Supreme Court Tosses WI Voting Maps In Outrageous Decision

By Susie Madrak — March 24, 2022

While we were watching Republican senators viciously haze a Biden SCOTUS nominee, the conservatives on the highest court were up to no good -- using the shadow docket to overturn redistricting law to cement white control of Wisconsin. This is a BFD:

In a stunning decision that confirms just how extreme the US Supreme Court’s majority has become, #SCOTUS has rejected the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that embraced @GovEvers’ legislative district maps. Justice Sonia Sotomayor calls the ruling "unprecedented." It’s also wrong.

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) March 23, 2022

No one in the legal community expected this, because it so blatantly overturns precedent and ignores the Purcell principle that the court will allow no last-minute changes to election rules.

This is why voters should care about the Supreme Court. Their unfounded, unprecedented decision threw Wisconsin's democracy into disarray. #SCOTUS https://t.co/5yRQBLiRxS

— Jessica Katzenmeyer (@jessicaforwis) March 23, 2022

The Wisconsin Legislature's emergency application to SCOTUS objected to the fact that Evers' maps would increase the number of state Assembly districts in the Milwaukee area with majority Black voters from six to seven, claiming that "the plan's maximization of majority-minority districts" is unconstitutional.

SCOTUS agreed -- again, in a shadow docket with no actual legal argument! Which seems to indicate that they're in a panic to help Republicans retain control everywhere they can.

#BREAKING: #SCOTUS uses shadow docket to summarily throw out Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling adopting Governor Evers’s redistricting maps.

Sotomayor and Kagan publicly dissent: pic.twitter.com/tNDV7pbDSK

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) March 23, 2022

The Court using the shadow docket to imply that the 14th Amendment and VRA require Wisconsin to have more gerrymandered electoral maps that give less representation to Black voters is incredible stuff even by Roberts Court standards https://t.co/kBYPVqk1fn

— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) March 23, 2022

We talked to @steve_vladeck about SCOTUS's strange Wisconsin ruling.

“It reinforces how willing the conservative majority is to use emergency shadow docket orders based on new — and deeply contestable — understandings of the Voting Rights Act,” he says:https://t.co/zjTcaZ7Zt6

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 23, 2022

#BREAKING: #SCOTUS uses shadow docket to summarily throw out Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling adopting Governor Evers’s redistricting maps.

Sotomayor and Kagan publicly dissent: pic.twitter.com/tNDV7pbDSK

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) March 23, 2022

Needless to say, the Supreme Court's rather selective application of the Purcell principle (no last-minute changes to election rules) in AL vs. WI won't do anything to diminish perceptions it's become a partisan body.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 23, 2022

More than just using the shadow docket here, the majority has actually turned this application for a stay into a certiorari petition — meaning, merits review. The majority then granted and summarily reversed the decision below, wrote this unsigned opinion, and sent it back.

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) March 23, 2022

🚨BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court upholds congressional map adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court but overturns legislative maps adopted by the state Supreme Court, ruling that the court improperly applied the VRA to add an additional majority-Black district.https://t.co/wLCm8Fb3NE

— Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) March 23, 2022

Huh? Isn't that like complaining to the manager about the cashier not giving you stuff for free, getting shut down, and asking the cashier to reconsider helping you to steal?

— Adam Brown (@A___CB____) March 24, 2022