CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Before liberals begin dancing in the streets and conservatives begin throwing themselves out of windows, we should catch our breath over Friday’s state Supreme Court ruling over the political maps in Wisconsin.
The ruling essentially says three things:
First, some voting districts are illegal because they are not contiguous; that is, there are some parts of a district, a few blocks of certain neighborhoods, that don’t touch the rest of the district.
Second, some districts are drawn so that one political party has an advantage. Or that voters of the same party are “packed” into certain districts to make other districts more winnable for their rivals.
And third, the court orders the legislature to “fix” these problems, or that court will draw its own maps to be used for the fall 2024 elections.
Well, there is one part of the court’s ruling that I agree with. Our state constitution says that voting districts must touch one another. Having a neighborhood that doesn’t touch the rest of a district violates the constitution, and should be fixed. This is a small, technical problem that affects a small number of voters. But if you believe that the plain text of the constitution means what it says, the high court got this right.
But the court’s logic on the political make-up of the voting districts is flawed. For nowhere in the state constitution does it say that voting districts shall be made up of roughly the same numbers of Democrats as Republicans. That’s flawed thinking to begin with, since in each election there are tens of thousands of voters who cross party lines. The only thing our constitution says is that districts must be the same in population. Our 5-4 conservative court made that clear in their final ruling on political maps.
Lastly, the court saying that it stands ready to impose its own political maps if the legislature can’t make the necessary changes is an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers. The state constitution says the legislature, not the courts, draws the maps. The court may sit in judgment of the actions of the legislature, but it may not take over powers that are granted to another branch of government. You can see how this will play out. The Republican-controlled legislature will draw new maps. Governor Evers will veto them. And the court says it stands by, ready to take on powers that it doesn’t have.
If our state court goes down that road, court-drawn maps will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court has already reviewed Wisconsin’s current maps, and ruled them valid for the 2022 elections. It’s entirely possible that the U.S. Supreme Court will order our state’s newly liberal court to get back into compliance with the state’s constitution.
There are several more steps in this fight.
Chris Conley
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