Research has shown that the more partisan gerrymandered a state legislature is, the more likely it is to preempt local ordinances. This case is important to local governments and to our democracy more generally.
In Rucho v. Common Cause the Supreme Court held 5-4 that partisan gerrymandering claims are non-justiciable—meaning that a federal court cannot decide them.
Partisan gerrymandering is the practice of drawing legislative districts to benefit one political party. In Davis v. Bandemer (1986) a majority of the Supreme Court held that partisan gerrymandering cases are justiciable. In that case and since then the Court has been unable to define a standard for when partisan dominance “is too much.” In Rucho v. Common Cause the Supreme Court announced it will stop trying.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion which his conservative colleagues joined (Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh). Unsurprisingly, the Court emphasized the role of state legislatures in districting: “The Framers were aware of electoral districting problems and considered what to do about them. They settled on a characteristic approach, assigning the issue to the state legislatures, expressly checked and balanced by the Federal Congress.”
According to the Chief Justice, for federal courts to “inject [themselves] into the most heated partisan issues” by deciding partisan gerrymandering claims “they must be armed with a standard that can reliably differentiate unconstitutional from ‘constitutional political gerrymandering.’” The inability of the Court to do just that is why the majority concluded these claims simply can’t be brought. According to the Court: “plaintiffs inevitably ask the courts to make their own political judgment about how much representation particular political parties deserve— based on the votes of their supporters—and to rearrange the challenged districts to achieve that end. But federal courts are not equipped to apportion political power as a matter of fairness, nor is there any basis for concluding that they were authorized to do so.”
The majority did acknowledge that “[e]xcessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust.” And it offered examples of what states have done and can do to address partisan gerrymandering including: state courts have struck down districting plans under their constitutions, state statutes and constitutions may address partisan gerrymandering and districting criteria, and states may redistrict using an independent commissions or a state demographer.
Justice Kagan begins her dissenting opinion as follows: “For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities. And not just any constitutional violation. The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives.”
Authored By:
Lisa Soronen
Executive Director
State & Local Legal Center
444 North Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 515
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: (202) 434-4845
Fax: (202) 737-1069
Email: lsoronen@sso.org
Website: http://www.statelocallc.org/
Twitter: @SLLCSCOTUS