Thursday, October 2, 2014

Re-defining voter ID, expanding the discussion

Now that the US Supreme Court will review the Wisconsin voter ID law, let's talk about what it really achieves:

Enhanced statewide gerrymandering - - by further diluting the impact of Democratic, campus and big-city voting.

It's a complement to the  secrecy-spawned gerrymandering of legislative districts' map lines, completed by the GOP-controlled Legislature and Governor Walker in 2012, which aimed to marginalize and weaken the impact of Democratic, campus and big-city voters.

The voter ID mandate, along with new GOP-authored restrictions on absentee voting, would seal the deal statewide for Republicans statewide by further diminishing opposition turnout.

Call it gerrymandering 2.0. The version with a new operating system and longer-lasting juice.

Gerrymandering 2.0, along with version 1.0 - - the legislative mapping advantages - - are the Wisconsin legal and structural products of a pivotal, secret state-takeover strategy meeting held in Milwaukee and attended by Scott Walker and conservative operatives in 2007 - - a meeting ignored by state media even though its consequences are defining Walker-era policies, politics, campaigns and the finances of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin families.

The meeting laid the foundation for the 2010 gubernatorial campaign which Walker won, and could help define the GOP field in the 2016 Presidential primaries, and beyond, if Walker survives the November election.

I'd call the meeting historic: Props to Salon.com for setting the table, but traditional Wisconsin media need to flesh out the story and explain its implications for customers and voters.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Review.

We will win.

See
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/election-law/article/?article=12947

Anonymous said...

There is actually at least one DMV office that won't be open before the election, another only on election day, another one day next week for a few hours, and that's it…. Even though they made it easier to get an id, it still takes time for them to issue it.