(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2017 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

GILL ET AL. v. WHITFORD ET AL. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 

WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN 

No. 16–1161. Argued October 3, 2017—Decided June 18, 2018 

Members of the Wisconsin Legislature are elected from single-member 

legislative districts. Under the Wisconsin Constitution, the legislature must redraw the boundaries of those districts following each 

census. After the 2010 census, the legislature passed a new districting plan known as Act 43. Twelve Democratic voters, the plaintiffs in

this case, alleged that Act 43 harms the Democratic Party’s ability to

convert Democratic votes into Democratic seats in the legislature. 

They asserted that Act 43 does this by “cracking” certain Democratic

voters among different districts in which those voters fail to achieve 

electoral majorities and “packing” other Democratic voters in a few

districts in which Democratic candidates win by large margins. The 

plaintiffs argued that the degree to which packing and cracking has

favored one political party over another can be measured by an “efficiency gap” that compares each party’s respective “wasted” votes— 

i.e., votes cast for a losing candidate or for a winning candidate in excess of what that candidate needs to win—across all legislative districts. The plaintiffs claimed that the statewide enforcement of Act

43 generated an excess of wasted Democratic votes, thereby violating

the plaintiffs’ First Amendment right of association and their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. The defendants, several members of the state election commission, moved to dismiss the 

plaintiffs’ claims. They argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing to

challenge the constitutionality of Act 43 as a whole because, as individual voters, their legally protected interests extend only to the

makeup of the legislative district in which they vote. The three-judge

District Court denied the defendants’ motion and, following a trial, 

concluded that Act 43 was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

Regarding standing, the court held that the plaintiffs had suffered a 
 

2 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Syllabus 

particularized injury to their equal protection rights. 

Held: The plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate Article III standing. 

Pp. 8–22.

(a) Over the past five decades this Court has repeatedly been asked 

to decide what judicially enforceable limits, if any, the Constitution

sets on partisan gerrymandering. Previous attempts at an answer

have left few clear landmarks for addressing the question and have

generated conflicting views both of how to conceive of the injury arising from partisan gerrymandering and of the appropriate role for the

Federal Judiciary in remedying that injury. See Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U. S. 735, Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109, Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267, and League of United Latin American Citizens 

v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399. Pp. 8–12.

(b) A plaintiff may not invoke federal-court jurisdiction unless he 

can show “a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy,” Baker 

v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204. That requirement ensures that federal

courts “exercise power that is judicial in nature,” Lance v. Coffman, 

549 U. S. 437, 439, 441. To meet that requirement, a plaintiff must

show an injury in fact—his pleading and proof that he has suffered 

the “invasion of a legally protected interest” that is “concrete and 

particularized,” i.e., which “affect[s] the plaintiff in a personal and 

individual way.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560, 

and n. 1. 

The right to vote is “individual and personal in nature,” Reynolds v. 

Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 561, and “voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals have standing to sue” to remedy

that disadvantage, Baker, 369 U. S., at 206. The plaintiffs here alleged that they suffered such injury from partisan gerrymandering, 

which works through the “cracking” and “packing” of voters. To the 

extent that the plaintiffs’ alleged harm is the dilution of their votes, 

that injury is district specific. An individual voter in Wisconsin is 

placed in a single district. He votes for a single representative. The 

boundaries of the district, and the composition of its voters, determine whether and to what extent a particular voter is packed or 

cracked. A plaintiff who complains of gerrymandering, but who does 

not live in a gerrymandered district, “assert[s] only a generalized 

grievance against governmental conduct of which he or she does not 

approve.” United States v. Hays, 515 U. S. 737, 745. 

The plaintiffs argue that their claim, like the claims presented in 

Baker and Reynolds, is statewide in nature. But the holdings in

those cases were expressly premised on the understanding that the

injuries giving rise to those claims were “individual and personal in 

nature,” Reynolds, 377 U. S., at 561, because the claims were brought 

by voters who alleged “facts showing disadvantage to themselves as 
 

 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 3 

Syllabus 

individuals,” Baker, 369 U. S., at 206. The plaintiffs’ mistaken insistence that the claims in Baker and Reynolds were “statewide in 

nature” rests on a failure to distinguish injury from remedy. In those 

malapportionment cases, the only way to vindicate an individual

plaintiff’s right to an equally weighted vote was through a wholesale 

“restructuring of the geographical distribution of seats in a state legislature.” Reynolds, 377 U. S., at 561. Here, the plaintiffs’ claims

turn on allegations that their votes have been diluted. Because that 

harm arises from the particular composition of the voter’s own district, remedying the harm does not necessarily require restructuring

all of the State’s legislative districts. It requires revising only such

districts as are necessary to reshape the voter’s district. This fits the 

rule that a “remedy must of course be limited to the inadequacy that

produced the injury in fact that the plaintiff has established.” Lewis 

v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 357. 

The plaintiffs argue that their legal injury also extends to the

statewide harm to their interest “in their collective representation in

the legislature,” and in influencing the legislature’s overall “composition and policymaking.” Brief for Appellees 31. To date, however, 

the Court has not found that this presents an individual and personal

injury of the kind required for Article III standing. A citizen’s interest in the overall composition of the legislature is embodied in his 

right to vote for his representative. The harm asserted by the plaintiffs in this case is best understood as arising from a burden on their 

own votes. Pp. 12–17.

(c) Four of the plaintiffs in this case pleaded such a particularized

burden. But as their case progressed to trial, they failed to pursue

their allegations of individual harm. They instead rested their case

on their theory of statewide injury to Wisconsin Democrats, in support of which they offered three kinds of evidence. First, they presented testimony pointing to the lead plaintiff’s hope of achieving a

Democratic majority in the legislature. Under the Court’s cases to 

date, that is a collective political interest, not an individual legal interest. Second, they produced evidence regarding the mapmakers’ 

deliberations as they drew district lines. The District Court relied on

this evidence in concluding that those mapmakers sought to understand the partisan effect of the maps they were drawing. But the 

plaintiffs’ establishment of injury in fact turns on effect, not intent,

and requires a showing of a burden on the plaintiffs’ votes that is “actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’ ” Defenders of 

Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 560. Third, the plaintiffs presented partisanasymmetry studies showing that Act 43 had skewed Wisconsin’s 

statewide map in favor of Republicans. Those studies do not address 

the effect that a gerrymander has on the votes of particular citizens. 
 

4 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Syllabus 

They measure instead the effect that a gerrymander has on the fortunes of political parties. That shortcoming confirms the fundamental problem with the plaintiffs’ case as presented on this record. It is 

a case about group political interests, not individual legal rights. 

Pp. 17–21. 

(d) Where a plaintiff has failed to demonstrate standing, this Court 

usually directs dismissal. See, e.g., DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 

547 U. S. 332, 354. Here, however, where the case concerns an unsettled kind of claim that the Court has not agreed upon, the contours and justiciability of which are unresolved, the case is remanded

to the District Court to give the plaintiffs an opportunity to prove 

concrete and particularized injuries using evidence that would tend

to demonstrate a burden on their individual votes. Cf. Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575 U. S. ___, ___. Pp. 21–22.

 218 F. Supp. 3d 837, vacated and remanded. 

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which KENNEDY, 

GINSBURG, BREYER, ALITO, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined, and in 

which THOMAS and GORSUCH, JJ., joined except as to Part III. KAGAN, 

J., filed a concurring opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part

and concurring in the judgment, in which GORSUCH, J., joined. 
 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

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 goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 16–1161 

BEVERLY R. GILL, ET AL., APPELLANTS v.
 

WILLIAM WHITFORD, ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN 

[June 18, 2018] 

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the

Court. 

The State of Wisconsin, like most other States, entrusts 

to its legislature the periodic task of redrawing the boundaries of the State’s legislative districts. A group of Wisconsin Democratic voters filed a complaint in the District

Court, alleging that the legislature carried out this task 

with an eye to diminishing the ability of Wisconsin Democrats to convert Democratic votes into Democratic seats in 

the legislature. The plaintiffs asserted that, in so doing,

the legislature had infringed their rights under the First

and Fourteenth Amendments. 

But a plaintiff seeking relief in federal court must first

demonstrate that he has standing to do so, including that

he has “a personal stake in the outcome,” Baker v. Carr, 

369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962), distinct from a “generally available grievance about government,” Lance v. Coffman, 549 

U. S. 437, 439 (2007) (per curiam). That threshold requirement “ensures that we act as judges, and do not 

engage in policymaking properly left to elected representatives.” Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U. S. 693, 700 (2013). 
 

