Like Clockwork, Elias Group Sues to Overturn Wisconsin Congressional Map After Susan Crawford’s Win
Democrat-aligned law groups are wasting no time trying to unseat two Republican Congressmen through the courts.
Less than a month after Justice Susan Crawford’s victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Democrats are already trying to use the court to gerrymander away two Republican seats in Congress.
On May 7, the Elias Law Group filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Election Commission, claiming the state’s congressional map violates Democrats’ rights to free speech and association because, despite registration numbers being nearly equal, Republicans hold more seats than Democrats. The Elias Law Group was founded by Marc Elias, who hired Fusion GPS to create the infamous Steele dossier against President Donald Trump.
In a separate lawsuit, the leftist Campaign Legal Center—which received $2.5 million from convicted crypto felon Sam Bankman-Fried—is challenging the congressional map based on the number of county splits. It whines about 12 counties being split, claiming an “eight district map need only have seven county splits to achieve population equality.”
None of this comes as a surprise. Remember the Democrat donors briefing that bragged Crawford would give Democrats two more seats in Congress? Or, when House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D) referred to Crawford as “a strong Democratic candidate,” ignoring the race’s alleged nonpartisanship?
In fact, it’s becoming a bit of a Wisconsin Democrat tradition. In 2023, one day after liberals gained the majority on the court, the leftist group Law Forward sued to redraw the state’s legislative map and won. Faced with a choice between Democrat Gov. Tony Evers’ preferred map or whatever monstrosity the liberal justices would concoct, the Republican-led legislature chose the former. But even that cost Republicans 14 legislative seats in 2024.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., won the 1st Congressional District by 40,000 votes, and Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., won the 3rd Congressional District by just 11,000 votes. A slight reshuffling of District 1 into parts of Milwaukee and District 3 into part of Dane County could turn both into safe Democrat districts, forever costing the GOP these two House seats.
(READ MORE: Kiss Goodbye to the GOP House Majority If Susan Crawford Wins Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Race)
Making a Mockery of the Court
The Elias Law Group’s lawsuit is ridiculous, and the Campaign Legal Center’s suit is just petty.
Voters have no constitutional right to have their state’s Congressional delegation match the balance of their state’s party registration, and the Supreme Court has never ruled states must take party registration into consideration when redrawing district maps and is unlikely to start now. Lucas Vebber, an attorney with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, reminded Wisconsin Public Radio that in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that state courts do not have “free rein” to change maps passed by state legislatures.
However, considering how the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberals make no pretense of nonpartisanship, these lawsuits stand a good chance of succeeding. Wisconsin Democrats and their out-of-state billionaire allies put Crawford in office partially to remove these two Republican seats. If Crawford’s abortion stance is any indication of how closely she will toe the Democrat Party line, she will not let Jeffries down.
For instance, she repeatedly claimed she couldn’t promise pro-abortion groups that endorsed her she would vote a certain way. She then said out of the other side of her mouth she thought the Supreme Court wrongly decided the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , while bragging about litigating against any law that would encroach on abortion.
Similarly, Justice Janet Protasiewicz ran her 2023 campaign treating the abortion issue like she was running a senate campaign, winning purely from Democrat partisan backlash against Dobbs. Her victory showed Wisconsin Democrats they could ignore the constitutional role of Supreme Court Justices and their nonpartisanship and get away with it, because their voters don’t really care about either.
The lawsuits filed by the Elias Law Group and the Campaign Legal Center are the latest chapter in Wisconsin Democrats’ strategy to eliminate Republican Congressional seats via judicial fiat, using absurd legal theories. This pattern of using the state’s Supreme Court to overturn legislative decisions undermines the court’s integrity and overturns the constitutional separation of powers. If Crawford and the other liberal justices follow their supporters’ wishes, the fate of Wisconsin’s republican form of government will likely depend on whether the U.S. Supreme Court is willing to intervene.
(READ MORE: Our Unelected Legal Elite and their Threat to Constitutional Democracy)
