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Today's win for voters challenging Michigan's gerrymandered election maps is major, potentially ushering in fairer elections in that state. But there are a couple of other reasons this is a major opinion, with SCOTUS implications. Mini-thread 👇@BrennanCenter #fairMaps
1. This win shows just how much the legal tide has turned vs. partisan gerrymandering. As late as 3 years ago, a win for plaintiffs would be unheard of. No longer. Recently, when/where courts have taken up partisan gerrymandering claims, plaintiffs have an impressive win rate.
2. The federal courts are converging on how to analyze partisan gerrymandering claims from a legal standpoint. As the panel in the Michigan case explained: 
3. The fed. courts have a firmer understanding of how to handle the social science of partisan gerrymandering. It's not that complicated if you understand, as the Michigan court does, that the science is just evidence of a violation of a legal standard, not a standard in itself.
(I've written about this issue before. See topic #1 here: brennancenter.org/blog/five-take…)
Now, what lessons do today's developments have for SCOTUS, which is currently writing opinions on partisan gerrymandering cases from North Carolina and Maryland? A few...,
1. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth about how hard partisan gerrymandering claims are from a legal standpoint seems unjustified when the lower courts are rapidly developing clear, consistent legal standards and evidentiary approaches for handling the problem.
2. No one's asking the Court to code social science into the Constitution. It's just evidence of violations of basic legal principles that the average person can understand.
3. A Court that would rule partisan-gerrymandering claims out of bounds for the courts would be severely out of step with the rest of the federal judiciary.
And now, we wait for the North Carolina and Maryland opinions in June. More resources courtesy of @BrennanCenter's redistricting team here: brennancenter.org/gerrymandering…
