Gerrymandered: 2018 WI Assembly Dems got 54% popular vote but only retained 36% of Assembly seats
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Vos Defends Gerrymandering as 'Constitutional Allowance'
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Oct 28, 2021, 3:24 PM (4 days ago)
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Thursday, October 28, 2021
GOP Leaders Defend Gerrymandered Maps, Distance Themselves From Their Origins
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Speaker Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) on Thursday defended the redistricting maps put forward by legislative Republicans, which they said were drawn to make as few changes as possible to the 2011 gerrymandered map.
When Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) asked Vos whether partisan advantage was taken into consideration, he said, “It is a constitutional allowance ... but that was not the driving criteria.”
At the same time they defended the 2011 map, Vos and LeMahieu distanced themselves from that mapping process—Vos by arguing he was not speaker at the time, and LeMahieu by pointing out he had not yet been elected to the Legislature. When asked how much Republicans spent in legal fees to create the 2011 maps, Vos deflected by saying they’ve spent more on defending the maps and even cited one of the far-right’s favorite boogeymen: “I don’t know where the money [for the lawsuits against the Republican-drawn maps] came from, maybe George Soros or something.”
“If you want to spend the entire time up here discussing what happened 10 years ago, we can do that,” Vos said during testimony on the Republican maps before a joint legislative committee. “Democrats have a problem with winning in Wisconsin because your agenda is out of step with the majority of Wisconsin.”
The 2012 election, the first with the 2011 map, saw a “Democratic landslide” but 60% of the Assembly remained in Republican hands as districts that were once competitive no longer were so. In 2018, Assembly Democrats received 54% of the popular vote but only retained 36% of Assembly seats.
—Reported by Christina Lieffring
Racine Sheriff Claims Election Officials Committed Fraud by Helping Nursing Home Residents Vote During COVID
The Racine County sheriff on Thursday claimed the state commission in charge of administering election laws committed election fraud because commissioners, due to concerns about COVID-19, waived a rule that could have prevented nursing home residents from voting in the 2020 election.
Sheriff Christopher Schmaling, a Republican, claimed during a press conference that the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) violated the law when it said nursing home residents could vote absentee last year without first being visited by so-called special voting deputies (SVDs). Many nursing homes were not allowing visitors due to COVID-19, so the WEC said care facility residents could cast absentee ballots without having to rely on SVDs to visit twice as is required by state law.
In the absence of SVDs, nursing home staff helped some residents fill out their absentee ballots, a practice that is not illegal but Schmaling and other Republicans have painted as nefarious. Republican lawmakers earlier this year introduced a bill that would charge nursing home staff with a felony if they tried to encourage or discourage residents to vote, a law change that advocates feared would prevent such voters from getting the help they need to cast a ballot.
Schmaling and investigator Sgt. Michael Luell have not referred charges to the Racine County district attorney. Schmaling instead said Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul should launch an investigation into the WEC. Luell said Kaul’s office previously declined to review their findings. Kaul and the WEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday about Schmaling and Luell’s remarks.
Read the full story from Jonathon Sadowski at our website.
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