By Kara Baskin
law briefs
In August 2021, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law published Suffolk Law Professor Linda Sandstrom Simard’s “Partisan Gerrymander Claims, the Political Question Doctrine, and Judicial Prudence.” The article explores the U.S. Supreme Court’s reliance on the “political question doctrine” to deny judicial review of otherwise properly filed cases based on the idea that certain issues aren’t appropriate for resolution by the federal courts.
The article focuses on a 2019 case in which a Supreme Court majority held that partisan gerrymander claims present political questions beyond the reach of federal courts. The majority could find “no legal standards discernible in the Constitution for making such judgments, let alone limited and precise standards that are clear, manageable, and politically neutral,” Simard explains.
She considers whether the Court’s invocation of the doctrine was an abdication of its judicial responsibility.
"By declaring that an entire category of cases—those that allege partisan gerrymandering—are nonjusticiable political questions, the majority effectively lays a dead hand over all cases that might have alleged partisan gerrymander claims in the future,” she says. “This impact is significant.”
Return to Table of Contents
winter 2023
Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
