Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 8

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

Shortly after the new maps became law, several groups
of plaintiffs—including the North Carolina League of Con-
servation Voters, Common Cause, and individual voters— 
sued in state court.  The plaintiffs asserted that each map 
constituted an impermissible partisan gerrymander in vio-
lation  of  the  North  Carolina  Constitution.  Harper  I,  380 
N. C., at 329–330, 868 S. E. 2d, at 513–514.1  At trial before 
a three-judge panel of the Wake County Superior Court, the
plaintiffs presented expert testimony and other evidence to 
support their claims that North Carolina’s General Assem-
bly drew state legislative and federal congressional maps to 
favor Republican candidates.  Id., at 332, 868 S. E. 2d, at 
515.  The trial court agreed, finding that the General As-
sembly’s 2021 congressional districting map  was “a  parti-
san outlier intentionally and carefully designed to maxim-
ize  Republican  advantage  in  North  Carolina’s  Con-
gressional delegation.”  Id., at 345, 868 S. E. 2d, at 522 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).  But the court denied re-
lief,  reasoning  that  the  partisan  gerrymandering  claims 
“amounted to political questions that are nonjusticiable un-
der the North Carolina Constitution.”  Id., at 348, 868 S. E. 
2d, at 524. 

The  North  Carolina  Supreme  Court  reversed,  holding
that the legislative defendants violated state law “beyond a 
reasonable doubt” by enacting maps that constituted parti-
san gerrymanders.  Id., at 353, 868 S. E. 2d, at 528.  It also 
rejected the trial court’s conclusion that partisan gerryman-
dering  claims  present  a  nonjusticiable  political  question. 
Ibid.  The  Court  acknowledged  our  decision  in  Rucho  v. 
Common Cause, which held “that partisan gerrymandering 
claims present political questions beyond the reach of the 
federal courts.”  588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 30); 
—————— 

1 The  plaintiffs  also  asserted  that  North  Carolina’s  Legislature  dis-
criminated on the basis of race and raised other claims under the North 
Carolina Constitution.  Harper I, 380 N. C., at 350–352, 868 S. E. 2d, at 
526–527.  Those claims are not at issue today.