Feb 23, 2012

Radically reconfigured districts, aka GOP Gerrymandering

Wisconsin gerrymandering case may end up in the
U.S. Supreme Court of the United States


The insult given to Milwaukee-area Latinos by Wisconsin Republicans may prove critical when, as looks likely, a judicial panel finds the GOP violative of the U.S. Constitution and Voting Rights Act in the redistricting trial.

And smoking gun e-mails will again bury the Republicans proving they calculated that their proposed maps would disenfranchise 10,000s of state residents.

As a bonus Republicans diluted the Latino vote in Milwaukee in senate district 3 by rearranging assembly borders causing "18 times as many voters as necessary in Latino areas" to be moved. (Marley, MJS) In the minds of the GOP, that's a good thing.

The e-mails show GOP staff and its tax-payer-funded law firms explicitly discussing the question of reducing "our number of disenfranchised voters on the recall elections[.]"

School Voucher Lobbyists Fingerprints on Redistricting Maps
Community Latino leaders were excluded from the secretive redistricting process unless they had a declared GOP alliance, like James Klauser's Hispanics for school choice, yet another anti-public school GOP outfit like the American Federation for Children.

Wisconsin's only Latina legislator, JoCasta Zamarripa (8th Assembly District (Milwaukee)), is quietly letting the judicial process proceed without comment, but when the trial ends you can be sure that Rep. JoCasta (as she is known) will make the facts known about what is just another corrupt use of public office by Republicans for partisan purposes.

The Eighth Assembly district (JoCasta's) is Wisconsin's most densely populated, arguably its most diverse, and heavily democratic.

Recent developments

  • More corruption from the Republican Party costing tax payers $Million-plus. Uppity Wisconsin
  • "Republican legislators moved 18 times as many voters as necessary in Latino areas, UW-Madison political scientist says." MJS
  • "[D]ocuments forced out by the judges showed that former Republican Assembly Majority Leader Scott Jensen - - now a school choice advocate with a national conservative policy and funding organization (AFC) - - was contacted about the process." The Political Environment
We have a brilliant, community-oriented state representative, the Latino community of Milwaukee and good government activists versus the Republican disenfranchisement machine, including the corrupt voice from the past, Scott Jensen, who, as noted above, suddenly has taken an interest in the Latino community in Milwaukee.

The 2008 electorate is the most diverse in U.S. history, and Republicans feel the need to obstruct voters and gerrymander the voting districts nationwide, lest November 2012 sees whites' proportion of voting America and political power continuing to decline. Wisconsin is but one example.

Wrote GOP attorney Troupis: "I did meet with the General Counsel to the RNC and reported to him on this and other issues."

Racism and disenfranchisement are that ole time religion for the GOP and they are desperate to not give it up.
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2 comments:

  1. BarrySanders20February 24, 2012 at 5:02 PM

    So many words, yet so divorced from the real facts in this case.


    Here's an offer: if the maps are deemed unconstitional because the R's intentionally discriminated against Latinos, I will come back and profess my ignorance. But if it comes out the other way, will you apologize and acknowledge your ignorance if the court (either the current court or the Supreme Court) upholds the maps as constitutional?

    Then, later, when two Democrats, probably Latinos, are elected to the Assembly from new Districts 8 & 9, you can apologize again and acknowledge you impugned the motives of the other side based on nothing but your own bias and ignorance.

    Deal?

    ReplyDelete
  2. MALFebruary 25, 2012 at 9:22 AM

    You do understand that the U.S. Supreme Court rulings on this area control how lower judges and panels rule of course.

    Appealing ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court as a neutral arbitrer [it's not, at least the five GOP justices are not] and then using its ruling to justify what the Wisconsin GOP has done is absurd.

    300,000 people will wait six years under the GOP maps to become enfranchised. That's a fact.

    The Court will rule whether the GOP gets the final say on this matter. The fact is the GOP could have drawn 33 senate districts and not have disenfranchsied 300,000 people; it's motives are clear: Elect Republicans, disenfranchised Latinos be damned.

    The 8th assembly district is broken up, as a part of the GOP scheme of drawing 33 districts that in toto will elect more Republicans.

    I know the area around the 8th AD; the whole senate district is very democratic, and I expect any new assembly district will elect democrats and perhaps a Latino, black, woman or white progressive.

    I don't accept the future Court ruling as necessarily just on the constitutionality of the new districts, prior to reading the ruling. Neither should you, wagering on an opinion not yet written or read is ludicrous.

    I ask you: What about the 300,000 voters disenfranchised? Is this not a "real fact" in this case? I don't care if one's motives are hostile, racist, or the motives of the bystander and indifferent. Breaking up a community and disenfranchising 300,000 voters is wrong and unconstitutional.

    ReplyDelete

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