In Perry v. Perez, 132 S. Ct. 934, 941, 181 L. Ed. 2d 900 (2012), when it became clear that a state's redistricting plan would not obtain preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a federal district court drew an interim redistricting plan without giving deference to the state's policy choices. In reversing the federal court's drawing of the plan, the Supreme Court explained that a federal district court may not wholly disregard policy choices made by a state's legislature, where those policy choices are not inconsistent with the United States Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. Id. at 943. The Supreme Court held that a "state plan serves as a starting point" for a federal district court because "it provides important guidance that helps ensure that the district court appropriately confines itself to drawing interim maps . . . without displacing legitimate state policy judgments with the court's own preferences." Id. at 941. The Court stated that "redistricting ordinarily involves criteria and standards that have been weighed and evaluated by the elected branches in the exercise of their political judgment." The Supreme Court of the United States observed that "experience has shown the difficulty of defining neutral legal principles in this area, for redistricting ordinarily involves criteria and standards that have been weighed and evaluated by the elected branches." The Supreme Court recognized the importance of ensuring that the lower court act to vindicate federal rights "without displacing legitimate state policy judgments with the court's own preferences." Id. Although these observations in Perry are no doubt based in part on federalism concerns, it is clear that Perry's concern about the "difficulty of defining neutral legal principles" to ensure that the "policy judgments" of the "the elected branches" are not displaced by judicial "preferences" is applicable to not only federal but also state judicial intervention. Id.