NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															Nos. 18–422, 18–726

															_________________

															ROBERT A. RUCHO, et al.,
APPELLANTS

															18–422 v. COMMON CAUSE, et al.; AND

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the middle district of north carolina

															LINDA H. LAMONE, et al.,
APPELLANTS

															18–726 v. O. JOHN BENISEK, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the district of maryland

															[June 27, 2019]

															Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of
the Court.

															Voters and other plaintiffs in North Carolina
and Maryland challenged their States’ congressional districting
maps as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. The North Carolina
plaintiffs complained that the State’s districting plan
discriminated against Democrats; the Maryland plaintiffs complained
that their State’s plan discriminated against Republicans. The
plaintiffs alleged that the gerrymandering violated the First
Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
the Elections Clause, and Article I, §2, of the Constitution. The
District Courts in both cases ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and
the defendants appealed directly to this Court.

															These cases require us to consider once again
whether claims of excessive partisanship in districting are
“justiciable”—that is, properly suited for resolution by the
federal courts. This Court has not previously struck down a
districting plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, and
has struggled without success over the past several decades to
discern judicially manageable standards for deciding such claims.
The districting plans at issue here are highly partisan, by any
measure. The question is whether the courts below appropriately
exercised judicial power when they found them unconstitutional as
well.

															I

															A

															The first case involves a challenge to the
congressional redistricting plan enacted by the
Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly in 2016. Rucho v. Common Cause , No. 18–422. The Republican
legislators leading the redistricting effort instructed their
mapmaker to use political data to draw a map that would produce a
congressional delegation of ten Republicans and three Democrats.
318 F. Supp. 3d 777, 807–808 (MDNC 2018). As one of the two
Republicans chairing the redistricting committee stated, “I think
electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew
this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.” Id. , at 809. He further explained that the map was drawn
with the aim of electing ten Republicans and three Democrats
because he did “not believe it [would be] possible to draw a map
with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.” Id. , at 808. One Demo-
cratic state senator objected that entrenching the 10–3 advantage
for Republicans was not “fair, reasonable, [or] balanced” because,
as recently as 2012, “Democratic congressional candidates had
received more votes on a statewide basis than Republican
candidates.” Ibid. The General Assembly was not swayed by
that objection and approved the 2016 Plan by a party-line vote. Id. , at 809.

															In November 2016, North Carolina conducted
congressional elections using the 2016 Plan, and Republican
candidates won 10 of the 13 congressional districts. Id. , at
810. In the 2018 elections, Republican candidates won nine
congressional districts, while Democratic candidates won three. The
Republican candidate narrowly prevailed in the remaining district,
but the State Board of Elections called a new election after
allegations of fraud.

															This litigation began in August 2016, when the
North Carolina Democratic Party, Common Cause (a nonprofit
organization), and 14 individual North Carolina voters sued the two
lawmakers who had led the redistricting effort and other state
defendants in Federal District Court. Shortly thereafter, the
League of Women Voters of North Carolina and a dozen additional
North Carolina voters filed a similar complaint. The two cases were
consolidated.

															The plaintiffs challenged the 2016 Plan on
multiple constitutional grounds. First, they alleged that the Plan
violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by
intentionally diluting the electoral strength of Democratic voters.
Second, they claimed that the Plan violated their First Amendment
rights by retaliating against supporters of Democratic candidates
on the basis of their political beliefs. Third, they asserted that
the Plan usurped the right of “the People” to elect their preferred
candidates for Congress, in violation of the requirement in Article
I, §2, of the Constitution that Members of the House of
Representatives be chosen “by the People of the several States.”
Finally, they alleged that the Plan violated the Elections Clause
by exceeding the State’s delegated authority to prescribe the
“Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections” for Members of
Congress.

															After a four-day trial, the three-judge District
Court unanimously concluded that the 2016 Plan violated the Equal
Protection Clause and Article I of the Constitution. The court
further held, with Judge Osteen dissenting, that the Plan violated
the First Amendment. Common Cause v. Rucho , 279
F. Supp. 3d 587 (MDNC 2018). The defendants appealed directly
to this Court under 28 U. S. C. §1253.

															While that appeal was pending, we decided Gill v. Whitford , 585 U. S. ___ (2018), a
partisan gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin. In that case, we
held that a plaintiff asserting a partisan gerrymandering claim
based on a theory of vote dilution must establish standing by
showing he lives in an allegedly “cracked” or “packed” district. Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 17). A “cracked” district is one
in which a party’s supporters are divided among multiple districts,
so that they fall short of a majority in each; a “packed” district
is one in which a party’s supporters are highly concentrated, so
they win that district by a large margin, “wasting” many votes that
would improve their chances in others. Id. , at ___–___ (slip
op., at 3–4).

															After deciding Gill , we remanded the
present case for further consideration by the District Court. 585
U. S. ___ (2018). On remand, the District Court again struck
down the 2016 Plan. 318 F. Supp. 3d 777. It found standing and
concluded that the case was appropriate for judicial resolution. On
the merits, the court found that “the General Assembly’s
predominant intent was to discriminate against voters who supported
or were likely to support non-Republican candidates,” and to
“entrench Republican candidates” through widespread cracking and
packing of Democratic voters. Id. , at 883–884. The court
rejected the defendants’ arguments that the distribution of
Republican and Democratic voters throughout North Carolina and the
interest in protecting incumbents neutrally explained the 2016
Plan’s discriminatory effects. Id. , at 896–899. In the end,
the District Court held that 12 of the 13 districts constituted
partisan gerrymanders that violated the Equal Protection Clause. Id. , at 923.

															The court also agreed with the plaintiffs that
the 2016 Plan discriminated against them because of their political
speech and association, in violation of the First Amendment. Id. , at 935. Judge Osteen dissented with respect to that
ruling. Id. , at 954–955. Finally, the District Court
concluded that the 2016 Plan violated the Elections Clause and
Article I, §2. Id. , at 935–941. The District Court enjoined
the State from using the 2016 Plan in any election after the
November 2018 general election. Id. , at 942.

															The defendants again appealed to this Court, and
we postponed jurisdiction. 586 U. S. ___ (2019).

															B

															The second case before us is Lamone v. Benisek , No. 18–726. In 2011, the Maryland
Legislature—dominated by Democrats—undertook to redraw the lines of
that State’s eight congressional districts. The Governor at the
time, Democrat Martin O’Malley, led the process. He appointed a
redistricting committee to help redraw the map, and asked
Congressman Steny Hoyer, who has described himself as a “serial
gerrymanderer,” to advise the committee. 348 F. Supp. 3d 493,
502 (Md. 2018). The Governor later testified that his aim was to
“use the redistricting process to change the overall composition of
Maryland’s congressional delegation to 7 Democrats and 1 Republican
by flipping” one district. Ibid . “[A] decision was made to
go for the Sixth,” ibid. , which had been held by a
Republican for nearly two decades. To achieve the required equal
population among districts, only about 10,000 residents needed to
be removed from that district. Id. , at 498. The 2011 Plan
accomplished that by moving roughly 360,000 voters out of the Sixth
District and moving 350,000 new voters in. Overall, the Plan
reduced the number of registered Republicans in the Sixth District
by about 66,000 and increased the number of registered Democrats by
about 24,000. Id. , at 499–501. The map was adopted by a
party-line vote. Id. , at 506. It was used in the 2012
election and succeeded in flipping the Sixth District. A Democrat
has held the seat ever since.

															In November 2013, three Maryland voters filed
this lawsuit. They alleged that the 2011 Plan violated the First
Amendment, the Elections Clause, and Article I, §2, of the
Constitution. After considerable procedural skirmishing and
litigation over preliminary relief, the District Court entered
summary judgment for the plaintiffs. 348 F. Supp. 3d 493. It
concluded that the plaintiffs’ claims were justiciable, and that
the Plan violated the First Amendment by diminishing their “ability
to elect their candidate of choice” because of their party
affiliation and voting history, and by burdening their
associational rights. Id. , at 498. On the latter point, the
court relied upon findings that Republicans in the Sixth District
“were burdened in fundraising, attracting volunteers, campaigning,
and generating interest in voting in an atmosphere of general
confusion and apathy.” Id. , at 524.

															The District Court permanently enjoined the
State from using the 2011 Plan and ordered it to promptly adopt a
new plan for the 2020 election. Id. , at 525. The defendants
appealed directly to this Court under 28 U. S. C. §1253.
We postponed jurisdiction. 586 U. S. ___ (2019).

															II

															A

															Article III of the Constitution limits federal
courts to deciding “Cases” and “Controversies.” We have understood
that limitation to mean that federal courts can address only
questions “historically viewed as capable of resolution through the
judicial process.” Flast v. Cohen , 392 U.S.
83 , 95 (1968). In these cases we are asked to decide an
important question of constitutional law. “But before we do so, we
must find that the question is presented in a ‘case’ or
‘controversy’ that is, in James Madison’s words, ‘of a Judiciary
Nature.’ ” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno , 547 U.S.
332 , 342 (2006) (quoting 2 Records of the Federal Convention of
1787, p. 430 (M. Farrand ed. 1966)).

															Chief Justice Marshall famously wrote that it is
“the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the
law is.” Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch 137, 177
(1803). Sometimes, however, “the law is that the judicial
department has no business entertaining the claim of
unlawfulness—because the question is entrusted to one of the
political branches or involves no judicially enforceable rights.” Vieth v. Jubelirer , 541 U.S.
267 , 277 (2004) (plurality opinion). In such a case the claim
is said to present a “political question” and to be
nonjusticiable—outside the courts’ competence and therefore beyond
the courts’ jurisdiction. Baker v. Carr , 369 U.S.
186 , 217 (1962). Among the political question cases the Court
has identified are those that lack “judicially discoverable and
manageable standards for resolving [them].” Ibid. Last Term in Gill v. Whitford , we
reviewed our partisan gerrymandering cases and concluded that those
cases “leave unresolved whether such claims may be brought.” 585
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13). This Court’s authority to
act, as we said in Gill , is “grounded in and limited by the
necessity of resolving, according to legal principles, a
plaintiff’s particular claim of legal right.” Ibid. The
question here is whether there is an “appropriate role for the
Federal Judiciary” in remedying the problem of partisan
gerrymandering—whether such claims are claims of legal right, resolvable according to legal principles, or
political questions that must find their resolution elsewhere. Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 8).

															B

															Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new. Nor is
frustration with it. The practice was known in the Colonies prior
to Independence, and the Framers were familiar with it at the time
of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. See Vieth , 541 U. S., at 274 (plurality opinion). During
the very first congressional elections, George Washington and his
Federalist allies accused Patrick Henry of trying to gerrymander
Virginia’s districts against their candidates—in particular James
Madison, who ultimately prevailed over fellow future President
James Monroe. Hunter, The First Gerrymander? 9 Early Am. Studies
792–794, 811 (2011). See 5 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 71 (P. Ford
ed. 1895) (Letter to W. Short (Feb. 9, 1789)) (“Henry has so
modelled the districts for representatives as to tack Orange
[county] to counties where he himself has great influence that
Madison may not be elected into the lower federal house”).

															In 1812, Governor of Massachusetts and future
Vice President Elbridge Gerry notoriously approved congressional
districts that the legislature had drawn to aid the
Democratic-Republican Party. The moniker “gerrymander” was born
when an outraged Federalist newspaper observed that one of the
misshapen districts resembled a salamander. See Vieth , 541
U. S., at 274 (plurality opinion); E. Griffith, The Rise and
Development of the Gerrymander 17–19 (1907). “By 1840, the
gerrymander was a recognized force in party politics and was
generally attempted in all legislation enacted for the formation of
election districts. It was generally conceded that each party would
attempt to gain power which was not proportionate to its numerical
strength.” Id. , at 123.

															The Framers addressed the election of
Representatives to Congress in the Elections Clause. Art. I,
§4, cl. 1. That provision assigns to state legislatures the
power to prescribe the “Times, Places and Manner of holding
Elections” for Members of Congress, while giving Congress the power
to “make or alter” any such regulations. Whether to give that
supervisory authority to the National Government was debated at the
Constitutional Convention. When those opposed to such congressional
oversight moved to strike the relevant language, Madison came to
its defense:

															“[T]he State Legislatures will sometimes
fail or refuse to consult the common interest at the expense of
their local coveniency or prejudices. . . . Whenever
the State Legislatures had a favorite measure to carry, they would
take care so to mould their regulations as to favor the candidates
they wished to succeed.” 2 Records of the Federal Convention of
1787, at 240–241.

