How have courts ruled on Democratic gerrymandering cases in North Carolina and Maryland 2018 2022?
Executive summary
Federal courts effectively neutered challenges to partisan gerrymanders after the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2019 that such claims are beyond federal judicial review, a ruling that followed district-court wins for plaintiffs in both North Carolina and Maryland in 2018 [1]; as a result, battles over Democratic or Republican gerrymanders shifted to state courts, where outcomes between 2018 and 2022 diverged sharply depending on state constitutional law and the partisan composition of state supreme courts [2] [3].
1. Rucho and the federal limit: why 2018 wins didn’t end the fight
District courts in the 2018 cases involving North Carolina and Maryland had ruled in favor of plaintiffs who alleged unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause declared partisan-gerrymandering claims nonjusticiable in federal court, removing a nationwide federal remedy and redirecting plaintiffs to state constitutions and courts [1] [2].
2. Maryland 2018: Democratic advantage litigated but constrained by high court posture
The Maryland case—part of the same Rucho docket—grew out of claims that Democratic-controlled mapmaking had unfairly packed Republican voters into fewer districts; district courts had sided with plaintiffs in 2018, yet the Supreme Court’s ruling meant that any further relief would depend on Maryland’s own constitution and courts rather than a federal mandate [1] [4].
3. North Carolina 2022: a state-court victory for plaintiffs under a Democratic majority
In North Carolina, a Wake County three-judge panel and then the state Supreme Court under a Democratic majority found in early 2022 that congressional and legislative maps violated the state constitution, prompting court-drawn remedial maps that were used for the 2022 elections and produced a roughly even congressional split that advocates said reflected fairer representation [5] [3] [6].
4. The reversal: how judicial politics upended 2022’s result
That 2022 state-court victory proved ephemeral: after Republicans won two seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court, the new conservative majority reheard and reversed the earlier decisions, ruling that partisan-gerrymandering claims present nonjusticiable political questions under the state constitution and reinstating the legislature’s maps—an outcome critics say shows how judicial elections can flip remedies for gerrymanders [7] [8] [9].
5. Competing narratives and implicit agendas
Proponents of judicial restraint point to the difficulty of devising objective standards to police partisan line‑drawing and argue courts risk usurping legislative authority over elections; opponents counter that leaving gerrymandering unchecked hands durable power to those who control mapmaking and that state constitutions have been successfully used elsewhere to curb extreme maps, an argument the Brennan Center and other advocates made after the 2022 North Carolina remedial maps produced more balanced results [10] [7] [3].
6. What these rulings mean for future litigation and democracy
The practical takeaway from 2018–2022 is stark: federal courts will rarely intervene on partisan gerrymandering (Rucho), so the fate of Democratic or Republican gerrymanders now hinges on state constitutions, state-court doctrines, and the partisan make-up of state judiciaries—factors that make legal outcomes volatile and politicize both redistricting and judicial elections [1] [2] [8].