2 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

Certain of the plaintiffs before us alleged that they had 

such a personal stake in this case, but never followed up

with the requisite proof. The District Court and this 

Court therefore lack the power to resolve their claims. We 

vacate the judgment and remand the case for further

proceedings, in the course of which those plaintiffs may 

attempt to demonstrate standing in accord with the analysis in this opinion. 

I 

Wisconsin’s Legislature consists of a State Assembly

and a State Senate. Wis. Const., Art. IV, §1. The 99 

members of the Assembly are chosen from single districts 

that must “consist of contiguous territory and be in as 

compact form as practicable.” §4. State senators are 

likewise chosen from single-member districts, which are 

laid on top of the State Assembly districts so that three

Assembly districts form one Senate district. See §5; Wis. 

Stat. §4.001 (2011).

The Wisconsin Constitution gives the legislature the

responsibility to “apportion and district anew the members of the senate and assembly” at the first session following each census. Art. IV, §3. In recent decades, however, that responsibility has just as often been taken up by

federal courts. Following the census in 1980, 1990, and 

2000, federal courts drew the State’s legislative districts

when the Legislature and the Governor—split on party 

lines—were unable to agree on new districting plans. The 

Legislature has broken the logjam just twice in the last 40 

years. In 1983, a Democratic Legislature passed, and a 

Democratic Governor signed, a new districting plan that 

remained in effect until the 1990 census. See 1983 Wis. 

Laws ch. 4. In 2011, a Republican Legislature passed, and 

a Republican Governor signed, the districting plan at issue 

here, known as Act 43. See Wis. Stat. §§ 4.009, 4.01–4.99; 

2011 Wis. Laws ch. 4. Following the passage of Act 43, 
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

Republicans won majorities in the State Assembly in the 

2012 and 2014 elections. In 2012, Republicans won 60

Assembly seats with 48.6% of the two-party statewide vote 

for Assembly candidates. In 2014, Republicans won 63 

Assembly seats with 52% of the statewide vote. 218 

F. Supp. 3d 837, 853 (WD Wis. 2016). 

In July 2015, twelve Wisconsin voters filed a complaint 

in the Western District of Wisconsin challenging Act 43. 

The plaintiffs identified themselves as “supporters of the 

public policies espoused by the Democratic Party and of

Democratic Party candidates.” 1 App. 32, Complaint ¶15.

They alleged that Act 43 is a partisan gerrymander that 

“unfairly favor[s] Republican voters and candidates,” and 

that it does so by “cracking” and “packing” Democratic 

voters around Wisconsin. Id., at 28–30, ¶¶5–7. As they 

explained: 

“Cracking means dividing a party’s supporters among 

multiple districts so that they fall short of a majority

in each one. Packing means concentrating one party’s

backers in a few districts that they win by overwhelming margins.” Id., at 29, ¶5. 

Four of the plaintiffs—Mary Lynne Donohue, Wendy Sue

Johnson, Janet Mitchell, and Jerome Wallace—alleged 

that they lived in State Assembly districts where Democrats have been cracked or packed. Id., at 34–36, ¶¶20,

23, 24, 26; see id., at 50–53, ¶¶60–70 (describing packing 

and cracking in Assembly Districts 22, 26, 66, and 91). All 

of the plaintiffs also alleged that, regardless of “whether

they themselves reside in a district that has been packed

or cracked,” they have been “harmed by the manipulation 

of district boundaries” because Democrats statewide “do 

not have the same opportunity provided to Republicans to 

elect representatives of their choice to the Assembly.” Id., 

at 33, ¶16.

The plaintiffs argued that, on a statewide level, the 
 

 

4 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

degree to which packing and cracking has favored one 

party over another can be measured by a single calculation: an “efficiency gap” that compares each party’s respective “wasted” votes across all legislative districts. “Wasted” 

votes are those cast for a losing candidate or for a winning candidate in excess of what that candidate needs 

to win. Id., at 28–29, ¶5. The plaintiffs alleged that Act

43 resulted in an unusually large efficiency gap that favored Republicans. Id., at 30, ¶7. They also submitted a 

“Demonstration Plan” that, they asserted, met all of the

legal criteria for apportionment, but was at the same time 

“almost perfectly balanced in its partisan consequences.” 

Id., at 31, ¶10. They argued that because Act 43 generated a large and unnecessary efficiency gap in favor of Republicans, it violated the First Amendment right of association of Wisconsin Democratic voters and their Fourteenth 

Amendment right to equal protection. The plaintiffs

named several members of the state election commission 

as defendants in the action. Id., at 36, ¶¶28–30. 

The election officials moved to dismiss the complaint.

They argued, among other things, that the plaintiffs

lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of Act 43

as a whole because, as individual voters, their legally

protected interests extend only to the makeup of the legislative districts in which they vote. A three-judge panel of

the District Court, see 28 U. S. C. §2284(a), denied the 

defendants’ motion. In the District Court’s view, the 

plaintiffs “identif[ied] their injury as not simply their

inability to elect a representative in their own districts, 

but also their reduced opportunity to be represented by 

Democratic legislators across the state.” Whitford v. 

Nichol, 151 F. Supp. 3d 918, 924 (WD Wis. 2015). It therefore followed, in the District Court’s opinion, that 

“[b]ecause plaintiffs’ alleged injury in this case relates to 

their statewide representation, . . . they should be permitted to bring a statewide claim.” Id., at 926. 
Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

The case proceeded to trial, where the plaintiffs presented testimony from four fact witnesses. The first was 

lead plaintiff William Whitford, a retired law professor at 

the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Whitford testified that he lives in Madison in the 76th Assembly District, and acknowledged on cross-examination that this is, 

under any plausible circumstances, a heavily Democratic 

district. Under Act 43, the Democratic share of the Assembly vote in Whitford’s district is 81.9%; under the 

plaintiffs’ ideal map—their Demonstration Plan—the 

projected Democratic share of the Assembly vote in Whitford’s district would be 82%. 147 Record 35–36. Whitford 

therefore conceded that Act 43 had not “affected [his]

ability to vote for and elect a Democrat in [his] district.” 

Id., at 37. Whitford testified that he had nevertheless 

suffered a harm “relate[d] to [his] ability to engage in

campaign activity to achieve a majority in the Assembly

and the Senate.” Ibid. As he explained, “[t]he only practical way to accomplish my policy objectives is to get a 

majority of the Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate 

ideally in order to get the legislative product I prefer.” Id., 

at 33. 

The plaintiffs also presented the testimony of legislative

aides Adam Foltz and Tad Ottman, as well as that of 

Professor Ronald Gaddie, a political scientist who helped 

design the Act 43 districting map, regarding how that map 

was designed and adopted. In particular, Professor Gaddie testified about his creation of what he and the District 

Court called “S curves”: color-coded tables of the estimated 

partisan skew of different draft redistricting maps. See 

218 F. Supp. 3d, at 850, 858. The colors corresponded 

with assessments regarding whether different districts

tilted Republican or Democratic under various statewide

political scenarios. The S curve for the map that was 

eventually adopted projected that “Republicans would 

maintain a majority under any likely voting scenario,” 
 

 

6 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

with Democrats needing 54% of the statewide vote to

secure a majority in the legislature. Id., at 852. 

Finally, the parties presented testimony from four expert witnesses. The plaintiffs’ experts, Professor Kenneth

Mayer and Professor Simon Jackman, opined that—

according to their efficiency-gap analyses—the Act 43 map

would systematically favor Republicans for the duration of

the decade. See id., at 859–861. The defendants’ experts,

Professor Nicholas Goedert and Sean Trende, opined that 

efficiency gaps alone are unreliable measures of durable 

partisan advantage, and that the political geography of 

Wisconsin currently favors Republicans because Democrats—who tend to be clustered in large cities—are inefficiently distributed in many parts of Wisconsin for purposes

of winning elections. See id., at 861–862. 

At the close of evidence, the District Court concluded— 

over the dissent of Judge Griesbach—that the plaintiffs

had proved a violation of the First and Fourteenth

Amendments. The court set out a three-part test for 

identifying unconstitutional gerrymanders: A redistricting

map violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if it “(1) is

intended to place a severe impediment on the effectiveness 

of the votes of individual citizens on the basis of their 

political affiliation, (2) has that effect, and (3) cannot be

justified on other, legitimate legislative grounds.” Id., 

at 884. 

