Wisconsin Supreme Court consultants say Republican-drawn legislative maps are gerrymanders, don't deserve consideration

From the Article:

Two consultants hired by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority said redistricting plans submitted by the Republican-controlled Legislature do “not deserve further consideration” by justices as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the state’s political maps.

Their report on six map proposals said plans submitted by Gov. Tony Evers, Democrats and academics are “tilted toward the Republicans” but are competitive enough that “the party that wins the most votes will win the most seats.”

The findings, released to the court Thursday night, struck at the heart of an argument long used by Republicans that Wisconsin’s “political geography” favors their party because Democrats are generally clustered in larger cities. Wisconsin’s current legislative maps, first drawn by Republicans in 2011 and redrawn in 2021, have helped the GOP cement lopsided majorities in the Assembly and Senate, even in years when Democratic candidates performed well statewide.

But University of California, Irvine political scientist Bernard Grofman and Carnegie Mellon University political scientist Jonathan Cervas told the court that the maps submitted to the court contradicted that claim.

“To put it simply, in Wisconsin, geography is not destiny,” they wrote.

The report argues map proposals from every party except the Legislature and voters represented by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty are able to “improve on traditional good government criteria compared to the current map and manage to create plans with modest levels of partisan bias.”

Also, the consultants wrote, the Legislature’s plan and the plan submitted by WILL “are partisan gerrymanders” from a social science perspective.

The other four plans, the report said, are similar on most criteria, and more competitive than the GOP maps. The consultants did not endorse a specific map but told the court they were prepared to improve map proposals if justices choose.

Shortly after the report was released, Evers called it an important step in the process for finding new maps.

“The days of Wisconsinites living under some of the most gerrymandered maps in the country are numbered,” Evers said.