NORTH CAROLINA OPEN THREAD FOR SUNDAY, January 14th, 2018
140th Weekly Edition
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Please jump the fold for stories of interest on last Tuesday’s Gerrymandering decision by a panel of three Federal Judges.
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A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina’s congressional map on Tuesday, condemning it as unconstitutional because Republicans had drawn the map seeking a political advantage.
The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because of a partisan gerrymander, and it instantly endangered Republican seats in the coming elections.
Judge James A. Wynn Jr., in a biting 191-page opinion, said that Republicans in North Carolina’s Legislature had been “motivated by invidious partisan intent” as they carried out their obligation in 2016 to divide the state into 13 congressional districts, 10 of which are held by Republicans. The result, Judge Wynn wrote, violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.
-New York Times, 1/9/18
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper railed against gerrymandering in his home state Thursday after federal judges said this week that congressional districts would have to be redrawn because they were unconstitutionally partisan.
"Why do we have a supermajority of Republicans in our state legislature and why do we have 10 members of Congress who are Republican and three who are Democratic?" said Cooper, a Democrat, on CNN's "New Day." "It's because of technologically diabolical gerrymandering, the redistricting that this Republican legislature has put into place."
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel
rejected the previous map drawn by the Republican-controlled General Assembly, saying it violates the Equal Protection Clause, the First Amendment and Article I of the Constitution.
-CNN, 1/11/81
DURHAM,N.C.—Federal judges have yet again struck down North Carolina’s congressional districts as an unconstitutional gerrymander, dealing Republicans a blow and throwing the state’s maps into chaos just months before a pivotal midterm election.
A three-judge panel, including one circuit-court judge and two district-court judges, ruled Tuesday evening that the Old North State’s redistricting plan relied too heavily on partisan affiliation in drawing constituencies, violating citizens’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the First Amendment, and Article I of the Constitution. The decision is the first time a federal court has ever struck down a redistricting plan as a partisan gerrymander. The final word, however, will likely come from the Supreme Court, which is considering two partisan-gerrymandering cases.
When Republicans took over the North Carolina General Assembly in 2011, for the first time since 1870, they had the opportunity to redraw districts following the 2010 Census, and quickly set to drawing maps that would aid GOP candidates. In doing so, they relied in part on racial data—a practice that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled permissible when creating majority-minority districts. In North Carolina, as in many southern states, there is a strong correlation
-The Atlantic 1/9/18
RALEIGH – On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges ruled in the case of Common Cause v. Rucho that the NC General Assembly created an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander when drawing new congressional maps in 2016. The judges have ordered the congressional maps to be re-drawn by Jan. 24.
This is a landmark decision for North Carolina. While previous court cases have ruled against the legislature’s unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, this is the first ever decision against partisan gerrymandering in the state. The ruling could have a significant impact on redistricting in North Carolina and across the nation.
“This is a true victory for North Carolina voters,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause NC. “At long last, politicians will no longer be allowed to use partisan gerrymandering to shield themselves from accountability to the public.”
-Common Cause 1/9/18
Gerrymandering was already shaping up to be an important issue this year, with huge implications for American democracy. But after the ruling this week on the North Carolina congressional map, the stakes have been raised still higher.r
For the first time, a federal panel of judges ruled that a state’s map of its congressional districts was unconstitutional. The North Carolina map didn’t just give an advantage to Republicans – it manifested “invidious partisan intent.” The panel directed the state to draw the districts again by Jan. 24.
Politicians are always looking for partisan advantages, and the constitutional mandate to redraw district boundaries every 10 years provides an irresistible opportunity. When that mandate falls to a state legislature that is controlled by one party, well, you can imagine what those boundaries look like.
-The Conversation 1/12/18
Outlandish districts created for electoral gain are a major distorting force in the contemporary U.S., but they belong to a long tradition.
In the October issue of The Atlantic, Robert Draper offers an in-depth analysis of current instances of gerrymandering in U.S. politics. The practice of manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts for party or class gain is as old as the United States -- though the term is not. But Draper argues that the U.S. is the only democracy in the world where politicians have an active role in creating voting districts, and says it plays a large role in the divisive nature of our politics. Here is a brief history of the practice.
