From Allen Pincus

Barneveld

To the editor:

In future legislative elections your vote will be counted, but will it count? The answer in part depends on how the Legislative and Congressional redistricting maps are drawn up after the 2020 U.S. Census. By Wisconsin law, this job goes to the State Legislature.

In the past, the party in power at the time the maps were redrawn, Republican or Democrat, did so in a way to help it stay in power through a process known as gerrymandering. Data such as political affiliation of registered voters and previous election results are used to create odd-shaped “safe districts” that favor their candidates. In effect, the legislators select their voters rather than the other way around.

In 2011, the current gerrymandered redistricting maps were drawn up behind closed doors by a Madison law firm hired by the Republican legislature at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $1.9 million. Because of extreme gerrymandering, these maps have been the subject of multiple federal court challenges costing taxpayers an additional $3.5 million in legal fees. And what did all this money buy us? A legislative map full of odd-shaped districts that split counties into multiple assembly districts, a map that in 2018 helped Republicans win 64% of legislative seats while only winning 46% of legislative votes cast and losing the governor’s office.

In contrast, Iowa uses a Fair Maps redistricting process: maps are created by a nonpartisan commission that is prohibited from using political data in drawing district lines. They follow a set of criteria developed to avoid irregular-shaped districts and splintering counties and cities into different districts. In 2011, Iowans paid only $180,000, including the cost of public hearings, for their plan.

A recent Marquette Law School poll found that 72% of Wisconsin voters want a nonpartisan commission to draw up the next legislative and congressional maps. So far, 42 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have passed resolutions supporting the creation of a nonpartisan procedure similar to the Iowa model. Gov. Evers supports nonpartisan redistricting. It is time to end partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin and have it become a Fair Maps state like our neighbor state Iowa.