															During the subsequent fight for ratification,
the provision remained a subject of debate. Antifederalists
predicted that Congress’s power under the Elections Clause would
allow Congress to make itself “omnipotent,” setting the “time” of
elections as never or the “place” in difficult to reach corners of
the State. Federalists responded that, among other justifications,
the revisionary power was necessary to counter state legislatures
set on undermining fair representation, including through
malapportionment. M. Klarman, The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the
United States Constitution 340–342 (2016). The Federalists were,
for example, concerned that newly developing population centers
would be deprived of their proper electoral weight, as some cities
had been in Great Britain. See 6 The Documentary History of the
Ratification of the Constitution: Massachusetts 1278–1279 (J.
Kaminski & G. Saladino eds. 2000).

															Congress has regularly exercised its Elections
Clause power, including to address partisan gerrymandering. The
Apportionment Act of 1842, which required single-member districts
for the first time, specified that those districts be “composed of
contiguous territory,” Act of June 25, 1842, ch. 47, 5Stat. 491, in
“an attempt to forbid the practice of the gerrymander,” Griffith, supra , at 12. Later statutes added requirements of
compactness and equality of population. Act of Jan. 16, 1901, ch.
93, §3, 31Stat. 733; Act of Feb. 2, 1872, ch. 11, §2, 17Stat. 28.
(Only the single member district requirement remains in place
today. 2 U. S. C. §2c.) See Vieth , 541 U. S.,
at 276 (plurality opinion). Congress also used its Elections Clause
power in 1870, enacting the first comprehensive federal statute
dealing with elections as a way to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment.
Force Act of 1870, ch. 114, 16Stat. 140. Starting in the 1950s,
Congress enacted a series of laws to protect the right to vote
through measures such as the suspension of literacy tests and the
prohibition of English-only elections. See, e.g. , 52
U. S. C. §10101 et seq. Appellants suggest that, through the Elections
Clause, the Framers set aside electoral issues such as the one
before us as questions that only Congress can resolve. See Baker , 369 U. S., at 217. We do not agree. In two
areas—one-person, one-vote and racial gerrymandering—our cases have
held that there is a role for the courts with respect to at least
some issues that could arise from a State’s drawing of
congressional districts. See Wesberry v. Sanders , 376 U.S. 1 (1964); Shaw v. Reno , 509 U.S.
630 (1993) ( Shaw I ).

															But the history is not irrelevant. The Framers
were aware of electoral districting problems and considered what to
do about them. They settled on a characteristic approach, assigning
the issue to the state legislatures, expressly checked and balanced
by the Federal Congress. As Alexander Hamilton explained, “it will
. . . not be denied that a discretionary power over
elections ought to exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as
readily conceded that there were only three ways in which this
power could have been reasonably modified and disposed: that it
must either have been lodged wholly in the national legislature, or
wholly in the State legislatures, or primarily in the latter, and
ultimately in the former.” The Federalist No. 59, p. 362 (C.
Rossiter ed. 1961). At no point was there a suggestion that the
federal courts had a role to play. Nor was there any indication
that the Framers had ever heard of courts doing such a thing.

															C

															Courts have nevertheless been called upon to
resolve a variety of questions surrounding districting. Early on,
doubts were raised about the competence of the federal courts to
resolve those questions. See Wood v. Broom , 287 U.S. 1 (1932); Colegrove v. Green , 328
U.S. 549 (1946).

															In the leading case of Baker v. Carr , voters in Tennessee complained that the State’s
districting plan for state representatives “debase[d]” their votes,
because the plan was predicated on a 60-year-old census that no
longer reflected the distribution of population in the State. The
plaintiffs argued that votes of people in overpopulated districts
held less value than those of people in less-populated districts,
and that this inequality violated the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court dismissed the action
on the ground that the claim was not justiciable, relying on this
Court’s precedents, including Colegrove. Baker v. Carr , 179 F. Supp. 824 , 825, 826 (MD Tenn. 1959). This Court
reversed. It identified various considerations relevant to
determining whether a claim is a nonjusticiable political question,
including whether there is “a lack of judicially discover- able and
manageable standards for resolving it.” 369 U. S., at 217. The
Court concluded that the claim of population inequality among
districts did not fall into that category, because such a claim
could be decided under basic equal protection principles. Id. , at 226. In Wesberry v. Sanders , the Court
extended its ruling to malapportionment of congressional districts,
holding that Article I, §2, required that “one man’s vote in a
congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” 376
U. S., at 8.

															Another line of challenges to districting plans
has focused on race. Laws that explicitly discriminate on the basis
of race, as well as those that are race neutral on their face but
are unexplainable on grounds other than race, are of course
presumptively invalid. The Court applied those principles to
electoral boundaries in Gomillion v. Lightfoot ,
concluding that a challenge to an “uncouth twenty-eight sided”
municipal boundary line that excluded black voters from city
elections stated a constitutional claim. 364
U.S. 339 , 340 (1960). In Wright v. Rockefeller , 376 U.S.
52 (1964), the Court extended the reasoning of Gomillion to congressional districting. See Shaw I , 509 U. S., at
645.

															Partisan gerrymandering claims have proved far
more difficult to adjudicate. The basic reason is that, while it is
illegal for a jurisdiction to depart from the one-person, one-vote
rule, or to engage in racial discrimination in districting, “a
jurisdiction may engage in constitutional political
gerrymandering.” Hunt v. Cromartie , 526 U.S.
541 , 551 (1999) (citing Bush v. Vera , 517 U.S.
952 , 968 (1996); Shaw v. Hunt , 517 U.S.
899 , 905 (1996) ( Shaw II ); Miller v. Johnson , 515 U.S.
900 , 916 (1995); Shaw I , 509 U. S., at 646).
See also Gaffney v. Cummings , 412
U.S. 735 , 753 (1973) (recognizing that “[p]olitics and
political considerations are inseparable from districting and
apportionment”).

															To hold that legislators cannot take partisan
interests into account when drawing district lines would
essentially countermand the Framers’ decision to entrust
districting to political entities. The “central problem” is not
determining whether a jurisdiction has engaged in partisan
gerrymandering. It is “determining when political gerrymandering
has gone too far.” Vieth , 541 U. S., at 296 (plurality
opinion). See League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry , 548 U.S.
399 , 420 (2006) ( LULAC ) (opinion of Kennedy, J.)
(difficulty is “providing a standard for deciding how much partisan
dominance is too much”).

															We first considered a partisan gerrymandering
claim in Gaffney v. Cummings in 1973. There we
rejected an equal protection challenge to Connecticut’s
redistricting plan, which “aimed at a rough scheme of proportional
representation of the two major political parties” by “wiggl[ing]
and joggl[ing] boundary lines” to create the appropriate number of
safe seats for each party. 412 U. S., at 738, 752, n. 18
(internal quotation marks omitted). In upholding the State’s plan,
we reasoned that districting “inevitably has and is intended to
have substantial political consequences.” Id. , at 753.

															Thirteen years later, in Davis v. Bandemer , we addressed a claim that Indiana Republicans had
cracked and packed Democrats in violation of the Equal Protection
Clause. 478 U.S.
109 , 116–117 (1986) (plurality opinion). A majority of the
Court agreed that the case was justiciable, but the Court
splintered over the proper standard to apply. Four Justices would
have required proof of “intentional discrimination against an
identifiable political group and an actual discriminatory effect on
that group.” Id. , at 127. Two Justices would have focused on
“whether the boundaries of the voting districts have been distorted
deliberately and arbitrarily to achieve illegitimate ends.” Id. , at 165 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting
in part). Three Justices, meanwhile, would have held that the Equal
Protection Clause simply “does not supply judicially manageable
standards for resolving purely political gerrymandering claims.” Id. , at 147 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). At the
end of the day, there was “ no ‘Court’ for a standard that
properly should be applied in determining whether a challenged
redistricting plan is an unconstitutional partisan political
gerrymander.” Id. , at 185, n. 25 (opinion of Powell,
J.). In any event, the Court held that the plaintiffs had failed to
show that the plan violated the Constitution.

															Eighteen years later, in Vieth , the
plaintiffs complained that Pennsylvania’s legislature “ignored all
traditional redistricting criteria, including the preservation of
local government boundaries,” in order to benefit Republican
congressional candidates. 541 U. S., at 272–273 (plurality
opinion) (brackets omitted). Justice Scalia wrote for a
four-Justice plurality. He would have held that the plaintiffs’
claims were nonjusticiable because there was no “judicially
discernible and manageable standard” for deciding them. Id. ,
at 306. Justice Kennedy, concurring in the judgment, noted “the
lack of comprehensive and neutral principles for drawing electoral
boundaries [and] the absence of rules to limit and confine judicial
intervention.” Id. , at 306–307 . He nonetheless left
open the possibility that “in another case a standard might
emerge.” Id. , at 312. Four Justices dissented.

															In LULAC , the plaintiffs challenged a
mid-decade redistricting map approved by the Texas Legislature.
Once again a majority of the Court could not find a justiciable
standard for resolving the plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering
claims. See 548 U. S., at 414 (noting that the “disagreement
over what substantive standard to apply” that was evident in Bandemer “persists”).

															As we summed up last Term in Gill , our
“considerable efforts in Gaffney , Bandemer , Vieth , and LULAC leave unresolved whether
. . . claims [of legal right] may be brought in cases
involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering.” 585 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 13). Two “threshold questions” remained:
standing, which we addressed in Gill , and “whether [such]
claims are justiciable.” Ibid. III

															A

															In considering whether partisan gerrymandering
claims are justiciable, we are mindful of Justice Kennedy’s counsel
in Vieth : Any standard for resolving such claims must be
grounded in a “limited and precise rationale” and be “clear,
manageable, and politically neutral.” 541 U. S., at 306–308
(opinion concurring in judgment). An important reason for those
careful constraints is that, as a Justice with extensive experience
in state and local politics put it, “[t]he opportunity to control
the drawing of electoral boundaries through the legislative process
of apportionment is a critical and traditional part of politics in
the United States.” Bandemer , 478 U. S., at 145
(opinion of O’Connor, J.). See Gaffney , 412 U. S., at
749 (observing that districting implicates “fundamental ‘choices
about the nature of representation’ ” (quoting Burns v. Richardson , 384 U.S.
73 , 92 (1966))). An expansive standard requiring “the
correction of all election district lines drawn for partisan
reasons would commit federal and state courts to unprecedented
intervention in the American political process,” Vieth , 541
U. S., at 306 (opinion of Kennedy, J.).

															As noted, the question is one of degree: How to
“provid[e] a standard for deciding how much partisan dominance is
too much.” LULAC , 548 U. S., at 420 (opinion of
Kennedy, J.). And it is vital in such circumstances that the Court
act only in accord with especially clear standards: “With uncertain
limits, intervening courts—even when proceeding with best
intentions—would risk assuming political, not legal, responsibility
for a process that often produces ill will and distrust.” Vieth , 541 U. S., at 307 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). If
federal courts are to “inject [themselves] into the most heated
partisan issues” by adjudicating partisan gerrymandering claims, Bandemer , 478 U. S., at 145 (opinion of O’Connor, J.),
they must be armed with a standard that can reliably differentiate
unconstitutional from “constitutional political gerrymandering.” Cromartie , 526 U. S., at 551.

															B

															Partisan gerrymandering claims rest on an
instinct that groups with a certain level of political support
should enjoy a commensurate level of political power and influence.
Explicitly or implicitly, a districting map is alleged to be
unconstitutional because it makes it too difficult for one party to
translate statewide support into seats in the legislature. But such
a claim is based on a “norm that does not exist” in our electoral
system—“statewide elections for representatives along party lines.” Bandemer , 478 U. S., at 159 (opinion of O’Connor,
J.).

															Partisan gerrymandering claims invariably sound
in a desire for proportional representation. As Justice O’Connor
put it, such claims are based on “a conviction that the greater the
departure from proportionality, the more suspect an apportionment
plan becomes.” Ibid. “Our cases, however, clearly foreclose
any claim that the Constitution requires proportional
representation or that legislatures in reapportioning must draw
district lines to come as near as possible to allocating seats to
the contending parties in proportion to what their anticipated
statewide vote will be.” Id. , at 130 (plurality opinion).
See Mobile v. Bolden , 446 U.S.
55 , 75–76 (1980) (plurality opinion) (“The Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require proportional
representation as an imperative of political organization.”).

															The Founders certainly did not think
proportional representation was required. For more than 50 years
after ratification of the Constitution, many States elected their
congressional representatives through at-large or “general ticket”
elections. Such States typically sent single-party delegations to
Congress. See E. Engstrom, Partisan Gerry- mandering and the
Construction of American Democracy 43–51 (2013). That meant that a
party could garner nearly half of the vote statewide and wind up
without any seats in the congressional delegation. The Whigs in
Alabama suffered that fate in 1840: “their party garnered 43
percent of the statewide vote, yet did not receive a single seat.” Id. , at 48. When Congress required single-member districts
in the Apportionment Act of 1842, it was not out of a general sense
of fairness, but instead a (mis)calculation by the Whigs that such
a change would improve their electoral prospects. Id. , at
43–44.