-9/19/12 The Atlantic
Every 10 years, after U.S. census workers have fanned out across the nation, a snowy-haired gentleman by the name of Tom Hofeller takes up anew his quest to destroy Democrats. He packs his bag and his laptop with its special Maptitude software, kisses his wife of 46 years, pats his West Highland white terrier, Kara, and departs his home in Alexandria, Virginia, for a United States that he will help carve into a jigsaw of disunity.
Where Hofeller travels depends to some degree on the migratory patterns of his fellow Americans over the previous decade. As the census shows, some states will have swelled in population, while others will have dwindled. The states that gained the most people are entitled, under the Constitution, to additional representation in the form of new congressional districts, which (since the law allows only 435 such districts) are wrenched from the states that lost the most people. After the 2010 census, eight states (all in the South and the West) gained congressional districts, which were stripped from 10 others (in the Midwest and the East Coast, as well as Katrina-ravaged Louisiana).
The creation of a new congressional district, or the loss of an old one, affects every district around it, necessitating new maps. Even states not adding or losing congressional representatives need new district maps that reflect the population shifts within their borders, so that residents are equally represented no matter where they live. This ritual carving and paring of the United States into 435 sovereign units, known as redistricting, was intended by the Framers solely to keep democracy’s electoral scales balanced. Instead, redistricting today has become the most insidious practice in American politics—a way, as the opportunistic machinations following the 2010 census make evident, for our elected leaders to entrench themselves in 435 impregnable garrisons from which they can maintain political power while avoiding demographic realities.
-10/12 The Atlantic
Elbridge Gerry was a powerful voice in the founding of thenation, but today he’s best known for the political practice with an amphibious origin.
Long and thin, the redrawn state senate district in Massachusetts stretched from near Boston to the New Hampshire border, where it hooked east along the Merrimack River to the coast. It sliced up Essex County, a political strong hold for the Federalist Party – all by design of its ascendant political rival, the Democratic-Republicans. It worked: the freakishly shaped district elected three Democratic-Republicans that year, 1812, breaking up the county’s previous delegation of five Federalist senators.
It wasn’t the first time in American history that political machinations were behind the drawing of district boundaries, but it would soon become the most famous. Gerrymandering, the politicians’ practice of drawing district lines to favor their party andexpand their power, is nearly as old as the republic itself. Today, we see it in Ohio’s “Lake Erie Monster” and Pennsylvania’s “Goofy Kicking Donald Duck. ”But where did the name come from, and who was the namesake for the much-maligned process?
Elbridge Gerry, the governor who signed the bill creating the misshapen Massachusetts district, was a Founding Father: signer of the Declaration of Independence, reluctant framer of the Constitution, congressman, diplomat, and the fifth vice-president. Well-known in his day, Gerry was a wild-eyed ec centric and an awkward speaker, a trusted confidant of John Adams and a deep (if peculiar) thinker. He could also be a dyspeptic hothead—a trait that got the better of him when he signed the infamous redistricting bill.
-Smithsonian 7/20/17
Gerrymander the noun was first used as such in 1812, and first used as a verb in 1813. “In 1812,” according to A Memorial History of Boston (published in 1880), while Elbridge Gerry was Governor of Massachusetts, the Democratic Legislature, in order to secure an increased representation of their party in the State Senate, districted the state in such a way that the shape of the towns forming … a district in Essex County brought out a territory of regular outline. This was indicated on a map which Russell, the editor of the Continent, hung in his office. Stuart the painter, observing it, added a head, wings and claws, and exclaimed “That will do for a salamander!” “Gerrymander!” said Russell, and the word became a proverb.
John Russell Bartlett disputes the original use of the word. It wasn’t in 1812, but 1811. He writes: “In Massachusetts, for several years previous, the Federal and Democratic parties stood nearly equal. In that year the Democratic party, having a majority in the Legislature, determined to so district the State anew that those sections which gave a large number of Federal votes might be brought into one district. The result was that the Democratic party carried everything before them at the following election, and filled every office in the State, although it appeared by the votes returned that nearly two-thirds of the voters were Federalists.”
-Flagler.com 12/6/09