I think by now most people here know that the Republican majority in the Wisconsin Senate have so alienated the Wisconsin electorate that they are in real danger of losing their majority in upcoming recall elections.
In the latest shameless power grab by the thuggish Fitzwalkerstan cult, brain-dead Republicans posing as Democrats were pitted against real Democrats in the recall elections, forcing a primary and delaying the special recall elections by one month. (The fake Democrats got their asses kicked yesterday.)
The reason Republicans wanted to stall was to allow them time to gerrymander the state and rush through a redistricting plan that will be in effect for the next 10 years. They know they can't win on the issues, so their only hope is to suppress voters and rig the game in their favor.
A joint committee from the Senate and the Assembly held a hearing on the shameful redistricting plan today in Madison. To say they got an earful is an understatement. The hearing was streamed and is archived on Wisconsin Eye. It lasted over 7 hours.
First some background, then a couple highlights.
Current law in Wisconsin prevents the state legislature from mapping districts until after local municipalities have had a chance to draw the smaller wards for local and county governments and school boards. It only makes sense to start at the bottom when building a house, right? You don't put shingles on before you've laid the foundation.
Despite the law, the Republicans hired a private law-firm (at tax-payers' expense) to secretly draw the new maps with no input from the public and no concern for the work already done by local governments. They unveiled the plan last week, on Friday, and announced that after one public hearing they would convene an extraordinary session (which is supposed to be for emergencies) and pass it by next Tuesday.
But wait, that's illegal, right? Aren't they supposed to wait for the local wards to be established? No problem. Before they pass the redistricting plan, they will repeal that law.
Sick bastards, aren't they?
A wide variety of speakers appeared before the committee today for the fake hearing. A few of them used their time to blast the Republican majority, even calling the plan "bullshit." A few tried to shame the committee, or to calmly reason with them. Other speakers observed that minority communities were carved up in secret and completely shut out of the process. The city and county of Milwaukee will be politically neutered and power redistributed to Milwaukee suburbs like Waukesha County, where most of the Wisconsin Republicans live. In the end, it didn't matter. Many of the committee members spent the time on their blackberries, or conversing with staffers, or just leaving for long periods of time.
Two speakers, in my opinion, best represented the two main criticisms directed at the plan.
Mike McCabe from the non-partisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign gave the best summation of what everyone wanted to say to this committee: We know why you're really here so stop treating us like idiots. His testimony starts at 4:58:58 of the video referenced above and is well worth watching. Here are his opening words:
In a democracy, the people are supposed to choose their representatives, not the other way around, and the redistricting plans that you have before you do violence to that bedrock principle of democracy.
McCabe's nerdy demeanor adds to the effectiveness of his testimony. He comes across as the type of guy you really have to work hard to piss off.
The other main point was that local governments will now have to redo months of work and, in some cases, see no way to accommodate the new state map. In most cases, local officials only learned of the upcoming changes from watching the local news. They just had their budgets decimated by Scott Walker's budget and now will have to find a way to pay for remapping their wards.
A few local officials were able to show up for today's hearing, but most were caught completely off guard by the hastily devised schedule. The most effective speaker was Helen Nagler, Chair of the Outagamie County Board of Supervisors. She was clearly disgusted with the new plan and almost begged the committee to at least consider using those local plans that were already completed and submitted. Her testimony begins at 6:26:28. I cannot embed the video, but I urge you to watch it. Here's a sample from the self-described "dollars and cents" Helen:
This is a mess....all of the cost of this is borne by the property tax owners. We have no money to fool around with things we shouldn't have to fool around with....You don't have to fix it. We have to fix it.
She suggested at the end that, alternatively, the legislature could give local governments the money to rework their districting maps. Then she laughed. Loud. And alone.