Wisconsin Republican legislative map proposals gerrymandered: experts
MADISON, Wis. - Consultants hired by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to examine six proposed maps redrawing state legislative districts determined in a report submitted Thursday that maps submitted by the Republican Legislature and a conservative law firm are partisan gerrymanders, but stopped short of declaring the other four constitutional.
Only the court can make the determination of whether any of those four plans from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Democratic lawmakers and others are constitutional, Jonathan Cervas, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and Bernard Grofman, of the University of California, Irvine, wrote.
They declined to draw their own maps, but said they could if the court instructed them to.
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The political stakes are huge in the battleground state where Republicans have had a firm grip on the Legislature since 2011 even as Democrats have won statewide elections, including for governor in 2018 and 2022. Four of the past six presidential victors in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point.
Under maps first enacted by Republicans in 2011, and then again in 2022 with few changes, the GOP has increased its hold on the Legislature, largely blocking major policy initiatives of Evers and Democratic lawmakers for the past five years.
Bernard Grofman from the University of California, Irvine and Jonathan Cervas from Carnegie Mellon
The victory last year by a liberal candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court, who called the current Republican maps "rigged," cleared the path for the court's ruling in December that the maps are unconstitutional because districts are not contiguous as required by law.
The court ordered new maps with contiguous districts, but also said they must not favor one party over another. Republicans have indicated that they plan an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing due process violations, but it’s not clear when that would come.
The consultants reviewed proposed maps submitted by Evers, fellow Democrats, Republicans, academics and others that would reduce the Republican majorities that sit at 64-35 in the Assembly and 22-10 in the Senate.
The consultants on Thursday called the maps from the Legislature and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty "partisan gerrymanders."
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"The other four submitted plans are similar on most criteria," Cervas and Grofman wrote.
They said those plans, from a "social science point of view," are "nearly indistinguishable."
It ultimately will be up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with a 4-3 liberal majority, to decide which maps to enact. The state elections commission has said that must be done by March 15 to meet deadlines for candidates running in the fall.
Evers on Tuesday vetoed a last-ditch effort by Republicans to enact new lines to avoid the court ordering maps. Republicans largely adopted the Evers maps but moved some lines to reduce the number of GOP incumbents who would have to face one another in the new districts.
Evers rejected it, calling it another attempt by Republicans to gerrymander the districts in their favor.
Under most of the newly proposed maps, Republicans would retain their majorities in the Legislature, but the margin would be significantly tightened, judging by an analysis by a Marquette University researcher.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has also been asked by Democrats to take up a challenge to the state's congressional district lines. That lawsuit argues the court's decision to order new state legislative maps opens the door to challenging the congressional map. Republicans hold five of the state's eight congressional seats.
The moves in Wisconsin come as litigation continues in more than dozen states over U.S. House and state legislative districts that were enacted after the 2020 census.
Official statements
Gov. Tony Evers
"This report plainly affirms for Wisconsinites what we’ve said all along: the maps Republicans submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court are nothing more than a partisan gerrymander.
"The days of Wisconsinites living under some of the most gerrymandered maps in the country are numbered. While this is just one step in this process, today is an important day for the people of Wisconsin who deserve maps that are fair, responsive, and reflect the will of the people."
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) President Rick Esenberg
"The report hides its bias behind a fog of faux sophistication. Let's be clear, our maps have been rejected for one reason and one reason alone, they don’t produce the partisan outcomes the experts or many on the Court want. So, they ignore all the traditional tests for partisan bias. It is what Chief Justice Roberts has called social science gobbledygook: Obfuscation that hides one’s preferences so that it needn’t be justified."
WisGOP Spokesperson Matt Fisher
"The Consultants’ report is a brazen hack job by left-wing partisan actors. Invented terms like ‘stealth gerrymander’ are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to distract voters from the report’s true conclusion: Wisconsin Republicans submitted fair maps that met every standard of good governance. One can only conclude that Janet Protasiewicz and her Democratic colleagues on the Supreme Court are using this ‘report’ as a convenient excuse to take a ham-fisted blue marker to the maps in whatever way their out-of-state, dark-money donors demand."