STANDING IN RACIAL GERRYMANDERING CASES

In Shaw v. Reno, the Supreme Court introduced a new cause of action fo r those challenging racially motivated redistricting plans. Its opinio ns in two of last Term's cases demonstrate that the Court is still str uggling to refine its approach to racial gerrymandering. However, desp ite considerable scholarly attention, the Court has yet to define prec isely the harm that it seeks to address in these cases. In this note, David Flickinger attempts to focus the search for this harm by viewing racial gerrymandering law through Article m's standing requirement. H e examines the harms articulated in Shaw I and derives the outcome for each under existing standing doctrine. He then compares these outcome s with the Court's attempted resolution of the standing issue in Unite d States v. Hays. He concludes that the standing outcome in Hays is in consistent with the implications for standing of Shaw I and other subs tantive racial gerrymandering cases.