The court went on to find, based on evidence concerning 

the manner in which Act 43 had been adopted, that “one of

the purposes of Act 43 was to secure Republican control of

the Assembly under any likely future electoral scenario for

the remainder of the decade.” Id., at 896. It also found 

that the “more efficient distribution of Republican voters

has allowed the Republican Party to translate its votes

into seats with significantly greater ease and to achieve—

and preserve—control of the Wisconsin legislature.” Id., 
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

at 905. As to the third prong of its test, the District Court 

concluded that the burdens the Act 43 map imposed on 

Democrats could not be explained by “legitimate state 

prerogatives [or] neutral factors.” Id., at 911. The court 

recognized that “Wisconsin’s political geography, particularly the high concentration of Democratic voters in urban 

centers like Milwaukee and Madison, affords the Republican Party a natural, but modest, advantage in the districting process,” but found that this inherent geographic 

disparity did not account for the magnitude of the Republican advantage. Id., at 921, 924. 

Regarding standing, the court held that the plaintiffs 

had a “cognizable equal protection right against stateimposed barriers on [their] ability to vote effectively for 

the party of [their] choice.” Id., at 928. It concluded that 

Act 43 “prevent[ed] Wisconsin Democrats from being able 

to translate their votes into seats as effectively as Wisconsin Republicans,” and that “Wisconsin Democrats, therefore, have suffered a personal injury to their Equal Protection rights.” Ibid. The court turned away the defendants’ 

argument that the plaintiffs’ injury was not sufficiently 

particularized by finding that “[t]he harm that the plaintiffs have experienced . . . is one shared by Democratic

voters in the State of Wisconsin. The dilution of their 

votes is both personal and acute.” Id., at 930. 

Judge Griesbach dissented. He wrote that, under this 

Court’s existing precedents, “partisan intent” to benefit

one party rather than the other in districting “is not illegal, but is simply the consequence of assigning the task of 

redistricting to the political branches.” Id., at 939. He 

observed that the plaintiffs had not attempted to prove 

that “specific districts . . . had been gerrymandered,” but

rather had “relied on statewide data and calculations.” 

Ibid. And he argued that the plaintiffs’ proof, resting as it 

did on statewide data, had “no relevance to any gerrymandering injury alleged by a voter in a single district.” Id., at 
 

 

 

 

8 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

952. On that basis, Judge Griesbach would have entered 

judgment for the defendants. 

The District Court enjoined the defendants from using

the Act 43 map in future elections and ordered them to

have a remedial districting plan in place no later than 

November 1, 2017. The defendants appealed directly to 

this Court, as provided under 28 U. S. C. §1253. We 

stayed the District Court’s judgment and postponed consideration of our jurisdiction. 582 U. S. ___ (2017). 

II
 

A 

Over the past five decades this Court has been repeatedly asked to decide what judicially enforceable limits, if 

any, the Constitution sets on the gerrymandering of voters 

along partisan lines. Our previous attempts at an answer 

have left few clear landmarks for addressing the question. 

What our precedents have to say on the topic is, however,

instructive as to the myriad competing considerations that 

partisan gerrymandering claims involve. Our efforts to 

sort through those considerations have generated conflicting views both of how to conceive of the injury arising from 

partisan gerrymandering and of the appropriate role for

the Federal Judiciary in remedying that injury.

Our first consideration of a partisan gerrymandering 

claim came in Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U. S. 735 (1973).

There a group of plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality 

of a Connecticut redistricting plan that “consciously and 

overtly adopted and followed a policy of ‘political fairness,’ 

which aimed at a rough scheme of proportional representation of the two major political parties.” Id., at 738. To 

that end, the redistricting plan broke up numerous towns,

“wiggl[ing] and joggl[ing]” district boundary lines in order 

to “ferret out pockets of each party’s strength.” Id., at 738, 

and n. 3, 752, n. 18. The plaintiffs argued that, notwithstanding the rough population equality of the districts, the 
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

plan was unconstitutional because its consciously political

design was “nothing less than a gigantic political gerrymander.” Id., at 752. This Court rejected that claim. We 

reasoned that it would be “idle” to hold that “any political

consideration taken into account in fashioning a reapportionment plan is sufficient to invalidate it,” because districting “inevitably has and is intended to have substantial political consequences.” Id., at 752–753. 

Thirteen years later came Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 

109 (1986). Unlike the bipartisan gerrymander at issue in 

Gaffney, the allegation in Bandemer was that Indiana 

Republicans had gerrymandered Indiana’s legislative

districts “to favor Republican incumbents and candidates 

and to disadvantage Democratic voters” through what the 

plaintiffs called the “stacking” (packing) and “splitting” 

(cracking) of Democrats. 478 U. S., at 116–117 (plurality 

opinion). A majority of the Court agreed that the case

before it was justiciable. Id., at 125, 127. The Court could 

not, however, settle on a standard for what constitutes an 

unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. 

Four Justices would have required the Bandemer plaintiffs to “prove both intentional discrimination against an

identifiable political group and an actual discriminatory 

effect on that group.” Id., at 127. In that plurality’s view,

the plaintiffs had failed to make a sufficient showing on

the latter point because their evidence of unfavorable 

election results for Democrats was limited to a single

election cycle. See id., at 135. 

Three Justices, concurring in the judgment, would have 

held that the “Equal Protection Clause does not supply

judicially manageable standards for resolving purely 

political gerrymandering claims.” Id., at 147 (opinion of 

O’Connor, J.). Justice O’Connor took issue, in particular,

with the plurality’s focus on factual questions concerning 

“statewide electoral success.” Id., at 158. She warned 

that allowing district courts to “strike down apportion­
 

 

 

 

 

10 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

ment plans on the basis of their prognostications as to the

outcome of future elections or future apportionments 

invites ‘findings’ on matters as to which neither judges nor 

anyone else can have any confidence.” Id., at 160. 

Justice Powell, joined by Justice Stevens, concurred in

part and dissented in part. In his view, the plaintiffs’ 

claim was not simply that their “voting strength was

diluted statewide,” but rather that “certain key districts 

were grotesquely gerrymandered to enhance the election 

prospects of Republican candidates.” Id., at 162, 169. 

Thus, he would have focused on the question “whether the

boundaries of the voting districts have been distorted 

deliberately and arbitrarily to achieve illegitimate ends.” 

Id., at 165. 

Eighteen years later, we revisited the issue in Vieth v. 

Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267 (2004). In that case the plaintiffs

argued that Pennsylvania’s Legislature had created “meandering and irregular” congressional districts that “ignored all traditional redistricting criteria, including the 

preservation of local government boundaries,” in order to 

provide an advantage to Republican candidates for Congress. Id., at 272–273 (plurality opinion) (brackets 

omitted).

The Vieth Court broke down on numerous lines. Writing for a four-Justice plurality, Justice Scalia would have 

held that the plaintiffs’ claims were nonjusticiable because 

there was no “judicially discernible and manageable

standard” by which to decide them. Id., at 306. On those 

grounds, the plurality affirmed the dismissal of the claims. 

Ibid. JUSTICE KENNEDY concurred in the judgment. He 

noted that “there are yet no agreed upon substantive 

principles of fairness in districting,” and that, consequently,

“we have no basis on which to define clear, manageable, 

and politically neutral standards for measuring the particular burden” on constitutional rights. Id., at 307–308. 

He rejected the principle advanced by the plaintiffs—that 
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

“a majority of voters in [Pennsylvania] should be able to

elect a majority of [Pennsylvania’s] congressional delegation”—as a “precept” for which there is “no authority.” Id., 

at 308. Yet JUSTICE KENNEDY recognized the possibility 

that “in another case a standard might emerge that suitably demonstrates how an apportionment’s de facto incorporation of partisan classifications burdens” representational rights. Id., at 312. 

Four Justices dissented in three different opinions.

Justice Stevens would have permitted the plaintiffs’

claims to proceed on a district-by-district basis, using a

legal standard similar to the standard for racial gerrymandering set forth in Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899 

(1996). See 541 U. S., at 335–336, 339. Under this standard, any district with a “bizarre shape” for which the only 

possible explanation was “a naked desire to increase partisan strength” would be found unconstitutional under the 

Equal Protection Clause. Id., at 339. Justice Souter, 

joined by JUSTICE GINSBURG, agreed that a plaintiff alleging unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering should 

proceed on a district-by-district basis, as “we would be able 

to call more readily on some existing law when we defined

what is suspect at the district level.” See id., at 346–347. 

