Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition signs on a table outside the Capitol meeting room where the coalition took testimony opposing a Republican redistricting proposal. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

A new lawsuit filed this week in Dane County Circuit Court seeks to have Wisconsin’s congressional maps declared an unconstitutional, anti-competitive gerrymander and thrown out. 

The suit, filed Tuesday, is another attempt by Democrats and their allies to have new maps drawn before the 2026 midterm elections. Just a few weeks ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear two challenges to the current congressional districts. 

Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight congressional districts. Democrats have focused on southern Wisconsin’s First District, currently held by Rep. Bryan Steil, and western Wisconsin’s Third District, currently held by Rep. Derrick Van Orden, as possible targets. 

The current maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and selected by the state Supreme Court, which was at the time controlled by conservatives. In that case, the Court had ruled that any proposed maps must follow a “least change” standard and adhere as closely as possible to the maps installed by Republicans in 2011. 

The new lawsuit was filed at the local level, rather than directly with the Supreme Court as an original action, a slower process but perhaps more likely to be taken up by the Court — which has declined to hear challenges to the congressional maps a handful of times in the last few years, despite the Court’s liberal wing gaining majority control after the 2023 Supreme Court election. 

The new suit was filed by attorneys from voting rights focused Law Forward on behalf of the bipartisan business group Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy Coalition, arguing that the current maps are unconstitutional because they’re anti-competitive. Previous challenges to the maps argued the districts were rigged to benefit the Republican party and violated equal protection laws. 

“Wisconsin’s current congressional plan presents a textbook example of an anti-competitive gerrymander,” the lawsuit states. “Anti-competitive gerrymanders are every bit as noxious to democracy as partisan gerrymanders and racial gerrymanders.”

The lawsuit adds that Wisconsin’s maps are an “anti-competitive gerrymander that artificially suppresses electoral competition.” The suit argues that when the congressional maps were drawn in 2011, the lines were drawn to protect incumbents of both parties. When those maps were largely kept intact by the Supreme Court’s “least change” standard in 2021, the decision to insulate incumbents was carried over. 

“After the Wisconsin Legislature adopted the 2011 congressional map, congressional races over the ensuing decade were, as intended, highly uncompetitive,” the lawsuit states, noting that only one congressional election under those maps was decided by less than 10 percentage points. “The Court’s adoption … of the ‘least change’ congressional map necessarily perpetuated the essential features — and the primary flaws — of the 2011 congressional map, including the 2011 congressional map’s intentional and effective effort to suppress competition.”