Capital W: DNC 2020 delegates won't be staying in Madison

The 2020 Democratic National Convention will be in Wisconsin next July, but as we found out this week it's really going to be in the Milwaukee area, which apparently includes Chicago. About half of the state delegations will be staying across the Illinois border or near O'Hare International Airport, which is the same distance from the Fiserv Forum as Madison. Madison's mayor and visitor's bureau are still confident the capital will see visitors and fill those room blocks that have been set aside for convention week. Although, Democrats do have a history of staying in Illinois.

Welcome to Capital W, where you can find the week’s best political stories from the Wisconsin State Journal:

• A federal court has denied the Legislature's attempt to have plaintiffs in a failed challenge to the state's politically gerrymandered legislative maps pay its legal fees, which have cost taxpayers more than $3.7 million since 2011, Riley Vetterkind reports. Perhaps when Republican mapmakers were using boxing metaphors they should have had one for taxpayers getting punched in the face.
• Vetterkind also laid out all of the failed attempts to regulate guns in Wisconsin since the 1999 Columbine school shooting. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has two letters for that.
• UW-Madison's decision to reinstate a wide receiver accused, but acquitted, of sexual assault was a politically fraught decision for Chancellor Rebecca Blank, Kelly Meyerhofer reported.
• Finally, more than 90% of Wisconsin drivers are buckling up a decade after the state allowed police to pull over drivers who fail to do so, Mitchell Schmidt reports. The other 10% are apparently 18-35-year-old male pickup truck drivers, which if you Google brings up this image.

Send story tips and ideas to state/politics editor Matt DeFour at mdefour@madison.com or (608) 252-6144.