In 2016, a federal court struck down North Carolina’s congressional districts as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Politicians had blatantly rigged the legislative map to limit Black voters’ representation and make sure white votes counted more than everyone else’s.
But once the court ordered legislators to draw a new map, North Carolina Republicans didn’t learn their lesson. Instead, they proudly declared that the new map wouldn’t be a racial gerrymander, but a partisan gerrymander — giving Republican voters a bigger say than Democratic ones.