Zac Schultz on the Wisconsin's 2024 Redistricting Map Report

Frederica Freyberg:
Wisconsin is on course to have new voting maps in short order. Late this week, consultants hired by the state Supreme Court rejected two of the map submissions as being partisan gerrymanders and said the rest could meet muster with the high court. For details on this, we turn to senior political reporter Zac Schultz at the Capitol. Hi Zac.

Zac Schultz:
Hello Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:
So which two maps represent partisan gerrymander according to these consultants?

Zac Schultz:
The first one really shouldn’t come as any surprise and that is the Republican map, the Republican legislators’ map, which is the most closely related to the current maps that are in place that the Supreme Court already said were gerrymandered. The other maps are from what’s called the Johnson Intervenors, which is actually maps drawn by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, or WILL. That’s a conservative law firm. They hedged their bets somewhere in between some of the maps drawn by the more liberal or Democratic groups in this case and their Republican legislators’ maps, but still pretty much made for slam dunk majorities for the Republicans if their maps had been adopted.

Frederica Freyberg:
That’s something the consultants called stealth gerrymandering, I think, in their report.

Zac Schultz:
Yes, and that’s because the WILL maps met all of the criteria that are determined by the state constitution. They’re contiguous. They kept most of the municipal communities of interest together, the population, all those things were there, but they still were drawn in a way that would pretty much guarantee Republican majorities and, in some cases, possible super majorities.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so the consultants’ review on this is not sitting well with Republican mapmakers, saying their maps were rejected because they didn’t produce Democratic outcomes that this court wants.

Zac Schultz:
Well, I think they’re speaking to their audience, their voters, their base, their donors and possibly hoping to speak to the U.S. Supreme Court where they’re hoping this appeal will be heard and then one of their two preferred maps would ultimately be chosen by the high court in the land. But the honest reality is that every independent analyst, every expert, most people that understand this issue at all have looked at these maps for the last decade plus and said these are gerrymanders that favor Republicans. By how much has always been the question. Was the two-thirds supermajority in the Senate entirely a gerrymander? Probably not, what the experts say is that but a solid portion of that is because of the gerrymander that was drawn in to favor Republicans in districts that were guaranteed to elect them.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as to the other four maps from Democrats and others, the experts deemed them not partisan gerrymanders but is not necessarily perfect, either.

Zac Schultz:
That’s right. There were differences between all four maps. The experts, most of their 25-page review was actually scoring in their analysis of all the different maps according to a number of rhetoric rubrics. Mostly look at partisan fairness, which is kind of the new standard that this court has introduced for this process to say in a 50/50 top of the ballot state, which is what Wisconsin is, what would be the most fair outcome and how would that be represented by how the districts looked. And they said that according to some analysis on this one, looking at all the old elections for the past seven years, this map was better, that map was a little better over here, so different scores for different areas but otherwise roughly the same. None of them stood out well and above to the others, so they said the Supreme Court can pick from them if they want.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the consultants also rejected Republican claims that their majorities in the Legislature are due to Democratic support being concentrated in cities while the GOP has this broader support out-state. The consultants said, “Geography is not destiny.” Unpack this for us.

Zac Schultz:
This is something we’ve heard over and over, and we’ve reported on for years and that there is a little bit of a geographic bias for Republicans in Wisconsin. The question is, how much? In a neutral, fair map, we’ve had experts from the UW say that Republicans would win somewhere between 50 and maybe 55 seats in an average year if the maps were all drawn fairly. And in this case, the experts said that that was something that they should be looking at but you can make fair maps without having everything tilted one way. So it shouldn’t give the Republicans 66 seats in the Assembly, but maybe somewhere in the low to mid 50s, which is a giant difference when we’re talking about governing in this body.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what happens now?

Zac Schultz:
Well, now we wait. There is one week for the other intervenors and plaintiffs and defendants in this case to file their responses to the experts. That’s due next Thursday. After that, the court could ask the experts to draw or adjust. The experts did not submit their own version saying they thought the four maps that they proposed that were in there were good enough but they can make adjustments if the court wants. The court could narrow it down. The court could make a decision. It really is up to the court and we don’t know what happens after that.

Frederica Freyberg:
The consultants also said they could take a crack at making these maps in short order.

Zac Schultz:
That’s right.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Zac Schultz, thanks very much.

Zac Schultz:
Thanks, Fred.