By Al Stanek
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com
Over 70 area residents joined together in downtown Whitewater Friday, January 21 to demonstrate their support for improvements to the every ten year process that redefines the geographic boundaries of area electoral districts. Similar public events were scheduled in 15 other Wisconsin communities.
Participants heard comments from Whitewater’s State Senator Janis Ringhand, Whitewater’s State Representative Don Vruwink and Walworth County District 3 Supervisor Brian Holt.
Whitewater is currently located on the extreme eastern edge of a Senate/Assembly district and could easily be grouped into a totally different Senate/Assembly district. Vruwink indicated that with an election scheduled in 10 months he has no way to know if he will be able to represent Whitewater in the future.
All three of the elected officials spoke of an increase in the number of convoluted redistricting proposals that appear to be made purely for political reasons and not for improvements in efficiency. Ringhand and Vruwink are Democrats. Holt’s County Board position is nonpartisan.
Ringhand, Vruwink and Holt all pointed to other states that require redistricting to be overseen by independent nonpartisan organizations as opposed to the political party that controls the state legislature at the time that US Census figures are released. The redistricting process is a follow-up step to the US Constitutional requirement that population figures be gathered each ten years with the goal of each vote having an equal value in future local, state and US House and Senate elections.
A group called the “WI Fair Maps Coalition” sponsored the Whitewater event along with similar gatherings around the state. The group’s stated goal is to end “gerrymandering.” The term refers to efforts to manipulate political boundaries to favor one party or group. The practice reportedly dates back to 1812 and has been subject to abuse, to one degree or another, by both modern political parties. Sophisticated computer database capabilities have today made the redistricting process increasingly more sophisticated and easier to manipulate to benefit one political party over the other.
In a related matter, the WI Supreme Court on Wednesday, January 19 heard arguments in favor of competing plans to set political boundaries for the next decade. Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor and Republican dominated State Legislature along with other organizations have provided different updated political map proposals.,
The Associated Press (AP) reports that the Wisconsin Supreme Court court is likely to issue a decision in the coming weeks but also points out that an outstanding federal lawsuit could later delay resolution of the issue. The AP also reports that the US Supreme Court last month rejected an attempt to end that lawsuit but did not indicate if it would consider that lawsuit after the WI court case decision is issued.
