The gerrymandering ruling proves it: Democrats must pack the Supreme Court

Since the Supreme Court won't end gerrymandering, Democrats should gerrymander the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court.
(Image credit: Illustrated | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images, Anna Erastova/iStock)

Yesterday a Supreme Court drifting steadily toward illegitimacy handed down a party-line, 5-4 decision upholding the right of states to engage in gerrymandering, even when it is explicitly designed to diminish the electoral prospects of a political party. The decision, authored in hand-wringing fashion by Chief Justice John Roberts, affirmed yet again that the primary role of today's Supreme Court majority is to act as a handmaiden to ill-gotten Republican electoral power. Should Democrats ever regain power, they must remember this moment.

The cases at hand, Rucho v. Common Cause (from North Carolina) and Lamone v. Benisek (from Maryland), revolve around unfair district maps for the U.S. House drawn by state legislatures in North Carolina and Maryland following the 2010 census and reapportionment. Many states allow majorities in elected legislatures to draw those maps, typically with the consent of the governor. That means that states with "trifectas" (control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship) for one party or the other can use increasingly sophisticated software to draw district lines that benefit the party in power and make it immensely difficult for the opposition to win power back.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.