Republicans and Democrats are locked in a redistricting arms race, with both parties seeking to redraw congressional maps to gain more seats than the other.

As this battle escalates, Democrats and their allies have increasingly tried to equate Republican partisan gerrymandering with racial gerrymandering – a far more serious constitutional offense.

But racial redistricting and partisan redistricting are not the same thing. The Supreme Court can intervene when districts are drawn explicitly on the basis of race because such maps are unconstitutional. It has no comparable authority over partisan gerrymandering, however corrosive it might be. That leaves Congress as the only institution capable of meaningfully addressing partisan redistricting abuses, though there is little reason for confidence that lawmakers will do the right thing.

Racial gerrymandering and partisan gerrymandering are different issues

Gerrymandering is a dirty word, and for good reason. It is the practice of using political power to stack the electoral deck in your favor........

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