WASHINGTON _ The Supreme Court on Wednesday will take another new look at partisan gerrymandering, this time to review a Democratic scheme to take away one of Maryland's two Republican House seats in Congress.
In 2011, Democrats used their control in Annapolis to redraw the lines of a western district that had been held by a veteran Republican lawmaker. And they did not hide their motives. Then Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, said the intent of the redrawn map was to give Democrats control of seven of the state's eight congressional districts.
Judges who looked at the case described the partisan gerrymandering as "noxious" and "cancerous," but refused nonetheless to strike down the Maryland plan. They noted that the Supreme Court has never ruled that partisan line-drawing violates the Constitution.
It is the most significant question before the high court this year, and apparently, an issue where the justices remain closely split.
In early October, they heard a Wisconsin case, Gill v. Whitford, to decide whether Republicans went too far when they drew a statewide election map that gave the GOP a super-majority in the statehouse in Madison, even when Democrats won more votes across the state. No ruling has been handed down.
In January, the justices put on a hold a ruling that said North Carolina's Republicans violated the Constitution with an election map that gave the GOP a 10-3 advantage in its congressional delegation. Last week, they stood aside after Pennsylvania's high court redrew a state map that had given Republicans a 13-5 grip on its House delegation.
The Maryland case, Benisek v. Lamone, tilts the other way politically, and it may serve as a warning for what could happen in 2020.
That year, when President Donald Trump is expected to seek re-election, "could be a wave election for Democrats," said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center in New York. The Maryland case tells the justices the Democrats "will do the same as the Republicans unless the courts put limits on gerrymandering."
Until now, the court's conservatives have voiced the most reluctance to interfere with election maps drawn by state lawmakers.
Washington lawyer Michael Kimberly, who represents the Republican challengers in Maryland, plans to argue the gerrymandering scheme violates the free speech rights of the voters.
"Our theory is that the government cannot single out people for disfavored treatment because of their voting behavior," he said. In this instance, Republican-leaning voters who had supported the veteran Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett were moved out of the district for that reason. "They set out to dilute their votes," he said of the Democratic leaders who redrew the map. Bartlett was defeated in the next election and a Democrat took the seat.
Maryland's current governor, Larry Hogan, a Republican, joined by former California Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and Gray Davis, a Democrat, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to take strong action.
"The hyper-polarized, hyper-partisan nature of redistricting today reveals the breakdown of the political process in many states," they said.
Hogan said he would like to see a nonpartisan redistricting commission in his state similar to one created in California.
Rulings on both gerrymandering cases are expected by late June.
