Posted: September 14, 2023
Updated: September 26, 2023
by Nick Ramos, Executive Director
Wisconsinites, the legislature does not think that you have the mental bandwidth nor the smarts to read their new redistricting bill. They have thrown around words like “ Iowa-style redistricting model ” and expect that to be a cure-all for years of gerrymandered maps in Wisconsin.
Let’s not be fooled by what’s going on here. This new redistricting bill from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the Republican legislature is the latest attempt to hold on to power with a “by any means necessary” attitude. They created this bill with zero input from key stakeholders, behind closed doors, and expect us to believe that their intention is to have fair and impartial maps. Their proposal for drawing up new voting districts in Wisconsin permits partisan legislators to continue to thwart the will of the people on election day.
The legislature received backlash for floating the threat of impeachment of Justice Protasiewicz. They know how difficult it will be to successfully impeach her and now they are taking new, extreme measures to avoid the Supreme Court from hearing the latest redistricting cases. Speaker Vos is now working with a group of retired Supreme Court justices who are advising him on whether there are grounds for impeachment.
He will not share with the public who he is working with and has stated that he will share the names once all the work is complete. Speaker Vos ruled out former Justice Michael Gableman and former Justice Dan Kelly shared with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he is not advising Speaker Vos.
There are seven living former justices that Speaker Vos may be working with on the impeachment question: Patience Roggensack (a conservative), David Prosser (a former GOP Assembly speaker and conservative), Louis Butler (the liberal that Gableman defeated in 2008), Jon Wilcox (a former GOP lawmaker), Janine Geske (appointed by GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson), Louis Ceci (appointed by GOP Gov. Lee Dreyfus), and Diane Sykes (appointed by Thompson).
The Republican legislators who announced this new redistricting bill do not care about the will of the people. They do not care that 1,021,822 people voted across Wisconsin so that Justice Protasiewicz could sit on our Supreme Court. All they care about is power. The Republicans in the legislature see the hyperpartisan maps they have enjoyed for over a decade in danger. And this new redistricting bill is another last-ditch effort to preserve the current maps. Let’s not forget that Speaker Vos has opposed nonpartisan redistricting in the past. So why the sudden change of heart?
The devil is in the details. Let’s highlight the key differences in the new 2023 redistricting bill AB415 and the 2019 redistricting bill AB303/SB288.
First, in 2019 we had a bipartisan proposal – Republican Reps. Mursau, Tranel, Oldenburg, Novak, and Kitchens were co-sponsors of 2019 AB303. Second, both proposals give the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) – a nonpartisan legislative service bureau – the authority to draw our maps. However, 2023 AB415 only deals with legislative redistricting, while 2019 AB303 dealt with legislative and congressional boundaries. Both proposals create a Redistricting Advisory Commission. The Speaker and the Minority leader in the state Assembly and the Majority & Minority leader in the state Senate each get to designate an appointee for the commission. Those four commissioners must pick a fifth commission member to serve as their chairperson. In 2023 AB415, the Redistricting Advisory Commission has a purely advisory role in the LRB’s map-drawing duties.
The 2019 AB303 gave the advisory commission oversight over the LRB’s work and the advisory commission could enter into contracts to provide expert help to the LRB with a ¾ vote. The advisory commission would also need a ¾ vote to terminate such contracts. 2019 AB303 prohibited the four legislative leaders - the same that appoint 4 of 5 commission members in both bills - from assigning or hiring any person to work with the LRB on the redistricting plan. 2023 AB415 has no such provision.
2023 AB415 requires the redistricting commission to hold at least three public hearings on the first redistricting bill, while the 2019 redistricting bill required the commission to hold eight public hearings - one in each of the state's congressional districts, preferably on weekends, on the first bill. Both 2023 AB415 and 2019 AB303 only require public hearings on the first respective redistricting bill and not the second or third bills should the first bill fail to pass the Assembly or Senate.
In both 2023 AB415 and 2019 AB303, the first and second redistricting bills drawn up by the LRB must be voted up or down and cannot be amended by the legislature. If the first two bills are rejected, the third bill may be amended, like normal bills. However, 2019 AB303 required that any amendments and a final vote on the bill itself must be approved by at least ¾ "of all the members elected in each house." This particular difference is key to a power grab and maintaining partisan advantage.
Further to the third map, what ultimately happens if the legislature cannot agree on the third map? In Iowa, there’s judicial review. There’s nothing in place for that scenario in the 2023 bill. Perhaps the Republicans simply believe the third map will pass since at that point it can be manipulated in normal legislative process with simple majority vote (only one legislator from the minority has to be convinced to jump ship to make it bipartisan as required in the amended bill). A bipartisan group of Iowa officials made a public statement that Vos's bill cannot be promoted as modeled after the process in Iowa for this reason alone.
In terms of the standards for which the districts must be drawn, the 2019 redistricting bill has a provision that states: “ Districts must be drawn so that neither the intent nor the result of the plan abridges the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process.” The 2023 redistricting bill does not have such a provision.
When it comes to the challenges based on excessive population within a state assembly or senate district, both redistricting bills place the burden of justifying any variance in excessive population with the legislature. However, the 2019 redistricting bill set the bar for the legislature at “any variance in excess of 10 percent between the population of a senate or assembly district and the applicable ideal district population.” Whereas the 2023 redistricting bill sets that the bar at “any variance in excess of 1 percent between the population of a senate or assembly district and the applicable ideal district population.” This merely points to a difference, not to a weakness in the bill.
The latest redistricting bill does not give us the fair maps we have been fighting for. If anything, it gives the Republican legislature maps that they can control and manipulate for another decade.
The time is now to reach out to your state elected officials and let them know that you do not support 2023 AB415.
We do not want the legislature to revise our redistricting process out of fear of what the Supreme Court will decide in the cases related to the current gerrymandered maps now before it. If the legislature is serious about creating fair maps, then we want everyone at the table who seeks that opportunity, not just the Republicans in power.