On Thursday, Gov. Tony Evers announced the members of the People’s Maps Commission. The nine-member commission, which includes representation from Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts, will hold at least eight public hearings across the state to discuss the redistricting process and collect input. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, those hearings — which will run from October through April 2021 — will be held online.

Ultimately, the nine-member commission will present nonpartisan district maps to the state Legislature, which has the final say on how those maps are drawn. Republicans, who have controlled the Legislature since redrawing district maps in 2011 despite losing all statewide offices in 2018, are expected to draft and pass their own maps.

Bear in mind that this is just a political stunt with no basis in law. But just curious… if their task is to draw completely unbiased, non-partisan lines, then why do they need hearings? People generally hold hearings to hear opinions and information to, presumably, inform their own opinions. If this is going to be a data-driven process that eliminates bias in political boundaries, then what are they intending to get out of public hearings? Shouldn’t they just get out a map and draw the lines around identical numerical populations?

Oh yeah… I forgot… this is just a political stunt. The purpose of the public hearings is to give a platform to state lefties to rant about gerrymandering or partisanship or whatever to feed the lefty media and help bludgeon Evers’ political opponents. I wonder if the commissioners know that they are just being used as political tools?