[Wisconsin] no longer ascribes to representational democracy

Fry

Couscous wrote: »

Wisconsin Public Radio State Capitol Bureau Chief:

https://twitter.com/SJohnsonWPR/status/1070313054208999424

Political maneuvering of outgoing administration Rs: OK
Political maneuvering of incoming administration Ds: not OK

override367

Welp, I should move back to illinois where they wear their corruption on their sleeve, Wisconsin having a permanent ruling class that is immune to the electoral process

Honestly I don't see anything legal ever fixing it either

enlightenedbum

Contrast with CNN's headline right now:

Republicans undo democracy in Wisconsin

The rare "good job, CNN!" from me.

ElJeffe

I'm not familiar with the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymandering. With the US House, it was such that it was exceptionally hard for Dems to win, but once you hit a certain threshold in the generic ballot, House seats started going for dems like mad.

I imagine it's somewhat similar in Wisconsin? Nationally, the threshold for dems taking over was about D+6. What's the threshold for Wisconsin? Is the problem just that threshold is impossibly high, or is there some other issue that prevents the dems from ever taking the legislature?

Captain Inertia

ElJeffe wrote: »

I'm not familiar with the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymandering. With the US House, it was such that it was exceptionally hard for Dems to win, but once you hit a certain threshold in the generic ballot, House seats started going for dems like mad.

I imagine it's somewhat similar in Wisconsin? Nationally, the threshold for dems taking over was about D+6. What's the threshold for Wisconsin? Is the problem just that threshold is impossibly high, or is there some other issue that prevents the dems from ever taking the legislature?

D+ 30

Goumindong

House Seats in the US are still significantly biased against Dems. We're underrepresented by ~1-2 districts when large wins typically produce a slight over-representation for the winner (to see this, imagine if 90% of the votes went for one side, you would expect that it won 100% of the districts rather than 90%). Democrats won the total votes 53.41 to 44.86 for a 20% vote advantage producing a 17% representation advantage.

Currently in Wisconsin its... a lot worse. There are 99 seats in the Assembly and Republicans won 63 of them in the last election (down from 64 in the prior). This gives them a 75% advantage in votes. Democrats won the total votes 52.99 to 44.75. This is an 18.5% vote advantage producing a 42.8% representation disadvantage

There is no democracy in Wisconsin

silence1186

Going to have to hope for the state to be redistricted by a national entity some time down the line. So realistically 2030 2040 the earliest.

More likely Wisconsin becomes increasingly shitty, everyone who can leaves, no one new moves there, and the remainder chokes and starts a slow decline. Not bad for Wisconsin's feudal lords, but the serfs are in for a bad time.

Dracomicron

silence1186 wrote: »

Going to have to hope for the state to be redistricted by a national entity some time down the line. So realistically 2030 2040 the earliest.

More likely Wisconsin becomes increasingly shitty, everyone who can leaves, no one new moves there, and the remainder chokes and starts a slow decline. Not bad for Wisconsin's feudal lords, but the serfs are in for a bad time.

I'd just like to point out that Minnesota is RIGHT HERE, and we have been blue since it was extremely unfashionable (we voted Mondale/Ferraro in 84!).

Nothing stops you from cheering for the Packers just because you are across the Mississippi River.

override367

Ive seen WI Dems talk on MSNBC and other places about this and barely any mentions of how the statehouse cannot be won by democrats, even with a huge advantage in votes we lost it by a vast majority - the republicans have already stolen democracy via the legislature and every WI democrat should be raising this issue at every opportunity

ElJeffe

Goumindong wrote: »

House Seats in the US are still significantly biased against Dems. We're underrepresented by ~1-2 districts when large wins typically produce a slight over-representation for the winner (to see this, imagine if 90% of the votes went for one side, you would expect that it won 100% of the districts rather than 90%). Democrats won the total votes 53.41 to 44.86 for a 20% vote advantage producing a 17% representation advantage.

Currently in Wisconsin its... a lot worse. There are 99 seats in the Assembly and Republicans won 63 of them in the last election (down from 64 in the prior). This gives them a 75% advantage in votes. Democrats won the total votes 52.99 to 44.75. This is an 18.5% vote advantage producing a 42.8% representation disadvantage

There is no democracy in Wisconsin

Oh.

Well then.

