Drawing the Line: A First Amendment Framework for Partisan Gerrymandering in the Wake of Rucho v. Common Cause

Kyle Keraga

Gerrymandering is extremely effective. In 2011, Maryland Democrats drew a district map restricting Republicans to only one of eight congressional seats, despite the Republican Party’s consistent thirty-five percent share of the statewide popular vote. In 2016, North Carolina Republicans consolidated their advantage with a map confining Democrats to three of ten seats, despite the Democratic Party’s forty-five percent share of the vote. In each subsequent election, these plans have worked precisely as intended, entrenching the mapmakers’ control of their state legislatures despite spirited challenges from their state’s minority party. This problem is not unique to Maryland or North Carolina: Since the 2010 redistricting cycle, as many as fifty-nine seats in the House of Representatives have been predetermined, election-to-election, by partisan gerrymanders—twenty in favor of Democrats, and thirty-nine in favor of Republicans.