The following editorial appeared in the January 2016 print edition of Carolina Journal:
By the time you read this, either hundreds of candidates will be running a 10-week sprint toward the state’s March 15 primary, or hundreds of elected officials and attorneys will be scrambling to redraw congressional and legislative districts and determine how to start the filing process from scratch.
It should be the former. The state Supreme Court on Dec. 17 issued a well-reasoned opinion concluding that the districts drawn by the 2011 General Assembly complied with the state and federal constitutions — the fourth time those maps have survived a legal challenge.
But the left-leaning plaintiffs suing the state — led by the state’s Democratic Party and its chapter of the NAACP — aren’t done. They vowed to file yet another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the federal justices to invalidate the districts, forcing lawmakers to go back to the drawing board, possibly requiring primary elections sometime this summer.
If the federal justices entertain the appeal, state taxpayers should prepare to cough up millions more dollars — in legal fees defending the current districts, and more if the General Assembly has to draw new maps, defend them in court, and schedule new candidate filing periods and primary elections.
Whatever the outcome, the perpetual court fights over legislative districts should elevate one issue to the top of the 2016 legislative session’s agenda: independent redistricting reform.
In 2015, the state House considered two bills that would take map drawing out of the hands of legislators. One would have legislative staff, after the 2020 census, set district maps and subject them to an up-or-down legislative vote. The other would establish, after the 2030 census, an independent commission to present three sets of maps to the legislature for approval. In both instances, the districts must be contiguous, must include equal numbers of residents, and should not divide cities or counties when possible.
So long as those and a few other rules requiring impartiality are followed, it doesn’t really matter whether a commission or legislative staffers draw the lines.
Both House bills are stuck in committee, and that’s where they’re likely to stay, even though more than half the members of the House have co-sponsored one of them (House Bill 92). Several key senators continue to insist that no bill passing the House will move through the Senate — which is no surprise, since few politicians in the majority party want to surrender power.
But we maintain what may be a naive hope that a spirit of public service could prevail. The two top combatants in the debate, House Speaker Pro Tem Paul “Skip” Stam, R-Wake (a lead sponsor of H.B. 92), and Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, who chairs the Senate Redistricting Committee, and sees no need for reforms, are retiring after the 2016 session.
Rucho and his Senate allies could leave a legacy to make North Carolinians of all partisan persuasions proud, and allow independent redistricting — at a minimum — to get a fair debate.