Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed into law a series of new legislative maps intended to make elections more competitive in the state.
The new maps conclude a several-months-long legal battle after
the state Supreme Court deemed previous maps unconstitutional late in 2023.
The 2023 ruling was made possible by a dramatic ideological shift in the state’s highest court, following the election of liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz. In the 4-3 ruling, the state Supreme Court found that
the maps violated the state’s constitutional rule that all districts drawn up by the state legislature had to be contiguous. Those maps, designed by Republicans, had created districts with several
“islands” that were disconnected from their main legislative territories.
Following the ruling, the court mandated that interested parties — including the state legislature, the governor, and other entities involved in the lawsuit that overturned the state legislative maps — submit different ideas for the court to evaluate. The court also stated that it wouldn’t choose new maps if the state legislature and Evers were able to agree on a replacement.
Fearing that the court could enact a map that would disadvantage them more than Evers’s maps, the Republican-dominated state legislature reluctantly approved the governor’s maps last week.