For the first time in three decades, one political party in Wisconsin has the ability to redesign congressional districts, and Republican leadership plans to rely on private firms to help them do it.

To help the Republicans redistrict, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald filed a motion to hire law firms Michael Best & Friedrich, LLP and Troupis Law Office, LLC. The firms are responsible for ensuring the new district map complies with state and federal requirements, said Fitzgerald spokesperson Andrew Welhouse.

The Republican map must comply with laws requiring districts to be roughly similar in population and districts cannot be drawn in a way that splits minority populations up.

Although the redrawing of district lines’ sole purpose is to balance the population totals in each district, legislatures typically use the process to gain partisan advantages. Since state Republicans have enough seats to pass a redistricting bill without Democratic support, this year’s process will most likely be very partisan, Mayer said.

Traditionally redistricting involves heavy negotiations between Democrats and Republicans regarding the final plans. With a split-congress, two maps are drawn up – the Democratic map and the Republican map.

The maps are like legislative bills and must be passed by both the Assembly and Senate and signed into law by the governor.

If a redistricting bill does not get enough votes to pass, Wisconsin law requires the process be completed by a panel of non-partisan federal judges.

However, now that Republicans have majority in both the Assembly and Senate, they can bypass Democrat opposition, .

“The Republicans are likely to look for ways to make marginally Republican districts more Republican,” said Ken Mayer, a University Wisconsin political science professor. “You can be pretty sure the Republicans will look for ways to use the process to get some kind of partisan advantage.”

State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, D-Madison, disagreed with the move to hire lawyers outside of congress, claiming lawmakers are provided free legal counsel in-house.

“It seems that the Republicans, because they’ve chosen to go this route, want to draw the most partisan map they could think of,” Roys said. “Using the non-partisan legal counsel could have been free and taxpayers would have access to the memos that come out of the process.”

Redistricting is expensive, Mayer said, and the process cost around $2.5 million in 2000.

However, using in-house legal counsel has hidden fees. Welhouse noted in-house lawyers still receive a salary and would also need to be trained in redistricting law, a process that would take time and money.

Democrats, Roys included, claimed the Republicans were unfairly barring them from accessing the lawyer firm. But firms’ attorneys will not be made available to any individuals, whether Republican or Democrat, other than the Assembly majority speaker and Senate majority leader, Welhouse said.

The redistricting process will start with the release of Census data in March, and needs to be finished by April 2012.