A pandemic. Marching in the streets. Economic hardship. Former governors ask where our government leaders are.
Molly BeckMADISON - The Wisconsin State Capitol has been deserted for months even as the state faces crises not seen in generations.
Cases of coronavirus are rising, thousands are in Wisconsin streets protesting racial inequities, and thousands more are waiting weeks and months for unemployment benefits — forcing some to lose homes, meals and hope.
The state Legislature has passed one bill in four months. Its Republican leaders knocked down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' plan to navigate the pandemic and refused to adopt new rules to put in its place. And Wisconsin is now in a minority of states without a face mask requirement.
"State government has just simply failed to respond to an enormous crisis," former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"Doing the right thing is really the best politics and that’s why you’re elected — to do what you think is right and (to) have a plan," said former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum. "I see that falling apart."
Wisconsin state government is often paralyzed by its politics, and in recent weeks that division has disappointed current and former makers and observers of state policy, who say the state's elected officials should exhibit more leadership.
"The inability to have a bipartisan statewide policy on COVID ... we kind of threw up our hands after Safer At Home (was struck down)," Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce President Tim Sheehy said, referring to the May 13 state Supreme Court decision that abruptly ended the governor's coronavirus restrictions. "We'd all like to see less partisanship and better solutions."
Sheehy said he believes local officials are in the best position to craft new policies related to the pandemic but said the general lack of cooperation between state leaders could be creating an economic disadvantage for Wisconsin.
"If you hold it up, Wisconsin looks like a mitt, and the competition is outside the mitt, not inside the mitt. Too often I think Wisconsin gets shortchanged by the partisan back and forth inside the mitt," he said.
Doyle, who served as governor from 2003 to 2011, said the Capitol's dynamic is much less productive than it was during the last major economic crisis. He said that during his first term he battled with Republican leaders of the Legislature but "never had a legislative leader that I just couldn’t talk to."
"It's one thing to play the political games, which I think are really petty," Doyle said about Republican legislative leaders. "Then you have something come along that really requires state government attention and action — it isn't a matter of playing an inside political game, it's actually rising to the occasion."
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in a statement said the state is "flying blind" on how much money it has to spend on new programs because of a delayed tax filing deadline, making it difficult to make any comparison to the Legislature's current response to previous years' actions.
He said it's difficult to know what financial situation the state is in until new revenue figures are released.
"It’s hard to even evaluate the financial position we’re in until we see that report and see what is going to happen at the federal level," he said.
Fitzgerald, who is running for Congress, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos did not answer in what environment they would support crafting a new state policy response to the coronavirus if the outbreak worsens in Wisconsin.
"I continue to urge businesses around the state to comply with the guidelines put forward by the (state economic development agency) so that adequate social distancing can happen,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.
Sheehy said in the coming weeks state and federal governments will have to grapple with what kind of financial shortfalls state and local officials face.
"So there’s a balance there — it’s just not let's come back into session and spit out more money," he said. "Frankly, the real work is in front of us as we look at the financial impact on state and local governments."
Former Republican Govs. Scott Walker and Tommy Thompson, who is now serving as interim leader of the University of Wisconsin System, declined to be interviewed.
Coronavirus cases are accelerating in Wisconsin, at a higher rate than the increase in testing around the state and at one point surpassing the new cases in Illinois — a state with twice the population.
Other states are noticing Wisconsin's surge in cases. New York and Chicago are requiring travelers to quarantine themselves for two weeks when they visit the Badger State.
With the pandemic showing few signs of slowing, observers say they fear the state is left without any road map to navigate the spread of the virus and its side effects if the virus intensifies in the coming months as health experts predict.
Wisconsin lawmakers have introduced 10 bills in response to the coronavirus pandemic — the fewest among the state's neighbors, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In Minnesota, lawmakers have introduced more than 200 bills in response to the virus outbreak. And earlier this week legislators there spent hours in the state Capitol striking a deal and passing police accountability legislation in early morning hours.
Here, where racial disparities are the most profound, the Legislature's Black caucus asked Evers to call lawmakers in on Juneteenth to take up criminal justice legislation in response to the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed in May by a white police officer.
"Misconduct, coupled with the disparate treatment of African Americans and other people of color with regard to arrests and citations are areas of great concern to us," the lawmakers wrote to the governor.
But Evers declined the request and issued support for long-stalled legislation. Vos said he doesn't believe additional policy changes are necessary but was open to discussing ideas.
That was nearly two months ago.
States turn to mask mandates
One tool most states have turned to during the pandemic is a statewide face mask requirement — which is backed by a vast majority of adults, according to a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press.
