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The Badger Herald

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The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Secret GOP memo on redistricting released

An immigration rights organization revealed a memo Monday that includes legal agreements signed by nearly all Republican state lawmakers promising not to comment publicly about redistricting discussions while new GOP maps were being drafted. 

The group, Voces de la Frontera, released an official complaint Tuesday, which included a lawsuit challenging the maps’ constitutionality. 

“Wisconsin citizens will not tolerate this culture of political corruption, and it will not go unchecked,” Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said in a statement. “They breach Wisconsin’s Open Meetings law and the state constitution’s prohibition on secret legislative activity.”

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The complaint listed a memorandum warning Republicans to ignore public comments about the maps and said the actions broke the open-meetings law. It also included a document by Adam Foltz, a legislative aide to Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, which included talking points for the Republican lawmakers to us with the public.

Foltz added talking points stating the lawmakers should ignore the public justifications given for the redistricting, because they would be different from what was explained to each of them at separate private meetings.

The document read: “Public comments on this map may be different from what you hear in this room. Ignore public comments.”

According to the documents released by Voces de la Frontera, the confidentiality agreement said the discussions in all meetings between Republican-appointed attorneys and Republican state congressmen were to remain confidential. 

The memos also included outlining points that emphasized anyone who discussed the maps could be called as a witness in the case.

The statement said 75 officials signed the memo, 58 state representatives and 17 state senators. 

According to the statement, Voces de la Frontera’s attorneys filed a complaint with the District of Dane County after discovering violations of Wisconsin’s Open Meetings law. 

Voces de la Frontera filed a federal lawsuit late last year when the redistricting bill was originally passed, claiming the maps deprived the Latino community on Milwaukee’s south side of an effective voting majority in the Eighth Assembly District.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Graham Zielinski said the GOP memo was keeping with the way Walker Republicans have run the government, in secrecy and a veil of corruption.

Assembly Minority Leader Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, released a statement that said the memo was an “explosive revelation” and the issue goes beyond political subterfuge, since Republican lawyers have cost taxpayers at least $400,000.

“With today’s explosive revelations, we see why Republicans fought so hard to keep their redistricting documents from coming to light,” Barca said in the statement. 

Calls to Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald’s and Assembly Leader Rep. Scott Suder’s offices were not returned for comment.

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