USA Today: Supreme Court defers new case from North Carolina challenging partisan election maps

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused again Monday to decide whether state legislatures can draw election maps for partisan gain.

The justices sent a challenge to North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts — 10 of which were drawn to favor Republicans despite relative parity statewide between the GOP and Democrats — back to a federal district court for further review. …

In North Carolina’s case, the facts aren’t even in dispute. State lawmakers in the relatively “purple” state, which swings between Democrats and Republicans in statewide elections, declared their intentions on camera.

“We want to make clear that to the extent we are going to use political data in drawing this map, it is to gain partisan advantage,” Rep. David Lewis after an earlier map of House districts was struck down in court because of racial discrimination.

“I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

Challengers contend the map protected Republicans by packing Democratic voters into cities such as Charlotte and “cracking” them between separate districts in other places. North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, the nation’s largest historically black college with some 10,000 students, was split down the middle between two congressional districts.

“If this case is not the limit, then there may be no limit,” said Ben Thorpe, one of the lawyers representing Common Cause.