RHINELANDER, WI (WSAU-WXPR) — A recent meeting in Marshfield found advocates of redrawing Wisconsin voting maps optimistic that they eventually will prevail.
In 2011, Republicans redrew the Congressional and legislative districts that Democrats said are unfair and set up the GOP to control the political process. Groups challenged the redistricting to the U.S. Supreme Court who didn’t take the case, tossing it back to lower courts.
Executive Director of the advocacy group Common Cause Wisconsin, Jay Heck, tells WXPR Radio the large Marshfield gathering saw that more people are concerned about the issue “As little as six or seven years ago, hardly anyone knew anything about this issue or why it was important.
“Now it’s on the radar screen for citizens all over the state because they understand that without elections with consequences,(legislators) and not very responsive and things don’t get done.”
Advocates call the issue Fair Maps. What has been done is put incumbents of the opposite party into safe districts and split up the districts so they favor one party. Heck says the Democrats have done the same thing in Illinois for years.
He says change is starting at the grassroots level. “There’s now 49 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties that passed resolutions urging a non-partisan redistricting process for Wisconsin in 2021 based on Iowa’s redistricting process and legislators are listening to that.
“We now have five Republican state representatives who are cosponsors of the legislation. Last session there was only one.”
Heck says bipartisanship goes out the window with gerrymandered districts because legislators don’t have to listen to anyone who doesn’t agree with them. He says what’s likely to happen next year is Republicans who control the legislature will again pass partisan maps, which Democratic Governor Tony Evers will veto them and a compromise will be worked out.
Heck does think reform is still a few years away.
