Lubar Center – Page 16 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Milwaukee’s population loss in the 2020 Census surprised some, but makes sense on closer examination

Post author:John Johnson
Post published:September 23, 2021
Post category:Lubar Center Milwaukee Area Project

The 2020 census found a population decline of 17,611 in the City of Milwaukee since 2010. This 3% population decline came as a surprise because it exceeded recent estimates based on other data. Some observers—most prominently from City Hall—have suggested the Census Bureau undercounted Milwaukee. This concern is worth taking seriously given the difficulties of the pandemic and the Trump administration’s ultimately unsuccessful but well-publicized efforts to include a question about citizenship on the census.

However, a careful consideration of the census data shows no real evidence for an undercount. On the contrary, the 2020 census count is consistent with long-observed facts about Milwaukee’s demographic trajectory and other, independent data sources.

A big reason why a shrinking population feels intuitively wrong to many Milwaukeeans is that some parts of the city really are growing—specifically the places people most often visit.

Mike Gousha to Become Law School’s Senior Advisor in Law and Public Policy

Post author:Joseph D. Kearney
Post published:August 23, 2021
Post category:Lubar Center Marquette Law School

Fifteen years ago, at the suggestion of one of my faculty colleagues, I began a conversation with Mike Gousha, who had announced his intention to depart his daily broadcast television news duties at WTMJ, here in Milwaukee (“Channel 4,” if you prefer). Mike accepted our invitation to join Marquette University Law School as distinguished fellow in law and public policy. Thus was born what we came first to denominate our public policy initiative and now (since 2017) tend to refer to as our Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education.

My occasion for noting all this—which omits for the moment everything in between—is that Mike has decided to shift to a new role at the Law School, as of the end of this new semester. In particular, he will step back from his daily obligations here and assume a sort of emeritus status. The word is especially appropriate: Although Marquette University now uses emeritus more broadly, its origin (well, its modern usage, anyway) is in academe, and Mike’s position here has been much in the nature of a faculty member. He has not taught students in law courses, but his initiative, creativity, and leadership have dramatically expanded the Law School’s role in civic education, as the creation of the Lubar Center dramatically attests.

Going forward, Mike will serve the Law School as senior advisor in law and public policy. It seems worth noting that the theory underlying Mike’s affiliation with the Law School will not change. In my initial correspondence with him years ago, I encouraged Mike to consider making Marquette Law School “the platform” for journalism and policy work that he might pursue. Since he joined us in January 2007, he has done this brilliantly—whether the particular form has been the “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” series; his crucial role in imagining the possibility, and persuading us as to the value, of the Marquette Law School Poll; introducing us to Alan Borsuk, senior fellow in law and public policy since 2009, and Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the poll since 2012, among many other people; establishing the Law School as the go-to place for debates for important political office in this region; organizing conferences on K–12 education, national security, and Milwaukee’s regional water initiative, among many other topics; or, most recently, fashioning with John D. Johnson, our Lubar Center Research Fellow, an important series of articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as part of the Lubar Center’s Milwaukee Area Project.

That list is scarcely exhaustive, but my point, as noted, rather involves Mike Gousha’s work going forward. Like a faculty member assuming emeritus status, Mike is not likely to take up full-time work at the Law School and will surely partner with others than the Law School for aspects of his possible activities (e.g., work on a documentary such as this project last year with his wife, Lynn Sprangers, and others). But, as senior advisor in law and public policy, Mike will remain part of our Marquette University Law School community and engage in projects with us here as they appeal to him. Meanwhile, the work of the Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education will continue on a daily basis. That can be the subject of separate communications or announcements as we plan and realize that future.

More immediately, please join me in extending good wishes to Mike in this next (Marquette Law School) chapter.

Differing COVID-19 vaccination rates are about more than just politics

Post author:John Johnson
Post published:July 19, 2021
Post category:Lubar Center

For months, journalists have documented the connection between conservative political beliefs and hesitancy (if not outright opposition) to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

Certainly, partisanship does play a strong role in Americans’ willingness to get vaccinated, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Take Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties, for instance. Milwaukee is deep blue. Biden defeated Trump 69% to 29%. Ozaukee is one of the WOW counties–the historic stronghold of the Wisconsin Republican party. Trump defeated Biden there by 55% to 43%.

Knowing nothing else about southeastern Wisconsin, you might be forgiven for guessing that Milwaukee would enjoy a higher vaccination rate. In fact, 70% of adults in Ozaukee County are fully vaccinated, compared with 60% in Milwaukee. Across the United States, 88 counties have a higher adult vaccination rate than Ozaukee. Milwaukee ranks 307th.

This discrepancy probably doesn’t surprise anyone who lives in either of these counties. The partisan gap between Milwaukee and Ozaukee voters is more a symptom of their differences than a cause of them. Ozaukee is one of the richest counties in the country, Milwaukee one of the poorest. Ozaukee’s advantages extend beyond income.

“Social capital” is a term that captures many things. Chief among them is the idea of “collective efficacy”–a widespread belief that working together can effectively achieve shared goals. Popularized by Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone, social capital can be measured in different ways. But one recent effort to create “social capital index” for each U.S. county ranked Ozaukee 22nd and Milwaukee 1,885th.

I collected 5 statistics for each county in the United States, each of which I suspected might have some influence on COVID-19 vaccination rates. They are:

2020 presidential election results
2020 Census self-response rates
each county’s social capital index score
share of the population living below the poverty line
COVID-19 deaths per capita

Here are the simple scatter plots comparing each of these values with vaccination rates. In each graph, I’ve colored red and labeled the dots for Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties.

The correlation between 2020 vote choice and current vaccination rates is clear and strong, but many of these variables interact with each other in complex ways.

I ran a regression analysis testing each of these variables for an independent correlation with vaccination rates. First, I re-scaled each variable using z-score standardization. In other words, I subtracted the mean from each value, and divided by the standard deviation.

Here are the results of that regression. As expected, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election remains the largest and strongest predictor of vaccine behavior, but several other variables are also important predictors.

A 1-standard deviation increase in Biden’s margin of victory correlates with an 8 percentage point increase in the share of adults who are currently fully vaccinated.

A 1-standard deviation increase in the social capital index correlates with a 3 percentage point increase.

A 1-standard deviation increase in the COVID-19 deaths per capita correlates with a 0.9 percentage point increase in vaccinations.

A standard deviation increase in the poverty rate has essentially an equal and opposite effect on vaccinations as the same size increase in social capital.

When controlling for these other variables, census self-response rate is insignificant.


	Dependent variable:

	percent of adults who are fully vaccinated

Biden vote margin	8.167^***
	(0.179)

Census self-response	-0.281
	(0.197)

social capital index	3.132^***
	(0.227)

covid death rate	0.901^***
	(0.174)

poverty rate	-3.040^***
	(0.223)

Constant	47.550^***
	(0.165)


Observations	2,068
R²	0.590
Adjusted R²	0.590
Residual Std. Error	7.475 (df = 2062)
F Statistic	594.681^*** (df = 5; 2062)

Note:	^p<0.1; ^p<0.05; ^**p<0.01

The model fits the data fairly well, and the correlation between actual vaccination rates and values predicted by the model is much higher than the correlation of any individual variable. Despite their differences, both Milwaukee and Ozaukee are well explained by the model.