Washington Post - The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that independent commissions may draw electoral district lines, saying that the people have a right to try to make the congressional redistricting process less partisan.
The case arose after Arizona voters opposed to congressional gerrymandering had taken the power away from state legislators.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rejected the legislature’s contention that it alone has power over redistricting. She said the decision by voters to turn reapportionment over to an independent commission “was in full harmony with the Constitution’s conception of the people as the font of governmental power.”
California is the only other state that has diminished the legislature’s role similar to Arizona, but 11 other states have created commissions that have some sort of say about reapportionment.
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