On Friday, the North Carolina State Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that upheld the legislature’s 2021 congressional and state legislative maps against both racial and partisan gerrymandering claims. The court ordered the General Assembly to submit remedial maps for review to the trial court on or before Feb. 18 at 5:00 p.m. The trial court must approve or adopt compliant congressional and state legislative districting plans no later than noon on Feb. 23 2022. Read the Order.
The State Supreme Court accepted and agreed with the trial court’s assessment that the maps were a partisan gerrymander. The difference in the decision outcomes (between the trial court and the state supreme court) rested in part, on how political party affiliation should be treated under the North Carolina constitution. The trial court decided that party affiliation was not protected under the state constitution, despite acknowledging that in 2019, that same court applied the state’s Equal Protection clause to strike down a 2017 redistricting plan (Common Cause v. Lewis).
The current trial court reasoned that “plaintiffs are not part of a suspect class,” and noted that plaintiffs “cite[d] no appellate case where a person’s membership in a political party is a suspect classification.” Viewing membership in a political party as a suspect classification would have placed the burden on the defendants to prove the map was not an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. Compare this to the State Supreme Court’s characterization of political party membership below:
“The fundamental right to vote includes the right to enjoy “substantially equal voting power and substantially equal legislative representation.” When, on the basis of partisanship, the General Assembly enacts a districting plan that diminishes or dilutes a voter’s opportunity to aggregate with like-minded voters to elect a governing majority-that is, when a districting plan systematically makes it harder for one group of voters to elect a governing majority than another group of voters of equal size-the General Assembly unconstitutionally infringes upon that voter’s fundamental right to vote.
Here, the trial court specifically found that the General Assembly diminished and diluted the voting power of voters affiliated with one party on the basis of party affiliation. Such a plan is subject to strict scrutiny and is unconstitutional unless the General Assembly can demonstrate that the plan is “narrowly tailored to advance a compelling governmental interest. Achieving partisan advantage incommensurate with a political party’s level of statewide voter support is neither a compelling nor a legitimate governmental interest.”
Read the Complaint
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