The recent Supreme Court decision may set a new standard for redistricting reformers across the nation. The Brennan Center had the following analysis, read more here too:

Michael Li, Senior Counsel with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program said, “Today’s ruling is a strong warning that states can’t cloak impermissible intent behind narrow talismanic tests about shapes or ‘traditional districting criteria.’ That’s an especially important lesson in an age where computers make it easier than ever to draw nice looking districts that nonetheless are hugely discriminatory.”

The Court also made clear that even if the legislature’s ultimate goal was to entrench partisan advantage, that would not save it from invalidation as a racial gerrymander. The Court explained that “[t]he sorting of voters on grounds of their race remains suspect even if race is meant to function as a proxy for other … characteristics, including political (ones).”

“The Court made clear that racial gerrymandering is impermissible even if motivated by a desire to seek partisan advantage,” said Wendy Weiser, Director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “That is a very significant step forward.”

Before oral argument, the Brennan Center filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that the broader political and legislative context for the 2011 congressional redistricting strongly suggested that impermissible racial considerations played a predominant role in the legislative map-drawing process. The Supreme Court made clear that the question of whether or not racial considerations are ‘predominant’ in redistricting is a factual question and that courts can look to a broad range of evidence to resolve it.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that North Carolina placed too much of an emphasis on race when two congressional districts were created in 2011. The move upholds a lower court decision from February. In its decision, the high court said too many African-Americans were placed in those two Democratic districts in an improper effort to…