Accusations of gerrymandering trigger Supreme Court ruling regarding electoral maps

In the face of the fast-approaching 2024 election cycle, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on December of 2023 for the redrawing of state legislative lines after claims of gerrymandering by Democratic politicians. States around the nation, like Wisconsin, have also been revising their congressional maps in an effort to accurately progress voter representation and voting equality. 

Alyson Niehans, a social studies teacher at West, finds that the political population of a state can be portrayed correctly by the lines drawn. 

“When states look at redistricting maps, what it means is they need to redraw the different districts on the state maps, so they are more accurately represented by the demographics and electorate of the state, as state populations grow or people move,” she said.

Since populations are constantly moving, maps need to be constantly updated, according to fellow social studies teacher Patrick Bertram.

“Redistricting happens every 10 years after the census,” he said. “The idea is that they want every legislative district to be balanced in population.” 

However, Wisconsin congressional districts have faced claims of doing the opposite, through gerrymandered maps. Wisconsin Area Studies teacher Julie Moss views gerrymandering as unfair to the constituents of the district.

“It’s been known nationally that Wisconsin is viewed as being a gerrymandered state,” she said. “Gerrymandered means that the legislative lines were drawn unfairly to support the win of a particular party. When voting occurs, the outcome of the election may tilt in favor of the authors of the maps, not in favor of the popular vote.”  

Gerrymandering is typically seen in the form of district lines drawn in an unnatural way to intentionally patch together certain areas to get a desired voting outcome, even if it doesn’t geographically make sense. Bertram claims that this is often done by ‘packing’ or ‘cracking’ districts.

“When you ‘pack’ a district, it means you usually want to pack a district with as many of the minority parties as possible, so they are not out there voting in the other districts,” he said. “Or ‘cracking’, where you take a district that might have been a dominant political party and ‘crack’ it by putting in just enough people when you draw the maps to make it more competitive, if not throw it completely.” 

Many examples of geographically confusing maps include chunky districts in odd geometric shapes. The Milwaukee area in particular, which is considered one of the most gerrymandered areas in Wisconsin, was emphasized by Niehans. 

 “All of the surrounding cities, like Waukesha, are very red,” she said. “When the Republicans went to draw the maps, it was in their best interest to draw maps that limit the voting power of Milwaukee in comparison to the suburbs that tend to go more Republican, diluting it.”

Wisconsin’s Republican-dominated legislature and their congressional maps have been under fire from Democratic politicians since their creation, with claims that these lawmakers were exercising extreme partisan gerrymandering. 

“Democrats have been calling for a redrawing of Wisconsin’s maps since the maps that the state is currently under came out,” Niehans said. “When Janet Protasiewicz was elected to the Supreme Court this past election, that split now in the Supreme Court favors a more liberal interpretation of these laws, which is why the ruling happened the way it did.”

Due to the partisan nature of this situation, the 4-3 liberal ruling in the Supreme Court, and Protasiewiczs’ open opposition to the maps, Republicans felt this ruling was purely politically motivated. 

“The Republicans are upset because when Protasiewicz ran for office, she campaigned that she thought that the gerrymandering was unfair,” Moss said.

Between Democrats and Republicans, there is generally a strong divide between opinions on the decision to redraw legislative lines.This is due to the fact that it directly involves how power is distributed amongst the parties. 

“The Republicans, who have the majority, say that the people chose them to draw the maps,” Bertram said. “For the last ten years, this is something they have been sticking with to counter the Democrats.”

In addition to this, Republicans are wary of change to the current maps in the instance that gerrymandering occurs in favor of the Democrats, due to the fact that they are calling for the changes.

“From the Republican point of view, who’s to say that the maps are not going to swing the opposite way and now have them favored towards the Democrats?” Niehans said.

Though citizens are not directly involved within the government, they are still affected by gerrymandered districts. Republican-drawn districts affect Wisconsin especially, since it is a moderate state. 

“We have a ‘winner take all’ method of voting per district, so what happens is we live in a purple state, but the legislature is controlled by one party,” Bertram said. “A lot of the things that are important to half the people are not being talked about; there’s no action being taken on them.” 

Maps that are drawn in favor of a certain party lead to misrepresentation of the population and leave concerns of certain groups unmet by the state government, impacting the population.

 “A lot of people in Wisconsin feel like their vote counts for more or for less because of the way that the maps have been drawn,” Niehan said.

As a resolution, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered that Legislature, with its two-thirds Republican majority, needs to pass a new map and have it approved by the Democratic Governor Evers, or the court will adopt its own map drawn by redistricting professionals. Moss expects new district lines to be fair. 

“If the borders change, to what the Democrats would call more ‘fair’, they would probably even it out so the Senate possibly doesn’t have that two-thirds ‘super’-majority,” she said.

The fight to change lines between Democrats and Republicans won’t end soon.

“I think we’re going to see maps become more competitive, " Niehans said. “We’re hopefully going to see smaller candidates be able to challenge incumbents with a higher rate of success.”

This is especially relevant in urban areas, such as Milwaukee and Madison, and could possibly increase voter turnout in liberal cities. 

“Bigger areas have been following along with this development and maybe feel like their vote will count more,” Niehans said.

This can be seen in contrast to partisan feelings of value and representation around the current maps.

“In the sixth district, which is where we live, the Democrats didn’t even bother running a candidate in the last election because they figured they couldn’t win it,” Bertram said.

New congressional maps are expected to be released in late February through early March of this year, and will need to be validated by March 15 to be eligible for the upcoming presidential election. Until then, the future of Wisconsin’s congressional lines remains to be seen. 

“The goal of this legislation is to make it more ‘fair’ for all,” Moss said.

by Phoebe Fletcher

Published January 29, 2024

Oshkosh West Index volume 120 issue IV