The clock on partisan gerrymandering keeps ticking. The U.S. Supreme Court, in an unsigned order issued Monday, sent lawsuits challenging the legality of North Carolina’s congressional districts back to a three-judge panel for reconsideration. The justices ordered the lower court to look at the consolidated lawsuits…
The state House and Senate redistricting committees will take public comments Friday morning on criteria to be used for the next set of legislative election maps. The committees plan to vote on criteria Aug. 10. Legislative leaders unveiled that schedule this afternoon, two days after a three-judge federal panel ordered…
The efficiency gap focuses on past elections, so its usefulness for the latest North Carolina redistricting process appears limited.
A three-judge federal panel has denied a request to force a special N.C. legislative election before regularly scheduled 2018 contests. But the judges have ordered state lawmakers to prepare new election maps by Sept. 1. The judges issued their 11-page ruling Monday evening. It offers neither legislators nor their…
GREENSBORO — The rights of people, rather than political considerations, must be the primary focus in fixing 28 unconstitutionally drawn state legislative districts. That’s the message U.S. appeals court Judge James Wynn delivered Thursday during a hearing in the Covington v. North Carolina…
Legislative lawyers told a three-judge federal panel handling a redistricting lawsuit a special General Assembly election this year would affect nearly two-thirds of the districts in the state, cost $20 million, and force lawmakers to violate several other constitutional provisions. In a 32-page argument filed Thursday in the…
North Carolina’s legislative and congressional districts are ensnared in several court fights, and a conference sponsored by Common Cause examined a host of issues surrounding those battles. But the conference, at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy in early March, focused on raising public awareness of…
The number of uncontested seats in the N.C. General Assembly has risen 41 percent since 2010, and the dearth of competition gives Democrats an initial boost in state House races in the Nov. 8 general election, while Republicans have a leg up in the Senate. Before the first vote is…
If N.C. House members represented the same number of citizens as do their counterparts in Vermont or New Hampshire, we could have 2,222 representatives in that body. Sound ridiculous? But the body couldn't meet often or long enough to do any real damage.
