Partisan gerrymandering

When North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders have seen their work struck down in court as unconstitutional — as they have many times — they have frequently responded by attacking the judge or judges as partisan hacks.

That approach won’t work if the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court surprises the nation by throwing out the congressional district map that N.C. legislators explicitly drew to elect as many Republicans as possible.

The court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to the North Carolina map, as well as one to a Maryland congressional district. That was big news, because while the court has addressed racial gerrymandering, it has never ruled on whether partisan gerrymandering can be unconstitutional. In taking these cases, the court could for the first time establish whether crafting districts to help one party over the other is permissible.

Despite the odds, we and most N.C. voters hope the court does away with the practice or severely limits it. North Carolina’s leaders acknowledge that they drew the lines to ensure that 10 Republicans were elected to the state’s 13 congressional seats. Rep. David Lewis said they did so “because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

Such an approach is the height of hubris and an insult to voters, whichever party is in charge. It essentially robs millions of voters of their voice, since the outcome is preordained.

In a more narrow legal sense, it also could violate the First Amendment right to association, as now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy argued in 2004.