Here & Now for March 11, 2022

Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

The ongoing violence of war in Ukraine is heartbreaking for Ukrainians in Wisconsin. In the midst of the atrocities abroad, the price at the pump is going up. The state Senate wrapped up its last session for the season, passing a proposal that would prohibit a city from banning no-knock police warrants.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a Ukraine native describes anguish and wants to see action. Are resulting gas hikes a small price to pay? Redistricting and an election investigation take more twists and turns. And the impact of banning no-knock search warrants. It’s “Here & Now” for March 11.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

As horrifying as it is to watch the human carnage of war in Ukraine from afar, for people who call Ukraine home, it’s unspeakable. Our next guest, a Ukraine native and Wisconsin transplant, worries for her family there. But she considers all Ukrainians her family, and the atrocities are taking their toll. Ruslana Westerlund joins us from her home in Cross Plains, Wisconsin. Thanks very much for joining us.

Ruslana Westerlund:

You’re welcome. I’m glad to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is your reaction when you see the continued brutality against Ukraine and its people?

Ruslana Westerlund:

You know, I thought I would — it would get easier, but it’s absolutely heart-wrenching because the atrocity continues and the civilians are attacked and bombed and maternity wards are attacked and children’s hospitals are targeted and bombed, and now the war just becomes just painful and impossible to make sense of or wrap your head around.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you even deal with it, seeing that, and knowing that your family remains in Ukraine?

Ruslana Westerlund:

I try to seek support, and I have received a lot of support. And I try to stay in touch with my family in Ukraine, and to either encourage them or to just check in on how they’re doing, and constant communication, just organizing rallies in Madison and feeling the solidarity and feeling the support of people helps to get through day to day or sometimes hour by hour.

Frederica Freyberg:

Where are members of your family now, and what is happening to them?

Ruslana Westerlund:

So my dad and my stepmom, my uncles and aunts, the majority of them live in central Ukraine, and they do live in fear, even though they don’t have to go in the bomb shelters yet, because relatively that area has been left untouched, but it’s still — there is still a lot of fear. So they’re in central Ukraine, and some of my nephews are in — some of my relatives are in western Ukraine.

Frederica Freyberg:

So I have read that you didn’t expect Putin to actually invade Ukraine. Why not?

Ruslana Westerlund:

I think it was just hard to believe that he would actually do it. I mean, we knew the war in the east has been going on since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea, so we thought maybe he’ll be continuing those efforts because he’s got an agenda there. So it was just — the invasion of the entire country was a shock to all of us.

Frederica Freyberg:

And the continued brutality of it, what about that? Still shocking, I imagine.

Ruslana Westerlund:

It’s — it’s — sometimes I have no words. And I write poetry to process and I wrote a poem but there are no words especially when the humanitarian corridors are being mined, so evacuees cannot escape. And that’s actually a war crime, because civilians are supposed to be allowed to escape and evacuate. So when the humanitarian corridors are mined and blown up, then you’re looking at just atrocity and brutality and extermination of people.

Frederica Freyberg:

What would you like to see the U.S. do to help Ukraine fend off the Russians?

Ruslana Westerlund:

I would like the U.S. to come up with creative solutions that — because I understand involving NATO directly is not safe or maybe it isn’t’, I really don’t know, but if that’s not an option, then think of creative ways of how to supply the MiGs, the fighter jets by allowing and equipping the Ukrainian army to fight off the war with more equipment. The world has to step up and do something more.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does it surprise you that Ukraine has put up such a good fight?

Ruslana Westerlund:

No, because we are resilient people, we’re strong people, we’re independence-loving people. We have never been part of Russia, sort of like — spiritually speaking. We have been dragged into the Soviet Union, but we have always been independent people in our spirit. Since the — our history of the Kievan Rus’ centuries ago. So we have always been — we are kind of used to oppressors now. It’s sad, but because we have endured such brutality and oppression and the Holodomor, which was the artificial famine in ’33, we have developed resilience and strength to fight off because independence and our soil are the most important values to us.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think will happen in the end?

Ruslana Westerlund:

We will win. We will win. And I don’t care what happens to Russia. But Ukraine will win. It will cost us more lives and it’s — the unthinkable atrocities will continue because Putin won’t give up easily but we will win. We just need support, continued, continued global support to help us win.

Frederica Freyberg:

Ruslana Westerlund, thank you for joining us, and good luck to you and your family.

