WI Supreme Court Accepts Second Appeal To Redraw Congressional Map
Two appeals use different legal arguments. Conservative justices oppose both.
Interior of the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, second floor view from the Assembly chamber through the Rotunda towards the Supreme Court. Richard Hurd/Flickr
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has taken up a second appeal of a lawsuit aimed at redrawing Wisconsin’s congressional voting districts. This comes amid a multi-state redistricting battle aimed at tilting the odds of which party will control the U.S. House of Representatives after the November election.
In an unsigned order released just before 5 p.m. Thursday, the Supreme Court said it will take up an appeal from national Democratic firm Elias Law Group contesting the dismissal of its suit earlier this year by a panel of three county judges. Elias’ lawsuit claims Wisconsin’s Congressional map is gerrymandered to ensure Republicans hold a majority of the state’s House seats.
Under the existing map, Republicans hold six of the state’s congressional districts. Democrats hold two.
The court’s order doesn’t mention which justices voted in favor of taking up the appeal, but strong dissents from retiring conservative Justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley make it clear they weren’t on board. Both criticized the court for accepting the appeals and suggested their liberal colleagues are engaging in judicial activism.
The Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case comes nearly a year after it denied Elias’ petition asking justices to take the case up directly. In November, the majority appointed a panel of three county judges to hear the Elias suit and another to hear a different map challenge brought by liberal Wisconsin firm Law Forward.
It was an untested path to get a redistricting case before the Supreme Court, which relied on a 2011 law passed when Republicans controlled the Legislature and governorship. The panels dismissed both cases, citing the inability of lower-court judges to overrule the Supreme Court, which enacted the congressional map in 2022 during another redistricting legal battle.
While Elias filed a notice that it will appeal the panel’s ruling, no briefs had been filed as of Thursday evening explaining what parts of the panel’s decision it disagrees with.
Attorney Bryna Godar with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told WPR the Supreme Court will have to decide if Elias’ partisan gerrymandering claims can proceed.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that the court will resolve all of the issues in these cases right away,” said Godar. “If the court concludes that these claims are available under the Wisconsin Constitution, then it’s possible that they would send the case back to the three judge panels for further fact finding and a specific ruling on whether these maps violate the state constitution.”
According to the case docket, the only brief filed was a motion to dismiss from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. It argues the Supreme Court doesn’t have to take up the appeal under the 2011 law.
Slates of candidates for Wisconsin’s eight congressional district races this year have already been approved by the state elections commission and the campaigns are well underway. Godar said the Supreme Court’s order explains it will use the typical timeline used by the state’s appeals courts, which means a redraw before November can’t happen.
“That puts the briefing timelines wrapping up in August and early September for these cases, so that timeline is definitely too late at this point for any sort of new maps to be in place for the 2026 election cycle,” said Godar.
Republicans and Democrats in several state legislatures have been working for the past year to redraw their own congressional district maps to give their party an edge in November with House control during the final two years of President Donald Trump’s second term on the line. Political analysts have predicted the GOP has won that battle and could gain an additional 10 House seats in an election cycle that is expected to favor Democrats.
Wisconsin Supreme Court accepts another appeal aimed at redrawing congressional map was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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