“Wisconsin is not a red state or a blue state — we’re a purple state, and I believe our maps should reflect that basic fact,” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said about the Badger State’s efforts to redraw its electoral maps so that election outcomes better match the intent of Wisconsin citizens.
Former President Barack Obama celebrated Evers for signing the law, creating what Obama characterized as “new, competitive state legislative maps that get rid of one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country.” Obama positioned the event as a new day for Wisconsinites, who, he said, “will now have a real shot at electing leaders who are responsive to the will of the people.”
Wisconsin made history this week! @GovEvers signed into law new, competitive state legislative maps that get rid of one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country. Wisconsinites will now have a real shot at electing leaders who are responsive to the will of the people. pic.twitter.com/HtHMj00O4I
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 23, 2024
Obama’s comment suggests he believes Wisconsinites did not enjoy a “shot” to elect responsive leaders previously. The new maps mark what the Milwaukee Journal called a “transformational change in Wisconsin legislative elections.”
Evers agreed, saying that after the GOP grabbed power in the executive branch and both statehouses in 2010, Republicans met in secrecy “and used technology and algorithms that draw some of the most undemocratic, gerrymandered legislative maps in the United States of America.” It was these GOP machinations that are undone by the law, Evers said.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court tossed out the old maps last year after a legal challenge and required the still Republican-majority legislature and Democratic Governor to agree on new maps. The Republicans didn’t like any of the choices but, according to the Wall Street Journal, they “calculated that Mr. Evers’s boundaries were the least bad of the four map options proposed by the Democratic plaintiffs and intervenors in the redistricting cases before the state Supreme Court.”
So Evers’s map became the new districts, even if — again per WSJ — “the Evers map is an audacious gerrymander that heavily favors Democrats.” (The WSJ called the action a “Democratic gerrymandering coup” — using language nearly identical to the charge against the GOP maps.)
Signing the bill into law, Evers called it a “beautiful day for democracy.”
