NC Supreme Court hands GOP big win with gerrymander, voter ID rulings

RALEIGH - In massive victories for Republicans, the North Carolina Supreme Court on April 28 threw out a previous ruling against gerrymandered voting maps and upheld a photo voter identification law that colleagues had struck down as racially biased.

The rulings likely give the GOP-controlled legislature the ability to rework the state's congressional map for next year's election to help Republicans gain seats in the narrowly divided U.S. House. Under the previous map, Democrats won seven of the state’s 14 congressional seats last November.

The new edition of the court, which became a Republican majority this year following the election of two GOP justices, ruled after taking the unusual step of revisiting opinions made in December by the court’s previous iteration, when Democrats held a 4-3 seat advantage. The court held rehearings in March.

More: SCOTUS hears NC case to untether partisan gerrymandering; activists speak in Asheville

More: State Senate map tainted by partisan bias, must be redrawn, rules NC Supreme Court

The April 28 5-2 rulings also mean that state lawmakers should have greater latitude in drawing General Assembly seat boundaries for the next decade, and that a photo ID mandate approved by the GOP-controlled legislature in late 2018 could be enforced in time for the 2024 elections.

In another court decision April 28 along party lines, the justices overturned a trial court decision on when the voting rights of convicted felons can be restored. That means potentially tens of thousands of people convicted of felonies will have to keep waiting to completed their probation or parole or pay their fines to qualify to vote again.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: NC Supreme Court hands GOP big win with gerrymander, voter ID rulings