New liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court asked to toss out Republican-drawn legislative maps

A lawsuit filed Wednesday asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to toss out the state’s Republican-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional, coming one day after the high court officially flipped to a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years.

The lawsuit, filed by a coalition of law firms and voting rights advocacy groups, requests all 132 state lawmakers, including those not slated to be on the ballot in 2024, face new elections in redrawn districts. 

Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who was sworn in this week after winning election to the court in April, said during her campaign the Republican-drawn maps are “rigged.”

When states were required to redraw district boundaries after the 2020 census, the Republican-led state legislature created maps to help boost their majority in the chambers. The state Supreme Court last year upheld the Republican-drawn maps in 2022.  

The suit argues the state legislative maps are an unconstitutional gerrymander. Jeff Mandell, board president of Law Forward, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit, said focus on the legislative maps is a “first step.” 

The petition claims the current maps violate the constitutional rights of some voters based on their viewpoint and free speech, establish noncontiguous districts with scattered fragments of detached territory and provide unfair treatment to certain voters based on their political views and where they live. The suit also argues the maps violate the promise of a free government. 

The suit contends the state Supreme Court went against the state’s separation of powers principle and the governor’s constitutional authority to veto bills when it upheld the maps Democratic Gov. Tony Evers rejected. 

Evers called the suit “great news for our democracy” in a Wednesday statement.

“For years, members of the Wisconsin State Legislature have consistently ignored the will of the people, and they’ve been able to do so comfortably and without facing any real accountability because they have gerrymandered themselves into safe, partisan districts. It’s time for that to change,” Evers said in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. 

The lawsuit follows the battle in Alabama over the state’s congressional map. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that Alabama lawmakers needed to redraw their congressional map to include two majority-Black districts.

However, the Republican-led Alabama House refused to do that, approving a redrawn map last month that would increase the percentage of Black voters in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, but would not create a second majority-Black district. 

The Associated Press contributed.