Hello, 2024!
Welcome back to The Sortwell Scoop, 2024 edition! Wow, it feels weird to say that. I hope everybody had a safe and joyful Christmas and New Year. This year is going to be busy, but I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. Today, I’m back in the Capitol, preparing for the next few weeks, which are already full of committees and meetings. As always, I’ll do my best to keep you informed in a timely fashion regarding what is taking place within the Capitol or anything that may affect you as a resident of Wisconsin.
An Update on the Legislative Maps
Within the past couple weeks, there has been an update regarding the current legislative maps. The current maps were redrawn a few years ago after the 2020 census and are now being declared illegal by the new leftist majority in the State Supreme Court. The reason they are claiming for their decision? Municipal island contiguity. Let me explain what that is.
Sometimes municipalities will annex parts of towns that do not adjoin the rest of the city for various reasons, such as utilities or new business parks. You see that in eastern De Pere, where the city annexed parts of Ledgeview and Rockland.
Now my current district contains the entire city of De Pere, but I do not have those towns in order to balance population (need to have roughly 59,000 in an Assembly district). This has created an “island.”
Now for 50+ years, both state and federal courts have determined that so long as a map simply includes the rest of the municipality, the islands are still considered contiguous, meeting that legal standard. And less than 18 months ago, the same Leftists on the court actually adopted Evers’ legislative district map as Constitutional, though it contained many of these same islands, before the feds threw that map out for racial issues in Milwaukee.
But they have no actual principles and are willing to say that the position they had 18 months ago is now unconstitutional because it helps Democrats now to say so. Their only goal is to help Democrats, which is why they flip-flopped on the doctrine of municipal islands.
If this court case continues to move forward, I will keep you updated as best as possible.
In-District Events
Tuesday, January 30th, will be the Mishicot Lions Chili Dinner at Mishicot High School from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
