Gerrymandering! The word itself conjures up weirdly shaped election districts and smacks of the lowest kind of dirty tricks. Most of the time when we hear the word we think of the majority party and the advantage they created for themselves by drawing maps that guaranteed an unfair advantage to themselves. The new maps that will be used in Wisconsin for the 2024 election will change things, a little. As we look to bring political balance back to Wisconsin let’s also look at where we are today to bring into focus the stakes of the 2024 legislative election.
Within the state assembly there are 35 members of the democratic caucus. Currently, Democrats hold no Senate or Assembly seats north of highway 29 and only four of the Democratic seats in the Assembly could be considered rural. From that position they fought like hell to keep the GOP from gaining a supermajority in the assembly as it had in the senate. Had they lost two more seats the MAGA Republicans would have been able to override Governor Ever’s veto.
That is why in the closing days of the legislative session MAGA Republicans were so desperate to pass a Constitutional amendment to reduce a governor’s veto power.
Back to the numbers. With only 35 members of their Assembly caucus Democrats need to pick up seats. But as important as it is to add Democrats to the Assembly it is equally important to add experience. Currently there are only ten members of the Democratic caucus with more experience in the Assembly than Joe has. Again because of gerrymandering, most Assembly members are relative newcomers. And because of the new maps we can expect the number of newcomers to increase.
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