The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped two major cases concerning partisan gerrymandering in Maryland and Wisconsin, allowing challenged maps in two states to stand for now. </s> WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that had ordered Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections after finding that the current districts were designed to illegally diminish the power of Democratic voters.

The justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to stay those decisions. The lower courts found that the electoral maps had been drawn to entrench the majority party in power, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that had ordered Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections after finding that the current districts were designed to illegally diminish the power of Democratic voters.

The justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to stay those decisions. The lower courts found that the electoral maps had been drawn to entrench the majority party in power, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

While both disputes involve U.S. House of Representatives districts in the two states, the Michigan case also challenges districts in the state legislature as well.

The decisions in Michigan and Ohio that were put on hold by the justices were the latest rulings by federal courts determining that electoral maps designed by a state’s majority party unconstitutionally undermined the rights of voters who tend to support the other party.

Two other gerrymandering challenges are already pending at the Supreme Court, with rulings due by the end of June. In one case, Republican legislators in North Carolina are accused of rigging congressional maps to boost their party’s chances in that state. In the other case, Democratic lawmakers in Maryland face similar allegations over one U.S. House district. </s> WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday blocked rulings from federal courts in Ohio and Michigan that had struck down voting maps in those states as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. Both courts had found that Republican legislators had violated the Constitution by drawing voting districts to hurt the electoral chances of Democratic candidates.

The Supreme Court’s move was expected. The justices will soon decide, in a second pair of cases, whether voting maps can ever be so warped by politics as to cross a constitutional line. The answer to that question, in pending cases from Maryland and North Carolina, will very likely affect the cases from Ohio and Michigan.

Friday’s orders were brief, gave no reasons and did not indicate that any justice had dissented.

In the Ohio case, a three-judge panel of a Federal District Court found that Republican state legislators had drawn maps that allowed their party’s candidates to gain an outsize partisan advantage in elections. Ohio is a swing state in which presidential and statewide elections can be close. But the state’s congressional maps, in effect since 2012, have consistently yielded delegations of 12 Republicans and four Democrats.

The panel ordered new maps to be drawn for the 2020 election, a ruling that the Supreme Court has now put on hold. </s> The Supreme Court on Friday set aside two lower court rulings tossing out congressional maps in Michigan and Ohio, putting the process of redrawing district lines on hold while it prepares to rule on whether or not partisan gerrymandering is constitutional.

Republicans in both Midwestern states had appealed lower-court rulings that their congressional maps had been drawn so egregiously to favor the GOP that they violated the constitutional rights of voters. The Supreme Court already heard arguments in partisan gerrymandering cases from Maryland and North Carolina — and the high court is expected to render a decision next month that could decide what happens in Michigan and Ohio as well.

In both Michigan and Ohio, Republicans drew voting maps after the 2010 census and largely achieved their goal of locking in the gains they had made in the 2010 elections. But the lower courts had ruled that they had violated the 1st and 14th Amendment rights of voters by drawing districts to achieve certain political outcomes.

Despite its history as a swing state, Republicans currently hold 13 of the 18 congressional seats in Ohio. In Michigan, Democrats now hold seven of the state’s 14 seats, after flipping two Republican-held seats in the 2018 midterm elections.

The twin orders on Friday afternoon included no dissents, though a majority is required for the justices to grant a stay of a lower-court ruling. GOP-led legislatures in both states had anticipated the Supreme Court action and had made few moves toward redrawing their congressional maps thus far.

The high court heard partisan gerrymandering cases in its previous term as well, in 2017 and 2018. But a year ago, the court issued a limited ruling that largely left the issue undecided and opened the door for lower courts to enforce limits on partisan gerrymandering. Since then, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative who doesn’t have a record on the issue thus far. </s> The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that invalidated, as partisan gerrymanders, Ohio’s map for congressional districts and Michigan’s maps for congressional and state legislative districts.

The high court's orders put on hold efforts in both states to redraw their electoral maps ahead of the 2020 elections, a remedy ordered by the lower courts.

In the Ohio case, a three-judge panel ruled unanimously earlier this month that the district map drawn up by the Republican-controlled legislature unconstitutionally discriminated against Democrats. "We are convinced by the evidence that this partisan gerrymander was intentional," the ruling said.

The Michigan ruling in April had found that the votes of Democrats were unconstitutionally diluted.

Ohio lawmakers had been ordered to draw new districts by June 14, and Michigan lawmakers had been ordered to do so by August 1.

The justices did not rule on the merits of the cases in its Friday order. The Supreme Court is currently considering two other gerrymandering cases in North Carolina and Maryland. In March, the justices heard challenges to congressional redistricting plans that locked in an advantage for Republicans in North Carolina and that gave an extra seat to Democrats in Maryland.

Decisions in those cases are expected by late June. </s> The Supreme Court agreed Friday to put on hold partisan gerrymandering cases from Ohio and Michigan, temporarily sparing Republican lawmakers in those states of the need to redraw congressional districts by the summer.

