The great Oz has spoken!

Pay more attention to those 4 women in black robes!

The Wisconsin Supreme Court wants gadfly Dean Phillips on the Democrats’ presidential primary ballot for April 2 even if Joe Biden’s party does not. And so it shall be. It is the right thing to do — but all that means is that the Head Groundskeeper at Stately Blaska Manor agrees with it. Probably because Blaska is a Republican (of the RINO variety) and he wants to cause as much distress for Joe Biden as possible.

The law involved is nebulous — if a candidate is recognized nationally then his name must appear on the Wisconsin ballot. A judgement call ferdamshur. The court — unanimously, we concede — ruled that the Presidential Preference Selection Committee (apparently, there is such a thing) “erroneously exercised its discretion.” 

“Discretion” being the key word. I.E., it’s not a red letter, black line mandate but (ahem) discretionary. All the court did was substitute its discretion for the legally mandated entity. Where is Marianne Williamson! Or Taylor Swift, for that matter? The buck must stop somewhere, we suppose. But must courts decide everything? (One can argue that the U.S. Supreme Court decided two presidencies but all they did in 2000 and 2020 was to defer to the states in the absence of contrary proof.)

Gerry Manders as the Beaver

Which brings us to the drawing of legislative districts. The four Democrats (let’s call them that) among the seven justices on the state’s highest court have set partisan affiliation as the gold standard for determining fair maps — despite no reference to such in the state Constitution. 

The state constitution does mandate respecting municipalities, communities of interest, and geographic compactness. Not political affiliation — which is, after all, ephemeral. David Obey kept getting elected as a Democrat in northern Wisconsin until a dozen years ago. Now that woodsy hinterland is Trumpier than the QAnon Shaman. Door county votes for Joe Biden and elects Republicans to the legislature. In some cases, at least, old red-nosed Tip O’Neill was right: all politics is local.

The court admits, for instance, that the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty maps “score very well on traditional good government criteria – in fact, score the best on various measures of splits of political subdivisions” but then bizarrely label its map a “stealth gerrymander,” the conservative Wisconsin Right Now reports. 

Stick this in your bonnet: federal courts twice have upheld the current legislative district maps.

Dubious law

The (spell it with me) Protasiewicz court has determined that if Wisconsin statewide elects a Democrat as governor, then the legislature should be majority Democrat. Then explain how we also returned Republican Ron Johnson to the U.S. Senate.

The only way to accomplish that is to slice and dice blue strongholds like Madison and apportion the pieces to as many legislators as it will elect — as one of the appellants attempted. Or we can be done with geographic representation entirely. Have the various political parties — even the Greens — put up a slate of 99 possible Assembly members, ranked in order of preference. Award each party its legislators based on their statewide vote percentage. Israel, Nepal, and South Africa do it that way. It is unknown in the U.S.

→ A must read over at MacIver News: “Three current and former UW-Madison diversity officials accused of academic fraud”

Bottom Line goes to WILL president Rick Esenberg: “Our maps have been rejected for one reason and one reason alone, they don’t produce the partisan outcomes the experts or many on the Court want.” 

How badly will Protasiewicz gerrymander Wisconsin?