The solution to Republican lawmakers gerrymandering voting districts across Wisconsin isn’t for Democrats or a liberal-leaning high court to skew the maps to the Democrats’ advantage.

The fix must be a neutral and permanent map-making process that both major political parties — and more important, the voting public — can accept.

The answer is still the Iowa model for nonpartisan redistricting. Both Democrats and Republicans now claim to support it. So let’s get it done, rather than relying on the court to pick or draw a map that could easily be overturned in little more than a year. If a conservative jurist captures the Supreme Court seat now held by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in April 2025, you can be sure the maps will revert.

Elected officials have spent millions of tax dollars on high-priced lawyers to battle in court for decades over where the lines of voting districts should go. Adding insult to financial injury for voters, gerrymandering reduces the number of candidates and competition for legislative and congressional seats.

The hypocritical and expensive political games need to end. The constant battling over redistricting — which is only supposed to occur once every decade after each major census — distracts state leaders from Wisconsin’s many challenges, including its worker shortage, gun violence and opioid scourge.

Democrats long favored the Iowa model, only for most of them to quibble over details of a Republican-backed version — even after it was amended to address the bulk of the Democrats’ concerns. Now the Republicans seem to have abandoned their newfound support for nonpartisan redistricting.

The state Senate abruptly took up the Iowa model last week and replaced it with maps similar to those drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers — but with changes to protect GOP incumbents. It appears to be a last-ditched and failed attempt by GOP leaders to avoid a court decision that damages their political interests.

None of the politicians should be drawing the lines. The Iowa model, which has worked well in the Hawkeye State for close to a half-century, would assign to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau the task of reshaping districts to account for population changes. The bureau would be forbidden from considering past voting results, partisan implications or even where incumbents live. Instead, the respected bureau, which is insulated from politics, would be directed to draw compact districts that run along municipal and county lines instead of snaking into odd shapes for unfair advantage.

One of several skewed maps proposed to the high court recently stretches a voting district from Madison’s Isthmus all the way to Oconomowoc in Waukesha County, an absurd and tortured attempt at divvy up Madison’s many liberal voters into more districts for competitive advantage. Another map, drawn by conservatives, would continue to grant Republicans a lock on legislative power — even withstanding a Democratic landslide.

The Democrats have to accept that they have a natural disadvantage at winning legislative control. That’s because much of their base of supporters is packed into major cities, including Madison. For their part, Republicans must recognize their days of rigging maps are over, at least until the next high-court election.

Now should be the time to finally adopt fair maps that respect Wisconsin voters of all political stripes. It’s time to move forward, as our state motto commands.

Iowa’s proven model has worked no matter which political party has held power there. Here in Wisconsin, voters and local elected officials across the state have endorsed it in advisory referendums and resolutions.

No matter what the high court does, our leaders should listen to the people and enshrine this fair process into state law and the Wisconsin constitution.