In a major blow to Democrat attempts to gerrymander Wisconsin’s congressional maps before the 2026 November election, a three-judge panel appointed by the liberal controlled state Supreme Court REJECTED a Democrat effort to redraw the maps, dismissing the case.
Read the decision in full here.
Notably, the liberal panel of Democrat campaign donors based its decision, in part, on previous dissents from two liberal members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court who had previously “expressed their belief that federal courts, insulated from the political process and with more experience conducting redistricting trials, were better equipped to hear these cases.” Of course, the liberal justices made those arguments when they were in the minority.
Liberal Justice Jill Karofsky, in a dissent, had indicated that there were “numerous reasons for preferring a federal forum, not least of which was that this court had ‘no experience in drawing district maps,’” noted the panel. The panel also quoted liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet, who previously wrote, “Federal courts, composed of judges insulated from partisan politics by lifetime appointments, are best suited to handle redistricting cases.”
Furthermore, the panel of judges wrote that the liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court, including Karofsky and Dallet, had essentially thrown the issue to a panel that did not have the authority to rule and without any real guidance. Even worse, the panel noted that, to rule for the plaintiffs, the panel of circuit judges would be overruling the state Supreme Court’s previous ruling on the matter, an authority it can not possess.
“This is a significant win for Republicans and a yet another blow to desperate Democrats who wanted to reshape the electoral landscape. By keeping Wisconsin’s current district lines in place for 2026, Republicans are in a strong position to build on our momentum to retain and grow our House majority,” said Zach Bannon spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee.
The Associated Press noted, “The decision can be appealed to the liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court, but it’s unclear whether it could rule in time to affect the election this year.”
The panel noted, “Neither the statute nor the order appointing this panel provides guidance on the panel’s authority or scope. Is this panel a circuit court, an arm of the state supreme court, a referee or something else? Is the mission purely factfinding or is the panel authorized to rule on legal issues too?”
The court created the panel “without mention of appointing a referee to conduct necessary factfinding,” the panel wrote.
“As circuit court judges, we conclude that the panel possesses no authority to supersede the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.”
The 18-page ruling came down on March 31. The panel consisted of:
- Judge Julie Genovese, a Dane County Circuit Court Judge who is “the new chief judge for the Fifth Judicial District, which covers Columbia, Dane, Green, Lafayette, Rock, and Sauk counties.” She is a former law clerk for liberal Justice Shirley Abrahamson and a Democrat campaign donor who endorsed liberal Justices Jill Karofsky and Susan Crawford.
- Judge Emily Lonergan, who sits on the Outagamie County bench. She was appointed by Democrat Gov. Tony Evers, is a Democrat campaign donor who endorsed liberal judges and Justice Rebecca Dallet, and was a criminal defense attorney.
- Mark Sanders, a Milwaukee County Judge who is a former prosecutor in the Milwaukee County DA’s office. He is a Democrat campaign donor who endorsed liberals Chris Taylor and Crawford.
The panel left a crack open in the door.
The panel added, “Should the Wisconsin Supreme Court determine that it did indeed abdicate its authority and that the neutral redistricting criteria outlined in Clarke should control, we stand ready to apply that standard and engage in any necessary factfinding the court deems appropriate.”
The panel stated that it can “not overrule the holding of our highest court that there is no recognized claim for excessive partisan gerrymandering. Should the Wisconsin Supreme Court determine that such a claim is justiciable, this Panel is prepared to engage in the ‘extensive fact-finding’ necessary to the resolution of such claims.”
We previously reported how the liberal Supreme Court chose two biased panels of Democratic donors, a former Democrat Party chair, and Tony Evers appointees to hear the two cases seeking, yet again, to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
The decision today represented only one of those two cases and panels; a separate action, though, is scheduled for trial in 2027, after the 2026 elections. Both cases target the congressional maps (especially the seats of Republicans Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil), and were filed by liberal law firms. “A second three-judge panel is still considering a lawsuit that claims the map is an anti-competitive gerrymander. That suit is scheduled to go to trial in 2027,” Wispolitics.com noted.
