Growth may dilute partisan districts

North Carolina’s Republican legislators showed impressive gerrymandering power by turning redistricting over to experts armed with computer mapping software.

The resulting maps so tilted the political landscape that Republican control appears insurmountable. The maps flipped the state’s congressional delegation from a 7-6 Democratic to 10-3 Republican. In the General Assembly, the new lines welded into place the GOP’s veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate.

But now come numbers that suggests the jig may soon be up for Republican gerrymandering. Rebecca Tippett, director of Carolina Demography at the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, says seven North Carolina counties are among the fastest-growing in the country while 48 of the 100 counties lost population. The split reflects growth in urban areas and shrinking population in rural counties. That means that political mapmakers may find their lines obsolete well before the next redistricting.

Mark Nance, a political scientist at N.C. State University, says, “This spells trouble for politicians who see gerrymandering as their primary electoral strategy.”

It may also spell hope for those who want redistricting taken out of the hands of lawmakers and turned over to nonpartisan staff or an independent commission. New lines are drawn every 10 years following the national census. The next count is in 2020.

GOP leaders may realize that it would be best to make that change now. It could help their party more than sticking with partisan redistricting whose advantage evaporates as the state’s demographics rapidly shift.

This story was originally published April 20, 2016 at 6:47 PM with the headline "Growth may dilute partisan districts."