Justices sidestep partisan redistricting

Unanimous rulings in Wisconsin, Maryland cases decided very little

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday avoided answering the central questions in two closely watched challenges to partisan redistricting.

The court issued a pair of unanimous rulings in partisan redistricting cases from Wisconsin and Maryland that decided very little, and ensured that any resolution by the nation's high court would not come before the 2018 midterm elections.

Proceedings in both cases will continue in lower courts. Meanwhile, the justices could decide by the end of June whether to take up a new case from North Carolina.

The justices had a range of options before them, including a broad, statewide look at the issue in Wisconsin, where Republicans have a huge edge in the legislature in a state that is otherwise closely divided between the parties. A three-judge court in Wisconsin had struck down the map as unconstitutional.

In Maryland, Republicans sued over a single congressional district that was redrawn in 2011, as the state's Democratic former governor said, to turn a Republican seat Democratic. The Maryland case is only in its preliminary phase and has not yet had a trial. That will now happen.

The more substantial decision Monday came in a case from Wisconsin. The court said the plaintiffs there had not proved they had suffered the sort of direct injury that would give them standing to sue. The justices sent the case back to a trial court to allow the plaintiffs to try again to prove that their voting power had been directly affected by the way state lawmakers drew voting districts for the state Assembly.

For now, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., wrote for the court, there was no good reason to think the plaintiffs had suffered that sort of harm. For instance, the lead plaintiff, the chief justice wrote, lived in what is "under any plausible circumstances, a heavily Democratic district."

That meant, Roberts wrote, that the plaintiff could not pursue a claim that his voting power within his district had been diminished by the current voting map. The chief justice acknowledged that other legal theories might allow proof of harm focused on the entire state rather than on a single voting district.

"We leave for another day consideration of other possible theories of harm not presented here and whether those theories might present justifiable claims giving rise to statewide remedies," Roberts wrote.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Elena Kagan set out a detailed road map for how such claims could be framed and presented. She was joined by the other members of the court's liberal wing -- Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Kagan added that courts have an important role to play given the harm caused by partisan gerrymandering.

"More effectively every day, that practice enables politicians to entrench themselves in power against the people's will," she wrote. "And only the courts can do anything to remedy the problem, because gerrymanders benefit those who control the political branches."

In a second concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, agreed that the challengers lacked standing to sue. But they said they would have dismissed their case outright rather than giving them another chance to present proof.

"This is definitely not the end of the road," said Sachin Chheda, director of the Fair Elections Project which organized and brought the lawsuit.

"There is no vindication for the state's rigging of the maps and disenfranchising of our voters here," Chheda said. "We know as well today as we did when we started that our democracy is threatened and we need to return the power to the people."

Republicans hold a 64-35 majority in the Wisconsin Assembly and an 18-15 majority in the Senate. Wisconsin's Republican legislative leaders, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, issued a joint statement in reaction saying they were pleased with the decision and were confident they would ultimately win.

"Democrats have been using the maps as an excuse for their failure to connect with Wisconsin voters," Vos and Fitzgerald said. "We believe the redistricting process we undertook seven years ago fulfilled our constitutional duty, and followed all applicable laws and standards that are required in redistricting."

In the second case decided Monday, from Maryland, the court unanimously ruled against the challengers in a brief unsigned opinion. The court said the challengers had waited too long to seek an injunction blocking a congressional map drawn in 2011.

"In considering the balance of equities among the parties, we think that plaintiffs' unnecessary, yearslong delay in asking for preliminary injunctive relief weighed against their request," the opinion said. It added that there was not enough time for orderly consideration of the case before the 2018 election season.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Liptak of The New York Times; and by Mark Sherman and Scott Bauer of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/19/2018

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