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Gerrymandering & Justiciability: The Political Question Doctrine After Rucho V. Common Cause, G. Michael Parsons
Gerrymandering & Justiciability: The Political Question Doctrine After Rucho V. Common Cause, G. Michael Parsons
Indiana Law Journal
This Article deconstructs Rucho’s articulation and application of the political question doctrine and makes two contributions. First, the Article disentangles the political question doctrine from neighboring justiciability doctrines. The result is a set of substantive principles that should guide federal courts as they exercise a range of routine judicial functions—remedial, adjudicative, and interpretive. Rather than unrealistically attempting to draw crisp jurisdictional boundaries between exercises of “political” and “judicial” power, the political question doctrine should seek to moderate their inevitable (and frequent) clash. Standing doctrine should continue to guide courts in determining whether they have authority over a case involving a …
Say The Magic Words: Establishing A Historically Informed Standard To Prevent Partisanship From Shielding Racial Gerrymanders From Federal Judicial Review, Emily K. Dalessio
Say The Magic Words: Establishing A Historically Informed Standard To Prevent Partisanship From Shielding Racial Gerrymanders From Federal Judicial Review, Emily K. Dalessio
Washington and Lee Law Review
In its 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court closed the doors of the federal courts to litigants claiming a violation of their constitutional rights based on partisan gerrymandering. In Rucho, the Court held that partisan gerrymandering presents a political question that falls outside the jurisdiction of the federal courts. However, the Supreme Court did not address an insidious consequence of this ruling: namely, that map-drawers may use partisan rationales to obscure what is otherwise an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. This Note uses North Carolina as an example of a state with a long history of …
Politicians As Fiduciaries: Public Law V. Private Law When Altering The Date Of An Election, Steven J. Cleveland
Politicians As Fiduciaries: Public Law V. Private Law When Altering The Date Of An Election, Steven J. Cleveland
Washington and Lee Law Review
In the 2019 decision Rucho v. Common Cause, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that federal challenges to partisan gerrymandering—a practice yielding election results that “reasonably seem unjust”—were non-justiciable. If partisan gerrymandering claims are not federally justiciable, and if that conclusion emboldens politicians, how else might incumbents manipulate election mechanics to preserve their political advantage? This Article explores one possibility that was briefly mentioned by the Rucho majority: the strategic advancement or delay of the date of a federal election. The strategic shift of election day is not simply a theoretical problem. Foreign politicians have strategically altered their election days …