Processing
True transparency would help ensure fairer maps, but I wouldn’t stop there. The entire process needs to be reformed. In Iowa, a nonpartisan state agency draws up the maps for an up-or-down vote in the legislature. That has resulted in less partisanship and better government in our neighbor to the southwest. For years, bills to do something similar in Wisconsin have failed to get a hearing.
Gerrymandering — drawing legislative boundaries to subvert the redistricting process — is as old as the republic. Crafty political operatives, Democrat and Republican alike, have done it.
But rarely has the redistricting been as corrupted as it was in 2011 when Republicans went for the kill.
They set up shop across from the state Capitol and drew up highly partisan maps in a clandestine process so secretive that even their own lawmakers had to sign a document vowing they wouldn’t talk about the maps. There was strong evidence that documents related to redistricting were withheld from the public or destroyed.
Republican leaders wanted to keep these things from you for a reason: They feared that voters would revolt if they knew the exact contours of their work.
Gerrymandering transfers power from citizens to legislative leadership — from you to people like Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. It gives more power to wellheeled donors, too, the people Vos and others beg money from.
It gives Republicans who toe the line complete job security. Coddled in safe districts, the only way they can lose is if a well-financed opponent decides to take them on in the primary.
Many voters have no real choice. It’s Wisconsin-nice machine politics, perhaps not quite as crude as in Chicago but leading to the same place: corruption.
It’s one big reason government doesn’t work very well in Wisconsin. It’s a reason the Legislature sat on its hands last year without offering a comprehensive COVID-relief bill. Or why Republican legislators could keep fighting a sensible mask mandate for months during the deadliest pandemic in a century, even though large majorities of voters in Wisconsin favor mask-wearing.
But you can’t really blame these Republicans. Why should they care? They know they can’t be held accountable.
In 2018, the Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert found that the GOP gerrymander was so skillful that even though the sitting Republican governor, Scott Walker, lost by about a percentage point to Evers, he still carried 63 of the state’s 99 state Assembly districts. Gilbert found that 64 of the 99 districts were more Republican than the state as a whole.
In other words: Nearly a decade later, Republicans still enjoyed a baked-in 6435 advantage in the state Assembly.
That’s some cake. And they got to eat it, too.
Their gerrymander locked in a conservative revolution in Wisconsin that began with the Tea Party wave election of 2010. With their power secure, Republicans could do almost anything they wanted.
They could try to gut the state open records law on the Fourth of July in 2015 — a move turned back by an infuriated public. Or, in the same bill, sneak in language that made it easier for a foreign pipeline company to use the state’s power to condemn private property — language suggested by the company’s lawyers.
And, as Walker was leaving office, they could limit the power of his Democratic successor.
There is no modern parallel in Wisconsin for such a broad use of raw political power.
Now, Republicans are ready to slice the cake again. They have agreed to spend $1 million or more this year in taxpayer dollars for the legal battles to come. If they have their way, they’ll keep the process just as secretive.
That shouldn’t happen. This process should be open, records should be kept, and any redistricting actions should comply with the state open meetings law.
“There should be statewide pressure on our state elected officials to conduct redistricting with a maximum amount of transparency,” says Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, which advocates for open government. (Disclosure: I am a member of the council).
Demand better. Tell elected officials that you believe in transparency and expect it from them.
Put an end to this corruption.
David D. Haynes is editor of the Ideas Lab. Email: david.haynes@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidDHaynes or Facebook