Wisconsin Supreme Court hearing arguments on redistricting that could result in new maps for 2024

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Associated Press

The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a redistricting case that Democrats hope will result in new, more favorable legislative maps for elections in 2024 that will help them chip away at the large Republican majority.

The case is being closely watched in battleground Wisconsin, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by fewer than 23,000 votes, but where Republicans have built large majorities in the Legislature under maps they drew over a decade ago.

Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley immediately interrupted the first attorney arguing for new maps, questioning why they waited until after August when liberal justices took majority control of the court. She noted that the newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz said during her campaign that the current maps were “rigged.”

“Everybody knows that the reason we’re here is because there was a change in the membership of the court," Bradley said. "You would not have brought this action, right, if the newest justice had lost her election?”

Attorney Mark Gaber, from the Campaign Legal Center, said the election result had nothing to do with the timing of the lawsuit. He said the challenge over whether the districts are unconstitutionally not contiguous would have been filed regardless of the makeup of the court.

“I don't see that as a partisan issue,” Gaber said.

The lawsuit was filed the day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court became controlled 4-3 by liberal justices in August.

Arguments began shortly before 9 a.m. and were slated to run all morning. The court was expected to issue its ruling no later than early in 2024. The state elections commission has said maps must be in place by March 15 if the new districts are to be in play for the 2024 elections.

Democratic voters who filed the lawsuit heard by the court Tuesday argue that the maps passed in 2022, which vary little from those drawn in 2011, are unconstitutionally “unsalvageable” and must be struck down and redrawn. The Legislature counters that Democrats are exercising “raw political power” and trying to take advantage of the new liberal majority on the court to overturn its 2021 ruling that adopted the current maps.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is controlled 4-3 by liberal justices, following the April election victory by Protasiewicz. She called the GOP-drawn maps “unfair” and “rigged” during the campaign, leading Republicans to threaten to impeach her before she had even heard a case. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos backed off, for now, but has kept the threat alive if she votes to strike down the maps.

Democrats want the court to strike down the legislative maps, draw new ones, and order elections under those maps for all 132 state lawmakers in 2024. If the court were to rule that way, the case would certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and it's unclear whether there would be a ruling in time for the 2024 election.

The Legislature argues that if new maps are ordered, nothing should be enacted any sooner than the 2026 election.

Litigation is ongoing in more than dozen states over U.S. House and state legislative districts enacted after the 2020 census. New York is among the most prominent. The state’s highest court heard arguments last week on whether an independent redistricting commission must take another crack at drawing congressional districts. Democrats are hoping a redraw could help them gain seats and, potentially, the House majority.

New Mexico’s Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on an appeal of a lower court ruling that rejected assertions the Democratic-led Legislature had illegally gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts. Last week, a federal judge in North Dakota ruled that state legislative districts drawn by the Republican majority violated the voting rights of two Native American tribes and must be redrawn by Dec. 22.

The Democrats' case in Wisconsin centers on whether the current districts are not contiguous and if they violate the Wisconsin Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.

The majority of current legislative districts — 54 out of 99 in the Assembly and 21 out of 33 in the Senate — violate the state constitution’s contiguity requirement, attorneys challenging the maps argued in filings with the court.

That makes Wisconsin an outlier nationally, with 46 other states having no noncontiguous districts, and Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Tennessee having a total of nine noncontiguous districts, attorneys argued.

Wisconsin’s redistricting laws, backed up by state and federal court rulings over the past 50 years, have permitted districts under certain circumstances to be noncontiguous, attorneys for the Legislature argued. Even if the court decided to address the issue, it could only affect alleged areas where districts aren’t contiguous and not upend existing district lines, Republicans argued.

Those seeking new maps contend that the Supreme Court violated the separation of powers doctrine when it adopted the Republican-drawn map that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers had previously vetoed, “improperly seizing powers for itself the Constitution assigns to other branches.”

The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.

Since taking the majority in 2011, Republicans have enacted a wide range of conservative priorities. They have all but eliminated collective bargaining for public workers, and since 2019 they’ve been a block on Evers’ agenda, firing Evers appointees and threatening impeachment of Protasiewicz and the state’s elections leader.

Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most gerrymandered nationally, with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote, according to an Associated Press analysis.

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Wisconsin’s legislative maps are bizarre, but are they illegal?

Posted on November 19, 2023 by ProPublica

by Megan O’Matz, graphics by Lucas Waldron

ProPublica

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Any number of odd, zigzag examples can be used to make the case that legislative districts in Wisconsin are excessively gerrymandered.

There’s the pistol-shaped 31st Assembly District, held by a Republican, that was drawn with a western border that splits the Democratic city of Beloit in two.

There’s suburban Milwaukee’s 14th Assembly District, which stretches south, then east, then southwest, then east and again south, isolating Democrats and thereby limiting the Democratic vote in neighboring districts held by Republicans.

And in the northwest corner of the state, there’s the 73rd Assembly District, which resembles a Tyrannosaurus rex after a remap wiped out a reliable bloc of Democrats and added more rural conservative areas. The result: After 50 years of Democratic control, a Republican won in 2022.

Yet when the Wisconsin Supreme Court hears arguments next week in a widely watched lawsuit arguing that the existing maps fail to meet standards set out in the state constitution, that kind of political engineering will not be the focus.

Instead, much of the debate will center on exactly how to interpret the word “contiguous.” And the map shapes that are likely to get attention have elicited comparisons to Swiss cheese.

Fifty-five of the state’s 99 Assembly districts and 21 of 33 in the Senate contain “disconnected pieces of territory,” according to the most recent petition filed with the state Supreme Court by 19 Wisconsin voters. The suit seeks to have the state’s maps declared unfair and redrawn.

