Another Week's Sneak Peek

At a funeral last Friday, I happened to sit next to a local Democratic candidate for the State Senate, Trevor Jung. He has been running a commercial on Milwaukee television that gives a subtle nod to the LGBTQ+ community.

He starts the ad by citing his grandmother's bar, What About Me?, using its name as an opening to invite voters to question whose priorities Madison politicians are concerned with. Many viewers might not remember What About Me?, which was one of two LGBTQ+ bars in Racine back when the acronym was a bit shorter.

What About Me?, on the outskirts of Racine's commercial district, had a reputation as a mostly lesbian hang-out, and Jo-Dee's, in a low-income neighborhood just south of the city limits, had a mostly male clientele. Neither was exclusively one or the other. 

Both are gone now, as are the women who owned and operated them; the building where What About Me? was has since been a breakfast diner, a bar and grill, and currently a Mexican restaurant. 

Jung is too young to have ordered a beer at his grandmother's bar. We had a pleasant conversation after the funeral service. I had to tell him that my Better Half and I don't live in his district, which extends into Milwaukee's southwest suburbs; but my dad does and is a sure vote in his favor.

The 21st district was overwhelmingly Republican 2011-2021; judging strictly on geography, I'd say it still leans that way. Map from Ballotpedia.org

His Republican opponent, Jim Croft, has also been advertising on TV; based on the ads, you would never know he's a Republican, but he has plenty of MAGA billionaire funding. Jung and Croft are running to succeed Republican Van Wangaard, who is retiring after three consecutive terms representing the district in its various iterations.

Well, a propos of none of that, here's this week's sneak peek:

Toon: Condemned to Repeat It

After 49 years of promising their voters to appoint justices to the Supreme Court for the express purpose of overturning Roe v. Wade — and the kabuki theater of those appointees testifying to Senate Judiciary Commitees that honest pinky-swear cross-my-heart they carried no such agenda —Republicans are finally getting their wish.

Unless you've just recovered from a coma, you already know about that Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion eviscerating Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico, and you probably know that one of the main points of his opinion is that abortion rights (or the prohibition of them) is a matter to be decided between a woman and her statehouse, governor, Congress, President... anyone "from the government and I'm here to help."

Effective abortion bans are set to snap into place in 26 states the instant the Court's ruling is handed down. Some have been passed recently or will be soon; in other states, old laws voided by the Court's 1973 ruling (such as Wisconsin's 1849 law) will arise from their graves.

Just about all of these abortion bans, old and new, presuppose that women who seek abortions are unprincipled whores likely to wait right up until moments before going into labor to abort their unwanted fetus instead. That they deserve for each and every sexual act to result in nine months of hard labor.

I know from the experience of someone close to me that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is never easy, and sometimes the baby was very much wanted. If I had been in her place and had been told to go home and wait to miscarry, I would have reached the same decision she did.

If you're a woman or girl living in a state where Republicans do not exercise a stranglehold on your legislature, chances are you will get to keep the right to determine your own child-bearing decisions — at least as long as there's a Democrat in the White House. But anywhere else, your chances are awfully remote, and largely thanks to Court decisions made along the way with this day in mind.

Republicans took advantage of their state legislative wins in 2010 to cement their momentary majorities into permanent ones through the redistricting process and erecting barriers against voters apt to vote for Democrats — and Republican judges have backed them up. Right-wing activists regularly flood the airwaves in election years to promote anti-abortion candidates — and again, Republican judges (many of them having been themselves beneficiaries of those floods) have backed them up.

Federally, Republicans use the free and easy filibuster rules in the Senate to block any and all Democratic legislation — and you can bet that if there are 51 of them in the Senate next year, Mitch McConnell will get rid of the filibuster to pass a total nation-wide ban on abortion. Even if the Roman Catholic in the Oval Office today vetoes it, the GOP retains its numerical advantage in the electoral college in 2024 that we saw in 2000 and 2016.

If the immediate future for women's reproductive rights looks bleak now, so too did the prospects of the anti-abortion movement in 1973. But they kept working toward Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization with unrelenting, calculated determination, and here we are.

