Scott Walker and his army of right-wing zombies in the Wisconsin Republican Party were eager to accomplish several things affecting elections before the recall votes expected to end his absolute power in Wisconsin by returning the state Senate to the Democrats. [Last night Democrat Dave Hansen routed Walker puppet David VanderLeest with a 66-34% landslide blowout.] First, they passed legislation that drastically reduces the number of people who will vote, targeting students, African-Americans, seniors and poor people, none of which are GOP constituencies. And now they have rushed through a plan to gerrymander the state's legislative and congressional districts by lumping as many Democrats as they could into as few districts as possible, leaving few contestable districts and as many GOP-leaning districts as they could.
Democrats say it's no coincidence that Republicans are trying to get new boundaries approved before the upcoming recall elections are held in nine state Senate districts.
Six Republican and three Democratic incumbent senators are on the recall ballot in August. If Democrats can pick up a net three seats, they would win control of the Senate.
Approving the GOP plan for legislative boundaries before those recall elections, however, would give Republicans a strong chance to regain control of the Senate in the 2012 elections.
The best example of how that scenario could play out is in the 8th Senate District, a seat now held by Republican Alberta Darling.
Under the Republican plan, the Village of Shorewood, which typically votes Democratic, would no longer be part of the 8th District. Instead, it would be lumped in with Milwaukee and the 4th Senate District, now represented by Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee).
Without Shorewood, the 8th District would see a more suburban, more conservative constituency, stretching north into Grafton and as far west as the town of Erin in Washington County.
Currently, the district's western edge includes only parts of Menomonee Falls and Richfield.
The new boundaries should ensure an easy re-election for Darling in 2012 and beyond. And even if Darling were to be defeated by Democrat Sandy Pasch in an Aug. 9 recall election, Pasch would face an uphill re-election battle in the revamped district.
Last week, Pasch and five other Democrats who are running against Republican senators in primaries each faced a "fake Democrat"-- a candidate put up by Republicans to force a primary. That move delayed the general recall election from July to August.
While Republican party officials have said they fielded the fake Democrats to give incumbent GOP senators more time to campaign, Pasch doesn't think that's the case.
She believes the delay was designed to give Republicans the time they need to push through the redrawn legislative map.
“It became quite clear why they would want to delay the general election-- so they would have time to railroad this through,” Pasch said. “The fact that they are doing this in such an incredibly partisan way, without public input or deliberation, should not only be concerning to me but to people across the state.
"The thing I hear when I'm out talking to people is they want the parties to work together, to compromise. They don’t want this incredible divisiveness."
The redistricting would also make it more difficult for Pasch to win her Assembly seat if she fails in the recall election. She would be in a seat currently held by Republican Jim Ott of Mequon, and the new district would include an area that has traditionally voted Republican.
Paul Ryan directed the congressional level efforts and made sure that the 3 GOP-held seats that Obama won in 2008-- his own, Sean Duffy's and Tom Petri's-- would get more GOP areas and shed some Democratic areas.
In 2008 Ryan's district only gave McCain 48% of the vote (down from Bush's 54% in 2004). Petri's district also swung strongly towards the Democrats-- Bush won it with 56% in 2004 and McCain lost it 4 years later with 49%. Duffy's district has always been a blue-tinged district, Gore winning in 2000, Kerry winning in 2004 and Obama trouncing McCain 56-43%. All three districts will now have more Republicans and fewer Democrats. The Republican Ryan decided to leave to the fates is Green Bay based teabagger Reid Ribble, whose traditionally Democratic-leaning district remains so. Gore and Kerry took the district and Obama beat McCain 54-45%.
Ryan directed that Democrats in Duffy's district be dumped into the 3rd CD, which is represented by conservative Democrat Ron Kind, who will be happily unassailable by Republicans, while Duffy-- as well as Ryan and Petri-- will look pretty bulletproof. And with Republicans in charge of all three branches of government in Wisconsin, there is virtually nothing the citizens of that state can do, without a major partisan shakeup-- to put the breaks on this fascist takeover of the machinery of elections itself. The one hope will be an expected recall of Scott Walker in January, although even that will be put into jeopardy by the Republicans manipulating the timing so that the recall date is the same day as the Republican presidential primary.
Leading Wisconsin Dems are leaning towards a plan to ensure that the recall election against Walker is held on the same day as the November general election in 2012. This would ensure maximum turnout among Dems in the state, making Walker’s recall more likely, and provide a big boost in grassroots energy that could help Obama win a key swing state.
But Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for Wisconsin Dems, tells me that party members have picked up private scuttlebutt from Republicans that they have another scheme in mind-- to ensure that the recall election is held on the same day in April as the GOP presidential primary.
“Democrats have privately spoken with top Republicans who think triggering a spring recall election is their best path to protecting Scott Walker and preserving his agenda,” Zielinski tells me, though he said the party was not publicly advocating for one route or the other.
Here’s the situation, in a nutshell: The date of the recall depends on when signature gathering for the election starts. If it starts this fall, just after the recalls against state senators wrap up, activists will have 60 days to collect the required signatures. If they succeed by the end of the year, Wisconsin officials very well may schedule the Walker recall to coincide with the next big statewide election: The GOP primary.
Yesterday, after the GOP rammed through their gerrymandering bill the state's Democratic Party chairman, Mike Tate, blasted them:
"The redistricting plan, conceived in darkness and bypassing Wisconsin's localities, violates our state's traditions and exposes Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican cadres for what they are: Tools of the special interests consumed with drawing all power unto themselves.
"The process and the map itself strikes against the democratic ideals that built our state and spurns more than a century of norms and standards meant so that Wisconsin's communities are represented properly. In their blind desire to accrue all power, this gang in Madison has set a terrible precedent. In less than 10 days, and with an infinitesimal amount of community input, they drew political maps meant to last 10 years.
"This redistricting will void the work already underway in local communities who expected a responsible Legislature, this redistricting will increase the divisive partisanship that has been Scott Walker's calling card, and this redistricting will go one more step into removing people from our government processes.
"The Republican legacy under Scott Walker rule continues to grow in ways that stain and offend our shared history. And today's shabby redistricting power grab should send another shock into the grasssroots recall movement that even now is mustering to take back Wisconsin."
Please visit Blue America's Beyond Recalls page if you'd like to help out our friends in Wisconsin. If last night is any indication, they are using the contributions REALLY well.
