Political gerrymandering of election districts is wrong regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats do it.
When the majority party uses its power to attempt to solidify that power, it disenfranchises voters who don’t belong to that party. Party primaries, rather than general elections, determine the winners, creating more entrenched partisanship and removing any incentives for both parties to work together.
These are some of the reasons that North Carolina should appoint an independent, nonpartisan commission to draw voting maps for Congress and the General Assembly, as Republican N.C. Rep. Chuck McGrady advocated in 2015. Such measures have in the past made it through the state House of Representatives, only to die in the Senate.
But a federal judicial decision this week should light new fire under North Carolina lawmakers to stop mapping themselves, and their congressional counterparts, into “safe” districts where the opposition stands no chance of winning.
Federal judges ruled Tuesday that the state’s congressional district map drawn by legislative Republicans is illegally gerrymandered because of excessive partisanship that gave the Republican Party a rock-solid advantage for most seats, The Associated Press reported. The three federal judges ruled that the maps must be redrawn by Jan. 24.
Republican leaders in the General Assembly plan to appeal the decision. Some will argue that the judges’ decision should be set aside until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on cases involving gerrymandered districts elsewhere.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in the fall over partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin state legislative districts and could rule in coming months. The high court also agreed to hear a Maryland case over partisanship in that state’s congressional map.
A Supreme Court ruling could change the way electoral districts are drawn around the country. However, given the poor track record of court challenges involving election maps in North Carolina, this would be a good time to revive efforts to draw election maps based on factors such as geographic contiguity rather than partisan advantage.
Tuesday’s decision marks the second time this decade that the GOP's congressional boundaries in the state have been thrown out by a three-judge panel. In 2016, another panel tossed out two majority black congressional districts initially drawn in 2011, saying there was no justification for using race as the predominant factor in forming them. The redrawn map was the basis for a new round of lawsuits.
The latest lawsuit — filed by election advocacy groups and Democrats — stated that the replacement for the racial gerrymander also contained unlawful partisan gerrymanders. Tuesday's ruling marks the first time a congressional plan was struck down on partisan gerrymandering claims, said Allison Riggs, an attorney representing the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and other plaintiffs.
The judges ordered the General Assembly to approve another set of districts by Jan. 24. GOP leaders say that is impractical given the restrictions of the ruling.
Maybe so, but they should get started developing a better system — one that allow voters to choose their politicians instead of the other way around.