High court ruling may give voter rights groups a strong tool

North Carolina lawmakers had drawn district lines such that District one and District 12 had increases of voting-age African-Americans by four percentage points and seven percentage points, respectively.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature relied on racial gerrymandering when drawing the state’s congressional districts, a decision that could make it easier to challenge other state redistricting plans. With the second district, the state argued that increasing of the number of eligible black voters was motivated not by race but by purely partisan considerations.

With a trial on the maps set to begin July 10 in San Antonio, the judges set an aggressive schedule – wanting to know Abbott’s thoughts by Friday, while giving lawyers two weeks to chew over the ramifications of a significant Supreme Court ruling on race and politics.

A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, November 15, 2016. Adding more black voters to the district, she wrote, amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The ruling was praised by Democrats like former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder and trashed by former George W. Bush administration Republicans like Hans von Spakovsky. States are generally not allowed to use race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines. Instead, the state argued that Republicans who controlled the redistricting process wanted to leave the district in Democratic hands, so that the surrounding districts would be safer for Republicans. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit previously found that the same body created voter ID laws that targeted Blacks with “almost surgical precision“. Lawmakers are required to consider race when drawing legislative lines so that minorities have a chance to elect candidates of their choice when the numbers are there. “However, race can be one of many factors in making redistricting decisions”. Because those districts were already redrawn for the 2016 election, the ruling doesn’t require immediate changes from North Carolina.

Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote on his blog: “This decision by Justice [Elena] Kagan is a major victory for voting rights plaintiffs, who have succeeded in turning the racial gerrymandering cause of action into an effective tool to go after partisan gerrymanders in southern states”. Alito’s dissent said this outcome was the political spoil of winning before redrawing lines for a decade.

“The Constitution entrusts States with the job of designing congressional districts”, wrote Justice Elena Kagan for the court.

Conservative Clarence Thomas, the court’s only black justice, joined the court’s majority in both parts of the ruling. The newest addition to the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch, did not participate in the case because he was not on the bench when arguments were heard. But for now, more than a half-dozen years after Republicans in North Carolina brazenly grabbed more state and federal power, the prospect of that state emerging as politically purple is more tangible. Since then it has faulted some Republican redistricting efforts for racial reasons.

As we have noted, some recent losses for Republicans have concerned redistricting (as in Texas) and others have included voter-ID requirements.

The justices on March 1 ordered a lower court to reassess whether Virginia’s Republican-led legislature unlawfully tried to dilute the power of black voters. The justices threw out a decision that had upheld all 12 state legislature districts that were challenged.

U.S. Rep. Alma Adams of Charlotte, in a statement Monday, called on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act.

The suit stemmed from the officials’ redrawing of two congressional districts following the 2010 census.