Top Court to Weigh Barring Challenges to Partisan Gerrymanders

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider protecting politically gerrymandered voting districts from legal challenges in a case that could bolster Republican candidates and mark a show of force from the court’s new conservative majority.

The justices will review separate lower court decisions that said North Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional map and a Democratic-drawn congressional district in Maryland are so partisan they violate the Constitution. The court will hear arguments in March and rule by June.

The court has never struck down a map as too partisan. But it also hasn’t explicitly barred challenges, mostly because Justice Anthony Kennedy refused to ...