Image: The North Carolina Senate map – Image: ncleg.net
Former Congressman G.K. Butterfield testified Monday that he performed considerably worse in largely white precincts than he did in Black precincts during his campaigns to represent northeastern North Carolina counties in Washington.
State House Democratic leader Robert Reives said campaign mail targeting him in a recent election made “dog whistle” and explicit racial appeals.
Moses Matthews, a former member of the Martin County school board, said a Black candidate could not be elected from a school board district there if it didn’t have a large Black population.
“History doesn’t show that’s possible,” Matthews said.
A federal district court judge in Raleigh is considering whether state Senate election districts in northeastern North Carolina violate federal law by diluting the influence of Black voters in counties with significant Black populations.
Matthews and newly elected Rep. Rodney Pierce of Halifax County sued over the Senate redistricting plan in November 2023.
The lawsuit claims that Republicans devised districts in an area of the state called the Black Belt so that voters in counties with majority or near-majority Black populations would not be able to elect the candidates of their choice, in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
In a motion prior to trial, Matthews and Pierce had asked the courts to redraw two Senate districts in that region of the state for the 2024 election and stop the use of two districts Republican legislators approved.
Federal District Judge James Dever III — an appointee of former President George W. Bush — denied that request last year.
“At this stage of the case, plaintiffs fail to demonstrate legally significant racially polarized voting in northeast North Carolina in the counties at issue in this case,” Dever wrote in his January 2024 order. And he agreed with an expert for legislative Republicans that partisanship better explains polarized voting than does race.
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judges refused to order the Senate districts redrawn.
The case is now back before Dever for a trial that is expected to last a week.
Political polarization doesn’t fully explain why Black voters in eastern North Carolina need to be in election districts where their numbers are near 50% in order to elect the candidates of their choice, Butterfield testified.
African American and white voters “look at the world differently because their experiences have been different,” he said.
The state Senate had 12 Black senators in the 2021-22 session. It now has 10. Counties in eastern North Carolina that were once represented by Black Democrats are now represented by white Republicans.
The state House had 26 Black representatives in 2021-22. It now has 28.
Racially polarized voting is statewide, said Sen. Dan Blue of Wake County, the former Democratic Senate leader. “It’s relevant when it affects the ability of minorities to elect the candidates of their choice,” he said.
The Democratic politicians who testified Monday said the Republican-run legislature is ignoring the environmental, health, and educational needs of Black northeastern North Carolina communities.
Pierce said he challenged former Democratic Rep. Michael Wray in his House district’s primary last year because he felt Wray was “voting against the interest of constituents.”
Housing, education, the environment, and money for early childhood education “are all relevant to us in House District 27,” Pierce said.
The eight counties in the state’s Black Belt are among the state’s most economically distressed.
“The legislature has been very unresponsive to issues that affect African American communities in northeastern North Carolina,” Butterfield said.
Martin County General Hospital, which closed in 2023, would have been able to remain open if the legislature had acted earlier to approve Medicaid expansion, Matthews testified.
Black residents in some eastern counties are less healthy than residents statewide, he said, and they have a harder time finding medical professionals to treat their illnesses.
“What’s been happening has been detrimental to good health,” he said.
Black voters’ political allegiances have changed with time. Pierce said he was once an unaffiliated voter. Blue said his grandfather and his grandfather’s friends were Republicans.
Black voters began a significant shift toward the Democratic Party in the 1960s, Blue said.
“Democrats currently represent the expressed aspirations of African Americans,” he said.