RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina lawmakers will start redrawing new political maps quickly, possibly even this week. But at the same time, they’re contemplating appealing their loss in a nationally watched gerrymandering at the state Supreme Court to the only court that could overturn the ruling — the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state court’s order Friday that ruled North Carolina’s Republican-drawn maps unconstitutional gave few details on exactly what the justices wanted to see in any new maps. It also didn’t say when the justices would provide those details — even though the deadline for the new maps to be drawn and submitted for review is just two weeks away.
The court found that the maps were unconstitutional because of the way the lines minimized the influence of Democratic voters, notably by guaranteeing Republicans would likely still win large majorities even if most voters voted for Democrats. But as of Monday afternoon there was still no detailed opinion with guidance on how better maps should be drawn.
Adding to the confusion Monday was silence most of the day from Republican legislative leaders, which led to some speculation that they may not attempt drawing new maps at all, and would simply let the court do it. Because of the way state law is written, that could give GOP lawmakers a second chance at drawing maps next year — possibly with their party controlling the N.C. Supreme Court, since the political balance of the court could go either way in this November’s elections.
But toward the end of the day Monday, N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore said the legislature would draw new maps and submit them in court for review. There’s no guarantee the court has to accept what the legislature draws this second time around, but Moore said lawmakers want to at least try — once they know what the court actually wants to see.
“We’re working through that, anticipating a vote probably sometime next week,” he said.
It complicates matters that the court hasn’t given exact details on their ruling to help determine what a fair map is, Moore said, but he and other legislative leaders are hoping for those details soon.
“Frankly, we thought we had it right,” Moore said of the maps that have now been struck down. “And the court in its ruling, which we take great exception to, has gone down a road no court has gone down before.”
At a news conference Monday, Chatham County Rep. Robert Reives, the top Democrat in the House, suggested where Republicans might start looking for ideas on what to change. He said Democrats submitted around 20 amendments to the maps the GOP passed late last year, many of which were shot down at the time, but which might now be a good starting point for fairer maps.
One of Democrats’ main complaints about the congressional map was with the Triad area, which is the third-largest metro area in the state behind the Triangle and Charlotte.
Currently Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem are all together in one district, a safe Democratic seat held by Rep. Kathy Manning. Republicans created that seat in 2019 to resolve a different partisan gerrymandering lawsuit. But when the new round of redistricting began in 2021, Republicans split up the Triad again. In the maps that were just struck down the area is divided among four congressional districts, each stretching out into large swaths of rural North Carolina and each a safe Republican seat.
The maps also divided voters in Wake and Mecklenburg counties among more districts than was necessary, which Democrats have said was another sign of gerrymandering.
“There are times you look at some of these maps, and it’s ridiculous,” Reives said. “And I think using the urban areas is a great example. There are times it’s clear those splits are for partisan advantage.”
But like their Republican counterparts, Democrats were left guessing Monday as to what exactly a fair map should look like in the coming redraw. Should it have more seats that are competitive? Or are mostly safe seats OK, if the end result is less lopsided?
Raleigh Sen. Dan Blue, the top Democrat in the Senate, said it’s hard to say right now.
“I think that we’ll get a clearer understanding of how the court determines it when they issue their written opinion,” Blue said. “All we have to go by is the order itself, telling us we’ve got to do something differently.”
The details will need to come soon. The Supreme Court set a deadline of Feb. 18 for the maps to be in for review by a lower court, which must make its decision by Feb. 23.
In addition to the legislature, other parties to the lawsuit are allowed to submit their own proposals.
One of the plaintiffs in the case has already submitted one such map, which Republicans criticized as being a pro-Democratic gerrymander. But its backers say it would be more fair, in part by creating more competitive seats than the legislature’s map, in which almost all the seats both for legislature and Congress are more or less guaranteed for one party or the other.
If the Supreme Court decides not to accept the legislature’s new maps, North Carolina voters can likely expect this November’s elections for the Supreme Court to be even more high-profile than normal.
That’s because state law says if the court doesn’t pick the legislature’s maps, then whatever maps it does pick can only be used in one election, after which the legislature gets to try again.
Every Republican on the court has signed onto a dissent saying they would not have ruled the maps unconstitutional. So at least one national analyst predicted that if Republicans keep control of the legislature in this year’s elections and also win a majority on the Supreme Court, they would be free to redraw maps similar to the ones that were just struck down.
“Republicans could win a majority on the court in November and pass a new gerrymander in 2023,” Dave Wasserman, a who reports extensively about redistricting and U.S. House races for the Cook Political Report, wrote on Twitter Monday.
A lot is at stake, and not just within the boundaries of North Carolina. A majority in the U.S. House of Representatives is 218 seats and Democrats currently have 222. The maps that were just struck down here would have given Republicans at least two additional seats, possibly three.
“Right now Republicans are down four seats in the United States House, and they see opportunities to pick up three seats in North Carolina,” U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield told The News & Observer in an interview before Sunday’s ruling. “The map for control of the House clearly comes through North Carolina.”
Butterfield is a Democrat from Wilson who represents most of the northeastern part of the state. His district is one that Republicans had targeted as a potential flip, redrawing it from a majority-minority seat to a majority-white one.
Even though Moore said Monday that Republican lawmakers were ready to start the redistricting process soon, he also said they haven’t decided whether to make a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We have not ruled that out at this point We’re pursuing all those options,” he told reporters. “But given the very tight timeframe, I think it’s very important that we move forward and start working on some maps.”
It’s rare for state supreme court decisions to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is possible in some circumstances. And a national election law expert, University of California Irvine law professor Rick Hasen, wrote recently that it’s a possibility in North Carolina’s case.
Republicans might not be able to argue in favor of the state legislative maps at the high court, Hasen said, but they could try to at least save their map for the state’s 14 seats in the U.S. House. He said they could try to argue that state courts have no authority to overturn the maps used for congressional elections, since those are federal elections.
A ruling in their favor would require the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a relatively recent precedent, from 2015, Hasen said in a Twitter thread. But he noted that the court has added three new justices since then, all appointed by Republican President Donald Trump.
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