| June 19, 2017 – Milwaukee, WI – Today, in a highly significant development, the United States Supreme Court has decided to hear Gill v. Whitford, the long running challenge to Wisconsin’s legislative maps. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed an amicus brief urging the Court to take the case. Following is a statement from Rick Esenberg, WILL president and general counsel, on today’s decision:
“In this case, what the plaintiffs have effectively asked the Court to do is gerrymander in favor of competitiveness, that is, to draw maps that compensate for the fact that Democrat voters tend to be more geographically concentrated. That’s a political judgment the Court has repeatedly recognized as nonjusticiable.
“As Judge Griesbach noted in his dissent in Gill, the remarkable thing about the case is that these allegedly gerrymandered maps actually respect all traditional redistricting principles. We are confident the Supreme Court, as it has in the past, will decline to insert the judiciary into political questions on whether or not to make up whatever natural disadvantage these maps may confer.”
The Supreme Court also issued a stay of the three judge redistricting panel’s order to have new maps drawn by November 1, 2017, pending the Court’s decision in Gill.
### |
