Case Summary
LWVNC v. Rucho challenged North Carolina's 2016 redistricting plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It was filed on behalf of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and 12 individual voters by Southern Coalition for Social Justice and co-counsel from Campaign Legal Center and the University of Chicago Law School. Plaintiffs brought two cases in federal court challenging the newly implemented congressional districts - League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho and Common Cause v. Rucho. Those cases were consolidated and argued in North Carolina's Middle District Federal Court in October 2017.
The three-judge panel found the redistricting plan was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in January 2018. When that decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was remanded back to the district court to determine issues of standing in light of another U.S. Supreme Court order in a partisan gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin, Gill v. Whitford . Upon reconsideration, the federal district court again found the state's congressional map, and several of its individual districts, unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Why it's Important
In June 2019, the court ruled that partisan gerrymandering falls outside the scope of judicial review, categorizing it as a political matter beyond the court's jurisdiction. Consequently, federal courts are precluded from hearing partisan gerrymandering cases, directing such disputes to state courts instead.
