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Page Number: 36

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  re­
peatedly 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  associa­
tion with a political party.”  Brief for Appellees 36 (inter­
nal  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  ger­
rymander’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  suffi­
ciently 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