Dear Readers,
It’s Tuesday when I write this, and if you follow me on Facebook you know it’s also garbage day for the home office in Waukesha. You know because I’ve taken to sharing my struggles with getting the garbage picked up by the contractor who works for our city. It’s somewhat entertaining even as it is frustrating to see the garbage truck turn left on my block instead of right, never to return.
According to Progressives, the unaccountable nature of the bureaucracy that contracted with the garbage hauling company should mean that I should have never miss a pick up. It would be even better if the garbage company employees were actually city workers that are completely immune to political pressure.
I’m betting you don’t believe that anymore than I do. Instead, I’m shocked each week that we get missed that there are no consequences for anybody. But who should be fired? In the meantime, the garbage trucks roll on while my neighbors and I (I’m usually the bad guy) call the city on a regular basis. “Guess who got skipped again.”
Subscribe to the RightWisconsin Daily Update – free!But if having an unaccountable bureaucracy can’t even get my garbage picked up, why am I supposed to trust unaccountable bureaucrats with really important decisions?
For example, every ten years the states are required to redraw their legislative and congressional district lines after the census results are known to account for shifts in population. The process in Wisconsin is entirely political, left up to the legislature and the governor except when no agreement can be reached. Then the process goes to court.
The only exception to this political process is that the legislature has to follow court precedents regarding majority-minority representation. Legislators cannot draw lines that dilute minority populations in the districts to reduce minority representation in government.
Before the 2010 election, in the Doyle Dark Ages, the Democrats controlled everything and were looking forward to drawing the legislative lines however they pleased. But then something miraculous happened, and Republicans won everything, taking complete control of state government. They drew the lines that took effect with the 2012 elections. Democrats have accused Republicans ever since of “gerrymandering,” drawing the district lines for political advantage. And there is no doubt Republicans in Wisconsin did the best they could.
(By the way, ask a liberal today how Republicans got their majorities in 2010 and they’ll probably blame gerrymandering even though the new lines didn’t take effect until 2012.)
So Democrats sued, and sued again, and each time they have failed to get the courts to throw out the Republican-drawn maps.
At the same time the Democrats and their allies in the media have tried to push the idea of creating a non-partisan commission or have some non-partisan government agency draw the lines like they do in Iowa. It all sounds swell until, upon closer examination, the Iowa example doesn’t work because both parties try to pack the public hearings to control the redistricting process and the legislature still has to approve the maps, a point grudgingly conceded by the “non-partisan process” supporters.
It also doesn’t change that we’ve divided ourselves into Republican and Democratic communities, that Democratic communities are in more compact urban areas, and that in drawing supposedly competitive districts, the minority-majority districts would still be untouched giving Democrats an advantage.
But more that that, are we really going to trust an unaccountable bureaucracy to make political decisions again? We saw what happened during the John Doe investigations when the Government Accountability Board ran roughshod over individual rights, invaded the privacy of conservatives and became a political weapon in the liberal arsenal with the selective leaks and investigations.
At the federal level, we’re learning what a supposedly “independent” Federal Bureau of Investigations did to protect Hillary Clinton’s run for President. Regardless of whether or not you’re a supporter of President Donald Trump, the revelations about Comey and others are disturbing. Of course, that all came after the supposedly independent IRS was used by the Obama Administration to go after conservative organizations.
So are we really going to trust an unaccountable government agency to draw the district lines in a way that doesn’t benefit one party, or are we going to continue to let the legislature, accountable to the voters, make the decisions. The Democrats claim that the district lines made the Republicans unaccountable, but two special elections proved that Democrats can win almost anywhere if they have the right candidate.
I’m going to trust the legislature. Not because I believe they’ll act in a non-partisan way to draw the district lines, but because I trust the voters to hold the legislature accountable. And the evidence backs me.
James Wigderson
Editor
RightWisconsin
