The Supreme Court on June 18 sidestepped a chance to rule on the limits of partisan redistricting, or gerrymandering. Wendy K. Tam Cho, an Illinois professor of political science, statistics, math and law, and research colleague Yan Liu’s work on gerrymandering, which employs the Blue Waters supercomputer at Illinois, was cited in amicus briefs submitted to the court. Cho also proposes solutions in a column for Nature posted today. She spoke withIllinois News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.

(Interview excerpt)

The court unanimously ruled that the Whitford plaintiffs did not have “standing,” which means that they failed to show a particularized individual injury, which is required for litigation in federal court. Since there was no standing, the court did not rule on the merits of the case. Importantly, it also did not preclude such a ruling in the future.

In short, the court punted, saving a big ruling on partisan gerrymandering for another day. For now, it gave specific guidance on how to establish standing for a partisan gerrymandering case, which primarily centered around bringing district-by-district claims rather than a statewide claim. This makes future cases more intricate and complex for lawyers, though because the court left everything on the table, a carefully crafted case may still evoke a forceful response from the court for curtailing gerrymandering.

Read the full interview at Illinois News Bureau.