The GOP members of the state’s congressional delegation asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn new maps OK’d by Wisconsin justices, arguing they are unconstitutional.
The filing — coming two days after Republican state lawmakers also went to the U.S. justices seeking to overturn the new maps — accuses the state Supreme Court of violating the Due Process Clause by baiting and switching the parties on what standard it would use to adopt a map.
The GOP members of Congress asked the court to direct Wisconsin’s justices to scrap their decision and allow the parties to submit new maps for consideration that follow the core retention standard that was at the heart of the ruling.
In the alternative, they asked the court to order the 2022 elections to be conducted under the congressional lines that GOP lawmakers passed last fall, only to see Dem Gov. Tony Evers veto them.
State lawmakers have also asked the court to order the fall elections to be held under the maps they passed and then submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court as part of the suit that was before the state justices.
In addition to violating the Due Process Clause in how the map was picked, the GOP congressmen argued the lines fail to equally split Wisconsinites into the state’s eight congressional districts.
Following the 2020 census, the ideal population for each district is 736,714.75 people. The congressional map Republicans submitted had either 736,714 or 736,715 in each seat. The guv’s had 736,714, 736,715 or 736,716 in each district. Republicans argued that failed to meet the U.S. Constitution’s equal population mandate.
The state DOJ argued before the state Supreme Court earlier this year that a smaller deviation wasn’t required under the law.
In a November order, the state Supreme Court directed the parties submitting maps to them to take a least-change approach from the lines that Republicans put into place in 2011. The filing argues the resulting 4-3 decision that picked Evers’ maps ignored other redistricting factors — such as keeping together communities of interest — and solely relied on a core retention principle.
The Republican House members also complained the Wisconsin justices declined to allow them to make changes to the map they originally submitted, but allowed Evers to make revisions to his. The court in that decision called Evers’ changes technical, which is why the justices in a 4-3 ruling allowed those changes.
The filing argued it is “trivially easy” to draw maps using the core retention principle and the Wisconsin Supreme Court could receive new maps that move the fewest people within a week of an order from the U.S. justices. That would leave ample time to pick a new map for the fall 2022 elections.
The state Elections Commission has argued in court it needed new maps in place by March 1 to provide adequate time to prepare for the window to start circulating nomination papers April 15. GOP lawmakers have argued that deadline is closer to the end of April.
The filing deadline is June 1 for candidates seeking to be on the fall ballot.
Read the filing here.
