Judicial Watch: Supremes Nix NC Congressional Districts
A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court agrees that the NC General Assembly created an unconstitutional Congressional district map improperly based on voters’ race. The Court’s decision issued last week upheld an Appellate Court decision ordering the legislature to redraw the map.
The immediate impact of that decision is still uncertain, since the offending map has already been re-drawn once. However, the redrawn map is under challenge as well, on similar ground as before. There is a separate lower court order already directing the General Assembly to undertake yet another re-do.
Still, the Supreme Court’s order in the earlier case is significant, as it directly undercuts the argument which has formed the basis for the General Assembly’s rebuttals in court. They argue that they’re not disadvantaging minorities, they’re just disadvantaging Democrats. In its latest decision, the Supreme Court majority said that in the proper circumstances, it could be shown that party was being used as a political proxy for race.
Thus far, the hyperpartisan leaders of the current General Assembly have given no indication that they are not prepared to play the same game over and over for so long as the courts will let them. The question becomes, will this round be different? And if not, will the courts declare that the only effective remedy is to take the map-drawing out of the repeat-offending legislature’s hands?
The legal answers remain cloudy. However, the outcome of this battle over “gerrymandering” districts will determine whether our state returns to an election system where voters have an honest chance to select their representatives. The current system is too often one in which the representatives instead simply select their voters.
Conservation and good government advocates in North Carolina have concluded that our chances of holding legislators accountable for their votes on environmental and public health matters are far stronger in competitive elections.