JUSTICE BREYER dissented on still other grounds. In his 

view, the drawing of single-member legislative districts—

even according to traditional criteria—is “rarely . . . politically neutral.” Id., at 359. He therefore would have distinguished between gerrymandering for passing political 

advantage and gerrymandering leading to the “unjustified 

entrenchment” of a political party. Id., at 360–361. 

The Court last took up this question in League of United 

Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399 (2006) 

(LULAC). The plaintiffs there challenged a mid-decade

redistricting map passed by the Texas Legislature. As in 

Vieth, a majority of the Court could find no justiciable 

standard by which to resolve the plaintiffs’ partisan ger­
 

12 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

rymandering claims. Relevant to this case, an amicus 

brief in support of the LULAC plaintiffs proposed a “symmetry standard” to “measure partisan bias” by comparing

how the two major political parties “would fare hypothetically if they each . . . received a given percentage of the

vote.” 548 U. S., at 419 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). JUSTICE 

KENNEDY noted some wariness at the prospect of “adopting a constitutional standard that invalidates a map based

on unfair results that would occur in a hypothetical state

of affairs.” Id., at 420. Aside from that problem, he wrote,

the partisan bias standard shed no light on “how much 

partisan dominance is too much.” Ibid. JUSTICE 

KENNEDY therefore concluded that “asymmetry alone is 

not a reliable measure of unconstitutional partisanship.” 

Ibid. 

Justice Stevens would have found that the Texas map 

was a partisan gerrymander based in part on the asymmetric advantage it conferred on Republicans in converting votes to seats. Id., at 466–467, 471–473 (opinion

concurring in part and dissenting in part). Justice Souter, 

writing for himself and JUSTICE GINSBURG, noted that he 

would not “rule out the utility of a criterion of symmetry,” 

and that “further attention could be devoted to the administrability of such a criterion at all levels of redistricting 

and its review.” Id., at 483–484 (opinion concurring in

part and dissenting in part). 

B 

At argument on appeal in this case, counsel for the

plaintiffs argued that this Court can address the problem 

of partisan gerrymandering because it must: The Court 

should exercise its power here because it is the “only

institution in the United States” capable of “solv[ing] this

problem.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 62. Such invitations must be 

answered with care. “Failure of political will does not 

justify unconstitutional remedies.” Clinton v. City of New 
Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

York, 524 U. S. 417, 449 (1998) (KENNEDY, J., concurring).

Our power as judges to “say what the law is,” Marbury v. 

Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803), rests not on the default of politically accountable officers, but is instead

grounded in and limited by the necessity of resolving,

according to legal principles, a plaintiff ’s particular claim

of legal right.

Our considerable efforts in Gaffney, Bandemer, Vieth, 

and LULAC leave unresolved whether such claims may be

brought in cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering. In particular, two threshold questions remain: what is necessary to show standing in a case of this

sort, and whether those claims are justiciable. Here we do 

not decide the latter question because the plaintiffs in this 

case have not shown standing under the theory upon

which they based their claims for relief. 

To ensure that the Federal Judiciary respects “the

proper—and properly limited—role of the courts in a 

democratic society,” Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 750 

(1984), a plaintiff may not invoke federal-court jurisdiction

unless he can show “a personal stake in the outcome of the

controversy.” Baker, 369 U. S., at 204. A federal court is 

not “a forum for generalized grievances,” and the requirement of such a personal stake “ensures that courts exercise power that is judicial in nature.” Lance, 549 U. S., at 

439, 441. We enforce that requirement by insisting that a

plaintiff satisfy the familiar three-part test for Article III 

standing: that he “(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is

fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant,

and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial

decision.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) 

(slip op., at 6). Foremost among these requirements is 

injury in fact—a plaintiff ’s pleading and proof that he has

suffered the “invasion of a legally protected interest” that

is “concrete and particularized,” i.e., which “affect[s] the

plaintiff in a personal and individual way.” Lujan v. 
 

14 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560, and n. 1 (1992). 

We have long recognized that a person’s right to vote is 

“individual and personal in nature.” Reynolds v. Sims, 

377 U. S. 533, 561 (1964). Thus, “voters who allege facts

showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals have

standing to sue” to remedy that disadvantage. Baker, 369 

U. S., at 206. The plaintiffs in this case alleged that they

suffered such injury from partisan gerrymandering, which

works through “packing” and “cracking” voters of one

party to disadvantage those voters. 1 App. 28–29, 32–33, 

Complaint ¶¶5, 15. That is, the plaintiffs claim a constitutional right not to be placed in legislative districts deliberately designed to “waste” their votes in elections where 

their chosen candidates will win in landslides (packing) or 

are destined to lose by closer margins (cracking). Id., at 

32–33, ¶15.

To the extent the plaintiffs’ alleged harm is the dilution 

of their votes, that injury is district specific. An individual 

voter in Wisconsin is placed in a single district. He votes 

for a single representative. The boundaries of the district, 

and the composition of its voters, determine whether and

to what extent a particular voter is packed or cracked. 

This “disadvantage to [the voter] as [an] individual[],” 

Baker, 369 U. S., at 206, therefore results from the boundaries of the particular district in which he resides. And a 

plaintiff ’s remedy must be “limited to the inadequacy that

produced [his] injury in fact.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 

343, 357 (1996). In this case the remedy that is proper

and sufficient lies in the revision of the boundaries of the 

individual’s own district. 

For similar reasons, we have held that a plaintiff who

alleges that he is the object of a racial gerrymander—a

drawing of district lines on the basis of race—has standing

to assert only that his own district has been so gerrymandered. See United States v. Hays, 515 U. S. 737, 744–745 

(1995). A plaintiff who complains of gerrymandering, but 
 

 

 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

who does not live in a gerrymandered district, “assert[s]

only a generalized grievance against governmental conduct of which he or she does not approve.” Id., at 745. 

Plaintiffs who complain of racial gerrymandering in their 

State cannot sue to invalidate the whole State’s legislative 

districting map; such complaints must proceed “districtby-district.” Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 6). 

The plaintiffs argue that their claim of statewide injury 

is analogous to the claims presented in Baker and Reynolds, which they assert were “statewide in nature” because 

they rested on allegations that “districts throughout a 

state [had] been malapportioned.” Brief for Appellees 29. 

But, as we have already noted, the holdings in Baker and 

Reynolds were expressly premised on the understanding

that the injuries giving rise to those claims were “individual and personal in nature,” Reynolds, 377 U. S., at 561, 

because the claims were brought by voters who alleged 

“facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals,” 

Baker, 369 U. S., at 206. 

The plaintiffs’ mistaken insistence that the claims in 

Baker and Reynolds were “statewide in nature” rests on a 

failure to distinguish injury from remedy. In those malapportionment cases, the only way to vindicate an individual plaintiff ’s right to an equally weighted vote was 

through a wholesale “restructuring of the geographical

distribution of seats in a state legislature.” Reynolds, 377 

U. S., at 561; see, e.g., Moss v. Burkhart, 220 F. Supp. 149, 

156–160 (WD Okla. 1963) (directing the county-by-county 

reapportionment of the Oklahoma Legislature), aff ’d 

sub nom. Williams v. Moss, 378 U. S. 558 (1964) (per 

curiam).

Here, the plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims 

turn on allegations that their votes have been diluted.

That harm arises from the particular composition of the 

voter’s own district, which causes his vote—having been 
 

 

 

 

16 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

packed or cracked—to carry less weight than it would 

carry in another, hypothetical district. Remedying the 

individual voter’s harm, therefore, does not necessarily 

require restructuring all of the State’s legislative districts.

It requires revising only such districts as are necessary to

reshape the voter’s district—so that the voter may be 

unpacked or uncracked, as the case may be. Cf. Alabama 

Legislative Black Caucus, 575 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7).

This fits the rule that a “remedy must of course be limited

to the inadequacy that produced the injury in fact that the

plaintiff has established.” Lewis, 518 U. S., at 357. 

