This is the fourth in a series about Gill v. Whitford, the partisan gerrymandering case the Supreme Court is hearing this week. The first is here. The second is here. The third is here.

Among the many amicus briefs filed in behalf of the plaintiffs and appellees challenging Wisconsin's state legislative district maps, one can find many current and former elected officials, Republicans and Democrats. One of those is Governor John Kasich of Ohio.

In 2011, Mr. Kasich signed into law a new congressional map for the State of Ohio, described by some as one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country. He was, quite literally, in a singular position as an elected official to veto the map and, as an actor in the political process, take a "stand" against partisan gerrymandering.

Instead, here, six years later, he has asked the Supreme Court never to trust him again--indeed, he has represented to the people of Ohio that he cannot be trusted with power or responsibility. He has asked the federal courts to step in and help draw district maps, because he cannot be trusted to do so.

It is a rather shocking thing, to me, at least, to read so many elected officials happily asking the federal courts to take political power from them, and expressly on the basis that they cannot be trusted to use it responsibly. That, I suppose, is par for the course for many politicians in our time of delegation to the administrative state and a reluctance to engage in the hard decisionmaking required of them. And it is, I suppose, to be expected for those currently (and, of course, temporarily) in the political minority in their jurisdictions, who may be tempted to seek an immediate and expedient solution to their political challenges.

But reading these pleas from politicians should be jarring. Some, I imagine, would read it very differently from the way I do--that is, they view this as the ultimate cry for help from a political process that cannot effectively respond in an effort to secure some help from a place of last resort, the federal courts. I, however, see it just the other way--the disappointing response of elected officials who hold the power and fail to exercise it responsibility, then seek to discard it into the responsibility of another.