Conservative groups want the Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear redistricting lawsuits, rather than federal judges.
During a hearing on Thursday, Chief Justice Patience Roggensack expressed skepticism as to whether that’s an appropriate role for the court.
“We don’t look about Wisconsin and say ‘oh something’s going wrong, we’d better step in there and fix it.’ We determine cases and controversies that are brought to us by someone else,” Roggensack told Rick Esenberg of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. “So this rule makes the court proactive. That’s just not how we operate.”
Former state Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen and WILL want the justices to change the court’s rules. Justices did not indicate when they might decide on that request.