http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/north-carolina-gerrymander/index.html
The Supreme Court struck down two congressional district maps in North Carolina Monday, holding that the state had engaged in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The ruling is a victory for the black North Carolina voters who had argued the plans packed African-Americans in districts that already had a high percentage of African-Americans, thus diluting their presence in other districts.
As a result, the ruling sends the North Carolina legislature back to the drawing board – with significant potential implications for the 2018 midterm elections. The state has been nearly split along partisan lines in recent statewide elections – such as for governor and president – but Republicans control 10 US House seats compared to only three for Democrats.
Gorsuch did not participate, but it wouldn’t have mattered as the vote was 8-0 and 5-3 in the two different cases.
Why didn’t Gorsuch participate? He is on the court now. He already participated in one decision not to hear a case.
I don’t know in this particular case, but considering the length of cases in general, he may have been around for the opinion-writing section, and even most of the arguments, but if you weren’t on the court when the arguments started, it would be pretty expected not to participate.
Yeah, if he weren’t around when it started at the Supreme Court level, it could be argued that he shouldn’t participate in the ruling.