A newly bipartisan group of Wisconsin legislators is pushing a bill to get politicians out of the business of drawing the state's electoral maps. It's the first such concerted move in a state capital since the Supreme Court last month gave a constitutional green light to unlimited partisan gerrymandering.
The effort still faces long odds in Madison, where Republicans have a solid hold on the Legislature thanks to their aggressive drawing of boundaries after the last census.
Their maps allowed the GOP to maintain a lopsided 63-36 majority in the state House in last year's election, and a 19-14 edge in the state Senate, even though Democrats won 53 percent of the cumulative legislative vote statewide.
A federal lawsuit — in which Democrats challenged those maps as unconstitutionally limiting their free speech and equal protection rights — was effectively killed by the Supreme Court's ruling in June that federal courts have no power to police political power plays in districting.
The decision leaves that power to voter referenda, state legislatures such as Wisconsin's or state courts like the one now considering a challenge to North Carolina's map under the state constitution.
Before that decision, a pair of senior Democrats in Wisconsin had introduced a measure that would have turned the coming round of state legislative cartography, after next year's census, over to civil servants under the oversight of a commission without any partisan majority. At a news conference Tuesday, they announced the support of three GOP assemblymen who represent competitive districts.
"We can no longer count on anyone else to do it for us. If we want fair and competitive elections, we must all do the work," state Sen. Dave Hansen said. "We now have what we truly can call a bipartisan bill. The time is right. The time is now."
But the GOP Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, vowed to oppose any effort to hand over legislative mapmaking to "an unelected, unaccountable board of bureaucrats appointed by politicians."
The current boundaries, which Scott Walker approved as a new GOP governor eight years ago, packed Democratic voters into a relatively few state legislative districts in Milwaukee and Madison in order to minimize their influence across the suburbs and rural areas.
The congressional map was similarly drawn, and so the GOP has regularly won in five of the eight districts — including last fall, when the party got just 45 percent of the statewide vote for House candidates.
Walker is now in charge of a group coordinating the Republican efforts to maximize their congressional and state legislative power in maps drawn for the next decade.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."