With the U.S. Supreme Court case, Gill vs. Whitford now concluded, we wished to look at how the Badger State found itself at the center of the judicial fight over partisan gerrymander. The following is Part 2 in a series relaying Wisconsin’s recent history in drawing its legislative district lines.
Remember to Win the Election First
The 2010 midterms were the most successful statewide election for Wisconsin Republicans in decades. In one night they captured the governor’s mansion, sizeable majorities in both state legislative chambers, the majority of the state’s House delegation, and a U.S. Senate seat. The election of Scott Walker, then Milwaukee county executive, as governor over Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett—few expected a rematch was less than two years off—was a catalyst for a series of conservative reforms.
Despite taking this electoral beating, many Wisconsin Democrats acted as if they did not expect to lose as much political power as they did. One clear sign of this was how some Democrats had already begun their own redistricting strategies. This was verified when it was uncovered that state Rep. Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee), Wisconsin Democrat’s top redistrict expert, had been quietly making maps for months before election day.
Bipartisan Legal Hijinks
Prior to Election Day, Democrats in the state senate thought it was within their right to secure the services of a Madison-area law firm to advise the redistricting process. When asked to explain, the only offered was “to aid all parties in the effort.” Such an excuse may have had merit if it weren’t for the fact neither then-Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, or the then Democratic-controlled state assembly went along with the hiring.
Naturally the new Republican majorities did what you’d expect with the Democratic-hired firms: They were quickly fired and replaced. Republicans opted to use Milwaukee-based Michael Best & Friedrich, which made the new minority Democrats cry foul. They also claimed that hiring Michael Best was nothing more than a political payoff to former Republican party of Wisconsin Chairman Reince Priebus, who at the time was a partner at the firm.
Eventually, Republicans and their attorneys got to work on the task of redistricting working out of Michael Best’s Madison office. To ensure confidentiality throughout the process, Republican lawmakers were forced to sign confidentiality agreements to look at maps of their own districts. Additionally, all documents related to the creation of the new districts were kept with Michael Best and designated as the property of the state legislature, accessible only by the legislative leaders of each chamber.
This decision would come back to haunt Wisconsin Republicans in the most unexpected of ways.
We Demand a Redistricting Commission (Which We Forgot to Create)
Ever since January 2011, the demand for the creation of a nonpartisan commission to do redistricting within Wisconsin has been a near constant. Iowa’s example has been brought up the most by liberal activists, politicians in various op-eds, and the state’s many Democratic-leaning editorial boards.
One problem with this urgency was it’s been based on a hollow premise from the start. With Democrats controlling all law-making authority in the Badger State from 2009-2011, one would have thought a bill would have become law. Instead, it languished in committee after its introduction and never saw a floor vote.
Act 10’s “Capitol Chaos” and Its Aftermath
February 2011 was a turning point in Wisconsin politics. The introduction of Governor Walker’s public-sector collective bargaining reforms, referred to as “Act 10,” set off a shockwave throughout the state and the nation.
You probably know the story well. Within days of Act 10’s introduction, all 14 Senate Democrats fled the state for neighboring Illinois to prevent their Republican colleagues from having a working quorum. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of public employees, liberal activists, and UW-Madison students laid siege to the state capitol for nearly a month hoping to intimidate Republicans into backing down.
In the end, Act 10 passed the legislature and the “Fleeing 14” came home. With their return came plans to recall not just Walker, but their Republican colleagues in the state senate as well. While the publicly stated goal was capturing the state senate, few political consultants didn’t see the recalls as a covert attempt by Democrats to dismantle Republican redistricting plans. With this new threat to their majority, Republican lawmakers would double-down on efforts to speed up the political cartography.
They would aid this rush by reversing the order the state traditionally redrew districts. In past rounds, local municipalities and county boards would draw their districts first. From there, state lawmakers would then create districts on the congressional and state legislative level.
