State Rep Joel Kitchens Says Gerrymandered Maps "Honestly" Don't Make a Difference

Rigged Maps and Partisan Gerrymandering Are Overblown Concern

Updated - Wisconsin State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) publicly supported the popular Assembly Bill 303, (Senate Bill 288), the Fair Maps-anti-gerrymandering initiative, in July 2019, (The Capital Times).

Kitchens lists AB 303 as bills he has co-authored on his legislative webpage.

Joel Kitchens' support for the popular initiative is for show.

On late Tuesday afternoon, August 6, a Door County constituent recorded Joel Kitchens at the Sturgeon Bay Branch of the Door County library in northeastern Wisconsin.

Speaking before the Republican Party of Door County and an audience of some one dozen people, Kitchens took a question from a Door County resident on his co-authorship of the Fair Maps-anti-gerrymandering initiative, AB 303, the constituent reports.

Said Kitchens in reply (in part):

I'll repeat what I often said about; redistricting maps naturally favor Republicans because Democrats are extremely concentrated in Madison and Milwaukee. And it's the same with the Electoral College, which is why the Electoral College favors Republicans because the Democrats had to be so concentrated.

So, I think the blame on the majority of the Republicans have winning the battle on gerrymandering, I think, is way overblown. Which is why I'm okay with, you know, I just as soon take the issue off the table, honestly, because we get beaten up over it so much. And I honestly don't think that it makes a whole lot of difference. It's about having good candidates and good messages.    

Good candidates and good messages certainly help with State Assembly elections, a point the Democratic Party of Wisconsin does not always get.

But Wisconsin Republicans gerrymandered congressional and state redistricting maps in secret because the contorted maps make a lot of difference. Kitchens knows this.

Kitchens' stated reason for supporting Fair Maps, to "take the issue off the table," is not reassuring for voters looking for candor and commitment to democracy. 

Wisconsin taxpayers were on track in January 2019 to spend $3.5 million to defend in federal court the Republicans' gerrymandered maps drawn to elect Republicans as many Republicans as possible.

Kitchens repeats a Republican talking point that Democratic voters mostly live in Milwaukee and Madison, and not the rest of the state.

This is a lie.

A swing of roughly 166,000 votes from 2014 to 2018 cost Scott Walker his reelection and most of the votes did not come from Madison and Milwaukee. The swing votes came from smaller municipalities.

"Democratic gains in the cities of Milwaukee and Madison accounted for less than a quarter of that statewide swing [in 2018]. The rest of it happened largely in county seats, regional hubs and red and blue suburbs both close to and far from the state’s two biggest cities," reported Craig Gilbert in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Republicans drew the current gerrymandered district maps using simulations generated by sophisticated computer modeling, (Bazelon, New York Times). The outcomes are the current redistricting maps that elect the most Republicans.

But Joel Kitchens says it's all about good candidates and messages.

I have a question for Joel Kitchens.

Why did the Republican Party of Wisconsin go to all this trouble to gerrymander congressional and legislative districts if gerrymandered maps do not make a difference?