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Page Number: 55.0

16 

RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

A 
Start  with  the  standard  the  lower  courts  used.    The 
majority  disaggregates  the  opinions  below,  distinguishing 
the one from the other and then chopping up each into “a 
number of ‘tests.’ ”  Ante, at 22; see ante, at 22–30.  But in 
doing so, it fails to convey the decisions’ most significant—
and common—features.  Both courts focused on the harm 
of vote dilution, see supra, at 11,  though the North Caro-
lina court mostly grounded its analysis in the Fourteenth 
Amendment  and  the  Maryland  court  in  the  First.    And 
both courts (like others around the country) used basically 
the  same  three-part  test  to  decide  whether  the  plaintiffs 
had made out a vote dilution claim.  As many legal stand-
ards  do,  that  test  has  three  parts:  (1)  intent;  (2)  effects; 
and  (3)  causation.    First,  the  plaintiffs  challenging  a  dis-
tricting plan must prove that state officials’ “predominant 
purpose”  in  drawing  a  district’s  lines  was  to  “entrench 
[their  party]  in  power”  by  diluting  the  votes  of  citizens 
favoring its rival.  Rucho, 318 F. Supp. 3d, at 864 (quoting 
Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1)).
Second, the plaintiffs must establish that the lines drawn 
in fact have the intended effect by “substantially” diluting 
their votes.  Lamone, 348 F. Supp. 3d, at 498.  And third, 
if the plaintiffs make those showings, the State must come
up with a legitimate, non-partisan justification to save its 
map.  See  Rucho,  318  F. Supp.  3d,  at  867.2   If  you  are  a
lawyer, you know that this test looks utterly ordinary.  It 
is the sort of thing courts work with every day.

Turn now to the test’s application.  First, did the North 
Carolina  and  Maryland  districters  have  the  predominant 

—————— 

2 Neither  North  Carolina  nor  Maryland  offered  much  of  an  alterna-
tive  explanation  for  the  evidence  that  the  plaintiffs  put  forward. 
Presumably, both States had trouble coming up with something.  Like 
the  majority,  see ante,  at  25,  I  therefore pass  quickly  over  this  part of 
the test.