By M.D. Kittle, MacIver News Service | Oct. 23, 2017

[Madison, Wis...] If you look at the trend lines, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy continues to swing further left, and that could spell bad news for Wisconsin's Republican-written electoral maps.

But the data don't factor in all the "sociological gobbledygook" tied to the Badger State's redistricting case now before the highest court in the land.

Last week, the Association of Wisconsin Lobbyists hosted a panel discussion on the legal battle over Wisconsin's political maps, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the gerrymandering case.

William Whitford, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit brought by challengers of the redrawn political boundaries crafted by Republicans in 2011, joined Rick Esenberg, president of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, for a kind of point-counterpoint discussion.

The moderator, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Ryan Owens, broke down the Kennedy curve, or rather, the so-called "swing vote" justice's slide to the left.

"You see Kennedy trending to the left, which, if you are a conservative, doesn't give you much hope," Owens told the sparse but engaged audience of about 20 people.

Kennedy, legal observers agree, stands to be the deciding vote in the controversial case that aims to answer the question of how much is too much political motivation in redistricting. READ the REST