Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court on behalf of the non-partisan group Represent.Us in Gill v Whitford, a closely watched case from Wisconsin that tackles political gerrymandering. Oral argument was heard on the case on October 3.
Represent.Us, which includes members from across the political spectrum in 45 chapters throughout the United States, aims to challenge corruption in US elections. According to the brief, “Represent.Us believes that extreme or excessive partisan gerrymandering will continue to undermine representative elections and foster corruption unless restrained” by the Supreme Court. The group’s fellow amicus, Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, among other roles, adds that “partisan gerrymandering undermines the system of participatory democracy envisioned by the original Tea Party and the Constitution’s Framers.”
In the brief, the amici enumerate reasons why “extreme or excessive partisan gerrymandering amounts to the type of political corruption the Framers sought to prevent.” They note that gerrymandering is practiced by both major parties, and harms both Republican and Democratic voters alike, in both “red” and “blue” states. The amici then point to past Court rulings and other historical documents to show that the practice of partisan gerrymandering is in fact a form of corruption. This type of corruption, they add, is distinct from bribery in that it need not be for financial gain or any type of quid pro quo arrangement.
In drafting the Constitution, the amici argue, the Framers clearly wished to prevent and weed out corruption, including “abuses of political power analogous to extreme partisan gerrymandering.” They add: “The Framers understood corruption as occurring when government officials behaved in a self-serving way to benefit themselves and their friends to the detriment of the public good.” Examples of these anti-corruption principles can be seen in the Elections Clause, the Seventeenth Amendment, the Impeachment Clause, and elsewhere in the Constitution, and thus the Supreme Court should continue to protect them in its decision, they conclude.
Milbank lawyers who prepared the brief include partners Atara Miller and Daniel Perry and associates Alison Bonelli, Conor Colasurdo, Taryn Gallup, Alexandra Paslawsky and Erik Wilson.
