Noah Feldman, Columnist

Does Congress Even Have the Power to End Gerrymandering?

A conservative Supreme Court might decide that H.R. 1 — the “For the People” voting rights act — goes too far.

April 1, 2021 at 1:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

A nice reform, if you can keep it.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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The “For the People Act” currently being proposed by House Democrats would transform the way the U.S. runs federal elections. Known as H.R. 1, the bill would make it substantially easier to vote. It would also counteract restrictive legislation enacted by Republican state legislatures in recent years.

One provision stands out from the rest: the one that would end state-level gerrymandering by requiring that all legislative districts be set by independent, nonpartisan commissions, rather than by the state legislatures.