The new NC congressional map creates 10 strong Republican districts out of 14. (Source: NC Legislature)
Former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr said this week he plans to appeal a three-judge panel decision dismissing a lawsuit claiming partisan gerrymandering leads to unconstitutional unfair elections, but must first discuss it with the plaintiffs.
Last week, a three-judge panel dismissed a lawsuit brought by 11 voters against Republican legislative leaders that claimed that district lines contorted for partisan gain violated the constitutional right to fair elections.
The legislature last year redrew state Senate, state House and congressional district maps, tossing out maps created after a Democratic Supreme Court majority decided that the first districts Republican legislators drew were unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders.
Republicans took control of the Supreme Court in the 2022 elections and quickly reversed the Democrats’ opinions. Republican justices said in 2023 that questions of partisan gerrymandering are political and are not issues for the courts.
The Supreme Court’s reversal allowed Republican legislators to once again draw the districts they wanted without worry about state court oversight.
Republicans were able to ensure that their party’s candidates will once again dominate the state’s congressional delegation.
Seven Democrats and seven Republicans were elected in 2022 under the congressional district plan created by three special masters. Orr was one of the three special masters. This year’s congressional district map has 10 strong Republican districts, three strong Democratic districts, and one toss-up.
Lawyers for Republican legislators asked the three-judge panel to dismiss this latest suit about fairness, arguing that the Supreme Court had decided judges should not weigh in on complaints about partisan redistricting.
Orr had to convince the panel of three Superior Court judges that he was presenting a new question that wasn’t answered by the 2023 Supreme Court opinion. He argued that fair elections are an “unenumerated right,” something that is not spelled out in the constitution but upon which the other constitutional guarantees rest.
The three-judge panel, all Republicans, rejected that reasoning. The case deals with the same underlying issues the Supreme Court decided in 2023, they wrote.
The issues the lawsuit raises are “clearly political,” and there is “not a judicially discoverable or manageable standard to decide them.”
This was the only redistricting case in state court.
Federal lawsuits claiming congressional and legislative districts are racially gerrymandered are scheduled to be heard next year.
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