Demand fair voting maps
By SUSAN ADAMS League of Women Voters
Nov 2, 2021
Life is so much better when things are fair. When things are fair, you want to engage, to play the game, whether it be cards or sports. When it’s not, people disengage.
That is what is happening in Wisconsin. The League of Women Voters hears it loud and clear when we go door to door or when we hold events like Voter Registration Day. “Why should I bother; they don’t listen anyway,” or “My vote doesn’t matter.”
When voting maps are fair, the people we elect need to listen to us. Our vote is our political voice. Without fair maps, our voices are silenced and our community’s needs are ignored. It doesn’t matter whether a district is overwhelmingly red OR blue; both are bad. Either one enables the representative to ignore their constituents. After all, they will likely get reelected no matter what, so why listen to us?
Last Thursday, the Legislature held just one hearing on AB624/SB621 in Madison to hear public testimony on their proposed voting district maps. These maps will impact our lives, our state, and our nation for the next decade. Over 400 maps were submitted to the legislative portal by the October 15 deadline. They’d promised to review them. Yet on Wednesday, October 20, they had already produced their maps—hardly enough time to consider all 400! A group of four league members had sent in an assembly map proposing that Beloit be in one assembly district, not split as it has been since 2011. Yet these legislative maps split Beloit AND 47 other municipalities!
At the hearing Chairs Vos and LeMahieu were the only supporters of these maps. Not one expert was produced to promote the maps, though opponents cited experts to explain how these maps were unfair. LWV Beloit presented written testimony along with over 200 people from all over Wisconsin who showed up to register opposition.
The maps proposed in SB 621/AB 624 are unfair and unjust. Maps drawn 10 years ago guaranteed one party would rule our Legislature for a decade. A panel of federal judges said they were so badly rigged they were unconstitutional. Nothing has changed. The new maps would cement that unjust rule for another decade. Vos and LeMahieu testified that the maps are compact, contiguous and kept municipalities together, yet they split 48 of them. Compactness refers to how square a district is. Contiguous means it should have clear borders, with no islands. The LWV map meets the requirements, but the legislative maps do not. Pieces of Beloit and Janesville are together in the same assembly district. There are islands and little pieces of districts sticking into others. In our area alone, there are instances in which an actual island of District 31 appears in the middle of District 45, (just north of Shopiere Avenue) and another in Janesville’s District 44, which essentially places a small causeway to a large island with District 43 in the middle of it just south of UW Whitewater Rock County.
Beloit and Janesville want our own districts. We want Beloit and our school district to be reunited into one assembly district as it has been. Look at legislative maps https://drawyourdistrict.legis.wisconsin.gov/ProposedMaps and compare with the People’s Maps Commission
https://govstatus.egov.com/peoplesmaps/work-records
Wisconsinites believe in fair play, and have said—we want fair maps! 55 county boards voiced support for a nonpartisan redistricting process. Marquette’s latest poll states that 72% of voters prefer maps be drawn by a nonpartisan commission. The maps now proposed are so bad Princeton University graded them an F!
There is a good alternative. There are two bipartisan companion bills SB389/AB395 to adopt the Iowa+ Model for Wisconsin. These bills would give us a fair, independent, nonpartisan and transparent way to draw new voting district maps. They would empower career nonpartisan civil servants at the Legislative Reference Bureau to draw the maps—not the politicians.
Contact Senators Ringhand and Nass and Representatives Loudenbeck and Spreitzer TODAY! Tell them to listen to the will of the people and VOTE NO on the gerrymandered maps in SB 621/AB 624. Instead, tell them to consider signing onto SB 389/AB 395, which set up a non-partisan method for drawing maps.
Susan Adams is president of the League of Women Voters of Beloit.