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Page Number: 63.0

24 

RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

judgments  of  the  State  itself,  creates  a  neutral  baseline 
from which to assess whether partisanship has run amok.
Extreme  outlier  as  to  what?  As  to  the  other  maps  the 
State could have produced given its unique political geog-
raphy  and  its  chosen  districting  criteria.  Not  as  to  the 
maps  a  judge,  with  his  own  view  of  electoral  fairness, 
could have dreamed up.

The  Maryland  court  lacked  North  Carolina’s  fancy
evidence, but analyzed the gerrymander’s effects in much
the same way—not as against an ideal goal, but as against 
an ex ante baseline.  To see the difference, shift gears for a 
moment and compare Maryland and Massachusetts—both
of  which  (aside  from  Maryland’s  partisan  gerrymander) 
use  traditional  districting  criteria.    In  those  two  States 
alike,  Republicans  receive  about  35%  of  the  vote  in 
statewide  elections.  See  Almanac  of  American  Politics 
2016,  at  836,  880.  But  the  political  geography  of  the 
States  differs.    In  Massachusetts,  the  Republican  vote  is 
spread evenly across the State; because that is so, district-
ing  plans  (using  traditional  criteria  of  contiguity  and
compactness)  consistently  lead  to  an  all-Democratic  con-
gressional delegation.  By contrast, in Maryland, Republi-
cans  are  clumped—into  the  Eastern  Shore  (the  First  Dis-
trict) and the Northwest Corner (the old Sixth).  Claims of 
partisan  gerrymandering  in  those  two  States  could  come 
out  the  same  way  if  judges,  à  la  the  majority,  used  their 
own  visions  of  fairness  to  police  districting  plans;  a  judge 
in  each  State  could  then  insist,  in  line  with  proportional
representation, that 35% of the vote share entitles citizens
to  around  that  much  of  the  delegation.  But  those  suits 
would not come out the same if courts instead asked: What 
would  have  happened,  given  the  State’s  natural  political
geography and chosen districting criteria, had officials not 
indulged in partisan manipulation?  And that is what the 
District  Court  in  Maryland  inquired  into.    The  court  did 
not  strike  down  the  new  Sixth  District  because  a  judicial