Here & Now

Full interview: Noon Wednesday with guest Malia Jones

Marisa Wojcik:

Welcome to “Noon Wednesday,” I’m Marisa Wojcik, a multimedia journalist for “Here & Now,” on Wisconsin Public Television. Today we’re talking about partisan gerrymandering. Wisconsin is at the center of a court case, Gill v. Whitford, and it’s currently before the United States Supreme Court. So, joining me here today is, we’re going to talk about Wisconsin’s legislative districts. And we’re talking to Malia Jones, she’s the Assistant Scientist at the UW Applied Population Lab. And Malia, thanks so much for being here.

Malia Jones:

Thanks for having me on.

Marisa Wojcik:

Okay, so Gill v. Whitford, what is it deciding?

Malia Jones:

So Gill v. Whitford is considering whether or not the most recent version of the state assembly districts in the State of Wisconsin are a partisan gerrymander. And it’s actually an appeal of a lower court decision, a three court federal, a three judge federal court already decided that this map is a partisan gerrymander and it was appealed and Supreme Court had heard the case in October and we’re expecting a decision either upholding the lower court’s decision. That would be a decision that our maps are a partisan gerrymander, and are unconstitutional. Or striking down that lower court decision.

Marisa Wojcik:

So how often are Wisconsin’s legislative districts redrawn in general?

Malia Jones:

So all states redraw their legislative districts at both the state and the federal level every 10 years. That happens right after the decennial census, which happens on the decade. So the last time they were redrawn was right after the 2010 Census. After those census numbers are released, we get new population estimates for all the different places in the country and then the districts are redrawn based on those population estimates.

Marisa Wojcik:

And the information provided from the census data is enough to give a good picture of, who these people are and maybe how they’ve voting?

Malia Jones:

So the census doesn’t collect any information about how people vote. What is gives is the count of people, and they’re located in very small shapes called census blocks. Those census blocks are used to construct larger shapes such as state assembly districts. The intent is actually just to equalize the number of people in each district and so the census releases information about the number of people and their age, race, and sex, and that is it. Historically that has been it when it comes to the estimates released for districting purposes.

Marisa Wojcik:

And so historically, maps have drawn a certain way up until 2011, is that right?

Malia Jones:

So in Wisconsin, the process varies from state to state. How they actually get drawn. And historically, in recent history what has happened is that local government bodies such as towns, municipalities, set the ward boundaries. And we call voting precincts wards, in the State of Wisconsin. And in the past, the local municipalities set those ward boundaries and then passed them up to the state legislature to use as sort of the basic building blocks of the redistricting process, to create the state assembly districts. The state senate districts are actually groups of three state assembly districts. So they’re nested within one another. In the most recent districting process, the state legislature took a different approach. Instead of getting the input from the local municipalities about what the ward boundaries should look like, they drew ward boundaries themselves and then passed them down to the municipalities to use.

Marisa Wojcik:

And that’s pretty different.

Malia Jones:

It’s pretty unusual, it’s pretty different from how it was done in the past.

Marisa Wojcik:

Do we know much more about that process and how they went about selecting those boundary lines?

Malia Jones:

Well, the wards are made up of census blocks, that’s the smallest unit that we get any information from the census. So they’re not individual people or houses, but census blocks are pretty small, especially in urban areas. They’re really just a few hundred people. They had to use census blocks as the most basic building unit. Building block of those wards and then build up from there. In terms of how they made decisions about those boundary lines, we don’t know very much about that. That was actually part of the court case. As this case went up through the court system. Is how the process unfolded.

Marisa Wojcik:

Okay, so if we are looking at a district that is being drawn, what are we ideally looking for to determine if it’s equal and fair?

Malia Jones:

So the main goal of the redistricting process as I said, is to equalize the population across the state assembly district. So we have 99 state assembly districts in Wisconsin. They’re supposed to have more or less, equal population. You’ll have a rural district that is larger geographically but it has the same total population as the much more densely population urban district. So that’s the main sort of aim of the redistricting process. In addition, when the state legislature draws those district boundaries they have to follow certain rules that are laid out by the federal government and in the state constitution. Those rules, in addition to being equal population, are that they have to be relatively compact. So not really spread out and across, you know reaching, with arms all across landscape. They have to be contiguous, which means their parts have to touch each other. There are exceptions to that rule, especially when there are islands that are adjacent to, to a peninsula or something like that. And they also should be, they should maintain what’s called communities of interest. Communities of interest are generally defined as a block of voters who have the same legislative interest. It’s sort of a loose definition but it’s often interpreted to mean a city or a town, or a group of voters who live in the same place and would care about the same sorts of issues. And then finally the last rule is, I’m trying to think through them. The federal government also specifies that a race or ethnic minority should not be cut out of meaningful representation.

Marisa Wojcik:

What are the ways in which that could not be happening? How are districts sometimes not fitting those guidelines?

