Expect a lot of map-making in the next few weeks, as various parties try to reach agreement on new state legislative districts for Wisconsin.
The exercise in political cartography is underway because on Dec. 22 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the current legislative maps violate the state constitution.
The four-person court majority says it's giving the Republican-controlled legislature the chance to come up with new boundaries for Senate and Assembly districts that Gov. Tony Evers (D) will approve. But if the two sides don't reach a deal on maps submitted by Jan. 12, attorney Dan Lenz, who helps represent the 19 Wisconsin voters challenging the current maps, says his clients and others will get a chance.
"The parties are working hard, I expect, to put their maps together and submit them. And then, the court will have the job of analyzing those maps with the help of the experts.Then, telling the parties, telling the public which map they're going to select and why," Lenz explains to WUWM.
The two consultants are University of California-Irvine political scientist Bernard Grofman and Jonathan Cervas, a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon University.
Lenz says the state court has spelled out criteria for the new maps.
"Population equality is the requirement in our constitution that you have three Assembly districts for every one Senate district, trying to make sure you are drawing contiguous districts that we haven't had in a long time," Lenz says.
The lack of contiguity and presence of so-called "voter islands" in many current districts has been a key argument in the case.
At the same time as map-making goes on, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Racine County) may try to get the conservative-controlled U.S. Supreme Court to block new maps.
But attorney Jonathan Miller, who represents local government officials who filed a court brief supporting new district lines, says it's hard to see the federal court getting involved as it did nearly two years ago, when it sent a maps plan back to the state court.
"In the prior case, the State Supreme Court relied, in part, on the Voting Rights Act to adopt the governor's plan. And the U.S. Supreme Court reversed because it said the Wisconsin Supreme Court had made the mistake under federal law. But in this current redistricting case, the decision is all about the meaning of contiguity under state law, the state constitution. And that's an issue the Wisconsin Supreme Court gets to decide on its own," Miller argues.
Supposedly, by March 15, after a lot more discussion by politicians and jurists, you'll know if you'll be in a new legislative district—ahead of what could be closely-watched races for the August primary and November general election.
