A state senator sent a letter to state Senate President Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, Monday urging him to take action on a non-partisan redistricting bill currently sitting in the Senate Committee on Elections and Urban Affairs.
State Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, who authored the bill, sent the letter to Ellis, saying state Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, who chairs the senate’s election committee has so far “refused” to hold public hearings on the bill, keeping it stalled in the committee. He asked Ellis to refer the bill to a committee that would hold “at least one” public hearing on the bill.
The bill would change current redistricting law, which gives the state legislature the power to define state voting districts every ten years, to a system where the non-partisan state Legislative Fiscal Bureau creates a redistricting plan and also establishes a Redistricting Advisory Commission to carry out the redistricting process. Bill supporters say the legislation would create a fairer, less partisan process.
Hansen said in the letter he believes the redistricting bill, which mirrors an active Iowa law, is important in a time when districts are drawn to favor specific parties in elections.
“Neither Democrats nor Republicans had been willing to make this change because of the political benefits of having legislators and political parties draw the district maps,” Hansen wrote in the letter. “Most everyone knows the current system is broken and it is having a debilitating effect on their government.”