Some sections of the state’s maps “look like a 2-year-old drew them,” said Democratic Rep. Jodi Emerson, who represents the city of Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin.

In the interior of her district, the 91st, sits a free-floating chunk that actually belongs to the turf of the adjacent lawmaker, Republican Karen Hurd.

That may seem odd, but what is often left unsaid in discussions of Wisconsin maps is that the islands are not random parcels created by mapmakers to advantage Republicans at the behest of a Republican legislature. Rather, the irregular blobs largely follow municipal maps that reflect the history of Wisconsin cities and villages adding to their tax base by annexing bits of land in nearby areas. The practice often leaves towns with irregular maps and legislative districts with holes and satellites.

The plaintiffs, who are Democratic voters, claim that the legislative district boundaries violate Article IV, Section 4 of the state constitution, which says Assembly members must be elected from districts consisting of “contiguous territory.”

But the same section of Article IV also requires that Assembly districts “be bounded by county, precinct, town or ward lines.”

Senate districts, which are each made up of three Assembly districts, are governed by Section 5. It says they must consist of “convenient contiguous territory.”

So, which trumps which? Contiguity or municipal lines?

"This is the only case I’m aware of where contiguity has been the focus of a challenge,” said University of Colorado Law Professor Doug Spencer, an expert in redistricting. “This could give the new Supreme Court in Wisconsin a way to overturn the maps on neutral grounds."

Much is at stake. The case could decide the future of Wisconsin state politics, with possible ramifications for such hot-button issues as abortion and voting rights.

One election law expert, after reviewing the constitution, saw the Senate language as more straightforward to challenge. Section 5 does not mention a need for Senate maps to be bounded by any kind of government or municipal lines. It only mentions contiguity.

That language is “more of a slam dunk” for the plaintiffs, said Michael McDonald of the University of Florida’s political science department, where he studies mapping issues.

GOP legislators who oppose the suit argue in one legal brief that insisting all parts of a district must physically touch flouts prior court rulings and “is absurd and unworkable.”

Marooned on a Voting Island

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that state legislative districts should have roughly equal populations, while federal law prohibits drawing lines that dilute the voting power of minorities. In addition to those parameters, states have adopted their own principles, which frequently include keeping districts contiguous.

The rationale behind contiguity is to create local districts where lawmakers live near and share common concerns with their constituents.

Contiguous means “you can draw a district without ever having to lift up your pencil,” Spencer explained.

But that’s not Wisconsin’s method.

According to the legal complaint, the majority of Wisconsin’s Assembly districts are noncontiguous — each consisting of between two and 40 disconnected pieces of territory. Two-thirds of the state’s Senate districts are noncontiguous — each with between two and 34 disconnected pieces.

Consider just a few of the Assembly districts referenced in the case.

High Stakes on the Highest Court

Wisconsin’s maps have long been a contentious political topic, even becoming an issue earlier this year in a fiercely competitive race for a seat on the state Supreme Court, a contest that attracted tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations and outside spending.

The liberal-leaning candidate, Janet Protasiewicz, won, tipping the balance of the court to the left for the first time in 15 years. During the race, she expressed her support for legal abortion and her concern that the legislative maps were “rigged.”

One day after Protasiewicz’s Aug. 1 swearing-in ceremony, the group of Democratic voters filed suit, challenging the maps as “extreme partisan gerrymanders.” The high court declined to hear arguments about how the maps created a political advantage and, instead, narrowed the case to two arcane issues. One was “contiguity.” The other was “separation of powers,” centering on whether the prior Supreme Court overstepped its authority last year when it adopted the Legislature's maps despite a veto by the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers.

When Protasiewicz and the liberal majority decided in favor of hearing the case, conservatives on the court didn’t hide their displeasure.

“Redistricting should not be an annual event,” griped Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler in a written dissent. She added that the decision to focus solely on contiguity and separation of powers, which are state Constitutional issues, was “an attempt to dodge appellate review.”

Another justice, Rebecca Grassl Bradley, expressed her dismay with the case by liberally citing Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and its sequel.

“Through the Looking Glass we go,” she wrote of what she considered to be a purely political, madcap exercise.

As the court date approaches, Republican legislators have been calling for Protasiewicz’s impeachment, claiming she’s biased. But she has said she won’t prejudge the issue and won’t recuse herself.

So far, Republicans haven’t acted on the impeachment threat. But even talk of such an extreme measure shows how significant the maps’ case is.

If redrawn, districts could become more competitive and less safe for incumbents — perhaps changing the power balance in the state capital. Republicans could lose complete control of the Legislature or, even if they retain power, lose their opportunity to gain a supermajority that would allow them to override Evers’ vetoes. A weakened state GOP could also be less helpful in 2024 to any Republicans who seek to again dispute presidential election results in Wisconsin, a swing state.

John Johnson, a Marquette University researcher who studies redistricting, noted that, ironically, it was Democrats who favored noncontiguous districts three decades ago.

Back then, maps drawn under the oversight of a Democratic legislature had created islands. Wisconsin Republicans at the time favored the dictionary definition, embracing “literal contiguity,” according to a key 1992 federal redistricting case that has been cited in the current controversy.

A federal three-judge panel, considering broader issues, didn’t endorse the islands but tolerated them, noting that the distance in the Democratic plan between the towns and the islands was slight.

The court held that “compactness and contiguity are desirable features in a redistricting plan,” but “only up to a point.”

Reaching “perfect contiguity and compactness,” the judges feared, would require “breaking up counties, towns, villages, wards and even neighborhoods.”

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Wisconsin Republican leader won’t back down from impeachment threat against Supreme Court justice

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Associated Press

The Republican leader of Wisconsin’s Assembly refused to back down Thursday from possibly impeaching a newly elected liberal state Supreme Court justice over her refusal to step aside in a redistricting case, even after two former conservative justices advised him against the unprecedented move.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos originally threatened to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she did not recuse from the redistricting challenge, which is backed by Democrats seeking to throw out Republican-drawn electoral maps. But Protasiewicz said last week she's staying on the case.

Now, Vos is tying possible impeachment to how she rules on the case, emphasizing the importance of following past precedent.

“If they decide to inject their own political bias inside the process and not follow the law, we have the ability to go to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Vos said, “and we also have the ability to hold her accountable to the voters of Wisconsin.”

Oral arguments in the redistricting case are set for Nov. 21. A ruling likely won’t come until after the Dec. 1 deadline for calling a special election to replace Protasiewicz, if she were removed from office or resigned. That means Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would appoint her replacement, who would almost certainly be another liberal.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Vos's comments are a signal that Republicans are backing off from impeaching Protasiewicz “and moving the goal posts.” He called the impeachment threat “an outrageous attempt at political extortion.”

“Time will tell if it’s just an attempt to save face," Wikler said. "But right now, it’s a climb-down.”

Vos first floated the possibility of impeachment in August after Protasiewicz called the Republican-drawn legislative boundary maps “rigged” and “unfair” during her campaign. Impeachment has drawn bipartisan opposition and two former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, asked by Vos to investigate the possibility, told him in the past week it was not warranted. Vos refused to say what advice he got from the third retired justice.

The lawsuit before the state Supreme Court asks that all 132 state lawmakers be up for election in 2024 in newly drawn districts.

Vos also said Protasiewicz’s acceptance of nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party would unduly influence her ruling.

Protasiewicz last week rejected those arguments, noting that other justices have accepted campaign cash and not recused from cases. She also noted that she never promised or pledged to rule on the redistricting lawsuit in any way. A state judiciary disciplinary panel has rejected several complaints against Protasiewicz that alleged she violated the judicial code of ethics with comments she made during the campaign.

Other justices, both conservative and liberal, have spoken out in the past on issues that could come before the court, although not always during their run for office like Protasiewicz did. Current justices have also accepted campaign cash from political parties and others with an interest in court cases and haven’t recused themselves. But none of them has faced threats of impeachment.

Sign the petition: Wisconsin believes in democracy. Do not impeach Justice Janet

2nd former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice advises Republican leader against impeachment

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Associated Press

A second former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice asked to investigate taking the unprecedented step of impeaching a liberal justice came out Wednesday against it.

Former Justice Jon Wilcox told The Associated Press that there was nothing to justify impeaching Justice Janet Protasiewicz, as some Republican lawmakers have floated because of comments she made during the campaign about redistricting and donations she accepted from the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

“I do not favor impeachment,” Wilcox told AP in a telephone interview.

Wilcox, along with former justices David Prosser and Patience Roggensack, were tapped by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to look into possible impeachment. Prosser on Friday emailed Vos telling him that he was also against impeachment.

Roggensack has not returned numerous messages seeking comment, including Wednesday.

Vos floated impeaching Protasiewicz if she did not recuse from a redistricting lawsuit seeking to toss GOP-drawn legislative district boundary maps. On Friday, she declined to recuse herself, and the court voted 4-3 along partisan lines to hear the redistricting challenge.

Vos asked three former justices to review the possibility of impeachment, but he refused to name them. Prosser told the AP that he was on the panel, but other justices either said they weren't on it or did not comment.

In a court filing, Vos identified the other two as Roggensack and Wilcox. All three of those picked by Vos are conservatives. Roggensack served 20 years on the court and her retirement this year created the vacancy that Protasiewicz filled with her election win in April.

Wilcox was on the court from 1992 to 2007 and Prosser served from 1998 to 2016.

Prosser, a former Republican Assembly speaker, sent Vos on email on Friday advising against moving forward with impeachment. That was after a state judiciary disciplinary panel rejected several complaints lodged against Protasiewicz that alleged she violated the judicial code of ethics with comments she made during the campaign.

Prosser turned that email over to the liberal watchdog group American Oversight as part of an open records request. The group is also suing, arguing that the panel created by Vos is violating the state open meetings law.

Vos, in his court filing Wednesday, said he never asked the three retired justices to prepare a report or any other written work. The recommendations of the other two former justices have not been made public.

Wilcox said he had no plans to submit a written report. He said he, Prosser and Roggensack met one time and he told them then that he didn't think impeachment was warranted.

Wilcox said he informed Vos of his opinion within the past two days.

Vos said that his seeking advice from the former justices was no different from any lawmaker meeting privately with someone and is not a violation of the state open meetings law.

“I have never asked them to meet with one another, to discuss any topics, or to conduct any governmental business,” Vos told the court. “I do not know whether the retired justices have or will collaborate with one another, as I have not given them a directive on how they are supposed to research the topic of impeachment.”

Vos raised the threat of impeachment in August just after Protasiewicz joined the court, flipping majority control from conservatives to liberals for the first time in 15 years. He announced creation of the panel to investigate impeachment on Sept. 13.

Vos argued that Protasiewicz had prejudged the redistricting case when during her campaign she called the maps “rigged” and “unfair.” Vos also said that her acceptance of nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party would unduly influence her ruling.

Protasiewicz on Friday rejected those arguments, noting that other justices have accepted campaign cash and not recused from cases. She also noted that she never promised or pledged to rule on the redistricting lawsuit in any way.

