RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina judges deciding whether a redistricting case claiming the state’s constitutional right to “fair” elections can go to trial questioned Thursday their ability to redraw district boundaries in that way. to scrutinize or to define what ‘fair’ means.
A three-judge panel heard arguments on a motion by Republican legislative leaders to have the lawsuit filed against them by several voters dismissed. The judges did not immediately rule from the bench, but two of them bombarded the voters’ lead attorney with questions about what specifically his clients were seeking.
The lawmaker’s lawyer said the lawsuit was already short-circuited by a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that found judges did not have the authority to declare that redistricting maps are illegal partisan gerrymanders.
It is one of at least four lawsuits filed in North Carolina challenging the lines drawn last fall by the Republican Party-dominated General Assembly for use in elections through 2030, electorally favoring Republicans . Three of them have been filed in federal court claiming illegal racial gerrymandering. Two of those trials are scheduled for next year. A federal appeals court in March tentatively sided with Republicans in a third lawsuit involving two Senate districts.
Bob Orr, a former Supreme Court justice who represented the voters, said this lawsuit takes a different approach than the one brought by Democrats and their allies that ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s declaration that redistricting is a political issue from which the judiciary must stay out, except for challenges to specific restrictions. The justices also affirmed that lawmakers can consider partisanship in map-making.
The lawsuit says there is an implied unwritten right to fair elections within the state constitution, citing specific language in the constitution that “elections shall be held frequently” and that “all elections shall be free.” The state lawsuit wants several congressional and General Assembly districts redrawn, saying they are representative of lawmakers’ efforts to redraw the lines in otherwise competitive districts to predetermine electoral outcomes that will favor from one side – who are now Republicans.
“What good are free elections if they are not fair elections?” Orr asked. “What good is frequent elections if the results are predetermined and the value of citizens’ participation as voters in the election of officials is established before they even go to the polls?”
Phil Strach, an attorney for Republican legislative leaders, told the justices that the April 2023 ruling by the state Supreme Court puts an end to lawsuits like Thursday’s, which he called “legal nonsense.” The state’s elections are already fair, Strach added.
“The state Supreme Court has slammed the door on this court, which is the eye of the beholder on what is fair or not fair on a redistricting map,” Strach said in urging its rejection. “They slammed that door, and they should. remain permanently closed.”
Pitt County Supreme Court Judge Jeffery Foster asked Orr for a definition of fair. Orr responded that fair means fair, impartial, and something that does not favor one side or the other. Foster wondered whether it made more sense to simply hold a statewide referendum to amend the state constitution and make it clear that elections must be fair. However, referendums cannot take place without legislative approval.
Surry County Superior Court Judge Angela Puckett questioned how fairness would be quantified, since Orr said it did not mean all candidates in each legislative and congressional district had the same chance of winning.
“I just don’t understand what you’re asking for,” Puckett asked. Orr, a former Republican candidate for governor who is now an unaffiliated voter, said redistricting is a complicated process that requires gathering evidence in court.
“Give us a chance to make our case,” Orr said.
Columbus County Superior Court Judge Ashley Gore, the other panelist, along with Foster and Puckett, are all registered Republicans. Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican who wrote the prevailing opinion in the 2023 redistricting ruling, is choosing panels of three justices to hear such constitutional challenges as this one. Last year’s ruling by the Republican majority on the Supreme Court reversed a 2022 decision by the state’s highest court, when it had a Democratic majority.
