Associated Press: Files from dead mapmaker focus of NC redistricting hearing

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Documents recovered from the house of a deceased Republican mapmaker that are part of a partisan gerrymandering lawsuit in North Carolina shouldn’t be used in this month’s scheduled trial because there’s no way to authenticate them, GOP lawyers said Tuesday.

The files linked to Tom Hofeller — a longtime redistricting consultant who helped Republicans in North Carolina and other states draw maps to expand electoral power this decade — were subpoenaed in March by attorneys for the plaintiffs.

Some of Hofeller’s files already have surfaced in separate litigation in other states challenging a plan by President Donald Trump’s administration to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census. Those cases haven’t focused on whether the documents are legitimate.

Common Cause, the state Democratic Party and voters, all of whom sued over the House and Senate maps, received from Hofeller’s estranged daughter, Stephanie Hofeller, over 75,000 files from more than 20 hard drives and thumb drives. The daughter said she came across them while looking for personal mementos in the months after her father’s death in August at age 75.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers told a three-judge panel they want to use only 35 of those documents in the trial, scheduled to begin July 15. They say the files will bolster their arguments that Republican legislators drew state legislative districts in August 2017 with excessive partisan intent, in violation of the state constitution.

The files will show “Hofeller in fact did have significant discretion and did use partisanship as a predominant motivation in drawing districts in county groups and within significant parts of the state,” attorney Daniel Jacobson told the judges. The plaintiffs want the maps redrawn in time for the 2020 elections. The party that wins majorities in the elections will control the next remapping, which takes place once a decade. …

Stanton Jones, a plaintiffs’ lawyer involved in both the North Carolina redistricting and census litigation, said no unethical action was taken and that “courts not only allow but encourage the sharing of discovery material that’s received from one case to the other cases where it’s relevant.”