Partisan gerrymandering does which of the following

Dorsey and Burns v. Burns , involving the reapportionment of the Hawaii Senate, also was the case in which the Supreme Court first essentially ruled that incumbent protection was allowable in a redistricting plan. Clearly, however, the Court was not ready to allow partisan issues to overrule the basic one person, one vote principle. In a case, Kirkpatrick v. In Gafney v. Cummings in , the Supreme Court indirectly considered a partisan gerrymander of Connecticut legislative districts.

This decision begged the question of state plans that do minimize or eliminate party strength. By the early s, principles established in the long history of redistricting cases were being considered in the context of partisan gerrymandering. The Bandemer trial court panel held that partisan gerrymandering had taken place and that the Indiana Republican legislators had impermissibly discriminated against the Indiana Democrats in the drawing of legislative district lines.

A congressional district equal population case, Karcher v. The Bandemer trial court also called upon the discriminatory purpose test used for racial vote dilution in City of Mobile v. Davis v. Justices Powell and Stevens dissented, believing that an impermissible partisan gerrymander was proven.

The ruling in Gaffney allowing proportional representation of seats was offhandedly reaffirmed by the plurality, but the Court made it clear that the U. Constitution did not require such an arrangement.

The Court noted that its reasoning rested in part on its perception that political influence is not limited to winning elections. Although agreeing with the lower court that the claim was a statewide one, the plurality spoke to individual districts as well as to the entire state. The same standard is applied in both instances. In both contexts, the question is whether a particular group has been unconstitutionally denied its chance to effectively influence the political process.

In a challenge to an individual district, this inquiry focuses on the opportunity of members of the group to participate in party deliberations in the slating and nomination of candidates, their opportunity to register and vote, and hence their chance to directly influence the election returns and to secure the attention of the winning candidate.

Center for American Progress. Once a decade, every state redraws its electoral districts, determining which people will be represented by each politician. In many states, this means that politicians gather behind computer screens to figure out how they can manipulate the lines to box out their competition and maximize the power of their political party. While an increasing number of states employ independent commissions to draw district lines, the large majority still lack safeguards to prevent partisan favoritism in the redistricting process—also known as partisan gerrymandering.

It has been almost a decade since the cycle of redistricting, and the country is still reckoning with the impact. Last May, the Center for American Progress published a report that found that unfairly drawn congressional districts shifted, on average, a whopping 59 seats in the U. House of Representatives during the , , and elections. That means that every other November, 59 politicians that would not have been elected based on statewide voter support for their party won anyway because the lines were drawn in their favor—often by their allies in the Republican or Democratic Party.

Legislative Investigation Comm. In striking down state laws targeting the NAACP under the First Amendment freedom of association, the Court drew a connection between associational privacy and viable outsider political activities.

Close One such action was litigation in the courts. The Supreme Court struck down the law and, in the process, established constitutional protections for associational expression. The Court construed solicitation for litigation to be a form of expression protected under the First Amendment.

The Court recognized expression through litigation as the only tool that many political outsiders like the NAACP had to advance their goals. The goal of political and societal inclusiveness for associations continued to serve as a guide when the Court started to review challenges to ballot access restrictions under the First Amendment.

In a series of cases beginning in the late s, political outsiders to the entrenched two-party system challenged state ballot access requirements imposed on third parties and other outsider candidates. Rhodes, U. Carter, U.

Celebrezze, U. As the Warren Court shifted to the more conservative-leaning Burger Court, the justices turned their attention from political outsiders to political insiders. Pontikes, U. Close That universalist declaration laid the foundation for the Court to extend the freedom of association mandate to political insiders.

In a series of First Amendment cases that followed, the Court struck down state political patronage practices that resulted in the firing or refusal to promote public employees because of their affiliation with the party out of power. Individuals faced with the choice of maintaining their party affiliation or losing their job, the Court explained, will often have to sacrifice their political beliefs and associational freedom. Burns, U. As the Court shifted toward protecting political insiders in the political patronage cases, it continued to emphasize the democratic structural goal of a competitive political process.

As the Court detailed in its opinion in the foundational political patronage case of Elrod v. Conditioning public employment on partisan support prevents support of competing political interests. Existing employees are deterred from such support, as well as the multitude seeking jobs.

As government employment. Close But rather than competition between political outsiders and insiders, the Court in the political patronage cases suggested that competition between political insiders was a constitutional value entitled to protection as well.

In these cases, the Court extended the freedom of association to the political parties themselves. Republican Party of Conn. Democratic Party v. Jones, U. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follete, U. As the Court shifted focus from political outsiders to political insiders in the political patronage and party primary cases, it opened the door to the freedom of association claim that has emerged in the current partisan gerrymandering controversies.

In its opinion in Davis v. Close But the brief nonetheless provided an associational model of constitutional protection potentially applicable to partisan gerrymanders.

It cannot enact laws designed to petrify the political process or skew the fairness of the electoral competition. Close The lack of competition infringes on the right of members of the minority party in uncompetitive districts to associate with like-minded voters to advance their political goals because their vote is rendered ineffective in a district where they have no opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.

Bandemer , a First Amendment freedom of association claim reappeared in the context of the next partisan gerrymandering controversy to reach the Supreme Court. In briefs submitted to the Court in Vieth v. Jubelirer , 89 89 U. Close a case challenging a statewide map in Pennsylvania, remnants of the electoral competition claim of associational freedom lingered, but a new model of constitutional protection against gerrymandering also emerged and found a supporter on the Court. In their brief challenging the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania partisan gerrymander, the appellants in Vieth v.

Jubelirer advanced a First Amendment claim as an alternative to the equal protection claim against the statewide map. Dixon, Jr. Whereas the ACLU and ICLU seemed to argue that partisan gerrymandering ran afoul of the goal of fair competition of voter ideas in the electoral space, the appellants in Vieth appeared to emphasize the goal of more equitable representation in the legislative space to advance the fair competition of ideas and policy preferences between elected representatives.

This model of associational freedom found an audience with Justice Kennedy, who authored the pivotal concurrence in Vieth. Close The Court, following the directions of Congress, found violations of representational rights when the state deprived members of racial minority groups of a fair opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.

Voting Rights Act of , 42 U. In the seminal case interpreting section 2, the Court established a legal standard subjecting state and political subdivisions to liability when they deprived geographically compact, politically cohesive racial communities of an opportunity to elect their preferred candidate in contexts of racially polarized voting.

See Thornburg v. Gingles, U. Close In the context of judicial application of the VRA, this remedy was often to provide the proportionate opportunity to elect representatives statewide from the statutorily protected group by requiring the state to construct a proportionate number of districts that were majority minority.

See Reynolds v. Sims, U. While equally apportioned legislative districts were necessary to satisfy the equal protection standard, they were not sufficient.

In cases immediately following the establishment of one person, one vote, the Court in its review of the constitutionality of multimember districts said that properly apportioned multimember districts could still run afoul of the Constitution.

In the multimember districting cases that followed, the Court rejected constitutional challenges that focused on the representational harms to minorities from such districts and accepted constitutional challenges that focused on the participatory harms to minorities perpetuated by such districts in contexts of participatory inequality. Compare Mobile v.

Bolden, U. Lodge, U. Regester, U. On the record before us, we are not inclined to overturn these findings. See Davis v. Close So long as candidates are forced by the electoral context to consider the interests of voters and potential voters in their campaign and when governing, the participatory right has been protected. A: In many states, the state legislature is responsible for drawing new districts, subject to the approval or veto of the governor.

But some states have entrusted redistricting to special commissions composed of citizens or a bipartisan panel of politicians. Constitution requires that each district have about the same number of people. The federal Voting Rights Act also requires that district boundaries allow minority voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. Some states have adopted additional criteria, such as requiring districts to encompass compact, contiguous areas or to keep counties, cities and communities of interest together whenever possible.

A: Gerrymandering occurs when district lines are drawn to give an advantage to a political party or group of people. One common method is for a majority party to pack voters who support the opposing party into a few districts, allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts.

A: The term dates to , when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redrawing state Senate districts to benefit the Democratic-Republican Party. Some thought an oddly shaped district looked a salamander.