The supreme-court contest today turns in part on a topic that progressives aren’t well prepared to do much about.
The supreme-court contest today turns in part on a topic that progressives aren’t well prepared to do much about.
O ne of the most duplicitous acts in modern political life is the writhing theatrics from Democrats when the subject of redistricting — commonly referred to as “gerrymandering” — is raised. Like inflated tube men on a used-car lot, liberals thrash about when confronted with the reality of a legislature they don’t like adjusting districts to its liking within an established framework of numerical proportionality. Shockingly, the spirit moves Dems to decry map-massaging only when they lose. Their victories in 2022, many resulting from gerrymandering, did not receive the same denunciation — in case anyone was wondering.
The topic of redistricting has become a significant part of the Wisconsin supreme-court contest between conservative Dan Kelly and liberal Janet Protasiewicz, with the candidates sparring over the subject, thereby revealing their respective views on the judiciary’s role in policing the legislature’s constitutionally prescribed power established in Article III. Redistricting was invented by Democrats 200 years ago when Elbridge Gerry charted a district that would advantage his side, one shaped like a certain amphibian. The gerrymander was born, and we’ve lived with the creature ever since. The difference today, as Kevin Williamson put it in an essential piece on the subject, is that “the Democrats invented gerrymandering — the Republicans have come close to perfecting it.”
With a perceived 4–3 majority at stake for whichever side is victorious on Tuesday, the stakes are elevated, and national interest goes far beyond the average election — as observed by the stunning amount of ad spending in the Dairy State.
What’s even more incredible is that there isn’t a coherent strategy for overturning the state’s maps, as illustrated by a New Yorker interview with Jeff Mandell of Law Forward, a left-wing law firm in Madison, Wis. Mandell explained that there “is no hard and fast plan. There is no complaint or document that is written. But there are plenty of conversations going on about what such a lawsuit would look like.” The New Yorker went on to summarize, “A challenge could be based on the state constitution’s redistricting provisions, he said, but also on other areas related to voting.”
In other words, Democrats are hoping that a sympathetic court will invent a solution to their redistricting woes because they don’t have enough of a leg to stand on to even bother deputizing an intern to write an outline. Protasiewicz may be just the woman for the job.
Protasiewicz described the legislative maps as “rigged. Absolutely rigged. They do not reflect the people in the state. They do not reflect accurate representation, either in the state assembly or the state senate” during a candidate forum held by WisPolitics in January. Her political allies are aligned on the matter. From the pages of the New Yorker to the Substacks of local columnists such as Dan Schafer — who is teaming up with actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and a Veep show-runner — national and state-level Democrats are united in rending the “unfair” district maps. Wisconsin’s foundational maps were drawn by the Republican-controlled state legislature (in conjunction with a private law firm) in 2011 and then slightly adjusted in 2021 under the Wisconsin supreme court’s “least change” methodology.
Dan Kelly has disagreed with the Left’s characterization that the method explicitly favors Republicans, saying that “the phrase ‘least change’ is meant to encompass the idea that we take the maps as they’re written, and then we look for legal errors.” In other words, the role of the judiciary is to make sure the laws pass muster and leave it to the voters to approve or disapprove of the whole.
The Left views a liberal court as the means to unmake the Republican legislature and legislate from the bench, reading into the Wisconsin constitution rights and requirements that don’t exist unless one were to squint (booze-assisted) at the document on a moonless night in Crandon, Wis. Dismissing Wisconsin’s protections for unborn children and proscribing the legislature’s power is what a Protasiewicz election would look like, as evidenced by her own words as well as those of the abortion and alternative gerrymandering groups that back her.
To employ a bit more of Williamson’s analysis, “[This] is the Democrats’ argument: that gerrymandering was all good and fine until Republicans figured out how to make the most of it. Republicans, in clear violation of the ancient Republican Party tradition, embraced cutting-edge technology and availed themselves of the best experts’ help in order to methodically and intelligently conduct a long-term program of serious and profitable political action.”
With gerrymandering and politics more generally, there’s nothing new under the sun. The recent buzz proves that Democrats have simply gotten better at complaining about their progeny’s adoption by the opposition.