Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:43 and sunset 5:33 for 10h 49m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. The agenda for the meeting appears immediately below: 

On this day in 1943, The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell‘s Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.

  Gov. Evers has signed new state election maps for Wisconsin that are drawn to his own recommended boundaries. Baylor Spears reports that 

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new state voting maps Monday morning, which he had proposed and which were passed by the Wisconsin Legislature, creating new legislative districts in time for the 2024 election cycle before the Wisconsin Supreme Court was to choose new maps.

The legislative maps represent a break in Wisconsin Republicans’ grip on legislative power and give Democrats the chance to win additional seats — and majorities in the Legislature — for the first time in over a decade. 

“It’s a new day in Wisconsin,” Evers said at a press conference in the state Capitol to the cheers of surrounding advocates.

“To me, the decision to enact these maps boils down to this: I made a promise to the people of Wisconsin that I would always try to do the right thing and keeping that promise to me matters most, even if members of my own party disagree with me,” Evers said. 

….

“I wanted fair maps, not maps that are better for one party or the other, including my own,” Evers said. “Wisconsin is not a red state and it is not a blue state. Wisconsin is a purple state and I believe our maps should reflect that basic fact. I believe that the people should get to choose their elected officials, not the other way around.” 

Republicans said that they would rather have the maps picked through the legislative process, rather than by the state Supreme Court. Some lawmakers also expressed fears that the Court would choose maps that were worse for Republicans. 

There is a remaining issue of when these new maps take effect.  Rich Kremer reports that 

Democratic state senators, who got their first look at the legislation just before the Senate voted, accused Republicans last week of including the exception [whereby the maps would take effect in November] to guarantee Vos can run under his old district in a potential recall election. That contest is being pursued by conservatives who are angry he’s stood in the wayof impeaching Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe. 

But that effective date was added to the maps bill by the Legislative Reference Bureau, not Republican lawmakers. A bureau memo said the addition “is our standard practice for addressing the initial applicability of a legislative redistricting plan.”

University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Professor of Law Robert Yablon, who signed onto a legal brief in the redistricting case, told WPR it’s “an open question” as to which maps should apply between now and the November election.

“So, if an early election needed to be held, the likelihood is that someone would need to go back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and ask what map would be applied,” Yablon said. “And the Wisconsin Supreme Court would need to provide some kind of guidance or remedy.”

Yablon said that because the court has already declared the existing Republican-drawn districts illegal, “it will have to be another map, perhaps the Governor’s map,” even though that map doesn’t go into effect until the fall. 

On Monday, Evers said he will ask the court “to clarify that these maps will be in place for any special elections between now and the fall.”

Yesterday was a good day for Wisconsin.

Monkey Eats From Bird Feeder After Escaping Scottish Wildlife Park: