Saturday, December 30, 2023

WisGOPs claim they can't work hard enough to come up with new maps in time

Not that I think the members of the gerrymandered Republican Legislature in Wisconsin is exactly a hard-working bunch, but reading this provided a major eye-roll from me yesterday.

Attorneys for Republican lawmakers are asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reconsider its 4-3 decision that found the state's current legislative maps unconstitutional and ordered them to draw new ones, arguing their timeline to do so is rushed.

The court ordered parties on Dec. 22 to submit map proposals by Jan. 12, and consultants are set to review them by Feb. 1. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has said maps must be in place by March 15 for the fall legislative races. Candidates must circulate nomination papers for an Aug. 13 partisan primary ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

But Republicans argue instituting new maps as the 2024 elections draw closer would "needlessly disrupt the electoral process." They are asking those deadlines to be reconsidered and for the court to halt all proceedings in the meantime.

"Announced the Friday before Christmas, the parties have been given 21 days — a third of them falling on weekends and state holidays — to submit proposed remedies, lengthy remedial briefs and expert reports," attorneys wrote in a filing late Thursday.
Oh, now it takes time for the GOP to figure out how to draw a map and explain what they're doing? It sure wasn't that way in 2011.
In 2011, Republicans controlled the Senate, House, and Governor's mansion, and were in a position to single-handedly draw and approve maps that benefited them (not to mention pass legislation from the ALEC corporate wishlist). However, with six Republican senators facing recall in the state, GOP lawmakers scrambled to draw and pass new maps before the August recall elections potentially returned control of the Senate to Democrats (in the end, the GOP lost two seats but retained a one-vote majority).

"When those meetings ended on July 7th, they had a majority consensus in the legislature to vote for and adopt a secret map that no one had seen – not Democratic legislators, and not the public," said Peter Earle, attorney for Voces de la Frontera, one of the groups bringing the redistricting challenge. Governor Scott Walker signed the electoral maps into law on August 9, 2011, with no input from Democrats and after the legislature held only one public hearing.

In drawing the maps, the GOP hired the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich and held a series of secret meetings at their law offices, apparently in an attempt to protect the redistricting effort from public view and disguise it behind attorney-client privilege.
Heck, it took me a few days to goof around on my free time at the Dave's Redistricting website, and come up with legislative maps. Shoot, Robbin' Vos and the rest of the Assembly GOP created their own "drawn the maps" website 2 years ago. The links are dead now, but I'm sure Robbin' has the info from it. They could re-start the website, use the info from the public, and give it a whirl.

Let's also flash back to 3 months ago, and how Robbin' Vos and his fellow Assembly Republicans were able to take action on a redistricting bill in a much shorter amount of time.
Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Assembly passed a sweeping redistricting reform plan Thursday that takes the power of drawing maps out of the hands of lawmakers and gives it to nonpartisan staff.

But Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has all-but promised to veto the bill that he called “bogus,” even though it largely resembled a nonpartisan redistricting plan he's pushed for years.

The vote shortly before midnight on the rapidly moving proposal came just two days after Republicans introduced the redistricting bill. The proposal caught Democrats and advocates for redistricting reform by a surprise in a state widely regarded as having some of the most gerrymandered maps in the country....

Democrats and those pushing for redistricting reform say Vos and Republicans are being disingenuous by voting on the bill less than 48 hours after introduction with no public hearing and no consultation with groups who have been working on redistricting for years.

“You bring us a half-baked bill with no public input and call it a path forward,” Democratic Rep. Kalan Haywood said in urging opposition.
Just pathetic desperation from WisGOP at this point, and transparently intended to use as some kind of defense to their appeal to the US Supreme Court after the Wisconsin Supremes laugh them out of the Capitol. "Waaah, we weren't given enough time to do work on fixing the maps we screwed up! Can you just bring back the old, crooked maps? PLEASE?"

Give me a fucking break. These clowns deserve an abolsute whupping at the polls next November. Let's make it so.
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Thursday, December 28, 2023

To make Wisconsin maps fairer, how much should we care about who people vote for?

Since last week's Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that will require new legislative maps for 2024, I've been doing a bit of noodling at possible maps beyond the stuff I did before.

