March 2, 2024
In 2010, the voters of Wisconsin elected Republicans to all levels of government, flipping both chambers of the state’s legislature and the governor’s mansion as part of a nationwide Republican wave. This left Republicans in control of redistricting in the state after the 2010 census, and they took their redistricting advantage to the fullest.
The maps that legislative Republicans created, with the help of Republican Governor Scott Walker and a conservative majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court, were the most gerrymandered in the nation, with many districts not even being contiguous. The maps turned legislative representation in the state known as the tipping point of the nation from an almost even split into a near-supermajority, resulting in Republicans re-entrenching their own power at the expense of their constituents.
A challenge to democracy
Once Republicans instituted their maps, Wisconsin entered a dark age, as Republicans abused their power to target rather than uplift Wisconsinites. This was seen quite starkly in 2011, when Republicans passed the deceptively named Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill that effectively outlawed most collected bargaining for public employees. This bill, which targeted teachers especially, led to massive protests and a Democratic walkout. It went hand in hand with massive cuts to education.
Years later, the state went even further, turning into a right-to-work state that deprived all neutered unions and handed their benefits to non-union members.
The state also implemented a voter identification law that was nothing more than an act of voter suppression designed to target communities, disproportionately Democratic ones, that are less likely to have a photo identification card.
Worse, to this day, Wisconsin remains one of only 10 states to not adopt Medicaid expansion, depriving its citizens of fiscally responsible healthcare that would actually lower costs by cutting down on things such as emergency room visits that lead to higher insurance costs for all people.
Before the Walker administration ended, the unpopular governor and his legislative allies curbed the powers of the governor, trying to prevent Democratic Governor Tony Evers from undoing the damage of the previous eight years. This was enabled by a friendly Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Even under Governor Evers’s tenure, however, the state has not been the picture of a healthy democracy. Republicans have resisted many attempts by the governor to govern through a middle-of-the-road approach, instead insisting on pushing radical culture war priorities while ignoring the real issues at hand.
This marginalization of one branch of government by another, with the support of the third branch, the judiciary, finally came to an end last August, when the court flipped to Democratic control.
Getting to this moment
Given the powerless nature of the office of the governor and the sheer impossibility of winning in a legislature guaranteed to deliver massive Republican majorities no matter what the people wanted, the only way to affect meaningful change was to flip the state’s supreme court, which had been under the control of Republicans for years. This way, with two branches of government and the veto pen, the legislature’s worst excesses could be curbed.
After years of trying, Democrats finally managed to flip the court thanks to former Justice Daniel Kelly, whose record of losing ensured that Democrats picked up not one but two seats in head-to-head matches against him. After Justice Janet Protasiewicz was elected in April and sworn in in August, a bevy of lawsuits were filed, including suits challenging the state’s rigged maps.
Although Republicans on the court did their best to stymie the Democratic majority and proposed some truly astounding arguments (even for the court where one justice was accused of assaulting another), the maps were finally overturned, with the court asserting its power by informing the legislature that, if it did not pass maps that did not amount to partisan gerrymanders, the court would draw its own maps.
Republicans promptly passed their own gerrymandered maps, which were vetoed by the governor, before they passed the governor’s own maps, in Act 94, which offered a unique opportunity for Democrats to make major gains and earned the distinction of being, in the eyes of Republicans, the least worst maps.
The future of Wisconsin
This November, change could be afoot. After 14 years of Republican domination, Wisconsinites will be able to chart a new course, electing more Democrats to both chambers of the legislature and eventually flipping both houses (the Senate will have to wait until 2026).
Describing the new maps as “nothing short of transformational,” Common Cause Wisconsin Executive Director Jay Heck said, “Voters will, for the first time since 2010, decide state legislative elections instead of rigged district maps.”
The ability of Democrats to transform a state with unified control of a state’s government was dramatically seen in neighboring Michigan. Once unfriendly to unions, hostile to a woman’s right to choose, opposing basic human rights and vehemently against working families, transformations in these states have been stark, with policies such as universal free lunch for children, common-sense gun safety legislation, protections for women and unions all being passed, making these states beacons of freedom in the Great Lakes region. Notably, Michigan was only able to achieve all of this once a fair redistricting process was adopted, taking the power to redistrict out of the hands of the Republicans who had controlled the process.
Wisconsin has been left out of all of this, falling further and further behind.
Impacting elections
Importantly, while some have speculated that these fairer districts could help Democrats higher on the ballot perform well in a ‘reverse coattails’ effect, that will probably not occur.
In fact, as John Johnson, a research fellow with Marquette University Law School pointed out, “Our latest Wisconsin poll, from January, found that 43% of registered voters lacked an opinion of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, by far the most prominent legislator in the state.”
He also explained that a 2018 study from Johns Hopkins University revealed that less than a fifth of Americans could name their state legislator.
Clearly, there is work to be done, and informed voters are just as important as empowered voters. Fairer districts are one, if a disproportionately large, piece of a larger puzzle in rebuilding American democracy.
Further reform
Yet, these maps will not be the last word, as redistricting will occur after the 2030 census and could potentially undo all of this progress. Wisconsin needs meaningful redistricting reform to prevent partisan actors from abusing the process.
Mr Heck stated, “In the months and years ahead, reformers and pro-reform legislators must continue to explore how to establish a non-partisan redistricting process to remove the actual district drawing from the hands of partisan legislators and instead, establish a process similar to our neighboring state of Iowa, whose state constitution closely resembles that of Wisconsin or, pursue a constitutional amendment process to remove redistricting from the Wisconsin Legislature altogether and place it in the hands of a nonpartisan citizens commission that a number of other states (like Michigan) have adopted.”
A fix all the same
At this point, however, the state once known for being a bastion of progressivism can move again in that direction, beyond its era of unbreakable, undemocratic Republican rule. There is much work to be done, including repealing the state’s archaic 19th century abortion ban, expanding Medicaid and more, but should it be the will of Wisconsinites, Badger State Democrats will finally be able to get on with the job.
The dome of the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, home to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Daderot / Public Domain
By Charles Horowitz
Policy Reform Now 
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