Governor Evers has until next Tuesday to decide whether to veto his own maps.
He has said he will sign them into law, but many fellow Democrats see the legislators
move to pass Evers' maps as a trick. Among them, Democratic State Senator Mark Spitzer
and Senator, thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
So are you among those who wanted the governor to veto his own maps and hold out for the Supreme
Court's choice?
I trust Governor Evers to make this decision and to consult with his lawyers and figure
out what the best path to fair maps is.
Obviously, his map is one of four fair maps that are pending before the state Supreme
Court. I do trust the state Supreme Court to make the decision on what the best map is,
whether that's one of these four or whether to make any tweaks or anything to any of those
four maps.
I also trust Governor Evers to decide if signing this map is the best path to get fair maps
that we can all have going forward.
There was a question with what actually came before the State Assembly and the State Senate
to vote on, that although it was a clean version of the governor's map, we had a question
about whether the bill itself was a clean bill because it doesn't cause the map to take
effect until this fall's election. And right now, we have a map that is unconstitutional
that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has said can't be used for any future elections, and
there's a recall effort against Speaker Robin Voss. There's a special election that's needed
in the 4th Senate district, and so there's some unanswered questions if this bill assigned
into law about what map those elections are held on and what map exists between now and
November. Those questions could be answered by going back to the state Supreme Court and
trying to get clarity, but that's something I think Governor Evers needs to look at is
he's making this decision. And then we also just need to make sure that there's not any
Republican tricks that would somehow make it easier for them to choose what court to
appeal to and maybe get a conservative federal court to intervene here and stop us from having
fair maps. And so those are all the things that are on my mind and that I hope we're
on Governor Evers' mind as he makes this decision.
So on those two points, does it matter to you at all that the Legislative Reference Bureau
reports that it added the language to the bill saying the maps would first take effect
for the November 2024 election?
I think there's a question of intent and there's a question of effect. So I take the Legislative
Reference Bureau and its word that they added that language and weren't directed to add
it for any political purpose, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a political outcome.
And I think it still leaves open the question of what maps say the boss recall should be
held on and any future special elections. And you know, LRB said that this is sort of the
normal procedure, but we're not in normal circumstances. We normally aren't doing a redistricting
process mid decade because the State Supreme Court has found the existing map to be unconstitutional.
So I think there's still some questions there. And one of the really unfortunate things and
one of the things that cemented my no vote was that even though Republicans announced
the week before their intention to vote on this map, they didn't actually put the amendment
out to the public or to legislators in advance. They didn't go through the normal committee
process. I'm the top Democrat on the committee that this underlying bill was in and normally
we would vote in committee and maybe adopt the amendment with the maps in committee.
But instead, the bill was pulled out of committee without a vote at all. And we didn't get the
amendment that put the governor's maps into place until we were actually on the Senate
floor. That could have been put out all weekend for the public to look at and for people to
weigh in, but no public hearing was held. And this was really something that was decided
in closed Republican caucus and brought forward at the last minute. And my question is why?
If this is what you were going to do, why not just put it out for everybody to see?
And then we could have raised these questions in advance of the vote.
As to the question of whether or not the passage of the governor's maps opens the door to
federal lawsuits say, so many experts say that that is just not at all likely.
I have certainly heard folks saying that's not likely and I hope it's not likely. I hope
that if this is the map that we can all run on it and not risk further lawsuits. But I
also know that there are very credible lawyers like Mark Elias who has won numerous cases
on election related issues around the country who've raised concerns here. I have not had
a chance to talk to him directly. I am not a lawyer. And that's something where I wanted
to take the cautious approach and say, you know what, this is moving really quickly.
We don't have answers to these questions. I'm going to vote no, but the governor has plenty
of lawyers around him that he's talking to. And I trust that if he decides this is the
right thing to do, he'll either sign or veto this accordingly.
Going all the way back to the beginning and really with only about a half a minute left,
how surprised were you that the Republican legislature took up and passed the Evers maps?
I was surprised. Republican legislators just a couple weeks ago were talking about how
terrible these maps were. But I think they ultimately decided that they wanted to control
the process here and control their own destiny. And that's another reason I voted no. I don't
think politicians should be cherry picking maps. I think the people of Wisconsin should
be picking their politicians, their elected officials. And so I just did not want to be
in a position of deciding what map was best for political reasons. Leave that to the governor,
leave that to the court. Senator Spritzer, thanks very much.
Thank you for having me.
You are so good. Thank you.
Thank you. We really appreciate it. We got a lot in. Thank you.
You have a good one. You too.