In case that could shape future US elections, justices will consider question of electoral maps favoring one political party in Wisconsin

The US supreme court on Monday agreed to decide whether electoral maps drawn deliberately to favor a particular political party are acceptable under the constitution, in a case that could have huge consequences for future US elections.



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The justices will take up Wisconsin’s appeal of a lower court ruling that said state Republican lawmakers had violated the constitution when they created legislative districts with the aim of hobbling Democrats. The case will be one of the biggest heard in the supreme court term that begins in October.

Last November, federal judges in Madison ruled 2-1 that the Republican-led Wisconsin legislature’s redrawing of legislative districts in 2011 amounted to “an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander”, a manipulation of electoral boundaries for unfair political advantage.

The judges said the redrawing violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law and free speech by undercutting the ability of Democratic voters to turn their votes into seats in the Wisconsin state legislature.

The court ordered a redrawing of political districts be in place by 1 November 2017, in time for the next state election in Wisconsin, in 2018.

Despite opposition from the four liberal justices, the nine-member high court granted Wisconsin’s request to put on hold the lower court’s order requiring the state to redraw its electoral maps by 1 November.

“I am thrilled the supreme court has granted our request to review the redistricting decision and that Wisconsin will have an opportunity to defend its redistricting process,” said Wisconsin attorney general Brad Schimel, a Republican, adding that the state’s redistricting process was lawful and constitutional.

The supreme court has been willing to invalidate state electoral maps on the grounds of racial discrimination, as it did on 22 May, when it found Republican legislators in North Carolina had drawn two districts to diminish the statewide political clout of black voters.

But the justices have not thrown out state electoral maps drawn simply to give one party an advantage over another.

A supreme court ruling faulting the Wisconsin redistricting plan could have far-reaching consequences for the redrawing of electoral districts that is due after the 2020 US census. State and federal legislative district boundaries are reconfigured every decade after the census, so each holds about same number of people.



Before 2020, the case could affect congressional maps in about half a dozen states and legislative maps in about 10 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

“Wisconsin’s gerrymander was one of the most aggressive of the decade, locking in a large and implausibly stable majority for Republicans in what is otherwise a battleground state,” said Brennan Center redistricting expert Thomas Wolf.

“It’s a symptom of politics going haywire and something that we increasingly see when one party has sole control of the redistricting process.”

Under the Wisconsin redistricting plan, Republicans were able to amplify their voting power, gaining more seats than their percentage of the statewide vote would suggest. For example, in 2012, the Republican party received about 49% of the vote but won 60 of 99 seats in the state assembly. In 2014, the party garnered 52% of the vote and 63 assembly seats.

After winning control of the state legislature in 2010, Republicans redrew the statewide electoral map and approved the redistricting plan in 2011.

A dozen Democratic voters filed suit in 2015 against state election officials over the redistricting, saying the Republican-backed plan divided Democratic voters in some areas and packed them in others.

The district court panel agreed, invalidating the restricting plan statewide. It said redistricting efforts were unlawful partisan gerrymandering when they sought to entrench the party in power, and had no other legitimate justification.

The court ordered a redrawing of political districts be in place by 1 November 2017, in time for the next state election in Wisconsin, in 2018.

The state appealed to the supreme court, arguing that recent election results favoring Republicans were “a reflection of Wisconsin’s natural political geography”, with Democrats concentrated in urban areas including Milwaukee and Madison.