Independent redistricting effort begins anew in Wisconsin
Inside the effort to bring a long-term, permanent solution for redistricting reform in Wisconsin.
The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time NINETEEN-TIME Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.
In February, 2024, Wisconsin leaders celebrated a momentous achievement. After more than a decade under some of the most gerrymandered maps for any state legislature in the nation, Gov. Tony Evers signed new maps into law in a high-profile ceremony at the state Capitol.
“It’s a new day in Wisconsin and a beautiful day for democracy,” the governor said to begin the event.
In a certain sense, this “new day” marked the end of a long saga in Wisconsin. Finally, the undemocratic gerrymander that had warped the state’s politics for more than a decade, granting Republicans outsized majorities in the legislative branch, would be remedied with maps far more representative of the state’s purple politics. But for some of the most ardent advocates for fair maps, this was not the end of the road — far from it.
Why? Because what Evers signed on that momentous occasion was not a permanent solution for redistricting reform in Wisconsin, but a short-term fix. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s landmark December 2023 ruling striking down the gerrymandered maps initiated a process to draw “remedial maps” for the 2024 election, but did not change the manner in which maps are drawn in Wisconsin after each decennial census. The fraught process that resulted over the subsequent two months in early 2024 eventually still followed the process outlined in the state constitution — the legislature passed maps and the governor signed them into law. But after 2030, when the next round of redistricting begins, the process would go back to square one without further action.
Revisit this Milwaukee Press Club award-winning column from Feb. 2024.
Now, fair maps advocates and pro-democracy activists are looking to take the next step and propose a long-term solution with hopes of bringing a new redistricting process to the state of Wisconsin, where the process is no longer in the hands of the very politicians who’d be running for office on those maps — the oft-repeated adage of fair maps advocates of voters choosing their leaders, not leaders choosing their voters.
This coalition that has formed has been hard at work for more than a year, crafting a version of “Wisconsin model” to create a proposal for an independent redistricting commission and making that process permanent.
“We are not going to wait,” said Carlene Bechen, former organizing director of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition and a retired educator. “We are not going to wait for legislators to tell us what to do. We’re going to tell them what we want.”
To that end, this effort has been entirely led by nonprofit organizations, pro-democracy groups, and citizen volunteers, who have been meeting regularly since new maps were signed into law.
Now, what’s been in the works for months behind the scenes is shifting to a public conversation.
The initial draft proposal for a “Wisconsin model” for independent redistricting is now available online here. This proposal includes both legislation to reform the redistricting process along with an effort to pass a constitutional amendment1.
Part of the long-term goal, said Bechen, is to “completely remove the state legislature from the process, (so) they are not the final approvers. That requires the constitution to be changed.”
This proposal has come together after regular meetings over the last year of an “Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee,” organized in part by members of the Fair Maps Coalition, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, and the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Wisconsin. Bechen is also the chair of the committee.
“We recognize that we need a Wisconsin model,” said iuscely Flores, organizing director of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, who has been a leader of the Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee. “More than anything, we’re going to need a Wisconsin model. We did go back and forth a lot for a year, and now, we’re meeting for nearly three hours every Monday…Once we kind of consolidated all of the data that we all gathered from different states, we took best practices from one and another, what would fit Wisconsin.”
Debra Cronmiller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and the chair of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, has been a big part of putting this proposal together. She said the goal of forming a commission to oversee redistricting in the state is to put together a group that reflects Wisconsin as best as possible.
“The big picture is to actually have a full authority independent redistricting commission, which would be made up of citizens, supported by experts and staff and everything they need to do the job of drawing impartial maps in the state of Wisconsin, that truly represent communities,” she said. “They would take into account communities of interest, (and) the membership of the commission itself would be geographically representative.”
Among some of the highlights of the draft proposal for the independent redistricting commission (IRC) are:
DOA oversight: The proposal outlines a process for soliciting applicants and applying to the commission, which would be overseen by the state Department of Administration (DOA)
Commissioner selection: Determining who is on the commission would involve a well-vetted application process, and selecting a pool of 240 applicants who would reflect the diversity of the “racial, ethnic, geographic, age, economic and gender diversity” of the state.
