A village without a district
It may be true that no man is an island, but, right now, Edgar is a village without a district.
Last week Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court voided a redistricting decision by Wisconsin’s high court and, in doing so, tossed to the winds where the small Marathon County community of 1,562 souls will land on the state political map for the next 10 years. Currently part of the 69th district, Edgar could spend the next decade either as part of the 86th or 87th assembly districts.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Gov. Tony Evers’ plan saying that Edgar should be part of the 86th district, currently represented by Rep. John Spiros. The court went with the governor’s plan because it included the least change from the current map of districts.
The Evers plan moves 324,415 Wisconsin residents, including Edgar’s population, to new districts. This is 60,041 fewer moved citizens than in a competing plan submitted by the Republican-controlled legislature.
A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in a “shadow docket” ruling, however, said no. In explaining the majority’s decision, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the governor’s plan, which added a seventh “strong” black district in Milwaukee, amounted to a racial gerrymander and violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The federal high court remanded the redistricting case back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court for either a different decision or, at least, a different analysis.
Maybe this will mean that the Wisconsin Supreme Court will accept the Republican legislature’s redistricting map. That would place the village of Edgar in the 87th assembly district represented by Rep. “Jimmy Boy” Edming. In truth, however, nobody knows what the Wisconsin Supreme Court is going to do.
The court faces a real quagmire. If it reaffirms its decision, it will run afoul of the federal high court. If it accepts the Republican legislature’s maps, it will reduce the number of “strong” black districts to four and majority black districts to two. One of these majority districts will be 73 percent black. This is evidence that the Republicans “packed” black people in as few districts as possible to reduce their political power.
This would be a clear, classic violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, especially given population trends. Over the past decade, the black population of Milwaukee grew by 5.5 percent. The white population decreased by 9.5 percent. The Wisconsin justices could, conceivably, not use either the Evers or Republican legislative plan and create their own.
In this case, then, the high court would jettison its own “least change” standard. It would create its own map, something the justices said they were unable to do. If it decides to create its own map, the Wisconsin Supreme Court would restart its redistricting process from scratch. But the clock is running. Candidates for senate and assembly seats have to have their nomination papers filed by early June.
In a dissenting opinion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor complained that the majority’s decision was not just unprecedented, extraordinary, and unnecessary, but would only brew greater “legal confusion.”
Justice Sotomayor got that right. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision will likely cause unnecessary political strife and confusion in Wisconsin, maybe for years. In demanding the state follow the Voting Rights Act, it may force the state to violate the Voting Rights Act.
It’s anybody’s guess, then, how this fiasco ends. Until there is a firm decision, the people of Edgar will roll like a tumbleweed between three assembly and two state senate districts.
Editorial by Peter Weinschenk, The Record-Review
