Gerrymandering
 |
redistricting procedures |
|---|
2020 |
|
The term gerrymandering refers to the practice of drawing electoral district lines to favor one political party, individual, or constituency over another. When used in a rhetorical manner by opponents of a particular district map, the term has a negative connotation but does not necessarily address the legality of a challenged map. In this context, proponents may counter that the map has not been gerrymandered but has been drawn to conform with overlapping, potentially conflicting redistricting standards. The term can also be used in legal proceedings and documents; in this context, the term describes redistricting practices that violate federal or state laws.[1][2]
This article provides summary information about gerrymandering, including relevant history and legal precedents. See the sections below for further information on the following topics:
- Background: This section summarizes the history of the word gerrymandering and discusses current usage of the term.
- Racial gerrymandering: This section discusses the concepts of racial gerrymandering and majority-minority electoral districts. Summaries of some relevant court cases are also provided.
- Partisan gerrymandering: This section describes the concept of partisan gerrymandering and summarizes a sample of relevant court cases.
Background
History
According to Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University, "American attempts to tailor district lines for political gain stretch back to the country's very origin."[1]
| “ | Patrick Henry, who opposed the new Constitution, tried to draw district lines to deny a seat in the first Congress to James Madison, the Constitution's primary author. Henry ensured that Madison's district was drawn to include counties politically opposed to Madison. The attempt failed, and Madison was elected -- but the American gerrymander had begun.[3] | ” |
| —Justin Levitt, All About Redistricting[1] | ||
The term gerrymander dates to the early 19th century. In 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed into law a state senate district map. The map, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "consolidated the Federalist Party vote in a few districts and thus gave disproportionate representation to Democratic-Republicans." The word gerrymander was coined by The Boston Gazette to describe the district (gerrymander is a portmanteau of Gerry's name and the word salamander; the map's opponents argued that the shape of the disputed district resembled that of a salamander).[4][2]
Term usage
Generally, the term is used in two broad contexts:
- Term of disparagement: Opponents of an electoral district map may characterize that map as being gerrymandered to favor one political party, individual, or constituency over another in an unfair manner. In this context, the term has a negative connotation but does not necessarily speak to the legality of a challenged district or map. The Boston Gazette, in coining the expression, used the term in this manner.
- Legal term: In legal documents (i.e., amicus briefs, court decisions, etc.), gerrymander is used to describe situations in which "political or electoral districts are drawn with the purpose of giving one political group an advantage over another" in violation of federal or state laws. For examples of this usage, see the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Hays v. Louisiana and Cooper v. Harris.[5]
Racial gerrymandering
- See also: Majority-minority districts
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates that no "standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." In the context of redistricting, federal law prohibits racial gerrymandering: the practice of drawing electoral district lines to dilute the voting power of racial minority groups.[6]
Majority-minority districts
Federal law establishes that to combat racial gerrymandering and to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act, states and jurisdictions may create majority-minority electoral districts. A majority-minority district is one in which a racial minority group or groups compose a majority of the district's total population. Thornburg v. Gingles, a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1986, established a three-part test for proving whether vote dilution in violation of the Voting Rights Act has occurred in a district.[6]
Support and opposition
Proponents of majority-minority districts argue that these districts are a necessary hindrance to the practice of cracking, which occurs when a constituency is divided between several districts in order to prevent it from achieving a majority in any one district. In an April 2015 report for the Congressional Research Service, legislative attorney L. Paige Whitaker described this argument as follows:[6]
| “ | A majority-minority district is one in which a racial or language minority group comprises a voting majority. The creation of such districts can avoid racial vote dilution by preventing the submergence of minority voters into the majority, which can deny minority voters the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.[3] | ” |
| —L. Paige Whitaker | ||
In addition, supporters argue that the drawing of majority-minority districts has resulted in an increased number of minority representatives in state legislatures and Congress. The American Civil Liberties Union, in a 2001 report, made this argument:[7][8][9][10]
| “ | In 1964, there were only about 300 black elected officials nationwide. By 1998 the number had grown to more than 8,858. This increase is the direct result of the increase in majority-minority districts since passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. ... Given the persistent patterns of racial bloc voting in the South, the destruction of majority-minority districts, whether at the congressional or state and local levels, would inevitably lead to a decline in the number of minority office holders.[3] | ” |
| —American Civil Liberties Union | ||
Critics contend that the establishment of majority-minority districts can result in packing, which occurs when a constituency or voting group is placed within a single district, thereby minimizing its influence in other districts. Kim Soffen, writing for The Washington Post in June 2016, summarized this argument as follows:[11]
| “ | Imagine the minority-favored candidate can win an election in a district if at least 30 percent of voters are minorities. What harm is done by the legislators packing the district up to 50 percent minority voters? Much like political gerrymandering, it limits black influence in surrounding districts. It would require the creation of, for instance, a 50 percent and a 10 percent black district, rather than two 30 percent black districts. In other words, the requirement would give black voters one representative of their choice rather than two.[3] | ” |
| —Kim Soffen | ||
Because minority groups tend to vote Democratic, critics argue that majority-minority districts ultimately present an unfair advantage to Republicans by consolidating Democratic votes into a smaller number of districts. Steven Hill, writing for The Atlantic in June 2013, made the following argument:[7][8][9]
| “ | The drawing of majority-minority districts not only elected more minorities, it also had the effect of bleeding minority voters out of all the surrounding districts. Given that minority voters were the most reliably Democratic voters, that made all of the neighboring districts more Republican. The black, Latino, and Asian representatives mostly were replacing white Democrats, and the increase in minority representation was coming at the expense of electing fewer Democrats.[3] | ” |
| —Steven Hill | ||
Court cases
Below is a sampling of decisions issued by the Supreme Court of the United States that are relevant to the concept of racial gerrymandering. Cases are listed in reverse chronological order.
Cooper v. Harris (2017)
- See also: Cooper v. Harris
In Cooper v. Harris, decided on May 22, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the judgment of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, finding that two of North Carolina's congressional districts, the boundaries of which had been set following the 2010 United States Census, had been subject to an illegal racial gerrymander in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the court's majority opinion, which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor (Thomas also filed a separate concurring opinion). In the court's majority opinion, Kagan described the two-part analysis utilized by the high court when plaintiffs allege racial gerrymandering as follows: "First, the plaintiff must prove that 'race was the predominant factor motivating the legislature's decision to place a significant number of voters within or without a particular district.' ... Second, if racial considerations predominated over others, the design of the district must withstand strict scrutiny. The burden shifts to the State to prove that its race-based sorting of voters serves a 'compelling interest' and is 'narrowly tailored' to that end." In regard to the first part of the aforementioned analysis, Kagan went on to note that "a plaintiff succeeds at this stage even if the evidence reveals that a legislature elevated race to the predominant criterion in order to advance other goals, including political ones." Justice Samuel Alito delivered an opinion that concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority opinion. This opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.[12][13][14]
Thornburg v. Gingles (1986)
- See also: Thornburg v. Gingles
In 1982, the North Carolina state legislature approved redistricting plans for the North Carolina State Senate and the North Carolina House of Representatives. The maps were challenged in United States District Court. The challengers alleged that the new maps "impaired black citizens' ability to elect representatives of their choice in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act." The district court ruled that six legislative districts violated the Voting Rights Act "by diluting the power of the black vote." The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.[15][16][17]
On June 30, 1986, the high court ruled unanimously in Thornburg v. Gingles that five of the aforementioned six districts "discriminated against blacks by diluting the power of their collective vote." Justice William J. Brennan Jr., wrote the majority opinion, which largely upheld the district court's original ruling.[15][16][17]
| “ | The District Court in this case carefully considered the totality of the circumstances and found that, in each district, racially polarized voting; the legacy of official discrimination in voting matters, education, housing, employment, and health services; and the persistence of campaign appeals to racial prejudice acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability of geographically insular and politically cohesive groups of black voters to participate equally in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice.[3] | ” |
| —Justice William J. Brennan Jr. | ||
In Thornburg v. Gingles, the court also established three criteria that must be met in order "to prove claims of vote dilution under section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act]:"[15][16][17]
- "The minority group must be able to demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district."
