U.S. justices toss ruling that upheld North Carolina redistricting plan

By Colleen Jenkins WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out a lower court ruling that upheld a legislative redistricting plan in North Carolina and asked for the case to be reconsidered in light of its decision in a similar case involving Alabama voting districts. North Carolina's Supreme Court ruled in December that voting maps drawn in 2011 by the state's Republican-led legislature were constitutional, despite being decried as an effort to diminish the influence of black voters. The groups challenging the maps then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if the redistricting plan constituted unlawful racial gerrymandering designed to give Republicans a political advantage. Critics of this type of redistricting in U.S. states say it is being used to shift black voters into areas they already dominate in order to dilute their political influence elsewhere. The court's order stopped short of saying whether the plan violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law by concentrating black voters, who tend to vote Democratic, into a small number of districts. Instead, justices instructed the North Carolina court to revisit the case in light of their 5-4 decision in March that found an Alabama court's ruling backing that state's redistricting plan "legally erroneous." Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority in the Alabama case, said the lower court should have considered the claims district-by-district rather than focusing on the state as a whole. Attorneys for the parties in the North Carolina case did not immediately respond with comment on the Supreme Court's decision on Monday. State lawmakers have argued their maps satisfied the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, a federal law aimed at protecting minority voting rights. (Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; editing by Andrew Hay)