Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 41.0

2 

RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

sanship  above  respect  for  the  popular  will.  They  encour-
aged  a  politics  of  polarization  and  dysfunction.    If  left 
unchecked,  gerrymanders  like  the  ones  here  may  irrepa-
rably damage our system of government. 

And checking them is not beyond the courts.  The major-
ity’s abdication comes just when courts across the country,
including those below, have coalesced around manageable
judicial  standards  to  resolve  partisan  gerrymandering 
claims.  Those  standards  satisfy  the  majority’s  own 
benchmarks.  They  do  not  require—indeed,  they  do  not 
permit—courts  to  rely  on  their  own  ideas  of  electoral 
fairness,  whether  proportional  representation  or  any
other.  And  they  limit  courts  to  correcting  only  egregious
gerrymanders, so judges do not become omnipresent play-
ers  in  the  political  process.  But  yes,  the  standards  used
here  do  allow—as  well  they  should—judicial  intervention 
in  the  worst-of-the-worst  cases  of  democratic  subversion, 
causing  blatant  constitutional  harms.    In  other  words, 
they  allow  courts  to  undo  partisan  gerrymanders  of  the 
kind we face today from North Carolina and Maryland.  In 
giving such gerrymanders a pass from judicial review, the 
majority goes tragically wrong. 

I 

Maybe  the  majority  errs  in  these  cases  because  it  pays 
so little attention to the constitutional harms at their core. 
After  dutifully  reciting  each  case’s  facts,  the  majority
leaves  them  forever  behind,  instead  immersing  itself  in 
everything  that  could  conceivably  go  amiss  if  courts  be-
came  involved.    So  it  is  necessary  to  fill  in  the  gaps.    To 
recount  exactly  what  politicians  in  North  Carolina  and 
Maryland  did  to  entrench  their  parties  in  political  office,
whatever the electorate might think.  And to elaborate on 
the constitutional injury those politicians wreaked, to our
democratic system and to individuals’ rights.  All that will 
help  in  considering  whether  courts  confronting  partisan