Red vs. Blue: In Wisconsin, Gerrymandering Determines State Legislature Results

Imagine you are playing a game of chess. You are black and your opponent is white. To ensure fairness, the chess game has been assigned a gamekeeper, who is sporting your team’s black color. Before the match begins, the gamekeeper writes out all the plays for both you and your opponent in the order you must use them. As the game begins, you start taking turns moving your pieces and realize the gamekeeper has given the black team every advantage. Knowing you’re sure to win, you realize you didn’t need any strategy at all.

Now imagine the team colors are red and blue, and instead of a game of chess, you are a red politician running in an electoral race with a “gamekeeper” residing in the state legislature drawing state district lines, sporting the color red. This game of chess now represents a political race that ensures you’ll be the winner. This practice is called partisan gerrymandering.

To understand gerrymandering, it’s important to first tackle a fundamental of state politics: redistricting. Redistricting is the state map-drawing division that is done every 10 years after the U.S. Census. The Wisconsin legislature looks at the district maps every decade to reorganize state district lines to reflect changes in population. This process is a Constitutional requirement to adapt to changing communities and ensure that each population is being fairly represented by their elected officials.

Kathleen Dolan is a distinguished professor in the Political Science department at UWM, with an interest in political behavior. She says redistricting is a way for citizens to vote based on where they live.

“In the United States, since the beginning of our country to today, we believe representation of individuals should be geographically based,” Dolan said. “You vote for members of Congress or state legislature based on where you live, with the assumption that you share some sort of common interest with your community.”

Gerrymandering interferes when politicians manipulate geographic location to favor one political party over another. Because redistricting is a mandated practice, politicians become the gatekeepers of the process. If Democrats control the state legislature, for example, they can draw map lines in favor of Democratic candidates winning in the next five state elections.

“Wisconsin is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country,” Dolan said. “What that means is, there is a gap between the vote share in statewide elections versus the ratio of seats that they have now.”

Wisconsin’s State Assembly is made up of 99 districts and the State Senate is made up of 33 districts. Even though Wisconsin is a nearly 50/50 state in bipartisan voting (almost half of the population identifying as Republican and half identifying as Democratic), the state legislature holds a Republican majority of 60% for both Senate and Assembly elected officials. Because of the way the district lines were drawn and approved last year, this almost guarantees Wisconsin to be red for the next 10 years (until the next census).

Gerrymandering strategies to “dilute” a party’s voting influence include cracking, packing and stacking. Cracking is when members of an opposing party (in Wisconsin’s case, Democrats) are spread out, forming a minority in key districts. Packing squeezes members of the minority party into one district to minimize voters’ impact. Finally, stacking combines the minority party with a favored majority; in other words, blue communities are mixed with exceedingly large red communities, weakening the influence of the minority.

“It isn’t always easy to determine whether any of these techniques are in use or if they have been used as principles for shaping districts [in Wisconsin],” Dolan said. “This is, in part, because districts are supposed to be compact and follow natural geographic areas. If a partisan court wants to support a partisan gerrymander, as in Wisconsin, the court will accept the reasoning of the majority party as legitimate drawing of districts and not attempts to gerrymander.”

Compare Milwaukee and Door County; Milwaukee makes up .001% of Wisconsin’s total area (in square miles), yet represents nearly 10% of the state’s population. Conversely, Door County’s area is four times larger than Milwaukee’s, but only 1/5 of the population. Because redistricting has to follow population guidelines that require districts to have “as equal population as possible,” some districts will look significantly larger than others.

Dr. Atiba Ellis is a professor of law at Marquette University. He teaches about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a major piece of civil rights legislation that sought to remedy racial discrimination in voting.

“Since the end of Reconstruction, discrimination of voting based on race was allowed, which made it more difficult for minorities to vote, particularly in southern states,” Ellis said. “Congress realized in the ‘50s that redistricting does not proactively address discriminatory practices.”

Congress established stricter rules in redistricting in an effort to prevent states from drawing discriminatory lines. States are not allowed draw district lines that “discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.” In 2016, North Carolina was mandated by the Supreme Court to redraw their district lines due to “illegal racial gerrymandering.”

Complicated realities like gerrymandering can make politics seem confusing to voters, particularly young voters who have never participated in local or federal elections. Lauren Marine, a UWM alum and first-time voter, wants to have a better understanding of politics, but doesn’t know where to start.

“I want to know because I want to be able to participate in conversations and defend my points of view,” Lauren said. “I feel like I’m bad at articulating things that are important to me.”

Marine looks to experts for the necessary data to feel confident in conversations about politics, but sometimes lines can still seem blurred.

“Every single thing I think I know something, the internet shows me a different side, and it ends up confusing me more,” Marine said. “It makes me want to just give up and feel like I shouldn’t have an opinion on it.”

Dolan understands how politics can seem confusing, but encourages voters to expose themselves to political conversations to learn more.

“I don’t think we do a good enough job in schools at teaching people about politics,” Dolan said. “There’s an expression: ‘When you’re in polite company, you never talk about politics or religion.’ What we’re doing is informally teaching people they should avoid the topic of politics, because it could get uncomfortable.”

For voters who do get uncomfortable with the topic of politics, Dr. Kennan Ferguson, a political theorist and professor at UWM, encourages them to broaden their perspective.

“When you pick up trash off the street, you are participating in politics, because you are taking care of the environment,” Ferguson said. “Look for interest groups and organizations that make the world better and do something with them. You don’t have to vote in political elections to be involved in politics.”

The midterm election is Nov. 8. If you are someone like Marine, who wants to know more, but doesn’t know where to start, begin by making a list of things that are important to you, and start researching how you can get involved in making a difference.