A three-judge federal panel today enjoined the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board from implementing Republican-drawn legislative redistricting maps until two districts that split Latino voters are redrawn. Their decision can be read in its entirety here.
IT IS ORDERED that the plaintiffs’ and intervenor-plaintiffs’ Sixth Claim for relief be and the same is hereby GRANTED, the Court having found that New Assembly Districts 8 and 9 violate the Voting Rights Act, and, accordingly, the Government Accountability Board is hereby ENJOINED from implementing Act 43 in its current form;
In the order, the judges indicate that their order applies only to districts 8 and 9.
In conclusion, we find that the Baldus and Voces plaintiffs are entitled to relief on their Section 2 claim concerning New Assembly Districts 8 and 9, because Act 43 fails to create a majority-minority district for Milwaukee’s Latino community. Two influence districts have never been held to be an adequate substitute for such a district under the factual circumstances that we have before us.
This holding is not intended to affect any other district drawn by Act 43. Indeed, to avoid disrupting other lines, the court emphasizes that the re-drawing of the lines for Districts 8 and 9 must occur within the combined outer boundaries of those two districts. Recognizing as we have throughout this litigation the primary role that the state has in this area, we are giving the legislature the first opportunity to address this point, but it must act quickly given the impending elections.
The second claim that was considered by most observers to have a chance of success was denied:
As for the other claims, we find that although the drafting of Act 43 was needlessly secret, regrettably excluding input from the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin citizens, and although the final product needlessly moved more than a million Wisconsinites and disrupted their long-standing political relationships, the resulting population deviations are not large enough to permit judicial intervention under the Supreme Court’s precedents. Act 44 has zero population deviation, which is why we find that the intervenor-plaintiffs have no meritorious “one person, one vote” claim.
What I take from this, and IANAL, is that the two districts' boundaries that discriminated against Latino voters must be redrawn, but the other districts are legal. Please feel free to correct me in the comments if I am reading this incorrectly. With a split state Senate, it seems unlikely to me that the legislature will come to an agreement. I bet the federal courts will eventually redraw the two districts.
The judges continued their rebuke against the secretive manner in which the redistricting was done by Republican legislators, citing Wisconsin tradition and history, but they were not able to toss the entire plan.