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The Wisconsin Supreme Court released its ruling this afternoon overturning Wisconsin's voting
maps.
The vote was four to three with conservative justices dissenting.
The liberal majority ordered new maps based on the contiguity of districts.
Justice Jokarovsky saying, quote, in Wisconsin, the number of state legislative districts
containing territory completely disconnected from the rest of the district is striking.
At least 50 of the 99 assembly districts and at least 20 of the 33 Senate districts include
separate, detached territory.
In dissent, Chief Justice Annette Ziegler said, quote, this deal was sealed on election
night.
Four justices remap Wisconsin, even though this constitutional responsibility is to occur
every 10 years after a census by the other two branches of government, contentious to
be sure.
Senior political reporter Zach Schultz joins us with details and Zach, thanks very much
for being here.
My pleasure.
The whole rule detached territory or the contiguity of the maps violates the state
constitution.
Describe why?
There are a number of districts where part of an old township, when a city incorporates
and grabs a subdivision, it would leave a little island that belonged to an old township.
And under the maps, in the past few decades, they've left those with the other township.
And if those happen on the dividing lines of an assembly district, part of that little
island goes with the other district.
Fast courts, including just a couple of years ago, have ruled that that is okay.
This court said precedent going back to the 1800s in the Supreme Court decided the constitution
said contiguity means contiguity.
So what else stood out?
Well, for me, it was absolutely the timeline of this and the fact that they're getting
away from least change, that was the criteria that the last court invented for which they
would consider these maps, saying that they wanted to change them as little as possible.
This court said least change is not a factor.
We don't think it should be used at all.
It'll be thrown out.
They're also going to look at partisan fairness as a metric.
So this court has decided that they're going to give the legislature a chance to draw maps
and see if they can come to a deal with the governor, whether that happens is unlikely.
Well, I was going to ask, who draws these maps?
Well, there are the two routes.
The legislature has the option of coming back and passing them.
If they can work out a deal with the governor, those will supersede anything and it'll go
into place.
Since we know that's probably not going to happen, given the political reality we're
in, the court has said that they will hire consultants to help look and appraise different
maps that are brought to them and presented to them.
Do all 132 legislators have to stand for election under new maps?
Nope.
What they also ruled is that senators elected under the old maps just two years ago will
not have to go up again until 26.
So meanwhile, the court also set a January 12 deadline to submit these new maps.
Talk about fast-tracked.
This has been fast-tracked from the beginning, from this lawsuit being filed the day that
Justice Portisay, which was sworn in, all the way to oral arguments in November.
This unprecedented decision coming out in January, candidates can file in these new
districts in April.
So they have to move on a fast timeline, which is why we're seeing the court saying, we're
going to do this at the same time the legislature can, because we don't trust them to get
it done on time.
And so again, they're hiring these consultants to help them do this.
And knowing what we know about how this state works right now, I can't imagine that all
of these pieces can come together in time for the next year's elections.
Well, they have to.
And that's what happens every 10 years everywhere else.
It'll get done.
It just people will be saying that they're just as biased in a different way than the
last maps were biased in a different way.
All right.
We leave it there, Zach.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Voss says he expects this case to head to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Zach spoke with the speaker prior to the maps ruling this week on a variety of issues,
looking back at the last year and what's to come in 2024.