Common Cause in Wisconsin Reform Update - April 26, 2011
- Most Restrictive Voter Photo ID Measure in the Nation Gets a Public Hearing this Wednesday in the State Capitol
- Packed House for Reform Forum In Kenosha on Campaign Finance, Redistricting and Election Reform Issues
- Join Us in The Next Big Thing: Redistricting Reform
1. On Wednesday, April 27th the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on
Election and Campaign Reform will hold a public hearing on
ASSEMBLY BILL 7 - which, if passed and enacted into law, would be
the most restrictive voter identification law in the nation. This measure would likely mean that tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of voters in Wisconsin would find it too difficult and onerous to cast their ballots on election day, and take Wisconsin from being one of the top two states in the nation in voter turnout to one of the lowest. It would be easier to vote in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and even Georgia (currently the second most restrictive state in the nation, after Indiana, in which to vote) than in Wisconsin if this measure becomes law. And why? For no other reason than for partisan advantage. It is one of the most undemocratic and misguided pieces of legislation ever proposed in Wisconsin's history.
The State Senate counterpart to this measure,
Senate Bill 6, all but passed in the State Senate in February with only Republicans voting. Here is what we had to say about it in
February before the SB 6 was modified in committee, and then as it was brought to the State Senate floor and brought to the verge of passage on
February 24th.
The committee will "allow" citizens to testify on Assembly Bill 7, but for no longer than two minutes and testimony will be limited for the period between 10 AM and 4 PM on Wednesday. We will be there to speak up against this monstrosity and you should as well, if you can. For more details about the hearing, go here. If you cannot be there to testify, please let the members of the committee and your own State Representative and State Senator know what you think.
2. Last week at Carthage College in Kenosha, Common Cause in Wisconsin presented another in a long series of reform forums around the state to educate the public about political reform issues like voter photo ID, redistricting reform, campaign finance reform and the recent state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. On Monday evening, April 18th between 125 and 150 citizens and students filled every chair and stood to participate in a very lively panel discussion that featured Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), State Senator Bob Wirch (D-Pleasant Prairie), Carthage College Political Science Professor Jerald Mast, Republican Assistant District Attorney of Kenosha County Dick Ginkowski and CC/WI Director Jay Heck. Carthage College Political Science Professor Jonathan Marshall moderated the forum and helped organize this very successful event with CC/WI Director of Information Services and Outreach Sandra Miller.
You can view a video of the Kenosha Forum on Wisconsin Eye, which covered the event. To see photos of the forum go here.
CC/WI has organized similar forums over the past several years in Green Bay, Milwaukee (twice), La Crosse, Oshkosh, Madison (twice), Sturgeon Bay, Eau Claire, Janesville, Pewaukee, Stevens Point, Middleton, Appleton -- and is planning upcoming forums in Green Bay and Wausau.
2. In the event you may have missed it, please read CC/WI Co-Chair Bill Kraus' excellent column on why redistricting reform is so a vitally important and why you need to lend your name to the effort!
Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686
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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
May 2, 2011
By Bill Kraus
What the responses to
my last blog post about de-partisanizing redistricting reminded me of is how far below the radar this whole subject is.
This is not what you would call a high-profile item. A good half of the people who contacted me or who didn’t respond to my contact urging them to join a movement to turn the every decade legislative district map-making over to people who don’t have a dog in the fight seemed wary of my motives.
Imagine that.
What had been made clear is that the present system puts competitiveness into the criteria mix. Negatively. As long as the map-making is in the hands of the legislators who occupy these districts, they will favor making fewer districts and the elections for those districts less competitive. So far so good.
The next assumption among the doubters was that the Iowa system, which I admire, tries to make more districts and elections more competitive. This may or may not be the result of disinterested redistricting, but it is not the objective of it. The genius of the Iowa system is that it simply takes competitiveness out of the list of criteria.
The criteria that remain and which I like are:
1. Where counties or major municipalities have the population to be about one Assembly seat or two or three or more, districts should be drawn within those bounds to yield that number.
2. No counties or municipalities should be divided among districts unless that is necessary to assure approximately one person one vote. And then the districts should be defensible, have natural boundaries like rivers or city thoroughfares or media markets, other political boundaries like school districts, or ethnic conclaves.
3. No wards should be cut.
4. Districts should be as compact as possible. No long fingers or squiggles. Square is a good shape.
5. Population equality is a goal not an absolute. Over the course of the 10 years these districts are in effect a lot of population shifts are going to happen. So getting close to population is good, getting too perfect is probably impossible and not necessary.
6. If within these rules, incumbents can be placed in one district and putting two incumbents into one district can be avoided, that’s okay. Contorting districts to make sure there are no incumbent vs. incumbent contests isn’t justifiable.
No red and blue criteria are recommended.
The idea is to make defensible, almost-population-equal districts and let the voting chips fall where they may.
It seems to me that maps drawn by a dispassionate public agency which has a few geography majors on staff can do this without setting off an epidemic of paranoia: the incumbents’ occupational disease.
And, if what they come up with is at or near what has happened in Iowa, for example, the incumbents will vote for it overwhelmingly, there will be fewer gerrymanders, and more voters votes will count right through the November elections.
How scary is that?
The opportunity to put this idea on everybody’s short agenda at this moment in time and space arrives because there are going to be eight or nine elections in a wholly unanticipated summer season this year. It is my hope that everyone who runs in these elections will be asked to support this un-radical, unthreatening, voter-power enhancing idea.