															Unable to claim that the Constitution requires
proportional representation outright, plaintiffs inevitably ask the
courts to make their own political judgment about how much
representation particular political parties deserve —based on
the votes of their supporters—and to rearrange the challenged
districts to achieve that end. But federal courts are not equipped
to apportion political power as a matter of fairness, nor is there
any basis for concluding that they were authorized to do so. As
Justice Scalia put it for the plurality in Vieth :

															“ ‘Fairness’ does not seem to us a
judicially manage- able standard. . . . Some
criterion more solid and more demonstrably met than that seems to
us necessary to enable the state legislatures to discern the limits
of their districting discretion, to meaningfully constrain the
discretion of the courts, and to win public acceptance for the
courts’ intrusion into a process that is the very foundation of
democratic decisionmaking.” 541 U. S., at 291.

															The initial difficulty in settling on a “clear,
manageable and politically neutral” test for fairness is that it is
not even clear what fairness looks like in this context. There is a
large measure of “unfairness” in any winner-take-all system.
Fairness may mean a greater number of competitive districts. Such a
claim seeks to undo packing and cracking so that supporters of the
disadvantaged party have a better shot at electing their preferred
candidates. But making as many districts as possible more
competitive could be a recipe for disaster for the disadvantaged
party. As Justice White has pointed out, “[i]f all or most of the
districts are competitive . . . even a narrow statewide
preference for either party would produce an overwhelming majority
for the winning party in the state legislature.” Bandemer ,
478 U. S., at 130 (plurality opinion).

															On the other hand, perhaps the ultimate
objective of a “fairer” share of seats in the congressional
delegation is most readily achieved by yielding to the
gravitational pull of proportionality and engaging in cracking and
packing, to ensure each party its “appropriate” share of “safe”
seats. See id ., at 130–131 (“To draw district lines to
maximize the representation of each major party would require
creating as many safe seats for each party as the demographic and
predicted political characteristics of the State would permit.”); Gaffney , 412 U. S., at 735–738. Such an approach,
however, comes at the expense of competitive districts and of
individuals in districts allocated to the opposing party.

															Or perhaps fairness should be measured by
adherence to “traditional” districting criteria, such as
maintaining political subdivisions, keeping communities of interest
together, and protecting incumbents. See Brief for Bipartisan Group
of Current and Former Members of the House of Representatives as Amici Curiae ; Brief for Professor Wesley Pegden et al.
as Amici Curiae in No. 18–422. But protecting incumbents,
for example, enshrines a particular partisan distribution. And the
“natural political geography” of a State—such as the fact that
urban electoral districts are often dominated by one political
party—can itself lead to inherently packed districts. As Justice
Kennedy has explained, traditional criteria such as compactness and
contiguity “cannot promise political neutrality when used as the
basis for relief. Instead, it seems, a decision under these
standards would unavoidably have significant political effect,
whether intended or not.” Vieth , 541 U. S., at 308–309
(opinion concurring in judgment). See id. , at 298 (plurality
opinion) (“[P]acking and cracking, whether intentional or no, are
quite consistent with adherence to compactness and respect for
political subdivision lines”).

															Deciding among just these different visions of
fairness (you can imagine many others) poses basic questions that
are political, not legal. There are no legal standards discernible
in the Constitution for making such judgments, let alone limited
and precise standards that are clear, manageable, and politically
neutral. Any judicial decision on what is “fair” in this context
would be an “unmoored determination” of the sort characteristic of
a political question beyond the competence of the federal courts. Zivotofsky v. Clinton , 566 U.S.
189 , 196 (2012).

															And it is only after determining how to define
fairness that you can even begin to answer the determinative
question: “How much is too much?” At what point does permissible
partisanship become unconstitutional? If compliance with
traditional districting criteria is the fairness touchstone, for
example, how much deviation from those criteria is constitutionally
acceptable and how should mapdrawers prioritize competing criteria?
Should a court “reverse gerrymander” other parts of a State to
counteract “natural” gerrymandering caused, for example, by the
urban concentration of one party? If a districting plan protected
half of the incumbents but redistricted the rest into head to head
races, would that be constitutional? A court would have to rank the
relative importance of those traditional criteria and weigh how
much deviation from each to allow.

															If a court instead focused on the respective
number of seats in the legislature, it would have to decide the
ideal number of seats for each party and determine at what point
deviation from that balance went too far. If a 5–3 allocation
corresponds most closely to statewide vote totals, is a 6–2
allocation permissible, given that legislatures have the authority
to engage in a certain degree of partisan gerrymandering? Which
seats should be packed and which cracked? Or if the goal is as many
competitive districts as possible, how close does the split need to
be for the district to be considered competitive? Presumably not
all districts could qualify, so how to choose? Even assuming the
court knew which version of fairness to be looking for, there are
no discernible and manageable standards for deciding whether there
has been a violation. The questions are “unguided and ill suited to
the development of judicial standards,” Vieth , 541
U. S., at 296 (plurality opinion), and “results from one
gerrymandering case to the next would likely be disparate and
inconsistent,” id. , at 308 (opinion of Kennedy, J.).

															Appellees contend that if we can adjudicate
one-person, one-vote claims, we can also assess partisan
gerrymandering claims. But the one-person, one-vote rule is
relatively easy to administer as a matter of math. The same cannot
be said of partisan gerrymandering claims, because the Constitution
supplies no objective measure for assessing whether a districting
map treats a political party fairly. It hardly follows from the
principle that each person must have an equal say in the election
of representatives that a person is entitled to have his political
party achieve representation in some way commensurate to its share
of statewide support.

															More fundamentally, “vote dilution” in the
one-person, one-vote cases refers to the idea that each vote must
carry equal weight. In other words, each representative must be
accountable to (approximately) the same number of constituents.
That requirement does not extend to political parties. It does not
mean that each party must be influential in proportion to its
number of supporters. As we stated unanimously in Gill ,
“this Court is not responsible for vindicating generalized partisan
preferences. The Court’s constitutionally prescribed role is to
vindicate the individual rights of the people appearing before it.”
585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 21). See also Bandemer ,
478 U. S., at 150 (opinion of O’Connor, J.) (“[T]he Court has
not accepted the argument that an ‘asserted entitlement to group
representation’ . . . can be traced to the one person,
one vote principle.” (quoting Bolden , 446 U. S., at
77)).[ 1 ]

															Nor do our racial gerrymandering cases provide
an appropriate standard for assessing partisan gerrymandering.
“[N]othing in our case law compels the conclusion that racial and
political gerrymanders are subject to precisely the same
constitutional scrutiny. In fact, our country’s long and persistent
history of racial discrimination in voting—as well as our
Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, which always has reserved the
strictest scrutiny for discrimination on the basis of race—would
seem to compel the opposite conclusion.” Shaw I , 509
U. S., at 650 (citation omitted). Unlike partisan
gerrymandering claims, a racial gerrymandering claim does not ask
for a fair share of political power and influence, with all the
justiciability conundrums that entails. It asks instead for the
elimination of a racial classification. A partisan gerrymandering
claim cannot ask for the elimination of partisanship.

															IV

															Appellees and the dissent propose a number of
“tests” for evaluating partisan gerrymandering claims, but none
meets the need for a limited and precise standard that is
judicially discernible and manageable. And none provides a solid
grounding for judges to take the extraordinary step of reallocating
power and influence between political parties.

															A

															The Common Cause District Court
concluded that all but one of the districts in North Carolina’s
2016 Plan violated the Equal Protection Clause by intentionally
diluting the voting strength of Democrats. 318 F. Supp. 3d, at
923. In reaching that result the court first required the
plaintiffs to prove “that a legislative mapdrawer’s predominant
purpose in drawing the lines of a particular district was to
‘subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival
party in power.’ ” Id. , at 865 (quoting Arizona
State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting
Comm’n , 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 1)). The
District Court next required a showing “that the dilution of the
votes of supporters of a disfavored party in a particular
district—by virtue of cracking or packing—is likely to persist in
subsequent elections such that an elected representative from the
favored party in the district will not feel a need to be responsive
to constituents who support the disfavored party.” 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 867. Finally, after a prima facie showing of
partisan vote dilution, the District Court shifted the burden to
the defendants to prove that the discriminatory effects are
“attributable to a legitimate state interest or other neutral
explanation.” Id. , at 868.

															The District Court’s “predominant intent” prong
is borrowed from the racial gerrymandering context. In racial
gerrymandering cases, we rely on a “predominant intent” inquiry to
determine whether race was, in fact, the reason particular district
boundaries were drawn the way they were. If district lines were
drawn for the purpose of separating racial groups, then they are
subject to strict scrutiny because “race-based decisionmaking is
inherently suspect.” Miller , 515 U. S., at 915. See Bush , 517 U. S., at 959 (principal opinion). But
determining that lines were drawn on the basis of partisanship does
not indicate that the districting was improper. A permissible
intent—securing partisan advantage—does not become constitutionally
impermissible, like racial discrimination, when that permissible
intent “predominates.”

															The District Court tried to limit the reach of
its test by requiring plaintiffs to show, in addition to
predominant partisan intent, that vote dilution “is likely to
persist” to such a degree that the elected representative will feel
free to ignore the concerns of the supporters of the minority
party. 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 867. But “[t]o allow district
courts to strike down apportionment plans on the basis of their
prognostications as to the outcome of future elections
. . . invites ‘findings’ on matters as to which neither
judges nor anyone else can have any confidence.” Bandemer ,
478 U. S., at 160 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). See LULAC ,
548 U. S., at 420 (opinion of Kennedy, J.) (“[W]e are wary of
adopting a constitutional standard that invalidates a map based on
unfair results that would occur in a hypothetical state of
affairs.”). And the test adopted by the Common Cause court
requires a far more nuanced prediction than simply who would
prevail in future political contests. Judges must forecast with
unspecified certainty whether a prospective winner will have a
margin of victory sufficient to permit him to ignore the supporters
of his defeated opponent (whoever that may turn out to be). Judges
not only have to pick the winner—they have to beat the point
spread.

															The appellees assure us that “the persistence of
a party’s advantage may be shown through sensitivity testing:
probing how a plan would perform under other plausible electoral
conditions.” Brief for Appellees League of Women Voters of North
Carolina et al. in No. 18–422, p. 55. See also 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 885. Experience proves that accurately
predicting electoral outcomes is not so simple, either because the
plans are based on flawed assumptions about voter preferences and
behavior or because demographics and priorities change over time.
In our two leading partisan gerrymandering cases themselves, the
predictions of durability proved to be dramatically wrong. In 1981,
Republicans controlled both houses of the Indiana Legislature as
well as the governorship. Democrats challenged the state
legislature districting map enacted by the Republicans. This Court
in Bandemer rejected that challenge, and just months later
the Democrats increased their share of House seats in the 1986
elections. Two years later the House was split 50–50 between
Democrats and Republicans, and the Democrats took control of the
chamber in 1990. Democrats also challenged the Pennsylvania
congressional districting plan at issue in Vieth . Two years
after that challenge failed, they gained four seats in the
delegation, going from a 12–7 minority to an 11–8 majority. At the
next election, they flipped another Republican seat.

															Even the most sophisticated districting maps
cannot reliably account for some of the reasons voters prefer one
candidate over another, or why their preferences may change. Voters
elect individual candidates in individual districts, and their
selections depend on the issues that matter to them, the quality of
the candidates, the tone of the candidates’ campaigns, the
performance of an incumbent, national events or local issues that
drive voter turnout, and other considerations. Many voters split
their tickets. Others never register with a political party, and
vote for candidates from both major parties at different points
during their lifetimes. For all of those reasons, asking judges to
predict how a particular districting map will perform in future
elections risks basing constitutional holdings on unstable ground
outside judicial expertise.

															It is hard to see what the District Court’s
third prong—providing the defendant an opportunity to show that the
discriminatory effects were due to a “legitimate redistricting
objective”—adds to the inquiry. 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 861. The
first prong already requires the plaintiff to prove that partisan
advantage predominates. Asking whether a legitimate purpose other
than partisanship was the motivation for a particular districting
map just restates the question.

															B

															The District Courts also found partisan
gerrymandering claims justiciable under the First Amendment,
coalescing around a basic three-part test: proof of intent to
burden individuals based on their voting history or party
affiliation; an actual burden on political speech or associational
rights; and a causal link between the invidious intent and actual
burden. See Common Cause , 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 929; Benisek , 348 F. Supp. 3d, at 522. Both District Courts
concluded that the districting plans at issue violated the
plaintiffs’ First Amendment right to association. The District
Court in North Carolina relied on testimony that, after the 2016
Plan was put in place, the plaintiffs faced “difficulty raising
money, attracting candidates, and mobilizing voters to support the
political causes and issues such Plaintiffs sought to advance.” 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 932. Similarly, the District Court in Maryland
examined testimony that “revealed a lack of enthusiasm,
indifference to voting, a sense of disenfranchisement, a sense of
disconnection, and confusion,” and concluded that Republicans in
the Sixth District “were burdened in fundraising, attracting
volunteers, campaigning, and generating interest in voting.” 348
F. Supp. 3d, at 523–524.

