Wisconsin redistricting map ruled biased, illegal

Nearly three-quarters of state legislatures are in Republican hands, which demonstrates how risky partisan gerrymandering is to the continued viability of two-party democracy.

Republicans had sole control of the process following the 2010 census, because they had won election of the Assembly and Senate.

Paul Smith, a Washington, DC lawyer who has argued several redistricting cases before the Supreme Court, said the case is virtually certain to go before the justices. (One might say the software allowed them to redraw district lines “with nearly surgical precision.”) This is critical, just on basic conceptual grounds; when someone says “gerrymandering”, what pops into your head is usually some grotesquely misshapen district that writers empty their verbal satchels to describe-such as, for example, the old First and 12th N.C. Congressional districts, the most gnarled sections in the map above. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel plans to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, he said in a statement.

This federal court ruling from Wisconsin on Monday is, potentially*, a huge deal for North Carolina.

In the past, the justices have been closely divided over claims of partisan gerrymandering.

The Supreme Court from time to time has shown some interest in the question of when too much partisanship has gone into drawing up new election maps, but it has never found a formula for answering that question. “This 2-1 decision does not affect the results of this month’s election or any prior election and legislative district boundaries remain unchanged until the court rules on any remedy”. That didn’t stop the court in 2000 from jumping directly into the middle of the presidential election and putting George W. Bush into the White House by a vote of 5 to 4 despite Al Gore winning the popular vote, however.

The court found that the plan was meant to entrench one party in power over the life of the districting plan.

Ripple found for the majority that an adherence to traditional district mapping by appearance does not guarantee a fair distribution of votes, as the state claimed, thanks to advancements in mapping software.

Some Justices have argued that the courts simply have no business judging the partisan nature of the redistricting process.

Stephanopoulos, who is involved in that case as well, has advocated that a bias of two congressional seats should be the threshold to determine whether a gerrymander is unconstitutional.

Finding the maps unconstitutional were Kenneth Ripple, a senior judge with the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of Wisconsin’s Western District. “It is bad for everyone when politicians choose their voters instead of voters their politicians”.

If the two parties’ shares of election outcomes compare one-to-one, there is no partisan gerrymandering. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander. But courts have been far less likely to intervene in cases where states organized voting districts to boost one party, preferring to not get involved in explicitly political matters. It could establish its own maps or tell lawmakers to draw new lines. And, finally, the court decides whether that effect can be justified on the basis of some “legitimate legislative grounds”. One of the mapmakers also testified to the Republican caucus that, ‘The maps we pass will determine who’s here 10 years from now.

“The intent to weaken a racial group’s political power in drawing district lines is always and everywhere wrongful”. They can lead to election results that are not good reflections of the sentiments of the voters.

Rep. Gordon Hintz, a Democrat from Oshkosh, says the gerrymandering kept Republicans in control of the legislature despite Democrats getting more votes in statewide totals. “In 2014, Republicans increased their vote percentage to 52 and secured 63 Assembly seats”.

Wisconsin State Senate Minority Leader Jen Shilling, a Democrat, said in a statement that Monday’s ruling affirmed what Democrats had known for years.

In his dissent, the Republican-appointed Judge Griesbach noted that the Supreme Court upheld a redistricting under similar circumstance in Indiana.

The court’s opinion finds that the final map worked even better than its drafters had hoped.

Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston is Constitution Daily’s Supreme Court correspondent.