The Importance of Winning Elections

On Monday, February 19th, 2024, Democratic Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers signed into law new state legislative maps that effectively end one of the worst gerrymanders in the country.

The Republican party took control of the Wisconsin state house and legislature in 2010 and promptly gerrymandered state legislative districts to give their party a huge advantage. In a state so evenly divided that only twice since 2000 has the presidential race been decided by more than one point, the Republicans hold nearly 2/3 of the seats in the state Senate and Assembly. The new maps should provide a much more balanced split in both chambers, more accurately reflecting the general electorate.

This breakthrough only happened because of two people and two elections. Governor Evers defeated Republican Scott Walker in 2018, and in April 2023, Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a whopping 11 points. While the race was non-partisan, Protasiewicz’s victory flipped the court’s ideological makeup from 4-3 conservative to 4-3 liberal. The court then declared the current gerrymandered maps unconstitutional, forcing new maps to be drawn, and Governor Evers declared that he wanted fair maps.

This flip demonstrates that, to defeat gerrymandering, whether by instituting ranked choice voting and/or non-partisan primaries or simply drawing fair districts, you must elect people dedicated to doing so to the positions that can make it happen.

It is also a cautionary tale – this result could easily be reversed depending on the results of a future election. Wisconsin can and should go further by instituting ranked choice (or other preferential) voting, non-partisan primaries, and handing the job of drawing districts to a non-partisan commission to build a firewall against future reversal.