Kipling217

Dracomicron wrote: »

silence1186 wrote: »

Going to have to hope for the state to be redistricted by a national entity some time down the line. So realistically 2030 2040 the earliest.

More likely Wisconsin becomes increasingly shitty, everyone who can leaves, no one new moves there, and the remainder chokes and starts a slow decline. Not bad for Wisconsin's feudal lords, but the serfs are in for a bad time.

I'd just like to point out that Minnesota is RIGHT HERE, and we have been blue since it was extremely unfashionable (we voted Mondale/Ferraro in 84!).

Nothing stops you from cheering for the Packers just because you are across the Mississippi River.

Yeah, but the roving bands of Vikings though...

Rius

My wife and I left Chicago in 2011 for Madison because the former was too expensive; don't tell me I need to leave Wisconsin for Minnesota because the former is too fucked

Though if we moved to Minneapolis we'd have the Herbivorous Butcher to visit on the regular, so I can't say I'm not tempted

shryke

Wisconsin is pretty fucked. The GOP went hardcore slash-and-burn on the state and proved the model of take-over then hard-pivot to extremism to be extremely effective and almost impossible to recover from. I'm not even sure there's a path to victory for the Democrats beyond some sort of wide-ranging new VRA that gets really aggressive about things like gerrymandering and even that only gets you in a position to start trying to spend decades attempting to reverse the damage.

moniker

shryke wrote: »

Wisconsin is pretty fucked. The GOP went hardcore slash-and-burn on the state and proved the model of take-over then hard-pivot to extremism to be extremely effective and almost impossible to recover from. I'm not even sure there's a path to victory for the Democrats beyond some sort of wide-ranging new VRA that gets really aggressive about things like gerrymandering and even that only gets you in a position to start trying to spend decades attempting to reverse the damage.

They basically lucked out with the 2010 election, and the 2020 redistricting won't be able to save things.

Hell, the other thing is that what Democrats want for the most part is fair elections rather than ones disenfranchising Republicans.

override367

What happens if evers keeps his ability to veto district maps, and he just keeps vetoing their bullshit maps

silence1186

moniker wrote: »

shryke wrote: »

Wisconsin is pretty fucked. The GOP went hardcore slash-and-burn on the state and proved the model of take-over then hard-pivot to extremism to be extremely effective and almost impossible to recover from. I'm not even sure there's a path to victory for the Democrats beyond some sort of wide-ranging new VRA that gets really aggressive about things like gerrymandering and even that only gets you in a position to start trying to spend decades attempting to reverse the damage.

They basically lucked out with the 2010 election, and the 2020 redistricting won't be able to save things.

Hell, the other thing is that what Democrats want for the most part is fair elections rather than ones disenfranchising Republicans.

2020 might've fixed things, except Republicans, having just lost in 2018, refused to transfer power. They quite literally don't believe in democracy in America anymore, which is refreshingly honest from a bunch of fucking fascists.

Dracomicron

override367 wrote: »

What happens if evers keeps his ability to veto district maps, and he just keeps vetoing their bullshit maps

At this point, I think their response will be to initiate the Omega Protocol and burn the land from the safety of their underground lair.

Tenek

Goumindong wrote: »

House Seats in the US are still significantly biased against Dems. We're underrepresented by ~1-2 districts when large wins typically produce a slight over-representation for the winner (to see this, imagine if 90% of the votes went for one side, you would expect that it won 100% of the districts rather than 90%). Democrats won the total votes 53.41 to 44.86 for a 20% vote advantage producing a 17% representation advantage.

Currently in Wisconsin its... a lot worse. There are 99 seats in the Assembly and Republicans won 63 of them in the last election (down from 64 in the prior). This gives them a 75% advantage in votes. Democrats won the total votes 52.99 to 44.75. This is an 18.5% vote advantage producing a 42.8% representation disadvantage

There is no democracy in Wisconsin

Out of curiosity I checked the actual results page. Two takeaways:
Going from R+6 in the popular vote (2016) to D+8 (2018) flipped exactly one district (14th, Dem won by 138 votes)

The 50th highest vote percentage for Republicans was in the 92nd district where the Republican won by a little over 10 points.

So between these, we can estimate the required margin for Dems to win 50 seats: D+19.

moniker

override367 wrote: »

What happens if evers keeps his ability to veto district maps, and he just keeps vetoing their bullshit maps

They aren't going to let him is the thing.

