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wisconsin supreme court
'Voters Won Big': Wisconsin Supreme Court Restores Ballot Drop Boxes
"At the very heart of our democracy is the fundamental freedom to vote," said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. "This is a victory for our democracy."
Jul 05, 2024
Democracy defenders in Wisconsin celebrated on Friday after the state Supreme Court ruled that absentee ballot drop boxes can be located throughout communities for the November elections, reversing a decision from two years ago, when there was a majority of right-wing justices.
"Wisconsin voters won big today with the decision to reinstate drop boxes across the Badger State," said All Voting is Local Wisconsin state director Sam Liebert in a statement. "Drop boxes are an incredibly popular form of voting that offer greater access to the elections for those who may not be able to wait in line at the polls, particularly those with disabilities."
"Wisconsin voters should have more options, and drop boxes are a secure and easy way to increase civic participation and ensure voters have another safe, secure, and accessible way to cast their ballot," Liebert added.
Common Cause Wisconsin co-chair Penny Bernard Schaber, whose group joined an amicus brief to the court in May, also welcomed the ruling, saying that "reinstating the use of secure ballot drop boxes is good for all of us in Wisconsin."
"It is especially good for individual voters who have mobility issues and time constraints that make it difficult for them to go into and out of a polling place or an election clerk's office," the former Democratic state representative similarly stressed. "Secure ballot drop boxes are a necessary and safe way to return our ballots."
Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) declared: "This is huge news for democracy! Making it easier for folks to vote is a good thing."
Common Cause Wisconsin pointed out that "voter drop boxes have been used since before 2016 and in 2020-21, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of drop boxes was expanded to 570 located in 66 of Wisconsin's 72 counties. The expanded number of drop boxes, authorized by the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), offered voters a more convenient and safe way to ensure that their absentee ballots could be returned in time to be counted, in part because of the uncertainty of timely delivery of ballots by the U.S. Postal Service."
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote in the majority opinion that "our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes. It merely acknowledges what Wis. Stat. § 6.87(4)(b)1. has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion."
She was joined by the other three liberals, including Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose election last year ended right-wing control of the court. Wisconsinites are preparing for a similar electoral battle next year, when Walsh Bradley plans to retire.
The court earlier this week agreed to take up a pair of high-profile abortion cases. Late last year, the liberal majority threw out Wisconsin's legislative maps, which were rigged to favor Republicans. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new maps in February.
Applauding the ruling on Friday, Evers said that the court "affirmed what we've been saying all along: Drop box voting is safe, secure, and legal, and local clerks should be empowered to make decisions that make sense for their local communities."
"At the very heart of our democracy is the fundamental freedom to vote," he continued. "This is a victory for our democracy. And we're going to keep fighting to ensure that every eligible voter can cast their ballot safely, securely, and as easily as possible to make sure their voices are heard."
The decision comes as Wisconsin is expected to play a key role in this year's contest for the White House. Democratic President Joe Biden, who is now seeking reelection and campaigning in Wisconsin on Friday, won the state by about 20,000 votes in 2020, when he beat former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee.
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Planned Parenthood Asks Wisconsin Supreme Court to Affirm Abortion Rights
"Wisconsinites deserve the ability to make decisions that shape their future—to make decisions about if or when they become a parent. And they deserve to know this right is protected by our state constitution."
Feb 22, 2024
Continuing a legal battle that began with the nationwide reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Planned Parenthood on Thursday filed a petition urging the liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court to swiftly protect the right to abortion.
"We're asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to answer this question: Does the Wisconsin Constitution protect the right to access abortion care and a provider's right to provide abortion care?" Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) president and CEO Tanya Atkinson explained in a video shared on social media.
"Wisconsinites deserve the ability to make decisions that shape their future—to make decisions about if or when they become a parent," she stressed. "And they deserve to know this right is protected by our state constitution."
According to the Wisconsin State Journal:
The lawsuit asks the high court to declare that abortion rights are protected in the constitutional provision stating, "All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
"At the sacred core of the inherent right to life and liberty lies the right to determine what one does with one's own body, including whether and when to have a child," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit doesn't seek to define when exactly abortion rights are guaranteed.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has clinics that offer abortion care in Dane, Milwaukee, and Sheboygan counties. However, after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, PPWI stopped providing abortions due to uncertainty over an 1849 state law.
PPWI decided to resume abortion care last September, in response to Dane County Judge Diane Schlipper's July ruling that the law only applies to feticide, or the act of killing a fetus, and not consensual pre-viability abortion. Joel Urmanski, Sheboygan County's Republican district attorney, asked Schlipper to reconsider her decision, but she reaffirmed it in December.
Urmanski on Tuesday asked the state's top court to bypass the appellate level and weigh in. In response, PPWI chief strategy officer Michelle Velasquez said in a statement that the group "vehemently opposes" his view that the 175-year-old law took effect upon Roe's reversal but "we do agree with DA Urmanski that bypass to the Wisconsin Supreme Court is appropriate, as this issue is of statewide importance and that requiring this case to be first decided by the Court of Appeals will only result in needless delay."
"Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will continue to provide abortion care services at our Water Street Health Center in Milwaukee, Madison East Health Center, and Sheboygan Health Center," Velasquez added. "We will continue essential work to help protect and expand reproductive freedom in Wisconsin so that everyone who needs comprehensive reproductive healthcare in our state can get the nonjudgmental and compassionate care they deserve."
