REFLECTIONS/Jonathan Gramling
Thank you Ada Part Two
I became outraged this week when reading a news item in the Wisconsin State Journal that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos decreed that UW System universities can use funds to either give faculty raises or continue Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. What a cruel and divisive dictate.
It’s ironic because Vos graduated from UW-Whitewater. I wonder what his relationships with African American and other students of color were like back then that formed his views on higher education today. Did he use his time to get to know students from diverse backgrounds or did he use the overwhelming white student presence to isolate himself while he attained his degree?
Wisconsin’s higher education future and policies are no longer in the hands of the UW Board of Regents or the hands of the chancellors of the various UW campuses. It is now in the hands of a dictator, Robin Vos, who boasts on his website that he is the longest serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin’s history.
Vos is a dictator because he represents the gerrymandered 63rd district, which stretches across Racine County, but doesn’t include the city of Racine where many African Americans and Latinos live. He is gerrymandered to represent a homogenous white electorate and doesn’t represent any significant populations of people of color.
Vos represents a narrow slice of Wisconsinites and thus is assured of being elected time and time again without any real opposition unless he makes an unforced, personal, fatal, political error for which there is no forgiveness by the electorate. And so Vos can be openly radical and right wing and ignorant all he wants because he has no competition. There is no competition of ideas in his district.
I was always taught in economics as well as political science that competition was good for the marketplace, whether it is the marketplace of goods and services or ideas. When there is a monopoly of goods and services or ideas, there is no longer the give and take that creates excellent policies or quality products. The end result is stagnation and a deterioration of the population’s quality of life and technological advancement.
Since 2012, Wisconsin has lived under a gerrymandered political representation system that has assured Republicans large majorities in both houses of the state legislature even though Democrats have won a large majority of state-wide races. And because the state political districts are so gerrymandered, there is no competition of ideas. And it assures that a conservative, very predominantly white minority stays in power in the state legislature.
And with this hegemony comes legislation that doesn’t take into account the long-term interests of the state of Wisconsin. Rather it is designed to keep the radical right elements of the Republican Party in power first and foremost.
Last week, Republicans introduced a redistricting bill one day and in 48 hours, passed it in the State Assembly. There was no publicity about it and no public hearings. There was no public input. And I guess none was needed since the Republicans rule the roost.
Republicans would do anything to ensure their minority rule. They even have threatened to impeach newly-elected Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz before she has voted in one Supreme Court decision because they fear that she will vote against their severe gerrymandered maps that keep them in power. Vos and his minions fear the will of the full Wisconsin electorate.
And so the Republicans have effectively gerrymandered the votes of African Americans and other voters of color. And so they don’t have to take their interests under consideration when formulating public policy and ramming it through the state legislature.
This is an institutionally racist situation as the forced policy on DEI programming at state universities reveals. African American votes don’t count and Vos has assured that they don’t.
And while they continue to ram through policies that negatively impact African Americans, what they are really doing is negatively impacting the future viability of the state. That’s what the lack of competition gets you.