Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 26

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

21 

Opinion of the Court 

tial  in  proportion  to  its  number  of  supporters.  As  we 
stated unanimously in Gill, “this  Court is not responsible 
for  vindicating  generalized  partisan  preferences.  The 
Court’s constitutionally prescribed role is to  vindicate the
individual  rights  of  the  people  appearing  before  it.”    585 
U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  21).  See  also  Bandemer,  478 
U. S.,  at  150  (opinion  of  O’Connor,  J.)  (“[T]he  Court  has 
not  accepted  the  argument  that  an  ‘asserted  entitlement
to  group  representation’  . . .  can  be  traced  to  the  one  per-
son,  one  vote  principle.”  (quoting  Bolden,  446  U. S.,  at 
77)).*

Nor  do  our  racial  gerrymandering  cases  provide  an
appropriate standard for assessing partisan gerrymander-
ing.  “[N]othing  in  our  case  law  compels  the  conclusion 
that  racial  and  political  gerrymanders  are  subject  to  pre-
cisely the same constitutional scrutiny.  In fact, our coun-
try’s long and persistent history of racial discrimination in 
voting—as  well  as  our  Fourteenth  Amendment  jurispru-
dence, which always has reserved the strictest scrutiny for 
discrimination on the basis of race—would seem to compel
the  opposite  conclusion.”  Shaw  I,  509  U. S.,  at  650  (cita-
tion  omitted).  Unlike  partisan  gerrymandering  claims,  a 
racial gerrymandering claim does not ask for a fair share 
of political power and  influence, with all the justiciability 
conundrums that entails.  It asks instead for the elimina-
tion of a racial classification.  A partisan gerrymandering 
claim cannot ask for the elimination of partisanship. 

—————— 

* The dissent’s observation that the Framers viewed political parties 
“with  deep  suspicion,  as  fomenters  of  factionalism  and  symptoms  of 
disease in the body politic” post, at 9, n. 1 (opinion of KAGAN, J.) (inter-
nal  quotation  marks  and  alteration  omitted),  is  exactly  right.    Its 
inference  from  that  fact  is  exactly  wrong.    The  Framers  would  have 
been  amazed  at  a  constitutional  theory  that  guarantees  a  certain 
degree of representation to political parties.