KAREN HOBERT FLYNN: Movement to end gerrymandering flowing swiftly into North Carolina

There is a growing movement for fair representation across the country that is swiftly making its way to North Carolina.

Like North Carolina, Pennsylvania is a swing state with a lopsided congressional delegation favoring one party despite votes for U.S. House that are split nearly evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans have won 13 of Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts in each of the three elections that have occurred since legislators redrew Pennsylvania’s map in 2011. This closely mirrors the skewed districts in North Carolina in which Republicans won nine of 13 districts in 2012 and 10 of 13 in both 2014 and 2016.

The Pennsylvania decision is the latest signal that courts now understand that they must intervene in gerrymandering cases because self-interested legislators have no interest in fixing the problem. Just in the last four years, trial courts and the highest court in the land have struck down numerous maps as unconstitutional partisan and racial gerrymanders. In Whitford v. Gill, a federal three-judge district court panel ruled for the first time in U.S. history that a single-member district map violated the U.S. Constitution due to partisan manipulation.

Just last month, a separate three-judge panel here in North Carolina struck down the state’s congressional map as a partisan gerrymander that violates the U.S. Constitution, the first-ever such ruling impacting U.S. House districts. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Whitford in October and is likely to hear the North Carolina cases, Common Cause v. Rucho and League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho, later this year.

The Supreme Court also surprised court watchers by agreeing to hear Benisek v. Lamone, a challenge to a Democratic gerrymander in Maryland, which strongly suggests that the high court intends to issue a landmark ruling on partisan gerrymandering this year.

It would be offensive to North Carolinians’ fundamental rights if the General Assembly was content to manipulate only congressional districts. Unfortunately, the legislature’s abysmal record when it comes to redistricting would make Pennsylvania legislators blush. Let’s review that record. The following statewide maps that North Carolina General Assembly has drawn have been struck down as violations of fundamental constitutional rights: their own districts (illegal racial gerrymander), congressional districts drawn in 2011 (illegal racial gerrymander), and congressional districts drawn in 2016 to replace the racial gerrymander (illegal partisan gerrymander).

The General Assembly also took extreme partisanship to new levels by gerrymandering local districts due to fear that Democrats would take control. Their partisan gerrymanders of the Wake County Board of Supervisors, Wake County School Board, and City of Greensboro were all struck down as violations of Fourteenth Amendment equal protection. In every case, citizens took a stand, sued, and won.

By late June, the Supreme Court will issue decisions in both the Wisconsin and Maryland partisan gerrymandering cases that could end or set some limit on the practice for the first time in American history. Such success in court does not happen without public action that forces the judiciary to look at our democracy in a new light.

In response, Americans across the country are organizing ballot initiatives, attending rallies, calling legislators, showing up to committee hearings, and getting active in numerous ways to demand fair representation. Just this week, the gathering of 200,000 signatures for the Fair Districts = Fair Elections ballot initiative in Ohio pressured legislators there to pass a strong alternative redistricting reform proposal.

In North Carolina, the bipartisan End Gerrymandering Now coalition has brought together unusual partners from the right, left, and center to demand change. Voters and judges are taking notice and together we are building the democracy promised to us in the Constitution.