I'm Matt Rothschild and welcome to this edition of the Wisconsin Forward podcast on the Civic
Media Radio Network.
This week we're going to be talking about the great victory here in Wisconsin over
gerrymandering.
It's an issue I worked on for almost a decade when I was executive director over at the
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Joining me today are a few people who played a big part in this victory and then Dan Schaefer
of the Recombobulation Area in Civic Media will tell us what it all means for the upcoming
election.
First, some background on the word gerrymandering.
It is, in fact, a very American word.
It didn't come into circulation until 1812 in Massachusetts whose governor then was named
Obridge Gary or Jerry, depending on how you pronounced it.
Now his party was in charge of drawing new district maps after the 1810 census.
All maps need to be redrawn after every census.
And they drew the maps in such a bizarre way that some of the borders looked like a mythical
and monstrous salamander.
So a writer for the Boston Globe put the word salamander and gerry together to get the
word gerrymander and it's a word that stuck ever since.
Here in Wisconsin we've usually had split control of government with neither party holding
the governorship and a majority of both chambers of the legislature.
Sometimes they'd reach a compromise, but when they did it the map drawing would go to
the judiciary.
Then in the 2010 elections the Republican swept to power.
Scott Walker gained the governorship and Republicans surprisingly took over both the
state assembly and the state senate and they wasted no time in rigging the maps.
They even flew in a professor from Oklahoma who brought with him some fancy software to
tilt the maps in the Republicans favor.
They did so not in the state capital and not in the people's house, but across the street
in the cushy conservative law offices of Michael Beston Friedrich in a room that became
known as the map room.
The public wasn't allowed in the map room.
The media wasn't allowed in the map room.
Democrats sure weren't allowed in the map room and even the Republicans who were allowed
in the map room had to sign an oath of secrecy as soon as they got in there.
That's not how democracy is supposed to function.
The maps were so effectively rigged that even in years when Democrats had large majorities
statewide such as 2012, they didn't pick up any seats in the legislature.
This led a group of Democrats to sue the Republicans in court over the maps and in
2015, a panel of federal judges ruled the maps unconstitutional and then ordered them to
be redrawn, saying no citizen of Wisconsin should have to endure another election under
these unconstitutional maps.
But we didn't get new maps then because the Republicans ran to the U.S. Supreme Court
which kicked the case back down to the lower court and then in a case involving two other
states that had done their own gerrymandering.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal judiciary couldn't rule on partisan gerrymandering
leaving everything up to the states.
So it looked like we were stuck, which we were for a while.
And after the 2020 census, the Republicans again gerrymandered the maps.
But this time around, they didn't have a Republican in the governor's chair who would sign
off on their rigged maps because Governor Evers had been elected in 2018.
So the maps went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court twice actually, once when conservatives
had the majority.
And then again, after Justice Proto-Sahwich was elected, when liberals took over the majority
and that made all the difference.
That and 15 years of organizing on the issue by pro-democracy non-profits and former legislators
like Dale Schultz and Tim Cohen, both majority leaders from their respective parties and
by an impressive statewide grassroots movement.
The effort to ban gerrymandering, once and for all, is an over.
But we've made huge progress on this issue, which we'll discuss with Jay Heck, Executive
Director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, Curlyne Beschen, who led the grassroots organizing
effort, and Nick Ramos, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
And then as I mentioned, Dan Schaefer, the political editor at Civic Media and the founder
of the Recombobulation Area, will explain how the new fairer maps are playing out in this
November's elections.
Now let's hear from Jay Heck of Common Cause.
It's great to be with you.
Thanks for inviting me.
So Jay, how did we get to where we are right now on this gerrymandering issue?
Well, we finally, after against all odds, are turned the page on unfair, uncompetitive
state legislative district maps.
And it was through a confluence of events that I don't think anybody anticipated that occurred
that brought us now for 2024, much more competitive, fair state legislative maps that will be
in place, that I think ultimately will at least get us closer to what Wisconsin really
looks like, which is a purple state, not a deeply red state, like the Republicans have
gerrymandered the state to be in 2011, and then again in 2021.
Let's talk about the victory over gerrymandering.
