The Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted a map proposed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday, ending a long-winded legal tangle over the state’s congressional redistricting and protecting Democrats from a likely rout.
In a split 4-3 ruling, the court opted for Evers’s map, touting its “least change” approach to congressional districts. Although presented by a Democratic governor, the map maintains a lot of the Republican advantages from the old map.
“Hell yes,” Evers said in a statement. “The maps I submitted to the Court that were selected today are a vast improvement from the gerrymandered maps Wisconsin has had for the last decade and the even more gerrymandered Republicans maps that I vetoed last year. We still have a long way to go, and I will never stop fighting for nonpartisan redistricting as long as I’m the governor of this great state.”
The conservative-leaning court’s decision came as a result of Justice Brian Hagedorn joining his liberal colleagues. When the court took the case, it said it favored a “least changes” approach to the map instead of getting bogged down in a debate about partisan advantages, according to WPR. While this mentality was a setback for Democrats, who had hoped to reverse the redistricting gains Republicans scored in 2011, Evers’s map protected Democrats more than GOP-proposed alternatives, which would have moved the lines in even more favorable ways.
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“The first question is which map most complies with our least-change directive. With only eight districts, core retention — a measure of voters who remain in their prior districts — is the best metric of least change, and the map submitted by Governor Evers easily scores highest. His map moves 5.5% of the population to new districts, leaving 94.5% in their current districts,” the court wrote in its ruling.
The court also adopted Evers’s state legislative map, which appears to benefit Democrats. Republicans enjoy a 61-38 majority in the Wisconsin State Assembly and a 21-12 majority in the state Senate. An analysis by Marquette University research fellow John Johnson concluded the legislative breakdown would likely remain about the same under the new map in a statewide tie election between the two parties.
Wisconsin did not gain or lose seats following the most recent federal census. The new map gives Republicans a roughly 10.3-point partisan lean, down from a 12.7-point lean in the prior map, according to an analysis from FiveThirtyEight. Republicans maintain the majority in the state’s congressional delegation 5-3. But some experts believe Republicans might be able to gain a seat under the conditions of the new map in what is expected to be a strong midterm election cycle for Republicans.
“Despite this being Gov. Tony Evers’s (D) map, it’s a status quo plan that could easily result in a 6R-2D split in a state Biden carried,” Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst for Cook Political Report, tweeted.
Wisconsin’s redistricting saga was long and contentious. Last November, the state reached a standstill when Evers vetoed a congressional map the Republican-controlled Legislature passed, kicking the dispute to the high court.
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There is still a federal lawsuit pending that could change the state’s congressional lines, according to the Associated Press.
With Wisconsin’s map now adopted, there are only four states without legally binding congressional maps: Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, and New Hampshire. Notably, Ohio’s map is at risk of being struck down by the state’s Supreme Court, and over a dozen states remain in litigation over their congressional maps.
