Election whiplash: Court halts candidate filing in disputed NC districts, then restarts it

A court order Monday temporarily blocked candidates from filing to run in the 2022 elections under the districts drawn by Republican state lawmakers — until it didn’t anymore.

The dueling orders came from the N.C. Court of Appeals in a lawsuit which claims the political districts, drawn to be used in every election from 2022 to 2030, are unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

The challengers in the lawsuit have been trying to delay candidate filing so that, if a court does order the maps to be redrawn, those new maps could be used in next year’s elections instead of having to wait until 2024.

As with most cases at the 15-member Court of Appeals, the case was originally heard by a panel of three judges. They voted Monday morning to delay filing for elections just for U.S. House, state Senate and state House seats — as federal, state and local candidates across North Carolina were set to declare their intentions to run starting at noon Monday.

But then Monday evening, the full court voted and overruled the original panel, allowing candidate filing to begin after all for candidates in those races. A majority of the 15 judges said they want to all hear the case together — what’s known as “en banc” — instead of leaving it to a panel. That will happen soon, they said, but did not set a date.

The court has a Republican majority, but it did not identify who made up the original panel or how the court voted in either order.

Candidate filing continues through next week.

Several candidates had already lined up to register at the N.C. State Fairgrounds when the court ruling came down.

Karen Brinson Bell, the State Board of Elections executive director, spoke over an intercom to announce the ruling to candidates.

Candidates in line to file

Bell told the candidates that there were no set times for filing in the affected races to take place.

“We do not know the plan for filing for those contests at this time,” Bell said. “Further action will continue with the court system. It may mean that filing takes place later this week or another time. It is indefinite at this time.”

U.S. Rep. Alma Adams had driven from Charlotte to Raleigh to file for reelection. The Democrat had booked a flight from Raleigh to Washington for this week’s session in Congress. Despite that, she was glad that the Court of Appeals stopped filing from going forward, calling the new maps “egregious.”

“There needs to be some corrections made so there is equity and balance,” Adams said.

Adams said that the 14 new congressional districts drawn by state lawmakers give Democrats a likely win in only three districts and a possible fourth win.

“I think that’s unfair,” Adams said. “It should have never happened. I mean, what kind of math is that?”

Congressional candidate Michele Woodhouse was also in line when the announcement was made. Woodhouse, the chair of the Republican Party in the state’s westernmost congressional district, announced she would run in the new district that is home to U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, after Cawthorn opted to run elsewhere.

She, too, was undeterred by the court ruling — “We’ll just make another trip back down,” — but she said Monday’s ruling showed why North Carolina needs conservative judges.

“To find out minutes into filing that we’re not going to be filing does speak to the importance of making sure that we’ve got judges that follow the law and don’t try to legislate from the bench,” Woodhouse said.

GOP accused of gerrymandering in new maps

The lawsuit that led to the filing delay is backed by the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, which claims its members’ goals of pro-environmental political policies will be stymied by maps that unfairly favor Republican politicians.

A top Republican redistricting official blasted the Monday morning ruling in a tweet.

“In less than three hours, a secret panel of three unidentified Court of Appeals judges was able to review nearly 1,000 pages challenging maps of 184 districts, read the entire ‘record,’ and block candidate filing in every county in the state,” Sen. Paul Newton of Cabarrus County said.

A separate lawsuit is backed by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and represented in this case by prominent Democratic attorney Marc Elias.

In court hearings on both lawsuits Friday, judges rejected intervening in the election, but both groups appealed the rulings. Elias said Monday he had appealed to the state Supreme Court, rather the Court of Appeals which issued the order for the delay.

Holder’s group also backed two successful lawsuits here in 2019 — which led to the state’s legislative and congressional maps being redrawn before the 2020 elections. The previous lawsuits, and the new one, claimed the maps are unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders that disenfranchise Democratic voters.

The 2019 case involved maps that were drawn to all-but-guarantee Republicans 10 of the state’s then-13 congressional seats, even if Democrats and Republicans split the statewide vote roughly 50-50.

North Carolina gained a 14th seat after the 2020 Census due to its fast growth. The new maps look like they will give Republicans at least 10 of those 14 seats, and possibly 11, in that kind of an evenly split statewide election. Republicans would also be within reach of a veto-proof supermajority in the state legislature in such a 50-50 election.

GOP leaders have largely avoided commenting on the partisan splits in the maps so far, except to say that they did not use political data when drawing them.

The conservation group submitted possible replacement maps for consideration as part of its lawsuit, which the group said would lead to ties or narrow majorities in either chamber of the state legislature under similar electoral circumstances.