You mentioned that no one could see it coming.
I mean, I didn't see it coming for sure.
I thought people were going to have to wait in Wisconsin at least till 2030 before there
was a chance of getting fair maps or fairer maps.
What does that tell you when victory happens, all of a sudden?
Well, I think what it tells you is that you need to always be on the lookout and always
be conscious of the fact that some of the assumptions that you've made are not necessarily
going to always hold true.
I mean, for instance, in the case of the fair maps that have occurred in Wisconsin, these
were maps that were submitted by Governor Evers, and they were competitive, they weren't
pro-democratic, but they weren't obviously pro-Republican.
They were fair.
They accurately reflected what Wisconsin looks like, which is pretty evenly divided legislature
had those maps been in place for instance in 2022 during the elections.
Now the Democrats all ended up voting against those maps because they were a little greedy.
They actually hoped that the court would hand them gerrymandered maps to favor them.
Yeah, I thought that was a mistake, too.
It was a terrible mistake, and the Republicans, of course, stood pat and said, nope, we're
going to stand by the gerrymandered maps that we ran through not only in 2011, but again
in 2021.
And so ultimately, what happened, Matt, as you know, was that the Republicans looked
at this and they said, well, what is the worst terrible outcome for us?
They're all terrible, but why don't we vote for the Evers maps, even though we hate them?
And of course, when they decided to do that, the Democrats said, well, if they're going
to vote for the Evers maps, we can't support them.
It's sort of that mentality that Democrats have had for so many years of being in the minority.
They trust nothing that Robin Voss or Devin Lemmehue or the Republicans are doing.
But the maps that the governor submitted were the most legally sustainable, because as your
listeners, smart listeners know, it's a function of a law, an act being passed signed into
law by the governor.
That is much more legally sustainable in the courts than simply the court picking another
set of maps.
I am confident, or at least reasonably confident, that the maps that the governor signed into
law will be in place until 2031, and that they would sustain any court challenge.
We're going to have to fix the process so that we don't have to go through this again in
2031.
But that's a different story.
And we've got some time now to try to figure out how to get really nonpartisan redistricting
in Wisconsin.
And that would be passing a law that would ban German or amending the state constitution
of Andrew.
Well, I think that the legislature should be able to chew gum and walk at the same time.
I think they could do two things.
I think they could, on the one hand, explore laying the groundwork for a constitutional
amendment, which as you know, Matt, is an extremely heavy lift, because you have to get it
through the legislature in two consecutive sessions of the legislature before it then
goes to the voters.
But I think we could do a legislative solution that if we can't get a constitutional amendment
passed, then we could still have it go through the legislature, but not have the legislature
draw the maps, have the only vote up or down like they do in Iowa, and ultimately get a
nonpartisan system.
But I think we have to pursue both options.
We can't just put all our eggs in one basket.
Jay Hector, victory over gerryman, he was a long time in coming.
And I wanted you to give a little background on some of the folks that made it happen.
Well, it was a wide cast of people that made this happen.
I mean, I think the one thing to understand is that gerrymandering was not an issue in
Wisconsin prior to 2011, because we'd always had divided government, and generally a compromise
had always been reached in the 50 years before on the redistricting process, both the state
legislative and congressional map level.
But over since 2011, with the one party state in place, and Republicans, it worked like
a charm, as you well know, they didn't lose a single seat or more than a couple of seats
in 10 years because of elections, because of the strength of the gerrymander.
And when people saw that in place early on, all over the state, as you know, the citizens
began to organize on a local level.
They began to gather to find out, first of all, what gerrymandering was, and then to find
out why it affected them and why it was affecting the policies that people really care about.
And it quickly became evident to hundreds and then thousands of people across the state
that the gerrymandered maps prevented problems from being addressed, that the legislature needed
to address, that really concerned citizens.
And so all across the state, Matt, as you know, in counties, all across the state, there
were referendums that were passed, and they never, ever did not pass in a county that
had them on the ballot.
Their advisory referendums, we don't have binding referendums in Wisconsin, unfortunately.
But also county boards, almost, I guess, what, 58 of the 72 counties, even in deep red
counties, passed resolutions saying that they supported nonpartisan redistricting reform.