Partisan fairness: Of that larger pool of applicants, there would be three 80-person sub pools. One would be of Democratic Party-aligned applicants, another of Republican Party-aligned applicants, and a third group of applicants who are unaffiliated with either of the two major parties, either with a third party or as a true independent
Legislative involvement: As part of that selection process, the Senate President, Minority Leader of the Senate, the Assembly Speaker, and the Minority Leader of the Assembly would each provide input on that pool of applicants, and each would have the choice of striking up to two applicants from each subpool from final consideration
A 15-member commission: The makeup of the commission would include 18 commissioners in total, with 15 acting commissioners and three reserves. The first nine commissioners would include three Democratic-aligned applicants, three Republican-aligned applicants, and three from the remaining pool of applicants who are unaffiliated with one of the two major political parties (but might be aligned with a third or independent party). One commissioner would be selected from each geographic region of the state. Those nine commissioners would then review and select the next nine applicants, under the same criteria. A role of Lead Commissioner would be created, and would be chosen by a simple majority of the 15 selected commissioners.
Decision-making process: Most decisions would be decided by a majority vote of the 15 acting commissioners, but the final redistricting map for all legislative and congressional districts would require a two-thirds vote, with a minimum of two commissioners from each partisan sub-group required to vote in favor of a map for it to receive final approval to be sent to the state legislature
Final approval: The proposal outlines a process if an impasse is reached and no IRC-approved map is passed by the legislature and signed by the governor by August 15 of the year in question, then the Wisconsin Supreme Court would play a role in adopting the final map
This proposal is not a finished product. The goal is to continue to hone and improve it. Community hearings have already occurred in Whitefish Bay, Dodgeville, Green Bay and Wausau, and more are planned in Waukesha (on Aug. 20), Madison and Milwaukee (dates and times TBD). Organizers want feedback, and see these community hearings not just as an avenue to discuss the proposal, but to improve upon it.
This has been a citizen-led effort to put this proposal together, and organizers are hoping for citizen feedback on this proposal before it would be advanced toward the legislative process.
“We didn’t think putting this job of creating an independent redistricting commission into the legislature’s hands to draft legislation was such a swell idea,” said Cronmiller. “It needed to come from the citizens, which is why we are taking our draft now to community hearings so, around the state, we can get feedback from people.”
In crafting this proposal, this committee combed through, analyzed and discussed everything from how to find applicants for a commission, how many members should make up a commission, how commissioners might be compensated for their work, which organization is best suited to have oversight, and a whole lot more. They talked with experts from places like the Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, and Common Cause. They examined how these types of commissions might be structured in other states. This has been an extensive process.
Cheryl Maranto, a retired Marquette University professor who is now the co-lead of Worth Fighting For Wisconsin (formerly North Shore Fair Maps), is one of those volunteers. She began getting involved with the Fair Maps Coalition in the late 2010s, and said she, like many who got involved in the fair maps movement, stayed involved after the governor signed the maps last year.
“We recognize that in 2030, we’re back to square one and at the mercy of whoever’s in power at the time,” she said. “So, it was really clear to us that we needed a more permanent fix.”
Since last year, volunteers like Maranto have attended monthly meetings over zoom, listened to insight from consultants and experts, and worked on a plan.
“Somebody’s got to do it,” she said. “You’ve got to get your hands dirty. You’ve got to get in the weeds. And we have to put something together that hopefully we can get the majority of legislators to be willing to sign on to.”
While volunteers for this committee have been working hard and have been critical to this endeavor, formally, the Wisconsin Fair Maps coalition Lead team has included a variety of pro-democracy and otherwise aligned organizations, including: All Voting is Local, Campus Vote, Common Cause in Wisconsin, Law Forward, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Represent US, Souls to the Polls, Wisconsin Conservation Voters, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, the Wisconsin Farmers Union, and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which has helped fund the effort.
