Facing Court Challenge, Republicans Offer Drastic Redistricting Proposal
After opposing it for years, Vos says state should adopt Iowa-style nonpartisan process.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. File photo by Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
In a surprise twist, Wisconsin Republicans announced a plan Tuesday to adapt an Iowa-style system for drawing voting maps in Wisconsin.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is hoping to fast-track the vote for Thursday, saying he wants the new system to be in effect for the 2024 election cycle.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers almost immediately criticized the proposal, saying it amounts to election interference by Wisconsin Republicans.
Under the Iowa system, a nonpartisan body draws district maps that are then subject to a vote by the state Legislature.
The move by Republicans comes as the party is under pressure for targeting newly-elected Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz for possible impeachment. The existing Republican-drawn maps are also facing court challenges likely to go before the state Supreme Court, which is now controlled by a liberal majority.
Vos, R-Rochester, said that implementing a new process would stave off political rancor, after the state Democratic party announced a $4 million campaign fighting impeachment.
“I think…we are going to get this bill passed, we are going to get it signed by Gov. Evers, we’re going to have maps that look different,” he said. “So there will be no need to have the whole discussion about recusal and millions of dollars of attack ads and special interest trying to buy the election and all the things that we know are coming.”
For the Republican’s new plan to go into effect, it would need to pass the state Senate and then win the support of Evers.
But in a statement, Evers said Wisconsin Republicans “cannot be trusted to appoint or oversee someone charged with drawing fair maps.”
“Republicans’ new effort today to ensure Legislature-picked and Legislature-approved map drawers is just the latest of years’ worth of efforts by Republicans to interfere with and control the outcome of Wisconsin’s elections,” Evers said.
Republicans, who’ve been ramping up their efforts to interfere in Wisconsin elections, are now demanding Legislature-picked and Legislature-approved map drawers for legislative districts. That’s bogus.
Read my full statement ⬇️https://t.co/AVCRosMsvQ pic.twitter.com/kttVVS1QJ7
— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) September 12, 2023
Wisconsin’s legislative maps have been subject to a series of legal challenges, with critics saying partisan gerrymandering has given Republicans an unfair advantage. In April 2022, the court ruled 4-3 in favor of a legislative redistricting plan drawn by Republican lawmakers that gave the party’s candidates in the Legislature a bigger advantage over the next decade.
New maps are drawn every 10 years.
Editor’s note: This story will be updated.
Republicans unveil what they’re calling an ‘Iowa-style’ plan to redraw voting maps was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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This is clearly a trap and a distraction to their impeachment debacle. With legislative approval required for acceptance, any map proposed by the committee that even tried to level the playing field would be rejected.
Let the court decide.
Vos is little more than a two-bit bully. He “governs” by making threats. That is all he has to offer. Not policy, not programs, just threat after threat. Time will catch up with him and he will look good in orange as he threatens corrections officers and earns himself a cell full of maggots – his blood-brothers – in the hole at Waupun.