The Senate Redistricting Committee made a few tweaks to redrawn Senate maps, including an incumbent protection amendment for a Democrat, but otherwise passed the documents intact.
The maps will be taken up by the full Senate Friday at 10 a.m.
Majority Republicans turned back a series of amendments on party-line votes during Thursday’s lengthy debate — among them a substitute map submitted by plaintiffs in the Covington v. North Carolina lawsuit. The court in the Covington case said 28 legislative districts are unconstitutional because they relied too heavily on race.
Democrats buffeted Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, the committee chairman, with questions about whether race was considered, and what impact the proposed maps would have on the racial composition of districts.
Each time, Hise replied race was not a factor, citing the criteria the committee adopted earlier in August..
Both sides jousted throughout the meeting over esoteric formulas and models to determine whether a district is gerrymandered. And each side tried to secure a partisan advantage in the final product while claiming their efforts were more fair.
Sen. Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, expressed Republicans’ suspicion about Democrats’ motives when Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue, D-Wake, said the two sides should sit down with affected constituents to craft mutually agreeable compromises.
Bishop said the Democrats are prone to file lawsuits over election maps, and discussions in a working group could be cited later in litigation.
Sen. Terry Van Duyn, D-Buncombe, asked Hise whether an analysis would be presented of testimony given during Tuesday’s public hearing. She said many speakers called for a nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission to draw new maps rather than allowing legislators to retain that function.
Hise said noted the authority comes from the U.S. and state constitutions.
“I don’t believe in unicorns, fairies, or the nonpartisan commission,” he said. Some research shows those commissions don’t produce districts any less partisan than legislatively drawn maps.
In an odd turn of events, the committee did approve an amendment from Sen. Ben Clark, D-Hoke, to reconfigure Senate District 21.
Clark has criticized the incumbency protection criterion adopted for the remapping. He has built a new home outside of his district under the proposed maps, and his amendment puts him back into District 21. About 300 households are affected by the change.
The committee also approved an amendment by Blue to swap whole precincts between Senate Districts 14 and 15. He said that would keep several predominantly black neighborhoods intact and remedy what the court said was a gerrymandered district.
But Blue failed to get any GOP support on an alternate map that changed districts throughout the state he presented on behalf of the Covington plaintiffs.