WI’s Lib-Led Supreme Court Stacks The Congressional Map Deck

While milquetoast Republicans experience a collective tummy ache over the “fairness” of mid-decade redistricting, Democrats nationally are feasting on power-grabbing gerrymanders.  

The latest outflanking comes — not surprisingly — from Wisconsin’s liberal-controlled Supreme Court. 

‘Forum Shopping’

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the Badger State’s court of last resort ordered the creation of judicial panels to hear two lawsuits seeking to undo Wisconsin’s existing  congressional maps, in which six of eight House seats are held by Republicans. Interestingly, the district lines were drawn by a committee whose members were appointed by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a far-left Democrat. The Evers maps benefitted Democrats, but didn’t go far enough for a Democratic Party salivating over a potential congressional power grab with the help of the liberal-led Supreme Court. 

In a move oozing with partisanship, the court’s liberal justices selected some of the more far-left lower court judges in the state to serve on the two panels.

Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler, one of three conservatives on the seven-member court, argued that the majority’s orders disregard the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions and ignore fundamental legal principles. 

“The majority not only undermines our constitutional authority and circumvents established redistricting precedent but also, again, usurps the legislature’s constitutional power,” Ziegler chided. “In allowing this litigation to proceed, the majority abdicates its constitutional superintending authority to Wisconsin’s circuit courts.”

The Republican-controlled state legislature and Wisconsin’s six GOP congressmen argue that the lawsuits confuse political representation concepts. But the Supreme Court’s majority said the argument is merely a matter of semantics, that “apportionment” and “redistricting” are used interchangeably in drawing up — or in this case, redrawing — political boundaries. And the law, the majority assert, requires the court “appoint a panel consisting of 3 circuit court judges to hear” a redistricting lawsuit. 

Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, who has at times sided with the liberals on the court, takes no issue with the creation of the panels. In his dissenting opinion, however, Hagedorn disagrees with the process. He argued the law is “transparently designed to prevent forum shopping in disputes over where congressional lines should be drawn.” But that’s exactly what the majority did. 

“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,” the justice wrote. “Instead, my colleagues have chosen to keep this case in Dane County and leave the originally assigned Dane County judge on the panel.”  Dane County’s circuit court, located in state capital and far-left enclave Madison, is one the more left-leaning courts in the country. 

Packed Panels

The judges named to the panels tell you all you need to know about how tilted the redistricting battlefield is in the left’s favor. 

There’s a Dane County judge who once clerked for the late-Shirley Abrahamson, the long-serving Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the book on judicial activism. A Milwaukee County judge who served as an assistant district attorney under Democrat Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a prosecutorial partner in Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe investigations. The former chairman of the Democratic Party of Marathon County. And three appointees of uber-liberal Gov. Tony Evers, including Dane County Judge David Conway who arguably disqualified himself in his application for appointment. 

In the questionnaire, Conway lambasted political maps drawn by Republicans and showed his sympathies for the liberal redistricting standards held by the plaintiffs in the lawsuits now before him. 

“Those maps diluted the votes of many Wisconsinites and enabled some legislators to hold power in excess of the popular will for nearly a decade. By creating such maps, the state impinged the fundamental rights of Wisconsin voters to engage in a fair electoral process for choosing representatives,” Conway wrote. 

‘To Win Control’

It should come as no surprise to anyone watching Wisconsin’s redistricting battle that liberal justices Susan Crawford and Janet Protasiewicz refused to recuse themselves from the proceedings. 

Crawford, a former Dane County judge, won a seat on the Supreme Court earlier this year in the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. Crawford’s campaign was backed by big-money leftists, including George Soros, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, the late-pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s old fundraising pal. 

In fact, Hoffman helped set up a donor advisor call in January to give liberal kingmakers the chance to meet then-Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Crawford. Democrats were giddy about the possibility of a liberal-controlled court signing off on redrawn congressional maps that could give the left an enhanced shot at taking back the House in next year’s midterms. 

“[W]inning this race could also result in Democrats being able to win two additional US House seats, half the seats needed to win control of the House in 2026,” the Zoom invitation enticed. 

Crawford claims in her order rejecting the motion to recuse that she exited the call before the big-money players started talking about the congressional math, and that she reiterated her commitment to “being a fair, impartial justice.”

Protasiewicz won her seat on the court two years earlier, in what was at the time the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. She, too, shrugged off conflict of interest concerns in denying the motion. She did so despite having made several comments on the campaign trail expressing her disdain for the Republican-drawn maps. 

“You’ll hear people argue that the Republicans used very, very sophisticated computer technology to draw those maps and to draw those maps in a way that are absolutely the most favorable to them. So that’s when I say, yes, those maps are rigged,” Protasiewicz said at the time. 

The activist judge insisted that Republican control six of Wisconsin’s eight House seats in a battleground state shows that “something’s wrong,” omitting the possibility that Democrat candidates’ policies are not very popular. Protasiewicz, like Crawford, also benefitted from a bundle of cash injected into her campaign by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. But there’s nothing to see here, she argues in her order. 

“Even considering the claims pending in the circuit court, the Congressmen have not overcome the presumption that I will act impartially in this matter,” the justice wrote. 

‘Do It Now!’

Liberals have no compunction about twisting the process for their desired outcomes. California Democrats amended the state’s constitution to grab more congressional seats through a shameless and racially-influenced gerrymander.  Democrats in Maryland, Virginia and Illinois are also pushing gerrymander-on-steroids plans to cross out more Republican seats in Congress. 

The left is going scorched earth after Texas Republicans rolled out a mid-decade map change aimed at delivering the GOP up to five additional seats in Congress to bolster the Republicans’ razor-thin House majority. The amended maps in Texas and California are facing legal challenges, both seemingly destined for final resolution at the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Meanwhile, squishy Republicans have had misgivings about redrawing political lines in some red states, particularly the Hoosier State. 

Indiana’s Republican-dominated House is back in session on Monday to hammer out a revised congressional map aimed at taking two Democrat seats, turning the GOP’s 7-2 advantage into a 9-0 shutout. The Republican-controlled Senate is slated to come in on Dec. 8 to deliberate on any House redistricting bill, after previously balking at the off-year session and a reconfiguration of the map. 

President Donald Trump, who has a deep, personal understanding of just how far Democrats will go to take out their political enemies and consolidate power, has threatened to endorse the opponents of the recalcitrant Indiana Republicans. In a post last month on his Truth Social site, Trump said the senators “should DO THEIR JOB, AND DO IT NOW!”

“If not, let’s get them out of office, ASAP,” the president wrote. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.