Wisconsin Legislative Redistricting Looms
Democrats hope new congressional and state legislative district lines reflect the state’s bona fide battleground status in statewide races
The victory in April by Democrat-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court nominee Janet Protasiewicz buoyed hopes among reformers that the new 4-3 ‘liberal’ majority will ultimately reject the state’s current legislative district maps as lawsuits make their way before the court – maps perceived by many to be Republican-friendly.
As a strategy to blunt the liberal majority’s fingerprints on the redistricting process, legislative Republicans are now pushing for a new redistricting law – similar to Iowa’s Legislative Services Agency – wherein the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau would draw maps. Those maps would subsequently be voted upon by the State Senate and Assembly.
The question remains as to whether Democrats – previously champions of nonpartisan processes to draw legislative maps – will support this plan or go all in with the state Supreme Court in hopes that that process will result in even more Democratic friendly maps.
GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was able to pass legislation last week that would empower the LRB to draw maps and establish a redistricting advisory committee composed of five members. One Democrat voted in favor of the measure.
However Wisconsin maps are drawn, there is little question they have been a thorn in the side of the state Democratic Party for the last two decades.
Since 2010, Democrats and Republicans have equally split statewide elections to constitutional or federal offices – with 13 wins each.
During this period, Democrats have won all four elections for secretary of state (2010, 2014, 2018, 2022), two each for president (2012, 2020), U.S. Senator (2012, 2018), governor (2018, 2022), and attorney general (2018, 2022), and one for treasurer (2018).
Meanwhile, Republicans have won three elections for U.S. Senator (2010, 2016, 2022), governor (2010, 2012 recall, 2014), and treasurer (2010, 2014, 2022), two for attorney general (2010, 2014), and one each for president (2016), and lieutenant governor (2012 recall).
But during this same seven-cycle period, Republicans have also been victorious in a much higher percentage of U.S. House elections – 36 of 56 (64 percent), not including a 2020 7th CD special.
Republicans claimed a majority of U.S. House seats in each of these seven cycles – a feat last accomplished more than 65 years ago when the state sent a majority GOP delegation to the nation’s lower legislative chamber for seven straight cycles from 1944 through 1956.
Republicans have bested this streak only twice before in state party history – winning a majority of U.S. House seats in 19 consecutive cycles from 1894 through 1930 and in nine straight from 1864 through 1880.
Since 2010, the GOP has also won an almost identical percentage of state legislative seats vis-à-vis the U.S. House.
Republicans claimed 72 of 116 seats in general elections for the state senate (62 percent) and 436 of 693 seats for the state assembly (63 percent).
Both Speaker Vos and Democrats aim to have new legislative maps in place before the 2024 elections.
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– STANDALONE lieutenant governor in 2012 (elected in 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 also);
– The Democrats had a chance to implement their own non-partisan redrawing process way back in 2009-2010 (confirming the adage, ‘NO SAINTS in redistricting!’).
– My surmise is that, under the designs of the Democrats, the seats currently held by Steil and Van Orden would absorb more D-leaning precincts from nearby areas, thus augmenting merely the CHANCE to evenly split the House delegation (no clue as to how the legislative lines would be reshaped).
[However Wisconsin maps are drawn.]
Did you mean to say however the way WI maps are drawn?
[As a strategy to blunt the liberal majority’s fingerprints on the redistricting process, legislative Republicans are now pushing for a new redistricting law – similar to Iowa’s Legislative Services Agency – wherein the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau would draw maps. Those maps would subsequently be voted upon by the State Senate and Assembly.]
In addition Reps supposedly want impeach the new justice even though she’s not issued any rulings and legal exerts have said that she didn’t pre judge the case with her campaign rhetoric.
Unrelated: If the freshly-indicted US Senator “Bob” Menendez were to resign his seat, Philip Dunton “Phil” Murphy would become the third consecutive governor of NJ to fill a Senate vacancy (Menendez himself was initially appointed to his seat).
The example that comes to mind is Kentucky, which had *five* governors in a row make appointments to the U.S. Senate back in the 1930s-50s:
*Keen Johnson (Oct. 10, 1939): ascended to the governorship and appointed his predecessor Happy Chandler to replace M. M. Logan, who died in office
*Simeon Willis (Nov. 19, 1945): appointed William A. Stanfill to replace Happy Chandler, who resigned to become commissioner of baseball
*Earle Clements (Jan. 20, 1949): appointed Garrett Withers to replace Alben W. Barkley, who resigned to become U.S. vice-president
*Lawrence Wetherby (Mar. 19, 1951): appointed Thomas R. Underwood to replace Virgil Chapman, who died in office
*Happy Chandler (Jun. 21, 1956): appointed Robert Humphreys to replace Alben W. Barkley, who died in office
Interestingly, three of the five resultant special elections were won by the same person: John Sherman Cooper.
Washington had four consecutive governors who each appointed a senator:
*Roland H. Hartley (Nov. 22, 1932): appointed Elijah S. Grammer to replace outgoing Wesley L. Jones, who died in office
*Clarence D. Martin (Dec. 19, 1940): appointed Monrad C. Wallgren to replace Lewis B. Schwellenbach, who resigned to become a U.S. district court judge
*Arthur B. Langlie (Dec. 14, 1944): appointed newly-elected Warren Magnuson to replace outgoing Homer Bone, who resigned to become a U.S. appeals court judge
*Monrad C. Wallgren (Jan. 10, 1945): appointed Hugh B. Mitchell to replace himself, having resigned his Senate seat to become governor
and Nevada had three:
*Edward P. Carville (Nov. 27, 1940): appointed Berkeley L. Bunker to replace Key Pittman, who died in office
*Vail M. Pittman (Jul. 25, 1945): ascended to the governorship and appointed his predecessor Edward P. Carville to replace James G. Scrugham, who died in office
*Charles H. Russell (Oct. 1, 1954): appointed Ernest S. Brown to replace Pat McCarran, who died in office
Currently, New Jersey is one of two states whose governor’s two immediate predecessors have made appointments to the Senate – the other being Mississippi.