Citation
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Redistricting and the Territorial Community, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1379 (2012).
Abstract
The Supreme Court has held unanimously that political gerrymandering can be unconstitutional, but has also rejected every standard suggested to date for distinguishing lawful from unlawful district plans. This Article offers a way out of the impasse by proposing that courts resolve gerrymandering disputes by examining how well districts correspond to organic geographic communities — upholding districts that coincide with such communities, but striking down those that unnecessarily disrupt them. The Article develops this “territorial community test,” shows how courts could operationalize it through existing empirical techniques, and argues that it is superior to rival approaches on both theoretical and practical grounds.