From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the day.

Today, in elections across the US, the case could be made that voters are no longer choosing their candidates.

So much as candidates are choosing their voters.

As the Supreme Court opens a new session, it turns to gerrymandering and a question it's been unwilling to resolve.

Does drawing the perfect election district violate the Constitution?

It's Monday, October 2nd.

Emily Bouslon, you've been tracking a Supreme Court case about how voting districts are drawn in Wisconsin.

Tell me about the map room.

So this is Spring 2011.

And a long time Republican legislator named Dale Schultz takes a walk, a short block from his office in the Madison cabinet.

In the Madison Capitol, the Wisconsin legislature, to a law firm with deep ties to the Republican Party in Wisconsin, called Michael Best in Friedrich.

I went up several floors. I don't remember exactly how many floors it was, but I went up several floors and was ushered into a very bright room, the map room.

The map room exactly.

So once he's inside, the first thing that happens is he's asked to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Because what was happening in the map room was supposed to be a closely held secret among Republican lawmakers and the people who were drawing these maps.

So it didn't seem out of the ordinary to me in the event of a lawsuit you wouldn't want information out.

I didn't have any problem with it.

And you signed it.

And I signed it, yes.

And once he signed the confidentiality agreement, the folks in the room who are legislative ease and former A's, unveil for him of small sliver of the new maps they are working on for the Wisconsin legislature for the next election in 2012.

And there in front of me was a colored map of my district mostly rural lots of farmland, some small towns kind of sprinkled in there.

And Dale, what kind of changes to your district did you hope you would find when you looked at this map?

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