- "The minority group must be able to show that it is politically cohesive."
- "The minority must be able to demonstrate that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate."
Partisan gerrymandering
The phrase partisan gerrymandering refers to the practice of drawing electoral district maps with the intention of favoring one political party over another. On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a joint ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, finding that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary.
Noteworthy cases
Below is a sampling of decisions issued by the Supreme Court of the United States that are related to partisan gerrymandering. Cases are listed in reverse chronological order.
Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek (2019)
- See also: Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek
On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a joint ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, finding that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. The high court ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts penning the majority opinion, joined by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Associate Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent, joined by Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. The high court remanded both cases to their respective lower courts with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.[18]
Chief Justice John Roberts penned the majority opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. In the court's opinion, Roberts noted that the Framers, "aware of electoral districting problems … [assigned] the issue to the state legislatures, expressly checked and balanced by the Federal Congress, with no suggestion that the federal courts had a role to play." He went on to say, "To hold that legislators cannot take their partisan interests into account when drawing district lines would essentially countermand the Framers' decision to entrust districting to political entities."[18]
Roberts went on to address the assumptions underlying partisan gerrymandering claims:[18]
| “ | Partisan gerrymandering claims rest on an instinct that groups with a certain level of political support should enjoy a commensurate level of political power and influence. Explicitly or implicitly, a districting map is alleged to be unconstitutional because it makes it too difficult for one party to translate statewide support into seats in the legislature. But such a claim is based on a 'norm that does not exist' in our electoral system—'statewide elections for representatives along party lines.'" Roberts also wrote, "[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.[3] | ” |
Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan wrote the following in her dissent:[18]
| “ | 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. In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.[3] | ” |
Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2016)
Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2016. At issue was the constitutionality of state legislative districts that were created by the commission in 2012. The plaintiffs, a group of Republican voters, alleged that "the commission diluted or inflated the votes of almost two million Arizona citizens when the commission intentionally and systematically overpopulated 16 Republican districts while under-populating 11 Democrat districts." This, the plaintiffs argued, constituted a partisan gerrymander. The plaintiffs claimed that the commission placed a disproportionately large number of non-minority voters in districts dominated by Republicans; meanwhile, the commission allegedly placed many minority voters in smaller districts that tended to vote Democratic. As a result, the plaintiffs argued, more voters overall were placed in districts favoring Republicans than in those favoring Democrats, thereby diluting the votes of citizens in the Republican-dominated districts.[19][20][21]
The defendants countered that the population deviations resulted from legally defensible efforts to comply with the Voting Rights Act and to obtain approval from the United States Department of Justice. At the time of redistricting, certain states were required to obtain preclearance from the justice department before adopting redistricting plans or making other changes to their election laws—a requirement struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013). On April 20, 2016, the court ruled unanimously that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that a partisan gerrymander had taken place. Instead, the court found that the commission had acted in good faith to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The court's majority opinion was penned by Justice Stephen Breyer.[19][20][21]
Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004)
Vieth v. Jubelirer was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2004. The case was brought by a group of Pennsylvania Democrats who alleged that the state legislature, controlled by Republicans at the time of the 2000 redistricting cycle, had developed a congressional district map that constituted an illegal partisan gerrymander. The plaintiffs alleged that the map "violated the one-person, one-vote principle of Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution, the Equal Protection clause, the Privileges and Immunities clause, and the freedom of association [clause]." According to Oyez, a federal district court "found the act unconstitutional because it created districts with different numbers of voters, thereby violating the one-person, one-vote principle. Because the plaintiffs had shown that it was possible to create districts with smaller differences, and because the defendants had failed to justify the disparities resulting under their plan, it was therefore unconstitutional." The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. At issue in the case were the following questions:[22]
| “ | Can voters affiliated with a political party sue to block implementation of a Congressional redistricting plan by claiming that it was manipulated for purely political reasons? Does a state violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment when it disregards neutral redistricting principles (such as trying to avoid splitting municipalities into different Congressional districts) in order to achieve an advantage for one political party? Does a state exceed its power under Article I of the Constitution when it draws Congressional districts to ensure that a minority party will consistently win a super-majority of the state's Congressional seats?[3] | ” |
| —Oyez | ||
On April 28, 2004, the court issued a split decision with no majority opinion, declining to intervene in the case. The plurality opinion was penned by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas. Referring to Davis v. Bandemer, a 1986 decision in which the high court ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims can be tried in court under the Equal Protection Clause, Scalia wrote the following in the court's plurality opinion:[23]
| “ | We conclude that neither Article I, §2, nor the Equal Protection Clause, nor (what appellants only fleetingly invoke) Article I, §4, provides a judicially enforceable limit on the political considerations that the States and Congress may take into account when districting. ... Eighteen years of essentially pointless litigation have persuaded us that Bandemer is incapable of principled application. We would therefore overrule that case, and decline to adjudicate these political gerrymandering claims.[3] | ” |
| —Associate Justice Antonin Scalia | ||
Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion that, according to Oyez, argued the court "should rule narrowly in this case that no appropriate judicial solution could be found, but not give up on finding one eventually." Associate Justice David Souter, joined by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, penned a dissenting opinion supporting the court's earlier ruling in Davis v. Bandemer that partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause (Souter's opinion also proposed a new test for proving claims of illegal partisan gerrymandering). Associate Justices Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens penned separate dissents, both asserting the justiciability of partisan gerrymandering claims.[24][25][26][27]
Debate
There is a wide variety of opinions regarding the justiciability of partisan gerrymandering claims (i.e., whether partisan gerrymandering constitutes a violation of federal law). In April 2019, Ballotpedia spoke with several election policy experts to get their positions on the issue in connection with two relevant cases being considered by the Supreme Court in 2019: Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek. Their responses are presented here in full.
| “ | Logan Churchwell (Communications and Research Director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation): The court was right to find in 1986 that 'no group right to an equal share of political power was ever intended by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment.' The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment did not set out to provide a cause of action to address 'political gerrymandering,' since they personally benefited from more extensive 'gerrymandered' maps before they crafted the Fourteenth Amendment. North Carolina's maps are considered highly suspect in Common Cause v. Rucho based on Republicans taking 10 of 13 House seats in 2014 and 2016, despite 'exceedingly close' results in statewide races. Elections for the 39th Congress [which approved the Fourteenth Amendment] make these figures look tame, by comparison.
State powers governing means of elections and qualifications therein help prop up the federalist balance of power. Allowing the federal judiciary into purely political squabbles will upset that balance. Federal interests, for generations, have not feared that states would choke out Congress by refusing to perform elections. States should maintain their powers here, and the Supreme Court should reverse the prior decision.[3] |
” |
| —Logan Churchwell is Communications and Research Director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which is a law firm that 'exists to assist states and others to aid in the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections.' | ||
| “ | Edward Foley (Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University): Based on the oral arguments in these two cases [Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek], I predict that Justices [Samuel] Alito and [Elena] Kagan will write very strong opinions on the opposite sides on the issue: Justice Alito writing to explain why Paul Clement is correct to argue that the issue is non-justiciable even though a law that on its face discriminated against a political party when drawing district lines would violate the First Amendment, with Justice Kagan writing why in the absence of facial discrimination a redistricting map violates the First Amendment if the statistical evidence shows it to be an extreme form of viewpoint discrimination against a political party and that this statistical evidence permits judicial identification of the First Amendment violation (and thus it is a justiciable issue). How the court decides the cases depends, I think, on whether Chief Justice Roberts and Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh find Justice Alito’s or Justice Kagan’s opinion more persuasive. In other words, even if there has now been a tentative vote one way or other, this issue is one where the outcome is not final until the opinions have been written. So, which way will the Chief and Justice Kavanaugh go? I think that’s very hard to predict based on the arguments. If one has to guess, I’d guess in favor of Justice Alito’s direction, but it really must be a tentative guess. Either way, the ruling will be major, but still will not settle everything. Even if Justice Alito purports to shut the door, there are other theories not presented in these cases that might return to the court after 2020. And even if Justice Kagan’s view prevails, it will not end all gerrymandering, but only the most extreme versions, and there will need to be activity at the state level – either independent commissions or state-court litigation – in an effort to purge redistricting from pernicious partisanship.[3] | ” |
