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Page Number: 3

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

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Syllabus 

individuals,”  Baker,  369  U. S.,  at  206.    The  plaintiffs’  mistaken  in-
sistence  that  the  claims  in  Baker  and  Reynolds  were  “statewide  in 
nature” rests on a failure to distinguish injury from remedy.  In those 
malapportionment  cases,  the  only  way  to  vindicate  an  individual
plaintiff’s right to an equally weighted vote was through a wholesale 
“restructuring of the geographical distribution of seats in a state leg-
islature.”    Reynolds,  377  U. S.,  at  561.    Here,  the  plaintiffs’  claims
turn on allegations that their votes have been diluted.  Because that 
harm  arises  from  the  particular  composition  of  the  voter’s  own  dis-
trict, remedying the harm does not necessarily require restructuring
all  of  the  State’s  legislative  districts.    It  requires  revising  only  such
districts as are necessary to reshape the voter’s district.  This fits the 
rule that a “remedy must of course be limited to the inadequacy that
produced the injury in fact that the plaintiff has established.”  Lewis 
v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 357. 

The  plaintiffs  argue  that  their  legal  injury  also  extends  to  the
statewide harm to their interest “in their collective representation in
the legislature,” and in influencing the legislature’s overall “composi-
tion  and  policymaking.”  Brief  for  Appellees  31.    To  date,  however, 
the Court has not found that this presents an individual and personal
injury of the kind required for Article III standing.  A citizen’s inter-
est  in  the  overall  composition  of  the  legislature  is  embodied  in  his 
right to vote for his representative.  The harm asserted by the plain-
tiffs in this case is best understood as arising from a burden on their 
own votes.  Pp. 12–17.

(c) Four of the plaintiffs in this case pleaded such a particularized
burden.    But  as  their  case  progressed  to  trial,  they  failed  to  pursue
their  allegations  of  individual  harm.    They  instead  rested  their  case
on  their  theory  of  statewide  injury  to  Wisconsin  Democrats,  in  sup-
port  of  which  they  offered  three  kinds  of  evidence.  First,  they  pre-
sented  testimony  pointing  to  the  lead  plaintiff’s  hope  of  achieving  a
Democratic  majority  in  the  legislature.    Under  the  Court’s  cases  to 
date, that is a collective political interest, not an individual legal in-
terest.  Second,  they  produced  evidence  regarding  the  mapmakers’ 
deliberations as they drew district lines.  The District Court relied on
this  evidence  in  concluding  that  those  mapmakers  sought  to  under-
stand  the  partisan  effect  of  the  maps  they  were  drawing.   But  the 
plaintiffs’  establishment  of  injury  in  fact  turns  on  effect,  not  intent,
and requires a showing of a burden on the plaintiffs’ votes that is “ac-
tual  or  imminent,  not  ‘conjectural’  or  ‘hypothetical.’ ”  Defenders  of 
Wildlife,  504  U. S.,  at  560.    Third,  the  plaintiffs  presented  partisan-
asymmetry  studies  showing  that  Act  43  had  skewed  Wisconsin’s 
statewide map in favor of Republicans.  Those studies do not address 
the effect that a gerrymander has on the votes of particular citizens.