A splattered bug and a lightning bolt — that’s one way to describe the shape of North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts, respectively. Although different in geography, they share one similarity: Both are tailored to strengthen the electoral power of minority voters, a safeguard under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 meant to purge racism.

It’s an idea rich with historical significance, but has it outlived its usefulness? In a nation that elected its first black president in 2008, has 44 black members of Congress (nearly half from the southeast), and reached an all-time high in racially integrated neighborhoods after the last census, observers wonder whether so-called “majority-minority” districts — and other conditions of the Voting Rights Act — are still needed.

“We’re trying to settle out an issue that 40 years ago was a concern, but now people are [desegregating] on their own,” said Michael Bitzer, an associate professor of political science and history at Catawba College in Salisbury. “That’s going to be an interesting question that the U.S. Supreme Court has got to confront at some point — whether these [changes] are truly done by use of the law, or is it just natural residential tendencies.”

It’s a question pertinent to North Carolina this year as the Republican-controlled General Assembly puts the finishing touches on revised congressional and legislative maps. That redistricting process, undertaken by the states every decade after fresh census data are available, is rife with partisanship, and 2011 has been no different.

In command of map drawing for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans rendered new districts that will lead to GOP gains in the general election next year. (The General Assembly is expected to approve the new districts this week.) Right now, Democrats enjoy a modest 7-to-6 seat advantage in North Carolina’s 13-seat congressional delegation. Republicans are in line to gain between two and four seats in 2012 if the maps withstand an inevitable court challenge.

Political analysts foresee comparable gains at the state level. After a series of historic victories in 2010, the Republican caucus has a 68-seat majority in the House (out of 120 seats) and a 31-seat majority in the Senate (out of 50 seats). If the maps withstand judicial scrutiny, the recast districts could mean GOP control of the legislature for at least five election cycles, possibly with supermajorities — at least 72 seats in the House and 30 in the Senate.

“The great danger to the Republican plan is only litigation,” said Republican political consultant John Davis. “If they get past the federal courts with these maps, then they are in line for a majority for the rest of the decade — in the congressional delegation, the state Senate, and the state House.”

Unforeseen consequences

If Republicans do sweep the board, some of the blame could be laid at the feet of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of the law allows, and sometimes requires, map drawers to create districts in which a majority of the voting age population is black. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bartlett v. Strickland, a 2009 case from North Carolina, that minority populations must form an actual numerical majority, not a plurality, to fulfill the Voting Rights Act requirements.

Contorted boundaries often result, as do strongly liberal districts, because nearly all blacks vote for Democrats.

Officially, the goal is to ensure that minorities have enough power to elect representatives of their choice. But in a political Catch-22, map drawers weaken Democrats’ chances in other districts when they cram minorities into a few regions — a side effect of the Voting Rights Act that benefits the GOP.

Tar Heel Republicans took advantage of that when rendering congressional districts this year. Under draft maps, the 1st Congressional District is 54 percent black, the 12th is 51 percent, and the 4th is 32 percent. The 10 remaining districts, with a combined average black population of around 14 percent, are strongly Republican, leaning Republican, or swing.

The current 12th District, represented by Democrat Mel Watt, is split nearly evenly between white (47 percent) and black (45 percent) voters, but it has enough white Democratic “crossover voters” to join with blacks to elect a Democratic candidate. Watt, who is black, has held the seat since 1993.

The GOP claims that racially gerrymandered districts uphold federal law by strengthening minority groups’ voting clout, while Democrats say it’s an attempt to dilute the vote, a tactic outlawed by the Voting Rights Act. The referees in the political game — in this case, the federal courts — have the final say. Analysts anticipate that North Carolina’s maps will end up there in short order.

“There is no doubt in my mind that there will be litigation — justified or unjustified — the second the maps are official,” said Jane Pinsky, president of the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform. “The climate here is so bad that even if they were close to perfect maps, there probably would be litigation.”

Preclearance barrier

Beyond the dispute over majority-minority districts, another part of the Voting Rights Act, Section 5, poses challenges, too. The provision requires “covered jurisdictions” — most in the Deep South — to have their redistricting plans precleared by the U.S. Justice Department or a federal court in Washington.

As initially crafted in the mid-1960s, Section 5 was meant to crack down on discriminatory practices of the Jim Crow era. These included poll taxes, literacy tests, and other forms of intimidation. Federal involvement ensured that blacks were free to exercise their right to vote.

“Race in politics is often times at the heart of the American electoral system, particularly in states that have a significant minority,” Bitzer said.

Forty North Carolina counties fall under Section 5. Most of those are in the 1st District in the northeastern part of the state, represented for the past four terms by Democrat G.K. Butterfield.

Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Justice has objected to about 1 percent of the voting changes presented since the mid-1960s. Once the maps are submitted, the federal government has 60 days either to approve or reject them.

In 2006, Congress renewed Section 5 for an additional 25 years, but experts predict that major changes could be in store. For one, several justices on the U.S. Supreme Court expressed doubt about the continued need for preclearance during a case arising from Texas in 2009.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative and the only black member of the court, went the furthest. He wrote a dissenting opinion arguing that the Voting Rights Act no longer is needed. “Punishment for long past sins is not a legitimate basis for imposing a forward-looking preventative measure that has already served its purpose,” Thomas wrote.

David McLennan, a political science professor at Peace College in Raleigh, predicted the Voting Rights Act either would be “amended or in fact overturned” sometime over the next decade. “Whether you buy the argument that it’s historically not needed, or it’s just simply not working as it was intended, it might be taken up on the legislative side,” he said.

The great reformation

Although Republicans have faced a barrage of criticism for the gerrymandered maps, in past decades Democrats drew districts that favored their party as well. That’s endemic of a partisan-based redistricting system and impetus for a switch to a nonpartisan method, reform advocates say.

The present system “engenders such anger and distrust, which translates, unfortunately, frequently, into voter apathy,” Pinsky said. “It’s really, really bad for the system.”

That system might change soon. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers has introduced House Bill 824, a measure that would shift map-drawing authority from politicians to legislative staff, a reform that could lead to more fair, less politically charged districts beginning with the 2020 census. Nonpartisan staff still would have to abide by requirements under the Voting Rights Act, but supporters hope that political calculations would have less influence.

The idea has won support from top legislative leaders. The bill passed the House 88-27 in June and could be heard by the Senate later this year.

House Bill 783, a separate proposal establishing an independent redistricting commission to draw boundaries, was introduced in April but did not get out of committee.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.