2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Inb4 MT Treasurer

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

There seems to be some confusion. Is this good or not?

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1506686145572315141

They blocked the state legislative maps, not congressional

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Vosem said that the Congressional maps is very unlikely to be overturned because the only argument the WISC could use to do so would actually undermine and diminish its own power, but he didn't elaborate on how. I'm interested in hearing that because that sounds rather strange.

Vosem literally believes in the most optimistic(for gop) outcome in all the redraws

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I feel like the most objective position on this case is the Congressional map isn't really a gerrymander, but still leads to an outcome that is heavily skewed. If anything I'd argue that the current WI-01 and WI-03 are relatively favorable to Dems, even though both lean R. To make either lean D you basically have to crack Madison/Milwaukee.

The State Leg maps are clearly gerrymanders. Bigger question is the fix to draw partisan blind maps, or maps aimed at producing a partisan equitable outcome.

The congressional map is essentially the same as the map from last cycle, which was drawn to maximize Republican advantage when the state was a bit bluer and had dramatically different political geography; as it turns out, the way trends worked caused Republicans' advantage on last decade's map to only increase as Dems lost ground in one blue district while the bulk of their gains were in a blood red district. The conservative at the time state Supreme Court chose to use a least change map for this decade because that maintained their partisan advantage. The idea that a map where Trump wins 75% of districts while losing the state is fair is absurd; if Texas had a map where Biden and Democrats won 24/38 seats Republicans would be screaming bloody murder. The map was drawn to maximize Republican advantage and it's not hard to draw a map that follows the state's partisan lean.

Yes it is? It's been explained multiple times more than 2 Biden districts would require violating neutral redistricting principles. You are correct about Texas, but that's an argument to push a redistricting reform nationwide, not to gerrymander to achieve "proportionality"

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I feel like the most objective position on this case is the Congressional map isn't really a gerrymander, but still leads to an outcome that is heavily skewed. If anything I'd argue that the current WI-01 and WI-03 are relatively favorable to Dems, even though both lean R. To make either lean D you basically have to crack Madison/Milwaukee.

The State Leg maps are clearly gerrymanders. Bigger question is the fix to draw partisan blind maps, or maps aimed at producing a partisan equitable outcome.

The congressional map is essentially the same as the map from last cycle, which was drawn to maximize Republican advantage when the state was a bit bluer and had dramatically different political geography; as it turns out, the way trends worked caused Republicans' advantage on last decade's map to only increase as Dems lost ground in one blue district while the bulk of their gains were in a blood red district. The conservative at the time state Supreme Court chose to use a least change map for this decade because that maintained their partisan advantage. The idea that a map where Trump wins 75% of districts while losing the state is fair is absurd; if Texas had a map where Biden and Democrats won 24/38 seats Republicans would be screaming bloody murder. The map was drawn to maximize Republican advantage and it's not hard to draw a map that follows the state's partisan lean.

Yes it is? It's been explained multiple times more than 2 Biden districts would require violating neutral redistricting principles. You are correct about Texas, but that's an argument to push a redistricting reform nationwide, not to gerrymander to achieve "proportionality"

County and city split minimizing Wisconsin map that went 4-4 in 2020


Avoiding municipal splits was prioritized over avoiding county splits. 5 counties are split purely to avoid municipal splits along their periphery, with a total population of the split areas of 18,184. An additional 7 counties are then split for population equality. Three cities are split for population equality, with the largest being New Berlin.

This notion that neutral redistricting means rigid adherence to municipal or county boundaries is dumb anyway given how arbitrary they often are, but the claim that following them excludes the possibility of four Biden districts is simply not true; stop carrying water for false Republican arguments.

Apologize for the late response but with all due respect, you literally talked about how trends caused the map to alter in it's effectiveness. Who's to say that WI-1 will actually stay blue the whole decade for example? Again, if we establish neutral redistricting criteria nationwide, the geographical bias will cancel out like ProgressiveModerate said. R's will benefit in states like WI/PA/OR/TN etc, but D's will benefit in states like NV/TX/MA/WA/SC etc

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Van Orden will still lose