REPUBLICANS PUSH “POLITICAL”
REDISTRICTING, HURTING
BLACK REPRESENTATION
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Say goodbye to the 7-7 North Carolina Congressional delegation split, mandated by court-appointed special masters in 2022 after the then Democratic-led State Supreme Court ruled that the Congressional redistricting map drawn by the GOP majority legislature was unconstitutional.
With passage of the new voting maps for the state's 14 congressional districts, the North Carolina Congressional delegation will be a “10 Republicans versus 4 Democrats” split for the 2024 elections, especially now that a Republican-led State Supreme Court threw out the earlier ruling, and has given the green light to whatever the GOP majority legislature wants.
The 10-4 delegation would stay in force until after the 2030 Census.
The party with the most congressional seats, most likely controls the Congress for the next several years, political observers say.
The state Senate Redistricting Committee decided such on Monday during hearings, abandoning plans to adopt an 11-3 delegation split. Technically, because one of the four Democratic-leaning districts is drawn so competitively between a Democrat - Republican breakdown, the GOP might still get its 11th Congressional District after the 2024 elections.
That congressional district belongs to Democratic Congressman Don Davis of Greene County, who is Black. The way his First Congressional District has been redrawn, he still has an advantage, but not much.
Still, political observers say expect a lawsuit under the U.S. Voting Rights Act to challenge this voting map change.
Congresswoman Valerie Foushee of Orange County, also an African-American, faced being drawn out of her congressional seat initially and being double-bunked against Davis, but survived in the latest 10-4 map approved by the Senate Redistricting Committee.
At least three white congressional Democratic incumbents - Wiley Nickel of Wake, Kathy Manning of Guilford and Jeff Jackson of Mecklenburg - are primed to be unseated under the new map.
Under the proposed 10-4 split, Republicans would maintain that advantage, even if voters statewide are divided 50-50.
That same is true if the majority of voters choose Democrats to lead in the state legislature, according to a Duke University analysis of the latest legislative maps project titled “Quantifying Gerrymandering.” In fact, if Republicans win 50% or more of the statewide vote, they would cash in with more than 60% of the legislative seats in both the state House and Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue complained that the GOP legislative redistricting maps targeted Blacks, but mostly targeted Democratic female lawmakers who spoke out frequently, changing their districts to make re-election more difficult.
"A reasonable person would have to conclude that there's some sort of animus you have against women," Sen. Blue told the Senate Redistricting Committee Republicans Monday.
If the new GOP legislative maps are approved, Republicans could easily maintain their supermajorities against gubernatorial veto.
An unhappy Gov. Roy Cooper did not spare the rod.
"Enabled by the State Supreme Court’s partisan reversal of constitutional law, Republican legislators have rolled out their latest illegal maps that show gerrymandering on steroids. Drawn in the back room and armed with their new law that keeps their plotting secret, they have used race and political party to create districts that are historically discriminatory and unfair," he said in a statement.
North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton opined, "…drawn by Republicans behind closed doors, [these voting maps] are a jarring example of the worst kind of politics. Republicans feel like they have the state court's rubber stamp to hand-pick their voters -- instead of giving North Carolinians the power to choose the best representatives for their communities. Diluting our voices, specifically the voices of people of color, to entrench power is a manipulation of our democracy.”
And Twelfth District Congresswoman Alma Adams, who was not affect by the new Republican Congressional maps, still blasted the effort.
“I am disappointed that North Carolina Republican leaders continue to show unfairness with recently revealed redistricting maps,” said Adams.
“Working behind closed doors without any valuable and meaningful input from Democratic colleagues, stakeholders or the public is both punitive and unfair!"
In a recent News & Observer op-ed penned by UNC Law Professor Gene Nichol, he took note of the bold manner NC Republican legislative leaders are flexing their absolute power.
“They seemed to have found their sweet spot — using state powers to favor themselves and their friends and to handicap and marginalize their enemies. Permanently.”
According to a story Monday in the Raleigh News and Observer, “With conservative-dominated state and federal courts unlikely to rein in the worst abuses of political mapmaking, Republican gains from the maps — if approved — are likely to continue for years to come. “It looks like, as we would have expected, that the deck is pretty stacked,” said Irving Joyner, an N.C. Central University law professor who’s been active in fights against racially discriminatory maps in this state for years.”
Republican Reps. Destin Hall, Sarah Stevens, and Jason Saine, said in a statement about the state House redistricting map, “This map adheres to established redistricting principles and complies with all legal guidelines. We look forward to voting on this proposed legislation.”
