ELECTIONS/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday [6-18-18] dealt a setback to election reformers by declining to use high-profile cases from Wisconsin and Maryland to curb the ability of state lawmakers to draw electoral districts purely for partisan advantage. Sidestepping major rulings, the nine justices decided both cases on narrow legal grounds and put off perhaps until their next term, which begins in October, a more definitive ruling on whether courts can step in to limit the contentious practice known as partisan gerrymandering. In the Wisconsin case, the court ruled 9-0 in favor of Republican legislators who drew state electoral districts that helped entrench their party in power, throwing out a lower court ruling that the map had deprived Democratic voters of their constitutional rights including equal protection under the law…Election reformers in both parties had hoped the justices would rein in the intensified use of partisan gerrymandering, a practice in which the party that controls a state legislature uses the process of redrawing electoral districts after the U.S. census every decade to tighten its grip on power by diluting the influence of voters who tend to support the rival party. Opponents have said partisan gerrymandering has begun to warp American democracy by muffling large segments of the electorate. Democrats in particular have accused Republicans of escalating partisan gerrymandering this decade, helping President Donald Trump’s party maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures.”
-Andrew Chung, Lawrence Hurley, “Supreme Court sidesteps major rulings on electoral map manipulation,” Reuters, June 18, 2018 7:32 am