Justices consider gerrymandering

A Supreme Court majority appears to lean in favor of Democrats in Virginia and North Carolina seeking to rein in what they call racial gerrymandering by Republican-controlled legislatures in those states.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is likely to hold the deciding vote, said during a hearing Monday that he was troubled that Republican leaders drew new election maps by moving more black voters into districts that already had a majority of African American residents and usually favored black candidates.

Civil rights lawyers and Democrats have contended these “packed” districts have the effect of diluting or weakening the political power of black and Latino voters in other districts and statewide.

“I have problems with that,” Kennedy said, suggesting he would question such districts if the “tipping point, the principal motivating factor, was race.”

If the court’s majority agrees, the ruling would put states, counties and cities on notice that they may not concentrate more black and Latino voters into districts that already routinely elect minority representatives.

In their defense, the Republicans said they acted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. They also contended that their primary motivation was partisan politics, not race. Under the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, states may not make decisions based on race, but they may act based on political considerations.