Sign the petition: Wisconsin believes in democracy. Do not impeach Justice Janet

ICYMI: Biden strongly condemns Hamas, says it doesn’t represent Palestinians

Posted on October 10, 2023 by kos

President Joe Biden condemns Hamas terrorism

Today, President Joe Biden spoke to the nation about Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel and about the U.S. response to the ongoing violence. Biden stridently condemned the “pure unadulterated evil” of the Hamas attack, referring to it as a “slaughter” and a “massacre.” He noted that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, said that Palestinians are pawns being used as “human shields,” and said, “This is terrorism, but sadly, for the Jewish people, [it] is not new. … We must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel.”

War Update: Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and Republicans

Russia is using the war in Israel to inject dangerous and false propaganda into the debate, and pro-Putin Republicans are gleefully taking the bait. “[An] account with over 350,000 followers on X (formerly known as Twitter) not only blames the Hamas attack on the U.S., but insists that it was all somehow done on orders from Barack Obama,” writes our own Mark Sumner. “Expect more such conspiracy theories, many more false claims, and for the worst of Republicans to continue using the dead in Israel for political gain.”

RNC chair's partisan remarks on Israel tragedy ignite controversy

War is breaking out, civilians are being massacred, but don’t worry—the Republican National Committee is thrilled. “I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel time and time again, and Joe Biden has been weak,” said RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice advises Republican leader against impeachment

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Associated Press

There should be no effort to impeach a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court justice based on what is known now, a former justice advised the Republican legislative leader who asked him to review the issue.

Some Republicans had raised the prospect of impeaching newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she did not recuse from a redistricting lawsuit seeking to toss GOP-drawn legislative district boundary maps. On Friday, she declined to recuse herself, and the court voted 4-3 along partisan lines to hear the redistricting challenge.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had asked three former justices to review the possibility of impeachment. One of those three, David Prosser, sent Vos an email on Friday, seemingly just before Protasiewicz declined to recuse, advising against moving forward with impeachment.

Prosser turned the email over to the liberal watchdog group American Oversight as part of an open records request.

“To sum up my views, there should be no effort to impeach Justice Protasiewicz on anything we know now,” Prosser wrote to Vos. “Impeachment is so serious, severe, and rare that it should not be considered unless the subject has committed a crime, or the subject has committed indisputable ‘corrupt conduct’ while ‘in office.’"

Vos on Monday made his first comments about Protasiewicz since she declined to recuse from the case and Vos got the email from Prosser. In his statement, Vos did not mention impeachment. He did not return text messages Monday or early Tuesday seeking further comment.

Vos raised the threat of impeachment because he argued that Protasiewicz had prejudged the redistricting case when during her campaign she called the current maps “rigged” and “unfair.” Vos also said that her acceptance of nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party would unduly influence her ruling.

Other justices, both conservative and liberal, have spoken out in the past on issues that could come before the court, although not always during their run for office like Protasiewicz did. Current justices have also accepted campaign cash from political parties and others with an interest in court cases and haven't recused themselves. But none of them have faced threats of impeachment.

In his email to Vos, Prosser said he did not think Protasiewicz had met the standard for impeachment, which is reserved for “corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors.”

She has not committed a crime or corrupt conduct, Prosser said.

“In my view, ‘corrupt conduct’ is not a term that is open to a mere political grievance,” Prosser wrote. “If that were the case, legislative bodies could be trading questionable impeachments with considerable frequency.”

Prosser cautioned that using impeachment to delay or affect the outcome of any single case “will be viewed as unreasonable partisan politics.”

Prosser, a former Republican Assembly speaker, was the only one of the former justices who came forward to say they were on the panel created by Vos. But the records he turned over to American Oversight show that he was also apparently working with former Chief Justice Patience Roggensack on looking at impeachment.

The group has filed a lawsuit alleging that the panel Vos created is breaking the state open meetings law.

“Justice Prosser’s opinion letter demonstrates why Speaker Vos’ secret panel needs to operate in public," said Heather Sawyer, American Oversight's executive director, in a statement. "We still don’t know everyone involved or what other work has been done, and will keep pressing to ensure that the people of Wisconsin have full transparency and accountability regarding the Speaker’s impeachment plans.”

Vos announced the formation of the impeachment review panel on Sept. 13. Vos refused to say who he asked and Prosser also would not tell a judge when asked during a court hearing on the American Oversight lawsuit last month.

Text messages from Roggensack to Prosser on Sept. 14 show her asking if Prosser is free for a meeting. Prosser also released a voicemail from Roggensack left that same day referring to the text and asking to speak with him on “a matter that I thought we were going to look at together.”

Prosser, during that Sept. 29 hearing, denied the claim made by American Oversight that the panel was a governmental body subject to the state’s open meetings law.

In a voicemail he released from Roggensack from Oct. 2, Roggensack says she wants to talk with him about why “we, whatever we are, are not a governmental body.”

Sign the petition: Wisconsin believes in democracy. Do not impeach Justice Janet

Wisconsin’s Republicans scrambling to protect their extreme and ridiculous gerrymander

Posted on September 25, 2023 by ProPublica

by Megan O’Matz ProPublica

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

In the northwest corner of Wisconsin, the 73rd Assembly District used to be shaped like a mostly rectangular blob. Then, last year, a new map drawn by Republican lawmakers took effect, and some locals joked that it looked a lot like a Tyrannosaurus rex.

The advent of the “T. rex” precipitated dark times and perhaps extinction for local Democrats.

