Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 60.0

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

21 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

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  “prog-
nostications” 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  deci-
sionmaker  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  infor-
mation  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out-of-date  musings  about  the  unpredictability  of  the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  evi-
dence—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.