Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Jan. 26
Keep pressure on Legislature for fair maps
To hear Wisconsin’s top Republican lawmakers tell it, a fair process for drawing voting districts following the 2020 census would be unconstitutional.
But the public isn’t buying it.
Nor is Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who last week stepped up pressure on legislative leaders to accept a nonpartisan way of reshaping congressional and legislative districts to reflect population changes after this year’s official count of where people live.
In his annual State of the State speech last week, Evers said he’ll use an executive order to create a nonpartisan commission to draw new districts without political influence.
Not surprisingly, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, immediately balked.
“He knows how it works and he knows that the Legislature has the responsibility, per the constitution, to draw not only the legislative maps, but the congressional maps as well,” Fitzgerald huffed.
Fitzgerald is right that the Legislature must approve new districts - and it definitely will. What Fitzgerald shouldn’t pretend is that the Wisconsin Constitution requires him to pick up a Sharpie marker and literally draw the districts himself with 131 other state lawmakers.
That’s not how it worked last time around, when Fitzgerald was in charge.
Back then, following the 2010 census, Fitzgerald oversaw the redistricting process with his brother, then-Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald. (Curiously, congressional district lines in 2011 were drawn through the middle of Dodge County, making it easier for Scott and Jeff Fitzgerald to potentially run for Congress in adjacent seats some day. Scott Fitzgerald is now seeking the 5th Congressional District seat. Jeff Fitzgerald left the Assembly after a failed bid for U.S. Senate.)
Scott Fitzgerald and other Republican leaders spent millions of taxpayer dollars on high-priced lawyers in 2011 to draw voting districts in politically advantageous ways and, in subsequent years, to defend those gerrymandered maps in court. The goal wasn’t fair maps. It was to keep Fitzgerald and his partisan pals in power.
This time around, following the 2020 census, redistricting must be different. Instead of gouging taxpayers for millions more in legal fees to draw and defend rigged maps, Wisconsin’s leaders should agree to a neutral process similar to Iowa’s.
Evers, most Democrats and an increasing number of Republicans have endorsed the Iowa model for fair maps in Wisconsin. So have two-thirds of Wisconsin’s counties, and nearly three-quarters of statewide respondents in a Marquette Law School poll.
Iowa assigns a neutral state agency to draw its maps without consideration for politics. Instead, Iowa’s districts must be drawn as compact as possible and follow established community boundaries - without protecting the incumbents of either party.
We don’t trust the Democrats or the Republicans to draw fair maps. Democrats in states such as Illinois cling to gerrymandering just as Republicans in Wisconsin do.
Voters of all stripes deserve better. And while Evers can’t unilaterally impose a nonpartisan process on the Legislature, his increasing pressure on Fitzgerald and Co. to accept neutral maps is welcome and justified.
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The Capital Times, Madison, Jan. 22
Ron Johnson and Mitch McConnell are corrupting impeachment trial
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s declared, as she was preparing to send the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate: “Every senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the president or the Constitution.”
Unfortunately, there is good reason to believe that most members of the Republican majority in the chamber will err on the side of partisanship rather than the rule of law. That is shameful, if perhaps not remarkable at a point when Donald Trump has made the Republican Party his partisan plaything.
But some senators are more shameful than others. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, has been identified by key witnesses as having been personally engaged in an “irregular” pattern of communications as Trump and his henchmen sought to warp U.S. policy for political purposes. He is a witness to the very scandal that sparked the impeachment inquiry - so much so that a Washington Post headline announced: “Sen. Johnson, ally of Trump and Ukraine, surfaces in crucial episodes in the saga.” The New York Times headline on an article about Johnson read: “‘He’s in Deeper Water Than Most’: GOP Senator at Center of Impeachment Inquiry.”
Johnson, who has attacked those who revealed Trump’s wrongdoing, and the senator’s connection to it, cannot possibly serve as an impartial juror for Trump’s impeachment trial. In any normal circumstance, you would expect the leader of Senate Republicans to counsel Johnson to recuse himself.
But that won’t happen because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a crooked senator who admits to coordinating with an impeached president and his cabal of defenders to undermine the work of the Senate. He has acknowledged his engagement in wrongdoing of the highest order: conniving to upend the system of checks and balances he has sworn to maintain.
This is not a close call. Americans of every partisanship, and every ideological bent (aside, perhaps, from the monarchists), should recognize that McConnell’s words were not just unacceptable but disqualifying.
Or, as Rep. Val Demings, D-Florida, explained in December, “Senator McConnell has promised to sabotage the impeachment trial and he must recuse himself.”