															To begin, there are no restrictions on speech,
association, or any other First Amendment activities in the
districting plans at issue. The plaintiffs are free to engage in
those activities no matter what the effect of a plan may be on
their district.

															The plaintiffs’ argument is that partisanship in
districting should be regarded as simple discrimination against
supporters of the opposing party on the basis of political
viewpoint. Under that theory, any level of partisanship in
districting would constitute an infringement of their First
Amendment rights. But as the Court has explained, “[i]t would be
idle . . . to contend that any political consideration
taken into account in fashioning a reapportionment plan is
sufficient to invalidate it.” Gaffney , 412 U. S., at
752. The First Amendment test simply describes the act of
districting for partisan advantage. It provides no standard for
determining when partisan activity goes too far.

															As for actual burden, the slight anecdotal
evidence found sufficient by the District Courts in these cases
shows that this too is not a serious standard for separating
constitutional from unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. The
District Courts relied on testimony about difficulty drumming up
volunteers and enthusiasm. How much of a decline in voter
engagement is enough to constitute a First Amendment burden? How
many door knocks must go unanswered? How many petitions unsigned?
How many calls for volunteers unheeded? The Common Cause District Court held that a partisan gerrymander places an
unconstitutional burden on speech if it has more than a “ de
minimis ” “chilling effect or adverse impact” on any First
Amendment activity. 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 930. The court went on
to rule that there would be an adverse effect “even if the speech
of [the plaintiffs] was not in fact chilled”; it was enough
that the districting plan “makes it easier for supporters of
Republican candidates to translate their votes into seats,” thereby
“enhanc[ing] the[ir] relative voice.” Id. , at 933 (internal
quotation marks omitted).

															These cases involve blatant examples of
partisanship driving districting decisions. But the First Amendment
analysis below offers no “clear” and “manageable” way of
distinguishing permissible from impermissible partisan motivation.
The Common Cause court embraced that conclusion, observing
that “a judicially manageable framework for evaluating partisan
gerrymandering claims need not distinguish an ‘acceptable’ level of
partisan gerrymandering from ‘excessive’ partisan gerrymandering”
because “the Constitution does not authorize state redistricting
bodies to engage in such partisan gerrymandering.” Id ., at
851. The decisions below prove the prediction of the Vieth plurality that “a First Amendment claim, if it were sustained,
would render unlawful all consideration of political
affiliation in districting,” 541 U. S., at 294, contrary to
our established precedent.

															C

															The dissent proposes using a State’s own
districting criteria as a neutral baseline from which to measure
how extreme a partisan gerrymander is. The dissent would have us
line up all the possible maps drawn using those criteria according
to the partisan distribution they would produce. Distance from the
“median” map would indicate whether a particular districting plan
harms supporters of one party to an unconstitutional extent. Post , at 18–19, 25 (opinion of Kagan, J.).

															As an initial matter, it does not make sense to
use criteria that will vary from State to State and year to year as
the baseline for determining whether a gerrymander violates the
Federal Constitution. The degree of partisan advantage that the
Constitution tolerates should not turn on criteria offered by the
gerrymanderers themselves. It is easy to imagine how different
criteria could move the median map toward different partisan
distributions. As a result, the same map could be constitutional or
not depending solely on what the mapmakers said they set out to do.
That possibility illustrates that the dissent’s proposed
constitutional test is indeterminate and arbitrary.

															Even if we were to accept the dissent’s proposed
baseline, it would return us to “the original unanswerable question
(How much political motivation and effect is too much?).” Vieth , 541 U. S., at 296–297 (plurality opinion). Would
twenty percent away from the median map be okay? Forty percent?
Sixty percent? Why or why not? (We appreciate that the dissent
finds all the unanswerable questions annoying, see post , at
22, but it seems a useful way to make the point.) The dissent’s
answer says it all: “This much is too much.” Post , at 25–26.
That is not even trying to articulate a standard or rule.

															The dissent argues that there are other
instances in law where matters of degree are left to the courts.
See post , at 27. True enough. But those instances typically
involve constitutional or statutory provisions or common law
confining and guiding the exercise of judicial discretion. For
example, the dissent cites the need to determine “substantial
anticompetitive effect[s]” in antitrust law. Post , at 27
(citing Ohio v. American Express Co. , 585 U. S.
___ (2018)). That language, however, grew out of the Sherman Act,
understood from the beginning to have its “origin in the common
law” and to be “familiar in the law of this country prior to and at
the time of the adoption of the [A]ct.” Standard Oil Co. of
N. J. v. United States , 221 U.S.
1 , 51 (1911). Judges began with a significant body of law about
what constituted a legal violation. In other cases, the pertinent
statutory terms draw meaning from related provisions or statutory
context. Here, on the other hand, the Constitution provides no
basis whatever to guide the exercise of judicial discretion. Common
experience gives content to terms such as “substantial risk” or
“substantial harm,” but the same cannot be said of substantial
deviation from a median map. There is no way to tell whether the
prohibited deviation from that map should kick in at 25 percent or
75 percent or some other point. The only provision in the
Constitution that specifically addresses the matter assigns it to
the political branches. See Art. I, §4, cl. 1.

															D

															The North Carolina District Court further
concluded that the 2016 Plan violated the Elections Clause and
Article I, §2. We are unconvinced by that novel approach.

															Article I, §2, provides that “[t]he House of
Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second
Year by the People of the several States.” The Elections Clause
provides that “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections
for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State
by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law
make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing
Senators.” Art. I, §4, cl. 1.

															The District Court concluded that the 2016 Plan
exceeded the North Carolina General Assembly’s Elections Clause
authority because, among other reasons, “the Elections Clause did
not empower State legislatures to disfavor the interests of
supporters of a particular candidate or party in drawing
congressional districts.” 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 937. The court
further held that partisan gerrymandering infringes the right of
“the People” to select their representatives. Id. , at
938–940. Before the District Court’s decision, no court had reached
a similar conclusion. In fact, the plurality in Vieth concluded—without objection from any other Justice—that neither §2
nor §4 of Article I “provides a judicially enforceable limit on the
political considerations that the States and Congress may take into
account when districting.” 541 U. S., at 305.

															The District Court nevertheless asserted that
partisan gerrymanders violate “the core principle of [our]
republican government” preserved in Art. I, §2, “namely, that
the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way
around.” 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 940 (quoting Arizona State
Legislature , 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 35); internal
quotation marks omitted; alteration in original). That seems like
an objection more properly grounded in the Guarantee Clause of
Article IV, §4, which “guarantee[s] to every State in [the]
Union a Republican Form of Government.” This Court has several
times concluded, however, that the Guarantee Clause does not
provide the basis for a justiciable claim. See, e.g. , Pacific States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Oregon , 223 U.S.
118 (1912).

															V

															Excessive partisanship in districting leads to
results that reasonably seem unjust. But the fact that such
gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic principles,” Arizona State Legislature , 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 1), does not mean that the solution lies with the federal
judiciary. We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present
political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts. Federal
judges have no license to reallocate political power between the
two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority
in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct
their decisions. “[J]udicial action must be governed by standard , by rule ,” and must be “principled,
rational, and based upon reasoned distinctions” found in the
Constitution or laws. Vieth , 541 U. S., at 278, 279
(plurality opinion). Judicial review of partisan gerrymandering
does not meet those basic requirements.

															Today the dissent essentially embraces the
argument that the Court unanimously rejected in Gill : “this
Court can address the problem of partisan gerrymandering
because it must .” 585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12).
That is not the test of our authority under the Constitution; that
document instead “confines the federal courts to a properly
judicial role.” Town of Chester v. Laroe Estates , Inc. , 581 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 4).

															What the appellees and dissent seek is an
unprecedented expansion of judicial power. We have never struck
down a partisan gerrymander as unconstitutional—despite various
requests over the past 45 years. The expansion of judicial
authority would not be into just any area of controversy, but into
one of the most intensely partisan aspects of American political
life. That intervention would be unlimited in scope and duration—it
would recur over and over again around the country with each new
round of districting, for state as well as federal representatives.
Consideration of the impact of today’s ruling on democratic
principles cannot ignore the effect of the unelected and
politically unaccountable branch of the Federal Government assuming
such an extraordinary and unprecedented role. See post , at
32–33.

															Our conclusion does not condone excessive
partisan gerrymandering. Nor does our conclusion condemn complaints
about districting to echo into a void. The States, for example, are
actively addressing the issue on a number of fronts. In 2015, the
Supreme Court of Florida struck down that State’s congressional
districting plan as a violation of the Fair Districts Amendment to
the Florida Constitution. League of Women Voters of Florida v. Detzner , 172 So. 3d 363 (2015). The dissent wonders why
we can’t do the same. See post , at 31. The answer is that
there is no “Fair Districts Amendment” to the Federal Constitution.
Provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide
standards and guidance for state courts to apply. (We do not
understand how the dissent can maintain that a provision saying
that no districting plan “shall be drawn with the intent to favor
or disfavor a political party” provides little guidance on the
question. See post , at 31, n. 6.) Indeed, numerous
other States are restricting partisan considerations in districting
through legislation. One way they are doing so is by placing power
to draw electoral districts in the hands of independent
commissions. For example, in November 2018, voters in Colorado and
Michigan approved constitutional amendments creating multimember
commissions that will be responsible in whole or in part for
creating and approving district maps for congressional and state
legislative districts. See Colo. Const., Art. V, §§44, 46;
Mich. Const., Art. IV, §6. Missouri is trying a different
tack. Voters there overwhelmingly approved the creation of a new
position—state demographer—to draw state legislative district
lines. Mo. Const., Art. III, §3.

															Other States have mandated at least some of the
traditional districting criteria for their mapmakers. Some have
outright prohibited partisan favoritism in redistricting. See Fla.
Const., Art. III, §20(a) (“No apportionment plan or individual
district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a
political party or an incumbent.”); Mo. Const., Art. III, §3
(“Districts shall be designed in a manner that achieves both
partisan fairness and, secondarily, competitiveness. ‘Partisan
fairness’ means that parties shall be able to translate their
popular support into legislative representation with approximately
equal efficiency.”); Iowa Code §42.4(5) (2016) (“No district shall
be drawn for the purpose of favoring a political party, incumbent
legislator or member of Congress, or other person or group.”); Del.
Code Ann., Tit. xxix, §804 (2017) (providing that in determining
district boundaries for the state legislature, no district shall
“be created so as to unduly favor any person or political
party”).

															As noted, the Framers gave Congress the power to
do something about partisan gerrymandering in the Elections Clause.
The first bill introduced in the 116th Congress would require
States to create 15-member independent commissions to draw
congressional districts and would establish certain redistricting
criteria, including protection for communities of interest, and ban
partisan gerrymandering. H. R. 1, 116th Cong., 1st Sess.,
§§2401, 2411 (2019).

															Dozens of other bills have been introduced to
limit reliance on political considerations in redistricting. In
2010, H. R. 6250 would have required States to follow
standards of compactness, contiguity, and respect for political
subdivisions in redistricting. It also would have prohibited the
establishment of congressional districts “with the major purpose of
diluting the voting strength of any person, or group, including any
political party,” except when necessary to comply with the Voting
Rights Act of 1965. H. R. 6250, 111th Cong., 2d Sess., §2
(referred to committee).

															Another example is the Fairness and Independence
in Redistricting Act, which was introduced in 2005 and has been
reintroduced in every Congress since. That bill would require every
State to establish an independent commission to adopt redistricting
plans. The bill also set forth criteria for the independent
commissions to use, such as compactness, contiguity, and population
equality. It would prohibit consideration of voting history,
political party affiliation, or incumbent Representative’s
residence. H. R. 2642, 109th Cong., 1st Sess., §4 (referred to
subcommittee).

															We express no view on any of these pending
proposals. We simply note that the avenue for reform established by
the Framers, and used by Congress in the past, remains open.

															*  *  *

															No one can accuse this Court of having a
crabbed view of the reach of its competence. But we have no
commission to allocate political power and influence in the absence
of a constitutional directive or legal standards to guide us in the
exercise of such authority. “It is emphatically the province and
duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch, at 177. In this rare
circumstance, that means our duty is to say “this is not law.”

