One of the GOP’s districts at issue is just under 50 percent Hispanic, while another is just over 40 percent. Rodriguez says that’s enough to influence voters to choose Hispanic lawmakers in both districts.
February 23, 2012
Wisconsin redistricting: If the Voces de la Frontera get what they want, the Hispanics for Leadership will sue.
"Zeus Rodriguez said the Leadership group believes the GOP’s maps will help Latinos, not hurt them...."
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I say we ask the Hmong to settle this.
The Wisconsin Voces de la Frontera does sound interesting. I hope it melts as well as the Voces de la Gruyère and the Voces de la Emmental.
They have a good point. The packing of 65% into one new district and leaving 35% in another creates the Safe Districts that legislators love to create for themselves. But it eliminates influence within an extra District which would be created by a 55% and a 45% division in two Districts.
The best leaders are usually elected from those districts where candidates must appeal to all ethnic groups to get to 51%.
Those Safe Districts usually elect Cynthia McKinney type demagogues.
Chip Ahoy said...
The Wisconsin Voces de la Frontera does sound interesting.
The name has provocative roots. During the Hispanic "Reconquista" of Spain from the Moors, Settlements (think Israeli's in the West Bank) along the frontier with the Moors, put "on the Frontier" in their names as a badge of honor.
If it were California, I'd think of this was a Mexican Reconquista hype. Wisconsin, maybe not :)
So are hispanic voters (separate from hispanic Pols) better off with 2 delegates who are dependent on their votes or just 1?
So they are saying that those Mexicans think differently from regular Americans? Isn't that racist?
From the Supreme Court case Shaw v. Reno:
"Racial gerrymanders come in various shades: At-large voting schemes...; the fragmentation of a minority group among various districts "so that it is a majority in none,"... otherwise known as "cracking,"... the "stacking" of "a large minority population concentration . . . with a larger white population,"... and, finally, the "concentration of [minority voters] into districts where they constitute an excessive majority," ... also called "packing,"..... In each instance, race is consciously utilized by the legislature for electoral purposes; in each instance, we have put the plaintiff challenging the district lines to the burden of demonstrating that the plan was meant to, and did in fact, exclude an identifiable racial group from participation in the political process."
These are the terms: packing, stacking, and cracking.
Zeus Rodriguez sounds like a sidekick in a Republic Western.
So if there's no cracking, you can complain about packing.
You also need to see that political gerrymandering is almost always (or always) okay, and if the ethnic groups vote according to a predictable political pattern, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between racial/ethnic gerrymandering and political gerrymandering (which is what the liberal side of the Supreme Court pointed out in the most recent case on the subject Cromartie II).
I wonder why voucher advocates were given the inside track on the maps?
Here
Jensen served in the Assembly from 1992 until 2006, when he was convicted of three felonies and a misdemeanor for directing aides to campaign on state time. The felonies were overturned on appeal, and in 2010 Jensen reached a plea deal in which the felony charges were dismissed and Jensen agreed to pay a $5,000 civil forfeiture and more than $67,000 in legal fees that were originally paid by taxpayers.
Shortly after Jensen received the maps from Ottman, he forwarded them to Zeus Rodriguez, president of St. Anthony School and Hispanics for School Choice. His school participates in the voucher program, which allows low-income students to attend religious and other private schools at taxpayer expense.
Hispanics for School Choice and Jensen's group both backed an expansion of the school voucher program included in the state budget just weeks before the maps went before the Legislature.
edutcher said...
Zeus Rodriguez sounds like a sidekick in a Republic Western.
Or a "Die Hard 3" Sequel (e.g. Zeus Carver)
I'm kind of jealous of those Mexicans. I can't just look at a candidate and say, "hey, a white guy! That's the one for me!" because he could turn out to be Russ Feingold or Tom McClintock or Alan Grayson or George W Bush or any number of things. So I have to spend the time to evaluate each candidate as an individual human being, instead of a member of a vast undifferentiated herd. It would make life easier for me if all white people thought alike the way other ethnic groups apparently do.
It would make life easier for you people as well, since in a nation blessed with over two hundred million people who thought the way I do about politics, the chief political debates would be on the order of whether to officially add "is Awesome" to the name "The United States of America", since that's how everyone in the world was referring to us anyway.
One wonders if the grievance Holstein would be as wee-weed up if the word voucher wasn't included.
"They argued that most of what they produced was subject to attorney-client privilege because they had hired lawyers to help draw the maps. Yet, at the same time they shared them with Jensen who, in turn, gave them to a fellow supporter of voucher schools."
-- So, now if I share something with anyone in confidence, it is actually fair for the entire public to have access to it. That's a great precedent.
I was going to quote Browne, but then I realized that there is no journalistic reason to quote him in this story, other than to get a red meat quote in it.
Then we have a Representative being racist:
"They wanted some token Latinos to validate the map and say this is what the Latino community wanted, and it was completely insincere," she said.
Clearly, Latinos who disagree with her are token pawns acting against their own self-interest. God forbid they -think differently-.
Why should they discuss things with her anyway?
One wonders if the grievance Holstein would be as wee-weed up if the word voucher wasn't included.
I see you've elevated your game, nominally at least, from suggesting I stick my head in an oven. Nice work Rust.
How racist of the illegal-alien-advocate-group Voces to assume that Latinos will vote for a candidate simply because of ethnicity.
And since when is ANY ethnic group supposed to be guaranteed representation in any elected body, which is what Voces really wants?
I love how Petunia glosses right over the fact that the maps were shared with Zeus Rodriguez, [the head of a Latino group], and a convicted felon. Voces was not shown the maps.
Why should they have been shown it? Because they wanted to see it?
Were the maps going to eventually be shown in public (perhaps, during those hearings we keep hearing about people planning to testify at?)
Why should they have been shown it?
This should answer it. But somehow I think you'll just have more questions, and more plausible deniability.
Where is the rule that says drafts of districting maps and all deliberations must be shared with every interest group with a conceivable interest? The maps are the maps, and they are either consititutional, or not, as drawn. Voces has the opportuity to try to prove the maps impermissibly crack, stack, or pack them, and the judges will decide that. The entire sideshow about process has nothing to do with whether the maps, as drawn, pass constitutional muster. (Or, on the chorizo, the constitutional mustard.)
The judges don't want to have to decide, so they are focusing on process to try to force a settlement. When they have to focus on the merits, like now, this will end. Almost certainly with the maps being upheld as drawn (either now or after a trip to the Supremes).
That's what I think.
garage mahal said...
One wonders if the grievance Holstein would be as wee-weed up if the word voucher wasn't included.
I see you've elevated your game, nominally at least, from suggesting I stick my head in an oven. Nice work Rust.
Now. Now. I was just worried about the state of your mental health. After all you have a very grim picture of the world around you. That can't be healthy. No one would blame if you decide to check out early.
So vouchers are a "go" then?
Wrong "They;" I meant the people suing. My fault for unclear pronouns.
since when is ANY ethnic group supposed to be guaranteed representation in any elected body
1965.
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