RALEIGH, N.C. — When a North Carolina court issues its latest ruling on the Legislature’s redrawn congressional map this week, judges will grapple with a question at the core of our democracy: How should political maps respond to the changing will of voters?
This question of “responsiveness” was among the justifications the North Carolina Supreme Court cited earlier this month when it struck down the Legislature’s first attempt at drawing congressional lines. That map, justices wrote, amounted to an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander that violated citizens’ rights to “substantially equal voting power.”
One way to measure responsiveness is to simulate a congressional election with vote totals for past statewide races — president or governor, for example.
Using a given political map, you can remix those actual votes into each of the 14 congressional districts to see if a Republican or Democrat won a majority. And because statewide elections can swing by as much as 10 points toward one party or the other, the technique can provide a good idea of the outcomes in a year in which Republicans or Democrats perform particularly well.
An analysis by The News & Observer shows the Legislature’s newest congressional map, passed by the General Assembly last week under a court order, shows signs of being more responsive than its predecessor — especially when races become more competitive.
Take the 2008 presidential race, for example.
Barack Obama claimed just over 50% of the statewide, two-party vote that year, the only presidential race in recent decades in which a Democrat won North Carolina’s electoral votes. Under conditions similar to that race, the N&O’s analysis shows, the Legislature’s recently overturned map would have resulted in four Democrats in the 14-member congressional delegation.
In the remedial map submitted to the court last week, a similar election would have yielded six Democrats — almost half.
On the flip side, we can use a race in which the Republican candidate edged out a Democratic rival — say, when Donald Trump earned almost 51% of the statewide, two-party vote in 2020. Democrats under those conditions would claim five congressional seats under the remedial map instead of a projected four seats in the overturned map.
The findings indicate the Legislature’s new map lessens the bias toward the GOP, said Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer, author of a 2021 book examining the history of gerrymandering in North Carolina. It also means the map would likely be more responsive to shifting political winds, he said.
“That’s what most political scientists would contend is an appropriate definition of ‘fairness’ within redistricting maps, and something that the state supreme court majority hinted at when it comes to designing the districts,” Bitzer said in an email last week.
Examining “responsiveness” isn’t the only way to evaluate a political map. And the technique is not without critics.
North Carolina State political science professor Andy Taylor, who served as an expert witness for Republican leaders during the redistricting case, said he’s skeptical that past statewide voting patterns are reliable enough to accurately simulate a congressional election.
“I think it’s much harder to predict the effects of redistricting than a lot of people think it is,” Taylor said. “Generally, I think it’s better to think in terms of intent than to say, ‘Wow the Republicans are set for 10 years.’”
With those reservations in mind, Taylor said there is a difference between the Legislature’s original map and the one now before the court.
“If you do make those assumptions, it does seem as though there are going to be slimmer margins in some of the districts than there were in the enacted map,” Taylor said.
The question now, though, is whether those differences are good enough for the trial court — set to rule by Wednesday — and the state Supreme Court — which will take up the issue again soon after.
The N&O’s findings match those of a team of Duke mathematicians, which this week submitted a more detailed analysis to the court on behalf of the plaintiffs in the legal fight against the Legislature’s maps.
Plaintiffs urged the court Monday to reject the Legislature’s new plans, which they say “flout the Supreme Court’s order and opinion.” And they’re urging the adoption of their own congressional map proposal, which plaintiffs say is “superior on every metric the Supreme Court identified and would afford voters of both parties an equal opportunity to translate votes into seats.”
Senate leader Phil Berger’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the N&O’s findings. But in a press release last week, Senate Redistricting Committee Chair Paul Newton praised the Legislature’s remedial map for creating “some of the most competitive congressional races in the nation.”
While he acknowledges the new congressional plan is more responsive than the 2021 version, Democratic Rep. Robert Reives said it’s still not a good representation of North Carolina’s politics.
“If the first maps are not good maps, then of course anything that gives you a better result is better,” Reives, who serves as a member of the North Carolina House redistricting committee, said.
He said he doesn’t think the maps are responsive enough to pass muster. But his issue with the plans is more fundamental.
Because legislators on both sides considered incumbency, he said it’s almost impossible to draw maps that accurately reflect the state.
“I don’t know how you expect people who benefit from these maps to draw themselves into a negative position,” Reives said, adding that map drawing should be the responsibility of people “not involved in the political machine.”
Depending on how the state Supreme Court rules, he may get his wish.
Court-appointed “special masters” have in the past stepped in to draw North Carolina’s political lines, and they may again if justices aren’t happy with the Legislature’s latest submission.
Taylor said how these special masters interpret the high court’s instructions will have a big impact on the state’s political future.
“I’ve been following it pretty closely, and I don’t really have a good grasp of what the Supreme Court wants,” Taylor said.
And until they make their decision, political experts say, it’s hard to know exactly what separates an acceptable map from an unconstitutional one.
“Without the judicial standard to say definitely one way or the other,” Bitzer said, “we’re all flying blind in this exercise — until we potentially get a firm decision to point us to, ‘this is the line.’”
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