Can the other side match that effort — even if it takes another half-century?

Rob Zerban caricature

Between now and the November election, I'm posting a few caricatures of mostly Wisconsin candidates for office. 

I'm starting today with Rob Zerban, a Democrat from Kenosha making his second run for the First District congressional seat held since 1999 by Republican Paul Ryan. In 2012, he received 43% of the vote against Ryan's 55% in spite of the Romney-Ryan ticket at the top of the ballot losing the district to Obama-Biden.

Ryan did not debate Zerban during the 2012 campaign, but will meet him at Carthage College on October 13 and at UW-Rock County on October 20. Both debates are at 6:30 p.m., require advance tickets to attend in person, and should be over before Monday Night Football's kick-offs.

Zerban faces an uphill struggle against Ryan, a prominent leader of the Republican establishment, in a district that was redistricted to be safe for Republicans in 2001 and safer still in 2011.

Peter Barca's Outreach

64th Assembly Representative Peter Barca held a listening session at Mount Pleasant Town Hall last night. Three people showed up. 

Republican commenters on the Journal Times page twitted Barca for drawing so few constituents, particularly since the front page of the JT reported that over 400 people came to a simultaneous event at Emmaus Lutheran Church, where Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and other local officials addressed the concerns of the Latino community about allegations of racial profiling of brown-skinned drivers.

"Pete,,,,,You need to coordinate better. Dickert and Voces had almost 400 future voters turn out at Emmaus Lutheran Church for their rally. Best you could do was 3? Word is that Dickert has his eye on the Governors race. You better get with the program Pete. Three people....too funny." -- J.T. commenter "ordmm"

But check out the map.

Republicans drew a tiny portion of the Village of Mount Pleasant into Kenosha Democrat Barca's district in 2011. (The lion's share of Barca's district extends well south of this map, with another leg stretching west from central Kenosha out beyond I-94.)

The Mount Pleasant Town Hall is located at the little pink star up at the top center of the map. Even for those people who realize that they are no longer represented by anyone from Racine County, the Mount Pleasant Town Hall is a considerable drive from anywhere in Barca's district. (What, the Taylor Complex Building in Elmwood Park wasn't available?)

And considering how much of the Mount Pleasant appendage of Barca's district is Latino, some of those people had somewhere else they wanted to be on that particular Monday night.

Correction: I should have placed that pink star above the "N" in "MOUNT." I was thrown by this map not showing that 90th Street is now a through road there.

Republicans' Rigged Set-up

"I still think that in many ways the [recall election of State Sen. Van Wanggaard] was illegitimate. To have a recall where someone is going to be serving for the next two years but use the old district lines seems like kind of a rigged setup."  -- Robin Vos, R-Burlington

Assemblyman Vos's concern for the disenfranchised voters of Burlington and rural Kenosha County is indeed very touching. What an outrage that voters in Burlington, Brighton, Paris, Salem and Randall will be represented until the year 2014 by someone they never had any chance to vote for or against!

What Chairman Vos conveniently overlooks is that even without this month's recall election, those people were going to be represented by someone they never had any chance to vote for or against, and they were going to miss out on their previously scheduled opportunity to cast a vote for their State Senator this fall -- all thanks to the Republicans' heavy-handed redistricting of the state.

As a reminder, here's a map of the 21st and 22nd Senate districts as they have been for the past ten years, with an artificial gap inserted between them. The divisions within the Senate districts are the Assembly districts, numbered in yellow. (I hadn't noticed the typo in the cut line before. Oops. The numbers within the map are the correct ones.)

The above Senate district boundaries had changed only slightly in well over half a century. The 21st Senate district included most of Racine County, minus Waterford in the northwest and Burlington in the southwest. The district has flipped back and forth between Republicans and Democrats seven times since 1990. The 22nd Senate district included most of Kenosha County, minus Wheatland in the west but plus Burlington immediately to its north. The district has voted consistently Democratic since 1964.

