The Supreme Court is having another go at a question it's never been able to answer: Can partisanship ever become unconstitutionally excessive in the process of drawing legislative districts?
A year ago, the court sidestepped the question on procedural grounds in one case challenging Wisconsin's Republican-drawn state legislative map and another contesting the way Democrats drew the congressional districts in Maryland.
For two hours starting at 10 a.m. Tuesday, the court will revisit the current Maryland map, which has contributed to the election of seven Democrats but just one Republican in the last four cycles (that case is called Lamone v. Benisek) but a different challenge to a Republican effort at partisan gerrymandering. That one, Rucho v. Common Cause, centers on a House map for North Carolina that's routinely elected 10 Republicans but only three Democrats.
The cases present the justices with a clear opportunity for a landmark ruling (probably in June) about the nature of American politics, settling a dispute that has been vexing advocates for democracy reform for more than two decades: Can there ever be a constitutional limit to partisan dominance of the legislative mapmaking process? And, if the answer is yes, then what is the formula for deciding that limit?
Transcripts will be released later Tuesday, and an audio tape by the end of the week. Here are three ways to parse the arguments for clues about the outcome:
1. Will the newest justice tip his hand?
In a partisan gerrymandering challenge to Pennsylvania's map in 2004, the court ruled 5-4 against intervening, with Justice Anthony Kennedy siding with his four conservative colleagues in the majority.
Kennedy, however, opened the door to revisiting the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering in a future case, assuming anyone could present a "manageable standard" in which to identify it.
"If courts refuse to entertain any claims of partisan gerrymandering, the temptation to use partisan favoritism in districting in an unconstitutional manner will grow," he wrote. "On the other hand, these new technologies may produce new methods of analysis that make more evident the precise nature of the burdens gerrymanders impose on the representational rights of voters and parties."
Kennedy's concern about the potential threat to democracy posed by partisan gerrymandering was clear.
But it's unclear where Kennedy's successor, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, lands on the question of the court's role in refereeing congressional mapmaking, which the Constitution has designated to the will of each state.
Kavanaugh's "balls and strikes" jurisprudence would suggest he'll be less receptive to judicial interference, but this will be his first opportunity to weigh in on the practice of partisan gerrymandering.
2. Were N.C. Republicans too transparent?
If the justices conclude gerrymandering can get too partisan for the Constitution, they won't need data analysis to identify it in one case.
State Rep. David Lewis, a leader of the GOP cartographers in charge when the current North Carolina districts were set in 2016, flat out asserted that his side's motive was to minimize Democratic power.
"We want to make clear that we, to the extent that we are going to use political data in drawing this map, it is to gain partisan advantage," he said at one legislative hearing. "I proposed that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because I do not believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats."
Will the judges focus on this acknowledgment in their questioning?
3. Has the chief justice's thinking evolved?
Last term, those challenging the state House map in Wisconsin offered a mathematical formula to support their case. The metric was known as the "efficiency gap," which political scientists developed to measure the number of votes "wasted" by district boundaries drawn to favor one political party.
Chief Justice John Roberts was skeptical. During oral arguments, he famously referred to the political science community's best shot at an analytical analysis of extreme partisan gerrymandering as "sociological gobbledygook."
The challenges to the North Carolina and Maryland districts will again rely on research methods developed to analytically define extreme gerrymandering. Will Roberts be as dismissive?
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.