MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday accepted Republican cards for the state legislature, handing the Republican victory just weeks after the initial approval of cards drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
The court turned after the US Supreme Court in March said Evers’ cards had been misappropriated and appeared just as candidates were about to start distributing nomination documents to appear in this year’s vote, unsure of the boundaries. of the districts.
Democrats would make some small gains on Evers’ plan, but Republicans were expected to retain a majority in the Assembly and Senate, according to an analysis by the governor’s office.
The Evers map created seven districts of the Milwaukee Assembly of Black States, compared to the current six. There were only five Republican-controlled legislators on the map.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court accepted the Evers map on March 3, but the US Supreme Court overturned it on March 23. The Supreme Court ruled that the Evers map did not take into account whether there was a “racially neutral alternative that did not add a seventh majority – the black quarter would deny black voters equal political opportunities.”
Evers told the state’s Supreme Court that he could still accept his card with some additional analysis or an alternative with six majority black areas. The Republican-controlled legislature says its map must be implemented.
The Wisconsin court, controlled 4-3 by conservatives, sided with the legislature.
“The cards proposed by the governor … are racially motivated and under strict protection clause are not subject to strict scrutiny,” Chief Justice Annette Ziegler wrote of the majority, joined by Judges Patience Rogensak, Rebecca Grasl Bradley and Brian Hagedorn.
The legislature’s cards, they wrote, “are racially neutral” and “comply with the equal protection clause, along with all other federal and state legal requirements.”
Hagedorn, a conservative swing judge, initially backed Evers’ card, but turned around after the matter returned to court. In a separate agreement, he wrote that the decision of the US Supreme Court required the state court to accept a racially neutral card, and the legislature’s cards “are the only legally compatible cards we received.”
The three liberal judges in the court – Jill Karofsky, Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dalet – disagree. Karofsky, who writes about the minority, said the legislature’s cards “are no better than those of the governor, according to the US Supreme Court’s justification.”
“If, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, the addition of a majority and minority minority governor in Milwaukee shows disqualifying racial considerations, then the legislature’s removal of a majority minority district in Milwaukee reveals an equally suspicious, if not more blatant, sign of lines based on race, “Karofsky wrote.
Assembly Speaker Robin Voss praised the decision on Twitter, saying Republicans “thought our cards were the best option from the start.”
Evers called the decision “outrageous” and said the court had withdrawn from an earlier finding that the legislature’s cards had illegally packed black voters to reduce their voting rights.
“At a time when our democracy is under almost constant attack, the judiciary has abandoned our democracy in our most difficult time,” Evers said.
Republicans have a 61-38 majority in the Assembly and a 21-12 majority in the Senate. Even according to the GOP card, which the state court initially rejected, they were not expected to receive a super-majority that could overturn any veto in Evers.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Wisconsin case marked the first time in this diversion cycle that it overturned state-drawn maps.
The court signaled that it could significantly change the basic rules governing redistribution. The court’s involvement comes after its 2019 ruling that federal courts have no role in stopping guerrilla fraud.
In February, she suspended a decision by a panel of federal judges urging Alabama to redraw its cards to give blacks a better chance in choosing their representatives, saying it may need to reconsider long-standing case law. . This is the case law that the Supreme Court cites in the Wisconsin judgment.
The court refused to block maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. But four conservative judges have written that they want to rule on the new legal theory that state legislatures, not state courts, have supreme power over maps.
While the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin’s legislative cards, it accepted congressional maps proposed by Evers. Republicans currently hold five of the state’s eight seats. This map has made one of these areas of the GOP more competitive.
Redistribution is the process of redrawing political boundaries based on the last census. Card makers can create an advantage for their political party by packing opponents’ voters in several districts or distributing them among multiple districts – a process known as gerrymandering.
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