Redistricting & Consolidating (At the County Level)

It is redistricting time!!!

On a state level, this means that legislative districts are being redrawn, and arguing will ensue about how to most fairly apportion the districts between Republicans and Democrats.  The side that feels that they "lost" in the redistricting process will make claims of gerrymandering, while the side that "won" will point to gerrymandering attempts the losing side made.

On a County level, redistricting fairly means something different.  We don't have blue districts and red districts, but instead have districts in various shades of red.  So for our county, the focus is on fairly representing the Cities, Villages, and Towns of Washington County.  In our county, the population as of the 2010 census was split up pretty evenly, with a third the population living in either the city of West Bend and Hartford, a third the population living in one of the 7 villages, and a third the population living in one of the 13 townships.

As well, our County Board is consolidating, and going from 26 Supervisors to 21.  As a side note, this fulfills a campaign promise I made when I ran in 2018.  I ran on that promise, and am thrilled to fulfill it.

So what will the new maps look like?  We don't know yet, but we can make some guesses before some options are shown to the Executive Committee at our upcoming August 24th meeting.

• One easy guess, since the cities will likely have 7 Supervisors between them, West Bend will go from 6 Supervisory districts to 5, and Hartford will go from 3 to 2.  I can't imagine either of these not happening.
• Another easy guess, the Village of Kewaskum has never been big enough to be its own district, and has no nearby village to connect with, so it will likely be paired up with the township of Kewaskum, as it traditionally has been. 

Beyond those easy guesses, I don't know what to expect in these options.  I do think it is important to try to equally represent the towns and villages with 7 Supervisors each, though that may not be perfectly possible.

Over the course of the next few months, the County Board will chose a set of maps that will be used for the 2022 County Board Elections. I will endeavor to try to support maps that closely balance out representation between the cities, villages, and towns.