NBC News: Democrats eye move against GOP congressional gerrymandering in North Carolina
NBC News: Democrats eye move against GOP congressional gerrymandering in North Carolina
North Carolina Democrats and voting rights advocates are weighing last-minute challenges to the state’s congressional voting maps after a three-judge panel rebuked extreme partisan gerrymandering in the state.
The judges, in a 357-page sharply worded ruling Tuesday, threw out the state’s legislative districts maps, writing that GOP lawmakers’ partisan intent in drawing the maps, the “surgical precision” with which they were executed and the distinct advantage the maps gave to Republicans violated the state’s constitution. …
Common Cause, the watchdog group that filed the lawsuit over the state’s legislative maps, is also considering a challenge to the congressional maps, said Dan Vicuña, the organization’s national redistricting manager. Vicuña said it was unclear if Common Cause would team up with Democrats.
North Carolina — a purple state — is currently represented by nine Republicans and three Democrats in Congress, thanks to careful, Republican-drawn districts that advocates say are heavily gerrymandered.
Any challenge would have to be mounted fast, however: There’s just six months left before the 2020 primary in the state, and candidates are already running for Congress based on the old maps. Maps secured through litigation would be short-lived — after the 2020 Census, a completely new set of maps will be drawn in 2021. …
“It’s later in the cycle than we would have liked to start litigation, since we initially challenged in federal court,” Vicuña said, adding that Common Cause would make a decision in “weeks, tops.”
“There’s been a lot of work done to show that the congressional maps in North Carolina were partisan gerrymanders,” she told NBC News. “So anybody bringing that [challenge] would have a lots of facts already established, ready to rely on.” …
Vicuña said Common Cause is already looking toward 2021, identifying where partisan gerrymandering may take place and where state constitutions might give them an opening to challenge it.
“It’s going to be an exciting time for voter empowerment after the next lines are drawn,” Vicuña said. “We have a good handle on where there’s going to be single-party control, where the state constitution has been interpreted in a pro-voter matter, where we can ask the court to change precedent where that’s the case.”