What the Supreme Court Election tells us about Wisconsin’s Legislative Districts

You might think that adding up the results of a statewide April election in legislative districts should be simple, but it’s not.

First problem: the state currently doesn’t include political district numbers in the results for nonpartisan elections.

Second problem: votes in Wisconsin are counted, not in wards, but in combinations of wards called “reporting units,” and April nonpartisan elections can use different reporting units than in November elections.

Third problem: the reporting units used in April sometimes straddle partisan district lines.

So, my media consumer advisory is this; if you read an article telling you the results of an April election apportioned into legislative districts, you should expect to see an explanation of how the author obtained that data.

Here is how I do it. First, I identify the individual wards comprising each reporting unit. Then, I match those wards to the most recent GIS ward file I can find.[1] Every ward falls within a single political district, so I check to be sure that each ward in every reporting unit is assigned to the same district. If a reporting unit is split across multiple districts, I divide its vote according to the proportion of the reporting unit’s registered voters residing within each district.[2]

Here are the results of the 2025 April Supreme Court election between the Republican-endorsed candidate Brad Schimel and the Democratic-endorsed candidate Susan Crawford.

Crawford won 55.0% of the vote. Under the maps as currently used, this worked out to 54.5% of Assembly districts (54/99), 57.6% of Senate districts (19/33), and 50% of Congressional districts (4/8).

Table 1: Results of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Election in legislative districts

 seats won by
SchimelCrawford
State Assembly4554
State Senate1419
Congress44

The next table compares those results with some of the other recent redistricting plans, either proposed or used. Under the GOP-drawn maps used in the 2022 election, Crawford’s 10-point net victory would’ve resulted in 5-seat Republican majority in the Assembly and a 3-seat Republican majority in the Senate.

Table 2: Results of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Election in select alternative legislative districts

 State AssemblyState SenateCongress
SchimelCrawfordSchimelCrawfordSchimelCrawford
Evers’ 2024 (used in state legislature)45541419——
Evers’ Least Change4752171644
Districts used 2012-20204851171653
Districts used in 202252471815——
GOP Congressmen proposal 2021————53

Implications for 2026

Wisconsin’s state legislative maps now closely reflect the results at the top of the ticket. Both Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin translated their narrow 1-point victories into 1-seat majorities of assembly districts. But actual Republican assembly candidates won a 5-seat majority.

In previous analyses, I found that incumbency advantage was worth about 4 points (net) for Republican Assembly candidates in both 2024 and 2022. This advantage means that the Republican Assembly majority can likely withstand election years resulting in a narrow statewide victory for Democrats. But anything approaching Crawford’s landslide victory puts many Republican incumbents in competitive districts much more at risk.

Here are the 6 closest battleground seats in the State Assembly. They are all seats which split their vote between the Assembly and presidential races. Five of them voted for Harris and a Republican legislator, while one voted for Trump and a Democratic legislator. In all instances, Susan Crawford defeated Schimel by double-digits.

Table 3: Election Results in Key Battleground Districts of the Wisconsin State Assembly

 Dem or Lib % minus Rep or Con %
State AssemblyPresidentUS SenateWI Sup. Ct.
21st-2.84.07.019.3
51st-3.43.57.819.9
53rd-1.24.46.118.0
61st-3.22.23.713.5
88th-0.70.31.211.3
94th0.6-2.10.012.3

Likewise, there are 4 battleground State Senate districts, one of which (the 31st) is currently represented by a Democrat and the rest by Republicans. Because Wisconsin elects odd-numbered senate districts during midterm years, these seats will hold their first elections under the new boundaries in 2026. As in the Assembly battlegrounds, Crawford won each of these districts by more than her statewide margin of victory.

