The Supreme Court punted another case today:
The justices have had trouble in previous cases deciding gerrymandering issues. That tradition continued Monday, as the court left for another day resolution of the hardest question: whether the Constitution forbids a political party from drawing distorted election maps for its own benefit….The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, said the challengers hadn’t yet adequately shown that they had legal standing to sue. Still, the court said the plaintiffs should be allowed another chance to show that they were harmed in a concrete way by the GOP line-drawing, and it sent the case back to a lower court.
This probably points to some genuine indecision on the part of one or two of the justices. The question is: what is it they’re having a hard time with? Today’s ruling doesn’t really give much of a hint. I can only hope that as gerrymandering gets more outrageous and more computerized, they finally figure out that something needs to be done to restore the intent of the Constitution.
