NBC: Supreme Court Opens Momentous Term on Monday

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The U.S. Supreme Court returns to work Monday facing a blockbuster docket, as it roars back from last year's unusually low-key term. "There's only one prediction that's entirely safe about the upcoming term," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said at Georgetown University's law school late last month. "And that is it will be momentous."

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In a case that could change the future of American politics, the justices will consider whether states can become so blatantly partisan in drawing the boundary lines for voting districts that they violate the Constitution.

Wisconsin is split nearly equally between Republican and Democratic voters, but after gaining control of the legislature and the governor's office, Republicans redrew State Assembly district lines in 2011, eventually giving them 64 out of 99 seats. Lower courts said the result was so excessively partisan that it denied Democrats a fair shot at electing candidates of their choosing.

"We've reached a point here, and Wisconsin is an extreme example, where a political party ends up deciding in advance who's going to win or lose the election," said Trevor Potter of the Campaign Legal Center, which is challenging the new map.

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