That brought people out in little tiny counties as well as in the big urban areas across the
state and a groundswell of citizens all across the state developed.
And it culminated, as you know, in the late 2000s, with the formation of the Fair Maps Coalition,
which was all of the organizations that had been involved like Common Cause and the League
and others from the early days on to try to get redistricting reform in the Wisconsin
Democracy Campaign.
All of the other groups came together, but really citizens from all over, and citizen activists
in tiny counties like Peppin County and St. Croix County and Bayfield, not just in Milwaukee
and Madison, but all over the state, even Lafayette County and some of these deep red
counties, they were a citizen activists.
And it was really, I think, the strength of those people that really culminated finally
in convincing A, the governor, that Fair Maps was the way to go, not partisan maps of
one part of the other.
And then it also brought it to the attention and made it a major issue in the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, as you know.
And so I think once you had the governor's attention and you had the Supreme Court's attention
and obviously the attention to the legislature, it was only a matter of time before you
reached the right combination to get to where we had to go and lo and behold, at the end
of January of 2024, this series of events all kind of came into play with the new Supreme
Court accepting maps and the governor's maps being prominent and now we have them.
Interestingly enough, and I'll just add this because I think it's kind of ironic and
funny.
All of the Democratic legislators who had opposed the maps on the Friday before the governor
signed the maps, they were all at the bill sign later the next week saying, oh yeah,
we were just kidding, we love these maps.
And I think even Republicans understand that these maps are better for Wisconsin.
They would never admit that, of course, but I think there is a sense of relief that
maybe some of this polarization at least might begin to break up a bit.
Well Jay, from your multigods ear on that one, I do want to thank you for joining the
podcast.
It's great hearing from you as always and now we're going to hear from a friend of mine
who's one of the best organizers I've ever met.
Her name is Carleen Bession of the grassroots group of organ area progressives.
So Carleen, you were instrumental in galvanizing the grassroots of Wisconsin to come alive
to the issue of gerrymandering and to pressure elected officials to ban gerrymandering in
Wisconsin.
How did you get people at the grassroots who may have thought gerrymandor was the short
stop for the white socks to wake up to this issue and organize on it?
That's a really great question and I cannot take credit for it.
After the 2018 election, the little organizing group that I'm part of, the organ area progressives
down in Southern Dane County, looked at the statewide results and realized that Democrats
had won the five statewide races and our state legislature was still incredibly out of balance.
It made absolutely no sense.
And one of our members, Beth Woodamore, said it's the FNMAPS.
We got to do something about the MAPS and so I said to her, and what do you think we
can do, Beth?
And so we put together a summit, as a matter of fact, it was the third summit we had done.
We'd done one all about Alec, one all about Citizens United and we said, you know, a lot
of second CD people came to those.
We need to do this in the middle of the state and we need to ask people from all over the
state to come.
So we did that.
We had a summit in November of 2019, midway point between the 2018 and the 2020 elections
and we had 180 people show up in Marshfield, Wisconsin to learn about redistricting, to
understand the impacts of gerrymandering on issues that they cared about and to give them
actions that they could do to make a difference.
And when you say teams were on the state, it really was all over the state.
There were activists in essentially every county and ultimately 57 counties either passed
a referendum or passed a resolution at the county level to say that folks in their community
won a band gerrymandering.
That was an astonishing number.
I mean, I remember hearing that some of the organizers at the very beginning, I think
prior to you, came on in your capacity, it said, well, if we can get half the counties,
if we can get 36 out of Wisconsin, 72 counties to come on board for banning gerrymandering
while that would be a great thing and maybe the media would pay attention.
But you did a lot better than that.
Yes, we absolutely did.
And that was one of our first major pushes was to get county boards to agree one to pass
resolution and two to put it on to a referendum, advisory referendum, on to their county
wide ballot.
I also happened in a lot of municipalities in some of the counties where the county board
wouldn't go for it.
They went to the city council, the village board and got municipalities to pass them.
So it was really a galvanizing force for educating voters because then we could say this
is going to be on your ballot.
This is what it's about.