The new map bit off and spit out a large chunk of Douglas County, which tended to vote Democratic, and added rural swaths of Burnett County, which leans conservative.

The Assembly seat had been held by Democrats for 50 years. But after the district lines were moved, Republican Angie Sapik, who had posted comments disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement and cheered on the Jan. 6 rioters on social media, won the seat in November 2022.

The redrawing of the 73rd District and its implications are emblematic of the extreme gerrymandering that defines Wisconsin — where maps have been drawn in irregular and disconnected shapes over the last two decades, helping Republicans seize and keep sweeping power.

That gerrymandering, which stands out even in a country where the practice is regularly employed by both major parties, fuels Wisconsin power dynamics. And that has drawn national attention because of the potential impact on abortion rights for people across the state and voting policies that could affect the outcome of the next presidential election.

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The new maps have given Wisconsin Republicans the leeway to move aggressively on perceived threats to their power. The GOP-controlled Senate recently voted to fire the state’s nonpartisan elections chief, Meagan Wolfe, blaming her for pandemic-era voting rules that they claim helped Joe Biden win the state in 2020. A legal battle over Wolfe’s firing now looms.

The future of a newly elected state supreme court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, also is in doubt. Her election in April shifted the balance of the court to the left and put the Wisconsin maps in peril. Republican leaders have threatened to impeach her if she does not recuse herself from a case that seeks to invalidate the maps drawn by the GOP. They argue that she’s biased because during her campaign she told voters the maps are “rigged.”

“They are rigged, period. Coming right out and saying that. I don’t think you could sell to any reasonable person that the maps are fair,” she said at a January candidates forum.

She added: “I can't ever tell you what I’m going to do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and common sense tells you that it’s wrong.”

Given the usually staid campaign statements associated with state-level judicial races, her comments stood out.

But, by any number of measurements made by dispassionate researchers, the maps have, in fact, proven to be extreme.

The Gerrymandering Project at Princeton gives the Wisconsin redistricting an F grade for partisan fairness, finding Republicans have a significant advantage, as do incumbents. “Wisconsin’s legislative maps are among the most extreme partisan ones in the country,” the project’s director, Sam Wang, said in an email to ProPublica.

Wang argues that Wisconsin’s GOP has gone further than most states and engineered “a supermajority gerrymander” in the Senate. Republicans control 22 of 33 Senate seats, giving them the two-thirds required to override a gubernatorial veto. (In the Assembly, the GOP is still two seats short of a supermajority.)

“The resulting supermajority, immune from public opinion, can engage in extreme behavior without paying a price in terms of political power,” Wang warned in a Substack article.

In the two decades before the Republicans configured the maps to their advantage, the state Senate, in particular, was more competitive, and Democrats at times controlled it.

The state’s maps changed dramatically beginning in 2011 when the GOP gained control of the Legislature and Republican Scott Walker became governor. The party redesigned the maps again in 2021, further tweaking the successful 2011 template.

“The current maps, as currently constituted, make it virtually impossible for Democrats to ever achieve majority party status in the legislature,” said Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki of Milwaukee. “Even if they win statewide by like 10 points.”

State politics is now dominated by confrontation and stalemates, with the GOP pushing its agenda and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers regularly wielding his veto power to block Republican initiatives. Unless the maps change or Republicans win the governor’s office, there seems to be no end to this dynamic.

Republicans have argued that it is their right, politically, as the victorious party to craft the maps, and so far the maps have survived legal challenges.

“Our maps were adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because they were legal,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement to ProPublica.

He added: “Republican legislative candidates do well in elections because we have good candidates who listen to their constituencies and earn the votes of Republicans and independents alike.”

Asked at a 2021 Senate hearing whether partisan advantage was the intent of the maps, Vos said: “There is no constitutional prohibition on that criteria, so yes, was partisanship considered as a consideration in the map? Yes, there were certain times that partisanship was.”

Basic goals set by state and federal law govern the drawing of districts. Among them: District lines should be contiguous and compact with equal numbers of people. The boundaries should not, where possible, split counties or municipalities.

But 55 of the 99 districts in the Assembly and 21 of the 33 in the Senate contain “disconnected pieces of territory,” according to the most recent complaint filed with the state Supreme Court by 19 Wisconsin voters. The suit argues that this should not be allowed, even when towns annex noncontiguous areas, creating islands or enclaves in districts.

“Despite the fact that our Assembly and Senate are meant to be the most direct representatives of the people, the gerrymandered maps have divided our communities, preventing fair representation,” said Dan Lenz, staff counsel for Law Forward, which brought the maps suit, in a statement to ProPublica. “This has eroded confidence in our electoral systems, suppressed competitive elections, skewed policy outcomes, and undermined democratic representation."

The Impeachment Question

Protasiewicz’s election came after a hard-fought campaign, with both parties pouring in millions of dollars. Protasiewicz promised to recuse herself from any case brought by the Democratic state party, but not from all cases that might benefit Democrats.

Her victory meant conservatives lost control of the state’s highest court. It gave liberals hope that GOP initiatives, including some dating back to the Walker administration, could be reconsidered.

The court may be called upon to review key voting rules heading into the 2024 presidential election and to decide whether Wolfe keeps her role as administrator of the state elections commission. Also likely to come before the court is whether an 1849 abortion ban, reimposed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, will stand. This week, after a favorable lower court ruling,Planned Parenthood resumed providing abortion services in the state.

Meanwhile, the possibility of the court striking down the maps, potentially loosening the Republicans’ grip on the legislature, sent the GOP looking for alternate ways to hold on to power.

