(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty said it believes any attempt to redraw the state’s congressional maps would be unconstitutional.
In a memo posted on Tuesday, WILL looked to point out that the Wisconsin Supreme Court election results, with Susan Crawford defeating Brad Schimel, should not mean that the court reopens a case that was rejected unanimously in 2024 to redraw the maps.
Maps are redrawn every 10 years following the U.S. Census and, in cases where the Wisconsin Legislature and governor cannot agree on maps, the task is pushed to the courts.
“The narrative that Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election would determine control of the House of Representatives was created by political operatives on both sides for fundraising and to drive turnout in the election,” WILL wrote in a memo on the topic. “Now that the dust has settled, while it is certainly a possibility that the Wisconsin Supreme Court will again be asked to re-draw Wisconsin’s congressional district maps before the next census, it is clear that such a legal challenge would have to overcome a number of significant hurdles.”
WILL was involved in the maps previously when it filed an action after the 2020 U.S. Census asking stating that the existing maps were malapportioned.
Following that action, four maps were submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, including maps from Gov. Tony Evers and the state’s Republican Congress members. Ultimately, the court chose Evers’ maps.
Those maps were challenged last year, but the court rejected that challenge on a 6-0 vote with one abstention.
“The current congressional maps – proposed by Gov. Evers and adopted by the Court in 2022 – are constitutional and comply with all applicable state and federal laws,” said WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber. “While it was an effective talking point for campaigns to motivate donors and voters during the election, now reality has set in. Any attempt to redraw those district maps before the next census is futile and could easily violate the United States Constitution.”
WILL believes that the Moore v. Harper case in from of the U.S. Supreme Court would limit the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s justification to revisit the current maps as that ruling stated that “state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures.”