Ruslana Westerlund:

Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Amid the horror of what’s happening in Ukraine, consumers here at home are railing against high gas prices. And like all things, the cost of a gallon of gas has turned up the political blame game. We wanted to put some context to the price of oil, its geopolitical implications, and what the war means economically going forward. We sat down with Mark Copelovitch, professor of political science and public affairs and international relations at UW-Madison. We came here to talk about oil and gas prices but in this moment with what’s happening in Ukraine, that just seems like such a mercenary discussion. What about that?

Mark Copelovitch:

Yeah. I mean, the most important thing is, this is a tragedy for Ukraine. It’s a war. We’re seeing the pictures of the massacring of civilians, and so there’s terrible human suffering. And the military aspect, and there’s huge implications for democracy in Europe. So this is a sovereign democratic country that has been attacked for essentially, you know, no reason of its own, and so those are paramount issues, but also, you know, I teach international relations, and the security issues and the economic issues in international relations intertwine. So one of the major things in the last week has been the coordinated economic sanctions from the U.S. and the European Union, the Japanese, kind of the world’s major democratic economies, and they’re targeted at Russia’s ability to sustain its economy which ultimately is related to Russia’s ability to sustain the conflict. So I think the economic issues are actually very important to talk about.

Frederica Freyberg:

How meaningful is the U.S. sanction of ending Russian oil imports, both for that country, but for ours?

Mark Copelovitch:

I mean, it’s important. I actually don’t think that’s the most important of the sanctions. So Russia is one of the world’s largest oil exporters. We are relatively not dependent on Russia. Europeans are incredibly dependent on Russia for natural gas exports. The most important ones have been these financial sanctions to block the Russian Central Bank and government and Russian banks from participating in the global economy. Basically the financial flows in the world economy are the oil that keeps the engine running, and if you cut off the oil, the Russian economy basically can’t function. So that’s much more important. You know, I think the hit to the Russian economy of cutting off oil exports is something that happens over the next month to a year or two. The financial sanctions are already hitting them very, very hard.

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of the hit to their oil economy, what will that do in the U.S.? I mean, will this result in higher prices here?

Mark Copelovitch:

It will result in higher prices at least temporarily because global prices will jump. So when you have one of the world’s largest oil producers, not exporting as much, you’re going to have these short-term spikes. But we are not very dependent on Russia, right, and there’s already talk of how you’re going to reallocate global oil supply chains, the U.S. government releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, moving to alternative energy. So you know, you saw the short-term spike. I think oil went up to about 125 or 130, it’s already back down today below 110. So oil prices are going to be higher, gas prices are going to be higher, but it’s not going to be a sort of things are going to keep going up. For the next six months to a year, I think. And for the U.S. really, again, the economic hit in terms of inflation in the real economy, less than 1% of our trade is with Russia.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if you go in and put gas in your car, it’s now like above $4 a gallon.

Mark Copelovitch:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is that a major shock?

Mark Copelovitch:

You know, it’s sticker shock, right? People see it, and oil prices were very low at the start of the pandemic and gas prices were down probably to $2.20, somewhere around there. From 2011 to 14, gas prices were higher than even the high prices now, and if you adjust for inflation, I think the number I saw yesterday was we’d need another 32% rise in prices to get to where we were in real terms in 2011 to 2014. So they’re high, but they’re not historically incredibly high. And again, if you think about how much the average household spends on gas, you’re talking about probably about a thousand dollars a year, which is a big hit, but there are other things that have been big hits too, like the tariffs with China from the trade war actually raised household spending costs even more than that.

Frederica Freyberg:

When you combine the cost of gas, though, with the high inflation, and we really are talking about a hit on individual consumers.

Mark Copelovitch:

Yes, absolutely. I mean, inflation is now — the numbers today were 7.9%, and so it is a material hit. I mean, I think — I like to put it in perspective both to history and the experience of the last year, so historically, if you look at the 1970s, we had inflation up to 15%. And that lasted for several years. So this is high relative to a world where we got very used to having really low inflation for two decades. The other thing to think about is, you know, it’s a hit to real income and consumption, but the average household actually received about $3,400 in federal relief of various forms in the last year. So real income and real consumption actually didn’t go down, if you look for the average household in the last year. So a lot of the talk about suffering of inflation is looking forward now, because there’s probably not going to be another big stimulus package to offset the cost of inflation going forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

What’s the expectation of inflation trending down?

