Curmudgeon's Corner

Re-Districting Map Decision

Posted by Al Campbell on March 24, 2012

Wisconsin, Political, People Making A Difference

The every-decade experience of redrawing the maps that determine where each of us votes is nearly finished.  For all the machinations by the opposition that virtually every decision taken by the Republicans was taken in error (with malice aforethought likely), it appears that only two districts were determined in need of change by the federal judges hearing the case.  The judges also were not kind to the Republicans so far as the manner in which the maps were created with oaths of secrecy signed.  No mention was made, interestingly, about the complaint by one of the plaintiffs being filed before the new lines were made public; this complaint apparently supposed the new lines would be a violation of their rights even before they knew what they were to be, and these were the two districts cited by the judges.

Those two districts (#8 & #9) on the south side of Milwaukee are the ones where the lines need to be redrawn according to the decision.  We obviously now have a state Senate that is equal in Democrats and Republicans, so a political fix is not likely to occur any time soon.  Given that, the federal judges are being implored to do the work they decided needed to be done.  This is not anything new since judges have drawn these lines often before when the politics of the situation got in the way.  This is among the reasons that our judiciary is to be apolitical, something that seems to escape most Dane County judges.

Now the first part of the question is when will this occur, and the second part of the question is just when the new boundaries will be declared fit to be used in an election.  The Republicans would like for the judges to redraw the lines within the next few weeks and then declare that all future elections be subject to those new boundaries from that point forward.  This would mean that recall elections could be held in the new districts, and the supposition is that this would favor the Republicans since they will have redrawn the boundaries in all but the two districts in this ruling.

That supposition is largely true since neither political party, when it is in power at the time, would likely draw new boundaries knowing they had just made themselves the underdogs.  That old "to the winner go the spoils" thing is always there in affairs political.  That is just the way it is; it works in both directions.

The rest of this decision, as to timing, will be interesting.  Will it be the determinant in any of the recall races?  I doubt that will be the case, but one never really knows until the day after the vote.