Cases & Actions

Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission

On June 5, 2025 the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, along with Law Forward and Stafford Rosenbaum LLP filed a motion to intervene in Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission on behalf of Wisconsin business leaders and voters , challenging the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s congressional districting map, and arguing it is an unlawful anticompetitive gerrymander.

UPDATED: June 6, 2025

BACKGROUND

On May 7, 2025 Wisconsin voters filed a challenge to the current court-imposed map that establishes boundaries for the state’s eight congressional districts. They argue that map is an extreme partisan gerrymander that violates the Wisconsin Constitution.

Separately from Petitioners, Proposed Intervenors argue that Wisconsin’s congressional map is also unconstitutional because it is an anti-competitive gerrymander that suppresses electoral competition in most of the plan’s districts. The filing notes over the entire decade-long life span of the previous map (which the current map mirrors) not a single incumbent lost and not one district shifted from one party to the other. Additionally, across 16 individual district races since the 2022 map was imposed, the median margin of victory was close to 30 percentage points. Maps created without considering election results (and satisfying all federal and state requirements) are almost never so uncompetitive.

“Congressional districts should be drawn to empower voters, not to protect politicians. This filing asks the Court to put people back at the center of democracy, where they belong. For too long the people of Wisconsin have experienced congressional elections as a foregone conclusion, not an exercise in civic participation and deliberation. We are proud to represent voters seeking to reclaim their democracy,” said Ruth Greenwood of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School.