Gill v. Whitford

A “citizen’s abstract interest in policies adopted by the legislature” is insufficient to demonstrate Article III standing.

Petitioners, a group of Democratic voters initiated a lawsuit asserting that the Wisconsin state electoral map was politically gerrymandered. Plaintiff claimed that the configuration of the voting districts favored Republican voters and candidates by “cracking” Democractic voters among districts where they would not be able to achieve an electoral majority, and then “packing” other Democratic voters into a few districts where their candidate would win by a large margin. Petitioners supported that claim by offering a mathematical formula to calculate the “efficiency gap.” That is, the measurement of “votes . . . cast for a losing candidate or for a winning candidate in excess of what that candidate needs to win.” Petitioners argued that the “wasted votes” were impermissibly high and favored the Republican Party. The district court held for Petitioners.  On appeal, Petitioners argued, in part, that their legally cognizable harm transcended their individual voting districts to a statewide harm. That harm originated from imbalanced elections, creating a collective lack of policymaking and legislative power in the state. The Supreme Court concluded that a “citizen’s abstract interest in policies adopted by the legislature” is a non-justiciable interest that is universally shared between all voters within a jurisdiction, and thus not particularized enough for the court to remedy individual harm. However, four of the Petitioners pleaded particularized injuries, those issues are remanded to litigate below. VACATED and REMANDED.