Divisions laid bare in Wis. hearing on district maps

MADISON, Wis. — The deep ideological split on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was clear Tuesday as the court heard arguments in a case with the potential to upend political power in the state: a challenge to the state’s legislative district maps, regarded as among the most aggressively gerrymandered in the country.

Conservatives on the court accused Democrats of waiting to raise their claim that the maps violate the state Constitution until they had secured a 4-3 liberal majority on the court.

But the court’s liberal justices signaled that they were sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ argument that the existing legislative districts — many of them broken into several unconnected pieces — failed the constitutional requirement that districts be compact and contiguous and that the maps should be entirely redrawn.

Justices across the ideological spectrum suggested during oral arguments that the Democrats’ proposed solution — requiring every state lawmaker to stand for election in 2024 under a new map, even those whose terms would not yet have run out — was an extraordinary one.

“It’s an extreme remedy,” said Justice Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal who was elected in April as the newest member of the court.

Dozens of Wisconsin voters packed the room in the state Capitol in Madison early Tuesday to hear the arguments, and even more gathered in the center of the Capitol to watch the proceedings on television.

Wisconsin’s legislative maps have been the focus of fierce battles in the state for years, particularly the current iterations, which are heavily tilted to favor Republicans.

They were first drawn under a former Republican governor, Scott Walker, and have helped his party secure large majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature for more than a decade, even though the state’s electorate is made up of roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Democrats often win statewide elections; Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, won a second term in 2022.

The justices are considering a petition filed in August on behalf of 19 Democratic voters in Wisconsin. It asks the court to declare that the state’s existing maps, updated by the Legislature after the 2020 census to favor Republicans even more, are unconstitutional, and to order new ones drawn in time for the 2024 election.