In 2010, Republicans swept the governorship and majorities in both houses of the legislature (not to mention the state Supreme Court, and that they already held the Attorney General's office). They ignored county borders when redrawing the Senate districts:

Left: the new 21st Senate district. Right: the new 22nd Senate district.
The Kenosha-Racine county line mostly follows the border between the 63rd and 61st assembly districts (green and purple at left), and cuts through the northern arm of the 64th assembly district (orange at right).

The result is a decidedly Republican 21st district of rural and suburban voters (plus much of West Racine and Racine north of Melvin Avenue), and a predominantly Democratic 22nd district throwing together most of the cities of Racine and Kenosha, plus a weirdly gerrymandered 64th Assembly district. A north arm of the 64th A.D. extends out from Kenosha to Elmwood Park and the Lake Park neighborhood in Racine County, while a west arm extends out from Kenosha west of I-94, with a jagged border taking in one property and shutting out the next. And no, it does not follow Kenosha's City limits. But it becomes a winnable seat for Republicans, who have other ways of  deterring the folks who live in the decidedly unfashionable area around 22nd and Mead Streets in Mount Pleasant from voting.

Residents of the 22nd Senate district are served by separate newspapers, school districts, and sheriffs' departments. (The same is true of the larger 21st S.D., too, of course.) Few Kenosha residents know where Kinzie Avenue is, and fewer Racine residents could find the Kenosha Public Library.

Here are a couple other anomalies: voters who live on Athens Avenue in Racine live at the southern tip of the 62nd A.D., which covers northern Racine County from Norway township in the west to Wind Point in the east (orange in the left map). They can easily walk east or south into the A.D. 66/S.D. 22, or west into the A.D. 63. They cannot drive from their street to any other location in their own assembly district without driving through some other assembly district -- unless they can get away with driving on the wrong side of the road.

Residents in the housing development off 144th Avenue in Bristol all live in A.D. 64/S.D. 22 but are completely surrounded by A.D. 61/S.D. 21. Whatever side of the highway they drive on.

And what's the deal with that itty bitty spur of A.D. 63 westward into Walworth County? There do not appear to be any streets within "C17" on the district map. Has Chairman Vos been eyeing a piece of property there? No, the answer turns out to be simple enough: the Burlington municipal airport runway crosses the county line.

The above maps are originally from the Wisconsin State Legislature Legislative Redistricting site, edited by me to highlight the borders between the two districts.

Qtoon this week: Barney Frank Retires

If a public figure wears glasses, and the public generally never sees that public figure without them, a cartoonist is obliged to draw glasses on a caricature of that person. In fact, the glasses are often an essential identifying feature of the person. But some situations call for the glasses to be off... and the My Name Is ___ label to go on, as the familiar face becomes unrecognizable without them.

Such a wordy cartoon!

Southeast Wisconsin Redistricting, part II

In discussing the Republicans plan to join the City of Racine and the City of Kenosha into one state senate district, I described Kenosha as a solid union town. I neglected to contrast it with Racine except to say that the 21st Senate District has swung between Republicans and Democrats.

At the risk of sounding like I think Racine is a lousy place to live, and admitting up front that I'm going to be talking in stereotypes and broad generalizations, here is how I see Racine as being quite different from Kenosha.

Where Kenosha is Union Strong, Racine has developed a significant aversion to unions, and progressivism generally. It was not always thus: during the Great Depression, Racine got the nickname of Little Moscow due to its labor unrest. It even elected a Socialist Mayor in 1934, William Swoboda.

But not all major workplaces in Racine were union shops. S.C. Johnson & Son. Johnson Wax held off unionization by being one of the most progressive employers in the nation (recognizing same-sex domestic partner benefits in the 1990's when politicians were still afraid to stand up for LGBT citizens in any way.)

My generation -- the baby boomers -- grew up during a period when the public schools were repeatedly closed by public employee union strikes. The school janitors went on strike in 1970, and the teachers struck in 1972, 1974, and 1977. That last strike lasted 50 days -- from January until March -- and required Racine Unified School District to make up days by extending school through June 30, including six Saturdays (the maximum number of Saturdays allowed by law). Union president Jim Ennis proclaimed that he represented his union's interests, not the public interest, and people remember that. This winter, during the furore over Scott Walker's union-busting "budget repair" bill, I overheard a woman my age in a restaurant telling her fellow diners that the 1977 strike was the major reason she is against unions.


Augmenting Racine's skeptical view of unions is the longstanding attitude among many of its citizens that if something doesn't directly benefit me, I'm against it. If my children have grown up and moved away, I don't see why my taxes should pay for schools. If I don't exercise, I don't see why my taxes should pay for bike trails. If I'm scared to go downtown because of all the dark-skinned people who live there, I don't see why my taxes should pay for making downtown attractive.

In addition to school strikes, my generation was beset with Racine's reluctance to deal with school overcrowding. Year after year, voters rejected referenda to build a new junior high school, so my class and the one before it went through three years of "split shifts": seventh graders went to school from noon to 5:00 p.m., and eighth and ninth graders went to school from 7:00 a.m. to noon. (This coincided with a year of year-round daylight savings time, so everyone got a taste of walking to or from school in the dark.) Classes were only 35 minutes long, which is a pretty short time in which to teach geometry, to accomplish anything in shop, or to practice band. It's even less time to get anything done in gym class, factoring in changing into gym clothes, showering, drying off, and getting dressed for the next class. Finally, Gilmore Junior High (now Middle School) was built; but now, Racine's voters keep rejecting referenda to repair or replace the century-old elementary schools that are crumbling around today's students.

Here's another example of Racine's If It Doesn't Benefit Me, I'm Against It attitude. Saturday, I mentioned the recall of Republican State Senator George Petak. In 1996, the Milwaukee Brewers wanted to replace County Stadium. Since he couldn't sell the idea of a state tax to pay for a new stadium, Governor Tommy Thompson had the bright idea of a .1% sales tax limited to Milwaukee County and the five counties that border it: Ozaukee, Washington, Waukesha, Walworth, and Racine. Petak supported the new stadium, but knew how unpopular the tax was in Racine and promised to vote against it. As legislators wrangled over the bill into the wee hours of the morning, it was clear that the stadium bill would fail unless Petak voted for it.


He changed his vote to Yea, and Democrats rode the wave of popular outrage to take over the 21st District Senate seat. Unlike this summer's recalls, the outrage was bipartisan: Petak had to win a primary against a Republican challenger before falling to Democrat Kim Plache (which also resulted in Democrats seizing a senate majority). It was a mean campaign, however, and the venomous atmosphere was long-lasting. It's still not a good idea when at a Brewers game to let other fans know you're from Racine.

Given their similar size and geographic location, what makes Racine and Kenosha so different? Is it that Kenosha has two colleges and Racine has none?

By and large, Kenosha was settled by Italian immigrants, and Racine was settled by Scandinavians (primarily Danes). Italians have a reputation for adhering less to the state than to more immediate sources of authority: family and clan on the one hand, and the Catholic Church on the other. Scandinavians came here with a greater respect for the institutions of the state, but as Protestants (Lutherans), expecting more control over their religious institutions.

I work at a Lutheran church in Racine which claims the title of the oldest Danish congregation in the United States. I've thorougly researched the history of this congregation, which is marked by decades of squabbling over doctrinal matters and the personal conduct of its pastors. In one episode, the congregation voted whether to denounce their pastor, a Dane living only temporarily in the U.S., for attending a dance held to honor visiting Danish dignitaries. Congregational action of that sort would be unthinkable in a Catholic congregation.

My point here is that Kenoshans have a greater willingness to pull together as a community and Racinians display a greater demand for personal autonomy. When Sarah Palin castigates Barack Obama for having been a "community organizer," Racinians laugh with Palin; Kenoshans laugh at her. Kenoshans also seem more likely to carry through with a majority decision once it has been decided; Racinians are more likely to continue attacking the leader associated with whatever majority decision doesn't go their way.

The effect has been that when Kenosha faced the disaster of the closing of the Chrysler plant and all the companies that supplied it with material, Kenosha pulled together to determine its post-industrial future. Racine spent the age of industrial decline unable to agree what the future should look like and unwilling to spend a penny on anyone else's vision for it. Kenosha facilitated growth by forging agreements with its neighboring townships; Racine and its neighboring townships erected virtual Berlin Walls. Kenosha strengthened its ties to Chicago by becoming the northernmost stop on the Metra line; Racine is dead set against any form of interurban mass transportation.

