Evers Has Said He Will Sign Maps Legislation into Law Effective for 2024 Elections
Fairer and more representative state legislative district voting maps are finally on the verge of becoming a reality in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Legislature on Tuesday passed new and dramatically different state legislative voting maps to be in place for the 2024 elections. Gov. Tony Evers has indicated he will sign them into law. The maps are a significant improvement over the current, hyper partisan gerrymandered Republican maps currently in place.
The vote for passage of the maps was 18 to 14 in the State Senate and 63 to 33 in the State Assembly. The enactment into law of these maps may also end ongoing legal action in the Wisconsin Supreme Court which ruled on December 22, 2023 that the current maps were unconstitutional.
Thousands of Wisconsin citizens and activists have been involved and invested in the struggle for fair voting maps since 2011. They are the major reason this issue, so important to democracy, came to the attention of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. To those voters goes the credit and our gratitude for this important moment.
In their remarks before votes in the Assembly and State Senate, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) all but promised that there would be no further legal challenges from Republicans to the Democratic Governor's maps, assuring that these maps will be in place through November 2024 and beyond. While that is certainly positive, the actions of Vos and LeMahieu, not their words, will be what will matter.
The process by which Vos and LeMahieu brought the maps to the floor of the Legislature for a vote yesterday was done with virtually no input from the people most affected by this matter – the voters and citizens of Wisconsin. That underscores the need for Wisconsin to continue to work toward taking the process of legislative and congressional redistricting out of the hands of partisan politicians and, by 2031, entrusting it to a nonpartisan entity that makes it truly possible for voters to select their elected representatives instead of the inverse.
“I am excited for the citizens of Wisconsin who have had the value of their vote and their voice returned to them by the passage of this legislation,” said Common Cause Wisconsin (CC/WI) Co-Chair Penny Bernard Schaber, a former Democratic State Representative from Appleton. “The same voters are committed to working towards a permanent nonpartisan redistricting process that will ensure that their votes always have equal value,” Bernard Schaber added.
"We urge Gov. Evers to sign his voting maps passed by the Wisconsin Legislature into law. That will help bring stability and certainty to the fast-approaching 2024 election cycle and for the years ahead until the next decennial redistricting process occurs in 2031," said Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin (CC/WI) since 1996.
Here are links to the Governor’s state legislative voting maps:
608/512-9363 (cell)
152 Johnson St, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53703
www.commoncausewisconsin.org
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