The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new case about the drawing of state legislative districts in Arizona. This comes a day after the justices upheld the boundary drawing authority of state’s independent redistricting commission.
At issue in this case is whether the commission violated federal law. Challengers say recent district lines drawn from the 2010 Census created legislative districts with unequal populations.
The commission is required to create as many politically competitive districts as possible and that the districts are about equal size.
Eleven Republican voters sued the commission claiming it illegally shifted Republican voters from some districts to make them more likely to elect Democrats to the state Legislature under the premise of complying with the federal voting rights act.
Last year a panel of federal judges found that the state's redistricting commission did not violate the Constitution's equal-protection clause by putting more voters in some districts.