Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1161_dc8f.pdf
Page Number: 19

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

who  does  not  live  in  a  gerrymandered  district,  “assert[s]
only  a  generalized  grievance  against  governmental  con­
duct  of  which  he  or  she  does  not  approve.”    Id.,  at  745. 
Plaintiffs  who  complain  of  racial  gerrymandering  in  their 
State cannot sue to invalidate the whole State’s legislative 
districting  map;  such  complaints  must  proceed  “district­
by-district.”  Alabama  Legislative  Black  Caucus  v.  Ala­
bama, 575 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 6). 

The plaintiffs argue that their claim of statewide injury 

is  analogous  to  the  claims  presented  in  Baker  and  Reyn­
olds, which they assert were “statewide in nature” because 
they  rested  on  allegations  that  “districts  throughout  a 
state  [had]  been  malapportioned.”    Brief  for  Appellees  29. 
But, as we have already noted, the holdings in Baker and 
Reynolds  were  expressly  premised  on  the  understanding
that the injuries giving rise to those claims were “individ­
ual  and  personal  in  nature,”  Reynolds,  377  U. S.,  at  561, 
because  the  claims  were  brought  by  voters  who  alleged 
“facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals,” 
Baker, 369 U. S., at 206. 

The  plaintiffs’  mistaken  insistence  that  the  claims  in 
Baker and Reynolds were “statewide in nature” rests on a 
failure  to  distinguish  injury  from  remedy.  In  those  mal­
apportionment  cases,  the  only  way  to  vindicate  an  indi­
vidual  plaintiff ’s  right  to  an  equally  weighted  vote  was 
through  a  wholesale  “restructuring  of  the  geographical
distribution of seats in a state legislature.”  Reynolds, 377 
U. S., at 561; see, e.g., Moss v. Burkhart, 220 F. Supp. 149, 
156–160 (WD Okla. 1963) (directing the county-by-county 
reapportionment  of  the  Oklahoma  Legislature),  aff ’d 
sub nom.  Williams  v.  Moss,  378  U. S.  558  (1964)  ( per 
curiam).

Here,  the  plaintiffs’  partisan  gerrymandering  claims 
turn  on  allegations  that  their  votes  have  been  diluted.
That  harm  arises  from  the  particular  composition  of  the 
voter’s  own  district,  which  causes  his  vote—having  been