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Page Number: 12

8 

GILL v. WHITFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

952.  On that basis, Judge Griesbach would have entered 
judgment for the defendants. 

The  District  Court  enjoined  the  defendants  from  using
the  Act  43  map  in  future  elections  and  ordered  them  to
have  a  remedial  districting  plan  in  place  no  later  than 
November  1,  2017.  The  defendants  appealed  directly  to 
this  Court,  as  provided  under  28  U. S. C.  §1253.  We 
stayed  the  District  Court’s  judgment  and  postponed  con­
sideration of our jurisdiction.  582 U. S. ___ (2017). 

II
 
A 

Over  the  past  five  decades  this  Court  has  been  repeat­
edly  asked  to  decide  what  judicially  enforceable  limits,  if 
any, the Constitution sets on the gerrymandering of voters 
along partisan lines.  Our previous attempts at an answer 
have left few clear landmarks for addressing the question. 
What our precedents have to say on the topic is, however,
instructive as to the myriad competing considerations that 
partisan  gerrymandering  claims  involve.    Our  efforts  to 
sort through those considerations have generated conflict­
ing views both of how to conceive of the injury arising from 
partisan  gerrymandering  and  of  the  appropriate  role  for
the Federal Judiciary in remedying that injury.

Our  first  consideration  of  a  partisan  gerrymandering 
claim came in Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U. S. 735 (1973).
There a group of plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality 
of  a  Connecticut  redistricting  plan  that  “consciously  and 
overtly adopted and followed a policy of ‘political fairness,’ 
which  aimed  at  a  rough  scheme  of  proportional  represen­
tation of the two major political parties.”  Id., at 738.  To 
that end, the redistricting plan broke up numerous towns,
“wiggl[ing] and joggl[ing]” district boundary lines in order 
to “ferret out pockets of each party’s strength.”  Id., at 738, 
and  n. 3,  752,  n. 18.    The  plaintiffs  argued  that,  notwith­
standing the rough population equality of the districts, the