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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wisconsin clerks prepare for the spring election Tuesday in the midst of court rules providing shifting instructions and Wisconsinites continue to turn out support for Ukraine.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” candidates make their final appeals to voters to be Milwaukee’s next mayor. What’s next for Wisconsin redistricting? And ad campaign calls upon voters to have trust in their local election clerks. It’s “Here & Now” for April 1st.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

For the first time in nearly 20 years Wisconsin’s largest city will vote for a new mayor. With just four days before the special election in Milwaukee, candidates Cavalier Johnson, the current acting mayor and former city council president and Robert Donovan, former city council alderman, sat down for a conversation with our partners at Milwaukee PBS.

Maayan Silver:

How much of the uptick in violence has been impacted by the pandemic and voters want specifics as to your plans for the city to minimize all of this crime and violence. Candidate Donovan.

Robert Donovan:

I will say this. I think perhaps some of it is due to COVID or this whole period of the last two years we have seen chaos reign in Milwaukee and I simply do not believe that there is any hope of restoring order and stability to our streets and neighborhoods without providing the Milwaukee Police Department with the appropriate level of manpower. In addition, we need to ensure that our district attorneys and our judges are holding our criminals accountable for their crimes. It seems to me every time we hear of some horrendous crime being committed, it’s perpetrated by an individual, a record a mile long, should not have even been out on the street in the first place. So those are critical components to begin the process of restoring order to our community.

Maayan Silver:

Candidate Johnson?

Cavalier Johnson:

Yeah, you are absolutely correct and COVID certainly has played a role in the uptick in crime and violence we have seen in large cities across the country. Milwaukee is no exception. And we need to have holistic public safety in order to address the problems we have on the streets of Milwaukee. So holistic public safety means having the adequate number of police officers, something that I want to see and something that I’ve been fighting for. It also means working to have mental health services that are available to folks in our community. It also makes — it also looks to make sure we have earlier interventions in the lives of young people, and we have had conversations with the district attorney, with the chief judge for Milwaukee County. That has had the state come in to make an investment, tens of millions of dollars in our public safety apparatus here in Milwaukee.

Mike Strehlow:

Should officers be returned to the schools?

Cavalier Johnson:

I don’t believe that police necessarily need to be inside the classroom. I’ve not called for that. What I would like to see, though, is that police are able to be on hand, at schools, especially after school when things are more likely to happen, more likely to pop up.

Robert Donovan:

We just can’t have our police coming after the fact. We need officers, the appropriate officers in our schools connecting with students, creating those relationships that are so critical so that they can prevent crime or prevent the fight or the disturbance from occurring.

Everett Marshburn:

Last year the Office of Equity and Inclusion found the pandemic had immense and widespread impacts on the Milwaukee workers. Low wage workers were hit particularly hard. Workers living in Black neighborhoods experienced disproportionate unemployment impacts. What specific steps will you take to bring jobs to challenged neighborhoods and ensure they pay a living wage?

Cavalier Johnson:

Right now downtown there is a sky rise coming out of the ground, The Couture. It’ll be the tallest residential tower in Wisconsin, and that’s skyline defining and great for the city. It’s great for downtown. The thing that’s most exciting to me about The Couture though is the fact it’s going to take a million construction hours and 40% of those hours, 400,000 will go to people who live in the most depressed neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The neighborhoods I grew up in because of the city’s Residence Preference Program. So that will create an opportunity for those folks who live in disadvantaged, challenged neighborhoods to have an access point into a 21st Century economy job in the trades. We need to find new ways for folks to have these access points.

Everett Marshburn:

Candidate Donovan?

