Acting Mayor Johnson signs off on previously vetoed aldermanic map despite opposition from Latino leaders

Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson approved a previously vetoed aldermanic district map on Tuesday, bringing the city's redistricting process to a close after months of deliberation and intense opposition from the city's growing Latino community.

While Johnson applauded the work of the Common Council and Ald. Ashanti Hamilton, he was not happy with the input from the City's Attorney's Office.

"I am disappointed that legal direction from the City Attorney has limited our ability to align our aldermanic districts in a way that fully and equitably addresses Milwaukee's growing Hispanic population," Johnson wrote.

Due to the statutory deadline to sign off on the map, Johnson said the city was "left without options," but looks forward to "continued dialogue to ensure everyone is fully represented in our city's decision-making going forward."

The Milwaukee Common Council voted to approve the new district lines earlier that day.

The council approved the new aldermanic map 11-3, with Alderpersons JoCasta Zamarripa, José G. Pérez and Marina Dimitrijevic voting against its approval. Johnson and Dimitrijevic are both running to complete the unexpired term of former Mayor Tom Barrett.

Over the past week the map has faced criticism, with a handful of local officials and Latino rights organizations questioning the decision of the City’s Attorney’s Office to deem all other maps presented to the city as “legally unenforceable.”

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Opponents of the map urged the council to pause the redistricting decision to gain the advice of an outside legal counsel.

“I want you to know what a slap in the face this redistricting process has been to Milwaukee's Latino community,” Zamarripa told her fellow council members when the vote was made on the map. “Words cannot convey to you my frustration and I ask, where's the outrage on this grave injustice?”

Voces de la Frontera, Forward Latino, the Hispanic Collaborative and the Wisconsin Hispanic Scholarship Foundation (also known as Mexican Fiesta) decried the Common Council's vote, the 11th-hour advice from the City's Attorney Office, as well as the "active cultivation of race as a wedge issue pitting one community of interest against another."

"It is clear that for several representatives and their advisors the desire for preservation of status quo and personal interest has overridden the principles of justice, democracy, and fair representation," the groups wrote in a joint statement.

Darryl Morin, president of Forward Latino, said the decision was not a surprise but still disappointing, as the disparity was "obvious" in the approved map.

"This is an insult to the Latino community, which is an economic engine for the city," said Morin, who plans to continue to fight the city's decision.

"This is not the end of the process," he said. "We are going to look at all the options to right this wrong."

On Monday, Morin and his organization published information in a video arguing that the legal counsel offered by City Attorney Tearman Spencer to Milwaukee’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee was both wrong and inviting “time-consuming and costly litigation.”

“Voting rights are important,” the video stated. “The Milwaukee Common Council must retain disinterested counsel with voting rights and redistricting expertise before moving forward.”

In a review of the map presented by Forward Latino, experts deemed that the map’s “districts are compact, contiguous and meet all the federal, state and municipal requirements," according to the organization.

Zamarripa had fully endorsed the map presented by Forward Latino, with similar support from Perez and Dimitrijevic.

While the approved map does not provide Latinos representation commensurate with communities’ growth over the last decade, including a third majority district, according to advocates, the City Attorney’s advice on redistricting became an even larger concern for Latino leaders last week.

Zamarripa called Spencer’s decision a “sucker punch” to her community.

The redistricting process began in August 2021, when the county’s nonpartisan Independent Redistricting Committee set out to redraw the Milwaukee County supervisor district lines, based on the recent 2020 Census Bureau data. But after three failed attempts the decision fell to the County Board and later, at the aldermanic level, the city.

The approved map includes two majority Latino districts (8 and 12), six Black majority districts (1, 2, 6, 7, 9 and 15), five white majority districts (3, 4, 11, 13 and 14) and two districts (5 and 10) that do not have a single demographic majority.

Contact Vanessa Swales at 414-308-5881 or vswales@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vanessa_Swales.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Acting Mayor Johnson approves previously vetoed aldermanic map