North Carolina gerrymander ruling gives electoral gift to GOP in Congress
A North Carolina redistricting ruling has set up a possible electoral windfall for congressional Republicans in preserving their U.S. House majority next year, declaring that judges should stay out of scrutinizing seat boundaries for partisan advantage.
While Democrats only need to flip five GOP seats overall to regain control, experts say the state Supreme Court decision means four Democratic incumbents in the state — three of them first-term members — are vulnerable.
Meanwhile, litigation involving congressional maps in states such as Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Ohio and Texas could also rework district lines and alter the 2024 electoral map.
The legal guardrails on redistricting are in an unusual state of flux. State and federal courts both were active in striking down congressional maps during the most recent bonanza of redrawing legislative lines based on once-a-decade
census data. Additional action by the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming weeks could spark new challenges and redrawn maps.
North Carolina's highest court, chosen through partisan elections, flipped to Republican in November. That new Republican majority in late April threw out a 2022 Democratic ruling against partisan gerrymandering, saying the state constitution did not limit the practice.
The state's map, created after last year's court decision, was used last fall, when voters elected seven
Democrats and seven Republicans. North Carolina's statewide races are routinely close, with voter registrations roughly in thirds among Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated residents. Just four years earlier, Republicans had won comfortably 10 of the 13 House seats in the country's ninth-largest state.
Freed from the Democratic constraints, the General Assembly — also controlled by Republicans — plans to redraw those districts by before the 2024 elections.
“It's a signal to the Republican
supermajority that within some boundaries they can draw the maps they want,” said Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political science professor. “The Republicans don't have a blank check, but there's a lot in the bank account.”
While North Carolina Republicans don't have details yet on what the new maps will look like, House Speaker Tim Moore said after last year's elections that “7-7 does not reflect the will of the voters in North Carolina.” A map approved by Republicans in 2021, but never implemented because it was struck down, would have given the GOP a strong chance to win 10 seats. North Carolina gained a 14th seat this decade thanks to population growth.
The North Carolina ruling “could have an enormous impact on the control of the House,” said Dave Wasserman, an editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. A map that tears up the districts of at least four Democrats “would effectively double the Republican cushion” ahead of next year, he said.