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Rucho v. Common Cause

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Supreme Court of the United States
Rucho v. Common Cause
Term: 2018-2019
Important Dates
Decided: June 27, 2019
Outcome
Vacated and remanded
Vote
5-4
Majority
Chief Justice John G. Roberts • Clarence Thomas • Samuel Alito • Neil Gorsuch • Brett Kavanaugh
Dissenting
Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Stephen Breyer • Sonia Sotomayor • Elena Kagan

Rucho v. Common Cause is a case that appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States during the court's 2018-2019 term. The judgment under review came from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.[1]

On June 27, 2019, the court issued a joint ruling in this case and Lamone v. Benisek, finding that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. The high court ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts penning the majority opinion, joined by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Associate Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent, joined by Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. The high court remanded the case to the lower court with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. See below for more information.

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The case: On August 5, 2016, Common Cause filed suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, arguing that North Carolina's congressional district plan constituted an illegal partisan gerrymander. On August 22, 2016, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina filed a similar suit in the same court. The two cases were consolidated. On August 27, 2018, a federal district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
  • The issue: The appeal was brought to the U.S. Supreme Court by the defendants, who presented the following questions to the high court: "(1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims. (2) Whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable. (3) Whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander."
  • The outcome: On June 27, 2019, the court ruled 5-4 that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. The high court remanded the case to the lower court with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

    • You can review the lower court's opinion here.

    Timeline

    The following timeline details key events in this case:

    • June 27, 2019: U.S. Supreme Court decision
    • March 26, 2019: Oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court
    • January 4, 2019: U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case
    • October 1, 2018: Jurisdictional statement filed with the U.S. Supreme Court
    • August 27, 2018: United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina struck down the state's congressional district plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander

    Background

    See also: Common Cause v. Rucho

    On August 5, 2016, Common Cause filed suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, arguing that North Carolina's congressional district plan constituted an illegal partisan gerrymander. On August 22, 2016, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina filed a similar suit in the same court. The two cases were consolidated.

    The judgment under review by the United States Supreme Court was delivered on August 27, 2018, when a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina found that North Carolina's congressional district map constituted an illegal partisan gerrymander.[2] The court ruled two-to-three on the matter, with Judges James Wynn and Earl Britt forming the majority. Wynn penned the majority opinion. Judge William Osteen penned an opinion that concurred in part and dissented in part. In the court's majority opinion, Wynn first addressed the question of whether the plaintiffs had established standing to bring a complaint under Article III of the United States Constitution:[3]

    “ [We] conclude that, under the test set forth in Gill, at least one Plaintiff registered to vote in each of the thirteen districts in the 2016 Plan has standing to assert an Equal Protection challenge to each of those districts. In particular, such Plaintiffs introduced evidence establishing that each of their districts is 'packed or cracked' and, as a result, that their votes 'carry less weight than [they] would carry in another, hypothetical district.' We further conclude that Gill did not call into question — and, if anything, supported — this Court's previous determination that Plaintiffs have standing to assert partisan gerrymandering claims under Article I and the First Amendment.[4] ”
    —James Wynn

    Wynn went on to address the specific allegations of illegal partisan gerrymandering on the part of Republican lawmakers (italics in the below quote are present in the original document):[3]

    “ Legislative Defendants drew a plan designed to subordinate the interests of non-Republican voters not because they believe doing so advances any democratic, constitutional, or public interest, but because, as the chief legislative mapdrawer openly acknowledged, the General Assembly's Republican majority 'think[s] electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.' But that is not a choice the Constitution allows legislative mapdrawers to make. Rather, 'those who govern should be the last people to help decide who should govern.' Indeed, 'the core principle of [our] republican government [is] that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.'[4] ”
    —James Wynn

    The court stipulated that no elections taking place after November 6, 2018, could be conducted using the congressional map struck down by the court. The court did not, however, order an immediate remedy (i.e., one applicable to the November 6, 2018, general election) and instead asked the parties to the suit to submit briefs to the court by August 31, 2018, "addressing whether this Court should allow the State to conduct any future elections using the 2016 Plan."[3]

    Rep. David Lewis (R) and Sen. Ralph Hise (R), redistricting committee leaders, announced their intention to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for a stay of the district court's decision: "This order would launch our elections system into mass chaos, and only serve to achieve partisan goals just 10 weeks before the midterm elections. We expect that Judge Wynn's opinion will meet the same fate at the Supreme Court as his failed effort to force a special election on voters last year." House Speaker Tim Moore (R) and Senate President Phil Berger (R) criticized the district court ruling in a joint statement: "What the court suggests is impossible. [We’re] not aware of any other time in the history of our country that a state’s congressional delegation could not be seated, and the result would be unmitigated chaos and irreparable voter confusion."[5]

    Democratic lawmakers and congressional candidates voiced support for the district court's ruling. Dan McCready, a Democratic congressional candidate for the 9th District, said, "Right now, millions of people across North Carolina are not being heard because politicians rigged the system to benefit themselves at the cost of the people they're supposed to represent." House Minority Leader Darren Jackson (D) indicated that he would support conducting a special congressional election after the regularly scheduled general election using a new map: "If it is possible to redraw the districts so we can have constitutional districts for the first time this decade, then I hope the court will do it, even if it means that the General Assembly will have to pay for a December election. Otherwise, the Republicans are rewarded for bad behavior."[5]

    On October 1, 2018, the defendants appealed the district court's decision to the United States Supreme Court, which agreed to take up the case and scheduled oral argument for March 26, 2019.

    Questions presented

    The petitioner presented the following questions to the court:[6]

    Questions presented:
         		1. Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims. 2. Whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable. 3. Whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

    Outcome

    On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court issued a joint ruling in this case and Lamone v. Benisek, finding that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that fall beyond the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. The high court ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts penning the majority opinion, joined by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Associate Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent, joined by Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. The high court remanded the case to the lower court with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.[7]

    Opinion

    Chief Justice John Roberts penned the majority opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. In the court's opinion, Roberts noted that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, "aware of electoral districting problems … [assigned] the issue to the state legislatures, expressly checked and balanced by the Federal Congress, with no suggestion that the federal courts had a role to play." He went on to say, "To hold that legislators cannot take their partisan interests into account when drawing district lines would essentially countermand the Framers' decision to entrust districting to political entities."[7]

    Roberts went on to address the assumptions underlying partisan gerrymandering claims:[7]

    “ Partisan gerrymandering claims rest on an instinct that groups with a certain level of political support should enjoy a commensurate level of political power and influence. Explicitly or implicitly, a districting map is alleged to be unconstitutional because it makes it too difficult for one party to translate statewide support into seats in the legislature. But such a claim is based on a 'norm that does not exist' in our electoral system—'statewide elections for representatives along party lines'. ... [Federal] courts are not equipped to apportion political power as a matter of fairness, nor is there any basis for concluding that they were authorized to do so.[4] ”

    Regarding various tests proposed to assess such claims, Roberts said that none "meets the need for a limited and precise standard that is judicially discernible and manageable. And none provides a solid grounding for judges to take the extraordinary step of reallocating political power and influence between political parties."[7]

    Dissenting opinion

    Justice Elena Kagan penned a dissent, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan wrote the following in her dissent:[7]

    “ The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives. In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.[4] ”

    Kagan went on to dispute the majority's assessment of manageable standards for evaluating claims: "The majority’s abdication comes just when courts across the country, including those below, have coalesced around manageable judicial standards to resolve partisan gerrymandering claims. Those standards satisfy the majority’s own benchmarks. They do not require—indeed, they do not permit—courts to rely on their own ideas of electoral fairness, whether proportional representation or any other. And they limit courts to correcting only egregious gerrymanders, so judges do not become omnipresent players in the political process."[7]

    Text of the opinion

    Read the full opinion here.

    Audio

    • Audio of oral argument:[8]

    Transcript

    • Transcript of oral argument:[9]

    See also

    External links

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "Rucho v. Common Cause," accessed January 28, 2019
    2. ↑ For information on legal developments between 2016 and 2018, see this article.
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, "Common Cause v. Rucho: Memorandum Opinion," August 27, 2018
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Washington Post, "Warning of ‘unmitigated chaos,’ N.C. Republicans plan to take gerrymander ruling to Supreme Court," August 28, 2018
    6. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Rucho v. Common Cause: Jurisdictional Statement," October 1, 2018
    7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Supreme Court of the United States, "Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek: Opinion of the Court," June 27, 2019
    8. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Rucho v. Common Cause," argued March 26, 2019
    9. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Rucho v. Common Cause, argued March 26, 2019
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