As I have said before, the Supreme Court has been hesitant to deem political gerrymandering illegal, despite its acknowledgement that the practice is abominable. In fact, political gerrymandering has been used as an excuse for why a particular map is not racially gerrymandered. There is a correlation between race and party affiliation, in some places as great as 85% (minorities overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates). This means that often in racial gerrymandering cases, the best excuse is often, "this map was drawn for partisan advantage".
Whitford v. Nichol, a case expected to reach the supreme court later this year, could change all of that.
The case details a two part test for partisan gerrymandering. Part one is analyzing the efficiency gap (how many fewer votes a party could have received and still achieved the same electoral outcome). This shows if one party had its voters concentrated to its detriment. Part two is studying partisan bias (the difference in the number of seats that would be received by each party assuming both parties got 50% of the votes statewide).
This two part test is one of the best yet proposed for partisan gerrymandering. Depending on the Supreme Court's decision, this case could finally illegalize partisan gerrymandering.
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