In United States constitutional law, the political question doctrine holds that a constitutional dispute that requires knowledge of a non-legal character or the use of techniques not suitable for a court or explicitly assigned by the Constitution to the U.S. Congress, or the President of the United States, lies within the political, rather than the legal, realm to solve, and judges customarily refuse to address such matters. The idea of a political question is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has authority to hear and decide a legal question, not a political question. Legal questions are deemed to be justiciable, while political questions are nonjusticiable. One scholar explained:
The political question doctrine holds that some questions, in their nature, are fundamentally political, and not legal, and if a question is fundamentally political ... then the court will refuse to hear that case. It will claim that it doesn't have jurisdiction. And it will leave that question to some other aspect of the political process to settle out.
Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that districts in the United States House of Representatives must be approximately equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), it was part of a series of Warren Court cases that applied the principle of "one person, one vote" to U.S. legislative bodies.
Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541 (1999), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding North Carolina's 12th congressional district. In an earlier case, Shaw v. Reno, 517 U.S. 899 (1995), the Supreme Court ruled that the 12th district of North Carolina as drawn was unconstitutional because it was created for the purpose of placing African Americans in one district, thereby constituting illegal racial gerrymandering. The Court ordered the state of North Carolina to redraw the boundaries of the district.
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that redistricting qualifies as a justiciable question under the Fourteenth Amendment, thus enabling federal courts to hear Fourteenth Amendment-based redistricting cases. The court summarized its Baker holding in a later decision as follows: "Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the authority of a State Legislature in designing the geographical districts from which representatives are chosen either for the State Legislature or for the Federal House of Representatives.". The court had previously held in Gomillion v. Lightfoot that districting claims over racial discrimination could be brought under the Fifteenth Amendment.
Redistricting in the United States is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. A congressional act enacted in 1967 requires that representatives be elected from single-member districts, except when a state has a single representative, in which case one state-wide at-large election be held.
The 2003 Texas redistricting refers to a controversial mid-decade state plan that defined new Congressional districts. In the 2004 elections, this redistricting supported the Republicans taking a majority of Texas's House seats for the first time since Reconstruction. Opponents challenged the plan in three suits, combined when the case went to the United States Supreme Court in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006).
League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court ruled that only District 23 of the 2003 Texas redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act. The Court refused to throw out the entire plan, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to state a sufficient claim of partisan gerrymandering.
Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court ruling that was significant in the area of partisan redistricting and political gerrymandering. The court, in a plurality opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas, with Justice Anthony Kennedy concurring in the judgment, upheld the ruling of the District Court in favor of the appellees that the alleged political gerrymandering was not unconstitutional.
Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous Court found that "the legacy of official discrimination ... acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability of ... cohesive groups of black voters to participate equally in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice." The ruling invalidated districts of the North Carolina General Assembly and led to more single-member districts in state legislatures.
Davis v. Mann, 377 U.S. 678 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court which was one of a series of cases decided in 1964 that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population.
Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725 (1983), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the legality of redistricting, and possibly gerrymandering, in the state of New Jersey.
Gerrymandering in the United States has been used to increase the power of a political party. Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies, often resulting in districts with convoluted, winding boundaries rather than compact areas. The term "gerrymandering" was coined by a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry that was named because one of the districts looked like a salamander.
Wittman v. Personhuballah, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the appellants lacked standing under Article III of the United States Constitution to pursue their appeal. The case dealt with redistricting by the Virginia Legislature of Virginia's 3rd congressional district and allegations of gerrymandering based upon race. The appeal was brought by Congressmen David Brat, Randy Forbes, and Rob Wittman.
Gill v. Whitford, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering. Other forms of gerrymandering based on racial or ethnic grounds have been deemed unconstitutional, and while the Supreme Court has identified that extreme partisan gerrymandering can also be unconstitutional, the Court has not agreed on how this can be defined, leaving the question to lower courts to decide.
Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court evaluated whether Virginia's legislature – the Virginia General Assembly – violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by considering racial demographics when drawing the boundaries of twelve of the state's legislative districts.
Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735 (1973), is a Supreme Court decision upholding statewide legislative apportionment plans for Connecticut. The Court admitted that these plans entailed "substantial inequalities in the population of the representative districts." It observed that "the States have made virtually no attempt to justify their failure 'to construct districts ... as nearly of equal population as is practicable." It was a Fourteenth Amendment case. At issue was whether the election districts had been gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Benisek v. Lamone, 585 U.S. ____ (2018), and Lamone v. Benisek, 588 U.S. ____ (2019), were cases before the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with the topic of partisan gerrymandering arising from the 2011 Democratic party-favored redistricting of Maryland. At the center of the cases was Maryland's 6th district which historically favored Republicans and which was redrawn in 2011 to shift the political majority to become Democratic via vote dilution. Affected voters filed suit, stating that the redistricting violated their right of representation under Article One, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution and freedom of association of the First Amendment.
Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court concerning partisan gerrymandering. The Court ruled that while partisan gerrymandering may be "incompatible with democratic principles", the federal courts cannot review such allegations, as they present nonjusticiable political questions outside the remit of these courts.
Redistricting in North Carolina has been a controversial topic due to allegations and admissions of gerrymandering.
Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court on March 18, 2019, in which the Virginia House of Delegates appealed against the decision in 2018 by the district court that 11 of Virginia's voting districts were racially gerrymandered, and thus unconstitutional. The Court held the "Virginia House of Delegates lacks standing to file this appeal, either representing the state's interests or in its own right." In other words, the court upheld the decision made by a federal district court ruling in June 2018 that 11 state legislative districts were an illegal racial gerrymander. This was following a previous (2017) case, Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections.