Malia Jones:

Yeah, so classic gerrymandering, the kind of you know it when you see it gerrymandering. What you end up seeing is really bizarre shapes. And you see these districts that have like, you know, the famous historical example that the name gerrymandering comes from is, was said to look like a mythical settlement. It had this like really weird kind of arc shape to it. So it was not compact. In other cases you can see a cumulative interest being divided up over several districts so that they can’t ever get a majority in any one of them. And then represent, elect a representative. Sometimes we see people being crammed into a small number of districts. Therefore they do get to elect a representative but in just a very few districts. And those are sort of the processes that lead to those. Or these processes known as cracking and packing.

Marisa Wojcik:

Cracking and packing. We see that in Milwaukee area, is that right?

Malia Jones:

We can find evidence and the lower court did find that we see cracking and packing happening in the Wisconsin assembly districts. Packing is, so I said, packing is this process where a large number of voters are concentrated into a small number of districts. And so, it minimizes their representation in the whole assembly. Right, so they do win seats in a few districts, but only a few. So that’s packing. And then cracking, and packing I think it’s a little hard to argue that there was intentional packing in the Wisconsin assembly district maps because of just the general patterns of segregation that we see in this city. Cracking is, I think the evidence is a little more straightforward. You can look at the assembly districts that are in the Milwaukee suburbs and see that the districts are drawn in such a way as to divide up Democratic votes.

Marisa Wojcik:

And therefore kind of diluting the power of those communities that share interest.

Malia Jones:

Right, right, so this violates the communities of interest rule. If there is cracking what you see is in Milwaukee County. Milwaukee County is very densely populated. It’s majority democratic voters as well. And so, what we see in the current map, the suburban districts of Milwaukee County, so the western half of Milwaukee County and then stretching out into the neighboring counties. Each of those districts has a big chunk of very conservative voters from the suburbs outside of Milwaukee County and then a little chunk of Democratic voters from inside the county. There’s sort of a ring of those kinds of districts all the way around Milwaukee. That I think is, you can definitely find evidence that there is cracking in that area. And, yeah that relates back to this communities of interest rule. It also relates to, the State Constitution of Wisconsin says that whenever possible, districts should be drawn in such a way as to respect municipality or town, or a county, or other administrative boundaries. This ring of districts all cross the Milwaukee County boundary.

Marisa Wojcik:

Okay, and so is it difficult more on the packing side, to on a district level strike the balance between creating these communities of interest while not. How do you distinguish between creating a community of interest and packing?

Malia Jones:

Yeah, I think it’s really tricky. I mean I think these concepts in general are really tricky and that’s why this case went all the way to the Supreme Court, right. In fact the case is really historic because the Supreme Court has in the past declined to hear cases like this. Because it’s very hard to measure political gerrymandering. It’s really hard to tease out, well when is this just the kind of settlement pattern, the political geography of a state? And when is it more intentional and purposeful, drawing districts in order to achieve a political end. With respect to packing, it’s especially challenging in Milwaukee because it is so segregated. And partisanship is closely associated with social class. And so we’ve got, we’ve had this very segregated city. Just as sort of a little sideline, when I talk about segregation. I think a lot of people think about segregation as an action that happens to some people. But when social scientists talk about it, it’s describing a pattern across the whole landscape. So we have a city where there’s a very densely populated downtown core that is largely African American. Largely lower class, social and economic class. And very heavily Democratic voting. And then outside of downtown Milwaukee and into the suburban counties that neighbor Milwaukee we have a very densely also very segregated area that’s more affluent, much more white, much more conservative. And so, and you know you have to draw districts on this landscape somehow. And so you’re going to end up with districts that are very concentrated on both sides. You’re always going to see those downtown districts that are very heavily Democratic. And you’re probably always going to see suburban districts that are very heavily Republican leaning.

Marisa Wojcik:

The case being heard before the Supreme Court has to do with partisan gerrymandering, which is different and unique, right?

Malia Jones:

It is different, yeah, so the court has heard many cases historically on racial gerrymandering. Which is where a group of voters is disenfranchised from representation based on their race. And so what we’ve seen historically is the court has ruled racial gerrymandering cases where a group of African American, an African American neighborhood has been sort of split across a lot of districts. And so they never achieve representation. In this case it’s different, ’cause we’re not talking about race explicitly. We’re talking about political gerrymandering. Or partisan gerrymandering. So the state legislature controls the process of drawing those maps. When the Republican dominated state legislature drew them in 2011, this case argues that they drew them with the intent to preserve their majority.

Marisa Wojcik:

What are some potential outcomes of what the court could decide? We’re not exactly sure when they’re going to deliver a ruling. But what are some potential outcomes that we can see?

