Remedies in the WI Partisan Gerrymandering Case

The League of Women Voters has offered some interesting suggestions for the remedial approach the federal court should take in this case.  The brief suggests the legislature should be given the first shot, but with the use of institutional structures that would cabin in excessive partisanship.  The brief asserts it is suggesting remedial approaches that respect the values of political accountability without permitting excessive partisanship to control the outcome.

Here is the key paragraph:

In the Wisconsin context, several options are available for drafting a new map in such a way. First, the legislature could delegate the responsibility for drafting a new map to defendants themselves, the six bipartisan members of Wisconsin’s bipartisan Elections Commission. Second, if there is concern that an even-numbered membership might reduce the chances of producing a mutually acceptable map, the legislature could follow the model successfully employed in several states by instructing the Commissioners, for this purpose only, to jointly designate a nonpartisan seventh member to serve as chair. Third, the legislature could direct Wisconsin’s Legislative Reference Bureau, an existing nonpartisan legislative service agency that drafts all legislation, to develop a new map. Finally, the legislature, following another model successfully employed in many states, could create a new five-member ad hoc committee consisting of an equal number of members designated by the minority and minority leaders of the Senate and Assembly, with those members jointly designating a nonpartisan additional community member to serve as chair.

The full brief is here: LWV Amicus Brief Whitford v Gill

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