Robert Donovan:

I would want as mayor a Department of City Development that is far more aggressive in reaching outside our region to attract businesses to come to Milwaukee and I would urge that department and insist that that department work with many of our executives currently here in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is home to some of the best Fortune 500 companies in the country. We need to tap into the connections that those CEOs have with other CEOs around the country and bring some of their vendors and some of their companies that they are connected with right here in Milwaukee. But in addition, as I have said previously, we need to take programs that work in other communities and implement them here in Milwaukee. One of the things that I would insist on moving forward with as mayor is the Cleveland co-op model that has been very successful in Cleveland in taking individuals who have chronically unemployed or low skilled, training them, getting them into jobs and those individuals then become owners, co-owners of the company they are working with.

Everett Marshburn:

Both of you have been fairly critical of our former mayor about his seeming lack of work in the neighborhoods. Candidate Johnson, you said in a recent debate, the 20 years under Tom Barrett, the depressed neighborhood you grew up in, where windows are busted out, doors boarded up, have not seen improvement. You said we have got to lift those neighborhoods and create stability. What concrete steps would each of you take to do that to improve underserved communities.

Cavalier Johnson:

What I want to see is us to get back to a point in this community where we are providing family-supporting job opportunities for the people who live here. Working with entrepreneurs to make sure they have opportunity to have access to the resources to start new jobs, working with our Department of City Development, working with M7 to attract new businesses to Milwaukee. Using the tools that we have to lure companies here and build out opportunities like Milwaukee Tool that’s happening downtown with up to 2,000 family-supporting jobs in our city.

Robert Donovan:

I again, emphasize restoring safety to our neighborhoods and then begin the process, once that’s accomplished of businesses will want to come into neighborhoods. We also desperately need to ensure that these houses that are burnt up, fire damage or boarded up, we either tear them down or restore them, one or the other. We need the resources to get that done. But we begin the process one at a time of taking our neighborhoods and revitalizing them.

Frederica Freyberg:

The state Supreme Court today denied a Governor Tony Evers’ motion on why his redistricting maps should be upheld. The latest action in Wisconsin’s high court over voting maps comes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Evers’ maps and sent the case back to the state. Expert on election and constitutional law and former clerk for two U.S. Supreme Court justices, UW-Madison Law School professor Robert Yablon joins us for the latest. Thanks very much for being here.

Robert Yablon:

Good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Evers’ motion and experts’ report said the seven Milwaukee Assembly districts in his maps avoid illegal vote dilution under the Voting Rights Acts, but Republicans weren’t having it calling Evers’ motion, among other things, unsolicited and the Wisconsin Supreme Court apparently agreed today, rejecting the expert’s submission. But wasn’t SCOTUS asking for more evidence in support or just not from Evers?

Robert Yablon:

Well, the U.S. Supreme Court indicated that one of the options available to the Wisconsin Supreme Court was to consider more evidence and so I think that it was that line in their opinion that led the governor to put in this submission today, which the Supreme Court, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied in a one line order. So it seems they have decided they are not going to take new evidence in this case. Instead there are a couple of other paths they may try to pursue to get a legal map in place.

Frederica Freyberg:

Like?

Robert Yablon:

Well, so essentially, they were given, earlier in this litigation, a number of proposals from the parties. They chose the governor’s map because they said the governor’s map best complied with the “least change” framework they imposed. So one thing they could do is go back to those other proposals and see which of them is the next best on the “least change” framework and adopt one of those. That’s what the legislature is asking for. And that would mean jettisoning the governor’s map wholesale and adopting theirs instead. The governor thinks that’s overkill. The U.S. Supreme Court only called into question the districts in the Milwaukee area, so what the governor has said is either hear more evidence, that’s what the Wisconsin Supreme Court said today it’s not going to do or look at the evidence in the record now and maybe make a more convincing case to the U.S. Supreme Court about why you need to continue to uphold the governor’s map. It seems like right now either the Wisconsin Supreme Court is going to get more elaborate reasons for why the governor’s map indeed complies with the Voting Rights Act or it’s going to choose one of the other maps that have been submitted earlier in this case.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is this like a rocket docket in the state high court? Should we expect a decision on Wisconsin maps very soon?

