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103 Wash. Univ. L. Rev. Online 1 (2025-2026)

handle is hein.journals/wshuvylw103 and id is 1 raw text is: Recovering from Rucho: How States Can Create National Partisan Fairness James Piltch and Aaron Goldzimerl Rucho v. Common Cause and the failure to pass H.R. 1 have left national gerrymandering reform on life support. At present, however, states committed to creating fair maps limit themselves to considering their own political makeup when doing so. This internal approach risks the possibility that states committed to fairness subvert that value, as their refusal to consider national political data and other states' maps may lock in an unfair map nationwide if other states gerrymander. This internal focus therefore also creates the possibility that reform-minded states fail to protect their voters' interests in Congress. This Essay proposes a novel path forward: a new redistricting criterion that allows states to prioritize national partisan fairness, rather than statewide fairness. Federalisms new and old justify this new criterion on a theoretical basis, while the seeming impossibility of national reform in Congress or federal courts justifies it on a practical one. The Essay explains how the consideration of other states' maps would allow states to make the national Congressional map fair on net and walks through the mechanics necessary for this criterion's implementation. 1 James Piltch is a lawyer; Aaron Goldzimer is a graduate of Yale Law School and runs a firm that advises donors on philanthropic and political giving. Thank you to Sam Hirsch, David Schleicher, and Nicholas Stephanopoulos for their invaluable feedback on this essay. And thank you to Geremia Lizier-Zmudzinski, Amanda Ghibaudo, Emma Moore, and the entire staff of the Washington University Law Review for their insightful comments. All errors are our own. 1