My original maps are still the ones that I think make the most sense overall, as they are based on keeping similar communities together (so cities like Sheboygan, Wauwatosa and Whitewater don't get split up as they do under the GOP's current gerrymander), has an adequate number of majority-minority districts, and is mostly compact and contiguous. Here's what they look like, as a review, starting with the state Assembly.

And now the state Senate.

I drew these using the excellent Dave's Redistricting website, and you can certainly use the site to do the same for yourself. When using the vote totals from last year's Governor's election, which Dem Tony Evers won by 3.5 points, we can look at which districts Evers got the most votes in, and which districts Republican Tim Michels got the most votes in.

Here's the Assembly distribution with my maps, with the vertical dashed line showing a 50-50 split in seats. I'll focus in on the districts that are within 15 points of each other.

Republicans would still be favored to be in control of the Assembly, but at around a 55-44 level as opposed to the 63-36 advantage the Republicans hold today.

And notice all of those districts that are between around 46.5% to 53.5% of Dem vote (21 in all)? Compare that to the current GOP gerrymander.

Fewer seats between 46.5% and 53.5% (15 vs 21), and instead of the mostly straight line my maps had, the GOP gerrymander has significant dropoffs to protect its members.

The State Senate is a similar story, although this leans harder to the GOP due to the larger district sizes.

This means the "base scenario" under my maps would be 19-14 GOP, but that's not the 22-11 supermajority we have today. And again, note the mostly straight line of 8 districts between 47% and 53.5%. Then compare it to the current GOP gerrymander.

There are half the districts between 47% and 53.5% than there was in my map, and 3 of those 4 favor Republicans (again, in a chart based on Dems getting 51.5% of the vote). Dems would have to pull around 57% of the vote to flip the Senate, instead of the 54-55% they'd need with my maps.

But what if you want a map with most of the districts being competitive and a 50-50 coin flip for control? Dave's has that, in its "most competitive" category. Unfortunately, that type of map would be a complete mess in Wisconsin. Here's the Senate version.

Lots of slicing, This is especially true when you get to the Milwaukee area.

In addition, none of these Senate districts have a non-white voting age population at or above 40%. That would likely be found to be illegal under the Voting Rights Act, given the population distributions in this state. So let's throw that out.

I did some fooling around with my base Senate map, and I found a way to make it near that 50-50 split. But I still maintain 3 majority-minority districts, and I don't think the map looks too contrived.

Among the differences are what you see in the Fox Valley, where District 18 gets more of the Appleton area and gets rid of the parts in Fond du Lac County, and District 19 goes further north into the Oneida Reservation and the western suburbs of Green Bay. Elsewhere in the state, District 24 goes north from Stevens Point into into Wausau, District 13 is moved further south and west. And in the Milwaukee area, District 8 goes back to looking like it does today, with Dem-voting Milwaukee suburbs like Whitefish Bay and Fox Point included, and parts of Waueksha and Washington Counties are taken out.

So what does it look like for competitiveness?

18-15 Republican as a base, but 13 of the 33 districts are in the "competitive" zone, with a near-equal split in which party is favored in those races, and 11 of those 13 have vote margins of 5% or less. That's a situation that wouldn't allow either party to be able to ignore voters, and have to continue to work to get power and/or stay in power.

With only two weeks to go before maps are submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and its two academic consultants, it reminds us that there are a couple of ways we can base "fair maps"on. Do we try to completely ignore how people vote in a certain area, and base districts on similarity of communities and geography? Or do we take partisanship into account, with a goal of having more competitive districts, and maximizing the chance of having control of the Legislature flip if public opinion flips?

I'm going to get back to work on a "competitive" Assembly map, and likely report in the near future on what that gives me.
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Sunday, December 24, 2023

Inflation keeps dropping, incomes and spending keep rising, so rates drop in 2024, right?

Given that it's a Holiday week, the monthly income and spending report got moved up into Friday. And it continued the good news on the economy as 2023 wraps up, especially on the inflation front.
Last month, for the first time since April 2020, prices fell on a monthly basis, according to a closely watched report released Friday by the Commerce Department.

US inflation slowed further in November, and consumer spending continued to outpace expectations, lending further credence to the idea that the US Federal Reserve could stick its “soft landing” of bringing down inflation with a barrage of interest rate hikes while not throttling the economy into a recession....

The Commerce Department’s latest Personal Income and Outlays report also showed that consumer spending increased 0.2% from the month before. Economists had expected it to remain flat.

When adjusting for inflation, spending ramped up 0.3% on the month.
Incomes also went up by a solid 0.4% in November, which including the largest one-month increase of wages and salaries since January. It's been a relatively steady series of increases for that form of income throughout 2023.

The bigger story for the financial press was the decline in the "Fed's favored inflation measure" - PCE. Some of it was due to November's falling gas prices, but the underlying "core" inflation also was low, and has been mostly neutered for the 2nd half of 2023.

Now that we have inflation running at the Fed's (artificial) preferred level of 2%, can we stop having them have their Fed Funds rate dtart dropping from 5.4%? When we had 2% core inflation and sub-4% unemployment 5 years ago, then-President Donald Trump was whining that the Federal Reserve was raising rates above....2%. The Fed soon caved and rates three times in 2019, as unemployment stayed below 4% and before we had heard of COVID-19.

I'm not asking for a Bubbly 1.5% like Trump was able to jawbone the pre-COVID Fed into. But we have prices mostly under control, wage and job growth solid but not absurd, and we can still get a solid return on savings if rates were dropped to 3.5% or 4%. And Dems and President Biden should not stay silent in 2024 if the Fed refuses to do what is right, and threatens our strong economy with overly high rates on borrowing.
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Saturday, December 23, 2023

A neutered Robbin' Vos is trying damage control for 2024

Days before his precious gerrymander got struck down, Assembly Speaker Robbin' Vos made the rounds with state media, and was acting like someone who realized he didn't have a free ride to power any more.

Current state law bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, but Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Wednesday that he hopes to put a proposal on some future ballot that would lower the limit to somewhere between the 12th and 15th week.

“It’s probably the only way for us to put this issue to rest,” he told The Associated Press. “It has the idea of saying we're letting the people decide.”...

For a new abortion law to be put before voters, the proposal would first have to be passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. It could then be placed on the ballot in a statewide election as a binding referendum. Wisconsin law does not allow voters to place questions on the ballot, and Republicans who control the Legislature have previously rejected Evers' calls to create a way for voters to repeal the 1849 abortion ban.
Yeah, I don't think Governor Evers is going to be OK with having restrictions that go beyond what we had under Roe v. Wade. But the fact that Vos is even floating this cynical idea tells you that the GOP knows they are still flailing about in the post- Dobbs Wisconsin.

And now that his tax cuts for the rich keep getting shot down, Vos is trying to make an image of "compromise", bringing a tax cut for older Wisconsinites back onto the agenda. So let’s go back to whent aht idea originally was suggested by Legislative Republicans last Summer, given that what will come up in the next months will be similar.
The proposal, co-authored by Rep. David Steffen of Green Bay and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara of Appleton, introduce[d] new optional retirement income tax exemptions for Wisconsin taxpayers 67 or older. Individual filers would be exempt from paying taxes on the first $100,000 of annual retirement income, while married and joint filers would see a tax exemption for the first $150,000.

Retirement income taxes would be completely eliminated for over 98% of all taxpayers age 67 or older, according to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimate provided by Steffen's office in July.
Sounds good on the surface, and Vos’s contention is that this would encourage more seniors to stay in and/or locate in Wisconsin, overcoming our cold winters and other disadvantages that we may have with other states.

However, let’s also remember that this is targeted at “retirement income”, which is basically pensions, IRAs and 401ks. Social Security payments and military retirement pensions are already exempt from Wisconsin income taxes, and a sizable amount of IRA and 401k distributions are already written off in this state before we even expand any retiree tax cut.
Current state law allows individuals 65 or older with federal adjusted gross income under $15,000 or married and joint filers under $30,000 to claim a $5,000 exemption on retirement income in certain accounts….

An August memo from the [Wisconsin Department of Revenue] estimated the retirement tax cut proposed in July would decrease state revenue by about $54 million in the 2024 fiscal year and $362 million annually beginning in fiscal year 2025. That cost could climb to $420 million annually beginning in 2025 if married joint filers are allowed to claim an exemption after only one spouse reaches 67 years old.
But maybe some kind of modification can be made where we up the exemption on 401k-IRA-pension income to $25,000 and $50,000, to adjust for inflation, higher property taxes, and other items, but also doesn’t give a giant windfall to rich Boomers while reducing the ability for the state to make investments for everyone.

