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The Republican majority could face a serious blow since last year, after liberals seized control of the state Supreme Court following costly and painful elections for key seats. I was aware that there was.
“Frankly, we have a gun to our heads,” state Rep. Dewey Strobel (R) said during the floor debate. After voting to approve the new map, state Sen. Van Wangard, also a Republican, likened his decision to choosing to be stabbed over the guillotine.
Democrats, fresh off their biggest victory in a decade, didn’t look as happy as Republicans. Almost all of them voted against the map, secretly resentful of missing out on a chance to get a better deal.
Republicans took control of Congress in the 2010 Tea Party wave and established a map that secured a majority shortly thereafter. They used them to cut taxes, weaken labor unions, expand gun rights and limit the power of Evers and the state’s Democratic attorneys general. They have consistently blocked Evers’ policies since he was elected in 2018.
In last year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, voters elected liberal Janet Protasiewicz to fill the court’s vacant seat by a wide margin, ending 15 years of conservative rule. hit.
During the campaign, Protasiewicz criticized the state’s congressional maps as “rigged” based on how much they favored Republicans. She said she welcomed the opportunity to review them, and her litigants gave her that opportunity by filing her case the day after she was sworn in.
Republicans were so alarmed by Protasiewicz’s victory and the possibility of losing the map that they threatened to impeach her if she continued to be involved in the affair. They withdrew the idea a few weeks later, and Mr. Protasiewicz and the court’s other liberals ruled 4-3 in December to strike down the map.
The court urged Mr. Evers and the Legislature to draw a new map, saying it would otherwise impose a politically neutral map.
Of the new map proposals that the court’s consultants found viable, the one by Evers had the least benefit to Democrats. Republicans voted to approve those maps on Tuesday.
Republicans hold a 64-35 advantage in the state Legislature, two votes short of a supermajority that would allow them to veto the bill. If Mr. Evers’ version of the map had been drawn last year, the Republican advantage would likely have been much smaller, 53-46, according to an analysis by Marquette University researcher John Johnson.
While this would be a significant improvement for Democrats, other maps submitted to the court would have been even better for Democrats and could have brought them closer to the majority.
Republicans hold a veto-proof 22-10 majority in the state Senate, and many Democratic seats are vacant. According to Johnson’s analysis, if the new map had gone into effect in 2022, the gap would probably have narrowed to one vote, giving Republicans a 17-16 advantage.
“It pains me to say it, but Governor Evers won a big victory today,” House Speaker Robin Vos (R) said Tuesday, just before the vote.
Immediately after the vote, Mr. Evers did not say what he would do, but he had said in recent days that he would approve new maps if Republicans did not fix them.
If Evers vetoes the map, the state Supreme Court will choose the map for the state. If he signs them, the case is likely to end.
In any case, the battle over the map is likely to continue. Republicans and their allies could file a lengthy lawsuit in federal court to block the map.
Tuesday’s vote does not affect the state House map. Republicans hold six of the eight seats in the state Legislature. A group of Democratic voters asked the state Supreme Court to remove the congressional map, but the court has not said whether it will do so.
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