Partisan gerrymandering is going to be the gum stuck to the sole of John Roberts' shoes. Over the past decade, Republican state legislators were so committed to egregious map-rigging that lawsuit after lawsuit from state after state is going to come up through the system until it flops like a load of dead fish on the Supreme Court's marble steps. Listening to the arguments in one of these cases, I felt that none of the Nine Wise Souls wants to be the country's map-designer of last resort, but that they also agree that the Republican geographic trickeration was so blatantly awful that they may have to rule on an issue that they'd rather leave outside.

The latest episode in this ongoing drama comes from Michigan, where the state's supreme court on Thursday tagged the Republicans in that state's legislature for the psychedelically partisan maps they produced. In doing so, they fairly flung the case in the general direction of Roberts's head. From the Detroit News:

The bombshell order that Michigan draw at least 34 new legislative and congressional districts for the 2020 election will be appealed to the nation’s highest court, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey made clear Thursday. And GOP attorneys will likely ask the Supreme Court to put the Michigan ruling on hold until it rules in separate gerrymandering cases out of North Carolina and Maryland. Justices have appeared wary of empowering courts to decide if political maps are too partisan, but judges who barred continued use of Michigan maps used part of their 146-page decision to make the case for intervention.

“Federal courts must not abdicate their responsibility to protect American voters from this unconstitutional and pernicious practice that undermines our democracy,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Eric Clay, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. “Federal courts’ failure to protect marginalized voters’ constitutional rights will only increase the citizenry’s growing disenchantment with, and disillusionment in, our democracy, further weaken our democratic institutions, and threaten the credibility of the judicial branch.” The unanimous decision was backed by Detroit U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood, who was also appointed by Clinton, and Grand Rapids U.S. District Judge Gordon Quist, an appointee of Republican former President George H.W. Bush.

I don't know what the exact legal Latin phrase for, "Get off the freaking dime" is, but Judge Clay seems quite clear that he understands the principle.

Activists stage a gerrymandering protest in Michigan. Dale G. Young AP

One of the unique aspects of the Michigan case is that citizen activists managed to connect gerrymandering with its concrete effects on the lives of actual Michiganders. There is a movie debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival detailing this effort. From Bridge Michigan:

The whirlwind punctuated a dramatic period of change for Fahey, who just over two years ago led a quiet, stable life in Grand Rapids working in environmental sustainability. That life in many ways ended when, on the day after the 2016 presidential election, she posted to Facebook a desire to take on political gerrymandering in Michigan and asked if anyone wanted to join her. By 2018, VNP’s ability to attract thousands of volunteers to get the issue on the November ballot had thrown the political novice into the national spotlight as the plan gained traction.

They're all coming for John Roberts, who declared the Day of Jubilee, and who'd much rather duck.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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