In Wisconsin Supreme Court, redistricting arguments split on whether redrawing maps is fair to voters

 

MADISON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- In the rotunda of the Wisconsin state Capitol Tuesday, the rhythm of a demonstration was quite different from the strictly scheduled arguments happening one floor above in the state Supreme Court chamber.

While a liberal group, 'The Raging Grannies,' sang songs to the tune of nursery rhymes advocating for an overhaul of the state's legislative maps, lawyers representing liberal and conservative interests were bunched into two groups. Each side had 80 minutes to make its case for whether redrawing the maps would undermine the will of Wisconsin voters.

At issue are the maps drawn two years ago by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Conservative justices questioned whether liberals had legal grounds to seek a redo of the legislative maps, which are redrawn every 10 years following the release of updated U.S. Census data.

Liberals countered the current maps were unconstitutional because they detached parts of communities, like Madison and Beloit, in a way that either packed Democratic voters into a single district or broke them up into small parts of largely Republican districts.

"This shocks people across the country who look at this map," attorney Mark Gaber, representing a group of liberal petitioners, said. "This is foreign to what redistricting looks like."

While the state Constitution does not list partisan balance as one of the factors the Legislature must account for when redistricting, liberals argue voters are being silenced when Republicans are able to capture a supermajority in the Senate, with 22 of the 33 seats, and a near-supermajority in the Assembly, with 64 of the 99 seats.

Attorneys on the liberal side noted statewide elections in Wisconsin are often close, and in recent months, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and progressive Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz won statewide contests by decisive margins.

"In a year where Democratic legislative candidates get more votes statewide, they should control the Legislature. It's that simple," Sam Hirsch, another lawyer for liberal petitioners, said. "It's called majority rule, and I hope the court stands up for it."

An analysis of the maps by the University of Wisconsin Law School has found the state's legislative districts are skewed to favor Republicans.

GOP leaders and attorneys have said such an imbalance mostly occurs because liberal voters tend to cluster in urban areas like Madison and Milwaukee. However, the UW-Madison analysis found that Wisconsin was an outlier, even among other gerrymanders.

Conservative lawyers argued if there were issues with some districts not being contiguous, they could be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

"If the [municipal] islands in the Madison area can be fixed within Madison, and the island in the Beloit area, as best I can tell, can be fixed with one ward in the city of Beloit, that's no reason to redraw the entire state map," Taylor Meehan, an attorney for the GOP-controlled Legislature, said.

Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley frequently challenged the attorneys representing liberal petitioners and Evers. She said what would truly undermine voters is the relief liberals are seeking: new legislative elections in 2024, including 17 state senators who were elected last November to four-year terms.

"I can't imagine something less democratic than unseating most of the Legislature that was duly-elected last year," Bradley said.

The full 99-member Assembly is up for election every two years.

State Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee), whose district would be among the 17 put back into play, said he believed cutting short some senators' terms was a fair price to pay if it meant ensuring the legislative maps were more representative of voters' wishes.

"Yes, it stinks for some of us senators that will have to run midway through a term," Larson said after the arguments. "But having 17 people inconvenienced for the sake of six million in our state, I think, is a pretty good tradeoff."

The final ruling could ultimately hinge on Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who was elected in April. During the campaign this spring, Protasiewicz described the current maps as "rigged."

While her election gives liberals a new 4-3 majority on the state's high court, she said during Tuesday's arguments putting most of the Senate's seats back up for election was indeed an extraordinary level of relief to seek.

"Tell me, is there any precedent for using a writ that would oust such a big chunk of the state Legislature?" Protasiewicz asked Tamara Packard, who was representing Democratic senators Tim Carpenter, Dianne Hesselbein, Larson, Jeff Smith and Mark Spreitzer.

"I don't know of any," Packard replied.

During the arguments, liberal justices Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky repeatedly asked attorneys for the names of experts they'd recommend should the court strike down the maps and seek outside help in redrawing the lines.

One question that came up was whether the court would have outside experts redo the maps or if it would ask the parties to submit new map proposals before picking one of them.

GOP legislative leaders said after the arguments they believed the push to settle this case before the 2024 elections was proof the new liberal majority was displaying partisan bias.

"Rushing to upend the 2024 elections and cancel the terms of the 17 duly-elected senators will prove this case to be the campaign promise that Justice Protasiewicz professed it wasn’t," Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said in a joint statement.

During the 2021 redistricting process, the state Supreme Court, which then had a 4-3 conservative majority, picked maps submitted by a group assembled by Evers.

However, conservatives challenged that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which then struck down Evers' maps, finding they violated the Voting Rights Act by creating one fewer majority-Black Assembly district in Milwaukee.

The ruling highlighted one of the biggest challenges ahead of any future redistricting process: Maximizing the number of competitive districts means linking slices of urban and suburban areas with wider swaths of rural ones. It's an issue that will come up again should this court strike down these current maps.