off tens of thousands of veterans.

They didn't vote for your 401k to be taken a nose dive, 50 days into their administration.

And if we turn out on April 1st and we get a big win for the candidate, we're all supporting.

That isn't just good for the next 10 years in Wisconsin.

It sends a message to people in Washington, like I don't know some Republican congressmen

who could use a spine to say you are losing the American people.

That's what's at stake, and that to me gets right to the heart of the economy.

Thank you to all of our panelists here.

So elections for Wisconsin Supreme Court are kind of weird, right?

You want to ask these candidates their thoughts and their views on the issues, but oftentimes

they'll retreat back to these themes of impartiality or not wanting to judge a case before

it's before them, et cetera.

But at the same time, it's becoming increasingly clear that voters want to know this type of information.

In the latest Marquette University Law School, poll 79% of registered voters said judicial

candidates should discuss issues on the campaign.

But for many voters, they don't have a clear idea of what the candidates stand for.

For Brad Shimmel, the poll showed that about half of registered voters either don't know

what he stands for or haven't heard enough, and that number is up at about 60% for Susan

Crawford.

So what have you heard from candidates in this election that tells you how they might

rule on these economic issues that you all just talked about as being important in this

race, if and when they're seated on the bench?

I'll tell you the thing that I heard that tells me the most about one of these candidates

and it's Brad Shimmel, and what I heard him say is that he needs some knee pads to go

beg for money from donors, and what that tells me about Brad Shimmel is that he is for

sale to the highest bidder, and we already know that when he was Attorney General, he refused

to take action against pharmaceutical companies and hold them accountable for what they have

done to devastate communities across Wisconsin and across the country, wrecking communities

with the opioid crisis, and this epidemic that has impacted virtually every single family.

He refused to hold them accountable.

At the same time, he took thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars from this industry.

So we know that he is for sale to the highest bidder by his own admission.

He is wearing out knee pads left and right, talking about he has to go to Menards and buy

him in bulk.

So we know, by his own admission, that he's for sale.

So that's what I'm hearing that tells me a whole lot about where he stands.

Representative, Marlon Kunde.

Thank you.

I know you mentioned that they just talk about impartiality and things of that nature, however.

I think like things like impartiality and commitment to judicial principles and jurisprudence,

those are important things.

Right now, we have folks at the federal level who are not committed to that at all.

There are many, we're going to be in a constitutional crisis with many of the executive orders that

have been administered, and whether or not they impose upon the freedoms and the rights

of the legislative branch.

We need somebody who is going to be impartial.

We need somebody who is going to look at the rules of jurisprudence and judicial principles.

And Brad Schimmel's not that guy, unfortunately.

And if we have somebody on that court, we're already looking at people saying, oh, just wait

until April 1st, after April 1st happens, we can get our old maps back.

After we get our old maps back, we can go back to the Jerry Mandage State of Wisconsin,

and we can have the three to one margin, and we can override any of the governor's vetoes

that we want.

We need to have someone who is going to be judiciously principled in the seat and on the highest court

in the state of Wisconsin to help us kind of determine what some of these laws are going

to be in the state of Wisconsin after they come through our courts and come down from

the federal government as well.

We're listening to W-A-U-K Jackson Milwaukee, W-M-D-X Columbus, Madison, W-G-B-W Green Bay,

W-I-S-S-S-H-Gosh, W-Z-B-U-New Holstein, W-L-C-X LaCrosse, and W-B-Z-H-H-H-A-Word.

The date investing in this race to try to influence it, and guess who's going to have business

before this court regarding Tesla?

If you guessed Elon Musk, you're right.

So what do you think he might expect in exchange for his investment?

Because we saw what he's getting in exchange for his investment in the presidential race,

which is unfettered access to the federal government and the ability to dismantle it at his

will.

We can have the three to one margin, and we can override any of the governor's vetoes

that we want.

