The wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on partisan gerrymandering will be over tomorrow.
Chief Justice John Roberts announced Wednesday the high court’s final five opinions would come down at 10 a.m. Thursday — they include the highly anticipated North Carolina sibling cases on partisan gerrymandering (are political considerations in the redistricting process ever unconstitutional?) and the case on the legality of the 2020 Census citizenship question.
Both are cases that affect the state and have potential to affect the entire nation, but the latter became a little more complicated after new evidence of racial intent was brought to light from the Hofeller files — documents that GOP renowned mapmaker Thomas Hofeller’s daughter turned over after his death to the plaintiffs in a state partisan gerrymandering case.
The sibling cases are Rucho v. Common Cause and Rucho v. League of Women Voters; the citizenship case is Commerce Department v. New York. The other cases the court is expected to rule on are Benisek v. Lamone, the Maryland partisan gerrymandering case, Mitchell v. Wisconsin and Carpenter v. Murphy.
There have been 64 opinions from the high court this term, many of which have included interesting lineups. Kimberly Robinson, of Bloomberg Law, reported on Twitter this morning that every Republican-appointed justice on the court has crossed over this term to give Democratic-appointed justices a win in closely-divided cases.
Every Republican-appointed Justice has crossed over this term to give the Democratic-appointees a win in closely divided cases, including–FOR THE FIRST TIME–Justice Alito in Gundy v. United States. https://t.co/FtAeG8R60Y
— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) June 26, 2019
Stay tuned Thursday morning for the final Supreme Court opinions this term. Follow reporter Melissa Boughton on Twitter for live updates as the opinions are announced.
