[EL] Partisan gerrymandering and state courts: discover your inner Federalist!

[Wang, Samuel S.]

Dear Law-election Digest colleagues:


The Supreme Court decisions in Rucho v. Common Cause and Benisek v. Lamone are a severe disappointment, of course. But they left a second avenue wide open, and even invited it: state courts.


In a forthcoming article in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, my colleagues Rick Ober, Ben Williams, and I review the provisions for bringing such a lawsuit in all fifty states: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3335622


In this article, we catalogue provisions that resemble the First-Amendment-like freedoms of association, Fourteenth-Amendment-like equal protections, and other protections such as "free and fair elections" clauses. Overall, we see many promising avenues. In addition, we review close to a hundred cases in which state laws or constitutions were used to force the redrawing of district lines. So there is ample precedent for taking a federalist path.


Warm regards,

Sam


>>>

Samuel S.-H. Wang, Ph.D.

Professor, Neuroscience Institute

Director, Gerrymandering Project

Princeton University

Princeton, NJ 08544



Neuroscience: synapse.princeton.edu

Elections: election.princeton.edu

Redistricting: gerrymander.princeton.edu


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