Supreme Court agrees to wade into politically explosive issue of election maps drawn for partisan advantage
Richard WolfWASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Friday to re-enter the explosive debate about the way congressional and state legislative districts are drawn, instantly turbo-charging what had been a relatively sleepy docket of cases.
Much as they might have liked to avoid it, the justices had little choice but to accept requests from North Carolina Democrats and Maryland Republicans that they reconsider federal district court decisions striking down congressional district maps as unconstitutional.
Their decision to hear the cases and schedule oral arguments for March doesn't mean the court is likely to agree with opponents of partisan gerrymandering, in which state legislatures draw maps to favor the party in power. In fact, the court's five conservatives are considered more likely to uphold the maps as an expected, albeit distasteful, part of the political process.
The North Carolina map, drawn by the Republican majority in the state legislature, assured the GOP of winning 10 out of 13 seats in Congress in November despite a relatively close statewide vote between Republicans and Democrats. It's a pattern that was repeated elsewhere, including in Ohio and Wisconsin.
The Maryland map, drawn by the legislature's Democratic majority, once again handed Democrats seven of the state's eight congressional seats. The battle there is over one specific district redesigned in 2012 to oust a GOP incumbent.
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The high court sidestepped a potentially historic ruling in June that would have blocked states from drawing "gerrymandered" election maps to help one political party. Instead, they sent cases from Wisconsin, Maryland and North Carolina back to lower courts for further review.
Federal courts have since reached the same conclusions about the maps in Maryland and North Carolina, setting up a new round of action at the high court. In Maryland, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan wants to redraw the congressional district found to have favored Democrats, but Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh asked the Supreme Court to overturn the verdict.
By agreeing to hear the two cases in March, the justices failed to keep their 2018-19 term beneath the political radar. Under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has sought to lower the temperature following the heated, 50-48 confirmation of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh in October.
Partisan gerrymandering is not beneath the political radar. Across the nation, hundreds of members of Congress and thousands of state legislators are elected in districts drawn to favor the party that controls the map-drawing process. That has largely favored Republicans during the past decade.
But the court's more conservative justices have been reluctant to choose political winners and losers and have found a way to sidestep the issue in the past. In June, they ruled that challengers to the design of 99 state Assembly districts in Wisconsin could not tackle the entire map at once but must target specific districts.
And in the Maryland case, the court last year said challengers to congressional lines giving Democrats seven of eight seats did not merit a quick fix because they had waited six years to bring their claim. That case, too, was sent back to lower courts.
Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said the justices should be ready to rule in favor of the two legislatures.
"Maps that follow traditional redistricting criteria should be free from challenges in federal court," he said.
North Carolina's congressional map looms as the newest test. The facts aren't even in dispute: State lawmakers in the relatively "purple" state, which swings between Democrats and Republicans in statewide elections, declared their intentions on camera. The map splits the nation's largest historically black college down the middle between two districts.
“Partisan gerrymandering is not just a Republican problem or a Democrat problem, it is a politician problem,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director at Common Cause, a plaintiff in the North Carolina case. “Politicians have shown time and again that they cannot resist the temptation to draw maps that protect their power and party at the expense of the American people."
"If the Supreme Court fails to set limits on this undemocratic practice, we will see a festival of copycat gerrymandering in 2020 the likes of which the country has never seen before," said Paul Smith, vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, which has been at the forefront of the fight in several states.
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