Partisan Gerrymandering: Court Kicks Both Cases Down the Road

In unanimous decisions this morning, the Supreme Court turned away both partisan gerrymandering cases on grounds other than their ultimate merits – Gill v. Whitford (Wisconsin) by declaring the individual complainants to lack Article III standing arising from injury in their own districts and sending the case back for them to establish that, and Benisek v. Lamone (Maryland) by finding it not an abuse of discretion for the lower court to deny a preliminary injunction, which does not mean the case will not be back at the regular injunction stage.Neither decision reaches or resolves the main constitutional issues raised by the two cases, which both remain alive. As I  mentioned in February, the Court had already signaled that it was not in a rush to resolve the issue right away (the calendaring was leisurely) and that Justice Anthony Kennedy was not going to prove an easy recruit for the four liberals. (He joined the conservatives in staying the Wisconsin decision below.)  In the Wisconsin case, the majority held that the complainants need to go back and demonstrate that their own districts, and not merely those of the state generally, have been subject to “packing” or “cracking.” (The Maryland complainants had already made this kind of showing; they were suing over the lines of their own district, not the whole state map.) Justices Thomas and Gorsuch went further, saying the Wisconsin complainants failure to establish individual standing shou ld have ended th...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 18, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs