The deep ideological split on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was clear on Tuesday as the court heard arguments in a case with the potential to upend political power in the state: a challenge to the state’s legislative district maps, regarded as among the most aggressively gerrymandered in the country.
Conservatives on the court accused Democrats of waiting to raise their claim that the maps violate the State Constitution until they had secured a 4-to-3 liberal majority on the court.
But the court’s liberal justices signaled that they were sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ argument that the existing legislative districts — many of them broken into several unconnected pieces — failed the constitutional requirement that districts be compact and contiguous, and that the maps should be entirely redrawn.
Justices across the ideological spectrum suggested during oral arguments that the Democrats’ proposed solution — requiring every state lawmaker to stand for election in 2024 under a new map, even those whose terms would not yet have run out — was an extraordinary one.
“It’s an extreme remedy,” said Justice Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal who was elected in April as the newest member of the court.
Dozens of Wisconsin voters packed the room in the State Capitol in Madison early Tuesday to hear the arguments in person, and even more gathered in the center of the Capitol to watch the proceedings on television.
Wisconsin’s legislative maps have been the focus of fierce battles in the state for years, particularly the current iterations, which are heavily tilted to favor Republicans.
They were first drawn under a former Republican governor, Scott Walker, and have helped his party secure large majorities in both chambers of the State Legislature for more than a decade, even though the state’s electorate is made up of roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Democrats often win statewide elections; Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, won a second term in 2022.
The justices are considering a petition filed in August on behalf of 19 Democratic voters in Wisconsin. It asks the court to declare that the state’s existing maps, updated by the Legislature after the 2020 census to favor Republicans even more, are unconstitutional, and to order new ones drawn in time for the 2024 election.
If it succeeds, the lawsuit could open the door for a radical shift in political power in the state by putting far more seats within reach for Democrats.
The lawsuit differs from challenges to gerrymandered maps in some other states, because it is focused on what seems at first glance to be a neutral technical issue. Lawyers representing Democrats said that 54 of the 99 current Assembly districts and 21 of the 33 Senate districts failed the constitutional requirement that they be compact and contiguous.
The suit also argues that the way the maps were most recently updated violated the State Constitution’s separation of powers clause.
Moments after the hearing began on Tuesday, Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative, interrupted a lawyer representing Democratic voters to ask why he had not brought this challenge sooner. “Everybody knows that the reason we’re here is because there was a change in the membership of the court,” she said.
Lawyers representing Republicans said that in the past, Democrats appeared untroubled by noncontiguous districts. One of the lawyers, Taylor Meehan, said the Democrats’ claims were “meritless.”
“They are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, designed to backdoor a political statewide remedy,” Ms. Meehan said.
But Justice Rebecca Dallet, a liberal, appeared exasperated by the complaints over the timing.
“Why is this relevant?” she said. “We have plenty of situations where we have not had something challenged as unconstitutional, and then it is.”
Justice Dallet asked lawyers for both sides whether they could recommend experts to help the court draw new maps if the existing ones were thrown out.
Much of the hearing centered on the contiguity requirement. “Wisconsin is the only state that has anything that looks anything like this,” Mark Gaber, a lawyer representing Democrats, said of the current district boundaries, adding, “This shocks people across the country who look at this map.”
Wisconsin remains a crucial battleground state in presidential elections, and its divisive politics has long extended to its highest court. In a hotly contested judicial election in April, Justice Protasiewicz won by a double-digit margin after campaigning largely on the issues of abortion and voting rights; she has called the state’s current legislative maps “rigged.”
The court’s decision in October to hear the case challenging the maps came at a time when Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the State Assembly, was threatening to impeach Justice Protasiewicz. Despite complaints from conservatives about her remarks on the campaign trail, she has declined to recuse herself.
The State Supreme Court is not expected to rule immediately on the case.
Maia Coleman contributed reporting.
