The Supreme Court's Choice on Partisan Gerrymandering
Many students choose law school after getting their freshman math grades, and law-school curricula make little attempt to build numeracy among these refugees. Because complex issues inevitably involve statistical information, that gap in legal education can cause mischief, especially when it affects judges.
For example, it may explain the Supreme Court’s rather puzzling revisit to the political gerrymandering question this Wednesday, in a case called Benisek v. Lamone.
Begin with last October’s oral argument in the political-gerrymandering case many observers expected to be the Court’s major statement on the issue. The challengers to Wisconsin’s Republican-leaning system of legislative districts claimed that it violated both the First Amendment (by “penalizing … voters because of their political beliefs”) and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (by “diluting the political influence of