Mark Copelovitch:

You know, I think we were — before 14 days ago, we were talking about this is probably the peak over the next month or two. Because the vast majority of the inflation was cross national and about the pandemic and supply chains. You know, it’s 5, 6% inflation in European Union countries, it’s 7-something here. On the margin, it was about the stimulus package and things like that in the U.S., but most of it was about the inflation in the pandemic and the economy freezing up, so as things were re-opening, we were starting to think about over the next six months probably inflation is going to come down. It’s a little less clear if it’s going to come down. I don’t think it’s going to keep going up, you know, at faster and faster rates every month, but I think we’ve extended the time horizon now going forward of when does it get back to what we thought was normal inflation of 2% or 3%. So you’re definitely going to see it over the next several months and we don’t know how long the conflict in Ukraine is going to last. What the broader ramifications of that are.

Frederica Freyberg:

Okay. Mark Copelovitch, thanks very much.

Mark Copelovitch:

Thanks so much.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wisconsin continues to be at the epicenter of electoral politics. The U.S. Supreme Court weighing in on our voting maps, and Donald Trump weighing in on the intractable Michael Gableman investigation. It’s another day at the Capitol. That’s where Wisconsin Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson is. He joins us now. Hi, Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:

Hi Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

So Legislative Republicans want the U.S. Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin redistricting case, the case where the state high court approved the “least changed” Evers’ maps. What’s the status of that request to the U.S. Supreme Court and the stay that the Republicans asked for?

Shawn Johnson:

The status as of right now is the U.S. Supreme Court told everybody, file responses to this by Friday, March 11th, and that’s all we know at this point. The U.S. Supreme Court gave a deadline of next Tuesday for another challenge of the state’s congressional map that was brought by Republicans. So we’re kind of waiting to see what happens next. It’s the U.S. Supreme Court, they set their own timelines although we do have some election-related timelines coming up in Wisconsin, namely the April 15th date when candidates begin circulating nomination petitions.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yes, coming right up. But what’s your understanding of how likely it is for the U.S. high court to take the case at all?

Shawn Johnson:

So they could, but my understanding is it’s likely that they’ll leave the map alone. It’s a state map decided by the state’s highest court, and so that’s one argument that would leave the U.S. Supreme Court to just kind of stay out of this. But they might, on the grounds of they want to get involved in a Voting Rights Act challenge. It’s up to the Supreme Court to decide which cases it takes. They’re already getting involved in a redistricting case out of Alabama, related to how redistricting and the Voting Rights Act, you know, work together, and so it could be that the court will hear Wisconsin’s case eventually. I guess the immediate question is whether they decide to take it right away and toss out Wisconsin’s map.

Frederica Freyberg:

Right, that is the question, like which maps might be in place for this year’s elections.

Shawn Johnson:

It seems like there’s a decent chance that you could have Wisconsin’s map embraced by the Wisconsin Supreme Court as drawn by Tony Evers under these “least changes” guidelines in place for 2022, even if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear this challenge. But you know, they’re the court so they can decide.

Frederica Freyberg:

Right. They are the big ones. They get to decide. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos this week extended Michael Gableman’s contract to continue investigating the 2020 election, to which former president Trump responded, “In addition to announcing they will stay in session and take action to get rid of ERIC and the Wisconsin Elections Commission, I would imagine that there can only be a decertification of electors.” So my question is, really? What did Vos say about all of that?

Shawn Johnson:

So there’s a lot to unpack in that statement. There are four assertions in there that are either false or they need clarification. One, this idea of decertification is the big one. And there is — for one, there’s not support in the existing legislature to do that, which is to basically erase Wisconsin’s election results for the 2020 presidential election. Also, the legislature’s non-partisan attorney saying it’s not legally possible, which is a view that’s widely held in the election law community. If you go through the rest of the former president’s statement, as far as we know, the legislature held its last session day of the year this week. They can always come back, they’re the legislature, but they’re not planning on it. And as far as ERIC, the electronic registration information center, a multi-state database of government records, that is something that was initiated by Republican lawmakers under former Republican governor Scott Walker. They have not talked about ending it. Republican candidates for governor have talked about getting rid of the Wisconsin Elections Commission so that’s something that could happen but it’s not going to happen this year. GOP leaders in the legislature said they don’t want to do that. Governor Tony Evers definitely doesn’t want to do it.

Frederica Freyberg:

So former president Trump may be just a little bit behind in his information. But I wanted to get to this, too, quickly. This week, Governor Evers’ special session to give tax refunds and boost school funding went exactly where?

Shawn Johnson:

It went exactly where many Evers’ special sessions have gone, which is, gaveled in, gaveled out and done. When you’re the governor, you can call a special session of the legislature, but what that means often isn’t a lot. GOP lawmakers basically officially opened the session, officially closed it, and now it’s an issue for campaign season, where you’re going to have the governor saying, hey, I want to give you these $150 tax rebates, only ones standing in the way are Republican lawmakers. Of course four years ago, it was a different story when there was a Republican governor. They did approve child tax rebates, but they’re not going to do that this year.