Hedgethorn

There's a useful image showing the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymander:


Basically, nearly every Democratic seat is 100% uncontestable. Only a couple Republicans even bothered to run in blue seats. The Republican seats are all contestable, but Dems would need to win more like 60-65% statewide in order to capture those seats. Somewhere around that 60% figure Dems instantly go from about 35 seats to about 85 seats in the statehouse.

Veevee

Hedgethorn wrote: »

There's a useful image showing the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymander:


Basically, nearly every Democratic seat is 100% uncontestable. Only a couple Republicans even bothered to run in blue seats. The Republican seats are all contestable, but Dems would need to win more like 60-65% statewide in order to capture those seats. Somewhere around that 60% figure Dems instantly go from about 35 seats to about 85 seats in the statehouse.

And my last hope for this state is that the actions of the republicans last night make that happen. If that doesn't happen then Wisconsin is fucked until the republicans say they are finished.

Also, I am fairly certain Minnesota is so democratic because a lot of the left in Wisconsin has fled there, which is not helping the problem and why I feel so bad for wanting to get out.

moniker

Veevee wrote: »

Also, I am fairly certain Minnesota is so democratic because a lot of the left in Wisconsin has fled there, which is not helping the problem and why I feel so bad for wanting to get out.

They had a Republican Governor in the 2010 anti-incumbency wave. A Republican Governor who oversaw MNDOT when an Interstate bridge collapsed and killed everybody.

Dracomicron

Veevee wrote: »

Hedgethorn wrote: »

There's a useful image showing the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymander:


Basically, nearly every Democratic seat is 100% uncontestable. Only a couple Republicans even bothered to run in blue seats. The Republican seats are all contestable, but Dems would need to win more like 60-65% statewide in order to capture those seats. Somewhere around that 60% figure Dems instantly go from about 35 seats to about 85 seats in the statehouse.

And my last hope for this state is that the actions of the republicans last night make that happen. If that doesn't happen then Wisconsin is fucked until the republicans say they are finished.

Also, I am fairly certain Minnesota is so democratic because a lot of the left in Wisconsin has fled there, which is not helping the problem and why I feel so bad for wanting to get out.

The time for fixing Wisconsin was in 2013 when the recall elections happened. Wisconsinites let themselves be convinced that recall elections weren't the correct way to deal with Scott Walker.

Russ Feingold could have ended it right then, though. Polls had him beating Walker by a fair margin, but he didn't want to be governor...wanted his plush Senate seat back. How'd that work out for you, Russ?

Bitter? Me? Yes. We needed a Cincinnatus, but Cincinnatus he was not.

Veevee

I hate just about everything about 2018, but especially hate it for possibly making Scott Walker the last savior of Democracy in Wisconsin

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/lame-duck-session-focus-turns-to-what-scott-walker-will/article_190fa291-6232-5169-9ca6-0cb077beef12.html

With the Legislature's fast-tracked lame-duck session work wrapped up, opponents of the legislation shifted their efforts to persuading Gov. Scott Walker to use his veto pen one last time before leaving office.

Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said Thursday the governor's office was reviewing the bills, but did not offer a timeline for when Walker might act on them. He could sign the bills as passed or veto part or all of them, something he has rarely done outside the budget process during his eight years in office.

Meanwhile some Wisconsin residents said their calls to Walker's office were going unanswered.

Madison resident Kathie Free, 73, said she called Walker’s office five times over the past few days during normal business hours and has yet to have someone answer. Sometimes the call indicated a busy signal and other times the phone rang about 20 to 30 times before disconnecting. At no point did the call go to a voicemail box where she could leave a message, she said.

She said she has heard from three friends that encountered the same problem.

Evenson said Walker's office had received phone calls at a volume "a little higher than normal" over the last few days. He said one person at the front desk and three others in a constituent services division are staffing the office phones from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Evenson said multiple staffers in the governor’s office are helping those four people answer calls in response to the volume. He said he did not immediately have a tally of the number of phone calls received.

"We’re certainly happy to take everybody’s phone calls and everyone’s comments and we’re trying to keep up with the demand as best we can," he said.

