On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to consider the matter of Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The Arizona case could settle the question as to whether the power to redraw congressional districts belong in the hands of legislatures.
Across the country, state legislatures use redistricting to boost the majority party’s power.
The Arizona Legislature is asking the Court to rule that the Constitution’s Elections Clause prohibits a state from cutting it’s legislature mostly, or totally, out of the process of drafting new election districts for its House members, after each new federal Census, according to Lyle Denniston for Scotusblog.
In 2000, Arizona voters passed Proposition 106, which took the power to draw boundaries away from the Legislature and gave it to the to the IRC, an supposedly independent, five-member body.
“In taking on the case and planning to hold a hearing on it after full briefing,” writes Denniston, “the Court said that it could rule on two issues on the merits: does the Elections Clause allow the task to be shifted away from the legislature; and, alternatively, is that forbidden by a federal law that assigns the redistricting task “in the manner provided” by state law?”