Thread by @DemocracyDocket

⚖️COURT ALERT: North Carolina's legislative and congressional maps are going to the state Supreme Court tomorrow morning.

Here's what you need to know.👇🧵

On Wednesday morning, the North Carolina Supreme Court (NCSC) will hear arguments on if the state's legislative and congressional redistricting maps are gerrymandered to benefit Republicans and if that is illegal under the North Carolina Constitution.

How did we get here? In 2019, a North Carolina state appeals court found that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution’s guarantee of free elections. This ruling seemed to give a green light to challenge maps in NC under partisan gerrymander claims.

Jump to 2021. Despite the fact that North Carolina is split almost 50/50 Republican & Democrat in statewide elections, the new congressional map would consolidate GOP power in the Tar Heel state with:
🔴10 GOP districts
🔵3 Democratic districts
🟣1 competitive district

The state legislative maps would also likely give Republicans an overwhelming majority and the maps “crack” Democratic areas in ways that can only be explained by partisan gerrymandering. So voting advocates sued.

Two lawsuits were filed to challenge the state and congressional maps:

⚖️North Carolina League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV) v. Hall: democracydocket.com/cases/north-ca…

⚖️Harper v. Hall: democracydocket.com/cases/north-ca…

NCLCV👇

PLAINTIFFS: NCLCV & NC voters
DEFENDANTS: Lawmakers who drew the map, the state of North Carolina & the State Board of Elections
CLAIM: The 2021 congressional & legislative maps are partisan gerrymanders that dilute Black voting strength and violate the NC Constitution.

HARPER👇

PLAINTIFFS: North Carolina voters
DEFENDANTS: Lawmakers who drew the map and the State Board of Elections
CLAIM: The 2021 congressional & legislative maps are extreme Republican gerrymanders that violate multiple provisions of the NC Constitution.

Common Cause intervened in the case, joining the plaintiffs. They argue that the state & congressional maps are partisan gerrymanders & were drawn with intentional racial discrimination in violation of the NC Constitution.

Read their complaint here.👇 democracydocket.com/wp-content/upl…

In December, the plaintiffs asked the court to pause the candidate filing period while the maps are litigated. Plaintiffs argued that the maps are extreme gerrymanders that were made to benefit the Republican Party and need to be redrawn.

The defendants argued that no partisan data was used in official map criteria, but conceded that lawmakers could draw the maps using their own knowledge of partisan geography. The trial court did not grant the request to pause and the decision was immediately appealed.

The court of appeals sided with the plaintiffs and did grant a pause on the candidate filing period while the lawsuit continued. However, the stay was then vacated by the en banc court of appeals.

Plaintiffs then filed for a stay with the NCSC. The NCSC granted the stay and ordered the trial court to hear the cases and make a decision by Jan. 11 of this year.

A three-judge panel then held a trial from Jan. 3-6 about the maps. Plaintiffs made the case that partisan gerrymandering is the only explanation for the way districts are drawn because they do not follow NC's natural political geography.

Defendants underscored the transparency of the map-drawing process and argued it was fair — but Rep. Hall (R), co-chair of the House redistricting committee, admitted that he used concept maps drawn by outside parties to inform his decisions and influence how he drew the maps.

Hall also revealed that the concept maps he used were never shown to the public and were destroyed after their use. This contradicted previous statements that all maps were drawn physically in the redistricting room without any outside help.

In a biting ruling, judges ruled that "the Enacted Maps are a result of intentional, pro-Republican partisan redistricting." However, the judges also said that, in their reading, partisan gerrymandering is not explicitly illegal in NC and so they could not strike the maps down.

You can read the lower court's decision about how the maps are clearly Republican gerrymanders here:
democracydocket.com/wp-content/upl…

Plaintiffs appealed to the NCSC, bringing us to today. The plaintiffs and defendants will make their final arguments about the constitutionality of the congressional and legislative maps in front of the 7 state Supreme Court justices tomorrow morning.

This will be impactful for 2 major reasons:

1. The NC Supreme Court will decide if the new maps will be struck down in these lawsuits.

2. The NC Supreme Court could make a final decision if partisan gerrymandering is legal under current NC laws.

The North Carolina Supreme Court is made up of 7 elected justices. The current partisan makeup of the court is 4 Democrats and 3 Republicans. 3 justices were asked to recuse themselves, 2 Democrats and 1 Republican. All rejected the recusal requests.

1 of the Democratic justices, Anita Earls, was asked to recuse herself by Republicans for various reasons, including her background as a civil rights attorney who challenged Republican legislation in court. Earls refused, saying that she will be fair and impartial as is required.

Justice Sam Ervin IV (D) was also asked by defendants' lawyers to recuse himself because his own election this year could be affected by the court's decision. Ervin denied the request as his election is not affected by redistricting since it is a statewide race.

Justice Phil Berger Jr. (R) was asked to recuse himself by the plaintiffs because his father is NC Senate President Phil Berger (R), who was involved in redistricting and is named as a defendant in the lawsuits. Berger Jr. has refused to recuse himself.

Oral arguments in the North Carolina Supreme Court will start Wednesday morning at 9:30 AM ET.

You can watch the proceedings here.⤵️
youtube.com/channel/UCWo6z…

We'll be live tweeting updates from the arguments Wednesday morning. Follow along to get the latest and subscribe to the Democracy Docket newsletter so you never miss important redistricting news again! democracydocket.com/subscribe-redi…