NC’s GOP-drawn maps were struck down last decade. What to watch as new process starts
Redistricting in North Carolina starts up in earnest this week.
It can be a tricky topic to wrap one’s head around at time, with lots of maps and numbers, but it has massive implications for the future of political power in North Carolina.
Here is a snapshot of what you need to know as it begins.
How does redistricting work?
State lawmakers are going to start drawing new political maps for North Carolina to use in elections for Congress and the N.C. General Assembly. Unless courts strike them down, this will be it for the next decade: Whatever districts are drawn in the coming days will be used through the 2030 elections.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is forbidden from vetoing the maps, under a constitutional amendment creating the veto that Democrats wrote in the 1990s when they were in power, so this year the Republican-led legislature has wide latitude to draw the maps however it wants.
That process began Tuesday, with meetings in which legislators addressed some preliminary questions. The maps themselves could start coming together as soon as Wednesday, said Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat who is one of her party’s leading voices in redistricting in the House.
In the Senate, lawmakers gathered Tuesday morning to take a look at 16 possible maps of different county groupings, which would then be divided up into anywhere from one to six seats depending on the population in each grouping.
A debate erupted almost immediately over race, and how much attention lawmakers should pay to it. Republicans previously approved rules that no one may use either political or racial data when drawing maps. But Democrats said the Voting Rights Act requires the state to ensure Black representation, and that they need racial data to do that.
Sen. Ben Clark, a Black Democrat who represents Raeford and parts of Fayetteville, asked several times for GOP leaders to reconsider their stance and allow the lawmakers to look at data like where Black voters live.
Numerous other Democratic senators also spoke up in agreement. All said the maps will likely be found unconstitutional if they pass without consideration of racial data. But Republicans said they didn’t think it was necessary.
With that settled, GOP leaders said lawmakers of either party can draw maps for consideration as long as they do so at a public computer at the legislature. Then they will vote in two weeks, or possibly a little longer.
Those public computers will likely be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until the vote, said Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican from Spruce Pine who leads the redistricting committee.
“Happy drawing,” he said.
Why redistricting matters to North Carolina
Republicans have another huge opportunity to draw themselves favorable seats that could solidify their control over the legislature here in North Carolina, as well as help their party take back the U.S. House of Representatives.
But the last decade also saw the GOP get into trouble in court for drawing what courts said were unconstitutional maps that disenfranchised Black voters, followed by a new set of maps, also deemed unconstitutional, that disenfranchised Democrats more broadly. So as these new maps come together, outside observers plan to watch carefully.
Recently the legislature held a number of public hearings across the state, in which lawmakers of both parties were on hand to get feedback about what people wanted to see in the new maps. At some of the hearings, Black residents and community leaders showed up to demand better this time around.
“We need to feel we can trust what you’re doing,” Vicki Parker, the executive director of the North Carolina Business Council, said during the hearing in Durham, the NC Insider reported last month. “And right now that trust isn’t there.”
What did I miss?
Historically, redistricting has been the quintessential example of deals made in a smoke-filled back room, far away from the view of the public. But that changed in 2019 due to a court ruling that mandated new levels of transparency, like letting the media and the public in the rooms where maps were being drawn and negotiations were taking place.
And the Republican lawmakers in charge have pledged to keep those transparency reforms in place in 2021, even though they aren’t required to.
But critics have said that’s barely a start toward the reforms they want to see. Legislative leaders chose not to embrace more sweeping changes, like an independent commission. And that decision could all-but-guarantee a lawsuit against North Carolina again, whenever the new maps are passed.
For instance, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder now leads a redistricting reform group. That group backed two successful anti-gerrymandering lawsuits in North Carolina in 2019. And earlier this year, in a speech at the UNC School of Law, Holder basically promised that someone would sue again unless the legislature made big changes — which never happened.
“North Carolina really is, in some ways, ground zero for partisan and racial gerrymandering,” Holder said in February, The News & Observer reported. “And the only way, I think, to crack that which is happening in North Carolina is through the courts, and use those decisions to get a more fair congressional delegation from North Carolina.”
How can I be heard?
Lawmakers have not yet said whether they plan to hold any public hearings once the maps are out, although that was a popular request from many of the people who came to speak at the hearings last month.
Members of the public can come to the Legislative Building in downtown Raleigh to watch the process play out in person, though, or can livestream it on the legislature’s website.
People who weren’t able to make the September public hearings — or who did but have more to say — can also leave a written public comment for the official record. Anyone who wants to provide a potential map for lawmakers to look at can also sign up for a slot to come into the legislature and use the official redistricting computer to make a map as part of the public record.
All of that information, plus more, is available at ncleg.gov/Redistricting.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
