The Supreme Court has a chance to end gerrymandering. Here's why it won't.

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By Jessica Levinson, professor at Loyola Law School

Some of the most consequential cases this U.S. Supreme Court term deal with a decidedly unsexy topic: drawing legislative district lines. This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases addressing the topic of partisan gerrymandering, which is the process of drawing district lines to maximize political power.

If the topic of partisan gerrymandering sounds dry, consider this: In some races, the outcome is essentially predetermined as a result of partisan gerrymandering. That is because how state officials draw legislative lines determines the voters and donors who live in each district. Gerrymandering is sometimes referred to as the process of elected officials choosing their voters, instead of voters choosing their elected officials.

If the topic of partisan gerrymandering sounds dry, consider this: In some races, the outcome is essentially predetermined as a result of partisan gerrymandering.

Say in hypothetical “State X,” 55 percent of registered voters are Republicans and 45 percent of registered voters are Democrats and there is a 100-member state delegation. One might expect that Republicans would win approximately 55 of those seats with Democrats carrying the remaining 45 seats. But after a little electoral manipulation, Republicans win 70 of the 100 congressional seats, leaving Democrats with the remaining 30 seats. This disparity between the percentage of registered Republicans and the percentage of Republicans elected to statewide office is how partisan gerrymandering works.

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But how exactly did Republicans accomplish such a victory? Partisan gerrymandering is typically accomplished by either “packing” voters in the minority political party into a few districts, or “cracking” those voters into multiple districts. If voters are packed into a few districts, it means they can only make their voices heard, and elect the candidate of their choosing in a few districts. If voters are cracked into many districts, it means they likely will not be able to garner enough collective votes in any of those districts to elect the candidate of their choosing. In both cases, the political party in power dilutes the voting power of the minority political party.

If partisan gerrymandering sounds unfair, that’s because it is. If it sounds unconstitutional, that’s because it should be. But the Supreme Court has never actually ruled that such actions violate the Constitution.

And this brings us to the two cases that the Supreme Court will be hearing next week. I wrote about one of these cases, Lamone v. Benisek, last Supreme Court term, when the Supreme Court was expected to rule on whether Democrats in Maryland had engaged in partisan gerrymander. But instead, the Supreme Court punted and sent the case back to the lower courts, partly on the theory those challenging the district lines should have brought their claims earlier.

Since the Supreme Court’s decision last June, a lower court in Maryland concluded that the state’s new district lines were indeed unconstitutional and that it had to redraw new district maps for the 2020 elections. Maryland appealed that decision and now the case is back in front of the nation’s highest court.

source: nbcnews.com