Gerrymandering and Transparency

Without the Republican Party's secretly developed, gerrymandered district maps, Republicans would not enjoy a partisan advantage today.

That's what we know.

Now, a federal court panel has ordered the GOP to at last give the contents of the computers used to make the gerrymandered maps to groups suing the GOP legislature.

Transparency, making GOP corrupt practices known, increases what we know.

The GOP is not happy.

Daiky Kos has the story.

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.