Wisconsin: GOP Pressed on Redistricting
http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2013/09/03/gop-pressed-on-redistricting/
Consider: In the fall 2012 elections, Republicans won five of the state’s eight congressional seats, six of 11 contested state Senate races, and 56 of 76 contested Assembly seats — despite getting fewer votes statewide than Democrats in all three categories.
This system for letting politicians pick their voters, rather than the other way around, has long been opposed by Common Cause in Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Their cause got a boost in mid-August with the publication of editorials in papers including the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Appleton Post-Crescent, Beloit Daily News, La Crosse Tribune, Chippewa Herald, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Oshkosh Northwestern and Janesville Gazette.
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“Granting redistricting power to an unelected, appointed board would do little to remove the redistricting process from the political realm,” wrote Lazich in an column run by the State Journal and Journal Sentinel. “Rather, it would merely move the political maneuverings to an unaccountable board, beyond the reach of the electorate.” In other words: If you don’t like what the party in power does to make it harder to vote its members out, all you have to do is vote them out.
The response from State Journal readers helped answer the Janesville Gazette’s question. All 13 letters that ran the following Sunday sided with the paper and against Sen. Lazich, with some noting the irony of Lazich using the banner of democracy to deny a public hearing.
