The Supreme Court Takes on Partisan Gerrymandering
The legal challenge to Wisconsin’s State Assembly maps could deliver a landmark precedent.
Partisan gerrymandering can be unconstitutional—at least in theory. In the 1986 case of Davis v. Bandemer, the Supreme Court did not find reason to declare an unconstitutional gerrymander, but its ruling did state “that political gerrymandering cases are properly justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause.”
Despite that ruling, and despite regular rulings against racial gerrymanders over the past five decades, the Court hasn’t actually declared a single political district unconstitutional case, Justice Antonin Scalia’s ruling on Pennsylvania congressional districts “concluded that political gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable because no judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating such claims exist.”
