Chief Justice Wisely Gets Courts Out Of Redistricting Politics
Michael Barone
Posted: Jul 05, 2019 12:01 AM
"Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new," writes Chief Justice John Roberts near the beginning of his opinion in Rucho v. Common Cause. "Nor is frustration with it." The question is what, if anything, federal courts ought to do about it. The answer the chief justice and the four other Republican-appointed justices have endorsed, journalists have been reporting, is nothing.
Actually, judges have a very effective weapon to limit, though not prohibit, partisan districting -- which we'll get to later. But first, let's be clear that the chief justice is right about the history of the issue. He is correct in disagreeing with Justice Kagan's suggestion in her dissent that partisan districting has gotten much more common and effective in recent years.
The word "gerrymander" is a clue. It's named after Elbridge Gerry, delegate to the Constitutional Convention and fifth vice president of the United States who, as a Jeffersonian in Massachusetts, packed heavily Federalist towns into a single salamander-shaped congressional district in 1812. That was 207 years ago.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2019/07/05/chief-justice-wisely-gets-courts-out-of-redistricting-politics-n2549525
