Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 19

14 

RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE 

Opinion of the Court 

plan  is  an  unconstitutional  partisan  political  gerryman-
der.”  Id.,  at  185,  n. 25  (opinion  of  Powell,  J.).    In  any 
event, the Court held that the plaintiffs had failed to show 
that the plan violated the Constitution.

Eighteen years later, in Vieth, the plaintiffs complained
that  Pennsylvania’s  legislature  “ignored  all  traditional
redistricting  criteria,  including  the  preservation  of  local 
government  boundaries,”  in  order  to  benefit  Republican 
congressional candidates.  541 U. S., at 272–273 (plurality 
opinion)  (brackets  omitted).    Justice  Scalia  wrote  for  a 
four-Justice plurality.  He would have held that the plain-
tiffs’  claims  were  nonjusticiable  because  there  was  no 
“judicially  discernible  and  manageable  standard”  for 
deciding  them.    Id.,  at  306.  Justice  Kennedy,  concurring
in  the  judgment,  noted  “the  lack  of  comprehensive  and
neutral  principles  for  drawing  electoral  boundaries  [and] 
the absence of rules to limit and confine judicial interven-
tion.”  Id., at 306–307.  He nonetheless left open the possi-
bility that “in another case a standard might emerge.”  Id., 
at 312.  Four Justices dissented.
  In LULAC, the plaintiffs challenged a mid-decade redis-
tricting  map  approved  by  the  Texas  Legislature.    Once 
again  a  majority  of  the  Court  could  not  find  a  justiciable 
standard  for  resolving  the  plaintiffs’  partisan  gerryman-
dering  claims.  See  548  U. S.,  at  414  (noting  that  the
“disagreement  over  what  substantive  standard  to  apply” 
that was evident in Bandemer “persists”).

As  we  summed  up  last  Term  in  Gill,  our  “considerable 
efforts  in  Gaffney,  Bandemer,  Vieth,  and  LULAC  leave 
unresolved  whether  . . .  claims  [of  legal  right]  may  be
brought  in  cases  involving  allegations  of  partisan  gerry-
mandering.”  585  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  13).    Two 
“threshold  questions”  remained:  standing,  which  we  ad-
dressed  in  Gill,  and  “whether  [such]  claims  are  justicia-
ble.”  Ibid.