Cite as: 588 U. S. ____ (2019) 19 Opinion of the Court when used as the basis for relief. Instead, it seems, a decision under these standards would unavoidably have significant political effect, whether intended or not.” Vieth, 541 U. S., at 308–309 (opinion concurring in judgment). See id., at 298 (plurality opinion) (“[P]acking and cracking, whether intentional or no, are quite consistent with adherence to compactness and respect for political subdivision lines”). Deciding among just these different visions of fairness (you can imagine many others) poses basic questions that are political, not legal. There are no legal standards discernible in the Constitution for making such judgments, let alone limited and precise standards that are clear, manageable, and politically neutral. Any judicial decision on what is “fair” in this context would be an “unmoored determination” of the sort characteristic of a political question beyond the competence of the federal courts. Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 566 U. S. 189, 196 (2012). And it is only after determining how to define fairness that you can even begin to answer the determinative question: “How much is too much?” At what point does permissible partisanship become unconstitutional? If compliance with traditional districting criteria is the fairness touchstone, for example, how much deviation from those criteria is constitutionally acceptable and how should mapdrawers prioritize competing criteria? Should a court “reverse gerrymander” other parts of a State to counteract “natural” gerrymandering caused, for example, by the urban concentration of one party? If a districting plan protected half of the incumbents but redistricted the rest into head to head races, would that be constitutional? A court would have to rank the relative importance of those traditional criteria and weigh how much deviation from each to allow. If a court instead focused on the respective number of seats in the legislature, it would have to decide the ideal

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