Republican Sen. Dan Knodl first floated the idea in March of impeaching Protasiewicz — before she had even won.

Months later, after Protasiewicz was sworn in Aug. 1, Vos warned that she risked impeachment if she did not step away from the maps case.

Impeaching a justice who won by more than 200,000 votes, with over 1 million total cast for her, struck many as wildly inappropriate and undemocratic.

The reaction from some Wisconsinites was intense, with Democrats leading the outcry. “To threaten the ability of a duly elected justice who was overwhelmingly elected, functioning in her role, is nothing short of a denial of democracy,” said former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat from the Madison area who now leads the American Constitution Society, a legal advocacy group.

The state Democratic Party mobilized, launching a $4 million campaign to challenge the prospect of impeachment.

In the face of the backlash, Vos appeared to shift course, briefly. He proposed, in a Sept. 12 press conference, that Wisconsin adopt a system to configure maps based on an “Iowa model,” in which an advisory committee would help the state Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan government agency, set the boundaries, subject to legislative approval. Without public hearing or Democratic input, the GOP put forth a bill, which passed the Assembly last week, with only one Democrat in favor.

Evers opposed the plan, saying: “A Legislature that has now repeatedly demonstrated that they will not uphold basic tenets of our democracy — and will bully, threaten, or fire on a whim anyone who happens to disagree with them — cannot be trusted to appoint or oversee someone charged with drawing fair maps.”

Vos has made it clear that he is not abandoning impeachment. He announced last week he had assembled a panel of former justices to advise him on criteria for removing Protasiewicz.

Two Protasiewicz voters filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court last week asking the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the Assembly from impeaching Protasiewicz, or any other justice, without grounds. Protasiewicz recused herself. She told ProPublica she did not wish to comment for this story.

Wisconsin’s constitution allows for impeachment “for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors.” Protasiewicz has not been charged with any crime.

If the Assembly impeaches, it would then fall to the Senate to hold a trial and convict, forcing her from office.

If there is a vacancy on the court on or before Dec. 1, Evers would then choose a replacement to serve until the next election in April 2024, coinciding with the GOP primary for president. Evers likely would appoint another liberal-leaning judge.

But there is another scenario posited by political observers. The Senate could simply not take up a vote, leaving Protasiewicz impeached and in limbo. Under the state constitution, she’d be sidelined, unable to carry out her duties until acquitted.

That would leave the court with a 3-3 ideological divide, though conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn at times sides with the liberals.

Timing matters: Under state law, if Protasiewicz is removed or resigns after Dec. 1, Evers could appoint a replacement who would serve until 2031.

The only thing certain about the situation, it seems, is that those state statutes are being studied closely and that compromise on issues such as the district maps, abortion and voting are off the table.

Onions, Memes and Freedom

The dinosaur-shaped 73rd Assembly District was one of three in northwest Wisconsin that the Republicans flipped last year.

Besides Sapik, voters chose Republicans for the neighboring 74th Assembly District and the horseshoe-shaped Senate District 25. In each case, the Democratic incumbents bowed out.

Democrat Janet Bewley, a former state senator who declined to run again in 2022, watched the GOP mapmaking in that corner of the state up close. She said the changes led to small incremental gains for Republicans in various corners of the new maps — a couple dozen votes here and a couple dozen there. But they added up to defeat.

“They went down to the town level, to see how the towns voted,” she said, making it harder for Democrats.

Sapik, who makes a living shipping onions, had never run for public office before. She loved the new maps.

“I’ve said it before, but we really are in the Dinosaur District! I love the way the lines changed and I welcome everyone new into District 73!” Sapik wrote in a Facebook post during her campaign. “Burnett and Washburn counties, you are going to help turn this District red for the first time!”

In a podcast during her primary race in August 2022, Sapik said she decided to run because she opposed business shutdowns during the pandemic and mask mandates.

About the time she submitted her nomination papers, she said, she was interviewed by the state director of Americans for Prosperity, a political nonprofit established by right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch. Sapik won the group’s endorsement, and it spent about $40,000 advocating for her election, according to FollowTheMoney.org, a nonpartisan initiative that tracks special interest money in politics.

“I’m on that Freedom Train. I want less. I want less laws. And that was the number one reason that AFP likes me so much,” she said on the podcast.

She has vowed to be “a strong, positive voice for my community,” a diverse district that includes farmers, longtime manufacturers and shipbuilders, union members, and outdoors enthusiasts who prize strong environmental protections for Lake Superior. And she has promised to vote against “infringements against personal freedoms,” to promote tourism, and “bring back true American values.”

Sapik declined to speak with ProPublica for this story. In an emailed response to written questions, she sent a so-called “distracted boyfriend” meme and included a label claiming a ProPublica reporter was “writing lies about Wisconsin Republicans.”

The questions included requests for explanations of what’s behind some of her online comments.

Last summer, for instance, Sapik posted a video on Facebook for a campaign fundraising golf event that said: “Let’s get rid of Democracy; everyone in favor raise your hand!”

It elicited confusion among some followers.

“It’s a joke,” Sapik responded at the time.

A member of the secret panel studying Wisconsin Supreme Court justice’s impeachment backed her rival

Posted on September 15, 2023 by Associated Press

One of the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justices tapped to investigate impeaching newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz for taking Democratic Party money accepted donations from the state Republican Party when he was on the court.

The former justice, Republican David Prosser, gave $500 to the conservative candidate who lost to Protasiewicz, did not recuse from cases involving a law he helped pass as a lawmaker and was investigated after a physical altercation with a liberal justice.

