‘Hotbed of Gerrymandering’: Ex-GOP House Member Details How Democratic Activists Just Took Away Republicans’ 2 to 1 Majority In a Swing State

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes praised progressives who tackled and overcame Wisconsin’s gerrymandering issue that had left Republicans firmly in power for years.

On Friday, the state’s supreme court ordered legislative maps to be redrawn, which could undo a heavy Republican gerrymander in the state.

“This has been one of the most contentious fights in the whole nation over the most aggressive state gerrymander probably in the entire country,” Hayes said. “The Wisconsin Republicans have gerrymandered themselves a legislative map that basically guarantees them essentially a 2-1 simple majority in the state legislature in both houses, even when the Democrat at the top of the ticket, Tony Evers, for example, wins statewide. Thanks to a switch in the personnel in the court, they have now thrown those maps out after a very, very long battle in that state.”

“Yeah, and that last point is probably the most important: the hard work of Progressive and Democratic activists, but let’s get to the substance,” said former GOP Rep. David Jolly (R-FL). He continued:

Wisconsin has been a hotbed of gerrymandering and gerrymandering jurisprudence going all the way to the Supreme Court recently, and the question the high court wrestled with is, we know that gerrymandering on race and gender is unconstitutional, but can you gerrymander on partisan and political grounds? It’s called the efficiency gap that you point out in Wisconsin.

It’s relatively a 50-50 state, elected a democratic governor, but Republicans have so gerrymandered the state legislature it’s a 2-1 majority. What happened earlier this year, Progressive and Democratic activists worked very, very hard, Chris. You know this well. The reward was, they elected a supreme court justice that tilted the scale towards the Democratic-elected judges. And they just ruled that, no, you can’t do 2-1 majority for Republicans in a 50-50 state. It won’t affect Congress or the presidency but all of a sudden we have a very right gerrymandering question. And in Wisconsin, all lines for state legislature districts have to be redrawn.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.