Supreme Court sidesteps decision on partisan gerrymandering in rulings on Wisconsin, Maryland cases

The Supreme Court sidestepped a decision on when partisan gerrymandering goes too far, ruling against the challengers of a Republican-drawn map in WI and a Democratic redistricting in MD. The rulings in the separate cases once again put off a decision on when courts can find that partisan efforts to keep parties in power goes so far as to be unconstitutional. But the court again left open a path for such challenges. It was a technical resolution of what has seemed to hold the promise of being a landmark decision about extreme efforts to give one party advantage over another. While the court routinely polices the drawing of electoral maps to combat racial gerrymandering, it has never found that partisan efforts went too far. It has never settled on a test that judges could use to determine how much politics was too much. “Today’s decision is yet another delay in providing voters with the power they deserve in our democracy,” said Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States. “Partisan gerrymandering is distorting and undermining our representative democracy, giving politicians the power to choose their voters, instead of giving voters the power to choose their politicians. We are disappointed that the Court failed to set a standard when it comes to partisan gerrymandering.”