as The Beaver!

Our Democrat(ic) friends and acquaintances are pinning their dreams on April’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which they hope will reverse the state legislature’s “solid GOP majority [which] owes its status, in large part, to what some have described as the most effectively gerrymandered district maps in the nation.” So says one Madison Democrat.

Republicans in the late, lamented mid-term elections did add three seats to go up 64-35 in the WI Assembly— just two shy of veto-proof. (If Trumpbots hadn’t gone after Speaker Robin Vos for not overturning the 2020 election, he might have made it.) Even as Democrats re-elected Gov. Tony Evers by 90,000 votes over Trumped-up Tim Michels. (U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson stayed clear of Florida Man because he knew how to win.)

Former mayor Dave Cieslewicz never says who is describing Wisconsin so loosely. This source lists its 10 most gerrymandered states. Don’t see Wisconsin!

Conservative Justice Patience Roggensack is retiring, jeopardizing her side’s 4-3 majority and giving hope that a court biased for Democrats would draw its own map. But even the map Tony Evers drew up gave Republicans a 55-44 edge. The U.S. Supreme Court tossed Evers’ map because it was (true to form) a reverse racial gerrymander. The state court was left with little choice but to go with the GOP map. 

"Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties." — Chief Justice John Roberts, Rucho v Common Cause 2019.

Republican assembly candidates actually outpolled Democrats in the aggregate, according to the Werkes’ spreadsheet: 1,023,264 Republican votes to 941,199 Democrat votes. Those numbers do not include the 10 unopposed Republicans, whose results won’t be listed (that we can find) until the official canvass. That increased advantage will be offset somewhat by the unopposed Democrats — but there were only 6 of them.

Nationally and in Wisconsin, this was an incumbency election. No incumbent U.S. Senator or governor was defeated. We looked at the WI Assembly, where all 99 are up every two years. All 47 Republican incumbents who sought re-election were winners. So were the 28 Democratic incumbents.

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Where you live beats how you vote

Legislative districts must be compact, contiguous, and respect community boundaries. The parties are evenly divided numerically but not geographically. No state allocates legislative seats proportionately. Election watcher Joe Handrick of Minocqua conducts this experiment:

Move the slider to the right, then left

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The problem, former Democrat Jonathan Barry notes, is that “Democrats are increasingly concentrated in Madison and Milwaukee, while, at the same time, unable to carry much of more rural Wisconsin because of their perceived ‘extreme’ policies. Democrats are not seen as a ‘moderate’ party nationally or here in Wisconsin. This posture may garner 80-90% of the vote in Madison but doesn’t fly in the Argyles or Monticellos and Orfordvilles of the State.”

Nominating Mandela Barnes for Senate didn’t help!

‘Non-partisan commissions’ require quote marks

Some progressives — the Wisconsin State Journal, especially — want a “non-partisan” commission to draw legislative districts. 

Kevin McCarthy can thank the State of New York for his slim majority in the House of Representatives. In 2014, voters there amended their constitution to put redistricting in the hands of a “non-partisan commission.” Of course, the predictable happened. The appointed commission deadlocked. Republican commission members submitted one map; Democrat commissioners another. (Source: NY Times.)  The legislature rejected both maps, the commission remained paralyzed, so Democratic lawmakers used their super-majorities to gerrymander congressional districts in their favor. A state appeals court invalidated that map on the grounds that it violated the state constitutional mandate that the maps originate with an independent commission. The court drew its own map, instead.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Remind you of anything? Maybe the WI Elections Commission? 

Are non-partisan commissions ever?