Robert Yablon:

We will see a decision soon. The court is — they realize they need to get on this expeditiously. The nomination petition process for the fall elections opens on April 15th and the Wisconsin Elections Commission needs some time ahead of that to do some implementation steps. Once the map is adopted, they need to put it into their system to make sure candidates know what districts they are in. Voters know what districts they are in. We are going to see a decision quite soon, I would think, from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Frederica Freyberg:

Backing up just a little bit, what is the point of a majority-minority district under the Voting Rights Act?

Robert Yablon:

The Voting Rights Act is a landmark federal law that seeks to ensure fair representation for communities of color. And you are primarily talking about communities of color that would potentially be large enough to form a majority in a single member district. And in Wisconsin, the act primarily applies in the Milwaukee area where you have large enough African American communities that they could form electoral majorities at the district level. Traditionally when you have communities that large, when they’re politically cohesive communities, and they vote distinctly from other communities, you tend to ensure that they will get representation, and that’s why the governor drew that seventh majority-minority district in Milwaukee. He saw the African American community in Milwaukee had grown to some extent, particularly relative to other communities and thought the act required the addition of that district. The U.S. Supreme Court was unconvinced and that’s why they reversed the decision and now have sent it back.

Frederica Freyberg:

In your expert opinion, how well do either of the maps, the legislature’s or the governor’s ensure minority voters have the political power to elect candidates of their choice?

Robert Yablon:

This is a really complicated area of the law. The Supreme Court justices themselves sometimes lament how complicated and confusing it can be. So you know, one, what the Voting Rights Act is not about is purely creating districts that just have a numerical majority of a minority population. Because sometimes that won’t be enough for them to elect their preferred candidate given voting patterns and so on. So if you are doing a functional analysis, what you might see is just having a majority-minority district may be inadequate. In other cases, what you might find is you don’t actually need to create a majority-minority district at all, because maybe there will be crossover votes from other communities that will be adequate to allow that minority community to elect its preferred representative. So it requires a very detailed, functional analysis. And one of the complaints from the U.S. Supreme Court was the Wisconsin Supreme Court just didn’t delve in deeply enough into that kind of functional inquiry.

Frederica Freyberg:

Less than a minute left, what about how the U.S. Supreme Court handled it. It has been described as shocking and unprecedented. Why?

Robert Yablon:

Well, the dissent did describe it as unprecedented and I think there were a couple of unusual features about what the U.S. Supreme Court did. First of all, this was a summary reversal. The U.S. Supreme Court acted very quickly. It did not hear full briefing or oral argument and it does not do that very often, and usually when it does, it’s because there is a crystal-clear legal error. But precisely because the Voting Rights Act law is so complicated, the dissenters pointed out there were nuances that had been overlooked by the majority. So, unusual it was a summary reversal. More than that, unusual that it happened so close in time to when the state really needs to have maps. This was a disruptive decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. And in other instances, the U.S. Supreme Court has said we recognize it is difficult to run an election and we want to make sure that states are not — that wrenches are not thrown into state processes at the last minute, but that’s essentially what the U.S. Supreme Court did to Wisconsin here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Here we are. Professor, thank you very much.

Robert Yablon:

Good talking to you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Election clerks across Wisconsin are gearing up despite current uncertainty over legislative district boundaries. And they have taken to the airwaves with an ad campaign featuring local election clerks to impress upon state voters they can trust how elections are run in the state.

Cindi:

Your friend is an election official.

Lisa:

Your family member is a poll worker.

Cindi:

We trust our local elections because our friends, families, and neighbors run them.

Ellen:

We trust our elections because we trust them.

Frederica Freyberg:

Local government associations partnered to create the ad following two years of distrust in the electoral process by unfounded allegations of widespread fraud. The League of Wisconsin Municipalities sponsored the spot whose executive director is Jerry Deschane. He joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Jerry Deschane:

Thank you for inviting me, happy to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why did you feel it was needed to air ads featuring local clerks to instill trust in our elections?

