Democratic law firm challenges Wisconsin's congressional district lines in filing with state Supreme Court

WASHINGTON – A high-powered Democratic law firm is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reconsider the state’s congressional map ahead of the 2024 election, arguing a redistricting decision last month calls into question the battleground state’s current district lines.

Elias Law Group, chaired by Marc Elias, who has led previous voting access lawsuits in Wisconsin and across the country, filed the motion to revisit Wisconsin’s congressional district lines on Tuesday. The group aims to have a new map in place for the 2024 election, though those plans likely face a tight deadline with under 11 months to go before the November election.

The filing, brought by Elias’ firm on behalf of a group of four Wisconsin voters, leans on a state Supreme Court ruling last month ordering new legislative boundaries in which the high court said it would no longer favor maps that minimize changes to existing boundary lines.

That decision effectively nullified a 2021 ruling from the then-conservative court that held that new state election maps needed to resemble those drawn in 2011, which cemented Republican control of the legislature and a majority of the state’s House seats. It was under that “least change” approach that the current congressional maps were drawn.

The Tuesday motion said last month’s ruling rejecting that approach warrants replacing the current congressional map with new boundaries in a process free from what the firm called the “flawed” least change requirement.

“Wisconsin’s current congressional map was drawn according to a 'least change' principle that perpetuated and exacerbated the partisan unfairness that has robbed Wisconsin voters of fair congressional districts for over a decade,” Elias Law Group partner Abha Khanna said in a statement provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

With the recent ruling, Khanna added, “Wisconsin’s congressional map now has no basis in Wisconsin law or precedent, and the remedial process to adopt a new, lawful map must resume immediately.”

Wisconsin’s current congressional district boundaries were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and later approved by the state Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 rejected the state’s legislative maps, also drawn by Evers, but declined to block the congressional lines.

Republicans hold 6 of Wisconsin's 8 congressional seats

There are just two competitive congressional districts in Wisconsin under the current maps. Republicans hold six of the state’s eight House seats, and Democrats safely control the deep blue 2nd and 4th Districts, anchored by Madison and Milwaukee, respectively.

The western 3rd District and southeastern 1st District are Wisconsin’s only competitive seats. Evers’ map maintained a slight Republican edge in the 3rd District, which flipped red later that year, and made the 1st District more competitive for Democrats, moving it from about a 9-point Republican margin down to a 2-point edge. Republican Rep. Bryan Steil easily won reelection in the 1st District in 2022.

Political districts typically are redrawn after the completion of the U.S. Census once every 10 years to account for population changes. Congressional districts must have equal populations, but how districts are drawn tends to determine which party holds power.

Tuesday’s motion notes the current “lawless” map is set to remain in effect until about 2031 — after the next census and subsequent redistricting process.

The motion argues such a result “cannot stand” and asked the court to invite the parties involved in the previous congressional district map proposals to submit new maps. The Wisconsin Elections Commission and its members are listed as respondents in the motion.

“Granting such relief will fulfill this Court’s constitutional duty to independently adjudicate the validity of Wisconsin’s congressional maps; failing to act will double down on a now-discredited legal principle and subject Wisconsin voters to a full decade under congressional maps that lack any basis in Wisconsin law,” attorneys wrote in the motion.

The move comes less than a month after the liberal majority of the state Supreme Court ordered the Republican-controlled state Legislature to draw new state Senate boundaries ahead of the 2024 election.

The court deemed the legislative maps unconstitutional because many of the districts are not contiguous. But Justice Jill Karofsky in her majority opinion also said the court “would not consider” the least change theory when adopting new maps, noting the Dec. 22 decision overruled the court’s previous ruling mandating the least change approach.

Karofsky argued the then-conservative-controlled court never “defined a least-change approach in a coherent way” and said that approach should be “secondary” to other constitutional requirements related to district lines like “preserving communities of interest.”

“It is impractical and unfeasible to apply a standard that (1) is based on fundamentals that never garnered consensus, and (2) is in tension with established districting requirements,” Karofsky wrote.

Law Forward, who brought the legislative maps challenge in a day after the high court flipped into liberal control last August, did not challenge the state’s congressional district lines at the time. It had not been clear that such a challenge would be lodged with less than a year until the 2024 presidential election.

The timing of the filing pits Democrats up against the clock. The state’s primary is set for Aug. 13, and the Wisconsin Elections Commission has said that any new maps must be in place by March 15 to take effect for the 2024 election. Candidate nominating petitions begin circulating on April 15.

Attorneys in their motion filed Tuesday argued the filing was timely because it came just weeks after the state Supreme Court's Dec. 22 ruling and days after the high court declined to reconsider that decision last week.

Just what a redrawn map could look like is similarly unclear. But Democrats could again key in on the two battleground districts held by Republicans Steil and Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents the 3rd District.

National Democrats, for their part, have made those two seats top targets as they work to flip Republicans' slim majority in the House.

Republicans Tuesday evening were quick to attack the move, pointing out that the filing comes after Wisconsin's high court recently flipped into liberal control.

"The newly bought and paid for liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court faces yet another test of the public's trust: do the right thing by leaving the current, constitutional maps in place or abandon sound judgement by catering to their left-wing out-of-state donors," Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming said in a statement.

"Should they choose the latter," he added, "we will look forward to the United States Supreme Court taking up the case."

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's main campaign arm, similarly accused Democrats of trying to "bend the rules to achieve power."

"Wisconsin Democrats can't win these House seats on their own, so they're focusing on gerrymandering to help themselves instead of running on policies that help Wisconsinites," NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella told the Journal Sentinel.

Democrats, however, largely praised the move.

Nick Ramos, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a group that has opposed Wisconsin's current maps, told the Journal Sentinel that the least change approach "ought to be challenged." He acknowledged that the timeline for having a new map in place for 2024 is tight but added: "Our Supreme Court is equipped to handle cases like this."

Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan Tuesday evening tweeted his support for the motion, calling the effort an attempt to "make our congressional districts fair to all Wisconsinites."

“Wisconsin is a purple state, however, our current congressional district maps do not reflect that," Pocan said.

Follow Lawrence Andrea on X @lawrencegandrea.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Democratic law firm challenges Wisconsin congressional districts