Having seen liberal-run municipals like Madison and Kenosha slow-walk implementation of Act 10, legislative Republicans naturally feared similar stalling with redistricting. So, with the first round of state senate recalls looming, the state’s maps were passed first, a move which forced local municipalities to work around what they created, not the other way around.
In the end, the bills redrawing both congressional and legislative maps were introduced on July 11, 2011. Passing on a party line vote in the state senate on July 19, with the state Assembly approving them the next day.
Walker would sign the new maps into law on August 9, the very day six GOP state senators faced recall. Two would go on to lose that evening, leaving Democrats one seat shy of a majority.
In the meantime, the state was facing its first legal challenge over the new district maps. In late 2011, Latino rights groups in Milwaukee challenged the map’s constitutionality under the Voting Rights Act. In the end, a three-judge panel found two assembly districts—District 8 and 9 on Milwaukee’s south side—would need to be reconfigured. The other 98 percent of the maps passed every legal standard currently on the books.
The 2012 round of state Senate recalls, held on the same day as the one against Walker, gave Democrats a one-seat majority. It would last only months as Republicans would win two seats in the November elections; claiming an open seat caused by a Democratic retirement and winning back one they lost in the 2011 recalls.
A Short-Lived Majority and a Legal Surprise
Politically, the Wisconsin recalls were a disappointment for Wisconsin Democrats. They didn’t achieve their goal of recalling Walker or repeal of Act 10. Instead, they spent millions of dollars for a race where the June 2012 results were practically the same as the ones in November 2010.
To make matters worse for Democrats, they managed to make Scott Walker a conservative rock star. All of which allowed him to build a national fund-raising network, one that raised substantial amounts for his 2014 re-election bid.
On top of it all, union membership in the state has plummeted 40 percent since 2011. Also, combined state and local taxpayer savings from Act 10 have topped $5 billion, making its repeal a pipe dream to only the most liberal of state politicians.
The lone bright spot—successfully capturing the Wisconsin state senate after the 2012 round of recalls—garnered no real legislative victories. Since to ensure Democrats couldn’t move legislation, Republicans had adjourned the session weeks before the recalls. But the short-lived state senate majority did grant Democrats the chance to view what Republicans handled redistricting. Something they always wanted.
With all redistricting materials the property of legislative leadership, newly minted Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Madison) demanded all the documents. Once he had them, his office posted them on the Internet and soon were being used as evidence for the plaintiffs in Gill.
Whether the justices believe the evidence found in those documents remain to be seen, but it’s unlikely they would have reached the nation’s highest court without it.
A Sore Loser’s Last Stand
While few of Gill’s plaintiffs would admit it, it’s hard not to see their entire lawsuit as the final last grasp by Wisconsin Democrats to overturn everything conservatives have achieved since 2011. By forcing courts, or some non-existent commission to draw the lines, Wisconsin Democrats hope they can get through a legal ruling what they couldn’t through elections, promoting their agenda, and eventually voting. Even the entire recall strategy was based on an ill-conceived attempt to reclaim power Wisconsin voters outside their geographic bases of Milwaukee and Madison will give them.
For any of them to demand “fairness” in state politics after what the Badger State has gone through is simply remarkable. Was running off to Illinois fair? Were the protests fair? Were the recalls fair?
Hardly if you were one of the millions of Wisconsinites who believed that casting their vote in 2010 mattered and that with it would come the consequences and responsibilities granted to the victors. What the redistricting case now before the Supreme Court is nothing more than a bunch of sore losers looking for anyone to give them the victory they feel they’ve been denied.
If a majority of the high court can’t see that, then good luck to us all with the legal madness they could unleash.
Kevin Binversie is a Wisconsin-based writer who has been active in Badger State conservative politics for over a decade. Among his past endeavors have included serving as Research Director for Senator Ron Johnson’s 2010 campaign and as Managing Editor for RightWisconsin.com.
