Sunday, February 18, 2024

Decision week on new Wis maps. My thought? Evers should veto and let Wis Supreme Court decide

I usually don't care what 60 Minutes has to say, but this could prove quite interesting to check in on tonight.

Andrew Hitt, who was chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin during the 2020 election, offered the explanation for his participation in a scheme designed by Trump and his allies to stay in power after losing reelection during an episode of CBS' "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday evening.

In a clip provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by "60 Minutes," Hitt says he was scared of what Trump supporters would do to him or his family if he did not sign the paperwork and courts later overturned President Joe Biden's victory in Wisconsin.

"... If I didn't do that, and the court did throw out those votes, it would have been solely my fault that Trump wouldn't have won Wisconsin," Hitt told "60 Minutes" correspondent Anderson Cooper. "Can you imagine the repercussions on myself, my family if it was me, Andrew Hitt, who prevented Donald Trump from winning Wisconsin?"

But by the time Hitt and nine other Republicans met in the state Capitol to sign the paperwork claiming to be electors for Trump, the state Supreme Court had already confirmed Biden's win and federal judges had tossed lawsuits seeking to overturn Trump's loss. An appeal of one of the federal rulings was filed the morning of the day the Republicans met in the state Capitol to sign the false paperwork but the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago later upheld the decision to toss Trump's lawsuit, according to federal court records. An appeal of that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court was later rejected by the justices in March 2021.
Pathetic. Both from the MAGAts making threats, and for WisGOP party hacks like Hitt who went along with them, because they need the support of MAGAts to win almost any Republican primary, and likely to win general elections, because they've lost most moderate voters with their garbage positions on issues.

Wanna know what Andrew Hitt's job was before he became head of the Wisconsin GOP? In addition to a lot of regular "GOP hack" stuff under Scott Walker, he took a nice private sector gig to cash in from his time in Walker's Administration.
The Appleton attorney was senior counsel at Michael Best & Friedrich and the chief operating officer at Michael Best Strategies when he was elected to serve as RPW chairman [in 2019].
"Michael Best & Friedrich". Where do I know that name? Oh yeah! From stories like this one.
In the late spring of 2011, Dale Schultz walked the short blockin Madison from his State Senate office in the Wisconsin Capitol to the glass-paneled building of Michael Best & Friedrich, a law firm with deep ties to his Republican Party. First elected in 1982, Schultz placed himself within the progressive tradition that made Wisconsin, a century ago, the birthplace of the state income tax and laws that guarantee compensation for injured workers. In the months before his visit to Michael Best, Schultz cast the lone Republican vote against a bill that stripped collective-bargaining rights from most public employees. But if Schultz had doubts about some of his party’s priorities, he welcomed its ascendance to power. For the first time in his career, Republicans controlled the State Senate and the State Assembly as well as the governor’s office, giving them total sway over the redistricting process that follows the census taken at the beginning of each decade. ‘‘The way I saw it, reapportionment is a moment of opportunity for the ruling party,’’ Schultz told me this summer.

Inside the law firm’s doors, Schultz took the elevator to what party aides called the ‘‘>map room.’’ They asked him to sign a nondisclosure agreement, which he did without complaint. Schultz sat down and was given a map with the new lines for his rural district west of Madison. He and his wife, a former school superintendent, own a 210-­acre farm in the area, where they grow corn and beans and hunt pheasants. Schultz noticed that the newly drawn district mostly included precincts he’d won before. ‘‘I took one look at the map and saw that if I chose to run for re-­election I could win, no trouble,’’ Schultz remembered. ‘‘That was it.’’

Nearly all of the 79 Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly made a similar trip to the map room, signing the same secrecy pledge to see the new shape of their districts. The new maps efficiently concentrated many Democratic voters in a relatively small number of urban districts and spread out the remainder among many districts in the rest of the state. These are the twin techniques of gerrymandering, often called packing and cracking, which distribute voters to benefit the party that is drawing the district lines.

‘‘So glad we are in control!’’ one state senator [Leah Vukmir] wrote in an email to a key Republican aide after her visit. No Democrat was invited to Michael Best & Friedrich, though the Republican leadership paid $400,000 in legal fees on behalf of the Legislature as a whole. In July, the statewide maps were unveiled at a single public hearing.
Lowlifes. And when this was revealed, GOP staffers deleted records to try to avoid further legal issues.

