Professor and Senior Scholar Steve Friedland spoke with WGHP FOX 8 and WXII12 about the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that keeps federal courts out of legislative redistricting based on partisanship.
Friedland spoke with journalists from WXII12 and WGHP FOX 8 about Rucho v. Common Cause, a case out of North Carolina in which a lower federal court had ruled that Republican lawmakers had unconstitutionally redrawn legislative districts in violation of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Elections Clause.
In a 5-4 decision split along ideological lines, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that "partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts."
"Whether you like the idea of gerrymandering or not, often depends on if you're in power or not," Friedland said in his interview with FOX 8.
The full reports:
- FOX 8: "Supreme Court decides federal courts cannot police gerrymandering"
- WXII12: "Supreme Court claims federal courts not the answer to 'partisan gerrymandering.'"
Friedland, a former assistant U.S. attorney and assistant director at the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center, is a founding faculty member of Elon Law, having joined the school in 2006 when enrolling the charter class. His devotion to teaching can be seen in the awards he has won at three different law schools and his inclusion with 25 other law teachers in the 2013 Harvard University Press book “What the Best Law Teachers Do.”
Friedland holds a Juris Doctor with honors from Harvard Law School, as well as a Master of Law and Doctor of the Science of Law degrees from Columbia University Law School, where he was a Dollard Fellow in Law, Medicine and Psychiatry.