Wisconsin high court allows congressional maps in win for Republicans
The liberal-controlled Wisconsin supreme court on Friday rejected a Democratic lawsuit that sought to throw out the battleground state’s congressional maps, marking a victory for Republicans who argued against the court taking up the case.
The decision not to hear the congressional challenge comes after the court in December ordered new legislative maps, saying the Republican-drawn ones were unconstitutional. The GOP-controlled state legislature, out of fear that the court would order maps even more unfavorable to Republicans, passed maps drawn by the Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Evers signed those into law on 19 February and urged the court to take up the congressional map challenge.
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The Elias Law Group, which filed the congressional challenge on behalf of Democratic voters, said the court’s decision on the legislative maps opened the door to them revisiting the other maps.
But the court declined to take up the case.
The court faced a tight deadline to act. Wisconsin’s elections commission has said district boundaries must be set by mid-March to meet deadlines for elections officials and candidates. Candidates can start circulating nomination papers on 15 April for the 13 August primary.
In the legislative maps ruling, the state supreme court said the earlier conservative-controlled court had been wrong in 2021 to say that maps drawn that year should have as little change as possible from the maps that had been in place at the time. The lawsuit argued that decision warranted replacing the congressional district maps that were drawn under the “least change” requirement.
Six of the state’s eight congressional seats are held by Republicans. In 2010, the year before Republicans redrew the maps, Democrats held five seats compared with three for Republicans.
Only two of the state’s current congressional districts are seen as competitive.
Western Wisconsin’s third district is represented by the Republican US congressman Derrick Van Orden, who won an open seat in 2022 after the longtime Democratic representative Ron Kind retired.
And south-eastern Wisconsin’s first district, held by the Republican congressman Bryan Steil since 2019, was made more competitive under the latest maps but still favors the GOP.
Both seats have been targeted by national Democrats.
The current congressional maps in Wisconsin were drawn by Evers and approved by the state supreme court. The US supreme court in March 2022 declined to block them from taking effect.