Demings, a member of the key House panels with regard to impeachment - the Intelligence and Judiciary panels - has now been named as one of seven House managers for the impeachment trial. To her credit, she refuses to back off on recusal. Asked last week about whether she still believes McConnell must step aside, the Florida representative said, “I certainly do.”
What is remarkable about this impeachment process as it moves to the Senate is the open corruption of senators such as Johnson and McConnell.
The majority leader announced his choice long before the trial began, when he signaled that he will conspire with the White House to avert accountability. McConnell told Fox News prior to the House’s December approval of two articles of impeachment against Trump, “We have no choice but to take it up, but we’ll be working through this process, hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with White House counsel’s office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate.”
That was a stunning statement, even by the standards of a Senate that McConnell’s disregard for ethical standards has turned into a political punch line. It drew rebukes from Democrats and from Republicans such as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who said she was “disturbed” by the majority leader’s announcement of a coordination scheme. “To me,” Murkowski said in December, “it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so when I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process.”
“Confused” is a euphemism.
The proper phrase is “further corrupted the process.”
McConnell has literally announced that “I’m not an impartial juror.”
The necessary response to McConnell’s pronouncements came from Demings, who warned in December, “No court in the country would allow a member of the jury to also serve as the accused’s defense attorney. The moment Senator McConnell takes the oath of impartiality required by the Constitution, he will be in violation of that oath.”
Demings, a former police chief, was on point. The Constitution identifies the Senate as the chamber with the “sole Power to try all Impeachments” and stipulates that “when sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.” The oath is clear in its language and intent:
“I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of (Donald Trump), I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.”
When McConnell and Johnson took that oath last week, they accepted what Demings correctly described as “a tremendous responsibility.” They cannot fulfill that responsibility.
When wholly amoral senators openly abuse their positions and manipulate the procedures and processes of the chamber, as their colleagues undertake one of their most solemn duties, it would be even more wholly amoral for impeachment managers, senators, and the American people to look away. The call for Ron Johnson and Mitch McConnell to recuse themselves must be amplified and extended. It should become a central theme in the permanent record of this awful moment in American history when sworn oaths are openly disregarded by the unscrupulous servants of an imperial president.
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The Journal Times of Racine, Jan. 22
Sign-stealing Astros give baseball a black eye
They had a lot of talent, but they chose to cheat anyway.
More is the shame for the 2017 Houston Astros. Their hometown, along with many along the Gulf Coast, had been ravaged by Hurricane Harvey, and the Astros’ sparkling season provided comfort and fresh hope for thousands of fans that year.
But those memories were laid low last week when Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred suspended Astros manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for a sign-stealing scandal that paired the high-tech use of a center field camera feed to a tunnel off the dugout and the low-tech banging of a trash can to signal Astros hitters whether they were facing a fastball or an off-speed pitch.
It’s a lot easier to hit the ball when you know what’s coming.
After the suspensions, Astros owner Jim Crane promptly, and correctly, fired Hinch and Luhnow. MLB is still considering the punishment for current Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora - the Astros’ bench coach in 2017 - who, according to Manfred, set up the sign-stealing cheating system. Cora is under investigation for sign-stealing at Boston, which - lo, and behold - won the 2018 World Series. New York Mets manager Carlos Beltran, the only player named in the commissioner’s report, resigned without ever having taken the field as the Mets’ on-field boss.
It’s a disgrace and another black eye for baseball. Some praised Manfred for the suspensions; he added to the penalties by ordering a $5 million fine for the Astros and the forfeiture of their next two first- and second-round draft picks.
But he spared the baseball players themselves from any punishment, and that sends the wrong signal. The plain fact is that Astros players in the dugout knew it was wrong and against the rules of baseball. Sign-stealing has long been a part of the game when there is a runner at second base, but all players knew it was wrong to use cameras and electronic signals to gain an advantage. Some Astros used the system to gain an advantage at the plate - but all of them knew it was going on and didn’t report it.
The Astros used that system to remarkable effectiveness - shelling Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw for six runs in Game 5 of the Series at Minute Maid Park, and in Game 3 when they whacked four runs off Yu Darvish to take the Series lead.
The Astros players are not blameless. They should face discipline as well.
Manfred and Major League Baseball need to fight fire with fire. That means putting technology to work to keep the game square. There are communications systems - such as those used in the National Football League between quarterbacks and offensive coaches - to call plays and share strategy. Pitchers and catchers should be armed with that kind of communication to forestall the cheaters that plague the game. Manfred should make that happen.
And Houston? Major League Baseball should strip the Astros of the World Series title for their cheating ways. The banners in Minute Maid Park should be taken down. And all those Astros with World Series rings should take them off - they’re just junk jewelry and they’ll leave a green stain on your ring finger.
Just like the permanent green stain they left on baseball.
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