North Carolina’s primary elections are scheduled to continue in May despite claims that the recent redistricting of congressional and legislative districts is unconstitutional.
The North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation July 28 that redrew the boundaries of the state’s 13 congressional districts and districts for the state Senate and House of Representatives. The debate over redistricting continued Friday when a three-judge panel denied an injunction filed by the State Conference of Branches of the NAACP. The injunction sought to delay the state congressional primaries by 45 days to July 10. This decision was the most recent development in the ongoing litigation against the new district maps.
Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, said the hearing focused not on the facts or merits of the case, but rather the costliness—an estimated $6 million—of a delay.
“They are putting a price on racism,” Barber said. “They have stacked and packed and bleached those districts, which is a Jim Crow tactic of undermining the power and potential of the African American vote.”
Barber added that proceeding with the primaries with constitutionally questionable plans may well mean that the elected individuals are elected unconstitutionally. If the current congressional redistricting is later found out to be unconstitutional, Barber said officials elected come May could be viewed as an inaccurate representation of North Carolina voters.
Special Deputy Attorney General Alex Peters told News 14 Carolina on Friday that delaying the elections, however, would be costly for the state and cause unnecessary confusion for voters. He added that the maps follow state and federal laws and are not discriminatory.
Peters and other state attorneys involved in the case could not be reached for additional comment.
Anita Earls, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the attorney representing the NAACP in this case, also noted what she believes is the unconstitutionality of the new districts.
“We think it’s a step backward in a state where we’ve been making progress toward diminishing the significance of race in politics,” Earls said. “These maps represent a severe step back because they increase the significance of race.”
Earls added, however, that the decision to not delay the May 8 primary by no means indicates how the court will rule in the future. Rather, logistical issues concerning insufficient time for a full court hearing and resolution before the primaries precipitated the court’s decision.
“It would be incorrect to interpret this ruling as implying a lack of merit to plaintiffs’ challenge of the plans,” wrote Wake County Superior Court judges Joseph Crosswhite, Alma Hinton and Paul Ridgeway in the court order Friday. “Nor would it be correct to interpret this decision as minimizing the harm that can be associated with governmental acts that tend to stigmatize and separate citizens by the color of their skin.”
Jacob Vigdor, professor of public policy and economics, said he does not believe that the court’s decision holds great significance for the outcome of either the litigation or the primary elections. Primaries are often characterized by areas already dominated by certain parties and therefore will be largely unaffected by the new district maps.
Vigdor added that part of the plaintiff’s impetus for trying to delay the primaries was to gain momentum for the case demanding the maps be redrawn. Thus the court’s denial of the injunction does not indicate the final outcome of the case itself.
“They may have lost a battle but this is not the end of the war,” he said.
Looking at the redistricting more generally Vigdor said he questions whether the practice of gerrymandering and packing voters even have any long-term effects.
“Based on the research that I have seen, state legislatures have a tendency to try very hard to pack certain types of voters into districts,” he said. “But the research seems to suggest that the effects of these efforts are minimal.”
One reason for the small effects of alleged gerrymandering in North Carolina may be because the state is rapidly growing, he said. Such fluctuation in the demographic characteristics of the districts means that districts designed to lean one way may not in fact lean that way in the long term. Although in the short term the redistricting may have negative implications for some of the candidates, the long-term effects will be hardly noticeable.
“It’s pretty clear that this sort of activity might spell doom for certain candidates in certain elections this year,” Vigdor said. “But it will be much more difficult to forecast what the impact will be even as soon as 2014.”
The plaintiffs’ claim, however, focuses not on the potential partisan gerrymandering of the new district maps but rather the impacts on black voters.
“Having a legal regime that allows politicians to draw maps that pack minorities is just wrong, and I think there is real harm in that,” Earls said.
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