The court has a long history of hearing cases claiming that a minority's voting power has been been minimized by the majority. These two are the latest:
- Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama
- Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama
ScotusBlog previews the case here, and a transcript of the arguments can be found here.
ScotusBlog also analyses the argument here.
The appellants argue that Alabama packed African American voters into a small number of districts in order to ensure that the percentage of African American representatives would be less than the percentage of African Americans in the general population. Alabama responds - as best I can tell - by saying that race had nothing to do with it, while also saying they wished to comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. The gerrymandering was based on party - which is legal - not race - which is illegal.
It's OK to hurt Democrats by gerrymandering, but not OK to disenfranchise blacks. But since the parties - especially in the South - are becoming more polarized by race on might as whether there is a significant difference between the two.
Here are media reports on the case:
- The Supreme Court’s Gerrymandering Conundrum.
- In a divided America, partisan and race-based redistricting are indistinguishable.
- Supreme Court weighs role of race in Alabama voter redistricting case.
