Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Friday ordered state lawmakers to redraw the state’s legislative maps in a move likely to benefit Democrats in the battleground state, as a group of states face legal challenges over the layout of their legislative and congressional districts.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the state's legislative maps be withdrawn.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by a group of Democratic voters in August—one day after the state’s highest court flipped to a 4-3 liberal majority—with plaintiffs arguing the majority of the state’s districts violate a requirement in the state’s constitution that the districts be contiguous.
In her majority opinion, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky argued the current boundaries “contain separate, detached territory” and violate the state’s constitution, with 50 of the state’s 99 Assembly districts and 20 of its 33 Senate districts containing detached areas.
As they stand, Wisconsin’s legislative maps favor Republican majorities in the state’s Senate and Assembly, the Wisconsin State Journal reported, with Republicans holding a 22-1 supermajority in the state Senate and a 64-35 majority in the Assembly.
Despite the GOP’s majority in both chambers, Wisconsin has remained a swing state in recent presidential elections, with fewer than 23,000 votes deciding four of the last six presidential races, the Washington Post reported, with the state voting for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020.
In its ruling, the state Supreme Court said it will adopt remedial maps ahead of the 2024 elections unless the state legislature can draft maps meeting state and federal law that would be signed by the state’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Under the remedial map route, the court said those maps “should reflect the least change necessary” to “comport with relevant legal requirements.”
While states are required to redraw congressional districts every decade based on demographic data from the U.S. Census, tensions have emerged in a handful of states over congressional lines. In June, the Supreme Court struck down a redrawn congressional map in Alabama that featured one Black-majority district, with the high court ordering state officials to redraw the map with two Black majority districts “or something quite close” to it. The state’s Republican-led legislature approved a new congressional map in July with one Black majority district, though a panel of federal judges in September struck down that map, arguing it weakens Black voters’ power in the state, and fails to meet protections guaranteed under the federal Voting Rights Act. Georgia was also ordered by a federal judge in October to redraw its boundaries, with the judge ruling its map discriminated against minority voters and violated the Voting Rights Act. Other legal challenges have been presented in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. In New York, the State Court of Appeals ordered state legislators to redraw its congressional map in a move expected to favor Democrats, after the court decided the state’s map—which had been drawn in 2022—was only meant to be temporary.
Wisconsin’s judicial election in April wrapped up the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, with donors contributing a total of more than $50 million, the Washington Post reported, and despite judicial candidates appearing on the ballot without a political party, the race was widely seen as a polarized battle over the state’s political direction. Former Milwaukee County judge Janet Protasiewicz won the election on a platform of protecting abortion rights, a major Democratic issue.
Supreme Court Throws Out Wisconsin Legislative Map That Added Majority-Black District (Forbes)
Wisconsin Adopts Legislative Map Reducing Number Of Majority-Black Districts (Forbes)