The U.S. Supreme Court could literally be taking politics back to the drawing board. The High Court Tuesday started hearing arguments in a case out of Wisconsin involving gerrymandering, the much-criticized practice of drawing up legislative boundaries to benefit one political party.

A decision by the court next year could trigger legal challenges to congressional maps across the country. Washington D.C. Bureau Reporter Alberto Pimienta has the story.

Outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a rally against partisan gerrymandering was held.

"It's a system where the politicians are picking the voters, rather than the voters picking the politicians," said former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. "So I say this time to say, 'hasta la vista' to gerrymandering."

Inside, the future of American politics could be changed forever.

Last year, federal judges in Wisconsin ruled that in 2011 the state's Republican Party unconstitutionally drew district lines against Democrats.

The decision was challenged by the state, sending the case to the highest court of the land.

The last time the Supreme Court ruled on a case of this kind was in 2004 when it concluded that courts shouldn't be involved in gerrymandering cases.

The court was divided then, and the key vote was Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sided with the argument that courts should not be part of those types of cases.

The court is still very much divided, and Justice Kennedy didn't show any indication which side he'll choose.

But back in 2004, Kennedy left a possibility open, saying courts could have a say if a reliable test was designed to determine partisan gerrymandering.

The plaintiffs are presenting a test known as the "efficiency gap."

"The way you gerrymander is you basically take the other guy's voters and either pack them to a few districts or you spread them out — that's called packing and cracking," plaintiffs' attorney Paul Smith said. "What the efficiency gap does is a calculation to measure how much packing and cracking happened in your party, and how much packing and cracking happened in the other party."

The state says if the court rules against them, this will trigger lawsuits around the nation.

"Whenever a legislature draws a map, it will be quite easy to allege the politicians engage in politics," Solicitor General of Wisconsin Misha Tseytlin said. "So what you'll have is that every time you have a politician draw a map, you'll have a lawsuit and they'll pick out their favorite social science metric and it'll be a go."

For Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi of New York, it's time to act. "Because of partisan gerrymandering, everybody is fixated on taking care of themselves instead of doing the people's business."

A decision won't be announced until next year.