The United States first organized
Wisconsin in 1787 under the
Northwest Ordinance after
Great Britain yielded the land to them in the
Treaty of Paris. It became the Wisconsin
Territory in 1836. The then-territorial assembly, after elections, was seated in
Burlington for three sessions before they relocated to the permanent capital,
Madison. During the period of territorial assembly, the assembled members helped to set up the court system, established the borders and number of
counties, and regularized the spelling of Wisconsin. In 1842, an assemblyman (
Charles Arndt, a
Whig of
Brown County) was shot dead by another assemblyman,
James Vineyard, a Democrat of
Grant County, over an appointment for Grant County sheriff. Wisconsin became a
U.S. state on May 29, 1848, and special elections were held to fill the first session of the State Assembly; at the time, the body consisted of 66 members. The Assembly was expanded to 82 seats in 1852, and then to 97 seats in 1856, then to 100 seats in 1861, which is the maximum allowed in the
Constitution of Wisconsin. The membership remained at 100 seats until the 1971 redistricting act, which decreased membership to 99 in order to comply with federal equal representation requirements within the limits of the Wisconsin Constitution. The current number of 99 seats is set in order to maintain a 3:1 ratio of Assembly to Senate seats. In the 2010s, the Assembly was heavily
gerrymandered, with a 53–45% Democratic majority in the popular vote in the
2018 election translating into a 63–36 Republican majority in the Assembly. According to the
Oshkosh Northwestern, many experts recognized Wisconsin as the most gerrymandered state in the United States, a claim rated "Mostly True" by
Politifact. After the Republican redistricting in 2021, the
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reported the
efficiency gap had further increased to 16.6% in favor of Republicans. On July 8, 2015, a case was filed with the
U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Wisconsin arguing that Wisconsin's 2011 state assembly map was unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering favoring the
Republican-controlled legislature which discriminated against
Democratic voters. This case became filed with the court as
Whitford v Gill. The case made it to the United States Supreme Court, which vacated and remanded the case. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff challenging the state assembly map did not have standing to sue. In the Opinion of the Court, Chief Justice
John Roberts stated that "[a] federal court is not 'a forum for generalized grievances," and the requirement of such a personal stake 'ensures that courts exercise power that is judicial in nature."
Gill v. Whitford, 128 S.Ct. 1916 (2018). We enforce that requirement by insisting that a plaintiff [have] Article III standing..." Justice
Elena Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justices
Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Stephen Breyer, and
Sonia Sotomayor joined. Justice
Clarence Thomas filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Justice
Neil Gorsuch joined. On December 22, 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in
Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission that the gerrymandered districts were unconstitutional and must be redrawn before the 2024 legislative elections. ==Salary and benefits==