The plaintiffs argue that their legal injury is not limited 

to the injury that they have suffered as individual voters,

but extends also to the statewide harm to their interest “in 

their collective representation in the legislature,” and in 

influencing the legislature’s overall “composition and 

policymaking.” Brief for Appellees 31. But our cases to 

date have not found that this presents an individual and

personal injury of the kind required for Article III standing. On the facts of this case, the plaintiffs may not rely

on “the kind of undifferentiated, generalized grievance

about the conduct of government that we have refused to

countenance in the past.” Lance, 549 U. S., at 442. A 

citizen’s interest in the overall composition of the legislature is embodied in his right to vote for his representative. 

And the citizen’s abstract interest in policies adopted by

the legislature on the facts here is a nonjusticiable “general interest common to all members of the public.” 

Ex parte Lévitt, 302 U. S. 633, 634 (1937) (per curiam).

We leave for another day consideration of other possible 

theories of harm not presented here and whether those

theories might present justiciable claims giving rise to

statewide remedies. JUSTICE KAGAN’S concurring opinion 

endeavors to address “other kinds of constitutional harm,” 

see post, at 8, perhaps involving different kinds of plaintiffs, see post, at 9, and differently alleged burdens, see 
Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

ibid. But the opinion of the Court rests on the understanding that we lack jurisdiction to decide this case, 

much less to draw speculative and advisory conclusions 

regarding others. See Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 

U. S. 75, 90 (1947) (noting that courts must “respect the 

limits of [their] unique authority” and engage in “[j]udicial 

exposition . . . only when necessary to decide definite

issues between litigants”). The reasoning of this Court 

with respect to the disposition of this case is set forth in 

this opinion and none other. And the sum of the standing 

principles articulated here, as applied to this case, is that

the harm asserted by the plaintiffs is best understood as

arising from a burden on those plaintiffs’ own votes. In 

this gerrymandering context that burden arises through a 

voter’s placement in a “cracked” or “packed” district. 

C 

Four of the plaintiffs in this case—Mary Lynne

Donohue, Wendy Sue Johnson, Janet Mitchell, and Jerome Wallace—pleaded a particularized burden along

such lines. They alleged that Act 43 had “dilut[ed] the

influence” of their votes as a result of packing or cracking

in their legislative districts. See 1 App. 34–36, Complaint 

¶¶20, 23, 24, 26. The facts necessary to establish standing, however, must not only be alleged at the pleading 

stage, but also proved at trial. See Defenders of Wildlife, 

504 U. S., at 561. As the proceedings in the District Court 

progressed to trial, the plaintiffs failed to meaningfully 

pursue their allegations of individual harm. The plaintiffs

did not seek to show such requisite harm since, on this 

record, it appears that not a single plaintiff sought to 

prove that he or she lives in a cracked or packed district. 

They instead rested their case at trial—and their arguments before this Court—on their theory of statewide 

injury to Wisconsin Democrats, in support of which they

offered three kinds of evidence. 
 

 

18 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

First, the plaintiffs presented the testimony of the lead

plaintiff, Professor Whitford. But Whitford’s testimony

does not support any claim of packing or cracking of himself as a voter. Indeed, Whitford expressly acknowledged

that Act 43 did not affect the weight of his vote. 147 Record 37. His testimony points merely to his hope of achieving a Democratic majority in the legislature—what the 

plaintiffs describe here as their shared interest in the 

composition of “the legislature as a whole.” Brief for Appellees 32. Under our cases to date, that is a collective 

political interest, not an individual legal interest, and the

Court must be cautious that it does not become “a forum 

for generalized grievances.” Lance, 549 U. S., at 439, 441. 

Second, the plaintiffs provided evidence regarding the

mapmakers’ deliberations as they drew district lines. As 

the District Court recounted, the plaintiffs’ evidence 

showed that the mapmakers “test[ed] the partisan

makeup and performance of districts as they might be

configured in different ways.” 218 F. Supp. 3d, at 891. 

Each of the mapmakers’ alternative configurations came 

with a table that listed the number of “Safe” and “Lean” 

seats for each party, as well as “Swing” seats. Ibid. The 

mapmakers also labeled certain districts as ones in which

“GOP seats [would be] strengthened a lot,” id., at 893; 2 

App. 344, or which would result in “Statistical Pick Ups”

for Republicans. 218 F. Supp. 3d, at 893 (alterations 

omitted). And they identified still other districts in which 

“GOP seats [would be] strengthened a little,” “weakened a

little,” or were “likely lost.” Ibid. 

The District Court relied upon this evidence in concluding that, “from the outset of the redistricting process, the

drafters sought to understand the partisan effect of the 

maps they were drawing.” Id., at 895. That evidence may

well be pertinent with respect to any ultimate determination whether the plaintiffs may prevail in their claims

against the defendants, assuming such claims present a 
 

 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 19 

Opinion of the Court 

justiciable controversy. But the question at this point is

whether the plaintiffs have established injury in fact.

That turns on effect, not intent, and requires a showing of

a burden on the plaintiffs’ votes that is “actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’” Defenders of 

Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 560. 

Third, the plaintiffs offered evidence concerning the

impact that Act 43 had in skewing Wisconsin’s statewide 

political map in favor of Republicans. This evidence, 

which made up the heart of the plaintiffs’ case, was derived from partisan-asymmetry studies similar to those 

discussed in LULAC. The plaintiffs contend that these

studies measure deviations from “partisan symmetry,” 

which they describe as the “social scientific tenet that

[districting] maps should treat parties symmetrically.”

Brief for Appellees 37. In the District Court, the plaintiffs’ 

case rested largely on a particular measure of partisan

asymmetry—the “efficiency gap” of wasted votes. See 

supra, at 3–4. That measure was first developed in two 

academic articles published shortly before the initiation of

this lawsuit. See Stephanopoulos & McGhee, Partisan

Gerrymandering and the Efficiency Gap, 82 U. Chi. 

L. Rev. 831 (2015); McGhee, Measuring Partisan Bias in

Single-Member District Electoral Systems, 39 Leg. Studies

Q. 55 (2014).

The plaintiffs asserted in their complaint that the “efficiency gap captures in a single number all of a district 

plan’s cracking and packing.” 1 App. 28–29, Complaint ¶5 

(emphasis deleted). That number is calculated by subtracting the statewide sum of one party’s wasted votes

from the statewide sum of the other party’s wasted votes 

and dividing the result by the statewide sum of all votes 

cast, where “wasted votes” are defined as all votes cast for 

a losing candidate and all votes cast for a winning candidate beyond the 50% plus one that ensures victory. See 

Brief for Eric McGhee as Amicus Curiae 6, and n. 3. The 
 

 

20 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

larger the number produced by that calculation, the greater 

the asymmetry between the parties in their efficiency in

converting votes into legislative seats. Though they take

no firm position on the matter, the plaintiffs have suggested

that an efficiency gap in the range of 7% to 10% should 

trigger constitutional scrutiny. See Brief for Appellees 

52–53, and n. 17. 

The plaintiffs and their amici curiae promise us that the

efficiency gap and similar measures of partisan asymmetry will allow the federal courts—armed with just “a 

pencil and paper or a hand calculator”—to finally solve the

problem of partisan gerrymandering that has confounded 

the Court for decades. Brief for Heather K. Gerken et al. 

as Amici Curiae 27 (citing Wang, Let Math Save Our 

Democracy, N. Y. Times, Dec. 5, 2015). We need not doubt 

the plaintiffs’ math. The difficulty for standing purposes 

is that these calculations are an average measure. They

do not address the effect that a gerrymander has on the 

votes of particular citizens. Partisan-asymmetry metrics

such as the efficiency gap measure something else entirely: the effect that a gerrymander has on the fortunes of

political parties.

Consider the situation of Professor Whitford, who lives 

in District 76, where, defendants contend, Democrats are 

“naturally” packed due to their geographic concentration,

with that of plaintiff Mary Lynne Donohue, who lives in 

Assembly District 26 in Sheboygan, where Democrats like 

her have allegedly been deliberately cracked. By all accounts, Act 43 has not affected Whitford’s individual vote 

for his Assembly representative—even plaintiffs’ own 

demonstration map resulted in a virtually identical district for him. Donohue, on the other hand, alleges that Act 

43 burdened her individual vote. Yet neither the efficiency gap nor the other measures of partisan asymmetry

offered by the plaintiffs are capable of telling the difference between what Act 43 did to Whitford and what it did 
Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 21 

Opinion of the Court 

to Donohue. The single statewide measure of partisan 

advantage delivered by the efficiency gap treats Whitford 

and Donohue as indistinguishable, even though their

individual situations are quite different.