And so that helped to spread the word about just what is gerrymandering and how does it
impact me.
And we hear a lot about Wisconsin being part blue and part red, but a lot of these municipalities
and a lot of these counties were in very red areas.
Absolutely.
Every referendum that made the ballot passed by an overwhelming majority.
I think the least was 57%, but the most was 92%.
And in some very red counties, it passed by over 80%.
Why do you think it was popular even in red counties?
People don't like to feel like their vote doesn't matter.
And there are also a lot of issues that people care about deeply that are impacted when legislators
are not responsive to their constituents.
Well, we're some of those issues that were just being clogged by gerrymandering.
So things like universal background checks on gun purchases, 82% of Wisconsin voters want
to see that happen.
Even down to, I think it's like 57%, want to hire minimum wage.
So when you have, I mean, that's the range.
There's over 70% want the abortion ban to be repealed.
There's a lot of consensus around Medicaid expansion.
So and these are like 60, 70, 80% consensus.
So clearly, those are issues that cross political lines.
Public school funding, oh my gosh, huge.
When people understand that the federal law requires a certain amount to be spent on special
education and that if the schools don't have enough money from the state to make that,
it has to come out of the general fund.
So even if their child is not a special education student, their child is being impacted, people
get pissed off.
They just really don't like that.
So currently in batch and take me from your organizing at the grassroots to this victory,
we did get fair maps.
We're going to vote on them with them this fall.
How did that grassroots agitation that you were involved in lead us to getting these
fair maps?
Well, back up just a little bit to say that the mission of the Fair Maps Coalition included
from the start the possibility of litigation.
We did not have rose colored glasses.
We're not polyannas.
We did not think that the legislature would pass legislation, not a gerrymandered
legislature would pass legislation that would take them out of the process of drawing
maps.
So lots and lots and lots of grassroots education, agitation led to a new justice being
elected in 2023, who made looking at the maps part of what she talked about, Justice
Perseoets, in her campaign.
She was hearing people, 72% of Wisconsinites who say they wanted nonpartisan process.
So she made that part of what got her elected, that of course, along with taking a look
at the abortion ban.
And after she was sworn in, law forward brought a case and that case ended up with the
current maps being thrown out as unconstitutional on contiguity grounds.
So not on the gerrymandering grounds.
There were five different questions that law forward asked the justices to look at.
Three of them had to do with partisan gerrymandering.
One was separation of powers between the legislature and the governor since the maps were vetoed.
And then that veto was not overridden.
It went to court and the maps became court imposed and there's a separation of power question
there.
But the one that they found the maps unconstitutional on was contiguity.
In other words, all districts have to touch one another physically and there's a lot,
like over 50% of the districts were in contiguous.
So noncontiguous.
So that was a victory there at the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Democrats are contesting
everywhere for the first time in a long time.
I'll, but one assembly district, yes.
You were there at the signing ceremony where the governor signed this bill, what was that
like for you?
Oh my gosh.
It was so exciting.
I've been in this fight for a really long time, perhaps crossing my fingers, you know,
I don't pray much, but I send a lot of wishes, right?
I'm very hopeful that in the next biennial budget, we'll have better funding for schools.
I'm on the village board in the village of Oregon where, you know, where we're looking
at a budget that is really strapped and we have an archaic formula for shared revenue
for municipalities and counties.
I'm hopeful that that might change under a different kind of legislature and many of
these issues that people care about, including me, like universal background checks, all kinds
of other things will actually get a hearing.
Can you imagine that, Matt, a hearing in a committee and go to the floor and have legislators
vote on it?
What is an overall lesson here?
Because a cynical person 10 years ago, a cynical person five years ago would have looked
at the gerrymandering issue and say, you guys don't have a chance, you know, you're never
going to win this, you're never going to win this in the short term, you know, this
is something you might win if you're lucky in 2030 or 2040.
You're making me cry.
So I live in hope.
I am my father's daughter and he fought a lot of fights, a lot of fights, civil rights
fights, anti war fights, economic justice, racial equity and we're not there, we're certainly
not there, but we can't ever give up, we can't.
