State Democrats took their ongoing legal fight against Republican-drawn voting districts to Kentucky’s highest court last week.
Court officials said the crux of the case revolves around whether or not the Kentucky state constitution permits political gerrymandering. Douglas Mock is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Morehead State University and specializes in constitutional law. He said the lawsuit would see the proposed districts withdrawn.
“The districts have been drawn, according to the lawsuit, unfairly, and will need to be redrawn,” he said. “The majority party in the Kentucky legislature, that would be the Republicans, have drawn the districts in a way that favors the majority party, both federal districts and state legislative districts as well.”
Mock said Kentucky Democrats are currently accusing the GOP of a process called gerrymandering.
“You draw district lines so that one district or two districts have an overwhelming majority of Democrats,” he said. “But then the Republican Party, the majority party, will have four or five districts where they maybe have a lesser majority, but they’re going to win those districts.”
Mock said in this case, registered voters are relatively evenly split in terms of party identification, but the lawsuit alleges Democrats are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to the polls.
“To draw the districts in such a way, the majority party is going to win 60, 70, 75 percent of the Congressional districts or the State House districts,” he said.
Under Federal law, state legislatures can choose if they will determine voting districts themselves or delegate the responsibility to a non-partisan committee. However, Mock said the latter is often the exception rather than the rule.
“Kentucky follows the practice of most states,” he said. “Every 10 years, the legislature itself draws the Congressional districts.”
The law concerning redistricting and gerrymandering was in flux until recently, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard several cases about it. Mock said those recent decisions could play a part in determining the outcome of the lawsuit in the Commonwealth.
“We’ve had some case law previously that suggested that the state legislature is not bound by the state constitution. But, the United States Supreme Court rejected that argument last year in the Moore v. Harper case, the case out of North Carolina,” he said. “This has kind of paved the way for the lawsuit to potentially be successful.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the federal constitution permits gerrymandering, but Mock said that doesn’t mean the lawsuit brought forth by state Democrats is doomed from the start.
“The Kentucky state constitution requires free and equal elections. So, I think there is at least a plausible argument to be made here. I don’t know if it will be a winning argument, I don’t know how the Supreme Court of Kentucky is going to come out, but I think there’s a plausible case here,” he said. “It’s not a trivial argument, I’ll put it that way.”
The political science professor said it’s the nature of a constitution to paint in broad strokes, and the Kentucky constitution’s assertion for “free and equal elections” can be understood in more than one way.
“One could interpret that as applying to securing the integrity of the individual voter’s right and suggest that it really doesn’t have anything to do with how one draws districts because we still have one person, one vote,” he said.
It’s unknown when the Kentucky Supreme Court will reach a decision in this case.