NC ‘Partisan Gerrymander’ Case Reaches Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. – state legislative defendants and the Leftist plaintiffs for the landmakr partisan gerrymandering case are, for the first time, before the Supreme Court of the United States Monday for the initial steps of convincing the high court that it needs to step in on the matter.

As (very) broad strokes refresher, a three-judge panel issued a split opinion in the case of Rucho v. Common Cause/N.C. Democratic Party that found legislative maps to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. Essentially, the Left said it’s unfair that Republican majorities got to draw maps using election data and thus tailored them to be nicer to Republicans than to Democrats.

If the Left can’t win elections, they will just seek to abuse the courts to stymie Republicans.

Partisan gerrymandering has never been weighed in on by the high court as far as a black and white decision. The issue has been dealt with on the periphery and generally been upheld as a benefit of winning elections. Makes sense.

But after the recent panel opinion ruling against the legislature, SCOTUS is being asked to weigh in. The defendants (Republican legislative majority circa 2016) are submitting their written arguments for why the Supreme Court needs to do so.

Basically, because the lower court royally screwed up with their biased decision in favor of Democrats.

“In fact, by ultimately concluding that any consideration of partisan advantage in districting is unconstitutional, the majority below parted company with every Justice of this Court ever to consider the matter. In short, the decision below would thrust the courts into a role that no member of this Court has squarely embraced. The need for plenary consideration of this appeal could hardly be plainer.”

You can read the rest of the filing here.

Due to the process for getting the full case actually heard by the court, the earliest they’d get to argue the merits would be March or April of 2019. The latest would extend into the next session of the court and decisions wouldn’t happen until 2020.

Right now there are only eight justices on the bench, as they started their new session today without a ninth justice for something to do with high political theater on Capitol Hill.

With such a consequential case it’d make sense to have a ninth justice be part of the opinion, as there are multiple cases dealing with partisan gerrymandering questions on different levels making their way through the courts.

Hopefully an honest consideration of the constitution, and not politics, will be employed in evaluating one of Democrats’ many attempts to subvert Republican legislative majorities in the Old North State.