Sun Herald: Supreme Court case on gerrymandering could weaken GOP advantage
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a Wisconsin case that could reshape Congress and state legislatures if a majority of justices embraces a new formula to identify legislative districts that unfairly favor one political party.
In Gill v. Whitford, the high court will examine what constitutes partisan gerrymandering in redistricting, the once-a-decade re-drawing of legislative boundaries to reflect demographic changes revealed in the census.
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“There's no standard right now for winning partisan gerrymandering cases. None whatsoever,” said Danielle Lang, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based group representing the Gill plaintiffs. “It is certainly the goal of this case to set a standard that would say ‘you have to prove partisan intent. You have to prove an extreme and durable gerrymander that has an effect of partisan asymmetry. And you have to prove that there's no justification.’ And certainly, the efficiency gap is a useful tool in proving that standard."