Tag: The Supremes

How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk” and “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department.” Election lawyers, state legislators and political junkies were surely all disappointed on June 18 when the Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, avoided deciding whether partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution. Instead, it sent the Gill v. Whitford case arising out of Wisconsin back to the lower court, holding that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate Article III standing because they had not shown any specific, individual injury to their right to vote. The plaintiffs in Gill were 12 Democratic voters who challenged the state legislative redistricting plan drawn by Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature. They alleged that the statewide plan unfairly favored Republican voters and candidates by “cracking” and “packing” Democratic voters in order to diminish “the ability of Wisconsin Democrats to convert Democratic voters into Democratic seats in the legislature.” As they explained to the Supreme Court: Cracking means dividing a party’s supporters among multiple districts so that they fall short of a majority in each one. Roberts’ opinion goes through the cases in which the Supreme Court considered the issue of partisan gerrymandering. The essence of the Gill case was the plaintiffs trying to convince Kennedy that the efficiency gap is the measurable standard he was looking for. Even the challengers in Gill didn’t claim that there should not be any politics involved in redistricting. So how much politics is acceptable and how much politics is too much? But the Supreme Court never reached this substantive issue because the court said the plaintiffs were alleging a statewide injury to the Democratic Party, not a specific injury tied to the legislative districts in which they reside and vote. Posted in Gill v. Whitford, Benisek v. Lamone, Symposium on the court’s rulings in Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone, Featured Recommended Citation: Hans von Spakovsky, Symposium: The Supremes put off deciding whether politics violates the Constitution, SCOTUSblog (Jun.