Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1161_dc8f.pdf
Page Number: 35

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

9 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

untouched  (neither  packed  nor  cracked).  His  individual 
vote  carries  no  less  weight  than  it  did  before.   But  if  the 
gerrymander ravaged the party he works to support, then 
he indeed suffers harm, as do all other involved members 
of  that  party.  This  is  the  kind  of  “burden”  to  “a  group  of 
voters’  representational  rights”  JUSTICE  KENNEDY  spoke
of.  Id., at 314.  Members of the “disfavored  party” in the 
State,  id.,  at  315,  deprived  of  their  natural  political
strength  by  a  partisan  gerrymander,  may  face  difficulties 
fundraising,  registering  voters,  attracting  volunteers, 
generating  support  from  independents,  and  recruiting 
candidates  to  run  for  office  (not  to  mention  eventually
accomplishing  their  policy  objectives).    See  Anderson  v. 
Celebrezze,  460 U. S. 780, 791–792, and n. 12 (1983) (con­
cluding that similar harms inflicted by a state election law 
amounted  to  a  “burden  imposed  on  . . .  associational 
rights”).  And  what  is  true  for  party  members  may  be 
doubly true for party officials and triply true for the party
itself  (or  for  related  organizations).    Cf.  California  Demo-
cratic  Party,  530  U. S.,  at  586  (holding  that  a  state  law 
violated state political parties’ First Amendment rights of 
association).    By  placing  a  state  party  at  an  enduring
electoral  disadvantage,  the  gerrymander  weakens  its 
capacity to perform all its functions. 

And if that is the essence of the harm alleged, then the 
standing  analysis  should  differ  from  the  one  the  Court
applies.  Standing, we have long held, “turns on the nature 
and  source  of  the  claim  asserted.”  Warth  v.  Seldin,  422 
U. S. 490, 500 (1975).  Indeed, that idea lies at the root of 
today’s  opinion.    It  is  because  the  Court  views  the  harm 
alleged  as  vote  dilution  that  it  (rightly)  insists  that  each 
plaintiff  show  packing  or  cracking  in  her  own  district  to 
establish her standing.  See ante, at 14–17; supra, at 3–4. 
But  when  the  harm  alleged  is  not  district  specific,  the
proof  needed  for  standing  should  not  be  district  specific
either.  And  the  associational  injury  flowing  from  a