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Page Number: 14.0

10 

GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

ment plans on the basis of their prognostications as to the
outcome  of  future  elections  or  future  apportionments 
invites ‘findings’ on matters as to which neither judges nor 
anyone else can have any confidence.”  Id., at 160. 

Justice  Powell,  joined  by  Justice  Stevens,  concurred  in
part  and  dissented  in  part.    In  his  view,  the  plaintiffs’ 
claim  was  not  simply  that  their  “voting  strength  was
diluted  statewide,”  but  rather  that  “certain  key  districts 
were  grotesquely  gerrymandered  to  enhance  the  election 
Id.,  at  162,  169. 
prospects  of  Republican  candidates.” 
Thus, he would have focused on the question “whether the
boundaries  of  the  voting  districts  have  been  distorted 
deliberately  and  arbitrarily  to  achieve  illegitimate  ends.” 
Id., at 165. 

Eighteen  years  later,  we  revisited  the  issue  in  Vieth  v. 
Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267 (2004).  In that case the plaintiffs
argued  that  Pennsylvania’s  Legislature  had  created  “me­
andering  and  irregular”  congressional  districts  that  “ig­
nored  all  traditional  redistricting  criteria,  including  the 
preservation  of  local  government  boundaries,”  in  order  to 
provide  an  advantage  to  Republican  candidates  for  Con­
gress. 
omitted).

Id.,  at  272–273  (plurality  opinion)  (brackets 

The  Vieth  Court  broke  down  on  numerous  lines.    Writ­
ing for a four-Justice  plurality, Justice Scalia would have 
held that the plaintiffs’ claims were nonjusticiable because 
there  was  no  “judicially  discernible  and  manageable
standard” by which to decide them.  Id., at 306.  On those 
grounds, the plurality affirmed the dismissal of the claims. 
Ibid.  JUSTICE  KENNEDY  concurred  in  the  judgment.    He 
noted  that  “there  are  yet  no  agreed  upon  substantive 
principles of fairness in districting,” and that, consequently,
“we  have  no  basis  on  which  to  define  clear,  manageable, 
and  politically  neutral  standards  for  measuring  the  par­
ticular  burden”  on  constitutional  rights.    Id.,  at  307–308. 
He rejected the principle advanced by the plaintiffs—that