{"id":6290,"date":"2014-02-11T13:47:16","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T19:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=6290"},"modified":"2014-02-11T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T19:47:16","slug":"uw-madison-political-scientists-testify-on-legislative-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=6290","title":{"rendered":"UW-Madison Political Scientists Testify on Legislative Redistricting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/winter-capitol.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1129 alignleft\" alt=\"winter capitol\" src=\"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/winter-capitol-300x225.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/winter-capitol-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/winter-capitol-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/winter-capitol.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a>Retiring senators <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.wisconsin.gov\/Pages\/leg-info.aspx?d=15&amp;h=S\">Tim Cullen<\/a> (D-Janesville) and <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.wisconsin.gov\/Pages\/leg-info.aspx?d=17&amp;h=S\">Dale Schultz<\/a> (R-Richland Center) held a <a href=\"http:\/\/wispolitics.com\/1006\/140203CullenSchultz.pdf\">public hearing<\/a> on legislative redistricting yesterday, filling a hearing room where more than 75 people testified or registered in support of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.legis.wisconsin.gov\/2013\/proposals\/ab185\">Assembly Bill 185<\/a>. The bill would put legislative redistricting in the hands of non-partisan experts but still allow legislative oversight.<\/p>\n<p>Political science professors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polisci.wisc.edu\/people\/person.aspx?id=1063\">Ken Mayer<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polisci.wisc.edu\/people\/person.aspx?id=1042\">David Canon<\/a> spoke at the hearing, testifying that the current process is costly and overtly political. Instead, the two experts favor a model used by neighboring Iowa. The Iowa system requires district boundaries to be drawn logically, following municipality borders where possible.<\/p>\n<p>In Wisconsin, the political party in power is responsible for redrawing legislative districts every ten years, resulting in districts that help preserve that party&#8217;s majority.<\/p>\n<p>Canon, referring to the most recent maps drawn in 2012, said that practice eliminates competitive legislative races:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe maps, in fact, were carefully drawn to maximize the advantage for the Republican Party. This is a bipartisan issue, because if Democrats were in control they would have done the same thing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mayer said current practice is \u201cdivisive, polarizing, expensive, litigious and undermines basic notions of representation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PROFS has been working on the issue of legislative redistricting for some time and arranged a meeting between UW-Madison faculty and Senators Cullen and Schultz last year. PROFS <a href=\"https:\/\/lobbying.wi.gov\/What\/BillInformation\/2013REG\/Information\/10042\">is registered<\/a> in favor AB 185 and its companion <a href=\"http:\/\/docs.legis.wisconsin.gov\/2013\/proposals\/sb163\">SB 163<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retiring senators Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) and Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) held a public hearing on legislative redistricting yesterday, filling a hearing room where more than 75 people testified or registered in support of\u00a0Assembly Bill 185. The bill would put legislative&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=6290\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[8,49],"class_list":["post-6290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-the-state","tag-legislation","tag-redistricting","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6290"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6303,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions\/6303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}