AP: “The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a challenge from Alabama Democrats who say a Republican-drawn legislative map intentionally packs black Democrats into a few voting districts, giving them too little influence in the Legislature.”

This will mark the first time since the LULAC decision that the Court will consider the unconstitutional racial gerrymandering cause of action.  The last significant look at that question was Easley v. Cromartie, when Justice O’Connor, whose views were so central to this cause of action, was still on the Court.  (In Cromartie Justice O’Connor joined the liberals in rejecting a racial gerrymandering claim, after a number of cases, beginning with Shaw v. Reno, where she recognized it but differed from the other Justices about how to prove it.)

It will be interesting to see what the Chief and Justice Alito think about this.

The grants were limited, as Marty Lederman explains:

Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, No. 13-1138 (limited to question one — Whether Alabama’s effort to redraw the lines of each majority-black district to have the same black population as it would have using 2010 census data as applied to the former district lines, when combined with the state’s new goal of significantly reducing population deviation among districts, amounted to an unconstitutional racial quota and racial gerrymandering that is subject to strict scrutiny and that was not justified by the putative interest of complying with the non-retrogression aspect of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act; and whether these plaintiffs have standing to bring such a constitutional claim;), and

Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, No. 13-895 (limited to question two — whether Alabama’s legislative redistricting plans unconstitutionally classify black voters by race by intentionally packing them in districts designed to maintain supermajority percentages produced when 2010 census data are applied to the 2001 majority-black districts).

UPDATE: SCOTUSBlog page for 13-1138; opinion.

SCOTUSBlog case page for 13-895;  (same opinion).