Skewed district maps

The title of the June 21 editorial was straightforward and correct — “Court should rein in gerrymandering” (Opinion).

Few Wisconsinites know that gerrymandering skews Wisconsin politics, and it also exists in many other states. I recall the juvenile rationale expressed by some Republicans after they were accused of gerrymandering Wisconsin’s districts after the 2010 census. They simply said that when the Democrats were in power they did it. OK. So what we know is that both Democrats and Republicans know what it is, have done it, and don’t like when someone else does it.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already given Republicans continued control of the outcome of the 2018 state elections by rejecting an instruction of a lower court directing Wisconsin to redraw state district maps before those elections. I’m willing to believe that there was objective rationale in the court for this time-sensitive decision.

But the vast majority of voting Americans, including Supreme Court justices, know that there is something rotten in gerrymandering. Wisconsin’s district map is a classic example of gerrymandering. If the court can’t see that, then we don’t really have a U.S. Supreme Court, we have a Republican Supreme Court.

Bob Heritsch

Brookfield Please email your letters to jsedit@ jrn.com , or mail them to Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-0371. Letters are generally limited to 200 words and are subject to editing.