Justices block NC House districts

State lawmakers used race to draw lines, ruling finds

USA TODAY WASHINGTON The Supreme Court ruled Monday that racial considerations pervaded the way North Carolina lawmakers drew congressional maps after the 2010 Census in order to maximize Republicans’ advantage.

The 5-3 ruling, written by Justice Elena Kagan, was the latest in a series of decisions by the justices against the excessive use of race in redistricting, the decennial process of drawing new district lines for Congress and state legislatures. Justice Clarence Thomas joined the court’s four liberal justices.

The high court in March demanded additional lower-court review of 11 Virginia Legislature districts that Republicans designed with at least 55 percent black voting-age populations. That came after a decision against Alabama’s state legislative districts in 2015.

The North Carolina ruling upheld a federal district court decision that struck down the state’s 1st and 12th congressional districts because state lawmakers had packed black voters into them, thereby minimizing the influence of African-American voters in other districts. Kagan said the 1st District “produced boundaries amplifying divisions between blacks and whites,” while in the 12th, “race, not politics, accounted for the district’s reconfiguration.”

Justice Samuel Alito dissented on the 12th District, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. They agreed with state officials that the district was drawn to help Republicans, not to disenfranchise black voters. The high court has never struck down political maps drawn to help one party, though a case from Wisconsin is likely to offer a new test next year.

“Partisan gerrymandering is always unsavory, but that is not the issue here,” Alito wrote. “So long as the legislature chose to retain the basic shape of District 12 and to increase the number of Democrats in the district, it was inevitable that the Democrats brought in would be disproportionately black.”

Alito also criticized the majority decision for failing to stand by a 2001 case in which the high court upheld a similar configuration for that district.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that states draw districts enabling AfricanAmericans to elect their chosen representatives, lest black voters be spread too thinly across district lines. Two decades ago, Democrats used the law to demand so-called majority-minority districts.