In an interesting decision today the US Supreme Court remanded an AL case to the district court for further development of the rationale used to pack minority districts. What AL did was to take precincts that were overwhelmingly Black and pack them into for example a 90% Black legislative district. What this does of course is create a district next door that will have few Blacks and dilute their influence.
Kennedy was the 5th vote and Justice Breyer wrote the opinion.
See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
and
http://www.politico.com/...
This decision may well have implications for Virginia and other states. They didn't find the actions of AL unconstitutional but they came close.
Bottom line Thomas and Scalia are unhappy and therefore the rest of the US has been saved.
For some reason I was unable to pull up the SCOTUS BLOG this evening but I am sure they have an excellent analysis.