Other news from Vos’ year-end series of media appearances, included this.

​

In other words…

This is why I don’t buy polls that claim Republicans might have the upper hand, especially in Wisconsin. If Robbin’ Vos is going out of his way to back off this power grab and making noises about passing medical (non-smokable) marijuana legislation, the GOPs are in big trouble for 2024.

And that’s the biggest takeaway we should have from this lame attempt by Vos to seem reasonable in these year-end interviews. It’s damage control, and WisDems should use this as a reason to pound that dweeb even more. Especially now that they have a real chance to boot Vos and his fellow Republicans out of power next November.
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Friday, December 22, 2023

Gerrymander is gone! But replacement's not here yet

Well, Happy Holidays to those of us with a drop of decency in Wisconsin.

It's a nice first step, although I don't see why the 4 liberal justices are giving Robbin' Vos and company another chance to draw up a map when these lowlifes have shown they can't be trusted. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has previously said March 15 is the deadline for the new lines to be in place for the August primary that decides the candidates for the November election, but I don't see a "drop dead date" in this decision for the Court to step in.

I'm looking through the decision to see some hints on how that new map might be determined by the Court. There is no timetable given for when these maps get decided, but it looks like two things will be happening at the same time. The Legislature and Governor Evers can try to come to some kind of compromise map (HAH!), and the Court members will be at work drawing their own maps and getting inputs from all sides on how to draw those maps.
The process by which the court will adopt remedial maps will be set out in an order issued concurrently with this opinion. In broad strokes, all parties will be given the opportunity to submit remedial legislative district maps to the court, along with expert evidence and an explanation of how their maps comport with the principles laid out in this opinion. The court will appoint one or more consultants who will aid in evaluating the remedial maps. Parties will have the opportunity to respond to each other, and to the consultant's report.

We set out this process in order to afford all parties a chance to be heard, while bearing in mind the need for expediency given that next year's elections are fast-approaching. We begin our process now instead of waiting to see whether the legislative process results in new maps. In other words, both the legislative process (should there be one) and our process will proceed concurrently. This will allow the court to adopt remedial legislative maps in time for the upcoming elections if legislation creating remedial maps is not enacted.
I also found this interesting nugget, which says the GOP majority's 2022 made-up rule of "least change" (from the original 2011 gerrymander) as a baseline is not going to happen in 2024.
....We cannot allow a judicially-created metric, not derived from the constitutional text, to supersede the constitution. Conceivably, least change (if actually agreed upon) could be relevant to traditional districting criteria, commonly considered in redistricting but not constitutionally or statutorily mandated. See infra, ¶68. In that instance, least change would be secondary to the constitutional requirements and balanced with other factors, such as "preserving communities of interest." However, Johnson I did not adopt a cabined approach to least change. Instead, Johnson I declared that the overarching approach to adopting remedial maps was for them to "reflect the least change necessary" from the previous maps. See Johnson I, 399 Wis. 2d 623, ¶72.

¶63 As illustrated across the course of the Johnson litigation, "least change" is unworkable in practice. As such, we overrule any portions of Johnson I, Johnson II, and Johnson III that mandate a least change approach.....It is impractical and unfeasible to apply a standard that (1) is based on fundamentals that never garnered consensus, and (2) is in tension with established districting requirements. Here we must first focus on established districting requirements set out in state and federal law, and only then on other districting criteria....
The Court says it'll consider partisan impact and try to minimize any advantage, but also will make sure other factors like equal population, minimizing community splits and minority representation are part of the equation as well.

And given that it was a main argument used to invalidate the maps, these new districts are sure to be contiguous without islands in the middle of them, so we don't get districts like this ridiculous one in the Madison suburbs, which included a cutout for the now-eliminated Town of Madison.

We'll see if the Legislature and/or Evers even try to come up with a new map over the 2-3 months (I see no requirement that they HAVE to), or if they'll just let the Court come up with the solution on their own. It's not like the Court doesn't have a plethora of maps to choose from, given how many of us have paid attention this issue over the last 13 years.

Heck, I got mine right here. Use em for free!

EDIT - Looks like the four ladies on the good side of the Court are not going to allow the GOPs to slow-walk this thing. They know what's up.

