Redistricting in America

The landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, removing barriers for generations of black voters in the South. But one of its key provisions still sparks controversy. The law requires the Justice Department to preapprove changes made to election procedures in states with a history of racial discrimination. Many conservatives say that any need for the law has long since passed, and this month, they got a boost. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., allowed a constitutional challenge to the preapproval language to move forward.

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N.C. legislators on Thursday began making the legal and political cases for and against new congressional and General Assembly district boundaries for the next decade that are still likely to face court challenges over how black voters are amassed. GOP-controlled House and Senate redistricting committees met throughout the day to debate maps drawn with an eye toward helping state Republicans retain their new majorities in the state legislature and improving their chances of winning additional U.S. House seats within the 13-member delegation. The committees have been holding public hearings on redistricting since April. Now they plan to meet today and possibly Saturday to consider amendments and voting on the plans. The entire legislature will return to Raleigh next week to vote on the plans.

North Carolina Republicans have unveiled a second draft of a redistricting map that imperils four Democratic incumbents. The new GOP plan isn’t likely to stretch the number of seats Republicans will be able to pick up in the state but makes some alterations. The new map, unlike the first one released earlier this month, places two sets of Democratic incumbents – Reps. Larry Kissell and Mike McIntyre and David Price and Brad Miller – in the same districts.

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There may be a new king when it comes to gerrymandering this cycle, and it’s the North Carolina Republican party. State legislators, looking to reverse decades of Democratic-drawn maps and give their party a chance to win multiple seats, released a map Friday that not only does just that but is also likely to be a case study for any aspiring map-drawer. The map makes four Democratic-held seats much tougher for the incumbents to hold, and Reps. Heath Shuler, Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre and Brad Miller are all going to have to fight for their political lives. Republicans, who currently hold just six of 13 seats in the state, will almost surely win at least a couple of these.

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North Carolina Democrats largely survived the carnage of the midterms — eluding the fate that claimed many of their Southern colleagues. But the redistricting nightmare they now face will be harder to escape.With North Carolina Republicans slated to unveil a new congressional map this week, Democrats are bracing for a buzzsaw. Party officials sullenly concede that as many as three Democratic incumbents could be imperiled and that there is little they can do to stop it.

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North Carolina Republican lawmakers are stretching out their schedule for tackling the thorny issue of redistricting. The chairman of the House Redistricting Committee said Thursday he and his Senate counterpart would release complete proposed maps for General Assembly districts July 11 — 10 days later than previously announced. Now, only maps for congressional districts would be released next week.

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The redistricting wars are about to hit North Carolina, and Republicans in the Tar Heel State are considering a controversial but well-worn strategy that has worked elsewhere in the South: Create a new majority-minority district while destroying other districts occupied by white Democrats.

The state’s Republicans — who are in control of the General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction — are basically planning to blow up the current congressional map and give North Carolina a third district that has a large enough minority population to elect another African-American member of Congress.

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