N.C. may have to redraw districts

A panel of three federal judges held Monday that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans over Democrats and said it may require new districts before the November elections, possibly affecting control of the House.

The judges acknowledged that primary elections have already produced candidates for the 2018 elections but said they were reluctant to let voting take place in congressional districts that courts twice have found violate constitutional standards.

North Carolina legislators are likely to ask the Supreme Court to step in. The court traditionally does not approve of judicial actions that can affect an election so close to the day voters go to the polls.

But the Supreme Court has just eight members since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement last month; a tie vote would leave the lower court’s decision in place. Senate hearings on President Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the open seat, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, commence Tuesday.

The North Carolina case is a long-running saga, with a federal court in 2016 striking down the legislature’s 2011 map as a racial gerrymander. The legislature then passed a plan that left essentially the same districts in place but said lawmakers were motivated by politics, not race.

The Supreme Court has never found that a state’s redistricting was so infected with politics that it was unconstitutional. This past term, it passed up the chance to do so with cases from Wisconsin and Maryland, disposing of them without deciding the merits.

The North Carolina case presented a stark example of partisan intent, with legislators making clear that the map was drawn to help one party over another.