We need to have someone who is going to be judiciously principled in the seat and on the

highest court in the state of Wisconsin to help us kind of determine what some of these

laws are going to be in the state of Wisconsin after they come through our courts and come

down from the federal government as well.

You're listening to W-A-U-K Jackson Milwaukee, W-M-D-X Columbus, Madison, W-G-B-W Green Bay,

W-I-S-S-S-Oshkosh, W-Z-B-U-New Holstein, W-L-C-X La Crosse, and W-B-Z-H-H-A-Word.

Data investing in this race to try to influence it.

And guess who's going to have business before this court regarding Tesla?

If you guessed Elon Musk, you're right.

So what do you think he might expect in exchange for his investment?

Because we saw what he's getting in exchange for his investment in the presidential race,

which is unfettered access to the federal government and the ability to dismantle it

at his will.

Honey, are you suggesting that it's not coincidence that 48 hours after Tesla filed suit in

state court that the pocketbook opened?

Wow!

Did you guys rehearse this?

We didn't.

That was pretty good, representative Hong.

This is about standing up for our Wisconsin values, freedom, fairness, democracy, our rights.

And you can either have a judge who is going to destroy all those by answering to co-presidents.

And we already know this based on the mailers that have been sent out and the ads that

they are running, that you are going to have a judge who answers to Trump and Musk, or

you're going to have a judge that answers to the people.

And we want someone that shares the values that I know all Wisconsinites have.

And that's of fairness, that's of freedom, that's of rights, and that's of democracy.

So next question a little bit closer to home.

The state's largest business lobby, Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce has been especially

litigious over the years.

Would that be a fair way to characterize that?

I would say so.

What would concern you about a return to a right wing control of the court in their

dealings with the state's largest business lobby?

Well, we're seeing this shift in the playing field.

We have for a very long time where big gets bigger, big gets even bigger, right?

And it is tilting the playing field against working families.

We are seeing this on full display, of course, with Musk now, the grossest embodiment of

it at the federal level.

Who is going to speak up for the small business owner?

Who is going to speak up for the people working for small businesses?

When we're talking about economic fairness, we're talking about an ability to get ahead.

But before a court of law, we're talking about just access to justice.

That if you are a worker who is wronged, if you are a worker who is sent to work in an

unsafe environment and gets a devastating injury, you need to be able to get justice

for that.

And the more power we give to big businesses that are only getting bigger, the less power

that we the people have, that workers have, we need a government, all three branches that

is more reflective of people who work for a living than people who are bosses for a living

and talk on the phone all day and watch the market all day.

I'll jump in and say, say, anybody out there, if you voted for Donald Trump and your

pissed off or you feel that you've been duped, you should feel pissed off.

You have been.

Like my colleague said that this is not what you voted for.

Oftentimes you have big businesses and you all ate it out perfectly.

You have these big businesses, they have this principle called ROI, Return on Investment.

And they put their money out and this is why they supported a Donald Trump.

This is why they have an Elon Musk in the White House right now or ransacking any

department that he can because they want to return on their investment.

They want to do well and they don't want to pay for it.

That's what a lot of wealthy people do.

They want investments, they want things that they own that they didn't have to pay for.

I just got into a conversation about building sports arenas last night with a cousin of mine

and you always have these large owners who want sports arenas but they don't want the

people to pay for it.

You have these billionaires who want to get everything and have the people pay for it.

That's what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing at the federal level.

There's a $4.5 trillion tax cut that they're fleecing the government to pay for, for billionaires

and millionaires.

And we at the state of Wisconsin have the opportunity to, like my colleague said, to push back against

that and say the people in Wisconsin, we want to make decisions for ourselves and we're

able to do that not only for the Supreme Court but at the education level at the state

of Wisconsin.

So the Wisconsin Supreme Court has also ruled on a number of issues when it comes to environmental

protection and conservation and in the age of changing climate, this says major economic

implications as well.

Melissa, we'll start with you since you've talked about this on the climate check segment

on number of things radio.

What are some of the ways this election could impact the environment in Wisconsin?

