Lulac on Partisan Gerrymandering: Some Clarity, More Uncertainty

In League of United Latin American Citizens (“LULAC”) v. Perry, the Supreme Court, for the second time in two years, agonized over partisan gerrymandering. LULAC’s rejection of a Democratic challenge to the Texas legislature’s mid-decade pro-Republican congressional redistricting resembles the Court’s 2004 dismissal of a Democratic gerrymandering suit against Pennsylvania’s pro-Republican congressional redistricting plan in Vieth v. Jubelirer. As in Vieth, the Justices wrangled over justiciability, the substantive standard for assessing the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering claims, and the interplay of justiciability and constitutionality. As in Vieth, the Court was highly fragmented: Vieth produced five separate opinions, while LULAC took that internal division one step further and generated six separate opinions on the partisan gerrymandering issue.

As in Vieth, Justice Kennedy’s was the Court’s decisive voice, but none of the other Justices fully agreed with his disposition of LULAC’s partisan gerrymandering question.