How to fight gerrymandering when the supreme court is stacked against reform
Why maps are hard to change
Politically driven redistricting has reduced the number of competitive congressional races. Many voters live in districts where their preferred party is unlikely to win, while lawmakers may resist reforms that could threaten their own seats.
A bill intended to curb gerrymandering passed the House when Democrats last controlled it but did not clear the Senate. The article says Democrats could soon control both chambers, depending on the polls and future political developments.
Congress faces a hostile court
The article argues that effective congressional redistricting reform will need to come from Congress, rather than individual states. California and Virginia adopted constitutional amendments meant to restrict gerrymandering, but Democrats are now seeking ways around those limits to respond to Republican maps in red states.
The Supreme Court poses a major obstacle. In Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), the Court ruled that federal courts cannot hear claims that a map was drawn to benefit one political party. The article also says the Court’s 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais weakened longstanding safeguards against racial gerrymandering.
Designing a law to survive
The article says the Constitution gives Congress broad authority over how states draw congressional maps. But it warns that a Republican-majority Court could still reject a voting rights law, and that no wording can guarantee a law will survive review.
To reduce that risk, reformers should consider the Court’s earlier decisions on race and election law. The article identifies a possible drafting pitfall: explicitly mentioning race or making racial distinctions in an anti-gerrymandering law.
Voting rights and mapmaking
The Voting Rights Act had provided strong protections against some forms of gerrymandering, according to the article. A 1982 amendment limited certain racially polarized states from drawing maps that maximized white political power.
The article says those protections also restricted partisan gerrymandering in some places, because requiring more Black-majority districts could affect how maps were drawn. The provided text ends before explaining the full effect or the proposed alternative.
Key points
- Partisan gerrymandering has reduced competitive congressional seats and left many voters with little chance of electing their preferred party.
- Democrats could gain control of Congress, but a federal reform would face a Supreme Court skeptical of challenges to partisan maps.
- The article argues that Congress, rather than states, must lead an effort to reform congressional redistricting.
- Careful drafting that accounts for the Court’s decisions may improve a reform law’s chances of surviving judicial review.