And that bridges us over into the big question that'll be answered this week - will Governor Evers sign the maps that the still-gerrymandered WisGOP Legislature passed, using maps Evers submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court as part of the lawsuit that struck down the GOP's gerrymander?

It really comes down to whether you trust the GOP is conceding the best of a losing situation, and am taking the maps Evers submitted as a way of preventing the Supreme Court of Wisconsin from imposing a less favorable map, or if you think this is a trick. The way GOPs are whining about things, they're acting like they're in reluctant acceptance of the new maps.

And this was a column from the Wisconsin Examiner's editor-in-chief that made me more accepting of things should Evers sign these new maps into law.

No matter what, Republicans will keep fighting to hold onto power. But the experts I spoke with (not including Elias, who didn’t respond to my requests for comment) agreed that Republicans don’t have a better shot at actually blocking change if Evers signs the maps. Instead, I heard a lot of forceful arguments that a court-imposed map is more vulnerable to challenge and repeal.

While Evers’ maps have been carefully vetted to comply with the Voting Rights Act, no one knows what the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court would make of the conflict of interest claim Republicans and their allies have lobbed at Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz who, they say, should not be involved in redistricting because of the financial support she received from the Democratic Party, which has a keen interest in the maps.

And, as one lawyer told me, while Diane Sykes is very conservative, that doesn’t mean she would be willing to carry water for the Republicans in a Voting Rights Act case that has no merit. In general, courts are less likely to want to overturn a map that’s been ratified by two branches of government than one that, in a novel process, was created by the state Supreme Court.

There is also the short-term question of when the maps will go into effect. The bill passed by the Legislature delays their implementation until after a special election to replace Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) and a primary challenge to Vos himself. Democrats in the Legislature leapt on that delay (along with a rushed process and lack of public hearings) as one more reason for distrust.

But there is a pretty clear path to undo the delay. Since the Court has declared the current maps unconstitutional, the Wisconsin Elections Commission will likely seek guidance and the same justices are likely to rule that the new maps must go into effect immediately.
On the flip side, given what we've seen from these guys in the last 14 years, and knowing the dirty dark money from GOP oligarchs that backs them up, why would I NOT think it was a trick, and that there is some GOP scumbag ready to sue in Federal Court in the hope that some GOP "Justice" would at least stall the new maps past November 2024, keeping the gerrymander in place for one more election cycle, and stymieing Governor Evers for the last 2 years of his 2nd term?

That's certainly what the head lawyer for Milwaukee County says that is what she has heard.

I also could see some ratf*ck put in place where a RW hack says "Evers signed these old maps to be in place through November, why would we have two different maps signed into law within the 10-year redistricting period?"

Literally, this argument would mean that both the Legislature and Evers would be doing something illegal (or at least put on hold to figure out if it was legal), and as stupid as that sounds in the real world, do we feel 100% comfortable with that being laughed out of court in time for the new maps to be in place this November. If there is a veto, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will determine the best course of action in the next 4 weeks, and why would we want to pre-empt that after all of this time and effort?

That's why I still lean toward Evers vetoing these maps, and Tony could claim it's "too little, too late". I get either choice Evers would make, but I'd argue the downside of vetoing, and dealing with Republi-dweebs going "neeneer, neeneer, neeneer" is smaller than having some GOP stooge try to hold up new maps for another two years in Federal court on some cockamamie argument. Guess we'll find out soon enough, and if the voters of this state will finally get a fair shake to choose their legislators.
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 18, 2024 at 4:52 PM

    On the other side, here's Dan Shafer saying why he thinks "Tony Evers Should Sign the Maps" at his Recombobulation Area blog.

    I don't necessarily agree with Dan's conclusion, but I do agree with this part: "If [giving more of an] advantage [to Dems] — small as it may be — is really why Democrats want Evers to veto the maps, that means they are choosing a map based on maximizing partisan advantage. That is exactly what they and what fair maps advocates have said for years should not be done. That would be the wrong decision."

    Agree on that. No need to be greedy at this point. But I still see GOP dirty tricks here, and that's why I'd favor Evers leaving it up to the Supreme Court to take care of the maps.

    Jake

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