Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Supreme Court remains divided over partisan gerrymandering

Supreme Court remains divided over partisan gerrymandering
Olivier Douliery/Getty Photos

The Supreme Court appears unlikely to ban partisan gerrymandering following oral arguments in two cases Tuesday, as the justices rehashed old concerns about interfering with state-drawn congressional maps.

Some members of the court acknowledged the problems of partisan gerrymandering raised by the two cases, involving legislative maps in North Carolina and Maryland. Few had an answer for it.

"I'm not going to dispute that partisan gerrymandering is a problem," said the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, who had not yet been appointed to the court when it last heard arguments in redistricting cases. He believes the court should consider gerrymandering a "threat" to democracy.


However, Kavanaugh questioned whether courts should referee, pointing to the growing number of states that have adopted bipartisan redistricting commissions as proof that voters have the power to end the practice.

Justice Neil Gorsuch also appeared more comfortable deferring to "citizen initiatives" – or the ballot referendums that have established these commissions – as a way to fix partisan mapmaking.

In the challenge to North Carolina's map, Rucho v. Common Cause, some liberal justices appeared sympathetic to the idea of intervening to block extreme examples of partisan gerrymandering.

"What I'm trying to do is figure out how to catch the real outliers," Justice Stephen Breyer said, while also acknowledging the court's unresolved quest to find some standard to identify the extremes.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The closest the court came to a consensus on spotting partisan gerrymandering came in the second case, Lamone v. Benisek, which challenges a district drawn by Maryland Democrats that helped flip a safe Republican seat.

Attorney Michael Kimberly, arguing on behalf of those challenging Maryland's map, said that proving in a court that legislators intentionally drew districts to dilute votes for the minority party could be enough to toss out a map on constitutional grounds.

"What makes your case so easy is that everyone was completely upfront about what they were doing," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

In both cases, state legislators openly admitted the maps were designed with partisan intentions.

A ruling in the cases is expected at the end of June. The court declined to act on redistricting the last time it heard a similar cases in 2017 and 2018.

Read More

The Power of Outrage and Keeping Everyone Guessing

Question marks on a stack of small blocks.

Getty Images / Sakchai Vongsasiripat

The Power of Outrage and Keeping Everyone Guessing

Donald Trump loves to keep us guessing. This is exactly what we’re all doing as his second term in the White House begins. It’s one way he controls the narrative.

Trump’s off the cuff, unfiltered, controversial statements infuriate opponents and delight his supporters. The rest of us are left trying to figure out the difference between the shenanigans and when he’s actually serious.

Keep ReadingShow less
To help heal divides, we must cut “the media” some slack

Newspaper headline cuttings.

Getty Images / Sean Gladwell

To help heal divides, we must cut “the media” some slack

A few days ago, Donald Trump was inaugurated. In his second term, just as in his first, he’ll likely spark passionate disagreements about news media: what is “fake news” and what isn’t, which media sources should be trusted and which should be doubted.

We know we have a media distrust problem. Recently it hit an all-time low: the percentage of Americans with "not very much" trust in the media has risen from 27% in 2020 to 33% in 2024.

Keep ReadingShow less
Meet the Faces of Democracy: Tommy Gong

Tommy Gong is the deputy county clerk-recorder for Contra Costa County, San Francisco Bay Area—home to over 700,000 registered voters.

Photo Courtesy of Issue One

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Tommy Gong

Californian Tommy Gong is the deputy county clerk-recorder for Contra Costa County which is located in the San Francisco Bay Area and home to over 700,000 registered voters. He has been an election administrator for over two decades, having served in other California counties including San Luis Obispo and Stanislaus.

Gong, who is not affiliated with any political party, has received wide recognition throughout his tenure as an election official. He led efforts to coordinate communication tactics to increase public trust in election processes across the Bay Area by forming the Coalition of Bay Area Election Officials. This initiative received awards from the National Association of Election Officials and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Keep ReadingShow less