By a vote of 5-4, along ideological lines, the Supreme Court held that partisan gerrymandering—the practice of rigging electoral districts to favor a political party—is beyond the reach of the courts. Chief Justice John Roberts, invoking a longstanding Court doctrine, said that the issue is a “political question” rather than the type of case that courts can decide. The decision is a massive setback for voting-rights activists. Recent maps in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Maryland have been found by political scientists to be so rigged that they determined the majority party in those states’ legislatures. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.”
