Reform should accompany new districts
Redistricting lawsuits can produce specific remedies to specific harms but they are no substitute for reform enacted with bipartisan supermajorities and approved by North Carolinians in a referendum.
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Archive: Redistricting
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Redistricting decision won’t prevent future gerrymandering disputes, experts say
The Republican-led N.C. General Assembly must draw new state House and Senate district maps, a court has ruled. But the ruling — delivered in Common Cause v. Lewis — won’t prevent excessive future gerrymandering, experts say. Tuesday, Sept. 3,…
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Medicaid transformation delayed until Feb. 1; DHHS, NCGA unhappy
The overhaul of North Carolina’s Medicaid’s infrastructure is caught in the stand-off between Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the Republican legislature. After its funding was locked in the budget stalemate and then sunk by Cooper’s veto of a stand-alone bill, the…
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Courts should judge, not legislate
Judges shouldn’t be afraid to strike down unconstitutional laws, but when they try to act as policymakers they subvert constitutional government rather than defend it.
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Constitutional experts agree: Common Cause v. Lewis will wind up in state Supreme Court
It may be weeks — perhaps months — before a three-judge panel issues a ruling on whether lawmakers drew N.C. voting districts legally, or whether the legislative districts are partisan gerrymanders. The three-judge panel handling Common Cause v. Lewis at the trial…
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Taking partisanship out of the state redistricting battle
Whatever the three-judge Superior Court panel decides about Common Cause v. Lewis, a challenge to the constitutionality of North Carolina’s legislative districts, is relevant only if the plaintiffs win. That’s because we would get new legislative maps for 2020 elections — drawn to…
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Redistricting trial ends with battles over witness credibility
North Carolina’s redistricting trial Common Cause v. Lewis concluded Friday with heightened tensions, a day after the court threw out part of the testimony of one of the General Assembly’s key witnesses. Discrediting the other side’s witnesses became a main theme for…
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In redistricting trial, defense emphasizes voters’ discretion
As a three-judge panel heard a second week of testimony in Common Cause v. Lewis, defense attorneys and witnesses tried to cast doubt on the ability of statistical analysis to predict how North Carolinians would vote in legislative elections. Plaintiffs have produced…
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Hofeller maps, racial data consume third day of redistricting trial
After slogging through a mass of statistical data and redistricting jargon, day three of Common Cause v. Lewis brought the court back to the fundamental questions: the constitutionality of Republicans’ gerrymandered maps and the legal implications of the controversial Hofeller files. Democratic…
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Shifting the gerrymandering focus to distorted districts
Redistricting reformers hurt their cause by focusing almost exclusively on partisan outcomes.