I have no idea if this is normal, but something tells me it's not. Both here and in Texas, the Democrats in the state legislature last year failed to pass a redistricting plan, instead turning the job over to a Democratic judge. There, as here, the Republicans won outright control of the legislative and executive branches, and are pushing through their versions of the plan. There, unlike here, the Democrats have fled the state to avoid a quorum. (Here they're just planning to litigate again.)

It seems to me that redistricting is a political process, and that it's a bad idea to have judges ensuring their ideas about "fairness" in the process. How many other states went through a judicial rather than a legislative process in redisticting? How many are stuck with it because the partisan composition didn't change enough to allow a plan to be passed?