															The judgments of the United States District
Court for the Middle District of North Carolina and the United
States District Court for the District of Maryland are vacated, and
the cases are remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of
jurisdiction.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 The dissent’s observation
that the Framers viewed political parties “with deep suspicion, as
fomenters of factionalism and symptoms of disease in the body
politic” post , at 9, n. 1 (opinion of Kagan, J.)
(internal quotation marks and alteration omitted), is exactly
right. Its inference from that fact is exactly wrong. The Framers
would have been amazed at a constitutional theory that guarantees a
certain degree of representation to political parties. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															Nos. 18–422, 18–726

															_________________

															ROBERT A. RUCHO, et al.,
APPELLANTS

															18–422 v. COMMON CAUSE, et al.; AND

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the middle district of north carolina

															LINDA H. LAMONE, et al.,
APPELLANTS

															18–726 v. O. JOHN BENISEK, et al.

															on appeal from the united states district
court for the district of maryland

															[June 27, 2019]

															Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Ginsburg,
Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor join, dissenting.

															For the first time ever, this Court refuses to
remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond
judicial capabilities.

															And not just any constitutional violation. The
partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most
fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to
participate equally in the political process, to join with others
to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political
representatives. In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here
debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core
American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.
These gerrymanders enabled politicians to entrench themselves in
office as against voters’ preferences. They promoted partisanship
above respect for the popular will. They encouraged a politics of
polarization and dysfunction. If left unchecked, gerrymanders like
the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government.

															And checking them is not beyond the
courts. The majority’s abdication comes just when courts across the
country, including those below, have coalesced around manageable
judicial standards to resolve partisan gerrymandering claims. Those
standards satisfy the majority’s own benchmarks. They do not
require—indeed, they do not permit—courts to rely on their own
ideas of electoral fairness, whether proportional representation or
any other. And they limit courts to correcting only egregious
gerrymanders, so judges do not become omnipresent players in the
political process. But yes, the standards used here do allow—as
well they should—judicial intervention in the worst-of-the-worst
cases of democratic subversion, causing blatant constitutional
harms. In other words, they allow courts to undo partisan
gerrymanders of the kind we face today from North Carolina and
Maryland. In giving such gerrymanders a pass from judicial review,
the majority goes tragically wrong.

															I

															Maybe the majority errs in these cases because
it pays so little attention to the constitutional harms at their
core. After dutifully reciting each case’s facts, the majority
leaves them forever behind, instead immersing itself in everything
that could conceivably go amiss if courts became involved. So it is
necessary to fill in the gaps. To recount exactly what politicians
in North Carolina and Maryland did to entrench their parties in
political office, whatever the electorate might think. And to
elaborate on the constitutional injury those politicians wreaked,
to our democratic system and to individuals’ rights. All that will
help in considering whether courts confronting partisan
gerrymandering claims are really so hamstrung—so un- able to carry
out their constitutional duties—as the major- ity thinks.

															A

															The plaintiffs here challenge two
congressional districting plans—one adopted by Republicans in North
Carolina and the other by Democrats in Maryland—as unconstitutional
partisan gerrymanders. As I relate what happened in those two
States, ask yourself: Is this how American democracy is supposed to
work?

															Start with North Carolina. After the 2010
census, the North Carolina General Assembly, with Republican
majorities in both its House and its Senate, enacted a new
congressional districting plan. That plan governed the two next
national elections. In 2012, Republican candidates won 9 of the
State’s 13 seats in the U. S. House of Representatives,
although they received only 49% of the statewide vote. In 2014,
Republican candidates increased their total to 10 of the 13 seats,
this time based on 55% of the vote. Soon afterward, a District
Court struck down two districts in the plan as unconstitutional
racial gerrymanders. See Harris v. McCrory , 159
F. Supp. 3d 600 (MDNC 2016), aff’d sub nom. Cooper v. Harris , 581 U. S. ___ (2017). The General Assembly,
with both chambers still controlled by Republicans, went back to
the drawing board to craft the needed remedial state map. And here
is how the process unfolded:

															The Republican co-chairs of the Assembly’s
redis- tricting committee, Rep. David Lewis and Sen. Robert Rucho,
instructed Dr. Thomas Hofeller, a Republican districting
specialist, to create a new map that would maintain the 10–3
composition of the State’s congressional delegation come what
might. Using sophisticated technological tools and precinct-level
election results selected to predict voting behavior, Hofeller drew
district lines to minimize Democrats’ voting strength and ensure
the election of 10 Republican Congressmen. See Common Cause v. Rucho , 318 F. Supp. 3d 777, 805–806 (MDNC 2018).

															Lewis then presented for the redistricting
committee’s (retroactive) approval a list of the criteria Hofeller
had employed—including one labeled “Partisan Advantage.” That
criterion, endorsed by a party-line vote, stated that the committee
would make all “reasonable efforts to construct districts” to
“maintain the current [10–3] partisan makeup” of the State’s
congressional delegation. Id., at 807.

															Lewis explained the Partisan Advantage criterion
to legislators as follows: We are “draw[ing] the maps to give a
partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because [I]
d[o] not believe it[’s] possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans
and 2 Democrats.” Id., at 808 (internal quotation marks
omitted).

															The committee and the General Assembly later
enacted, again on a party-line vote, the map Hofeller had drawn.
See id., at 809.

															Lewis announced: “I think electing Republicans
is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help
foster what I think is better for the country.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).

															You might think that judgment best left to the
American people. But give Lewis credit for this much: The map has
worked just as he planned and predicted. In 2016, Repub-

															lican congressional candidates won 10 of North
Carolina’s 13 seats, with 53% of the statewide vote. Two years
later, Republican candidates won 9 of 12 seats though they received
only 50% of the vote. (The 13th seat has not yet been filled
because fraud tainted the initial election.)

															Events in Maryland make for a similarly grisly
tale. For 50 years, Maryland’s 8-person congressional delegation
typically consisted of 2 or 3 Republicans and 5 or 6 Democrats.
After the 2000 districting, for example, the First and Sixth
Districts reliably elected Republicans, and the other districts as
reliably elected Democrats. See R. Cohen & J. Barnes, Almanac
of American Politics 2016, p. 836 (2015). But in the 2010
districting cycle, the State’s Democratic leaders, who controlled
the governorship and both houses of the General Assembly, decided
to press their advantage.

															Governor Martin O’Malley, who oversaw the
process, decided (in his own later words) “to create a map that was
more favorable for Democrats over the next ten years.” Because
flipping the First District was geographically next-to-impossible,
“a decision was made to go for the Sixth.” Benisek v. Lamone , 348 F. Supp. 3d 493, 502 (Md. 2018) (quoting
O’Malley; emphasis deleted).

															O’Malley appointed an advisory committee as the
public face of his effort, while asking Congressman Steny Hoyer, a
self-described “serial gerryman- derer,” to hire and direct a
mapmaker. Id., at 502. Hoyer retained Eric Hawkins, an
analyst at a political consulting firm providing services to
Democrats. See id., at 502–503.

															Hawkins received only two instructions: to
ensure that the new map produced 7 reliable Democratic seats, and
to protect all Democratic incumbents. See id., at 503.

															Using similar technologies and election data as
Hofeller, Hawkins produced a map to those specifications. Although
new census figures required removing only 10,000 residents from the
Sixth District, Hawkins proposed a large-scale population transfer.
The map moved about 360,000 voters out of the district and another
350,000 in. That swap decreased the number of registered
Republicans in the district by over 66,000 and increased the number
of registered Democrats by about 24,000, all to produce a safe
Democratic district. See id., at 499, 501.

															After the advisory committee adopted the map on
a party-line vote, State Senate President Thomas Miller briefed the
General Assembly’s Democratic caucuses about the new map’s aims.
Miller told his colleagues that the map would give “Democrats a
real opportunity to pick up a seventh seat in the delegation” and
that “[i]n the face of Republican gains in redistricting in other
states[,] we have a serious obligation to create this opportunity.” Id., at 506 (internal quotation marks omitted).

															The General Assembly adopted the plan on a
party-line vote. See id., at 506.

															Maryland’s Democrats proved no less successful
than North Carolina’s Republicans in devising a voter-proof map. In
the four elections that followed (from 2012 through 2018),
Democrats have never received more than 65% of the statewide
congressional vote. Yet in each of those elections, Democrats have
won (you guessed it) 7 of 8

															House seats—including the
once-reliably-Republican Sixth District.

															B

															Now back to the question I asked before: Is
that how American democracy is supposed to work? I have yet to meet
the person who thinks so.

															“Governments,” the Declaration of Independence
states, “deriv[e] their just Powers from the Consent of the
Governed.” The Constitution begins: “We the People of the United
States.” The Gettysburg Address (almost) ends: “[G]overnment of the
people, by the people, for the people.” If there is a single idea
that made our Nation (and that our Nation commended to the world),
it is this one: The people are sovereign. The “power,” James
Madison wrote, “is in the people over the Government, and not in
the Government over the people.” 4 Annals of Cong. 934 (1794).

															Free and fair and periodic elections are the key
to that vision. The people get to choose their representatives. And
then they get to decide, at regular intervals, whether to keep
them. Madison again: “[R]epublican liberty” demands “not only, that
all power should be derived from the people; but that those
entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people.” 2
The Federalist No. 37, p. 4 (J. & A. McLean eds. 1788). Members
of the House of Representatives, in particular, are supposed to
“recollect[ ] [that] dependence” every day. Id., No. 57, at
155. To retain an “intimate sympathy with the people,” they must be
“compelled to anticipate the moment” when their “exercise of
[power] is to be reviewed.” Id., Nos. 52, 57, at 124, 155.
Election day—next year, and two years later, and two years after
that—is what links the people to their representatives, and gives
the people their sovereign power. That day is the foundation of
democratic governance.

															And partisan gerrymandering can make it
meaningless. At its most extreme—as in North Carolina and
Maryland—the practice amounts to “rigging elections.” Vieth v. Jubelirer , 541 U.S.
267 , 317 (2004) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) (internal
quotation marks omitted). By drawing districts to maximize the
power of some voters and minimize the power of others, a party in
office at the right time can entrench itself there for a decade or
more, no matter what the voters would prefer. Just ask the people
of North Carolina and Maryland. The “core principle of republican
government,” this Court has recognized, is “that the voters should
choose their representatives, not the other way around.” Arizona
State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting
Comm’n , 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 35)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Partisan gerrymandering turns
it the other way around. By that mechanism, politicians can
cherry-pick voters to ensure their reelection. And the power
becomes, as Madison put it, “in the Government over the people.” 4
Annals of Cong. 934.

															The majority disputes none of this. I think it
important to underscore that fact: The majority disputes none of
what I have said (or will say) about how gerrymanders undermine
democracy. Indeed, the majority concedes (really, how could it
not?) that gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic
principles.” Ante, at 30 (quoting Arizona State
Legislature , 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1)). And
therefore what? That recognition would seem to demand a response.
The majority offers two ideas that might qualify as such. One is
that the political process can deal with the problem—a proposition
so dubious on its face that I feel secure in delaying my answer for
some time. See ante, at 31–33 ; infra, at
29–31 . The other is that political gerrymanders have always
been with us. See ante, at 8, 24. To its credit, the
majority does not frame that point as an originalist constitutional
argument. After all (as the majority rightly notes), racial and
residential gerrymanders were also once with us, but the Court has
done something about that fact. See ante, at 10.[ 1 ] The majority’s idea instead seems to
be that if we have lived with partisan gerrymanders so long, we
will survive.

															That complacency has no cause. Yes, partisan
gerrymandering goes back to the Republic’s earliest days. (As does
vociferous opposition to it.) But big data and modern technology—of
just the kind that the mapmakers in North Carolina and Maryland
used—make today’s gerrymandering altogether different from the
crude linedrawing of the past. Old-time efforts, based on little
more than guesses, sometimes led to so-called
dummymanders—gerrymanders that went spectacularly wrong. Not likely
in today’s world. Mapmakers now have access to more granular data
about party preference and voting behavior than ever before.
County-level voting data has given way to precinct-level or
city-block-level data; and increasingly, mapmakers avail themselves
of data sets providing wide-ranging information about even
individual voters. See Brief for Political Science Professors as Amici Curiae 20–22. Just as important, advancements in
computing technology have enabled mapmakers to put that information
to use with unprecedented efficiency and precision. See id., at 22–25. While bygone mapmakers may have drafted three or four
alternative districting plans, today’s mapmakers can generate
thousands of possibilities at the touch of a key—and then choose
the one giving their party maximum advantage (usually while still
meeting traditional districting requirements). The effect is to
make gerrymanders far more effective and durable than before,
insulating politicians against all but the most titanic shifts in
the political tides. These are not your grand- father’s—let alone
the Framers’—gerrymanders.

