Unresolved legal questions could fundamentally alter redistricting ground rules for decades to come.
Federal lawsuits from North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas test the limits of the Voting Rights Act, the boundaries of state government authority, and the ability of voting rights groups to file racial gerrymandering cases.
Together, the cases could build a near-complete shield for state legislatures bent on achieving maximum partisan advantage in the next redistricting cycle, said election law scholar Franita Tolson of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.
“These doctrines and approaches in these cases fundamentally reset the rules of the game,” she ...