Sunday, August 20, 2023

Wisconsin gerrymandering spotlight on Assembly District 71: Packing Stevens Point

 
What's wrong with this picture?
 
GOP packing of Stevens Point.
 
Map:  Wikipedia

Check out the Stevens Point deta



The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive. [emphasis added]
The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'packing' as 
the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.

Diluting the Democratic vote in Steven Point 

By packing the northern limits of the City of Stevens Point, GOP gerrymanderers purposefully ignore the area's community of interest.

Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point) has represented the district since 2013.  In November 2022, she defeated her Republican challenger by 14 percentage points.


Related reading:

PBS Wisconsin, 11/4/2021
For decades, Portage County was part of the 7th Congressional District, which spans Wisconsin’s Northwoods. In 2011, Republicans in control of the state’s redistricting process decided to put it in the 3rd Congressional District, changing its shape by having a branch reach out and up from its trunk along the Mississippi River and connect to the center of the state. 
The reason was political. Anchored by the communities of Stevens Point and Plover, which together comprise over half of its population, Portage County has voted for Democrats up and down the ticket for decades. In 2011, District 7 Congressional was home to freshman incumbent Rep. Sean Duffy, a Republican, who had flipped an open seat vacated upon the retirement of a Democrat who had previously held it for over 40 years. State Republicans then moved Portage County into the District 3 seat, held by Democratic Rep. Ron Kind. The switch shifted the county’s voters, with its majority of Democrats, into Kind’s district and away from Duffy’s.  [emphasis added]

We have this white male menagerie to thank for the state's current maps..

Meet the defenders of fair elections.



Other posts in the series:

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