Fight over House map risks chaos in N.C.

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republicans plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to “step in” and preserve the state’s congressional map ahead of November’s midterm elections after a lower court ruled Monday that the current map is unconstitutional.

“What the court suggests is simply impossible,” state House Speaker Tim Moore and state Senate President Phil Berger said in a statement Tuesday. The two said they are “not aware of any other time in the history of our country that a state’s congressional delegation could not be seated, and the result would be unmitigated chaos and irreparable voter confusion.”

That confusion is the result of a lawsuit brought by voting advocates against the GOPdominated General Assembly over maps that the court ruled disenfranchise Democrats.

In a 2-1 decision written by Judge James Wynn Jr., the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the map’s partisan slant violated the First Amendment and the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

“The Constitution does not allow elected officials to enact laws that distort the marketplace of political ideas so as to intentionally favor certain political beliefs, parties or candidates and disfavor others,” Wynn wrote.

The Republican-drawn maps, which have created a 10-3 Republican delegation in a state that voted for President Donald Trump by just 2.6 percentage points, have been challenged in court multiple times this decade. In 2016, courts forced Republicans to tweak the map after determining that their redistricting commission had discriminated against black voters.

The new lawsuit was brought by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, nonpartisan groups that have rallied against maps that pack voters into gerrymandered districts.