The ‘Punt’ That Wasn’t

In a gerrymandering case, the Supreme Court holds plaintiffs to a nearly impossible standard.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to pass judgment on a pair of challenges to partisan gerrymandering. In Gill v. Whitford, the justices held unanimously that the plaintiffs had failed to show that their individual votes had been impaired. “This Court is not responsible for vindicating generalized partisan preferences,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in an opinion all his colleagues joined, which returned the case to a lower court to consider whether the Wisconsin plaintiffs could show their individual votes had been burdened.

This was not the “punt” news outlets suggest. It presses plaintiffs to make a near-impossible showing. The high court has consistently declined to review claims of partisan gerrymandering because other restraints exist, courts have no manageable standard to apply, and gerrymandering is a self-limiting exercise—a party can only add so many supporters to one district before endangering its majority in another.

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