In two cases that could reverberate through U.S. politics for years to come, the...
WASHINGTON - In two cases that could reverberate through U.S. politics for years to come, the Supreme Court is set on Tuesday to hear arguments over the contentious practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to entrench one party in power.
Critics have said gerrymandering has become increasingly effective and insidious by using precise voter data and powerful computer software. The result in many states has been the creation of electoral districts, sometimes oddly shaped to include or exclude certain localities, that maximize one party’s chances of winning and diluting the clout of voters who tend to support the other party.
Gerrymandering is carried out by cramming as many like-minded voters as possible into a small number of districts and spreading the rest in other districts too thinly to form a majority. Some conservative Supreme Court justices have been skeptical that courts could properly measure when maps are too partisan. In a 2004 case, former Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes voted with the liberals in key cases, left open the door for a “workable standard” to be found.
The North Carolina case focuses on how Republican legislators reworked House districts in 2016 to ensure that 10 Republicans were elected to House seats, compared to just three Democrats, in a state whose voters are closely divided between the two parties. Noting that partisan gerrymandering was not illegal, Republicans were open about their intent.
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