According to this story, there are lawsuits pending in both federal and state court in Wisconsin over a new spate of legislative recall petitions. One set of plaintiffs, in the state case, argue that the recall petitions should be circulated in the new districts drawn by the legislature this year. The other plaintiffs, who filed in federal court, argue just the opposite, that since legislators elected in 2010 are the subject of the new recalls, the districts should be the districts that were used in the 2010 election.
How about MAJOR sanctions on the MORON lawyers filing JUNK cases ???
Wisconsin does like California and maintains the stagger on senate districts after redistricting based on the district number. In California, since even-numbered districts were elected in 2010; odd-numbered districts will be contested in 2012. The 2012 elections will use the new district boundaries.
So a voter who lived in an even district, but now lives in an odd district, will be able to vote for senators in 2010 and 2012. In fact it is conceivable that the spouse of a senator elected in 2010 could be elected in 2012 while maintaining the same residence.
Meanwhile, a voter who lived in a odd district and voted in 2008, and now lives in an even district will not be allowed to vote for another senator until 2014. If his 2008-2012 senator is term-limited he won’t even have the chance to call someone he voted to represent him back in 2008.
In California it was made worse since the redistricting commission was forbidden to consider incumbency, and so there is absolutely no connection between the old districts and the new districts other than they use the same range of numbers.
The commission did recognize the problem and figured out which of the 40 new districts had the most persons from the old odd-numbered district (elected in 2008). The 20 districts with the largest share were given odd numbers.
But about 10% of voters are in odd-to-even switches, and thus would vote in 2008 and 2014; 10% of voters are in even-to-odd switched and would vote in 2010 and 2012; and the other 80% are in the same parity numbered district and would continue to vote on a 4-year cycle, even if shifted into an entirely different district.
For example, San Francisco is currently split between two senate districts SD-3 (Leno) and SD-8 (Yee). Under the new map it is entirely in one district SD-11, with a small part of San Mateo.
Voters in SD-3 elected Leno in 2008, and will be able to vote in SD-11 in 2012. But the voters in the Marin portion of SD-3 will now be in SD-2 and won’t be permitted to vote until 2014.
Meanwhile voters in SD-8 who voted for Yee in 2010, will be able to vote for another senator in 2012. If Yee had been elected mayor, they could have even voted for two senators in 2012, one in a special election for old SD-8 and one for new SD-11). Depending on the timing of the special election, it is conceivable that both could have been next June.
Back to Wisconsin. The federal lawsuit is actually one challenging the redistricting itself filed last summer. The plaintiffs added a new motion concerning the recalls. In Wisconsin, a “recall” election is just a new election where the incumbent has to win to continue to be in office, and can even include party primaries. If the old districts are used for the recalls, then some candidates may be able to run in the recall district for the remainder of a 2010-2014 term, and in a different district for a 2012-2016 term. The “September Primary” is currently scheduled for September – but there is a proposal to move it to August and change its name to the “Partisan Primary” so it is possible to have overlapping elections.
The federal lawsuit in Wisconsin cited an earlier lawsuit in the 1980s where about 167,000 people were disenfranchised and said that 300,000 people would be similarly situated.
Meanwhile in California there are almost 4 million disenfranchised persons.