It has become painfully clear in recent years that partisan gerrymandering is one of American democracy’s worst illnesses. Although the Supreme Court held decades ago that the purpose of redistricting was to ensure “fair and effective representation for all citizens,” legislators often use the process to lock the minority party out of power. Both Democrats and Republicans deploy partisan gerrymandering to dilute votes for their opponents, creating one-party rule and, arguably, greater polarization. That’s bad for the body politic and a clear contravention of the Constitution. But as long as the courts refuse to step in, gerrymandering will continue to plague the country. Now Paul Smith, one of the greatest legal minds in the country, is asking the Supreme Court to finally put a stop to it. And here’s the exciting part: He might actually succeed.
Smith, a renowned Supreme Court litigator, recently joined the Campaign Legal Center’s battle against Wisconsin’s egregious partisan gerrymander. The CLC believes it has finally developed a winning strategy to combat partisan redistricting, developing a mathematical formula to help courts decide which gerrymanders violate the Constitution. It triumphed in district court, where a three-judge panel agreed that Wisconsin’s redistricting scheme was unconstitutional, citing the CLC’s formula in striking down the map. A peculiarity in federal law ensures that Wisconsin can appeal the decision directly to the Supreme Court, which must hear the case. Smith and the CLC are now preparing for the greatest showdown over political redistricting in a generation.
The difficulty in curbing partisan gerrymandering has not been in convincing judges that the practice is unconstitutional—the Supreme Court has found that it is—it’s convincing judges that they can fix it. Most gerrymanders involve a blatantly unconstitutional practice called “packing and cracking”: packing some supporters of the opposing party into a few “safe” districts and distributing others throughout a bunch of districts to dilute their votes. This form of gerrymandering runs afoul of two constitutional guarantees: The First Amendment, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of a person’s viewpoint, and the Equal Protection Clause, which bars the government from disfavoring individuals on the basis of an illegitimate classification like political affiliation.
Full Article: Death to the Gerrymander: Paul Smith might defeat unconstitutional redistricting..