Topline
The Wisconsin Supreme Court Friday adopted a GOP-drawn legislative map reducing the number of majority-Black districts from six to five, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a map by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers that would have created an additional majority-Black district.
A man casts his ballot at Tippecanoe Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 20, 2020.
Key Facts
The 4-3 decision was made on the same day candidates became eligible to start collecting signatures to appear on the ballot, resolving weeks of uncertainty about which district they would be running in, the Associated Press reported.
In a concurring opinion, Wisconsin Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote that jurisdictions should be drawn with a color-blind approach, and claimed that focusing the redistricting process on racial demographics had produced “nothing but racial animosity.”
In a dissenting opinion that Rebecca Bradley called described as race-baiting, Wisconsin Justice Jill Karofsky wrote that the state supreme court erred by favoring the map that made the least change—a strategy that seemed superficially fair but had only succeeded in reinforcing the “blatantly partisan” character of the previous map.
The Wisconsin fall primary is scheduled to take place August 9.
Key Background
States must redraw their legislative districts every 10 years to accommodate new data from the U.S. Census. The Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted Evers’ map on March 3. However, March 23, the U.S. Supreme Court approved a request by Wisconsin Republicans to scrap the map, ruling that the map failed to answer whether an alternative race-neutral map—one that did not add a seventh majority-Black district—might not still accommodate the rights of Black voters. This judgment echoed arguments by Republican Legislators, who contended that Evers’ map violated the Voting Rights Act by shuffling the districts of too many Black and Hispanic voters. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision “not only extraordinary but unnecessary,” needlessly complicating the issue by interfering with processes that should have been allowed to play out at the state level.
Tangent
Rebecca Bradley was appointed to the bench by Gov. Scott Walker (R) in 2015. The other six Wisconsin justices were elected.
What To Watch For
Though the primary is less than four months away, it’s still possible that Democrats could challenge the maps again in federal court with an eye on 2024 elections.
Further Reading
“Supreme Court Throws Out Wisconsin Legislative Map That Added Majority-Black District” (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/04/15/wisconsin-adopts-legislative-map-reducing-number-of-majority-black-districts/