In win for Republicans, North Carolina court says gerrymandering is legal

On Friday, North Carolina’s top court ruled that politicians can draw congressional and state legislative lines for partisan gain, bolstering Republicans’ chances of keeping their thin House majority next year.

The verdict overturned the court’s prior ruling that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution, given less than a year earlier by liberal judges.

A Republican-drawn congressional map that would have given them 11 of the state’s 14 seats was thrown out by that verdict. Under a court-approved redistricting, Republicans and Democrats shared November’s seats equally.

The same election gave Republicans a 5-2 conservative majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court by flipping two Democratic seats. The new majority reheard the redistricting issue at Republican lawmakers’ request in February, a rare move for the court.

The Republican-controlled legislature could gain four seats in the 2024 elections after Friday’s party-line verdict. Democrats have 213 seats, while Republicans have 222.

In a 146-page judgment, Chief Justice Paul Newby highlighted that the U.S. Supreme Court had similarly determined that federal courts have no power to examine partisan gerrymandering.

“Our constitution expressly assigns the redistricting authority to the General Assembly subject to explicit limitations in the text,” wrote Newby for the majority. “Those limitations don’t address partisan gerrymandering.”

In a stinging dissent, Democratic Justice Anita Earls accused the court’s conservatives of pursuing their own political agenda at the expense of voters’ rights, calling it one of the court’s “darkest moments.”

“Today, the Court shows that its will is more powerful than North Carolina’s voters,” she wrote.

In line 4, the court decided to rehear the case in February, not January.