Zack Beauchamp: ‘The Supreme Court, Gerrymandering, and the Republican Turn Against Democracy’

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

 From Vox:

The Supreme Court’s Thursday morning [June 27, 2019] ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause amounts to a blank check for partisan gerrymandering. Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion holds that federal courts should not have the power to declare particular maps unconstitutional, as doing so would be “unprecedented expansion of judicial power ... into one of the most intensely partisan aspects of American political life.” 

What this means, in practice, is that local authorities get to decide on the shape of House and state legislative districts. Parties that control statehouses will be freer to not only cement their own hold on power but ensure that their party sends more representatives to Washington as well.

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