Wisconsin’s Revised Voting Map Blocked by the Supreme Court

Wisconsin’s new state legislative map drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, which was adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court and backed by Democrats, was blocked by the Supreme Court on Wednesday

The revised plan for legislative districts in Wisconsin, which was opposed by Republicans, created a new Black-majority state House voting district touching Milwaukee.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan called the move in the state legislative map case unprecedented, pointing out that the court’s intervention was not only extraordinary but also unnecessary.

According to the court, Gov. Evers’ plan embraced the sort of uncritical majority-minority district maximization that was deemed unacceptable.

They also said that in adopting the map, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had committed legal error in its application of the Supreme Court’s decisions regarding the relationship between the constitutional guarantee of equal protection and the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court, at the same time, rejected on Wednesday without explanation the Republicans’ request to upend a congressional map the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted and was preferred by Democrats although it had a Republican lean- giving them 5-3 advantage – because of the potential to give them at least one additional seat in the US House.

Republicans urged the court in its challenge to block the revised plan for the state’s congressional districts and instead revert to boundaries drawn up by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

They argued that the GOP map made minimal changes to existing districts and was kept consistent with the demographic reality that Milwaukee’s Black population remained almost the same between 2010 and 2020.

They also accused the Wisconsin state Supreme Court of violating the US Constitution by changing – midway through the litigation – the standards the court would use to assess the maps proposed in the litigation.

After the 2020 census, dozens of redistricting challenges have reached the Supreme Court, with the latest being from Alabama, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.