Letter to the Editor: It’s Time for Fair Maps

In 2018, Republicans received 46% of the votes cast in Wisconsin, but because of our gerrymandered political maps, they walked away with 62% of our seats in Congress.

These results are blatantly wrong. Gerrymandering is wrong, no matter which party is responsible. It is manifestly unjust because it disenfranchises a substantial majority of voters. It is cheating – taking power away from those who rightfully hold it. It is deeply dishonest – a rigged and corrupt system masquerading as democracy.

It is also expensive. The Wisconsin maps redrawn in 2011 cost taxpayers – that’s us – more than $3.5 million to create and then litigate. The Iowa model, which bills that are now before the Wisconsin legislature propose adopting, cost $180,000 for its 2011 maps – just 5% of what Wisconsin spent. Iowa, whose model is now three decades old, has never had to litigate its maps.

Perhaps worst of all, gerrymandering across this country is largely responsible for the seemingly unbridgeable divide between the right and the left. When districts are “cracked and packed” so that they are essentially guaranteed to the candidate of one party or the other, the candidates have no incentive to reach out beyond the party’s most extreme base to try to find solutions that work for both sides, or to legislate thoughtfully and intelligently. 

Gerrymandering is an unalloyed evil that has wrought great harm in this country and in our state. It is long past time for fair maps in Wisconsin.

Betsy Rogers

Sister Bay, Wisconsin