That shortcoming confirms the fundamental problem

with the plaintiffs’ case as presented on this record. It is a 

case about group political interests, not individual legal 

rights. But 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. 

III 

In cases where a plaintiff fails to demonstrate Article III

standing, we usually direct the dismissal of the plaintiff ’s 

claims. See, e.g., DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 

332, 354 (2006). This is not the usual case. It concerns an 

unsettled kind of claim this Court has not agreed upon,

the contours and justiciability of which are unresolved. 

Under the circumstances, and in light of the plaintiffs’ 

allegations that Donohue, Johnson, Mitchell, and Wallace

live in districts where Democrats like them have been 

packed or cracked, we decline to direct dismissal. 

We therefore remand the case to the District Court so 

that the plaintiffs may have an opportunity to prove concrete and particularized injuries using evidence—unlike 

the bulk of the evidence presented thus far—that would 

tend to demonstrate a burden on their individual votes. 

Cf. Alabama Legislative Black Caucus, 575 U. S., at ___ 

(slip op., at 8) (remanding for further consideration of the 

plaintiffs’ gerrymandering claims on a district-by-district

basis). We express no view on the merits of the plaintiffs’ 

case. We caution, however, that “standing is not dispensed in gross”: A plaintiff ’s remedy must be tailored to 

redress the plaintiff ’s particular injury. Cuno, 547 U. S., 

at 353. 
 

22 GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

The judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the

case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with

this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 1 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 16–1161 

BEVERLY R. GILL, ET AL., APPELLANTS v.
 

WILLIAM WHITFORD, ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN 

[June 18, 2018] 

JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG, 

JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join,

concurring. 

The Court holds today that a plaintiff asserting a partisan gerrymandering claim based on a theory of vote dilution must prove that she lives in a packed or cracked 

district in order to establish standing. See ante, at 14–17. 

The Court also holds that none of the plaintiffs here have

yet made that required showing. See ante, at 17. 

I agree with both conclusions, and with the Court’s

decision to remand this case to allow the plaintiffs to prove 

that they live in packed or cracked districts, see ante, at 

21. I write to address in more detail what kind of evidence 

the present plaintiffs (or any additional ones) must offer to

support that allegation. And I write to make some observations about what would happen if they succeed in proving standing—that is, about how their vote dilution case

could then proceed on the merits. The key point is that

the case could go forward in much the same way it did

below: Given the charges of statewide packing and cracking, affecting a slew of districts and residents, the challengers could make use of statewide evidence and seek a

statewide remedy.

I also write separately because I think the plaintiffs 

may have wanted to do more than present a vote dilution 
 

2 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

theory. Partisan gerrymandering no doubt burdens individual votes, but it also causes other harms. And at some 

points in this litigation, the plaintiffs complained of a 

different injury—an infringement of their First Amendment right of association. The Court rightly does not 

address that alternative argument: The plaintiffs did not 

advance it with sufficient clarity or concreteness to make

it a real part of the case. But because on remand they

may well develop the associational theory, I address the

standing requirement that would then apply. As I’ll explain, a plaintiff presenting such a theory would not need

to show that her particular voting district was packed or

cracked for standing purposes because that fact would 

bear no connection to her substantive claim. Indeed, 

everything about the litigation of that claim—from standing on down to remedy—would be statewide in nature.

Partisan gerrymandering, as this Court has recognized,

is “incompatible with democratic principles.” Arizona 

State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting 

Comm’n, 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 1) (quoting 

Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267, 292 (2004) (plurality 

opinion); alterations omitted). More effectively every day,

that practice enables politicians to entrench themselves in

power against the people’s will. And only the courts can

do anything to remedy the problem, because gerrymanders

benefit those who control the political branches. None of 

those facts gives judges any excuse to disregard Article

III’s demands. The Court is right to say they were not met 

here. But partisan gerrymandering injures enough individuals and organizations in enough concrete ways

to ensure that standing requirements, properly applied,

will not often or long prevent courts from reaching the

merits of cases like this one. Or from insisting, when

they do, that partisan officials stop degrading the nation’s 

democracy. 
Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 3 

KAGAN, J., concurring
 

I 

As the Court explains, the plaintiffs’ theory in this case

focuses on vote dilution. See ante, at 15 (“Here, the plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims turn on allegations 

that their votes have been diluted”); see also ante, at 14, 

16–17. That is, the plaintiffs assert that Wisconsin’s State 

Assembly Map has caused their votes “to carry less weight 

than [they] would carry in another, hypothetical district.” 

Ante, at 16. And the mechanism used to wreak that harm 

is “packing” and “cracking.” Ante, at 14. In a relatively

few districts, the mapmakers packed supermajorities of

Democratic voters—well beyond the number needed for a

Democratic candidate to prevail. And in many more districts, dispersed throughout the State, the mapmakers

cracked Democratic voters—spreading them sufficiently

thin to prevent them from electing their preferred candidates. The result of both practices is to “waste” Democrats’ votes. Ibid. 

The harm of vote dilution, as this Court has long stated,

is “individual and personal in nature.” Reynolds v. Sims, 

377 U. S. 533, 561 (1964); see ante, at 15. It arises when 

an election practice—most commonly, the drawing of

district lines—devalues one citizen’s vote as compared to

others. Of course, such practices invariably affect more 

than one citizen at a time. For example, our original oneperson, one-vote cases considered how malapportioned 

maps “contract[ed] the value” of urban citizens’ votes 

while “expand[ing]” the value of rural citizens’ votes. 

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, 7 (1964). But we understood the injury as giving diminished weight to each particular vote, even if millions were so touched. In such 

cases, a voter living in an overpopulated district suffered

“disadvantage to [herself] as [an] individual[]”: Her vote

counted for less than the votes of other citizens in her 

State. Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 206 (1962); see ante, 

at 15. And that kind of disadvantage is what a plaintiff 
 

 

4 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

asserting a vote dilution claim—in the one-person, onevote context or any other—always alleges.

To have standing to bring a partisan gerrymandering

claim based on vote dilution, then, a plaintiff must prove

that the value of her own vote has been “contract[ed].” 

Wesberry, 376 U. S., at 7. And that entails showing, as the

Court holds, that she lives in a district that has been 

either packed or cracked. See ante, at 17. For packing 

and cracking are the ways in which a partisan gerrymander dilutes votes. Cf. Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 

153–154 (1993) (explaining that packing or cracking can

also support racial vote dilution claims). Consider the 

perfect form of each variety. When a voter resides in a 

packed district, her preferred candidate will win no matter 

what; when a voter lives in a cracked district, her chosen 

candidate stands no chance of prevailing. But either way,

such a citizen’s vote carries less weight—has less consequence—than it would under a neutrally drawn map. See 

ante, at 14, 16. So when she shows that her district has 

been packed or cracked, she proves, as she must to establish standing, that she is “among the injured.” Lujan v. 

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 563 (1992) (quoting 

Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 735 (1972)); see ante, 

at 17. 

In many partisan gerrymandering cases, that threshold

showing will not be hard to make. Among other ways of

proving packing or cracking, a plaintiff could produce an

alternative map (or set of alternative maps)—comparably 

consistent with traditional districting principles—under

which her vote would carry more weight. Cf. Ante, at 20 

(suggesting how an alternative map may shed light on

vote dilution or its absence); Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 

234, 258 (2001) (discussing the use of alternative maps as

evidence in a racial gerrymandering case); Cooper v. Harris, 581 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2017) (slip op., at 28–34) 

(same); Brief for Political Geography Scholars as Amici 
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 5 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

Curiae 12–14 (describing computer simulation techniques 

for devising alternative maps). For example, a Democratic 

plaintiff living in a 75%-Democratic district could prove

she was packed by presenting a different map, drawn 

without a focus on partisan advantage, that would place 

her in a 60%-Democratic district. Or conversely, a Democratic plaintiff residing in a 35%-Democratic district could

prove she was cracked by offering an alternative, neutrally

drawn map putting her in a 50–50 district. The precise

numbers are of no import. The point is that the plaintiff

can show, through drawing alternative district lines, that 

partisan-based packing or cracking diluted her vote. 