Table 4: Election Results in Key Battleground Districts of the Wisconsin State Senate

 Dem or Lib % minus Rep or Con %
PresidentUS SenateWI Sup. Ct.
5th5.95.013.5
17th1.04.617.9
21st1.22.210.7
31st2.24.718.0

[1] I begin with the most recent LTSB stateward ward boundary file (Jan. 2025 in this case). When recent annexations or incorporations make these boundaries already out-of-date, I obtain updated boundaries from the county. For the April 2025 election, I needed updated ward boundary files from Dane and Waukesha counties.

[2] I do this using a geocoded copy of the state’s voter file, but it could also be done using the state’s monthly ward-level registered voter report.

Continue ReadingWhat the Supreme Court Election tells us about Wisconsin’s Legislative Districts

Eleven Thoughts on Making the Work of K–12 Teachers More Successful

People Falling with Hand outreachedThe Fall 2024 Marquette Lawyer magazine included essays looking at the broad question of why so much K–12 education reform brings so little progress. If I do say so myself (and I was much involved), it was a provocative and thoughtful discussion.

In the end, one sentence stood out to me and others involved in planning programs at Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote, “What if, instead of pulling policy levers, we redirected the reform movement’s energy and enthusiasm toward improving classroom practice?”

Well, what if? Pondiscio argued that better training of teachers and steps to lighten the workload of teachers would open paths to better results. He said too much is being expected of many teachers now. He advocated particularly for providing teachers in many subjects high-quality curricular materials so they don’t have to spend large amount of time developing lessons plans and can focus on actual teaching and connecting with students.

To advance the conversation, Marquette Law School, teaming with the Marquette College of Education, hosted an in-person forum on May 8, 2025, titled “Focusing K–12 Education Reform on Teaching Efforts.” Before an audience in the Lubar Center of more than 100, including a number of leaders in Wisconsin education, Pondiscio expanded on his thinking; Sarah Almy, chief of external affairs for the National Council on Teacher Quality, offered additional perspective; and a panel of Wisconsin educators offered their thoughts.

We intend to pursue this important conversation in further events and in the Marquette Lawyer magazine. For the moment, let me offer a set of thoughts from the conference’s speakers.

Pondiscio on the teaching workforce overall: With about 3.7 million K–12 teachers nationwide, it is unrealistic to expect the large majority to be “saints and superstars.” The large majority, he said, are people who want to be good teachers but are, for one reason or another, more middle-of-the-pack in their work. But, he said, they could become more successful. “That’s why I come back to raising not the level of teacher quality, but of quality teaching—making this job doable by the teachers we have and not by the teachers we wish we had.”

Pondiscio on reducing the burden on teachers who often must deal with duties that go beyond actual teaching: “Something’s got to come off the teacher’s plate. And the most obvious thing to me is curriculum. . . . Somebody else can write the curriculum. Nobody else can give feedback, get to know the kids, etc. So that one basic shift alone would probably make a difference.”

Pondiscio, when asked who will do all the non-teaching things teachers do now: “I don’t know what the answer is, but I know what the answer is not. It’s not asking Miss Jones to do it. . . . This is about making teaching easier and doable.”

Pondiscio on the education reform movement in recent years: Some reformers wanted to “beat teachers up—you know, ‘look at these terrible teachers, they’re lazy.’ A lot of us in education reform said, ‘just fire bad teachers and all will be well.’” In fact, he said, teachers were not “the sinners,” but “the sinned against,” by being put in positions where they faced unreasonable demands and were not trained well. “The teachers are not the bad guys here. When teachers know what to do, they’re not that bad.”

Almy on the gap between policy and practice in education: “I think a lot of times we really fall down on translating policy into implementation and practice. . . . I think we put a lot of energy, whether it’s at the state level or the district level, into getting the policy passed and the political pieces of that. And then everyone takes a sigh of relief and sort of assumes a lot of this will translate at the classroom level.” But pushing waves of reform onto teachers and local school leaders often means that things don’t change “because the classroom door closes and the teacher does whatever the teacher’s going to do.”

