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The Supreme Court, Once Wary of Partisan Gerrymandering, Goes All In - NYT
NYT - Gift LinkOnly two decades ago, all nine Supreme Court justices agreed that extreme partisan gerrymandering could violate the Constitution, though they differed on what courts should do about it.
On Thursday, by contrast, the court’s conservative majority allowed Texas to use voting maps made to disadvantage Democrats in the 2026 election, without a hint of constitutional difficulty. To the contrary, the majority chastised a lower court for not taking the state at its word that politics, not race, motivated the maps. The court, it said, had “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith.”
In the space of a generation, then, the Supreme Court’s attitude toward partisan gerrymandering has shifted from tolerating it as a necessary evil to embracing it as savvy politics.
Things looked different in 2004, when the justices split 4-1-4 in Vieth v. Jubelirer over whether federal courts were capable of separating ordinary politics from intolerable power grabs at odds with democracy.
Four justices said that federal courts lacked the institutional competence to decide which gerrymanders were unacceptable. In a series of dissents, four other justices proposed three different standards to decide when gerrymanders had crossed a constitutional line.
On Thursday, by contrast, the court’s conservative majority allowed Texas to use voting maps made to disadvantage Democrats in the 2026 election, without a hint of constitutional difficulty. To the contrary, the majority chastised a lower court for not taking the state at its word that politics, not race, motivated the maps. The court, it said, had “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith.”
In the space of a generation, then, the Supreme Court’s attitude toward partisan gerrymandering has shifted from tolerating it as a necessary evil to embracing it as savvy politics.
Things looked different in 2004, when the justices split 4-1-4 in Vieth v. Jubelirer over whether federal courts were capable of separating ordinary politics from intolerable power grabs at odds with democracy.
Four justices said that federal courts lacked the institutional competence to decide which gerrymanders were unacceptable. In a series of dissents, four other justices proposed three different standards to decide when gerrymanders had crossed a constitutional line.
"In the space of a generation, the Supreme Court’s attitude toward partisan gerrymandering has shifted from tolerating it as a necessary evil to embracing it as savvy politics." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/u...
— Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) 2025-12-06T00:48:51.770Z