GOP redistricting scheme cuts Evers, most Wisconsinites out of the picture

Among the reasons that the election of Tony Evers in 2018 saved Wisconsin from tumbling further into the abyss and likely past the Point of No Return as a worthwhile state was the thought that Evers could veto new legislative maps following the 2020 census. This would mean that Wisconsin would have court-drawn compromise maps, like we had for the 40 years before the Age of Fitzwalkerstan started in 2011.

Well, Ruth Conniff of the Wisconsin Examiner tells us today that Robbin’ Vos and Scott Fitzgerald are reportedly working on a way around that. Because in WisGOP World, cheating and other tactics is always a better than plan than having better ideas. After all, why work for public support when you don’t need it!

Now Democrats and fair-maps advocates are worried that Republicans might make an end-run around Evers by means of a joint resolution, passing a new map through the Assembly and Senate. Because joint resolutions do not require the governor’s signature, the map could go into effect without any input from the governor.

“We believe that the legislative Republicans are already working with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, and they are geared up to do reapportionment in 2021 by means of a joint resolution,” said attorney Lester Pines, who has challenged the constitutionality of laws enacted by the state legislature on voter I.D., abortion restrictions, executive power and other issues. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has already held that redistricting by joint resolution is unconstitutional, but the current court, dominated by Republican-backed justices, might be willing to overturn that 54-year-old precedent, Pines added. “And the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty will be geared up to argue that it is constitutional.”

“I’ve heard about it,” Rick Esenberg, executive director of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), said of the plan. WILL, a legal institute that backs conservative causes, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Gill v Whitford redistricting case, siding with the Republican state lawmakers who drew the current map.

WILL is not currently working with Republican legislators on the joint-resolution plan, Esenberg said: “Whether we would have anything to do with it, I can’t say.”…

Given that the Bradley Foundation is usually the ones leading WisGOP to do this type of garbage, it’s a pretty good guess that Sleazy-berg would be pulling a paycheck (at taxpayer expense?) from this stunt.

Basically, the idea is that because “the Legislature” gets to decide the districts, there is no role for the Governor in that as a result (even though ex-Governor Walker had to formally sign off on the last gerrymander in August 2011). In other words, legislators that hold seats in gerrymandered districts would be able to work out another gerrymander for the next 10 years to make it easier to keep those seats.

If this seems fair and functional to you, congrats! You are officially well qualified to join the Federalist Society and/or a Koch/Bradley wingnut welfare outfit. And you're a pile of human garbage (but I repeat myself).

If GOPs try this BS in 2 years, it means others are going to have to spend time and money to make sure the 1.3 million Wisconsinites that voted for Evers get any say at all over who represents them in the Legislature. Given the 5 dishonest crooks on the conservative side of our Supreme Court, it’s far from a sure bet that this partisan power grab would be rejected.

“I’ve tried to raise the alarm myself, personally, that the Democrats should be prepared for this,” said William Whitford, the retired University of Wisconsin law professor who was the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Gill v. Whitford partisan gerrymandering case.

Whitford said he has been part of conversations about the possibility of a joint-resolution end-run with Gov. Evers and other elected officials as well as progressive groups. “It’s going to take lawyers to fight it,” he said.

You wonder why these people don’t listen to the general public? Greatest political system in the world, ya knoooow. Just the way the founders imagined it 232 years ago, right?

Wait a minute. Given that our original Constitution was intended to give Confederates and white males disproportionate power over everyone else without making those in power have to work hard to maintain their position, maybe WisGOP really is going back to basics!

This type of Banana Republicanism never ends well. So many Constitutional amendments are needed these days to deal with the mess we have...and that’s the nice way to end the unsustainable situation in our state’s and our country’s politics. The not-so-nice way involves guillotines and people hanging upside down. So let's not get to that point, shall we?