Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers Signs Bill Ending GOP Gerrymandered Districts

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers Signs Bill Ending GOP Gerrymandered Districts​

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.

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Ishm said:

I wonder if we are living in dangerous times for the Republican cause? This is not a good time for Republicans at state level as their push towards the maga craziness seems to have strengthened the Dems case in the state elections. Fence sitting states are dropping more Dems into positions of power and we could easily see more Republican favoring gerrymandering undone over the next few years. With an agenda that has become highly polarizing, and has a relatively narrow focus on the maga faithful, it might be hard for Republicans to hold control on the marginal states, and even harder to win them back. Will be interesting to read the history books a decade from now.

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The Mark said:

Gerrymandering is a way to artificially retain power, against the will of the people.

IMO it would be better if every state had some kind of non-partisan district drawing procedure, so that no party could ever impact it for their benefit.

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