I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to the latest of our We the People constitutional podcasts.

The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America, chartered by Congress, to disseminate information about the U.S.

Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.

And this week we're talking about the most important voting rights cases of the year.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments

in two combined cases from Alabama that asked the justices to puzzle through the

complicated questions of the relationship between race and partisanship in the gerrymandering

process.

After the 2010 census, Republicans took control of the Alabama State Legislature and passed a new legislative map, which

maintain the same number of majority minority districts in the State Senate and even added

one such district in the House, majority minority districts or districts in which minorities

predominate. But in order to narrow the population differences between the

districts and to maintain the same percentage of minority voters in these

districts, Republicans moved a lot of African American voters. same percentage of minority voters in these districts.

Republicans moved a lot of African American voters out of majority white districts

and into those with minority majorities.

In response, the Alabama Democratic Party and the Alabama legislative black caucus challenged

the map in federal court.

They lost and now their cases are being considered by the Supreme Court.

Joining me to assess the arguments on both

sides and to offer their perspective on this week's oral arguments are two friends

of the National Constitution Center and of our We the People Podcasts.

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