to concerns over prevalent of gerrymandering. for the court to say this is a nonjudicial question that federal cots have no place in dealing with is a huge, huge decision. i want to underscore we had justice kennedy who looked like he was at least amenable to the process of some statistic. we are now in the justice kavanaugh era, where it seems like the court is unwilling to take a stands. what that means is we re going to have to shift to the states to be the gatekeepers on this. we have seen a lot of activity on the state level, but as you say in 2010 because of the residence having an advantage in the census and redistricting, you ve soon more legislatures that are red drawing these lines in a way. there s a lot of appetite, but leads us to the census case. all of these redistricting questions turns on the questions of the census.
backed amway. they didn t think the parties were in the right posture in the last case. the closest that the people wanting to make this claim came was several terms ago with anthony kennedy, who said i might be willing to say there might be a partisan jerry mandering. he s gone, replaced by justice kavanaugh, who joined with the other republican-appointed epps justices, who says the court cannot make this decision. let me bring in he served as assistant to the redistricting of the state legislature and worked with north carolina in redistricting litigation before the supreme court rick, your reaction. this is not a complete
federal epps courts say they have no role to play. pete, do you have more? reporter: just a couple points. lower courts had ruled there was partisan gerrymandering in at the time ohio and michigan, so undoubtedly it will send those cases back to the lower courts to basically perform last rites on those rulings, and take those rulings away. a couple points here, at the very end of the majority pin, the court says we have no commission to allocate political power influence in the absence of a constitutional directive or legal standards to guide us. the other things toward the end of the opinion is they take notes that states have been experiments with other ways to do with redistricting, with commissions, putting it in the hands of an equally formed republican and democratic body to do that. they say that s a positive sign, but i think something else that
the courts will not play a role in resolving it. we ll talk more about justice kagan s dissent,every, but i want your overall take on the argument that cheever justice john roberts and others are making of why they felt like they could not make a determination on just how much partisan gerrymandering is too much. cheever roberts olympic has the doctrine, with the one man/one vote, and that doctrine says when a question has no clear judicial standards and could risk embarrassing the political branches and basically isn t susceptible to resolution, courts are not going to decide it. in baker versus carr, the court refused to apply the doctrine. justice ginsburg said, why is it we want it was appropriate for the court to require one man/one vote and police malapportionment
cases, but not the same for gerrymandering. there s just a few cases where the courts have applied the political doctrine back in the 19th century. the court said, hey, we re not going to decide that, but it s a very, very big deal for the court to say this dock trim which had not been used for malapportionment to racial gerrymandering is suddenly aablied, and here s another you asked why did the majority do it? well, the five justices, the majority believe in absolutely good faith and it s important to stress it s not a partisan claim that there s no clear standard that you can consistently apply. short of proportional representation, which is a clear standard, and everyone agrees the constitution does not require, the justices of the majority say this would put the courts into the political thicket and basically chief justice roberts worried it would