WILL Urges Dismissal of New Attempt to Overturn Congressional Maps

The News: WILL is once again defending Wisconsin’s congressional maps, filing briefs in opposition to an overtly political, nonsensical, and last-minute attempt to redraw Wisconsin’s maps on the eve of the midterm election. The lawsuits, filed by Law Forward and Marc Elias’s legal group, both claim Wisconsin’s congressional map is an illegal gerrymander.

WILL’s briefs raise three major problems for the lawsuits. First, they inappropriately ask a lower court in Madison to overrule the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Just three months ago, the plaintiffs took a different position, telling the Supreme Court only it could hear their claims. Second, the lawsuits are far too late, going back 14 years to maps passed in 2011 that have since been replaced. Finally, the claims themselves are meritless. Mark Elias’s theory—partisan gerrymandering—has already been rejected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, United States Supreme Court, and a panel of federal judges. Law Forward’s theory—so-called “anti-competitive gerrymandering”—has never been recognized anywhere and would mean the state legislative maps are also unconstitutional. And neither theory has any basis in the text of Wisconsin’s constitution.

The Quote: WILL Deputy Counsel, Luke Berg, stated, “At some point the redistricting merry-go-round has to stop, to give Wisconsin’s voters, candidates, and parties some stability—and faith in the rule of law. These cases are a fig leaf to hide a naked grab at political power. We hope the Wisconsin Supreme Court does the right thing and promptly dismisses them.”

Additional Background: Redistricting battles seem to have become an annual tradition in Wisconsin since the 2020 census. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted new congressional maps, drawn by Governor Evers, in a lawsuit to correct the variations in population that naturally occur over the course of a decade. That should have been the end of redistricting legal battles until the next census, but groups like Law Forward and Marc Elias’s group have been trying ever since to get the Court to redraw them again. The Court has already denied two attempts to challenge the Congressional maps that were adopted in 2022. These cases are their third attempt, this time filed in Dane County.

A Wisconsin statute requires a three-judge panel for certain redistricting cases, so the Wisconsin Supreme Court asked for briefing on whether that statute applies to this case. WILL’s brief argues that, regardless of the answer to that question, the cases are so meritless and procedurally improper that the Court should dismiss them.

This is the fourth time WILL has defended Wisconsin election maps in court. WILL continues to defend the Legislature’s right to draw maps, a right granted to it by the United States Constitution.

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Luke Berg

Luke Berg

Deputy Counsel

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