Two North Carolina lawsuits questioning the breadth to which lawmakers can design congressional districts for partisan gain are on path toward a summer trial.

A panel of three federal judges issued a ruling on Friday rejecting a request by N.C. lawmakers to dismiss the cases filed last year by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, two organizations that have been critical of partisan gerrymandering by both parties.

The federal judges — James Wynn of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. District Judges William Osteen Jr. and W. Earl Britt — noted the novelty of the arguments put forward in the cases challenging the maps drawn and approved by the Republican-led General Assembly in 2016. But they also noted “obstacles the plaintiffs must overcome to prevail.”

“Mindful that ‘courts should be especially reluctant to dismiss on the basis of the pleadings when the asserted theory of liability is novel’ ... we conclude that neither of these arguments supports dismissal at this juncture,” the judges stated in their 29-page ruling.

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