Supreme Court rejects redistricting maps

Feb. 5—Gerrymander

Coined at a Boston dinner party 110 years ago, in March 1812.

Illustrator Elkanah Tisdale drew a picture map of a hated redistricting bill, signed by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry a month earlier. It stretched from near Boston to the New Hampshire border, hooked east along the Merrimack River to the coast, and sliced up Essex County. The strategy would shake loose a stronghold of the Federalist Party in favor of the rising political rival Democratic-Republicans.

Tisdale's drawing was as a monster, with claws and a snake-like head on the long neck. A dinner guest said it looked like a salamander, and poet Richard Alsop chimed in that no, a "Gerry-mander."

Democratic-Republicans got a bigger state Senate majority in that April's election, but Gerry went down in defeat to Federalist challenger Caleb Strong.

And Gerry's consolation prize? President James Madison awarded his party loyalty with the vice-presidency.

State Supreme Court Justices Robin Hudson, Anita Earls, Michael Morgan and Sam Ervin IV on Friday evening struck down new maps for congressional and General Assembly seats.

The 4-3 decision, a party-line choice released in a late Friday news dump, includes instruction for the 170 members of the General Assembly to redraw the maps by Feb. 18 and to explain partisan fairness of the new boundaries. The state's top court, in removing a power granted lawmakers by the state Constitution, said the mid-term primaries remain scheduled for May 17.

"Today's ruling is an unequivocal win for North Carolina's black voters who were most harmed by this extreme partisan gerrymander," said Allison Riggs, the executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. "At every level, North Carolina's GOP leadership diluted representation of communities of color to entrench their own political power in ways that were both obvious and egregious."

Chief Justice Paul Newby was joined by Associate Justices Philip Berger Jr. and Tamara Barringer, all Republicans, in the dissenting opinion.

Newby wrote that he didn't believe the courts have the authority to override the legislature on redistricting. He said the majority's ruling "violates separation of powers by effectively placing responsibility for redistricting with the judicial branch, not the legislative branch as expressly provided in our constitution."

Lawmakers of the General Assembly did not immediately offer comments.

The decision was not unexpected, nor were reactions. The state's Supreme Court elections have already been among the most intense and expensive in the nation, with outside political groups supporting both major parties spending millions to elect their favored candidates.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee supported a bloc of voters who sued. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who can't veto the maps, filed a brief with the state Supreme Court on the matter.

More than 70 lawyers are involved, according to published reports.

State Sen. Ralph Hise of Mitchell County wrote in a statement that he thought the decision was based in politics, not law. He's a top GOP redistricting official.

"This perverse precedent, once set, will be nearly impossible to unwind, as monied interests line up to buy their own justices to set law favorable to them," Hise said. "I'm certain Democrats will come to regret it."

To that point, add this from Newby: "By choosing to hold that partisan gerrymandering violates the North Carolina Constitution and by devising its own remedies, there appears to be no limit to this court's power."

And from the Governor's Mansion, Cooper tweeted, "A healthy democracy requires free elections and the NC Supreme Court is right to order a redraw of unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts. More work remains and any legislative redraw must reflect the full intent of this decision."

Indeed, gerrymandered maps have long been in existence. Cooper, in fact, is linked to voting for one of the most squiggly-lined maps ever when he was in the General Assembly in 1992.

Dan Bishop, the former state senator now serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, offered, "For 140 years of unbroken Democrat rule, they failed to see a problem."

Friday's ruling reverses three judges' decision from a month ago that let the maps stand. That panel included one Democrat and two Republicans.

The trial judges had found ample evidence that the legislature approved maps that were "a result of intentional, pro-Republican partisan redistricting." But they declared it wasn't the judiciary's place to intervene in mapmaking — a duty left to the legislature — when partisan fairness in those plans was challenged.

In its decision written by Hudson, the state Supreme Court orders the General Assembly to use a political-science-based approach. And that comes even though the U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected it, saying many voters split their tickets, never register with a political party, and vote for candidates from both major parties at different points during their lifetime.

The parties of Democrats and Republicans in this state are each losing registered voters while the unaffiliated group is trending strong in growth. Through Friday, unaffiliateds are just more than 14,000 away from being our state's largest group.

Yet, the lawsuits were bolstered by mathematicians and electoral researchers who presented evidence of their analysis of trillions of map simulations. They testified the new lines were likely to give the GOP 10 of the state's 14 U.S. House seats as well as state House and Senate majorities in almost any political environment. Republicans currently hold an 8-5 seat advantage. The state gets a 14th seat this year because of population growth reported in the census.

The opinion of the four judges offered no guidance for "acceptable partisanship analysis." It also doesn't tell the General Assembly what data or methods are acceptable.

"This is the justice we sought when we filed this lawsuit," said Carrie Clark, executive director of the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, which was another plaintiff. "With new, constitutional maps, North Carolinians will have a fighting chance to elect a government that fulfills their desire for environmental justice and climate action."

This story authored by Alan Wooten of the Bladen Journal. Contact him at 910-247-9132 or awooten@bladenjournal.com.