Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has called lawmakers to the Capitol on Tuesday for a special session to ban partisan gerrymandering.
It remains to be seen whether Republicans, who control the Legislature, will shrug off Evers’ request as they have in past special sessions on issues like abortion rights and gun safety. It’s possible, given the way political winds of the 2026 midterm elections appear to favor Democrats, Republican lawmakers could come to the table, though not likely.
Last week liberal Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor defeated conservative Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar by 20 points for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The race, while technically nonpartisan, saw public support split along party lines.
Evers, who is not running for reelection, has proposed a constitutional amendment, which requires two consecutive approvals by the Legislature in separate sessions and ratification by voters. The language of the amendment is just two sentences: “Districts shall not provide a disproportionate advantage or disadvantage to any political party. Partisan gerrymandering is prohibited.”
Following a bill signing last week, Evers said his office was continuing discussions with Republican and Democratic leaders about his proposal.
“We’re still working with legislative leaders and will continue doing that until that moment when they come back,” Evers said.
State lawmakers hold the power to draw legislative and congressional districts in Wisconsin, typically once a decade after the federal government conducts the U.S. Census. Democrats, who last controlled the Assembly, Senate and governor’s office during the 2009-10 legislative session, did not pass any redistricting changes ahead of the 2010 U.S. Census and lost power to enact policy after Republicans took control of the executive and legislative branches that election year.
“The Democratic trifecta was faced with a choice: secure fair maps for prosperity, or wait and hold out for a possible retaining power for another decade,” Evers said when he signed the special session executive order in March. “And we know how that story worked.”
In 2011, Republican lawmakers crafted maps that kept the GOP in power for more than a decade, even after Democrats won statewide offices in 2018. The Republican-drawn maps remained in place until the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck them down in late 2023. Cases challenging the state’s congressional maps are still making their way through the courts, but decisions are unlikely ahead of the midterm elections.
Evers signed new legislative maps into law in 2024, and Democrats flipped 14 legislative seats under the new maps in an otherwise Republican-friendly election year. Those gains set up real competition for control of the Legislature this fall.
The challenging political environment for Republicans in 2026 could create an avenue for some kind of reform if GOP lawmakers are interested, redistricting experts said in interviews with Wisconsin Watch.
Legislative Republicans will have to consider what kind of consequences might come if Democrats take some form of power during the 2026 elections, said Jonathan Cervas, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in redistricting and served as one of the consultants to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the case challenging the state’s legislative maps. Republicans in that case compromised with Evers on the best path forward rather than letting the consultants draw maps, Cervas said.
“I really liked that they decided to compromise. I thought that was maybe the best case scenario outcome, though it may not have felt like the best case scenario for any of the other parties,” Cervas said. “I’m not sure that that’s what the Democrats wanted. I’m not sure it’s what the Republicans wanted. But I think from the voter standpoint, that’s a really good outcome.”
Cervas and Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington, D.C., office, both said there are similarities between the political environment in Wisconsin today and in the Virginia legislature around 2020 that led to redistricting reform ahead of the state’s 2021 map-drawing process.
Virginia lawmakers initiated a constitutional amendment to create a bipartisan redistricting commission in 2019 when Republicans still held power in the state legislature.
Democrats won a majority in Virginia elections that year, and the state party eventually objected to the constitutional amendment. Virginia voters in 2020 approved the bipartisan redistricting commission that shifted full control of map-drawing power away from state lawmakers. In 2021 the group failed to agree on legislative or congressional maps, and the decision fell to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Now in 2026, Virginia voters will decide in a special election on April 21 whether to temporarily undo the 2020 changes and approve mid-decade Democratic-drawn congressional maps that could give the party four more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s part of the redistricting wave initiated after President Donald Trump called on Texas and other Republican states to enact mid-decade redistricting ahead of the midterms to help Republicans hold on to the U.S. House.
“You just see this unraveling of the reforms that were once seen as promising, and largely because it’s such an unbalanced playing field,” Cervas said.
What key players are saying
Longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who is not seeking reelection, was critical of Evers’ proposal in mid-March, but told reporters he would be open to working with the governor on something that is nonpartisan.
“If we could negotiate and try to find something that is truly nonpartisan, you never know,” Vos said.
Vos added that drawing district lines “should be about demographics. It should be how many people, what are the municipal lines and all those kinds of things. It shouldn’t be about how people vote.”
That’s not how the process worked when Republicans drew the lines in 2011. Instead the maps were drawn in secretive conditions with computer programs that allowed the districts to be calibrated to protect the Republican majority even in a Democratic wave election. When Evers and the Legislature couldn’t agree on maps after the 2020 Census, the then-conservative state Supreme Court ruled the new maps should adhere to a “least change” principle that had no basis in law or the constitution.
A spokesperson for Vos did not respond to additional questions from Wisconsin Watch last week about where Assembly Republicans stand ahead of the special session. Nor did a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who in March announced he is also not seeking reelection later this year.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor, said at a press conference in Madison last week that he would also want to see a nonpartisan proposal from Evers.
“He should produce a nonpartisan bill,” Tiffany said. “He should produce nonpartisan ideas because what we see is that his ideas are consistently partisan.”
While Republicans hold power over the Legislature’s moves this week, Evers also faces potential objections about a partisan gerrymandering ban from some members of his own party.
Neither Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, nor Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, expressed clear support for Evers’ plan following the governor’s executive order in March.
Both noted the challenges gerrymandered maps favoring Republicans pose for Democrats participating in the legislative process, but said they supported a future redistricting process that allowed voters to be heard.
The top Democratic candidates running for governor told Wisconsin Watch they support some form of nonpartisan redistricting, even in the wake of Taylor’s double-digit victory margin in the state Supreme Court race.
“Wisconsinites have been subjected to one of the worst gerrymanders in the nation for too long,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a statement. “Letting the people’s voices be heard is the very foundation of democracy. We owe it to every Wisconsin voter, Republican or Democrat, to fix this system once and for all.”
Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary, said the gerrymandered Republican maps “deeply harmed the state.” Fair maps now have voters “choosing their own representatives, not the other way around,” Brennan said.
Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong said she supports a nonpartisan commission to create fair maps without “elected officials meddling in that process.” Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said Wisconsin needs to keep map drawing “outside of political hands” to stop the power swing that happens when Democrats or Republicans come into power.
Madison Sen. Kelda Roys, who stood with Evers when he signed the special session executive order in March, said she supports fair maps and a constitutional amendment to ban gerrymandering.
“The party that earns the most votes should get the most seats,” she said in a statement.
Missy Hughes, the former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO, and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes pointed to mid-decade redistricting efforts led by Trump in Republican states ahead of the midterms.
Hughes said nonpartisan redistricting methods are necessary to protect Wisconsin voters.
“Wisconsinites deserve it, and as Governor I will use every lever at my disposal to ensure that our vote is protected from Donald Trump, and our maps are fairly drawn,” she said in a statement.
Barnes said fair maps are important, but he also doesn’t want Wisconsin to “fight with one arm tied behind our backs” if there continues to be future partisan redistricting pushes from the federal government.
“There should be fair, nonpartisan redistricting all across the country,” Barnes said. “If that is not the case across the country and Wisconsin finds ourselves in a position where we ultimately have to save democracy, we need to look at all available options.”
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