A.P. offers this report. A snippet: “The suit claims Rhode Island’s plan to redraw state boundaries made it harder for voters in the newly-mapped District 2 to elect a black candidate in South Providence. The Senate map created a district that pitted Rhode Island’s first and only black senator, Charles Walton, against Juan Pichardo, who was elected the state’s first and only Hispanic senator. The proposed settlement would change the configuration of 12 Senate districts while putting Walton and Pichardo in different districts, according to senators and plaintiffs.” See also this report from the Providence Journal.
This case, which made it all the way to an en banc court of the First Circuit, raised some very interesting and unresolved issues under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.