Yup. They just kept submitting maps that were getting rejected for being unconstitutional and eventually the court just had to let it go because you can't just not have an election and they couldn't do anything else about it.
We need to add some kind of recourse to the rules. Something like "if you can't put together a constitutional map by the deadline, then the minority party gets to submit one for consideration instead".
Like if you can't make a constitutional map, or special election for either replacing you, (the elected officials) or a panel of people to make a map. But also I semi wonder if you could just have a computer do it. Just try to split up counties as close to 50/50
Citizen led redistricting isn't all that great. Michigan just went through their first redistricting and it was just as much of a shit show. There were attendance issues, potential open meetings act violations, the whole thing went way over budget, and majority minority districts got eliminated. Republicans sued to prevent it from ever happening, and Democrats sued after the maps came out.
Overall the balance did swing from Republican favored to slightly Republican favored. Democrats did win a majority for the first time in a long time, but they also faced historically bad Republican candidates.
Yeah, I can believe that, it's as rife for corruption and the other problems as any other system. Honestly I don't know if there is a way to do fair voting maps, at least one that can't get hijacked by zealots.