Yes, People's Maps blew it on minority districts. But the WisGOP gerrymander is much worse

On the day that the gerrymandered GOP Assembly was signing off on Gerrymander 2.0 for the 2020s, those maps weren’t the only ones being criticized by some Democrats.

"They hoodwinked us, gaslighted us and they tricked us," Democratic Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez of Milwaukee said of those backing @GovEvers' maps.

— Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) November 11, 2021

That’s not good to read for multiple reasons. What’s going on?

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is backing maps drawn by a commission he set up last year. Some Democrats hate them….

Ortiz-Velez argued the maps drawn by Evers' commission would violate the federal Voting Rights Act because they would dramatically reduce the number of districts with Black and Hispanic majorities.

Instead, Evers' commission's created "opportunity districts" that backers said would allow Black and Hispanic voters to create coalitions with Democrats. That could result in more Democrats in the Legislature, but Ortiz-Velez said the candidates wouldn't be the preferred choices of Black and Hispanic voters.

"It's a nationwide strategy. The intent is to gain Democratic seats by stealing our voices, by stealing minority representation rights," she said.

"We know what our rights are and we know they're trying to violate them," Ortiz-Velez said of her fellow Democrats. "And we're not going to stand for it. This is an unlawful act. It's a perversion of justice. They're not going to take away our rights."

This matches complaints that State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) made about maps from Evers’ People’s Maps Commission and the maps that Senate Democrats proposed last week. State Rep. LaKeisha Meyers from Milwaukee also said the People’s Maps Comission fell short because it didn’t guarantee that non-White Wisconsinites would be adequately represented.

What much of this boils down to is how you define a “majority-minority” district that allows People of Color the best chance to be represented in the halls of the Legislature. Is this done by:

1. Having a district that has a majority of people of a specific race/ethnicity? or is it

2. Districts that may not have a certain race with a majority, but have more than 50% People of Color and have one of those races be dominant in that district?

This is where the conflict comes in, because some districts under the People’s Maps Commission and the Senate Dem's maps (defeated last week) have a majority of its Voting Age Population be non-White, but do not have any group be the majority of voters. It’s an important difference as under the Voting Rights Act “minority opportunity districts” are those that 50% VAP of a certain race or ethnicity.

Here’s a list of the Assembly districts under the People’s Maps Commission that have more than 50% of its districts be consisted of People of Color (non-White), and I have included Multi-racial percentages along with Black and Hispanic percentages in these districts.

People’s Maps, Assembly Districts 50%+ non-White with Largest non-White Group
District 8 - 74.2% non-White, 59.3% Hispanic
District 9 - 68.9% non-White, 53.5% Hispanic
District 12 – 68.6% non-White, 55.3% Black
District 10 – 64.6% non-White, 53.8% Black
District 11 – 63.0% non-White, 45% Black
District 18 – 61.4% non-White, 42.9% Black
District 16 – 56% non-White, 42.5% Black
District 24 – 55.0% non-White, 42.1% Black
District 17 – 52.3% non-White, 42.6% Black

You can see that 9 of the 99 districts are majority non-White, but only 4 have majorities of one particular race/ethnicity, which is the source of the complaint from Reps Ortiz-Velez and Myers, and Sen. Taylor. They are arguing that having that one group be over 50% is more important than having the districts be more than 50% non-White, even if the other maps are “fairer” and give Democrats (who would represent all 9 of those areas) a chance to win more seats.

A similar story is told in the State Senate, where 3 of the 33 districts have more than half of their Voting-Age Population be non-white, but only 1 has a single non-White group be the majority.

People’s Maps, Senate Districts 50%+ non-White with Largest non-White Group
District 6 – 56.6% non-White, 42.6% Black
District 4 – 65.4% non-White, 51.4% Black
District 3 – 54.3% non-White, 39.4% Hispanic

If you look at the Senate districts of the People’s Maps Commission in Milwaukee County, the flaws seem obvious.

If you know how Milwaukee is divided ethnically and economically, you know you shouldn't be running districts East-West like that. Shorewood shouldn't be linked up with the eastern edge of Menomonee Falls, the next district goes from (white) East Tosa through (heavily Black) North Side Milwaukee to (largely white) UWM, and mostly white and affluent downtown Milwaukee and Bay View is mixed up with working-class Hispanic areas of the South Side of Milwaukee.

These districts could easily have been consolidated in better ways to reflect common backgrounds and cultures. It’s a valid point by those Milwaukee Dems criticizing the People's Maps – representation matters, and it is important to have a Legislature that has a resemblance to the people of the state of Wisconsin (it already doesn’t vote in accordance with most Wisconsinites).

The People’s Maps Commission dropped the ball by not paying attention to this reality, and while I probably would have voted for the maps as an improvement over the gerrymandered crap the GOP put up, I agree that the People’s Maps needed to be improved. They could have met both the needs for majority-Black and Hispanic districts while also being more competitive. My own maps also had 3 majority non-White districts, but I was able to have 1 of those districts be 71% Black (6), while 3 has a higher Hispanic population (42.3%, and 56.3% non-White) and 4 is 56.7% non-White.

I could probably balance out the Black population of 4 and 6, and then likely give the eastern edge of West Allis and West Milwaukee (whose wards are 25-45% Hispanic) to District 3 and throw the whiter south edge of 3 into 5. It'd be a minor difference, but would address those concerns.

But on the flip side, this is a relatively narrow complaint, and it allowed Assembly Speaker Robbin’ Vos to deflect from his gross gerrymander, and troll Governor Evers and Dems by putting up the Legislative maps of the People’s Maps Commission for a vote. The People’s Maps were shot down with 17 Democrats joined all Republicans in voting NO, and that’s not something I think either Evers or Dems wanted to see. Plus, isn’t it more important to have a Legislature that can actually change who controls it, and forces it to be more responsive to the people, which can lead to change that makes things better for Communities of Color and others who have been locked out of power for centuries?

Power matters, but I don’t think what those reps look like is more important than actually having a chance to make real change, and put a halt to the impunity that the WisGOPs have operated with for the last decade. And despite the nice words some WisGOP Reps have given about fair redistricting, let’s note that EVERY WisGOP in the Assembly and Senate voted for Gerrymander 2.0 in the last week.

Yes, Evers will veto this (he should literally set the bill on fire in public), and then courts will decide which maps stand or if they draw up their own. But it should never be forgotten that every WisGOP is fine with more election-rigging, and can’t be allowed to claim they’re “independent” when they decided that increasing the chances of staying in power was more important than having to listen to voters.