Partisan gerrymandering refers to the redrawing of a state’s congressional districts with the objective of catering to the interests of one political party over another. Often, the party doing the redistricting purposefully redraws the districts in such a way as to ensure that more of their members get elected to Congress than in an otherwise fairly-drawn map. The result is either a “cracked” district—a bizarre, jagged-looking district in which the other party’s members are divided among multiple other districts, so that they do not constitute a majority in any—or a “packed” district—a small, normally urban district in which the opposing party’s members are crammed so that they win by a landslide and “waste” many votes that could have been useful elsewhere. A number of these districts have been the subject of lawsuits, which have percolated their way through the federal courts. After punting on several such cases in recent years, the Supreme Court on Thursday finally answered the question of whether federal courts can strike down partisan gerrymandering—and gave what many might say is a profoundly surprising answer.
Benchwarmers 