WASHINGTON ― Justice Anthony Kennedy, the key swing vote in a landmark redistricting case before the Supreme Court, did not ask a single question of lawyers challenging maps for the Wisconsin state assembly, but did ask lawyers for the state to clarify whether an electoral map could ever be so egregiously partisan that it could violate the First or 14th amendments. Kennedy’s silence during the challengers’ comments could indicate he is leaning toward siding with the court’s four liberal justices in striking down the maps for the Wisconsin state assembly, but it’s still uncertain which way he will ultimately vote. During oral arguments Tuesday, three of the court’s more conservative justices, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, seemed skeptical there could be a workable standard for courts to determine whether a partisan gerrymander violated the Constitution. The court’s more liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, seemed more optimistic a manageable standard existed. Kennedy interrupted Misha Tesytlin, Wisconsin’s solicitor general, to ask whether that argument still applied if the challengers in Wisconsin had suffered a First Amendment violation.

Source: Huffington Post October 03, 2017 15:33 UTC