Milwaukee-born Frederick P. Kessler has earned his bid for re-election to the Wisconsin Assembly. He is a lawyer, labor arbitrator and redistricting consultant—in the latter capacity fighting efforts by Republicans to gerrymander voting districts throughout the state to their own benefit. As a member of the minority party, Kessler understood that it is nearly impossible to get any decent legislation passed, so he focused some of his time on the root cause of the problem: unfairly drawn legislative boundaries.
Gerrymandered districts are one of the main reasons we have a gridlocked Congress and state legislature. When a district is safely Republican or safely Democratic, the representatives don’t need to worry about a challenge from the other party, so they don’t have to try to work with the other party and compromise to get something done. Instead, they worry about a challenge from the extreme of their own party—the far right for Republicans or the far left for Democrats. This causes them to embrace more extreme positions and, thereby, little important and reasonable legislation gets passed. The center of the legislative body gets hollowed out.
Gerrymandering has been especially harmful to Milwaukee. The GOP drew many of the districts to ensure that they are controlled by suburban voters, many of whom are not particularly fond of the city of Milwaukee. Representative Kessler was the engine behind the redistricting lawsuit that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, only to have the justices duck the redistricting issue.
Fred Kessler has also been a solid and consistent progressive voice both inside the legislature and outside in his civic life. Kessler proudly shows his devotion to our community and the people of Wisconsin through his personal advocacy: He’s a board member and former president of the Milwaukee Chapter of the ACLU; a board member of the World Affairs Council of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin State Historical Society; former chair of Amnesty International and a current member of the NAACP.
The primary race for the State Assembly—12th District is one of several items on the ballot on Aug. 14. See all of our endorsements here.
