Thanks to gerrymandering, the “emerging Democratic majority"—if there even is one—will be largely powerless for the next five years. But on Monday, the Supreme Court decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission gave Democrats hope for the future, and provided reformers a path to end the inherent politicization of congressional redistricting for good.

In a 5-4 opinion authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court ruled that the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution permitted Arizona voters, through a ballot initiative, to adopt an independent commission for the redistricting process. Ginsburg wrote in her opinion:

Invoking the Elections Clause, the Arizona Legislature instituted this lawsuit to disempower the State’s voters from serving as the legislative power for redistricting purposes. But the Clause surely was not adopted to diminish a State’s authority to determine its own lawmaking processes.

This decision is largely a positive for Democrats. With a historic number of state chambers currently in Republican hands, a decision going the other way in Arizona State Legislature would have allowed conservatives in that state to draw the districts however they liked, reducing even further the number of “swing seats” and firmly entrenching conservative rule of the House.

The redistricting process that followed the Republican wave in the 2010 midterms was one of the most cynical political maneuvers in recent history. Republicans in state legislatures in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio redrew post-census congressional districts into nonsensical formations. As a result, a Democratic president in 2016 would have almost no chance of working with a friendly House in their first term, even if they win in a landslide and carry with them a slim Senate majority.

The effects of that redistricting were noticeable in 2012 when, despite easily holding the White House, adding to their Senate majority, and winning the popular vote in the House by over 1 million votes, Democrats only won back eight congressional districts.