MADISON, WI – In response to a shift in power in Wisconsin’s Capitol, iuscely Flores,
Organizing Director for the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, issued the following
statement:

“On Tuesday, gerrymandering backfired across America. Despite federal efforts to rig
maps and a Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for a handful of Southern
states to suppress the Black community from voting, voters of all creeds showed up in
droves.

“No matter how you are feeling about last night’s results, Wisconsin is entering a new
phase, and the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition’s commitment to ending partisan
gerrymandering remains exactly the same.

“For the entirety of our Coalition’s existence, we have been working under a
Republican-controlled Legislature. That’s going to change come this January when
Democrats take control, but our principles will not change. Fair maps are not about
which political party wins. They are about ensuring that voters choose their
representatives and not the other way around.

“With new leadership taking office in January, Wisconsin has an opportunity to take the
next critical step. The ultimate goal is to establish an Independent Redistricting
Commission (IRC) that moves map-drawing power out of the hands of politicians and
into the hands of citizen commissioners.

“In 2024, Gov. Evers signed new legislative maps into law, marking a historic victory for
fair representation. And now, the entirety of the Legislature has been voted in under
those maps. We fought hard for this progress – not because we wanted to see more
Democrats elected – but because Wisconsin’s extreme partisan gerrymander had
denied voters fair representation for far too long.

“Gerrymandering benefits the party in power, allowing them to manipulate their own
districts to retain and gain influence at the expense of voters. When politicians choose
their voters, communities lose their voices. Accountability suffers. And our democracy
becomes less responsive to the people it is intended to serve.

“We have a saying: Gerrymandering is a bipartisan disease. It does not become
acceptable simply because the political party drawing the maps changes. Our
commitment to ending partisan gerrymandering has never depended on who controls
the legislature. And it never will.

“We look forward to working with new leadership. But, above all, we are a nonpartisan
coalition deeply committed to establishing an IRC that ends gerrymandering in
Wisconsin. The opportunity to end partisan gerrymandering is before us. The
responsibility to act now belongs to those elected to serve the people of Wisconsin.”