At the risk of reading too much into the tea leaves, the timing
decisions strike me as a very good sign for the plaintiffs (and for
those of us who want teeth in judicial review of partisan
gerrymandering).  If Justice Kennedy decided to side with the
nonjusticiable view, there would be no hurry to hear the cases. 
Expediting review only makes sense if there is a concern about redoing
the districts in time for this election, and that only makes sense if
the plaintiffs are likely to win.  So my guess is that the delay was
about either Kennedy or Roberts wrestling with the case, and that one
of them decided that he was likely to side with the Vieth dissenters. 
Of course, this could just be wishful thinking on my part, and the
timing may simply indicate that the Court does not want to foreclose
relief this election, even with the expectation that they will
ultimately vote to deny relief.  But I'm even more optomistic based on
the timing orders than I would be anyway.

All that said, we could easily get a narrow "partisan purpose can't be
the ONLY motivation for redistricting" decision that would only really
bite at midterm redistricting.  But that would still be a step
forward.

Adam Morse