Former conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes, who helped lay the groundwork for Republicans to take control of state government in 2010 but has been shunned by some for opposing President Donald Trump's smash-mouth brand of politics, appealed to Walker, writing in The Atlantic that signing the bills would be a "huge mistake" that "will tarnish his reputation in ways that I’m not sure he grasps."

"They have managed to energize the progressive base, expose themselves as sore losers, and undermine crucial democratic norms," Sykes wrote. "And in return … they got extraordinarily little."

So yeah, here I am hoping once again that Scott Walker does the right thing while knowing that he absolutely will not.

ElJeffe

So it sounds like there are two routes to getting democracy back in Wisconsin.

One, win something like 65% of the vote statewide.

Two, win a majority of supreme court seats, sue the state to fix districting and/or give powers back to the governor so he can fix districting, have a normal election with normal district boundaries and get dems majority control of the legislature.

Once one of these things happen, try to amend constitution to make it so this shit can't happen anymore.

That about the size of it?

Taramoor

Veevee wrote: »

I hate just about everything about 2018, but especially hate it for possibly making Scott Walker the last savior of Democracy in Wisconsin

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/lame-duck-session-focus-turns-to-what-scott-walker-will/article_190fa291-6232-5169-9ca6-0cb077beef12.html

With the Legislature's fast-tracked lame-duck session work wrapped up, opponents of the legislation shifted their efforts to persuading Gov. Scott Walker to use his veto pen one last time before leaving office.

Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said Thursday the governor's office was reviewing the bills, but did not offer a timeline for when Walker might act on them. He could sign the bills as passed or veto part or all of them, something he has rarely done outside the budget process during his eight years in office.

Meanwhile some Wisconsin residents said their calls to Walker's office were going unanswered.

Madison resident Kathie Free, 73, said she called Walker’s office five times over the past few days during normal business hours and has yet to have someone answer. Sometimes the call indicated a busy signal and other times the phone rang about 20 to 30 times before disconnecting. At no point did the call go to a voicemail box where she could leave a message, she said.

She said she has heard from three friends that encountered the same problem.

Evenson said Walker's office had received phone calls at a volume "a little higher than normal" over the last few days. He said one person at the front desk and three others in a constituent services division are staffing the office phones from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Evenson said multiple staffers in the governor’s office are helping those four people answer calls in response to the volume. He said he did not immediately have a tally of the number of phone calls received.

"We’re certainly happy to take everybody’s phone calls and everyone’s comments and we’re trying to keep up with the demand as best we can," he said.

Former conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes, who helped lay the groundwork for Republicans to take control of state government in 2010 but has been shunned by some for opposing President Donald Trump's smash-mouth brand of politics, appealed to Walker, writing in The Atlantic that signing the bills would be a "huge mistake" that "will tarnish his reputation in ways that I’m not sure he grasps."

"They have managed to energize the progressive base, expose themselves as sore losers, and undermine crucial democratic norms," Sykes wrote. "And in return … they got extraordinarily little."

So yeah, here I am hoping once again that Scott Walker does the right thing while knowing that he absolutely will not.

If he vetoes he's basically announcing a 2020 run.

DisruptedCapitalist

2024 you mean? Why would he attempt to primary Trump?

Veevee

DisruptedCapitalist wrote: »

2024 you mean? Why would he attempt to primary Trump?

Nah, 2020 is right. 2016 showed that Walker can not win votes on a national stage as a typical republican. Vetoing this will make him persona non grata in many right wing circles, but it will make him the #1 Not-Trump Republican, which means he could attempt to primary Trump and many non-republicans around the country would gladly vote for Walker over Trump which drastically changes the calculus when trying to decide to run or not.

That said, I firmly expect him to just sign the bills and move on to wing-nut welfare

Taramoor

DisruptedCapitalist wrote: »

2024 you mean? Why would he attempt to primary Trump?

Vetoing those bills would be a rejection of the current GOP.

If he thinks that country is angry enough he could make a play for the anti-Trump people.

Alternatively it could be a play to blunt Blue anger so they can take back/hold any statewide positions next election.

This could be his “I promise to stop hitting you, baby” moment.

moniker

He might want a rematch against Evers considering how close it was. And how likely it is that Evers will be left holding the bag for all the shit Walker has been up to.

SyphonBlue

Hahahahaha Walker is not going to veto it

knitdan

I cannot believe that in the year of our lord 2018 people are pinning their hopes on the potential conscience of Scott Walker.

