Supreme Court Rules Partisan Gerrymandering Beyond Federal Court Jurisdiction

The Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Rucho v. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandering claims present “political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts,” effectively eliminating federal judicial oversight of even extreme partisan redistricting. The decision gives state legislatures a green light to draw district maps for maximum partisan advantage, regardless of how severely this distorts democratic representation.

The Cases

The consolidated cases challenge congressional district maps in North Carolina and Maryland. North Carolina voters claim the state’s Republican-drawn maps discriminate against Democrats, while Maryland voters allege Democratic-drawn maps discriminate against Republicans. Lower federal courts found both maps to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders, with North Carolina Representative David Lewis having publicly admitted drawing maps to create a 10-3 Republican advantage because “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.”

The North Carolina maps proved devastatingly effective: in 2018, Republicans won 10 of 13 congressional seats despite receiving only 50.3% of the statewide vote. Expert analysis showed the maps were extreme statistical outliers that could not have resulted from neutral redistricting principles.

Chief Justice Roberts’s Majority Opinion

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the five conservative justices, acknowledges that partisan gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic principles” but argues federal courts lack “judicially discoverable and manageable standards” to resolve such claims. Roberts contends that partisan gerrymandering presents a political question that courts cannot adjudicate without improperly reallocating political power between parties.

The majority opinion asserts that the Constitution provides no clear standard for when partisan gerrymandering becomes unconstitutional, and that any judicial intervention would require courts to make inherently political judgments about fair representation. Roberts argues that remedies must come from state courts, state constitutional provisions, independent redistricting commissions, or congressional action—not federal courts.

Notably, Roberts does not dispute that extreme gerrymandering undermines democracy. Instead, he argues that the remedy lies outside federal judicial power, despite the Constitution’s Elections Clause and Equal Protection Clause potentially providing bases for federal court intervention.

Justice Kagan’s Dissent

Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, sharply criticizes the majority for abandoning federal courts’ responsibility to protect voting rights. Kagan argues that the majority’s reasoning abdicates the judiciary’s role in safeguarding democracy from precisely the kind of self-dealing the Framers feared—legislators entrenching themselves in power by manipulating election rules.

Kagan points to the lower courts’ use of the “efficiency gap” and other statistical measures as workable standards for identifying extreme partisan gerrymanders. She argues that the majority’s claim of unmanageability ignores decades of voting rights jurisprudence in which courts have successfully applied complex standards to protect democratic participation.

The dissent emphasizes that partisan gerrymandering effectively allows politicians to choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives, fundamentally inverting democratic accountability. Kagan warns that the decision “gives politicians free rein to entrench themselves in office,” enabling minority rule through district manipulation.

Immediate Impact

The decision has immediate and profound effects. State legislatures with trifecta party control—particularly Republicans who control more state governments—can now draw extreme partisan maps without fear of federal court intervention. The ruling comes just before the 2020 Census and subsequent redistricting cycle, effectively authorizing a new wave of partisan gerrymandering.

States like North Carolina, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—where Republican-drawn maps had already created significant partisan advantages—can now maintain or intensify these gerrymanders. The decision eliminates one of the few remaining legal tools for challenging maps that grossly distort voter preferences into legislative outcomes.

Constitutional and Democratic Implications

Rucho represents a fundamental shift in voting rights jurisprudence. While the Court continues to prohibit racial gerrymandering under the Equal Protection Clause, it now holds that partisan gerrymandering—even when extreme and intentional—is beyond federal judicial remedy. This creates a perverse incentive structure: legislators can achieve partisan goals through maps that have disparate racial impacts, then defend them as partisan rather than racial gerrymanders.

The decision effectively validates the REDMAP strategy’s premise: control of state legislatures during Census years enables parties to entrench power through redistricting, and federal courts will not intervene regardless of how severely this distorts representation. The ruling acknowledges that gerrymandering undermines democracy while simultaneously removing federal judicial constraints on the practice.

Significance

Rucho v. Common Cause marks a watershed moment in American electoral democracy. By declaring partisan gerrymandering nonjusticiable, the Supreme Court removes federal judicial oversight from a practice the majority concedes is “incompatible with democratic principles.” The decision enshrines the ability of legislative majorities to manipulate district boundaries to perpetuate their power, regardless of voter preferences.

The ruling validates over a decade of strategic Republican investment in state-level redistricting control through REDMAP and similar initiatives. It confirms that parties can achieve durable political advantage through district manipulation, and that federal courts will not intervene even when the manipulation is openly acknowledged and statistically demonstrable.

The case exposes a fundamental tension in American constitutional democracy: the Constitution protects voting rights through multiple provisions, yet the Court’s conservative majority now holds that one of the most severe threats to those rights—partisan gerrymandering—is beyond judicial remedy. This leaves protection of democratic representation to the very politicians who benefit from its distortion, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of minority rule in gerrymandered states.

Rucho represents the culmination of decades of conservative legal strategy to limit federal court intervention in electoral processes, particularly voting rights. Combined with Shelby County v. Holder (gutting the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirements), the decision removes two major federal safeguards against electoral manipulation, leaving democracy vulnerable to systematic partisan capture through control of redistricting.