After mapping dozens of possible scenarios, Republican legislative leaders settled on the most extreme partisan gerrymandering possible. control of redistricting in swing states. The year before, Republicans had captured all branches of the state’s government-a sweep carried out as part of REDMAP, a project promoted by Karl Rove to secure G.O.P. The 2011 maps had been drawn in secret, in a locked wing of a law firm across the street from the Wisconsin state capitol. Donohue went on, “When you cut municipalities in half, that municipality no longer has its own voice. Endsley retired almost a decade ago now the two Assembly members and the state senator who represent the city all live in conservative hamlets outside it. “In the high philosophy of redistricting, one of the basic goals is to keep communities together,” she said. The boundary line drawn by the Republicans had jagged up from Superior to keep Endsley’s house in the district.ĭonohue parked, stood in front of the house, and shook her head. In 2011, the house belonged to Mike Endsley, a Republican who, the previous year, had won the Twenty-sixth in an upset. In every subsequent election, Republicans have won both the Twenty-sixth and the Twenty-seventh.Ībout halfway through town, Donohue, a retired attorney who is the president of Sheboygan’s school board, abruptly turned the car north, up a small side street, and slowed down in front of a brown, ranch-style house. The new map kept homes to the south of Superior in the Twenty-sixth, but put those to the north into the Twenty-seventh, which used to comprise the rural, Republican areas around Sheboygan. In 2011, Republicans redrew the state’s district maps, using Superior Avenue to cleave the Twenty-sixth Assembly District, which for decades had encompassed the entire city-and had been reliably Democratic. “You can see it’s exactly the same on both sides,” Donohue said, gesturing at the houses lining the street. We headed west from the lake, passing expansive, stately homes that grew more modest the farther we got from the water. Last month, Mary Lynne Donohue drove me along Superior Avenue, a long artery that runs across Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a small industrial city on Lake Michigan.

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