Wisconsin Supreme Court's experts call Republican drawn map plans 'partisan gerrymanders'
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MADISON – Two redistricting consultants hired by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to analyze proposals for new legislative boundaries in Wisconsin ruled out two plans submitted by Republican lawmakers and a conservative law firm and declared the remaining four submitted by liberal groups, university professors and Democrats "indistinguishable" from each other.
The consultants' analysis, submitted to the court late Thursday as part of an order by the court to draw new legislative maps in Wisconsin, described the Republican plans as "partisan gerrymanders" but did not explicitly recommend to justices to accept the Democratic plans either.
The report submitted Thursday is the latest development in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state Legislature's current boundaries, which have helped Republicans secure comfortable majorities for more than a decade.
The consultants, Bernard Grofman of the University of California, Irvine and Jonathan Carvas of Carnegie Mellon University, told the justices they could draw a map for the court by taking one or all of the Democratic map plans and improve upon them.
"If the court were to instruct us to create such a map, we are poised to produce it quickly," they wrote in a report filed with the court late Thursday.
The consultants filed the report evaluating each of the map proposals based on the court's criteria, such as population equality, contiguous territory and "partisan impact."
More: In a 50/50 Wisconsin electorate, what does a 'neutral' election map look like?
Under consideration were submissions from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Republican legislative leaders, Democratic lawmakers, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and the petitioners who brought the lawsuit who are represented by Law Forward, a liberal legal firm.
The consultants concluded the GOP leaders' plan did not warrant further consideration and described the plan put forward by WILL as scoring well on "good government" criteria but having an "extreme level of partisan bias," dubbing it a "stealth gerrymander."
The court on Dec. 22 ordered the Republican-controlled state Legislature to draw new legislative boundaries ahead of the 2024 election, arguing the state's current maps are unconstitutional because many disticts' boundaries are not contiguous — meaning they include pieces of land that are not connected.
In a 4-3 decision, justices said they are also prepared to replace the state's heavily gerrymandered maps if the Legislature and Evers cannot agree on a new plan. In that case, the court ruled that justices will consider the partisan makeup of the new map if they are forced to step in.
“This report plainly affirms for Wisconsinites what we’ve said all along: the maps Republicans submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court are nothing more than a partisan gerrymander," Evers said in a statement. “The days of Wisconsinites living under some of the most gerrymandered maps in the country are numbered. While this is just one step in this process, today is an important day for the people of Wisconsin who deserve maps that are fair, responsive and reflect the will of the people.”
WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg dismissed the report as hiding "its bias behind a fog of faux sophistication."
"Let's be clear, our maps have been rejected for one reason and one reason alone, they don’t produce the partisan outcomes the experts or many on the Court want. So, they ignore all the traditional tests for partisan bias," Esenberg said in a statement. "It is what Chief Justice Roberts has called social science gobbledygook: Obfuscation that hides one’s preferences so that it needn’t be justified."
The parties and others involved in the case may respond to the consultants' report by next week.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has said new maps must be in place by March 15. The redrawn maps would be in place in time for an August primary and the November general election for state legislative elections.
Molly Beck and Jessie Opoien can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com and jessie.opoien@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Supreme Court's experts call GOP maps gerrymanders'