The court decision notes that 11 Wisconsin voters filed the case in Dane County Circuit Court in “anticipation of the 2026 midterm elections” seeking “to declare the congressional map adopted by our supreme court in 2022 unconstitutional and enjoin its use. They alleged that it violated the separation-of-powers doctrine and the State Constitution.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court appointed the three-judge panel to hear the case. The plaintiffs alleged that a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision “invalidated the methodology used to create the map and therefore the map itself.”
The panel denied the motion and granted the intervenor-defendants’ motion to dismiss.
The lawsuit was filed on July 21. Among the counts alleged, the plaintiffs wanted the court to find that the congressional map “is the result of unlawful partisan gerrymandering.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is liberal-controlled, appointed the panel in November.
The panel explained in its decision:
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- Following the 2010 census, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Legislature enacted “new congressional district boundaries to account for population shifts throughout the state,” and Gov. Scott Walker signed them into law in 2011.
- In 2020, the legislature again redrew both the state legislative and the congressional boundaries “in response to demographic changes.” Gov. Tony Evers vetoed both sets of maps.
- Lawsuits made their way before the state Supreme Court. The Court ordered that the maps needed to be redrawn due to population shifts, but that partisan composition could not be considered, and it would apply a “least-change approach” in fashioning the maps.
- The state Supreme Court then adopted Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed congressional, state Senate, and state Assembly maps. “The congressional map was chosen because it achieved population equality while making the least change from existing boundaries and complied with state and federal law.”
- However, a year later, a now liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the state legislative maps “violated the contiguity requirement of the Wisconsin Constitution.” The court now indicated that partisanship could be considered a factor. Plaintiffs subsequently asked the state Supreme Court to do the same thing for the congressional map.
- The panel wrote that the courts “have been unable to decide on the best forum or procedure for deciding these cases.”
The court noted that when the Wisconsin Supreme Court, now liberal-controlled, rejected the least-change methodology it did NOT do so “based on a finding that there was a separation-of-powers violation.”
The panel found that the plaintiffs wanted the panel to read into the past Supreme Court decision “an analysis that it does not contain. The Wisconsin Supreme Court did not find the state legislative maps were unconstitutional because of the least-change methodology.”
To side with the plaintiffs, the panel would have to conclude that the Wisconsin Supreme Court “violated the separation of powers doctrine by abdicating its constitutional role.” The panel ruled that it doesn’t have the power to overrule the state Supreme Court.
The panel has no basis to find the current congressional map invalid “without a clear holding from the Wisconsin Supreme Court that the abandonment of the least-change methodology applies to more than the crafting of remedial maps.”
A previous federal panel ruled that the congressional map “avoided putting incumbents together in the same district and did not flip districts from majority-Democrat to majority-Republican or vice versa” so a partisan gerrymandering claim could not succeed.
The US Supreme Court “vacated and remanded, rejecting partisan-asymmetry metrics such as the efficiency gap as a basis for standing, because such metrics demonstrated the effect that a gerrymander has on the fortunes of political parties, not on the votes of particular citizens,” the panel wrote.
A year later, the US Supreme Court “declared partisan gerrymandering claims to be non-justiciable political questions under the federal constitution.”
There are no workable standards under federal law. “But the states through their statutes and constitutions could develop standards and guidance for the state courts to apply,” wrote the panel.
The liberal Wisocnsin Supreme Court court declined to hear the plaintiffs’ extreme partisan gerrymandering claims “because they would require ‘extensive fact-finding,’ which is ill-suited to an original action before the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” noted the panel.
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court addressed the exact same assertion that Plaintiffs set forth here – whether there is a right to partisan fairness in the Wisconsin Constitution” and a majority of the Supreme Court found that there is no such right, determined the panel.