And so I'm a middle-aged, middle-class white woman, I live in a small village and I would
not need to know that the world is on fire except I know the world is on fire and there
are a lot of people like me who don't give up and so that is, that's what keeps us going.
And by not giving up, you give us all the possibility of winning and that's the thing
you never know when you're going to win.
I'm a student of Howard's in, not that he was my professor but I studied his work and
he wrote for me when I was at the Progressive Magazine and he always would say, you never
know when you're going to succeed, you just got to keep doing the work and if you don't
keep doing the work, you know you won't succeed.
Exactly.
If you don't do the work, how in the world do you have a chance to win?
That's the answer right there.
Thanks Carling so much for giving us your insights on this successful campaign for fair maps
which is still ongoing.
My next guest is Nick Ramos.
He's the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign where I used to work.
He took my job and grateful for that.
He also was at the signing of the Fair Maps legislation where Carling was and let's get
his take on this issue and that signing.
You were there standing right next to the governor and signed that, signed the bill banning
during dinner.
What was that like?
Oh my God.
I was bringing the ruckus in that room, Matt, because honestly, like 15 years, I could
feel the energy and I was thinking about all of that time and I'm so grateful and lucky
to have been given the baton and able to run with it at the time that I did.
I mean, I think it's funny that people told me when I became executive director that
I was coming in at a very quiet time, they lied.
Janet, I'm going to say what's got sworn in and became the next Supreme Court justice
and I feel like the wheels on the bus just fell off because after that, we were just,
it was just a, oh God, I mean, I don't think I've blinked ever since, I can only imagine.
I saw on your website, you wrote a great thing on July 4th, celebrating not only the
gerrymandering victory, but a few of the other victories that were a consequence of justice
to say what's coming in the switch and the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Why is it so important to celebrate victories?
I mean, there's so much to be jaded about.
I mean, I think people really resonate with hope more than they do pain and suffering
and I don't know, I like to think of myself as a pretty deep brother and I like to,
and I'm the biggest happy warrior in the pro-democracy space.
So I'm always thinking about how we can be celebrating the things, whether it's small or big
and we deserve to be happy here.
We've done so much.
Thanks, Nick.
It's great talking to you.
I always really appreciate all the work you're doing there.
Now we're going to hear from Dan Schaefer, the political editor at civic media and the
founder of the prize-winning recombobulation area, one of the best journalists here in
Wisconsin.
Thanks so much for having me.
Oh, it's a pleasure speaking with you.
Listen, what effect are these fairer maps going to have on this election that's right upon
us?
Yeah, it's definitely going to change the landscape in a pretty significant way.
For so long, it has been kind of baked into the process that Republicans were going to
remain in the majority in the assembly in the Senate.
And I think these new maps make this a competitive state legislature once again.
For so long, it had been the dynamic where it was easier for Republicans to get a two-thirds
supermajority than for Democrats to win a simple majority here in this 50-50 purple
state.
Now that's changed.
And I think it is the new maps have certainly increased the number of competitive districts
around the state.
There's been a research showing that there are more competitive districts now than at any
time in the last 15 years.
And I think that is generating more interest in a lot of these races.
There's, and especially in the state assembly, where for the first time in more than a decade,
their party has a realistic chance of winning the majority in this state assembly.
And I think once again, it is going to come down to, unlike in past years, when Republicans
enjoyed this entrenched power, this year it's going to come down to toss-up seats and
places in districts and parts of the state that we often think of as swing districts.
I'm talking about places like the Milwaukee area suburbs, western Wisconsin areas that
include LaCrosse and O'Clair.
The Fox Valley and Green Bay.
So the same places that we're seeing candidates spend a lot of time campaigning in statewide
races.
Those are also the places that have many of these especially competitive districts in the
state.
And that's how it should be.
I mean, we should have more competitive races.
We should have real contests.
I mean, one of the things that was kind of horrifying to me when I was over at the Wisconsin
democracy campaign was the number of races where there was no competition whatsoever.
That only one party had dominance and the other party wasn't even feeling a candidate.
And that was like being in the Soviet Union.
Right.
And that's changed in a really significant way this year because the Democrats in the state
Senate are able to feel the candidate in every single race.