Great question.

So yeah, we know that the Republicans have been very hostile to climate progress in Wisconsin

and I know our friends here in the legislature are no stranger to that.

I know that Representative Maura Mukunday has a bill out right now and has had multiple

bills on climate action that I have gone nowhere.

But what's really concerning about this election is the ability to, I think you made the point

earlier to stop any of the federal funds coming into this state from the IRA to stop any

of the action that is happening in this state.

We know that we have thousands and thousands of jobs in solar, in wind, in energy storage

that are being funded by these federal dollars.

These are good paying jobs where people can have a career.

Some of them even right out of high school make in 30 bucks an hour having a great career.

That money is going right back into their community.

And if this court decides, hey, we don't think that this money is being properly spent

in this state.

We don't agree.

Like this is not going to be happening.

That is a really big concern, not just for the economy because that would be shutting down

all those jobs.

But we know it would be a big issue for climate, right?

Because the planet is getting hotter.

We just had the hottest year on record in recorded history.

We know that it is going to continue to get worse.

If we don't do anything to curb emissions, it's going to continue to get hotter.

We're going to continue to have more and more extreme weather events that cause flooding,

that cause worse natural disasters.

We're going to have more tornadoes.

We're going to see more hurricanes in the south.

It is going to just get to be a whole lot worse everywhere.

So yeah, the impact could be really devastating.

Just to build very quickly on that.

Because Democrats are in the minority in the legislature, one of the most effective policy

making things in the state right now is the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.

The PSC, the majority of these appointees right now are Evers appointees.

You asked about WMC.

I am here to tell you that, dang near everything, the PSC does, WMC will tell you, it's bad

for business, it's bad for our big folks.

The PSC is a bulwark against that, and the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court that looks

at the law and interprets it fairly, is another bulwark against some of these worse outcomes.

So to me, that's how you draw the line between this race and energy is a Supreme Court that

looks at the law, interprets it fairly, and does that on PSC matters is really, really

important.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

Oh, not at all.

That was a very important point.

I'm going to simplify it a little bit more if we have a conservative leaning court that

answers to WMC.

The economy is going to tank, because I think when people think about the economy, we aren't

exactly able to distill that down into what it is, but the economy is only the economy

if there are the people.

And if the people aren't healthy, because WMC is defending and protecting big businesses

who are polluters, then we're not going to have not a healthy economy, because we don't

have healthy people who have opportunities to pursue their right to liberty and happiness

and their right to work where they want to and provide for their families.

And so the consequences for climate are directly connected to the health of the people,

and if we don't have healthy people, we don't have an economy.

Right.

So, 2030 is right around the corner.

And scientists everywhere have said that we cannot have run away climate change.

We got to 2030, and that's the market.

It's not some date that some politicians somewhere set up at scientists.

And my good colleague, Chris Larsen, said that 10 years ago was the best time to do something

about this.

The second best time is now.

As Dr. King talked about being in the fierce urgency of now, when I was on the county board,

we created the city county task force on climate and economic equity.

And many of those jobs we lost in the city of Milwaukee due to the industrialization where

the A.O. Smiths and the tower automotives and the Adolfis left, that also created this

gap in this hole in our city's economy as well.

We had middle-class folks who were able to go from one job in the morning, quit and

go to another job in the afternoon who were not able to do that.

We could replace whole industries by doing green collar economies in places like in the city

of Milwaukee, places like in Cacana, places like in Chippewa Falls.

And this is that great opportunity to build that rural and urban bridge that we always talk

about.

Some people want to have a rural urban divide.

We're building a bridge and making sure that we can do the work and actually get things

done.

And the Climate Accountability Act, that wasn't a Republicans office earlier today, but they

were talking about nuclear energy and saying, oh, but it helps us get to our carbon reduction

percentage go.

That's saying, oh, converging interest, let's have a conversation.

We're able to do that now.

And one of the biggest things is that we always have our labor folks and our environmental

folks.