The US Supreme Court on Monday took up a lower court's ruling that some Virginia districts were deliberately redrawn to diminish the impact of the African American vote -- an urgent issue as the eastern swing state prepares for legislative elections.
The state, whose population is nearly 20-percent black, underwent redistricting in 2011 by the House of Delegates, the lower house of the state legislature.
Residents mounted a legal challenge, arguing that the electoral map was drawn to concentrate African American voters in certain districts, in order to diminish their influence in other districts.
The stakes are important in a country where most blacks vote for Democrats, while whites tend to favour Republicans.
A lower court found in favour of the plaintiffs but the Supreme Court, the first time it took up the issue, found that the court's arguments were flawed and sent the case back.
In its new ruling, the lower court found that voters' skin colour had played a preponderant role in the mapping of 11 districts, in violation of the US Constitution.
The court's judges approved a redistricting map drawn up to correct the 2011 map, and analysts say the changes appear to favour Democrats.
The House of Delegates' majority Republicans are appealing the lower court ruling to the Supreme Court.
The nation's top court must first decide whether the Republican members of the lower house have standing to appeal the ruling. Normally, it would fall to the state's attorney general to appeal but Virginia's attorney general, a Democrat, has opted not to do so.
At Monday's hearing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the high court's liberal wing warned accepting the Republicans' standing to appeal "would invite complete discord in the state."
The Trump administration supports the Virginia Republicans' position on the substance of the case. But it opposes granting them standing to appeal, warning that would have "far-reaching and unexpected consequences" in states like Virginia where Republicans and Democrats share power.
If the Supreme Court decides in favour of the Republicans' appeal, it will then proceed to rule on the substance of the case.
Its task is complicated because the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 law that sought to remove barriers to African Americans exercising their right to vote, allows black voters to be grouped in districts to ensure they have some representatives.
But it is illegal to concentrate black voters in certain districts in order to weaken their overall electoral impact.
In the Virginia case, the 2011 redistricting sought to satisfy the requirements of the Voting Rights Act by capping the number of black voters in a district at 55 per cent.
"It needs to be a little more tailored than that," said Justice Stephen Breyer.
The Supreme Court should rule in the next few months. It's possible, though, that would come too late for the next state election on November 5, when all seats in Virginia's House of Delegates and Senate are up for grabs.
Electoral redistricting, or gerrymandering, as it is widely known, has long been used by American political parties to gain advantage in elections.
The word gerrymandering was inspired by a 19th century Republican governor, Elbridge Gerry, who redrew a district in his state to such an extent it was said to resemble a salamander.
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