| —Edward Foley is the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. His book Ballot Ballots: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States was awarded Finalist for the 2016 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History. | ||
| “ | Walter Olson (Walter Olson is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute): Repeatedly in recent terms Justice Elena Kagan has kept hope alive for the liberal wing by proposing narrow centrist rulings to avert sweeping conservative wins. Oral arguments March 26, 2019, [in Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek] hinted at what she might have up her sleeve this time. One factor working in her favor is that under the line of cases culminating in Davis v. Bandemer (1986), at least some extreme partisan gerrymandering still does count as unconstitutional under sound court precedent – even if Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004) whittled that precedent down in practice to something with not much more practical substance than a hologram. At oral argument Kagan suggested one way forward that might tempt Kavanaugh or Roberts: approve liability in that small number of disputes in which the record documents improper motivation essentially beyond reasonable dispute, as in the Maryland case. As Justice [Stephen] Breyer noted when it came up last year, the court may never again see a record as damning as that in Maryland, because future drafters of gerrymanders will know better than to go on the record with such indiscretions. So no floodgates, right? Rather than hundreds of cases, there will be at most a few arising after political insiders got extra careless about what they wrote down. That is, at least until cases come in proposing to infer improper motivation from the combination of more ambiguous utterances with extremely bad facts. But that issue could be left unresolved to fight another day.[3] | ” |
| —Walter Olson is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, a public policy research organization 'dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.' Olson was the Co-Chair of Gov. Larry Hogan's Maryland Redistricting Reform Commission. | ||
| “ | David O'Brien (David O'Brien is a Staff Attorney at FairVote): There’s a striking difference in expectations between this term’s gerrymandering cases [Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek] and last term’s Gill v. Whitford. Yes, the departure of Justice [Anthony] Kennedy led many to despair that this court would ever take action against partisan gerrymandering, but the particulars of the new cases speak to the diminished prospects of definitive judicial intervention, even if the court decides such cases are justiciable. Post-Gill, plaintiffs must bring challenges against specific districts rather than an entire map (indeed, the Maryland case challenges only a single district). In both the Maryland and North Carolina cases before the court, there is evidence on record that those involved in the redistricting process openly admitted their goal was to give their own party an unfair advantage. This may make a compelling case that the challenged maps are partisan gerrymanders, but it also allows the court to craft a narrow ruling that would affect only gerrymanders drawn by the sloppiest, most indiscreet legislatures. This is where we are one year later: not anticipating a deathblow to partisan gerrymanders, but hoping for a limited, easily circumvented ruling as the best case scenario. What can we do? There is an ongoing effort to address the issue at the state level, either through state court litigation or the adoption of independent redistricting commissions, but this is subject to the specificities of state law and politics (and could be further hampered if the court decides to revisit Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission). Many states lack the mechanisms citizens need to pursue these reforms, leaving millions of Americans stuck in unfair, uncompetitive, and unrepresentative districts. The real solution remains this: we join the majority of the democratic world in adopting a system of proportional representation. If the court won’t stop our elected officials from partisan gerrymandering, we must adopt a system that isn’t so uniquely vulnerable to gerrymanders. A system like the one proposed in the Fair Representation Act would be the perfect place to start.[3] | ” |
| —David O'Brien is a Staff Attorney at FairVote, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advocate for 'electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and a representative democracy that works for all Americans.' | ||
| “ | Peter Schuck (Peter Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School): I predict that the Supreme Court will reject both challenges to the partisan gerrymanders before the court in Rucho and Benisek. The standing and constitutional arguments of the challengers have much justification: the political speech and equal protection claims of both sets of challengers are normatively sound and consistent with court precedents in many contexts other than partisan gerrymandering. Moreover, the clear intent of these gerrymanders is to reduce the efficacy of voters' ballot choices. They do so regardless of how one defines vote efficacy (except in the most formalistic sense), and for no reason other than voters' partisan affiliations.