This whole thing was probably his idea to begin with.

LostNinja

Veevee wrote: »

Hedgethorn wrote: »

There's a useful image showing the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymander:


Basically, nearly every Democratic seat is 100% uncontestable. Only a couple Republicans even bothered to run in blue seats. The Republican seats are all contestable, but Dems would need to win more like 60-65% statewide in order to capture those seats. Somewhere around that 60% figure Dems instantly go from about 35 seats to about 85 seats in the statehouse.

And my last hope for this state is that the actions of the republicans last night make that happen. If that doesn't happen then Wisconsin is fucked until the republicans say they are finished.

Also, I am fairly certain Minnesota is so democratic because a lot of the left in Wisconsin has fled there, which is not helping the problem and why I feel so bad for wanting to get out.

Nah, it’s because so much of our population is centered around the Twin Cities with liberal pockets like Duluth outside of them.

moniker

knitdan wrote: »

I cannot believe that in the year of our lord 2018 people are pinning their hopes on the potential conscience of Scott Walker.

This whole thing was probably his idea to begin with.

I don't think hope is what's being pinned here.

kaid

ElJeffe wrote: »

I'm not familiar with the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymandering. With the US House, it was such that it was exceptionally hard for Dems to win, but once you hit a certain threshold in the generic ballot, House seats started going for dems like mad.

I imagine it's somewhat similar in Wisconsin? Nationally, the threshold for dems taking over was about D+6. What's the threshold for Wisconsin? Is the problem just that threshold is impossibly high, or is there some other issue that prevents the dems from ever taking the legislature?

I believe in this last election the dems got 54% of all votes cast for the state house seats and won 36% of the seats. So that illustrates a bit the level of gerrymandering we are talking about. Frankly given how polarized the country is I am not sure short of some externally forced redistricting the dems will ever be able to overcome that to take back the state legislature.

kaid

ElJeffe wrote: »

So it sounds like there are two routes to getting democracy back in Wisconsin.

One, win something like 65% of the vote statewide.

Two, win a majority of supreme court seats, sue the state to fix districting and/or give powers back to the governor so he can fix districting, have a normal election with normal district boundaries and get dems majority control of the legislature.

Once one of these things happen, try to amend constitution to make it so this shit can't happen anymore.

That about the size of it?

Honestly I think the most likely route is probably some redoing of the VRA with some teeth and force some external agency to do the redistricting. Until/unless that happens what would have to happen to let democrats win even a close to fair amount of assembly seats per vote is basically implausible.

kaid

moniker wrote: »

He might want a rematch against Evers considering how close it was. And how likely it is that Evers will be left holding the bag for all the shit Walker has been up to.

This is the tommy thompson plan to get republicans elected. Jack the state up so bad that if you happen to lose control now the dem holds the bag to undo 8+ years of damage in a couple years with a hostile legislature sandbagging everything and taking no blame because nobody knows who their state legislatures are anyway.

kaid

LostNinja wrote: »

Veevee wrote: »

Hedgethorn wrote: »

There's a useful image showing the extent of Wisconsin's gerrymander:


Basically, nearly every Democratic seat is 100% uncontestable. Only a couple Republicans even bothered to run in blue seats. The Republican seats are all contestable, but Dems would need to win more like 60-65% statewide in order to capture those seats. Somewhere around that 60% figure Dems instantly go from about 35 seats to about 85 seats in the statehouse.

And my last hope for this state is that the actions of the republicans last night make that happen. If that doesn't happen then Wisconsin is fucked until the republicans say they are finished.

Also, I am fairly certain Minnesota is so democratic because a lot of the left in Wisconsin has fled there, which is not helping the problem and why I feel so bad for wanting to get out.

Nah, it’s because so much of our population is centered around the Twin Cities with liberal pockets like Duluth outside of them.

Well that and places like the iron range which are super GOP leaning simply have no real population left. All the young people headed to the twin cities or duluth so they could get jobs.

Paladin

Also Minnesota has a big immigrant population

silence1186

I wonder what the age demographics are for Rs/Ds in Wisconsin. Is it possible the gerrymandered R districts are full of older people, and the grim specter of death eventually shifts the state to a more even electoral field?

E: Which is to say, their stranglehold is untenable long term if they're not actually growing the party with converts to their ideology.