Updated 4:56 p.m. with Supreme Court setting oral argument.
The Missouri Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments quickly on a Columbia lawyer's challenge to newly drawn districts for the 34-seat state Senate.
District boundaries were redrawn by a panel of state appellate judges to reflect population changes based on the 2010 census.
Attorney David Brown says in a court filing that some of the boundaries violate the Missouri Constitution by unnecessarily splitting counties among multiple districts. He also argues the new map will effectively deprive voters in one district of Senate representation until 2015.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 12.
Brown had asked the high court to take the case without going through a trial court first because of the short time before candidate filings for the 2012 elections open Feb. 28.
