Wisconsin’s six GOP House members and Republican state lawmakers want the state Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit asking the justices to redraw congressional lines.
And the six members of Congress want liberal Justice Janet Protasiewiciz to recuse herself from the case after comments she made during her 2023 race about the maps.
The GOP legislators were among those who met a Friday deadline to indicate whether they wanted to weigh in on a lawsuit that argues the current districts failed to adhere to standards requiring the districts to have identical populations. That would be six districts with 736,715 people and two with 736,714. But some districts when drawn had 736,716 people. The suit, filed by the Campaign Legal Center, also argues the congressional map improperly split counties.
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The court has also received a second lawsuit asking to overturn the congressional maps, calling them partisan gerrymanders. The deadline is later this week to weigh in on that case.
The Elections Commission, which is the defendant in both cases, on Thursday indicated it takes no position on whether the court should accept the first suit. The agency wrote its primary concern is that any litigation is wrapped up in time to effectively administer “the 2026 election calendar.” The commission noted in past redistricting suits, it has explained that maps need to be in place no later than March of an election year for staff to be able to implement them.
Others faced a Friday deadline if they wanted to be heard, and the court on Monday released to WisPolitics their motions to intervene or file a non-party brief. The parties also submitted proposed briefs to support their positions on whether the court should take the case, but the justices have yet to decide whether to accept those filings, and they haven’t been released publicly yet.
The filings include:
- The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, which wants the court to take the case. It wants to file a non-party brief to lay out why it supports the request to overturn the existing lines.
- Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which wants permission to file a non-party brief. The state’s largest business group didn’t lay out its position in the case.
- A group of conservative voters — including former GOP state Reps. Adam Jarchow, Gae Magnafici, Terry Moulton and Joe Sanfelippo, who want to file a nonparty brief that argues the existing maps are lawful and “any attempt to redraw the Congressional district lines at this time would violate the United States Constitution.”
The GOP-controlled state Legislature indicated it wants to be allowed to become a party to the suit to argue the court should reject a request to “redraw congressional districts anew in violation of the federal Elections Clause, embrace a novel interpretation of a constitutional provision contrary to 125 years of this Court’s precedent, ignore the doctrine of laches, and transgress due process, all with the effect of enlarging this Court’s judicial power beyond recognition.”
The House Republicans, who now have a 6-2 majority in the delegation, joined a group of voters in filing their motion to intervene.
It includes a history of the current map, which the state Supreme Court selected in 2022, and a 2024 request asking the justices to scrap it.
After liberals flipped the court majority in 2023, a lawsuit was filed seeking to overturn the legislative map the previous conservative majority selected in 2022. The justices ruled those lines were unconstitutional because some districts included noncontiguous territory. They also threw out a previous standard the conservative majority had laid out that parties submitting maps take a “least change” approach to the lines that GOP lawmakers drew a decade earlier when Republicans had full control of the Legislature.
A group of Dems filed a request in early 2024 asking the court to draw new congressional lines, arguing with the “least change” standard no longer in effect, the House map should be thrown out. The court rejected that request 6-0.
The delegation’s submission includes a 536-page appendix with media coverage of Protasiewicz’s 2023 campaign, as well as the motion filed in 2024 seeking her recusal. The justice rejected the request as moot because she didn’t participate in the 2022 ruling that selected the map.
