COMMUNITY V - Reader says Vos is wrong on gerrymandering

COMMUNITY V

OICES

This concerns the article by Robin Vos, Speaker of our State Assembly, written to The Star News and I imagine many other state papers on September 21, 2023. I would hope you read his words. I have numbered his paragraphs one through six.

I find very little difficulty with the first paragraph. I would say Robin Vos wrote it as it is.

The second paragraph changes my thoughts. It is as most politicians do words, as most of the article is, to manipulate voters in a desired direction. He mentions, “the voice of every Wisconsinite our system of checks and balances, drain on the taxpayers.”

I’ll start with the “voice of every Wisconsinite.” After the census of 2010 our state had new district lines drawn for our representatives (to Madison and Washington).

New districts must be drawn if there are any shifts of population within the state from area to area or any decrease or increase in population. States can lose, gain or shift representatives to the national House of Representatives or their own State Government. This is mandated by federal law.

These districts in 2011 were drawn by conservative legislature of which Robin Vos, a very much conservative, was a member. The maps were signed into law by Scott Walker, the state conservative Governor. This is where the problems of today with our districts actually started, the maps drawn in 2011.

The districts were extremely gerrymandered to tilt districts to the conservative side. Again, Robin Vos was very much part of this process. The Websters all-in-one dictionary and thesaurus writes gerrymandering as: to divide in election districts so as to give one political party advantage.

Wisconsin after 2011 was considered one of the most, if not the most gerrymandered states in the whole of the United States. These districts are still in effect today.

Wisconsin is so gerrymandered, six months before the 2022 election a Marquette University (Milwaukee) professor predicted the outcome of 63 out of 99 assembly seats, give or take one or two. He did not consider anything but the boundary lines of the district maps. He missed by one, the conservatives took 64 seats. The election had been decided long before the first votes were cast by gerrymandering. Go to the September 19, 2023 issue of the Marshfield News Herald, page 2A. Because of the district boundaries drawn in 2011, which are very much gerrymandered which Robin Vos helped implement, the “voice of many Wisconsinites” may never be heard.

Robin Vos writes also of our “system of checks and balance.” This is exactly what gerrymandering is about, to destroy that system and tilt control only towards one agenda, and one agenda only.

He mentions the “drain on taxpayers.” This is our money which he is referring to, the voters of Wisconsin. I almost believe he has forgotten he initiated and hired a former state Supreme Court judge to investigate any fraud in the 2020 elections of which both the national and state (all states) have found virtually none to any extreme. How much money was delivered to this man?

Paragraph three and four are almost two of the same. Vos writes in paragraph four, “In 2019 Evers proposed Wisconsin adapt the Iowa Model.” In paragraph three Vos wrote, this proposal is very recent in 2023. “I recently proposed that we establish an independent, nonpartisan, redistricting commission,” following “our neighboring state to the southwest, Iowa.”

The state of Iowa uses a system and commission which is held in high regard across the nation. Why did Robin Vos wait until 2023 with his proposal? Could he not have made this in 2021, shortly after the 2020 census numbers were out?

In the proposal of Vos and his conservative group there were, “changes and adopted seven amendments to the Iowa Model.” Of course the liberals (all except one) rejected the plan. Can any of us believe those changes and amendments left the proposal a neutral nonpartisan proposal?That appears not to be the politics of today.

Now we go can go to paragraph five, which finally gets to the core of what Robin Vos wrote. Are Robin Vos and his very conservative group afraid of Alabama and Florida where courts ruled recently that conservative led legislatures (Republican) had unfairly, “diluted the voting power of Black resident,” Marshfield News Herald, September 8, 2023 issue, page 7A.

Diluted is simply another name for gerrymandering.

The crux of the words written by Robin Vos is finally revealed in paragraph five. It is not about the “Iowa model” or any proposal offered by any state politician (except maybe conservatives), it is the fear of losing power the conservative group maintains through their extreme gerrymandering. It is the fear of the April 2022 election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court of a judge who is considered liberal, this turning the court to a liberal tilt.

Did she not win, no matter what was said during the campaign by a large majority of Wisconsin voters? While Robin Vos, in his article never mentioned the liberal candidate by name, does not the voters of Wisconsin and their decision mean anything?

He speaks of “deep pocketed donors,” writes of the “consultants, lawyers and the political class stand to make a lot of money” yet forgets an investigation paid for with taxpayers money which he directed. He seems to have forgotten the years ago ruling by the national Supreme Court which allows untold millions to be donated by “deep pockets,” the wealthy rich and wealthy corporations. This ruling was written by conservative judges, his conservative judges.

In paragraph two he writes, “our democratic system incorporates the voice of every Wisconsinite.” Yet, if possible, he would silence much of that voice with a battle against our state Supreme Court to protect the gerrymandering put in place by the conservative group in 2011.

He also writes in the same paragraph of “checks and balances,” yet hopes to suppress one very important segment of that check and balance, our State Supreme Court of Wisconsin which the citizens of Wisconsin, the voters of Wisconsin elects to office, not the legislature.

In paragraph six he writes of Tony Evers 2019 words, “People should get to choose their elected officials.” Yet in 2011 by extensive gerrymandering, Robin Vos and the conservatives took away, even into 2023, from so many their power, “to choose their elected officials,” and altered that right.

Now Robin Vos and crew with their conservative led battle potentially brewing within our legislature concerning the newly elected State Supreme Court judge, a judge elected by the majority of Wisconsin voters, let me repeat that, by a MAJORITY OF WISCONSIN VOTERS, Robin Vos and crew want to continue to maintain their power to alter, for so many, their freedom of choice.

In all reality, far too many of our legislatures, conservative and liberal, no longer appear to believe in cooperation, nonpartisan, negotiation or compromise.

So many want total control, my way or none and instead of keeping them neutral and impartial to write fair and just opinions, they now want to control the high courts.

It appears in so very many cases our politicians elected to the state government, the federal government, are starting to think, are starting to say, to hell with any dreams of this republic.

— Walter Tomczyk, Dorchester