If the Wisconsin Supreme Court takes up the issue, its four liberal members are expected to affirm abortion rights, a key topic that led voters to end right-wing control of the court last April by electing Justice Janet Protasiewicz. However, even if the justices rule as anticipated, GOP state lawmakers across the country have ramped up efforts to restrict reproductive freedom since Dobbs.
Republicans in the Wisconsin State Assembly last month approved a bill that—if also passed by the Senate—could lead to a statewide referendum in the April election asking voters whether to ban abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy. However, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has vowed to veto the measure, which would block it from the ballot.
After the January vote, Jon McCray Jones, a policy analyst at the ACLU of Wisconsin, toldtheGrio that already, "1 in 5 patients are now traveling out of state for abortion care," and a new ban would exacerbate challenges faced by marginalized communities.
Residents now deal with "healthcare deserts," because "many young people who are graduating from residency are opting to go into states that have linear abortion laws," Jones said, arguing that "politicians need to stay out of the uteruses of Wisconsinites."
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Ending Reign of GOP Gerrymandering, Evers Approves Fair Maps in Wisconsin
"Wisconsin, for the first time in over a decade, we will not have some of the most gerrymandered maps in America," Evers said.
Feb 19, 2024
For the first time since 2011, Wisconsin has state Assembly and Senate maps that do not unconstitutionally favor Republican candidates.
Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, signed new legislative maps into law on Monday that were crafted by his office and approved by the state Supreme Court.
"I've promised from the beginning that I will always try to do the right thing. Today, I'm keeping that promise and I'm signing fair maps for Wisconsin," Evers said in a statement posted on social media. "Wisconsin, for the first time in over a decade, we will not have some of the most gerrymandered maps in America."
"This is a win for Wisconsinites, who for decades have suffered under maps that Republicans gerrymandered to protect their power and allow themselves to obstruct action on popular policies while avoiding accountability at the ballot box."
Evers said that Wisconsin was a "purple state," and that its maps "should reflect that basic fact."
"The people should get to choose their elected officials, not the other way around," Evers continued.
Wisconsin has been one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation since 2011, when Republican lawmakers redrew the state's maps under Gov. Scott Walker. In one recent example, the GOP made so many alterations to the 73rd Assembly District in 2022 that residents said it looked like a Tyrannosaurus rex, according to ProPublica.
Fair election groups saw a chance to challenge the maps in August 2023, when the state's Supreme Court flipped from a conservative to liberal majority with the swearing in of Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who had criticized the maps during her campaign. Advocacy groups and law firms filed a suit on behalf of 19 Democratic Wisconsin voters, and, in December, the court ruled that the maps were unconstitutional because the districts were not "composed of physically adjoining territory" as the state Constitution requires.
The court asked different groups to submit new maps and tasked University of California, Irvine political scientist Bernard Grofman and Carnegie Mellon University political scientist Jonathan Cervas with reviewing them, as Wisconsin Public Radio reported. The experts determined that maps submitted by Evers, the Wisconsin Democrats behind the lawsuit, Democratic state senators, and a group of independent mathematicians were competitive, while two by the state legislature and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty amounted to gerrymandering. Though Evers' maps are slightly more favorable to Republican candidates, the court determined that, using his maps, "the party that wins the most votes will win the most seats."
"The governor's maps are pretty darn good," said Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin.
The resolution to the fight over Wisconsin's maps came as something of a surprise, as Republican lawmakers had initially opposed Evers' maps before introducing them last week and passing them through both the Assembly and Senate. GOP legislators said they decided that the governor's maps were their best option.
"This fall Republicans will prove that we can win on any maps because we have the better policy ideas for the State of Wisconsin," Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, (R-63) said, as Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
Most Democrats voted against the maps out of concern that the GOP was not acting in good faith and was in fact preparing a new legal challenge.
"I am voting no because I do not trust what you guys are up to," Sen. Chris Larson, a Milwaukee Democrat, said, as ProPublica reported.
Good governance groups, however, applauded the development.
"This is a win for Wisconsinites, who for decades have suffered under maps that Republicans gerrymandered to protect their power and allow themselves to obstruct action on popular policies while avoiding accountability at the ballot box," Chris Walloch, executive director of A Better Wisconsin Together, said in a statement.
Walloch added that Evers' maps were "a more fair and accurate representation of Wisconsin's diverse communities than other maps proposed by Republicans" and that they would give Wisconsin voters "a renewed chance for competitive elections and a truly representative government for all." He also expressed gratitude to the state Supreme Court and Evers for making the new maps possible.
Walloch concluded: "We deserve a legislature that represents us as constituents and prioritizes our best interests. MAGA faction politicians and their special interest allies have gone to great lengths, and great expense, to protect a rigged system that benefited them, and we will continue to hold accountable any politician who attempts to obstruct today's progress."
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) said they saw the new maps as an opportunity, especially since the entire Wisconsin Assembly and half of its Senate are up for re-election in November, when the new maps will be in use.
"While we still have more work to do to ensure fair representation in each and every Wisconsin community, with these new maps in place, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee reaffirms its commitment to reverse the Republican takeover of this state and shift the balance of power in both the Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin Senate," committee president Heather Williams said in a statement.
"Wisconsin is a top priority for the DLCC in 2024, and we're already hard at work building the campaigns that will fuel our legislative gains this fall," Williams continued. "The time for fair representation in Wisconsin is long overdue, and we are building winning campaigns and sustainable infrastructure to build power this cycle and ultimately take back both majorities."
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