Buried in SCOTUS's upcoming assignments is an ominous sign for gerrymandering opponents
It's beginning to look like Chief Justice John Roberts will write the opinion in an important election law case; if so, woe betide.
IAN MILLHISER MAY 21, 2018, 1:35 PM
Last October, when the Supreme Court heard a landmark challenge to Wisconsin’s gerrymandered state assembly maps, there appeared to be a real danger that the state’s lawmakers would soon have to compete in a free and fair election. More than half a year later, the fate of partisan gerrymandering appears even more uncertain — and the Court just gave a new sign that such gerrymandering may yet survive.
The Court ordinarily tries to distribute work equitably among its members. If it hears nine cases in a particular month, each member of the Court will typically be assigned one majority opinion from among those nine — rather than having some justices write two opinions and some write none. For this reason, it is often possible to predict which justice will write a particular case based on who has not yet written a decision from a particular month.
Which brings us to the chart on the left, which comes to us from SCOTUSBlog.
Before Monday morning, every member of the Court but two — Chief Justice John Roberts and Neil Gorusch, who occupies the seat Senate Republicans held open for a year until Donald Trump could fill it — handed down one opinion from the Court’s October sitting. Then, on Monday, Gorsuch handed down a 5-4 decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis.
https://thinkprogress.org/john-roberts-partisan-gerrymanderers-055f06e55c4c/
And he Roberts wrote for the majority on voting, Shelby vs Holder......................hold on
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96
