Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 9. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset is 4:21 for 9 hours 3 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 25.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1911, Roald Amundsen‘s team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.
By order of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, there are two judicial panels (composed of three circuit court judges) with each panel hearing one of two challenges to Wisconsin’s current congressional districts. See Wisconsin Supreme Court Appoints Redistricting Panels. The different plaintiffs in the two cases have proposed different timelines for remedies for their claims:
While both lawsuits are being filed by liberal firms, the attorneys handling the cases are raising different arguments and suggesting very different timelines.
Should judges in both cases follow a more protracted schedule, neither would be resolved until 2027.
One lawsuit, filed by the national Democratic firm Elias Law Group on behalf of Wisconsin voters, argues Republicans gerrymandered the state’s eight congressional districts so six of them favor GOP candidates. Elias attorney Julie Zuckerbrod called for scheduling the case in two phases so that a new map could be enacted before November 2026.
An attorney for the Wisconsin Elections Commission told judges it needs to know what that map looks like before March 1. Attorneys representing the state’s six Republican congressmen and the GOP-controlled Legislature said that’s impossible.
Zuckerbrod said “it’s absolutely possible” and pointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down Republican-drawn state Assembly and Senate maps as a roadmap. She said in that case, justices considered legal arguments for what new legislative maps should look like “over the course of just a couple weeks.”
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The other lawsuit, filed by the liberal firm Law Forward on behalf of a group called Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, argues Wisconsin’s congressional map was drawn to favor incumbents above all else.
But in a hearing on that case Friday, all parties agreed on a calendar stretching well past the 2026 midterms with a potential trial date of March 29, 2027.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Conway, one of the three judges considering that lawsuit, thanked the attorneys for the joint scheduling recommendations, noting that he and the two other county judges on the panel will work as quickly as possible.
“Nevertheless, we’re circuit court judges,” Conway said. “We do not have the resources of federal court judges. We don’t have a full staff of clerks, and we’re going to need time to work across county lines to make decisions together.”
In the other case being brought by Elias, Dane County Judge Julie Genovese signaled her panel may follow a similar timeline.
“We’ll do the best that we can,” Genovese said. “But you know, we have to digest these issues.”
See Rich Kremer, Judges hold hearings on Wisconsin map lawsuits, but signal decisions will take time (‘Democratic firm Elias Law Group says new maps possible before 2026 midterms. Liberal firm Law Forward agrees with 2027 trial date’), Wisconsin Public Radio, December 12, 2025.
See also Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, 2025 WI 53, No. 2025XX1438 (Wis. Nov. 25, 2025) (order) and Wis. Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, 2025 WI 52, No. 2025XX1330 (Wis. Nov. 25, 2025) (order).
Reasoned estimate, grounded in both the legal basis and political implications of these proceedings: if the panels were to decide for the plaintiffs in either case, the choice would be the later, 2027, timeline.
Gas explosion caught on doorbell camera destroys home in California: