1. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) might try to avoid this case; why do they have to hear it?
2. How can Trump impact the outcome of this case, in the event that it wasn't decided this year?
3. How big do Democrats have to win national elections in order to actually win control of the House?
4. Why has SCOTUS been unwilling to weigh in on partisan gerrymandering before?
5. Why does SCOTUS look bad for intervening in Bush v. Gore?
6. How does the lack of political parties during the writing of the Constitution allow for political parties to take advantage of the current laws in place?
7. Why have judges in the past found it so difficult to come up with a solution for partisan gerrymandering? (They don't like gerrymandering, but don't have a solution; why?)
8. What do the new litigants mean when they use the term "wasted votes"?
9. Why is Wisconsin a particularly good place to try their ideas?
10. If gerrymandering is struck down by SCOTUS, who feels the effects immediately? When would most people feel the effects of the decision?
Answers:
1. "Due to special procedural rules for certain voting rights cases, the Supreme Court must hear this case. Rather than “deny cert” and say nothing, as the Court does with almost all the cases it is asked to review, it must either affirm or reverse the lower court decision. (The Court can “summarily” affirm or reverse, but that’s also why the district court win matters here. The Court is highly likely to give the case a full-blown review given that plaintiffs won below.)"
2. "The odds are that President-Elect Donald Trump will have replaced at least one justice on the left [by then], depriving Justice Kennedy of his swing vote and probably foreclosing any chance of policing partisan gerrymandering during the next redistricting cycle. Today’s Court will be as friendly as any reformers will see for a good long while."
3. "The GOP controlled much of redistricting during the 2010 cycle. It drew itself a set of plans that ensured... that Democrats would have had to win the popular vote by at least 9 percentage points to take control of the House this year... A partisan gerrymandering rule could make all the difference."
4. They do not wish to appear as if they are interfering with Democratically elected leaders the people chose.
5. They were a primarily Republican Court that decided the Republican candidate should win the election.
6. "The Constitution is almost silent about how our democracy is supposed to work... America’s framers didn’t even anticipate that there would be political parties in the first place. As a result, they didn’t think hard about which institutions would referee political battles, let alone how to protect those institutions from partisan taint."
7ai. It's hard to define what is and is not fair.
7aii. Certain groups will and will not be protected, and this is hard for courts to sort out.
7aiii. Getting one thing wrong can screw up an entire election.
7b. "If there’s no way for different judges to apply a rule consistently and predictably to resolve an agreed-upon problem, those disputes are not 'justiciable.'"
8. "The concept of “wasted votes” is crucial to understanding and challenging gerrymandering. If your party is in power, you want its votes deployed efficiently, with sensible but not overwhelming majorities in as many districts as possible. You also want the other party to waste as many votes as possible — either by voting for lost-cause candidates or by widening the margins for candidates who were going to win in any case."
9. "The case isn’t an ideal test case, by any means. Usually gerrymanders involve... outlandishly shaped districts, like the one that gave gerrymandering its name, but Wisconsin’s districts were relatively compact. Moreover, Republicans are now in the majority in Wisconsin, so this is no longer a case where the minority is gerrymandering itself into majority control. But a better case isn’t coming along anytime soon. It may be now or never."
10a. "If the Court were to find partisan gerrymanders justiciable, the immediate effects would only be felt in Wisconsin, which would have to redraw its districts."
10b. "The decision would hang like the sword of Damocles over every single districting effort that takes place after the 2020 census. The mere threat of future lawsuits would do a great deal to tamp down on partisan gerrymandering."
