The U.S. Supreme Court took a pass on setting limits on extreme partisan gerrymandering on Monday, saying the plaintiffs in the case didnt have standing to challenge Wisconsins statewide assembly map.

The decision came in a case called Gill v. Whitford , which advocates had hoped would allow the court to clarify if partisan gerrymandering could be so egregious that it violated the U.S. Constitution. The court has never said partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, leaving lawmakers from both political parties free to draw lines to their advantage.

The plaintiffs partisan gerrymandering claims turn on allegations that their votes have been diluted. That harm arises from the particular composition of the voters own district, which causes his votehaving been packed or crackedto carry less weight than it would carry in another, hypothetical district, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. Remedying the individual voters harm, therefore, does not necessarily require restructuring all of the States legislative districts. It requires revising only such districts as are necessary to reshape the voters districtso that the voter may be unpacked or uncracked, as the case may be.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a concurring opinion joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. That opinion offered a roadmap for how a partisan gerrymandering claim might successfully proceed in a lower court, and said plaintiffs could show they had suffered specific harm by offering an alternative electoral map that did not dilute their votes as much. The claims from voters in a partisan gerrymandering case must be district-specific, Kagan wrote, but courts can still step in to strike down a statewide map.

Remedying each plaintiffs vote dilution injury requires revising only such districts as are necessary to reshape [that plaintiff s] districtso that the [plaintiff] may be unpacked or uncracked, as the case may be, Kagan wrote. But with enough plaintiffs joined togetherattacking all the packed and cracked districts in a statewide gerrymanderthose obligatory revisions could amount to a wholesale restructuring of the States districting plan.

Kagan also wrote that a political party or other group might be able to bring a statewide challenge to a partisan gerrymander on the theory that it violated their First Amendment right to freedom of association. The challengers wouldnt need to show harm in specific districts because such a decision wouldnt necessarily be district-specific, she wrote. But she said the challengers in the Wisconsin case had failed to advance that claim.