COVER FEATURE
by Peter Cameron, The Badger Project
Redistricting RECAP While Wisconsin Supreme Court gave Republicans major wins, the 2023 election could reverse them After a whirlwind of court decisions, Wisconsin’s political district maps are set. For 2022 at least. The maps for the two houses of the state legislature — the Senate and Assembly — are projected by some to give Republicans, who drew them, an even greater advantage over their maps from the previous decade, which some experts called the most gerrymandered in the country. The new maps for Congress also contain a minor victory for Democrats and competition in politics. The makeup of the red 1st District in southeastern Wisconsin, Paul Ryan’s seat for 20 years and currently held by Republican Bryan Steil, changed enough to become winnable for Democrats, experts say. In a state where the incumbent party did not lose a single congressional election in the past decade, two of the eight congressional districts are now competitive. But overall, experts agree the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision to base all the new maps off the old, gerrymandered ones, then to choose maps for state legislature that Republicans had drawn, are huge wins for the GOP, and huge losses for Democrats and competitive elections. “Simply put, it was a terrible decision that eliminates democracy in Wisconsin for the next ten years,” said Spencer Black, a former Democratic state legislator. “It’s what Vladimir Putin would like to achieve in Ukraine, if he didn’t have to send his tanks and could just get the Supreme Court to do it for him.” Black, who retired from the state Assembly in 2010, for years pushed his party to enact a nonpartisan redistricting commission that would draw maps without partisan tilt. Democrats had the chance in 2009, when they held complete control of state government. Despite pleas from Black and pro-democracy groups such as the League of Women Voters, party leadership did not act. That was a “big mistake,” Black said. “I wish they had heeded my advice back then,” he said. “I suspect in hindsight they have changed their minds.” The Tea Party wave followed in the 2010 elections,
wiping out Democratic majorities. Fortified by gerrymandering, Republicans have been in near-total control of the state legislature since. But while the maps likely will be in place for the 2022 election, more legal challenges are almost certainly on the way. And an upcoming election could upend everything.
How we got here Every decade, the political districts for state legislature and U.S. Congress must be redrawn across the country, a task normally left to the legislature. In Wisconsin, the governor can veto the maps, which is what Democratic Gov. Tony Evers did to the Republican-drawn districts last year. Wisconsin state government also failed to agree on redistricting maps after the Census in 1980, 1990 and 2000. In litigation over those years, the state Supreme Court declined to take the case or plaintiffs took their arguments directly to the federal courts. Both paths led to federal courts drawing the political districts, leading to generally competitive maps, experts say. But when Republicans won complete control of the state legislature and governor’s office in 2010, they were able to draw the maps without interference. The results were heavily partisan-skewed districts in a state that’s almost evenly split between Democratic and Republican voters. Those maps allowed Republicans to hold the legislature for nearly the entire decade, even when its candidates’ vote totals across the state were less than Democrats’ totals. With little fear of losing their majorities, state Republicans have made little to no effort to adopt some measures that have strong public support across Wisconsin. Those include legalizing marijuana, mandating universal background checks on all firearms purchases, enacting red flag laws on guns, and expanding Medicaid, said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll. The latest round of redistricting in Wisconsin has been a rollercoaster ride. First, the conservative majority on the state Supreme
Court decided to take the case, despite recent history and the court’s own decision in 2000 to let the federal courts handle it. Democrats had hoped the case would again be decided in the federal courts, where they thought they had a more favorable chance. Then, the state Supreme Court gave Republicans another major win. It agreed with the Republican argument that the new maps should change as little as possible from the maps of the past decade. Maps Republicans had drawn to maximize their advantage. While other courts have accepted this “least-change” argument in the past, usually the new maps in those cases
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