Wisconsin is one of 18 states without one — and the only state with a Democratic governor.
Fitzgerald and Vos oppose requiring masks statewide while Evers has said for weeks he is considering the idea after previously asserting he lacked the authority. Most recently, the governor said he would issue such a rule if he didn't think he would get sued.
"The governor continues to be concerned about the increases in cases we’re seeing across our state and is evaluating additional steps we can take to help prevent further spread of COVID-19," Britt Cudaback, spokeswoman for Evers, said in a statement. "We encourage folks to stay home, limit their social interactions and travel, and wear masks whenever they go out to help flatten the curve and keep our families, neighbors, and communities safe."
Some Democrats have called on Evers to issue the mandate anyway, either by executive order or through a process known as rule making — including state Sen. Chris Larson of Milwaukee who started a petition.
"As soon as it became clear that masks help stop the spread of coronavirus, it should have been the next thing that we did as a nation and once it was clear that we weren’t going to do it as a country we should have stepped up as a state," Larson said.
A recent study in Health Affairs showed statewide mask mandates in 15 states may have prevented hundreds of thousands of coronavirus cases between March and May.
Some legal experts disagree with Evers' position and say he still has the power to set statewide rules to fight COVID, including issue mask requirements.
Doyle, a former attorney general, said the May Supreme Court ruling that tossed out the governor's stay-at-home order put Evers in a tough spot to craft statewide policy related to the pandemic but said it didn't shut the door.
He said the ruling did not decide the scope of Evers' emergency powers as governor and said Evers could mandate face masks by declaring a new public health emergency.
"It seems to me there are openings here, so yes, I think it's pretty clear we need a state masking policy," Doyle said. "It's pretty hard to see what they have to lose at this point."
A spokeswoman for Evers did not respond to questions.
Not everyone in Wisconsin agrees with the approach. McCallum and Sheehy said they believe mask requirements should be implemented locally, not by Evers.
Sheehy said the now-defunct plan by the governor was economically painful but "the right medicine at the right time." McCallum said it shouldn't have allowed some businesses to remain open while others with similar operations closed.
The state workforce development agency continues to struggle to wade through the number of unemployment claims, leaving thousands in the lurch for months in many cases.
Republican lawmakers called on Evers to provide loans to people who are waiting on benefits but Evers dismissed the idea as a "political stunt" that could end up seeing the same kind of delays as benefit processing because of the system in place.
Democratic lawmakers are drafting bills to change the unemployment claim process, but Republican legislative leaders said the proposals amounted to damage control for the Evers administration's handling of unemployment claims and rejected the ideas. And Evers didn't say he supported them.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people waiting on benefits have told the Journal Sentinel in recent weeks that their mental health is deteriorating, they are foregoing meals, and have lost their homes.
"Now is the time for leadership to exert itself, and leadership is trying to work for the betterment for society — it's not necessarily trying to win the election," McCallum said. "It's trying to do the right thing once you’ve won the election and then you let the chips fall."
Rob Henken, president of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum, said overriding guidance or minimum requirements from the state to help guide local policymaking related to the virus outbreak would be useful.
Henken said some municipal health departments in southeast Wisconsin would like to take certain actions to respond to their own outbreaks but because public health is a county function, they have to rely on county officials to respond to local problems.
Henken said the state Department of Health Services could issue such rules but is often under heavy scrutiny by lawmakers.
"In an ideal world we would be seeing leaders from both parties getting together and instead of talking about where they disagree, finding where they might agree, and to me that could form the basis for some commonality in terms of the minimum standards that we ought to be following as a state for public health reasons but also for the sake of the economy," he said.
Days after the Supreme Court struck down much of the governor's order closing hundreds of businesses, limiting gathering sizes and requiring social distancing, Evers and GOP legislative leaders spoke by phone about what kind of rules the legislative leaders would support.
The court ruling required Evers' health officials to instead use a process known as rulemaking to craft new policies — plans that could be vetoed by a Republican-controlled legislative committee.
Vos and Fitzgerald at the time said they didn't see a need for any new state rules, and the Republican legislative leaders later learned an Evers staff member recorded the conversation without their knowledge — breaking down an already fractured relationship.
Henken said the needs of the state should push the three to revisit the discussion.
"Notwithstanding that those sides may feel that they have legitimate reasons to not want to talk to the other side, I think the severity of the challenge here demands that they try again," he said. "The fact is that our caseloads are rising again and we have seen in other parts of the country that this can spin out of control again."
Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.