Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-281_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 4.0

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

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, Wash-
ington,  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 

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No. 18–281 
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VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES, ET AL., 
APPELLANTS v. GOLDEN BETHUNE-HILL, ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 
THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA 

[June 17, 2019] 

  JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. 
  The Court resolves in this opinion a question of standing 
to appeal.  In 2011, after the 2010 census, Virginia redrew 
legislative  districts  for  the  State’s  Senate  and  House  of 
Delegates.    Voters  in  12  of  the  impacted  House  districts 
sued two Virginia state agencies and four election officials 
(collectively, State Defendants) charging that the redrawn 
districts  were  racially  gerrymandered  in  violation  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment’s  Equal  Protection  Clause.    The 
Virginia  House  of  Delegates  and  its  Speaker  (collectively, 
the  House)  intervened  as  defendants  and  carried  the 
laboring  oar  in  urging  the  constitutionality  of  the  chal-
lenged  districts  at  a  bench  trial,  see  Bethune-Hill  v.  Vir-
ginia  State  Bd.  of  Elections,  141  F. Supp.  3d  505  (ED  Va. 
2015), on appeal to this Court, see Bethune-Hill v. Virginia 
State  Bd.  of  Elections,  580  U. S.  ___  (2017),  and  at  a  sec-
ond  bench  trial.    In  June  2018,  after  the  second  bench 
trial,  a  three-judge  District  Court  in  the  Eastern  District 
of Virginia, dividing 2 to 1, held that in 11 of the districts 
“the  [S]tate  ha[d]  [unconstitutionally]  sorted  voters  . . . 
based on the color of their skin.”  Bethune-Hill v. Virginia