Given the limited issues in play, a narrow decision that addresses relevant concerns is the prudent course of action.
Wisconsin lawmakers will have to redraw voting maps for two districts in Milwaukee because their first attempt unfairly weakened Latino voting power, a panel of federal judges ruled Thursday.
The maps changed voting boundaries throughout the state, were drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature last year and signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker in August.
The three-judge panel found that the maps unfairly hurt Latino voters in two south side Milwaukee districts by diluting their voting power.
The panel ruled that because Assembly Districts 8 and 9 in Milwaukee violate the Voting Rights Act, the state Government Accountability Board cannot implement the new maps in their current form.
But the court upheld all of the other legislative and congressional districts that Republicans drew.
That means that, unless there is another counter ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the maps — which favor Republican candidates — will be in place for the next decade. They are set to go into effect in November.
Save for the GOP procedure steeped in paranoia (like asking legislators to sign agreements not to discuss a matter of public business), the process wasn't any more private or crooked than it's been in the past.
Should the legislature fail to comply with the court's ruling, I
would expect the federal court to do not much other than reapportion the
8th and 9th Assembly Districts.
4 comments:
This is an honest question that puzzles me: Why did the GOP mapmakers make these wholesale revisions in the first place, since neither was that far off the ideal population.
It puzzles me because regardless of how the 8th and 9th assembly districts are drawn, it would seem most unlikely that a Republican would have any chance of winning either.
The only significance in drawing the lines is whether you have a heavily Latino district (the 8th as previously constituted) and a heavily Anglo 9th, or lines for districts that could conceivably elect 2 Anglos, 2 Latinos, or one of each. Why would that matter to Republicans?
I'd love to get any explanations.
In taking input from the Latino community, there were conflicting opinions. Some wanted a long-range view and set up two mildly latino districts today knowing that population growth turns them into two solid latino districts by the end of the decade. Others wanted one rock solid district and influence in the other.
However, the lawsuit filed was more about raw politics and trying to get the whole maps thrown out. For Republicans, the end result is a complete victory.
I understand Anonymous' point, but I still don't understand why Republicans felt obligated to set up the "mildly Latino districts". Unlike the way they scrambled the Racine-Kenosha districts, and lopped Democrats off Alberta Darling's district, to name two examples, there's no obvious gain for Republicans here.
Well, it was the Latino Republican groups that were pushing hard for the two "mildly Latino districts."
So "Making Aaron Rodriguez and other Latino Republican groups happy" was the gain for Republicans.
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