Federal judges appear skeptical of Black voters’ challenge to NC Senate map

As North Carolinians cast ballots on the first day of early voting, a federal appeals court heard arguments Thursday about whether the state’s new Senate map should be thrown out for diluting the votes of Black residents.

Plaintiffs in the case argue that the Republican-crafted state Senate map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by cracking groups of Black voters between two districts in the northeastern part of the state. The section forbids discrimination against racial minorities in voting laws.

“North Carolina cannot be proud of these two districts,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Elisabeth Theodore, said. “They literally take the Black Belt and they slice it down the middle. It’s really reprehensible.”

Defendants, who include the state’s top Republican leaders, say plaintiffs have failed to show sufficient evidence to merit an injunction, which if granted, they argue, could throw the 2024 elections into disarray.

Too close to the election?

Last month, a district court judge refused to block the map, saying that plaintiffs weren’t likely to succeed in showing the map violated the Voting Rights Act. He also wrote that granting an injunction so close to an election could “come with extraordinary cost, confusion, and hardship.”

On appeal to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, a panel of three judges — two appointed by a Republican president and one originally by a Democratic president — heard the case Thursday.

The panel’s Republican appointees appeared skeptical of the challengers’ case and echoed the lower court’s worries about blocking a map right before an election.

“Doesn’t North Carolina deserve a certain amount of stability in its electoral system so the candidates will know what district they can run in and voters will know who they are voting for?” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a nominee of former President Ronald Reagan, said.

However, Judge Roger Gregory, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton who was renominated by former President George W. Bush, pointed out that lawmakers decided the timeline for creating new maps — which were not passed until Oct. 25, less than two months before candidate filing began for the 2024 elections.

“This would be the death of Section 2 — to draw lines so clearly splitting up Black votes in the Black Belt of North Carolina and then to say ‘Oh, we did it on Oct. 25, so it’s too late now for you to stop the process,’” Gregory said.

In a court filing in December, the State Board of Elections said it could potentially hold primaries in May for any remedial districts ordered by a court.

The rights of Black voters

At one point, Wilkinson noted that Black candidates had won statewide and legislative office before, referring to their elections as “the kind of progress of which the South can be proud and North Carolina can be proud.”

Theodore said the law required appraising the districts at issue, not the state overall.

“You can’t trade off the rights of Black voters in these districts because of the possibility that a Black voter somewhere else in the state may have an opportunity to elect a candidate of choice,” Theodore said.

During the defense’s arguments, attorney Phillip Strach said that forcing the legislature to redraw the two contested districts could create a ripple effect.

Depending on the court’s order, creating new districts could “implicate the entire Senate map and the entire map would have to be regrouped and redrawn and that would impact the entire state, and that would require new elections in the entire state,” he said.

Upon adjourning, the panel did not indicate when it may reach a decision in the case.

North Carolina’s primary election is on March 5. Early voting began on Feb. 15.

Several other lawsuits targeting Republican redistricting plans are working their way through the courts. Voters and advocacy groups have challenged all of the new maps, with some arguing that they are racial gerrymanders and others arguing that they infringe on voters’ constitutional right to fair elections.