Malia Jones:

There are two cases. One is that they uphold the lower court’s decision. That will mean that the state assembly district map and sort of by implication also the state senate district map are unconstitutional. They will have to be redrawn basically right away. I think what does right away mean? Is no one exactly knows that. But it will happen quickly because, because those maps will be unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court overturns the lower court’s decision, then we will continue with the maps that we have for the next three years. And then the census 2020 is coming up in just two years. In three years we’ll expect to get the new population estimates and that redistricting process will happen anyway, in three years.

Marisa Wojcik:

And it will still be done, no matter what, by the state legislature unless the state decides to go a different route to draw its maps.

Malia Jones:

Right, yes that’s correct. So right now the state legislature controls the process of drawing the maps. The new maps pass like any other kind of legislation so proposed maps are drawn up. That’s happened through a variety of different methods over the years. The new maps are drawn up and then they’re presented to the state assembly and the state senate, once it passes the two houses it’s signed by the governor. And it goes into law. Right now, unless something changes, the state legislature will control the redistricting process one way or the other. When we have like we did in 2011, when we have a Republican majority in all three houses, then I think there’s risk for political gerrymandering.

Marisa Wojcik:

But some states have independent bodies that do it?

Malia Jones:

Yeah, so there’s this increasing movement towards taking the control of that districting process out of the hands of partisan politicians.

Marisa Wojcik:

Because it happens on both sides.

Malia Jones:

Oh, definitely, yes. This is not just a problem of Republicans. Maryland is famous for having a Democratic controlled and very gerrymandered map. So yes there’s this increasing movement to take this redistricting process out of the hands of partisan legislators and put it into the hands of an independent commission. And that looks like different things in different places. A few states have actually enacted this. Arizona is a good example of a place that uses a five person independent commission to draw the maps. The results are really promising I think. Their maps tend to be fairer in terms of how the metrics of gerrymandering that we use to measure whether gerrymandering exists. And their elections also tend to be more competitive. Which, I think is a really good thing for American politics. In Wisconsin there was proposed, there is proposed legislation to move to an independent commission. It’s sort of in the legislative pipeline. I don’t know how probable it is that it’ll get passed in the next three years.

Marisa Wojcik:

And technology is getting better in terms of the algorithms create potential maps that do fit the guidelines and so it’s kind of taken away from the human element a little bit.

Malia Jones:

Yes, the technology, the emergence of readily accessible map making technology has really changed things in the world of redistricting. Even 20 years ago, the redistricting process happened by hand. Somebody, a group of people would get together and actually draw the new boundaries. Sometimes they did that and gerrymandered things. I think when, in the days when people were sort of doing this by hand, they often ended up with those really bizarre shapes as a result of kind of eyeballing where they thought they could get the best majority results. Now, and even in the 2000 redistricting process here in Wisconsin, we have much better access to really advanced map making technology. There’s some interesting research in geometry. Tufts University has this research center that studies the math of redistricting. I think there’s some potential. I think there’s potential on both sides so that we could. There are some mathematical and computational approaches to drawing maps that would take some of that human control and decision making out of the hands of people who I think are always inclined to serve their own ends. And maybe get fairer maps. I also think there’s a lot of risk. We have much, much more information about people. Where they live, what they like, how they vote. We have much better predictive power. I also think that the new technology could make it easier to produce gerrymandered maps. One of the things that’s really interesting about Wisconsin’s maps, the ones that we have now. Is that when you look at them, they don’t look super bizarre. The shapes are pretty uniform, they’re very compact. And you have to really examine them closely to find evidence of cracking and packing. You know, unlike, there was a recent court case in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district was a highlight of that case because it has this wildly, had this wildly bizarre shape to it. So you could just look at it and say, that’s gerrymandering. Whereas the Wisconsin map, you look at it and it’s not so obvious. It looks pretty normal and I think they were able to achieve that by using more advanced computational methods to draw those shapes.

Marisa Wojcik:

So you said that there’s a way that people can try out redistricting for themselves?

Malia Jones:

Yeah, so these processes I think are a little hard to comprehend. It helps to have some hands on experience with it. There is an online game called the redistricting game. So it’s the redistrictinggame.org and you can go on there and you’re given missions by your client who is either the Republican or Democratic controlled legislature. And your mission is to draw gerrymandered maps that meet the compactness and equal population and contiguity roles and yet maximize your party’s majority.

Marisa Wojcik:

So it’s a good hands on.

Malia Jones:

Yeah, it’s very hands on, you use pretend districts and can sort of add and subtract people to them and try to achieve a gerrymandered map.

Marisa Wojcik:

Very cool. Well Malia, thanks so much for joining us. That was very, very informative. We really appreciate it. Actually there is a link to that game in the description. So if you want to check it out, go ahead and follow that link. If you want to read more about what Malia has written on the topic, she’s written a lot for our partners at WisContext.org so if you head over to that website you can see more of what she’s done on this subject matter. And, if you liked this interview, please share it. We want to hear your comments so please comment below. For more “Here & Now” coverage and from Wisconsin Public Television, visit wpt.org and thanks for joining us on “Noon Wednesday.”