News & Observer: New congressional maps in North Carolina will stand for 2020, court rules

The new congressional maps passed by North Carolina state lawmakers last month can stand for the 2020 election, a three-judge panel ruled Monday.

The previous maps gave Republicans a 10-3 advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives. Under the new maps, Democrats are expected to pick up two seats, cutting it down to an 8-5 Republican edge.

Democrats, however, had said the new maps still weren’t fair and needed to be redrawn again. But the judges hearing the case — two Democrats and one Republican — unanimously disagreed. …

The anti-gerrymandering group Common Cause North Carolina was a plaintiff in the lawsuit over the legislative lines, not the congressional lines, but the group’s executive director, Bob Phillips, was in court Monday to watch nevertheless. He said he will continue to push for more permanent reforms at the Legislature, so that future districts can be drawn with “much more robust public input” and potentially avoid so many legal challenges.

“I think there’s a lot of room for improvement on transparency,” Phillips said. “Obviously reform in our mind means somebody else besides the lawmakers drawing it.”