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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWI: How redistricting and gerrymandering impact Milwaukee voters
Ten years later, newly drawn maps included changes to the south side of Milwaukee.
Voces de la Frontera is one group concerned about how those changes could impact Latino voters.
"If, let's say the Hispanic community was just broken up into different districts and their voting power was deluded, that would be a racial gerrymander to try to dissemble Latinos from voting together as a voting block, said Richard Saks.
Voces de la Frontera board member Richard Saks says the potential damage can be huge, not just during the election season, but for years to come.
"If we work hard to get our candidates elected, but we still can't even pass the legislation, then it's basically disempowering and disenfranchising all the votes that people worked so hard and harvesting and getting to come out and vote and getting our candidates elected, said Saks.
https://www.tmj4.com/news/decision-2023/how-redistricting-and-gerrymandering-impact-milwaukee-voters
moniss
(9,056 posts)that allowing these extreme gerrymandered actions in essence violates the goals of "one person one vote". Due to the effect the OP points out it means that even when you win you lose. Therefore in effect your vote and your elected representative are canceled.
So in practice some might say how does this "cancellation" work? Once a state with the vast majority of the population if urban areas is heavily gerrymandered the outlying rural areas end up with an exaggerated number of elected representatives. So when the majority population in the urban area needs or wants something the rural areas are able to thwart the urban area/majority population from receiving services etc. This used to exist, still does to some effect, in states and for example in southern states like Alabama where the rural areas had a stranglehold over anything to be done in Birmingham for example.
In the more modern application the abuse shows up as rural areas having enough control to target takeover of urban school districts, imposing severe regulations on the composition and administration of local county boards etc. and restricting the ability of local governments to pass laws for safety, zoning, contracting etc.
An example of some of the worst effects are major league sports teams and their stadiums. Although there will be a state funding component, it is minor compared to the burden placed on the local urban population. The method usually imposed on the local urban population is for the local governments of the surrounding counties to enact an increase in their sales tax with a percentage earmarked to pay off bonds and to pay for improvements/facility upgrades. Of course once imposed and established as a funding stream the team owners and their cronies want it to continue forever and so the new facility will be declared in need of "major renovations" after just a few years. Later it will be a demand for a complete new facility. All will be blessed by the skewed legislature and pressure on the locals to either keep the sales tax funding etc. coming or the ones in power will exert cuts to various state funding of local needs, projects and services.
So an item like the sales tax on local urban areas to pay for the playground/playthings of the wealthy has an iron grip on urban areas. We know that the sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation and those of income levels most negatively impacted by those "special sales taxes" are also the ones who are being marginalized by gerrymandering, voter suppression efforts, neglect of school facilities, high lead content water systems, targeted efforts to restrict the availability of mass transit to help urban workers travel to jobs in neighboring suburbs etc. and the list goes on and on.
All while the price of attending the game goes mainly out of reach of so many paying the bill for the "palace of sport". As far as the big shots are concerned lower income people should just shut their mouth and keep paying the bill. After all it's not like they have enough representative clout to do anything about it. By well orchestrated design.