From the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law:

Maryland’s congressional map, drawn by the Democratic state legislature in 2011, is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, according to an amicus brief filed today in Benisek v. Lamone by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case on March 28.

The case is the second major partisan gerrymandering case the Court will review this year; Gill v. Whitford, in which the Brennan Center also filed a brief, deals with an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in Wisconsin drawn by Republicans.

“Extreme gerrymandering is a bipartisan plague,” said Michael Li, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “As long as the Supreme Court doesn’t firmly establish when it is illegal, experience shows that single-party controlled state legislatures will aggressively draw maps that lock in their party majority – ensuring thousands of citizens don’t have a meaningful vote. The Wisconsin and Maryland cases are an important chance to end extreme gerrymandering before the 2020 redistricting. If the Court doesn’t act, mapdrawing in 2021 will be a partisan free-for-all.”

Read the Brennan Center and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP’s brief in Benisek v. Lamone.

Read more about the Brennan Center’s work to end extreme gerrymandering.

The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a “nonpartisan law and policy institute that seeks to improve our systems of democracy and justice”. For more, I’ve attached a video of a University of Maryland School of Public Policy forum discussion on redistricting reform in Maryland. Here is the event summary:

On November 10, 2014, the Tame the Gerrymander coalition held a public forum focused on efforts to replace gerrymandering with a fair and open process to draw congressional and state-legislative district lines. Speakers included Congressman John Delaney of Maryland, Maryland Delegate Aisha Braveboy, and Dan Vicuna, the National Redistricting Coordinator for Common Cause. The event was hosted by the Norman and Florence Brody Public Policy Forum at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy in conjunction with Common Cause Maryland, the League of Women Voters of Maryland, and the National Council of Jewish Women Annapolis Section.

The video is about 1.5 hours long: