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Page Number: 61

22 

RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

B 
The majority’s broadest claim, as I’ve noted, is that this
is a price we must pay because judicial oversight of parti-
san  gerrymandering  cannot  be  “politically  neutral”  or
“manageable.”  Ante,  at  19;  see  supra,  at  14.  Courts,  the 
majority  argues,  will  have  to  choose  among  contested 
notions  of  electoral  fairness. 
(Should  they  take  as  the 
ideal  mode  of  districting  proportional  representation, 
many  competitive  seats,  adherence  to  traditional  district-
ing  criteria,  or  so  forth?)    See  ante,  at  16–19.  And  even 
once courts have chosen, the majority continues, they will
have  to  decide  “[h]ow  much  is  too  much?”—that  is,  how 
much  deviation  from  the  chosen  “touchstone”  to  allow? 
Ante, at 19–20.  In answering that question, the majority 
surmises,  they  will  likely  go  far  too  far.  See  ante,  at  15. 
So  the  whole  thing  is  impossible,  the  majority  concludes.
To prove its point, the majority throws a bevy of question 
marks on the page.  (I count nine in just two paragraphs. 
See  ante,  at  19–20.)  But  it  never  tries  to  analyze  the 
serious  question  presented  here—whether  the  kind  of 
standard developed below falls prey to those objections, or
instead allows for neutral and manageable oversight.  The 
answer,  as  you’ve  already  heard  enough  to  know,  is  the
latter.  That kind of oversight is not only possible; it’s been 
done. 

Consider  neutrality  first.    Contrary  to  the  majority’s
suggestion,  the  District  Courts  did  not  have  to—and  in
fact  did  not—choose  among  competing  visions  of  electoral 
fairness.  That is because they did not try to compare the 
State’s actual map to an “ideally fair” one (whether based 
on  proportional  representation  or  some  other  criterion). 
Instead,  they  looked  at  the  difference  between  what  the
State  did  and  what  the  State  would  have  done  if  politi-
cians  hadn’t  been  intent  on  partisan  gain.  Or  put  differ-
ently,  the  comparator  (or  baseline  or  touchstone)  is  the 
result not of a judge’s philosophizing but of the State’s own