STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 09-12-19
WIH TRUMP’S HELP, GOP SWEPS DISTRICY 3, AND 9 RACES
[CHARLOTTE] Thanks to last minute campaigning by both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, Republicans running for congressional sets in both North Carolina’s 3rd and 9th Congressional Districts won their special elections Tuesday night. In the 3rd, Greg Murphy (R-Pitt) easily won with 62 percent of the vote over former Greenville mayor Democrat Allen Thomas. In the controversial 9th, where a ballot fraud probe is still underway, conservative state Sen. Dan Bishop won a slim victory over once-leading Democrat Dan McCready, 50 to 49%.
NC HOUSE OVERRIDES GOVERNOR’S VETO WITH JUST 64 MEMBERS PRESENT
[RALEIGH] While Gov. Roy Cooper and several state House members were attending the NC National Guard Sept. 11th Commemoration, Republican Speaker Tim Moore pushed through a surprise vote - 55 to 9 - with just 64 of 120 members present to override Cooper’s veto on the budget proposal that does not extended Medicaid coverage. Republicans had been stymied by Democrats who refused to vote with them in the past. Democrats objected to vote, primarily because they had been told that no vote would be taken. “How dare you Mr. Speaker?” Opined Rep. Deb Butler (D-NH). “The trickery that is being evidenced by this morning is tantamount to a criminal offense.”
OUTER BANKS CLEANING UP AFTER HURRICANE DORIAN [OUTER BANKS] Hurricane Dorian, once a dangerous Category Five storm that devastated the Bahama Islands last week, caused some mild flooding in mainland North Carolina, including Wilmington, but then ransacked the Outer Banks as a Category One storm, spawning tornadoes that destroyed homes and businesses in Dare County. Many residents were trapped in their homes because of flooding they’d never seen before. Volunteer workers are now helping to reopen businesses and clear debris.
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REPUBLICANS SAY THEY WON’T
APPEAL GERRYMANDERING RULING
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
With only two court-mandated weeks to complete the job, the redistricting committees of the state House and Senate began Monday redrawing the 2017 legislative redistricting maps a NC three-judge Superior Court panel ruled last week were unconstitutionally partisan gerrymanders in the case Common Cause v. Lewis.
Republican legislative leaders, like Senate Pro-Tem Sen. Phil Berger, decided not to appeal the decision, realizing that doing so would send it straight to the NC Supreme Court, which is 6-1 Democrat, where the GOP would probably lose again.
The judicial panel made it crystal clear in it’s stringent ruling that there will be new remedial voting maps in time for the 2020 elections, meaning if primary dates have to be rescheduled, then so be it. The new maps are to be completed by state lawmakers by Sept. 17th. The panel - two Democrats and one Republican - have also mandated that no partisan information can be used to redrawing the maps, all work must be done in public, and a referee who has the power to reject what he sees and redraw lawmakers’ finished product, will oversee the work.
During the state Senate Redistricting Committee meeting, Senate Minority Democratic leader Sen. Dan Blue said, “ I think that what the court has concluded is that our ability to use technology has exceeded our use of democracy ,” referring to how the Republican legislative majority drew voting maps by computer that garnered the GOP a legislative partisan advantage that was eventually deemed unconstitutional.
There was already controversy Monday when Republican lawmakers recommended that conservative leader Art Pope serve as a co-referee in the process. Plaintiffs in the case rejected Pope, saying that he served as co-counsel in 2011 when the original racial gerrymandered voting maps were drawn by the Republican legislative majority.
This voting maps were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, and thrown out. They were later replaced by the partisan gerrymandered maps, which were ruled unconstitutional by the three judge panel last week.
The court’s ruling affected 28 counties in House maps, and 21 in the Senate. Information on incumbency is allowed to be used in the remedial maps to prevent the double-bunking of two already elected state lawmakers in the same district.
In the House, the redrawing affects Brunswick-New Hanover counties; Guilford and Mecklenburg counties, among others.
At the beginning of the process, redistricting committee members were leaning towards using the base maps of expert Jowei Chen from the University of Michigan. Chen was a witness against the Republicans during the two-week trial that resulted in the three-judge panel ruling. Chen has reportedly created approximately 1,000 nonpartisan legislative maps for lawmakers to choose from.
The public can watch the proceedings being streamed at www.ncleg.gov.
Meanwhile, reaction to the historic redistricting decision continued to come in.
“We are encouraged by this tremendous ruling,” said NCNAACP Pres. Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman. “The fact that there were no dissenting parties is an indication that we have witnessed what happens when courts operate fairly; when all partisan interest is removed from the table we are well on our way to a season of democracy.
“The three-judge panel made its decision based on the undisputed fact that the Republican General Assembly deliberately manipulated legislative districts to provide a political advantage to Republican candidates,” said U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield.
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