It will be interesting to see how the difference in style plays out in elections for the 21st Senate District. And -- fair warning, Senator Wangaard -- the 22nd as well.

Southeast Wisconsin Redistricting

Madison Republicans are rushing to complete reapportionment of Wisconsin legislative districts before possibly losing their monopoly on power in this summer's recall elections. The new legislative maps seek to undo any potential Democratic gains in the recall elections and to cement the position of Republicans currently representing swing districts.

Here in southeastern Wisconsin, the 21st Senate District has included all of Racine County except for Rochester in the northwest and Burlington in the southwest. The 22nd Senate district has covered most of Kenosha County except for Wheatland in the far west, plus the addition of Burlington in the northwest. Below is a map of the two districts, with an artificial gap between them:

Kenosha's 22nd District has been solidly Democratic for ages. Home for a long time to American Motors / Chrysler, the City of Kenosha is an overwhelmingly union town. Racine's 21st District has been more of a swing district; Democrats held the seat after Republican George Petak was recalled in 1996, but Republican Van Wanggaard unseated Democrat John Lehman in 2010.

Instead of having one senator for Racine County and another for Kenosha County, the new map gives Wyngaard a safe exurban-rural district consisting of the western portions of both counties. There is no senator currently living in the proposed 22nd District, which puts the City of Kenosha together with the City of Racine. Democrat Robert Wirch, who has represented the 22nd Senate District since 1997 (and is facing a recall for being one of the senators who absconded from the state in February to deny Republicans a quorum) does not live within the boundaries of the new district.

Here's the Senate districts as being approved by the 2011 legislature:

And the new assembly districts:

I see that Democrats Cory Mason and Bob Turner are thrown together into the same district. I'm sorry to notice that the map I swiped doesn't extend down into Kenosha, and I can't tell whether Peter Barca and John Steinbrink are also being pitted one against the other.

I have always made a point of voting in every election, but it's hard to imagine how my vote can possibly make a difference in Wisconsin for the next decade. Van Wanggaard will continue to represent the 21st Senate District until some more purebred Tea Partisan unseats him in a future primary. I'm drawn out of Cory Mason's district into
Republican Robin Vos's.

Having thus secured their hegemony over the legislative branch, supreme court, and attorney general's office, the Republicans and their corporate overlords will fight like hell to hold onto the Governor's office. And if they succeed in overcoming that promised recall, the whole state is theirs to FUBAR.

This week's Racine Post cartoon

Jeffrey Thomas passed away on September 16 in Footville, Wisconsin at age 69. The retired orthopedist ran for Congress seven times in Wisconsin's first congressional district, winning the Democratic primaries in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. He never got more than 37% of the vote in the general election.

To be fair, he never got any support from the Democratic party, either. I'm not privy whether it was because the party never thought he had a chance of winning, or whether it was a question of his stands on any issue; I understood him to be against abortion rights, and he didn't come from a union background. But it's hard to ignore the fact that the legislature carved a solidly Republican district out of our formerly swing district in 2002 as part of a bipartisan agreement to protect all of Wisconsin's incumbent congressional representatives.

At any rate, I've been to some Racine Democratic Party events in election years and there was never the slightest evidence that there was any congressional race on the ballot at all. Not one yard sign. Not one bumper sticker. Not one sign-up sheet. The Democrats have usually rented office space downtown. Jeff Thomas's campaign office (the year that I found it) was in a corner grocery store in a rundown neighborhood a mile away.

Somehow, for some reason, Dr. Thomas never gave up. There were five candidates on the ballot for the Democratic nomination in 2008, a couple of whom attracted brief attention by MoveOn.org and the Daily Kos. But Thomas won the nomination again. A few hand-painted yard signs were the only indication thereafter that he was still in the running. Republican incumbent Paul Ryan, with no shortage whatsoever of campaign funds and no competition in advertising or media attention, won the November election without breaking a sweat.

Rest In Peace, Jeffrey Thomas.