Update on Recent Supreme Court Rulings on Gerrymandering & the Right to Vote

THE SUPREME COURT’S SPRING 2018 DECISIONS ON PARTISANSHIP, GERRYMANDERING, AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Free and exclusively for OLLI at BCC members.

Retired law professor & OLLI instructor John Hyson promised his OLLI students last year that he would provide an update after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on several important voting cases before them.

This spring the Supreme Court rendered decisions involving partisanship, gerrymandering, and the right to vote.

Join us Tuesday afternoon, July 17, at 2pm for a review and discussion of the following cases:

Two major cases, one from Wisconsin and the other from Maryland, involved constitutional challenges to partisan gerrymandering -- that is, challenges to the drawing of legislative districts that are designed to favor the election of candidates from a particular party. Although the Court did not resolve the merits of the challenges in either case, the Court provided hints about how these challenges might be decided when they come again before the Court.

Finally, the Court, in a case from North Carolina, provided guidance with respect to when a court, when faced with an unconstitutional gerrymander, can assume for itself the task of redrawing legislative districts.

Each of these decisions will be described and discussed.

Free and exclusively for OLLI at BCC members.