Making a Case for Two Paths Forward in Light of Gill v. Whitford

In light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Gill v. Whitford (2018), we propose two paths forward for establishing manageable standards to identify partisan gerrymanders. One is aimed most particularly at exclusionary gerrymanders and follows the Court's directive to demonstrate personal and district-specific harms to representational rights. The second challenges mapmakers in the first instance and courts, if needed later, to recognize that entrenchment gerrymanders offend not just representational rights but also the right for all votes to carry the same weight. We put our proposals to a series of tests through applications to post-2010 suspected gerrymanders of congressional districts in Maryland and Ohio along with applications to Massachusetts and Illinois to show that the approaches hold safe district plans that are not gerrymanders.