Each two years, analysts on the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau publish a guidebook to state authorities known as the “Blue Guide.”

Initially revealed as a handbook for legislators in 1853, the e book advanced to incorporate a featured article in every version exploring part of state historical past. Current editions examined how lawmakers handed veterans payments regardless of political divisions over World Warfare I and the way the state’s first political disaster unfolded in 1856, when two candidates claimed victory within the election for governor.

LRB analyst Jillian Slaight authored each the veterans and political disaster articles and is engaged on the subsequent version’s featured article in regards to the historical past of Wisconsin’s political information protection. Slaight lately joined Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Present” to debate her analysis, the redrawing of political maps and different curiosities in regards to the state’s “Blue Guide.”

The next interview has been edited for readability and brevity.

Kate Archer Kent: Have you learnt why the “Blue Guide” is blue?

Jillian Slaight: Technically it is blue as a result of beneath state regulation it should be blue. The backbone should be blue. We did get in a bit little bit of scorching water a few years in the past for going a bit extra grey on the quilt.

The explanation why it is blue, I think, has one thing to do with the e book it advanced from, which was a legislative handbook. It was a bit pocket-sized quantity. You may form of consider it because the equal of the smartphone for 1850s legislators. They might preserve it of their coat pocket and pull it out to seek the advice of it for info.

Primarily based on some analysis I’ve accomplished on the historical past of the “Blue Guide,” it sounds prefer it was informally known as the “Blue Guide” for possibly 20 years earlier than it first turned (formally) named the “Blue Guide” in 1879.

KAK: The “Blue Guide” incorporates maps of every lawmaker’s district, and as we all know, redistricting has been tied up lately within the state Supreme Court docket. Has that delayed with the ability to put particulars of the maps into the drafting of the e book?  

JS: All of it relies on whether or not these maps change once more, which is anybody’s guess. However the reality is that all the things is all the time altering with the “Blue Guide.” The difficulty of maps continuously altering just isn’t one thing new to us. Each biennium there are particular elections known as proper earlier than the e book has to go to print. There are people who find themselves appointed to government boards last-minute. Legislators’ committee assignments are modified. We’re fairly accustomed to altering content material on the final minute earlier than it goes to the printer.

Whereas the bodily “Blue Guide” is a good useful resource, you can too entry the entire content material on the LRB web site. And if perchance the maps change after we go into print, these modifications will probably be mirrored on our web site.

KAK: Why proceed to print bodily copies of this e book?

JS: We speak about it no less than for the previous few seasons that I have been round. One of many points I’ve labored on as an analyst is broadband availability, and there is nonetheless a broad swath of the state that does not have entry to a number of the on-line sources that we use to compile the “Blue Guide.” Or folks haven’t got the experience to know the place to search out that info. I do know it is a helpful reference for incarcerated populations who can entry all of this present info if they do not have impartial entry to the web.

KAK: Within the version you are engaged on, you might be that includes a chapter about Capitol information media correspondents. What’s that about?

JS: Previously, the function article on the heart of every “Blue Guide” has explored one thing distinctive about Wisconsin historical past or society, and it typically represents the fruits of some work that somebody has been doing on the company and needs to share with the readership. For 2023, we’re trying to make use of the function article to introduce this bigger analysis undertaking we’re doing in regards to the political press in Wisconsin and the way it’s modified over time.

We’re so reliant on the press to know what is going on on in our state governments. And I’ve all the time been curious to know what it is wish to cowl state politics and authorities, and the way that is modified over the previous 10, 20, 50 years. How social media has modified that. How completely different media fashions and modifications in newspaper circulation have modified what it means to cowl the Capitol. How the pandemic has modified the job of overlaying politics.

We’re hoping to deal with a few of these questions with oral historical past interviews with present and previous members of the press corps, after which share these findings with folks within the 2023 “Blue Guide.”  

KAK: Do different states have a “Blue Guide” or are we distinctive?

JS: Different states do have related reference books, however I believe ours is extra strong and actually testifies to the truth that we’ve got this strong help construction for the Legislature that gives analysis and data each to legislators and the general public. And the “Blue Guide” is form of a manifestation of that.