Redistricting Update
After two long nights of legislative sessions the General Assembly adopted new legislative and Congressional districts well ahead of the Supreme Court’s February 18 deadline. Legislators had previously enacted maps in November, but the North Carolina Supreme Court narrowly ruled the districts to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders.
Each chamber took the lead on redrawing their own maps, while the Senate finalized the Congressional districts. On Wednesday night, the House passed remedial State House maps by a vote of 115-5. Legislators from both parties applauded the process to redraw the 120-member body’s maps as a bipartisan and collaborative effort. Republicans in the majority accepted six amendments from Democrats to tweak specific district lines.
On Thursday, both the State Senate maps and the Congressional maps were passed out of the General Assembly. These maps did not enjoy the strong bipartisan support that the State House maps received. Democrats opposed both maps, with amendments being offered and rejected along party-line votes.
According to committee chairs, the number of competitive seats has grown from nine to 15 in the remedial House map and from six to seven in the Senate’s new map. Democrats also opposed the Congressional map, which creates seven likely Republican seats, three likely Democratic seats, and four likely competitive districts. Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) said on the floor that the map would result in a “9-5 map, but likely a 10-4 in 2022,” and compared it to the similar likely outcomes of the previously enacted map that was struck down. Democrats, and even two Republicans, voted against the Congressional map because it did not include a Sandhills district. A district drawn previously in the week by Senate redistricting chairs did include a Sandhills district, but that district was eliminated in the final remedial map that was submitted to the Court.
Both the Senate and House committee chairs described in detail the criteria used to draw the maps for partisan fairness, stressing the strict adherence to the mean-median and efficiency gap tests prescribed by the Supreme Court, as potential tools to make maps more competitive. The redistricting chairs and staff used election results from 12 races in 2020 and 2016 to determine the leaning of each district.
The Superior Court three-judge panel, composed of two Republicans and one Democrat, will now decide to approve the maps or select a map submitted by the plaintiffs. The Democrat-controlled Supreme Court then has until February 23 to hear any appeal of the Superior Court’s decision. Currently, the candidate filing period is set to begin on February 24.
