The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandering claims present questions beyond the reach of the federal courts may signal the first time in the nation’s history that a majority of Justices have surrendered our most fundamental of constitutional rights, the right to participate equally in the political process, because “it has searched high and low and cannot find a workable legal standard to apply” in the dissenting words of Justice Elena Kagan.
Many scholars of election law and redistricting saw that it might play out this way. The majority decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, lays bare two crucial errors that we dedicated several chapters to in our book on Congressional redistricting and the courts, Gerrymandering in America. CONT.
Alex Keena, Michael Latner, Anthony J. McGann & Charles Anthony Smith, LSE USAPP