On November 1st, the U.S. Justice Department approved North Carolina’s new voting maps, further validating a redistricting proposal passed by a Republican-led legislature back in July. Within a few days, several lawsuits were filed, primarily charging that these proposed boundaries needlessly split hundreds of voting precincts, and illegally clustered African-American voters. An analysis, illustrating the impact of this redistricting, was performed Dr.J.Michael Bitzer, Associate Professor of Politics and History at Catawba College.
William Barber, President of the North Carolina NAACP, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, was one of many critics alleging that the maps would essentially accomplish a re-segregation of North Carolina. I asked Democrat Joe Hackney, Minority Leader of the North Carolina House of Representatives, his thoughts on these changes. “Oh, it’s no question that it re-segregates population,” Hackney told me. “In fact,” he said, “they split precincts in order to pack black voters into as few districts as possible, so that African-Americans are simply segregated off from the rest of the population for voting purposes.”
Democracy North Carolina, another plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, promotes this educational video, found on the Propublica website, addressing the redistricting abuse called out by Representative Hackney:
Contention over redistricting maps is nothing new. As in other states, the districts in North Carolina elect members to the state’s House and Senate, and to the U.S. House. To ensure equal representation, districts are redrawn after every census. Given that the census occurs only once every ten years, the majority party at the time of redistricting can have a significant impact over the next decade of elections.
North Carolina State Republican Senator Jim Davis provided some context. “Historically, in our state government, in every state, the party in charge gets to draw the lines.” Davis went on to describe the challenges within the process. “We have constitutional issues in North Carolina, where we want to keep whole counties whole. We have to deal with the Voting Rights Act, and with judge’s decisions, yet balance all of those issues in drawing districts, keeping them within a certain percentage of the population.” Concerning the Republicans being the majority this time around, Davis told me, “Of course, every time that a party is charged with doing this, they are going to do their best to draw it to their own advantage, and that’s what the Republicans have done this time, while keeping them (the districts) fair and legal. The fact that the Democrats are unhappy with that is no big surprise. I mean, the Republicans were unhappy with it every time the Democrats would do it, so, that’s not news. That’s just the way it is.”
Representative Hackney doesn’t disagree that parties benefit from being in the majority, but he sees this situation as more than that. “A little partisanship is to be expected in the redistricting process,” Hackney admits. “The question is whether you followed the law or not. Partisanship is not illegal, but using race is illegal. Packing is illegal. I think splitting of precincts, to the degree they did it, very well may be illegal, and, of course, there’s the whole county provision, which is the result of the Stephenson decision in North Carolina Supreme Court, and they didn’t comply with that either. So, they can do partisan redistricting, but they can’t ignore the rules.”
These conflicting opinions on the legality of the voting maps are exactly what these latest lawsuits will tackle. I asked Jane Pinsky, Director of The North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform, what she thought the ideal outcome from these suits would be for Democrats. “Well, the Democrats think the ideal outcome is obviously to have this bounced to the courts or back to the General Assembly. They probably would prefer that it gets bounced back to the courts, in the hopes that the courts would draw districts they like better.” Representative Hackney agrees that an outcome ideal for Democrats would be for the maps to be “set aside and the legislation instructed to do them correctly.”
I asked Senator Davis about all of this criticism of the proposed redistricting. “Well, look at the last 140 years,” Davis stressed. “They (the Democrats) did it every time. This is the only time the Republicans have been in charge for 140 years.” Davis once again called the proposed district lines “fair and legal”, and pointed out that they were past the first big hurdle, being signed off by a “first ruling from the Justice Department, Obama’s Justice Department, actually.” Davis doesn’t rule out any potential outcome from the courts. “Democrats are not going to be happy with them until they get to draw them again. Ten years ago, the Republicans sued the Democrats, and there were some changes made later. Maybe they’ll do it this time,” Davis permits. “I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. You know, we can’t predict what judges are going to do.”
Jane Pinsky wonders how we might end this cycle of partisanship and legal maneuvering. “In the long-term, the coalition that I work with thinks that the only answer is to find a very different way of doing redistricting,” Pinsky says, but she knows we aren’t there yet. “I think, right now, the lawsuits are the only route available to the minority party. The Republicans used the same route when they were the minority party, but long-term the only thing that’s going to make it work is to totally change the system.” She points out that the process itself can be as troublesome as the results. “The system we have now takes a long time. On average, it has taken us six to nine years to complete redistricting,” she says. “The 2000 redistricting was not completed until the court decision in 2009, and it costs us a fortune to do that. It leads to uncertainty, which, in my mind, leads to people not wanting to vote.”
Pinsky tells me the legislature will probably do more on redistricting as soon as they’re back at the end of November. It does sound, however, as if this redistricting fight in North Carolina may have only just begun…again.
Thanks to:
Representative Joe Hackney (D)
Senator Jim Davis (R)
Jane Pinsky, Director: NC Coalition for Lobbying & Government Reform
The following persons did not return my calls:
Senator Malcolm Graham (D)
Representative Grier Martin (D)
Representative John Blust (R)
The following persons could not be reached for comment:
Professor Michael Bitzer, Department of History and Politics: Catawba College
Senator David Lewis (R)
Representative Marvin Lucas (D)
Representative Ruth Samuelson (R)
Bob Hall, Executive Director: Democracy North Carolina
The following script and questions were used in my conversations with the sources quoted in this post:
1) Almost immediately after the justice department approved these maps last week, the focus shifted to a software problem and errors that left thousands of census blocks out of the legislation. To correct these issues, legislation was passed this week. I read there were five different bills passed providing corrective actions (albeit, passed with everyone voting along party lines.) However, Democrats were stressing earlier this week that it wasn’t just the software issue that made the maps unconstitutional. They also claimed any proposed fix to these errors that didn’t go as far as starting the whole redistricting process over from scratch would also be unconstitutional. It really sounded like Democrats were seeing this software error as a nearly unfixable problem. Do you think they’ll now be OK with these approved fixes? Do they have any recourse after this, or do you think this part of the redistricting discussion is over?
2) Beyond this problem with the software and the errors, there has been considerable Democratic objection to these maps since they were first proposed back in July. Now that the maps were approved by Justice last week, several lawsuits have been filed, charging that these now approved boundaries will result in re-segregation, through the clustering of black voters. It’s calculated that black voters under these changes are 50 percent more likely to live in a split precinct than white voters. What do you think will be the result of these lawsuits? What would be the ideal outcome for Democrats?
3) The back and forth that’s been happening had Republicans claiming the maps are the way they are because of their being obliged to adhere to the Voting Rights Act, while Democrats accused Republicans of hiding behind the act for their own benefit. Looking at this from the outside, it does seem that Republicans are using their majority and the parts of the system to gain an advantage in future elections, but it’s also hard to imagine that Democrats wouldn’t also do something similar given the opportunity. Even here, if Democrats were to get their way, they wouldn’t just be stopping what they see as illegal redistricting, they’d also be succeeding in keeping things as they are, by continuing with the maps that more favor their party. These political maps have such long-term consequences. It’s like a Supreme Court Justice appointment, where one act by the party in power can wield quite a lasting influence. Is redistricting just one of those “to the victor belongs the spoils” realities of our system, which the minority party just needs to accept whenever the shoes on the other foot?
Fact-Checking
Facts were checked using historical redistricting and legal information provided on the North Carolina General Assembly Website, and the redistricting data compiled by Dr.J.Michael Bitzer, Associate Professor of Politics and History: Catawba College.
Potentially Written For
Websites for major North Carolina newspapers, such as:
The News and Observer
The Charlotte Observer
