Reuters: U.S. battle over partisan electoral maps to face major test in North Carolina

(Reuters) – After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled federal judges cannot curb partisan gerrymandering, reform advocates vowed to take their fight to state courts that retain the power to police the practice of drawing electoral lines for political advantage.

The first major test of that strategy begins on Monday in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a three-judge panel will hear a civil trial to decide whether the state’s legislative districts – designed by Republican lawmakers to give their party an edge – violate the state constitution. …

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the North Carolina version includes a provision guaranteeing “free” elections. The lawsuit filed in state Superior Court by Common Cause North Carolina, a good-government advocacy group, and the state Democratic Party claims the current legislative map runs afoul of that principle.

In a similar case last year, the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court threw out Republican-drawn congressional maps, finding that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution’s free elections clause. Under new maps, Democrats captured half of the state’s 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, compared with only five in 2016. …

The North Carolina lawsuit involves only the district lines for the state’s legislature. Common Cause challenged North Carolina’s U.S. congressional districts in a separate federal case that eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling two weeks ago.

But a ruling from the state Supreme Court that state legislative districts cannot be gerrymandered for partisan gain under the North Carolina constitution would likely apply equally to U.S. congressional lines, which are also drawn by state lawmakers.

The current congressional map is considered by experts one of the most extreme examples of gerrymandering in the country. Republicans won nine of the state’s 13 seats in 2018 and Democrats won three, with one race’s results thrown out due to fraud allegations, even as Republicans won the statewide popular vote by only two percentage points.

Similarly, Republicans won majorities in both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate in 2018 – despite losing the statewide popular vote.

“It doesn’t provide everyone with an equal vote,” said Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “It really is an inability of citizens to hold their elected officials accountable.”