															The proof is in the 2010 pudding. That
redistricting cycle produced some of the most extreme partisan
gerrymanders in this country’s history. I’ve already recounted the
results from North Carolina and Maryland, and you’ll hear even more
about those. See supra, at 4–6; infra, at 19–20. But
the voters in those States were not the only ones to fall prey to
such districting perversions. Take Pennsylvania. In the three
congressional elections occurring under the State’s original
districting plan (before the State Supreme Court struck it down),
Democrats received between 45% and 51% of the statewide vote, but
won only 5 of 18 House seats. See League of Women Voters v. Pennsylvania , ___ Pa. ___, ___, 178 A.3d 737, 764 (2018). Or
go next door to Ohio. There, in four congressional elections,
Democrats tallied between 39% and 47% of the statewide vote, but
never won more than 4 of 16 House seats. See Ohio A. Philip
Randolph Inst. v. Householder , 373 F. Supp. 3d 978,
1074 (SD Ohio 2019). (Nor is there any reason to think that the
results in those States stemmed from political geography or
non-partisan districting criteria, rather than from partisan
manipulation. See infra , at 15, 31.) And gerrymanders will
only get worse (or depending on your perspective, better) as time
goes on—as data becomes ever more fine-grained and data analysis
techniques continue to improve. What was possible with paper and
pen—or even with Windows 95—doesn’t hold a candle (or an LED bulb?)
to what will become possible with developments like machine
learning. And someplace along this road, “we the people” become
sovereign no longer.

															C

															Partisan gerrymandering of the kind before us
not only subverts democracy (as if that weren’t bad enough). It
violates individuals’ constitutional rights as well. That statement
is not the lonesome cry of a dissenting Justice. This Court has
recognized extreme partisan gerrymandering as such a violation for
many years.

															Partisan gerrymandering operates through vote
dilution—the devaluation of one citizen’s vote as compared to
others. A mapmaker draws district lines to “pack” and “crack”
voters likely to support the disfavored party. See generally Gill v. Whitford , 585 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018)
(slip op., at 14–16). He packs supermajorities of those voters into
a relatively few districts, in numbers far greater than needed for
their preferred candidates to prevail. Then he cracks the rest
across many more districts, spreading them so thin that their
candidates will not be able to win. Whether the person is packed or
cracked, his vote carries less weight—has less consequence—than it
would under a neutrally drawn (non-partisan) map. See id., at ___ (Kagan, J., concurring) (slip op., at 4). In short, the
mapmaker has made some votes count for less, because they are
likely to go for the other party.

															That practice implicates the Fourteenth
Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Fourteenth Amendment, we
long ago recognized, “guarantees the opportunity for equal
participation by all voters in the election” of legislators. Reynolds v. Sims , 377 U.S.
533 , 566 (1964). And that opportunity “can be denied by a
debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as
effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the
franchise.” Id., at 555. Based on that principle, this Court
in its one-person-one-vote decisions prohibited creating districts
with significantly different populations. A State could not, we
explained, thus “dilut[e] the weight of votes because of place of
residence.” Id., at 566. The constitutional injury in a
partisan gerrymandering case is much the same, except that the
dilution is based on party affiliation. In such a case, too, the
districters have set out to reduce the weight of certain citizens’
votes, and thereby deprive them of their capacity to “full[y] and
effective[ly] participat[e] in the political process[ ].” Id., at 565. As Justice Kennedy (in a controlling opinion)
once hypothesized: If districters declared that they were drawing a
map “so as most to burden [the votes of] Party X’s” supporters, it
would violate the Equal Protection Clause. Vieth , 541
U. S., at 312. For (in the language of the one-person-one-vote
decisions) it would infringe those voters’ rights to “equal
[electoral] participation.” Reynolds , 377 U. S., at
566; see Gray v. Sanders , 372
U.S. 368 , 379–380 (1963) (“The concept of ‘we the people’ under
the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but
equality among those who meet the basic qualifications”).

															And partisan gerrymandering implicates the First
Amendment too. That Amendment gives its greatest protection to
political beliefs, speech, and association. Yet partisan
gerrymanders subject certain voters to “disfavored
treatment”—again, counting their votes for less—precisely because
of “their voting history [and] their expression of political
views.” Vieth , 541 U. S., at 314 (opinion of Kennedy,
J.). And added to that strictly personal harm is an associational
one. Representative democracy is “unimaginable without the ability
of citizens to band together in [support of] candidates who espouse
their political views.” California Democratic Party v. Jones , 530 U.S.
567 , 574 (2000). By diluting the votes of certain citizens, the
State frustrates their efforts to translate those affiliations into
political effectiveness. See Gill , 585 U. S., at ___
(Kagan, J., concurring) (slip op., at 9) (“Members of the
disfavored party[,] deprived of their natural political strength[,]
may face difficulties fundraising, registering voters, [and]
eventually accomplishing their policy objectives”). In both those
ways, partisan gerrymanders of the kind we confront here undermine
the protections of “democracy embodied in the First Amendment.” Elrod v. Burns , 427 U.S.
347 , 357 (1976) (internal quotation marks omitted).

															Though different Justices have described the
constitutional harm in diverse ways, nearly all have agreed on this
much: Extreme partisan gerrymandering (as happened in North
Carolina and Maryland) violates the Constitution. See, e.g., Vieth , 541 U. S., at 293 (plurality opinion) (“[A]n
excessive injection of politics [in districting] is unlawful”
(emphasis deleted)); id. , at 316 (opinion of Kennedy, J.)
(“[P]artisan gerrymandering that disfavors one party is
[im]permissible”); id., at 362 (Breyer, J., dissenting)
(Gerrymandering causing political “entrenchment” is a “violat[ion
of] the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause”); Davis v. Bandemer , 478 U.S.
109 , 132 (1986) (plurality opinion) (“[U]nconstitutional
discrimination” occurs “when the electoral system is arranged in a
manner that will consistently degrade [a voter’s] influence on the
political process”); id. , at 165 (Powell, J., concurring)
(“Unconstitutional gerrymandering” occurs when “the boundaries of
the voting districts have been distorted deliberately” to deprive
voters of “an equal opportunity to participate in the State’s
legislative processes”). Once again, the majority never disagrees;
it appears to accept the “principle that each person must have an
equal say in the election of representatives.” Ante, at 20.
And indeed, without this settled and shared understanding that
cases like these inflict constitutional injury, the question of
whether there are judicially manageable standards for resolving
them would never come up.

															II

															So the only way to understand the majority’s
opinion is as follows: In the face of grievous harm to democratic
governance and flagrant infringements on individuals’ rights—in the
face of escalating partisan manipulation whose compatibility with
this Nation’s values and law no one defends—the majority declines
to provide any remedy. For the first time in this Nation’s history,
the majority declares that it can do nothing about an acknowledged
constitutional violation because it has searched high and low and
cannot find a workable legal standard to apply.

															The majority gives two reasons for thinking that
the adjudication of partisan gerrymandering claims is beyond
judicial capabilities. First and foremost, the majority says, it
cannot find a neutral baseline—one not based on contestable notions
of political fairness—from which to measure injury. See ante, at 15–19. According to the majority, “[p]artisan
gerrymandering claims invariably sound in a desire for proportional
representation.” Ante, at 16. But the Constitution does not
mandate proportional representation. So, the majority contends,
resolving those claims “inevitably” would require courts to decide
what is “fair” in the context of districting. Ante, at 17.
They would have “to make their own political judgment about how
much representation particular political parties deserve ”
and “to rearrange the challenged districts to achieve that end.” Ibid. (emphasis in original). And second, the majority
argues that even after establishing a baseline, a court would have
no way to answer “the determinative question: ‘How much is too
much?’ ” Ante, at 19. No “discernible and manageable”
standard is available, the majority claims—and so courts could
willy-nilly become embroiled in fixing every districting plan. Ante, at 20; see ante, at 15–16.

															I’ll give the majority this one—and
important—thing: It identifies some dangers everyone should want to
avoid. Judges should not be apportioning political power based on
their own vision of electoral fairness, whether proportional
representation or any other. And judges should not be striking down
maps left, right, and center, on the view that every smidgen of
politics is a smidgen too much. Respect for state legislative
processes—and restraint in the exercise of judicial
authority—counsels intervention in only egregious cases.

															But in throwing up its hands, the majority
misses something under its nose: What it says can’t be done has been done. Over the past several years, federal courts
across the country—including, but not exclusively, in the decisions
below—have largely converged on a standard for adjudicating
partisan gerrymandering claims (striking down both Democratic and
Republican districting plans in the process). See also Ohio A.
Philip Randolph Inst. , 373 F. Supp. 3d 978; League of
Women Voters of Michigan v. Benson , 373 F. Supp. 3d
867 (ED Mich. 2019). And that standard does what the majority says
is impossible. The standard does not use any judge-made conception
of electoral fairness—either proportional representation or any
other; instead, it takes as its baseline a State’s own criteria of fairness, apart from partisan gain. And by requiring
plaintiffs to make difficult showings relating to both purpose and
effects, the standard invalidates the most extreme, but only the
most extreme, partisan gerrymanders.

															Below, I first explain the framework courts have
developed, and describe its application in these two cases. Doing
so reveals in even starker detail than before how much these
partisan gerrymanders deviated from democratic norms. As I lay out
the lower courts’ analyses, I consider two specific criticisms the
majority levels—each of which reveals a saddening nonchalance about
the threat such districting poses to self-governance. All of that
lays the groundwork for then assessing the majority’s more general
view, described above, that judicial policing in this area cannot
be either neutral or restrained. The lower courts’ reasoning, as
I’ll show, proves the opposite.

															A

															Start with the standard the lower courts used.
The majority disaggregates the opinions below, distinguishing the
one from the other and then chopping up each into “a number of
‘tests.’ ” Ante, at 22; see ante, at 22–30. But
in doing so, it fails to convey the decisions’ most significant—and
common—features. Both courts focused on the harm of vote dilution,
see supra, at 11, though the North Caro- lina court mostly
grounded its analysis in the Fourteenth Amendment and the Maryland
court in the First. And both courts (like others around the
country) used basically the same three-part test to decide whether
the plaintiffs had made out a vote dilution claim. As many legal
standards do, that test has three parts: (1) intent; (2) effects;
and (3) causation. First, the plaintiffs challenging a districting
plan must prove that state officials’ “predominant purpose” in
drawing a district’s lines was to “entrench [their party] in power”
by diluting the votes of citizens favoring its rival. Rucho ,
318 F. Supp. 3d, at 864 (quoting Arizona State
Legislature , 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1)). Second,
the plaintiffs must establish that the lines drawn in fact have the
intended effect by “substantially” diluting their votes. Lamone , 348 F. Supp. 3d, at 498. And third, if the
plaintiffs make those showings, the State must come up with a
legitimate, non-partisan justification to save its map. See Rucho , 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 867.[ 2 ] If you are a lawyer, you know that this test looks
utterly ordinary. It is the sort of thing courts work with every
day.

															Turn now to the test’s application. First, did
the North Carolina and Maryland districters have the predominant
purpose of entrenching their own party in power? Here, the two
District Courts catalogued the overwhelming direct evidence that
they did. To remind you of some highlights, see supra, at
4–6: North Carolina’s redistricting committee used “Partisan
Advantage” as an official criterion for drawing district lines. And
from the first to the last, that committee’s chair (along with his
mapmaker) acted to ensure a 10–3 partisan split, whatever the
statewide vote, because he thought that “electing Republicans is
better than electing Democrats.” For their part, Maryland’s
Democrats—the Governor, senior Congressman, and State Senate
President alike—openly admitted to a single driving purpose: flip
the Sixth District from Republican to Democratic. They did not
blanch from moving some 700,000 voters into new districts (when
one-person-one-vote rules required relocating just 10,000) for that
reason and that reason alone.

															The majority’s response to the District Courts’
purpose analysis is discomfiting. The majority does not contest the
lower courts’ findings; how could it? Instead, the majority says
that state officials’ intent to entrench their party in power is
perfectly “permissible,” even when it is the predominant factor in
drawing district lines. Ante, at 23. But that is wrong. True
enough, that the intent to inject “political considerations” into
districting may not raise any constitutional concerns. In Gaffney v. Cummings , 412 U.S.
735 (1973), for example, we thought it non-problematic when
state officials used political data to ensure rough proportional
representation between the two parties. And true enough that even
the naked purpose to gain partisan advantage may not rise to the
level of constitutional notice when it is not the driving force in
mapmaking or when the intended gain is slight. See Vieth ,
541 U. S., at 286 (plurality opinion). But when political
actors have a specific and predominant intent to entrench
themselves in power by manipulating district lines, that goes too
far. Consider again Justice Kennedy’s hypothetical of mapmakers who
set out to maximally burden ( i.e., make count for as little
as possible) the votes going to a rival party. See supra, at
12. Does the majority really think that goal is permissible? But
why even bother with hypotheticals? Just consider the purposes
here. It cannot be permissible and thus irrelevant, as the majority
claims, that state officials have as their purpose the kind of
grotesquely gerrymandered map that, according to all this Court has
ever said, violates the Constitution. See supra, at 13.

