Federal Judges Rule to Uphold 2024 Districts, Give No Indication for 2025 Ruling
In a ruling issued last Thursday, the three-judge federal panel hearing challenges to North Carolina’s Congressional districts map upheld the maps used in 2024. No ruling has been issued yet on the 2025 changes.
The federal judicial panel heard plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking use of the 2025 map last Wednesday. As of Friday, no ruling has been issued on that request. However, the panel late Thursday issued a long-delayed ruling upholding the earlier version of the NC Congressional Districts map which was adopted by the state legislature in 2023 and used in the 2024 elections. This is the first ruling issued on that part of the case, following a trial held last summer.
2024 Districts Ruling
In the recent ruling, all three judges agreed that the 2024 map violated neither the Constitution nor the Voting Rights Act. The panel found that drawing the map explicitly for partisan advantage was legal, under precedent decided by the US Supreme Court in 2019, and that the plaintiffs had not shown a racially discriminatory intent by the legislature. All three judges on the panel were appointed to the federal bench by Republican presidents.
“After considering all the evidence, we find that Plaintiffs have failed to prove that the North Carolina General Assembly drew state Senate or federal congressional districts with the discriminatory purpose of minimizing or canceling out the voting potential of black North Carolinians. The racial data necessary to execute such a discriminatory purpose was not used in drafting the 2023 Senate or congressional plans,” the judges wrote.
2025 District Changes
The hearing held last Wednesday in front of the same panel of judges dealt with the 2025 redrawing made by the Republican-dominated NC state legislature in response to a request from President Trump to redraw the lines in order to increase the Republican advantage in the US House of Representatives. In order to respond to Trump’s directive, the legislature eliminated the only competitive district left under the 2024 maps.
The newest map redrew the First Congressional District’s lines to convert a competitive district into one with a wide Republican voting advantage. In doing so, the legislature broke up a multi-county area of majority Black voters which has driven the election of a Black Democrat to Congress from the First District in every election since 1992.
“In one fell swoop, the General Assembly wiped North Carolina’s historic Black Belt Congressional District off the map, silencing Black voters by denying them any reasonable opportunity of electing their candidate of choice to the U.S. House of Representatives,” alleges the complaint filed by the NAACP plaintiffs in the case.
The panel gave no indication when it would rule on the 2025 redraw. Candidate filing for the 2026 elections in North Carolina, including the Congressional elections, is set to begin on December 1.
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