State lawmakers will have to redraw two Milwaukee Assembly districts because the new maps drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature violated Latino voting rights.
A panel of federal judges found the new eighth and ninth Assembly district boundaries to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act Thursday because they split a Latino community into two districts. The Government Accountability Board now must halt implementation of the new election maps.
Under state law, the state legislature must redraw district maps every 10 years to account for population changes. The new maps, which altered boundaries across the state, were passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker last summer.
Thursday’s ruling upheld the other district boundaries and ordered lawmakers to leave them in tact when redrawing the two Milwaukee districts.
The three-judge panel also criticized Republican legislators for crafting the maps in secret and for placing over a million Wisconsin residents in different districts unnecessarily.
Voces de la Frontera, a Latino rights group, filed a lawsuit against the maps in October, arguing the newly drawn districts would limit the voting power of the Latino community in Milwaukee by dividing them into two districts.
“This is a vindication, that we were right,” Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann Ortiz said in a statement. “If the Republican Party had chosen to honor the public process—instead of operating secretly—there would have been the opportunity for a meaningful discussion and debate. Instead, it only serves as a lengthy and costly lesson.”
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in a statement the state Department of Justice is currently reviewing the decision and that any appeal of the ruling would go directly to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
In a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said the ruling largely vindicates their efforts because the panel found 130 of the 132 districts constitutional.
“Our state constitution requires new district maps every 10 years to reflect changing population, and that’s exactly what the legislature delivered,” they said.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, D-Monona, applauded the court’s decision and said Democrats are ready to redraw the maps in a way that does not disenfranchise voters.
“The Federal Court confirmed today what we’ve maintained all along: The Republicans, behind closed doors, without input from any Democrats and at great expense to the taxpayers of Wisconsin, concocted unconstitutional legislative maps,” Miller said in a statement.