															On to the second step of the analysis, where the
plaintiffs must prove that the districting plan substantially
dilutes their votes. The majority fails to discuss most of the
evidence the District Courts relied on to find that the plaintiffs
had done so. See ante, at 23–24. But that
evidence—particularly from North Carolina—is the key to
understanding both the problem these cases present and the solution
to it they offer. The evidence reveals just how bad the two
gerrymanders were (in case you had any doubts). And it shows how
the same technologies and data that today facilitate extreme
partisan gerrymanders also enable courts to discover them, by
exposing just how much they dilute votes. See Vieth , 541
U. S., at 312–313 (opinion of Kennedy, J.) (predicting that
development).

															Consider the sort of evidence used in North
Carolina first. There, the plaintiffs demonstrated the districting
plan’s effects mostly by relying on what might be called the
“extreme outlier approach.” (Here’s a spoiler: the State’s plan was
one.) The approach—which also has recently been used in Michigan
and Ohio litigation—begins by using advanced computing technology
to randomly generate a large collection of districting plans that
incorporate the State’s physical and political geography and meet
its declared districting criteria, except for partisan gain.
For each of those maps, the method then uses actual precinct-level
votes from past elections to determine a partisan outcome
( i.e., the number of Democratic and Republican seats that
map produces). Suppose we now have 1,000 maps, each with a partisan
outcome attached to it. We can line up those maps on a
continuum—the most favorable to Republicans on one end, the most
favorable to Democrats on the other.[ 3 ] We can then find the median outcome—that is, the
outcome smack dab in the center—in a world with no partisan
manipulation. And we can see where the State’s actual plan falls on
the spectrum—at or near the median or way out on one of the tails?
The further out on the tail, the more extreme the partisan
distortion and the more significant the vote dilution. See
generally Brief for Eric S. Lander as Amicus Curiae 7–22.

															Using that approach, the North Carolina
plaintiffs offered a boatload of alternative districting plans—all
showing that the State’s map was an out-out-out-outlier. One expert
produced 3,000 maps, adhering in the way described above to the
districting criteria that the North Carolina redistricting
committee had used, other than partisan advantage. To calculate the
partisan outcome of those maps, the expert also used the same
election data (a composite of seven elections) that Hofeller had
employed when devising the North Carolina plan in the first
instance. The results were, shall we say, striking. Every single
one of the 3,000 maps would have produced at least one more
Democratic House Member than the State’s actual map, and 77% would
have elected three or four more. See Rucho , 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 875–876, 894; App. 276. A second expert
obtained essentially the same results with maps conforming to more
generic districting criteria ( e.g., compactness and
contiguity of districts). Over 99% of that expert’s 24,518
simulations would have led to the election of at least one more
Democrat, and over 70% would have led to two or three more. See Rucho, 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 893–894. Based on those and
other findings, the District Court determined that the North Caro-
lina plan substantially dilutes the plaintiffs’ votes.[ 4 ]

															Because the Maryland gerrymander involved just
one district, the evidence in that case was far simpler—but no less
powerful for that. You’ve heard some of the numbers before. See supra, at 6. The 2010 census required only a minimal change
in the Sixth District’s population—the subtraction of about 10,000
residents from more than 700,000. But instead of making a
correspondingly minimal adjustment, Democratic officials
reconfigured the entire district. They moved 360,000 residents out
and another 350,000 in, while splitting some counties for the first
time in almost two centuries. The upshot was a district with 66,000
fewer Republican voters and 24,000 more Democratic ones. In the old
Sixth, 47% of registered voters were Republicans and only 36%
Democrats. But in the new Sixth, 44% of registered voters were
Democrats and only 33% Republicans. That reversal of the district’s
partisan composition translated into four consecutive Democratic
victories, including in a wave election year for Republicans
(2014). In what was once a party stronghold, Republicans now have
little or no chance to elect their preferred candidate. The
District Court thus found that the gerrymandered Maryland map
substantially dilutes Republicans’ votes. See Lamone, 348
F. Supp. 3d, at 519–520.

															The majority claims all these findings are mere
“prognostications” about the future, in which no one “can have any
confidence.” Ante, at 23 (internal quotation marks omitted).
But the courts below did not gaze into crystal balls, as the
majority tries to suggest. Their findings about these gerrymanders’
effects on voters—both in the past and predictably in the
future—were evidence-based, data-based, statistics-based.
Knowledge-based, one might say. The courts did what anyone would
want a decisionmaker to do when so much hangs in the balance. They
looked hard at the facts, and they went where the facts led them.
They availed themselves of all the information that mapmakers (like
Hofeller and Hawkins) and politicians (like Lewis and O’Malley)
work so hard to amass and then use to make every districting
decision. They refused to content themselves with unsupported and
out-of-date musings about the unpredictability of the American
voter. See ante, at 24–25; but see Brief for Political
Science Professors as Amici Curiae 14–20 (citing chapter and
verse to the contrary). They did not bet America’s future—as today
the majority does—on the idea that maps constructed with so much
expertise and care to make electoral outcomes impervious to voting
would somehow or other come apart. They looked at the evidence—at
the facts about how these districts operated—and they could reach
only one conclusion. By substantially diluting the votes of
citizens favoring their rivals, the politicians of one party had
succeeded in entrenching themselves in office. They had beat
democracy.

															B

															The majority’s broadest claim, as I’ve noted,
is that this is a price we must pay because judicial oversight of
partisan gerrymandering cannot be “politically neutral” or
“manageable.” Ante, at 19; see supra, at 14. Courts,
the majority argues, will have to choose among contested notions of
electoral fairness. (Should they take as the ideal mode of
districting proportional representation, many competitive seats,
adherence to traditional districting criteria, or so forth?) See ante, at 16–19. And even once courts have chosen, the
majority continues, they will have to decide “[h]ow much is too
much?”—that is, how much deviation from the chosen “touchstone” to
allow? Ante, at 19–20 . In answering that question,
the majority surmises, they will likely go far too far. See ante, at 15. So the whole thing is impossible, the majority
concludes. To prove its point, the majority throws a bevy of
question marks on the page. (I count nine in just two paragraphs.
See ante, at 19–20.) But it never tries to analyze the
serious question presented here—whether the kind of standard
developed below falls prey to those objections, or instead allows
for neutral and manageable oversight. The answer, as you’ve already
heard enough to know, is the latter. That kind of oversight is not
only possible; it’s been done.

															Consider neutrality first. Contrary to the
majority’s suggestion, the District Courts did not have to—and in
fact did not—choose among competing visions of electoral fairness.
That is because they did not try to compare the State’s actual map
to an “ideally fair” one (whether based on proportional
representation or some other criterion). Instead, they looked at
the difference between what the State did and what the State would
have done if politicians hadn’t been intent on partisan gain. Or
put differently, the comparator (or baseline or touchstone) is the
result not of a judge’s philosophizing but of the State’s own
characteristics and judgments. The effects evidence in these cases
accepted as a given the State’s physical geography ( e.g., where does the Chesapeake run?) and political geography
( e.g., where do the Democrats live on top of each other?).
So the courts did not, in the majority’s words, try to “counteract
‘natural’ gerrymandering caused, for example, by the urban
concentration of one party.” Ante, at 19. Still more, the
courts’ analyses used the State’s own criteria for electoral
fairness—except for naked partisan gain. Under their approach, in
other words, the State selected its own fairness baseline in the
form of its other districting criteria. All the courts did was
determine how far the State had gone off that track because of its
politicians’ effort to entrench themselves in office.

															The North Carolina litigation well illustrates
the point. The thousands of randomly generated maps I’ve mentioned
formed the core of the plaintiffs’ case that the North Carolina
plan was an “extreme[ ] outlier.” Rucho , 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 852 (internal quotation marks omitted); see supra , at 18–20. Those maps took the State’s political
landscape as a given. In North Carolina, for example, Democratic
voters are highly concentrated in cities. That fact was built into
all the maps; it became part of the baseline. See Rucho , 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 896–897. On top of that, the maps took the State’s
legal landscape as a given. They incorporated the State’s
districting priorities, excluding partisanship. So in North
Carolina, for example, all the maps adhered to the traditional
criteria of contiguity and compactness. See supra, at 19–20.
But the comparator maps in another State would have incorporated
different objectives—say, the emphasis Arizona places on
competitive districts or the requirement Iowa imposes that counties
remain whole. See Brief for Mathematicians et al. as Amici
Curiae 19–20. The point is that the assemblage of maps,
reflecting the characteristics and judgments of the State itself,
creates a neutral baseline from which to assess whether
partisanship has run amok. Extreme outlier as to what? As to the
other maps the State could have produced given its unique political
geography and its chosen districting criteria. Not as to the
maps a judge, with his own view of electoral fairness, could have
dreamed up.

															The Maryland court lacked North Carolina’s fancy
evidence, but analyzed the gerrymander’s effects in much the same
way—not as against an ideal goal, but as against an ex ante baseline. To see the difference, shift gears for a moment and
compare Maryland and Massachusetts—both of which (aside from
Maryland’s partisan gerrymander) use traditional districting
criteria. In those two States alike, Republicans receive about 35%
of the vote in statewide elections. See Almanac of American
Politics 2016, at 836, 880. But the political geography of the
States differs. In Massachusetts, the Republican vote is spread
evenly across the State; because that is so, districting plans
(using traditional criteria of contiguity and compactness)
consistently lead to an all-Democratic congressional delegation. By
contrast, in Maryland, Republicans are clumped—into the Eastern
Shore (the First District) and the Northwest Corner (the old
Sixth). Claims of partisan gerrymandering in those two States could
come out the same way if judges, à la the majority, used their own
visions of fairness to police districting plans; a judge in each
State could then insist, in line with proportional representation,
that 35% of the vote share entitles citizens to around that much of
the delegation. But those suits would not come out the same if
courts instead asked: What would have happened, given the State’s
natural political geography and chosen districting criteria, had
officials not indulged in partisan manipulation? And that is what
the District Court in Maryland inquired into. The court did not
strike down the new Sixth District because a judicial ideal of
proportional representation commanded another Republican seat. It
invalidated that district because the quest for partisan gain made
the State override its own political geography and
districting criteria. So much, then, for the impossibility of
neutrality.

															The majority’s sole response misses the point.
According to the majority, “it does not make sense to use” a
State’s own (non-partisan) districting criteria as the baseline
from which to measure partisan gerrymandering because those
criteria “will vary from State to State and year to year.” Ante, at 27. But that is a virtue, not a vice—a feature, not
a bug. Using the criteria the State itself has chosen at the
relevant time prevents any judicial predilections from affecting
the analysis—exactly what the majority claims it wants. At the same
time, using those criteria enables a court to measure just what it
should: the extent to which the pursuit of partisan advantage—by
these legislators at this moment—has distorted the State’s
districting decisions. Sure, different non-partisan criteria could
result, as the majority notes, in different partisan distributions
to serve as the baseline. Ante, at 28. But that in itself
raises no issue: Everyone agrees that state officials using
non-partisan criteria ( e.g., must counties be kept together?
should districts be compact?) have wide latitude in districting.
The problem arises only when legislators or mapmakers substantially
deviate from the baseline distribution by manipulating district
lines for partisan gain. So once again, the majority’s analysis
falters because it equates the demand to eliminate partisan
gerrymandering with a demand for a single partisan distribution—the
one reflecting proportional representation. See ante, at
16–17. But those two demands are different, and only the former is
at issue here.

															The majority’s “how much is too much” critique
fares no better than its neutrality argument. How about the
following for a first-cut answer: This much is too much. By any
measure, a map that produces a greater partisan skew than any of
3,000 randomly generated maps (all with the State’s political
geography and districting criteria built in) reflects “too much”
partisanship. Think about what I just said: The absolute worst of
3,001 possible maps. The only one that could produce a 10–3
partisan split even as Republicans got a bare majority of the
statewide vote. And again: How much is too much? This much is too
much: A map that without any evident non-partisan districting
reason (to the contrary) shifted the composition of a district from
47% Republicans and 36% Democrats to 33% Republicans and 42%
Democrats. A map that in 2011 was responsible for the largest
partisan swing of a congressional district in the country. See Lamone, 348 F. Supp. 3d, at 519. Even the majority
acknowledges that “[t]hese cases involve blatant examples of
partisanship driving districting decisions.” Ante, at 27. If
the majority had done nothing else, it could have set the line
here. How much is too much? At the least, any gerrymanders as bad
as these.

															And if the majority thought that approach too
case-specific, see ante, at 28, it could have used the lower
courts’ general standard—focusing on “predominant” purpose and
“substantial” effects—without fear of indeterminacy. I do not take
even the majority to claim that courts are incapable of
investigating whether legislators mainly intended to seek partisan
advantage. See ante, at 19–20 (focusing on the difficulty of
measuring effects). That is for good reason. Although purpose
inquiries carry certain hazards (which courts must attend to), they
are a common form of analysis in constitutional cases. See, e.g., Miller v. Johnson , 515
U.S. 900 , 916 (1995); Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah , 508 U.S.
520 , 533 (1993); Washington v. Davis , 426 U.S.
229 , 239 (1976). Those inquiries would be no harder here than
in other contexts.

