Resource: Clarke et al. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission et al.

On August 2, 2023, a group of Wisconsin voters filed a petition for an original action with the Wisconsin Supreme Court seeking to sue the Wisconsin Elections Commission, its members, and various state legislators and challenge the state’s legislative redistricting plans, which followed a “least changes” approach from the prior decade’s plans and were ordered into use by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, as violating the Wisconsin Constitution. Petitioners alleged the plans were partisan gerrymanders that violated the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech, free association, and free government provisions, failed to comply with the constitution’s contiguity requirement, and that the Court violated separation of powers principles by ordering them into use over the Governor’s veto which the legislature never overrode. They sought a judicial declaration that the plans were unconstitutionally partisan gerrymandered and noncontiguous, an injunction barring the plans from use in future elections, and for the Court to require non-partisan gerrymandered remedial plans be enacted. They also requested the Court invalidate the terms of state Senators who were elected using unconstitutional districts and order a special election be held in 2024.