Having read the gerrymandering decision, I'll summarize it here and offer some "editorial comments."
The decision was written by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
This case combines two cases.
The first case,
Rucho v Common Cause, is the North Carolina case where redistricting resulted in 10 Republican members of Congress and 3 Democrats even though, statewide,48% of the voters voted Democrat. I'll remind our readers that this was exactly as intended: the gerrymanders openly admitted that they were trying to achieve 10 Republicans as opposed to 3 Democrats.
The other case was
Lamone v Benisek, the case from Maryland where district boundaries were deliberately redrawn to flip one district from Republican to Democrat. Again, the gerrymanders made no secret of their goals.
In both cases, lower courts ruled against the gerrymandering. The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the question on partisan gerrymandering is a political question and therefore not a question that can be considered by the judicial branch. The decisions by the lower courts were overturned.
The Court did point out that some questions about redistricting could be decided by the courts. For example, the Supreme Court ruled that districts must be of equal size under "one man, one vote", and the Court has ruled racial bias in redistricting to be unconstitutional. But this causes some confusion, in my opinion.
The main argument seems to be that the Founders were well aware of the problem of gerrymandering but gave the task of creating districts to the political branches anyway. [Pointing out, as Taq has, that the Founders were unaware of modern computer technology and demographic data would be "second guessing" the Founders intent, which is bad until the conservatives want to claim to be "originalists" and... second-guess the Founders intent.]
[Also, the Founders were also aware of districts that violated "one person, one vote", yet the Court found this a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. What makes partisan gerrymanding different enough that it doesn't violate the Fourteenth Amendment? Roberts doesn't say.]
The second point that Roberts stresses is that it is difficult to determine what a standard of fairness would look like and so a question left to the political branches.
[ Yet the Court has been able to determine when districts violate "racial fairness"; what makes "partisan fairness" more difficult? Roberts doesn't say.]
Roberts also makes the point that the actual behavior of voters don't always follow predictions and can change overtime.
[Which is true, except in the two cases the Court was looking at, the results were exactly what was intended; furthermore, the intent of the North Carolina case is to lock in a long term partisan advantage.]
Finally, Roberts points out that many states have, through the political process, instituted nonpartisan means of drawing districts, and the Elections Clause gives Congress the authority to regulate the process.
[I've only glanced at Kagan 's dissent right now, but I did notice she pretty much questions Roberts' sincerity on this point.]
A few other points:
Roberts likewise dismisses the First Amendment objections to the gerrymandering. I'm not very familiar with this argument, so can't comment on it. Maybe Kagan's dissent will enlighten me.
Also Roberts dismisses the argument based on the "guarantee of a republican form of government clause". I do think this clause should be used more, but I agree there isn't a lot of precedence for its use. Anyway, I also think it's been largely subsumed into the Fourteenth Amendment.
It says something about the qualities of our current president that the best argument anyone has made in his defense is that he didn’t know what he was talking about. -- Paul Krugman
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