The North Carolina NAACP chapter, along with Common Cause and a group of Black voters, have filed a lawsuit to challenge recently approved voter districts drawn by the Republican-majority North Carolina General Assembly. The legal action is the third of its kind, citing racial-driven gerrymandering, but it will have a much broader impact: it challenges state house and senate seats, as well as new U.S. House of Representative districts. The federal-level lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs alleges the legislature’s maps potentially violate the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, claiming lawmakers “targeted predominantly Black voting precincts … to achieve preferred district lines that diminish Black voters’ ability to elect candidates of their choice at all levels of government.”
The complaint moves on to claim the districts created by the maps are racially gerrymandered to dilute the power of Black voters by intentionally discriminating against them via the maps. The lawsuit also calls for the maps to be reconsidered and to ban the approved ones, urging “redistricting plans sufficient to remedy the violations set forth herein in time for use no later than the 2026 general election.”
The North Carolina Supreme Court tossed out GOP-created maps which it deemed “partisanly gerrymandered” around a year ago, forcing the legislature to redraw new ones for the 2022 election cycle. However, when the Supreme Court’s majority flipped from liberal to conservative, it reversed its ruling, allowing for Republicans to redraw their maps again.
A similar lawsuit was filed in November against the North Carolina State Board of Elections, the president of the state Senate and Speaker of the state House of Representatives, making similar claims as the NAACP complaint.
“Despite having ample evidence of racially polarized voting and a history of discrimination in the ‘Black Belt counties’ of northeastern North Carolina, and an obligation under the Voting Rights Act to analyze that evidence before drawing districts, the North Carolina General Assembly adopted a Senate plan that unlawfully deprives Black voters of the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” the November lawsuit states.
As it stands, the current congressional map has 10 seats favoring Republicans, three seats favoring Democrats and one flip seat which leans toward Republicans. The state’s federal congressional representation is evenly divided right now, seven Democrats and seven Republicans.