And in the state assembly, in 97 of the 99 races.
So we have, you know, I've done this preview of elections happening in the state legislature
for the past couple of election cycles at the recon population area.
And now doing it in partnership, obviously with civic media.
But the number of, you know, uncontested races has declined significantly.
There are now more on the Republican side than the Democratic side, a number of races
in very blue districts in Milwaukee and Madison in particular don't have Republican candidates.
But you're seeing far more competition across the map overall.
And I think that is just overall, it's just a much healthier environment for the state's democracy.
And looking forward, it shouldn't make for a healthier legislature.
When Republicans were in total domination over there, I'd be in the capital for hearings.
And it was like being in a high school with the gang that runs the high school doesn't
care at all about the people on the other side, they'd make fun of the Democrats, they'd
cut them off, they'd treat them, you know, terribly.
And they wouldn't reach compromises.
They thought they, and correctly, that they could just totally disregard the other side.
If it's close in the state assembly, and certainly if the Democrats win the state assembly,
but even if it's close with the Democrats gaining a lot of members, the legislature, the
state assembly is going to have the Republicans in the state assembly are going to have to
cooperate more.
And because the next election, you know, they could lose everything.
They could lose the state senate too.
And that should bring us to a more decent politics, don't you think?
I do think so.
And I think because of that entrenched power, it made the legislature unaccountable in
so many ways.
And I think the type of accountability that voters would typically be able to deliver
to a legislature they might not be supporting of, wasn't really a realistic option under
the old maps.
And now, I think, you know, like you said, even if the Republicans do retain the majority,
it's not going to be a 60 plus seat majority, which is what it's been in every year since
this gerrymander was put in place before the 2012 election.
You know, I think this year, the most likely outcome is that we're something closer to,
you know, some sort of, you know, 52 to 48 type of split in the state legislature.
And then you're going to have swing votes.
You might have a Joe mansion of the state legislature or something like that, right?
And I think that is going to make a healthier dynamic overall.
And if Democrats are able to, you know, kind of overcome some of the odds and flip the
assembly this year, you know, that would change the way the state is governed in a really
significant way, because you look at, you know, say a committee like the joint committee
on finance, which writes the state budget, instead of being 12 to 4 Republicans, if Democrats
had a majority there, it would be an even split between Democrats and Republicans in
the budget writing committee.
And that would really change the way that budget is written and the really would change
the future of Wisconsin in a really significant way.
And the possibility that the people, the vast majority of the people Wisconsin might start
getting with the vast majority of the people Wisconsin actually want, that might increase.
Right.
And I think, you know, Robin Voss as the assembly speaker has really governed the state
like it is a deep red state and not the purple state that it is.
You look at policy after policy that has majority support, this legislature has not been
responsive to that.
You know, Wisconsin is one of only 10 states do not have accepted the federal Medicaid expansion.
The only state in the Midwest left not to do that.
You know, so Wisconsin is to the right of those, you know, those super liberals down in Missouri
on this particular issue.
And you can look at an issue after issue, you know, on, you know, things like gun violence
prevention, background checks and red flag laws that the Republicans gabbled in and gabbled
out of the session on.
You look at abortion rights, you look at paid leave, you look at marijuana legalization.
You know, you could really go down the whole list of these policies that many, you know,
similar purple states are adopting, but Wisconsin state legislature in no small part because
of that gerrymander and how that Republican leadership, especially Robin Voss, has governed
it really has not reflected the purple state that Wisconsin at it.
And that's all going to change now because of these fairer maps.
Thanks, Dan Chaffer, for painting the picture going forward that these fair maps are going
to give us.
And thanks for listening to this episode of Wisconsin Forward.
If you like the podcast, please subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or
your favorite podcast platform.
Learn more about the show and download episodes right from the civic media website, civicmedia.us.
On our next episode of the Wisconsin Forward podcast, I'll be talking with Earl Ingram
of the Earl Ingram show, an angel of laying of black leaders, organizing in communities
about how racism plays right here in Wisconsin.
So you're not going to want to miss that conversation again on Matt Rothschild.
And thanks for listening to the Wisconsin Forward podcast.
