A group of state Senate and House Democrats held a news conference this afternoon to criticize the Republican-drawn redistricting maps, saying the proposals amounted to resegregation of black voters.
“They have really just emasculated the black community in this state, and they ought to be ashamed of it,” said Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat. “… The bottom line is they don’t care. All they want is the power.”
Forty-seven percent of the state's black population would be confined to three congressional districts, and about half of the black population would be confined to 11 of the 50 state senate districts and to 27 of the 120 House districts, Democrats said.
Senate Democratic Leader Martin Nesbitt of Buncombe County and House Minority Leader Joe Hackney of Chapel Hill said the new GOP districts for Congress and General Assembly make for intentionally lopsided representation after decades of fair play and gains for African-American voters.
“The plan that’s been developed undoes that in an effort to secure near complete political control of North Carolina,” Hackney said. “By resegregating black voters, they maximize Republican districts.”
Sen. Dan Blue, a Raleigh Democrat, said Wake County would be in congressional districts with about 40 counties, stretching illogically across the state.
“From a geographical standpoint, that is absurd,” Blue said. “But from the standpoint of them willing to do that just to accomplish this re-segregation, if you will – and there’s no other way to describe it – should be criminal.”
Nesbitt criticized the plan to put the liberal stronghold of Asheville into a district with Gaston County.
“They don’t care what happens in Gaston County,” Nesbitt said. “They care what happens in the mountains up there.”
He said it disenfranchises the small but effective black voting black there, and is typical of the Republican statewide approach.
“They have reached in and gotten the minority population and either packed them into districts where they’re not needed because they’re already electing minority members, or packed them somewhere where they don’t matter. One is just as bad as the other.”
There was no immediate response from the Republican leadership. A series of public hearings on redistricting were also being held around the state this afternoon and evening.
