Legislators’ motion could resolve two federal redistricting lawsuits

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  • North Carolina's legislative leaders plan to file a motion that could resolve "some or all" claims in two federal lawsuits challenging state congressional and legislative election maps.
  • The motion could help avoid a June 2025 trial scheduled before a three-judge panel in Winston-Salem.
  • The lawsuits challenge election maps voters used last week to elect members of Congress and every member of the North Carolina House and Senate.

North Carolina’s legislative leaders will file a motion that could help them avoid a trial scheduled next summer in two lawsuits challenging state election maps. Voters used those maps last week to select the state House and Senate and members of the congressional delegation.

A court filing Wednesday indicated that lawmakers planned to file a motion that could resolve “some or all” claims made against the maps.

The two lawsuits, Williams v. Hall and North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. Berger, are scheduled for a June 2025 trial in Winston-Salem. A court order noted that a trial likely would last 10 days.

If the plaintiffs are successful in challenging state election maps, judges could force state lawmakers to draw new maps for the 2026 election cycle.

The two cases are consolidated before 4th Circuit Appeals Court Judge Allison Jones Rushing and US District Judges Richard Myers and Thomas Schroeder. Republican presidents appointed all three judges. Yet Rushing and Myers are participating in the panel thanks to appointments from 4th Circuit Chief Judge Albert Diaz. Former Democratic President Barack Obama appointed Diaz.

The three-judge panel agreed in March to consolidate the two cases. Republican state legislative leaders had requested the consolidation. Plaintiffs in both cases opposed the request.

An order from the three judges cited “common issues of fact and law” linked to the challenged congressional election map. Judges also determined that consolidation would promote “judicial economy and reduce the burden on the parties as a whole by avoiding duplication of effort.” The panel labeled the plaintiffs’ concerns about consolidation as “overstated.”

News of the consolidation arrived on the same day that Republican state legislative leaders filed a document in one of the suits, Williams v. Hall. In that case, plaintiffs working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm challenged North Carolina’s new congressional election map.

 “The relief sought by Plaintiffs would involve unconstitutional racial gerrymanders because they request districts in which racial considerations predominate over traditional districting criteria,” wrote lawmakers’ lawyers.

Plaintiffs in the case titled Williams v. Hall filed suit on Dec. 4, 2023, against North Carolina’s new congressional election map. A separate case filed 15 days later, NC State Conference of the NAACP v. Berger, challenged the congressional map along with maps for the state House and Senate.

The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, left-of-center activist group Common Cause, and eight individual plaintiffs filed suit on Dec. 19, four days after candidate filing ended under the challenged maps.

“In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly redrew its state legislative and congressional plans to severely diminish the voting power of North Carolina’s Black voters, who comprise over 22% of residents in the state,” according to the 87-page complaint. “The General Assembly achieved this by intentionally dismantling existing and longstanding Black opportunity districts and diluting Black voting power in North Carolina’s historic Black Belt, which stretches across the northeastern portion of the state, and by selectively targeting Black voters in other areas of the state. The effect of these actions is to inequitably reduce the electoral influence of the Black voters of North Carolina in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the United States Constitution.”

Plaintiffs are working with lawyers from the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice, along with a law firm with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

The lawsuit says state legislators adopted their maps for state House, state Senate, and congressional races “using an intentionally rushed and deficient process that denied any opportunity for meaningful engagement and showed clear disregard for the interests, needs, and desires of North Carolina’s Black voters.”

In the Williams case, 18 black and Latino plaintiffs working with Elias’ law firm target only the congressional map. They took their case to court on the same afternoon that candidate filing began for the state’s 2024 elections.

Plaintiffs ask a federal court to declare that the congressional map “discriminates against minority voters in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”

A third federal redistricting lawsuit challenges two state Senate districts. That case, Pierce v. NC State Board of Elections, is scheduled for trial in February.

A fourth redistricting lawsuit remains in state court. Former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr has appealed a three-judge panel’s decision to dismiss his case. Orr wants state courts to determine that North Carolinians have a constitutional right to “fair” elections.

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