Redistricting Gamesmanship

Somebody’s playing politics with gerrymandering. Actually, I suspect everybody’s playing politics with gerrymandering.

After long and winding court fights, for the first time in a decade and a half Wisconsin conducted legislative races in 2024 under fair maps. The result was what was predicted by the experts: a slightly red state now has a Legislature with slim Republican majorities. Those same experts predicted that in a good year for Democrats, Party Blue could win back both houses. This should be an extraordinarily good year for Democrats, so the Senate is almost a lock to go to them while the Assembly may also be in play.

Great. In a swing state, things should swing. The trouble is that this result is not locked in for the future. Because the maps are only essentially the result of liberals winning a majority on the state Supreme Court (the GOP saw the inevitable loss there and so drew its own fair maps), whoever has control of the Legislature after the 2030 census is free to go back to gerrymandering their hearts out.

All of which is why we need to have gerrymandering outlawed in one way or another. Which leads us to the unseemly political jockeying going on as we speak. Since it’s all pretty confusing and since even the seasoned editorial team here at YSDA doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on behind the scenes, let’s construct today’s discussion with a series of questions.

1. The long-established solution among reformers and most Democrats has been a citizen-driven redistricting commission, like Iowa’s. So, why did Evers switch gears and call for a constitutional amendment with no specific mechanism to accomplish the goal?
2. Why did Evers wait until the legislative session was almost over to introduce his amendment?
3. When he announced it some Democrats joined him, but Democratic floor leaders weren’t there and had nothing to say about it. Why?
4. Then Evers called a special session to consider the idea and Republicans didn’t just reject it as they do with most of his special session calls. Rather they called for discussions with Evers over some kind of revised proposal. Evers flatly rejected that and refused to even talk. Why?
5. The Democratic leaders who had been strangely absent and silent when Evers announced his idea are now all on board and are blasting the Republicans for not just going ahead and passing what Evers proposed. What changed?
6. A constitutional amendment must be passed by two consecutive legislatures and then presented to the voters in a referendum while a nonpartisan redistricting commission could be created by statute right away. Did that somehow enter into Evers’ strategy?

While we have no answers to these questions, there are some rock solid principles of politics that might inform our speculation.

1. Each party will do what it thinks is in its best interest. So, if the Democrats think they’ve got a chance to control everything in 2031 and gerrymander the bejesus out of the maps they’ll do it. Same goes for the other guys. Nobody’s acting on principle here.
2. What’s needed to get any lasting reform is a certain balance of terror. Each party needs to have a near equal worry that the other guys will control the process next time. So, they’ll want the protection of a nonpartisan process. If either side thinks they’ll have the upper hand, they’ll posture but ultimately block reform.
3. The state Supreme Court is a wild card. When conservatives controlled it they backed the Republicans’ heavily gerrymandered maps. When the liberals took over, they were poised to strike them down, which is the only reason Robin Vos caved and drew fair maps. The liberals are still likely to be in control of the Court the next time, but it’s not clear what they might do. It’s a fair concern for the GOP that if Democrats control the map making process the liberal Court will let them gerrymander to their hearts content while they would strike down similarly unfair maps drawn by Republicans. After all, the Court is now essentially just a third partisan legislative house.
4. Often, people in the Capitol building think the voting public is as engaged in their maneuvering as they are. Nope. If either party thinks that anybody outside of partisans on each side is paying attention they’re wrong. The fall election will be yet another referendum on Donald Trump. No state issues will matter at all, not even this one. Voters won’t even be aware of it.

So there you have it. No answers, just a lot of questions. What we know for sure is that neither party and none of the players wants to do what’s right by the voters and in the best long-term interests of democracy. If reform happens it will only be because the party now in power fears it will lose it next time.

And on an unrelated matter… I’ve written about my appreciation for a good obit. Here’s one from yesterday’s State Journal that had this opening paragraph:

On April 7, the last afternoon of his life, John Bell ate vanilla milkshakes with his seven grandkids in his hospital room. Hours later, with his daughters and son singing very poorly but with great feeling the songs he sang to them as kids, John passed into the night.

Well done, John Bell and whoever wrote those fine sentences.