SCOTUS' decision on gerrymandering

The Supreme Court last week gave decisions on two cases involving gerrymandering for partisan purposes.    SCOTUS has previously decided against states that draw their voting district boundaries based on race and the voting advantage the party in power gets from that.

These cases in question involve not race -- which has already been ruled illegal -- but partisan politics. i.e, whether the party in power in the state can redraw voting districts simply for their own re-election advantage.  Wisconsin's districts in question were drawn by a Republican majority, while Maryland's were by a Democratic majority.

In both cases, SCOTUS punted on the larger question of whether using partisan political factors as the motive for redistricting is unconstitutional -- what has been termed "letting representatives choose their voters, rather than voters choosing their representatives.

That is the big question SCOTUS sidestepped.  Rather than deal with the big question, they found procedural reasons to reject hearings on these two cases.   In one, it claimed that plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they suffered harm and sent it back to the lower court;  in the other, the reason was lack of standing to sue.

However, the decisions left the constitutional question open for other challenges.

To be clear:   By avoiding the big question, the court DID NOT RULE THAT IT'S ALL RIGHT to use partisan factors;   they just did not rule on that larger question, choosing to put it off for another day, a better case, or whatever.

In fact, the case of North Carolina is in the pipeline and might perhaps be what they have their sights set on for the more comprehensive ruling.

   It's complicated.  Even if they should rule against allowing partisanship in redrawing district boundaries, decisions would need to set up some sort of standards by which to judge how much is too much.   And how it would be proved, how would it be policed, etc.   Only if the court simply ruled that redistricting must be done by some independent, non-partisan group could those questions be ignored.

Critics, who have fought against gerrymandering and see it as a key tool used by those who would suppress voting rights of minorities, were disappointed.   No doubt -- elections can be won or lost simply through just such tactics of the party in power.  The hope was that SCOTUS would issue a sweeping ruling that would make changes in time for the upcoming election.   That didn't happen, but perhaps there's still time for the 2020 presidential contest.

Ralph