The justices could say as early as Monday whether they will intervene.
The Constitution mandates decennial reapportionment and redistricting of congressional and state legislative districts to reflect population shifts.
The issue of gerrymandering - creating districts that often are oddly shaped, with the aim of benefiting one party - is central to the debate. The term comes from a Massachusetts state Senate district that resembled a salamander and was approved in 1812 by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry. "It's a symptom of politics going haywire and something that we increasingly see when one party has sole control of the redistricting process".
The Supreme Court has been reluctant to tackle partisan gerrymandering and sort through arguments about whether an electoral system is rigged or, instead, a party's political advantage is due to changing attitudes and demographics, as Wisconsin Republicans contend.
Wisconsin's legislative leaders asked the Supreme Court in a legal brief to reject any effort that "wrests control of districting away from the state legislators to whom the state constitution assigns that task, and hands it to federal judges and opportunistic plaintiffs seeking to accomplish in court what they failed to achieve at the ballot box", the Washington Post reported. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton - all played a role in the state's last round of redistricting, but none had weighed in on the U.S Supreme Court's announcement as of midday Monday. In these safe seats, incumbents tend to be more concerned about primary challengers, so they try to appeal mostly to their party's base. Even if all the issues are not sorted out in time to affect the current maps being used by various states in 2018 and 2020, the current litigation could have a big impact on what happens during the next round of redistricting, which will begin after the 2020 elections. In addition, Wisconsin GOP legislative leaders hired a pair of law firms to represent them before the Supreme Court. The stay was opposed by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagen, the court's four liberal-leaning justices. "Gerrymandering has become so aggressive, extreme, and effective that there is an urgent need for the Supreme Court to finally step in and set boundaries".
The measurement could appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has said he is willing to referee claims of excessively partisan redistricting, but only if the court can find a workable way to do so.
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In 2010, Democrats held an eight-to-five advantage in the North Carolina congressional delegation.
Kennedy is known as the court's strongest defender of First Amendment rights and has hinted that it may be the key to limiting partisan gerrymandering.
That's because the SCOTUS has agreed to hear a case out of Wisconsin concerning the partisan nature of gerrymandering, and whether or not this renders the practice unconstitutional.
The federal court that struck down the districts adopted an equation that offers a way to measure the partisan nature of the districts. Republicans might stuff Democratic voters into Democratic districts, leaving other districts with Republican majorities that are essentially just large enough to elect GOP candidates.
The case, Gill v. Whitford, arises from Wisconsin. Under those maps in 2012, Republicans captured 61 percent of state assembly seats while winning 48.6 percent of the statewide vote. And the reverse applies in Democrat states, although they are fewer in number.
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