The cases included on this page are grouped by decade. Use the links below to learn more about the redistricting cases decided in each of the decades listed: 2020s: Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Moore v. Harper, Merrill v.

April 18, 2026 - For much of American history, redistricting was left largely to the discretion of state lawmakers. That changed in the 1960s, when the U.S. Supreme Court entered the political thicket and began developing modern redistricting doctrine. In Baker v. Carr (1962), the Court held that federal courts could hear constitutional challenges to state legislative malapportionment.

In a plurality opinion, Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg, determined that the claim that the legislature's decision "to override a valid, court-drawn plan mid-decade" was unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering was insufficiently "suspect to give shape to a reliable standard" for ascertaining a constitutional violation. Writing separately, Justice Kennedy emphasized that the Constitution and federal law do not prohibit mid-decade congressional redistricting.

Though the CBC agreed with Clinton on many issues, the group sometimes criticized the Democratic President for his appointments and for his willingness to compromise on efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit by curtailing entitlement programs. In the South, the creation of majority-Black districts—which also tended to be overwhelmingly Democratic—mostly ensured the election of Black lawmakers from states where decades of discrimination had prevented their election at every level of government. The South had always been reliably Democratic, but beginning in the 1960s the region’s White voters began a decades-long transformation of switching allegiance to the Republican Party.

An overview of significant Supreme Court decisions on redistricting from the last five decades. The cases are grouped into four categories: population, a case relating to using a redistricting commission, cases relating to race and cases relating to partisanship.

May 11, 2026 - The justices upheld a prior federal court’s decision that barred Louisiana from using a Legislature-drawn 2024 map, which included a district stretching from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.

March 23, 2017 - While racial gerrymandering claims have been a recent focus of litigation, the Supreme Court is also currently considering an appeal of a case involving partisan gerrymandering. In February 2017, a state appealed a three-judge federal district court ruling that invalidated a redistricting map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

Unfortunately, in June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts may not police partisan gerrymandering, leaving that issue to state courts or the political process. The Brennan Center tracks and analyzes ongoing redistricting cases pending in the courts.

A separate federal court lawsuit, Hodges v. Albritton, No. 8:24-CV-879 (M.D. Fla. 2024) challenges the redrawing of two adjacent state senate districts in the Tampa Bay region, contending that both districts are now unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. On March 31, 2025, a three-judge panel granted summary judgment in favor of the state defendants with respect to one of the challenged districts but denied summary judgment with respect to the other district.

November 13, 2025 - 13, 2025): The chart “Midcycle redistricting was particularly common in the 1980s and 1990s” has been corrected to move Virginia’s court-ordered redistricting event to 1992-2000 and adjust the totals for 1982-1990 and 1992-2020 (seven ...

This resource tracks mid-decade redistricting developments. It includes information on the status of redistricting across the country and details about each state's process.

May 14, 2026 - “This is a five-alarm fire for Black representation in the south,” said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The [supreme] court has signaled it’s going to be a redistricting wild west, and there will be no sheriff around.”

February 11, 2026 - In a 160-page opinion, the federal court found that Texas impermissibly used race as a basis for drawing the election districts. The Supreme Court has held for over 30 years that it violates equal protection for the government to use race as ...

May 8, 2026 - Republicans have opened up an advantage in a national redistricting battle among states after a pair of court rulings that weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities and invalidated a key Democratic redistricting effort. READ MORE: Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats' redistricting plan, dimming party's midterm hopes · A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana has provided grounds for Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that had been protected under the Voting Rights Act.

5 days ago - The measure, titled 2025 California ... November 2025 election, enacting the proposed redistricting plan. Following the vote, the California Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit against Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, alleging that the new maps violate the Voting Rights Act by favoring Latino voters and asked a federal court to issue a ...

The late 19th century was a dismal time in American politics. Corruption ran rampant. Congress was governed by staunch partisan loyalties and nail-biting majorities. And redistricting, instead of being confined to after the census every 10 years, was a tool of manipulation and partisan hardball.

1 day ago - The state attorney general’s office argued that deadline didn’t apply to the redistricting amendment because lawmakers wrote their own ballot summary for it, using their constitutional authority. The judge disagreed, instead siding with arguments by the conservative Oversight Project and Republican state lawmakers who sued. Thompson also ruled that lawmakers used “intentionally misleading” wording in the ballot question by stating that it merely “clarifies” the Constitution’s redistricting standards. And Thompson said the amendment violates a single-issue requirement in the Constitution by also including a provision that would give the state Supreme Court original jurisdiction in lawsuits over congressional redistricting. “The court has no choice but to enjoin the board of elections from including ballot Question 3 on the general election ballot for November 3, 2026,” Thompson wrote.

2 weeks ago - This section includes background information on federal requirements for congressional redistricting, state legislative redistricting, state-based requirements, redistricting methods used in the 50 states, gerrymandering, and recent court decisions.

December 9, 2025 - And the disparity in registration rates between white and Black voters dropped from nearly 30 percentage points in the early 1960s to 8 percentage points just a decade later. Now the justices seem ready to wreck Section 2 if not strike it down ...