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Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Wisconsin gains more people in 2023, and now might keep all its House seats in the 2030s

Yesterday, the US Census Bureau released their new updates on US and state population for 2023. Not surprisingly, the trend of Americans moving to the South and Mountain West continued, often from California, the Northeast, and the Midwest. But the changes were not as severe as what we saw in 2022.

You can see that Wisconsin is in the green for both years, and the Census Bureau says Wisconsin gained more than 20,400 people in 2023 (0.3%). This means Wisconsin has now regained all of the population it lost in the pandemic-wracked time between April 2020 (when the Census was estimated) and mid-2021, and then some.

In 2023, Wisconsin gained more people from migration within the States than any other state in the Midwest, getting more than 5,600 more people than we lost.

But Wisconsin didn’t gain as much from the “natural” birth vs death factor as 4 other Midwest states did in 2023 (though it was still positive, unlike Michigan and Ohio), nor did we gain as much from immigration (only Iowa added less). So our total population gain ended up smack dab in the middle for our part of the country. And unlike other years in the 2020s, only Illinois has fewer people this year.

But while we were middle of the pack for the Midwest and only the 20th highest for total population increase in America, Wisconsin’s 2023 gain of 20,412 people could become very significant for the state and its ability to maintain the same level of representation in Washington DC, if it were to continue. Here’s why I say that.

Each year, the American Redistricting Project (among other groups) figures out how many members each state should have in 2030, based on population changes. In December 2022, their map looked like this.

And now in the updated map using 2023's numbers, look who is out of the red!

Notice that Wisconsin’s 8th House district is now listed as one of the “last 3” that would be assigned, as opposed to the being in the last 3 "out" in 2022. This means we are close to the borderline eiher way, and will likely need to grow our population more over the next 7 years to keep that 8th seat. Seems like all the more reason to have policies that encourage a high quality of life, good wages and a strong education system to encourage families to stay here, and to encourage others to move here.

Also seems like we shouldn't be driving people away with 19th and 20th Century social policies and anti-inclusive BS, unlike what our gerrymandered GOP Legislature keeps pushing to do. So ironically, if we get new maps for the rest of the 2020s, it might also bring a better chance of keeping Wisconsin at 8 House members and 10 electoral votes for the 2030s. Just saying.
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Monday, December 18, 2023

Consumers strong in November. But not guaranteed to be Happy Holidays at stores

Right after we found out that inflation stayed in check in November, we also found out that consumers kept spending in stores for the start of the Holiday Shopping season.
U.S. retail sales unexpectedly rose in November as the holiday shopping season got off to a brisk start amid deep discounting, likely keeping the economy on a moderate growth path this quarter and further alleviating fears of a recession.

The rebound in retail sales reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday underscored consumers' resilience, thanks to a strong labor market, and cast doubts on financial markets' expectations for a rate cut as early as next March….

Retail sales increased 0.3% last month after falling 0.2% in October, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales edging down 0.1%. Retail sales are mostly goods and are not adjusted for inflation.

Sales increased 4.1% year-on-year in November. Though the pace has slowed as households adjust to higher borrowing costs and prices, it remains sufficient to ward off a recession.
And that 0.3% likely understates the true strength of the retail side for November, because lower gas prices dragged down that number due to the lack of adjustments for inflation. In fact, if you take out gas prices, retail sales rose by a robust 0.6%.

The gains and losses in retail have been dispersed quite a bit among the sectors, both for the (seasonally adjusted) figures in November and over the last year.

I note that department and big box stores are the biggest decliners next to the deflation-influenced drop at gas stations. And some of that seems to be a general turn-away from shopping at brick-and-mortar stores (which explains the drop year-over-year), and especially since people don’t go into stores for the Holiday Season in these times compared to years past.

I think that the seasonal adjustments haven’t caught up to that reality, which is shown by the fact that significantly more sales still happened at those places in November, but it’s not the level of increased activity that the models think should happen. Conversely, the falloff at Bars and Restaurants wasn’t as much as in a typical November, which also likely reflects that things aren’t as seasonally-volatile as before.

Now, November certainly isn’t the entire Holiday season. And with reports of retailers extending sales well into December, that might portend a lower number in the next retail sales report. Or maybe it’s just more of a reflection how changes in shopping habits and trends have accelerated in the post-COVID world.

But at least through last month, consumer spending seemed to be holding up well overall in America. And with prices seeming in check while jobless claims stay low, I’d say that’s a pretty good situation to be in.

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