(Headline USA) North Carolina lawmakers found themselves once again seeking intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as left-wing activists, Democrat operatives and partisan judges colluded to force a redrawing of the state-approved congressional map.
“The N.C. Supreme Court’s decision to tread over the work of the state’s legislature was motivated by the court’s assessment of social science offerings that, when placed under any modicum of scrutiny, do not, and cannot, show that North Carolina’s congressional districts ‘were intentionally constructed to yield a consistent partisan advantage for Republicans,’” said the brief filed by lawmakers.
The case mirrors a similar ordeal that the GOP-led legislature endured following its effort to draw the maps after the 2010 Census. That resulted in several trips to the high court, which ruled that racial gerrymandering violated federal law but left partisan gerrymandering to the discretion of the states.
In anticipation of another challenge, state Republicans sought to open up the process and solicit bipartisan opinions. Nonetheless, activists pre-emptively filed lawsuits and left the split decision to Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, a former left-wing activist who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Eric Holder-led National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
The NDRC-backed activists are now urging the Supreme Court to reject a GOP effort to block the congressional district map drawn by state judges, which would likely give Democrats at least one additional House seat in 2023.
GOP legislative leaders filed their emergency request last Friday with Chief Justice John Roberts asking that the court set aside the new map while they seek to challenge the ability of the state’s judiciary to adjust the lines in light of the U.S. Constitution.
They say the delay should be granted because the Constitution directs state lawmakers to determine how U.S. House elections are held.
“The United States Constitution is clear—state legislatures, not state judges, are responsible for setting the rules governing elections,” said NC House Speaker Tim Moore in a statement.
“By striking the General Assembly’s congressional map and redrawing their own, with the help of Democrat partisans, the courts have, once again, violated the separation of powers,” Moore continued. “This effort to circumvent the elected representatives of the people will not stand.”
A three-person panel of activist judges adopted congressional boundaries last week that weren’t enacted by the state House and Senate.
The judges claimed changes were necessary because lines approved by the legislature in mid-February had failed to meet the standards for partisan fairness that the state Supreme Court says is required.
The state justices set those qualifications after declaring that lines drawn by the Republican-controlled General Assembly in November were illegal partisan gerrymanders favoring the GOP in most every political circumstance to win 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats.
Before a Wednesday afternoon deadline, the plaintiffs in lawsuits that led to the gerrymandering declarations wrote that for over 100 years the U.S. Supreme Court has held that nothing in the Constitution “alters a state court’s unreviewable authority to invalidate a congressional districting plan that violates a state’s constitution.”
The GOP’s arguments, if accepted, would essentially overturn a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared state constitutions and courts had authority to rein in maps determined to be too partisan, the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
In reality, the 2019 ruling merely determined that the federal courts lacked that authority and did not specifically confer it onto state courts.
Republicans also want the U.S. Supreme Court to block the partisan state Supreme Court’s rulings invalidating their original congressional map.
“Even an emergency stay on the basis of their theory would call into doubt dozens of state constitutional provisions regulating congressional elections, causing chaos across the country in the runup to the 2022 elections,” wrote Abha Khanna, an attorney for the left-wing activists.
GOP lawmakers now get one more chance with written arguments.
There’s no word on when the court will rule, but candidate filing for North Carolina’s May 17 primaries ends at noon Friday.
Justices in the past have been wary of getting involved in state elections when an election season is already underway.
In their own filing, government attorneys for the State Board of Elections, also a partisan institution, asked the justices to stick to this principle now. They claimed a delay at this date would jeopardize the orderly administration of this year’s elections.
The elections board was a defendant in the lawsuits. All primaries in North Carolina already have been delayed once from March 8 by the state Supreme Court, so redistricting litigation could go to trial.
A delay, wrote lawyer Zach Schauf for the plaintiff North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, would likely push back the primary further, likely requiring a redo of candidate filings.
The Republicans “make an 11th-hour request to throw North Carolina’s elections into disarray,” Schauf claimed, despite the fact that it was the activist efforts delaying the election. “And it could condemn millions of North Carolinians to voting under maps that violate the state constitution.”
Eight of North Carolina’s 13 current U.S. House seats are held by Republicans. The state will receive an additional seat with the 2022 elections thanks to population growth. North Carolina is closely divided when it comes to statewide elections.
The redistricting map adopted by the trial judges appears to give Democrats a good chance to win a sixth seat, with Republicans in a strong position to win seven seats. One district is a likely toss-up.
In adopting its own map, the trial panel rejected a remedial map of House seats created by the legislature that would have created four very competitive districts, with Republicans in good shape to win six of the remaining seats.
The Republican National Committee pledged its support for the state legislators in fighting back the duplicitous effort to deliver Democrats an electoral advantage.
“The RNC is glad to join with the NRCC and NCGOP to ensure that North Carolina’s redistricting process proceeds in a constitutional manner,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
“North Carolina’s courts are engaged in judicial activism and attempting to undermine the North Carolina legislature’s constitutional authority to draw congressional maps,” she continued. “This is yet another example of the RNC’s extensive commitment to fighting key legal battles to protect every aspect of the election process.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
