Professor Nate Persily weighs in on the impact a Supreme Court decision may soon have on the politics around voting-district maps in this Wall Street Journal article. 

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on an Arizona tool designed to strip politics from the drawing of congressional voting districts, in a decision that could end or expand attempts in several states to address partisan gerrymandering.

Arizona voters chose in 2000 to set up a bipartisan independent commission that would draw voting districts. California voters in 2008 approved a similar commission, and several other states have given nonelected bodies some level of control over district boundaries. The goal is to curb the ability of a state’s majority political party to carve out voting districts that make their seats safer.

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Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford Law School professor who wrote a brief supporting the Arizona commission, said a ruling in favor of that state’s Republican legislators may allow the party to change district lines ahead of 2016 elections. Arizona Republicans have hired a California mapping firm to prepare for a favorable ruling.

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In California, where Democrats have the upper hand, legislators could redraw lines to tilt certain swing seats toward the Democratic Party, said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mr. Persily said Democrats in California also could simply endorse the state’s current maps.