Letter to the Editor: Constitutional ‘Balloons and String’ Theory

Indicating clearly that there is little chance that he has ever read and/or comprehended any of the 2017 SB13/AB44 which calls for non-partisan legislative redistricting for Wisconsin, based upon the present Iowa model, while appearing on Sturgeon Bay radio Feb. 13, Senator Frank “Einstein” Lasee outlined a certifiably psychedelic flashback describing balloons, strings and random pie-shaped wedges embodying the difficulties he apparently perceives, in simply straightening out the lines and cleaning up the geographical jigsaw puzzle presently ruled as unconstitutional, the $2.1 million gerrymandered legislative districts created by private attorneys at the secret behest of the GOP.

The Senator acknowledged that at least another $175,000 could be wasted by the Wisconsin DOJ’s appeal efforts, with a likely tie-vote in the SCOTUS, as the current ruling of “unconstitutional gerrymandering” is thrown back to the lower court, unchanged. Frank assured listeners that he sees himself as a strict constitutional constructionist when it comes to state redistricting and we should continue to follow the state’s founding fathers, maintaining absolute majority party control over redistricting every 10 years. That close, narrow reading of the original written document means Frank sees little ambiguity in the state constitution and absolutely no room for the wild interpretation from liberals or from, “Democrat” thinking.

That is until Frank interpreted the original public trust doctrine of the state constitution protecting historic lakebed at the time of statehood, and preserving the original shoreline of the waters of our state in perpetuity for the public good. Now those pesky, antiquated constitutional concepts from our forefathers, like public ownership, mutual enjoyment of, and open access to the waters of our state are not worth the parchment they were printed on and Frank appeared ready to give away our public inheritance to a private developer, forever, at the drop of a hat from Sturgeon Bay politicians.

Judge Huber’s ruling against a majority Sturgeon Bay leadership’s attempted grab of public land for a private developer, his judicial ruling which is entirely based on a strict constructionist interpretation of the state constitution, while rendering complete unambiguity, suddenly becomes a mere bug-splat annoyance in the eyes of Senator Lasee, and according to Frank, his legislative colleague Joel Kitchens. As Lasee stated, both are ready, willing and able to try to procure special favor for special interests, to thwart this constitutional ruling.

Hearing Senator Lasee’s radio proclamations, does anyone else think that it is well past time for Mayor Birmingham and the majority Common Council to openly vote on the direction they intend to pursue in response to Judge Huber’s constitutional decisions, and finally pull up their big boy pants and openly decide this question before the April 4 election? There is no excuse for further delay. Any bets on seeing a roll-call vote making that decision, being listed on the March 21, Common Council agenda? I thought not.

Donald Freix

Fish Creek, Wis.