The high court’s emergency order came as no surprise. The justices are weighing partisan gerrymandering cases from North Carolina and Maryland, and are expected to hand down rulings by the end of June. At issue is whether state lawmakers violate the Constitution if they drew an electoral map to entrench their party in power.

That ruling will determine what happens in Ohio and Michigan as well.

Federal judges in Ohio and Michigan had ordered the two states to begin immediate work on redrawing their electoral maps, but the Supreme Court suspended those rulings in a pair of brief orders. There were no dissents from the justices.

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The court’s conservatives, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., have been skeptical of authorizing judges to decide whether politics played too much of a role in drawing election districts.

But three-judge panels in Ohio and in Michigan chose to address the issue head on this spring, and they struck down the GOP maps in those states on the grounds they were drawn to ensure Republicans would win a large majority of the seats.

In Ohio, Republicans regularly won 12 of the state’s 16 congressional seats, even when the voters were evenly divided between the parties.

In a May 3 ruling, the judges in the Ohio case issued a 301-page opinion and said Republican leaders “manipulated district lines in an attempt to control electoral outcomes.” In doing so, the GOP leaders violated the 1st Amendment by discriminating against voters based on their political views, the ruling said. A separate three-judge panel said the same about Michigan’s election map, which helped the GOP win nine of 14 seats.

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The skewed maps worked as planned last year in Ohio and North Carolina, despite a Democratic wave in the November elections. None of the congressional seats switched parties in those two states, although one North Carolina race has yet to be resolved.

To the surprise of the lawyers representing Ohio and Michigan, the judges refused to put their rulings on hold pending the outcome of the case in the high court. Ohio lawmakers were given a deadline of June 14, and Michigan’s were told they must have a new map by August.

The lawyers for both states filed emergency appeals with the Supreme Court on May 10, urging the justices to put their cases on hold pending the rulings on partisan gerrymandering.

More stories from David G. Savage » </s> The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked lower court rulings that invalidated, as partisan gerrymanders, Ohio’s map for congressional districts and Michigan’s maps for congressional and state legislative districts.

The high court's orders put on hold efforts in both states to redraw their electoral maps ahead of the 2020 elections, a remedy ordered by the lower courts.

In the Ohio case, a three-judge panel ruled unanimously earlier this month that the district map draw up by the Republican-controlled legislature unconstitutionally discriminated against Democrats. "We are convinced by the evidence that this partisan gerrymander was intentional," the ruling said. </s> The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a decision on when partisan gerrymandering goes too far, ruling against the challengers of a Republican-drawn map in Wisconsin and a Democratic redistricting in Maryland.

The decisions in the separate cases once again puts off a decision on when courts can find that partisan efforts to keep parties in power goes so far as to be unconstitutional.

It was a technical resolution of what has seemed to hold the promise of being a landmark decision about whether extreme efforts to give one party advantage over another were unconstitutional.

While the court routinely polices the drawing of electoral maps to combat racial gerrymandering, it has never found that partisan eforts went too far. It has never settled on a test that judges could use to determine how much politics was too much.

There is a pending challenge of North Carolina’s redistricting efforts that could provide another case for the justices to consider the issue.

[Even on second look, Supreme Court seems stumped on gerrymandering issue]

In the Wisconsin case, the court said that the challenges must be brought district by district, with voters in each proving that their rights had been violated. The challengers asked the court to consider the state map as a whole.

The Maryland case was still at a preliminary stage, and the court in an unsigned opinion said the lower court had not been wrong when it decided not to make the state redraw the maps in time for the 2018 election.

As a practical matter, the two decisions mean that Wisconsin’s legislative map, which challengers said overwhelmingly favored Republicans, will remain intact for the fall elections. Likewise, Maryland will not have to change its congressional maps, which favor Democrats. The incumbent in the challenged district is not running for reelection.

“Today’s decision is yet another delay in providing voters with the power they deserve in our democracy,” said Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States. “Partisan gerrymandering is distorting and undermining our representative democracy, giving politicians the power to choose their voters, instead of giving voters the power to choose their politicians. We are disappointed that the Court failed to set a standard when it comes to partisan gerrymandering.”

Maryland Democratic leaders set out in 2011 to redraw the state’s congressional districts to boost the likelihood that the party’s 6-to-2 edge in the delegation became 7 to 1.

Democratic former governor Martin O’Malley was frank about the effort in a deposition in the case.

“As the elected governor, I did my duty within the metes and bounds” of Maryland law that set up redistricting as a partisan exercise, O’Malley said. He added that if the reconfigured district “would be more likely to elect a Democrat than a Republican, yes, this was clearly my intent.”

O’Malley also now says he believes redistricting should be done by an independent commission rather than by legislators.

The Democrats targeted longtime Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who had been reelected in 2010 by a 28-percentage-point margin, but lost to a Democrat in the redrawn district in 2012 by 21 points.
The United States Supreme Court sidesteps two major partisan gerrymandering cases, allowing challenged voter redistricting maps to be used in this year's midterms.