Jerry Deschane:

Well, Frederica, two fundamental reasons. The first one is people — a lot of questions are being raised about elections, and people’s faith is being shaken, if you will. And we wanted to start from the reminder of hey, folks, you can trust elections, primarily because you know who is running them. For the most part, these are people that you recognize, you have seen in the grocery store. So we wanted to start with that message that hey, look, you know these people, you know you can trust these people. They are your neighbors. The second reason to be perfectly selfish about it is clerks are under a lot of pressure and in this job market there are a lot of things they could do that don’t come with the same pressures as this, so we wanted to give them an atta boy, and say look, we know you are doing a good job, keep it up.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are examples of what clerks have been facing from the public after the high-profile investigations into the 2020 election for the last two years?

Jerry Deschane:

Well, I think we have all seen news accounts. There have been some death threats. On a more day to day basis, we hear from clerks all over the state who are getting all sorts of accusations thrown at them at the local level that frankly they just never saw coming, from people that they know. And what we want to say to people is, look, it’s ok to have questions, but the best source of information is that clerk. Go and talk to him, go and talk to her, and get your own concerns resolved at the local level and frankly we’re pretty confidence if more people would do that, there would be fewer questions out there.

Frederica Freyberg:

On top of that, what kind of pressures are clerks facing when courts make last minute changes to things like drop boxes, absentee ballots and district boundaries?

Jerry Deschane:

I don’t think anything is going to be quite as crazy as the pandemic was, to be honest with you, when they had to reinvent an election on, what was that, about four weeks’ notice. But nonetheless, last minute changes are probably the worst thing you want do because the clerk has to train poll workers. They have to be certified, you know, we have to be sure of the law, which is not all that black and white these days. So we ask legislators. We ask a lot of policy makers, go ahead and debate the issues, we think it’s fundamentally healthy, but try to time that so you are not doing it right up against an election because frankly it can be chaotic and as you know, when the public is confused, there’s a last minute change, that in itself will breed distrust, which should be the opposite of what we’re trying to do.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are the number of local election workers waning in the midst of all of this?

Jerry Deschane:

The numbers are not waning because — well, we need to have at least 1832 of them. That’s how many towns, villages and cities there are in Wisconsin. Every one of them has to have an election clerk who is trained and certified. What is happening is the great retirement. Clerks are walking. I can’t quantify it for you with statistics but anecdotally, we are getting more than a few clerks saying I just don’t need these headaches, and you know, there will be new people coming in, that’s great, but we are losing a lot of institutional knowledge, and that’s a concern, too.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Jerry Deschane, thank you very much for joining us and talking with us about this.

Jerry Deschane:

Happy to talk about it. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

A Dane County judge has found Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in contempt for not turning over documents requested through open records laws. The judge ordered Vos and the state Assembly to produce the records within two weeks and to pay a daily fine until they do so. The liberal group American Oversight filed a lawsuit in October for the records relating to an investigation into the 2020 election launched by the speaker and lead by contractor and former supreme court justice Michael Gableman.

In other news, local efforts to help in the crisis half a world away continue as Wisconsinites find ways to support Ukraine. One such effort called Wisconsin Ukrainians out of Green Bay is raising funds and awareness, gathering resources and stories. The group’s founder, Jonathan Pylypiv joins us now. Thank you for being here.

Jonathan Pylypiv:

Good morning, thank you for giving us the opportunity to help share the message and what we are doing as an organization, thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Absolutely. As a native of Ukraine, when you look upon what is happening there, you have said these are our friends, our families, and our ancestors. How emotional is it for you?

