Redistricting again took center stage at the Wisconsin Supreme Court this past month, with the court declaring Wisconsin's state legislative maps unlawful under the Wisconsin Constitution. Let's dive right in.
Cases Decided
Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2023AP1399
Redistricting
Decision Filed: December 22, 2023
Public Citation: 2023 WI 79
Nearly four months into its 2023-24 term, the Wisconsin Supreme Court finally issued its first authored decision of the term'a 225-page behemoth on the hot button topic of redistricting. Admittedly, Justice Karofsky's majority opinion constitutes only 49 pages of the volume, with three separate dissents accounting for the other 176 pages. Regardless, here's the bottom line: Wisconsin's legislative maps violate the Wisconsin Constitution's requirement that districts be contiguous, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court plans to implement new maps to remedy this deficiency.
Relative to the stakes of this case, the central legal issue is relatively mundane. Article IV, Sections 4 and 5 of the Wisconsin Constitution direct that state assembly and senate districts must consist of "contiguous territory." The current legislative maps (which the supreme court implemented just two years ago) include districts that contain territory that is detached from the rest of their districts. For decades, this districting practice has been permitted, so long as the detached territories are so-called "municipal islands"'i.e., territory that is part of a municipality included in the...
