The court this term went in different directions on the two sorts of gerrymandering. It may have finally closed out its long history of fiddling around the matter of "partisan gerrymandering," by deciding that it doesn't possess and cannot fashion the tools to deal with that. I'm reminded somewhat of the "shopping malls as public forums" cases in the 1960s and into the '70s. The idea was that malls, though privately owned, were functionally public places, so people have first amendment rights there. Even the Warren Court was hesitant about this, but the hesitancy seemed to make the subject cutting edge/intellectually stimulating. Eventually, though, the Burger court decided the idea had been a bad one, and backed far away. The Roberts court has now done much the same with partisan gerrymandering in Rucho v. Common Cause. But a couple of weeks earlier, the court had decided Virginia House of Delegates v Bethune, a case that seems to indicate ...
