Democracy is coming to the state of Wisconsin

After threatening to impeach a duly elected justice without any constitutional basis to protect his illegally gerrymandered maps, Robin Vos capitulated by accepting Evers’s maps to preempt the possibility of the courts drawing maps that might be less favorable to Republicans:

Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin signed into law on Monday new legislative maps that could drastically alter the state’s balance of power, giving Democrats a chance to win control of the state’s legislature for the first time in more than a decade.

“When I promised I wanted fair maps — not maps that are better for one party or another — I damn well meant it,” Mr. Evers, who drew the maps after the state’s Supreme Court ordered new ones, said in a statement.

Despite the state being a battleground in national races, Republicans, aided by heavily gerrymandered maps, have controlled both of the state’s legislative chambers since 2011. They now hold about two-thirds of the seats in both the Senate and the Assembly.

But Democrats look likely to pick up seats under the new maps, which will be used during the November election. The maps outline an almost even split between Democratic- and Republican-leaning districts: 45 are Democratic-leaning, 46 are Republican-leaning, and eight are likely to be a tossup, according to an analysis from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Several incumbents are being drawn into each other’s districts, The Associated Press reported.

I’ve seen some people argue that Evers should have vetoed his own maps, but IMO this would be really stupid — surrendering the moral high ground for a marginal gain when Wisconsin is going to have competitive state elections again, making Evers look no better than the Republican goons who denied voters democratic elections for a decade. After all, we are not communists Republicans — we want legislative maps to be fair representations of the state electorate, and these are fair. And this also means that the maps will definitely be in effect this November.

As for Vos, do not print that he was mad:

“This legislation brings to end this sham of a litigation designed to deliver judicially gerrymandered Democrat maps to the liberal special interest groups funding said litigation,” Mr. Vos said. He added that Republicans in the fall would “prove that we can win on any maps because we have the better policy ideas.”

Right.

It’s particularly “funny” because Vos kept insisting that Republicans won because of “ideas’ and “candidates” while he was also insisting that they needed maps that would require Democrats to get like 65% of the vote to get a bare majority of the state legislature.