Democrats and pro-democracy organizations held a rally Oct. 16 to call for the creation of an independent redistricting commission. On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an order for two judicial panels to hear arguments against Wisconsin's current U.S. House maps. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a pair of three-judge panels to hear arguments in two lawsuits challenging the state’s congressional maps. 

The challenges to the maps come as fights play out all over the country over the dividing lines of congressional districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections. After Texas legislators worked to draw Democratic seats out of existence at the behest of President Donald Trump and a number of other Republican-led states followed suit, California voters elected to temporarily undo their state’s independent redistricting commission and allow Democratic leaders to wipe out Republican-leaning seats. 

Similar efforts have followed to varying degrees of success in states including Arkansas, Indiana and Virginia. 

Wisconsin’s political maps have been at the center of its divided government for more than a decade, with the Supreme Court undoing the partisan gerrymander in the state Legislature two years ago. 

Since then, the focus has turned to Wisconsin’s congressional maps, where Republicans control six of the state’s eight districts. More than once, the Supreme Court has declined to hear cases that request the Court directly take up challenges to the congressional maps. 

A lobbying effort in the state is also ongoing to establish an independent, nonpartisan process for creating the state’s legislative and congressional maps. 

On Tuesday, the Court ruled that the challenges to the maps must follow a 2011 law, passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, which requires that challenges to the state’s congressional districts be heard by a panel of three circuit court judges. 

Republicans had argued that law shouldn’t apply in this case. In a 5-2 decision, in which the court’s four liberal justices were joined by conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, the Court ruled the law applies and the panels should be created.

In the majority decision, the Court’s liberals also appointed the panels — of which all the members were appointed by Gov. Tony Evers or endorsed liberal Justice Susan Crawford in this spring’s election. 

Hagedorn dissented on the appointment of the panels, arguing the panel members should’ve been appointed randomly. 

“Given the nature of this case and the statute’s implicit call for geographic diversity and neutrality, a randomly-selected panel and venue would be a better way to fulfill the statutory mandate,” Hagedorn wrote. “To be clear, I am not suggesting the judicial panel will fail to do its job with integrity and impartiality. But this approach is an odd choice in the face of a statute so clearly designed to deter litigants from selecting their preferred venue and judge.” 

Justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented from the decision, arguing the majority chose the judges on the panel to further the goals of the Democratic party. 

In several previous lawsuits over political maps, Bradley and Ziegler have issued rulings that benefited the Republican party or further entrenched the partisan gerrymander that has allowed the Republican party to retain control of the Legislature for 15 years. 

“Hand picking circuit court judges to perform political maneuvering is unimaginable,” Ziegler wrote. “Yet, my colleagues persist and appear to do this, all in furtherance of delivering partisan, political advantage to the Democratic Party.” 

On Tuesday, Crawford and Justice Janet Protasiewicz also issued orders denying requests from Republican members of Congress and GOP voters that they recuse themselves from the redistricting cases. Since the two justices’ elections in recent years, the state’s Republicans have regularly accused the pair of making statements on the campaign trail that show pre-judgment of cases involving the state’s political maps. 

“The Congressmen’s recusal theories are overbroad, impracticable, and rife with unintended consequences,” Crawford wrote. “Individuals and organizations have the right to contribute to judicial campaigns and to express their beliefs about the effect judicial elections will have on issues of importance to them. Demanding that a justice recuse from a case because third parties who made campaign contributions have expressed their views on high-profile issues improperly implies that the judge had endorsed or adopted such views. This insinuation is inappropriate, particularly where the judge has expressly disclaimed such an endorsement, and undermines judicial impartiality. Further, it would chill protected speech and undermine this court’s central role of deciding cases of statewide importance.”