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2 RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE Opinion of the Court of the plaintiffs, and the defendants appealed directly to this Court. These cases require us to consider once again whether claims of excessive partisanship in districting are “justiciable”—that is, properly suited for resolution by the federal courts. This Court has not previously struck down a districting plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, and has struggled without success over the past several decades to discern judicially manageable standards for deciding such claims. The districting plans at issue here are highly partisan, by any measure. The question is whether the courts below appropriately exercised judicial power when they found them unconstitutional as well. I A The first case involves a challenge to the congressional redistricting plan enacted by the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly in 2016. Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18–422. The Republican legislators leading the redistricting effort instructed their mapmaker to use political data to draw a map that would produce a congressional delegation of ten Republicans and three Democrats. 318 F. Supp. 3d 777, 807–808 (MDNC 2018). As one of the two Republicans chairing the redistricting committee stated, “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.” Id., at 809. He further explained that the map was drawn with the aim of electing ten Republicans and three Democrats because he did “not believe it [would be] possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.” Id., at 808. One Democratic state senator objected that entrenching the 10–3 advantage for Republicans was not “fair, reasonable, [or] balanced” because, as recently as 2012, “Democratic con-

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Rucho v. Common Cause

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether partisan issues such as gerrymandering are justiciable by the court.

Alleged Acts: Voters in both Maryland and North Carolina alleged that the congressional districting maps were unconstitutional as partisan gerrymandering. In North Carolina, the Republican controlled legislator drew a map based on political data. In Maryland the Democratic legislature redrew the congressional map to flip one two remaining Republican districts.

Procedural history: The District Court Judge determined that the congressional map was unconstitutional and required new maps to be drawn. The case was appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court remanded the case and vacated the judgment for additional considerations. The District Court struck down the plan a second time and appealed again directly to the Supreme Court.

Summary: Partisan gerrymandering is under the jurisdiction of Congress, not the courts. In fact, Congress has utilized this jurisdiction to limit the use of political consideration in congressional map drawing. Similar, state mechanisms such as Florida's Fair District Amendment, could provide effective legal remedies. However, without a fair district element to the United States Constitution, the court may not remedy the claim before it.

Conclusion: The Court held that gerrymander claims were beyond the jurisdiction of the Court because it involves a political question.

Legal Issue(s)

Electoral Maps and Districting

Applicable Law(s): U.S. art.1.

Region: Americas

Country: United States of America

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: General

Date of decision: Jun 27, 2019

Geolocation

Latitude: 38.90371529

Longitude: -77.06409858

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

Rucho v. Common Cause.pdf
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Election Judgments - IFES

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Rucho v. Common Cause

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