															Nor is there any reason to doubt, as the
majority does, the competence of courts to determine whether a
district map “substantially” dilutes the votes of a rival party’s
supporters from the everything-but-partisanship baseline described
above. (Most of the majority’s difficulties here really come from
its idea that ideal visions set the baseline. But that is
double-counting—and, as already shown, wrong to boot.) As this
Court recently noted, “the law is full of instances” where a
judge’s decision rests on “estimating rightly . . . some
matter of degree”—including the “substantial[ity]” of risk or harm. Johnson v. United States , 576 U. S. ___, ___
(2015) (slip op., at 12) (internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., Ohio v. American Express Co. , 585 U. S.
___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9) (determining “substantial
anticompetitive effect[s]” when applying the Sherman Act); United States v. Davis , ante, at 7–10
(Kavanaugh, J., dissenting) (cataloging countless statutes
requiring a “substantial” risk of harm). The majority is wrong to
think that these laws typically (let alone uniformly) further
“confine[ ] and guide[ ]” judicial decisionmaking. Ante, at 28. They do not, either in themselves or through
“statutory context.” Ibid. To the extent additional guidance
has developed over the years (as under the Sherman Act), courts
themselves have been its author—as they could be in this context
too. And contrary to the majority’s suggestion, see ibid. ,
courts all the time make judgments about the substantiality of harm
without reducing them to particular percentages. If courts are no
longer competent to do so, they will have to relinquish, well,
substantial portions of their docket.

															And the combined inquiry used in these cases set
the bar high, so that courts could intervene in the worst partisan
gerrymanders, but no others. Or to say the same thing, so that
courts could intervene in the kind of extreme gerrymanders that
nearly every Justice for decades has thought to violate the
Constitution. See supra, at 13. Illicit purpose was simple
to show here only because politicians and mapmakers thought their
actions could not be attacked in court. See Rucho , 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 808 (quoting Lewis’s statements to that
effect). They therefore felt free to openly proclaim their intent
to entrench their party in office. See supra, at 4–6. But if
the Court today had declared that behavior justiciable, such
smoking guns would all but disappear. Even assuming some officials
continued to try implementing extreme partisan
gerrymanders,[ 5 ] they would not
brag about their efforts. So plaintiffs would have to prove the
intent to entrench through circumstantial evidence—essentially
showing that no other explanation (no geographic feature or
non-partisan districting objective) could explain the districting
plan’s vote dilutive effects. And that would be impossible unless
those effects were even more than substantial—unless mapmakers had
packed and cracked with abandon in unprecedented ways. As again,
they did here. That the two courts below found constitutional
violations does not mean their tests were unrigorous; it means that
the conduct they confronted was constitutionally appalling—by even
the strictest measure, inordinately partisan.

															The majority, in the end, fails to understand
both the plaintiffs’ claims and the decisions below. Everything in
today’s opinion assumes that these cases grew out of a “desire for
proportional representation” or, more generally phrased, a “fair
share of political power.” Ante, at 16, 21. And everything
in it assumes that the courts below had to (and did) decide what
that fair share would be. But that is not so. The plaintiffs
objected to one specific practice—the extreme manipulation of
district lines for partisan gain. Elimination of that practice
could have led to proportional representation. Or it could have led
to nothing close. What was left after the practice’s removal could
have been fair, or could have been unfair, by any number of
measures. That was not the crux of this suit. The plaintiffs asked
only that the courts bar politicians from entrenching themselves in
power by diluting the votes of their rivals’ supporters. And the
courts, using neutral and manageable—and eminently legal—standards,
provided that (and only that) relief. This Court should have
cheered, not overturned, that restoration of the people’s power to
vote.

															III

															This Court has long understood that it has a
special responsibility to remedy violations of constitutional
rights resulting from politicians’ districting decisions. Over 50
years ago, we committed to providing judicial review in that
sphere, recognizing as we established the one-person-one-vote rule
that “our oath and our office require no less.” Reynolds ,
377 U. S., at 566. Of course, our oath and our office require
us to vindicate all constitutional rights. But the need for
judicial review is at its most urgent in cases like these. “For
here, politicians’ incentives conflict with voters’ interests,
leaving citizens without any political remedy for their
constitutional harms.” Gill , 585 U. S., at ___ (Kagan,
J., concurring) (slip op., at 14). Those harms arise because
politicians want to stay in office. No one can look to them for
effective relief.

															The majority disagrees, concluding its opinion
with a paean to congressional bills limiting partisan gerrymanders.
“Dozens of [those] bills have been introduced,” the majority says. Ante, at 33. One was “introduced in 2005 and has been
reintroduced in every Congress since.” Ibid. And might be
reintroduced until the end of time. Because what all these bills have in common is that they are not laws . The
politicians who benefit from partisan gerrymandering are unlikely
to change partisan gerrymandering. And because those politicians
maintain themselves in office through partisan gerrymandering, the
chances for legislative reform are slight.

															No worries, the majority says; it has another
idea. The majority notes that voters themselves have recently
approved ballot initiatives to put power over districting in the
hands of independent commissions or other non-partisan actors. See ante, at 32. Some Members of the majority, of course, once
thought such initiatives unconstitutional. See Arizona State
Legislature, 576 U. S., at ___ (Roberts, C. J.,
dissenting) (slip op., at 1). But put that aside. Fewer than half
the States offer voters an opportunity to put initiatives to direct
vote; in all the rest (including North Carolina and Maryland),
voters are dependent on legislators to make electoral changes
(which for all the reasons already given, they are unlikely to do).
And even when voters have a mechanism they can work themselves,
legislators often fight their efforts tooth and nail. Look at
Missouri. There, the majority touts a voter-approved proposal to
turn districting over to a state demographer. See ante, at
32. But before the demographer had drawn a single line, Members of
the state legislature had introduced a bill to start undoing the
change. See Mo. H. J. Res. 48, 100th Gen. Assembly, 1st Reg. Sess.
(2019). I’d put better odds on that bill’s passage than on all the
congressional proposals the majority cites.

															The majority’s most perplexing “solution” is to
look to state courts. Ante, at 30. “[O]ur conclusion,” the
majority states, does not “condemn complaints about districting to
echo into a void”: Just a few years back, “the Supreme Court of
Florida struck down that State’s congressional districting plan as
a violation” of the State Constitution. Ante, at 31; see League of Women Voters of Florida v. Detzner , 172 So.
3d 363 (2015). And indeed, the majority might have added, the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania last year did the same thing. See League of Women Voters , ___ Pa., at ___, 178 A. 3d, at 818.
But what do those courts know that this Court does not? If they can
develop and apply neutral and manageable standards to identify
unconstitutional gerrymanders, why couldn’t we?[ 6 ]

															We could have, and we should have. The
gerrymanders here—and they are typical of many—violated the
constitutional rights of many hundreds of thousands of American
citizens. Those voters (Republicans in the one case, De- mocrats in
the other) did not have an equal opportunity to participate in the
political process. Their votes counted for far less than they
should have because of their partisan affiliation. When faced with
such constitutional wrongs, courts must intervene: “It is
emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to
say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch
137, 177 (1803). That is what the courts below did. Their decisions
are worth a read. They (and others that have recently remedied
similar violations) are detailed, thorough, painstaking. They
evaluated with immense care the factual evidence and legal
arguments the parties presented. They used neutral and manageable
and strict standards. They had not a shred of politics about them.
Contra the majority, see ante, at 34, this was law.

															That is not to deny, of course, that these cases
have great political consequence. They do. Among the amicus briefs here is one from a bipartisan group of current and former
Members of the House of Representatives. They describe all the ways
partisan gerrymandering harms our political system—what they call
“a cascade of negative results.” Brief as Amicus Curiae 5.
These artificially drawn districts shift influence from swing
voters to party-base voters who participate in primaries; make
bipartisanship and pragmatic compromise politically difficult or
impossible; and drive voters away from an ever more dysfunctional
political process. See id., at 5–6. Last year, we heard much
the same from current and former state legislators. In their view,
partisan gerrymandering has “sounded the death-knell of
bipartisanship,” creating a legislative environment that is “toxic”
and “tribal.” Brief as Amicus Curiae in Gill v. Whitford , O. T. 2016, No. 16–1161, pp. 6, 25.
Gerrymandering, in short, helps create the polarized political
system so many Americans loathe.

															And gerrymandering is, as so many Justices have
emphasized before, anti-democratic in the most profound sense. See supra, at 7–8. In our government, “all political power flows
from the people.” Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 35). And that means, as Alexander Hamilton
once said, “that the people should choose whom they please to
govern them.” 2 Debates on the Constitution 257 (J. Elliot ed.
1891). But in Maryland and North Carolina they cannot do so. In
Maryland, election in and election out, there are 7 Democrats and 1
Republican in the congressional delegation. In North Carolina,
however the political winds blow, there are 10 Republicans and 3
Democrats. Is it conceivable that someday voters will be able to
break out of that prefabricated box? Sure. But everything possible
has been done to make that hard. To create a world in which power
does not flow from the people because they do not choose their
governors.

															Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to
declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in
these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s
role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more
important than free and fair elections. With respect but deep
sadness, I dissent. Notes 1 And even putting that
aside, any originalist argument would have to deal with an
inconvenient fact. The Framers originally viewed political parties
themselves (let alone their most partisan actions) with deep
suspicion, as fomenters of factionalism and “symptom[s] of disease
in the body politic.” G. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the
Early Republic, 1789–1815, p. 140 (2009). 2 Neither North Carolina
nor Maryland offered much of an alternative explanation for the
evidence that the plaintiffs put forward. Presumably, both States
had trouble coming up with something. Like the majority, see ante, at 25, I therefore pass quickly over this part of the
test. 3 As I’ll discuss later,
this distribution of outcomes provides what the majority says does
not exist—a neutral comparator for the State’s own plan. See ante, at 16–19; supra, at 14; infra , at 22–25.
It essentially answers the question: In a State with these
geographic features and this distribution of voters and this set of
districting criteria—but without partisan manipulation—what would
happen? 4 The District Court also
relied on actual election results (under both the new plan and the
similar one preceding it) and on mathematical measurements of the
new plan’s “partisan asymmetry.” See Rucho , 318
F. Supp. 3d, at 884–895. Those calculations assess whether
supporters of the two parties can translate their votes into
representation with equal ease. See Stephanopoulos & McGhee,
The Measure of a Metric, 70 Stan. L. Rev. 1503, 1505–1507
(2018). The court found that the new North Carolina plan led to
extreme asymmetry, compared both to plans used in the rest of the
country and to plans previously used in the State. See Rucho , 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 886–887,
892–893. 5 A decision of this Court
invalidating the North Carolina and Maryland gerrymanders would of
course have curbed much of that behavior. In districting cases no
less than others, officials respond to what this Court determines
the law to sanction. See, e.g., Charles &
Fuentes-Rohwer, Judicial Intervention as Judicial Restraint, 132
Harv. L. Rev. 236, 269 (2018) (discussing how the Court’s
prohibition of racial gerrymanders affected
districting). 6 Contrary to the
majority’s suggestion, state courts do not typically have more
specific “standards and guidance” to apply than federal courts
have. Ante , at 31. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court based its
gerrymandering decision on a constitutional clause providing only
that “elections shall be free and equal” and no one shall
“interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” League of Women Voters , ___ Pa., at ___–___, 178 A. 3d, at
803–804 (quoting Pa. Const., Art. I, §5). And even the Florida
“Free Districts Amendment,” which the majority touts, says nothing
more than that no districting plan “shall be drawn with the intent
to favor or disfavor a political party.” Fla. Const., Art. III,
§20(a). If the majority wants the kind of guidance that will keep
courts from intervening too far in the political sphere, see ante, at 15, that Amendment does not provide it: The
standard is in fact a good deal less exacting than the one the
District Courts below applied. In any event, only a few States have
a constitutional provision like Florida’s, so the majority’s
state-court solution does not go far.

Summary: The Supreme Court considered whether federal courts could rule on claims of excessive partisanship in congressional districting, known as partisan gerrymandering. The Court reviewed cases from North Carolina and Maryland, where voters challenged their states' maps as unconstitutional. The North Carolina plan aimed to elect ten Republicans and three Democrats, while the Maryland plan aimed for a 7-1 Democratic advantage. The Court had not previously struck down partisan gerrymandering and struggled to find judicially manageable standards. The outcomes of these cases depended on the Court's ability to establish appropriate boundaries for judicial intervention in partisan gerrymandering.