Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 62.0

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

23 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

characteristics  and  judgments.    The  effects  evidence  in 
these  cases  accepted  as  a  given  the  State’s  physical  geog-
raphy (e.g., where does the Chesapeake run?) and political
geography  (e.g.,  where  do  the  Democrats  live  on  top  of
each  other?).  So  the  courts  did  not,  in  the  majority’s
words, try to “counteract ‘natural’ gerrymandering caused, 
for  example,  by  the  urban  concentration  of  one  party.” 
Ante,  at  19.    Still  more,  the  courts’  analyses  used  the 
State’s  own  criteria  for  electoral  fairness—except  for 
naked  partisan  gain.    Under  their  approach,  in  other 
words,  the  State  selected  its  own  fairness  baseline  in  the 
form of its other districting criteria.  All the courts did was 
determine  how  far  the  State  had  gone  off  that  track  be-
cause  of  its  politicians’  effort  to  entrench  themselves  in 
office. 

The North Carolina litigation well illustrates the point.
The  thousands  of  randomly  generated  maps  I’ve  men-
tioned formed the core of the plaintiffs’ case that the North
Carolina  plan  was  an  “extreme[ ]  outlier.”    Rucho,  318 
F. Supp. 3d, at 852 (internal quotation marks omitted); see 
supra,  at  18–20.    Those  maps  took  the  State’s  political 
landscape  as  a  given.   In  North  Carolina,  for  example, 
Democratic voters are highly concentrated in cities.  That 
fact  was  built  into  all  the  maps;  it  became  part  of  the 
baseline.  See Rucho, 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 896–897.  On top
of  that,  the  maps  took  the  State’s  legal  landscape  as  a
given.  They incorporated the State’s districting priorities, 
excluding  partisanship.  So  in  North  Carolina,  for  exam-
ple,  all  the  maps  adhered  to  the  traditional  criteria  of 
contiguity and compactness.  See supra, at 19–20.  But the 
comparator  maps  in  another  State  would  have  incorpo-
rated  different  objectives—say,  the  emphasis  Arizona
places  on  competitive  districts  or  the  requirement  Iowa
imposes that counties remain whole.  See Brief for Math-
ematicians et al. as Amici Curiae 19–20.  The point is that
the assemblage of maps, reflecting the characteristics and