I would think that none of them would say no thanks, that they prefer gerrymandering.
This is the last chance to make this good thing happen until 2021.
Let’s do it.
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Press Release
April 21, 2011
CONTACT:
Jay Heck – 608/256-2686
Recount of Votes in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Will Help to Restore Public Confidence in Democracy
Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General
JoAnne Kloppenburg yesterday requested a statewide recount of the votes cast in the April 5th election for state Supreme Court in one of the closest elections in Wisconsin's history. Incumbent Justice
David Prosser, Kloppenburg's opponent, holds a 7,316 vote lead out of more than 1.5 million cast.
Kloppenburg's decision to seek a recount - which is fully consistent with her right under state law when the margin separating two candidates is less than 0.05 after the canvass has been completed - should be respected and supported because it will help restore much needed public confidence in Wisconsin's election process and vote counting system, which was badly shaken in
the aftermath of this election -- particularly in Waukesha County.
Failure to undertake a statewide recount would leave hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters with serious doubts about whether or not the votes in Waukesha County and elsewhere throughout Wisconsin were counted accurately and honestly.
The fact that a statewide recount may not, and likely will not, change the outcome of the election is most definitely not the point. The point is that citizens need to have full confidence that the vote totals in the election are accurate and properly reflect the will and choice of the citizens of Wisconsin.
Indeed, Justice Prosser and his campaign ought to embrace the recount rather than attempt to discourage one from occurring with belittling statements and even threats of legal action according to recent press accounts. What, exactly, do they fear from an open and transparent review of the vote totals? Prosser's victory could be tainted by persistent suspicion and doubt in the absence of such a review.
And is there anyone in the State of Wisconsin that can seriously assert that if it were Justice Prosser who trailed Ms. Kloppenburg by a margin of less than 0.05 percent of the vote total, that he and his campaign would not be entitled to and would not seek the recount that is provided for under Wisconsin law? There is absolutely no doubt that he would seek, and would be entitled to a recount.
With a substantial number of State Senate recall elections just ahead, and a Presidential election and elections for the U.S. Congress and the State Legislature looming next year, the citizens of Wisconsin need to have full confidence that all of their votes are properly and accurately counted and that in a very close outcome, such as this one, that the recount process provided for in the law is respected and supported rather than belittled and denigrated.
__________________________________________
Jay Heck, Executive Director
Common Cause in Wisconsin
152 W. Johnson St., Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
608/256-2686
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A Wisconsin Political Fix
not just another blog
April 18, 2011
I hope that the answers to the questions asked in the following blog are US and NOW. If you think they should be, would you be willing to put your name on the virtual letterhead of a virtual organization that is going to ask the legislature and governor to bring something other than partisan warfare to this year’s redistricting?
If you are willing to lend your name, please send a message to jheck@commoncause.org or call 608-256-2686.
- Bill
April 23, 2011
*******************************************
By Bill Kraus
Anyone who has seen the process up close wants nothing more to do with drawing the lines for legislative districts. All turf battles bring out the worst in our political system, and redistricting is a virtual golf course.
And that’s only half of it.
When the opportunity to get a 10 year advantage rears its ugly head, really bad things happen.
This could be that kind of a year. And it’s not like the results achieved in prior decades by legislative fiat often adjusted by judicial revisions have been God’s gift to democracy.
The most recent rearrangement of Wisconsin’s legislative districts have created a map where only one of our eight congressional districts is demographically competitive, and
informed sources tell me as few as nine of the one hundred and sixteen seats in the state legislature that were on the ballot last year were considered “in play.” All the rest were considered “safe” for the candidates of one party or another. This was not an accident. The maps are made by and for the incumbents. The leaders of these incumbents recruit, slate, fund, and manage most of these campaigns. They do not have the unlimited funds needed to compete in all 116 races. Their objective is not admitted or even well known but comes down to “the fewer toss up races the better.”
The maps they have drawn if left alone or have submitted to the courts if not are not egregiously gerrymandered, but the result of these designs have created a democracy where some 82% of the voters who show up for the final vote in November did not have a real choice. The results of the elections they participated in were pretty much predetermined by the people who decided on the basis of how the people in the districts in their maps could be expected to vote.
In short most of us do not choose our representatives. Our representatives choose us.
We are not at the table when the maps are drawn. We do not necessarily share the priorities of the people who are at the table. Most of us might, for example, like to have more rather than fewer contests that were more competitive.
This could be done. This is being done in other places. Right next door, for example, in Iowa a disinterested state agency that doesn’t want to limit the number of competitive elections makes the map the legislature ultimately approves.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s farewell gift to the voters of California was a mapping system similar to Iowa’s. A couple other states follow that path as well. And, astonishingly, in North Carolina the Republicans in the legislature are also trying to turn over this fractious responsibility to non-partisans.
We could do that. It isn’t rocket science. We could turn the mapmaking over to some agency as dispassionate and fair minded as, say, the Government Accountability Board where the responsibility for overseeing our elections already resides.
Why would the legislature and the governor do this for us?
It would get a very distracting issue off the table in a contentious, issue filled year.
It would save money. The legislative leaders wouldn’t have to hire expensive, otherwise worthy law firms to help them do the mapping.
And it would be the right thing to do in a year when finding a proposal that a very large bi-partisan majority of citizens might regard as praiseworthy is as rare as a robin in a Wisconsin spring.
I can guarantee that the the 82% of us who are geographically disenfranchised would cheer.
Anyone willing to wait tell 2021 to do this?
I didn’t think so.
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