Scott R. Jensen, personally and as Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and Mary E. Panzer, personally and as Minority Leader of the Wisconsin Senate, Petitioners, v. Wisconsin Elections Board, an independent agency of the State of Wisconsin, Jeralyn Wendelberger, its chairman, and each of its members in his or her official capacity, David Halbrooks, R.J. Johnson, John P. Savage, John C. Schober, Steven V. Ponto, Brenda Lewison, Christine Wiseman and Kevin J. Kennedy, its executive director, Respondents, State Senate Majority Leader Charles J. Chvala, State Assembly Minority Leader Spencer Black, Intervenors-Respondents, Wisconsin Education Association Council, a voluntary Association, Stan Johnson, its elected president, and several of its members, Tommie Lee Glenn, Paul Hambleton and Dianne Catlin Lang, Intervenors-Respondents.  

No. 02-0057-OA  

SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN  

2002 WI 13; 249 Wis. 2d 706; 639 N.W.2d 537; 2002 Wisc. LEXIS 10  

February 5, 2002, Oral Argument

February 12, 2002, Opinion Filed

Plaintiff concerned voters from Wisconsin's nine congressional districts a declaratory judgment that the current apportionment plan was unconstitutional, an injunction barring administration of elections under that plan and, in the absence of subsequent action by state legislators, the institution of a judicially-crafted redistricting plan. Several parties moved to intervene. The voters alleged that defendant Wisconsin Elections Board would carry out its legislated duty to conduct elections according to Chapter 3 of the Wisconsin Statutes and that doing so would dilute their voting power. The court found that the voters met the relatively modest burden of alleging a realistic threat of imminent injury to their voting rights, therefore, the court found that they satisfied the standing requirements of U.S. Const. art. III. As the Wisconsin Elections Board is a state agency and not a person, it could not be sued under 42 U.S.C.S. § 1983, and was dismissed from the action. Comity required that the court refrain from initiating redistricting proceedings with the remaining parties until the appropriate state bodies attempted and failed to do so on their own. Therefore, the court stayed substantive proceedings. The motions to intervene were unopposed, and therefore, granted. The Wisconsin Elections Board was dismissed from the action. Intervenors' motions to intervene were granted. All substantive judicial proceedings were stayed until further order of the court.