This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/us/north-carolina-gerrymander-maps.html
The article has changed 7 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| State Court Bars Using North Carolina House Map in 2020 Elections | State Court Bars Using North Carolina House Map in 2020 Elections |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| A North Carolina state court effectively threw out the state’s map of congressional districts on Monday, saying critics were poised to show “beyond a reasonable doubt” that it was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander favoring Republicans. | A North Carolina state court effectively threw out the state’s map of congressional districts on Monday, saying critics were poised to show “beyond a reasonable doubt” that it was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander favoring Republicans. |
| The ruling, by a three-judge panel in Superior Court in Raleigh, technically imposes a temporary ban on using the map in primary elections next spring. But the judges signaled that they were unlikely to change their minds by inviting plaintiffs in the case to seek a summary judgment ending the case in their favor. And the judges said they were prepared to postpone primary elections should that prove necessary to further litigate the case or draw new House districts. | The ruling, by a three-judge panel in Superior Court in Raleigh, technically imposes a temporary ban on using the map in primary elections next spring. But the judges signaled that they were unlikely to change their minds by inviting plaintiffs in the case to seek a summary judgment ending the case in their favor. And the judges said they were prepared to postpone primary elections should that prove necessary to further litigate the case or draw new House districts. |
| The plaintiffs, North Carolina residents, were sponsored by the National Redistricting Foundation, an arm of a Democratic group led by former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that is seeking to challenge Republican control of the next round of redistricting in 2021. | The plaintiffs, North Carolina residents, were sponsored by the National Redistricting Foundation, an arm of a Democratic group led by former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that is seeking to challenge Republican control of the next round of redistricting in 2021. |
| The House map drawn by Republican legislators in 2016 all but guaranteed the party’s control of 10 of the state’s 13 House districts, even though voters’ political preferences are split almost evenly between the two major parties. A separate challenge to the same map went to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled | The House map drawn by Republican legislators in 2016 all but guaranteed the party’s control of 10 of the state’s 13 House districts, even though voters’ political preferences are split almost evenly between the two major parties. A separate challenge to the same map went to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled |
| in June that it did not have the ability to regulate partisan gerrymandering, however egregious. | in June that it did not have the ability to regulate partisan gerrymandering, however egregious. |
| But the state panel said the map violated broader provisions in North Carolina’s state constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly and equal protection under the law, as well as a guarantee of free elections that does not appear in the federal Constitution. | But the state panel said the map violated broader provisions in North Carolina’s state constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly and equal protection under the law, as well as a guarantee of free elections that does not appear in the federal Constitution. |
| “North Carolina Republicans tried to beat democracy with their gerrymandered maps, and the U.S. Supreme Court would have let them get away with it,” Stanton Jones, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said on Monday. “The state court’s decision today ensures that North Carolinians will finally get to vote in free and fair congressional elections.” | “North Carolina Republicans tried to beat democracy with their gerrymandered maps, and the U.S. Supreme Court would have let them get away with it,” Stanton Jones, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said on Monday. “The state court’s decision today ensures that North Carolinians will finally get to vote in free and fair congressional elections.” |
| Mr. Holder called the ruling a belated victory for the state’s voters. “For nearly a decade, Republicans have forced the people of North Carolina to vote in districts that were manipulated for their own partisan advantage,” he said. “Now — finally — the era of Republican gerrymandering in the state is coming to an end.” | Mr. Holder called the ruling a belated victory for the state’s voters. “For nearly a decade, Republicans have forced the people of North Carolina to vote in districts that were manipulated for their own partisan advantage,” he said. “Now — finally — the era of Republican gerrymandering in the state is coming to an end.” |
| Republicans in the legislature were considering their options and had no immediate response to the rulings, a spokesman for State Senate President Phil Berger said Monday evening. | Republicans in the legislature were considering their options and had no immediate response to the rulings, a spokesman for State Senate President Phil Berger said Monday evening. |
| The order further upends a North Carolina political landscape that was, until this autumn, carefully crafted to maintain Republican dominance in all but the most unlikely Democratic landslides. The same three-judge panel struck down most of the state legislature’s maps in September as Republican partisan gerrymanders, citing the same violations of state constitutional clauses. Republicans elected then to redraw the maps, which were approved by the same court on Monday in a separate order. | The order further upends a North Carolina political landscape that was, until this autumn, carefully crafted to maintain Republican dominance in all but the most unlikely Democratic landslides. The same three-judge panel struck down most of the state legislature’s maps in September as Republican partisan gerrymanders, citing the same violations of state constitutional clauses. Republicans elected then to redraw the maps, which were approved by the same court on Monday in a separate order. |
| Republican legislators did not immediately respond to the latest order. They could oppose a motion for summary judgment and, should it come, appeal it to the state Supreme Court. But the three-judge panel suggested on Monday that the Republican legislative leaders forego legal arguments and use the same bipartisan map-drawing process employed to draft the new state legislative districts. | Republican legislators did not immediately respond to the latest order. They could oppose a motion for summary judgment and, should it come, appeal it to the state Supreme Court. But the three-judge panel suggested on Monday that the Republican legislative leaders forego legal arguments and use the same bipartisan map-drawing process employed to draft the new state legislative districts. |
| The court approved those redrawn legislative maps on Monday in a separate order. | |
| The court’s ban on the House map is only the latest move in a long-running legal battle in which Republicans now appear, however unwittingly, to have stacked the deck against themselves. | |
| Party leaders first produced a House map whose lines were heavily in their favor in 2011, after surging to control of both houses of the state legislature in elections the previous fall. But in 2016, after battles in both state and federal courts, the United States Supreme Court ruled that two of the 13 districts were racially gerrymandered to dilute black voting power, and ordered them redrawn. | |
| Seeking to avoid any appearance of bias, party leaders said publicly they would draw the new map using political rather than racial parameters, a strategy they said at the time was completely legal. One of the map’s principal drafters boasted in 2016 that he had given Republicans a 10-to-3 edge in seats “because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” | |
| Republicans defended the House map on the same grounds in a federal lawsuit, and won at the Supreme Court in June. But in the process, the three-judge panel noted, they left “a detailed record of both the partisan intent and the intended partisan effect of the 2016 congressional districts.” | |
| That record was so extensive, the judges said, that it left little doubt that opponents of the map would be able to prove in a trial that it violated the state Constitution. | |
| With primary elections only months away, Republican legislators had argued that it was too late to discard the 2016 maps without seriously disrupting House election campaigns that in some cases were already underway. But the judges said North Carolinians would be irreparably harmed if the 2020 election — like the preceding ones in 2018 and 2016 — were conducted using maps that appeared to by illegally gerrymandered. | |
| And while the challenge to the House map was, in fact, unusually late, the judges wrote, the court would commit to a final ruling in the case before the filing period for the 2020 primary elections, which will take place on March 3. |