A lawsuit filed Wednesday asks Wisconsin’s newly liberal-controlled state Supreme Court to throw out Republican-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional, the latest legal challenge of many nationwide that could upset political boundary lines before the 2024 election. The Associated Press has the story:
Wisconsin lawsuit asks SCOUT to toss GOP-drawn maps
Newslooks- MADISON, Wis. (AP)
A lawsuit filed Wednesday asks Wisconsin’s newly liberal-controlled state Supreme Court to throw out Republican-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional, the latest legal challenge of many nationwide that could upset political boundary lines before the 2024 election.
The long-promised action is backed by Democrats and was filed by a coalition of law firms and voting rights advocacy groups. It comes the day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped from a conservative to liberal majority, with the start of the term of a justice who said that the Republican maps were “rigged” and should be reviewed.
“Despite the fact that our legislative branch is meant to be the most directly representative of the people, the gerrymandered maps have divided our communities, preventing fair representation,” said Jeff Mandell, board president of Law Forward, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks that all 132 state lawmakers be up for election that year in newly drawn districts. In Senate districts that are midway through a four-year term in 2024, there would be a special election with the winner serving two years. Then the regular four-year cycle would resume again in 2026.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said Democrats were “counting on judicial fiat to help them gain power.” He accused them of “coming to collect” from the newly elected liberal Supreme Court justice.
The Wisconsin lawsuit is just one of many expected or pending court challenges that could force lawmakers or special commissions to draw yet another set of maps before the 2024 election. In one of the most recent examples, Alabama lawmakers passed new congressional districts last month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that its districts violated federal law by diluting the voting strength of Black residents. Voting rights advocates are challenging the new map as well, contending it still falls short.
All states were required to redraw voting district boundaries after the 2020 census. In states where one political party controlled that process, mapmakers often sought to create an advantage for their party by packing opponents’ voters into a few districts or spreading them among multiple districts — a process known as gerrymandering.
The latest challenge asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case directly, rather than have it work through lower courts, arguing that the state legislative maps are an unconstitutional gerrymander. Notably, the lawsuit does not challenge the congressional maps.
Dan Lenz, an attorney at Law Forward, did not rule out a future challenge to the congressional maps, saying targeting the legislative maps is a “first step.”
The petition filed with the Supreme Court argues that the current maps unconstitutionally retaliate against some voters based on their viewpoint and free speech; create non-contiguous districts that include scattered fragments of detached territory; treat some voters worse than others based on their political views and where they live; and violate the promise of a free government.
It also argues that by enacting maps that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed, that Supreme Court violated the state’s separation of powers principle and the governor’s constitutional authority to veto bills.
It would be up to the court to decide how new maps would be drawn and who would submit them, Mandell said.
Evers praised the lawsuit.
“Today’s filing is great news for our democracy and for the people of our state whose demands for fair maps and a nonpartisan redistricting process have gone repeatedly ignored by their legislators for years,” Evers said in a statement.
In addition to Law Forward, others who brought the lawsuit on behalf of Wisconsin voters are the Stafford Rosenbaum law firm, Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, Campaign Legal Center, and the Arnold & Porter law firm.
In 2021, the conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that it would adopt maps that had the least amount of change as possible from the previous maps drawn in 2011 by Republicans. Those maps, which also survived a challenge that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, were widely regarded as among the most gerrymandered in favor of Republicans in the country.
In a sign of how much the 2011 maps entrenched Republican power in the Legislature, Democrats won every statewide race in 2018 and 53% of the statewide legislative vote. And yet, Democrats won just 36 of the state’s 99 Assembly seats.
Republicans currently hold a 64-35 majority in the Assembly and a 22-11 majority in the Senate.
The state Supreme Court in 2022 initially adopted a map drawn by Evers, plans that largely preserved the district lines favoring Republicans. But the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 rejected the legislative maps while it accepted the congressional map.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court, on a 4-3 vote then adopted Republican-drawn legislative maps. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. They are now in the majority with the arrival of Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose 10-year term began Tuesday.
Protasiewicz ran with support from Democrats and other critics of the current maps and was outspoken during the campaign about her desire to revisit the issue. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Wednesday said he expected Protasiewicz to recuse herself from the case given her comments during the campaign.
“The map issue is really kind of easy, actually,” Protasiewicz said during a candidate debate. “I don’t think anybody thinks those maps are fair. Anybody.”
Wisconsin’s high court, which almost overturned Biden’s win in the state, flips to liberal control
Newslooks- MADISON, Wis. (AP)
Wisconsin Democrats celebrated the beginning of a new era for the state Supreme Court on Tuesday as it flipped from conservative to liberal control for the first time in 15 years.
Janet Protasiewicz, who made abortion rights a focus of her winning election campaign and called Republican-drawn redistricting maps “rigged,” marked the start of her 10-year term with a swearing-in ceremony in the state Capitol Rotunda attended by an overflow crowd of hundreds, including many Democratic officeholders.
Protasiewicz’s win carries tremendous weight in Wisconsin, where the state Supreme Court has been the last word on some of the biggest political and policy battles of the past decade-plus.
The conservative-controlled court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state in 2020, though Biden still would have had enough electoral votes to claim the presidency. More battles over voting rules and elections are expected leading up to 2024, along with challenges to the state’s abortion ban, Republican-drawn political boundary lines and a host of other hot-button issues.
Protasiewicz promised not to bow to political pressure.
“We all want a Wisconsin where our freedoms are protected,” she said at the ceremony. “We want a Wisconsin with a fair and impartial Supreme Court. We all want to live in communities that are safe. And we all want a Wisconsin where everyone is afforded equal justice under the law.”
State Democratic legislative leaders, the Democratic secretary of state and attorney general, Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, and the three other liberal high court justices who, along with Protasiewicz now form the majority, attended. Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative whom Republicans backed but who has angered them by sometimes siding with liberals, was also there.
Protasiewicz, who was previously a Milwaukee County judge, ran with backing and deep financial support from Democrats, abortion rights groups and other liberals in the officially nonpartisan race. She handily defeated her conservative opponent in April, raising expectations among liberals that the new court will soon do away with the state’s abortion ban, order new electoral maps to be drawn and ensure a long line of Democratic success after 15 years of rulings that largely favored Republicans.
Protasiewicz replaces retiring conservative Justice Pat Roggensack, who served 20 years, including six as chief justice.
While it may be a while before the court weighs in on some topics, a new lawsuit challenging the GOP-drawn legislative and congressional district maps is expected to be filed within weeks. And there is already a pending case challenging a pre-Civil War era abortion ban, and a county judge ruled last month that it can proceed while also calling into question whether the law actually bans abortions.
The rules for voting and elections are also expected to come before the court heading into the 2024 presidential election.
A national Democratic law firm filed a lawsuit last month seeking to undo a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling last year banning absentee ballot drop boxes.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, who attended the ceremony, said the court flipping to liberal control “could not have occurred at a more critical time.”
The new liberal majority was making immediate changes: Randy Koschnick, who has been director of state courts for six years, said he was informed Monday that he would be fired Tuesday afternoon.
Koschnick is a former county judge who ran for the state Supreme Court in 2009 with support from conservatives but lost to then-Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a liberal. Koschnick said he was told by liberal Justice Jill Karfosky that he was being fired because the court was “moving in a different direction.”
