News Clips

State courts have become the battleground for partisan gerrymandering after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2019 ruling in the case known as Rucho v. Common Cause. "For several decades, people in the states had held out hope that the Supreme Court would lay down a standard for finding that partisan gerrymandering had happened and potentially overruling maps where that kind of vote rigging had happened," says Kathay Feng, vice president of programs at Common Cause, the advocacy group that has also helped lead the ongoing case against a North Carolina congressional map approved by Republican state lawmakers.

After April’s decision, Alaska became the 13th state to have its highest court interpret the state’s constitution to ban partisan gerrymandering. A further seven states have a statutory ban on partisan gerrymandering, according to Dan Vicuña, national redistricting manager at Common Cause, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that campaigns to end gerrymandering across the nation. “Whether it happens in a red state or a blue state, a constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering is always a landmark victory for the people,” Vicuña said in an interview. “The Alaska Supreme Court is recognizing — like a lot of state courts are recognizing — that they simply have to intervene when voting rights are under attack through gerrymandering.”

The North Carolina state court ruling “makes it even more clear that the Supreme Court needs to make a decision about whether or not that legislature should be able to rule over federal elections without any checks or balances or if we still want courts to have a role,” said Kathay Feng, the vice president of programs at the good government group Common Cause. Common Cause is one of the parties in the federal lawsuit opposing the ISL theory. “We need to have a definitive answer from the Supreme Court,” she continued.

Only one party in the case, Common Cause, argued for the Supreme Court to decide the issue — and rule against North Carolina. In a brief filed Thursday, the group argued that the mere fact that North Carolina’s high court ruled in the case means the U.S. Supreme Court can still decide it. “Petitioners’ core contention before this Court is that the Elections Clause prohibits state constitutions—and state courts—from imposing limits on the authority of state legislatures over congressional redistricting. But the North Carolina Supreme Court has now twice rejected that contention,” the brief said.

“It’s a radical departure…a 180-degree change in how we have considered our system of government and the role of courts,” said Hilary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights for a coalition of Southern-based groups, including Common Cause.

Lawsuits challenging the state’s legislative and congressional district lines “will most definitely” be filed, Wisconsin Common Cause Executive Director Jay Heck said after progressives won majority control of the state Supreme Court in an election last month. Justice-elect Janet Protasiewicz, who was backed by Democratic groups, will take her seat on the court Aug. 1.