Jonathan Pylypiv:

Boy, I mean, it’s all very raw when you hear of some of these cities now that are being liberated and the war crimes, the atrocities being done by the Russian invaders, it’s just not only like heartbreaking but also just enraging because like Ukrainian people want to be in peace and our ancestors, I think of my grandma and letting their bodies rest in peace and so you know, it motivates us also to do whatever we can in Wisconsin and really all over the country to galvanize the support locally within our communities, to help bring positive change of support but also helping tell the story so people hear the Ukrainian voice and a direct connection to what is happening in Ukraine.

Frederica Freyberg:

Tell us what your group is doing. I see that you are sitting before a storage room of goods. Tell us what Ukrainians in Wisconsin is doing.

Jonathan Pylypiv:

Yes, so, Wisconsin Ukrainians started as a Facebook page in 2014, but now we are a 501c3 pending nonprofit organization and we have board members and people all over the state. I happen to be in the Fox Cities and a lot of us are in the Green Bay area. We are doing things like we started collecting much needed items, working with trusted partners in Ukraine to help logistics, to get items from point A to point B, and the items you see behind, this is at St. Matthew’s Church. This is one of many drives we have been doing and it’s kind of an ongoing effort, and also fundraising, so we can buy some high impact items. We are getting ready to donate funds so a local nonprofit in Ukraine can buy a van to not only help transport refugees but also goods and supplies that are much needed like medicine and other items like that.

Frederica Freyberg:

How hard is it to get those kinds of donations to the people in Ukraine?

Jonathan Pylypiv:

When we first started as a grassroots effort, we kind of — a lot of us from all over the state just kind of joined forces so we could do more together. Like this morning, I was in Kaukauna helping with a friend some art installation, I saw the current of the river, how strong it was. There was this perfect — for me, reflecting on it, that all of us if we move together and work towards the common goals of helping the Ukrainian people, we’re going to be very strong and powerful together and I think getting the items to Ukraine, we have multiple ways. One is by working with trusted partners like UMANA, Help Heroes of Ukraine in Chicago. Then also working with local trusted partners in Ukraine and Poland. We already have trust relations with so we can send some funds with people we already know and trust and then they can purchase some items locally in many instances and then get them to the people really quick, like we did with generators, getting them to Poland and then getting them into Ukraine to get them to the most impactful areas needed generators.

Frederica Freyberg:

You and others are in constant communication with people in Ukraine. What do the people there think will happen?

Jonathan Pylypiv:

Yeah, so you know, even when this war, this reinvasion started, I think there was a lot of concern that Russia will keep pushing and you know, typically in the last eight plus years and in historically we have not seen a lot of the Russian leadership honor their word, whether it’s the Budapest Memorandum when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, whether it’s Holodomor in 1932 and ’33 when millions of Ukrainians were killed and starved, so right now, we are viewing this as another genocide of the Ukrainian people. They are killing civilians, targeting children, women, they are not letting people flee to safety and they are cutting off food and water, basic needs. And so we are — and then some of these areas are being retaken by the Ukrainians, there are just horrible atrocities that are being uncovered like in instance some of the people are — some of the Russian terrorists are defecating on the corpses of Ukrainian people. Just how low and deprived this invasion is. So, we are not only frustrated and upset, but we’re going to do everything we can to support and help expose the truth what’s happening.

Frederica Freyberg:

Thank you, thank you for your work. Jonathan Pylypiv out of Green Bay.

Jonathan Pylypiv:

Thank you for your support of Wisconsin Ukrainians, we appreciate it.

Frederica Freyberg:

The FDA and CDC this week approved second Moderna COVID-19 boosters for people over 50 and the state Department of Health Services supports getting them. But as federal American Rescue Plan funds run out, testing and vaccines may no longer be automatically free according to Milwaukee Public Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson.

Kirsten Johnson:

Now is the time to get vaccinated. As funding sources are being reevaluated across the country, it’s unclear how long the services will remain free. If you have been putting off getting your vaccine, make a plan today to get your vaccine and booster.

Frederica Freyberg:

For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.