The Republicans who were involved in a federal redistricting suit want the case dismissed now that the state Supreme Court has picked legislative and congressional districts.
But Dem Gov. Tony Evers and some of the other parties involved want another two weeks before they weigh in on what they believe should happen.
A group of Dem voters filed a federal redistricting suit before Republicans went to the state Supreme Court with a similar case. The federal court then put the Dem case on hold while the other suit worked its way through the state Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the three-judge federal panel said it wanted the parties to weigh in within days of any action by the state Supreme Court on what should happen with the suit before it.
A week ago, the Wisconsin justices put in place the legislative map drawn by GOP lawmakers while rejecting a request from the state Republican House members to reconsider an earlier ruling blessing Evers’ congressional district maps.
In a filing earlier this week, GOP lawmakers argued the federal case must come to an end. The districts challenged in that suit have been superseded by the state court’s decision and won’t be used in future elections. The GOP lawmakers also argued “there is no authority to revisit the Wisconsin Supreme Court proceedings and the resulting electoral districts.”
The state’s GOP House members also urged the federal court to dismiss the case, as did a group of Republican voters that are parties in the case.
But a group of plaintiffs, including Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, Voces de la Frontera and the League of Women Voters, argued while it is likely some claims before the federal court were resolved in the ruling from the Wisconsin justices, it would be “premature and inefficient” to dismiss the entire case because some issues may persist. That includes a possible Voting Rights Act challenge to the GOP map, which drops the number of majority Black Assembly districts to five from the current six.
They asked the federal court to set a status conference in two weeks so they have time to assess the “the viability of their pending and other potential claims before committing to a course of action in these consolidated cases.”
Evers and a group of Dem voters filed separate briefs backing the request by the BLOC plaintiffs.
Read the BLOC plaintiffs’ brief here.
Read the brief from GOP state lawmakers here.
