Democrat Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, apparently forgetting that he drew the state’s congressional map, called the map gerrymandered to benefit Republicans. Speaking to reporters following a second panel of circuit court judges throwing out a challenge to the map Tuesday, Evers said Wisconsin “will obviously need to get new maps.”
“We’re a 50-50 state and it’s not a 50-50 group of people going to Washington to support us,” he added.
On Tuesday, the second of two three-judge panels established by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear lawsuits challenging the congressional map dismissed its case, saying that lower court judges had no authority under the State Constitution to review a prior decision of the Supreme Court.
“This panel is not endorsing the current congressional map,” the judges held. “Rather, we as circuit court judges do not have the authority to read into a Wisconsin Supreme Court case an analysis that it does not contain.”
A month earlier, the other three-judge panel also threw out its case on identical grounds. The decisions all but ensure that Wisconsin’s map will not be redrawn ahead of November’s congressional election.
Evers seemed resigned to the fact that his own map will be in place for the 2026 and 2028 elections and not altered until after the 2030 census.
“The good news is that as we get going into the new decade, we’ll make those changes,” he said.
