(Slip Opinion)
OCTOBER TERM, 2018
1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
RUCHO ET AL. v. COMMON CAUSE ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. 18–422.
Argued March 26, 2019—Decided June 27, 2019*
Voters and other plaintiffs in North Carolina and Maryland filed suits
challenging their States’ congressional districting maps as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. The North Carolina plaintiffs
claimed that the State’s districting plan discriminated against Democrats, while the Maryland plaintiffs claimed that their State’s plan
discriminated against Republicans. The plaintiffs alleged violations
of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Elections Clause, and Article I, §2. The District Courts in both cases ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and the defendants appealed directly to this Court.
Held: Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts. Pp. 6–34.
(a) In these cases, the Court is asked to decide an important question of constitutional law. Before it does so, the Court “must find that
the question is presented in a ‘case’ or ‘controversy’ that is . . . ‘of a
Judiciary Nature.’ ” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 332,
342. While it is “the province and duty of the judicial department to
say what the law is,” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177, sometimes the law is that the Judiciary cannot entertain a claim because
it presents a nonjusticiable “political question,” Baker v. Carr, 369
U. S. 186, 217. Among the political question cases this Court has
identified are those that lack “judicially discoverable and manageable
standards for resolving [them].” Ibid. This Court’s partisan gerrymandering cases have left unresolved the question whether such
claims are claims of legal right, resolvable according to legal princi——————
*Together with No. 18–726, Lamone et al. v. Benisek et al., on appeal
from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.