The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that federal courts may not block gerrymandering in a 5-4 decision that fell along partisan lines. The court also decided that the Trump administration cannot add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, effectively blocking the addition of the question for now.
On the final day of decisions before the court's summer recess, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinions of the court in both cases.
"We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts," Roberts wrote in the redistricting case. He said those asking the top court to block gerrymandered districts effectively sought "an unprecedented expansion of judicial power."
"Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions," he wrote.
The court's decision prompted a fierce dissent from its liberal wing. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
"Of all times to abandon the Court's duty to declare the law, this was not the one," Kagan wrote. "The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court's role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections."
In the census case, Roberts challenged the administration's reasoning for adding the citizenship question and ordered the case to be reconsidered by a lower court. The court's four liberals joined him in holding that the administration's justification for adding the question was effectively a pretext.
Roberts wrote that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' explanation for adding the question was "contrived."
"We do not hold that the agency decision here was substantively invalid," Roberts wrote. "But agencies must pursue their goals reasonably. Reasoned decisionmaking under the Administrative Procedure Act calls for an explanation for agency action. What was provided here was more of a distraction."
The Census Bureau has said Monday is the deadline for printing the forms, raising questions about whether the government will be able to add the question even if it ultimately prevails.
Gerrymandering has largely benefited Republicans in recent years because of the 2010 midterm wave that handed the party control of numerous statehouses across the country. Districts are drawn nationwide every 10 years. The next redistricting is scheduled to take place after the 2020 census.
The justices considered two cases, out of North Carolina and Maryland, in which voters alleged that their congressional districts were unfairly drawn to benefit one political party. The top court had never declared a district map as too partisan. During arguments in March, the conservatives seemed reluctant to weigh in on the matter.
"For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities," Kagan wrote.
The two cases came from North Carolina and Maryland. In North Carolina, Democratic voters alleged that a map drawn by the GOP legislature in 2016 unfairly benefited Republicans.
In Maryland, it was Republicans who challenged the map, saying that one congressional district drawn in 2011 was unfairly tilted in favor of the Democrats.
In both cases, those behind the maps admitted that they were drawn to benefit their party.
The cases are known as Lamone v. Benisek, No. 18-726, and Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422.
