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Courts fail the public in push for fair maps

By: Associated Press//April 28, 2022//

Courts fail the public in push for fair maps

By: Associated Press//April 28, 2022//

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A double whammy of unusual court decisions has made Wisconsin’s gerrymandered voting districts even worse than before.

That means the Republicans who control the Legislature will be even less accountable to voters over the next decade.

It’s sad and shameful.

Here’s what just happened, and why it’s more important than ever for Wisconsin citizens to advocate for nonpartisan redistricting, similar to Iowa’s proven model:

The first whammy came on March 23, when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected new legislative districts drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The Wisconsin Supreme Court had narrowly approved those maps because, according to the state court’s novel criteria, the governor’s maps were closer to existing maps than competing Republican-drawn maps.

Without extensive briefing or oral arguments, the nation’s highest court ruled that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had failed to properly determine if Evers’ maps comply with the federal Voting Rights Act. Specifically, the court questioned Evers’ attempt to increase the number of majority-Black Assembly districts in Milwaukee from six to seven.

The effects of Evers’ changes were unclear. They might have fostered more Black representation. Or, because Evers’ maps reduced the size of Black majorities in the six existing districts, Black representation might have been less likely. His maps also collapsed some GOP lawmakers into the same districts in Milwaukee’s suburbs, hurting their chances.

This gets to the heart of why none of the politicians — not the Republicans nor the Democrats — should be drawing the lines of voting districts. They will always try to skew the maps to their favor. They just can’t help themselves.

Instead, like Iowa, Wisconsin should assign the once-every-decade task of adjusting the lines to reflect population changes to a neutral state agency. In Iowa, the map-drawing agency is nonpartisan and forbidden from considering the fate of incumbents or voting patterns. Instead, it must draw the lines as contiguous and compact as possible while respecting community boundaries.

Evers tried to encourage a similar process by creating a citizen panel to draw the lines in Wisconsin last year. But the GOP-run Legislature has repeatedly rejected any attempt to take the politics out of the process. Instead, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, have doubled down on gerrymandering and continue to waste millions of tax dollars on lawyers to defend their rigged districts. They fear losing their power and Republican majorities if the maps are drawn fairly.

Republicans were poised to win the latest round of redistricting either way. That’s because, due to a state Supreme Court edict, even Evers’ maps had to be similar to existing maps, which the GOP had gerrymandered in secret a decade ago.

What was disappointing was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to inject itself into this issue so late in the game and with so little justification. The conservatives who control the U.S. Supreme Court often deride liberal judges for “judicial activism,” accusing them of going beyond interpreting laws to actually making law.

But in this case, those same conservative justices appear to be practicing what they preach against. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, such a summary ruling is typically issued only when settled law has been violated, which was not the case here.

So much for judicial restraint. About the only bright spot was that the high court left in place somewhat more competitive congressional voting districts that Evers drew.

The second whammy for Wisconsin voters came last Friday, when the state Supreme Court’s conservative majority abruptly reversed course and adopted the Republican-drawn maps, giving GOP legislative candidates even more political advantages than they already enjoyed. The conservative justices claimed the U.S. Supreme Court left them little choice. They said they had to quickly choose different maps than Evers’ so that candidates could start circulating nomination papers to run this fall.

But the U.S. Supreme Court had specifically suggested otherwise — that the state’s top court did have “sufficient time to adopt maps” before the Aug. 9 primary, even if it sought more information.

The state Supreme Court’s latest decision looks chaotic and suspect, rather than deliberate and independent.

In Iowa, the courts aren’t needed to settle partisan squabbles over redistricting. Both political parties ultimately accept the maps drawn by the nonpartisan state agency. That’s happened without fail for five decades in Iowa.

Voters in Wisconsin must continue to demand a fair system like that. Voters here deserve neutral maps — even if our courts, sadly, won’t require them.

– Wisconsin State Journal

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