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Page Number: 53.0

14 

RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

governance  and  flagrant  infringements  on  individuals’ 
rights—in  the  face  of  escalating  partisan  manipulation 
whose  compatibility  with  this  Nation’s  values  and  law  no 
one defends—the majority declines to provide any remedy. 
For  the  first  time  in  this  Nation’s  history,  the  majority
declares  that  it  can  do  nothing  about  an  acknowledged
constitutional  violation  because  it  has  searched  high  and 
low and cannot find a workable legal standard to apply.

The  majority  gives  two  reasons  for  thinking  that  the 
adjudication of partisan gerrymandering claims is beyond 
judicial  capabilities.    First  and  foremost,  the  majority 
says,  it  cannot  find  a  neutral  baseline—one  not  based  on 
contestable  notions  of  political  fairness—from  which  to 
measure  injury.    See  ante,  at  15–19.    According  to  the
majority,  “[p]artisan  gerrymandering  claims  invariably 
sound  in  a  desire  for  proportional  representation.”  Ante, 
at 16.  But the Constitution does not mandate proportional
representation.  So, the majority contends, resolving those
claims “inevitably” would require courts to decide what is 
“fair”  in  the  context  of  districting.    Ante,  at  17.    They
would  have  “to  make  their  own  political  judgment  about
how  much  representation  particular  political  parties 
deserve”  and  “to  rearrange  the  challenged  districts  to
achieve  that  end.”  Ibid.  (emphasis  in  original).    And  sec-
ond,  the  majority  argues  that  even  after  establishing  a
baseline, a court would have no way to answer “the deter-
minative question: ‘How much is too much?’ ”  Ante, at 19. 
No  “discernible  and  manageable”  standard  is  available,
the  majority  claims—and  so  courts  could  willy-nilly  be-
come  embroiled  in  fixing  every  districting  plan.    Ante,  at 
20; see ante, at 15–16. 

I’ll give the majority this one—and important—thing: It
identifies  some  dangers  everyone  should  want  to  avoid. 
Judges  should  not  be  apportioning  political  power  based 
on  their  own  vision  of  electoral  fairness,  whether  propor-
tional representation or any other.  And judges should not