Frederica Freyberg:

They’d like to go ahead and do that after the election.

Shawn Johnson:

They would like to do it — something with a governor from a different party, but you know, that definitely remains to be seen in this November’s election.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Shawn Johnson, we’ll leave it there. Thank you very much for the roundup and the real-time fact check. Appreciate it.

Shawn Johnson:

You’re welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

In Milwaukee, is it a new day for the police department there? There is a new chief of police in Milwaukee and new rules. In the last year, the city’s police and fire commission banned the use of police chokeholds and no-knock warrants and required community-oriented policing. Take the stats on no-knock warrants in Milwaukee. Their numbers have gone from 72% of warrants being executed in 2019 to just 2% last year. That’s a measurable difference. The city also has a new chair of the Police and Fire Commission. He’s Marquette University Law Professor Ed Fallone. He joins us now and thanks very much for being here.

Ed Fallone:

Always happy to see you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

In a recent interview, you are quoted as saying that we have instituted the guardian model of policing versus the old warrior model. How do these models differ?

Ed Fallone:

Well, this policy comes from our Police Chief Jeff Norman, and it’s about collaboration with the community, outreach to the community, and improving public safety by forming partnerships with the community. And so that views police officers as guardians of the community. And I think we have a history, a recent history in this country of a different philosophy, and that’s the warrior mentality, that the police are out there to confront the bad guys, and that the public sometimes gets caught in the interactions. And that sometimes the police have viewed the public with suspicion. So it’s a huge contrast, and we think we are moving forward in the right direction under Police Chief Norman.

Frederica Freyberg:

So we’ve shown the number of no-knock warrants being reduced to just 2% in 2021. What have been the effects of that on the ability to capture suspects and solve crime in the city?

Ed Fallone:

Well, we’ve had a concerted effort to reduce the number of no-knock warrants, and as you indicated with your statistics, the exception had become the rule. 70% of the warrants served have been no-knock. No-knocks were intended to be the exception and to be used in extreme circumstances to recover evidence of crime or to obtain a suspect when there was no other way to do so. And so under Chief Norman, we had a year-long process of examining the procedures, and successive reduction every year of the number of no-knock warrants executed in Milwaukee until the chief got it down to just six in the year 2021. And at that stage, the Fire and Police Commission interacted with the police and said, we want facts, what were the scenarios where these six were executed, and is it possible to get from six to zero? And after that year-long process, the commission decided, yes, we would ban the police department in Milwaukee from using no-knocks. When you’re down to that small a level, less than 2% of all warrants executed, at that stage, the ban is not going to have any further impact on policing.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about officer safety, because I know the police union worries now that its officers can’t surprise suspects and are put in greater danger.

Ed Fallone:

Well, we’re very concerned about officer safety. And really, in this entire process of examining no-knock warrants, it was a matter of weighing risk to the safety of officers versus risk to the public. And there’s no way to get to zero risk on either side of that equation. And I think what your viewers should understand is that in Milwaukee, we have high-density residential neighborhoods, high multi-family situations inside even detached homes, we have residential properties with multiple units in them, and so any time there’s a serving of a no-knock warrant, there’s a lot of people nearby, a lot of innocent people, next door neighbors or even in the same building. And so we’re trying to reduce the risk to officers, but we’re also trying to reduce the risk to other residents nearby, if violence breaks out. And there’s no way to get to zero on either equation, and so we felt ultimately that the no-knocks created an unacceptable level of risk.

Frederica Freyberg:

The state Senate this week passed a measure to prohibit cities from banning no-knock warrants. What’s your response to that?

Ed Fallone:

Well, I think it’s a mistake to try and set policing policy from Madison for the entire state, and to have representatives of smaller communities in our state try to dictate the policing strategies and tactics in our larger urban areas. I want to re-emphasize that the effort to reduce the incidence of no-knock warrants in Milwaukee began with our police chief, who is very concerned about rebuilding community trust, rebuilding community relationships after several years, where quite frankly witnesses stopped cooperating with the police. And informants stopped calling the police. And it became more difficult to close open cases. And step one in changing that is rebuilding trust. And so really, this is part of that philosophy of re-establishing a closer collaborative relationship between residents and the police and reducing crime. It works for our city, and it’s, I think, better to leave this to local control.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there, Ed Fallone, thanks very much for talking with us about this.

Ed Fallone:

It’s been a pleasure, Frederica. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

For more on this and other issues impacting 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.