Prosser is one of three former justices tapped by the Republican Assembly speaker to investigate the criteria for taking the unprecedented step of impeaching a current justice. Speaker Robin Vos has floated impeachment because Protasiewicz accepted nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party and said during the campaign that heavily gerrymandered GOP-drawn legislative electoral maps were “unfair” and “rigged.”

The impeachment threat comes after Protasiewicz’s win this spring handed liberals a majority on the court for the first time in 15 years, which bolstered Democratic hopes it would throw out the Republican maps, legalize abortion and chip away at Republican laws enacted over the past decade-plus.

It also comes at the same time that Assembly Republicans passed a sweeping redistricting reform bill Vos described as an “off ramp” to impeachment and Senate Republicans voted to fire the state's nonpartisan elections director. Both moves take on heightened importance in Wisconsin, one of a handful of swing states where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a point.

Vos won’t say who he’s chosen for the secret, three-judge impeachment review panel, but Prosser confirmed to The Associated Press that Vos asked him to participate. None of the other eight living former justices, six of whom are conservatives, have told the AP they have been picked. Justices are officially nonpartisan in Wisconsin, but in recent years the political parties have backed certain candidates. Others, like Prosser, formerly served in partisan positions.

A former liberal justice, Louis Butler, said he was not asked. Four former conservative justices — Jon Wilcox, Dan Kelly, 7th U.S. Circuit Court Chief Judge Diane Sykes and Louis Ceci — told the AP they were not asked.

Ceci, 96, is the oldest living former justice. He served on the court from 1982 to 1993 and served one term as a Republican in the state Assembly in the 1960s.

Ceci, interviewed at his suburban Milwaukee home in a retirement high-rise, said he doesn’t know anything about the impeachment threats Protasiewicz faces beyond what he reads in newspapers. Vos has not approached him about serving on the panel, he said.

A seventh former justice, Janine Geske, told the Wisconsin State Journal she was not asked. Vos said former Justice Michael Gableman, whom Vos fired from leading an investigation into the 2020 election, was not on it.

The most recently retired justice, conservative Patience Roggensack, declined to comment to the AP.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” she said Thursday, adding that she was on her way to a college class before hanging up.

Roggensack and Prosser voted to enact a rule allowing justices to sit on cases involving campaign donors. In 2017, a year after Prosser left the court, Roggensack voted to reject a call from 54 retired justices and judges to enact stricter recusal rules.

Roggensack, in 2020, sided with the conservative minority in a ruling that fell one vote short of overturning President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. And she endorsed Dan Kelly, the conservative opponent to Protasiewicz in this year’s election. Prosser donated $500 to Kelly, who replaced Prosser on the court after he retired.

Prosser served on the Supreme Court from 1998 to 2016 and also spent 18 years before that as a Republican member of the Assembly — two years as speaker.

There were numerous times during Prosser’s years on the court where he did not recuse himself from cases involving issues he had voted on as a member of the Legislature.

Prosser did recuse himself from cases involving the constitutionality of a cap on medical malpractice damages because he was speaker of the Assembly when the cap was instituted. But in 2004 he changed course and authored the majority opinion upholding the law he helped pass. He dissented from a 2005 Supreme Court ruling overturning the law.

Prosser also refused a request to recuse in 2015 from considering three cases related to an investigation into then-Gov. Scott Walker and conservative groups that supported him. The groups in question had spent $3.3 million to help elect Prosser in 2011.

He defended hearing the cases, saying that because the money was spent four years earlier, enough time had passed to make them irrelevant.

Prosser then voted with the majority to shut down the investigation.

Prosser was also embroiled in one the court’s most contentious periods in 2011, accused by a liberal justice of attempting to choke her. Impeachment was never raised as a possibility, even though police investigated but no charges were filed. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission recommended the court discipline him but nothing happened because the court lacked a quorum when three justices recused.

In 2016, Prosser received $25,000 of in-kind contributions from the Wisconsin Republican Party. Less than three weeks later he resigned with nearly three years left on his term.

Vos said Prosser’s past wouldn’t affect his ability to fairly offer advice on how to proceed.

“First of all, all he is doing is giving advice on whether or not someone ought to recuse and the criteria for impeachment,” Vos said. “That has nothing to do with what happened before when he was on the Supreme Court.”

Prosser said the charge given to him by Vos was investigating “whether there’s a legitimate reason for impeaching” Protasiewicz.

When asked whether he thinks the panel should include liberals, Prosser said, “I’m really not going to answer that question.”

“I really don’t know what the process is going to be, who’s going to be doing the writing,” Prosser said. “I just really don’t know.”

No matter who is on the impeachment review panel, Democrats say the process is a joke.

“The entire concept of having a secret panel deliberating in secret to advise an Assembly speaker on an unconstitutional impeachment on a justice who has yet to rule on a case is a farce,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler. “This is a charade.”

Vos said impeachment may be warranted if Protasiewicz doesn’t step down from hearing two Democratic-backed redistricting lawsuits seeking to undo Republican-drawn legislative maps.

Vos argues that Protasiewicz has prejudged the cases. She never said how she would rule on any lawsuit.

Under the Wisconsin Constitution, impeachment is reserved for “corrupt conduct in office or for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor.”

It is up to each justice to decide whether recusal in a case is warranted, and the conservative majority of the court adopted a rule saying that justices don’t have to recuse if they accepted money from parties arguing a case. Other current justices have also been outspoken on hot-button issues before they joined the court and all but one have taken money from political parties.

When asked Thursday if the panel would include liberals, Vos dodged the question.

“I’m trying to have people who are respected as smart,” Vos said. “And I think that you will find very quickly that the people that we asked are both of those categories. Hopefully they come back to us with their recommendations so that the Legislature has even more good information to act on whether or not it’s required for us to proceed with some kind of impeachment proceedings."