Gov. Cooper has no veto power over the voting maps once passed.
Candidate filing begins December 4th.
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NC BLACK ALLIANCE AMONG GROUPS
SUING NC GENERAL ASSEMBLY OVER
BILL THAT RESTRICTS YOUTH VOTING
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The North Carolina Black Alliance has joined forces with Democracy North Carolina, and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina (LWVNC) and other groups in filing federal lawsuits to stop implementation of Senate Bill 747 (SB 747) and its ?undeliverable mail provision.”
The Democratic National Committee and the N.C. Democratic Party filed an earlier lawsuit against all of the provisions of the 43-page SB 747, arguing that it “ …is a direct assault on the “most fundamental” right to vote,” and that “…the changes it adopts would make it much harder for some North Carolinians to register to vote, would allow ballots by same-day registrants to be rejected without any notice to the voter or any right to challenge the rejection, would permit an influx of intimidating and largely unconstrained poll observers into voting places, and would require the discarding of absentee ballots that are returned even a minute after the polls close on election day (no matter how far in advance of the election voters place their ballots in the mail). The U.S. Constitution, the North Carolina Constitution, and multiple federal statutes prohibit these myriad efforts at vote suppression, which will disenfranchise many North Carolinians.”
“The plaintiffs allege that the Undeliverable Mail Provision violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and places an undue burden on the right to vote in violation of the First and 14th Amendments,” according to attorney Marc Elias, representing the DNC and NCDP. “The plaintiffs request that the court declare the provision unconstitutional and prevent its enforcement.”
Democrats hope that a federal judge will issue an injunction against SB 747 and all of its provisions, preventing it from being implemented before the 2024 primaries and general elections.
The ramifications of the law, if allowed to go into effect, go well beyond North Carolina, a key election battleground state, election experts agree
Republican legislative leaders immediately filed motions in federal court to intervene on behalf of defendants in the case to protect their law, which they claim protects voters from alleged, unproven abuses they claim occurred during the 2020 election.
“North Carolina voters deserve to know their elections are safe and secure,” said Republican House Speaker Tim Moore in a statement. “Thankfully they can have that confidence now that we have overridden the Governor’s veto of this common sense elections bill.”
According to plaintiffs, the measure titled, “An Act to Make Various Changes Regarding Elections Law,” “…impedes the right of young people to register to vote and have their ballot counted when using same-day registration.”
The LWVNC alleges, “ SB747 places the fate of a ballot cast using same-day registration on whether a single piece of mail reaches that voter. If that piece of mail goes undelivered — by accident, negligence, or otherwise — the voter’s ballot is thrown out and their registration is canceled, with no notice provided and no opportunity for the voter to be heard. The North Carolina General Assembly enacted SB747 despite well-documented difficulties for young voters, including college students, to have their mail delivered reliably.”
“Black, Latino and young North Carolinians are more likely to have mail returned as undeliverable due to housing insecurity, having a college campus address or living in multi-generational households, according to the lawsuit,” reported Axios.
“Unfortunately, we have witnessed a consistent effort from our state's leadership to create countless barriers for our voters, more specifically naming one of our most vulnerable populations, young adult voters,” said Jovita Lee, Program Director for North Carolina Black Alliance. “We have a duty to ensure that our young voters, especially those who attend our Historically Black Colleges and Universities that have been historically impacted by legislation such as this, can equitably access the ballot box and fully participate in our democratic process, per their given right.”
“Whether your vote gets counted should not be a random game of chance,” said Jeff Loperfido, Chief Counsel for Voting Rights at Southern Coalition for Social Justice (representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit). “But that’s precisely what this new same-day registration scheme does, by taking control out of the hands of the voter and leaving the fate of their ballot to the whims of election officials and the US Postal Service.”
After both chambers of the NC legislature passed SB 747 on August 17th, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the measure. Republican lawmakers in both the state House and Senate then overrode Cooper’s veto on October 10th, spurring the lawsuits on the same day.
Gov. Cooper has also filed suit against SB 512, which would take the governor's appointment powers to state and local election boards, giving those powers to state lawmakers. Cooper called the bill “a blatantly unconstitutional power grab.”
It’s likely all of the separate legal actions against SB 747 will be consolidated into one federal lawsuit in the near future. Again, the hope is that a federal judge will issue a temporary injunction stopping implementation of SB 747 before the 2024 elections.
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