MADISON, Wis. — The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned Republican-drawn legislative maps on Friday and ordered that new district boundary lines be drawn as Democrats had urged in a redistricting case they hope will weaken GOP majorities.
The ruling comes less than a year before the 2024 election in a battleground state where four of the six past presidential elections have been decided by fewer than 23,000 votes, and Republicans have built large majorities in the Legislature under maps they drew over a decade ago.
The court ruled 4-3 in favor of Democrats who argued that the legislative maps are unconstitutional because districts drawn aren’t contiguous. New maps are likely to be unveiled in about two months.
Tag Archives: gerrymandering
“‘We Have a Right to Put It on the Ballot’: How Organizers Are Defending Direct Democracy”
Bolts Magazine. I see this story as relevant to a basic question that I think is going to confront the field of election law (and, more broadly, the law of democratic procedures) over the next decade or so: the extent to which decisions should be made on the basis of majority rule. Watching the fight over Issue 1 unfold in Ohio, I became convinced of the importance of preserving the right of the citizenry to control the machinery of their self-government by means of a majority vote. I recognize that there have been arguments in favor of a supermajority requirement for constitutional change, but on balance I think the risk of “minority rule” through a supermajority requirement is greater than the risk of an oppressive majority. Certainly, it would have been a serious problem for self-government in Ohio if Issue 1 had prevailed in raising the threshold for constitutional change to 60%. That would have made it extremely difficult to adopt new anti-gerrymandering reform, for example, to redress the way that incumbent politicians managed to negate the efficacy of the previous anti-gerrymandering reforms in the state during the last decade.
House Hardball, part 2
Nick Stephanopoulos makes some fair points in response to my post on whether, in the absence of a new Act of Congress, the House can or should refuse to seat winning candidates solely on the ground that their districts were gerrymandered by state law. I remain extremely dubious about the idea based on rule-of-law or electoral democracy values, but I don’t want to get into an extended debate on those issues here. Rather, I want only to follow up a bit more on whether this hardball tactic would even work according to its own objectives. In doing this, I hope to keep an open mind on the point and be willing to consider new information and analysis. I invite others, especially those with expertise in House procedure, to weigh in. Meanwhile, here’s how I see this issue.
Continue reading House Hardball, part 2