Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns Republican-drawn legislative maps, orders new maps

From the Article:

Wisconsin's Republican-drawn legislative district boundaries are unconstitutional and must be redrawn before next year's presidential election, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided in a landmark split Friday ruling that has the potential to dramatically alter the state Legislature's makeup.

In a 4-3 ruling, the state's high court ruled that the current, Republican-drawn maps violate the Wisconsin Constitution's requirement for legislative districts to be contiguous.

The majority decision, signed onto by liberal justices Jill Karofsky, Rebecca Dallet, Ann Walsh Bradley and Janet Protasiewicz, urged the Legislature to draw new maps but said it will "proceed toward adopting" remedial maps in case the legislative process stalls or Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoes any proposals.

The court's three conservative justices, Annette Ziegler, Rebecca Bradley and Brian Hagedorn, dissented in the ruling.

The redistricting case was filed the day after Protasiewicz won the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, shifting the court to a 4-3 liberal majority for the first time in more than a decade.

The lawsuit argues the state's legislative maps passed in 2022, which are largely similar to previous maps drawn in 2011, are unconstitutional and must be redrawn.

The Republican-controlled Legislature, which drew the maps, allege the plaintiffs are merely using the state Supreme Court's new liberal majority to revisit the court's 2021 ruling adopting the current maps. That ruling was delivered by the previous 4-3 conservative-majority court.

Attorneys in the case say 54 of the Assembly's 99 districts and 21 out of 33 of those in the Senate violate requirements in the state Constitution that districts be contiguous. Though the Wisconsin Constitution requires legislative districts "to consist of contiguous territory," many contain sections of land that are not actually connected. The resulting map looks a bit like Swiss cheese, where some districts are dotted with small neighborhood holes assigned to different representatives.

The Legislature has argued for a more liberal definition of contiguous that allows for the creation of districts where all land masses are not physically touching. The Legislature also argued that Wisconsin's redistricting laws, backed by state and federal court rulings over the past 50 years, have permitted districts under certain circumstances to be noncontiguous.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the state's set of 10-year legislative and congressional maps early last year after Evers vetoed Republicans' preferred maps in 2021.

After calling for maps that made minimal changes to previous legislative district boundaries, the state court selected Evers' preferred legislative and congressional maps. But Republicans alleged the governor's legislative maps included a racial gerrymander and appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nation's highest court then struck down Evers' legislative maps but accepted his preferred congressional maps. The Wisconsin Supreme Court then selected the GOP-drawn legislative maps.

The current maps heavily favor GOP majorities in both chambers, with Republicans holding a 64-35 majority in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.