The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday over legislative maps backed by the state’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers after state House Republicans sought to block the formation of an additional majority-black district.
Republican lawmakers in the state argued Evers’s maps shifted too many people to additional districts in an effort to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act. Justices issued an unsigned opinion tossing the voting maps drawn for the State Assembly and Senate but left in place the state’s congressional maps.
“On remand, the court is free to take additional evidence if it prefers to reconsider the Governor’s maps rather than choose from among the other submissions. Any new analysis, however, must comply with our equal protection jurisprudence,” according to the majority opinion.
WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT ENACTS CONGRESSIONAL MAP PROPOSED BY DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR
It was not immediately clear how all justices voted in the ruling, though Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “unprecedented” in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan.
“Despite the fact that summary reversals are generally reserved for decisions in violation of settled law, the court today faults the state Supreme Court for its failure to comply with an obligation that, under existing precedent, is hazy at best,” Sotomayor wrote. “This court’s intervention today is not only extraordinary but also unnecessary.”
Democrats have accused the Wisconsin GOP of abusing its power to manipulate electoral maps to elevate the number of districts in which Republicans have majority voters.
For the congressional case, Republican lawmakers challenged a portion of a March 3 Wisconsin high court ruling that adopted a map proposed by Evers within constraints set by a previous ruling.
Evers’s map still favors Republicans, but not to the extent as the maps proposed by GOP state legislators. Republicans hold five House districts, while Democrats represent three.
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Last month, the Supreme Court allowed Alabama to rely on a congressional map that a lower court said would likely deny black voters additional members in the U.S. House of Representatives by a 5-4 vote after granting an emergency application request by GOP lawmakers.
The high court said it would also hear arguments likely later this year over the Alabama case that would establish major implications over the consideration of race in political mapmaking.
