Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 30.0

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

25 

Opinion of the Court 

points  during  their  lifetimes.  For  all  of  those  reasons, 
asking  judges  to  predict  how  a  particular  districting  map
will perform in future elections risks basing constitutional 
holdings on unstable ground outside judicial expertise. 

It is hard to see what the District Court’s third prong—
providing  the  defendant  an  opportunity  to  show  that  the 
discriminatory effects were due to a “legitimate redistrict-
ing  objective”—adds  to  the  inquiry.    318  F. Supp.  3d,  at 
861.  The first prong already requires the plaintiff to prove 
that partisan advantage predominates.  Asking whether a 
legitimate purpose other than partisanship was the moti-
vation  for  a  particular  districting  map  just  restates  the 
question. 

B 

The District Courts also found partisan gerrymandering 
claims  justiciable  under  the  First  Amendment,  coalescing 
around  a  basic  three-part  test:  proof  of  intent  to  burden
individuals  based  on  their  voting  history  or  party  affilia-
tion; an actual burden on political speech or associational 
rights; and a causal link between the invidious intent and 
actual  burden.  See  Common  Cause,  318  F. Supp.  3d,  at 
929;  Benisek,  348  F. Supp.  3d,  at  522.  Both  District 
Courts concluded that the districting plans at issue violated
the plaintiffs’ First Amendment  right to association.  The 
District Court in North Carolina relied on testimony that,
after  the  2016  Plan  was  put  in  place,  the  plaintiffs  faced 
“difficulty raising money, attracting candidates, and mobi-
lizing  voters  to  support  the  political  causes  and  issues
such  Plaintiffs  sought  to  advance.”  318  F. Supp.  3d,  at 
932.  Similarly,  the  District  Court  in  Maryland  examined
testimony  that  “revealed  a  lack  of  enthusiasm,  indiffer-
ence  to  voting,  a  sense  of  disenfranchisement,  a  sense  of 
disconnection,  and  confusion,”  and  concluded  that  Repub-
licans in the Sixth District “were burdened in fundraising,
attracting  volunteers, campaigning, and generating inter-