Wisconsin GOP to pursue nonpartisan redistricting to avoid having state justices toss maps

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Associated Press

Wisconsin Republican lawmakers, in a surprise move on Tuesday, reversed their long-held position and proposed a nonpartisan redistricting plan they want to enact ahead of the 2024 election to preempt the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court from tossing the current GOP-drawn maps.

The move comes as Wisconsin justices are considering two Democratic-backed lawsuits seeking to toss the Republican maps, first enacted in 2011, that are among the most gerrymandered in the country and have helped Republicans increase their majority.

Republicans have long opposed plans put forward by Democrats to enact a nonpartisan redistricting process. But now, faced with the likelihood that the state Supreme Court was going to throw out their maps ahead of the 2024 election, Republicans are proposing enacting a new system modeled after neighboring Iowa.

“If you’re sick of the arguing, if you’re sick of the vitriol, if you want people to work together, this is a better way for us to do it,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said at a news conference.

The Assembly was going to vote on the measure Thursday. It would then head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a 22-11 majority. If approved there, it would then go to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Neither Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu nor Evers immediately responded to requests for comment.

Vos said the plan offered a way to avoid two pending redistricting lawsuits and a possible impeachment fight. He and other Republicans have floated the possibility of impeachment if newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz doesn't recuse from the redistricting cases because she called the current maps “unfair” and “rigged” and accepted nearly $10 million in campaign donations from the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Protasiewicz's win in April flipped majority control of the court from conservative to liberal for the first time in 15 years.

Republican support for a nonpartisan redistricting plan came days after the Wisconsin Democratic Party announced a $4 million campaign to pressure Republicans to back down from impeaching Protasiewicz. A six-figure TV ad buy targeting 20 Republican lawmakers to run on Fox News was announced hours before Vos announced his plan.

Wisconsin Democrats combat impeachment of court justice with $4M effort

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Associated Press

The Wisconsin Democratic Party on Wednesday launched a $4 million effort to pressure Republicans to back down from impeaching a new liberal state Supreme Court justice being targeted after she criticized GOP-drawn legislative electoral maps and spoke in favor of abortion rights.

After investing nearly $10 million in electing Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the effort is meant to protect what Democrats hailed as a major political victory. The judge's election tipped the balance of power in the state Supreme Court, giving Democrats the upper hand in state's fights over abortion and redistricting.

“Republicans are holding a political nuclear football,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said in reference to impeachment.

The effort will include digital and television ads, in-person voter outreach, and a website tracking where every Republican lawmaker stands on impeachment.

Protasiewicz is part of a 4-3 liberal majority on Wisconsin's Supreme Court. The escalating fight over her seat has implications for the 2024 presidential election in the battleground state. In 2020, the conservative-controlled Supreme Court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden's win in the state. More fights over election rules that will be in place for the 2024 election are pending, and any disputes over the winner could be decided once again by the state Supreme Court.

Protasiewicz began her 10-year term in August after winning her election by 11-points in April, aided with nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party. During the campaign, Protasiewicz spoke in favor of abortion rights and called GOP-drawn maps “unfair” and “rigged.”

Protasiewicz never promised to rule one way or another on redistricting or abortion cases.

Her win gave liberals a majority on the court for the first time in 15 years, boosting hopes among Democrats that it will overturn the state's 1849 abortion ban, throw out the Republican maps and possibly undo a host of Republican priorities.

Unable to defeat Protasiewicz in the election, Republican lawmakers are now talking about impeaching her because of her comments during the race and her acceptance of the money from the Democratic Party.

Republicans have raised impeachment as a possibility if Protasiewicz does not recuse herself from consideration of two redistricting lawsuits filed in her first week in office last month. The GOP-controlled Legislature asked for her to step aside from the cases.

Protasiewicz on Tuesday gave attorneys until Sept. 18 to react to the fact that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which investigates complaints against judges, dismissed complaints against her alleging her campaign comments on redistricting violated the state judicial code.

A lawsuit in a county court seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban was filed before Protasiewicz won the election. That case is expected to eventually reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Wikler said Tuesday that impeaching Protasiewicz would be “an absolute political, moral and constitutional disaster" that would “rewrite our system of government, to rip away what the founders intended, to rip away the principle of co-equal branches of government and replace it with an autocracy of the Legislature.”

He said the state party was joining with other as-yet-unnamed groups in a $4 million public relations campaign to pressure Republicans to back down.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming dismissed the effort, saying Democrats were trying to "divert attention away from the hyper-partisan and wildly inappropriate prejudgements of Janet Protasiewicz.”

The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 65-34 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate. It would take only 50 votes to impeach. It takes 22 votes to convict in the Senate, the exact number of seats Republicans hold.

If the Assembly impeaches her, Protasiewicz would be barred from any duties as a justice until the Senate acted. That could effectively stop her from voting on redistricting without removing her from office and creating a vacancy that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would fill.

If there is a vacancy before December, that would trigger another Supreme Court election on the same date as Wisconsin's presidential primary in April 2024.

The far-right justices on Wisconsin's Supreme Court just can't handle the fact that liberals now have the majority for the first time in 15 years, so they're in the throes of an ongoing meltdown—and their tears are delicious. On this week's episode of "The Downballot," co-hosts David Nir and David Beard drink up all the schadenfreude they can handle as they puncture conservative claims that their progressive colleagues are "partisan hacks" (try looking in the mirror) or are breaking the law (try reading the state constitution). Elections do indeed have consequences!

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