Republican Victory: Judicial Panel Upholds Vast Majority of Districts
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This is an overwhelming victory for the Republicans: out of 132 total districts (99 Assembly, 33 Senate), only 2 need to be redrawn — and those only by a slight change between two majority-Hispanic districts.
How those districts were redrawn in the first place is interesting. The Republicans really weren't concerned with trying to create even a single district on the south side of Milwaukee they could win, so in order to hopefully avoid this kind of legal challenge, they sat down with various Hispanic groups to see what they wanted.
The options were basically to either: (a) draw two districts with roughly equal Hispanic populations, giving them two majority districts (approximately 60 percent and 55 percent Hispanic), or (b) draw one district with a much higher Hispanic population, giving them one really solid majority district and one much closer district (approximately 65 percent and 50 percent Hispanic).
Interestingly, the Hispanic groups themselves could not agree. Some wanted the solid reassurance of one super district, others wanted the opportunity to win two districts.
The judges in this case concluded that federal law (the Voting Rights Act) requires one "sure thing" rather than two "opportunities." Bird in the hand, and all that. I find the judges' opinion on this issue well-reasoned. (Much of the rest of the opinion — which upholds every other district — represents the judges gnashing their teeth about how awful they think the Republicans were in doing this, but reluctantly admitting they didn't violate any laws in doing so.)
A brief aside for a minute while I gripe on the VRA. I have a lot of problems with the portion of the VRA that requires legislative lines to be drawn on the basis of race. One is officially paying this much attention to race — it’s discriminatory, and we need to move past such racial politics. Another is the assumption that races act in voting concert (the very fact that Hispanic groups disagreed on the better alternative would tend to disprove that). Another is ignoring the fact that even a minority population block, if they have higher turnout than other groups, can actually become the voting majority by their own choice. Another is the fact that it encourages self-segregation, because only racial populations that are "compact" enough get special treatment under the VRA.
So what happens now? Governor Scott Walker will likely call a special session to redraw these lines. With the Senate now split 16-16 after the resignation of Sen. Pam Galloway, the Democrats may try to withhold their support in hopes of gaining concessions to other portions of the map. However, should that deadlock occur, the Republicans can simply turn back to the courts to order the slight change necessary to bring those two districts into compliance with the VRA.
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Lyle Ruble
9:08 pm on Wednesday, March 28, 2012
@Jeff Kamenick...The latest is that the three judge panel will draw the new lines since there is no way the legislature will be able to solve the problem with the 16:16 senate split.
Alfred
8:44 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
The republicans have been vindicated once again. The south side is going to go (D) either way you slice up that district, too much union thuggery and fraud to combat. Way to go Mr. Walker and the GOP!!!
Say What?
9:35 pm on Thursday, March 29, 2012
Alfred, your right on the money. I heard that fraud made up nearly 120% of the vote in the last election.
Jaime Sommers
1:50 pm on Monday, April 2, 2012
Most Latino populations and groups prefer the term "Latino" over "Hispanic". Hispanic is too much like "spic". One of the major reasons the GOP will not win over the South Side of Milwaukee is that it lacks diversity and understanding of diversity. Union Thugs aren't the main concern here, though Unions were formed for legitimate reasons to protect those who were unable to fight severe injustice inappropriate for any humans. You know...the Bay View Massacre where Where a Wisconsin Governor ordered the National Guard to open fire on protesting union members. Good Luck in the attempt at the Great Deception. A Wisconsin Governor that hated Unions did that. I don't think all is forgotten nor forgiven.
Adam Wienieski
9:08 pm on Saturday, April 7, 2012
Since we're not forgiving and forgetting events from 1886 let's never forget it was the democratic party that gave us the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, Black Codes and thousands of lynching's. The KKK was the terrorist arm of the democratic party and as late as 1964 democratic senator (and former Kleagle) Robert Byrd of West Virginia filibustered the civil rights act for 14 straight hours to prevent it from passing.
In the first half of the 20th century it was the world's leading Progressive intellectuals who championed the Eugenics movement. Before Hitler gave the politics of race hygiene a bad name American liberals believed government experts could lower the crime rate, get rid of diseases and improve the genetic direction of the world by keeping undesirable races (Blacks, Jews, Gypsies) and classes of people (low IQ) from reproducing. They had science on their side (Darwin's theory of natural selection) and an enduring belief that technocratic experts could use government policy to perfect society. Never forget.
Lyle Ruble
10:54 pm on Saturday, April 7, 2012
@Adam Wienieski...Why don't you put out more of your revisionist spin on history. Where did all those Dixiecrats go after they left the Democratic Party, straight to the Republican Party.
Adam Wienieski
11:34 am on Sunday, April 8, 2012
It seems that Robert Byrd, the old Exalted Cyclops and King of Pork, was a Democratic senator for an awful long time, I must have missed the part where he went straight to the Republican party. Did he join the party of Lincoln and Martin Luther King before or after he opposed the Voting Rights Act?
Because the left has controlled academia and the major media for so long they've been able to scrub history of the truly horrific, racist reality of liberalism. Were you aware what huge proponents progressive leaders and intellectuals were of the oh-so scientific field of eugenics? The feebleminded, criminals, tramps, those saturated with alcohol or tainted with hereditary diseases were to be segregated, prevented from propagating and shut up in refuges and asylums (see Frank Taussig in Principles of Economics, 1921.)
But the great lie of the 20th century is that Adolph Hitler was somehow a creature of the right, in fact, he was typical of the leftism of his day. The Nazis were to the right only of the communists and it's actually quite amusing to hear the cognitive dissonance when modern progressives are presented with the details.
The Holocaust made Eugenics unfashionable, but what endures is the liberal tendency to manipulate science and use state control to build their vision of the perfect, "equitable" society.
Lyle Ruble
2:33 pm on Sunday, April 8, 2012
@Adam Wienieski...Byrd is the only one that didn't leave the Democratic party, all the others left.
NObama 2012
11:45 am on Sunday, April 8, 2012
My last post was February 22nd NOBama 2012 is reporting back for duty, the Patch sabbatical has ended. I now move forward with a renewed energy to help defeat the worst President in American history Barrack Hussein Obama and to defend the best Governor in the United States Scott Walker and above all to continue to drive a stake through the heart of Progressive activism in the Northshore. In 2010 Americans returned power in the House of Representatives to the GOP. We must finish the job in the Senate and in the White House in 2012. If we do not, the America we love will perish.