Voces de la Frontera, a Latino advocacy organization, held a press conference Wednesday to discuss documents uncovered by a court order showed Republican Lawmakers met in secrecy to modify redistricting maps.
Earlier this week, a panel of three federal judges made Republican lawmakers release a slew of documents revealing almost all Republican Legislators signed legal agreements forbidding them from disclosing any details during the process of developing electoral maps.
Peter Earle, Attorney for Voces de La Frontera, said the Republicans conduct in developing this bill is a “violation of the opening meetings statute…[and] the state constitutional prohibition on secret legislating.”
Every 10 years, states are required to draw new legislative and congressional maps to reflect changes in population. In the past, courts have primarily drawn the maps because of partisan disagreements, but last summer Republicans were able to pass maps favoring their party.
“They willfully and intentionally shut out any public opinion in the legislative process…These covert actions were paid for at tax payer expense and did not represent the full state legislature in the process,” Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Founder and Executive director of Voces de la Frontera, said at Wednesday’s press conference.
Neumann-Ortiz was referring to the $400,000 in taxpayer money paid to the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich, which helped create the bill.
A list of talking points was also released which advised the Legislators to ignore public comments about the maps.
However, Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told the Wisconsin State Journal Voces de la Frontera is misinterpreting the documents, and the talking points were created only for him.
“This is another example of the loony left trying to present misinformation through innuendo,” Vos said.
