Supreme Court strikes down two N.C. districts

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck down two congressional districts in North Carolina on Monday because race played too large a role in their creation, a decision voting rights advocates said would boost challenges in other states.

The justices ruled that Republicans who controlled the state legislature and governor’s office in 2011 placed too many African-Americans in the two districts. The result was to weaken AfricanAmerican voting strength elsewhere in North Carolina.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has ruled for civil rights groups and black voters in challenges to political districts in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia.

A Democratic group led by former Attorney General Eric Holder is focusing on redistricting challenges to counter political gains Republicans have made since the 2010 census and the redrawing of electoral districts that followed. Marc Elias, who argued the North Carolina case and is a senior adviser to Holder’s group, said the ruling “will serve as a warning to Republicans not just in North Carolina but throughout the country that their cynical efforts to use race will not go unchallenged.”

In North Carolina, both districts have since been redrawn and the state conducted elections under the new congressional map in 2016. Even with the new districts, Republicans maintained their 10-3 edge in congressional seats.

New challenges have been filed to the redrawn districts, this time claiming that politics played too much of a role in their creation. The Supreme Court has never ruled that a partisan gerrymander violates the Constitution.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, said the state did not offer compelling justifications to justify its reliance on race in either district.

The issue of race and redistricting is a familiar one at the Supreme Court and Kagan noted that one of the districts was “making its fifth(!) appearance before this court.”

States have to take race into account when drawing maps for legislative, congressional and a host of municipal political districts. At the same time, race can’t be the predominant factor without very strong reasons, under a line of high court cases stretching back 20 years.