Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog notes the latest in the North Carolina redistricting saga has been rejected
In a case sure to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, three-judge federal court has has struck North Carolina’s congressional districting as a unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. One judge partially dissented on some grounds, but agreed with the other two judges that the redistricting plan violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Curt also fast tracked a remedy in the case, giving the state a deadline to pass the plan and appointing a special master in case, as expected, the NC General Assembly resists. …
The majority opinion by Judge Wynn is an unqualified victory for the plaintiffs, finding multiple grounds (including equal protection, the First Amendment, and the Elections Clause) for ruling that North Carolina’s plan is unconstitutional.
The result is not a big surprise given what North Carolina did here. After its earlier redistricting was declared a racial gerrymander, it came up with a new plan using only political data that it described as a partisan gerrymander on its own terms. It did this as a defense against a future racial gerrymandering claim. As the court explained at page 16, NC “Representative Lewis said that he “propose[d] that [the Committee] draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because [he] d[id] not believe it[ would be] possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.” If there’s any case that could be a partisan gerrymander, it’s this one.
The desperation would seem to be a clear signal that the North Carolina GOP realizes that its ideology has led to a popularity that is not where they’d like it to be. At this point, though, is there enough time for SCOTUS to come to a decision on the similar cases from Wisconsin and Maryland? Or has the North Carolina GOP managed to drag this out far enough that they’ll be able to keep their cozy jobs at the next election cycle?