Almy on teacher-training programs, a major focus of her organization: “We need to stop putting all of the onus on training teachers on the districts, and we need to ensure that we’re holding our teacher-prep programs to really high expectations.”

Taylor Thompson, a first-year first-grade teacher from Oshkosh who has used a literacy curriculum called Core Knowledge Language Arts: “CKLA has actually given me a clear, structured path that supports my teaching and my students’ learning . . . . That structure has allowed me to focus on how we are teaching things, rather than spending hours worrying and figuring out what we are teaching.”

Maggy Olson, director of equity and instruction for the Greendale School District in suburban Milwaukee, on those who say education is not succeeding: “I think so often in education that is the narrative: ‘It’s impossible.’ It is, ‘teachers are failing, kids are failing, our schools are failing, it’s a mess.’ I want to say that is absolutely false. . . . Our schools are not failing. They’re doing more than they’ve ever done before.”

Kanika Burks, chief schools officer for Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy, a Milwaukee charter school, on the obligation of administrators to support teachers: Administrators need to “pay attention to the heart of the people that are in front of you. . . . If the person who is in front of our young people is not healthy, if their heart is breaking, if they are breaking down, they are not going to be the most effective person regardless of the curriculum and the faith in them.”

Cynthia Ellwood, a Marquette University College of Education faculty member, on striking a balance between curriculum and teacher presentation: “It’s not just a matter of going out there and finding the perfect material. I don’t think it boils down to a single approach to curriculum [or other factors]. . . . We must know that every single one of our students is capable of high intellectual thought, that they are capable of seeing themselves as intellectuals. And what we’re doing right now is not building pathways so that every child is offered this incredible challenging curriculum and the appropriate supports that make it possible for them to succeed.”

Olson on the future: “Is there hope? Yes, there is so much hope in our children and our educators. Right now, we are in a very dark place. I would argue that we are not in a tomb, we are in a womb, and we’re ready to be reborn. . . . . Hope is in the work that we have moving forward.”

The in-print symposium in the fall 2024 Marquette Lawyer magazine may be read by clicking here (online version) or here (PDF).

Video of the May 8 program at Eckstein Hall may be viewed by clicking here.

Continue ReadingEleven Thoughts on Making the Work of K–12 Teachers More Successful

New Marquette Lawyer Sheds Light on Issues Shaping Today’s World

Marquette Lawyer Cover Summer 2025Marquette Lawyer is not a news magazine, strictly speaking. In fact, there is hardly anything left of news magazines in the United States. But that hardly means there isn’t a lot to learn about what is in the news. And the Summer 2025 issue of Marquette Lawyer certainly provides news in the sense of insights on several major current matters.

Start with Canada. No, we’re not interested in the controversies over making Canada part of the United States or trade policies between the two nations. But we are interested in understanding our neighbor to the north better, especially when it comes to its legal system, which is surely an appropriate focus for those involved in legal education and the law more generally.

That’s what brought the Hon. Suzanne Côté, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, to Marquette Law School to present the annual Hallows Lecture last academic year. “Roots of the Living Tree,” an edited version of her lecture, is the cover story of the magazine and offers insights into the premises and practices of Canadian constitutional law. The text may be read by clicking here.

While the Canadian legal system makes infrequent news in the United States, the rapidly developing world of artificial intelligence is in the news often. How to control problems connected to AI, such as false content known as “hallucinations” and copyright infringement, is a timely and important topic.

That brought Reuven Avi-Yonah, the Irwin I. Cohn Professor of Law and director of the International Tax LLM Program at the University of Michigan, here for the annual Robert F. Boden Lecture this past September. Avi-Yonah, one of the world’s most widely respected scholars on tax law, delivered a lecture, “Can Tax Policy Help Us Control Artificial Intelligence?” That became a major piece in this  issue, which may be read by clicking here.

