North Carolina Senate Republicans are calling for the resignation of a Wake County Democratic senator after she moved to a new address. Lisa Grafstein, who currently serves in Senate District 13, recently moved to southern Wake County. As a result of that move, Republicans claim she shouldn’t be able to serve in her current position because she no longer lives in the district she represents.
State legislators are required by statute to live in the district they want to represent when they file for office. When the General Assembly redrew maps earlier last month, they changed Grafstein’s district in such a manner that her personal residence was where fellow Democratic Senator Jay Chaudhri resides and serves as a state senator. According to WRAL, this phenomenon known as “double-bunking,” is often utilized to push out legislators who’ve fallen out of favor with the General Assembly’s leadership.
Grafstein has consistently opposed Republican efforts to implement abortion restrictions and anti-LGBTQ+ policies. She is also the only openly LGBTQ+ member of the Senate.
The senator announced on X, previously known as Twitter, her intentions to move to a new home, in a different neighborhood, so that she would be able to continue to serve in her district.
Her tweet read:
“As a result of the chopping and carving of our Wake Co. Senate districts, I will be seeking re-election in [the new] Senate District 13 in 2024. I look forward to meeting new neighbors, making new friends, and reconnecting with others I have known for years. “
NCGOP Spokesman Jeff Moore put out a press release on behalf of the state’s Republican Party, calling for Grafstein’s resignation.
“The N.C. Constitution is clear: state lawmakers must live in the district they represent,” he wrote. “North Carolina voters deserve representation in accordance with the N.C. Constitution, not absent representatives busy searching for a more desirable soapbox from which to pander to the radical left.”
Qnotes confirmed Grafstein did change her address to be in current Senate Dist. 17, which is currently represented by Democrat Sydney Batch. Grafstein’s old address, which was in the Fox Hollow subdivision in Raleigh, has been listed as “For Sale” on Zillow and is going for $545,000.
However, Grafstein’s move doesn’t appear to violate the state’s Constitution or the bylaws established by the legislature.
The North Carolina State Constitution states senators at the time of election must live in the district for one year immediately preceding their election. It doesn’t bar senators from moving to their redrawn district if new maps are implemented. It does state that in order for Grafstein to qualify for her new district next year, she has to move there at least a year prior, which explains the move to her new home in southern Wake County.
It’s common practice for state senators who’ve been drawn out of their districts to move to continue to serve their communities. In fact, Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus said she wouldn’t seek reelection after her district was redrawn to move her current Davidson residence to a heavily Republican area. She said her Democratic colleagues had told her to move so she could continue to serve Mecklenburg County, but Marcus decided she didn’t want to leave the address where she had lived for so many years and raised her children.
“[My colleagues] wanted me to stay and they definitely emphasized this idea of we can’t let them win, we can’t let them do this to you and kick you out and make you leave the Senate,” Marcus told WUNC in an interview. “This isn’t good for the constituents I represent and it’s not good for the north Mecklenburg towns.”
Grafstein moved so she would be eligible for the 2024 election, which is technically permissible according to the North Carolina Constitution. She responded to the calls for her resignation by calling them “weak and unsurprising.”
“While I have been advocating for public schools, working people and reproductive freedom, they’ve spent their time trying to rig the legislature to enact their unpopular and extreme agenda of cutting public school funding and outlawing abortion in North Carolina,” Grafstein wrote in a statement. “Their cynical tactics are reprehensible and undemocratic.”