On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two critical cases challenging a Democratic congressional gerrymander in Maryland and a Republican one in North Carolina that could determine whether the court will finally start curtailing partisan gerrymandering or give mapmakers free rein to try to rig the lines to favor their party even when the other side wins more votes. However, now that hardline Republican Justice Brett Kavanaugh has replaced conservative swing Justice Anthony Kennedy, the plaintiffs are not expected to meet with much success.
Since the 1980s, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that partisan gerrymandering could theoretically violate the Constitution. However, it has never actually invalidated any particular map on such grounds, saying it lacks a standard to decide when to do so. Indeed, when both of these cases came before the high court last year, the conservative majority sent the North Carolina case back to the lower court by requiring the plaintiffs to prove they were harmed in each individual district and not just on a statewide basis, and it refused to expedite the Maryland case.
Both cases saw district courts strike down the maps later in 2018, with the North Carolina litigators making sure they had plaintiffs from each of the challenged districts. Consequently, if the Supreme Court upholds either of these decisions, it could establish such a standard against gerrymandering, setting a far-reaching precedent that could finally begin to place limits on the epidemic of gerrymandering that has swept the nation.