North Carolina Supreme Court Strikes Down Republican Gerrymanders

The maps could have given the GOP veto-proof supermajorities.

A lawmaker examines a North Carolina district map in 2019.Gerry Broome/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The North Carolina state Supreme Court has thrown out a set of district maps that were assailed as “racially gerrymandered” after being ushered through the Republican-controlled legislature, finding them to be an unconstitutional violation of voters’ civil rights.

Even though 49 percent of North Carolina voters cast ballots for Joe Biden in 2020, out of 14 House seats, the maps would have contained only four Democratic-leaning or competitive congressional districts. The nonpartisan Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave all three maps struck down by the  court—the congressional map, and state house and senate maps—an F grade for pro-Republican partisan advantage. The maps’ state legislative districts would have put Republicans within spitting distance of veto-proof majorities; in the state senate, Republicans currently hold 28 out of 50 seats; the struck-down map was expected to out two more seats solidly in Republican hands, and leave Democrats with seven new vulnerable districts.

According to the court’s 4-3 ruling, issued along party-lines late on Friday, the maps’ skew violated the state constitution’s free elections, equal protection, free speech, and freedom of assembly clauses. “When, on the basis of partisanship, the General Assembly enacts a districting plan that diminishes or dilutes a voter’s opportunity to aggregate with likeminded voters to elect a governing majority… the General Assembly unconstitutionally infringes upon that voter’s fundamental right to vote,” the Democratic justices wrote. The court’s Republicans dissented, accusing the majority of having tossed “judicial restraint aside.”

After Democrats’ efforts to protect voting rights sputtered and died in the Senate, courts have emerged as a last line of defense against Republican gerrymandering. Ohio’s Supreme Court recently rejected a map that would have given the state’s roughly 55 percent of Republican voters anywhere from 75 percent to 80 percent of seats, in a ruling that compared Republican legislators to dealers who stack decks of cards. Federal judges also blocked a map drawn by the Alabama legislature for violating federal law by packing many of the state’s Black voters into a single seat. 

In the next few weeks, courts will rule on Republican-drawn maps in Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. North Carolina’s legislature has until February 18 to submit new maps and statistical analysis, and prove to the court that voters of all parties will be ensured equal opportunities for representation. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate