By Tim Gardner
A North Carolina judicial panel has refused to throw out redistricting maps drawn by the Republican-controlled General Assembly. The ruling rejects claims from Democratic voters and advocacy groups that the redrawn district lines illegally favor Republicans and would ensure that their candidates will win a majority of the state’s 14 congressional districts, even in elections in which more Democratic voters cast ballots.
The unanimous decision by three Superior Court trial judges, followed a quick trial. Lawyers for the Democratic voters and the advocacy groups— some backed by a national Democratic group — who challenged the new congressional and legislative lines in court, have declared that this panel of judges ruling will be appealed.
The case is among numerous pending lawsuits challenging congressional maps in at least half a dozen states, including Texas, Ohio and Georgia.
The North Carolina State Supreme Court, which is expected to have the final say on the maps, had ordered the trial judges to rule no later than Tuesday, apparently to discourage further delays in the 2022 election schedule. The state’s top court had already postponed the scheduled March 8 primary elections to May 17 and suspended candidate filing while the trial judges heard testimony and received filings. Maps would need to be finalized — whether under the enacted plans or with court-ordered changes — by February 18 to carry out a mid-May primary, according to the State Board of Elections.
During the trial, experts for the plaintiffs testified that the map approved by the Republican-controlled legislature last November represented an extreme outlier, compared with thousands of computer-generated alternatives. But with their ruling, the judges showed they weren’t persuaded by the plaintiffs’ evidence from mathematicians and other political researchers. Those witnesses declared the boundaries were manipulated according to the political leanings and the racial composition of voters so that, even in strong Democratic years, Republicans could hold 10 of the state’s 14 United States Congress seats as well as state House and Senate majorities that can be near unbreakable. That contrasts with North Carolina’s statewide elections, which are often closely divided.
Redistricting is in the purview of the legislature, lawyers for the Republican lawmakers maintained, which is allowed under the rules to take some partisan advantage into consideration. They added that the plaintiffs want to replace the will of lawmakers with the will of computers and the discretion of its algorithm developers with maps that favor Democrats.
But the Superior Court panel of judges unanimously agreed with Republican lawmakers that inserting themselves into a purely political matter would overstep their authority. Moreover, the state constitution does not expressly forbid legislators from taking partisan factors into account, the judges ruled.
“At the end of the day, after carefully and fully conducting our analysis, it is clear that plaintiffs’ claims must fail,” Superior Court Judges Graham Shirley, Nathaniel Poovey and Dawn Layton wrote in the 260-page ruling.
Poovey and Shirley are registered Republicans, while Layton is a Democrat.
However, the court’s decision was not a complete victory for Republicans. Because in the ruling, the panel of judges found evidence what the maps was “a result of intentional, pro-Republican partisan redistricting.”
But the judges maintained that the plaintiffs’ contentions are contrary to state and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, adding: “Despite our disdain for having to deal with issues that potentially lead to results incompatible with democratic principles and subject our state to ridicule, this court must remind itself that these maps are the result of a democratic process.”
A final ruling by the state Supreme Court could have a major impact on the 2022 midterm elections in November, when control of the closely divided United States Congress will be at stake.
“We are confident that the people of North Carolina will ultimately prevail in our fight for fair maps,” Bob Phillips with Common Cause North Carolina — one of the lawsuits’ plaintiffs — said after the ruling’s release.
Republicans currently hold eight of the state’s 13 congressional seats, so the state’s GOP remap could help the party take back the United States House of Representatives. North Carolina gained a House seat for the next decade based on population growth in the 2020 census. The new map would give Republicans 10 or 11 seats statewide, according to political analysts, even though the state is considered a perennial battleground in national elections. Republicans currently control eight of the state’s 13 districts and North Carolina is gaining a 14th district thanks to a fast-growing population.
Republicans need to flip only a handful of seats in the November 8 General elections to retake control of the United States House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a 221-212 edge, including vacancies.
Four of the seven state Supreme Court justices are registered Democrats, but there are already efforts to have one of the four not involved in the redistricting case.
Republicans have asked Associate Justice Sam Ervin IV, a registered Democrat, to stay out of the deliberations as the only sitting member running for reelection this year. They said his decisions could affect the general election and “his own electability and creates a situation where his own impartiality may reasonably be questioned.”
Federal law requires states to draw new congressional lines every 10 years to account for population shifts, after the United States Census completes its once-a-decade count. In most states, legislators control the process, leading to the practice of gerrymandering, in which one party engineers political maps to benefit its party.
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