The North Carolina Supreme Court has overturned its own past ruling that said partisan gerrymandering is illegal, clearing the way for Republicans there to redraw the state’s congressional lines in a way that heavily favors the GOP.
The ruling clears the way for North Carolina legislators to aggressively gerrymander the congressional map, which is currently represented by seven Democrats and seven Republicans. Now Republicans in Raleigh could re-create the map they initially passed last cycle which a Democratic-controlled state Supreme Court struck down, netting as many as four seats.
The court issued a 5-2 decision","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23792068-harpervhall042823","_id":"00000187-c8c7-d8c5-a5af-ffd757bf0006","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"00000187-c8c7-d8c5-a5af-ffd757bf0007","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">a 5-2 decision, with the court’s Republican justices voting to overturn the past ruling and the two Democratic justices dissenting. The court flipped from 4-3 Democratic control to 5-2 Republican control during elections last November.
The state court’s ruling issued Friday could also result in the U.S. Supreme Court dropping a closely watched case about the power of state legislatures over federal elections. The justices heard arguments on the issue in December","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/07/supreme-court-independent-state-legislature-theory-00072713","_id":"00000187-c8c7-d8c5-a5af-ffd757bf0008","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"00000187-c8c7-d8c5-a5af-ffd757bf0009","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">heard arguments on the issue in December, but signaled last month that they were considering changing course as a result of the effort to get the North Carolina court to reverse its earlier ruling.
In a separate ruling, the court also overturned another one of its past decisions on a voter ID law, on a similar 5-2 split strictly along party lines. That ruling issued Friday will clear the way for a long-litigated photo ID law to go into effect in the state.
The previous Democratic majority on the state court issued a series of recent decisions in the last year that ruled that partisan gerrymandering was illegal in North Carolina, while also blocking implementation of the state’s photo ID law. The new majority’s decision to rehear arguments on these cases so quickly was an unusual one, and many court observers believed the decision to do so meant that it was a matter of when, not if, the new court would allow for partisan gerrymandering.
In a lengthy decision issued by the court Friday, the conservative justices concluded that they could not adjudicate claims of partisan gerrymandering, saying that is the role of the state legislature.
“There is no judicially manageable standard by which to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims. Courts are not intended to meddle in policy matters,” Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in his 144-page opinion for the court’s majority.
Much of the majority’s rationale echoes that of a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found federal courts could not act against partisan gerrymandering","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/supreme-court-gerrymandering-ruling-1385302","_id":"00000187-c8c7-d8c5-a5af-ffd757bf000a","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"00000187-c8c7-d8c5-a5af-ffd757bf000b","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">federal courts could not act against partisan gerrymandering, but left the question in individual states to their courts.
“For a brief window in time, the power of deciding who is elected to office was given to the people, as required by the state constitution,” Justice Anita Earls wrote in her 72-page dissent, joined by Justice Michael Morgan. The two, who joined the court’s ruling last year striking down the map for being too partisan, are the last remaining Democratic jurists on the court.
“Today, the majority strips the people of this right; it tells North Carolinians that the state constitution and the courts cannot protect their basic human right to self-governance and self-determination,” Earls added, declaring that her Republican colleagues’ “efforts to downplay the practice do not erase its consequences and the public will not be gaslighted.”
Friday’s ruling will likely completely remake the state's evenly split congressional delegation. The decision will likely gravely endanger Democratic Reps. Kathy Manning in Greensboro, Wiley Nickel in the Raleigh suburbs and Jeff Jackson in Charlotte by placing them into Republican-leaning seats. Freshman Democratic Rep. Don Davis could also see his rural northeastern district become more competitive as well.
Republicans could snag as many as 11 seats under a new map. Some GOP names to watch in potential new red seats: former Rep. Mark Walker, who has been eyeing a return to Congress while also teasing a run for governor; Bo Hines, who lost in 2022 to Nickel; and House Speaker Tim Moore.
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By: Zach Montellaro, Josh Gerstein and Ally Mutnick
Title: North Carolina Supreme Court clears way for partisan gerrymandering
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2023/04/28/north-carolina-supreme-court-clears-way-for-partisan-gerrymandering-00094433
Published Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 10:53:36 EST
