Editorial: Federal court rules for fairness

That champion of closed and unaccountable government, state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, proclaimed Monday that the legal fight over Wisconsin’s legislative maps is far from over and that “Wisconsin has competitive legislative districts.” He’s right about the first, woefully mistaken on the second.

Vos was reacting to a federal court ruling on Monday that struck down the legislative maps that Republicans conjured up in 2011, giving them a very noncompetitive edge in stacking the Assembly and Senate in their favor. As we noted in a 2015 editorial, “There is little doubt that leaving the job of drawing district lines to politicians, whether for state or federal seats, opens the door to political mischief.”

Political mischief in this case means creating safe districts where politicians don’t have to seriously compete for votes and where they don’t have to listen to all the voters. And creating enough of them to effectively disenfranchise Democrats from a seat at the legislative table.

On Monday, two members of the three-judge federal court agreed: “We find that Act 43 was intended to burden the representational rights of Democratic voters throughout the decennial period by impeding their ability to translate their votes into legislative seats. Moreover, as demonstrated by the results of the 2012 and 2014 elections, among other evidence, we conclude that Act 43 has had its intended effect. Finally, we find that the discriminatory effect is not explained by the political geography of Wisconsin nor is it justified by a legitimate state interest.”

Vos was right that the case is far from over; there is no doubt this will go to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it’s very possible that the plaintiffs will lose there, at least in part because the lower court used a new standard in determining whether legislative maps are drawn in a way that discriminates against voters of a particular party.

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But the points made by the court ruling should not be easily dismissed. Republicans redrew the maps in 2011 behind closed doors and with the help of a few close friends. The GOP leadership even had members sign secrecy agreements. The maps were made public less than a week before the only public hearing on the bills and then quickly passed.

And the maps were carefully drawn to make sure the GOP would win: The party’s candidates in 2012 state Assembly races received 168,000 fewer votes than their Democratic counterparts, but the GOP still won 60 of the 99 seats.

Vos says Republicans have won in Wisconsin because they have the best candidates. In some places, that’s true. But his claim would carry more weight if those candidates had serious competition and were forced to have a real debate on ideas instead of preaching to the choir. It was gerrymandering of the worst kind, and the Supreme Court should put an end to it.