Republicans seek to limit changes to election maps as legal fight over redistricting heats up
MADISON - Republican state lawmakers approved measures Tuesday that would help secure electoral advantages for them over the next decade and make it harder for problematic police officers to move from one law enforcement agency to another.
They also passed a bill — identical to one vetoed two years ago by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers — that would make doctors criminally liable if they don’t provide care for babies who survive attempted abortions.
The resolution affecting elections came as the legal battle to redraw Wisconsin’s legislative and congressional districts heats up.
States every 10 years must draw new lines to make sure districts are of equal population. Republicans who control the Legislature and Evers are unlikely to see eye to eye on the maps, which would leave it to courts to decide.
Where the lines go can give one party an edge. Republicans in both houses approved Senate Joint Resolution 63, which would declare that as few changes as possible should be made to the maps.
That approach would help lock in the advantages Republicans enjoy from the maps drawn a decade ago, when they controlled all of state government.
At that time, Republicans took the opposite approach. They moved nearly 2.4 million voters into new Assembly districts even though they needed to move only 320,000 to ensure the districts had balanced populations.
Similarly, in drawing state Senate maps, they moved five times more voters than required to equalize the populations.
By moving so many voters, they were able to reshape them in ways that guaranteed them large majorities in both houses.
With their new resolution, Republicans are saying that shouldn’t happen again. They now argue they want to make as few changes to the districts as possible, which would largely keep in place the current, pro-Republican lines.
The resolution is nonbinding, but it signals that Republicans plan to limit their changes to the maps. The resolution could be used in court proceedings to try to persuade judges to take a largely hands-off approach when drawing new lines.
Democrats on Tuesday urged Republican colleagues to back off their plans, reminding them of the nearly equal divide between Democrats and Republicans in statewide elections.
"Wisconsin is very much flip-a-coin — we have Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson for crying out loud. We had Scott Walker and now we have Tony Evers," Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point, said. "Just keep going back — this state doesn't even come close to what this Legislature looks like politically and the way people choose to vote."
Erpenbach said Democrats, like Republicans, drew maps to give themselves an advantage when they controlled state government.
"That’s how the maps were drawn — it was never about making sure there was equal representation," he said. "Was it the best for the state of Wisconsin? As a Democrat, I believe so but I believe more importantly that in my Senate district you should flip a coin — (districts) should be close to 50/50 as they possibly can."
Sen. Kathy Bernier, R-Lake Hallie, pushed back against Democrats' charges of being unaccountable to voters because of how the legislative maps are drawn.
"We underestimate the electors' ability to change their minds and to vote their conscience and vote how they see fit and that oftentimes is way undersold when we talk about this issue," said Bernier, a former Chippeway County clerk.
"None of our constituents are ever taken for granted. We do not get lazy and we are not unaccountable," she said.
The resolution passed the Senate 19-12 and the Assembly 60-38. The measure does not go to Evers and now puts the Legislature on record for how it believes the lines should be drawn.
Lawsuits are already underway before a panel of three federal judges and the state Supreme Court.
Republican legislative leaders took steps Tuesday to try to intervene in the state case. They are already part of the federal case and have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out that challenge.
Limiting officer moves
The Senate also passed Assembly Bill 190, which would require law enforcement agencies to maintain personnel files that would be shared with other departments when officers sought new jobs.
The bill is meant to make it easier for officials to detect when officers with histories of using excessive force try to join their agencies.
The bill is part of a package of policing legislation that an Assembly task force developed in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.
The Assembly passed the bill in June and it goes next to Evers, who is expected to sign it.
Abortion-related penalties
The Senate passed a bill requiring lifetime prison sentences for doctors if they do not provide medical care to babies who are born after attempted abortions.
Senate Bill 16 mirrors legislation Evers vetoed two years ago. Evers is expected to take the same stance if the new bill gets to him.
Republicans in Congress and other states have also offered similar bills in response to Kermit Gosnell, a doctor who ran an abortion clinic in West Philadelphia who was convicted of murder in 2013 for killing babies after failed abortions.
Democrats have said such incidents are rare and have noted it’s already a crime to not provide care to an infant — as Gosnell’s conviction shows.
The legislation now heads to the Assembly.
The push for the abortion legislation comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a Mississippi law this fall that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy — weeks earlier than is generally allowed under Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that found a constitutional right to abortion.
This month the nation’s high court declined to block a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks. So far, no one has introduced similar legislation in Wisconsin.
Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.