Ozaukee County Board rejects referendum on nonpartisan redistricting

PORT WASHINGTON – Fifty Wisconsin counties have passed resolutions calling on the state to adopt nonpartisan procedures for redrawing legislative and congressional districts after the 2020 census, to address what has been called among the most gerrymandered maps in the nation.

The Ozaukee County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday chose not to become the 51st, after its lawyer suggested it would be outside the board's authority.

Before the vote, 21 people asked the board to put the question to voters in a referendum this spring, and no one in the overflow crowd spoke in opposition.

They said the deep partisan divide in the Legislature and Congress is hurting the country, and that it will be perpetuated by the gerrymandered districts in Wisconsin, which have been called among the most unfair in the country.

"This is a pivotal opportunity for this board to demonstrate your commitment to your nonpartisan positions," said Kerry Quimi of Mequon.

They stressed that the board itself wouldn't have to take a position but would only be providing its constituents an outlet to show where they stand on drawing new lines a different way. None of the other counties have been sued, some noted, and the Ozaukee board has passed resolutions on clearly noncounty issues in the past.

It would cost an estimated $1,000 to add the question to the April ballot, but the cost was never really an issue. In a nine-page memo to the board last month, Corporation Counsel Rhonda Gorden wrote that she could find no authority for it to even debate a resolution on something it can't control, like redistricting.

Gorden recommended the board decline to take action and suggested the board consider rule changes to prevent such resolutions about noncounty issues from being introduced in the future.

District 25 Supervisor Alice Read, a lawyer, said she believed Gorden's memo reached an incorrect conclusion. She circulated a second legal opinion from an outside lawyer on Wednesday and said it relied on better research and reasoning and supported the board's ability to pass the resolution.

The 16-10 vote against the resolution broke roughly on a north-south divide, with all 10 yes votes coming from supervisors in Cedarburg, Thiensville and Mequon.

District 2 Supervisor Donald Dohrwardt of Fredonia said his constituents have told him, "Elections have consequences, and they're happy with them."

He contended that a lot of Republicans in the Legislature were elected from districts Democrats had drawn.

In fact, Wisconsin redistricting disputes have typically led to maps being drawn by federal courts. States are required to redraw their election boundaries after each census, and the courts stepped in to resolve the maps in Wisconsin after the censuses in 1980, 1990 and 2000.

But in 2011, after the 2010 census and after Republicans won control of both chambers in the Legislature and the governor's office, the GOP was able to create maps favorable to their party.

Legal disputes over whether Wisconsin's partisan redistricting was unconstitutional went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before the high court, in a divided ruling in a separate case, said the courts could not intervene in such cases. The ruling left Wisconsin's maps intact.

After the next census, Wisconsin will likely again have divided government, with Democrat Tony Evers in the governor's mansion and Republicans in control of the Legislature.

The Republican Legislature blocked a move by Evers last year to put election maps in the hands of a nonpartisan state agency.

District 11 Supervisor Marty Wolf of Cedarburg expressed wariness of all nonpartisan, nonelected bodies, like the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

"They're in contempt because they won't follow the law," he said. An Ozaukee County judge found the WEC in contempt Monday for not immediately following his order to purge more than 200,000 names from the state's voters roll. A state appeals court panel the next day temporarily blocked the state from removing the names and blocked the contempt finding.

Former supervisor Karl Hertz urged a yes vote. "This is an effort to help citizens feel that each vote counts, not an anti-incumbent initiative," he said.

Sachin Chheda, chairman of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, and director of the Fair Elections Project, noted that most of the counties that passed similar resolutions supported President Donald Trump.

He said allowing the referendum is the more nonpartisan step. By not letting Ozaukee County residents speak on the issue, Chheda said, the board looks more partisan.

"Is your loyalty to a legislator or to us?" asked Beth Bauer of Mequon.

After Wednesday's vote, Chheda said grassroots efforts like the one in Ozaukee County have forced Republican leadership to oppose the momentum.

"I don't think we lost that debate in the room. I think it was predetermined to kill this," he said.

Since 2014, voters in eight counties have approved similar referendums, and seven more have scheduled the nonbinding votes this year, as well as about seven municipalities. An effort to get the question on the ballot in Racine County died in committee. One passed in Manitowoc County but was vetoed by the county executive. Portage County votes on one next week.

RELATED: Gerrymandering takeaways: What the Supreme Court's redistricting decision means for Wisconsin

Contact Bruce Vielmetti at (414) 224-2187 or bvielmetti@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ProofHearsay.