Some politicians in city hall against measure to remove politics from legislative boundary drawing

Clearly, calling for changes in redistricting of state legislative boundaries crosses a line for some La Crosse city council members.

A resolution calling on state lawmakers to change how political boundaries are drawn barely passed a committee vote Tuesday night, while one on getting big money out of politics passed unanimously.

The city council might all agree on some issues but not all of them are appropriate to bring up, according to the council president Martin Gaul.

He’s sticking to his stance that issues like calling on lawmakers to change the state’s redistricting process are simply things the city shouldn’t be dealing with.

Council member Jessica Olson agrees. She doesn’t like the divisive politics in the issue.

“We can tiptoe along and keep voting on things that nobody opposes but eventually we’ll come across things that we’ll disagree with each other about and we need to close the barn door and stop it,” Olson said.

Council member Jacqueline Marcou said the council has to raise its voice on issues that sometimes get overlooked by state and federal lawmakers.

“I think the more letters that our state and federal legislatures get from local city governments, the better,” Marcou said. “I think we do need to start having a voice in these types of actions.”

Olson thinks it goes beyond what is appropriate for the council to vote on.

“These things are not directly within the purview of what we do as council members,” Olson said. “This is not related to us running the business of the city. It is not related to us serving our constituents.”

The full council votes on the redistricting resolution next week.