North Carolina’s voter map drama turned more theatrical, as state senators literally rolled out a lottery machine to randomly select their starter map. It was one of several bizarre events during the second day of House and Senate redistricting committee meetings Tuesday, Sept. 10. Members disrupted proceedings with chaotic arguments and motions. Staffers sorted map...
North Carolina lawmakers have just nine days to draw new voter district maps. They’re off to a rough start. A three-judge panel on Sept. 3 told Republican lawmakers to throw out their state legislative maps — which were subject to “extreme partisan gerrymandering”— and start over. House and Senate majority leaders aren’t happy with the...
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, a three-judge Superior Court panel scrapped North Carolina’s election maps. The voting districts were cases of...
A three-judge N.C. Superior Court panel has tossed out North Carolina’s election maps for state House and Senate districts. The court has ordered state lawmakers to draw new maps in two weeks. The state Senate’s top leader responded by saying legislators “intend to respect the court’s decision and finally put this divisive battle behind us.”...
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.
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 level could obviously rule either way: for the defendants — who represent Republicans...
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 the liking of the state Democratic Party and left-leaning groups who sued the...
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 plaintiffs and defendants as the two-week trial wound down. Plaintiffs asked the court...
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 several expert witnesses who illustrated how their computer-simulated district maps would produce more...
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 legislative candidates have had to compete under Republican-gerrymandered maps since the 2012 elections....
If you can’t get a law, then go to court. Such was the theme of opening testimony for Common Cause v. Lewis, the partisan redistricting lawsuit launched last year by Common Cause NC, the N.C. Democratic Party, and a handful of individual plaintiffs. Republicans violated the state constitution by carving out voting districts to their...
