Evers and Kaul Struggle to Deliver on Campaign Boasts

Two issues that helped Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul defeat their predecessors in the 2018 election are coming back to haunt them now that six years have passed and no progress has been made on those issues.

Lincoln Hills is the only male youth prison in Wisconsin, and it’s been plagued with controversy for years. It doesn’t take much research to figure out why. Even the main stream media openly discusses the underlying problem. Progressive criminal rehabilitation practices have created a dysfunctional and dangerous environment for both prisoners and staff. The Wisconsin State Journal reported that staff were discouraged from using restraints on violent inmates, segregating inmates as punishment, and even wearing uniforms. The lack of consequences empowered the inmates, guards often lost control of the situation, and confrontations became more frequent and more violent. Following an FBI investigation in 2015, ten staff members were placed on leave. The situation did not improve, and in 2018, candidate Tony Evers pummeled Gov. Walker over it.

“How many kids have abused during the 5 years Walker failed to act? How many staff have been harassed and abused? How many lives have been ruined?” Evers asked at the time. “We need responsible leaders who are more focused about solving problems and protecting lives than winning elections.”

Evers campaigned on closing the prison. It was a winning issue for Evers, and it helped him win the election. However, it doesn’t seem like he did anything to solve those problems and protect lives at Lincoln Hills. Six years later, the prison is still open, and it’s more dangerous than ever. On June 24^th, for the first time, a staff member was murdered by an inmate, and Evers had some tough questions to answer.

“As then-candidate Evers asked Governor Scott Walker in 2018, ‘How many staff have been harassed and abused [at Lincoln Hills]? How many lives have been ruined?’ I ask Governor Evers the same question today,” Congressman Tom Tiffany asked.

Rep. Michael Schraa (R-Oshkosh) said he’s been sounding the alarm about the situation throughout the entire Department of Corrections since 2019, but the Evers Administration has completely ignored him. (The maximum security prison in Waupun has also had problems including inmates dying from various causes and guards being charged with misconduct and abuse.)

“Due to our pleas being unanswered, we have a deceased staff member, nine DOC employees facing criminal charges, and four deceased inmates. Individuals who work in DOC, people who have been incarcerated, and family members of inmates have been contacting my office with their concerns over the last several weeks,” Schraa stated.

Evers, and his liberal allies, have responded by pointing the finger back at Republicans. Their logic: that prisoner was supposed to be transferred to the mental hospital in Mendota, but there wasn’t space. That hospital has several staff vacancies, and the Joint Committee on Finance will not provide it with additional personnel funding until those vacancies are filled. Therefore, it’s all Republicans’ fault.

“I would be remiss if I did not remind you that we still have a long way to go before we get to that point, in large part because of the capital projects you and your committee punted on in the budget," Evers told Republican lawmakers.

The mainstream media helped push that narrative briefly, and then went silent on the issue. However, Republicans haven’t raised much objection to the Governor’s spin either.

When Brad Schimel became Wisconsin’s attorney general in 2015, one of the biggest problems he faced was a backlog of 3,300 rape kits at the state crime lab dating back to the 1980s. This was widely known and reported in the media. However, over the next two years, the state only managed to process 9 of those kits. Schimel never recovered from that failure, and his challenger in the 2018 election, Josh Kaul, made it the cornerstone of his campaign. It worked.

Now Josh Kaul has been attorney general, himself, for almost six years, and he’s got his own crime lab situation. A recent study by the non-partisan legislative audit bureau found that processing times at the crime lab have increased by 50% over Kaul’s time as AG. Right now, it’s taking about 10 months to process each rape kit.

Kaul responded to the audit by explaining that most of those unprocessed rape kits are not tied to active cases, and that COVID is the reason for the general increase in processing times. The Legislative Audit Bureau responded “The public health emergency may help to explain why the median turnaround time increased from 39 days in FY 2019-20 to 57 days in FY 2020-21. However, the median turnaround time increased to 58 days in FY 2022-23, as our report indicates.”

Evers and Kaul are unlikely to ever face the kind of public backlash and political consequences that Walker and Schimel endured over these issues.

One reason is that they have one undeniable advantage that Walker and Schimel did not. The main stream media is not reporting about their failures, where as they dogged Walker and Schimel for them relentlessly. In the case of Evers and Lincoln Hills, the media is even promoting Evers’ preferred narrative.

Surprisingly, it’s not just the main stream media that’s been silent about Evers’ and Kaul’s failures. Whereas the Democrat Party hammered Walker and Schimel over the same failings, the Republican Party has been mute when Evers and Kaul fell short.

Although everyone seems inclined to ignore these problems, they still remain problems for the governor and attorney general, regardless of whether the individuals holding those offices are Republicans or Democrats.