Leaders stress voting rights
Evers, Barnes fighting suppression of voices
MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes said Monday they want to use Black History Month to fight voter suppression.
At a Capitol news conference highlighting events for February, the Democratic pair stressed the need to protect voting rights, ensure this year’s census is conducted accurately and redraw legislative and congressional districts in a way they consider fair.
“We know the forces that want to silence our voices and make our communities continue down a path to becoming irrelevant,” said Barnes, the state’s first black lieutenant governor. “Because they don’t want us to vote. If you can’t vote, you are irrelevant. If you aren’t counted in the census, you are irrelevant.”
Evers emphasized his proposal to have a new commission draw election maps. States must draw new lines after each census to account for changes in population, and Democrats are pushing for lines that lean less Republican than the ones that have been in place for nearly a decade.
“Black disenfranchisement continues to exist in our state and our country through voter suppression tactics,” Evers said. “One of those tactics is redistricting — gerrymandering often disproportionately affects people of color. So we need not only to ensure that voting is accessible and easy for all Wisconsinites, but that we have a fair count in the 2020 census and that we use that count to draw fair, impartial maps.”
Republicans were able to draw maps in 2011 that favored their party because they controlled all of state government at the time. Now, state government is split, with Evers in the governor’s mansion and Republicans holding the Legislature.
In his State of the State speech last month, Evers said he was forming a nonpartisan commission to draw new maps that lawmakers could consider. GOP leaders immediately rejected the idea and said they would draw their own districts.
In an appearance Sunday on WISNTV’s “UpFront,” GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester said he believed Evers would pack his commission with “Democratic activists.” Evers hasn’t said yet who will be on the commission but promised it will include people who are nonpartisan.
Also Monday, Democratic Rep. David Crowley of Milwaukee said he was confident a resolution celebrating Black History Month that he and other black lawmakers worked on could get through the Legislature.
Black history resolutions in recent years have become contentious. Republican Rep. Scott Allen of Waukesha caused waves in December when he offered a resolution honoring more white people than black people for Black History Month.
Crowley said he recently had a “really frank conversation” with Allen and encouraged him to talk to all black lawmakers. He said he now believes the resolution written by the black caucus can get support from Republicans.
“At the end of the day, the biggest issue is when you put forward as a white man a Black History Month resolution with no input from any African Americans who you consider your colleagues,” said Crowley, who is running for Milwaukee County executive.
“I think Scott Allen’s heart is in the right place when he wants to honor African Americans and honor black history. I just think he hasn’t been going about it, doing it, the right way.”
The resolution the black caucus developed honors 13 people, including Kobe Bryant and Gianna Bryant, the basketball star and his daughter who died last month in a helicopter crash.