The Psychological Explanation of the Wisconsin Legislature’s Reversal on Gerrymandering

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Currently in Wisconsin: Obscenely Gerrymandered to Favor the Republican Party

In the news lately has been the Wisconsin’s Republican dominated legislature’s attempts to maintain their death grip — as in strangling democracy since a permanent majority is inherently anti-democratic — by defending their obscene gerrymandering of their legislative districts both federal and state and removing the Democratic majority from their state Supreme Court. That second part is important since they could Merrick Garland recently elected justice Janet Protasiewicz simply by impeaching her in the House and refusing to try her in the Senate allowing her to remain on the Court without fulfilling the duties of her office as provided in Wisconsin state law.

They were openly contemplating such a move to prevent her from participating in the gerrymandering cases the state Democratic Party has brought keeping the court deadlocked by straight “party” line vote since Wisconsin Supreme Court justices aren’t supposed to be affiliated with a political party or have legal opinions before reaching the bench, but that’s a story for another post.

Why’d The Wisconsin GOP Embrace a Commission for Legislative Districts?

Now, however, the Wisconsin legislature has reversed its radical stand on keeping its depraved gerrymander and endorsed an Iowa-style non-partisan commission to draw its legislative districts.

Whether you’re like me and immediately cosplayed Admiral Ackbar or you think, as Senate Majority Leader, Robin Vos, said, “Sometimes you have to listen, and you change your mind… people want politicians who say, ‘I have an open mind to be persuaded,'” is telling the truth, it doesn’t matter. The GOP may be adhering to their long tradition of hoodwinking voters while they gut our democracy or Vos may genuinely want to run the risk of the GOP losing control of the state legislature like they have the state-wide races.

The question is why would he take that risk or why would he want to try and trick everyone into thinking he is. Both questions have the same answer.

Applying Behavioral Economics: The Principle of Risk Aversion

A well-established principle of behavior economics is that people will avoid risk, unless it is in the face of a sure loss.  The theory is that we assess our decisions with regard to how they’ll affect us right now. If one decision is a risk, then we are loathe to take it. Of course, what seems like a risk today, may not have seemed like a risk yesterday. Think Trump’s election in 2016 and his loss in 2020. It also explains the incumbency effect. Which makes Trump’s loss in 2020 as the incumbent all the more startling and his wide support in the GOP a real ass scratcher.

Now, that we have a decision by the GOP to, at least, ostensibly support fairly drawn legislative districts, we can work backward through the behavioral economics of it all. What did the GOP see as a risk?

Election Outcomes: Trending Against the Wisconsin Republican Party Since 2018

Janet Protasiewicz’s election to the Supreme Court was by a whopping ten percentage points! She openly and expressly ran on being pro-choice and anti-gerrymandering. There are five partisan state-wide offices in the state government. There are two state Senators. Here’s how their elections break down by year. See if you can spot the risk.

• 2010: Senate, Russian tool, Ron Johnson (R), 51.9% – 47.0%
• 2012: Senate, Tammy Baldwin (D), 51.5% – 45.9%
• 2014:
  • Governor, Scott Whodat? Walker (R), 52.3% – 46.6%
  • Lieutenant Governor, Rebecca Who? Kleefisch (R), 52.3% – 46.6%
  • Attorney General, Brad Schimmel (R), 51.5% – 45.4%
  • Secretary of State, Doug La Follette (D), 50% – 46.3%
  • State Treasurer, David Sartori (R), 51.5% – 48.5%
• 2016: Senate, Russian tool, Ron Johnson (R), 51.2% – 46.8%
• 2018:
  • Senate, Tammy Baldwin (D), 55.4% – 44.6%
  • Governor, Tony Evers (D) 49.5% – 48.4%
  • Lieutenant Governor, Mandela Barnes (D), 49.5% – 44.6%
  • Attorney General, Josh Kaul (D), 49.4% – 48.8%
  • Secretary of State, Doug La Follette (D), 52.7% – 47.2%
  • State Treasurer, Sarah Godlewski (D), 50.9% – 46.8%
• 2022:
  • Senate, Russian tool, Ron Johnson (R), 50.4% – 49.4%
  • Governor, Tony Evers (D), 51.1 % – 47.8%
  • Lieutenant Governor, Sara Rodriguez (D), 51.7% – 48.3%
  • Attorney General, Josh Kaul (D), 50.6% – 49.3%
  • Secretary of State, Doug La Follette (D), 48.3% – 48.0%
  • State Treasurer, John Leiber (R), 49.6% – 48.1%

While there have been some squeakers in there, eh, Russian Tool? The Dems have done pretty darn well for themselves including Protasiewicz’s blow out last year.

Motivations for the Shift: Sure Loss of their Super-Majority

You take pro-choice votes, the anti-gerrymandering vote, and the growing size of top state-wide Democratic winning margins and the shrinking size of state-wide Republican winning margins, and you get the feeling that the voters of Wisconsin are not so inclined to be supporting the permanent majority monkeyshines of the legislature. I guess that’s what Vos meant when he said voters wanted elected officials to listen and change their minds.

I think the Wisconsin GOP has seen these numbers and realized there is a HUGE risk involved with pursuing their current legislative strategies and policies. They need to pour some oil on the waters here and hope that they can sneak a gerrymandered state legislative map through the “new” bipartisan process and retain the legislature.

Republicans are facing sure losses. They have to take risks now. That’s the reason for the change in tune from Wisconsin’s Republican legislature on drawing districts. I guess that’s progress, right?

Image Attribution

“File:Ambigram Real world Prank Fake rainbow animated (2).gif” by Basile Morin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.