Here, the Court is right that the plaintiffs have so far 

failed to make such a showing. See ante, at 17–20. William Whitford was the only plaintiff to testify at trial

about the alleged gerrymander’s effects. He expressly 

acknowledged that his district would be materially identical under any conceivable map, whether or not drawn to

achieve partisan advantage. See ante, at 18, 20. That 

means Wisconsin’s plan could not have diluted Whitford’s 

own vote. So whatever other claims he might have, see 

infra, at 8–9, Whitford is not “among the injured” in a vote 

dilution challenge. Lujan, 504 U. S., at 563 (quoting 

Sierra Club, 405 U. S., at 735). Four other plaintiffs

differed from Whitford by alleging in the complaint that

they lived in packed or cracked districts. But for whatever 

reason, they failed to back up those allegations with evidence as the suit proceeded. See ante, at 17. So they too

did not show the injury—a less valuable vote—central to

their vote dilution theory.

That problem, however, may be readily fixable. The 

Court properly remands this case to the District Court “so

that the plaintiffs may have an opportunity” to “demonstrate a burden on their individual votes.” Ante, at 21. 

That means the plaintiffs—both the four who initially

made those assertions and any others (current or newly 
 

6 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

joined)—now can introduce evidence that their individual

districts were packed or cracked. And if the plaintiffs’ 

more general charges have a basis in fact, that evidence

may well be at hand. Recall that the plaintiffs here alleged—and the District Court found, see 218 F. Supp. 3d 

837, 896 (WD Wis. 2016)—that a unified Republican government set out to ensure that Republicans would control 

as many State Assembly seats as possible over a decade

(five consecutive election cycles). To that end, the government allegedly packed and cracked Democrats 

throughout the State, not just in a particular district (see, 

e.g., Benisek v. Lamone, No. 17–333) or region. Assuming

that is true, the plaintiffs should have a mass of packing 

and cracking proof, which they can now also present in

district-by-district form to support their standing. In 

other words, a plaintiff residing in each affected district

can show, through an alternative map or other evidence, 

that packing or cracking indeed occurred there. And if (or 

to the extent) that test is met, the court can proceed to 

decide all distinctive merits issues and award appropriate 

remedies. 

When the court addresses those merits questions, it can

consider statewide (as well as local) evidence. Of course, 

the court below and others like it are currently debating, 

without guidance from this Court, what elements make up

a vote dilution claim in the partisan gerrymandering 

context. But assume that the plaintiffs must prove illicit 

partisan intent—a purpose to dilute Democrats’ votes in

drawing district lines. The plaintiffs could then offer

evidence about the mapmakers’ goals in formulating the 

entire statewide map (which would predictably carry down 

to individual districting decisions). So, for example, the 

plaintiffs here introduced proof that the mapmakers

looked to partisan voting data when drawing districts 

throughout the State—and that they graded draft maps

according to the amount of advantage those maps con­
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 7 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

ferred on Republicans. See 218 F. Supp. 3d, at 890–896.

This Court has explicitly recognized the relevance of such

statewide evidence in addressing racial gerrymandering 

claims of a district-specific nature. “Voters,” we held, “of 

course[] can present statewide evidence in order to prove

racial gerrymandering in a particular district.” Alabama 

Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575 U. S. ___, ___ 

(2015) (slip op., at 7). And in particular, “[s]uch evidence 

is perfectly relevant” to showing that mapmakers had an

invidious “motive” in drawing the lines of “multiple districts in the State.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 10). The same 

should be true for partisan gerrymandering. 

Similarly, cases like this one might warrant a statewide

remedy. Suppose that mapmakers pack or crack a critical 

mass of State Assembly districts all across the State to

elect as many Republican politicians as possible. And 

suppose plaintiffs residing in those districts prevail in a

suit challenging that gerrymander on a vote dilution

theory. The plaintiffs might then receive exactly the relief 

sought in this case. To be sure, remedying each plaintiff ’s 

vote dilution injury “requires revising only such districts 

as are necessary to reshape [that plaintiff ’s] district—so

that the [plaintiff] may be unpacked or uncracked, as the 

case may be.” Ante, at 16. But with enough plaintiffs

joined together—attacking all the packed and cracked

districts in a statewide gerrymander—those obligatory 

revisions could amount to a wholesale restructuring of the

State’s districting plan. The Court recognizes as much. It 

states that a proper remedy in a vote dilution case “does 

not necessarily require restructuring all of the State’s 

legislative districts.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Not necessarily—but possibly. It all depends on how much redistricting is needed to cure all the packing and cracking that 

the mapmakers have done. 
 

 

8 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

II 

Everything said so far relates only to suits alleging that 

a partisan gerrymander dilutes individual votes. That is 

the way the Court sees this litigation. See ante, at 14–17. 

And as I’ll discuss, that is the most reasonable view. See 

infra, at 10–11. But partisan gerrymanders inflict other 

kinds of constitutional harm as well. Among those injuries, partisan gerrymanders may infringe the First 

Amendment rights of association held by parties, other

political organizations, and their members. The plaintiffs

here have sometimes pointed to that kind of harm. To the 

extent they meant to do so, and choose to do so on remand, 

their associational claim would occasion a different standing inquiry than the one in the Court’s opinion.

JUSTICE KENNEDY explained the First Amendment 

associational injury deriving from a partisan gerrymander

in his concurring opinion in Vieth, 541 U. S. 267. “Representative democracy,” JUSTICE KENNEDY pointed out, is

today “unimaginable without the ability of citizens to band 

together” to advance their political beliefs. Id., at 314 

(opinion concurring in judgment) (quoting California 

Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U. S. 567, 574 (2000)).

That means significant “First Amendment concerns arise” 

when a State purposely “subject[s] a group of voters or 

their party to disfavored treatment.” 541 U. S., at 314. 

Such action “burden[s] a group of voters’ representational

rights.” Ibid.; see id., at 315 (similarly describing the

“burden[] on a disfavored party and its voters” and the 

“burden [on] a group’s representational rights”). And it 

does so because of their “political association,” “participation in the electoral process,” “voting history,” or “expression of political views.” Id., at 314–315. 

As so formulated, the associational harm of a partisan

gerrymander is distinct from vote dilution. Consider an 

active member of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin who

resides in a district that a partisan gerrymander has left 
Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 9 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

untouched (neither packed nor cracked). His individual 

vote carries no less weight than it did before. But if the 

gerrymander ravaged the party he works to support, then 

he indeed suffers harm, as do all other involved members 

of that party. This is the kind of “burden” to “a group of 

voters’ representational rights” JUSTICE KENNEDY spoke

of. Id., at 314. Members of the “disfavored party” in the 

State, id., at 315, deprived of their natural political

strength by a partisan gerrymander, may face difficulties 

fundraising, registering voters, attracting volunteers, 

generating support from independents, and recruiting 

candidates to run for office (not to mention eventually

accomplishing their policy objectives). See Anderson v. 

Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 791–792, and n. 12 (1983) (concluding that similar harms inflicted by a state election law 

amounted to a “burden imposed on . . . associational 

rights”). And what is true for party members may be 

doubly true for party officials and triply true for the party

itself (or for related organizations). Cf. California Democratic Party, 530 U. S., at 586 (holding that a state law 

violated state political parties’ First Amendment rights of 

association). By placing a state party at an enduring

electoral disadvantage, the gerrymander weakens its 

capacity to perform all its functions. 

And if that is the essence of the harm alleged, then the 

standing analysis should differ from the one the Court

applies. Standing, we have long held, “turns on the nature 

and source of the claim asserted.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 

U. S. 490, 500 (1975). Indeed, that idea lies at the root of 

today’s opinion. It is because the Court views the harm 

alleged as vote dilution that it (rightly) insists that each 

plaintiff show packing or cracking in her own district to 

establish her standing. See ante, at 14–17; supra, at 3–4. 

But when the harm alleged is not district specific, the

proof needed for standing should not be district specific

either. And the associational injury flowing from a 
 

 

10 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

statewide partisan gerrymander, whether alleged by a

party member or the party itself, has nothing to do with

the packing or cracking of any single district’s lines. The 

complaint in such a case is instead that the gerrymander 

has burdened the ability of like-minded people across the 

State to affiliate in a political party and carry out that

organization’s activities and objects. See supra, at 8–9. 

Because a plaintiff can have that complaint without living 

in a packed or cracked district, she need not show what 

the Court demands today for a vote dilution claim. Or 

said otherwise: Because on this alternative theory, the

valued association and the injury to it are statewide, so too

is the relevant standing requirement. 

