by Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin on Monday signed into law new legislative maps that could dramatically alter the state’s balance of power, giving Democrats a chance to gain control of the state Legislature for the first time in more than a decade.
“When I promised that I wanted fair maps, not maps that were better for one party or another, I meant it,” Evers, who drew the maps after the state Supreme Court ordered new ones, said in a statement.
Even though the state is a battleground in national elections, Republicans, aided by heavily gerrymandered maps, have controlled both state legislative chambers. since 2011. They now hold about two-thirds of the seats in both the Senate and Assembly.
But Democrats appear likely to gain seats under the new maps, which will be used during the November elections. The maps depict a nearly even split between Democratic- and Republican-leaning districts: 45 are Democratic-leaning, 46 are Republican-leaning, and eight are likely to be a disaster, according to an analysis from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Several incumbents are being lured into each other’s districts, The Associated Press reported.
“Wisconsin is neither a red state nor a blue state; “We are a purple state and I think our maps should reflect that basic fact,” Evers said. “Today is a victory not for me or for any political party, but for our state and for the people of Wisconsin, who have spent a decade demanding more and better from us as elected officials.”
While Democrats have long sought to overturn the old maps, their hopes were renewed when the state Supreme Court moved to a 4-3 liberal majority in August after Judge Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal former county judge of Milwaukee, will take the oath. She won the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history in April, during which she openly criticized Republican-drawn maps and argued that they were “rigged.”
Progressive groups filed a lawsuit challenging those maps a day after she was sworn in. In December, the court ruled 4-3 that legislative maps that favored Republicans were unconstitutional and ordered new maps before the 2024 elections. The court said that if the governor and legislature did not produce new maps, they themselves would determine the new maps.
“This is a shift in the tectonic plates of Wisconsin politics, and it will have national implications because Wisconsin is the tipping point state for the country,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Wikler said he believed the map changes would help increase turnout in state elections in the fall, and that districts that were previously uncompetitive would suddenly become competitive.
“It’s going to re-energize our politics in a way that I think will help pro-democracy candidates, which in 2024 means Democrats, from the presidential campaign to the Senate campaign to the House races and everything in between,” he said. .
Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the State Assembly, issued a statement Monday that appeared to frame the new maps as a limited victory for Republicans, saying Evers “signed the most Republican maps of any Democrat.” “Manipulated maps being considered by Wisconsin Supreme Court”.
“This legislation ends this sham of litigation designed to deliver judicially gerrymandered Democratic maps to the liberal special interest groups that fund such litigation,” Vos said. He added that in the fall Republicans would “prove that we can win on any map because we have better political ideas.”
The new maps were approved in both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature last week. aided largely by Republicans that they did not want the liberal-controlled court to determine them. Mr. Evers in January vetoed a different set of maps favored by Republicans.
Democrats in the state have also sued to challenge state congressional maps and, shortly after the court asked for new state maps, he was asked to take up the matter. Six of the state’s eight congressional seats are held by Republicans. The lawsuit challenging those maps is still pending and the Supreme Court has not said whether it will intervene.
