Gilbert LLP Files Amicus Brief in North Carolina Gerrymandering Case

March 11, 2019

Gilbert LLP filed a friend-of-the-court brief on March 8 with the Supreme Court opposing efforts by North Carolina Republicans to gerrymander Congressional districts in their state.  The brief was filed on behalf of Professor Christopher Elmendorf, who is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of California at Davis Law School, and four other law professors.

The brief discusses how diluting a person’s vote through gerrymandering makes a legislature less responsive to its constituents, which is contrary to values enshrined in the Constitution, and that to protect responsiveness, the Court must consider how the challenged district compares to the state as a whole.  This is significant because the defendants argue that the Court should look only at the makeup of the district itself, which is both inconsistent with protecting constitutional values and the Supreme Court’s precedent.