RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s three most populous counties are unlikely to be split more than once under new congressional redistricting maps being drawn by the state legislature, the top Republicans in the state House and Senate said Tuesday.
The Democratic strongholds of Wake, Mecklenburg and Guilford counties were split twice — meaning each county was in three different U.S. House districts — under the maps passed by Republican lawmakers late last year.
Based on their sizes alone, Guilford County didn’t need to be split at all, and both Wake and Mecklenburg only needed to be split once, not twice.
Splitting up the urban areas allowed Republicans to take those Democratic strongholds and combine their voters with much larger swaths of rural areas. The Triad was the most salient example; currently Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point are all kept together in a single Democratic-leaning congressional district. But the maps passed last year would have split those three cities between four districts, all of which would have been safe Republican seats.
But the state Supreme Court ruled those congressional maps unconstitutional earlier this month, as well as maps for the state House and Senate. Any proposed replacement maps must be submitted in court for review by Friday. Legislative leaders have said they are still working on the redraw and expect the maps to be voted on Thursday.
“One thing ... that we’ve been trying to do is not to divide those largest counties any more than two ways if we can avoid it,” said House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican.
Democratic leaders had specifically pointed to urban areas that had been split more than necessary, particularly the Triad area, as examples of gerrymandering — both last fall, when the maps were first being drawn, and again last week after the maps were ruled unconstitutional.
“There are times you look at some of these maps, and it’s ridiculous,” the top House Democrat, Rep. Robert Reives said in a press conference last week. “And I think using the urban areas is a great example. There are times it’s clear those splits are for partisan advantage.”
Under the enacted maps, Guilford County and the Wake County suburbs would have shared one district. Another Guilford County district would have stretched from downtown Greensboro all the way to Watauga County on the Tennessee border.
“What I’d like to see is a map that gets accepted by the courts. And I think one of the things that is going to make that more likely would be to do exactly what you’re talking about, is to not split those three counties more than once,” said Senate leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican.
Wake and Mecklenburg counties each have more than 1 million residents, which means they are too large to be fully contained in one congressional district which must contain 745,671 people.
Neither is large enough to hold two districts alone. Currently, both counties have one self-contained district and one other district that contains the rest of their population.
Guilford County has a population of 541,299, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. Currently, it is fully contained in one district along with parts of Forsyth County.
Democrats represent four of the five districts that include Wake, Mecklenburg and Guilford counties.
The House and Senate, as of Tuesday afternoon, had competing versions of the congressional map.
“We believe the versions are somewhat different,” Moore said. “We’ll come to an agreement on something there.”
Moore said the House map, which he has seen, is a “pretty dramatic change.”
New maps could be released publicly as soon as late Tuesday, Moore said. The House is expected to vote on its map Wednesday, and the Senate is expected to vote on all three maps Thursday.
Berger said he did not know the partisan divide of the congressional map under consideration in the Senate. The current divide in North Carolina’s delegation is eight Republicans and five Democrats. The enacted maps thrown out by the Supreme Court had a 10-4 or 11-3 GOP advantage, according to independent analysis.
“I have suggested to the folks that are working on it to draw as many competitive districts as is feasible. That’s the only suggestion I’ve made to them,” Berger said of the congressional maps.
No public hearings this time
As of Tuesday afternoon, no draft maps had yet been made public. That led some activist groups to come to the legislature to demand more transparency.
The Rev. William Barber II, the former North Carolina NAACP leader who now leads a national group, the Poor People’s Campaign, returned to Raleigh for a rally outside the legislature. He said he wasn’t worried only about Republican lawmakers drawing the maps in private, but also about the Democratic leaders who might be willing to work with them and make certain political trades or deals, out of the public eye.
“And we call out even Democrats on this,” Barber said. “Now they want to do a backroom deal. We need public hearings. If the court says that this is unconstitutional, before those maps are redrawn we need the voices of the people to be heard. The voices of the people in those districts. Don’t rush and do a compromise.”
For Democratic lawmakers, however, their only chance of influencing the maps is to work with their Republican colleagues who control the majority at the legislature. The court order specifically said only groups that are parties to the lawsuit can submit proposed replacement maps — in other words, only the GOP-led legislature and the outside groups who brought the lawsuits.
“The court didn’t make any allowance for us, as legislative Democrats, to submit separate maps,” Sen. Dan Blue, the top Senate Democrat, said at a press conference last week. “If we were to do it, we would do it as part of the legislative process.”
As for the public hearings that Barber and others called for, Blue and other Democrats have previously echoed those calls. But Republican leaders said that because of the tight schedule, there was no time for public hearings. They did hold over a dozen public hearings this fall, however, during the initial round of redistricting. Moore said it was the most public input the legislature has ever had in the map-drawing process.
While there won’t be public hearings this time, lawmakers will get a chance to voice concerns and propose amendments during meetings Wednesday and Thursday.
“It’s going to be debated. There’s 120 members of the House and guess what, not all 120 agree with my political views. And so those who oppose it will have an opportunity to debate. They’ll be able to run amendments if they want,” Moore said. “They’ll be able to have maps considered. That’s the way the process is.”
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