The way Wisconsin handles decisions about setting boundaries for legislative districts has attracted national attention recently. The ups and downs of redistricting decisions have been both influential in shaping power in Wisconsin politics and difficult to follow. John D. Johnson, a researcher with Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education, is an expert on redistricting and what it has meant to Wisconsin politics. “The Boundaries of Law and Politics” is his richly detailed article describing the history of the subject. As redistricting continues to be in the news, Johnson’s guide to the subject provides valuable background. It may be read by clicking here.

Another issue that underlies much of the news in today’s world: the quality of judging and judges, from local courts to the highest courts in the land. “In Search of Humbler—and Wiser—Judgments” offers thoughts from Chad M. Oldfather, professor of law at Marquette University. Oldfather’s new book, Judges, Judging, and Judgment: Character, Wisdom, and Humility in a Polarized World, was published by Cambridge University Press. Oldfather also talks about good judgment in legal practice beyond the courtroom in this question-and-answer dialogue. It can be read by clicking here.

Marquette University’s new president, Kimo Ah Yun, has been in the news a lot. In a Lubar Center “Get to Know” program on January 17, 2025, Ah Yun told moderator Derek Mosley, director of the Lubar Center, and an audience of about 200 his powerful personal story, as well as some aspects of his vision for Marquette. The story of his “underdog” rise may be read by clicking here.

Over the years, ways to improve the outcomes of people being released from incarceration has been the subject of several programs at Marquette Law School. In December 2013, for example, Craig Steven Wilder, a professor of American history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was interviewed by Mike Gousha, distinguished fellow in law and public policy, about Wilder’s book on how race and slavery issues were handled by some prominent universities.

In the audience was R. L. McNeely, L’94, a retired professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. At a lunch afterwards for a small group, the conversation turned to Wilder’s involvement in a program aimed at helping educate incarcerated people.

McNeely followed up by starting to work on creating such a program in Wisconsin, involving Marquette and ultimately several other universities. It took years for the idea to become reality, and McNeely, who died in 2020, did not live long enough to see that happen. “From Conversation to Dream to Idea to Reality” describes the origins of the idea and the determination of McNeely and several others, including faculty in Marquette University’s Klingler College of Arts and Sciences, to launch what is now known as the McNeely Prison Education Consortium. The article may be read by clicking here.

“Good Neighbors”—that’s the headline on an article about changes in the immediate vicinity of Eckstein Hall, the Law School’s home. The changes include a new pastor at the Church of the Gesu, Rev. Michael Simone, S.J., and a largescale renovation of sections of the church building; the $42 million renovation and expansion of Straz Hall, making it the new home of the College of Nursing under the continued leadership of Dean Jill Guttormson; and the vision of a new director, John McKinnon, at the Haggerty Museum of Art. The Law School community welcomes all three good neighbors. The article may be read by clicking here.

In early 2025, John T. Chisholm stepped down after 18 years as Milwaukee County district attorney and more than three decades of service in the office and is now a senior lecturer at the Law School. In an essay, “A New Venue for Kindling the Fire for Lawyers to Serve Others,” Chisholm offers his perspective on his new role. It can be read by clicking here.

John Novotny recently retired after almost 20 years working on behalf of the Law School and longer service yet to Marquette University. In remarks at Novotny’s retirement reception, Law School Dean Joseph D. Kearney praised Novotny for more than his success in raising funds. Novotny embodies the vision of Jesuit education, Kearney said. The text of his remarks may be read by clicking here.

In his column, titled “Speaking Just for Myself,” Dean Kearney reflects on his approach to aspects of his office. His column may be read by clicking here.

Finally: the Class Notes describe recent accomplishments of more than 40 Marquette lawyers, including Byron B. Conway, L’02, who was recently sworn in as a federal judge serving the Green Bay Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The notes may be read by clicking here, and the back cover (here), through two examples, spotlights the impressive record of Marquette law students serving in pro bono and public service roles.

The full magazine may be read by clicking here for the PDF or here for the “interactive” version.

Continue ReadingNew Marquette Lawyer Sheds Light on Issues Shaping Today’s World