Maps submitted to Wisconsin Supreme Court would chip away at Republican legislative advantages
MADISON - Nearly every proposal to redraw the state's legislative boundaries would shrink the majorities Republicans hold in the Assembly and Senate.
Most of the seven plans submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court as part of a lawsuit to overturn the current legislative maps would reduce the number of seats drawn to favor Republicans. The submission from GOP legislative leaders would preserve status quo, according to an analysis of the proposals from John Johnson, a research fellow at the Marquette Law School Lubar Center.
Republicans currently hold 64 out of 99 seats in the Assembly and 22 out of 33 seats in the Senate, a supermajority in that house. The state Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision in December that the current legislative maps were unconstitutional and will consider proposals to change them.
Johnson conducted his analysis by applying the proposed maps to the last legislative election in 2022 to show how the proposals might change election outcomes.
Some of the submissions filed Friday could have reduced the GOP majorities to as few as 51 seats in the Assembly and 17 seats in the Senate to preserving the 29-seat majority in the Assembly and 13 seats in the Senate.
Under the submission from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Republicans would likely hold a 53-46 majority in the Assembly and 17-16 majority in the Senate. The proposal from Law Forward, a liberal-leaning law firm representing the petitioners in the lawsuit, would create a 50-49 Republican majority in the Assembly and 17-16 majority in the Senate, according to Johnson.
Senate Democrats submitted a plan that would create a 53-46 GOP majority in the Assembly and a 17-16 Democratic majority in the Senate. Legislative Republicans submitted a plan that maintains the current wide GOP majorities.
The court on Dec. 22 ordered the Republican-controlled state Legislature to draw new legislative boundaries ahead of the 2024 election, arguing the maps are unconstitutional because many disticts' boundaries are not contiguous — meaning they include pieces of land that are not connected.
In a 4-3 decision, justices said they are also prepared to replace the state's heavily gerrymandered maps if the Legislature and Democratic governor cannot agree on a new plan. In that case, the court ruled that justices will consider the partisan makeup of the new map if they are forced to step in.
Now, two consultants hired by the court to evaluate the proposals will submit a report on their findings by Feb. 1.
Law Forward brought the legal challenge straight to the Supreme Court in August — bypassing lower courts in an expedited effort to put new maps in place before the fall. The lawsuit came to the court shortly after it flipped to a liberal majority for the first time in years with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz.
The state's current maps are a product of another court battle — Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission — that ultimately landed at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2022, the nation's highest court threw out election maps drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The state Supreme Court embraced a redistricting plan crafted by Republican state lawmakers just three weeks later.
Like now, the decision from the state Supreme Court was released without time to spare, just as candidates could begin circulating petitions to get on the midterm ballot that year.
The court's most recent ruling delivers a political landmine ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle that will all but certainly focus on the battleground state of Wisconsin. It's the latest chink in Republican power since GOP dominance in Wisconsin state government began diminishing in 2016, when Donald Trump became president.
Since then, Republicans have lost the governor's office and control of the state Supreme Court.
In a narrowly divided state that often decides statewide races by a few thousand votes, Republicans have held wide majorities in the state Legislature for years.
The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Molly Beck can be reached at [email protected].
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Maps pitched to Wisconsin Supreme Court would shrink GOP gerrymander