Those crafting this proposal want this to have bipartisan support. It is not by accident that this proposal is not being done in partnership with any particular legislators or political parties. They want the proposal to be discussed and improved in the coming months, to educate people on the issues, solicit feedback, and eventually find support of members of both parties before it might be introduced in the state legislature.
“Our goal is to finalize the proposal and seek bipartisan support by fall and winter,” said Flores.
While there is a general acknowledgement that legislators in the Democratic Party in Wisconsin have been more receptive to redistricting reform efforts than those in the Republican Party, many in the pro-democracy space who have been working on this see gerrymandering as a “bipartisan disease,” as Flores put it, and have concerns with any lawmakers determining the maps upon which they run for office.
Some in these groups became more skeptical of some Democrats’ motivations in redistricting during the remedial maps process last year. Some Democrats, at the time, were hoping for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to select a map, instead of wanting Gov. Evers to sign the maps passed by the Wisconsin State Legislature (maps that he initially proposed). Many of these same groups were urging Evers to sign the maps in Feb. 2024, even as some Democrats wanted to wait for the court to choose what might have been a more favorable map.
Organizers also want this to be quite different from the “People’s Maps Commission,” an effort created by Evers during his first term that was ultimately unsuccessful in creating new maps.
For the People’s Maps Commission, said Bechen, “There wasn’t a lot of study done about what goes into a really good independent redistricting commission and what kind of requirements there should be. They were, as they say, building the plane as they were trying to fly it. And they were all volunteers, and they didn’t have any resources…That was set up for failure.”
Another unsuccessful effort came in a last-ditch attempt by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the Republican-controlled legislature to subvert the remedial maps process and pass a plan for “Iowa style” redistricting — though Vos’ version had critical differences from the Iowa model, and would have given the legislature final say over which maps are ultimately adopted. There were other reasons, too, about why the Iowa model would not be a fit for Wisconsin.
“What we want is not the Iowa model,” said Bechen. “(Wisconsin) is much more diverse, demographically, economically, educationally, topographically, you name it.”
“The big difference with Iowa is Iowa still isn’t fully independent,” said Cronmiller. “We want full independence of a citizen-led commission. That’s our end goal.”
States with independent redistricting commissions that this committee have looked to as examples include Michigan and California, and best practices in each of those states.
The hope, then, is to eventually get a version of this independent redistricting commission proposal passed within the next year — by spring of 2026, Bechen said. But what’s next is going to require some work, too.
Bechen added they’re hoping next to “educate people about the need for a permanent solution, and also what an independent redistricting commission actually is — what it means to have politicians out of the kitchen as the meal is being cooked.”
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he became the Political Editor of Civic Media. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 23 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Passing a constitutional amendment in Wisconsin requires passing a measure in consecutive sessions of the Wisconsin State Legislature with a majority vote in both the Assembly and Senate each time. If that happens, the proposed amendment is placed on the ballot for a statewide referendum. There has been a significant increase in constitutional amendments in recent years, with five proposed constitutional amendments in 2024 alone. See this brief explainer from the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.
On one hand, I understand the need for independent redistricting and in a purple state like Wisconsin where the legislative maps were so gerrymandered by the GOP for so long that Democrats could never win a majority in either house, that a fair process is necessity. Especially in a state that is narrowly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
On the other, we have other states like Texas and Florida where the GOP majorities have gerrymandered the congressional maps so heavily that it gives their party a slight upper hand to win in the house. It feels like Democrats are choosing to unilaterally disarm themselves with a state-by-state effort to ban gerrymandering, that I think the GOP will only support non-partisan redistricting if they themselves are not able to win a majority. That's why a national ban at the federal level is truly the only way to do it.
To address the GOP skew of the national maps, I think this should be addressed one of two ways. Option A, a criteria item for drawing the congressional map is that the redistricting commission must consider the overall slant of the national map and draw the Wisconsin map appropriately to lessen the skew. Option B, the redistricting commission should only draw the legislative maps and leave the congressional maps to the legislature, but it will return to the commission once Congress passes a law banning gerrymandering nationwide.
These are just my thoughts and I'm open to discussion.