In the case of Davis et al. v. Bandemer et al., 1985, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims were justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, meaning they could be resolved by courts. The case was brought forward by Indiana Democrats who claimed that their votes had been devalued due to a redistricting plan implemented by Republicans in 1981 which disproportionately favored Republican candidates. However, while acknowledging such claims as justiciable, no majority opinion was reached on what standard should be used to evaluate them and thus it did not provide clear guidelines for lower courts to follow in future cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering.

In the dissenting opinion for Davis et al. v. Bandemer et al., Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist, argued that political gerrymandering cases are nonjusticiable because there are no judicially manageable standards to resolve them. They contended that courts should not intervene in these inherently political issues unless a clear standard is established to determine when partisan districting becomes unconstitutional. The dissenters also expressed concern about the potential consequences of court intervention in this area, including an increase in litigation and uncertainty around election results due to legal challenges against electoral maps drawn with some degree of partisanship - which they considered inevitable given the nature of politics.