Evers’ Good Idea is DOA

The other day Gov. Tony Evers introduced a state constitutional amendment that would ban partisan gerrymandering. That was a curious thing in a variety of ways.

First off, why now? The Assembly has already gone home to campaign for reelection and the Senate has only one more day of session planned. This isn’t going anywhere. So why float it now? I don’t know. Maybe just to put the idea on the table for the future.

Second, it’s a novel approach, but I like it. The tactic for reformers to this point has been to push for a nonpartisan redistricting commission, like Iowa’s. But Evers didn’t propose any specific process. He would simply ban partisan gerrymandering in the constitution. That’s important because right now there is no such prohibition. The Legislature is required, under the Federal Constitution, to keep communities of interest together as much as possible and to create majority minority districts wherever they can. They can’t split up Black and Hispanic voters into districts in which they have little chance of electing a Black or Hispanic candidate.

But beyond that, courts have given wide berth to legislatures to draw lines anyway they want. By putting this specific prohibition in the Wisconsin Constitution, Evers would set up future gerrymandered maps to be shot down by the state Supreme Court. It’s reasonable to assume that some Iowa-like commission would follow to avoid that. Makes sense.

But third, here is the most curious thing: the Democrats aren’t on the same page with Evers. Neither Democratic floor leader showed up for Evers’ announcement, Sen. Dianne Hesselbein and Rep. Greta Neubauer, made vague statements, neither of which explicitly supported Evers’ idea.

What’s going on? I strongly suspect that Democrats have every intention of gerrymandering the bejesus out the maps should they control the process after the 2030 census. All that posturing and preening out of my party since the heavily gerrymandered maps created by the Republicans after the 2010 census was just so much hot air. It’s not fairness they really wanted, but their own hands on the markers to draw their own maps weighted to their advantage. So much for principle.

This is consistent with a hard-left trend among the Democrats. The same sort of thing just happened in California. In response to the mid-term redistricting done by Republicans in Texas, Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed for retaliation in his state. They overrode their own nonpartisan system to create five new Democratic districts to counter Texas’ five new Republicans ones.

The problem with this sort of thing is that it quickly spirals down into a banana republic. The other guys did it when they were in power, so now we’ll do the same thing when we get the chance. It’s back to the law of the jungle. No sense of fairness. No looking ahead to acknowledge that someday we’ll be out of power and we’d like to be treated fairly. No concept of the loyal opposition, treating your opponents with the same respect you hope to get from them. And yes, I know, Republicans did start it. And that first grader’s retort should stay on the playground.

What’s truly ludicrous in this case is that the Democrats aren’t even in power yet. They have a good chance of taking back the state Senate this fall, but the Assembly may be a bit out of reach, even in a good year for them.

And who knows who will have the majorities in 2031 when maps are redrawn next. In fact, if you look at the big picture, Republicans have a built-in edge even under the fairest of maps. That’s simply because Democrats are concentrated in a few urban areas while Republicans are more spread out. So, actually it would be smart for my party to support Evers’ amendment to the hilt.

I suppose their rationale is that they don’t see liberals losing control of the Supreme Court before then and they figure that the liberal justices will support their gerrymandered maps while striking down equally slanted maps if drawn by Republican majorities. Sadly, they may be right about that. We’ve gone from a heavily partisan conservative court to a heavily partisan liberal one.

What needs to be reestablished is a sense of fair play and balance. Sportsmanship, for lack of a better term. Instead, if the Democratic response to Evers’ doomed but excellent proposal is any indication, what we’ve got to look forward to is more jungle and a banana republic to govern it.

Note: An earlier version of this post mistakenly said that no Democratic legislators were at Evers’ press conference. That was incorrect. Several were there, but Democratic minority leaders from each house were absent.