Dane County judge voids redistricting contract with Republicans and their lawyers

MADISON - A Dane County judge voided two contracts Thursday between Republican legislators and their redistricting lawyers.      

Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke ruled Wisconsin Republican leaders didn't have the power to hire two law firms to help them with expected litigation over congressional and legislative maps they must draw before next year's elections. 

States must draw new maps every 10 years based on population changes detected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Those maps can give one political party an advantage over the other.

Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature expect Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to veto whatever maps they draw. That will leave it to courts to decide what the maps should look like.

In anticipation of that, they hired lawyers in recent months and planned to pay them $1 million or more in taxpayer money this year. 

But Ehlke found the leaders didn't have the power to hire the attorneys and canceled their contracts with them. 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester said he would ask a higher court to overturn the decision. 

"It’s certainly no surprise that a Dane County judge gave liberal activists a favorable ruling in this case. We will appeal the decision and move forward," Vos said in a statement.

That drew a rebuke from Lester Pines, the attorney who represents the four Madison teachers who brought the lawsuit last month.

"Whenever authoritarians like Robin Vos, who regularly misuse their authority and mislead the public, are held to account by a court, they attack the judge," Pines said. 

In 2019, Republican lawmakers passed wide-ranging lame-duck laws to limit the powers of Evers and Democratic Attorney Josh Kaul.

Those laws made it easier for the Legislature to hire attorneys, but Ehlke found that power applies only when litigation has already been filed — and not when lawmakers simply expect they will be sued, as is the case with redistricting.

"Under the plain terms of the statute the defendants did not have authority to enter into the two contracts at issue in this case," Ehlke wrote.

Under one contract, Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu of Oostburg agreed to have the state pay as much as $965,000 for the services of attorney Adam Mortara and Consovoy McCarthy, the boutique law firm that has represented former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee. 

As part of that arrangement, the state began paying $30,000 a month starting in January to cover pre-litigation consulting. The monthly fee was to jump to $200,000 in July or when a redistricting lawsuit is filed, whichever comes first. 

Under the second contract, Vos and LeMahieu agreed to pay $375 an hour to former Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John at the Madison firm Bell Giftos St. John. 

It's unclear if taxpayers will be reimbursed for the payments that have already been made to the lawyers. Ehlke's decision didn't address that issue. 

Evers has not hired attorneys for redistricting. Last year he established a commission to draw nonpartisan maps.

Republicans have said they don't trust that those maps will be nonpartisan and plan to draw their own.

Republicans controlled all of state government during the last round of redistricting and used that authority to draw maps that greatly benefited them over the last decade. They hired attorneys early on to help them draw maps in secret. 

Years of litigation followed, but the courts upheld most of those maps.

A panel of judges changed the lines of two Assembly districts on Milwaukee's south side after finding they violated the rights of Hispanic voters. The remaining maps were allowed to stand. 

Pines, the attorney who brought the case over hiring attorneys this year, said he hoped to prevent Republicans from again using a secretive process to draw the new maps. 

"They got away with it in 2011 and they're not going to get away with it this time," he said. 

Higher courts will have the final say on whether lawmakers can put their contracts with the attorneys back in place. 

Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.