A common practice in drawing state legislative districts has come under question in Wisconsin.
But the challenge to noncontiguous districts could provide judges a way to decide the case without ever addressing whether partisan gerrymandering is illegal.
Most states are guided by at least four traditional principles for reshaping state legislative districts after each decennial census. Those include districts being nearly equal in population, compact and contiguous and following the boundaries of cities and counties. “Contiguous” generally is understood to mean all parts of a district are connected, with some logical exceptions for islands.
“It just doesn’t serve the people that live in those little bubbles to not have the same kind of community cohesion and interests being represented,” he said.Gabrielle Young, 46, lives in one of the “land islands” Anderson represents. But until she was contacted by lawyers filing the redistricting lawsuit, Young said she had no idea Anderson had to travel through another district to campaign in her neighborhood.
“Clearly, at some point, things sort of went awry,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that helped bring the lawsuit.That has not always been the case. The political roles are reversed 30 years later. Republicans, who now control the Legislature, proposed Assembly and Senate maps with disconnected districts that thelast year. Democrats, who control the governor’s office, are backing the legal challenge.
“Turning one knob on the system makes you have to turn down the other knob at least a bit,” Altman said.
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