holding that plaintiffs asserting a racial gerrymander can *641demonstrate injury for standing purposes only where the "plaintiff resides in a racially gerrymandered district" because individuals not in the challenged districts do not suffer "the special representational harms racial classifications can cause in the voting context," with the representational harm being that an elected official "believe[s] that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of [a favored] group, rather than their constituency as a whole"
How later courts described this case
- holding that plaintiffs asserting a racial gerrymander can *641demonstrate injury for standing purposes only where the "plaintiff resides in a racially gerrymandered district" because individuals not in the challenged districts do not suffer "the special representational harms racial classifications can cause in the voting context," with the representational harm being that an elected official "believe[s] that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of [a favored] group, rather than their constituency as a whole"
- explaining that “standing is perhaps the most important of the jurisdictional doctrines” and federal courts “are required to address [standing] even if the court[] below [has] not passed on it, and even if the parties fail to raise the issue . . . . (alterations adopted) (quotations omitted)
- concluding that being subject to racial classification is injury for standing purposes even if it does not lead to measurable harm because such classifications “threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility”
- holding that plaintiffs lack standing where they “do not live in the district that is the primary focus of their racial gerrymandering claim, and they have not otherwise demonstrated that they, personally, have been subjected to a racial classification.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Luna v. Cnty. of Kern, 291 F. Supp. 3d 1088 (2018)
Multiple courts have, therefore, concluded that the rule announced in Hays requiring a plaintiff to live in the challenged district is inapplicable to vote dilution cases such as this one.
Distinguished by Snider International Corp. v. Town of Forest Heights, 906 F. Supp. 2d 413 (2012)
But Hays and other general-grievance cases are inapposite.
The opinion
*750 Justice Breyer,
with whom Justice Souter joins,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion to the extent that it discusses voters, such as those before us, who do not reside within the district that they challenge.