On occasion, the plaintiffs here have indicated that they

have an associational claim in mind. In addition to repeatedly alleging vote dilution, their complaint asserted in 

general terms that Wisconsin’s districting plan infringes

their “First Amendment right to freely associate with each

other without discrimination by the State based on that 

association.” 1 App. 61, Complaint ¶91. Similarly, the

plaintiffs noted before this Court that “[b]eyond diluting 

votes, partisan gerrymandering offends First Amendment

values by penalizing citizens because of . . . their association with a political party.” Brief for Appellees 36 (internal quotation marks omitted). And finally, the plaintiffs’ 

evidence of partisan asymmetry well fits a suit alleging

associational injury (although, as noted below, that was

not how it was used, see infra, at 11). As the Court points 

out, what those statistical metrics best measure is a gerrymander’s effect “on the fortunes of political parties” and

those associated with them. Ante, at 20. 

In the end, though, I think the plaintiffs did not sufficiently advance a First Amendment associational theory to

avoid the Court’s holding on standing. Despite referring

to that theory in their complaint, the plaintiffs tried this

case as though it were about vote dilution alone. Their 
 

 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 11 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

testimony and other evidence went toward establishing 

the effects of rampant packing and cracking on the value

of individual citizens’ votes. Even their proof of partisan

asymmetry was used for that purpose—although as noted 

above, it could easily have supported the alternative theory of associational harm, see supra, at 10. The plaintiffs

joining in this suit do not include the State Democratic 

Party (or any related statewide organization). They did

not emphasize their membership in that party, or their

activities supporting it. And they did not speak to any

tangible associational burdens—ways the gerrymander 

had debilitated their party or weakened its ability to carry 

out its core functions and purposes, see supra, at 8–9. 

Even in this Court, when disputing the State’s argument 

that they lacked standing, the plaintiffs reiterated their 

suit’s core theory: that the gerrymander “intentionally, 

severely, durably, and unjustifiably dilutes Democratic

votes.” Brief for Appellees 29–30. Given that theory, the

plaintiffs needed to show that their own votes were indeed 

diluted in order to establish standing. 

But nothing in the Court’s opinion prevents the plaintiffs on remand from pursuing an associational claim, or 

from satisfying the different standing requirement that

theory would entail. The Court’s opinion is about a suit 

challenging a partisan gerrymander on a particular

ground—that it dilutes the votes of individual citizens. 

That opinion “leave[s] for another day consideration of 

other possible theories of harm not presented here and

whether those theories might present justiciable claims

giving rise to statewide remedies.” Ante, at 16. And in 

particular, it leaves for another day the theory of harm 

advanced by JUSTICE KENNEDY in Vieth: that a partisan 

gerrymander interferes with the vital “ability of citizens to 

band together” to further their political beliefs. 541 U. S., 

at 314 (quoting California Democratic Party, 530 U. S., at 

574). Nothing about that injury is “generalized” or “ab­
 

 

 

12 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

stract,” as the Court says is true of the plaintiffs’ dissatisfaction with the “overall composition of the legislature.” 

Ante, at 16. A suit raising an associational theory complains of concrete “burdens on a disfavored party” and its

members as they pursue their political interests and goals. 

Vieth, 541 U. S., at 315 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.); see 

supra, at 8–9. And when the suit alleges that a gerrymander has imposed those burdens on a statewide basis,

then its litigation should be statewide too—as to standing, 

liability, and remedy alike. 

III 

Partisan gerrymandering jeopardizes “[t]he ordered 

working of our Republic, and of the democratic process.” 

Vieth, 541 U. S., at 316 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). It enables a party that happens to be in power at the right time 

to entrench itself there for a decade or more, no matter 

what the voters would prefer. At its most extreme, the 

practice amounts to “rigging elections.” Id., at 317 (internal quotation marks omitted). It thus violates the most 

fundamental of all democratic principles—that “the voters

should choose their representatives, not the other way

around.” Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip 

op., at 35) (quoting Berman, Managing Gerrymandering, 

83 Texas L. Rev. 781 (2005)).

And the evils of gerrymandering seep into the legislative process itself. Among the amicus briefs in this case 

are two from bipartisan groups of congressional members

and state legislators. They know that both parties gerrymander. And they know the consequences. The congressional brief describes a “cascade of negative results” from 

excessive partisan gerrymandering: indifference to swing

voters and their views; extreme political positioning designed to placate the party’s base and fend off primary 

challenges; the devaluing of negotiation and compromise; 

and the impossibility of reaching pragmatic, bipartisan 
 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 13 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

solutions to the nation’s problems. Brief for Bipartisan

Group of Current and Former Members of Congress as 

Amici Curiae 4; see id., at 10–23. The state legislators tell 

a similar story. In their view, partisan gerrymandering 

has “sounded the death-knell of bipartisanship,” creating a

legislative environment that is “toxic” and “tribal[].” Brief 

for Bipartisan Group of 65 Current and Former State

Legislators as Amici Curiae 6, 25. 

I doubt James Madison would have been surprised.

What, he asked when championing the Constitution,

would make the House of Representatives work? The 

House must be structured, he answered, to instill in its 

members “an habitual recollection of their dependence on

the people.” The Federalist No. 57, p. 352 (C. Rossiter ed. 

1961). Legislators must be “compelled to anticipate the

moment” when their “exercise of [power] is to be reviewed.” Ibid. When that moment does not come—when 

legislators can entrench themselves in office despite the

people’s will—the foundation of effective democratic governance dissolves. 

And our history offers little comfort. Yes, partisan

gerrymandering goes back to the Republic’s earliest days; 

and yes, American democracy has survived. But technology makes today’s gerrymandering altogether different 

from the crude linedrawing of the past. New redistricting

software enables pinpoint precision in designing districts. 

With such tools, mapmakers can capture every last bit of 

partisan advantage, while still meeting traditional districting requirements (compactness, contiguity, and the 

like). See Brief for Political Science Professors as Amici 

Curiae 28. Gerrymanders have thus become ever more

extreme and durable, insulating officeholders against all 

but the most titanic shifts in the political tides. The 2010 

redistricting cycle produced some of the worst partisan 

gerrymanders on record. Id., at 3. The technology will

only get better, so the 2020 cycle will only get worse. 
 

14 GILL v. WHITFORD 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

Courts have a critical role to play in curbing partisan

gerrymandering. Over fifty years ago, we committed to

providing judicial review in the redistricting arena, because we understood that “a denial of constitutionally

protected rights demands judicial protection.” Reynolds, 

377 U. S., at 566. Indeed, the need for judicial review is at 

its most urgent in these cases. For here, politicians’ incentives conflict with voters’ interests, leaving citizens without any political remedy for their constitutional harms. Of 

course, their dire need provides no warrant for courts to

disregard Article III. Because of the way this suit was 

litigated, I agree that the plaintiffs have so far failed to

establish their standing to sue, and I fully concur in the

Court’s opinion. But of one thing we may unfortunately be 

sure. Courts—and in particular this Court—will again be

called on to redress extreme partisan gerrymanders. I am 

hopeful we will then step up to our responsibility to vindicate the Constitution against a contrary law. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 1 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 16–1161 

BEVERLY R. GILL, ET AL., APPELLANTS v.
 

WILLIAM WHITFORD, ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN 

[June 18, 2018] 

JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH joins,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. 

I join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion because I

agree that the plaintiffs have failed to prove Article III

standing. I do not join Part III, which gives the plaintiffs

another chance to prove their standing on remand. When 

a plaintiff lacks standing, our ordinary practice is to remand the case with instructions to dismiss for lack of 

jurisdiction. E.g., Lance v. Coffman, 549 U. S. 437, 442 

(2007) (per curiam); DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 

U. S. 332, 354 (2006); United States v. Hays, 515 U. S. 737, 

747 (1995). The Court departs from our usual practice 

because this is supposedly “not the usual case.” Ante, at 

21. But there is nothing unusual about it. As the Court 

explains, the plaintiffs’ lack of standing follows from longestablished principles of law. See ante, at 13–17. After a 

year and a half of litigation in the District Court, including a 4-day trial, the plaintiffs had a more-than-ample 

opportunity to prove their standing under these principles. 

They failed to do so. Accordingly, I would have remanded 

this case with instructions to dismiss.