Law Commons^™

Rucho For Minimalists, Benjamin Plener Cover

Mercer Law Review

In one of last term’s most consequential cases, Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court of the United States decided, 5–4, that “partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.” This limits the power of the federal courts to address what many, this author included, consider a significant threat to American democracy: the manipulation of electoral maps to favor certain voters or candidates. Federal courts may still intervene to vindicate the one-person-one-vote principle, enforce the Voting Rights Act (VRA), or invalidate racial gerrymanders. But not to limit partisan gerrymandering. Writing for the majority, Chief …

You’Ve Got (Political) Questions? We’Ve Got No Answers, Michael R. Dimino

Mercer Law Review

In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court of the United States held that partisan-gerrymandering claims present non-justiciable political questions. The decision seemingly settled a controversy that had existed for decades, during which the Court was simultaneously unwilling to declare partisan-gerrymandering claims non-justiciable and unable to agree on a judicially manageable standard for adjudicating those claims. In Rucho, for the first time, a five-Justice majority definitively concluded that there are no judicially manageable standards to determine the constitutionality of partisan gerrymanders, and therefore held that federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear cases raising such claims.

Although the Court …