Aseries of state court victories has handed Democrats an unexpected upper hand in red states where Republican legislators had the power to draw congressional district lines, giving their party better odds of winning control of Congress in the decade ahead.
The North Carolina Supreme Court last week became the latest to strike down Republican-drawn district lines when it ordered the legislature to draw new boundaries that would give Democrats a better chance at winning seats in Congress. The original lines struck down in the 4-3 decision would have given Republicans control of at least 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats.
The decision comes after Ohio’s Supreme Court ordered a new redistricting commission to try again to draw lines that initially handed Republicans an advantage in 13 of 15 House districts. And last month, a panel of federal judges ordered Alabama to draw a second Black-majority district.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week took over a redistricting case that had been proceeding in lower courts. That court is likely to adopt new maps that would favor Democrats more than proposals advanced by the Republican-controlled state legislature.
Republicans are favored to win back control of Congress this year, as Democrats face historical headwinds and President Biden’s approval rating stagnates.
But if Democrats do lose the House in this year’s midterm elections, the favorable rulings mean the party will have a path back to the majority at some point in the next decade. At the beginning of this cycle’s redistricting process, Democrats feared Republican gerrymanders would effectively foreclose their chance at a majority.
“It’s certainly been a good break for Democrats,” said Michael Li, a redistricting expert and senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “The war against gerrymandering has always been a multifront war, and state Supreme Courts have been a part of that.”
Democrats have turned to state courts to challenge Republican-drawn lines after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that federal courts must stay out of cases relating to partisan gerrymandering. Writing for the five-justice majority in that case, Rucho v. Common Cause, Chief Justice John Roberts said the redistricting process was fundamentally a political issue best left to the states or Congress.
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