By Christian Farias
In a long-awaited decision, (click here) the Supreme Court agreed on Monday with a lower court ruling that found that Republican lawmakers in North Carolina drew two congressional districts with improper racial considerations in mind.
“The Constitution entrusts States with the job of designing congressional districts,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in the 5-to-3 decision. “But it also imposes an important constraint: A State may not use race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines unless it has a compelling reason.”
The court concluded that the two districts ― which, following the 2010 census, were drawn to pack a higher percentage of voting-age black voters into them ― violated this principle.
Kagan was joined in her majority opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor....
The North Carolina maps are interesting. This map is from 1973 -1983.Population in 1973 was 5.39 million and grew to 6.077 by 1983.
There was a total of two districts added to North Carolina between the two maps.
Population in 2013 was 9.845 million which grew to approximately 10.1 million in 2016.
District 1 lost the coast entirely and District 12 is nearly invisible.
The courts are the primary venue to mitigate the corruption. The states maintain the authority of the districts and the vote according to the US Constitution. It is a circus.
The Plutocracy continues to fund corruption in government through placing their thumb on the scale to elect Republicans, hence, they also continue to fund racism. I don't want to hear how Bannon is stating he really, really isn't a White Supremacist. A person that seeks power brokering by pretending to be a White Supremacist is a White Supremacist. There is no changing identity after the fact.
By Amber Phillips
Members of North Carolina student chapters of the NAACP protest the state's voter ID law in 2013, which was also struck down by the courts for targeting minorities “with almost surgical precision,” said a federal judge.
This year, (click here) federal courts have been litigating a steady stream of gerrymandering claims. And most of the electoral maps the courts have knocked down were drawn by Republicans.
That's good news for Democrats: They have an opportunity in several states to draw more favorable congressional and state legislative maps ahead of 2018 elections. And every seat counts, given the 2020 Census is right around the corner, which brings with it the opportunity in many states to draw new district maps.
Some Republican legislatures are paying the price for recapturing 21 chambers in the 2010 elections, the last time electoral maps were being drawn. Monday, North Carolina became the third GOP-controlled state legislature in a row to get its map-drawing skills declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
What's more, the court ruled against North Carolina Republicans in a way that opens the door for Democrats to potentially challenge almost all mapmaking in the South.
Here's a rundown of the redistricting landscape — and how it could affect our elections....