A majority of the court, however, is likely to be persuaded by a combination of factors – the history of controverted partisan gerrymanders long preceding the adoption of the Constitution; the fact that a growing number of state legislatures are abolishing or seriously constraining the practice and that this trend seems likely to continue; and the further constraint on it provided by state governments in which partisan control of the chambers and the governorship is divided between the parties and sharply contested in each election cycle. But the most important factor why I believe that the court will stay its hand, and the main reason it will give for doing so, is a lack of justiciability owing to the absence of both (1) any agreed-upon definition of 'excessive' as applied to partisan gerrymanders; and (2) any workable test for excessiveness other than vote-seat efficiency. This efficiency test, as I previously pointed out on this site, suffers from several difficulties. One is that the court is now more sharply divided ideologically than at perhaps at any time since the court-packing crisis of the late 1930s, and another is that the public's approval rating of the court has declined along with that of Congress and the Presidency (although less sharply than the other two institutions have). The court majority, led by a chief justice who is keenly aware of both of these difficulties, will resist any test of partisan excessiveness whose application by the justices in particular disputes will plausibly seem arbitrary and partisan. And it can gild its nonpartisan lily by refusing to adjudicate flagrant gerrymanders by both of the parties.[3] |
” |
| —Peter Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School. HIs most recent book, One Nation Undecided: Clear Thinking About Five Hard Issues That Divide Us, was published in 2017 by the Princeton University Press. | ||
See also
Select a state on the map below to read more about redistricting in that state.
External links
- All About Redistricting
- National Conference of State Legislatures on the Redistricting Process
- FairVote on Redistricting
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 All About Redistricting, "Why does it matter?" accessed April 8, 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Encyclopædia Britannica, "Gerrymandering," November 4, 2014
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The Atlantic, "The Twisted History of Gerrymandering in American Politics," September 19, 2012
- ↑ Legal Information Institute, "Gerrymander," accessed June 21, 2017
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Congressional Research Service, "Congressional Redistricting and the Voting Rights Act: A Legal Overview," April 13, 2015
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Indy Week, "Cracked, stacked and packed: Initial redistricting maps met with skepticism and dismay," June 29, 2011
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 The Atlantic, "How the Voting Rights Act Hurts Democrats and Minorities," June 17, 2013
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Redrawing the Lines, "The Role of Section 2 - Majority Minority Districts," accessed April 6, 2015
- ↑ American Civil LIberties Union, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Redistricting," April 2001
- ↑ The Washington Post, "How racial gerrymandering deprives black people of political power," June 9, 2016
- ↑ Election Law Blog, "Breaking: SCOTUS to Hear NC Racial Gerrymandering Case," accessed June 27, 2016
- ↑ Ballot Access News, "U.S. Supreme Court Accepts Another Racial Gerrymandering Case," accessed June 28, 2016
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Cooper v. Harris: Decision," May 22, 2017
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, "Thornburg v. Gingles," accessed May 20, 2015
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 United States Commission on Civil Rights, "Racial and Ethnic Tensions in American Communities: Poverty, Inequality, and Discrimination—Volume VII: The Mississippi Delta Report," accessed May 20, 2015
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Justia.com, "Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986)," June 30, 1986
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Supreme Court of the United States, "Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek: Opinion of the Court," June 27, 2019
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 SCOTUSblog, "The new look at 'one person, one vote,' made simple," July 27, 2015
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Supreme Court of the United States, "Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission: Brief for Appellants," accessed December 14, 2015
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Supreme Court of the United States, "Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission," April 20, 2016
- ↑ Oyez, "Vieth v. Jubelirer," accessed June 21, 2017
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Vieth v. Jubelirer: Opinion of Scalia, J." April 28, 2004
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Vieth v. Jubelirer: Stevens, J., Dissenting," April 28, 2004
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Vieth v. Jubelirer: Breyer, J., Dissenting," April 28, 2004
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Vieth v. Jubelirer: Souter, J., Dissenting," April 28, 2004
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Vieth v. Jubelirer: Kennedy, J., Concurring in Judgment," April 28, 2004
| |||||||||||