Two-thirds of the counties in Wisconsin — home to more than 70 percent of its population — have gone on record in favor of de-politicizing the state's legislative mapmaking.
A coalition of good-government groups has been leading the effort to gain support among county governments to end partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin. They are advocating for legislation that has some bipartisan support in Madison but is still seen as a long shot. It would take redistricting responsibility out of the hands of the Legislature in 2021 and give it to state bureaucrats, who would be barred from considering partisan voting patterns in drawing boundaries.
Wisconsin is the first state to consider such legislation since the Supreme Court this summer said federal courts had no role in settling partisan gerrymandering claims.
The ruling effectively killed a federal lawsuit in which Wisconsin Democrats said their free speech and equal protection rights were being infringed by maps drawn by Republicans at the start of the decade. While Democrats won a majority of votes sitewide in last year's midterm, five of the eight congressional seats were won by Republicans and they also secured a lopsided majority in the state House and a five-vote edge in the state Senate.
"The fact that two thirds of Wisconsin's 72 counties, many of them 'red,' are now on record in support of ending partisan gerrymandering, demonstrates the deep grassroots support across the state for fair voting maps and against rigged elections," Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, told the Milwaukee Independent.
A recent Marquette University Law School poll found 72 percent support for taking redistricting responsibilities away from elected Republicans and Democrats. The bill would emulate the system of neighboring Iowa, which in 1980 became the first state to end partisan gerrymandering.
The Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, which has more than a dozen participating groups, is planning a meeting Nov. 9 where organizers can develop strategies for lobbing the Legislature.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.