Battle over Venue Defines First Phase of Litigation on Wisconsin Redistricting
This blog post continues the focus of the Law School’s Lubar Center on redistricting.
In the litigation over Wisconsin legislative and congressional redistricting, both sides say they’re not on a venue-shopping spree.
But however it’s characterized, virtually all of the legal action to date has been directed toward deciding which court will hear the case—and perhaps ultimately draw the maps for Wisconsin’s Assembly, state Senate and U.S. House districts—and when.
Officially, the job of redrawing those lines after each decennial census belongs to the Legislature, subject to veto by the governor. But both sides—and even a federal judge—have cast doubt on the chances that Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will agree on maps. Both sides argue that their preferred courts must be ready to step in swiftly if the legislative process breaks down.