As the time to draft up new legislative boundaries approaches, Democrats are making another push to have a non-partisan board handle the maps.
Dave Hansen from Green Bay says Republicans had control of the legislature at the time the current maps were created in 2011. “The new boundaries they drew are so beyond the pale that Wisconsin is considered to be one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation.”
At a press conference on Tuesday, Hansen also called out the US Supreme Court for declining to hear a lawsuit challenging those boundaries. “Saying instead that this is an issue that should be decided by the states. Justice Roberts, you were wrong on this. You should have made a decision that would have been for the whole country. But he didn’t.”
While it’s unlikely that the bill will make any headway in the Legislature, Hansen says they’ve got three Republican sponsors of the bill this time, making it a bipartisan measure. “So I want to take a moment and applaud their courage for taking a stand that I know is not popular with their leadership in Madison.”
That disapproval already surfaced later in the day on Tuesday when Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said that Democrats were trying to circumvent the state Constitution and hand over districting to ‘unaccountable bureaucrats’.
